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Thu Jul 27, 2006 at 03:54:49 pm EDT
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Semi-Transparent Lad #18
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Semi-Transparent Lad #18

"Monsoon"


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Downtown Goth Haven.
Goth Haven Central Police Department.
The Meta-Crimes Lock up.
3 Months ago.

"Thank you for calling me. It shows a real trust in what we are trying to accomplish." Rex Regent said politely as he walked down the institutional grey hallway.

"Sure. No Problem. When these perps were brought in by your people, we were told that if we ever had a problem with one of them to call you." Officer Charles O'Malley said as he pulled out his card key.

He swiped it through the reader, the door made a buzzing noise & unlocked. The Officer & the Public face of Special Resolution 1066 walked deeper into the state of the art lock up.

"Nice place you got here." Regent said off handedly. He thought it was quaint.

"Thanks. It was built as part of Mayor Macklinberg's City of Tomorrow project." O'Malley said as he walked a few steps ahead of Mr. Regent.

"Ah yes. I think I read something about that." Regent said & then there was a pause. "On behalf of Government, I'm sorry we had to cut funding to that project. The Money was needed elsewhere. I hope you understand." He said in his most sincere tone. He didn't mean it.

"It's ok. I know the Government probably needed the money to fight the War on Terror or something as important." Officer O'Malley said as he unlocked another door.

"Yes... That's what the Money went. The War on Terror." Regent said suspiciously. He changed the topic slightly. "I notice that most of the cells are empty."

"yeah. This part of the Department is pretty new. Plus, the City has been sending most of it's meta-criminals to the Safe. I expected we'll being getting bodies to fill those cells soon what with SR1066 & all." Officer O'Malley said with a slight chuckle as he unlocked the door to the Solitary Confinement section of the Detention Center.

"Yes. Yes, you will." Regent said with a smile.

"On another note, I'm really glad you guys decided to keep these Criminals in the City. It's been great publicity for us. Maybe people will think of us & not just the Safe when they want to lock up some Meta-Freaks." O'Malley said.

"No Problem. The Safe, as you may know, has been a little crowded recently. So, your wonderful Police Commissioner & Mayor said that these people would be welcomed first residents here. We were glad to oblige that request." Regent said with a slightly evil chuckle. O'Malley laughed along but not getting the joke.

As the Two of them past by the Plastic enclosed cells, Regent looked over at the prisoners. The Unempowered Negro Scientist who was useless without his precious suit of armor, The Psychotic Vigilante with abandonment issues (Regent noticed that the lights were dimmed in his cell), The Media Whore who is also daughter of one of Goth Haven's greatest heroes from World War II. They were all sitting quietly in their cells, just like their patriot brands hold tell them to.

At the end, Regent & the Officer stopped at the cell holding the man Mr. Regent had come to see. The man was wearing a straight jacket & was convulsing all over the floor. He seemed to be having some adverse reactions to his branding. But, the Officer didn't know that.

"Officer O'Malley, may I have a moment alone with Mr. Starscream?" Regent said nicely.

"Sure. No Problem. I've got come paperwork I've got to do back at my desk. So, Just ring me up when your done."

"Ok." Mr. Regent said with a evil smile as the good Officer walked away, this was of course after he unlocked the door. The Smile went away from Regent's face as soon as the Officer turned away from him.

Mr. Regent walked into the Plastic room, the lights were almost blinding. Mr. Regent took out a plastic stun gun out from under his suit jacket & shot the Security Camera which made it short out.

"Now, let's see what's wrong with you. Shall we?" Mr. Regent said in a depressing tone as knelt down to, undid a couple buckles on the jacket & lifted up Jet's shirt. The Patriot Brand over his heart seemed to be working fine. There was no signs of rejection.

Regent stood up & looked over the once proud super hero pondering what to do. "Well now, why isn't your Patriot Brand making you more patriotic and obedient?" he wondered, watching the spasming superstar gyrating all over the floor. His first thought was that of a swift kick to the gut might stop Starscream writhing about.

"Your Brand's functioning just fine, overriding your conscious thoughts like it should," Rex pondered, "So why isn't your body responding?"

Then a thought popped into his head. He turned the twitching Jet over onto his back and pulled up the hero's shirt. "Well now," he whistled as he saw the pitch black alien symbiote clinging to Jet's back. "That explains a lot!"

Regent opened his briefcase and removed one of the portable Patriot Brands he'd brought along. He carefully positioned it over the symbiote and hit the activation seal. Jet screamed. Regent wasn't sure if he heard the symbiote scream as well, but in any case the subject stopped twitching and started obeying properly. That's all he wanted.

"Good Boy." Mr. Regent said condescendingly as he patted Jet on the head.

Rex redid back up the buckles on the jacket. He got up & walked to one of the Cell's walls, pressed the com button. "Officer, I'm done."

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Goth Haven
The corner of Montgomery & Shepherd.
Mama Sara's Good Food & Hot Drinks Emporium.
4 Weeks ago.

The AWOL members of the Federal Meta-Human Resource Center's C-Class were all sitting around in one of the many booths. Their de facto leader, Betty Marsh, codename: Teen Avenger, is looking over the info contained with their Mentor, Mr. Gordon Matthew Summers' Laptop. At the moment, it's their only connection to him.

"A-Class is back." Betty said bluntly.

This comment raised a few eyebrows.

"I thought they died. I'm pretty sure they did. There was that big all class meeting a few months back, Holcomb announced they had kicked the bucket. Some.. now what did he call it..." James Milton, the hero in training know as Billy Goat, said & paused trying to remember what Holcomb called those people. Years of Television & Video Games had destroyed his short term memory.

"An off world force." Lance Jones, codename: Psi-Lance, said.

"Yeah, that's it! An off world force had killed them."

"Yes. A-Class did die, but they're back." Betty said quizzically.

"Huh?" came from a few people.

"Didn't you ever wonder why we never heard about funerals for A-Class?" Betty asked cryptically. "Didn't you also ever notice how familiar they looked?"

The team thought for a moment. Some were actually thinking about the topic at hand.

"Yeah." came an almost collective reply.

"You don't have funerals for people who were never really people in the first place." Betty said with a wry smile.

This left a few people scratching their heads, but before Betty could continue. Morty Jones was wheeled in by Mama Sara. "Guys! You've got to hear this!" he said excitedly.

Morty turned on the boombox radio he had in his lap & they all heard the Paragon of Power speak: “This is a message from the Lair Legion. You have been lied to and cheated, and there are things you do not know. We intend to set that right.”

As Mr. E talked, Morty flipped through the stations, Epitome was on every one. The voices on the air changed from Epitome to Lisa to CrazySugarFreakBoy to other Legionaries. Morty, Mama & C-Class all sat or stood and listened to the broadcast. Nobody spoke. Nobody even put food in their mouth or took a drink. History was being made.

They listened as the Lair Legion revealed what had been going on for the last couple of months. Conspiracy. Persecution. Betrayal. Surrender. And a last desperate call to arms.

After a few minutes, the Radio message stopped. So Mama turned on her wall mounted TV above the counter to see if she could get some more info. On screen, there was Mr. Epitome. He was sitting in what appeared to be the Oval Office & was looking directly at them. Mama Sara blushed a bit.

“My fellow Americans, You have seen that you have been deceived by wicked men who have corrupted our nation and tired to rob us of the freedoms our forefathers bled to win us. That ends today. Now is the time for all men and women of conscience to stand together. Now is the time to prove we are still worthy of the liberties our founders dreamed of. If America is a great nation, now is when we show that to the world. And beyond.” Mr. Epitome said. His eyes seemed to burn into the souls of all those watched.“Today is the day we choose liberty or death.”

After the short speech was made, the screen went black for a moment & then Dan Smith, the lead anchor of KYRQ 7's news team, came on the screen. He was standing in the KYRQ 7 newsroom. He looked a little flustered & he began to recap what just happened with the info they knew. From the sounds of it, it wasn't much.

"What just happened?" Oswald Vanderhoosey, codename: The Human Zamboni, asked.

"I'm not exactly sure." Betty said.

"I think the side of good won." Mama Sara said.

"Is Mr. Epitome the president now?" Oswald asked.

"Maybe. He's good enough man for the job. I'd vote for him!" Mama replied & then began to fantasize about the Star Spangled Splendor.

Then, came the questions, some even had answers:

"What does this all mean for us? Are we still on the run? Do we go back to the FMRC?" Oswald asked.

"I don't know. But, we're not going back the FMRC, we promised to Mr. Summers that we wouldn't. Also, I'm not even sure there even an FMRC to go back to?" Betty replied.

"Maybe we can get help finding Mr Summers?" Oswald said optimistically.

"We're doing that. Out of the few people we've tried so far: they either don't remember him, are unwilling to help or are to far away to help us anyways. But, we'll continue until we have Summers back or, I hope it doesn't come to this, we die."

"What happens about Garrick, Holcomb & the lot? Will they be arrested? I hope they are." James asked.

"Do you have to pay for that Sentinoid you guys broke?" Morty interjected, remember the fight between B & C classes over at Phantomhawk.

"What about this Parody Master guy? Do we have to fight him? I think he's a little out of our class." Oswald asked & then swallowed hard.

"Should we put in a call to Legion?" Dreama asked, trying to sound supportive.

"I'm not sure. Does anyone have their number? Are they even in the phone book?" Lance asked.

"Ok, ok, ok! This is all fine and dandy. They are all great questions and all that, but time out for a minute. Let's back track a bit. Betty?" James asked.

"Yes?"

"What were you saying about A Class before Morty came in and, y'know, the whole world got turned upside down?"

"Aren't they dead?" Morty asked.

"Yes. But according to Betty they're back from the dead." James said.

"You mean like Zombie's?" Morty asked.

"No," Betty said offhandedly, "Just clones."

"WHAT?" James yelled. That word echoed in the mostly empty diner. James has had some bad experiences with Clones in the past.

"Yes. It's all here in these files Mr. Summers took from the FMRC before he left. A-Class were just a bunch of clones and..."

Mama Sara interrupted. "Clones? Aren't they illegal?"

"Sort of. In the US, it's ok to make clones for research purposes under a government license. But, only a few states actually prohibit the use of reproductive cloning."

"What does that mean?" the big black woman asked.

"In short: Human cloning."

"Are we in one of those states?" James asked. Hopping they were.

"No, sadly."

"crap." James muttered under his breath.

"Clone are just copies of people, right?" Oswald asked.

"Yes."

"Who are they coping?" Ben Hermes, the hero in training known as Semi-Transparent Lad, asked. He'd been silent for a last few moments. What with this info & what the Legion just brought up, it was a lot to take in all at once.

"Well, according to these files, as best I can see," Betty said bluntly, "A-Class is cloned from the Lair Legion."

This comment raised a few eyebrows & got a few shocked looks.

"The Lair Legion? As in The Lair fricking Legion? The premiere super hero team on the planet? The people who just made that grand announcement?" James yelled manicly.

"Does the Legion know this? I bet they'd go ballistic!" Dreama Garner said with an evil smile on her face.

"Are clones really stable enough to be given super-powers like the LL's got? On side note, are the Lair Legion stable enough to be given super-powers like the LL's got?" Lance pondered out loud & went on to his next thought. "This isn't one of those black projects the government keeps farming out to the diabolical Dr Moo is it?"

Then, Lance asked "Can Garrick do that?"

"Yes, apparently. Garrick got the go ahead from the President to make Lair Legion clones as a countermeasure if they went rogue."

"Like now?" James put bluntly.

"Yes. But, I'm not sure if he saw this coming. Because with deaths of A-Class early on, it kind of put a monkey wrench into his plans. So, according to these files, Garrick made other plans. The files I'm looking at now don't exactly say what those are but it does say that he still want clones. So, The FMRC went about make Version 3.0."

"whoa." Ben said. There were scattered laughs at his comment.

"Yeah. The FMRC apparently haven't perfected a rapid cloning process because the new batch is just about finished."

"Or are already done." Lance said. "The info we have is a few weeks old."

That comment depressed the team even more. Mama Sara seeing the depression & wanting to counteract it, she asks "Who wants more Pie?"

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TO BE CONTINUED....


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Next time in Semi-Transparent Lad #19: Our intrepid Heroes have a lead on where Mr. Summers is. They're going to go try & save him from his captors, one of those are a special guest Villain. There will also be a some special guest Heroes! More info is revealed about the latest version of A-Class & Mr. Summers. All this & we keep chugging along towards the Parody War! What part will this group have in that war? Well, I guess you'll just have to stay tuned!

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FOOTNOTES:


-I'd like to Thank Ian for his help on this issue.

-The "City of Tomorrow" project: At the turn of the Century, Mayor J. Thomas Macklingberg proposed a plan, a citywide "Upgrade". He wanted to upgrade the City for the new Millennium, The things that have been upgraded are City Hall, the Goth Haven Transit System, The Central Police Department (with the Meta-Crimes Lock-up) & the Seven Freedoms Tower (the former HQ of the Wonderful Seven, which was a gift from the City). The City was going to start moving out into the rest of the city when they ran out of money/lost funding. If the Project will ever be finished is unknown.

-The four Prisoners in the Meta-Crimes Lock-up are as you may have guessed it are the remaining members of what at one time was the team known as The Wonderful Seven. Jet Starscream was their leader. The other three are The Golden Guardian, Nite-Owl & Inter-Planet Janet. The Wonderful Seven were broken up in STL # 13. The other members were either deported back to their respective countries (The Hunter is Australian & Artimis is from a small Female only Island off the coast of Brazil) or ran off & disappeared into another dimension known either as the Speed Zone or the Zoom Zone (Speed Freak).

-The All Class meeting James is referring to happened in STL # 10. In case your wondering the "Off World Force" they are referring to are The Parody Master's Avawarriors.

-The Announcements made by the Lair Legion both came from Untold Tales #273.

-The Fight at Phantomhawk between B & C Class happened in between STL #16 & 17.

-To find out more about Cloning in the US go Here.


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