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Post By The Hooded Hood double-sized dollop of pre-match meddling and full-blown foreshadowing Fri Dec 16, 2005 at 04:50:34 pm EST |
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#245: Untold Tales of the Evening After: Youth Is Wasted On the Young | |
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| #245: Untold Tales of the Evening After: Youth Is Wasted On the Young Previously: The Order of the Observing Eye, time-transcending monks who shape future heroes and villains, have inveigled the junior training programme of the Lair Legion into participating in their latest set of metahuman inter-school trials. The New Battlers also intend to enter this time, and have sought to re-recruit former members Fashion Accessory (through blackmail) and Lisette (through force). Lisette and Reverend Mac Fleetwood were left for dead after a visit by New Battler E-Male. Young Heckfire’s plans to humiliate and abuse Junior Kerry Shepherdson were thwarted because of the unexpected gallantry of Heckfire member Denial. Meanwhile Visionary is playing host to exile alien royalty in the form of teenage Emir of All Caph, Prince Kiivan, and his companion Ohanna and has yet to learn that the students he mentors are involved in the Observing Eye’s contest. The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Who's Who in the Parodyverse Where's Where in the Parodyverse  Catbot looked up from the pile of discarded clothing where he was curled as Gloria eased open the casement window. “Sneaking out again?” he sighed.The young woman in the holed denims glared at him. “What are you? My jailer?” The robot feline somehow managed to give the impression of a shrug without really moving. It was something with the whiskers. “I’ve got the engrams of a cat. Why should I care if you slip out to procreate with some whiney loser on a school night. But you’re letting the cold in.” “Rory isn’t a whiney loser.” “Sorry. I should have said needy whiney loser. I can only assume you’re desperate.” “He’s a rebel.” “He’s rebelling against personal hygiene? He smells of two week old underwear and excessive self-abuse.” Gloria made a rude gesture to Catbot. “You don’t know anything,” she accused. “I know you can’t be that confident about no-soap boy,” the cat replied. “You’ve not mentioned your midnight prowlings with him to Laurie, for example.” “Lisette isn’t my keeper.” “She certainly hasn’t taught you how to keep windows shut on a draughty winter’s night. Some of us are trying to doze here.” “Lisette doesn’t need to know everything I do in my life.” “It would be good if she could teach you how to spot needy whiney losers,” Catbot suggested. “Shut the window when you’ve sneaked off to get some practise.”  “Angel?”“No.” “Dish?” “No.” “Sweetbuns?” “Only if you want to die.” The cyborg P.I. turned to the irritating archer crouching behind the parapet with her and glared at him. “Why the hell can’t you just call me Yuki?” Trickshot shrugged. “Where’s the fun in that? I’ve got an image to uphold, you know.” “And I want the world to know that I’m not your babe, sweetheart, darling, munchkin, babycake, hotsie, or cutie-pie, and I’ll break as many bones as I have to to get the point across.” “Okay, okay. I wus just trying ta be friendly!” the archer told her. “It’s just my way of makin’ you feel special.” Yuki forced herself to stop crushing the masonry under her fingertips. Trickshot pondered on what she’d said. “Dollface?” he offered. “Aaagh! Why am I here? Why are we hiding on a rooftop in Gothametropolis, where I am not exactly citizen of the year, watching criminals break into a post office when we should be wrapping lampposts round them? And why shouldn’t I tear your head off and hurl it at the criminals?” “Well, we need an in ta this Order of the Observin’ Eye, right?” Trickshot reminded Yuki. “And that means we need some bait, like some talented superhero kid fer them ta recruit, right? And so we’re waitin’ here ta see…” Down below the two gunmen on guard at the post office door found their gun arms pinned to the wall with two gleaming arrows. “Well, we’re waitin’ to see that,” smirked Tricky, whose bow was still packed on his back. Yuki watched a lithe young woman swing down from the building opposite an neutralise the other two robbers. “Not bad,” she admitted. “Who is she?” “Kid callin’ herself Artemis. Not a bad shot, neither, though she sometimes twitches to the left if she’s not payin’ attention. You think she’d attract the attention of these Observin’ Eye bozos?” “It’s worth a try,” Yuki agreed. She was already dropping over the parapet to land three stories below when Trickshot replied, “I knew you’d like the plan, dollface!” Artemis saw the cyborg PI land after her impossible jump and instinctively loosed an arrow at her perceived attacker. Yuki snatched it out of the air. “I come in peace!” she called out. “Artemis, how’d you like the bat in the big leagues?” “Right,” demanded Samantha Featherstone. “Details.” Fashion Accessory’s car was in the shop for some reason, so the two of them were lounging in the Lair Pool (the indoor one). “Details?” Kerry asked, sipping her cola. “Details of what?” “Details of why H9 had to cover for you this morning when Vizh was heading off for Lemuria. Your possibly-fake guardian might think you were sleeping in, but we know you never actually got back till, what, 2pm? You were dropped off at the gate by what Glory reports as ‘a Caucasian youth of approximately six feet in height, a hundred and eighty pounds, with faded denim jeans and a worn biker jacket’. Apparently she liked the way he smelled.” “Glory needs to…” seethed Kerry, but even she couldn’t bring herself to bitch about the lovable dog. “Aw crap. Yeah, well I had a kind of… incident.” “Mmm?” “Not what you’re thinking. Well, not quite what you’re thinking.” “You have no idea what I’m thinking, Kare.” FA seemed cheered up at the gossip, so Kerry went on with her confession. “When we split up in all directions at the night club, I ran into some super-punk called Drugo Lodestone from a team called Young Heckfire…” “Lodestone?” Samantha frowned. “Related to Lionel Lodestone, the porn baron?” “His dad I think,” Kerry remembered. “Why?” “That sleaze – the father sleaze, this is - once offered me three hundred thousand to do a spread for him. And I’m not talking pictures.” Kerry blinked. “Wow. Did you?” Samantha went pale. “Of course not. What kind of person do you think I am?” Then she remembered the tapes that the New Battlers had of her, and who the might sell them to, and what that might mean. She went pale and turned away. “Hey, no offence, FA.” Kerry assured her. “ Just asking. A joke. We do those sometimes, right? So, you wanna hear what happened when Lodestone junior used his psychotropic emotion-manipulating sweat on me or what?” That shocked here friend out of her blue mood. “He what?” “Yeah, a nasty power that convinced me I needed to have him right there and then. I’ve never felt so… so.” Samantha sat up, concern written all across her shocked face. “Kare, this is rape, nothing but. We have to tell Visionary. Hell no, let’s tell Lisa!” “It’s okay. Nothing happened. It would have, but then there was my knight on shining motorcycle that Glory was sniffing.” Fashion Accessory calmed down. “Go on then.” “Danny Lyle butted in, chased off his team-mate, and took me home instead.” “While you were all… y’know…” “Yeah, while I was. I spent the night at his place.” “But he knew you’d been mind-zapped?” FA checked. “So how does that make it better?” “Well, sweat-zapped,” Kerry shrugged. “It was kind of hormonal, the way I reacted. From the gut. Well, maybe lower. Anyway, Danny got me out of the club, got me back to his flat, and then he… looked after me.” “Oh, I bet he did,” FA hissed wrathfully. “No, I mean he took care of me while I wasn’t myself.” “That slime. He and this Lodestone guy are so dead!” “Samantha, is there any way I can tell you he didn’t do anything to me that you won’t take as a double entendre?” FA halted in mid-vituperation. “He what?” “He resisted my feminine wiles. I don’t know whether to be relieved or insulted. I mean, there I was, tossing my clothes at him, begging him to take me, and the worst he gave me was a cup of Horlicks.” “Maybe he’s gay?” “I’d say probably not. I was noticing things like that last night. He wanted me enough. He just…” “Wow. Genuine good guy!” Fashion Accessory acknowledged. “So they exist!” “Apparently so. Except that he’s a super-dude too, part of this Young Heckfire outfit along with Lodestone. And I’m guessing they’ll be up against us in this examination test thingie we’re going on. That’s why Drugo was trying to nobble me. Well, that and me being a complete hottie.” “So you’ll be going into this contest with your loyalties split, emotionally torn between two teams and not knowing what to do or who to support?” Samantha swallowed hard. “Nah, I’ll kick his butt,” the probability arsonist promised. “No matter how good a kisser he is.” “I though you said he didn’t do anything to you last night when you were under the influence?” “Sure. He didn’t.” Kerry grinned. “Not last night when I was under the influence.” “Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty.” The White Empress allowed her psychic lash to dissipate and spoke to the young man stretched out on the punishment frame before her. “I take it I’ve made my point, Daniel?” Danny Lyle spat the leather strip from between his teeth and forced his head up to look at her. “Very graphically, Ms Salem.” “Eew,” shuddered Privilege. “There’s blood dripping onto the floor. Eew. I might have to stand on that floor.” “It’s not real blood,” Stacy Royale, the Black Princess, assured her. “That psychic lash just makes you fee as if you’ve been flayed by a cat o’ nine tails. I just added the visual illusion to make it more realistic. For fun.” “Whatever,” grinned Drugo Lodestone, who had enjoyed Lyle’s punishment immensely. “That’s one whupping Denial won’t dare use his powers to deny. And well deserved for screwing up my chances for screwing up that Legionette kid.” Lindy Wilson almost made an angry retort, but she caught herself just in time. She wasn’t a hanger-on with the Junior Lair Legion now. She was going to become somebody. She salved her conscience by helping Alpha Dude lift Danny down off the rack. “You okay?” she whispered. “That would be an overwhelming no,” the psychically-scourged young man admitted. “But at least I’m not a complete asshole.” “Why didn’t you just tell the Empress that you did the job with Shepherdson?” Jason Connor demanded. “Hell, why didn’t you just do the job? I would’ve.” “And that’s why he’s not a complete asshole,” Falconne pointed out, “Whereas you…” Crapsack shambled up and hoisted Danny in slimy arms. “Crapsack will take Danny to Danny’s bed,” the ill-smelling mound proclaimed. “Danny is good to Crapsack.” “Yes, we all expect Danny to be translated up to heaven in a pillar of fire any moment now,” mocked Blatant Genius. “He spent the night with Kerry and didn’t end up in a pillar of fire,” pointed out Lindy. “I’d say that qualifies as a miracle, actually.” Danny managed a painful, happy smile. “Where are we going?” Gloria asked Rory as he dragged her down the grimy alley off Finger and Miller. “Place I know, babe. You’ll love it,” the slovenly young man with the peach-fuzz of hair growing over his deliberately-shaved skull replied. “It’s a special night tonight. You’ll see.” At the end of the alley a staircase led down to a cellar door. A dozen or more people were swarming around it, pressing to get inside. All of them were young, badly dressed, and white. “What is this place?” Gloria asked, suddenly a little nervous. “A meeting,” Rory replied. “C’mon.” The interior of the cellar was stuffy and claustrophobic. The walls were of bare brick, but fluorescent tubes had been fastened to the walls. There was a trestle bar at one end of the space and a small platform at the other. Huge speakers were pumping out some anarcho-technik sound at ear-splitting volume. Two hundred bodies were packed into the space. “A dance club?” Gloria guessed as they pressed through the crush towards the alcohol. “A fight club?” “Sometimes,” Rory replied. “But tonight we have something special. He’s coming to talk to us.” “He?” The way Rory had said the word made her suddenly suspicious. She decided not to drink the kool-aid. The noise suddenly shut off and the spotlights flicked onto the stage. “Him,” Rory replied, pointing proudly at the handsome man in the cool leather duster who was climbing onto the platform. “And he is…?” The handsome man smiled at the crowd. “Well hi,” he greeted them. “I didn’t expect so many of you here tonight.” His words were greeted with a round of applause and a chorus of whistles and hoots. Gloria realised everybody in the room was paying attention. “Then again, I guess this is something all of us feel pretty strongly about, right? We’re fed up of having our lives interfered with, of having control taken from us, of having our efforts count for nothing.” More cheering. “Does this involve buying videos? Or shaving anything?” Gloria whispered to Rory. He gestured her to be quiet. “We’re just a few, a very few, of the countless thousands, hundreds of thousands, who feel like this now,” the speaker went on. “We’re just a few of all those who are willing to stand up now, to stand up and count, to say what we have to say loud and clear and make the world listen. The time has come. We’re ready to stand up and make the world clean! We’re ready to act! We’re ready to do whatever we have to so we can finally proclaim… No more metas!” “What?” blinked Gloria. “Did he just say…?” “My friends, US Special Resolution 1066, the Freedom and Patriotism Act, is only the beginning. Across the world nations are enacting similar laws, some of them even more comprehensive than our own first litigation. Those strangers amongst us who have used their abhorrent abilities to coerce us to obedience, who have brought us ruin and slavery in their selfishness and arrogance, who have demanded worship on pain of terror and destruction, their days are ending. We will cleanse out society of these stains. We will sear them from our land.” The audience shouted its approval, whipped up into a frenzy by the speaker’s rhetoric. “This guy’s calling to do away with superheroes?” Gloria asked Rory. He didn’t hear over all the noise. His face was lit with a passionate fervour too as the speaker continued his litany against those who were different, those who called themselves special, those who he claimed were trying to rule the world. Gloria realised that Rory really had a nasty body odour. “In a few short weeks, SR1066 will be in force,” the speaker announced “A few weeks after that every metahuman in our nation will either work for us or will be a wanted outlaw. But we are ready for those criminals. We know who they are. We know where they live. We know where their families live. Lists are being passed out tonight. My friends, I can’t encourage you to take the law into your own hands and visit these so-called people. It would be illegal for you to bring pressure upon them to register for a Patriot Brand to control their excesses. But the day will come when all right-minded Americans will have to decide whether they want to stand up for something worth fighting for.” “Well I sure do,” snarled Gloria, turning her back on Rory and pushing her way to the exit. She felt angry with herself for even being here. She felt dirty. As she left the crowd was chanting the name of the man who had inspired them: “Stuart! Stuart! Stuart!” The conversation replayed in Liu Xi’s head as she slunk through the basements of the Lair Mansion: “I’m not one of the Juniors. I don’t want to be one of the Juniors. I don’t even like the Juniors.” “You have not given them a chance,” Glory had whined. The vocalising machine had translated her sounds and paw gestures into human language. “They’re so immature. All they think about is how they look, about sex, about making stupid jokes. They’re rude and loud.” “I do not think you are being fair,” the dog answered loyally. “I think you are letting your shyness get in the way of establishing relationships with humans of your own age. You spend all your time talking to grown-ups that…” “I am a grown up,” Liu Xi had snapped. “I grew up the day I was sold off to a husband. I have nothing in common with those Juniors. I don’t want to be part of their silly school contest. I don’t see why everyone is making such a fuss about it. Why don’t they just go teach this Order of the Observing Eye a lesson and put a stop to it?” “I do not think it is that simple,” Glory explained. “The Order is very tricky. And I thought, being as you are living in the Mansion some of the time…” “I don’t live here. I squat here,” the elementalist replied. “Big difference. Nobody invited me to deck out an attic, they just haven’t tossed me out yet. Like I was tossed from Lemuria. So if you’ll excuse me, I have to go on lurking.” Glory looked so downcast, ears sagging and tail down that Liu Xi was forced to add, “But thanks for asking, anyhow.” “I do not need them,” Liu Xi Xian told herself, right now, as she explored further into the deep tunnels under Parody Island. “I do not need anybody.” The telluric currents were most interesting this far down, ancient and hard to predict, surging to unexplained tides. Liu Xi could hear them singing to her. The dimensional interaction was fascinating but dangerous. Even in the Mansion itself the dimensions were somewhat erratic, what with various extraplanar spaces concealed in the interior, the Shoggoth’s modifications, the house’s penchant for adding rooms when nobody was watching. But down here the forces were potentially lethal, powerful enough that even the Shoggoth could be swept away by a mis-step, let alone a novice at interacting with the void. “I do not need anybody,” Liu Xi repeated, listening to her echo. And then she spotted the door she hadn’t seen before. “Ohanna, I’m about to do something stupid.” The Caphan girl looked up from he sewing at the Emir of Caph. “And you felt the need to warn me? Did you expect me to be shocked?” “This is more stupid than the average stupid thing I do,” Keevan admitted. “And also possibly dishonourable.” Ohanna of Rael put down her embroidery. “This is starting to sound interesting,” she teased. “Go on.” “Well, you charged me to work unceasingly for the day when Caph would be freed from alien tyranny,” the young prince began. “From all tyranny, Keevan. I don’t want to make it too simple for you.” “It never occurred to me for a minute that you would, Anna. Anyway…” The Emir looked up worriedly. “I’m thinking of dishonourably taking a few days off my unceasing efforts.” “Oh, thank Zaahir!” Ohanna praised. “I was beginning to think you were going to work yourself to death. We were sent to Earth for a few days to force you to take a break from your obsessions.” “Our obsessions.” “Our obsessions,” the girl admitted. “But that’s not stupid.” Keevan help up his hand. “I haven’t finished yet. Anna, on Caph a guest who has accepted the hospitality of a House is expected to stand beside them in their defence while he is a visitor within their tents.” Ohanna was with him at once. “And an Emir must hold fast with his allies, for their struggles are his,” she added. “You want to help the Juniors.” “Yes,” agreed the prince. “I think I should lend my sword to their aid as they face these trials. They may need another warrior to stand beside them in their ordeal. I have spoken with Harlagaz, offered my aid.” “And you think the heroes of the Lair Legion will allow this?” “No. But I have studied under the Hooded Hood. I intend to go anyway.” “And where do you see your humble slave companion while you are off being the great hero, Keevan of Caph? Would you like me to weave you a nice blanket while you’re facing peril and adventure?” Keevan winced. “I thought this might be the sticking point of the plan,” he admitted. “My master instructed me to stay with you,” Ohanna declared. “If you’re going to be stupid, I intend to be stupid as well. It’s my right.” “And the fact that you are an inexperienced pleasure-slave and I am the Emir of All Caph doesn’t suggest to you that you should just for once do what I tell you?” “You can behead me later and compensate my master,” the girl shrugged. “But we both know how this particular conversation is going to end, don’t we, excellency? Don’t we?” Keevan broke into an admiring grin. “With you facing peril and adventure beside me, and me puzzling how you managed to talk me into it?” he predicted ruefully. “Right. I’ll go get us packed shall I?” Ohanna paused and turned back to him. “Oh, by the way, how do you intend to force the Legion to allow us to accompany the Juniors?” Keevan held up the Quest Stave in his right hand. “All you have to do is take a firm grip of this, my lady,” he replied. Gloria thought she was out when she’d got through the door and up the stairs to the alley. She hadn’t expected three big bruisers keeping watch. “Going somewhere, jailbait?” one of them asked her. “What’s it to you?” “Why are you leaving? Not got the stomach to stand up against the metahuman menace?” Another of the thugs looked the girl up and down. “Maybe she’s secretly one of them? A mutie, perhaps. A spy. She’s got the look.” “Maybe I just needed some clean air that didn’t stink of moron?” Gloria asked. As she spoke she slipped the razor blade from her cuff into her hand. “Maybe what this little bitch needs is a good stripsearch?” one of the guards suggested with a leer. That was the one Catbot dropped on from the fire escape above, landing claws first on the top of his head. “Watch out!” the robot cat warned. “Rogue metahuman technology on the rampage! I’ve come to oppress you!” The screaming man tried to fling him off, which just sent the robot into the face of the second thug. “Aaaghhh!” shouted the new victim. “Getitoffame!” “Not until you agree that all civilisation can be my slaves,” Catbot tormented him, claws raking. “And also you have to lick out my litter tray.” Gloria sliced her blade down the arm of the third man, the one holding her. “Don’t just stand there admiring your work,” Catbot advised. “Run!” “I thought you were napping,” Gloria accused as she pelted out of the alley. “I thought you weren’t my jailer.” “I got bored,” Catbot answered casually. “What can I say? Cat.” “I have an ethical difficulty,” confessed Lee Bookman. “About the Order of the Observing Eye.” “You have information on them,” Hatman checked. “Well yes,” the Librarian of the Moon Public Library agreed. “But they are members of the library, and contributors, and the materials they’ve donated are all sealed and confidential.” “We need that information,” Jay Boaz pointed out. “I don’t trust the Order. The Juniors lives may be at stake.” “All the same, the data I have on the Observing Eye is proscribed. Even if I had to review it for some reason, I’d lock off the area of my memory afterwards to preserve their anonymity.” The Librarian shook his head ruefully. “It’s exactly the same courtesy the Lair Legion expects of the records they’ve let me copy and seal.” “The Lair Legion isn’t forcing children into potentially lethal games,” Hatman scowled. “The IOL has worked with the Order for a very long time,” Lee warned. “Millennia. Long before the first chapter of the Order opened on Earth. The Governors are never going to give me permission to unseal the confidential archives.” Hatman snorted with exasperation. “Well what can you tell us about them, then? You must have stuff about them that other people have written.” “All sealed,” the Librarian said. “As I told you, the IOL has a very old alliance with the Observing Eye.” A nasty thought occurred to the capped crusader. “You’re not obliged to inform them about the LL’s interest in their activities, are you?” Lee flushed a little. “Technically yes,” he agreed. “But I intend to be getting a little behind in my paperwork.” “You’re going on this trial test,” Mr Epitome said to Harlagaz Donarson and Ham-Boy. “We don’t see any way out of it.” “Except me dying horribly,” added Ham-Boy. “Right,” agreed Epitome. “So the point is, if you’re entering this thing in the name of the Lair Legion, some of us expect you to uphold the good name of the outfit. To win.” “Aye verily, we musteth smite yon other teams for the nonce,” Harlagaz agreed readily. “I’m okay with the winning part,” agreed HB. “So?” “So now I’m going to show you a few things we haven’t covered in your lessons properly yet,” Mr Epitome went on confidentially. “A little lesson I like to call Fighting Dirty 101…” “We’re going on this trial test,” Hacker Nine said as his hands danced over his keyboard. “I don’t see any way out of it.” “Except Ham-Boy dying horribly,” prompted Hallie. She ran a quick paranoid diagnostic to see what Zack Zelnitz was doing to the world’s computer systems now. “Yeah. But mostly I’d prefer the Ham-Boy thing not to happen,” Zach Zelnitz noted. “Mostly I’d like for us to do something that no team has done in the history of the contest and make the Order of the Observing Eye wish they’d never crawled out of their beds to mess with us. And I’d like it to be so humiliating that they won’t want to show their bald heads on this plane for a hundred years.” The Lair Legion’s resident artificial intelligence looked more carefully at the computer-geek. “Zack?” “See, all the other Juniors, they’re training to be superheroes. Me, I’m practising to be a science villain,” H9 explained. “A techno-anarchist. I want to change the world. I want to make a statement. And the statement is, don’t screw with my friends, bald monk guys.” Hallie considered this. Then at last she said “Let me know if you need extra runtime.” “Stop smirking.” “I’m a cat. Smirking is my default expression.” Gloria frowned down at the robot. “Stop it anyhow. I admit Rory was a bad idea, okay.” “He’s a waste of good recyclable materials, that’s for sure,” Catbot agreed. “Taking me to an anti-metahuman rally! I should just have… I don’t know. But I should have done something. Did you see how everybody was just staring at the guy in the duster, like he was some kind of messiah?” “I couldn’t get that close,” Catbot advised. “They had some very sophisticated anti-tech screens operating down in that basement. It wasn’t the grass-roots lynch mob it appeared to be.” “And to think Rory thought that I’d… aaaaghh!!!” Gloria’s agitated stalking had brought them to the entrance of the Zero Street Mission. It was past 1 a.m. now, but there were still lights on in the hall. “Now here’s a coincidence,” Catbot purred slyly. “We just happen to have come down here on the night Laurie volunteers. You think maybe she’s still inside helping Mac tidy up?” “I didn’t come looking for Lisette.” “But you know she’s going to be interested in your evening’s entertainment, don’t you.” “What I do with my evenings isn’t any concern of hers.” “But you’re going to go in and tell her anyway, aren’t you?” “Maybe.” Glory paused for a moment then glared at Catbot again. “Stop smirking!” The two of them pushed open the mission door and bickered their way into the hall. That was where they found Laurie Leyton and Mac Fleetwood sprawled across the floor, charred and steaming. Catbot flicked on his internal radio modem and dialled 911. The Zen Garden was Off-Central park’s second-best kept secret. Hidden away in the farthest corner of Paradopolis’ largest green space, it was largely deserted during the day, and always by night. That made it the perfect place for Mumphrey and Yo to meet their contact. “Is to be very pretty place here,” the pure thought being admitted. “Hmph,” replied the eccentric Englishman. “Prefer a good rose trellis myself, but each to their own, what? Still, that’s not what we came all this way to discuss. Things to set in motion. Plans to lay. Allies to mobilise. Traps to set. That sort of thing.” “Yo is hoping we are not to be having to do all of these things. Perhaps uncute SR1066 will be to be turned down?” “You saw that file Lisa accumulated on the blackmail, extortion, and terror tactics being used to coerce elected officials. Something’s rotten in the state of Demark.” “But this is being of Unites States of…” “Bad things happenin’, is what I’m sayin’. We’re not getting’ the whole picture. And so we need to make a few preparations.” The leader of the Lair Legion looked over at his secret contact. “You can do that for us, nice and quietly, what?” “Not a problem,” answered Indiana Gnome. “Leave it all to me.” Gloria wasn’t sure why they’d wrapped a blanket round her. It seemed to be standard procedure. She sat on the edge of the stage and watched as the crime scene investigators swarmed all over the mission hall. The screaming ambulances had already taken Lisette and Mac away, surrounded by frenzied paramedics. “They’re taking this very seriously,” Catbot assured his human, rubbing up against her arm. “That grey-haired guy in the middle there, in the rumpled overcoat? That’s Commission Donald Graham. The top cop. And they’ve dragged Lee O’Callaghan out to consult on the forensics.” “And that’s good, is it?” Gloria asked. “That way we’ll know who’s fried my friend?” “It’s better than not knowing,” Catbot suggested. “Look, it was a good thing we found them. If we hadn’t walked in here then it would have been too late for emergency services to even have a chance.” “Did you see Laurie? I mean, she’s all burned up all down one side. She’ll never look normal again, even if she lives. They said… nerve damage. Maybe brain damage.” “Listen, if they can build a robotic cat they can fix up your friend, okay? Thing is to keep it together now. Laurie’s been there for you. Now it’s your turn to be there for her.” “But I’m not there, am I? I’m here, waiting to give a statement for the millionth time about something I know nothing about.” “Yeah, but…” There was a flash of bright actinic light and a trio of figures appeared from nowhere. Gloria recognised Lisette’s flatmate Beth Shelton and the superhero Hatman. The guy with them had to be the teleported Goldeneyed. “Gloria, are you okay?” Hatman asked, spotting the girl in the blanket. “I mean apart from the obvious?” “I’m not the one with 80% burns,” Gloria said. She was still holding the razor blade in her palm. The trickle of blood where it pressed into her skin comforted her. Beth went straight over to Don Graham. “What happened, father?” she demanded. Goldeneyed stared down at the chalk outlines on the floor. “Who did this?” he breathed. “Wait,” said Visionary. “What?” “Would you like a chair?” asked Hallie worriedly as the possibly fake headmaster of the Junior Lair Legion training programme got back from his trip to Lemuria. “You look a little bit faint.” “I leave the Juniors for one night - one night - and they get themselves caught up in some kind of inter-super-schools sports death challenge.” “It isn’t to be being a death challenge, Visi,” Yo assured him. “Kerry’s involved, isn’t she?” Visionary pointed out. “How could you allow this?” “Things have cascaded pretty fast,” Hallie admitted. “It’s not like we had a lot of choice as it turned out.” “It’s dangerous. Nobody could wait five minutes until I got back from seeing the Caphans before they committed my students to international grudge-match wrestling knockout?” “It was the Order of the Observing Eye,” Dancer told him. “They tricked Ham-Boy into accepting this kind of Quest Stave that compels him to compete or die, so naturally the other Juniors insisted on going along to help him.” “The Observing Eye?” Vizh scowled. “Does G-Eyed know yet? He’s going to go ballistic. He was ready to hunt them down like dogs when they smuggled his and Laurie’s child away to bring up in another time. He’s just been waiting for an excuse to whup them like a red-headed stepchild.” “G-Eyed’s kind of preoccupied right now,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! warned the possibly fake man. “I guess you didn’t hear yet about Laurie and Mac being attacked. Lisette took some serious electric burns and suffered heart failure. If that Glory kid she looks after and Catbot hadn’t found her she’d have been DOA at Phantomhawk Memorial Hospital.” “An attack?” Vizh gasped. “Who?” “We are not to be knowing yet,” Yo frowned. “Cute-Al B., Epitome, and the Librarian are down there checking the crime scene.” “And Hatty and G-Eyed are just tearing up Hell’s Bathroom until somebody talks,” CSFB! added. “We’ve dealing with the Laurie thing as best we can,” Dancer assured Visionary. “Uhuna’s gone to see to her. Right now we need to get you packed to go with the Juniors to the training camp to get them ready for this Graduation Test.” “Can we pack my headache tablets, please?” The Slumtown Bloods squat was a devastated wreck, decorated only by the motionless forms of the Slumtown Bloods. The Manga Shoggoth quietly oozed over the fallen, absorbing guns and knives. Hatman squatted on a broken table flicking through a small black notebook of drug drops and protection payments. Goldeneyed held the last and member by his lapels and shook him like a dog. “Last time of asking, scumbag. Who hurt Laurie Leyton and Mac Fleetwood? You gonna tell me or do I have to get nasty?” “It’s not fair,” Gloria repeated for the hundredth time as she sat on her bed, arms clasping her knees to her chest. “This is just not fair.” “And this is a surprise in your life?” Catbot asked the troubled teen. “What happened to Laurie. What that Stuart guy was doing. None of it is fair.” “So?” Gloria looked up and wiped the tears from her face and reached for her t-shirt. “So I need to do something about it.” Next Time: The Juniors meet the other contestants, Artemis meets the Observing Eye, a medical update on Laurie Leyton, Visionary chats with the other head teachers, and we finally learn what these tests are all about: Smells Like Teen Spirit (Judging From the Way It Burns), coming soon. 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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