The Perfectionist, Part 4
The man who never failed.
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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: Miranda fought Carey over his plan to alter the entire world. She rushed to warn Sibyl, who has some interesting news herself.
Part 4
Sibyl’s assertion echoed in Miranda’s ears. The more it pinballed around her skull, the more possibilities it hit upon, all of which were probably wrong anyway.
“Then who the hell is he?”
Carey had said he might be a clone of himself. He didn’t even know whether he was the clone or the original. One of him had died, and he was simply happy to be the version that survived.
And Miranda had believed this. Some doubts had crept up recently, sure, but the man was adjusting to life in a deeply flawed reality after a lifetime of perpetual success in a comic book fantasy universe. The world’s countless problems would rattle anybody, even a perfect superhero.
Sibyl fixed her gaze on the glowing orb that Miranda held. The power source was the thing Sibyl did not know about, so her curiosity now shoved Miranda’s aside.
“Let me see that,” she said, already reaching for it.
Miranda handed it over. “Sure, but Carey—”
“Is right here, ladies,” the baritone rang out from above.
Landing with barely a thunk, Carey pivoted toward Miranda and wagged a steel-plated finger.
“You owe us a door.”
“A door,” Miranda repeated softly, a ghostly echo of the words.
“Carey!” Sibyl snapped out the name. “You neglected to mention that you were planning on altering all of humanity.”
“I mentioned the concept to you,” he said, a bit too quickly.
“As a hypothetical.”
“Dame Disaster is—”
“An excuse.” Sibyl waved a hand through the air as if to slice through any further excuses. “You built the machine even before Ultra Woman told you about that woman’s possible return. Tell me: Would the Golden Gladiator ever do anything so … so cataclysmic?”
“I haven’t ever visited a world this broken. World’s such a disaster, a cataclysm’s about the only thing that could shake all the pieces into place.”
Sibyl crossed her arms and waited. Carey softened within his impervious shell.
“I wanted to tell you, but I was afraid you wouldn’t understand.” He twisted back to Miranda, the steel returning to his voice. “You didn’t. You of all people.”
Not steel. Bitterness armored in righteousness. Miranda looked into the eyes of that middle-aged face and saw a teenager.
She turned to Sibyl for confirmation. “The sidekick, right? Goldy?”
“What?” Carey’s eyes whipped between the two women. “Goldy has nothing to do with this.”
“He has everything to do with this.” Sibyl set a gentle hand on the golden chest plate. “He’s you. Carey Goldsmith, sidekick and protégé of the Golden Gladiator.”
Carey recoiled. “No,” he whispered.
“Yes.”
“I’m the Golden Gladiator.” He pointed at his face. “Look at me! I’m no twenty-year-old kid.”
“You believe that,” Sibyl said kindly. “You never lied to us, not deliberately. But it’s time to stop lying to yourself.”
“I’m—” Unblinking eyes gazed at nothing in particular; they froze up like a computer struggling to process too much at once. “I really thought …”
“You did,” Sibyl assured him. “You even told us your real name. Carey. That’s been you all along.”
Miranda wanted to be mad. Mad at herself, primarily. The universe pulled a prank, and she fell for it. But whatever Carey’s shortcomings, she saw that he truly was an innocent. A dangerous innocent, perhaps, but the universe had played him for a fool too.
“You saved my life, Carey, when we met in that upside-down world. Silver’s too. You figured out how to escape. We—we never would have. We’d still be there, just like Fantastic Man and Dr. Luna are … wherever they are right now. You may not be the Golden Gladiator, but you learned a lot from him.”
“I almost …” The armor unfolded off of Carey, exposing ordinary athleticwear and a wiry frame. He scratched his head as if digging for secrets. As his hand dropped to his side, he seemed to deflate. “Memory’s hazy, but a couple of things are crystal clear. I’m—I’m not ready to be the Golden Gladiator. And I’m too old to be Goldy.”
Sibyl pulled out a chair. “Sit. I’ll fill in what gaps I can.”
*****
Carey was dying at the time. He had plunged through the chasm between universes as unique energies ravaged his body. As Goldy, he normally had his own set of hi-tech armor, which he had developed under the guidance of his mentor. But he wasn’t wearing it now. Dame Disaster didn’t give him a chance to put it on before she shoved him into the vortex.
The Golden Gladiator struggled to save him. Carey was confident he would. The possibility of failure never occurred to him. Failure had no precedent in the Golden Gladiator’s long and storied career.
Bizarre living lightning battered the gleaming armor as the hero reached toward his sidekick. The armor still gleamed, even in this awful place.
The gauntlet drew closer. Carey reached for the lifeline.
And Dame Disaster attacked.
She no longer bothered with Carey. He had served his purpose. She let him tumble into oblivion while she attacked her real enemy. Carey watched the fight dwindle into the distance as his hero failed to save him.
But he didn’t die. Rather, the vortex granted Carey his greatest wish. It regenerated his decaying body, reshaping him into a perfect physical duplicate of his idol. The trauma clouded his memories and warped his sense of self. He grasped onto the only fragments that survived—his yearslong devotion to the Golden Gladiator. Not just the man, but the ideals he represented. Carey had always excelled as a student; he was a prodigy in his own right. As he crashed into an inverted universe, he knew exactly whom he needed to become.
He needed to be the Golden Gladiator—a Golden Gladiator who had never failed.
*****
Miranda listened to Sibyl dryly recount the facts to Carey, reciting them much like the vessel’s computer would have, marginally warmer than a robot. Sibyl conducted herself in a professional manner, sounding entirely like a scientist and not at all like Carey’s girlfriend—a title Miranda doubted would persist for much longer. But Carey seemed to appreciate the honesty. This was what he needed. The facts. From the facts, he could start to rebuild.
While he began that process, Miranda left to do the opposite—to dismantle, to destroy.
Carey’s world-altering machine was too dangerous to exist. Miranda returned to the island and touched down beside the giant ray gun. She knew she needed to demolish it, but she didn’t know how she’d defeat Dame Disaster without the advantages it would grant.
Her eyes drifted to the beach, to the spot where Officer Hoskins died, where Miranda failed to save him. Carey failed to change the world because she interfered.
It wouldn’t have been the right change, she told herself.
Miranda might have saved Hoskins if an evil robot had targeted him today, but he didn’t need her today—he needed her then. But she had saved other people because of the lessons this failure taught her. But not everyone.
She tracked the gun’s aim to the island of Olympus across the water.
This would have killed us. Killed us inside. Doubts argued with themselves. It would have.
She squeezed her impossibly strong fists and went about demolishing the closest thing to a world peace ray ever to exist, second-guessing herself at every step along the way.
*****
Carey was dismantling the suits of armor that would have equipped the Golden Gladiator Corps. He smashed nothing, merely disassembled enough in case the wrong hands got ahold of them. Those hands would be in over their heads trying to piece everything back together.
“Is it done?” he asked as Miranda appeared at the workstation’s entrance.
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” The words trailed out mournfully. “It was the right thing to do.”
“How are you feeling?” An inadequate question, but a necessary one.
“The best man I ever knew is dead.” He blew out a long sigh. “I wish you could have met him. Not my pale imitation. The real steel deal. Brilliant man. And funnier than you’d expect.” He chuckled at a memory. “His jokes were all groaners for sure, but the way he delivered them, always at exactly the right time, well, they always got a laugh out of me.” Wistfulness entered his voice. “Never failed.”
Carey pulled another arm off a would-be Golden Gladiator Corpsman.
“And I nearly wrecked his legacy. All of this is my fault. Dame Disaster shoved me into the vortex to distract him. It worked. For the first time, the bad guy won—because of me.”
He’s even younger than I am, Miranda realized. His experience still far surpassed hers, but he had gotten a much earlier start. Carey was only thirteen when he first donned a miniature version of his mentor’s armor. Miranda thought of her own teenage exploits and nearly reddened in embarrassment.
“She hasn’t won yet,” Miranda said. “She came here to conquer this world. Thanks to the Golden Gladiator, that hasn’t happened. He died saving an entire world of strangers.”
A bare knuckle discreetly mopped up a tear. “He wouldn’t have had it any other way.” Eyes reasonably dry, Carey looked at her, hesitating only a second. “Arthur King was his real name. Went by Art. Figured you should know that.”
“Thank you,” Miranda said.
Another piece of armor detached from its joint. Carey set it down carefully.
So young, but so brilliant. “Hey, remember the watch Alyssa was wearing when you met her? It had this circuitry in it that allowed her to teleport. It somehow responded to her telepathy.”
Carey lifted his attention from the pieces of armor and cast a half squint at Miranda. “Huh. That’s an interesting approach to teleportation.”
“Think you could build a watch like that?”
He stroked his unshaven chin as though his fingers might tame the growth.
“It’d be a heck of a project.” The way his eye gleamed reminded Miranda of the Golden Gladiator’s armor. “Let me get to work on that for you.”
In Two Weeks: The Wolf with the Laser Eyes