"What do you want, U.S. Amy?"
Amy opened her eyes. She had no idea how much time had passed.
She was in a giant chamber, larger than a major sports arena, with its red-tinted ceiling high above her and the walls so far off to the distance they could be considered the horizon. All around her were glowing golden pyramids, each one about the size of a two-story house.
Madam Corruption stood before Amy with her arms crossed.
"What do you want, U.S. Amy?" she said.
Amy had been laid back on a black metal slab, prepped up at 45 degrees to ground floor. Her arms and legs were still bent out of shape, bruised and purple from her fight on the sub.
"What do you want, U.S. Amy?" Corruption asked again.
Amy, despite her mangled limbs, decided to fly right at Corruption, but was held in place, unable to move below her neck.
"The neuro-tose field ensures that you cannot attack me," Corruption said. "This is the last of my power keeping you in place, you know. You and your friends did quite a number on the Temple's oceanic factory."
Amy started to say, "You mean your submarine?" but her words came out garbled and guttural.
"Your jaw is broken, remember?" Corruption said with a slight smile. "But you don't need to speak out loud to communicate with the Temple. The Temple is within you and all around you, all at once."
Corruption held up both hands, gesturing to the golden pyramids all around them.
"See this?" he said. "This is the Temple's neural network. These devices are tied into the minds of all humanity. The neural network taps into you all, all at once. This is how the Temple understands humanity. It's all here, all of humanity's fears, flaws, and desires. The desires are of particular interest. So tell me, U.S. Amy, what do you want?"
Although Amy's broken jaw did not move, she heard her own voice echoing throughout the chamber.
"I want to be a superhero, and for that to be my career."
Corruption closed her eyes, inhaled a deep breath, and smiled.
"There," she said. "Do you hear the sinfulness in your voice? Thinking of yourself as you profess to think of others?"
Amy concentrated, trying to force her jaw and tongue into forming words. But they wouldn't. At the same time, her own voice boomed around her. "If I have these powers, why not make a profit from them?"
"That's right," Corruption said. "We're inside your mind. We're inside everybody's minds."
Amy gave her an angry glare.
"We won't be repeating that thought out loud," Corruption said. "Perhaps we should discuss matters in a more natural way."
She turned to the side and appeared to speak to no one. "Bring forth that which does not belong."
Two red-robed Temple agents wheeled forward a body under a sheet on a modified gurney. They pulled it up to Amy. Corruption pulled back part of the sheet and pulled out a delicate female hand, pressing it up against Amy's broken forearm.
Amy felt comforted, as warmth wrapped around her, followed by a slight euphoric dizziness. It faded as soon as it came over her. She could move her mouth and she saw her arms and legs return to their normal shapes and colors.
"That's Future Girl under there," Amy said. "Is she dead?"
"Of course not. Like you, she has a role to play in in the Temple's greatest of all accomplishments.
Corruption pulled back the sheet to reveal Future Girl lying there, looking unnaturally peaceful.
"This technology of hers really something. According to pure logic, it shouldn't exist." She held Future Girl's right hand to hers. She pressed her thumb against her palm, but nothing happened. "This device is unpredictable. The Temple doesn't like unpredictable."
Amy tried to fly right at him to protect Future Girl, but she still couldn't move her body below her neck.
"The neuro-tose field is keeping you nice and still," Corruption said. "Can't have you smashing up the museum like you did our holy vessel beneath the sea."
"Careful with that thing in her hand," Amy said. "If it's destroyed..."
"All of reality goes with it. Yes, wondrous."
"That's part of the Temple's big secret, isn't it? End of the world stuff?"
"Child, do you really think I'm going to stand here in front of you at this moment so close to the end, as if I am some cliché antagonist in one of your silly superhero comic book playacting games."
"I already know the Temple's whole deal," Amy said. "You've got a neural network tied into the minds of everyone on the planet. After seeing what's in everyone's brains over the centuries, you've judged us all as sinners based on whatever criteria you've got. Then, over the last few decades or so, you've manufactured miniature suns – in total defiance of all known science, as Future Girl here likes to point out – and you're going to use these suns to kill everyone, including yourselves, but you don't care because you think your place in the afterlife is assured.
Corruption glared at her with a killer poker face.
"Okay, okay," Amy said. "We still haven't figured out everything, like why you killed Sam's, I mean Dreamsmith's friend Dr. Friday, or why you blew up the English museum."
"British Museum."
"Or why you went through all the trouble of offering me a Hollywood deal to mess with me. Or go through all the trouble of running Mirai Academy if you're just going to blow them up?"
"Mirai was all about recruiting future Temple agents. My assignment was to recruit, so I did. As for Dr. Jack Friday, he got too close. No one was supposed to see our solar system interior sun tests, but he did. Then he talked. It had to be done."
"And you attacked the British Museum. Why?"
"An anomaly. He whose mind can transform all things had emerged upon Friday's removal. He had to be drawn out."
"He who... you mean Dreamsmith? That night on the roof of the museum was just you jerks leading him into a trap?"
"A test. We had to see what he was capable of."
"Poor Sam. He was so brave that night." Amy shook her head. "What about Proscenium? You kept messing with him, and then you killed his sidekick."
"That... creature... represented an unknown. The Temple tolerated its existence since it rarely explored outside Theater City. Once we sensed its variables would soon change, however, the Temple had to step in and test the creature. Once it was determined the creature was a sinner, it had to be eliminated before it became a threat to the Temple."
"Do you mean Proscenium or Curtain?"
"Two parts of the same creature."
"You just let him fight crime in Theater City – as much as you think you could let him – until some variable changed? Do you know how crazy you sound?"
Corruption was about to say something but then shut her mouth and shot a knowing smirk at Amy.
"Me?" Amy said. "I'm the variable?"
"Not you specifically, you self-centered little brat. I'm talking about superheroes."
"Huh?"
"The Temple's neural network has access to almost all linking minds," he said, motioning to the golden glowing pyramids all around them. "The Temple has studied human behavior for as long as there have been humans. Humans have proven themselves predictable over time. Mostly."
"Mostly?"
"You and your kind. You so-called superheroes. Your actions are odd. Erratic. Difficult to predict, even for the Temple."
"Because we're the good guys?"
"Because the Temple cannot complete its great work until all things can be explained. But you cannot be explained."
# # # #
Next: Granted an audience.