The Ant Returns - Chapter I (831 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: The_Ant
Rating: 1.69 on 22 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Jack McCallum (View user info) at 2005-01-29 13:28:06 EST
(Prologue - http://www.ubersite.com/m/57985)
==Le Premiere Partie - The Doctor Calls==
Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true
-Charles Dickens
==Chapter 1 - House Call==
Rob was in front of the house sanding a length of redwood on a makeshift worktable when the clear Mendocino air grew hot behind him and a familiar old man stepped out of a tear in the heated air itself and onto the driveway.
"Hello, Robert," Schroedecker said.
Without breaking the steady rhythm of his work Rob said, "What do you want?"
Schroedecker always looked uncomfortable. Rob's cold reception made his face crumple a little. He tensed up even more, gritting his teeth and frowning. He looked as if he were about to suffer some horrendous colonic disaster. One hand fiddled with the colorful display on the buckle of a thick black belt he was wearing under a customary suit of brown tweed. His other hand held a large, battered satchel.
"I need your help-"
"Forget it, Doc!"
"And you too, Robert, need your help."
Rob stopped sanding. "Can I have that again?"
"This situation is very much complicated," Schroedecker said.
*
It had been years since Rob had seen Wolfgang Schroedecker.
The old man had been partially responsible for the genetic alteration that had resulted in Rob's transformation from man to superman.
Rob still grudgingly liked the old German, with his little pointy white beard and seemingly endless selection of hideous tweed suits.
Yet he detested the Ant, the 'hero' he had become in order to stop the rampages of the group of genetic mutants who had been following the orders of Ernst Pfaltzer, mutants whose minds and bodies had been altered by Pfaltzer and Schroedecker in the same botched experiment which gave birth to the Ant.
Rob had defeated the mutants, and because they and Pfaltzer had threatened Megan, he swore his days as the Ant were at an end.
Taking a boat out onto San Francisco Bay late one night, Rob had gathered together the special uniform, boots, gloves and helmet created by Dr. Schroedecker for his protection, and after filling them with rocks had dropped them into the dark water.
As far as he was concerned, the Ant was dead and gone.
*
"How is your pretty wife?"
"Megan's okay, and obviously not home, otherwise she'd be kicking your old ass all over the place."
Schroedecker actually smiled for a moment. "Yes, a temper she has." He looked around and sniffed at the air. "Life has been good to you?"
Rob started sanding again, trying to put down the anger he was feeling.
"You have a nice home in the woods, you look well, and-"
"Listen Doc," Rob said, sanding a little faster as tension grew within him. "The reason I live out in the middle of nowhere is because the city was unsafe, thanks to you. How could I possibly take a job in the public eye when the slightest mistake could result in me killing someone, or at the very least being exposed as a freak to be studied and tested by the government. In the last fight with Pfaltzer and his mutants a lot of people watching TV got a few quick, blurred glimpses of my face. If I stayed in town sooner or later someone might track me down. It's safer here. I work odd jobs, and I work alone, so no one will see me when I slip up."
Rob heard a soft whumpf and looked down. In his anger he'd sanded the wood so fast he had started a friction fire.
"Fucking great," he muttered. He took a breath and blew the fire out. He also blew over the table, scattering tools and making a racket. "See what I mean?"
Schroedecker was respectfully silent for a moment as Rob set up the table. Then he said, "No mere apology from me can make up for what I have done to your life, this is true. But now I come to you to help you... The you that was and the you that will be, or will not be, unless you assist me. Without you... I cannot stop Pfaltzer alone, Robert.
Rob had picked up the last of the tools. The folded piece of sandpaper he had been using was now caught in the limb of a pine, fifty feet above his head. He patted down his pockets. Finding a battered pack of American Spirits, he lit one up.
"I'm not in the mood for riddles, Doc. Why don't you just tell me what's up?"
Schroedecker gave his beard a tweak. "How much, Robert, do you know of your history? Your family history?"
"My father's family was English. Working class. I don't know much more, really."
"Would it surprise you to learn that before your family emigrated, or fled, to England, that they were French? French nobles, no less?"
Rob shrugged. "Interesting. Doesn't really make any difference to me, though."
"Ahh, but it does," Schroedecker replied. He glanced left and right, and saw a varnished stump Rob had crafted into a stool. Settling on the stump, the doctor set the bag down beside him and released the catch on the thick black belt. He sighed heavily, laying the belt over one knee. "Hard to deeply breath. I made this too tight, this device."
Rob looked at the belt and the flickering lights surrounding a small black panel on the buckle. "You win a wrestling championship or something?"
Schroedecker's eyes lit up. Even after all these years in America he was still horribly unfamiliar with popular culture. Street slang often confounded him, and the television often seemed like a window into hell. But here was something he knew! "Yes, Robert. I kicked overly-muscled ass just like young Mr. Goldberg!" He clasped his scrawny fists and shook them over his head.
Rob tried not to laugh, but a chuckle escaped anyway. "You don't look like the kind of guy who watches pay-per-view wrestling."
Schroedecker leaned forward, one hand cupped over his mouth. "Most people would not see an old German like myself as a fan of a Jewish boy like Mr. Goldberg," he whispered dramatically. "But in Germany, when I was much more young than now, I hated the Nazis. It is never too late for gratification, and for me, it is a joy to see a son of Abraham overcome strutting übermenschen!"
Rob dropped his cigarette in an ashtray at his feet. "So, what's the belt really for, Doc?"
Schroedecker's smile faded. He stood, carefully placing the belt over one shoulder. "It is for traveling through time."
Rob didn't say anything. He raised his eyebrows, giving Schroedecker a whaddaya-fuckin-nuts? look.
"As we stand here talking, we are not in what would be considered a normal timeline. For me, this is the past...an alternate past. I have returned to talk to you, for in my time you are no more. In my time you have vanished without a trace, Robert, and it is as if you never existed."
"Bullshit."
"No! This is not the shit of the bull or the shit of the horse, and I am not, as you Americans like to say, apeshit or catshit."
"I think that last one is batshit, Doc."
"Batshit, catshit, ratshit," the doctor said, beginning to pace back and forth. "My point is, in my time, what would without a lot of quantum physicists gibbering be considered 'real time,' the Collisons are extinct."
"How so?"
Schroedecker thought carefully for a moment. "How much do you know about the French Revolution?"
"Not a lot," Rob admitted. "The people got pissed off at the King and revolted. Pretty much like the Americans did."
"Stripped down to the barest bone, no?"
"Huh?"
"Robert, you know your family as working class Englishmen, but before they ever arrived in England the Collisons were French nobles who were forced to flee across the Channel during the Revolution, losing everything."
"No shit?"
"None. In time as it was, your ancestor in Paris was a good man, a man at the lowest echelon of the upper class. He owned a little land in the Ardennes and as a nobleman he was exempt from many of the taxes, which were strangling the common people. A smart man too, he was, with not a great fortune but with many influential friends, friends from his youth who were now rich and powerful and on the verge of becoming targets for the mobs. He saw what was coming and got out of France, not before trying to dissuade his old friends from trying to retain their positions and wealth."
"How do you know all this?"
"I have read his memoirs. Memoirs written later, in a time stream in which he survived the Revolution, this time stream, in which one of his descendants is you. And in my own altered time, I have read the much too brief account of his death. 'Henri Collison. Dragged to the guillotine by a mob on the first day of July, 1793, a mob which put his family to death before his eyes after which he was forced at the point of a sword to follow in their wake.' He was one of many who died that way. He was accused of stealing money from his workers by one Lucien du Mallion, the Abbé of Sacré Couer de Sainte-Madeleine."
Schroedecker wandered closer to the house. He stepped up on the porch and peered through the open front door. "You must be kept busy, maintaining like this, an old house in the woods."
Rob shrugged. "I like working with my hands. Building things that will last."
Schroedecker peeked into the kitchen, spying mixing bowls, bags of flour, and packets of Fleischmann's yeast. "Your wife, she is going to make bread?"
"Yeah, she's been reading up on it. She's getting better."
The old man walked to the edge of the porch and chuckled. "If you will excuse an old man's pun, Robert, in many cases pain was the cause and pain was the result."
"Can I have that again?"
"Bread, Robert. Bread was the cause of all the troubles in France. Such a simple thing, no? But even today, you can buy a fine loaf in France for very little money."
"Okay..."
"Almost two hundred and fifty years ago, it was. The rich were getting richer, the poor poorer, and the staple of the diet of every hard working man such as you was getting expensive, more and more. Like the yeast that will give rise to your wife's bread, unrest was brewing in France, a growing resentment that would explode into rage, and revolution. Has any bread actually been made yet? I smell nothing."
"No bread," Rob said. He was getting impatient. "Megan has gone to a neighbor for some salt. Let's hear more of the story."
"Yes! So. Your ancestor at that place and time was Henri Collison. A man whose wealth was considerable, in that place and time."
Rob always pronounced his name 'coll-ih-sun.' It was weird hearing it as coh-li-soh.' And he was one of the rich that the poor revolted against?"
"Yes." Schroedecker shrugged. "Well, yes in the altered timeline, where he was falsely accused of a misdeed. In unadulterated time, he fled to England, but not before distributing a great deal of his material wealth among the peasants who had worked his land. That in itself was a scandalous act, covered up once the government stabilized for fear it might inspire more rich men to try and help the poor, elevating them out of the fields, for if the fields were empty, who would toil for the grain that made the bread?"
"If you know much, why can't you just go back and fix things yourself?" Rob asked. "You'd probably have an easier time of it then I would."
"Of course," Schroedecker agreed with a quick nod. "Not to diminish your own capabilities, but I have read many histories and traveled that part of the world before. However, I believe that you may actually be a better fit. Yes, with your practical skills, carpentry and such, and your general physical appearance, always wearing long your hair, you would be able to pass for a working man with little trouble."
Schroedecker returned to the stump and set his satchel on it. He fastened the belt around his waist again and picked up a hefty pinecone. "The big trouble is Pfaltzer. Only he and I have this technology, because he and I designed the prototype many years before. We abandoned it because of...instabilities."
With his the fingers of his free hand dancing across the buttons on the belt, Schroedecker suddenly threw the pinecone as hard as he could, aiming at the front window.
"Hey!" Rob cried, but Schroedecker wasn't there.
The doctor was standing on the porch, where he calmly snapped the pinecone out of the air inches from the glass. "In case you were disbelieving," he said quietly. "A demonstration. I went back in time, thirty seconds, calmly walked onto this porch, and prepared to catch the pinecone I had not yet thrown."
"It's all real," Rob said. "All the things you've said."
Schroedecker nodded. "Yes, Robert. And now, for whatever reason, Pfaltzer has gone back in time to destroy your ancestor, thus destroying you and any future threat you might represent."
"And I have to fix things."
"Unfortunately, yes." Schroedecker smoothed his pointy beard. "It appears that the Englishman Max Beerbohm was incorrect when he stated, 'the past is a work of art, free of irrelevancies and loose ends.' There are countless timelines, but for some reason the one in jeopardy, this very one in which we speak, is essential, and if it is altered all the other timelines and all the other Robert Collisons will be affected. For some of them the effects will be minimal, but for others, like the coriolis force of the butterfly's wings, changes in the timeline will have cumulative effects that will grow through the ages until whole worlds fall and are lost. Your own lineage is in danger of becoming a loose end and disappearing altogether, unless we act now."
"The Collisons were that important to history?"
Schroedecker shook his head. "Every person has their role to play, Robert, and if that role is subverted, who knows what will befall us." He thought a moment and then muttered, "Hemorrhoids to Armageddon."
Rob snorted out a reluctant laugh. Then he glanced beyond Schroedecker and whispered, "Oh... my... God."
"Yes. Horrible. Horrible, the past."
"No, not that," Rob said. "Worse. Here comes Megan."
User Reviews
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-08-03 11:51:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Supreme Overlord damage control...
Submitted by Supreme_Overlord (user info) at 2005-07-21 22:23:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
shite
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2005-02-16 13:48:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I've ignored these up until the final chapter was posted. So far, so good.
Submitted by Mitchapalooza (user info) at 2005-02-16 04:11:34 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
yawn.
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2005-02-08 14:15:22 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by williamson (user info) at 2005-02-03 01:15:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I didn't read it, but you look like you put a lot of effort into it and it can't be bad cause this is on 2 from 16 reviews, so i'll plus 2 ya.
Submitted by Benny (user info) at 2005-02-03 01:03:29 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Brilliant set up for an interesting story. Onto part 2
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-02-02 22:39:34 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Uh oh. Time travel. I hate time travel.
But so far, I like your story.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2005-01-31 15:51:48 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
time travel roxxorz!
woo hoo!
Submitted by AshK (user info) at 2005-01-31 13:44:11 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
"No, not that," Rob said. "Worse. Here comes Megan."
Uh-oh.
playing catch up again.
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2005-01-31 11:30:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
good setup for good things to come (i hope)
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-01-29 19:32:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Ah, but remember, I was born a liberal, a democrat, and spent many formative years in Leftland (Canada).
I only saw the light a few years ago.
Submitted by mystiamoon (user info) at 2005-01-29 19:05:29 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
well, in so many words....yes
being a lonely sap during the holidays make you more human to me
which is rare because everyone knows most repulicans aren't human, they are bionic cyborgs made by NASA and funded by middle eastern oil.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-01-29 18:58:32 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Uh, the distilled version is... I'm a sap, and that's good?
Submitted by mystiamoon (user info) at 2005-01-29 18:35:27 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Yes, I outed you.
It was some serious spy work to look up your yahoo profile from your e-mail to me and see that LINK RIGHT ON YOUR PROFILE!!!
Dork!
I only asked about the wife due to the lonely holiday posts you posted.
I would be angry to know that I put aside hating you and started talking to you because of them, and then find it was all a lie and that you arent the sap you led us on to think you were.
I resent being called a fuck-up.
You won't kill me.
you love me and you know it.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-01-29 18:28:12 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Now that you've outed me in a public forum, I simply can't let you live.
The book is real. It sold like coldcakes. I'm working on a sequel and a prequel.
As for the relationship, we've been seperated a year. No hosility on either side, but it's pretty much over. Believe it or not, this little community of fuck-ups on uber made things a lot less lonely.
Hmmm, what else can I discuss? My mutant twin, put down by my dad with a shotgun? The industrial accident that cost me my genitalia? My support for GWB? No wait, that last one is already known.
Submitted by mystiamoon (user info) at 2005-01-29 18:05:16 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0738867764/qid%3D1013206691/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F0%5F1/102-9532801/103-1861202-9344644
holy fuck is that real?
do you still have a wife?
wow
Submitted by mystiamoon (user info) at 2005-01-29 17:05:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
oh, ok ok i'll fricken read it this time.
since you're clearly electronically challenged and will never get a functioning messenger my e-mail is mystiamoon.at.yahoo.com.
We can use the E-mail medium to call each other names and cyber fight.
Submitted by Tom (user info) at 2005-01-29 16:55:29 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Falconer (user info) at 2005-01-29 14:22:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This is most excellent.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-01-29 14:06:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Yeah, this is different. Less comic-book-grossness, trying for more of an 'epic' feeling, even though it's just a short story. Took a lot of research, too.
Now if my cocksucking iMac will cooperate...
I'm having SERIOUS formatting and spell-checking issues...
Submitted by tlozoot (user info) at 2005-01-29 13:49:05 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This is shaping up to be better than the original.