THE WOUNDED WORLD
A Story of Mantra

Written 2006 by Aladdin
Revision and Editing by Christopher Leeson
Posted Sep. 21, 2020
Additional revision, Sep. 24, 2020
Additional revision, July 24, 2021

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THE ULTRAMATE SOURCE

Mercy and pity threw the gravestone over me
And with lead and iron, bound it over me forever:
Life lives on my Consuming: 
And the Almighty hath made me his Contrary... 
 
William Blake

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"Uh, sure. Is there anything else, Doctor Sarn?"

"No, that's it, Blake." The Aladdin bureaucrat clicked off.

What in blazes had been going on? I didn't know which mall she was referring to. Did it have anything to do the weird experience I had over at the Kid's Club? No, that couldn't be. She'd mentioned Sunday, and my disaster occurred on Thursday.

That had been a weird conversation. Why was a data analyst being asked to make a mission report instead of a field agent? Why was Sarn getting me involved? 

I shifted toward Evie. "Scrumptious, did something happen at the Mall Sunday? I mean, did anything go on there that was important or scary?"

The child made a little moue. "You can't forget that! A bad robot came and started chasing people. Lauren had to fight with it."

A robot? “What sort of robot?"

“A big one!”

"Was it at the Mall at Topanga Plaza?"

"Yeah, it was scaring everybody!"

“Were you and I there?”

“You were, Mommy. I was at grandma’s house.”

“Why was I there?”

“I don't know.”

I had to think this out. These little details, as perplexing as they seemed to be, were pieces of a puzzle. I needed more pieces. What had Sarn said? She'd used the term fiasco. A fiasco at the Mall? Shouldn't she have called it an attack or a tragedy? A fiasco usually referred to a failed plan. Was the robotic attack somebody's failed plan? Whose plan?

I had a sinking feeling. Had Aladdin sent a battle robot into a minor suburban mall, intending to start a panic and make it look like some ultra was responsible? That would have been a heavy-handed move, even for Aladdin.

Momentarily stumped, I thought I should check the phone numbers that I had most recently called. I punched in a recent but unlabeled number and got a real estate office. That figured. It also figured that they told me I had an appointment with them this very afternoon. The local Mantra had been trying to find an apartment in the San Francisco area. I asked for a postponement of the meeting, using illness as an excuse. With that distraction taken care of, my first order of business was getting more information about this alternate world. I needed to stop reacting to all the weirdness like a deer caught in the headlights.

"Evie," I said, "do you feel like going out with me?"

"Sure! But you told the man you were sick."

"I fibbed. I have to go and carry out a secret mission."

"A secret mission? Can I be your sidekick?"

"You certainly can! We’ll go to the library first."

She looked dubious. "Are there robots or monsters at the library, Mommy?"

"I certainly hope not!" I said, not quite able to smile.

#

A sign at L.A. library that I'd stopped at directed its patrons to a parking ramp that was blocks away. After parking, we continued our trip on foot. Evie stayed close and I thought at first that she was clinging to me in fear. But her stern expression suggested something else. Was Evie protecting her mother from danger, now that she was no longer a super-powered ultra? I took her little hand and squeezed it. Whatever version of Evie that I met, she was always an easy child to love. 

But that raised another question. How should I react to a emergency while I was in such a weakened state? I could hardly think of anything to do, except to grab Evie and run. Depressing.

We passed in front of a paperback-and-news shop called the Readmore News and I impulsively led Evie inside. I went first to look at the newspaper headlines. Every story on the front pages were histrionic accounts of a recent catastrophe. I bought the Los Angles Times on the spot and also asked the clerk for a copy of The Ultra, but the young man replied that he'd never heard of the title. He recommended instead a newsprint tabloid called The Ultramate Source. I didn’t have much choice but to buy the unfamiliar weekly.

We left the news store and stopped to read at a coffee shop a couple buildings away. Evie was hungry, so I bought brunch for the two of us. While absently consuming my java, sausage, and eggs, I poured through the Times' lead story, the one describing a disaster in New York.

And it was a lulu! The paper was saying that more than a quarter of New York City had been blasted to rubble by a mysterious explosion. Millions were feared dead. A suitcase-sized nuclear weapon was at first suspected, but area testing had shown a low radiation count. The authorities were frantic to find a scapegoat to redirect blame away from what had been a muddled initial response. Some were latching on to Fake News standby idea that Russia had done it.

A civilian's smart phone video had come forward, showing ultras near the blast zone. One of them was a giant of a man in armor, and with him was some yo-yo swinging a scythe. A woman in a black cat suit was also to be seen. When an ill-trained National Guard unit confronted the mysterious group, the ranking officer apparently lost his cool and gave an attack order. A female ultra appeared overhead, distracting the panicky guardsmen with energy bolts. The soldiers started shooting at anything that moved -- including at each other.

In the aftermath, two members of the ultra gang could be tentatively identified. One matched the description of Amber Hunt, a name that was familiar to me – and not in any good way. But what floored me was the allegation that one of the ultras had been the crime-fighter known as Strike.

Back home, Strike had been the nom de guerre of Brandon Tark before he'd re-christened himself "Warstrike." Was Warstrike still called Strike in this reality? I searched my reading material to find the name "Warstrike," but couldn’t.

Had Brandon Tark been involved in a terrorist incident? Tark, I knew, had suffered a severe breakdown following the Godwheel incident. But it seemed like he had pulled out of it by summer. Was it possible that in this world he’d lost his marbles and gone rogue? I didn't want to believe it. Maybe Strike had been on the scene trying to apprehend Amber Hunt and hadn’t really been a member of her gang. A similar mix-up had wrongly implicated me – as Mantra – in a museum break-in case.

I kept reading, but didn’t find much of use. I couldn't let the magnitude of a disaster on the other side of the continent throw me. My focus had to be on Cangoa Park. The local news carried a story that apparently confirmed Evie's earlier testimony. It had a small picture of what the reporter was calling a "new Mantra." She was masked, but I could tell that it was Lauren Sheppard wearing a rather bland gray costume – and she was holding Mantra’s sword!

I showed the page to my little girl. "Have you seen this picture of Lauren yet?" I asked. “Do you know how she got the Sword of Fangs?”

She frowned. “No, Mommy."

“Do you know where my gold armor and cloak are?"

"Oh, they're in that box under the motel bed. The mask, too."

#

If truth be told, I had lately been one of the most powerful ultras in the world. It was true, too, that I’d been unconsciously been defining my personal worth in terms of my magical powers. If I couldn't restore that power, what would my life amount to from now on?”

Despite my abysmal mood, I continued the research. In The Ultramate Source I found references to a number of new ultras, none of whom sounded like heavy hitters. Who was the pathetic "Thorn Boy," or the crime-fighting acrobat named "Jack Dancer"?

Interestingly, there had been some armored goofball whose whole super career had consisted of coming out into the street and shouting “I'm the Chaotician.” He was immediately taken out by some mysterious back-shooter.

I also learned that the Strangers and the mercenary ultras of the Solution were still doing their thing, though the latter was in semi-retirement. That jived with what I knew from back home. On the other hand, this world’s UltraForce consisted Prime, Ghoul, Topaz, the Black Knight, Prototype, and a couple of ultras I’d never heard of. Oddly, their base was in Headless Cross, Arkansas, not in Miami, Florida.

More amazingly, Prototype was no longer Jimmy Ruiz, but Bob Campbell, who had been Prototype before Jimmy had come along. In my own reality, Hardcase had been the unofficial captain of the ultra team, but he wasn’t mentioned in the story. Neither was Contrary, the sexy-dressing ultra who had so impressed the fourth-graders at my daughter's school.

"Evie, have you ever heard of a couple of ultras named Hardcase and Contrary?"

Evie perked up. There was no subject that excited her more than ultras. "Everybody's heard of Hardcase. He used to be in the UltraForce. But who's Contrary?"

“You've never heard of Contrary?”

“Uh-uh. What can he do?”

“Why did Hardcase leave the Ultra Force?” I asked.

She frowned. “I don’t know.”

I went back to my reading. “Mommy,” Evie said in a sad voice.

"What is it, Sweetie?"

"Does God always answer prayers?"

"Why do you ask?"

"'Cuz my prayers didn't come true. I always ask Him to bless everybody, especially you and Gus. But He didn't. Why?”

This was a big bucks question and I had to answer carefully.

"Evie," I replied, "what you're asking is the same question that wise men have been asking each other for a very long time."

“Did they figure it out?”

“No.” I said.

The corners of her mouth turned down. "Those wise men don't sound too smart."

"Well, try not to worry. Whatever God does, it’s always for the best in the long run. Whatever their problems, people should keep on doing good deeds."

"But wouldn't doing good deeds be easier if you were still Mantra?"

I sighed. "Maybe. But if my magic doesn’t come back, I’ll just go on doing good deeds in little ways. That's what firemen, police, and nurses do."

Still sober, Evie asked, "Why doesn't God let you keep doing good in big ways? He could make your magic come back if He wanted to, couldn't He?"

I squeezed her hand. "Of course. God can do anything. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”

All of a sudden, the hand I held started trembling again.

"Evie, what's wrong?"

"You f-forgot, Mommy. M-my hands shake sometimes. The doctor said it was because I got so scared."

I cupped both her little hands in mine and lifted them to my lips. I was relieved when the quaking stopped.

"This is very bad, Darling. Did -- did the doctor know how to help you?"

"No. He said we should see another doctor. You said we’d see one in Sanfrisco."

"We certainly will! My little girl has to be well and happy. That's the most important thing in the world."

She shook her head emphatically. "No. Helping Gus is most important."

I nodded. "You're right again. I'm going to do the best I can to fix things."

The tyke seemed to brighten a little. I urged her to finish her lunch, and while she was doing so, I paged to the science section of the L.A. Times.
 
Well now! The main article said that many strategic air defense stations and civilian observatories had monitored a series of world-wide energy spikes on Friday night. The unprecedented phenomenon was still under investigation.

Reading on, I learned that observers had seen the world's skie display a purplish glow. Green-colored bolts had struck the earth at random places on every continent. Oftentimes, these strikes correlated with bizarre events on the ground. Some individuals spontaneously gained ultra powers. Some people and animals underwent inexplicable deformations, death, and spells of madness. But a much more amazing thing had occurred in Oakland, California. Unburied corpses had allegedly come to life. The walking dead had ranged into the surrounding neighborhood, attacking several passersby and breaking into homes. Fortunately, the Strangers had arrived in time to get people to safety and to destroy the zombie marauders.

Next, something I found in the L.A.City section caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up. Energy bolts had struck Canoga Park, also. A little after seven, local time, a hit had engulfed a home on Leadwell Street where a "special" boy was living with his family. Later, that same youngster was seen exercising ultra-type powers destructively. Also, a different energy bolt had struck another family's home in Canoga Park. It blasted out a wall and the members of a teenage Mantra fan club, who had been upstairs during the incident, were afterwards reported missing. They fortunately returned hours later, not remembering what had happened.

The "special" ultra boy in story had to be Gus. But Canoga Park wasn't all that large and it had only one Mantra fan club -- a clique consisting of Heather Parks and her friends Jessica, Samantha, and Trish.

"Evie," I asked, "did anything happen to Heather Parks last Friday?"

She looked up excitedly. "Are you remembering things now, Mommy?"

"I wish I were. But it says in the paper that some Mantra fans in Canoga Park were frightened by something. I know that Heather has a fan club."

"They all got turned into a monster with four heads. They’re okay now.”

For the love of Pete! No wonder Evie had been left a nervous wreck after Friday night!

"Four girls became one monster?" I asked.

She nodded. “She was really scary!”

I could imagine. "Did our house get hit by lightning about dinnertime?” I asked

Evie blinked. "No, Mommy. I saw a flash in the window, but there wasn't any thunder at all. When I was outside, sky looked awfully funny, sorta purple."

How could our house be hit by a totally silent energy bolt? Stranger and stranger. There had to be some underlying connection between all these baffling events, if only I could find the key.

When Evie had finished her lunch, the two of us went over to the library. After helping her find some good books to read in the children's section, I made for the Internet terminals.

A net search of various keywords turned up bits of intriguing information. Many sites were calling Friday evening the "Night of Terror.” News stories provided more information, but they didn’t add up to any bigger picture about the Night of Terror. When I at last put "Eden Blake" and "Canoga Park" into the search window, I hit pay dirt.

The Weird World blog reported that one Mrs. Eden Blake of Canoga Park, along with a young daughter, Eve, and her son, August Jr., were at home when a green bolt was observed striking their tract home on Leadwell Street at about 7:15 P.D.T.

According to the website, Eve had gone into her brother's room and found him practicing what she called “magic.” According to the girl's grandmother, Barbara Freeman, also of Canoga Park, Eve was forcibly detained by her brother for a short while, but managed to flee outside when a visitor distracted young August.

Mrs. Freeman reported that her daughter Eden had come back in the early morning accompanied by Evie, whom she had found safe at the home of a friend. Eden Blake herself was not available for comment, having been summoned out of town by her employer. At the time of the interview, Eve appeared to be in a somewhat stressed condition.

The article provided a few more details supplied by young Eve herself. Before the energy bolt struck, August Jr., a twelve year old who had previously suffered a disfiguring accident, had gained ultra powers. His father had just canceled a trip to a football game and, becoming incensed, Gus had attacked his mother physically. The boy reportedly went into the streets of the neighborhood after midnight, where he frightened passersby with threatening behavior.

A chill coursed through me. In my own reality, big and little Gus had been planning to attend the season's first Bearcat game. If the two worlds could share so minor a detail, might they not also have shared something major? Something catastrophic? Could the strange things that had come to pass in this alternate reality have also occurred back on my world? Could people I knew there have been injured or even killed?

How I wished that I could get back to where I belonged.

  TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 4....