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Saving the Future – Part 7: Accusation and Denial |
Saving the Future – Part 7: Accusation and Denial
Previously:
Part One by Dancer
Part Two by Visionary
Part Three by the Hooded Hood
Part Four by the Hooded Hood
Part Five by the Hooded Hood, Visionary, Killer Shrike, and Jason
Part Six by the Hooded Hood, Jason, Hatman, and CrazySugarFreakBoy!
***
[This section by JJJ]
From the Parodiopolis Daily Trombone :
An Editorial
By J. Jonah Jerkson, Editor and Publisher
Lair Legion: Hand Over De Nile and Leave Our City
As our page one, exclusive story discloses, responsible authorities worldwide are demanding that the preposterous collection of lunatics and super-maniacs calling themselves the "Lair Legion" surrender the mysterious, world-destroying alien who is running free on Lair Island under the protection of those costumed clowns. According to our highly placed confidential sources, an ancient alien shapeshifting being called "De Nile" for some inscrutable reason (with no relationship to the noble river by which a spanking-new Slopp-Burger franchise stands) has been given refuge in a secret private lodging in the Lair Mansion. The loathsome being, described by one knowledgeable source as a mucoid terrorist entity whose one purpose is to strike madness and devastation on an interplanetary scale, is said to be gathering strength to commit unthinkable destruction whenever it may be triggered again.
Leaving for now the question of whether tolerating the presence of these alleged "superheroes" attracts and provokes the depredations of cosmic vermin such as De Nile, it is fundamental that they cannot resist the duly constituted authorities charged with protecting citizens and extraditing galactic malefactors. Yet even with a SPUD carrier ready to devastate the island (with likely unfortunate collateral damage to our already battered city), the under-staffed, erratically led and headstrong Lair Legion wastes its time and resources resisting SPUD instead of securing our frayed peace of mind.
Worse, our fragile security may be evanescent. We have received indications that a very high level Presidential adviser is concerned that De Nile may not be contained on Lair Island and could flow anywhere. Who knows what catastrophes could result?
For the sake of this vital but victimized city, for the sake of the planet, and most of all, for the sake of our children menaced by this monster and the Lair Legion's irresponsibility, De Nile must be delivered to the Safe immediately. Then SPUD should mobilize and enlist any remaining Sentinoids and evict the Lair Legion forthwith from mansion, island, city, state, and, if possible, planet.
J. JONAH JERKSON
***
“So how do we settle this?” asked VelcroVixen. “Hand to hand? Blades? Anything goes? Strip poker?”
“Cards could be interesting,” agreed PsychoAcidPervGirl! “Or do we cut to the chase and go straight to bed?”
Vicki Vee and Wendy Leslie faced each other across the resident’s bar of the Croque D’or casino hotel. A number of the patrons were watching the potential catfight with interest, not realising that either of the women present could decimate the room without breaking a fingernail.
“Let’s not and tell everyone we did,” decided VelcroVixen. “I prefer my partners a bit more rugged. And with bigger chequebooks.”
“So did you and Beth von Zemo get it on when she hired you?” enquired PAPG! “Did you need to hire special hoisting equipment, like when you take on a horse?”
“What makes you think I worked for the Baroness?”
“What makes you think I’m an idiot superhero? I was one of the Purveyors of Peril, remember? We took over the world together.”
Vicki smiled reminiscently. “Good times. But since then we’ve had pardons for being so helpful in the Parody War. My charge sheet’s clean. And I hear that you, sweetheart, have gone all soft and gooey since you became an auntie.”
PsychoAcidPervGirl reached for her haversack of horrors. “You want to see gooey?” she asked with a manic grin.
“You wanna live to break commandments with your brothers again?” VV shot back, her hand sliding to her hip where she had a very special stiletto secreted.
PAPG! snorted and relaxed a little. “Look, I’m just looking for some info. I’m looking for Denial.”
“Join the club,” answered VelcroVixen. “Someone did recruit a few people to go and bust him out from the Lair Mansion, using a dimensional backdoor that a former member had set up. But when those people got there Denial had already vanished.”
“I heard that. Must have been very embarrassing for the Pros from Dover, getting beaten to the prize like that.”
“They got paid. They didn’t get fried by Danny’s mommy in a tizzy-fit.”
Wendy blinked. “Hold on. You’re saying even Symmetry doesn’t know where Danny’s gone to? Symmetry of Synchronicity, the Shaper of Worlds?”
VV shook her head. “I’ll tell you this much. When we – they – went in looking for Danny they were able to do so because the Lair Mansion defences were weakened. And it wasn’t the Baroness or Symmetry. Someone else seems to have been keen to get in there. They probably took Danny.”
“Weakened how?”
“You’d have to ask Dimensionweaver about the technical stuff, but somebody who knows their job managed to bust down quite a few arcane doors for us. And that’s all you’re getting from me without some mud wrestling.”
“Maybe next week? I’ll call you.”
***
“Lyle’s gone?” Killer Shrike checked in disbelief. “Gone where?”
“They don’t seem to know,” answered Grace O’Mercy the Night Nurse, who he’d recruited to help him sneak in and spirit Denial away. “But I’m guessing that’s the reason for the big SPUD helicarrier overhead and all the extra guards.”
“Can you get nearer and find out more?”
“Not until nightfall again,” answered the vampire nurse. “I’m a little bit allergic to sunlight, remember?”
“So what do you suggest? We just go home and forget about it?”
“I say we go inside and help find Danny, then convince the Lair Legion to free him. Jay’s – er Hatman is a very reasonable person.”
“Is he now?” growled Killer Shrike. “And how exactly do you expect we get inside the Lair Mansion while it’s on high security alert?”
“I was thinking of waiting until the sun went behind the clouds again then ringing the front door bell,” Grace admitted.
“Those stunulators round the entrance aren’t called that because they stun, you know,” Shrike objected. “Its just that liquidifiers sounds kind of threatening.”
“But you work for Al B. They’re bound to let you in before you get… liquidified.”
“I work with Al B.,” Shrike corrected her. “And only bodyguarding his kids. And that’s only till my Shrike suit turns up again.”
“The one with the top-knot? You actually want that back?”
“Just go and ring the doorbell,” sulked Shrike.
“The sun’s not in yet.”
“So?”
***
The Chronicler of Stories didn’t even turn round as a loathsome elder being oozed through cracks in reality into his Hall of Narratives. “What do you want?” he demanded with a sigh.
“I want them to continue the Ranmaa series,” the Manga Shoggoth replied. “And also to know how they manage to put the tick inside grandfather clocks. I’ve dismantled ninety-one of them so far and I still haven’t found it.”
“What do you want here with me?” the Chronicler tried again. “I was just about to show Ms Night the way back to her own dimension. For good.”
“You were just demonstrating levels of insanity that make you unfit for your office,” Lara shot back, struggling to move or access her abilities. This was the Chronicler of Stories’ place of power.
“Oh,” gurgled the Shoggoth. “Is this one of those human pre-mating rituals? Can I observe? I’m always baffled by this dance.”
“No, it is not,” insisted the Chronicler and Lara together.
“Fascinating.”
Lara spoke up. “I just came to find out why this… person has set the Lair Legion on a road he knows they’ll never travel, telling them to destroy Danny Lyle. He has ulterior motives.”
“I’m the Chronicler of Stories, Keeper of the Narratives. Of course I have ulterior motives. It’s the job.”
“When do you actually bond your biomasses?” enquired the Shoggoth. “It must be quite painful. Mortals often cry out in anguish as they exchange genetic material.”
“We’re not exchanging anything,” Lara said determinedly. “I’m still waiting for an explanation from this lunatic, however.”
The Chronicler frowned. “You have no right for explanations, tourist. You barge in here, holier-then-thou…”
“Yes,” agreed the Shoggoth. “Mortals exchanging genetic material often call upon the gods as they do so.”
“Is this some kind of vendetta?” demanded Lara. “First you take down Danny, then the next person to resist you, then the next…?”
“You might be visiting this multiverse but you left your brains in your panty drawer at home,” scorned the Chronicler. “I’m just doing what I have to. Every job has crappy bits. This is one of mine. And you’re not making it any easier.”
“Why would I want to make it easy for you to murder a young man or leave Earth bereft of protection in a Parodyverse that wants it destroyed?”
“You’re so ignorant that you don’t even see you’re blundering into things far beyond your understanding.”
“If you told me what you think your doing then I’d understand!”
“Slow down!” urged the Shoggoth. “I want to take notes. When will you replicate and spawn your new entities?”
The Chronicler clenched his teeth. Suddenly the hall was emptied of ravens of destiny as they all remembered things they had to do elsewhere. “Was there a reason you came here, Shoggoth? Other than to irritate the hell out of me, I mean?”
“Yes there was,” confessed the elder beast. “The irritation is just a happy side effect, and it has prevented you from venting your ire upon Miss Night in a way you would later come to regret. I came to observe what you were really seeking to accomplish in setting the events around Daniel Lyle in motion.” He frothed pensively for a moment, then added, “I would like the real story, please.”
***
Samantha Bonnington put down the phone and slipped back into the central lounge area of Visionary’s dimensional lighthouse, correcting the colour of the furniture as she passed without even thinking about it. “Okay, Glitch has detected a communications node in Denver that she thinks might be a Screwdriver operations hub. We can hop in Gaz’s goat chariot and be asking them what they know about Danny in under an hour.”
“Most verily,” agreed the young demihemigod of thunder. “Why within two hours I canst be back here picking their teeth out of mine knuckles.”
Kerry sat curled up in the big scruffy armchair by the fire with Lisa’s cat sprawled out on her lap like a slightly smelly ginger rug. She smoothed her fingers over his clumps of fur while he purred as if he was about to dematerialise. “Nah, it’s okay,” the probability arsonist shrugged. “We can’t run around the whole world looking for Danny Lyle. Let’s watch some TV.”
***
Security Officer Rourke checked on his prisoner. Hatman was reading some reports that Amber St Clare had brought him from the Lair Mansion below and hadn’t moved since he’d signed an autograph for the SPUD guard.
“You okay, sir?” Rourke checked. “Need a drink or something?”
“I’m fine thanks, Mr Rourke,” Hatman assured him. “Actually the peace and quiet is letting me get through this paperwork without all the usual interruptions. I think I’m going to make getting arrested by SPUD a regular part of my schedule.”
“I’ll leave you to it then.” Rourke moved away from the bars of the cell door and passed along to the monitor room.
As he stepped over the threshold to the security desk he found himself somewhere else. He’d just emerged through the maintenance hatch on SPUD orbital Satellite 12, and now he was hanging in hard vacuum seven miles above the Earth.
He was dead long before he made re-entry.
“One down,” Doorman mused to himself, stepping out of the shadows beside the security desk, “around eleven hundred SPUDdies to go.”
Doorman looked exactly like Hatman, because he was Jay Boaz from a very different version of reality where he was a very different person. Doorman had the gift of linking any two doors together, anywhere. And since two dimensional doubles couldn’t exist forever in the same reality, Hatman was going to have to go.
He picked up the remote control pad for the cell area and sauntered over to lean beside the bars of Hatman’s cell. “I’m filling in for Rourke,” he explained to the capped crusader. “On account of him being frozen then burned to ashes.”
Jay Boaz looked up sharply at the familiar tones of his own voice. When he saw his own face looking back at him his jaw set and he reached for his hatility belt. For some reason Drury had neglected to confiscate it from him.
“Hey, it looks like all these SPUD cells have built-in systems to pacify troublesome prisoners,” Doorman noted, examining the control module. “I wonder what this one marked cyanide gas does?”
Sinister green fumes began to gush into Hatman’s cell from hidden vents.
Jay pulled on his Rams hat and went for the door.
Doorman stepped back and laughed as Hatman crossed the threshold – and was gone.
“Bon voyage, sucker,” he said, tossing the remote control away. It was covered with Jay Boaz’ fingerprints anyway. Now it was time to ensure some video footage of Jay Boaz killing people as he broke out of jail.
***
Champagne and the Librarian made their way down to the holding cell where Danny Lyle had disappeared. “What do you want me to do?” asked Lee Bookman. “I need to follow up on some casework we might otherwise have been investigating. Dozens of people vanishing in Nevada in UFO-related incidents, some earth-tremors across the globe revealing huge deep pits, a missing archaeology team in Peru. I’m convinced we’re being distracted from something.”
“You can read data, yes?” asked the international jewel thief. “Codes and so on. And somebody inputted the code to open the door so Danny could be taken out of his cell. What I want to know, if you can interrogate the security panel, is how fast the code was inputted.”
“How fast? I don’t see…”
“If it wasn’t physically inputted by somebody pushing the button, if it came via internal data lines, then that points at Hallie or Anna or somebody like that. If it was keyed in by hand then it suggests someone doing things the old-fashioned way, like CSFB! or Visionary.”
“Ah, I see. Clever. Right.” The Librarian laid his hand on the codepad and read its internal chip. “The code was put in quite slowly,” he reported. “Almost hesitantly, I’d say.”
“There was no DNA or fingerprint trace on the buttons,” Champagne noted, “but pretty much all our suspects would be smart enough to avoid that. I wonder if…”
“Did you hear something?” the Librarian interrupted. “A noise?”
Champagne listened too. “Yes,” She agreed. “Some kind of… music?” She moved around the holding area. “Coming from that cell there?”
The Librarian’s face twitched. “Accordion music,” he breathed.
***
“Mistress O’Mercy? What are you doing here?” Flapjack asked, bowing formally low because nurse’s skirts aren’t that long.
“Oh, we’re the Danny Lyle liberation front,” the Night Nurse smiled, standing in the shaded cover of the Mansion porch. “We were in the ghoul tunnels and we thought we’d drop in as we went past.”
Behind her Killer Shrike smacked his hand onto his forehead.
“Oh right. Come in then,” Flapjack welcomed them. “Don’t mind the SPUD guys with guns. Everybody has to make a living somehow.” He gestured to the hatstand. “Can I hang up your bra?”
“Where’s Harper?” demanded Killer Shrike. “I need to see him about Lyle as soon as I get into some protective gear.”
“Protective gear?” Grace puzzled.
“So you’re never been into a Harper workplace?” Maddicks noted.
“Doctor Harper working is in Lab Three,” Flapjack supplied. “And a little bit in Lab Two, since we’ve not repaired the hole in the adjoining wall since the little problem with the coffee machine repair. He’s investigating some possible weaknesses in the Mansion’s unseen defences.”
“Weaknesses?” Grace said. “Could that have anything to do with some newly-vandalised carvings down in the cellars beneath the Mansion? You’d better get us to see Al B. stat!”
***
Baroness Elizabeth von Zemo looked up from her massage as Vicki Vee was escorted into her cell apartment. “Éclair?” she offered.
“I’m watching my figure,” VelcroVixen admitted. “So that everyone else will.”
“I deplore the cult of the stick figure,” scorned the Baroness. “I presume you’re interfering with my Heinz time for a good reason?”
“Just to let you know I had a visit. PsychoAcidPervGirl!, presumably on behalf of her big brother CSFB!”
“And what did she want, our little grape outrage?”
“She was interested in the Purveyor’s day trip to the Lair Mansion. Our fool’s errand.”
“You worked for the Hooded Hood for a time,” the Baroness noted. “So you must have worked out his greatest trick. Always have more than one objective, and arrange things so that whatever happens it works to your benefit.”
“That’s one of his best tricks, yes,” agreed VV.
“Well that’s the situation we’re in here. So we couldn’t retrieve Lyle for Symmetry. There’s always an upside.”
VelcroVixen looked interested.
“I take it PAPG! can no longer be considered part of the gang?” Beth enquired. “In that case arrange for her to be out of the game.”
“You’ve got something in mind?” VV asked. “A caper?”
“It’s quite a while since the Purveyors took over the world,” the Baroness noted. “Long overdue, some would say.”
“But not the Lair Legion,” noted Vicki Vee. “They tend to object.”
The Baroness smirked. “I’ve just had a very fascinating conversation,” she confided. “The Lair Legion aren’t going to be a problem after today.”
***
“Heya, Eddie!” grinned CrazySugarFreakBoy!, bounding into the secure holding cell occupied by Edward Cromlyn. “It’s me, your favouritest interrogator in the world.” He bounced over the intervening space and planted a big Bugs Bunny style kiss on the face of the former operative of the mysterious Shadow Cabinet.
“Get away from me, you buffoon,” snarled Cromlyn. He’d aged since his incarceration, his face becoming pale and jowly. He’d gained weight.
“Sorry to bother you when you’re busy being a defeated villain and all that,” Visionary apologised, “but we rather need to talk to you about an escape.”
Cromlyn frowned. “Escape? What do you mean?”
“Not your escape,” Herbert P. Garrick, Presidential Advisor on Metahuman Affairs, told the prisoner with a touch of schadenfreude. It was perhaps the first time in history that Bad News Herb had almost approved of CSFB! “You’re never leaving a cell again except to go to a tougher cell. And if you did escape where would you go with your ex-bosses looking for you?”
“It’s kinda sad, Eddie,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! noted. “I mean, Danny Lyle was drugged unconscious and yet somebody busted him out, but you’re still here. I guess you have no friends at all. All we want from you is to know how he escaped.”
“Lyle escaped? This is supposed to be a secure area! My safety depends on your security being rigorous!”
Visionary shrugged. “I guess you weren’t important enough to breach our defences about. So do you know anything about this or not?”
Half an hour later it became clear that Cromlyn was ignorant about Denial’s disappearance.
Visionary sealed him back up with a sigh and pulled the message he’d received a while ago out from his yellow coat pocket.
It was a reply from Quoth, the raven of destiny who usually acted as Magweed and Griffin’s nanny when she wasn’t pinch-hitting with the Chronicler of Stories after a major dimensional upheaval.
Visionary read it again:
Stuff is happening.
Look to your own.
Quoth
***
[This section by L!]
Underneath the Lair Mansion the secure holding area was filled with the sound of a wheezy old accordion. Everyone was trying to solve the mystery of how Danny Lyle went missing from one of the cells. Some puzzles could possibly be answered by asking the men in the cell next door. No one truly knew why they were in there or how they got in there since no one remembered putting them in there. But there they sat.
The taller of the two by a few inches (that doesn't include the height he gained from his massive afro) was pacing back and forth. The other man just sat of the chair provided and played a tune on his accordion.
"Think. Think. Think, Ronnie, Think!" he kept telling himself.
Just like the Legion, these two didn't know why they were there or how they got there.
"Now what's the last time we remember doing?" he said out loud.
His companion Chad, raised his arm and waved it back and forth wildly.
"Yes, Chad?"
Chad motioned for Ronnie to come over to him. Ronnie leaned over and Chad whispered something in his ear.
"Ah yes. Mr Spooky showed up unannounced to our domicile like he always does. Then he told us of many a thing, everything about some weird offshoot universe where we don't exist, a truly sad place indeed, and of its ruler. I especially liked that he wore fedoras, such a great hat. Then the talk turned to the same guy but not sort of. We talked of him, his parentage, his love life and other assorted things relating to the young man. Then some mention of cosmic junk and it all goes white. Right?"
Chad shakes his head yes.
"So, then we find ourselves here in the Lair Legion's basement. I checked my watch when Spooky showed up and then again when we found ourselves here: one hour had passed, I think. Maybe more had passed, I'm horrible with clocks. What did we do during with this missing time? How did we get here? Why am I speaking like this?"
Chad shrugged his shoulders.
Outside the cell, CrazySugarFreakBoy! turned to the Librarian and asked "You have any idea what he's talking about?"
"I doubt even he does."
"They’re your hobby. What do you think we should do with them?"
"I want it on record that Chadwick L. Swiss and Ronald Arnold Gerrimoto Beeslyhuxtoy are not my hobby. Leave them there, they seem harmless. Plus, they might be able to help out later."
"Ok," the brightly hued hero said and the duo walked to attend to other things.
As he did, Ronnie reached in his coat pocket expecting to find some jelly beans to calm his nerves, but instead he found a device which was strange and alien to him. The Lair Scanners hadn’t detected it at all.
And it was ticking.
***
“So how are you feeling, Sarge?” CrazySugarFreakBoy! asked Argus MacHarridan as the drugged detonator hippo came back to consciousness in the Lair Infirmary.
“Och… like a wee elephant ha’ been ceilidhing on mah skull,” replied the Lair Mansion’s security chief. “Ah hae the mother a’ all hangovers wi’out e’en ha’ing the pleasure o’ the booze.”
“Somebody filled your coffee with enough sedatives to knock out a small army,” Hallie explained.
“And it wasn’t me,” Flapjack explained more urgently. “I was busy with Amber’s blouse at the time!”
“There’s been a security breach,” explained CSFB!. filling the detonator hippo in with his usual breathless exposition. “Now we need to know if you spotted anything odd just before you went down.”
Sergeant MacHarridan considered this for a moment. “Well, it was a wee mite chilly doon there last thing I remember.”
“Chilly?” Hallie checked the temperature monitor logs. They all showed a suspiciously even 70 Fahrenheit across the mansion for the time of the incident.
“Chilly in the cellar?” CSFB! puzzled.
“Well aye,” agreed the hippo, “but I was rrreferring to doon there.” He gestured to his kilt. Hallie shuddered at the time when Asil had asked him whether anything was worn under it.
“Chilly wet patches on our carpets, suddenly cold in the holding area,” CSFB! pondered. “I so wish I could twitch my nose like Ralph Dibney right now.”
***
[This section by Jason]
Anna sat perfectly still, in a black sweat suit with a single white stripe running down each side, and each sleeve and leg. Her deep blue hair and eyes contrasted with her outfit wildly. And if anyone were close enough to her, they would see her shaking ever so slightly out of fear.
She was in a familiar place, though. It was the meeting room at the Lair Mansion, though the only Legionnaires attending the meeting happened to be Al B Harper and the Librarian. The former insisted on attending to represent Anna’s interests, and the latter to keep a record of it.
“That’s only going to work if I can tell you what has to be off the record.” Drury growled at the Librarian as he chewed his cigar. “Some of the stuff we might discuss about Anna might be classified.”
“I assure you, my records are not accessible by anyone who lacks the proper authorization.” the Librarian said.
“Hmm.” Drury grunted. He sat down at the meeting table across from Anna.
The android stared at him, appearing to be strong and calm, but beneath that she was anything but. She looked down at a device that Drury placed on the table between them.
“Voice stress analyzer.” Drury said. “Works as good with you as it does on a human. So no lying.”
Anna nodded, but didn’t respond. Al B Harper remained silent as well.
“Are you able to bypass the cameras and sensors that Al B Harper placed in the cell downstairs?” Drury asked.
“Objection!” Al B Harper called out, making both Anna and Dan Drury jump.
“You can’t object! This isn’t a damn courtroom!” Drury growled.
“It’s an unfair question.” Al pointed out. “Are you going to arrest her just because she can mess with cameras?”
“No. Now can we please move on?” Drury was becoming angry. “Anna, answer the question.”
“I can.” she whispered reluctantly.
“How would you do that?” Drury gave Al a threatening look in case there might be another loud objection.
“I could...place it on pause. Or record a few seconds of image and replay it for a time.”
“Which is what Hallie said was what happened.” Drury pointed out. He stopped himself when he noticed Al was about to object again.
Drury glowered at the Librarian as he asked his next question, implying the next part was sensitive. “Anna, what was your original purpose?”
Anna looked at Al, and then reluctantly answered. “Infiltration.” she replied. “To enter an enemy stronghold and either neutralize or bypass any entry security.”
Drury leaned back and folded his arms, his body language saying he was making a point. “Now tell us...what do you know about Lyle’s removal from the cell? How was it done?”
She glanced at Al again. He looked like he was curious, yet cautious, ready to stop the conversation at any time. She opened her mouth, at first not speaking. But then she finally said, “I don’t know. I thought about it...but I haven’t figured it out. There are things about it that make no sense, or are beyond my ability to understand.”
Drury frowned. It annoyed him more that Al B Harper was smiling. He decided to go for the showstopper. “Anna, do you still remember your trigger phrases?”
“Trigger phrases?” Al B Harper asked. He moved his chair a little bit farther from Anna.
“Yes.” Drury explained. “Some of our androids have shorthand phrases programmed into them that are supposed to trigger them to do certain things without remembering.”
“They don’t work.” Anna replied, sounding sure and determined. She seemed satisfied that Drury’s glance at the voice stress detector recorded nothing.
“Not even--” Drury paused dramatically before saying, “Turtle in a hot spring?”
“No.” Anna replied instantly. “The triggers were never more than shorthand memes. I can’t be programmed to respond to phrases, as I have no software.”
“Hah!” Al exclaimed excitedly, antagonizing Drury further.
Drury frowned and stood. He continued to eye Anna. “Good thing she’s with you then.” he told Al. “If my guys would have found out she was lying during her training...that she was only learning what she chose to...she’d be in a junkyard in shredded pieces by now.”
Anna cringed as Dan Drury pushed his chair noisily, obviously intending to be intimidating.
“You might think this is funny.” Drury directed his comment at everyone else in the room. “But remember, Hatman stays in jail until we get a satisfactory result in our investigation.” He eyed Anna again and said, “So think very carefully, Anna. Think carefully about whether information you might be keeping secret is more important than Hatman.”
Anna looked sad again as Drury scolded her. “I’m sorry. I’m only a spectator in all of this.” she said as she lowered her eyes.
Drury grunted and opened the door to the meeting room. Standing there was Herbert Garrick.
“How did it go?” Garrick asked.
“You don’t want to know.” Drury growled. He pushed past Garrick and vanished into the hallway.
Garrick frowned as he looked at Anna, and then at Al and the Librarian. “I suspect Dan Drury’s loyalties aren’t what they should be.” he said. “And when I can prove it, Hatman will spend more than just temporary time in jail--” He pointed at Anna. “And you go straight to the recycling plant...along with your silicon sisters Hallie and Yuki Shiro.”
Al B Harper stood suddenly and vaulted over the table. Before Anna could grab ahold of him, he punched Garrick in the nose. Garrick stumbled, but recovered immediately and raised his fists, punching Al hard on the side of the face. Al hit him again, so he punched back even harder, snapping the archscientist’s head back.
“Stop, please!” Anna pleaded, standing between them bravely. She narrowed her eyes when both kept their fists raised, seeming not to listen. “Stop this now or I bring CrazySugarFreakBoy! in here.”
Both men lowered their fists. As nice as CSFB! appeared most of the time, he wasn’t someone either one of them wanted to see angry. Garrick simply grunted, and then wiped his bleeding nose on his sleeve and turned to leave the room.
“Did you hear what he said about Yuki?” Al was still fuming.
“Yes.” the Librarian replied calmly. “I recorded everything exactly, in case we need to use it later.”
“Oh?” A smile slowly returned to Al’s now bruised and swollen face, showing a row of blood soaked teeth. “Excellent.”
***
“What are we looking for?” Glory asked as she trotted along the clifftop with Yuki Shiro.
“I’m not sure. A hunch, I guess.” The cyborg P.I. had downloaded a copy of the program that translated the pooch of power’s sounds and paw movements into English. “This is where you walked with Marie this morning, right?”
“It is,” agreed Glory. “Are you wondering why poor Marie should suddenly fall ill today?”
“I don’t believe in coincidences. Take me on the exact path you took with her.”
The trailed around the perimeter of the island. Where the cliffline fell down to a shingle shore Glory paused, sniffed, then moved over to an area of broken turf. “This is new,” she growled. “This was not here this morning.”
Yuki strode over. The tussocks of heather had been pushed aside by a grey dull stone that seemed to be pressing up from below the ground. There were faint lines over the rock that might have been natural and might have been carved.
“What is it?” barked Glory. “It smells odd.”
Yuki ran a full sensor diagnostic. The stone was buried deeper than the range of her scan. It was around eight feet wide, but only the top three inches had broken through to the surface. There was no power signature, no sign of life. “It’s something we don’t know about, and it’s in our backyard, and it’s right by the spot where Marie, our former house banshee, walked this morning before she fell sick. Go get the others.”
***
“Well, there it is,” announced Montgomery Hole, pointing down at the vast chasm where a ZOXXON-Canada oil refinery had been the day before. “Factor X said you could probably jump down that pit and find out what happened.”
“There’s a big hole and you want me to look into it?” ‘Silicone’ Sally Rezyliant couldn’t resist saying it.
“Well, yes,” agreed ZOXXON’s Vice President (Alternative Projects Resolution). “The Board get quite upset when three billion dollars of plant goes missing overnight.”
“Just you keep that finder’s fee in mind,” Sally told him, preparing to drop from the helicopter where they hovered. She didn’t need a parachute.
“Good luck.”
Silicone Sally jumped into the pit, billowing out her pliable form to slow her descent. “You know, this isn’t a new hole,” she reported over the shortwave radio. “There are carvings on the wall, and there’s something there at the bottom.”
“What is it?” Montgomery asked anxiously. “This isn’t that damned Hole Man again is it, because if so…”
“This is weirder than that, I think,” Sally called back. “It looks like there’s…”
And that was the last they heard from Silicone Sally.
***
“This is where the wet carpet was?” asked Magweed.
“Yes,” answered Champagne. “On the corridor from the secure containment facility in the basement to the main entrance hall. It was still damp hours afterwards. Ice melts slowly. There was ice down in the subterranean caverns too, near the emergency exit.”
“Danny couldn’t have got out that way,” Griffin insisted. “The alarm was triggered too quickly. Mom is very observant.” He said that with the rueful tones of a boy who had discovered that to his cost. “Once she knew that Danny was gone she sealed the building. And she’d have known even before that if someone tried to get him out by a window or something.”
“But there were traces of ice here in this corridor,” said Magweed. “Anyone could have spotted them if they’d looked properly. Someone got careless.”
“Until the evidence was Denied, yes,” agreed Champagne. “And that in itself was perhaps a mistake, because it indicated that someone was monitoring our investigation to know that we’d found some evidence.”
“That’s a good point,” admitted Griffin. “You’re really good at this stuff, aren’t you Miss Champagne?”
“But what about Marie?” Magweed worried. “Why would she fall over just at that moment? They can’t have been linked! Could they?”
Champagne shook her head. “I don’t think so. What’s muddying this investigation is that several things seem to be happening at once. Until we untangle them we won’t be able to see what’s really going on. I may need to locate Danny and then find out what else is being plotted.”
Magweed and Griffin considered this.
Champagne smiled at them. “Ah well, I wouldn’t be interested if this was an easy job.”
***
Al B. Harper looked up from his calculations with a worried face.
“Well?” demanded CrazySugarFreakBoy!, acting leader of the Lair Legion while Hatman was in SPUD custody. “What’s the verdict? Two thumbs down?”
“We do have a security problem,” Al B. confirmed. “The usual defences against dimensional incursion and cosmic interference and so forth are working at about 40% standard and falling. There’s been physical damage to the Celestian architecture below the island and I don’t know of very many things that can do that. The stone that Yuki and Glory found…”
“Stones,” Yuki corrected him. “We’ve found five of them now, equidistant around the isle, all very slowly growing up through the landmass.”
“Well, that’s not part of the Celestian defences. In fact I can’t get any sensor readings off it at all yet. I’m going to have to invent entirely new sensory apparatus just to examine it.”
“So what’s that got to do with Lyle vanishing?” Shrike wanted to know.
Al B. triggered a computer model of the dimensional fluxes around the Mansion. “This is a bit puzzling,” he indicated, pointing to the tangled lines that scrolled around the screen.
“Just a bit, yeah,” agreed Yuki.
“I don’t mean the interdimensional weft,” the archscientist snorted dismissively. “That’s such a standard recursion n-fold 5-d weft vector composition. Simple.” He tapped his pencil at one spot on the graphic. “But look at this.”
“Shoggoth snot?” ventured CSFB!
“We’ve got a few cracks in the dimensional defences where the Mansion to let G-Eyed and Liu Xi travel through. It looks like those might have been exploited.” Al shifted the image to focus in on some livid red tracks through the green wire frame. “It’s looking like we’ve had three entirely separate incursions in the last few hours.”
“Three?” snorted Killer Shrike. “How have you guys lived this long?”
“Number one was here, about 2315 last night,” Al B. continued. “I think this was when the damage to the engravings below took place, and maybe when those stones were… seeded. Planted. Whatever.”
“Danny wasn’t in his cell at quarter past eleven last night,” Yuki objected. “We didn’t even bag him till after midnight.”
“The intruder didn’t go anywhere near the secure bays. He was more interested in the Celestian defence grids,” Al B. judged. “That’s when they were weakened, opening the way for other incursions today.”
“Is that when the caverns got a little iced up?” CSFB! wondered.
“The frost was rimed over the defaced stone,” Yuki answered. “The frost came after.
“Can we get a look at the security camera feeds for the cellars for last night?” CSFB! asked her.
“On it,” responded the Legion’s tactical advisor, jacking herself into the security computer.
“This is the second bunch of intruders,” Al B. went on. “They used some kind of dimensional passageway that Citizen Z – Baroness von Zemo – must have installed back when she was in control here. Clever stuff, I must admit. But now I know what to look for. Those intruders broke into the secure area at 0929, three minutes after Danny’s door was unlocked.”
“That was VelcroVixen and the Purveyors,” CSFB! summarised.
“Yep. And here’s the third incursion, using the same route they opened, to plant Chad and Ronnie in a cell, at 1022. We didn’t spot them at first because we’d already searched that area and secured it.”
“You want me to slap them around a bit and see what they know?” Shrike offered.
Al B. seriously considered it. “I don’t think so,” he said at last. “We’ve got the Librarian looking up references to this ‘Mr Spooky’.”
“Want me to just slap them around a bit and not ask them questions?”
“We’ve plugged the gaps now, right?” CSFB! checked. “I don’t think we’re going to want dimension shifting or teleportation or whatever in the Mansion for quite a while.”
“Plugged tight,” promised Al B. “I’ve left the channels the Shoggoth uses open though, because frankly I don’t have the time or insanity to calculate those vectors right now.”
“But you bozos still have that first intruder to identify,” Killer Shrike pointed out. “The one what set up these big stones on your lawn.”
“Possibly set them up,” Al B. corrected him, “but definitely damaged our cosmic defences.”
“I’ve located a security feed in the basement,” Yuki announced. “It’s not tied into the main system because technology is pretty unpredictable down in the tunnels, so it hasn’t been tampered with either by the people who took Danny or anyone else. I can get a visual on the intruder who vandalised the carvings.” Her face became a snarl. “I’m putting the image on screen.”
CrazySugarFreakBoy!s eyebrows shot up. “Liu Xi Xian!”
***
“That man was very rude,” said Lara Night.
“He is not a man,” the Shoggoth told her as they walked the dimensions. “It is a mistake to underestimate him.”
“Faite could deal with him.”
“Only if you want the Parodyverse to crack in two,” the Shoggoth replied. “It is best if you allow your anger to pass. Anger leads to rage and rage leads to hate and hate leads to… something else. Possibly pudding. Or hair loss. I forget. Dog fouling? Besides, we are here.”
The elder being guided Lara round an angle that seemed to somehow be more than three hundred and sixty degrees and suddenly they were in Belleplane, Barbados, on the patio of the Hotel Candide.
“Here where?” Lara wondered, blinking in the setting sunlight. She suddenly felt hot and overdressed.
“My office,” said Lisa Waltz, climbing out of the pool to greet them. “Tall cool drink?”
“Not right now,” Lara replied. “We have more serious problems. Do you know what the Chronicler’s doing about Danny Lyle?”
“I do,” responded the Destroyer of Tales. “I’m right behind him 100%.”
***
[This section by Jason]
“Jay was arrested?” Liu Xi Xian yelled in surprise, at first, but then her voice tapered off as she realized how loud it was. She then sat open-mouthed, staring at the Psychic Samurai, in disbelief at what she was just told.
The two of them were at the breakfast table in the penthouse apartment of Chiaki Bushido - the one place where government agents were reluctant to go to locate Liu Xi, simply because Chiaki was quite adept at quoting laws about searching a private residence at them and wasting their time. She was usually third on their annoyance scale behind Sir Mumphrey Wilton and Akiko Masamune.
“Yes.” Chiaki Bushido confirmed again. “And without Hatman present, government types have free run of the mansion. Therefore you must be careful if you visit. If you do I should probably accompany you.”
“You don’t have to do that.” Liu Xi said.
“It’s no trouble.” Chiaki brushed off her objection. “Besides, since I heard what was going on, and with Hatman imprisoned, Herb Garrick and Dan Drury need someone to put them in their places.” She smirked as she said that.
Liu Xi sat up and shook her head. “That’s not a good idea. They have armed troops, and a SPUD helicarrier.”
“And I am a private citizen, and a guest, with no part in the caper they are investigating. They have no right to assault me with armed troops, especially if they wish me to help.”
“They are already bringing in Champagne Cacciatore.” Liu Xi informed the Psychic Samurai. She felt proud of herself for getting that information first, even though she had it because Magweed sent her a text message from Visionary’s phone. He would find later that it cost a dollar to send, since he had a rather predatory usage plan.
“Oh.” Chiaki replied thoughtfully. “She’s good.” She stood, and nodded at Liu Xi. “I have been eager to see her work someday. Perhaps this is my chance.”
“Are we going to the mansion?” Liu Xi asked. “I wanted to visit Jay first, and tell him everything will be okay.”
“Visiting Jay would be dangerous.” Chiaki warned her. “You must learn to recognize bait when you see it. His imprisonment escalates things, so SPUD can draw out those they seek and locate them.”
“Oh.” the Chinese girl responded sadly. “It’s my fault he was arrested. I ran away and left him to face--” she frowned, and looked at the table.
Chiaki gave her a disarming smile. “Have faith, Liu Xi. Jay will be free sooner than you think. He is a public figure, they can’t hold him in prison indefinitely. You have no such privilege...running was what was best for you both.”
“Would you have run away?” Liu Xi asked.
The Psychic Samurai thought about that for a moment. “No.” she replied. “But I don’t present a threat, and I’m in no danger of being investigated or deported. They would place me in a local police station...you, they would lock in a protected room in the Safe.”
“I hope that’s not where Jay is right now.” Liu Xi worried.
“No.” Chiaki replied. “I have faith that Jay managed to negotiate himself into something less restrictive.”
“I trust you.” Liu Xi said with a sigh. “But I don’t like that he’s penned up just where all of his enemies can get him.”
“Neither do I.” the Samurai replied much more seriously.
Liu Xi cheered up at that reaction. “Maybe we should get him out.”
“Not yet.” Chiaki replied. “Perhaps soon...I have a plan. But things are not quite that desperate yet.”
***
“Hi, my name is Jay Boaz. I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more.”
Doorman pulled on his gasmask as he strode into the SPUD helicarrier cafeteria. Then he had the ventilation ducts open up onto the high pressure sulphur steam vents in a factory forge in Pittsburgh.
He watched for a while as the diners choked and died then went on to find new mischief.
***
“What do you think?” Hallie asked Grace O’Mercy.
The Night Nurse examined the lab results on Marie Murcheson and surreptitiously touched a drop if blood from a sample tube to her lips. It tasted… strange.
“I think Marie’s still very much linked to whatever Celestian defences this island has,” Grace answered. “They’re damaged so she is. In fact I think she’s been specifically attacked.”
“So whoever took Danny, that was only part of the plan?” Hallie worried. “We’re still under siege?”
“I don’t know about that,” the Night Nurse admitted. “but I do know that somebody somewhere is trying to kill Marie Murcheson.”
***
“I’ve been putting together a list of primary suspects,” explained Champagne. “These are just first cases, not accusations or anything.”
“Do we need to look any further?” Al B. demanded. “We have Liu Xi on camera weakening our dimensional defences, then we have Danny vanishing a few hours later, And then Liu Xi freaks out and does a runner when Drury questions her.”
“Video footage can be faked,” Yuki argued.
“It would have to be awesomely good to fool me,” Hallie countered. “All the sensor data we’ve got shows that it was Liu Xi Xian compromising our security last night.”
“We have to tell Colonel Drury,” woofed Glory. “Then he can let Hatman go.”
“We have to verify our data first,” Visionary advised them. “This is serious stuff. We can’t just jump to conclusions and we can’t just toss Liu Xi to the authorities.”
“If she did it then why not?” demanded the Librarian. “We should at least locate and question her.”
“Except we’re all confined to the island,” Al B. reminded him.
“I could go look for her and still be here,” the Shoggoth offered. “I’m also talking to Lisa right now.”
“Give her our love,” CSFB! told him. “And okay, we need to ask Liu Xi a few key questions, but let’s hear what else Champagne has to say, okay?”
“Go on,” Yuki Shiro encouraged the young woman. “We need whatever you’ve got.”
“In no particular order then,” the international jewel thief masquerading as a detective told them, “Hallie – She could easily fake the computer logs and spring the lock, then digitise Danny to make him vanish. Her Holographic Emitter Drone has enough lift to sneak a drug into MacHarridan’s coffee too, and would be very hard to spot.”
“I’d have to get Danny to my workshop to digitise him,” Hallie noted, “but as long as I could get someone to carry him I could have done it.”
“Hallie’s solid light holograms can only lift about sixty pounds,” the Librarian supplied.
“Then there’s Hatman,” Champagne went on. “He’s got a huge range of abilities, and with a computer tech’s cap and a few others he could probably get Danny out of there. He knows the override codes. He might think this is a way of saving the LL from a jam that would otherwise destroy them and he’s taking a hit for the team.”
“Except he said he didn’t,” CSFB! pointed out. “He gave his word.”
“And he’s already taken a hit for the team today,” pointed out Al B. “I really think we should fill Drury in on the Liu Xi thing and spring our leader.”
“First we check the facts,” Yuki insisted. “Hatty would want that too.”
“Which brings us to Yuki,” Champagne went on. “Good with computers and monitor feeds, stealthy enough to drug a drink, knows the mansion well enough to hide someone somewhere, maybe in one of Liu Xi’s extra dimensional spaces. Same motive as Hatman.”
“I probably could have done it,” Yuki admitted. “I just didn’t. I wish I’d thought of it.”
Champagne went on. “The Manga Shoggoth doesn’t care about human laws. He has all kinds of weird powers.”
“I’m perfectly simple,” bubbled the Shoggoth. “Now excuse me please. I’m also over at the Chronicler’s Hall trying to stop him confiscating Lara’s visa. Or was that earlier in your timeline?”
“‘Confiscating her visa’? So that’s what the kids are calling it these days,” offered Visionary, observing tradition.
“Hey,” considered CSFB!, “If Al’s right that there was no planar stuff happening then maybe the Shoggoth bubbled up through the drains and just ate Danny in his sleep.”
“I wish Ebony was here to help,” the loathsome elder being bemoaned. “It is unfortunate that she is preoccupied with one of the Period Mood Transitions.”
“Moving on,” said Champagne, “Al B. Harper is also a prime candidate. He’s able to manipulate gadgets easily, created the sleeping draught, probably knows how to falsify the Mansion’s sensor logs about teleportation etcetera. He might even be able to tap in and use the SPUD helicarrier systems to do his dirty work for him.”
“That is a thought,” considered Yuki. “Danny vanished when the SPUD helicarrier was overhead and they do have crude teleport systems. Could this all be a double-bluff by Drury to make us think he hasn’t got Danny? Or a plan by Garrick to force us into a corner so he can shut us down?”
“The Drury scenario only works if he had an accomplice down here to fix the sensor logs for him,” Al B. mused. “Amber, maybe?”
“My head’s hurting now,” complained Visionary.
“You’re also a prime suspect,” Champagne told him. “Your only alibis are Kerry and Hallie. With Fleabot helping you could shrink Danny out of there, and I hear you’re like the king of the ghoul tunnels or something. He’s also got contacts like Lisa who could hide Danny from the Chronicler.”
“Except the Mouse Guard say that Danny wasn’t shrunk out through the pipes,” the possibly-fake man objected. “Um, the mice that work for my daughter Maggie, that is.”
“What about the Hooded Hood?” offered CrazySugarFreakBoy! “He could retcon it so Danny was never in the cell, with the drugged drink as a red herring. Don’t forget the carpet that dried out in a flash. Even if he didn’t do it I bet he set this whole thing up anyhow.”
“The Hooded Hood isn’t behind everything,” Yuki objected. “Just most things.”
“And we still can’t rule out Anna or Lara,” added Al B. “Especially with the information about the Mansion’s Celestian defences being weakened.”
“We need to resolve this quickly,” insisted the Librarian. “There are other things we should be looking into.”
“I agree,” echoed Champagne. “Okay, everyone into the Lair Library.”
“The Library?” puzzled Vizh.
“Sure. That’s where the mystery traditionally gets explained, right? So that’s where we go and unfold whodunit.”
“You know?” asked Glory.
“Sure. I think I need to tell you. All the clues are right there, if you know what to look for and you’re aware of what’s been going on round here since the end of the Parody War. It’s just a matter of piecing them together right.” Champagne grinned at the heroes. “So come on, guys, thinking caps. This is your last chance to deduce what’s going on.”
***
The main deck doors to the SPUD helicarrier bridge slid open as the command crew dealt with the poison gas release in the mess hall nine floors below. “Git some guys in there with atmosphere suits,! Drury was bawling, “And find a way to shut those vents. Somebody gimme me a reading on the dimensional whoozits whut’s causing all of this!”
“Hello,” called Doorman. “I think you’ll find it was me.”
Drury whirled round, a blaster in his hand. “Boaz?”
“I also think you’ll find the chamber won’t close on that weapon,” Doorman warned him. “I made a decision, Drury. No more mister nice guy. But if you get down on your knees right now, and crawl over and lick my boots, I’ll let some of your people live.”
“Get him!” Drury called, racing over to where Doorman waited in the doorway.
“Let’s do it the hard way then,” Doorman said, his smile vanishing like a lover’s promise.
He disappeared back through the doorway as the SPUD agents approached. Then he willed the pressure valves on the helicarrier nuclear reactor to jam open, venting radioactive steam into the engine room. Nuclear reactors are really nothing but dangerous chambers separated by vital doors.
It took twenty-one seconds for the engine to go critical, blowing the side out of the helicarrier, spraying radioactive material over the sea towards Paradopolis. The explosion cracked the flying ship apart, sending it tumbling blazing from the heavens to crash down atop the Lair Mansion.
The reinforced superstructure of the heroes’ headquarters was strong, but not strong enough to withstand the impact of two million tons of burning radioactive helicarrier.
And then the second reactor went up, and a mushroom cloud rose over the bay as the towers of Paradopolis were blown away.
***
Next Time: There’s a next time? Okay, there is. We tidy up after the problems of that last scene and then we get to hear what happened to Danny and who did what. We reveal the significance of Lisa’s cat. We work what happens when Hatty meets Sally. And then we deal with the real problems.
If you’d like to hazard a solution, or just a guess, now’s the time to say what you believe went on.
By the way, I'm not sure I can keep up this pace, producing the equivalent of a double-sized Untold Tales a day, so there may be a longer gap before the next edition.
***
Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2008 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2008 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. |
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Bringing things to an explosive cliffhanger, courtesy of... the Hooded Hood
Wed Apr 23, 2008 at
01:55:54 pm EDT
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Posted from United Kingdom
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