The Inside-Out Man, Part 2
Twisted.
Welcome to Olympus City, where super-powers, physics-defying tech, and unearthly creatures are all possible now. Human nature, however, remains unchanged.
No one is born a perfect superhero, but a few strive to live up to the ideal anyway.
Previously: A wannabe supervillain turned Ollie Neal into a jigsaw puzzle and destroyed a few of the pieces. An attempt to restore Ollie turned him inside out, and now everyone who crosses his path is also turning inside out—including Miranda and Ken.
Part 2
Something was missing. Some of her was missing.
Miranda lay sprawled across the pavement, her reassembled body quaking. Was it all back, though? Did everything return to where it belonged? She looked whole. She didn’t feel whole.
Lifting her head, she searched for Ollie. Gone. She had no idea how long his power had incapacitated her. A commotion rang out from down the street. He couldn’t have been far. She needed to pursue.
She needed to check on Ken first. He was struggling to prop himself up. His head lolled in her general direction.
“Mi—” He stopped himself, paused, tried again. “Ultra Woman?”
People watched from the sidewalks. Some of them had experienced the same ordeal as the two superheroes. More would if Ultra Woman and Mr. Amazing didn’t pull themselves together.
Miranda forced herself to her feet, then a bit higher, endeavoring to put on a strong front despite the lingering sense of unease. “Is everyone okay?”
Everyone appeared intact, though “okay” was another question entirely. Ollie left no physical evidence he was ever here, but Miranda still felt it. The mad force had ripped her apart, flipped her inside out, and stitched her back together, all so carelessly that it must have missed something. Somewhere within her was a wound that would never heal. She couldn’t prove it, but she felt certain she had lost something she was never getting back.
Meanwhile, Ollie was marching toward Argus Max, heedless of everyone else he was hurting along the way. The maximum-security prison was on a separate island, but Miranda doubted a barrier of water would stop him. It would take much more than that. More than her.
“I’m going to find the Golden Gladiator,” she told Ken as he shuffled toward her.
“I’ll follow Mr. Neal, keep everyone else away.”
He could barely hold himself upright. But Miranda would find Carey faster. She might also find answers at the lab, and Ken’s telekinesis was better suited for clearing Ollie’s path of any further victims. The nice rationale provided little comfort as she prepared to run away from the danger.
“Good idea,” Miranda said. “Be careful.”
Ken nodded, then flew off toward the Inside-Out Man in something less than a straight line.
Miranda took off in the opposite direction and arrived at Hephaestus Enterprises seconds later.
The hangar facility appeared the same as always. Miranda had expected to find devastation or at least disarray. But then, she remembered, it wouldn’t be on the outside.
She landed at the front door and rang the bell. And she waited there like an idiot while Ollie spread existential anguish across the city.
I could just rip that door open …
“One side, Ultra Woman!”
The self-assured voice called out from above right before gleaming golden boots dismounted on the pavement. The armor looked as polished and flawless as ever while faint wrinkles emanated from the cocky grin. Miranda already felt herself relax, if only a little.
“Test run in space,” Carey said, an answer to an unasked question. “Came back as soon as I got Sibyl’s SOS. Let’s check this out.”
The door unlocked as he tapped his gauntlet, and they strode into the lab. An eerie quiet had replaced the usual bustle. Nothing but faint electrical humming. Carey’s perfect jaw twisted in confusion.
“It’s Ollie Neal,” Miranda told him. “He left … escaped … I don’t know, but he’s—he’s inside out.”
“Huh. Interesting.”
Carey lifted off, and Miranda followed him as they flew over the dividers and toward the center of the lab.
There, right where Miranda had set it, was the interdimensional vessel Tuck Lewis had bestowed upon her. She hadn’t laid a finger on the thing since she dropped it off. The mere sight of it slowed her down.
Sibyl and several colleagues huddled around a folding table between the vessel and what used to be Bloman’s empuzzling cube. The cube, however, lay completely dismantled, with bits of circuitry sprinkled atop the heap like salt. The scientists exchanged no words. They simply sat there in silence under an oppressive malaise. Miranda recognized it at once.
Carey touched down with a gentle thunk. “What happened here?”
Sibyl rose from her chair. When she wobbled, Carey extended an arm to steady her.
“We created a monster,” Sibyl said, voice quavering. Her usual cool confidence was gone, replaced by something human and vulnerable. “The ship had the answers. Or so we thought. But something went wrong, and he …”
One of the scientists buried his face in his hands. Another shuddered. A third looked like she was about to become ill, looked like she had already been ill.
“I’m here, Sibyl.” Carey projected pristine confidence. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
Sibyl nodded slowly. Whether she believed him was unclear.
She explained how the treatment seemed to be working at first. The puzzle pieces of Ollie Neal bonded together, and the image gradually acquired depth until a ghostly man rose from the puzzle, in a state of utter shell shock.
Then, right as Ollie began to solidify, he exploded.
But only for a moment.
The pieces rushed back together and reformed once more, this time incorrectly. Inside out. The scientists couldn’t hear his scream, but they felt it—right before they, too, exploded.
“Never experienced anything like it,” Sibyl said, her clinical tone faltering. “The physical effects have obviously subsided, but …” The precise terminology eluded her.
“Something’s missing,” Miranda said.
Haunted eyes widened in recognition, though Sibyl quickly shook it off and regained her professionalism. “Yes. I suppose that succinctly captures the sensation, but not the reality. We’ve run tests. We’re all whole. Each of us is as physically healthy as before.”
It sounded reassuring, but some part of Miranda kept refusing to be reassured.
“He’s headed toward Argus Max to get revenge on Bloman,” Miranda said. “Mr. Amazing is on crowd control. How can we stop—” He’s not a villain. “—how can we help Ollie?”
Sibyl thought about it, then looked to her colleagues for suggestions. They all shook their heads, each at a loss.
“I don’t know,” Sibyl said, turning toward the vessel. “This shouldn’t even have happened in the first place.”
Carey also eyed the vessel. He had pursued this very ship when Dame Disaster piloted it across universes, leading to a showdown between the two old enemies. In their native universe, the Golden Gladiator always prevailed. Good always prevailed. But somewhere between there and here, Carey split into two of himself, and Dame Disaster killed one of him.
Such an experience would have bothered Miranda, even traumatized her, but she perceived no evidence of discomfort as Carey gazed at the vessel. He had accepted the possibility that he was a clone of himself, and he took it as a win over death.
“Things are different here,” he said. “But I’m not. I’ll nab the troublemaker and set him straight. You want to sit this one out, Ultra Woman?”
Yes. “No. Let’s go.”
Gentle iron patted her shoulder. “That’s the spirit.” With a metallic snap, he aimed his pointer finger at Sibyl and her team. “As for you all here—you’ve got nothing to worry about. This Inside-Out Man is not getting past the Golden Gladiator, and that’s a promise.”
To notarize the promise, Carey pulled Sibyl in for a long kiss. The embrace took some of the weight off her. Carey then pivoted from romance to business in a single fluid motion.
“Let’s go, Ultra Woman,” he said, taking off toward the exit. “Point me at our guy.”
She did. The flight back to the street passed far too quickly.
Moving on foot, Ollie hadn’t made a ton of progress, but he was keeping Ken and the authorities plenty busy. People telekinetically floated out of their cars right before Ollie would have inverted them. Abandoned vehicles warped in the wake of the Inside-Out Man.
Ken looked up, and his relief was palpable.
Carey landed just ahead of the inversion effect and held out a single armored palm.
“Hold your horses there, cowboy. You’re making a lot of good folks here nervous, so let’s take a breather and talk this out.”
“No,” Ollie said, marching forward.
“I’m not asking. Final warning, buddy. I’d rather not have to stun you.”
The noise that emerged from Ollie’s disconnected larynx sounded something like laughter.
“All right,” Carey said, “but know that I am sorry.”
With that, he fired off a single emerald laser, which split apart as if through a prism and dissipated around Ollie.
Miranda and Ken observed from the sidelines, standing between the combatants and the civilians.
Ken whispered, “I’ll get Alyssa. Her power—”
“I don’t want her getting hurt.”
“You think I want that?” Irritation laced his response. “Her power is what we need here. If Carey can’t—”
“He will.”
“But if he can’t …”
Carey lobbed off another volley and backed up a step when it, too, failed.
“I’m asking her.” Ken took off, leaving Miranda to silently root for the Golden Gladiator’s success, no more useful than any other spectator present.
“You’re a tricky customer, aren’t you?” Carey said, continuing his backward walk. His gauntlet projected a holographic computer screen, which he scrolled through rapidly, even frantically. He muttered something under his breath while his face acquired an expression that was, for him, quite novel. The Inside-Out Man confused the Golden Gladiator.
Internal organs swirled around Ollie, his pace unaffected by the superhero’s presence.
“You’re fake,” Ollie said, raising an arm, a thick bone overflowing with fat, muscle, and skin at each joint.
The phalanges pointed at Carey, splayed, and ripped the armored superhero into hundreds of 3D puzzle pieces. The pieces orbited each other like demented atoms.
And Miranda could only watch.
“Help him, Ultra Woman!” someone shouted.
She wanted to. She couldn’t move. Something was missing. Something else would go missing, and it would never come back.
The pieces of Carey spread apart. And further apart.
Miranda picked up the nearest car and threw it at Ollie.
The car disassembled well before any impact. Various components settled at the Inside-Out Man’s feet and reformed into a makeshift staircase, which he began to climb. When he reached the top step, the bottom one slid up to replace it. In that fashion, he ascended into the sky.
Carey snapped back together with a long, sustained gasp. Miranda rushed toward him, asking the incredibly stupid question of how he felt.
His eyes radiated pure terror.
“Don’t look at me.” He rocketed straight up. “Don’t look at me!”
Ollie continued his march toward Argus Max while the Golden Gladiator disappeared into the clouds.