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Post By The Hooded Hood continues with the villains' point of view; warnings for some unpleasant content inside Mon Nov 14, 2005 at 10:19:13 pm EST |
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#240: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion’s Enemies: Digging the Dirt | |
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| #240: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion’s Enemies: Digging the Dirt Previously: Conspirators within the worlds' governments have decided to accede to the secret demands of intergalactic tyrant the Parody Master and bring Earth's superhuman population under control through the use of technopsychic Obedience Brands. While legislation to enforce such measures is being pushed through, key members of the conspiracy make their own preparations to ensure success... Note: There's an unpleasant bit in this chapter, so minors and those of a sensitive disposition need not apply. The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Who's Who in the Parodyverse Where's Where in the Parodyverse Highgate Cemetery north of London was a bleak tangle of weeds, the Victorian monuments vandalised and crumbling in the long-neglected graveyard. The gates were officially closed at 5pm, but the overgrown space had long become a refuge for junkies and courting couples and there were plenty of ways to get over the high walls or through the bent and rusted railings. The men in the dark overcoats simply picked the padlock on the gate and let the unmarked black BMW glide into the cemetery. For a moments its headlights flashed over the tomb of Karl Marx, then the lights were doused and the gates closed behind it. There was a light drizzle as the men found the grave they wanted and began to dig. If the ruined gravestone had been readable it would have said Erskine Black, 1846-1872, Matt 8.22b. It took the better part of two hours for the men to dig down to the lead coffin, and another half hour to rig the tackle to life the casket and drag it out. Only then did Edward Cromlyn bother to leave his newspaper and join his minions to open the box. The chains enclosing the casket were still strong despite being in the ground for over a hundred and thirty years. The diggers had brought bolt-cutters to sever them. Finally a crowbar broke the seal on the coffin and the lid could be levered away. Cromlyn looked down at the sad shivering thing that cowered inside. It was so emaciated that its every bone was visible, its wrecked body torn by long attempts to escape its box. It barely had the strength to move even now, cowering at the torchlight. It hadn’t seen light for over a hundred and thirty years. But it moved. It looked up. “Welcome back, Commander Black,” Edward Cromlyn said to the thing in the box. “Sorry it’s taken a while to get round to releasing you.” The creature shuddered again, then hissed out the name of the man he had spent every moment in that living hell hating; the name of the man who had buried him there: “Wilton!” Mr Sneek’s process server arrived at 7.40am, just as Amy Aston was wheeling out the latest trash bin full of fused components at the back of the EEE Firehouse in Gothametropolis’ seedy Sixways area. “Miss Aston?” he confirmed of the overalled mechanic with the tousled hair. Amy had taken to camping out in the workshop since the job didn’t pay that much for living accommodation. “Who wants to know?” “I have a document to deliver to a representative of Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises.” “Is it a bill?” Amy asked, taking the envelope. “Because if so I’m just hauling the garbage right now.” “It’s a court order,” the process server explained. “Distraining the assets of EEE until such time as their ownership is determined after the case of the city of Gothametropolis York vs Al B. Harper is decided.” “In that case I’m not Amy Aston,” Amy replied. “This is a Chinese takeaway.” “You’ve been served,” the messenger told her. “Your company is suspended. You’ve been shut down.” “Brenner!” the Contessa called across the SPUD Helicarrier’s mess deck. “Come and sit with me.” The bridge tech officer looked around nervously, clutching his dinner tray. “Me?” “You,” confirmed the Super-Menace Principle Undercover Directorate’s top agent. “We never get any chance to talk. Come join me.” Matt Brenner swallowed hard and went to join the svelte masterspy in the black catsuit. “We’ve never talked,” he pointed out. “My loss,” Natalia Romanza smiled at him. She had a smile that could melt butter. It was a smile that jumped from Brenner’s eyes right to his groin. He hastily pulled his chair in under the table. “You don’t usually… I mean, I normally sit on the tech table…” “This is such a nice change for both of us, then,” the Contessa suggested. “After all, change is the theme round here right now, isn’t it?” “What do you mean?” the nervous technician asked, fumbling with his coke can. It fizzed and doused his sleeve. Natalia reached over and sympathetically wiped his shirt clean. “I mean with al the new protocols and procedures and suchlike. Even more secrecy than usual round here. New directives, staff redeployments. The new Director.” Brenner trembled. “N-new Director? What new Director?” “Oh please. You think a top operative like me would have been kept out of the loop? Drury’s not been around for a while now. But there are lots of Director-coded orders coming out from the command deck. From the new Director.” “Look, I can’t talk about that…” “Of course not. That would be wrong. Very wrong. The new Director wouldn’t like it.” “No,” agreed Brenner, confirming the master-spy’s suspicions that SPUD was indeed under new management. So where was Drury? “Well, it’s been lovely chatting with you?” the Contessa told the tech-weenie. She leaned over the table and gave him a soft kiss on the lips, then walked away across the mess hall, knowing every eye in the place was upon her. “It’s your dime. Talk to us,” said Political Machine. Except for the shining silver ports on his forehead he’d have looked just like a slick human politician. “Dime?” snorted Dr Vicki Farmer of the Commission on Metahuman Affairs. “You charged us a quarter of a million dollars to attend this meeting.” “We wanted to be certain you were serious,” explained Diagnostic Machine. “And the precautions to ensure our security cost money.” “I promised you safe conduct and an amnesty for our meeting,” Farmer reminded the representatives of the Machine Shop, the foremost robot crime syndicate on the planet. “And we so trust the government,” snorted Fitness Machine, the third of the delegation that Master Machine had sent to the rendezvous. “We’re wondering why you’re suddenly so keen to talk with us, Dr Farmer,” Political Machine explained. “We’re wondering if this has anything to do with the turmoil and debate that’s ensured after the government’s radical proposals in SR1066, for example.” “Well, yes it does,” admitted the Commission’s chairwoman. “As you know, the government is bringing forward legislation to bring the metahuman community under closer supervision.” “Mind control or extermination,” Fitness pointed out bluntly. “Not that we mind. You hardly recognise the rights of sentient robots amongst you anyhow. Kill off every superhero on the planet for all we care.” “Our studies suggest that many of the metahumans will co-operate with the programme,” Dr Farmer replied. “After all, we have gathered an awful lot of information about most of them. We know where they live.” “And who they’re married to, or dating, and where they work, and where their money is banked, and any infringements of the law they’ve committed, and a whole host of other useful data,” Diagnostic Machine added. “Yes, we know you’ve got comprehensive databases. Our own assessment matches yours. 61.4% of the metahuman community would co-operate with minimal coercion. 9.2% will co-operate given more intensive pressure. 7.6% will passively resist and seek to evade your programme. 10.1% are incarcerated already. The remainder will undertake radical action to resist it and to prevent its wider implementation.” Vicki Farmer nodded. “Exactly. Only 11.7% of metahumans will actively resist control.” “But that 11.7% will likely include the highest profile and most powerful members of that community,” Political Machine pointed out, not taken in by governmental reassurances. “The Lair Legion, for example. Baroness von Zemo. The Hooded Hood.” “Well yes,” conceded Farmer. “We do anticipate that there is a reasonable chance of having to neutralise many of the higher profile metahumans.” “Neutralise as in eliminate?” Fitness translated. “If we have to, yes.” “And where does the robot community fit into your plans?” wondered Political Machine. “A straight reading of the legislation would seem to classify us in law as property of the government under the section on exotic technologies. I need hardly point out that this is unacceptable to robo-Americans.” “Yes. We understand that,” Dr Farmer agreed. “That’s why I’ve come to you. We’re putting an offer on the table.” “What offer?” asked Diagnostic Machine. “We’re willing to hire the Machine Shop. And any other robot who wants to sign up to help us contain rogue metahumans who are defying SR1066. We’ll pay you to neutralise those who break the law. And we’ll recognise your citizenship thereafter.” Political Machine glanced at his team-mates. “Keep talking.” “Mr Brenner. Come with us please.” The SPUD technician looked at the serious security officers that were flanking him in the corridor. “What is it? I didn’t do anything!” They just hooked their hands under his armpits and dragged him down to an interrogation suite. “What is this?” Brenner demanded, sweating. “I’m due on shift now. My supervisor’s gonna be completely…” “Mr Brenner,” said the new Director, “your supervisor is going to be whatever I tell him to be.” “Y-yes sir!” the technician stuttered, standing to attention between his guards and staring in horror at his ultimate boss. “Now we just want to ask you a few questions. About your lunch break.” “M-my lunch break? Sir…” “About your lunch companion, actually. How long have you been seeing Natalia Romanza, Brenner?” “Sir! I never… I haven’t seen her before. I’ve never talked with her before today. I don’t know… You have to believe me, sir!” The Director sighed. “Contessa Natalia Romanza calls you to her table, laughs with you, chats with you, then kisses you. That was a very good first meeting, Mr Brenner. You’re a fast worker.” “Sir, I’m not, I don’t…” “What did she ask you, Mr Brenner? What did you tell her?” “Sir, I don’t… Aaaaaggghhh!!!”” Lancing pain burst through the technician, doubling him on the floor. He felt as if he was going to die. The Director had only glanced at him. “What did you tell her?” “Sir, she was asking about you. About the new Director. About Colonel Drury. Please… stop!” The Director stopped, but not because he minded hurting the technician. He was sensing an anomaly. “Wait… there’s something else. An electromagnetic discharge…” Brenner didn’t move, sobbing on the floor. The Director grabbed the technician’s wrist and ripped back the cloth of his jacket. There, pinned within the hem, was the tiny microtransmitter that the Contessa had slipped onto him when she’d been mopping the spilled coke off Brenner. “A bug!” hissed the Director, glowering at his prisoner. “She set you up. A trap for me!” “Director Exemplary!” Brenner gasped, before his boss fried his nervous system with a thought. “I want a full confinement alert for Natalia Romanza,” Exemplary ordered his guards. “She doesn’t leave this helicarrier alive. Move!” Mayor Klein allowed herself a little sip of champagne and sat back with a satisfied smile. Life was good. “About now,” she explained to her guest, billionaire businessman Harry Flask, “my special forces teams will be surrounding Al B. Harper’s laboratory at that shabby old firehouse. They have orders to take control of it and seize all the good inside.” “You expect the heroes to give up their technology without a fight?” the Lynchpin asked sceptically. “Oh, I hope not. Otherwise I’ll have called in a big favour from Herbert Garrick to loan all those Sentinoids for nothing. And my special forces know that accidents can happen in these confused situations. Sometimes despite our best precautions people die resisting arrest.” Flask finished his eleventh burger and reached for a twelfth. “I’m surprised Wilton didn’t try to claim the firehouse was a Lair Legion annexe or something of the kind.” “We already thought of that one and closed the loophole,” Kline smirked. “Legion facilities on US territory need approval of the Commission on Metahuman Affairs. Unfortunately today their chairwoman was out of town.” The Lynchpin chuckled. “It does sound as if you’ve got Harper on the ropes. What with the Dark Knight turning out to be a psychopathic murderer and being classified shoot-on-sight, with his case against us vanishing into thin air like that, and with the Metahuman Control Act picking up votes it’s turning into a very good week.” “A very good week,” agreed the Mayor. “I’ve talked to some associates of mine,” the Lynchpin continued. “Power brokers. Opinion makers. The consensus is that the Legion has to go. The kid gloves are off. There’ll be rather more scandals and disasters in the weeks to come.” “Good.” “Wilton’s being targeted, of course, but we may arrange a little blood-letting before that, just to set them worrying.” “Clement?” “Perhaps. But right now we’re thinking Trickshot. He annoyed me a while ago when he interfered with my St Jude’s Orphanage buyout.” “Trickshot has no powers,” considered the Mayor. “He’ll be easy meat.” “I’m told plans are in place to deal with all of them, even your buffoon of a predecessor and his postage-stamp country.” “And the Obedience brand programme.” “Ready to go, as soon as the legislation passes. And it will pass. We have too much on too many politicians for it not to.” Mayor and Lynchpin raised their glasses to each other with satisfied smiles. The phone rang. Mayor Klein reached across to hear how the firehouse seizure had gone. “Is it done? What did we get? Were there any tragic accidents?” The Lynchpin saw her face change. “What do you mean, you couldn’t find it?” she shouted down the receiver. “It’s right there, where the roads join! Why the hell do you think they call the place Sixways? You follow the roads, and where they join there’s the EEE headquarters! It can’t just vanish!” But Flask was ahead of her. “It can,” he corrected. “The Interdimensional Transportation Corporation building is protected from detection from those who shouldn’t find it by dimensional barriers. It’s literally untraceable unless you have legitimate business there. If ITC can do that, then…” “Than that blasted Harper can do it to his rat-trap!” hissed Klein. She turned back to the telephone. “Call ITC. Get their best experts down there, finding that damn firehouse. Their top people, you understand! Do it! Do it!” She slammed the phone down, her good mood ruined. She wouldn’t feel any better when she got the ITC bill either. The Interdimensional Transportation Corporation staff were good; but Harper, Framlicker and Aston were much, much better. SPUD Helicarrier search protocols were very through. Natalia Romanza had helped to write them. The ship-wide alarm warned that this wasn’t a drill. Supplementary force fields coated the hull, preventing teleportation, dimension-sliding, and any more mundane illicit radio transmissions. Detector drones and biosurveillance pods supplemented armed location teams. It took four minutes to detect the disconnected alarms down on the hangar deck. “Lock down all transport,” shouted Exemplary. “Use the over-ride codes. Seal the bulkheads. Concentrate the psi division on that area of the ship. And get me down there.” Meanwhile the Contessa was quietly breaking into the advanced physics lab at the other end of the ship, where the R&D materials and confiscated tech were kept. Natalia Romanza always liked to have a back door for when things were getting desperate. Things were getting desperate. She pulled out the micro-recorder that had received the transmissions from the bug on Brenner, and flicked it on again. “Carl, this is Natalia. I’m almost out of time. Dan Drury’s been ousted from SPUD, replaced by Exemplary. You can’t trust SPUD any more. I don’t know what they’ve done with Drury, but it won’t be good. If he’s alive, find him. He knows how to shut SPUD down if he has to.” There was a hammering on the fused lab door. They’d found her. “I’m out of time, Carl. I need help. I need you to find me, because I won’t get out of this by myself. I’m going to download this message into the mainframe, hidden so well that only Hacker Nine could find it. If he does, and passes it to you… I’ve never asked anyone for help before, ever. I’m asking you, Carl. Talia out.” Exemplary blew the heavy metal door of its hinges. The charges the Contessa had set around the room went off, blowing the experimental equipment to smithereens. When the sprinklers doused the fires the lab was empty. Contessa Romanza was gone. The Select Committee on Metahuman Control met in basement six of the Pentagon, one of the most secure locations on the planet. Every member present had been bioscanned, mind-probed, and otherwise verified as genuine. The installation itself was proof against anything from nuclear attack to dimensional invasion. “This meeting will come to order,” Dr Vicki Farmer announced. “Let the record show Mr Herbert Garrick, General Theodore Rott, Mrs Harmanda Barriere, and Mr Edward Gramayre are in attendance, along with, um…” “Oh, just call me the Doomherald,” offered the black-clad messenger witting with his feet up on the conference table watching the Earth people do his work for him. “DH if you want to be affectionate.” “We don’t need you to be here, you know,” Garrick told the Parody Master’s agent. “We’re quite capable of implementing the agreed protocols ourselves.” “I really only came to be near to you, Herbert,” the Doomherald replied. “You’re my hero.” “If we can get on?” asked Dr Farmer acidly. “I’d just like a quick check round the room on progress so far. I can report that we’ve got the Machine Shop on side. Mrs Barriere?” “We’ve selected which felons we want to process first, and we’re gearing up for mass processing in the new year,” the large black woman replied. “I have to say that Obedience Brand is far superior to even the Technopolitan Obedience Chips. It seems to have scientific, psychic, and occult components that filter the recipient’s behaviour through a complex matrix of pre-set conditions.” “It’s going to be the spring fashion sensation,” predicted the Doomherald. “Everyone’s going to have one.” “We’ve assessed the force deployments necessary to implement the shutdown of the metahuman community,” General Rott reported with a glower. He wasn’t sure that his nation or the world was acting wisely in bending to the will of the Parody Master; but he followed the chain of command. “There’ll be significant casualties amongst our armed forces and the civilian population. But fortunately we know where most mutates are already, because of the Mutate Registration lists.” “So De Brown Streak was right about how we’d use his people,” mused Edward Gramayre. “Ironic. For my part I’m preparing the downfall of the Lair Legion and its allies. The tax and fraud case against Bautista is almost ready to go, for example. A shocked government will order all his assets seized and held while the investigation continues. As for the Legion themselves, we’re preparing some very nasty surprises indeed.” “I heard you went to England graverobbing,” Garrick noted. The man from the Shadow Cabinet allowed himself a little self-satisfied smirk. “I dug up something that will destroy Sir Mumphrey Wilton,” he admitted. “What about you, Garrick? You claimed you had a way of taking down the Hooded Hood.” “I do,” replied the President’s Advisor on Metahuman Affairs. “Anyone remember the Hellraisers?” Manmangler thumbed the button to release Dan Drury from the frame he’d been stretched on and watched him topple hard to the bloody concrete floor. It had taken four weeks of patient work to get the former Director of SPUD to the point where he was weeping brokenly, but the torturer felt that it was worth the time to shatter the prisoner properly. Subjects like this were rare and precious. “Thank me, then, Daniel,” she ordered. “Thank you,” whimpered Drury; but there’d still been too long a pause. Four weeks of punishment, rape, and torture hadn’t been enough. “Oh Daniel, you’re still holding back. You know what that means we’re going to have to do. What did we tell you about clinging on to that ridiculous macho dignity? I think you’d better crawl over here and lick my boots again.” Drury shuddered and wondered if this was the point where he’d decide to let his body die; but he didn’t. Survive, his training told him. Do what you have to. Endure. Survive. Then kill every single one of the bastards. “You’re planning again, aren’t you?” Manmangler taunted him, touching her shock stick to one of the livid wounds on her captives’ back. “How many times before you stop that, Daniel? Perhaps a couple of hours with the fear insects again?” “No…. Not that. I’m sorry.” “Not sorry enough, Daniel. I can tell.” The torturer knelt down and picked half-healed scabs off her victim as she spoke. “You told us everything we wanted to know two weeks ago, Daniel. You held out for a very long time. We were all impressed. You haven’t got anything else we want now. Except your obedience. You’re my personal project. I’m going to make you my poodle. Before I’ve finished you’ll be begging to lick shit from your cellmates’ arses. You know that, don’t you.” “Yes.” Manmangler patted him on his cheek. “Take him to cell four,” she said to the inmate-turned-guard who was nearest. Most of the metahumans who came to the processing plant saw the benefits of becoming loyal members of the team sooner or later. Drury was heaved to his feet by the large Scotsman. “This way, yuir scumship,” the guard told him. “Into yuir wee cell, laddie.” Drury had run out of defiant comebacks three weeks ago. He let himself be dumped into the stinking hole and was happy to be away from the pain for a while. The guard kicked him in the ribs for good measure, but not hard. Then he bent over the captured spymaster and said, “Hold on. You’re not alone. We’re going to get out of here.” And then the Bagpiper was gone. And Drury knew that wasn’t the Bagpiper anyway. Erskine Black looked like a new man. Good food and fine wines has restored him to health and fitness in less than forty-eight hours. Now he sat clad in a velvet smoking jacket enjoying an Amontillado and watching a 40” TV screen. “Amazing,” he admired. “What will they think of next?” “They’re ingenious in this day and age,” Gramayre admitted, coming over to join the Commander for a snifter. “But shallow. Lesser. No character. No stomach.” “Adversity breeds character,” Black replied. “This generation has never known it. Not in America, anyhow. But let them know hunger, and chaos, and fear, and perhaps then they’ll discover their backbones.” “Perhaps.” Gramayre thought Black relished the idea of tearing down humanity rather too much. “So you’re catching up on your missing years?” “The little wench you sent me to give me history lessons has sketched in the details.” “Yes. I’d appreciate you not doing that to any more of my people, by the way. We can bring in women to cater to your… tastes. Remember that we brought you out of the ground for one reason, and one alone.” “Because I can destroy Mumphrey Wilton,” Black proclaimed. “Oh yes. I’m looking forward to that.” “I understand you two were at Rugby together?” “Until he got me expelled, yes. We crossed swords a number of times after that, before and after he got his little toy and I had my encounter with the Fountain of Youth. But he took what I did to his sister rather personally.” “But you know him? How he thinks? Where his weak spots are?” Black turned back to the dossier beside the brandy and flicked through the glossy photographs. He paused for a moment to stare at the 10x8 of Asil Ashling but finally shuffled it to the back and pulled the image of Samantha Featherstone to the top. “Oh yes,” Commander Black promised. “I know how to destroy him utterly.” Next Issue: We take a break from government conspiracy and cosmic warfare as we begin our Graduation arc. And since the story’s all about the Junior Lair Legion, none of them appear next time. In fact none of the Legion appear either. And only two poster-characters, one of them belonging to a poster that hasn’t appeared on the board for a very long time. Way to engage the readers, eh? On the plus side we have secret origins, talking animals, evil clones, new characters, the return of a missing supporting cast member in a new costumed identity. Villain’s POV week concludes with Bad Seeds, or Tomorrow’s Villain’s Today. 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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