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Post By Yet another double-sized conclusion from your conference organiser, the Hooded Hood Sat Jun 04, 2005 at 07:35:56 am EDT |
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#214: Untold Tales of Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises: The Plot Device | |
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| #214: Untold Tales of Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises: The Plot Device Previously: Old Lair Legion adversary Peter von Doom has gained control of Interdimensional Transportation Corporation (ITC), and with the help of associates Blackbird (Joshua Parkson), Rikka Ulz Hagen, and Roni Y Avis has loosed the adamantine killer robot Ultizon on the guests at WeirdSciCon 2005. Neural replication equipment in the hotel walls will capture the engrams of dying scientiststo channel them through captured telepath Ruby Waver and create a new gestalt super-computer, the Supreme Interference. Meanwhile, robot P.I. Yuki Shiro and Irish werewolf Tanner have escaped from the ITC building, only to find that the entire structure has shifted into the transdimensional vortex. Previous chapters at The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Cast Lists at Who's Who in the Parodyverse Location Descriptions at Where's Where in the Parodyverse Conference Programme at WeirdSciCon Events (UT#211) “At least the colours are pretty,” noted Yuki as she dangled over the swirling vortex of shifting realities. “I’d hate to die in a low budget scene.” Tanner was half human and half giant wolf, and his impossibly-long claws were embedded into the steel and glass exterior of the ITC skyscraper. “I’d be happy to die,” he admitted. “But that’s not going to happen. I can only die under very specific circumstances. It’s a curse thing.” Yuki gripped the silver-and-russet fur as the lycanthrope began to claw his way up the side of the building despite the howling dimensional gale. “Not dying is a curse?” “Oh yes,” Tanner answered. “Not dying isn’t the same thing as not being hurt, or not feeling torture, or not being crippled, or not losing your body so you’re a helpless wandering spirit howling eternity in impotent silence.” “Silver bullets?” Yuki suggested. “I’m not a movie werewolf,” Tanner snarled. “Sorry. I guess real werewolves wouldn’t be like Lon Chaney.” “Oh, there are movie werewolves out there,” Tanner conceded. “But half an hour later you just want another one.” The Irishman and the cyborgs were halfway up the tower now. Yuki risked a wide sensor sweep that confirmed that Ultizon had left the building. That meant there must still be an active link back to Earth somewhere in the ITC headquarters. “We need to get back inside,” she said. “We’ve been bucking the odds long enough clinging onto this shell while reality gets ripped apart around us.” “If I break in there’ll be another alarm,” Tanner replied. “I don’t really want to go round two with the tin man and his hired muscle.” “I can handle the alarms,” Yuki replied, reaching to her neck-port. “We really want to get under cover.” “You can get under cover when we get inside,” Tanner growled. “I came to find Ruby.” Peter von Doom was the first villain the Lair Legion had ever fought, the reason for their original alliance. Since then he had encountered them many times, until they had become his obsession. Almost as much as world domination, he wanted to see the Lair Legion destroyed forever. That was why had had arranged for ITC to deny Al B. Harper access to WeirdSciCon 2005. All the personality profiles suggested that Al would find a way to go anyhow, and that he would drag the LL into the plan with an 81.4% probability. That meant that when the trap was sprung and Ultizon arrived to slaughter everyone in the Vonnegut Hotel and Conference Centre, the engrams of the archscientist and of the dead Legionnaires would form part of the new gestalt computer sentience slaved to von Doom. But Peter von Doom wasn’t taking any chances this time. Although Ultizon had proved almost unstoppable before, ploughing his way through one of the most powerful line-ups the Legion had ever fielded, they had eventually thwarted him. They had been assisted by their own artificial intelligence, the computer sprite Hallie; so Von Doom had recruited Rikki Ulz Hagen, scientist granddaughter of the man who had originally programmed HALLIE, and the world’s foremost expert on dismantling artificial sentiences. Almost every computer system in the hotel was now infected with viruses specifically designed to destroy Hallie if she should attempt to interface with them. To make matters even more certain, von Doom had arranged for the entire hotel to be transferred to the interdimensional maelstrom between planes, where few could escape. And he had brought in criminal genius Blackbird to design neural disruptor fields that would interfere with the higher brain functions of any metahuman in the building, rendering them stunned and helpless. Parkson has excelled at his work, even calculating the exact cycle that could destroy the pure thought being Yo altogether. Roni Y Avis, the other member of von Doom’s consortium, had handled the original hostile takeover of ITC and was negotiating the video rights for distributing the Death of the Lair Legion. Von Doom watched the readouts on each of the metahumans in the great hall. The two thousand conference attendees that had flocked to watch the Inventathon were screaming and panicking now as Ultizon turned his energy beams on the heroes present. Soon they would discover that there was literally nowhere to run. Ultizon’s battle computer analysed the situation and targeted the more prominent threats first. The Shoggoth was unaffected by neural dampners so the robot launched off the transdimensional tangle-pack that von Doom had forced ITC’s founder to prepare. Dame Jana, last of the dimension-twisting Janus race, had been forced to calculate the counter-dimensions that would cripple the Shoggoth, rendering him vulnerable to mortal force. In rapid succession, Ultizon sheared the heads off Dancer, Nats, Hatman and Amazing Guy, then sprayed a force-burst that incinerated Lisa, Mr Epitome and Mumphrey. Then he turned to face the others. Ten seconds had elapsed. Time stopped as Sir Mumphrey Wilton died. The Chronometer of Infinity was programmed to do that. Time rewound by ten seconds, so that its owner was alive again but remained aware of his imminent death. Then the pocketwatch stopped time altogether except for Mumph, allowing him the opportunity of altering things to prevent his own demise. Ultizon was frozen in the moment he reached out to snap Splendiferous Stuart’s neck. Mumphrey realised the pocketwatch was burning chronal charge at an alarmingly accelerated rate. A quick check revealed the reason. The entire hotel was fitted with dimensional transfer grids and was being shifted into the Vortex, where time was raw. “Hmph,” the eccentric Englishman snorted irritably. He didn’t have long. He picked his way through the crowd to where Ebony of Nubilia was watching the Inventathon with her young companion Liu Xi Xiang. A quick adjustment brought Liu Xi into the envelope of extended time with Mumphrey. “What?” the Asian girl blinked as the world seemed to freeze around her. She glanced around her and realised what was happening. “Oh, that’s clever!” “No time to explain, miss,” Sir Mumphrey told her. “Hear you can do things with Void, what?” “Void? I can sometimes… I mean, I’m still new at that. It’s not…” “Jolly good. Whole hotel slippin’ into dimensional vortex. Bad idea. You have to stop it.” Liu Xi also now remembered the next ten seconds. “That robot! I can transmute it, or destroy it by…” “It’ll be defended. Don’t even try. We’ve been anticipated, what? So we’ll have to be a bit circumspect. Now pay attention. Here’s what I need you to do…” Peter von Doom tapped his monitor panels. There seemed to be a moment’s interference. “Don’t just admire the Lair Legion!” he shouted to the adamantine robot that was coming to life. “Kill them!” Ultizon reached for Splendiferous Stuart. De Brown Streak blurred the compere out of his grasp. “I don’t think this guy has a ticket!” Nats shouted, flying above Ultizon and collapsing the hall floor below him to tumble the robot away from the crowds into the service area below. Ultizon had already loosed his anti-Shoggoth rocket. Hatman intercepted it with his torpedoes hat. “Neural chaff, now!” Peter von Doom shouted at Blackbird. Joshua Parkson shrugged and casually flicked on the mind-interference field. It didn’t work. “What?” cried Peter von Doom. “Hmm,” frowned Blackbird. “They’re using some kind of psionic interference to de-phase the dimensional transfer effect. And specifically, the neural dampener net is being transferred marginally ahead of the rest of the building, preventing it from working. Ingenious.” “Liu Xi, are you alright?” Ebony asked worriedly as the Asian girl crumpled to her knees and clutched her stomach. “It hurts,” the elementalist replied through gritted teeth, “but I’m holding things like I was told.” “Lair Legioning!” called out Yo, who was still alive now. “And any other cute-heroings who happen to be wanting to be of helping. Down into basementing, quickly, to be stopping uncute Ultizon from getting of innocents.” “Finally, something ta make this geekathon worth the ticket price,” grinned Trickshot, vaulting through the hole Nats had made. “Hey, Robocop, I got an EMP arrow with your name on it!” “I can’t help,” Amazing Guy warned. “Resisting the dimensional pull is putting huge stresses on this building. I have to reinforce it with my dimensional energy constructs.” “Hey, can I get some of the big robot guy?” asked Nitz the Bloody. “Rusteku! Bustgasketeku! Windowscrasheku!” “Plenty of psychopathic robot to go around,” Dancer admitted as she improbably avoided Ultizon’s energy shear field and somehow arranged for it to be reflected back at the marauder himself. “Oh really,” snorted Baroness Elizabeth von Zemo. “All I wanted was to shop for a new death ray, not have to deal with all this nonsense. This way Sally, let’s find out who’s to blame for ruining my evening.” “This is it!” Semi-Transparent Lad swallowed hard as he led his fellow superhero students down to the battle. He glanced at Billy Goat, Teen Avenger, the Human Zamboni, Dreama Gardner and the others. “Our first real combat. A chance to die fighting something really big.” “Do they get extra marks if they die really well?” Catbot wondered to Gloria as the FMRC contingent joined the battle. “Humans!” Kerry raced over to the abandoned Inventathon trestles. “So which of these do you think would explode most satisfyingly?” she asked Fashion Accessory. She scooped up a huge armful of new inventions. “I’m betting all of them,” grinned the probability arsonist. The ITC detention block was well guarded, but it wasn’t so well guarded that a determined cyborgs and a legendary werewolf couldn’t penetrate it. Earlier Yuki had infiltrated the building’s security systems and added herself as a priority user, and that helped with all but the physical security. “Narrative conventionl demands I offer you the chance to surrender,” Tanner told the guards. “But I’m really hoping you don’t.” The fight was vigorous and short. “Ruby’s not here,” Tanner realised as he checked the prisoner manifest. “They must still have her in the science level.” “We still need to free these other captives,” Yuki insisted. She checked the list as she deactivated the force doors. “Especially this guy.” Mr Limpquist Lundqvist, former administrator of the Interdimensional Transportation Corporation, staggered from his cell. “I’m free! Oh thank you, purple-haired girl, whoever you are!” he declared. “Those people are absolute beastly brutes.” “What’s wrong with beastly brutes?” growled Tanner. “These guys were just bullies. I don’t like bullies.” “Mr Lundqvist, there are some parts of the ITC building I haven’t been able to map,” Yuki consulted. “The geography doesn’t seem to make sense.” “Yes, we have a few dimensional modifications in key areas. It makes moving around and storage so much easier.” “Is there a dimensional shortcut to the medical laboratories?” Tanner demanded. “From here?” Limpqvist moved over to the control panel and tapped at it with familiar ease. “There will be,” he promised. “Nobody panic!” Visionary called out to the panicking conference delegates. “It’s going to be fine. The Lair Legion is here! Nobody panic!” “You are in a wheelchair!” Dr Muturius Scone pointed out, sceptically. “Well yes,” conceded the possible-fake man, “but only temporarily while I get a little problem sorted.” “Anybody who wants to sue anybody for anything, I’m right here,” called out Arnie J. Armbruster, holding up a stack of business cards. “Human fear-sweat can be intriguing at the right occasions,” Camellia of the Fay observed to her minder Mr Oxalis, “but this much of it is somewhat too much. Let us depart from this place.” “I don’t think we can just now, ma’am,” the hulking brute in the sharp suit replied. “The dimensions seem very convoluted.” “What? Get me out of here, you fool! Get me out!” “Oh really,” snorted Honoria Sesselby. “As if mewling and whining will contribute anything to a difficult situation.” She seized conference organised Albert Dweeber and pinned him to a display stand. “You – what was your conference protocol for super-villain attack?” “The Lair Legion!” Special Agent Garrick snorted, fumbling with a radio transceiver. “They’re probably the cause of all this. Garrick to all FMRC agents. Assemble on protective detail around me. Do you receive me, over?” “Sorry, crackle,” came back a defiant voice over the communications link. “your crackle is breaking up crackle. Did you just ask us to leave you alone and fight the big killer monster that’s threatening everyone crackle?” “What we’re seeing is the panic stampede psychological domino effect,” Dr Valium noted. “Hey, let me through to that exit. I’m a doctor!” Evil Monkey stamped on his toe and pushed past. “Let these idiots panic all they like, Visionary,” Con Johnstantine called out across the stampede. He scratched a match on the no-smoking sign to light up a cheap cigarette. “They probably don’t know that Ultizon has sensors that can pick up human fear and hone in one it, so the more they run about the safer the rest of us will be, right?” That stopped the panicked running dead. “Right, young Harper. Lair Legion and those other chappies are keepin’ this Ultizon thingie occupied for now, but it’s only a matter of time before he breaks loose and stars killin’ our people. Won’t do. So while we’re holding the blighter off you’d best do something clever to get to the bottom of all this, what?” “Don’t be ridiculous!” Professor Lydekker almost screamed. “That’s unstoppable Ultizon, the killing machine. We’ll all be massacred!” “You brought it here as your entry,” Miss Framlicker accused the terrified scientist. “Didn’t you know what it was going to do?” “They didn’t tell me! I never thought…” Brock Lyedekker panicked. “Never thinking is always a mistake,” Al B. Harper advised him. “We’ll see what we can do, Sir Mumphrey. There’s quite a bit of technology round here. I’m sure we can cobble something together.” “Carry on , that man!” Mumphrey ordered, then rushed back towards the fight. “And two women,” Amy objected. She glanced at Lyedekker. “And a spineless worm?” “We’re all going to die!” the spineless worm repeated. “Who is it?” Miss F insisted, shaking him. “Who set this up? Roni Y Avis?” “I don’t know!” Lyedekker almost sobbed. “I just wanted… There was a man called Parkson…” “Parkson?” The Librarian’s ears perked up. “Joshua Parkson? The criminal known as Blackbird?” “Is that bad?” asked Amy. “He’s not a nice man, according to the records,” the Librarian admitted. “Look, I’d better go and see about downloading some PERL manuals into Ultizon…” “Wait a minute,” Hallie called to him, running over with Fleabot on her shoulder and Catbot under her arm. “There’s some kind of nasty software lurking in lots of then systems round here. Can you use your gift to absorb and transfer written materials to shift it?” “I imagine so,” Lee Bookman admitted. “If you can just point it out to me.” “Good,” Fleabot snorted. “Because Ultizon’s definitely due for an upgrade. Let’s see how the stuff works on him.” “And then,” Al B. cut in, frantically, wiring an armful of inventions he’d just harvested into the plain black box and keyboard that was to be his own Inventathon entry, “we need to see about finding out what’s really going on here.” “What is that?” Dr Spankenstein asked disapprovingly. “It doesn’t even have flashing lights, let alone electrodes.” “Yet,” the archscientist answered him with a manic grin. “But soon my creation will live!” The heavy hitters kept coming at Ultizon hard and fast. On one side Mr Epitome and Hatman hammered in to the indestructible robot, while Glory worried at his legs. On the other Harlagaz and NTU-150 kept up the pressure, with occasional interference from Trickshot, Shazana Pel, and the Dark Knight. “Is to keep going,” Yo called, dragging the stunned Ham Boy out to Princess Uhuna. Ultizon saw his moment and pulsed his energy blast at full to disintegrate Epitome’s chest. Lisa summonsed the paragon of power to her across the room just in time, and instead the Shoggoth dropped onto Ultizon from above, oozing inside his adamantine shell seeking softer parts within. The robot discharged an electric pulse that sent Hatman, Harlagaz, and Glory staggering back, and reduced the Shoggoth to jelly and steam, then hit the support wall that held the hotel hall from falling. “Propupeku!” called Nitz the Bloody, desperately burning off Zeku magic to try and contain the damage. Epitome made a fast decision and abandoned the fight to shore up the pillars. Ultizon released sonic screechers that disoriented the heroes, and in rapid succession took down Trickshot, Dan Drury, and Semi-Transparent Lad. But NTU-150 had actually been recharged by the electrical pulse and steamed in (literally steaming) and hammered the robot away from the fallen and through another wall to a more deserted section into the underground parking lot. “Be keeping of it up!” Yo encouraged as the robot rose again, dropping Nitz and Fashion Accessory with a strobe flash. Then Dancer vaulted over him from the left while Kerry slid beneath his arms to the right. There was a muffled whump as his primary special weapons systems grid self-destructed despite the probability damning field. Technology hadn’t yet advanced enough to resist two Shepherdsons. “Yes!” hissed Kerry triumphantly. “the bigger they are, the harder they explode!” Ultizon reached out to snap her neck but De Brown Streak had evacuated her a fraction of a second before. The Black Pantzer, Trickshot, and the Living Zamboni went in to run interference. It was clear to his battle computers that the heroes were playing for time, trying to keep him from the non-powered being above. Ultizon chuckled, threw NTU-150 through another support wall, then jumped upwards through the roof to make his way back to the conference hall. “I don’t think Ultizon is working out,” Blackbird noted to the struggling screaming girl strapped into the psionic transfer harness. “He’s allowing himself to get distracted by the superheroes. That’s always a fatal mistake.” Ruby Waver swore at him through clenched teeth. “I think it’s time to activate the over-ride program we’ve trojaned in to most of the software systems in the conference,” Blackbird mused. “Rikka designed them to overwrite anything they come in contact with to become part of Ultizon’s slave systems. Let’s give him a couple of dozen urban robots and a bunch of home-grown servitor drones to play with, shall we?” The criminal mastermind thumbed the transmit button. His console beeped at him. ++THAT’S SO CHEATING, DUDESTER++, his terminal printed for him. “Zachary Zelnitz,” Blackbird recognised the handiwork of Hacker Nine. “Of course that irritating teenager would feel the need to interfere.” He reached into his pocket and took out a slimline remote control of his own, to the independent secondary systems he had installed in case of emergency. “Nanodrones activate to killer mode,” he spoke into the microphone. “Target Zachary Zelnitz, Mumphrey Wilton, Al B. Harper, and Liu Xi Xiang.” The door to the psionics interface lab burst open. An angry werewolf surged into the lab. “Point defence lasers obliterate the intruder,” Blackbird ordered calmly. Tanner growled as the laser beams seared right through his body, then leaped forward anyhow. The lasers carved him into steaming bloody chunks. Blackbird turned back to watch the targeting interferers die as millions of pre-programmed micro-robots dismantled them from within; but instead the nanites were dissecting each other, corrupted by Ulz Hagen’s own virus with one minor Fleabot/Hallie rewrite. Then Tanner willed himself together and rose up, bloody and wrathful, to crawl towards Joshua Parkson. “My, you are determined, aren’t you?” Blackbird noted. He drew a slim handgun from his jacket and fired six silver bullets into Tanner’s brain. The lycanthrope fell back, the top of his head a gory cavity. “Ouch,” he said as he sat up and came forward again. “Silver bullets destroy werewolves,” Blackbird objected, his calm breaking for the first time. “Amateur werewolves, maybe,” Tanner growled, the subharmonics recalling a time when human survival depended on fleeing from the noise from a wolf’s throat. “Back when I was infected nobody had thought of guns.” Blackbird calculated the odds. They weren’t good enough to risk. He flicked his teleport recall to take him back to his nice cosy cell in the Safe. Even then tanner almost caught him before he vanished. The fight was done. Tanner forced himself not to fall over until he had seen to Ruby. “T-tanner?” she asked uncertainly as the bloody wolf-thing approached her. “You were expecting another werewolf?” Ruby swallowed back her fear and discovered something else there. “You came to rescue me?” “You think I’m going to get lumbered with all the dirty linen sorting myself?” The werewolf assumed his human shape again, except he looked like he’d just suffered a major car accident. He reached for the helmet that was pulsing psionic stimulation into Ruby’s brain. “No, wait,” she called out urgently. “Just wait for a minute.” “Okay,” Al B. Harper declared, tapping his bubble pipe on the contraption he’d lashed up. “Switch it on Amy. This should be interesting.” “Interesting!” Brock Lyedekker objected. “You’re completely mad!” “Only slightly mad,” judged Leonardo Day-Vincent. “Maybe middling. But it’ll be a fascinating experiment.” Dr Blargelslarch nodded. “Right. Okay, this could tear a huge hole in reality and end the Parodyverse, but it might do something interesting.” A whole bunch of admiring weird scientists clustered round the EEE table nodded appreciatively. “You’ve reversed the polarity of the neutron flow!” Lyedekker almost screamed. “And neutrons don’t have a polarity!” Amy lost patience and hit the professor with an adjustable crowbar. “I wish I was the mindlessly violent one,” sighed Miss Framlicker wistfully. “Are we clear now what ITC’s game-plan is?” Al B asked. “We’re all agreed on what the neural capture systems are about, and what they’re trying to create.” “The evidence seems overwhelming the way you’re diagnosed and presented it,” agreed forensics consultant Lee O’Callaghan. “I’m certainly going to want my ticket money back,” Dr Mango complained darkly. “Outrageous,” Akiko Masamune frowned. “Somebody is going to suffer for this.” “Better get on with the miracle rescue, Al,” Miss Framlicker advised. “I’ll start handing out the EEE flyers.” “Systems check!” Al B called out. “How’s Liu Xi doing?” “In a good deal of pain,” Ebony called back. “She’s not ready for this yet.” “Hallie?” “The AI contingent is ready for action. Except Catbot, who appears to be asleep.” “Appears,” noted the robotic cat. “Hacker Nine?” “Looks like the Librarian has done his deeds, dude,” H9 reported. “I am so in.” “AG?” “Cosmic awareness up and running, Mr Harper.” “Pull the big lever!” somebody from the audience called. “Pull it!” “Flapjack.” Al B. prompted. The LL’s hunchbacked assistant grinned so wide it looked like his head might fall off. “Pulling the big lever now, master!” he announced. “Don’t let them pull the big lever, you morons!” Peter von Doom screeched from his ITC tower control room. Rikki Ulz Hagen and Roni Y Avis looked around them for any kind of control that might prevent it, but nothing really presented itself. Then the power shut off and the room went dark. “Uh oh,” worried Roni Y Avis. “This can’t be good.” Ulz Hagen activated the emergency power systems. There was a young woman with purple hair standing in the doorway. “Who are you?” demanded Peter von Doom. “You’re not one of the Lair Legion.” “Didn’t you know?” Yuki answered cruelly. “I’m one of the secret members. There are over two hundred Legionnaires by now. Surely your intelligence reports can’t be that sloppy?” “They what?” the masked villain yelped. “Two hundred Legionnaires?” “She’s winding you up,” Roni told von Doom. “They abandoned that plan ages back. At least… they were supposed to have done.” “Stop it!” von Doom shouted. “I will destroy the Lair Legion. Every last one of them! Every one!” Yuki shrugged. “The only problem I can see with that plan is that I’m right here and you mastermind-type people don’t actually have any superpowers.” “You should hit them,” Mr Lundqvist suggested helpfully. “Lots.” “Er, wait,” Roni Y Avis said nervously. “I was just the hired help. Really.” “You think we’d be here completely unprotected?” Rikki Ulz Hagen snorted. “Look.” A security panel slid back and Andrew Royd, security supervisor for ITC stepped through the breach.” “Ultizon,” Yuki recognised. “But not wearing your indestructible body this time.” “My indestructible body is busy slaughtering your fleshy friends back at the conference,” the robot told her. “But this vanadium steel frame will be quite sufficient to take you down.” Yuki felt the robot probing at her control systems again, but she knew – hoped - she could keep him out long enough to make this a fair fight. “You think machine brains are so much better than human ones,” she taunted the robot. “Bring it.” CONNECT TO ENGRAM COLLECTION PROGRAM, Al B. typed onto the keyboard attached to his formerly-black box. Now the cube was swirling with rainbow colours and bleeding black energy dots to the pleasure of the WeirdSciCon crowd. “Anyone want to tell the rest of us what’s happening in non-geek?” Gloria wondered. RECOGNISE ENGRAMS OF HALLIE, FLEABOT, CATBOT, Al B. kept writing. “Well, the power source over there is peaked to exploding point,” Amy pointed out, “We’re using Heisenberg coils in ways they were never meant to be, and there’s a major timepsace transfer in process with around four hundred vectors affecting what we’re doing, any one of which could spell disaster. The usual.” TRANSFER ENGRAMS OF HALLIE, FLEABOT, CATBOT TO SUPREME INTERFERENCE COLLECTION CONDUIT. “This way,” breathed Ruby, clutching Tanner’s hand like a woman giving birth. “The whole system’s all prepared for you.” TRANSFER ULZ HAGEN ANTI-HALLIE VIRUS TO SUPREME INTERFERENCE COLLECTION CONDUIT. “Oooh,” admired Thighmaster. “Tricky.” Then he was caught short again and had to race for the lavatory. EXTRACT ENGRAMS OF HALLIE, FLEABOT, CATBOT FROM SUPREME INTERFERENCE AND RETURN TO HOME. “That’s not going to be good for this new Supreme Interference you say they’ve built,” Dr Weed Wrichards predicted. “Not very,” said Al B. smugly. Yuki and Ultizon were blurs of motion, challenging and countering at devastating speed with precision accuracy. An alarm sprang to life on the main control console. “They’re attacking the Interference installation!” Rikki Ulz Hagen called, interpreting the data instantly. “How can they be…? We have to stop them, cut in the security back-ups before…” The control panel sparked and earthed itself through the computer scientist. “Oh shut up, will you?” Hallie told her in an irritated voice before blowing up the whole Supreme Interference installation. “What?” gasped Ultizon, momentarily distracted as he tried to multi-task two combats and a shifting set of plot variables all at once. Yuki took her shot. She caught a fragment of exploding console as the room was showered and hurled it with all her force into Ultizon’s eyeball. “Nice try, fleshcore,” the killer robot told her, one eye shattered by the protruding wreckage. He caught her at the single moment she was off-balance from her attack and pinned her to the floor with superior strength. “But now it’s all over but for my paring your systems away one by one.” He leaned down to leer at her.” This is going to be fun.” The Supreme Interference mainframe detonated with a massive electromagnetic pulse as Yuki had foreseen. For a moment her software crashed, but her human brain triggered the reset, flickering her systems back to life. Ultizon lay atop her unmoving. The metal shard spiking his eye had transmitted the pulse past his external shielding and had burned out this body’s electronic brain. “She won!” Peter von Doom gasped in shock. “Avis, in the cupboard there, omniblasters… Avis? Avis?” Roni Y Avis fled through the emergency conduit down to the main transfer bay. From there temporary portals linked the ITC building with the dimensionally stretched Vonnegut Hotel and with half a dozen locations back on Earth. “I think it’s time to use some of that vacation time that’s been stacking up,” the unethical entrepreneur declared to himself. “Perhaps later,” Baroness von Zemo told him, stepping out of the shadows. “Right now, I have a customer complaint.” “Be keeping uncute-Ultizon from the conferencing hall!” Yo called urgently as the killing machine ripped out one of the elevator cars and hurled it at him/her. Yo dodged instinctively before realising that the fast-moving metal object was heading straight for the civilians. Glory leapt in and deflected the missile, vanishing with a yelp beneath the wreckage. Alcheman seared down on Ultizon, shifting from acid to tar to tempered steel to try and harm or slow the killing machine. Ultizon released a localised neural pulse that wiped the hero’s mind. “This is getting kind of intense,” Hatman warned, diving forward with his Con-Ed hat to prevent the marauder crushing the fallen Michael Wooster. Ultizon had analysed the capped crusader’s attack mode though, and he feinted aside to return a spine-shattering blow on the Canadian hero. “Jay!” called Dancer, sliding down to try and get him loose; but Ultizon blasted the floor, sending thousands of marble fragments into the heroes. There was no chance at all of avoiding casualties. Dancer went down in a bloody mess with the Librarian and Mumphrey. “Keep to be attacking!” Yo called, scoring his rapier over the robot’s indestructible shell. “Juniors to be falling back though. Is not yet to be Juniors ready for this.” Ultizon released another electrical pulse through his carapace, searing the pure thought being to a blackened wreck. “Nay!” shrieked Harlagaz, already bloody from previous encounters. Ultizon let him in close so he could crush the Ausgardian’s neck, then used his limp form to bludgeon down Shazana Pel. His next pulse blacked out the lights, and by the time the battery-powered emergency lighting cut in two seconds later Kerry Shepherdson and Ham-Boy had joined the pile of limp broken heroes trailing behind the robot. “Kes! HB!” Fashion Accessory screamed, moving too slowly to see Ultizon turning on her. De Brown Streak raced in to save her, exactly as the robot has calculated. The javelin Ultizon ejected from his right arm skewered Josh Clement through the throat, pinning him like a butterfly to the blood-splashed wall. “No! This is looking more and more like a final issue special,” CSFB! worried, avoiding a second similar encephalo-blast and spraying the robot’s sensory nodes with silly string. Nats ran interference, but Ultizon’s force screens stopped Bill Reed’s telekinesis from getting a direct grip on the killer robot. “We can’t let this bastard get to the crowds,” the flying phenomenon scowled. “We can’t let the others have died in vain.” And Ultizon kept moving forwards. “Are you okay?” Visionary asked Hallie anxiously as the AI’s holographic utility drone buzzed back to life then assumed the familiar form of the green-skinned woman. “Fine,” Hallie told him. “Just a little sleepy. That was a lot of processing.” “Meh,” said Catbot. “I’ve seen bigger.” “We’ve discouraged any new Supreme Interference,” reported Fleabot. “It’s going to be a bad quarter for ITC stockholders.” “Then our work here is done,” said Miss F with satisfaction. Then Ultizon broke through the wall of the conference hall. “You have one chance to surrender and call off your attack robot,” Yuki told von Doom. “And then I’ll rip your head off.” “Damn you, Lair Legion!” hissed the villain. “Um, I’d love to not have my head ripped off, but unfortunately the control panel seems to have exploded and Ms Ulz Hagen is unconscious and we seem to be spinning helplessly into the core of the dimensional nexus.” “If it’s not one thing it’s another,” sighed Yuki. “I can’t hold it much longer,” sobbed Liu Xi. “It’s too big, too much…” “Looks like you won’t have to,” the Abyssal Greye comforted her. “Here is that big robot to slaughter you all.” “Human fools!” Ultizon crowed, scattering Legionnaires like ninepins and spraying the screaming crowd with laser bolts. “As if any of you could prevent the march of evolution, the ascent of unstoppable Ultizon!” “Like that’s going to stop us trying!” shouted Mr Epitome, hauling in with a roundhouse right that actually rocked the robot on his heels before he eviscerated the paragon of power. “Miiri, get out of here,” Vizh warned his Caphan escort. “And point this wheelchair towards Ultizon.” Lisette grabbed some new shoulder-mounted ordinance from the New Tomorrow Industries table and fired it right into the robot; to no avail. “Dolts! Nothing can penetrate my adamantine shell!” boasted the marauder. “That’s the trouble with absolutes,” said Knifey as ManMan stabbed the sentient blade into Ultizon’s back, shearing a fragment of indestructible metal clean off the robot. “There’s always another absolute.” Ultizon went crazy. De Brown Streak got ManMan, Lisette, and the Black Pantser out of the line of fire but the roof collapsed on them all. The other heroes dogpiled the robot but were sent reeling by close range encephlo-bursts. Finally CrazySugarFreakBoy!, Nats, and the Dark Knight were the last humans standing. “Klaatu Barada Nikto?” CSFB! ventured. “Al, if you’re going to do something clever, now would really be the time,” suggested Miss F urgently. Al B crossed a couple of wires and then his fingers. SUDDENLY THE SLIGHTLY-DAMAGED ULTIZON WENT INTO DIAGNOSTIC SHUTDOWN MODE,” he wrote. Suddenly the slightly-damaged Ultizon went into diagnostic shutdown mode. The robot fell silent as it assessed the chip that Knifey had carved from his frame. “How the…?” wondered CrazySugarFreakBoy! “Never mind,” DK told him. “Silly string catapult, big killer robot out of the window. Now.” “I am so on it,” the wired wonder agreed, entangling Ultizon with chaos strands. “Hey, my powers can’t affect Ultizon directly,” Nats realised, “but I can telekinetically pull back a big rubber band.” The urban robots in the crowd helped drag Ultizon back in the impromptu sling so he’d fly through the plate glass outer wall of the conference centre into the dimensional void beyond. As the robot began to revive from his unexpected shutdown CSFB! and Nats let go. The unstoppable killing machine was propelled like a bullet through the plate window of the conference hall and into the seething planar maelstrom beyond. “I… hope… I’m not… expected… to catch that…” Amazing Guy gasped as he struggled to hold the building together. The adamantine robot was caught by the transdimensional currents and swirled away, screaming his rage. “Ultizon has left the building,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! announced. SUDDENLY THE CONFERENCE CENTRE WAS BACK WHERE IT HAD BEEN ON EARTH, Al B. typed, AND EVERYBODY WHO HAD BEEN INJURED OR EVEN KILLED WAS RESTORED TO HEALTH. The Lair Legion rose to their feet, puzzled and unharmed. “What happened?” Hatman asked. “We kicked Ultizon’s butt again, natch,” Trickshot shrugged. “Where’s the bar?” “Did we just die?” Dancer checked. “Again?” “I’d prefer to think not,” Lisa answered. “One of these times it’s going to stick.” “What… what is that device?” demanded Albert Dweeber, the conference organiser, pointing to the livid luminous cube that Al B. was typing into. INEXPLICABLY, DWEEBER’S PANTS EVAPORATED Al wrote; and it was so. “Nice underoos, loser,” Hacker Nine snorted. “A reality writer,” NTU-150 recognised. “A literal Plot Device. The Parodyverse is made up of stories. Theoretically all one has to do to change the Parodyverse is to write a story. Al B’s invented a keyboard that does that.” “But that makes him… all-powerful!” Akiko Masamume objected. “Al B. Harper has just conquered the Parodyverse. “Well, Miss Framlicker helped,” Al added modestly. “He is the conqueror of the Parodyverse,” objected Victor Timelo. “Him?” “Jolly well done, young Harper,” Sir Mumphrey chipped in. “Jolly good show.” “Do we have to pay him homage?” worried Thighmaster. “I am so not paying homage to anybody who wears a chemical-stained 60’s lab coat,” Fashion Accessory warned. “Raaagh!” growled Evil Monkey. “I claim that Plot Device in the name of the New Simian Empire. Hand it over or…” Hatman folded his arms and stared at the ape. “…Or not,” the ape concluded quietly. “Al B,” Dancer called out excitedly. “If you can write anything on that thing and it happens…” “I guess so,” the archscientist agreed, reaching for the keyboard. “Hold on…” AND THEN THERE WAS UNIVERSAL PEACE, HAPPINESS, AND WELLBEING FOR ALL TIME. Nothing happened. “Sorry,” the Chronicler of Stories announced, emerging from nowhere to address the crowd. The absolute arbiter of chronology in the Parodyverse had a job to do. “This is a plot device I can’t allow. So I’ve banned it. It won’t work again, and neither will anything like it.” “That is so like the Man,” objected De Brown Streak. “How the hell did you manage to work out the mechanism for doing that anyway?” the Chronicler demanded of Al. “Um, it just seemed like a good bit of weird science for the contest,” the LL’s scientific advisor answered sheepishly. “I mean, we’ve seen similar effects with the real cosmic cube, and a few of the other power artefacts, and there was that Celestian control interface that Vizh didn’t use that time, so I figured…” “Forget I asked,” sighed the Chronicler. “Somebody bring me coffee. Stat.” “Still, it solved this particular set of problems, eh?” Xander the Improbable noted, appearing from wherever he’d been so he hadn’t been there when it happened. He looked round at the shaken but unharmed conference delegates. “Shouldn’t be surprised if the judges didn’t bear that in mind when they cast their Inventathon votes now, or at the awards ceremony tomorrow.” Epilogue 1: “You going to be okay?” Tanner asked Ruby Waver as he dropped her off at her Frazetta Street apartment. “Yeah, I’m fine now I’m not strapped to that pain bench thing. Bit of a headache is all. It’s you I’m worried about.” The beaten-up werewolf shrugged. Already his deep gashes were just scabbed lines. “I can always find another trenchcoat,” he told her. “Tell Mr Li I might be in a bit late tomorrow,” Ruby suggested. “Do you… want to come on up?” “Nah. I need to get to work on time tomorrow or people will talk” He lit up a cigarette and cupped it to his lips. “See you around, kid.” “See you,” Ruby agreed. She went past the new building superintendent and walked up to her apartment. She let herself in and slumped on the couch. She’d left the door open. “Close,” Ruby told it, and it slammed shut and deadbolted itself as she commanded. There had been some advantages to all that time in Blackbird’s machine. Epilogue 2: Joshua Parkson had decided the Safe was no longer… safe enough. That werewolf had seemed very angry and very determined. Brennon was on guard, and Brennon was already on Blackbird’s payroll. “Leon, I believe it is time for me to depart at last,” the villain told the prison guard. “This has been a convenient hideout for some time, and the room service has been excellent, but now I feel like a change.” “What do you want me to do, Mr Parkson?” Blackbird handed over an address. “Call at this building. Key this number into the porch access panel. Then leave. The automated systems will do the rest.” “And then what?” “And then you can retire rich, and I walk free to continue with my career.” The guard considered this. “That building, that’s where you stashed some of your super-villain stuff, right? Computer databases and secret weapons and the like?” “That isn’t your concern, Leon. It’s not what I’m paying you for.” “Actually, it really is my concern, Blackbird,” Brennon replied. “I’ve been looking for that materiel for quite some time.” The criminal genius turned deathly pale. “No,” he breathed, shaking his head in denial. “Nobody can be that obsessed. Nobody at all.” Fin Fang Foom shifted back to his regular draconic shape. “Just call me nobody,” he told his old enemy. “Thanks for the information.” After Blackbird had finished swearing he went back to thinking; and he thought very hard for a very long time indeed. Epilogue 3: “Jolly good show, everybody. Potted the blighters good an’ proper,” Sir Mumphrey congratulated the assembled heroes. “Hey, any time Rikka Ulz Hagen needs electric shock therapy, I’m there,” Hallie replied. “Are you feeling better now, Liu Xi?” asked Dancer anxiously. “Much, thank you,” the elementalist replied. “It was an interesting experience. I will be able to channel the void more effectively the next time.” “You did adequately this time,” the Manga Shoggoth judged. “It was not an easy set of vectors for a human to juggle.” “And well done to Ms Yuki for scrobbling the bounder-in-chief,” Mumphrey went on, pointing to where Hatman and Mr Epitome were manhandling Peter von Doom into the back of an OPS transport van. “Useful lassie to have around, that.” “All in a day’s work,” Yuki grinned. “There was nothing good on TV tonight anyhow.” “I checked the local vortex,” Amazing Guy reported, “but there’s no sign of Ultizon. Wherever he got swept to it was far away from here.” “Good riddance,” Dancer shuddered. “Does anybody really believe he won’t be back later though?” challenged Trickshot. “Some bozos just don’t know when ta quit.” “You have an announcement, archer?” De Brown Streak teased. “But this time we’ve got ITC bang to rights,” Nats gloated. “Of course, that would be the day I get offered a $600,000 job with them, but…” “You wouldn’t have taken it,” Amy assured him. “It wouldn’t have made you happy. Or healthy.” “Of course not,” the flying phenomenon agreed hastily. “Never even considered it for a moment. As if.” “But we do have ITC at last,” Miss Framlicker reiterated. “Now that we have testimony from Mr Lundqvist and evidence of their plots at WeirdSciCon…” “Plus we know they’ve got Dame Jana hidden away somewhere,” CSFB! chipped in. “We won’t get anywhere,” Lisa interrupted with a scowl. “I’ve just been checking. Seems ITC was bought out a few hours before they incurred substantial criminal liabilities, transferring all valuable assets to the new holding company of ITC (Holding) Ltd, and thus avoiding any significant loss. Everything that happened after that was the actions of a few rogue employees and the responsibility of the former Board of Diroectors.” “But we got von Doom!” objected Nats. “And that’s all we got,” Lisa frowned. “ITC is under new management.” “Avis?” Visionary worried. “He did the hostile takeover before. I wonder who the sleazebag is fronting for this time?” “That would be me,” Baroness Elizabeth von Zemo announced to the cluster of heroes. “I liked ITC so much that I bought the company.” Epilogue 4: “And the WeirdSciCon 2005 Award for Weirdest Scientist goes…” announced Albert Dweeber sourly, “to Alaric B. Harper.” “Alaric?” Amy puzzled. Miss Framlicker smirked. Nats nudged Al B, who was urgently scribbling something on the tablecloth. “Hey Al, you won.” “Hmh?” the archscientist grunted, looked up to find there was a spotlight on him and people clapping. “What?” “You won Weird Scientist of the Year,” Miss Framlicker prompted him. “Never mind that just now,” Al B. told his colleagues at Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises. “You’ve got to look at what I’ve just thought up for us to do next year…” Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2005 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2005 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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