Despite what I’d asked him before, budding off a clone of yourself seed quite alien and I hadn’t seen it coming. From Tara’s high-pitched, “Oooh, I wondered,” I knew that at least one of us hadn’t been completely surprised.
I looked toward the cockpit where she sat, leaning forward in her chair and smiling at us, “I only guessed after you brought him inside.”
Master Martian raised an eyebrow at her but turned back to look at the rest of us, “As I said, it’s an odd story. I appeared on Earth as part of an accident. I’d retrieved at Abominator device as part of an excavation on behalf of my city-state, but then it activated and I appeared here.”
“Abominator device,” I asked. “And what do you an by ‘here’? Where did you co from?”
He frowned and his antenna drooped, “I called myself Master Martian for a reason. I co from Mars.”
Stopping and taking a deep breath, he continued, “But not your Mars. Another Mars. I don’t know where it is any more or how to get back. There was an Abominator device attached to a big, black, and silver disc. That’s what sent here but I haven’t seen another.”
“Oh,” I said. We had one of those—not the Abominator part, but the silver and black disc? We had one in our base. The League picked it up sowhere and they didn’t have the only one. I knew there were others out there. Grandpa’s docuntation had been better on technical than historical details. They probably didn’t know where it ca from originally either.
Master Martian looked around the jet.
Everyone wore the sa frozen, blank expression— too—except mine was hidden beneath my helt. They knew we had one too.
Smiling, Daniel said, “You co from Mars in another universe where they also had Abominators. Were you were so sort of archeologist?”
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The alien’s antenna rotated around, pointing at each of us in turn before he responded, “You could call that, but that’s not quite how we thought of it. I was more of a specialist in finding out information, much like I am now, but that sotis included finding things—especially the Abominators’ things. Much like those of you here, we were modified by them too. That’s how we ca to live on Mars. We’re descended from humans that they planted there when they terraford the planet.”
That reminded again of the Mars Abominator settlent that I’d heard Victor ntion to Rook more than a year ago now. This added another level to that and one that wasn’t our first priority to explore.
“That’s pretty cool,” Vaughn grinned at him. “So what happened? You appeared on Earth and then what?”
Master Martian let out a breath, “I got caught—not right away but later. In the 1930s I was trying to hide in Chicago. It was a big city, lots of people, and if I only went out at night, the green skin wasn’t so visible. Except, I knew soone was following . I felt minds telepathically, but just on the edge of my range. These guys were good. They knew how to watch and still keep out of my way.
“One night I was walking to my hideout (an apartnt the owner didn’t even know he was renting), when a bunch of guys found in an alley. They looked like the guys you fought back there plus a few that didn’t look quite so big. I didn’t have ti to do much against them. They dropped from the sky just like they did when you picked up. Then one of them told to surrender and I did. I didn’t even think about it. There was sothing about her voice. I wanted to obey. I don’t know how they found or why they wanted , but they kept for a while. They used to do so robberies and then one day they left alone long enough that my head beca clear. I teleported out to the street and ran away. After that, I left Chicago and didn’t stay anywhere for more than two nights for a long ti.”
Yoselin leaned in as he talked and the second he stopped, she asked, “You said that a woman stopped you with her voice. Do you rember anything about her?”
He started laughing, his arms shaking the goo cuffs on his hands and feet. “Rember her? Of course, I rember her. She’s the one that killed —that body at least. She went after two different tis with a bow and arrow before she finally killed while I was fighting Armory and Bullet. I left my body just as she started the cover-up—when she told them to forget who shot .”
Nodding, Yoselin asked, “Do you rember anything else? Any places you rember? Addresses? Any nas?”
Master Martian frowned, “One na. It was an older man and I think he was leading the group., I think his na was Martin Magnus.”
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