SG: The League #5 (B of B)

[PART TWO IS HERE! IF YOU HAVE NOT READ PART ONE, YOU'RE IN THE
WRONG DAMN PLACE!]

Elizabeth Tirkoff stepped into the lift, rubbing her eyes.
It had been a long day, full of travel, and she just wanted to
go to her suite and soak in the tub for four hours.
So, naturally, she was going to the office. "MIKE, hie me
hence to administration."
<<Hieing hence>>, the AI said cheerfully. <<How was
Kansas?>>
"Cornfed. Where's Alice?"
<<Doing rounds.>>
"Gotcha." Elizabeth rubbed her temples with her thumbs.
Normally, she'd just use telepathy to catch Alice up, but this
would be better as a conversation. Especially since it wasn't
going to be a good one. Alice and Elizabeth almost never had...
*active* disagreements, but when they did they could be
legendary.
The doors opened. Elizabeth walked to her office and
stepped inside. "When she finishes, ping me, would you? I need
to--"
Alice was not as fast as the Dash had been, it's worth
noting. Oh, the theory was she could push to that speed when she
really needed to, but there were reasons she tried to avoid
that. But when Alice just suddenly *appeared,* and the rush of
wind only blew into the room after you had actually *seen* her
appear, it could be hard to tell the difference. "Susan!?" Alice
demanded.
Elizabeth blinked. "O...kay," she said. "I didn't think I
was shielding so much I wouldn't sense you intending to--"
"I can shield too. *Susan!?*"
Elizabeth took a deep breath. "Susan," she said, simply.
Alice stared, somewhere between enraged and flabbergasted.
Elizabeth looked at her, then looked away, "I'm sorry," she
said. "She's ideal. Absolut--"
"We agreed, damn it! We agreed we would keep her *out* of
this life!"
"We did. She didn't."
"What does *that* mean?"
Elizabeth took a deep breath, and walked over to her filing
cabinet. She unlocked it, and dug back a bit, and pulled out a
somewhat thick file. She walked back to her desk and dropped it
in front of Alice.
Alice stared, then dropped into the chair and blurred into
movement, reading through the thick pile of paper at rocket
speed.
Elizabeth knew what was in the file, of course. She had
compiled it -- and specifically had kept it *out* of Academy or
Rogers Foundation databanks. MIKE had helped her do that, of
course, and had kept her abreast of the 'mysterious' activities
throughout New England and Upstate New York.
Alice slumped back in her chair, shocked into silence.
Elizabeth sat down, feeling the gulf between the two. It
seemed much wider than the desk, right this moment.
"Five years?" Alice finally said, softly.
"Yeah."
"And you never told me?"
"She made me swear not to, Alice. I told her to tell you,
but..." Elizabeth shook her head. "She knew you were against it.
She knew that... part of you hadn't accepted how far she had
come. That she wasn't the child in a woman's body any more."
"And you... you let her do this? Let her become some
vigilante of the Northeast?"
"I didn't 'let' her do anything, Alice. I'm not her doctor
any more, any more than you're her guardian any more. She made
her own choice. She followed the calling of her blood."
"Fighting crime?"
"Hunting." Elizabeth looked at Alice intently. "She's a
hunter, Alice. Her soul cries out for it. In all the ways you're
a musician, and a thief, and a healer... she's a dancer, a
provider... and a hunter."
"We could have brought her in," Alice said, still softly.
"For all the same reasons we're going to take down the League we
could have stopped--"
"She stayed out of Boston, Alice. She stayed out of the
entire exclusionary zone. And she didn't do anything to call
attention to herself. I was lucky I found out at all. And I made
a deal with her -- she agreed to carry a panic button. One Joel
and Jenny would keep an ear out for, ready to call me or Phobos
or someone else we trusted if she needed help. She agreed to be
regularly examined, just in case."
"And you agreed not to tell me."
Elizabeth looked away. "Yeah," she said.
"And now you're going to use her. Use her to *hunt* the
League."
"She's perfect, Alice. She's absolutely perfect. She's
beautiful but has almost as much presence as Bruce did. She can
train Lochaber as well or better than anyone -- even Rip. And
she's good at what she does, Alice. She's better than I was.
She's better than you were. She's... she's as good as Akane was
back in the day."
"And look how great that turned out for her."
"Alice... by having her come in... by having her do this...
we're not just making Lochaber work. We're making Susan's...
hunting... legitimate. We're giving her sanction and a badge,
and we're getting a measure of control over it I've never been
able to exert. And we're letting her be what she wants to be.
What she *has* to be."
"And you're getting the perfect weapon to cut the League
down with." Alice looked away. *They're her friends, Lil,*
Elizabeth heard echo through her mind. And with that echo she
felt Alice's pain -- her pain at being protected from a hard
truth -- her pain at Elizabeth herself, as well as her sister.
*You're asking Susan to take her friends down.*
*They were my friends too,* Elizabeth sent back. *And I
trust her, Alice. More than anyone else I could ask, I trust
Susan. I trust her to see this through, and I trust her not to
go too far.*
*How far is too far? How do you even know?*
*I don't. I have to have faith.*
"It's not just the League," Alice said vocally. "Lochaber's
taking the streets back, remember? You're sending her out
against Scions and Scullers and--"
"She's a hunter," Elizabeth answered, still softly. "And
the game is rich in this area."
Alice looked away. "Kirby called in," she said. "Mandy's
got him. They're doing some kind of logic puzzle thing tonight
-- the sort of thing their big brains are good at. I called her
and she said she'd make sure he ate and stuff."
"Good," Elizabeth said. "Alice--"
"I... need to go jogging," Alice said, standing. "Work out
a few kinks. Sometimes, the world only makes sense when I'm
running, y'know?"
"...sure. Do you know when you'll be back?"
Alice shrugged. "Hard to say."
*But you... will be back?*
Alice looked at Elizabeth, and despite herself, her lips
quirked into a smile. *Moron,* she thought back. *You don't need
to ask that. Even now.*
And Elizabeth relaxed. She still felt rotten, but somehow
it would be all right.
You just had to have faith.

* * * * * *

Trudi Rayvnn smiled a malevolent smile. She had spent
months working her way up the tangled threads to a position of
authority among the Trudis, and today she would cement that
position once and for all. The defenses surrounding the Mask of
Osiris were significant, but through care and effort, she and
her top aides had managed to eliminate them.
"God," Trudi Syndi said. "That mask is, like, hella ugly."
"It's not even made out of gold," Trudi Daphnii said. "I
thought, like, pharaohs had gold masks."
"Osiris isn't a *pharaoh,*" Trudi Jodylynne said, shaking
her head. "Don't, like, be stupid. He was, like, a God."
"So Gods don't get gold?" Trudi Daphnii demanded. "I'd be
like 'hello!' I'm *God.*"
"...please shut up," Trudi Rayvnn said. "Please. Dark
powers and Mistress help me, please shut up--"
There was an explosion, and a Trudi drone was blasted
through the exhibit hall doors, sailing a hundred feet and
landing in a heap, smoldering.
Trudi Rayvnn whirled, in time to see the League coming
through the wreckage of the door. "Oh, thank you dark powers,"
she muttered. "Now I don't have to listen to this banal
conversation any more. TRUDIS! ATTACK!"
"Weren't there like, a hundred Trudis in the last hall?"
Trudi Syndi asked.
"How're we supposed to beat them now?" Trudi Daphnii
pouted.
Trudi Rayvnn frowned. "You're right," she said. "We should
just surrender."
"Yeah!" Trudi Syndi said. "Hey, League! Like, we surrender
and--"
Inky black energy flowed out of Trudi Rayvnn's black
macrame. She work a black satin dress with ammo belt and doc
martins, rising in the air as the energy grew in strength,
surrounding Trudi Syndi and Trudy Daphnii. The pair screamed as
their macrame flared and released glowing white spirits that
slid into Trudi Rayvnn's shadowy powers, causing it to grow. "Or
we could fight!" she shouted. "TRUDIS! I SAID *ATTACK!*"
"Should we have prevented that?" Iceweaver asked.
"Nah," Capacitor said.
The Trudis swept out, the drones leading the charge. The
League separated, Reflects sliding through and tagging the first
of them with a concussive mirrorforce punch that knocked one
drone into a second and putting them both down. Hazard blasted
into the air, peppering small concussive blasts of nuclear fire
throughout the pack of Trudis even as they tried to mindwarp
her. Parvenu rose up in the back, glowing with a deep crimson
light that flared into a dozen explosive charges that sought out
drones and Trudis alike. Ordinal shifted into a kata,
blue/silver light causing the frames of reference between League
and Trudis to shift, making the Trudis seem slow by comparison.
Iceweaver set an ice slick down that caused a wave of drones to
topple, unable to get their footing. Capacitor, being a simple
soul, just electrocuted some folks close to him.
"Nice try!" Trudi Rayvnn shouted, sending tendrils of
darkness through the room. "But my braindead companions aren't
the real threat here -- I am! I will feast on your bright
thoughts and excrete your hopes and dreams!"
"Um, ew," Ordinal said.
"Get used to it! Mine is the--
There was a flare, and the darkness seemed to shiver.
"Er..." Trudi Rayvnn said. "That shouldn't be."
With a burst of white fire, Incandescence slashed through
the darkness, her hand holding a white hot sword made of holy
flame. She swept forward, her wings burning with the same fires
as the rest of her, her eyes bright red embers as she dove for
Trudi Rayvnn.
"....well, shit," Trudi Rayvnn said. And then the hurting
began.

* * * * * *

"That was *amazing!*" Kirby shouted. "It was like they were
-- and then bababababang! And boom! And then there was like *ice
everywhere!* And then Reflects was punching and WOW!"
"More or less," Mandy said, and picked up the microphone.
"League, Ops. Wrap it up -- we've got police swarming the
building."
"Got it," Parvenu said. "What's our vector, Victor?"
"We have four hot spots. Scullers at Fenway, the
O'Stereotypes are trashing a pawnshop on Boylston, the Scions of
the Phoot are at Pizzeria Uno again and there's a report of a
Lickmi incursion breaking through into Brighton."
"Right," Ordinal said. "Give me coordinates and team
compositions."
Ops sent the coordinates to Ordinal's L-phone, while
quickly assessing. "Ordinal, take high guard and transportation.
Capacitor and Parvenu, you're on Scullers. Iceweaver and
Reflects go for Scions. Incandescence -- feeling up to soloing
another pack of O'Stereotypes?"
"God, I'm sick of O'Stereotypes."
"As are we all. Hazard, take down the Lickmi. Ordinal --
stay on call for assistance if needed, but keep closest to
Hazard."
"Works," Parvenu said. "But I wish just once I'd be paired
with my wi-- Oop. We got to motor -- hey, Officer Jeter. You're
looking well! Yeah, I know, we're under arrest. Hey, do me a
favor and resecure this mask for me, okay"
Mandy cut her mike, letting the League banter with the
police while Ordinal transgated the groups to their specific
assignments. "Well, that went better than it could have."
"Why aren't they more worried about the police?" Kirby
asked.
"The police don't really want to arrest them." Mandy
replied. "They know that the League's on their side, and it's
the politicians giving them trouble."
Kirby frowned.
"What is it?"
"Why doesn't the Rogers Foundation just recruit the League
into Lochaber? Make them all official, and that way no one has
to be stopped except the bad guys?"
Mandy sighed. "In a nutshell?"
"Please."
"Someone doesn't want heroes coming back. They're making it
really hard on the licensed and legitimate heroes. If the Rogers
Foundation sponsored a new official hero team, they'd be bound
up into red tape, drafted into the armed forces for the Lickmi
Invasion, and kept entirely out of certain bad places. Until we
can figure out who's doing it and how they're getting away with
it, we can't go legitimate."
Kirby nodded. "That's why Uncle Roger--"
"Parvenu."
"Yeah. That's why he wanted to investigate it?"
"Yup. But with everything going on, we don't have the time
or resources to figure it out. I'm investigating as much as I
can without--"
Kirby made a face.
"What's that for."
"You're fighting symptoms, when you should be treating the
disease. I mean, yeah -- there might be a day or two where the
Scullers or someone has a good day and people have trouble, but
if you can find out what's causing the *real* problem, you save
more people in the long run."
"Well, I know it seems like that, but--"
"It doesn't 'seem' like that. All your real problems come
from being locked away in a basement outside the system. If you
find out who's messing with the system *sooner* rather than
later, you can maybe get it dealt with *before* Lochaber starts
making your lives *really* hard. I mean, if Lochaber arrests the
League, then no one's gonna figure out where the real problems
are coming from, right?"
Mandy opened her mouth.
"Right?"
Mandy closed it. "Okay," she said. "Tomorrow, we'll start
an in-depth investigation. But we need to do it hand in hand
with protecting the city."
"But--"
"No buts. People *die* when we're not on the streets,
Kirby. There are no acceptable losses. We can't just abandon
them. Not until we have a real idea of what's going on."
Kirby pouted, but nodded. "Deal."
"Good." Mandy glanced at the status icons. The different
teams were engaging their assignments now. She watched for
trouble as they fought. "So. Here's my offer."
"Huh?"
"We're negotiating, remember. Here's my offer: three nights
a week, after my work, I'll 'tutor' you the way we told Alice we
were doing tonight. On those nights, you'll help me down in the
headquarters. We'll have you train with the team where we can.
This will be... I don't know. An internship. Which means you do
what you're told and do some of the scut work we don't have time
to do, and in return you'll get experience and see how we do
things."
"And help fight crime?"
"In *support,* not on the field. Period."
"But--"
"No buts, kiddo. You stay in the base, and if you break the
rules, you're out."
Kirby's lip curled. "Aren't you scared I'll tell Mom?"
"Nope."
Kirby blinked. "No?"
"Nope." Mandy grinned. "You like the League. You like what
we do. You don't want to see us broken up any more than we want
to be arrested. You'd keep your mouth shut even if I just sent
you away and never let you come back. You're betting with a
busted flush."
Kirby looked annoyed. "I *could* have told."
"But you wouldn't, would you?"
"...no."
"Internship."
Kirby sighed, and offered his hand. "Deal."
Mandy shook it, grinning. "Welcome to the League, Kirby.
Now clean up the pizza boxes."
"What?"
"Jeez, kid. What do you *think* interns do? Later, I'll
teach you how to make coffee."

WILL KIRBY BURN HIMSELF ON THE COFFEE MAKER?

WILL THE LEAGUE FIGURE OUT WHO'S BEHIND BOSTON'S TROUBLES?

WILL ALICE GET OVER HER MAD?

IS SUSAN REALLY ALL THAT?

MACRAME? *REALLY?*

All this and more can be found in the next League! Only on
SUPERGUY! Er... someday. When we get around to posting it.

SG: The League #5 (A of B)

March 13, 1998
LAIS *Dominion* (CVNX-119)
South Pacific Theater of Operations

The war had been going badly for the Awe-Inspiring Force's
military. Though many thousands strong, and fanatically devoted
to Lady Awe-Inspiring, in the end the men and women who made up
her armed forces were still just human, and the major powers in
the War had been all too superhuman. The initial stages of the
war had been separate, as the Awe-Inspiring Force and the
Unimaginable League Amoral had launched nearly simultaneous wars
of conquest across the world. Between the deadly and potent
mental assault of Psybernet diverting entire carrier groups to
the ULA's cause and literally thousands of AIF moles in almost
every major military on the planet, the capacity for the nations
of the world to resist were greatly hampered. With a sudden,
coordinated (and *seemingly* unrelated) crackdown by several
world governments against their paranormal populations already
underway, it seemed inevitable that one of the two forces would
ultimately rule the world.
But, perhaps inevitably, the titanic egos of Lady
Awe-Inspiring and the leaders of the Unimaginable League Amoral
couldn't brook the thought of sharing the world with another
power, and the war became a two sided war of genocide between
them. Europe and Africa lay under ULA dominance. China, Japan,
the Pacific Rim, Australia and much of the Middle East were
under the Lady's command. The remainder of Eastern Europe and
Asia became the primary battleground between these seemingly
unstoppable powers, while 'partisan' forces carved up South
America, Mexico and the United States. Of the major national
powers, only Canada was relatively untouched.
And then, the heroes had struck back. Liberating major
ports and resources and rallying incredible powers to their
side, the greatest heroes of the modern age inspired the
still-free governments of the world to form the Modern Allied
Powers. Systemic attacks on the major resources of both the ULA
and AIF armies had turned the battle into a three-way contest,
but it looked at best like *any* victory would be pyrrhic, with
the human population largely decimated and the environment in
ruins.
And then, during the climactic Christmas Eve Offensive, a
powerful flying warship commanded by Egoiste and Arsenal of the
Unimaginable League Amoral had crashlanded and detonated its
complete arsenal on the Indian battlefield, wiping out almost
half of the Unimaginable League Amoral's total resources and
allowing the Allied forces to utterly rout Lady Awe-Inspiring's
armies on the field. In the weeks since, the tide fully turned,
with the Unimaginable League Amoral's power almost entirely
broken and the Awe Inspiring Force put on the run. Around the
world, liberated countries threw their support and their
military behind the Allies.
But it wasn't over yet, and with the Lady herself still in
command the chance of regrouping and rebuilding was all too
real. She had stretched her hand out, and called her mighty
weapons and armies back to herself -- all but those ordered back
to ground -- to consolidate and begin the painstaking process of
reconquering the world.
The *Dominion* was one of her most powerful ships. A
supercarrier with over five thousand fanatically loyal sailors
and a huge arsenal of weapons, Copperhead fighters, Manta
fighter/bombers and so much more, the *Dominion* alone could
project the Lady's power into a region and support a front of
the war. Adding the escorts of her carrier group just made the
*Dominion* more dangerous.
Oddly, that was why the Academy had been sent in.
Healer had opposed the decision, but she was overruled. The
major heroes were well known and protected against, Andy Awesome
had explained. They would be identified and responded to. But
several of the senior students at the Adjusted League
Unimpeachable Academy had the training and experience to conduct
a raid. Hit and run, move in, disable defenses, call in the
Allied forces and get the Hell out of dodge -- and as almost
complete unknowns, they could do so with comparative safety. In
the end, Healer had to give her consent. There was too much at
stake.
However, neither Healer nor Andy Awesome himself knew the
*real* mission the students were carrying out.
Memorex leapt forward, twisting in the air and
split-kicking two crewmen out of his path. Four marines turned
to gun the youth down, only to have him vanish through a
transgate in the floor, landing behind them and taking them down
from behind. Off to the side, an *explosion* of fire cleared
half the room as Hellfire swept through. "We're clear over
here!" she shouted. "Trans! I have a line of sight!"
"Do it." Transit's voice was calm over the Xolchacomm. She
had hidden herself somewhere in the *Dominion's* bowels, letting
her perception of her friends coordinate and support their
attack.
Hellfire burst into a missile-like arc, sweeping up a
corridor and sending waves of hellish fire down one side,
forcing the crew to scatter. The flames weren't intense enough
to kill or even maim, but there was a primal fear of fire in
most human beings, and the literally infernal composition of the
former child-star's fiery body made that all the more intense.
This let her spin in the air and throw a small metal sphere down
an air duct into the C'n'C. The command and control room was
well protected -- that the students had gotten this far was
amazing -- but they still needed to breathe and Hellfire had
been carefully prepared.
Down in the C'n'C, the sphere hummed to life and painted
the room with invisible light, which in turn sent a stream of
data to where Transit was hidden. The teleporter smiled, getting
enough of the lay of the land to know exactly what equipment and
people were down there. "Stage three," she murmured into her
Xolchacomm, and she opened two gates.
The first let Hellfire drop into the room unopposed. With a
burst of fire and heat, the officers and crew fell unconscious
all around her.
The second let Memorex drop next to Hellfire just as her
flames died down. He swept the red-clad woman of fire up and
kissed her, not even being singed by her burning face. "Piece of
cake," he murmured, holding her close for a moment.
"Eat cake later," she murmured back. "Work now." She let
go, hopping over a pair of unconscious officers to the hatch. It
was secured against attack, of course, but she didn't trust it
by itself. She touched her finger along the seam of the hatch,
and began to weld the metal together....
Memorex darted to the right console, and began to type.
Years of watching movies from *Wargames* to *Hackers* had given
Memorex sampled skill to spare, and rigorous training and
preparation from programmers and hackers as diverse as Superuser
and Mastermind all the way to Trashman himself had gotten him
the rest of the way. He disabled security systems, shut down
communications, and loaded a specially prepared virus meant to
be distributed throughout the carrier group. That would make the
group's computers and defenses fail in time for an Allied
attack. It was the students' official objective.
Memorex grinned and slid to the navigation station, letting
the virus do its work and cover up his real job.
And then, there they were. The orders. And the coordinates.
They had been encoded, but he had been prepared for that. He now
knew specifically where the *Dominion* was moving... and more to
the point he knew where they *weren't* directly going.
"Packing," he murmured.
"I'll say," Hellfire smirked.
"Ready to bug out?"
"Ready."
"Topside in five... four... three... two...."
The pair fell through gates. They landed, eyes already
squinting against the harsh sunlight. They were on the
*Dominion's* flight deck, Transit landing smoothly next to them.
"That one's prepped!" Memorex shouted, dashing up a ladder
onto a Copperhead's canopy and springing to the Manta sitting
next to it. There was a pilot and crew in the midst of
scrambling the Manta. He turned his jump into a diving kick
against the nearest crew member. Behind him, Hellfire and
Transit took out the others.
It took less than five seconds to secure the Manta's
hatches and begin powering the aircraft up. "We have company
forward," Transit said, nodding out the front windscreen where
marines were running to intercept.
"You sure about this, Trans?" Memorex asked, settling in to
fly the fighter.
Transit took a deep breath. "I can do it *once,*" she
answered.
"They've got a missile launcher!" Hellfire screamed.
"Now would be good!" Memorex shouted.
Transit's fingers blurred into motion. Around the Manta
lines of blue and purple light danced, and the entire aircraft
dropped through a transgate on the flight deck.
The aircraft pitched, suddenly catching air bite, and
Memorex toggled the engines into thrust, angling. Transit had
'dropped' them to about 2,000 feet straight up, which wasn't
very much clearance to get the fighter/bomber flying properly
under power. Still, Memorex had been studying this too, and his
reflexes were among the best on the planet.
"We've got power," Hellfire said. "Take us home, lover."
"Or the nearest best thing," Memorex said, goosing the
engines and starting an ascent. There would be pursuit, all too
soon, and good pilot or not, Memorex couldn't hope to win
against the Lady's seasoned pilots in a fight.
Transit, sweating slightly, had her eyes closed. "Turn
eighteen point three degrees," she said. "And get some more
altitude."
Memorex nodded. "You have a bead on our location?"
Transit, despite her strain, smiled a touch. "I *always*
have a bead on our location, Mem."
"Stupid of me to ask," Memorex said.
"Okaaaaay," Hellfire said. "I mark... nineteen fighters in
pursuit. Dropping flares, which won't do much more than piss
them off. I don't think I'll be killed when they shoot us down
but I'm partial to you two, so...."
"Six seconds," Transit murmured. "Stay on this heading
*exactly,* Mem. Five... four... three...."
"Missile lock! *NINE* missile locks!"
"...two...one.... *now.*"
Transit opened gates undeneath the three in their seats,
exactly figuring the vector to optimize them falling through
them.
Almost immediately after they fell through the gates,
several air to air missiles converged on the stolen Manta, which
obligingly exploded into many hundreds of pieces.
Exactly fifty two miles north-northeast of that explosion,
and a good fifteen thousand feet higher in the air, three
transgates opened and three students fell out. Their ears popped
with the pressure differentials, though the room had been
pressurized specifically to compensate.
"Permission to come aboard," Hellfire said, jauntily.
"Granted," Damien Wilson said. "Welcome aboard the Awesome
Force One. Please take a moment to familiarize yourself with our
safety procedures...."
"Report," Andy Awesome said, curtly.
"The virus is installed and propagating," Hellfire said.
"It will trigger in fourteen minutes. They shouldn't have time
to even cut through the C'n'C hatch and figure out we're not in
there any more in that length of time. "
"Excellent. Get cleaned up and we'll debrief the three of
you. *Nice* work, friends."
Memorex nodded. ""Scuse," he said. "Had to hit the head an
hour ago. It's just gotten' worse since."
"I *told* you to go before we went," Hellfire chided, even
as the various Awesome Force members in the room chuckled. All
but Andy Awesome, who frowned, but nodded.
Memorex made it into the Men's head updeck. He slipped into
the stall, and sat down.
"Report."
The voice was calm. Almost icy. And came from the next
stall over, as they'd arranged.
"I've written the coordinates down," Memorex said, slipping
a small bit of paper out of his boot and sliding it under the
stall. "The top location is the rendezvous point for the fleet.
The bottom's what you wanted."
"You're *sure.*"
"Yeah," Memorex said. "That's the location of Islandilai.
Lady Awe-Inspiring's runnin' the whole war from there."
He flushed, and stepped out. Almost in unison the stalls on
either side opened as well. On the right, the thermonuclear
Dangerousman stepped out. On the left, the Non-Biodegradable
Trashman emerged. Trashman was not holding any bits of paper.
The three began to wash their hands. "This is very, very
good work, Memorex," Trashman said softly. "You've just saved
thousands -- maybe millions of lives."
"And probably moved the war's end up by six months,"
Dangerousman added. "Really, this is amazing, Rip."
"Glad to help," Memorex said, blushing. "But... um... c'n I
ask?" His West Virginian accent came out more when he was
nervous.
"You want to know why all the secrecy," Trashman said. It
wasn't a question.
"Well, yeah."
Trashman nodded. "There's a way to do these things," he
said. "One plans carefully, bringing many people and getting
many permissions and coordinating many strategies. No one man
can simply decide what direction to pursue a war."
"That's how it has to be," Dangerousman agreed. "Otherwise,
you have a breakdown of command across the board."
"It would probably be weeks before a proper assault on
Islandilai could be launched," Trashman said.
"Assuming she doesn't bug out or relocate," Dangerousman
said as well.
Memorex blinked, and then he got it. "You two are...."
"It has to be now, Rip," Trashman said. "All her forces are
moving into position. If they can get back to Islandilai's
resources, they could rearm or worse. That base has to be taken
out."
"And so does Lady Awe-Inspiring," Dangerousman said. "If we
can find a way to kill her."
Memorex swallowed. "...can I come with you?" he asked.
Trashman looked at Memorex for a long moment. "We're not
going as superheroes," he said, softly. "We're going to kill her
and destroy her base."
"...I know."
"Mem," Dangerousman said, putting his hand on the student's
shoulder, "you have so many years ahead of you--"
"Not if you guys fail," Memorex said, half-turning. "You
can *use* me -- you can--"
"Rip," Trashman said, "heroes don't do what we're about to
do."
Memorex turned to look at Trashman once more, tears in his
eyes.
Trashman put his gloved hand on Memorex's shoulder, and
looked into the young man's eyes. "Rip... I need you to be the
hero I can't be after this," he said. "We need good, honest,
*clean* men and women to come after us. We need people who
believe, and I've never met any hero who believes as
passionately as you do."
"...are you going to die?" Memorex asked softly.
"Yes," Trashman said. Just like that. Just matter of
factly. Yes. He was going to die.
"We have to go," Dangerousman said.
Trashman nodded. "If this war isn't over in twelve hours
tell Andy Awesome the coordinates to Islandilai," he said. "Do
good work, Rip. Make us proud."

NOVEMBER 1, 2007
Holiday Inn Express Room 18
Bucyrus, Ohio

There was a loud bang -- a tractor-trailer hitting a
pothole at speed, probably -- that startled Rip Davis out of
sleep. Being who and what he was, that meant he did a forward
roll and landed in a three point stance at the foot of his bed.
After a long moment, Rip breathed out and glanced at the
clock. 3:17 in the morning. Even after Halloween, that meant a
city like Bucyrus was asleep.
He walked into his bathroom and ran water, splashing some
on his face. The dream was still strong with him. The only day
he had been a part of the Genocide War. The last day he had
spoken to Trashman. The last day....
Rip took a breath, and looked up into eyes that had seen
over nine years and countless events since that day. His
shoulder was hurting again, and he noticed he had a bit of a
shiner from last night's work. "How'm I doin'," he murmured to
the reflection, a bit of his boyhood dialect creeping into his
voice. "You proud of me, yet?"

THE LEAGUE
Episode #5
Negotiations
by
Eric Burns-White
Mawwage is what bwings us togwetha twoday...

The Trudis were not, it's worth noting, the most tactically
minded of the factions that had invaded Boston's streets. The
beautiful young women in mixtures of military surplus and satin
lingerie were bound and empowered by the elaborate macrame that
were woven through their hair and down into masks on their
faces. The male drones were bound up in the macrame, their
strength and durability reinforced by it even as their minds
were suppressed by the macrame web. But for all their
interweaving of thought and passion, the Trudis were oddly
individual, and that meant it was hard to coordinate their
efforts.
They typically compensated for this by numbers. Knowing
they wanted the Mask of Osiris in the Egyptian exhibit's hall,
and knowing that it would take time to secure the mask and
prepare its hidden powers for transport, they made the exhibit
hall next door into a choke point, where a hundred and nineteen
Trudis and drones were milling about, 'patrolling' by doing
little dances, seducing ensorcelled guards and tourists, and in
general being bored out of their macrame-draped skulls. The idea
was, should any police or vigilante types show up, the massive
crowd of hot chicks and their boytoys would be more than enough
to stop them.
That was the theory, any how.
Three Trudis and one drone were off in one corner of the
room, absently watching another group seduce an attractive
college student's mind, leading her to sing pop songs karaoke
style for their amusement. "This is *dull,*" the first Trudi --
Trudi Brandy -- said in a petulant voice.
"No spluh," the second -- Trudi Kissi -- said, rolling her
eyes. "We better be almost done."
"What do we even want this dumb mask for anyway," Trudi
Dotti -- the third Trudi, if you hadn't guessed -- bitched.
"Masks are dumb."
"Mistress so pretty brains my pants are short look at the
flower," the Drone said, his voice muffled by layers of macrame
wrapped tightly around his head. Really, it's a wonder he hadn't
suffocated.
"All I know is Trudi Rayvnn better not be wasting our
time," Trudi Brandy said. "Dumb goth bitch. I hate her so much."
"Doesn't she, like, ever get *sun?*" Trudi Dotti agreed.
"It's, like, get with the program. We're not *goths.* We don't,
like, shop at Hot Topic. We're totally punk rock."
"Oh, *totally,*" Trudi Brandy said. "We, like, subvert
Victoria's Secret and make it all punk. That's our *thing.* Pink
is the new camo, right, Trudi Kissi?"
There was a pause.
"Like, where's Trudi Kissi?" Trudi Dotti asked.
"Girls are pretty the sun goes down at night I like gum,"
the drone answered.
The two remaining Trudis shrugged slightly. "Anyway," Trudi
Dotti said, "I, like, found this totally great new perfume at
*Target* if you can believe it. It's, like, not a designer
knockoff so much as it's a designer *homage.* You should totally
smell me."
"I *am,*" Trudi Brandy said. "You smell totally designer."
"I know. It's so hot and cool. It's not like Trudi Rayvnn
at *all.* She smells like... y'know. Dirt? Or the morgue? Or...
what do goths smell like anyway, Trudi Brandy?"
There was another pause.
"Trudi Brandy?"
"Trudis are beautiful I like harmonica Sean Hannity is
right," the drone slurred.
"Oh, like, shut up," Trudy Dotti snapped. "Those bitches
totally ditched me. I'm going to go find Trudi Rayvnn and tell
her to like hurry up so we can--"
With a burst of purple Cherenkov radiation, Trudy Dotti was
sucked into an aperture into the universe, falling in the middle
of the League, who were surrounding her with all their powers
humming.
"Fire," Parvenu said. He sounded bored.
Capacitor, Hazard, Iceweaver and Incandescence all
unleashed attacks, slamming fire, ice, nuclear potency and
electricity into the Trudi with an ennui born of routine.
Reflects was ready to slam her fist down into the Trudi in case
she managed to stay awake through the alpha strike, but of
course she didn't.
"That's thirty two," Ordinal said. "Ready to gate the next
one."
Reflects picked up the unconscious Trudi and tossed her
onto the growing pile of unconscious Trudis, who were stacking
up not unlike trendy faux-punk hot chick cordwood. "We're
clear."
"Okay," Parvenu said. "In five... four... three... two...
one... gate--"
The drone appeared in the same burst of violet light.
"--fire."
There was another detonation of ranged powers.
"That's thirty three," Ordinal said. "Ready to gate the
next one."

* * * * * *

Deep in the cramped basement headquarters of the League,
Mandy Harken -- in her official guise as 'Ops' -- tracked the
progress of the heroes as well as monitoring both the overall
Museum situation and keeping track of potential hotspots in the
various Boston neighborhoods.
Next to her, Kirby Rogers -- the son of the late Bruce
Rogers and Elizabeth Tirkoff -- yawned. "I thought this would be
more exciting," he groused.
"Yeah, well, they're fighting Trudis," Mandy said. "Almost
any other villain faction would notice the fishing going on, but
Trudis aren't built for observation."
"Fishing?"
"Yeah. Ordinal teleports one in, they nail that one, and so
on. You can get away with it for a little while with Ensemble or
Maltin groupies, but the Trudis never seem to catch--"
"It doesn't seem very sporting."
"It's not. Got a problem with that?"
"Not really."
"Good." Mandy looked at the nine year old. "So what *are*
we going to do with you?"
Kirby half-smiled. "Well, that's gonna be a problem, isn't
it?"
"How so?"
"Well, maybe Parvenu -- he's Uncle Roger, right? I knew he
was Uncle Roger -- maybe he has a spell that can erase my
memory, but that's all dangerous because my Mom's the best
telepath on the planet and she specializes in reconstruction,
not that it would work anyway because I can cloak my thoughts
same as my body an' it works on magic and stuff like that, so
messing with my head's out. That means we need to negotiate."
"Negotiate."
"Yup."
"I could just call you a liar."
"Nah, wouldn't work. I can supply too many details, an' let
Mom verify them in my brain. I can keep her out but I don't
*have* to, remember. And give Mom enough reason and she'll poke
around and see *you* have thought shields you don't admit to,
an' she'll either fight through them or start to probe an'--"
Mandy rubbed the bridge of her nose. "You are *really*
annoying."
"I get that from Godmother Trudy. Hey, do the Trudis have
anything to do with her?"
"Trudy would have had them all killed long before now if
she had anything to do with them. I assume their use of the name
pisses her off."
"Watch your mouth. I'm a kid."
Mandy gave Kirby a look.
"Anyway. We're negotiating here."
"All right. What do you want, Kirby?"
"To keep the secret of the League's location, your leading
them, and all the stuff that would make Mom's blood pressure
explode?"
"Essentially."
Kirby smiled a bit. "I want in."
Mandy snorted.
"I'm serious."
"Kirby, we don't send *nine year olds* out into combat."
"Why not? Uncle Tim wasn't much older when he started, and
I'm way better trained than he was. An' Spoonstryke started when
she was, like, my age. There's a long tradition of--"
"Stuff it, kid. If it's a choice between you outing us and
me endangering your life, I'll give you my L-Phone to call your
mom right now."
Kirby bit his lip. "I'll do it," he said, half-heartedly.
Mandy shrugged. "That's your choice. I can't stop you."
Kirby took a deep breath. "You're not playing fair," he
said sullenly. "I hold all the cards here."
"Hey, you want to get in the adults' game? You better learn
something more complicated than Texas Hold-em."
"I'm Academy Omaha champion."
Mandy paused. "Since when does our school have a Poker
championship?"
"Accordin' to Momma Alice? 1995. She said she won it three
straight years."
Mandy rubbed the bridge of her nose. "I'm getting too old
for this," she muttered.
"Thirty-eight isn't old."
"Oh shut up."

[PART ONE IS DONE! NEXT COMES PART TWO! DEAL WITH IT!]

SG: Rad #95 (3/3): Go?"

(continued from part two, preceding...)

***

Rumiko Moroboshi felt warm. Arms were around her, beneath her
back and beneath her knees, and she felt someone's torso against her
side. Wind rushed against her other side. Rumi realized she was
being carried, and that her carrier was in the air.
Rad. Father. It had to be. He had found her somehow, and was
taking her away from this strange place, this weird world of fake
zombie people and floating airships and inexplicable ways. Away to
somewhere--Planet California, Planet Hottentot, anywhere.
To her surprise, Rumi felt no elation. She was unsure exactly
what she did feel. She still wanted to leave Earth, of that she was
certain, but... not yet. Not just yet.
She opened her eyes and saw Esteban Veracruz. All at once, her
body told her she should have known she was not in her father's arms,
as the arms that held her were too skinny, the torso not as muscled.
Nice angle to his chin, though, she thought. A pair of plastic safety
goggles kept from his eyes the wind that turned his black hair into a
blur. Beyond him were stars, and darkness.
He was carrying her somewhere. But where?
She could have flown, she knew. But she stayed.
Warm, just for a little while.
When the bronze-gold stole over her sight, she did not resist.

***

"Dude," said Rad, as Dr. Gigawatt placed the nectarisite chip
into a clear vial and stopped the opening with a rubber cork. "You,
like, gotta know, like, I haven't heard of this, like, Hidden Empire,
like, y'know?"
"Not many people have," Gigawatt replied. "Particularly in the
last hundred or so years. And even then, it stayed in the shadows."
"This is a really well hidden empire, then?" asked Yury, as she
sliced herself a generous helping of Darleen's birthday cake. "Not
just some old empire that fell behind the sofa?"
"The name 'Hidden Empire,'" said Gigawatt, "was given to it by a
detective of the occult named Richard Cartier, and then only in his
private journals. Richard Cartier, in case you're not up on
nineteenth century supernormal activities, was the Dweller in the
Shades. And the chances are that you've never heard that name,
either, though your once-sorcerous twin Dar would have."
"Like, whoa, dude," said Rad. "I thought, like, the Golden
Swashbuckler was, like, the first Mystery Dude... er... Man... like,
y'know?"
"He was the first to be built up in the press as a hero,"
Gigawatt corrected. "The Mystery Men of the early twentieth century
were the first verifiable public crimefighting and war-fighting
figures, what we used to call superguys before Superguy, as it were.
But they were hardly the first to ever have 'powers,' or to use them
to fight crime or wars. But prior to the twentieth century, beings
with powers are either not verifiable--most people believe the civil
war tales of Union John and the Confederate are fiction, eyewitness
accounts included--or not known, owing to the lengths they went to so
as to keep their activities secret. Cartier was of the latter, and
when his journals became public in the eighties, most scholars shifted
him to the former without breaking much of a sweat---"
"Can the balloon juice, prof," said China. "Tell him about the
chip."
"I was getting to that," Gigawatt testily replied. Rad was not
sure, but he thought he heard a very slight Stock German Accent
fighting its way clear. "'The Hidden Empire' was a name Richard
Cartier gave to a shadowy organization operating in New York City and
its surrounding environs in the late 1890s. Their agents were
whispered of 'in the depths of the criminal cesspool,' as Cartier
might have put it, for their inhuman quickness, shortness,
devilishness, and a rumored ability to appear and disappear at will.
They kidnapped people, usually opium addicts, prostitutes, and other
undesirables who would not in the ordinary course of events be missed,
and put them under mental control, for reasons Cartier never was able
to discover. The means they used, according to Cartier, were pieces
of bronze-gold metal that, in his opinion, allowed the controlled
subjects to be mesmerized at any distance, possibly via radio
transmission. Radio was quite new then--at least to the general,
non-secret-society-belonging public--but Cartier was a forward-
thinking kind of detective."
Rad shifted impatiently from one foot to the other. He hoped he
would not have to remember any of this.
"Once, Cartier was captured, and was interrogated by a 'quite
singular' woman--his words--named Capella, who claimed to be the head
of the organization. Told him the metal--called nectarisite--came
from the center of the Earth. Cartier scoffed at this possibility,
and was told by Capella that the 'center' she referred to was that of
an Earth in another dimension, one in which the surface was
uninhabitable, but the interior was alive, and the nature of reality
was very different. She bragged that what he called the 'Hidden
Empire' was far grander than what little he had seen thus far."
"He never knew the stuff was called nectarisite," Chalandra said.
"Bhossi and Cla'rabhele told us that. All he knew about the metal was
what Capella told him, and that he thought its fantastic properties
were due to occult manipulations of some kind."
"You, like, knew him?" Rad asked.
"Our paths crossed, once," Chalandra replied. "There's nothing
relevant I can add that isn't in the journals." She shrugged, a
casual gesture that Rad thought was forced.
"An encounter that evidently took place during a time covered by
the first 'missing' volume of the journals," Gigawatt noted. Rad
thought he sounded surprised, as if Chalandra had never before told
him of this. Gigawatt looked like he would say more, but closed his
mouth quickly when Chalandra shot him a warning look.
"Hey, this cake is good," said Yury, as she wiped chocolate
frosting from her lips. "Is this 'Darleen' around?"
"She's up on the flight deck," said Chalandra, the sternness
melting from her expression and voice. "Too busy now, but maybe
later..."
"The Hidden Empire ultimately failed with whatever they were
trying to do with their mind-controlled captives," said Gigawatt,
raising his voice and the stockness of his now-vaguely-Slovakian
accent, "because the mesmerization was imperfect. Radio waves other
than those projected by Capella's agents interfered, often with
strange results. Eventually Cartier traced the source of the
interference to the Roburtron, which Verne had brought to New York in
his secret airship, the _Albatross_, in order to locate the escaped
villain L'Anglais..."
Rad tuned out the digression, and remembered how the bank robbers
had behaved that morning, as well as how the pseudo-ninjas had behaved
during their attack. Both had seemed to be acting in character with
what they claimed to be, save for moments where they sought to
acquire Jessica Simpson tickets, or search for laffy taffy.
As if guessing Rad's thoughts, Chalandra showed him a sheaf of
papers.
"Guido had us check the playlists of several major radio stations
in the area," she said. "This morning, around when you were
confronting the hostage takers at the bank, station KVOM out of
Anaheim announced it would give tickets to a Jessica Simpson concert
to the 13th caller. Then they played a song called 'Laffy Taffy,'
which for a few moments the hostage takers heard and tried to
interpret as commands, much as they previously interpreted the
instructions they received from their controllers."
"Dude," said Rad. "And, like, when the pseudo-ninjas that, like,
most heinously attacked us earlier started saying, like, 'smack that,
all on the floor,' and, like, stuff like that..."
Another song, played at about the time the pseudo-ninjas tried to
obey it," said China. "But this time, it came from KPPS, which is
KVOM's neighbor on the FM dial, just about."
"Guido initially thought that whoever designed the implants
neglected to use encryption to screen out contrary communications,"
said Gigawatt. "But the problem is the nectarisite itself. The
element is from another dimension; one that we are told observes
different principles of physical reality than ours. My tests on
samples I've acquired over the years have indicated this is true, and
that it possesses qualities I can only describe as transdimensional,
and transdimensionality-enabling."
"Dude..."
"You can say that again," said Yury, as she handed Rad a piece of
cake. "You wanna unpack that one for us, gramps?"
"He means," said China, as she returned her attentions to her
console and her typing, "that though it is physically in our world,
our dimension, it retains a connection to its home dimension. And
someone can use it to move from said home dimension to ours, and back
again."
"Like, okay," Rad replied. "I actually, like, understood that,
like, I thi... hmm. This, like, really is, like, some totally awesome
cake, y'know?"
China held out her hand, and Yury gave her a slice of cake. Dr.
Gigawatt finished the piece he had sampled before speaking.
"Nectarisite has some very fluidic capabilities, for a metal,"
said Gigawatt. "It is not comprised of nanites, nor of any
nanotechnological analogues, so far as we have been able to determine.
But its greatest asset--its transdimensionality--appears to also be
its weakness.
"If nectarisite is from another dimension, one where some laws of
reality are different, it must follow that, when brought into this
dimension, with *our* laws, it must perform in a less-than-optimal
manner. In this case, the nature of the element appears to be
subverting the attempt of someone--The Programmer, I am told--to
impose a circuit structure and embedded programming upon it. Had I
more information on the nature of this dimension, I might hypothesize
on how we might exploit the subversion... but, alas."
Rad paused to absorb this explanation, and while he was at it
contemplate what was more fear-inspiring: thousands of people under
direct radio implant control from an evil shadow conspiracy, or
thousands of people under direct radio implant control from Top 40
music and wacky morning DJs. After a bit of thought, he gave the edge
to the DJs, and shuddered.
"Manny and Guido told me," said Chalandra, "about the link
between The Programmer's workstation at BPSC and our systems at the
Los Requemados branch of Harxxon. Initially, we suspected a saboteur,
but then we discovered that we had this bronze-gold wiring all through
our building. Gigawatt confirmed it was nectarisite, and it had
enabled The Programmer to tap our systems for the CPU he needed to do
*his* calculations, and to gather intelligence. As far as we've been
able to tell, the wiring *grew* into our system and somehow hooked
itself up."
"Like, whoah."
"The Los Requemados site is compromised for now," Chalandra
continued. "Perhaps permanently; we don't know yet. But the _Vander
Harkness_ is so far free and clear. Probably because it wasn't hooked
up to our LAN yet..."
"Because the _Vander Harkness_ is not yet flightworthy," Gigawatt
said. "Despite the protests of your core engineers---"
"Both Bhossi and Cla'rabhele say it'll work," said Chalandra.
"It's their engine design, after all, and they say we implemented it
as well as can be expected, for a species that relies too much on
having opposable thumbs."
"The engine keeps all our raw tonnage in the air," China added,
"and it generates the sound containment field that keeps us all
stealthy-like. Any more cake left?"
"A couple slices," said Gigawatt. "I... oh, just one slice."
Iris, who had snagged a piece while China had been talking, shrugged
and sat in an empty chair next to her.
"Doesn't the government frown on this sort of thing?" Yury asked.
"I don't think so," China answered. "The frosting is FDA
approved yellow dye number six, I think..."
"I mean this big flying tub thing," Yury said. "Raises the
spectre of private corporate armies inside national borders and all
that."
"We're not an army," said Chalandra. "Not in the sense of being
another Blackwater, anyway, Marta's proposal for developing an armed
branch notwithstanding. This is, officially, an ongoing exercise
in corporate team building. At least, that's what Homeland Security
should be telling President Bush right about now. NSA doesn't like
it, the CIA and CUA freakin' hate it, but they've been ordered to
stand down. Only Homeland Security gets to liason with us, by
executive order..."
"Like, isn't Homeland Security, like, where Karina Selanova went,
like, after she left here?" Rad asked.
"Gee, did she?" Chalandra asked. "What a coincidence."
Though Rad by no means was what might be considered the most
acute angle in the geometry text, he did figure things out once in a
while.
"So, like, though she doesn't, like, work for you, she, like,
still works for you, like, right?"
Chalandra's eyes narrowed, then relaxed.
"Something like that," she said. "More of a partnership, now,
than when she was my Security Veep. Keep it under your hair helmet,
okay?"
"Like, yah, sure." It did explain, he thought, how Karina had
known earlier that he and his family were going to be attending a
'welcome back' dinner at Dave's Place tomorrow night.
"Speaking of my predecessor," said China, "she's on line one.
Hey, KS, what's the what?"
An image of Karina Selanova appeared on a screen next to the one
displaying Dodger Stadium. She glared at China.
"I don't go by my initials," said Karina.
"Yeah, and I'm not Chinese," China replied. "What's the what?"
Karina glanced at something offscreen. Rad thought, from the
look of the wall behind her, that she was in the same office he had
met her in earlier that day to discuss his daughter's illegal
jetliner-buzzing activities. If the day had worn on her as it had
worn on him, her cool demeanor did not betray it.
"The 'what' is that we're picking up some significant readings
from Dodger Stadium," said Karina. "Very heavy activity on the
frequencies given by Dr. Gigawatt."
"Which, like, means what?" asked Rad.
Gigawatt stroked his goatee some more, in the universal manner of
aged people with goatees who are about to say something portentous.
"It means," he said, "that something is coming through. From the
Hidden Empire. Something... big. Bad. And very probably oncoming."
"Hey," said a woman in a red jumpsuit at the cake table. Her
badge identified her as 'Darleen Thomas.' "Where'd my cake go?"

***

The jungle below was the same, as was the stormcloud-obscured
sky. Capella was still frozen in mid-imperious gesture. The demon
howler monkeys were frozen in mid-whatever-the-demon-howler-monkeys-
were-doing. Akane--still in the sundress Rumi had dreamed up for
her--balanced on the rail of the ship, apparently trying to do so
without willing herself to float.
"There you are," she said. "You must have woken up for a few
seconds."
"What's going on, aunt?" Rumi asked.
"Another minute and this all would have dissolved," Akane went
on. "I held it together for you."
"Why?"
Akane met her eyes. Rumi wondered what Akane saw. A fifteen-
year-old girl she had not seen for over ten years? Herself at age
fifteen, unaware of what strangeness and danger was to come?
Regardless of whom she saw, Akane seemed to know an all-purpose
question when she heard one. She hopped from the railing and landed
next to Rumi.
"I learned dream-casting when I was on walkabout," she said.
"For the three or four years I wandered space and time just seeing
what was there to see. I always intended to come back sooner, but
there was so much there, and always something I thought I couldn't
pass up.
"Then I met one of my future selves."
Rumi blinked. "What..."
"Thing that happens, when you bop around space and time. Future
selves. This Akane said she was in her six-thousand-nine-hundred-and-
seventy-seventh full life--full life, in this case, meaning a life I
lived from birth onward, and not just coming back over from death to
life because I wasn't done with the life I was on yet. She was living
on Irixna-94 in the Andromeda Galaxy as a dark matter sculptor.
Looked like I did at age twenty... except for the neck tentacles."
"Neck tentacles?"
"I didn't ask. I'm assuming she did it for the convenience."
Rumi sat down on the deck, and Akane did likewise. It seemed
the only sensible thing to do after neck tentacles entered the
conversation.
"She told me," said Akane, "that on Earth, in Los Angeles, in
July 2007, this situation would happen. The Programmer was mixed up
in a plot that was going to get really messy unless my adopted
brother, your father, intervened. All I had to do was give him an
instruction at a certain point..."
"Uncle Eivandt's barbeque," Rumi filled in. "The day after we
came to Earth."
"Right," Akane said. "I'd had a mail drop all set up, under the
name 'Miranda Satori,' and sent the picture. Then, per further
instructions from future-me, I put a message in the bratwurst you
ate..."
"How did you do *that?* Go all the way back to the brat-making
plant and--"
"Yes."
"Oh." Rumi thought for a moment. "I'm not sure I really wanted
to know that."
"We may not have long," said Akane. "Ask things you really want
to know while you can."
"Okay." Rumi had a lot of questions, but was unsure which to ask
first. "Why didn't dad say anything to me about you being alive?"
"It's supposed to be a secret," Akane replied. "And it is...
pretty much. I think maybe ten people... eleven, now that there's
you... know I'm not as dead as my corpse that they buried might
suggest. And before you ask about that, as implied before, I've got
this serial-lives immortality sort of thing going on, owing to
existing outside of existence, which would take way too long to
explain. Essentially, I'm alive, most of Earth thinks I'm dead, and
I'd like to keep it that way."
Rumi, who knew some of the circumstances of Akane's apparent
death, just nodded.
"What about Esteban?" she asked. "Is he one of the eleven?"
Akane shook her head. "He doesn't know who I am, exactly. He
just calls me 'the Green Lady,' because that's how I show up in his
dreams. How I show up in dreams in general, usually. I'm still
working on tint control..."
"And you visit him in his dreams because... your future self said
so?"
"She suggested casting for him, yes. Which didn't happen for a
while. I came back to Earth, found my Rammykins, had a dustup with
the M.I.B., and then we went away. Once we were settled--"
"Wait," said Rumi. "'Rammykins?'"
"Yeah," Akane replied. Rumi watched her aunt's face as she
talked. Before, there had been something enigmatic and shaded in her
beauty, a guarded look that Rumi thought she understood. But when
Akane said the word 'Rammykins,' it was as though something lit behind
her eyes, melted the shadows away, and coated her tongue with treacle.
"Ramrod, I mean. We went away together. Someplace the world can't
get at us. Well, it could, if it knew, but it doesn't, so it won't.
Even your dad doesn't know where we are." Akane grinned, and Rumi
felt vaguely ill.
"Once you were settled, you cast for Esteban's dreams," Rumi
prompted.
"Oh... yeah, I did," said Akane. At once, her expression
resumed its purposeful form. "He was easier to find than I expected.
His connection to those pants of his made him stand out. I showed up
in his dream, which was as weird and significant as this one, and...
helped him figure some things out."
"Are all the dreams you visit... um... 'weird and significant?'"
"Not always. But more often than not. I think it's an effect of
me being part of the dream. It becomes something important--past,
present, or future. That's how I know who she is..." Akane gestured
to Capella, whose imperious gesture had not budged. "...and who
Erasmus Fancy is, and why I read the journals of Richard Cartier.
Esteban's in the center of a long-running, mostly secret drama that
runs deep into time and the Earth, and he's just barely started
working out what to do about it. He's got one friend, Lemon, who
knows about it and is helping him, but aside from that..."
"His brother doesn't help?"
Akane shook her head. "Esteban doesn't want to ask. It's
because of Los Pantalones that a werewolf bit Miguel in the first
place. The pack he's now in was charged with guarding them until they
'recognized' their true owner... which turned out to be Esteban."
Rumi remembered something. "Esteban said... you told him I was
'okay.' Does this mean... I turned up in one of his 'significant'
dreams?"
Akane nodded. "More than one. It's up to Esteban if he wants to
share on those. The first one... well, it was the kind where I
figured he really ought to at least know who you were."
Rumi opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. "You don't
mean..."
"I 'vetted' Lemon, also," Akane went on. "Didn't know him, so I
actually had to drop in on his dreams. The boy's okay, but... wow.
Some serious strange going on inside his skull, and I thought I knew
from serious strange. And because Lemon turned out to be like I said,
Esteban believed me when I told him he could trust you."
Rumi thought of mentioning that Akane did not really know her,
either, but let it slide.
"Okay," said Rumi. "I think I've got it. Not sure I understand
that much of it, but... did you really come back to Earth just to do
this?"
"No," Akane admitted. "It was something else my future self
said. Understand, we didn't talk a whole lot... the neck tentacles
kind of creeped me out... but she told me things. She... we... have
eidetic memory, because of what we went through in the course of
becoming what we are now. She can recall everything about her six-
thousand-nine-hundred-and-seventy-seven lives, she said. Where she
went. Who she loved. Ways she's died. Afterlives she's hung out in
while deciding where to incarnate next. Don't ask me how she--we--
store all this memory, 'cause its a lot more than one brain can hold,
but there you go. And you know what she told me?"
Rumi shook her head.
"He... Ramrod... we never love anyone more than we love him.
Never in six-thousand-nine-hundred-and-seventy-seven lives."
This time, her face did not turn dreamy. If anything, it grew
more serious.
"And when he's gone, he's gone. No afterlife, no
reincarnation... he goes into the darkness and is done. Which meant I
have only one lifetime to spend with him... this one. I returned to
Earth that night."
Rumi waited, as though she would say more. About how she so
casually and quickly leapt the gulf between galaxies, if nothing else.
Instead, Akane looked at the nose of the ship, where one end of an
immense electrical arc was caught in frozen splendor. "I forgot to
mention," Akane said, "the _Subtler Than Light_ is drawing the energy
in, not projecting it out. That temple below us is Mayan, part of the
Palenque site in Central America, but its kind of remote, and the
tourists don't get to...."
The bronze-gold swam into Rumi's sight again. She tried to will
it away, and to her surprise, it receded. Though not entirely.
"Aunt," Rumi interrupted. "I'm waking up."
"Okay, then," Akane replied, as if her news had not been
unexpected. "I'll cast for you again when this is over."
Rumi thought she might have time for one more question. Maybe
even the unanswered question of 'why.' *Why* had Akane-6977 told
Akane-1 to do what she did? Was the future without her involvement
with tracking down The Programmer so much worse than the future with
her in the middle of it?
But what came from her mouth was something else entirely.
Something she had not been aware of thinking until she spoke.
"When this is over," she said, "visit my dad. He misses you. He
doesn't say anything about it anymore, but he... he does."
Akane seemed surprised for a moment.
"I've been meaning to cast..." she started.
"No," said Rumi. "Visit. In person. You can do that, right?"
"I---"
The bronze-gold rushed across Rumi's field of vision again, and
this time it would not leave. She tried to think of it as the name
she had learned--nectarisite--but there was nothing metallic about it.
It was just a feeling, a color, a sensation... and it was breaking up
to reveal the night.
The night... and three concerned faces.
One she recognized as that of Esteban Veracruz. He was upside
down to her, his hair hanging down. He smiled as soon as she opened
her eyes, and she thought she felt herself smile back, just a bit, in
response.
One face was that of a Reptiloid... sort of. It was not the
Reptiloid she had seen in her vision, Rumi knew, if only because its
leathery-scaly skin, instead of being a uniform shade of olive green,
had vibrant colors billowing across it. As she watched, it settled
into a sort of fluttery blue-and-silver pattern.
The third was... Akane.
No, not Akane. Well, sort of Akane. But with very long, very
blonde hair, kept from her face in a ponytail. Her bronzed skin had a
slightly weathered look, and in her eyes and curled lips Rumi thought
she could see an amused and detached cynicism that Akane had not
possessed. At once, she knew who she had to be.
"Aunt Shadebeam?"
"Got it in one," Shadebeam Moroboshi replied. "Esteban here says
you went flying and passed out. Damn good thing his pants were
working and he flew up and caught you, then."
"Los Pantalones were working because she fixed them," said
Esteban. Rumi noticed now that the safety goggles she had seen on him
earlier were around his neck. He had a shirt on now, depicting what
appeared to be cartoon apes identified as 'Gorillaz.' Two straps
crossed his shoulders, which Rumi guessed to belong to a backpack.
"I came here because there was no answer at Templar's or Hal's or...
or anywhere."
"Where's here?" Rumi asked. She sat up fast, and was amazed to
feel... good. And energized, as though she had drank some of her
mother's chitaba coffee.
"Take it easy," said the Reptiloid, the voice tone identifying
him as male. The colors of his scale-skin began to lazily whirl.
"You've had a rough---"
"She's okay, Slith," said Shadebeam. "I cast a healing spell on
you. There wasn't any bad damage that I could see when Esteban
brought you in, but I thought---"
"To repeat, where's here?" Rumi asked. She pushed against the
ground with psychokinetic force, and was on her feet in a moment.
After noting she was still in the day-glo orange t-shirt and blue jean
shorts she had been wearing that afternoon, she took in her
surroundings.
Everything around her seemed to be in an 'under construction'
state. She had been on a blanket laid on smooth, hard-baked desert
ground, in what appeared to be a hub joining several winding paths.
On her left, several Hottentotian engineers--recognizable to her
because of the small, conical horns on their foreheads--drank a
bubbling blue liquid and discussed a structure that looked rather like
a giant spider with slots on its legs for dispensing drinks. On her
right whirled the pointy end of an enormous underground transport, and
she wondered if it had just arrived. And in the distance...
In the distance, a savage-looking prehistoric giant man was
standing next to a very tall and unfinished wooden pyramid. Other,
much less giant humanoidish beings were on said pyramid, and the giant
appeared to be helping them fit a large log into position. It was a
log much larger than was typical for the upper end of a pyramid, and
Rumi realized it was to be the start of antlers.
"I'm at Burning M00se," she said.
"What's going to be Burning M00se," Shadebeam corrected. "In
about three weeks from now. Right now, this is just Malaga, New
Mexico. Home to me and Slithis for the past seven years."
Rumi tried to process the information.
"New Mexico?" she asked. "What am I doing in New Mexico?"

NEW MEXICO?
GIANT SPIDER?
NECK TENTACLES?
RAMMYKINS?
CAKE?
DEMONIC MONKEY EYE?
NECTARISITE?
RAVENOUSITY?
DWELLER IN THE SHADES?
PAPARAZZI?
T-REX ON A SEGWAY?
...THE HELL?

SUPERGUY.
--
Gary W. Olson
swede at novitious.com
swede3000 at earthlink.net
LJ Superguy Discussion: http://community.livejournal.com/superguy_list

SG: Rad #95 (2/3): My Cake

(continued from part one, preceding...)

Rad and Yury descended into the dome. Rad could not see much of
anything for a moment. Then, as the dome opening closed, the 'floor'
spiraled open. They descended again, this time into a circular room
that Rad knew had to be a command center, because if it was not a
command center, then it was just a lot of cubicles and computers
showing pictures of clouds and other crap and people sitting and
standing around commenting on said pictures and drinking coffee. The
roaring noise ceased as soon as the dome closed up, and was replaced
by chatter and computer noises. Rad noticed that all of the two dozen
people he saw wore civilian business clothing of one sort or another,
rather than the military uniforms he expected.
"Down here!" called an unfamiliar voice. Down they went, voice
owner they found, and though he had not seen her for a number of
years, Rad recognized China Kyoko Moroboshi--who was now Harxxon's
Corporate Security VP--at once. She was taller than he remembered,
nearly six feet, most of that wiry and athletic in appearance. Though
her age could have been given as anything from thirteen to millennia,
depending how you counted, her appearance was that of a woman in her
early thirties, made younger by her choice of apparel. Of the people
in the room, she was the only one Rad saw in non-business garb--black
boots, tight black leather pants, and a black t-shirt that displayed
what appeared to be an album cover for a band called 'Juno Reactor.'
Her long black hair was pulled back in a braided ponytail, and her
pale face was split with an ear-to-ear grin. It took Rad a moment to
realize the grin was not for him.
"So, CK, this tub actually flies," said Iris, her tone
completely unlike what it had been before--i.e, possessing actual
humanity. "Sort of."
"What you mean?" China asked. "We're up, ain't we?"
Iris made a 'pfft' sound. "Only 'cause gravity's too busy
laughing. Where's folks?"
"I've been trying to get 'em since I caught your approach," said
China. "Still talking with Bhossi, probably. Gonna have to get
her... hey, Uncle! Welcome to Earth and all that."
"Like, ya--"
"I gotta track down Chal. You guys wait here. Have some cake."
As she headed through a door next to her console, China gestured
to a table that supported three-quarters of a birthday cake.
According to a sign above the table, someone named 'Darleen' was
having a birthday.
"She, like, always this, like, way?" Rad asked in low tones.
"When China got her physical body," Yury replied, "she was more,
you know, demure. Polite. Like the Bone Child we used to know. Now
she's more Kyoko-like. Rowdier. Does what she likes, and likes who
she does. Not that I actually ever *met* Kyoko. I'm just telling you
what she told me."
"I, like, meant..." He finished the sentence by pointing to
Iris, whose back was turned, and whose legs were carrying her away at
a slow pace while she did various Top Assisting things via her
SpoonBerry.
Yury shrugged. "She's all business with me. When she's off
work, though, I'm given to understand that she, China, and some
friends go to raves in trashy parts of the city. Not my scene
anymore, but I know people still in it. She never shows up at my
place with so much as a shadow beneath her eyes. Can't figure out
how she does it."
"Like, with her powers, why is she, like..."
"Iris trained as a sidekick. Same school Manny went to, I think.
But solo heroes with openings for sidekicks are scarce these days, so
she took some classes and looked for work as a personal assistant."
"But, she can..."
Yury shrugged again. "Some people are just temperamentally
suited to it. I used to think Manny was until he got powers. Even
then, he captained a superguy team, rather than going solo. Iris,
despite her abilities, thinks like a sidekick. Or an assistant. It's
why I have her do a lot of my nightly crime patrols. *Not* just
because I have premieres to go to and interviews to give and that kind
of thing, no matter what Templar may have told you. Speaking of whom,
when Chal asked me to check out the attack at Cendra's place, she said
Temp was here, but I don't see---"
The door China had left through opened, and China emerged.
Following her was a stocky bald man with a white goatee and a spotless
lab coat. Rad immediately recognized him as Dr. Giuseppe Gigawatt, an
ally from his old superguy days who was now, he dimly remembered,
head of Applied Sciences for Harxxon, Inc. Dr. Gigawatt brightened
upon seeing Rad.
"Ah, there you are!" he exclaimed, with no stock accent
whatsoever. "It has been too long!"
"Dude!" Rad replied, as he shook hands with the elderly
scientist. "What's, like, happened to, like, your stock accents?"
"Accent reduction classes," Gigawatt replied. "Expensive, since
I had so many to reduce, but worthwhile, I think. Right, boss?"
"Said before, Giuseppe," a female voice responded, dulcet tones
giving the words an almost seductive shading, "it's all a piece to me.
I'm just glad you're happy with the results."
The owner of the voice stepped into the room, and Rad was
conscious that, even though he knew who she was, who she had to be, it
took him a moment to connect her to the woman in his memories. It was
not her tailored business suit, with its elegant contrasts of black
fabric and red accents, that threw him. Nor was it her tall, slim
frame, or the clipped style of her dirtwater-blonde hair. Nor was it
her dark red lips, her overly pale skin, her sharp eyes, or her
youthful appearance...
No, Rad thought, it was exactly her 'youthful appearance' that
had thrown him. Because, of all the old friends he had met in the
past couple of days, even the ones who had done all they could to hold
on to the appearance of youth, Chalandra Harkness was the only one who
looked *exactly* as he remembered her. She smiled, revealing a hint
of her vampire's fangs.
Chalandra Harkness, upon leaving the superguy-team CalForce, had
become CEO of the giant and giantly corrupt multinational corporation
Harxxon, replacing Vander Harkness, the distant relative for whom the
flying H they were on was named. Rad remembered that Chalandra's
stated aim had been to turn the company and its many subsidiaries
around, so as to be, if not virtuous, at least not vicious. According
to Glum, considerable progress had been made. But there were critics
that charged that much more could be done, and that Chalandra was
pursing an agenda that could most charitably be described as
'ruthlessly pragmatic,' toward ends that--the critics charged--were
hardly in keeping with the noble ideals of a superguy, or even an ex-
superguy whose powers were essentially the powers of your average
vampire. That no two critics could agree on just what those ends
were--power, market share, profit, manipulation of global situations,
imposition of moral or amoral standards, or any or all of these--did
nothing to stem their vitriol.
Rad had seen nothing during the years he had known her to cause
him to agree with those critics, but he was also aware that those
years were the merest fraction of her five-century life, and that, by
her own admission, her earlier years had been frequently bloody, and
not always on the side of the good.
"Hello, Rad," Chalandra said. If she had any guess as to what he
had been thinking about, she gave no indication. "I'm glad Yury found
you. I didn't want you to fly all the way to the Harxxon building in
Los Requemados only to find it's come out here."
"Like, what's going on, Chal?" Rad asked. "Do you, like, know
where---?"
"Not specifically," Chalandra interrupted. "But we think we have
an idea where Tom, Glum, Rumiko, and Eivandt's family may have been
taken." She gestured at a viewscreen on the wall above China's
console. "Want to show him the overhead shot, CK?"
"There's a lot of things I could say to that question," said
China, as she took her seat and started typing.
"How about 'yes, boss?'"
"That would only encourage you."
Rad had not made particular note of what the screen displayed
before, and only had a moment to take in the disoriented look of two
people in cheap-looking pseudo-ninja garb before the scene
disappeared. It was replaced by an overhead shot of Dodger Stadium,
the kind that might have appeared as background to a listing of
sponsors on a nighttime televised baseball broadcast. The field
dominated the shot, lit by the stadium's high-intensity light
system. Downtown Los Angeles glittered in the background.
If there was anything wrong with the picture, it was that the
baseball diamond could not be made out. And the grass was not green,
it was some kind of bronze-gold liquid, flowing as thick syrup that
had swallowed up the outfield. China typed something, and the camera,
which Rad guessed was on one of Harxxon's helicopters, zoomed in. The
bronze-gold liquid had a shine that was unmistakably metallic.
"This started ten minutes ago," said Chalandra. "It was slow at
first, and stadium personnel were able to evacuate. Manny, Guido,
Marta, and Templar took a chopper out that way as soon as the info
came in. We got in touch with Mighty Guy, and he's on his way there
as well. Key will be joining him as soon as she drops Johnny off
here."
Rad glanced at Yury, who stiffened on hearing this news.
"Fortunately," Chalandra went on, "the Dodgers are playing out in
Seattle this week."
"Like, what is it, dudes?"
"A city in the Pacific northwest," Yury told him. "Even I know
that one." Iris, who was nearby, looked up, frowned slightly, and
returned her attention to her SpoonBerry.
"Like, I mean the metal, y'know?"
"It is called nectarisite," said Dr. Gigawatt, as he rubbed his
goatee in the universal manner of aged people with goatees who are
about to say things of import. "An element not to be found in our
periodic table--at least, not unless they've added a new leaf of late.
Notable characteristics include extreme toughness, lightness, and
plasticity. The samples we've tested over the last couple years would
collectively fit into an Altoids box... but it would appear we are
getting a great deal more to work with, whether we like it or not.
As for its relevance to the attacks on you at Critical Studios and
your family at Cendra Seconds's apartment, it appears that a number of
persons matching descriptions logged about 'fakey-looking ninjas' and
'cheap-looking wannabe zombies' are in the immediate vicinity, having
arrived via several chartered busses. We believe that all of them
have this implanted in them."
He held a pair of tweezers in his lifted right hand, and Rad saw
a glint of bronze-gold light off of what they held.
"This was taken out of the neck of the corpse brought to Los
Requemados by Manny, Templar, and Guido," Gigawatt said. "It is the
chip that was implanted in all those who attacked today. You will
notice that it is also made of nectarisite."
Rad, who had noticed nothing of the kind, made a 'like, mmhmm'
sound to indicate that he had.
"Tell me," said Gigawatt. "Have you ever heard of... the Hidden
Empire?"

***

To The Programmer, the revelation of the true nature of his work
at Blue Pound Sign of California explained a lot. It covered, in his
estimation, why his fingertips always hurt at the end of the day, why
he never remembered what it was he did, why he was so frequently surly
but unable to express why, and why he had such difficulty in losing
the last ten pounds mandated by his diet. It also explained why he
had so recently started considering, in more than a nostalgic sense,
his old life as a supervillain.
Every day for the last six years, as soon as he started to type
at his keyboard, nanofilaments made of a periodic-table-confounding
element known to him as nectarisite drove into his fingertips,
connecting him to a cyberspace-like environment. In that environment
he worked, designing the inner workings of a radio-based control chip
made of that element. Nectarisite was a difficult medium to work
with, in that the only documentation concerning it he had been allowed
to read made reference to properties such as the 'luminiferous aether'
and the 'syntactical aether,' and how to adjust one's code to take
them into account when designing circuits and creating programs.
When he had pointed out to his controllers that there were
perfectly good and far less detectable radio-based control chips made
of more standard materials that could be ready-ordered from well-
stocked spy stores or the CIA's summer swimsuit catalog, he had been
rebuffed without explanation. Nectarisite it had to be. So
nectarisite it was.
Whatever the hell nectarisite was *supposed* to be. Its
conductive ability was superb, and he had been assured that it could
not be jammed by conventional means--which might have been the
explanation he wanted, save that he strongly suspected it was not.
But code that should have produced predictable results did weird
things, and fuzzy logic optimized for maximum problem solving grew
rigid and unforgiving.
It surprised him greatly that anyone would try to control an army
with his implants, given the state their programming was in.
Something had forced the hands of his controllers, he deduced.
Something big, bad, and oncoming.
He looked at one of his controllers, the Mega-Intelligence Bureau
Secret Secret Agent who had identified herself as Dana Wader. Now
that his conditioning had been lifted, through the judicious and
painful application of a dart to his neck, he guessed that it had been
she who spoke to him most often as he did his work. Her low,
seductive, evil voice had been ever present, directing him, rewarding
him, and punishing him.
"Thank you, Detective Sanders," she said into her cell phone.
"It's not an unexpected development, but we value the information.
The National Investigation Bureau appreciates its friends, Detective.
Yes, yes. I can't help you there, Detective, when it comes to
paparazzi I generally resort to high explosives." She paused. "What?
Oh, ha ha, right, that was a joke. Goodbye, Detective."
Dana closed the phone and snarled. The Programmer was unsure
what this 'Detective Sanders' had told her, but it was evidently not
favorable.
Somehow, he knew it would not go well for him if he asked her why
she, a one-time empress of a thoroughly evil star empire, was now an
earthbound agent for the Mega-Intelligence Bureau. Had she fooled
said agency into thinking she was someone else, or had the agency
fooled itself into thinking it could channel her nefarious nature
toward its own ends? For that matter, had said agency not been
exposed during some sort of Congressional hearings? How was it that
they were still around?
Questions and no answers. The Programmer decided he did not care
about the answers. He had his true self back. Now it was 'Gary W.
Olson' that was the fiction, a name invented at his birth that had
served until he found his true purpose--to seek world domination, or,
failing that, domination of a land area no smaller than France, only
located in South America somewhere where the clime was pleasant, the
women were exotic, and the drinks were tasty. It mattered not that
all he had at the moment was a one-bedroom apartment that he did not
so much dominate as share with two lazy cats. He had his true self--
The Programmer--back. All else was a matter of time.
He looked out the window, and saw that their limousine was in
downtown Los Angeles. He caught a glimpse of Dodger Stadium, up on
what was Chavez Ravine, just before the limo entered a parking
structure. The limo did not slow down to take a ticket, and in fact
sped up a bit.
"Fasten your seatbelt, Mr. The Programmer," said Dana, though The
Programmer noted she had not so much as touched hers. "This next part
tends to disorient newcomers."
The limo entered a descending spiral ramp, which featured tight
turns that the driver was taking with speed and an evident disregard--
bordering on outright contempt--for the vehicle's paint job. The
Programmer clutched at the door handle as he watched the levels flash
by. All seemed deserted.
After passing ten parking levels, there were no more; yet the
limo continued to recklessly turn and descend. Dana seemed
unconcerned about their destination and general safety, and he tried
to emulate her. The difficulty in this for him was compounded by how
the continual tight-and-fast turn was upsetting his stomach.
Abruptly, the turns ceased, and the limo shot out into a
featureless, phosphorescent-lit tunnel. It felt constricted, though
it had two lanes and a very sharp downward angle. The limo picked up
speed, and The Programmer braced his feet against the opposite seat
before he realized he was doing so.
The high-velocity descent continued for ten minutes, then leveled
out. The limo shot through an opening into a far more massive--though
still phosphorescent-lit--tunnel. It had four lanes in either
direction and what The Programmer thought were very high ceilings,
from which hung numerous green strands. The limo swerved, and The
Programmer realized that not only was this tunnel impressive, they
were not the only ones making use of it.
To their immediate left was a large, floating wooden bowl
carrying two wizened Tibetan monks, three Australian aborigines, a
bored-looking dodo, and a squat, green-suited man with a wraparound
gold visor. A pair of orange-skinned, six-armed horse riders in
vaguely Mayan outfits flipped the limo and its occupants off, while
the eyes of their horses glowed red. A pair of dwarves who appeared
to have been caught in the middle of a vicious multicolor paintball
war rode their hover-boards onto the wall, with no apparent
consequences in terms of gravity taking a notice.
Then something massive passed, and The Programmer had to squeeze
a certain set of muscles very tight to avoid an unfortunate mess.
The wheels of the something were as big as those of a cement truck,
but what rode them was even bigger.
"T... t... re... re... x..."
"No such thing, Mr. The Programmer," said Dana Wader. "But the
M.I.B. would appreciate it if you made no mention of what you think
you see down here, to anyone not on this project. That is, if you
value your internal organs, in the sense of wishing to keep them on
'internal' status."
"A T-Rex," said The Programmer, oblivious to what Dana had just
said. "On... a giant Segway-like scooter!"
"If you say so," said Dana. "I will remind you that the swamp
gas gets rather intense down this way. As do the bullets. If you get
my drift."
"How does it even drive?" The Programmer asked. "Its arms are
so tiny!"
Dana sighed, started to pull out her sidearm, frowned, then put
her sidearm back in its holster.
"They're like little sticks! What's up with that?"
"Shut up," Dana suggested.
The Programmer shut up, but only because he was distracted from
the sight of the scooter-riding T-Rex by the green strands that hung
from the far-off ceiling of the tunnel. Several moved, and The
Programmer thought he saw beings in loincloths and neckties swinging
on them.
Just as abruptly as the limo had entered the underground tunnel,
it split into a side tunnel. The Programmer pressed his face to the
glass, momentarily unable to breathe. The thought that something so
strange could be beneath Los Angeles--and how far beneath Los Angeles
were they, anyway?--had pushed aside every other consideration. He
wanted to go back. He wanted to know where the travelers on that...
that underground highway... were going. He wanted to know who or what
was actually driving that big floating wooden bowl thing. He wanted
it to not be a dream.
After a minute of near-darkness, the limo skidded to an abrupt
stop. The doors unlocked. The Programmer took a breath, then let the
images of the tunnel recede. For now. He reached for the handle,
hesitated, and looked at Dana.
"Go ahead," she said, seeming pleased at The Programmer's
deference.
The banged-up limo was in the middle of a room of considerable
size, which contained six chartered busses, several limousines,
several more SUVs, a rack of jetpacks, and what looked to The
Programmer like a Rose Bowl parade of floats saluting Extreme
Beweaponment. Two of the busses were unloading people wearing
handcuffs, and a lot of people wearing bad-looking ninja-type clothes
or worse-looking zombie-type costumes. The busses showed no signs of
damage, and The Programmer wondered if the route they had taken was
the only way into this underground complex.
The driver of the limo got out, and The Programmer observed he
was still massive, still wearing all black, still facially obscured by
a black mask that lacked even eyeholes. Remembering the wedgie he had
been given the last time he had seen the driver, The Programmer
elected not to make any snide remarks about his poor choice of
employers this time.
"Our objectives have been met," the limo driver said to Dana.
Again, the driver's voice had the remote, slightly slurred feel of
words that had been pre-recorded on a sun-warped cassette. "We have
Tom McCavish-Laffalot and Miguel Veracruz."
"Who are the others?" The Programmer asked. "It's... oh, wow!
Is that Glum?"
The black-haired woman in the tiger-stripe print sundress looked
up and gave a defiant scowl.
"I should have known it was you," Glum sneered. "This whole
business with making people act like zombies had you written all over
it."
"Ha ha!" exclaimed The Programmer. "I see that my fame continues
unabated despite my years of forgetting my true purpose in---"
"I don't mean you, whoever you are," she said. "I was talking to
Dana."
"At last you are in my power," said Dana. "Never again shall you
vex my designs for conquest of the... well, you know how it goes.
Long time, Empress."
"Not Empress any more," said Glum. "Or Prime Minister, for that
matter. Retired. Who's the stiff?"
"The Programmer," said Dana, as she looked him over with disdain.
"Called himself a supervillain once. Fought CalForce a few odd times,
I hear. Not much to show for it."
"Hey, Tom," said Glum. "Isn't he the guy you and Joe were
looking for?"
The Programmer recognized Tom McCavish-Laffalot, the onetime
armored hero known as MicroVax. That he recognized Tom despite his
current lack of armor only indicated, to The Programmer, how
thoroughly he had once prepared to battle the forces of good.
"Yeah," said Tom. "Where are we, anyway?"
"Underground hideout," said Eivandt Seconds, whom The Programmer
also recognized. "It has that whole fifties bomb shelter ambiance."
"Tell them nothing," Dana said, her harsh glare now fully on The
Programmer again.
"I was hoping for exact GPS coordinates," Tom said. "But vague,
enigmatic hints will do."
"We're somewhere beneath Los Angeles, not far from Dodger
Stadium," said the woman next to Glum. She was barely twenty, The
Programmer guessed, though there was something hard in her eyes that
suggested those years had not been without the occasional dangerous
adventure. "Miguel, how long were we descending on that lift?"
"Six minutes, Cendra," said the tall, buff surfer guy next to
her. He looked at their captors as if he was thinking about ripping
them apart. No... more like he had already decided to rip them apart,
and was only trying to work out whether to go from left to right or
right to left. The clamps on his wrists seemed small and fragile,
though The Programmer doubted this was the case.
"Lets see," Cendra said. "Six minutes at... um... yeah. Eight
miles underground."
"Ha!" Dana exclaimed. "It's *eight and a half* miles
underground! So there!" She paused and frowned. "Did I just say
that out loud?"
"No," her driver said. Dana's expression brightened.
"Good," she replied. "Now, guards, take Miguel, Tom, and The
Programmer to the broadcast center, and have Secret Agent Alert give
them their assignments. Other guards, take Glum, Eivandt, and Cendra
to a holding cell. Set up the closed-circuit camera and make sure one
of you is always in the shot, with a gun pointed at them. Make sure
the cameras are set on 'record' if you're going to do any taunting."
"Dana!" Cendra exclaimed. "You don't have to do this! I can---"
"You can what?" Dana asked. "Betray me? Reduce the entire
pocket dimension that comprised the holdings of my star empire, and
imprison it in a marble that can never be cracked open?"
"I was going to say 'I can do any light typing and filing you
need done,' Cendra answered. "But if you've got another pocket
dimension lying around, sure, I'll take a shot at it."
Pure rage filled Dana's expression, and she tried to lunge at
Cendra. Her driver caught her with one of his massive arms and held
her back. The Programmer had no idea what was between Cendra and
Dana, but it clearly was not an incident that Dana regarded with
nostalgia.
"She is trying to provoke you," said the limo driver. "We do not
have time for vengeance... for the moment."
The Programmer looked at the driver again. He was not addressing
Dana Wader as a superior. Clearly, this driver was no mere M.I.B.
flunky. Possibly, he was not part of the M.I.B. at all. If---
His thought fled as he looked past the driver and at the bus that
had, until recently, held prisoners and a bunch of people who were
dressed as ninjas, zombies, or some amalgamation thereof. He had
thought the bus empty, but now when he looked at the windows, he saw
several sets of glowing red eyes. The bodies these eyes were attached
to were short, black-furred, and tail-bearing. And the little horns
on their heads...
"Demon monkeys!" The Programmer shouted. "On the bus! Look!"
Before people could look, the demon monkeys disappeared. One
second they were there, the next there had been this sort of wiggle in
the space they occupied, and the next there was nothing.
"Are you okay?" Glum asked. "She hasn't been hitting you on the
head with a lead pipe or something, has she?"
"Not yet," Dana growled. "But it could be arranged."
The Programmer said nothing. He thought of the demon monkeys.
Their expressions had been so... determined. And grim. Bunch of
way-grim demon monkeys, those. And the way they had left... had they
teleported? Only thing worse than way-grim demon monkeys, in The
Programmer's book, were way-grim teleporting demon monkeys. He did
not recall having done anything in his villainous past specifically
against monkeys--demonic or non-demonic, teleporting or non-
teleporting. He hoped he was not the one they had been giving
the grim, determined, demonic monkey eye.
Black-suited guards separated Glum, Cendra, and Eivandt from Tom
and Miguel, and were leading them toward a nearby unlabeled set of
doors. Before they could reach the doors, though, the limo driver
said, distorted voice now very low, "Stop them."
"Stop!" Dana ordered. The guards and prisoners stopped where
they were.
Definitely not a servant, The Programmer decided. But why was he
even posing as one?
"The prisoner... Glum," said the driver. "Is she a
Hottentotian?"
"She is," Dana answered, almost hissing. "What about it? We got
her by chance. She's not in any scenario--"
"She is a Hottentotian," the driver interrupted. The Programmer
noted he was taking care not to raise his voice to where the guards
could hear. "Therefore, she is more significant than either of our
original targets, though their value is not diminished. Have her
escorted directly to the scrap pile, and hold her there until we are
prepared."
"Prepared for what?" Dana asked. "You never told me we
needed---"
"Not here," the driver said. "In the labs."
Dana gave the orders in a significantly raised voice to the
guards, who instantly obeyed. Dana and the driver then left, without
another word, into the dimly-lit corridor on the side of the hub
opposite where Glum, Cendra, and Eivandt had been headed. Where
Cendra and Eivandt were still headed, while other guards gestured for
Glum to walk to a third set of doors and an equally nondescript
corridor.
"Let's go, the rest of you," said the guard closest to The
Programmer. "Somebody get the chip-controlled guys back on the busses
and back to the surface."
Something about the guard's voice seemed familiar. He tried to
get a look at her face, but she turned away and started punching
numbers into what looked like an oversized radio phone. The
Programmer frowned, not happy to be regarded as such an easy
'guarding' assignment, but decided to play it cool for now. They had
brought him in to work, after all. Once he had access to computer
systems... well, things would change.
The Programmer allowed himself to be escorted into the same
corridor that Dana and the driver had taken, with prisoners Tom and
Miguel ahead of him. The corridors were wide, if a singularly
uninteresting gunmetal gray, and there was plenty of room for the
eight heavily-armed M.I.B. security personnel to keep guns pointed at
them. There was a corridor above, visible through large grates, and
The Programmer saw the boots of even more armed guards. He had a
strong hunch that his status was scarcely better than Tom and
Miguel's.
Then he let all thoughts of his status, and of grim demon
monkeys, fall by the wayside, and returned in his mind to the
underground highway and its strange rolling, flying, and swinging
denizens. Underground highways, underground cities, underground
worlds... all ripe for conquest. Surely some empire roughly the size
of France and possessed of tasty drinks could be carved out there....

(continued in part three, following...)