The elevator reaches the bottom subbasement. General Lucas punches in another code to open the doors, followed by a voice prompt.

“Lucas, Robert B,” he says in a slow, clear voice. “Authorization 051962 Green.”

The door sticks a little bit, but slides open to allow us access. The long, sterile corridor features M-16s mounted near the ceiling on automated turrets, all leading up to a single locked door. Lucas leaves the elevator. I don’t.

“Are you coming or not, Miss Corson?” he asks.

“Unless those guns are programmed to shoot lawyers, I think I can find my way to the end of the hallway.” I gesture for him to return to the elevator. “I need privacy with my client. I don’t need you.”

He frowns deeply, but marches back into the lift. I step out as he steps in, and he salutes me sloppily as we pass.

“The room has security cameras, but the audio recorders will be left off as per court order,” he tells me as I walk toward the door. “We wouldn’t want anybody eavesdropping on your conversation with your pet monster, would we?”

I don’t give him the dignity of a backwards glance. “That will be all, General.”

Lucas punches a button in the elevator. The steel doors shut with a clang, leaving me alone and ready for my meeting.

Beyond the door at the far end of the corridor, Dr. Solomon Krenzler, a man who has seen two world wars and been at the heart of a nuclear explosion, sits in his wheelchair behind plate glass. The left half of his body is withered and dead—face twisted, nerves useless, limbs immobile except for the occasional twitch. If he loses his concentration, he drools out of the corner of his mouth. Some military personnel have already set me up with a chair facing the nearly unfurnished cell, as well as a clipboard, lined paper, and a felt-tipped pen for taking any notes I might need.

“Eva…why are you here?” Only half of his mouth moves as he speaks. One eye stays shut and the other seems empty as it stares at me.

“I’m your lawyer, remember?” I say defensively. “Considering the number of experiments performed down here, I need to make sure you’ve still got some civil rights.”

“I didn’t…hrm.” He swallows loudly and clears his throat with a grumble. He leans forward in the chair, and the safety glass fogs from the breath coming out of one nostril. “I didn’t ask you to come here.”

“You didn’t ask me to come last time, either, when the doctors here started cutting pieces off your body for their experiments,” I remind him.

He runs his tongue over his lips. “They’re not…not torturing me. They’re…curing me.”

I stand up. If I could touch the glass without bringing in a dozen guards, I’d pound on it right now. “You call this a cure? You’ve got total paralysis in half your limbs. Give them a few more months and your entire body will shut down.”

“No transformations…not in two years now. It’s progress.”

“They’re killing you. Slowly and painfully.”

“If that’s what it takes.”

I sit back down. “You can’t be satisfied with this life.”

He leans back, breathing through his nose only. His left nostril makes a high-pitched wheezing noise only dogs should be able to hear. “I’ve lived for more than a century. Most of it miserable…hurm…I’ve been ready to die for a long time.”

I touch my earring, pulling it partway out of the piercing and fiddling with the post.

Despite his age, Solomon shouldn’t look like this. He was created in the same disaster that spawned Paradigm. Caught in the heart of a nuclear explosion, victim of atomic radiation gone wild…he’s like Paradigm’s dark twin. One became a living sun, imbued with strength and good looks and becoming the perfect man. The other remained a scientist who had secretly battled with depression for years. Occasionally, Solomon’s emotions overpower his intellect. For most people in that situation, that means a suicide attempt. For him, he became a monster—a giant gorilla-like creature with no intellect and the desire for nothing more than destruction.

Solomon Krenzler is Titan. He brought atomic fire to the people. He gave America our Paradigm, but he’s been paying the price ever since. He now has greasy strands of gray hair hanging out the side of his mostly-bald head, a body that’s been practically turned into a paperweight, adult diapers, and a constant tremor in his right hand. He should be furious at the twist of fate that gave Paradigm perfection and left him with an eternal nightmare. Instead, he considers his current situation an improvement.

“You didn’t come here…to check on me,” Solomon says, twitching his head to the side in a repeated series of quick jerks.

“Of course I did.” I pull my right earring out entirely and turn it over in my hands. “You’re my client. Even if you don’t want to get out of here, I still need to make sure you’re treated humanely.”

“Tried to kill myself once, you know. Hrk…no…not once…twelve times, I think.”

“Recently?”

“Over the years. Titan kept stopping me. Gnrg…a gun to my head or poison in my system triggers the transformation…brings him out.”

“Solomon, stories like this are why you should be in a hospital, not this prison.”

“I’ve wanted to die for so…so…long,” he says, barely acknowledging my words. “He keeps me alive. But I’m getting close now. They took my notes…used them correctly. Every cell that dies in me…it’s hurting him, too. Maybe someday I’ll die and not have to worry about him. So…so close now…”

“Solomon, Roosevelt Pythagoras is out of jail. It’s big news. That’s why I made the appointment. I’ve got more publicity and pull than I’ve had in a while. I could get you better living conditions.”

“Pythagoras…” He frowns. “They really…released him?”

“They pardoned him,” I correct. “He’s innocent.”

“No…I remember him…never innocent.”

I press my fingers against the earring until the flesh turns white, then release some pressure. Solomon and Rosey have a complex history. Rosey has manipulated the Titan into fighting Paradigm before. But at the same time, he could never bring himself to lie to Solomon—he’s one of Rosey’s greatest heroes. Even in the old volcanic lab, in Rosey’s bedroom, there were three posters of famous scientists: Einstein, Tesla, and Krenzler.

“I’m not going to get into his guilt or innocence with you,” I say. “But Rosey’s turned over a new leaf. He’s a consultant with the police right now, investigating a case.”

“Investigating…what?”

“The murder of Captain Tomorrow.”

The news of one of the world’s most famous superheroes dying doesn’t even get a raised eyebrow from Solomon. What is it with these geniuses never acting even a little human?

“What’s…in it for…mnrn…you?”

“I want to see if somebody like Rosey really can reform.”

“You don’t…believe in him?”

“I think he needs success early,” I admit. “If he can’t figure this out, I don’t know what he’ll do.”

“What do you need…from me?”

“You’re an expert on radiation, including quantum radiation. Rosey got some strange readings on two bodies—Captain Tomorrow’s and…well, his.”

For a moment, Solomon actually looks intrigued. “He traveled through time?”

“It looks that way” I answer. “Rosey thinks the dead Captain Tomorrow is from the near future. He thinks the present one is hiding for some reason. Is that possible?”

“Maybe. But Tomorrow’s location…not the problem.”

“What is the problem, then?”

He clears his throat and shifts in his chair. “How did they…both travel back? Tomorrow’s technology…needs manual control. If time travel is a car…urgh…bad analogy…”

“Go on,” I urge.

“There would need to be a driver,” he continues, regaining his momentum. “No autopilot on Tomorrow’s devices. Somebody…had to send them back for a reason.”

“Now why didn’t Rosey think of that?”

“You sure…he didn’t?”

I lower my hand down to my gray skirt and tilt it so the palm faces downward. The earring spills out, dropping along my right leg on its way to the floor. I speak louder now, making sure that my voice covers up the slight skitter as it lands.

“Thanks for the help, Doc. It’s kind of nice to see you using your big brain for something other than trying to kill yourself.”

“Not trying…succeeding.”

“You’re not dead yet,” I point out.

He closes his good eye and almost smiles. “Soon.”

I look at the floor and kick at the earring, knocking it from the base of my chair to the corner of the room.

The jewelry is small enough for the movement to go unnoticed by the security cameras. My frustration is much less calculated, though. Solomon’s desire to kill himself, extraneous circumstances or not, is my failure as a lawyer. Instead of leaving him to rot in a hole like this, I should have gotten him the mental care he needed. I don’t care what kind of monster is inside him. It can be contained, but the process doesn’t need to kill the man. Given the chance, I’d bet Rosey could figure something out.

“You know, if we find Captain Tomorrow’s killer, it could be thanks to you,” I tell Solomon. “This information you just gave me—it might be more useful than you think.”

He just grunts and taps his shaky hand against the arm of his wheelchair.

“Right,” I say, standing up and smoothing out my suit. “God forbid you admit to being useful. You just happened to secure America’s place as a superpower, created the hero everybody loves so damned much, and Heaven knows what else. It’s not all undone by one mistake, you know.”

He starts humming to himself, tuning me out.

“Thank you for all your help, Solomon.” I head for the door.

“Eva,” he says just before I leave, “you dropped something.”

“No I didn’t,” I say. “You’re just imagining things, Doc.”

_{Featured Image: Jean Beaufort}