Wonder Pt. 1

August 21, 2010 -  Washington, DC

The Wonder Dome

17:19:18

“Feeling better now?” Diana asked over her shoulder from the pilot’s seat as Connor sat ramrod straight in his passenger seat. His face was pale and a little green around the edges as he clutched his suitcase to his chest in a death grip. His eyes stared straight ahead out the window as they descended beneath the cloud layer.

“...I’m fine.” Connor answered through his teeth.

For a beat there was only the slightest hum of the whisper quiet engines and the slight clacking of the yoke in Diana’s hands as she angled them downward.

“It can be disorienting for people, the first time. They’ve never experienced a ride like that before-” 

“I’m fine.” Connor insisted, sucking a breath in between his teeth. The noise caused Diana to arch one perfect sable eyebrow at him, before she nodded and faced forward again. 

Connor sagged back against the seat when he saw them come out of the cloud layer and he could see land again.

This is insane. How can it go Mach 5? I spent more time stopping at the Cave and packing my bag than it took us to fly from Happy Harbor to DC.

The trip hadn’t been as instantaneous as travel by Zeta-Tube, but seeing their airspeed indicator zipping up had made him ask Diana what that gauge was. Her answer had not reassured him. 

3,352 miles. Per. Hour.

He wasn’t sure, but he would guess that it beat the fastest aircraft ever built on his Earth. And it was so smooth and quiet! His super hearing couldn’t even pick out a sonic boom, even if they were leaving it far behind. The invisible plane was actually named Pegasus, which he had been delighted to learn when Diana invited him aboard. 

They had made a short flight to Mt. Justice so he could grab a bag for the week, and once they took off, Diana had taken them above the stormclouds without a tremble of turbulence. He could see the sun shining radiantly down upon those towering dark clouds, and been struck by the beauty of the scene. Even more beautiful and radiant was Diana’s smile as she saw the yellow, orange and pinks that lit up the cabin as they rose.

Then she had let Pegasus have her head, and the worrying rise in airspeed had begun.

Connor checked his Eye-Phone again for the time, comparing it to their departure time.

Six minutes. We flew from Rhode Island to DC in six minutes.

He hadn’t felt the inertia, he wasn’t pushed back in his seat. He assumed there was magical sci-fi weirdness happening to compensate for that. His only indication that their speed had broken the sound barrier five times over was the airspeed indicator. For some reason, that had made him nauseous. 

An ironclad determination not to get air sick in Wonder Woman’s invisible jet had been the only thing that prevented him from needing a barf bag.

Pegasus did have barf bags, because of course it did. They even had her logo on them, and he had slipped one into his pocket as a memento of this ‘unique’ experience.

This is stupid. Why am I getting air sick in a supersonic jet whose acceleration I can’t even feel? I teleport a couple of times a week. That should make me throw up way more! Even just out of existential dread that it actually disintegrates you and makes a new copy of you with all your memories. Or that I’m gonna have a Star Trek transporter accident, and get sent to the evil universe where everyone has goatees. Or get cloned!

…I AM a clone.

Shit, am I the evil clone?

“We’re coming in for landing now, if you want to watch.” Diana alerted him, shaking him out of his nerdy reverie. Connor leaned forward so that he could see better out the cockpit windows. They were thin and wide, giving a narrow view of the sprawling artistic grid of Washington laid out below. The National Mall and the Pentagon were easy to spot, and Connor remembered strolling into the nerve center of the nation’s military in a borrowed Air Force uniform just the other week.

His eyes narrowed as he thought of his visit to DC before that, and he searched for the Cadmus facility. It wasn’t obvious from the air, and he remembered it mostly looked like any number of boring office parks on the surface. All the mad science and enslaved genomorphs were strictly underground.

Along with Project: Krypton. 

I should reach out to Dubbilex. Shoot, I should’ve brought Gizmo. He could have made contact. But M’gann offered to ‘babysit’ him while I was away. That was super nice of her.

He smiled as he recalled Gizmo’s joy, eagerly scampering up onto M’gann’s shoulder in the kitchen as he supervised her latest baking experiment with keen interest. She had suggested she might try to teach Gizmo some of the telepathic arts that Martians learned. The G-Gnome had only given them his trademark blank stare when it was broached, but he didn’t seem put off by the suggestion.

Connor had extracted a promise from M’gann not to let the little monster have any more snacks after midnight. Gizmo had a terrible habit of sneaking into the kitchen and raiding the fridge and pantry, which his perception filter made startlingly easy. The only ones on the team who could even penetrate it to notice him were Connor and M’gann. A fact that he exploited to swipe food from the others’ plates when they weren’t paying attention, leading to hungry teen heroes whose plates were empty but somehow all of the food hadn’t made its way into them.

As he watched the city resolve into greater detail out the window, he saw they weren’t heading for the airport. Instead, their destination appeared to be the middle of the Chesapeake Bay. Their speed had dropped far below Mach 1, and Connor looked around for where Diana was taking them. When he saw their destination, his mouth fell open.

Floating in the glittering waters of the bay was a perfectly circular island that couldn’t be natural. The evening sun hung low in the west, casting orange beams across the flickering waves. High walls of what looked like fitted stone raised the island out of the water, with the waves lapping against them. Those walls were covered in geometric mosaic designs that evoked antiquity, but the gleaming steel rings that topped them proved they were much more modern. The top of the island extended out of the water perhaps thirty feet, with a low rampart sloping up to the lip. The rest of the island was a flat tiled expanse, spotted with planters and green parkland, and several large Classical Greek buildings, with colunades lining their front. At the center was a building shaped like a five pointed star, with massive vaulted windows and more doric columns lining its entranceway. At one end of a green stretch of parkland was a colossal bronze statue of a woman in ancient armor, a spear in one hand, an owl on her other arm, and her Corinthian helm pushed back up on her head.

“Impressive, is it not?” Diana said with a smile in her voice as his jaw hung open.

“What… is it?” He asked, staring out the window as Pegasus curved around and came in over what he had thought was an arena of some kind, but was apparently the landing pad.

“The Themysciran Embassy, and my home. Some call it… the Wonder Dome.” 

Connor stared at the back of her head, eyebrows raised.

“Who calls it that?”

“...I do, mostly.”

They shared a laugh at that as the plane slowed to a halt over the pad, the engines changing from a hum to a strident thrum, as they descended vertically onto the pad and the landing gear touched down. Connor’s stomach finally settled as he felt solid ground beneath his feet again, then a thought struck him.

This isn’t a natural island… am I on solid ground?

After a moment’s consideration, he decided it didn’t matter. After shutting down the Pegasus, Diana lowered the ramp and they filed out  the back of the cockpit and down onto the landing pad. Immediately, the scent of the Bay’s somewhat salty air hit him and he took a moment to enjoy the smell, the view and sound of the water lapping against the island. Diana clapped him on the shoulder as he took it all in, and she smiled.

“Ready for the grand tour?” She asked, beaming.

“Absolutely.” He answered while meeting her smile with his own.

They took a meandering path around the island, which had to be a half mile in diameter. He could hear something beyond the wind and waves, a deep vibrational hum that suffused the place. It was some kind of machinery, but to his enhanced senses it sounded like something putting out energy rather than anything mechanical. It lent the place a futuristic vibe that appealed, and contrasted with its ancient aesthetics. Besides the hum and the landing pad, it looked like it could be a punched out circle of a city-state in Ancient Greece, all marble tiles and columns. The buildings surprised him; they were brightly painted, including all the statues. The stark white marble of museums and classical art books was covered in startlingly lifelike colors in statuary and bas reliefs. The only example that wasn’t was the colossal bronze statue, and they started the tour there.

“Grey-eyed Athena, the Amazon matron goddess of strategy and warmaking. Also of democracy and diplomacy, and all manner of war and statecraft.” Diana said, a bright reverence entering her normally serious tone that Connor could feel in his heart. She spoke about Athena the way he remembered devout grandmothers at his parish church speaking about Mother Mary and the patron saints. It was, he recalled, the loving devotion of someone truly faithful. Usually such expressions of faith left him cold, and he felt the words were empty, even if the speaker believed them. But when Diana said it with that look in her crystal blue eyes, he remembered as well that he was in a different world. The rules were different here.

Athena isn’t just something she believes in. She’s met Athena. The goddess’ blessing made her a living child, when Queen Hippolyta prayed to them over the baby she crafted out of clay.

That too made Connor shiver, as had so many of the revelations and confrontations with the supernatural of the past few days. In his head, he understood what a Lord of Order and an Olympic goddess were in this world. But his heart quailed at the thought of such beings. He remembered how Nabu had seen into his very soul while he wore the Helmet. Nelson had been able to rifle through all his memories, and knew the truth of his universe of origin. 

What could a goddess know about me? What could she see through?

He resolved, silently, to make himself scarce if there were to be any miraculous appearances or visitations. Before his death, he had considered himself an atheist, but a lapsed Catholic before that. There had been too much, too fast, lately. He wasn’t prepared to tackle any theological questions after having things confirmed about the afterlife and his arrival here. 

“It’s beautiful.” He said, feeling the need to add something to the conversation as they both stared at the statue in contemplation. 

“My mother modeled it, though she did not make the final bronze herself. Too much time and effort, to justify a queen’s personal attention.” Diana added with not a small hint of pride, and Connor saw the statue with new wonder in his eyes.

“Queen Hippolyta designed it?” He asked rhetorically, his eyes darting away from the statue to look Diana up and down while she was drinking in the details of the statue. He looked away from her when she seemed to catch him checking her out. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and smiled again.

“Yes, but I still think I am my mother’s greatest work of art.” She declared, turning and doing a catwalk twirl to show off the queen’s handiwork. Connor couldn’t help but stare and drink in the sight. He had never had a great appreciation for any art beyond drawing and painting comic book panels and covers, but no soul could deny the perfected grace and beauty that was Diana. She laughed delightedly at his frank attention.

“Though, my twin sister Nubia has at times insisted the ebony version is superior.” She added with a twinkle in her eye. 

Connor’s mouth fell open as he processed that while also drinking in the ecstatic beauty before him.

“Your sister?” He asked dumbly..

“Yes, my trueborn sister. My mother made us a matched set, and the goddesses heard her plea to bring us to life. But a disaster separated us at our ‘birth’, and our mother thought Nubia lost to us. It is a story both long and twisted of where she came to rest, but we grew up apart. I did not find her again until we were nearly grown, though our reunion was one of the happiest days of my life.” Diana explained wistfully.

I know about Nubia; she’s her African twin. Its a bit of an… odd story, from what I remember. Very of its time, but its nice that she exists here too, and Diana already found her. I’m not sure how I could help the heroes with long lost kids and twins and parents, without revealing the truth. It might strain credulity that a cape fan knows such intimate details of heroes from Earth 0.

“Is she here?” Connor asked, hoping it was true. He hadn’t seen a single other person at the Wonder Dome yet, even though it was ostensibly an embassy.

“Not today, but she is often here. She also serves Themyscira as one of our mother’s ambassadors to Women’s World. I admit, there are not many Amazons who live outside of Theyscira or one of the tribal territories. Tonight, we are the only ones at the embassy.” Diana said, and he saw a familiar intensity in her gaze as she said it.

He swallowed, shifting his luggage bag in his grip to cover his awkwardness under her scrutiny.

“But I am being a poor host.” Diana finally said. “Are you hungry?”

Connor realized that he was; he hadn’t had much appetite for lunch, considering the afternoon’s agenda. Now that he was out from under the pall of the funeral and the gloom of the rain clouds, he was famished.

“Always.” He said with a smile, and Diana laughed.

“Of course, a growing young man needs to eat. Come! I’ll show you to the dining room.”

Diana threw an arm around his shoulders and led him into the star-shaped central building, and he couldn’t help but let his heart race at her touch.