Chapter Fourteen

Ruth floated like a dandelion seed through bubblegum mist. Two amethyst suns shone faintly in the sky above as she drifted lazily on intangible wind currents.

The pink fog dulled her cutting-edge intellect and rapier-like cunning. The deadliest weapons in her considerable arsenal, smothered beneath a heavy, hazy blanket.

Submit.

The word reverberated in her mind as though spoken by a deity. The twin suns flared, bathing Ruth in rosy radiance, even as she balked at the command.

Dr Ruth Ruthless bowed to nobody! She spat in the eyes of enemies and allies alike. She was her own master. A demagogue of humanity. A self-made–

Submit!

The order rattled her ephemeral skull like thunder, almost bringing Ruth to her knees. Except she didn't have knees in that phantasmic state. Still she resisted, bobbing unsteadily on the twisting eddies and flows.

A pair of grinning lips materialized in the heavens, just below the blazing purple stars, creating an eerie Cheshire countenance.

My, my. Your mind is well fortified against incursion. Even without your high-tech doodads. Should have guessed this wouldn’t be easy.

Never! Ruth screamed silently, lacking a voice. She would never go easily.

Oh, and why not? A tendril of mist gently brushed her ghostly cheek, inspiring a tantalizing tremor. There is pleasure to be found in submitting oneself to another entirely. Joy to be had in relinquishing control. You’ve felt some already, was it not to your liking?

Ruth had, and it was–it really, really was, but therein lay the trap…

Really? You expect me to kneel and become a dumb, airheaded tramp for the sake of a few orgasms? She scoffed noiselessly, ignoring the tickle in her nonexistent center. No thanks. I’m not fucking stupid.

Nobody ever called you stupid, dear Doctor. En contraire, my beloved Zay-Zay admires your dizzying intellect and possesses the means to… boost your cognitive ability by orders of magnitude.

You’re misusing that term–

–and that’s why we need you, Ruth. May I call you Ruth? I want us to be the closest of friends. Boon companions. The amethyst suns dimmed in sympathy. I can’t imagine you have many, considering how much smarter you are than everyone else. It must chafe, being constantly surrounded by lesser minds.

The face in the sky was right on the money again, and the disembodied villainess was feeling unaccountably agreeable as more wispy tendrils stroked her ethereal form.

Sometimes. She conceded, acting aloof. It comes with the territory.

A life of genius was plagued by solitude. Her seat atop the mountaintop was, by nature, lonely. Not that Ruth sought the company of her inferiors, with their moronic prattle and snivelling abasement.

She’d never craved the arms of a lover or a shoulder to cry on. Who needed a warm body by their side when the cold light of scientific discovery kept them up at night?

Those long, empty nights in the lab, running on fumes and a grudge against supers. **** to prove a point… but at what cost?

The spectral caresses felt good, a comfort Ruth had never afforded herself despite possessing staggering wealth. Callous ambition rang hollow, and pride eroded under the novelty of a tender touch.

It was confounding, as was the hint of musk tinging the bubblegum haze. That dank odor from before…

You’ve built yourself into a fortress on an island, set apart from the humanity you vaunt. A mighty edifice to be sure, but an isolated one, too. The purple-pink suns blazed anew, foggy tendrils stroking like feathers. You yearn to interact with equals, then battle those who would be your peers. Where’s the logic in that, Ruth? Such actions seem quite contrarian.

That… That’s different… ah! Ruth trembled when a ghostly appendage touched her apex. They’re not… human…

And you are? Think again, good Doctor. Self-deception is below you. Shall we peek behind the veil together?

Wha-what?

Then she was flying again, spinning madly on disparate breezes, reflective of her inner turmoil. The wet towel shrouding her keener faculties stuck fast while the rest of Ruth’s mind whirled at the insinuation.

Her, a powered? Ridiculous…. right?

Not so ridiculous when you consider the facts objectively. The voice answered her unspoken objection. Super-intelligence is more conceptual than, say, flight or invulnerability. Difficult to define and nearly impossible to detect in the manifold ways it can manifest. A mathematical savant isn't necessarily super, but you’re a different kettle of fish entirely.

Ruth didn’t know how cookware or seafood factored into the equation and didn’t like where the discussion was heading.

Her unembodied form was alive with sensation. The cherry mists swaddling her spirit like the softest, fluffiest comforter while stropping her center. Purient pressure gathered there, clamoring for release, and that pervasive musk intensified, the source drawing closer.

Please, you can’t… ohhh! Let me go… I-I can’t handle any more…

We’re almost there, Ruth. You’ve come so far. Done so well. The miles-wide lips spread beatifically, as though smiling at a child. Just a little bit further, and all will be revealed. Don’t you want to learn the truth?

The nefarious redhead wasn’t sure what she wanted, but the truth wasn’t high on her priority pyramid. To escape this cotton candy madness? To cum her goddamn brains out?

She didn’t know anymore.

And we have arrived. Welcome to your subconscious, Ruth. The repository of your darkest desires and hidden secrets. Found it on my first try, yay me!

Ruth took in an aerial view of a meticulously organized warehouse. Towering shelves were lined in countless rows, packed with securely sealed metal crates, ferried by automated droids on rails. The space was huge, vanishing over the horizon in every direction. Even hovering ten stories above, her feet barely cleared the uppermost stacks.

My, you are an orderly sort. Look at this place. The voice mused, coming from beside her. What’s in this one?

A crate hissed open a few feet away, releasing an image of ten-year-old Ruth berating her science teacher for stupidity until the man fled in shame. Smug glee mingled with the magma churning in her core.

The early signs are there, but let’s cut to the chase. Time is short, and he doesn’t like to be kept waiting. Let’s see… Ah, that seems promising.

Before Ruth could question who he was, she was yanked through the facility like a kite on a string, swooping between shelves and dodging robots at terrific speeds, stopping abruptly in front of a building-sized vault door that would have put Fort Knox to shame. Two of her later model ****-o-matic Doombots stood sentry on either side, bristling with high-yield ordinance yet unmoving as the entrance was unbarred in a lengthy sequence of magnetic locks uncoupling.

A surge of dread washed through Ruth as the thirty-ton door swung open. She couldn’t face what awaited within. The awful reality of what she truly was.

Noooo, I-I can’t. Please… haaa! We-we can just fuck. I’m ready. Please don’t make me go in there…

Everyone has to confront their demons eventually, Doctor. Yours aren’t so bad. I mean, you’ve committed heinous crimes against mankind and multiple atrocities, but this? The voice giggled, unconcerned. This is simply a festering wound. You’ll be better once it’s cleansed. Then you can make amends for your misdeeds. Won’t that be nice?

Inside, the vault was empty except for a giant metallic sphere, suspended in heavy chains from the cement ceiling and walls. The surface was polished to a mirror shine, creating a fisheye reflection of Ruth, who was transparent as an apparition.

Here we are. This is where you trap thoughts, feelings, and truths you don’t dare examine. Let’s take a closer look.

A ripple of pink danced across the convex exterior, replacing the ghostly image of Ruth with a memory. Her eight-year-old self sat with her parents in a psychologist’s office.

“Your daughter's scores are off the charts in every conceivable test.” Reported a balding man in a tweed suit. “We cannot assign her an accurate IQ because we have no idea of how far past the standard scale she falls. Mr and Mrs Ruthless, I’d like to refer your daughter to a powered learning facility where she can–”

“A super school? Absolutely not!” Her father interrupted. “My daughter isn’t one of those… freaks. How dare you? Do you know who I am? I should buy this place, then have you fired.”

“Buy… my office?” The psychologist asked, bewildered.

“Our Ruthy is a very special girl. Gifted, definitely, but not a filthy abomination.” Her mother stood indignantly. “We don’t have to listen to this slander. Come on, honey. We’re leaving.”

One thing’s for sure: you didn’t get your smarts from your parents. Their privilege and prejudices, almost certainly, but not their brains. The voice purred as the memory faded.

How did I forget that? Ruth wondered.

Classic repression. You were young, and their opinions warped your outlook. That can’t have been the only time they displayed such intolerance.

The sphere flashed through dozens of moments where her parents expressed anti-super and xenophobic sentiments. More often than not, Ruth’s father, a wealthy industrialist, would air his self-important point of view, which was then supported by her socialite mother.

What else is in here? Hmm… The surface rippled pink again. Weird sex dreams—wow, probably shouldn’t unpack any of that, relationship trauma, buried insecurities, lots of unhealthy urges… um, how about this?

The end of a super battle played on the orb. Sir Swole, in his tight-fitting orange spandex, was banging the three heads of a cerberus cyborg together. A mid-twenties Ruth stood back, watching her latest creation get whalloped while nibbling a fingernail, drinking in the play of the uber-jacked hero’s muscles.

The way his perfect smile caught the sun, the width of his enormous shoulders, the immaculately styled brown hair, the unmistakable bulge down below…

Present-day Ruth didn’t need extra libido fuel. She was already frying.

Oooh, attraction to a hunky super! We’ve all been there, sister. But it’s different for you. There’s shame and guilt attached to this memory. Pity, Swole’s a really chill guy after a beer or three. Cooks a mean barbecue, too.

“You’re headed for the slammer, Ruthless. And I don’t mean these fists.” The strapping super declared, slapping cuffs on younger Ruth’s wrists. “Justice prevails!”

“Unhand me, you pinheaded mook!”

She had trembled with excitement when he manhandled her into a police transport.

She was trembling again now. Overheating.

The musk–that perplexing perfume was everywhere now. Cloying at Ruth’s olfactory and getting under her insubstantial skin.

What’s the point of this torment? She wailed soundlessly. You haven’t proven anything. End this farce already!

Just one more and we’re done. It’ll have to be a quickie. Zane’s growing impatient.

Who—?

The scene that appeared was a recent memory. Very recent, in fact. Ruth stood in the LoL HQ, being buffeted by panty-melting waves of cosmic radiation while a hulking beefcake skullfucked Kinetica into a boneless puddle.

Even here, echoes of the pulsating energy pushed the mad scientist to the edge.

There, you can see it! My man’s enhancer ability isn’t visible to, nor does it affect, non-powereds. Use that big brain of yours, Doctor. Connect the dots. This view is from your own two eyes. You can’t deny seeing the power! You’re a super!

Of course, she could see it. Ruth had personally hunted down every contaminated scrap and chunk of wreckage from the previous year’s interdimensional incursion, smelting and refining the base materials to create her ultimate catalyst.

It had been easy. The municipal clean-up crews didn’t recognize the treasure they were shoveling into dump trucks. They hadn’t seen the tell-tale yellow shine…

Wait… Oh god. No, it couldn’t be true!

The massive sphere thrummed pink one last time, rattling the chains that suspended it. Two blazing, captivating amethyst eyes and a plump pair of lips grinned victoriously at Ruth.

Bingo!

Then the orb exploded.

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