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Post By More villainous viewpoints as the Hooded Hood launches the Graduation storyline at last Fri Nov 18, 2005 at 07:14:05 pm EST |
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#241: Untold Tales of the Parodyverse: Bad Seeds, or Tomorrow’s Villains Today | |
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| #241: Untold Tales of the Parodyverse: Bad Seeds, or Tomorrow’s Villains Today The limousine glided past the automatic gates and the chauffeur flicked a thank-you acknowledgement to the gate guard in the security hut. The path wove through perfectly tended gardens up to the big house, a ranch-style palace of glass and redwood roughly the size of Lindy’s old neighbourhood. “Am I supposed to be impressed?” Falcon’s little sister asked the driver. “You can be whatever you want, miss,” the chauffeur shrugged. “But I heard this real estate was valued at around a quarter billion dollars.” Lindy Wilson tried not to be impressed. She had to admit the place probably had more Michelin stars than the SPUD safe-houses she’d been in until recently. The thought of SPUD stung in her mind, bringing back memories of that grave interview with Colonel Dan Drury; the one where he’d told her that her brother was missing in action. “Nobody knows whut’s happened ta him or ta Pigeon, kid,” Drury had warned her. “But it’s lookin’… well, it’s lookin’ bad. He was a patriot an’ he did his job, an’ he’ll not be forgotten.” And Drury had promised her that she wouldn’t be forgotten either. At fifteen years old she couldn’t return to live alone in Hell’s Bathroom (and common sense warned her that she’d not survive a week unprotected there anyhow). SPUD had made arrangements, and a foster carer had been designated, and her housing and education was guaranteed until she finished college. And she didn’t give a crap. Sam was dead and she was all alone. The limo halted in front of the porch and some liveried flunkies came out to take her bags. She only had one bag and she shooed the porters away and hefted its considerable weight herself. And who the hell had liveried flunkies these days anyway? Then her foster-parent appeared in person at the door to greet her. “Ah, Belinda!” he called. “So you have arrived at last.” “Looks like,” the girl shrugged, and allowed Simonides Slaughter, billionaire businessman and arms magnate, to lead her into the house. The slaughterhouse in Des Moins was a huge automated affair, processing a hundred and eleven thousand head of cattle a day. Frightened bovines went in one end, steaks and burgers and reclaimed meat products came out the other. The tall chimneys gave of a stale glue smell that polluted the whole neighbourhood. Donny and Tina Drummond and Tim Grimson got out of the stolen Porsche and strode into the complex with the arrogant confidence of teenagers who knew they packed enough power between them to sink a battleship. “This way,” a worried-looking supervisor in blood-stained overalls called them. “You’re expected.” “Nobody expects the French Inquisition,” giggled Tina, following the minion. “Spanish,” her twin brother told her. “It’s the Spanish Inquisition. You are such a moron.” “Am not, facts dweeb,” Tina snapped back. “I just have a social life so I can’t watch old crummy British comedy reruns every night.” “Social life, you call it? I guess if you think passing out on biker pool tables every evening is a social life, then yeah, you’re living it up,” Donny scorned. “Though I hear there’s not many bikers in three states that aren’t sick of you by now.” “Could we cut the sibling rivalry?” Tim Grimson snapped at his comrades. “It wasn’t funny when we first met, and now it’s at the stage that makes me want to slit both your throats to shut you up.” “Like you could, short-pants boy,” snickered Donny. “That was my old costume,” Grimson scowled. The bickering was broken up by a metal door sliding open upon a bright white lab area. A large rat was holding a big gun-like instrument at them, and fired. “What the…” began Tina before the white light suffused them. Grimson almost got out of the way. He would have but for the invisible force fields. “Clever,” he acknowledged. The light faded and the rat looked at the readouts on his monitor. “They’re clean,” she conceded. “At least in as much as they’re who they say they are.” “Who else would we be?” Donny Drummond demanded. “Lair Legion,” Grimson cut in. “Fin Fang Foom’s being doing a lot of undercover shapeshifting work. Hallie, in hologram form. The team’s been getting sneaky and proactive of late.” “Right,” agreed Davidowicz. “But you’re not them. You’re Wyrmlad, Wyrmbait, and Boy Wonder of the New Battlers. So you’re here for your appointment with the diabolical Dr Moo?” “You will be happy here,” Anna Salem told Lindy. It wasn’t clear whether the severe blonde woman was making a promise or giving an order. “Whatever,” shrugged the girl. She dumped her bag on the bed and looked around the massive suite. This room alone was larger than the whole of Sam’s apartment. The table lamp was probably worth more than everything she owned; well everything except the contents of the canvas carrysack inside her holdall. “You don’t seem very pleased to begin a new life,” Slaughter noted, observing the teenager appraisingly. “Yeah well, nothing’s for nothing, is it?” Lindy challenged. “This ain’t Different Strokes. Rich white dudes don’t adopt black orphan kids because of a social conscience. I know what you want.” The Chairman of the Knights of Heck-Fire shrugged. “All of life is driven by mutual benefit, Belinda. We exchange that which we have for that which we need. Some will tell you that society is bonded by love, friendship, and kindness. I suspect that you already know differently.” “Sure,” agreed the teen. “Everybody’s got an angle. That doesn’t make me easy meat.” “You wouldn’t be here if you were ‘easy meat’, Anna Salem assured her. “We have other places to take the easy meat.” Lindy swallowed down the nervousness. She reminded herself that she’d chosen this, just a few short days before, in her first interview with Simonides Slaughter. Her boyfriend Jason had introduced them, and had discreetly slipped away so they could talk in private. Slaughter had talked, Lindy had listened, and then they’d shaken hands. “So what’s the deal?” Lindy demanded of her hosts. “Tell me the worst.” “You will join our academy,” Anna Salem told her. “You will learn to use your remarkable talents to their best effect. You will become prosperous and powerful – a player. In return you will keep our secrets and you will assist us in our own gambits to become prosperous and powerful.” “More prosperous and powerful,” Slaughter clarified. “We’re offering you an entry-level position that can take you to the big leagues, Belinda.” Lindy Wilson nodded. She wasn’t going to become like Sam, a missing person lost in some obscure patriotic act, nothing more than a file and a leased Seedytown apartment and a personal worth of $18,000. She was going to become someone. “Okay,” she agreed. “Very well,” the Black Emperor of the Heck-Fire Club told her. “Don your raiment.” Lindy waited for the adults to give her some privacy, but they stood and watched her. “Fine,” she spat, yanking open her luggage to drag out the serge carrisack. She defiantly dragged her t-shirt over her head and kicked away her jeans, then pulled out the black and red mesh bodysuit from her belongings. Slaughter and Salem observed as she squirmed into the tight-fitting uniform and zipped it up. Then she pulled out the harness, the gauntlets, the boots. Last of all she donned the helmet. “Very nice,” approved Simonides Slaughter. Lindy hit the power-up sequence and the harness unfolded, spreading the crimson feather-slats down her sleeves until she wore a pair of wings with a twelve foot span. “Very nice indeed,” Anna Salem agreed. “This way, Falconne.” The Doom Tube exploded with a massive crash, shattering the makeshift houses cobbled from wreckage and burying the inhabitants. The three figures that had caused the devastation stepped from the transportation tunnel and looked around them. “Whoa,” shuddered Hatkid. “This place is all bad karma, dude!” “It’s precisely where we need to be,” L’il Buttie replied. Unlike his slobby overweight companion, the junior wielder of the Jarvis cosmic wore a neat white waiter’s tux and was turned out with spotless precision. He dropped the Uncle Pod that had transported the remaining New Battlers to Apocalyspe into his pocket and smelled the rank air. “It’s good to be back.” The third member of the expedition, Ludo Donger, wasn’t impressed. “This is like downtown Detroit on riot night,” he complained. “’Cept there’s more taxis here.” “Wait a minute,” Hatkid objected. Ben Grover had to waddle fast to keep up with the others. “Buttie, did you just say you’d been here before?” “This way,” the junior butler told them, searing the Lowlies out of his way with blasts of Jarvis cosmic as if they weren’t even there. “The black building with the screaming faces on it? That’s where we need to be.” “Whoa, Lindy! You look… whoa!” Falconne turned round to see Jason descending down the other staircase. He was staring at her costume. Well, probably he was staring at her butt, she conceded, since the spandex-like polyfibres were kind of form-fitting; but she didn’t really mind that. “What, only you can play dress-up?” she demanded, eyeing his dark blue body-sheath with the tasteful gold trim. He certainly looked the part of a superhero, right down to the tight six-pack stomach and the rippling abs. “You know, seeing you in that outfit I’m wondering why I ever dumped you,” she admitted. “We should have done the costumes thing,” Jason admitted. “It makes it so much kinkier.” “Yeah, I think that’s what Pigeon and my bro…” Lindy began. And then she fell silent as it all came back to her yet again. Sam wouldn’t approve of this. He wouldn’t want her to cash in on his old costume, tech that should have been returned to SPUD, that was assumed lost with her brother. Sam was dead. “It’s not too late to un-dump me for a quickie,” Jason assured her. He eyed her Falcon costume. “It could give a whole new meaning to the mile high club.” “Once it became clear that you were only dating me to find out whether I was suitable material for your little yuppie club, somehow the spark went out,” Lindy answered. “Plus you’re kind of shallow, insincere, and you kiss as if it’s all about you.” “It is all about me,” Jason Conner argued. “There’s a reason my code name is Alpha Dude, you know.” “Because you’re a pretentious prig?” Falconne suggested with a grin. “Two reasons, then. So are you coming to meet the students or what?” Jason challenged. “I’m coming. After all, I’m feeling really stupid being the only one in a Halloween costume. Take me to the freaks.” “I’m not Wyrmlad now,” Donny Drummond insisted. “I prefer Lounge Lizard.” “Because that sounds so much better,” scorned Wyrmbait. “My sister’s thinking of changing her name to Slut Meat,” Donny went on sourly. “At least that’s what I hear.” Dr Moo glared at the feuding siblings with ill-concealed annoyance. “Was there a special reason you came to interrupt my experiments at this critical juncture?” she demanded, “or shall I just mulch you now?” “We’re here because you owe us,” Boy Wonder told her. “We paid. You never delivered.” Daio Waltz glanced at her rat lad assistant. “I’ll check the manifests,” Davidowicz assured her, scampering over to a computer console. “Ah, yeah. That’s right. Project 5399-G.” “The clone?” Moo frowned. “That never got delivered?” “We got kind of frozen in a blob of timespace by that Manga Shoggoth,” the rat pointed out. “It played merry hell with our delivery schedules.” “And you still owe us,” Lounge Lizard pointed out. Moo pushed the inspection lamp back on her forehead and sighed. “Right then. I guess he’ll be ready to be decanted. I’ll get you the access codes and you can go let him out.” Lindy hit the floor hard, fast enough to knock her wind from her. She barely avoided a hail of bullets that could have been real or illusory and rolled aside. Then her harness shorted from a electromagnetic pulse burst from Rupert van Meer which left her wide open for Lucy de Soth to hit her with one of those gold coins she tossed. Suddenly Falconne was paralysed. She hit the floor again, and only her helmet protected her from a broken nose. She felt herself turned over and then she was looking up at Drugo Lodestone as he grinned and began to unzip her uniform. “Okay, we’re done,” another voice said, pulling Lodestone off her before his fingers could brush against her flesh. “You were not paralysed by Privilege, Ms Wilson.” Suddenly the muscle lock vanished as the denial took effect. Dazed Lindy accepted the proffered hand to help her to her feet and looked round at the students of the Heck-Fire Club’s training programme. “Welcome to Young Heck-Fire,” smirked Drugo Lodestone. “I’m sure we’ll get to know each other later.” “This is Drugo,” the youth who’d helped Lindy to her feet introduced. “He’s the one who thinks it’s a good idea to test newbies in combat by way of introduction. Also, he’s got a psychoactive sweat that can manipulate people’s emotions if he gets it on their skin, so a cover-all suit like yours is a good idea.” “I prefer to be called by my codename, actually,” Lodestone pointed out. “I’m Lord and Master, Lindy. I’m the leader of the team.” Jason Conner, Alpha Dude, coughed, although it almost sounded like a bad word. “Our illusion-caster who was spraying you with unreal bullets is Stacy Royale, who likes to be called Black Princess,” Lindy’s guide went on. Stacy was a dark-haired teen with a liking for Frederick’s of Hollywood. Falconne took an instant dislike to her. She was every high-school queen who’d ever snubbed poor Lindy Wilson. Even now Black Princess was looking at the newcomer with ill-concealed contempt. “They let anyone in here now,” Stacy sniffed. “It’s bad enough we have to have that Crapsack smelling up the place, without having to put up with a ghetto nig…” “You’re not going there,” the boy who’d pulled Lindy up interrupted. Black Princess shut up. For now. “The guy who shorted your harness with his gadgets is Rupert van Meer,” Alpha Dude cut in. “Or, by codename, Blatant Genius.” Van Meer looked up from the datapad he was fiddling with. “It is an accurate nomenclature,” he stated, then returned to his work. “Lord and Master, Black Princess, Alpha Dude, and Blatant Genius. You guys aren’t big on the modesty, are you?” Lindy challenged. She looked at the only other female present, the gawky skinny white girl who’d brought her down with the gold coin. “And who are you? Expensive-braces girl? Daddy-bought-me-a-pony Lass?” “Privilege,” answered Lucy De Soth. “I exclusively generate gold coins that carry exception fields which can change physical laws on a local level.” Lindy glanced at Alpha Male and the as yet unidentified boy who’d pulled Lodestone off her. “Do I get a checklist later?” she asked. She looked closer at the dark-haired teen beside her. “And who are you? James-Dean-impersonator Boy? Hair-gel Kid?” “Me? I’m Drag-the-git-off-the-downed-newbie-before-she-gets-hormone-bombed Boy,” Daniel Lyle replied. “But I have real problems fitting all that onto my t-shirt logo.” That got a laugh from Falconne at least. There was a clattering at the doorway and a vast sloppy bag of skin and pus rushed through the doorway and slithered to a stop. “Am I late? Am I too late to say hello to the new one?” Crapsack demanded, leaving trails of ooze wherever he moved. “Eew,” scorned Stacy Royale. “Still, at least there’s one person for the newbie to date that’s in her league.” “We’re here,” L’il Buttie announced, stepping over the corpses of the Ferret-Soldiers and Hellcat Harpies who’d got in their way. “Why so I can see,” the massive woman who appeared in a beam of light up on the distant dais agreed. Her lined ancient face was twisted into a grotesque smile. “My favourite student has come back to me.” “Hello, Granny Grimness,” Buttie bowed. “I’ve missed you!” “She’s your granny?” Hatkid winced. “Dude!” “She’s the woman who trains these Apuffyliptian killers,” Thunderstroke realised. “Bloody hell, Buttie. No wonder you’d never tell us your secret origin!” “I was created to be Jarvis’ sidekick. He was raised by the alien Nebulus. I got brought up by Granny in her orphanage.” “They all learn to love Granny,” the massive woman cackled. “To scream my praises.” “Lovely,” swallowed Hatkid. “I just love a heartwarming story like that. And I really like the whole screaming for mercy lash noises background track you’ve got going here. But we’re on kind of a tight schedule, so if we can…” “We’re here for the package, Granny,” L’il Buttie interrupted. “If you’re still willing to bestow it, that is.” “Oh yes, my dear. Granny is very pleased that you’re going to do what you’re going to do. Granny is happy to give her favourite student a little birthday present.” The Deathworld Warhound stood almost six feet at the shoulder and it stalked forward slavering and growling. “Eep,” said Hatkid. “Bonzer,” admired Thunderstroke. “His name is Ripper,” said Granny fondly. Anna Salem, the Black Empress, stared at her class. “Uh oh,” Alpha Dude whispered in an aside to Lindy. “Here comes the ‘You are here for but one purpose’ speech!” “You are here for but one purpose,” the tutor of Young Heckfire declared. “To learn the application of power.” Stacy Royale nodded with an almost religious fervour. “We will teach you that, as we have taught many before. Over half of the inner circle of the Heck-Fire Club has graduated this programme in their time, and all of them are as wealthy, as influential, as powerful as they wish to be. We will teach you to ignore the limits of society, of law, of morality. We will harden you and hone you so that you will become the rulers of all you survey.” “Crapsack would like to be ruler of all he surveyed,” admitted the pile of ill-smelling detritus in the corner. “King of the dungheap?” suggested Lord and Master. “Not every one of you will succeed,” Salem went on. “Failure is not tolerated, and so if you fail I guarantee you will never be heard of again, and your ending will be slow and unpleasant beyond imagining. Think of it as a performance incentive.” Falconne shuddered. She knew the Black Empress meant every word. It was do or die in Young Hellfire. “Each of you has metahuman abilities or access to extraordinary technology,” Salem told them. “Each of you has some pedigree, some from members of our Club already. None of that matters now. You must learn to be self-sufficient, and powers and parentage will not save you. Only what we teach you here will save you, will take you to where you want to be.” “The jacuzzi?” suggested Alpha Dude. The Black Empress glanced at him and he fell from his chair screaming. “The strong amongst you will survive,” Salem continued, ignoring the whimpering pleas of the fallen Jason Conner. “You will be the powers of tomorrow. Nothing and nobody will be able to stand in your way or deny you anything.” “Oh yeah,” grinned Drugo Lodestone. Daniel Lyle watched them all and said nothing. The freezer unit under the abandoned canning factory in Phoenix, Arizona, cracked oven with an icy hiss. The room was filled for a moment with chilling fog, and then the lights flickered and went out. Lounge Lizard breathed a tongue of fire into his cupped hand and looked about. “Rico?” he called. Gradually a luminous glow filled the dark chamber. It coalesced into the outline of a man, a tall confident man made entirely from electricity, pulsing with captured data. “Yeah,” agreed the clone of the leader of the New Battlers. “E-Male is back.” “Seem weird?” Alpha Guy asked as he found Lindy on the balcony, looking at the harbour lights over the bay on Paradopolis. “Being here?” “It’s a long way from home,” Falconne admitted. “I’m out of time and out of place now.” “Yeah, I saw your file. You got zapped ten years into your future by the Hooded Hood, right?” “For starters,” Lindy agreed. “And then you were tangled up with that Technopolis science geek.” “Zach. Don’t diss him, he’s a good boy.” “And then me, of course.” Lindy shrugged. “You’re pretty to look at, but don’t be thinking you’ll make my memoirs.” “I so will,” preened Jason Connor confidently. “I’m tired of being the person it all happens to,” Lindy Wilson admitted. “I’m tired of depending on other people to keep me safe, to make me happy, to give me a future. So when you set me up, when you introduced me to Slaughter, when I got offered the deal…” “Same with all of us,” confessed Jason. “My dad’s a Senator, thinks he’s got it made. I’m gonna be bigger than he ever was. Drugo’s father runs a multi-million dollar porn empire, sees his son as just another business asset. Someday he’ll find out different.” “Danny Lyle?” Falconne asked casually. “Your knight in shining armour? Same story. Big bad parent, here to learn the business. Don’t get soft on him. He’s bad news.” “More bad news than ‘Lord and Master’ and his pervy psychotropic secretions?” “More than that, yeah,” agreed Alpha Dude. “Don’t go there, Lindy.” “Because you care so deeply for me, Jason.” Alpha Dude shrugged. “I’ll grind you into the dirt and spit on your corpse if I have to,” he told his ex-girlfriend. “But only if I have to. All I’m saying is don’t get mixed up with Denial. He’s into some serious stuff.” “Mmm,” answered Lindy Wilson. “There’s an examination,” Tim Grimson briefed the room. “Every year, there’s a test put on for the promising metahumans of tomorrow. A graduation exercise.” “Kiddie stuff,” spat Thunderstroke. “Xalter’s School win it every year, and they look so cute in their matching uniforms.” “But this year’s going to be different,” Boy Wonder went on determinedly. “This year there’s more than meets the eye happening at the tests. And word is there’ll be some old buddies of ours competing whether they want to or not.” “The kiddie-Legion?” snorted Wyrmbait. “FA’s shiny new friends?” “The Juniors, yes,” Grimson went on. “And the Federal Metahuman Resource Centre. And Young Heckfire. And the Giant Robot Six. And the Wonder-Friends. Who knows what other acne-factories they’ll dredge up.” “And us,” E-Male grinned. “This year we’ll be playing for keeps.” “That’s what I’m paying you for,” Baroness Elizabeth von Zemo told the New Battlers. “Now listen to these instructions carefully…” In our next two issues: The Juniors actually get to appear in their own arc. From Visionary’s bathroom to the Willow nightclub to the dimension of badly drawn rocks to a galaxy far far away, watch our young protégés face mystery and adventure (and also face the New Battlers and Young Heckfire too). We’ve got some unexpected youthful guest stars, a less unexpected guest villain, CSFB! offers sex advice, FA reveals her secret origin, Ham-Boy gets a stick, and Kerry sets a new record for how much trouble she can get into in a single episode. It all starts in in Untold Tales of the Junior Lair Legion: A Bathroom Too Far. We Don’t Footnote No Education… The New Battlers Line-Up: Lounge Lizard (Donny Drummond) gained the powers of a humanoid dragon after he and his sister mainlined Makluan DNA. He’s immune to fire, can generate nuclear flame-breath, has enhanced senses and physical abilities, and can sense virgins. Wyrm Bait (Tina Drummond) has identical powers to her brother apart from the virgin sense. She can additionally sprout draconic wings which allow her to fly. Tina is not known for her virtue. L’il Buttie was raised on Apaclayspe by Granny Grimness as one of her favourite protégés. When he was the only survivor of an experiment by Torkemahda to infuse children with the Jarvis Cosmic he escaped to Earth and unsuccessfully sought to become Jarvis’ sidekick. He still wears a black waiter’s suit. Hat Kid (Ben Grover) is an overweight mutate with the ability to transform people and objects into hats. He talks like a surfer, dude. Boy Wonder (Tim Grimson) saw his parents murdered before his eyes by Crime Clown and dedicated his life to being that good at killing people. He has now abandoned his original short pants for a dark blue body stocking and domino mask. He has no powers but uses a variety of gadgets to supplement his formidable athletic and deductive abilities. Thunderstroke (Ludo Donger) is an Australian lout who was granted similar powers to those of Donar by the Enthrallress using the Horn Stones. He has somehow come back from the dead several times. He is immensely strong, immensely stupid, and able to control bad weather. He scorns using archaic language patterns. E-Male II (Rico Torino II) is the clone of the New Battler’s deceased original leader. Cruel, inventive, and powerful, E-Male can transform into a being of electricity, able to travel along communications mediums, to control electronic systems, and to discharge lethal amounts of energy. His original self was formerly Lisette’s abusive boyfriend back when she was a member of the team. E-Male II has all the memories of his original self up to the point of his cloning, around six months before the original reformed and died. Ripper, an Apocalyspian warhound, appears as a horse-sized mixture of dog, pig, and lizard, with razor spines and jaws that can bit through steel. He’s not got a very good attitude. Young Heck-Fire Line-Up: Lord and Master (Drugo Lodestone), son of Heckfire Club Inner Circle Member Lionel Lodestone, has inherited abilities from his father to secrete a psychotropic sweat that magnifies beyond reason any human urge or emotion. Lord and Master is ranked as leader of the current class of Young Heckfire. Black Princess (Stacy Royale), presumably one of the Royale crime family, is an elitist beauty with the ability to cast psychic illusions. She is grooming herself for the day when she can assume power in the Heck-Fire Club’s Inner Circle. Alpha Dude (Jason Conner), son of a Massachusetts senator, is super-strong, super-fast, and almost indestructible. He’s also confident, arrogant, and shallow, but this makes him on of the more likeable and down-to-earth members of Young Heckfire. Blatant Genius (Rupert van Meer) is a brilliant artificer, able to derive inventions from first principal and always equipped with many lethal instruments of his own design. He fully expects to take over the world before he is thirty, by right of being that much smarter than everyone else on the planet. Privilege (Lucy DeSoth), the youngest member of the group, of the DeSoth cult-clan, has the ability to generate psychic gold coins which infuse those they touch with specific different relationships to physical laws. For example, a coin might make somebody immune to gravity, or conversely susceptible to its crushing weight, or immune to inertia, or whatever. Denial (Daniel Lyle) is the James Dean-wannabe outsider with the ability to deny what is happening around him. He doesn’t get on very well with Lord and Master, although he’s not gone out of his way to connect with many of his team mates. Crapsack (Gnudier Lokotowicz) was mutated by his mad scientist father’s experiments, but instead of becoming a superior human with muscles of steel he became a being of living faeces, a sad sloppy and disgusting monster. Young Heck-Fire keep him around for the heavy lifting and to have somebody to scorn. He’s on the minion career track. Falconne (Belinda Wilson) is the younger sister of Sam Wilson, the missing-presumed-dead SPUD agent Falcon. She is using a modified version of her brother’s latest flying harness and combat suit to train herself so she will become someone, preferably someone rich and powerful. Lindy previously dated Hacker Nine and knows the Juniors quite well. The Heck-Fire Club: is an ancient exclusive members club where the elite power brokers meet and plan and mutually aid each other. An Inner Circle includes the villainous Hero Feeders Simonides Slaughter and Anna Salem, a.k.a the Black Emperor and the White Empress. Salem, a powerful and vindictive telepath, is also headmistress of the Young Heckfire programme. The Diabolical Dr Moo (Diao Waltz) is the Parodyverse’s foremost geneticist. Assisted by her talking lab-rat Davidowicz, Moo seeks to push back the bounds of human knowledge through unethical experiments, many of which have a bovine theme. 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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