Once upon a time, there was one, and then there was another. The one was gone, and the other awakened. All that she recalled were the scattering white bubbles in an infinite sea of black, and a feeling of being stamped into the fabric of reality. When the bubbles flittered away, she tried to open her eyes. Once, twice, and on the third time, her eyelids obeyed her command and remained open.
The creature that appeared in those first two blinks was real, and with it came the rush of consciousness. Her heart started pounding. Within her, somewhere, was this feeling that there was something very strange about the one who stood before her, but she could not justify her apprehension, for she had nothing upon which to base things. The mind caught up with the animal hind brain, and instinct gave way to reflection. She reflected, but nothing was staring back in the mirror.
The monster offered a hand, and she took it, not knowing why.
Heat filled the air. There was fire. There was an open sky above, blotted out by the smoke. People moved about, confused. Some tried to put out the fire, but all were in a panic.
“It took longer than I remember. Welcome back to us, Darling.”
The strange creature smiled. He looked like something that she could not remember. Darling? Was that her name? Or was this her husband? Husband...there was a strange word.
“There is much confusion, I know, but there is little time. We must get you to the safehouse. It survived the fire and the explosion. You did not. Your memories are all gone. Cursed necromancer! A cruel game is played upon us all! But we must hurry. All was planned, and nearly all was lost. Come. To the safehouse. We must remind you of who you once were.”
Darling stood carefully. She looked at herself, clad in a torn suit that hugged her body and gave minimal coverage to most of the parts that should have been covered. “What's going on? Who are you?”
“I'm the Button Man. I press the buttons. My eyes are made of buttons. I can even sew buttons. You may call me Buttons.” Buttons took Darling by the hand. “I am not as important as you right now. I survived the attack because of this doll-like body, but you died in the blast. I shall explain as we go.”
He pulled at her, and she started off, a little slow, but she quickly matched his pace, and found that she was not as weary as she had first felt.
“You say I died? What do you mean?”
“Oh, it's not so bad as that. You died, yes, but ever since that cursed necromancer made us all immortal, things have been a mess. Curse this, curse that, but ah, what does it matter? The necromancer's spell will force us to live on, again and again.”
Darling felt herself outpacing the Button Man. “That doesn't sound bad. We're not zombies, are we?”
“Non, non! Of course not! Mutants, we are, all mutants. Just a handful of us, all born different than other humans. Do you remember comic books? No, probably not. Short version. We all got together, trying to do a little good so the world wouldn't turn on us. Worked great, until the necromancer. Three generations under that curse now. Ah, here. Use your palm print. May as well get a fresh scan.”
Darling hesitated. “Like this?” Gently, she pressed her palm into a glass panel. A door swooshed open. They stepped in, and the door shut behind them. They were no longer in the open, in the midst of the fiery debris and the rushing faces outside.
Buttons started forward. There were steel walls in this room, and a corridor that sloped downward, moving underground.
“You took the blast for me. Probably thought you would survive, but that was one of Slanter's weapons. Ripped you apart from the inside. He made a bold move, trying to get all of us. That's why we have to hurry. I believe he may have succeeded elsewhere. We only have three locations, and if all the safehouses are compromised, our memory database will be gone forever.”
Darling followed Buttons down the corridor. As the darkness grew, she noticed a faint light on the edge of her vision. Nothing struck her as strange about this.
However, Buttons said, “You should be able to see in this darkness. One of your mutations. I cannot see where there is no light, though I know the way, being that this is a perfectly straight hall. You were born able to see in the dark. None of this is helping, of course. I will try to put it simply.”
They walked on, and Buttons relayed the story.
“I was there when the necromancer cursed us all. We tried to put an end to an old, old evil, and were cursed with this existence. We cannot die, but returning to life costs us most of our memories. Lucky, I suppose, that we remember how to speak, vague shapes of things, and most of what we could do by instinct. But you probably can't recall your name, your past, your friends and family...unless I'm wrong. I would love to be wrong. You can't, can you?”
Darling shook her head, then realized she could not be seen. She said, “No.”
“That's a pity. Well, all shall be made clear. You have an extensive file that I must insist you study. The thing is, it's a big problem for one of us to forget. We forget who we were. And when we're dealing with a person like you, who can bend iron between thumb and forefinger, it's important to understand our past. There are those who would steal you away and try to convince you that you were someone else. Worse still, there are those who vanish, and return a different person entirely, following some accident. We can't afford another Slanter. He was one of the good ones, you know.”
Darling tried to organize these thoughts in her head. It was slow going, not having any reference. She understood the sense of urgency in this Buttons character, but for her it was like she had just woken up from a nap. Everything was...fine. The thought that she had been an entire person with a long history did not leave her with a sense of sadness or loss. She was just here, now, wondering at the world she had awakened to.
“Then I was a good person? Is that what you're saying?”
Buttons did a little hop-step. “You saved my life, and before that, countless others. All in the files, as you'll see. We're a giant organization of do-gooders. You're a bit of a leader around here, and I'm hoping you'll continue to see it that way. Ours was the last headquarters to be attacked. We may be looking at three generations of personality wiped out by one strike. As it stands, I was the only survivor here. I am the only one with my memories intact. Amazing luck. I'm a first generation, you know? Never once died. I don't even know that I can die like the rest of you, but we nearly found out. Here's the door. If you would?”
Darling stared at the hand scanner. Something about the hurriedness of this situation had her wondering. The Button Man was eager to get to these files, and for what sounded like a sensible reason. But he was there, waiting, with his hand outstretched, and he knew everything that she could not possibly know. This story had to be true, right? How else could she explain not knowing anything.
Yet she doubted.
“If you're one of us, why do you need me to open the doors?”
The Button Man blinked at her in the darkness. He was actually staring right past her, probably not knowing exactly where she was standing. This question did not seem to surprise him. He held up his hands.
“Blackened and burned like my cottony body is prone to do near a flame. To be completely honest, I wasn't sure how long it would take for you to come back. I considered trying to cut off one of your hands to get to the archives and start backing everything up, but I would need a diamond saw and a lot more muscle to cut through your skin. Another mutation of yours. Very thick skinned.”
Darling noted the burns and said, “That's fair I guess. You can't blame me if I don't trust you, given the circumstances.”
“Yes.” said Buttons. “It's a big problem, more often than you think. The memory issue has interesting side-effects. One of our boys threw himself onto a grenade to save people six times in one day. Most memory wipes ever in such a short period. Come to think of it, first time that anyone had their memory wiped more than once in a single day, unless we count Slanter's torture chamber.”
Buttons shivered at the thought. “But please. We must hurry. You will find your trust well placed once you see the archives.”
Darling placed her hand on the panel, and another door whooshed open. They passed into a room lit up by bright tubes above. There were bulky systems in place, and machines that Darling felt familiar with, but could not place in her vocabulary. She followed the hopping creature to a large screen, and noted for the first time that he was not at all her height. She'd been stooping at first, being dragged along. He was actually two heads shorter than herself, wiry limbed and sporting a dress coat made of the same yarn material that comprised the rest of his body. His button eyes conveyed no emotion, but his mouth was filled with eerie movements when he spoke, like a shark that had a few extra sets of facial muscles to contract and distort. Although Darling was in no position currently to recognize Buttons as resembling a cloth puppet, she knew he was not at all something normal to behold.
He tapped away at something on the desk, and the big screen before them displayed a few images. There were many faces staring back at them. Some were very human, and others had little traits that stood out, such as glowing eyes, fiery hair, and even one or two with heads like animals. Again, to Darling, they were all mere faces, differences not being noteworthy, for as yet she had not seen many people by which to set examples.
“Here we are. Secondary backup for the life and times of one Darling Falcon.”
Darling stared at the screen. There were many pictures. Most were of a little girl that she assumed to be herself. Some were images of an older man and woman, sharing the photo with the child. Birthday parties? Oh, that was when a person lived to be...another year older.
Years. Time. Darling understood those things, but the concepts felt weird for a fully formed adult with no past. And here she was looking at images and written records of a woman that was not her, but had been her at one time. There were newspaper clippings that showed her in a less torn outfit, brawling with insect creatures with six limbs. Here she stood with about four others, all posed for the camera in a way that made Darling smirk in disapproval. She wouldn't do something so lame, would she? But she had. There it was, right in front of her. From everything she was seeing, just at a glance, she had been some kind of hero. That wasn't bad, but...
“Is...this what I have to do?”
The Button Man sighed. “Of course not. That's the sad part about it. We try to keep it going. Keep the gang together. But sometimes, after someone dies and comes back, they simply aren't interested. And it can be bad, bad, bad for someone to try and force it.”
Buttons turned what he must have thought was a serious face to Darling. Darling tried not to laugh. It was gruesome, in a way, how he stared without staring. Those big, brown, button eyes were deader than she must have been moments ago.
“I would hope you could see to giving it a try, though. Especially given the circumstances. You might be the only one who made it here. We need to remind you who you were, and help get the others back. If this was the work of Slanter, he may be trying for a clean slate. Total mutant wipeout. I don't think it's coincidence that all three of our headquarters were attacked within moments. Slanter could very well be coming for the rest of us as we speak. We're pretty safe for now, but he could show up personally, and that would not be good at all. I'm afraid that the two of use are no match for his weapons. I'm merely the archivist, after all. Not much my cloth body can do besides unravel a bit. Great for retrieving keys from a sewer grate, but useless against machines of death. And your skin isn't thick enough to take Slanter head-on.”
Darling turned back to the screen. “Then it's all here? My history, I mean?”
“Everything added by both you personally and accounts from others that were added with your approval.”
“Then you wouldn't object if I had a look at your history, would you? It would help me trust you, since you have a really hard face to read.”
Buttons paused visibly. He considered the question, though if it had taken him off guard, Darling couldn't be sure.
“Most do not like their history to be unraveled like so much thread. Given the circumstances, though, I could hardly say no, could I? Anything, to get things back on track.”
The doll of a man hit a few keys on the panel in front of them, and his own frozen features popped onto the giant screen, along with dozens of little menus. All was there, from his measurements to his age (178?) to his acknowledgments, achievements, history of his own meritorious deeds, and lengthy passages about his work as the Lion's Den Archivist.
“Lion's Den?”
“Our very lame name, as you often commented on. But we are a den of lions, are we not? For only Slanter ever dared trouble us.”
“I wouldn't bother reading any of that. True or not, there's nothing that can be trusted.”
Darling slowly turned, but she noticed that Buttons did not.
If Darling had been possessed of a capacity, in that moment, to assess the differences between people, she would have noted the blazing white hair, the penetrating eyes, and the set jaw that made this man seem like a steam press. He stood taller than Darling, who herself was no short cupcake. Whereas her mutations gave her body a powerful tone and a predilection for athleticism, this monument before her was a bulking mass of intertwining muscle. Every breath he took made his shoulders heave in ways that could stamp sheet metal. All of this was visible, too, for his uniform was of the same hugging material as of Darling's own.
Since he could have been the average pedestrian as far as Darling knew, she asked, “Who are you?”
“That,” said Buttons, as he slowly turned in his chair to face this overbearing presence, “is the man they know as Green Mountain.”
Darling wrinkled her nose. “Is he this Slanter you keep talking about?”
“No.” Buttons slid from his chair. “He is one of us. The ultimate mutant. Invincible. Unstoppable. Able to heat and cool his own body to intense temperatures. This is Exeter Barnes.”
In a passing moment of silence, They both heard Exeter's finger muscles snap as he clenched his fists. Within his cold eyes there burned a rage that even Darling could recognize. She cautiously stood before Buttons, wondering what she could to if this was going to be a fight.
“Lendan the Button Man. A total innocent. At the head of all our archives and charged with keeping the history of the immortal mutants. All this time, you were the one who betrayed us.”
Darling blinked. She turned, and saw Buttons standing with his head lowered. But when he looked up, he had that shark's smile, staring at Exeter with those dead, button eyes.
“All true, I'm afraid, mountain man. And not a bad job of it.”
Darling stepped away. “Then you were using me. But what's...I mean, what's going on? I don't know anything!”
Buttons paced along the console, wiping away some dust and scrutinizing it diligently. How he saw with those creepy eyes was anyone's guess. “What I said was largely true. Exeter will confirm it. The necromancer who cursed us. Our memory loss each time we die. The Lion's Den. The archive. But, alas, there was a lie. And what is that?”
He directed his question to Exeter with a slow twisting of his doll-like head. Exeter sneered, disgusted at the creature before him.
“It's a pity I can't kill you, Lendan. I've never killed anyone before, but if I could end your life permanently, I would do so right now. We all thought it was Slanter. You sent me to save everyone at Building Two. Building One fell when I arrived. And you must have thought I wouldn't suspect anything when everyone died. But I didn't come back here right away. I went to see Slanter. I was ready to put a stop to everything, and when I got there...”
Buttons smiled. “You found that Slanter's own headquarters was utterly demolished.”
Lendan Buttons, profoundly unconcerned with his position, stared at the place on his hands where there might have been fingernails, if his skin wasn't just a mottled collection of yarn. “You must have struggled with that reality for a moment. To be honest, I expected you sooner. I had a survivor, though, so I had to make sure the job was finished.”
Exeter shouted. “And for what!? What is it that you were hoping to accomplish by destroying the archives and resetting everyone's lives? You built the archive! It was all your planning that kept things going the way they did! I have spent every second of my flight from Slanter's trying to figure out just what the hell you have to gain from all of this, and there's nothing. None have ever slighted you. None have ever harmed you. You lack our power, and we have spent decades protecting you from the fate all of us have shared at least once, and some of us a dozen times! What is it? Resentment? A little man born so different, but without the power he sees in everyone around him? I cannot fathom it! What could you possibly have wanted that we would not have granted you in exchange for building the archive?”
It seemed to Darling that Buttons, or Lendan, or whoever he was, was looking at her momentarily before he answered.
“Non non, dearest Exeter. Nothing so petty as that. Oh, nothing so petty as that!”
Buttons slapped a clipboard from the desk and leaned one arm back, breathing heavily. There was no way to tell for sure what emotion played in the little doll's head. His button eyes did not change. But there was obvious anger in every expression on his face that he could shift, and somehow his anger was more frightening than that of the giant Exeter. Darling found it unsettling that the little Button Man could contort his arms over the desk and hunch in such a boneless fashion. His expression was becoming more vicious by the second.
“You see, it had built within me for some time, for there are only two of us here that remember the very distant past. Isn't that right, Exeter? Over a century of you playing at good guy, and what an enviable hero. I don't deny it. You, above anyone else, are the embodiment of a hero. Jealous? I am proud of you, and I would have tried so very hard to consider you a brother, after everything we've been through. But no! It festered in my heart for some time. I tried, stopping myself time after time when I finally thought I could take it no more. I would tell myself that things were in the past, that...”
He was rambling. Darling raised a hand, and the Button Man's expression softened.
“What,” asked Darling, “are you talking about? What can't you forgive?”
Buttons nodded, composing himself. “I'm talking about the grave sin of the first generation. I'm talking about Slanter.”
Darling felt a shift in attitude from the man known as Green Mountain. She was standing between the two angry men, unsure of what role she played in all of this. Exeter's expression had frozen, only for a second, when Buttons had finally explained himself.
At least, he seemed to have explained himself to Exeter. Darling was still in Whatnowsville.
“What could Slanter have to do with any of this?” Exeter asked. However, he seemed a little less certain of himself. He eyed Buttons with a deep suspicion...and possibly just a hint of worry.”
“Yes, I wouldn't expect you to remember what happened. I told you what happened. I brought it up decade after decade, and gave you every opportunity to fix things. And every time, the first generation took a vote, and all decided that it was too dangerous. That we had let Slanter build his defenses for too long. Slanter was unstoppable. I, and I alone, still remember the first death. I remember when Slanter fell, saving the world with his brilliant inventions. Even you, Exeter, have never saved the world from a disaster of that scale! The whole world shook the day that meteor passed us by, and it was he who diverted it! It was he who did what none of us could! Alien invasion? Hah! I would have fought that battle myself, compared to living through the terror of the sky melting chunk of rock that should have destroyed everything, and left our immortal bodies hurtling through space for all time! And you, and that whole first generation...”
Buttons would be gritting his teeth with that hateful smile, had he teeth that weren't so clothy in nature. “We could have talked him in to coming back. We could even have gone with the last option and killed him. Sure, it would be a sacrifice, and we would lose a lot of our own memories in the process, but he deserved to be saved! Oh, how it burned my heart, so see everyone turned against him, the greatest of us! And yet it took so long for that fire to finally die off into the cold blackness that has filled me for ages. But I had the same power everyone else had! I had time. I, as the only one of us who has never died, had all the keys to unlock the path that has led us here. I infiltrated Slanter's world. I gave him everything he thought he wanted. He believed I would allow him to destroy us. He believed that I was handing him the world! Oh, yes. I even deceived that great man to complete my plan. I sabotaged my ally and destroyed him, finally doing what nobody else would do. And I was never going to allow all of you to imprison him for his crimes. So I did what needed to be done. I erased everything. The archives reside here, and here alone. All the memories of our time from the first generation. And now, only the three of us that remember.”
Exeter took several steps forward. “And what did you think that would solve? You would still have me to deal with. And my memory is almost as old as yours. Is that what you were after? Salvation for Slanter? Is that what you want from me? A promise that he will be allowed to choose his path again? As much as I would hate to reward you for this deception, I can leave Slanter alone. But you will face justice for this crime.”
Buttons laughed, and his noodle arms slapped the keyboard on the desk. A blue light flashed overhead, and suddenly, Exeter clutched his head and fell to the ground, groaning. Darling shrieked and stepped back, thinking the man might roll right over her, but he just knelt, intense pain covering his face.
“You have sorely misjudged me, Exeter. Do you think that I could go on with what I have done? Knowing all the friends that I have betrayed since I first decided on my course? Not a chance! My mind was made up in all of this. I could have killed myself at any time and never dealt with the torture of what was done to our arch-nemesis! But all the time, Exeter. All the time. It just keeps going, and I keep watching you all like children. Perhaps time has driven me mad. Perhaps that's just me. I intend to find out what sort of man I am, no longer burdened by our original sin. And every one of you will join me. My long life was the one power even greater than yours, Exeter. Before he died, Slanter entrusted me with a secret. He told me of a light that could counter your great strength. And with this, there is nothing to stop me.”
Darling gasped. “You mean you'll erase everything? Who we are? Every single one of us won't remember?”
“The world will remember, Darling. But it will be a new age, and one which might look very different. What if Exeter becomes a monster? What if Linerunner returned to the life of a hero? What if the Human Skeleton becomes the greatest hero of all? Ah, that would be amusing, for sure! Do you have any idea how hard it was to ensure everyone died? Even those who left the Lion's Den? So aptly named, that I lived within these walls, among the Lions all this time, plotting for this day. Ah, but I named the place, didn't I? I must have always known where this would go. But no! Darling Falcon, you were so innocent in all of this. I just don't have the cold heart that I claim. I have safely hidden a cache of data with several of my non-mutant contacts. You are the one person whose past I could not rob. They will find you after the dust settles, and they have instructions to show you everything that you once were, thought they will not be able to tell you much about the rest of us. Haha! I can't believe everyone bought into that secret identity nonsense!”
“...Darling...”
Exeter had finally managed to gather his voice. It was weak, and he was shaking under the light. Darling was about to attack the flashing panels, but she had a feeling that it wouldn't be quick enough. Somehow, she had worked it out, and she realized why she had been brought to this place after all.
“Darling...stop him...”
“I...can't. He brought both of us here to make sure he didn't miss.”
Exeter lifted his head, barely able to stare into that mad grimace on the face of his enemy. “You couldn't possibly destroy the whole archive. Even with...even...with...one of Slanter's...”
But the smile on the doll face of Buttons said it all.
“Exeter. Dear Exeter. I built this place. I don't need Slanter's help for the finale.”
Buttons raised his hand. It held a tiny box with a little red button. His thumb hovered over the button ominously. Darling leapt, but it was too late. He was doll-like and stringy, and didn't have the incredible powers of his fellow mutants, but he was more than fast enough to cross the finish line first.
“After all, I'm the Button Man. I know everything there is to know about buttons.”
He pressed the button, and changed the world.