บท 23: At Baxter
In my desperation, I burned down anything and everything around me I could find to increase the heat just a bit more. I could feel the heat rising, not on my skin or my body but in my lungs. The air I was breathing in was slowly starting to burn.
The fire around me was slowly starting to turn bluish instead of my regular golden-yellow fire. The fire seemed to be working since the robot suddenly stopped. I don't know how long I can keep holding on though. My lungs are starting to hurt.
I regretted never learning any fighting techniques. From a very young age, I learned to use fire as a weapon to destroy everything I disliked. At about 4 or 5 years of age, I had taken a grasshopper and thrown it into the fire. It might've been the innocent curiosity of a child but that day I found my purpose.
Throwing disgusting bugs and watching them burn kept me distracted from the screams of my mother as my father beat my mother and sent other men into the room with her. I was too young to fully realize the situation then but I didn't need to. I just knew that everyone in that house was like those bugs.
So, I did what should be done with disgusting bugs. One night, my father was passed out drunk with a wad of cash in his hand and my mother was screaming and crying as she did every night. So I walked out, took the jar of kerosene, and poured it all around the house. I had to carry a lot of firewood that day but the end result was beautiful. I tried finding that beautiful fire for so many years but I never did.
Imagining that night I blasted the robot with my new blue flames. It was working. I could see that the robot was heating up. I just need a little more. I kept punching out fireball after fireball until I couldn't stand the pain and stopped trying to increase the heat.
With that much, the robot should've melted right? I panted hard trying to get some cold air to my lungs while staring at the smoke where the robot was supposed to be. I had watched enough Bollywood movies to not look away from the smoke. They always walk out of the smoke in times like these.
After waiting for half a minute and the smoke and dust started to clear away, I didn't see the figure of the robot so I felt relieved. But just then I felt a punch to the back of my head that stunned me. Then came a continuous beating of the robot. All my efforts had only slightly melted its exterior.
After I was exhausted and too beat up to fight back, the robot held me down while the General and the Senator kept asking me questions I had no answers for. The beating and questioning continued until a woman in black who had a beautiful face but a devilish aura around her appeared out of thin air.
"Selene! How can you be here? You're a mutant!" The Senator screamed at the woman who just appeared.
But the woman just waved her hand, "I'll erase this memory from your head in a while. Now be a good dog and stay put. I need to check this guy's head and figure out who he works for and why is he targeting us."
I only saw her for the first time but I could tell that she was a paranoid but very dangerous woman. In my position, it was not a good thing. I weakly answered, "I don't know anything."
She gave me a creepy smile and pulled my head up by my hair, "Hush now. I don't need you to speak. Just try not to resist or it will be painful."
Just as I was going to ask her what she meant by that, I felt it. Something was trying to enter my mind forcefully and it was very painful. All the physical pain I had felt till the moment combined was not anywhere close to the pain I was feeling right now.
Just when I was going to take her advice and stop resisting, my body started acting on its own as if something buried in me was waking up. I spoke words I never knew, "Hail Hydra!" and in the surprised eyes of everyone present, my body started to heat up rapidly until I exploded into a huge ball of plasma.
The huge red demon in front of me who claimed to be the ruler of hell, Mephisto, laughed wildly as soon as I ended my story. "A vicious soul not only became a pawn in someone else's game but also ended up being sacrificed to me. I'll accept this gift with relish and hope to meet this benefactor someday."
The demon Mephisto then grabbed at my soul body. I knew what was coming for me so I silently closed my eyes and gave in to my fate. I could still hear the demon mumbling.
"I shouldn't waste the gift. Let's prepare you in a special way today. Since you like burning, lets slow roast you in the hottest flames of hell. Hmm… that's not enough. Let's add a touch of misery as well. You'll relive all the pain and suffering of all your victims from their perspective. That should add some fragrance."
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{Savant POV, present time}
It was my first time inside the famous Baxter Building. I had seen it in the movies and in the comics many times. It was the iconic headquarters of the Fantastic Four.
Walking out of the elevator, I was greeted by Sue Storm, wife of Reed Richards and sister of Johnny Storm. She was carrying a toddler boy in her hands. "Welcome to our home, Savant. I can call you that right?" She was quite friendly.
"Yes, that would be nice." I nodded, "And this must be little Franklin. Hello big guy. Here's a gift for you, remember I'm Uncle Savant." I gave the toy spaceship I had brought with me to the boy.
After socializing with the toddler who might as well be one of the strongest humans on earth alongside the likes of the Molecule Man, I followed Sue while teasing the future reality-warper.
"Oh, Savant is here. Please come in." Reed was working on some machine when he saw us entering and greeted me. From what I could get from information perception, that machine was an engine that was specially designed to travel inside the negative zone.
The Negative Zone is a special plane made out of antimatter that existed parallel to this world. It was kind of like a universe made out of antimatter. It was discovered by Reed and if I'm not wrong, only the fantastic four are aware of the place.
Noticing my gaze lingering on the engine, Reed smiled and tried to brush it off, "It's just an engine I was modifying for better performance. Don't mind it."
I could've played along and ignored it but not doing so would put me at an advantage today. "You have an unusually humble attitude for one of the smartest minds on this planet, Mr. Reed. An engine specially designed to be driven in an antimatter environment is just a simple modification for you."
That surprised Reed as well as Sue. Franklin was preoccupied with the spaceship, in a few years he will probably materialize the real thing though.
Reed composed himself while gesturing me to sit down, "I didn't know you had researched antimatter as well and to even determine the use of the engine with one look, is it some kind of mutant power?"
It was indeed impossible for most people to know the use just by looking at the machine. On Earth, only two people could probably do it. One was me with information perception and the other was the mutant Forge, whose powers let him understand any machinery completely with just a look.
"You can think of it as such, it is a bit difficult to explain. Anyway, to be able to invent and make something like this, the world seems to still be underestimating your intellect." Light flattery always greases up any conversation. Especially for people like Doom and Reed who pride themselves on their minds, light flattery is always good. Can't overdo it either or it will backfire.
Reed smiled, "Thank you for the high compliments. But what brought about your visit to our place today? Is it about our cooperation?" He was blunt. He probably sensed that I wanted to ask something of him.
"I didn't come here for personal or business reasons. Well, I did have some personal motives too since I wanted to talk to you but primarily I'm here as a messenger. The Indian Government wants you to become a guest lecturer at the new university they are creating. They asked me to bring the news since we already have some dealings." I clarified.
Reed frowned a little and answered, "While I'm honored, I don't think I will be able to do it. I'm far too busy to be able to give guest lectures in India."
Of course, he would find the job tedious. I had expected as much. He was someone who could forget his family for his experiments and research, why would he waste time teaching others?
"I know your concerns, Reed. You don't have to be present physically for the classes. You just have to give the lectures at your own leisure over the Internet."
My answer surprised him once again and he furrowed his brows. He knew the state of consumer communications and the internet. Not to mention the display and camera of the time. From Reed's perspective, he had all the equipment to broadcast his lecture on the Internet, but there was no supporting infrastructure for the people at the receiving end to receive it.
Knowing his thoughts, I took out the test version of the smartphone that would soon go into production and handed it over to Reed. It wasn't very fancy, nor did it have very high specs. I wanted the smartphone industry to develop on its own, I was just kick-starting it.
It was a phone with a 5-inch display with just one button at the bottom. It was close to the Samsung S1 of my previous world with a better design. As for the OS, I lifted elements from both iOS and Android and developed a new OS with Doug's help.
Maybe, I lacked enough creativity and imagination or maybe I was thinking back to my old world but the phone was made with my 'revolutionary' ideas from my previous world. But that wasn't very important now.
Holding the smartphone, Reed asked, "What is this?"
"You should know of my efforts in creating a wireless network that was dubbed 3G since you're one of the partner companies. There are also my large-scale fiber optic cables and satellite network projects that are underway to connect the whole world through a faster internet. It should be done in the next one and a half years at most. And what you are holding is the key to the network I'm laying down."
Reed was interested and started fiddling with it with Sue looking over his shoulders at the smartphone. As for me, I felt it was necessary to increase my impression on the kid who can create universes in his closet.
Reed meanwhile was checking different things inside the phone. He would sometimes point the camera at his son and sometimes play some music. After a full fifteen minutes, the phone was taken apart part by part and then put back together by Reed.
"So you created a mini-computer that can be used by everyone, everywhere." He stroked his wrist which had a holographic wrist computer masked as a watch from what I could read.
"I had similar ideas but never thought of a consumer product. But this can work. With this and your network infrastructure for the Internet, communication, in general, will have a great change in the world. And lecturing over the Internet can be quite easy. Perhaps we can even use hologram…"
Reed went on a tangent on the improvements that could be done to the existing technology and what possible use they could have. Having a very smart mind has its demerits too. When on a train of thought, you can't get off until it reaches the station.
I listened to his words carefully. They were ideas from one of the smartest people, it would be foolish not to listen. But Sue cut him off, "Honey, stop. You're talking to yourself again. Sorry, he is like this when he has new ideas."
"It's fine. I enjoyed listening to his ideas. But I had a question for you guys, with all the things you can invent and do, why aren't you pushing forward the scientific development of this world?"
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