Part One: Superluminal
Light has some curious properties. One of these, perhaps the most difficult to wrap common sense around, is that it moves at the same speed - over one hundred eighty-six thousand miles a second - relative to anything in the universe. That means that you can't buy time running away from a beam of light; if it's strong enough not to disperse and is fired at you with a clear line of sight from a hundred eighty-six thousand miles away, you've got a second to get out of the way, whether you're standing still or running away from it at nine tenths the speed of light. Yeah, I don't quite get it, either.
The upshot of that is that, when a device designed to send out a lethal pulse of light goes off a few yards away, you've got a couple nanoseconds to get out of the way, at best. Unless you can get far enough away for the light to dissipate in the same amount of time. Adding to the fun, you wouldn't be able to see it going off until it was too late.
From what I'd been able to gather about the pulse generator, the light-speed energy it sent out dispersed to harmlessness within a half dozen microseconds - so it's not just a very bright flash until you're a mile away. Close than that, its effect ranged from rending matter at a molecular level to a knee-rattling shock wave. Human would probably need to be somewhere between a quarter mile and half a mile away before he'd be likely to survive it. Farther, to get away without some serious hurting.
All that, or a basic sense of it, went through my mind as I ran on, holding the pulse generator in my arms. First order of business was to get somewhere unpopulated. That meant I had to get out of the city, and as fast as I was going the easiest way to do that was to take the river. Water splashed up, seeming to arc behind me in slow motion as I took flight across the surface. I didn't know how long I had before the thing overloaded, and I sure wasn't going to assume I had more than a few seconds.
By the time I got to open water, the generator was shaking in my hands. When I'm moving that fast everything else seems to slow to a crawl, so I knew that the fact that it didn't feel like it was gently shifting back and forth was a bad sign. After a couple miles of passing nothing but water and fish, I flipped the thing over my shoulder. As it went, I saw the little metal disks covering the pulse lenses glowing with the energy that was pounding against them. It was blowing, and I was too damn close. The pulse generator was designed to send its blast in all directions, so there was no way for me to dodge it. I needed distance.
I don't know how fast I was going at that point. At a guess, looking back, I'd say I was reaching speeds where special relativity's time dilation would be noticeable - in other words, damned fast. As I somehow managed to gain purchase on the gentle waves under my feet, to push for more speed, I knew that however fast I was going wasn't fast enough. I might get far enough to be safe from molecular disintegration, but if that pulse so much as made me stumble, I'd be dunked. I can swim well enough, but I was at a point where I knew I'd want to pass out the moment I stopped running. Davy Jones' locker for me, if that happened.
I pushed harder than I ever have. Surface tension meant that the water under my feet at that speed may as well have been solid ground. The friction of the air against my pumping arms and legs started to tear at the Spectra weave of my costume, despite the aura that protects my skin. The static sparks that were forming grew in size and intensity. I was bathed in the light of a hundred miniature lightning bolts when I suddenly realized that, even if I wanted to, I couldn't slow down. Everything changed colors, both from the blue shift and from the lenses on my mask shattering from the strain. I think I was screaming, but I couldn't hear anything over the roar of the wind as it ripped the ear pieces away.
Then everything went white.
Light has some curious properties. One of these, perhaps the most difficult to wrap common sense around, is that it moves at the same speed - over one hundred eighty-six thousand miles a second - relative to anything in the universe. That means that you can't buy time running away from a beam of light; if it's strong enough not to disperse and is fired at you with a clear line of sight from a hundred eighty-six thousand miles away, you've got a second to get out of the way, whether you're standing still or running away from it at nine tenths the speed of light. Yeah, I don't quite get it, either.
The upshot of that is that, when a device designed to send out a lethal pulse of light goes off a few yards away, you've got a couple nanoseconds to get out of the way, at best. Unless you can get far enough away for the light to dissipate in the same amount of time. Adding to the fun, you wouldn't be able to see it going off until it was too late.
From what I'd been able to gather about the pulse generator, the light-speed energy it sent out dispersed to harmlessness within a half dozen microseconds - so it's not just a very bright flash until you're a mile away. Close than that, its effect ranged from rending matter at a molecular level to a knee-rattling shock wave. Human would probably need to be somewhere between a quarter mile and half a mile away before he'd be likely to survive it. Farther, to get away without some serious hurting.
All that, or a basic sense of it, went through my mind as I ran on, holding the pulse generator in my arms. First order of business was to get somewhere unpopulated. That meant I had to get out of the city, and as fast as I was going the easiest way to do that was to take the river. Water splashed up, seeming to arc behind me in slow motion as I took flight across the surface. I didn't know how long I had before the thing overloaded, and I sure wasn't going to assume I had more than a few seconds.
By the time I got to open water, the generator was shaking in my hands. When I'm moving that fast everything else seems to slow to a crawl, so I knew that the fact that it didn't feel like it was gently shifting back and forth was a bad sign. After a couple miles of passing nothing but water and fish, I flipped the thing over my shoulder. As it went, I saw the little metal disks covering the pulse lenses glowing with the energy that was pounding against them. It was blowing, and I was too damn close. The pulse generator was designed to send its blast in all directions, so there was no way for me to dodge it. I needed distance.
I don't know how fast I was going at that point. At a guess, looking back, I'd say I was reaching speeds where special relativity's time dilation would be noticeable - in other words, damned fast. As I somehow managed to gain purchase on the gentle waves under my feet, to push for more speed, I knew that however fast I was going wasn't fast enough. I might get far enough to be safe from molecular disintegration, but if that pulse so much as made me stumble, I'd be dunked. I can swim well enough, but I was at a point where I knew I'd want to pass out the moment I stopped running. Davy Jones' locker for me, if that happened.
I pushed harder than I ever have. Surface tension meant that the water under my feet at that speed may as well have been solid ground. The friction of the air against my pumping arms and legs started to tear at the Spectra weave of my costume, despite the aura that protects my skin. The static sparks that were forming grew in size and intensity. I was bathed in the light of a hundred miniature lightning bolts when I suddenly realized that, even if I wanted to, I couldn't slow down. Everything changed colors, both from the blue shift and from the lenses on my mask shattering from the strain. I think I was screaming, but I couldn't hear anything over the roar of the wind as it ripped the ear pieces away.
Then everything went white.