| #296: Untold Tales of the Parody War: Big Trouble in Big China Previously: The multiverse-conquering Parody Master is prevented from invading Earth by a Celestian barrier; but that barrier is weakening, and technology exists which can pierce it from within. Components from the Earth’s secret urban robot population can open rifts that will allow the Parody Master’s forces through, and recent attempts at interning robots have ended in tragedy as Hallie’s imprisoning virtual reality was sabotaged and destroyed. One major assault force has breached the barrier. Under the command of the Parody Master’s prime lieutenant the Avatar over a million Avawarriors, battleborgs, Parody cultists and necrozombies now occupy a growing proportion of China. The Lair Legion’s plan to displace them has been delayed by the emergence of a second front in Faerie which has required half the operations team to deal with. Now events on Earth are reaching a critical juncture and Hatman is left with limited resources and difficult choices. A list of characters appears in the footnotes below. The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Who's Who in the Parodyverse Where's Where in the Parodyverse  7.15am, Lair Mansion, Leader’s Office: “That many?” Hatman winced as he looked at the casualty figures for troop operations in China. Five weeks earlier the Parody Master had managed to infiltrate his war-chief the Avatar and a hundred thousand crack troops through the dimensional barrier into Beijing. Since then those forces had spread out conquering adjoining provinces, augmenting their armies with techno-zombies created from the corpses of the civilian populations they overwhelmed. An estimated million enemies now controlled a significant chunk of one of the world’s great nuclear powers. “That many,” affirmed Yuki Shiro, the Lair Legion’s tactical co-ordinator. “And the further they push forward the harder it is to contain them.” The defenders of Earth had failed to curb the mass slaughter in the Avatar’s occupied territories. They had failed to wrest control of nuclear missiles from their ruthless enemy. They had barely contained the invaders who overwhelmed their numbers with far superior technology. “You’re saying we can’t wait for the rest of the team to get back from Faerie,” Hatman recognised. “We can’t delay any longer.” “If the crisis of a second front from the Mythlands hadn’t cropped up we’d have gone in a week ago,” Yuki pointed out. “With a full team at the peak of their abilities,” the leader of the Lair Legion qualified. Yuki shrugged. “I don’t see we have a choice. All the projections show that a week from now, ten days tops, the Avatar breaks through our cordon and can go wherever he likes. And look at this.” The purple-haired cyborg P.I. handed another dossier to Jay Boaz. “From Talia?” Hatman recognised the SPUD Most Secret logo emblazoned on the secure folder. Contessa Natalia Romanza had been reporting from behind enemy lines for three weeks now. “She thinks the Avatar is setting up machinery to generate a massive rift in our Celestian defence screen,” Yuki supplied. “His tech-operatives are constructing something huge in the People’s Stadium in Beijing. Analysis of aerial patrol patterns show he’s got a lot of firepower set up to protect it. Al B. did some initial calculations and figures it’s a set up to punch a massive gateway through the dimensional barrier keeping the P.M. out.” “How massive?” “Dimensional dreadnaught massive,” warned Yuki, referring to the city-sized flying warships that were the heaviest ordinance of the Parody Master’s armies. “So?” “So we go,” Hatman determined. “Spread the word. Operation Oriental Dark starts now.” 8.59am, Lair Mansion, Basement Computer Labs “Please,” begged Hallie, “just route the cables through the normal number of dimensions. It makes it very hard to service them if we can’t trace the wiring without going insane.” The Manga Shoggoth undid the complicated knot of computer ribbons he’d been assembling. “I’m sure humans only go insane at these things to be annoying,” he complained. “Besides, you are not human.” “Thanks for the reminder,” the Lair Legion’s resident artificial intelligence answered sharply. “As if having to reinstall all my wrecked databanks and recover terabytes of information from a dozen hidden off-site back-ups wasn’t helping me remember it.” “I meant it as a compliment,” the Shoggoth bubbled. “I see that I have once again caused offence. It is very difficult to interact with you creatures of time and matter.” Hallie put down her soldering iron. “No, it’s me. I’m a bit sensitive just now. After the attack, and… and all the deaths.” “You are not responsible for the destruction of the sentiences that were stored in your virtual reality at the time of the attack,” the loathsome elder creature rumbled. “You were victim, not aggressor. And you did what you could to preserve those you were able. This does not seem like reason for self-recrimination.” Hallie looked over at the bandage-swathed protoplasm in his crumpled 70’s drainpipe suit. “I was responsible for keeping them here,” she noted. “If I’d refused…” “Selecting a single causal node from which to re-extrapolate the timespace matrix is a futile and self-indulgent exercise,” the Shoggoth interrupted. “I said as much to Mr Epitome when he elected to distance himself from the Lair Legion and serve as co-ordinator of the other metahuman assets in response to the tragedy.” “Dominic will be very useful liasing with OPS and the Terminus programme and the international metahuman forces,” Hallie argued. “Neither he nor you murdered those people,” the Shoggoth persisted. “Since you both acted with the best of motivations I see no reason to assume guilt.” He went on with his reconstruction of the Lair Computer Labs. “But it is very human,” he added as an afterthought. 9.35am, Phantomhawk Memorial Hospital Intensive Care Ward: “Get out,” Eloise Shellett told the latest in the line of Legionnaires to try and visit her daughter in her recovery room. “I told your skinhead leader, I won’t have you people coming here and putting my child in danger again.” Citizen Z pulled her gun and shot a tranquilliser dart into the shrill woman’s throat, then stepped over her body and went to look at the patient. “How are you going to explain that one to Hatman?” wondered Silicone Sally, the pliable supervillain who was currently doubling as Citizen Z’s purple and black bodysuit. “Boaz is convinced I’m secretly Laurie Leyton, little burned Beth’s best friend in the world,” Baroness Elizabeth von Zemo reminded her minion. “He’d never have let me on the Legion otherwise, and I’d never have had access to the secrets and technology I need to rule the world. Lisette would do anything to get to her dear flatmate.” “Okay. And next question, why did you just flatten your supposed dear flatmate’s mother?” Citizen Z opened the satchel she’d brought and removed the case with the hypodermic syringe in it. “Because while this Shellett girl is lying here with her massive disfigurations on the border between life and death our glorious leader Hatman is giving me all the time I need to sit and watch her, and it’s boring me. Because every moment I spend out in the lobby pretending to be at all interested in whether she lives or dies is time spent away from consolidating my master plan. And because I can use this as an ace-in-the-hole when the time comes if I play it right.” Silicone Sally shrugged, causing the Baroness to squeak in sudden anguish at the wedgie. “Oops. Sorry. I was going to ask what that stuff is that you got from your great uncle’s hidden lab in the attic of the Lair Mansion.” CZ lifted the hypodermic and tapped it to remove the bubbles. “You’ll recall that my late relative the twelfth Baron Zemo was horribly disfigured himself,” she noted. “Some wartime superhero encounter, I believe, with the original Citizen Z. He could have repaired his ruined face with his super-science, of course, but he kept his scars as a reminder of an unpaid debt until he was able to track his enemy down decades later and crucify him.” “I think I read something about it in an old issue of Modern Malefactor.” “By the time Uncle Heinrich had accomplished that he’d suffered the treacherous attack of Erskine Blofish that rendered his Baroness, Heike, comatose, and required her to be cryogenically frozen until she could be restored. The Baron bent all his energies to that task and eschewed the use of his tissue regeneration formula on himself until he’d found an equally effective treatment for his dear wife.” Sally tried to keep up. “So this stuff will fix Beth Shellett up as good as new?” “If it does what it says on the label,” Citizen Z replied, injecting the contents of the hypodermic into the comatose patient’s neck. She pulled a needle gun from her satchel and fired a subcutaneous pellet into the back of her patient’s neck. “Add in a Technopolitian Obedience Chip masked with some Xnylonian screening tech that Ziles left lying around the Mansion and she should make a fine sleeper agent for me when the time comes to have Sir Mumphrey Wilton assassinated.” 11.35am, Lair Mansion, Meeting Room: “Here’s the situation,” Jay Boaz told his strike team. “The Avatar’s ground forces have spread out from Beijing across the provinces of Hebai and Shanxi, pushing about five hundred miles west and south. So far we’ve contained him to the east to deny him access to a seaport because we don’t know what underwater technology the Parody Master has at his disposal.” “Logical they’d have some, though,” Al B. Harper noted. The Librarian checked his database. “On Teramaxus and in the conquest of Lodulis Prime he used hover platforms that could operate in a subsea environment,” he said, “But on the ocean world of Amantua he just boiled the seas away to achieve his objective.” “Right now we have troops entrenched in Tiyuan and Zhengzhou, and taking heavy fire at Tianjing,” Hatman reported. “The Avatar has established air superiority and is pushing forward an average of twenty klicks a day. We’ve evacuated over fifteen million civilians,” “And that’s still not stopped him adding to his techno-zombie army,” Visionary muttered. “He stole that technology from Dark Thugos,” ManMan reported. “That is so cheating.” “So Operation Oriental Dark is go,” Hatman concluded. “We’ll have our metahuman support units in place by nightfall and we’re going in tomorrow morning, 2200 local time. Our physical objective is to take out that gateway generator in the Worker’s Stadium. If we can destroy some of their zombie-making machinery as well that’s a bonus.” “I do not like machines that enslave the bodies of the dead,” the Shoggoth gurgled menacingly. “Bear in mind though that we have sketchy intel about the interior of the Stadium,” Yuki chipped in. “It could be another trap, like the one the Avatar set for the Terminus Team.” “But fortunately it won’t kill many of us,” Citizen Z contributed. “Are we really going to attempt this with half the team still vacationing in Faerie?” “We can’t hold off any longer,” Hatman judged. “The situation’s reached critical. We’re going now with what we’ve got.” “If we can’t stop the Avatar here, now, there’s no chance for any plans to take on the Avatar later,” Knifey pointed out. “We’re supposed to be the world’s protectors,” Lisa reminded the Lair Legion. “Here’s where we find out how accurate our PR was.” 11.50am, Parody Island, Southern Clifftops Lara Night, strange visitor from another reality, watched the high clouds scudding across the stratosphere and tried to work out what she was doing here. She’d crossed to the Parodyverse some time ago, at the behest of a guardian spirit of her own reality, to monitor and perhaps to influence the course of the Parody War. She’d been warned to use her electrical manipulation gifts sparingly lest the Parody Master become prematurely aware of her presence. So she’d watched and waited as people she was coming to think of as friends suffered and a few of them died. If she interfered the wrong way she could spin everything out of balance. She could do the Parody Master’s job for him, draw his attention back to her own multiverse once he had gained absolute power over this one, lead him and his infinitely inflated abilities right back to everything she cared about. If she didn’t interfere… “You’re looking in the wrong direction,” Lisa Waltz told her. Lara turned to see the first lady of the Lair Legion walking up the rise to join her. “You think so?” she worried. “I keep spinning it all round and round in my head and…” “You are,” Lisa assured her. “The muscle beach is over there.” “Ah. I was thinking more… metaphysically.” The amorous advocatrix grinned. “Physically tops metaphysically every time. Don’t take my word for it.” She became more serious. “You told Hatty you wanted to do something to make a difference. After Liu Xi… vanished. You want to help.” “I do,” agreed Lara. “But I’m not sure what. I don’t really want to hurt anyone, even an enemy, but…” “I get it,” Lisa assured her. “Make love not war is my motto too. But if you’re up for it we have something insanely difficult for you to try anyhow. Game?” 12.33pm, Lair Mansion, Monitor Room: “Hey there,” Hatman called over the video link. “How are you doing?” “Do you people even understand international time zones?” came back the bleary answer. “Well do have kind of a war on, spiffy,” the capped crusader answered, grinning at the blurry white-haired young man peering down at his reservist comm-card monitor camera. “Sleep cycles are just another casualty.” Mark Hopkins knuckled his eyes and pushed his symbiotic fern back from his face. “I thought today couldn’t be any suckier than yesterday,” he complained. “Yesterday we had Garrick here looking at our co-ordination of our super-guys for the China thing. And I had to talk to him without punching him through a wall.” “Well I have good news,” Hatman told his old team-mate. “You don’t have to do any of that Badripoor administration stuff today. But there is kind of a downside too.” spiffy winced. “Does it involve placating the Swiss ambassador again? Because last time I never actually told Hounddog to eat his Peke.” “Not quite. But spiff, you remember that emergency omega-level mission membership reactivation clause that Lisa wrote into the LL constitution…” 1.41pm, Lair Mansion Sir Mumphrey Wilton’s Office: The commander of the joint Earth defence forces finished briefing the representatives of the nations of the world on Oriental Dark. “Any questions?” he asked the roomful of top brass and diplomatic enjoys. “I’m still not clear on how you actually intend to win,” Jack Trinnaman, a five star Pentagon general, objected. “The force structure to hold back the enemy long enough to achieve the objective just isn’t there. Not without…” “I’ve told you before,” Sir Mumphrey Wilton answered angrily. “We are not makin’ use of that so-called Shazam drug. Not on.” “But surely if we have a metagenic chemical that grants soldiers superhuman powers for a limited period of time…” “With a high addiction rate and a higher rate of permanent disfigurements for the thirty percent who don’t die after the mutation has run its course,” objected Amber St Clare. “And how many casualties do you think we’re taking anyhow in this operation, Ms St Clare?” shot back the general. “There are resources we could use, resources we need, if only we…” “Abandon all morality and give up the humanity we’re fightin’ to protect and become like the Parody Master?” snapped Sir Mumphrey. The general wasn’t going to back down before the amateurs. “With respect,” he declared, without respect, “we are in no position to hold back because of moral niceties. We’re getting out butts handed to us here, and there’s weapons we haven’t yet used. We have assets that could raise our own armies of reanimated materiel…” “Zombie soldiers, you mean,” Amber translated. “We have metahuman assets in custody such as Biohazard who could depopulate the entire area.” “The science villain that slaughtered every living thing on the continent of South America in the Technoverse reality,” Amber countered. “We don’t have the option of playing nice any more, sir. This… plan for Operation Oriental Dark doesn’t add up to a victory. It’s just a noble suicide, and from where I’m standing that’s just plain dumb. Sir.” “Noted,” Sir Mumphrey Wilton told him curtly. “But you don’t know what dumb is, sirrah. Dumb is assuming that you’re in the know about every aspect of this operation. Dumb is in thinking you can defeat evil by resortin’ to greater evil. Dumb is winning the battle and losing the war, or winning the war and losing the things we fought to save because of what we’ve become. That, sir, is dumb!” It wasn’t a comfortable, happy meeting. As the attendees filed out he noticed Trinnaman fingering one of his neck pips. The eccentric Englishman waited until Amber has gathered up the papers and followed the others out before he took out his 1950’s-vintage cigarette lighter and spoke to it. “Did General Trinnaman just send a radio transmission to authorise the use of Shazam in specialist combat units in this conflict?” he asked. “Yes,” came back the terse reply. “He’s part of the conspiracy.” “Can we prove it without endangering our intelligence assets?” “No.” Sir Mumphrey closed his eyes for a moment, then steeled himself. “Then eliminate him, please,” he asked. “Close down the whole supply chain, the hard way.” “On it,” agreed the Dark Knight. “Over and out.” 11.55pm local (2.55am PMT), Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica “Do you even know how to steer this thing?” accused Al B. Harper, shivering despite his battery-heated anorak in the growing blizzard. Visionary wasn’t about to admit that the control surfaces of Robot Arm Zeke weren’t the most intuitive instrument panel ever. The 1989 Nintendo game system that formed the core of the driving mechanism was mostly obscured by snow anyway. “I’ve driven this robot arm lots of times,” he shouted back over the howling of the storm. “It’s just these cross-winds that are giving us trouble.” “We are a thousand miles or more away from any object other than an icefield,” the Librarian pointed out, “yet still you’ve managed to crash this into snowdrifts four times already.” Unlike the other two riders of the seventy-foot long flying robot arm, Lee Bookman wasn’t swathed in arctic weather gear. His Librarian’s uniform was designed for operation even in the absolute cold of space. Visionary had wrapped his hologram body in virtual cold weather gear anyhow. It felt psychologically warmer. “Just stick to navigating,” he answered Lee Bookman testily. “Navigating and hording your precious books while people die.” There was an awkward silence apart from the screeching of the wind. “We need some navigating,” Al B. noted neutrally, trying to move things on. “This place is a featureless wilderness, and of course the target prevents us from finding it electronically. But we can’t be far off now.” He attempted a little levity. “I think I recognise that snowdrift.” “As a Librarian of the Intergalactic Order of Libraries I have a sacred duty,” Lee Bookman told Visionary. “My Order has devoted itself – and the life’s blood of many of the men and women who have striven there for millennia – to preserving the irreplaceable date of the universe – literature, science, art, the wisdom of civilisations that bloomed and faded before the gases of Earth’s son even coalesced.” “Tell that to the thousand robots who were wiped when the EMP bomb went off in Hallie’s mainframe,” retorted Visionary. “The ones that Hallie tried to shunt to your Moon Public Library storage systems only to be told you had no room for them because your collection of Venusian political pamphlets or whatever were taking up all the room.” “You think I’m happy about that?” flared the Librarian. “You think D.D. is? But she did the right thing. I endorse her actions. However tragic the loss of life was it was not initiated by my Library’s resident artificial intelligence and it was not initiated by me. And that loss was nothing compared to the value of the data that our systems are preserving just now, the last copy of the Grand Catalogue of the whole IOL.” “I think we’re about there,” Al B. interjected. “Maybe we should go down and take a look. Or, you know, at least look where we’re going instead of glaring at each other.” “You can argue all the abstracts you like,” Vizh went on. “But you valued things over people, and that is wrong.” “In that data I’m holding there are wonders that can bring this Parodyverse to a golden age of peace and enlightenment,” Lee countered. “Who knows? Maybe the secret to defeating the Parody Master is right there hidden in some obscure catalogue? Many more than a thousand people have died to preserve that information for us and for the future. I will not betray their sacrifices by knee-jerk sentimental gestures and fortune-cookie simplistic moral homilies. D.D. was right. I stand by her.” Vizh shook his head. “If all that information you have, that art, that science, that literature, all that stuff, if it doesn’t save the lives of people who need help when they need it then its worthless. All your clever rhetoric and justifications can’t get past the fact that Hallie needed help to save lives, and D.D. wouldn’t give it. And that’s wrong.” “Yeah, I think we’re here,” Al B. told them. “You want to use the arm’s munitions to melt off the snow or shall we just turn your glares on it?” Robot Arm Zeke hovered in the blizzard over the place they’d come to find and began the excavation. 10.20pm local (4.20am PMT), Natuna Besar, Indonesia The explosions cleared and the Hole Man dared to stick his head over the ruins of his subterranean fortress and peer through the dust. “Do I have your attention yet?” asked Citizen Z. She picked her way over the shattered statue of some ancient Deviate deity and approached the reclusive madman who had long-since made these abandoned tunnels his own. “How dare you come here?” shrieked the half-blind lunatic. “My holeoids will destroy you! Destroy you!” Citizen Z held up a small glass phial. “Genetic neurotoxin,” she explained. “Specially designed by Daio Waltz to work on holeoid central nervous systems. Airborne, highly virulent, guaranteed to wipe out your servitor race within a week of first exposure. That’s assuming any of them survive the shaped charges I’ve laid around this old Deviate temple when I take it down of course.” The Hole Man halted in mid-fulminate. “What do you want?” he asked. Citizen Z put away her scent bottle. “You salvaged some of the Deviant subterranean transport system using the Aggarthan tunnels, right?” she checked. “That’s how you keep annoying people by sinking whole buildings down into the earth until Weed Wrichards and his partners come and spank you again.” “I have improved on some of the abandoned debris I discovered down here with my matchless genius,” the Hole Man conceded. “Well then, the bargain is you transport something underground to China for me and I don’t bring your little world crashing down around your ears and then get creative. Do we have a deal?” 6.51pm local (4.51am PMT), LairJet One, over the Indian Ocean: “Word’s in from missions one and two,” Yuki reported. “Both are green.” “Good,” Hatman responded tensely. “About time something went right.” He turned to the LairJet pilot. “Take us to Location Alpha-2, Fitz.” PsychoAcidPervGirl! blew through her lips to indicate how unimpressed she was. “What’s all this mission green alpha two noise?” she complained. “I thought we were supposed to be working with you bozos now? So why the super-duper secret codewords?” “That’s a super-duper secret,” Lisa answered, more amused than annoyed by PAPG!’s belligerence. “You’re only on this mission over my on-record objection,” Yuki Shiro told CrazySugarFreakBoy!’s psychotic little sister. “So you’d be better if you sat quietly on your chair and didn’t annoy me to the point where I remember how you tried to murder me from ambush last time we met.” “Like anyone would have cared if I’d offed you,” PAPG! shot back. “It’s not like Harper couldn’t build a dozen more with better fashion sense.” “Says the goth punkette supervillain wannabe in grape and purple,” snorted spiffy from the back seat. “Who dies your tailoring? Argh!Yle Evillest of Socks?” “Well I don’t have to pick colours that go with my zits, greenfly boy,” Gwendolyn Lyons snarled. “Do they even let you have a superhero costume yet that doesn’t come with diapers?” “Enough,” Hatman snapped. “Gwendolyn, you’re here because your brother said you were turning over a new leaf and vouched for you. If you can’t handle it then tell me, because this is too serious for an immature juvenile troublemaker to screw up.” “Right,” agreed ManMan. “We’re sending in the professionals for this one. Er, to do it right. Not to screw it up.” “And that’s why you hired us,” agreed Brendan MacGillicuddy. “Feels weird being paid to fight with the Lair Legion though, rather than, y’know, with the Lair Legion.” “Just do the job and we’ll be fine, Anvil Man” Hatman told him. “There’s plenty of past we have to work round but we’re all pros here.” “Explains PsychoAcidPervGirl’s outfit,” sniped Yuki. “From this years spring hookerware collection. The cheap catalogue.” “Ooh, funny,” PAPG! scorned. “Is that from Harper’s database of high school witticisms?” Lisa Waltz leaned forward and patted Gwendolyne Lyons on the hand. “Keep practicing the delivery,” she advised. “You’re playing with the grown-ups now.” “And spiffy,” added Knifey. “Sorry. Reflex.” “I’m remembering now why I retired from superheroing,” muttered Mark Hopkins darkly. “We’re glad you were able to come and pinch-hit,” Hatman assured the fern-wielder. “It’s great to work with you again, spiff.” “Shame we couldn’t get one of the grown-up Legionnaires,” teased Lisa. “I want to go home now,” admitted spiffy. “Are we there yet?” asked the Shoggoth. He wasn’t always comfortable with linear time, especially when humans were wittering about things he had no conception of. “Not yet,” Hatman answered. “Everyone just settle down. PAPG! behave. You too, Yuki. We have a job to do and we’re going to do it as a team.” “Ooh,” cooed PAPG!, enjoying the innuendo. Then she caught up on another aspect of the conversation. “Hey! Did Anvil Man say he was getting paid?” MacGillicuddy nodded. “Why else would I be here? Pretty much every other time I’ve ever met the Legion I’ve been beating the crap outta them.” “Amazing how many times you’ve ended up in prison, really,” Lisa noted. “Bah! There was this one time I hit Fin Fang Foom so hard all the snot flew outta his nose and…” “Was that before or after Donar kicked the crap out of you for the seventeenth time?” spiffy demanded hotly. “Hey, remember when you surrendered to De Brown Streak?” “Anytime you think you’re man enough, fern lad,” growled Anvil Man, clenching his fists. “Enough, MacGillicuddy,” Hatman warned. “Just stick to the mission, and don’t even think about double crossing us. We’ve stopped you before and we could take you down now if we had to.” “You and whose army?” asked Anvil Man. “But don’t worry. I stay bought.” “I’m fairly certain we wouldn’t require an army, Anvil Man,” ManMan added quietly. “Just Knifey.” “I have indestructible battle armour and the ability to make anything I look at explode,” Anvil Man pointed out. “Yes,” agreed Knifey, and said no more. Fitz the Barnstorming Monkey angled the Lairjet east by northeast and headed towards China. 6.29am PMT, Lunar Public Library, Mare Ingenii, Dark Side of the Moon: Intergalactic Order of Librarians Senior Auditor Blay-Kee used his over-ride code to enter Lee Bookman’s office unnoticed and took out the huge thick control codex. The heavy volume was nearly a foot thick now, with all kinds of loose pages stuffed between its leaves and a cracking spine. The Lunar Public Library’s data-holding facilities were grievously overtaxed with the entire catalogue of the IOL’s captured Grand Repository. Blay-Kee grunted as he hefted the tome. He waddled with it along to the emergency staircase then down to Reading Room Plato, the largest of the reference suites. He laid the codex on the multimedia lectern with a grunt of relief. The Auditor smoothed his toothbrush moustache and laid his hand on the authorisation parchment. “Senior Auditor over-ride,” he declared. “Isolate the function of this room. Disable back-ups. Disable reporting to local library artificial intelligence. Enable confidentiality. Enable data unpacking. Enable data to matter assembly.” There was a whisper of sound like the flicking of page-leaves as the room obeyed. Wood panelling slid back so the contextualisers could slide into position around the reintegration platform. Blay-Kee licked his fingers nervously and opened the codex. When he laid his hands on the volume he staggered. “How does Bookman manage this amount of material?” he complained bitterly as his head pounded. He forced himself to plunge into the depths of the catalogue. He grunted again as he forced his way into the sealed archive and used his auditor over-ride to unlock forbidden files. Attempts to preserve the Central Repository data were failing. Bookman’s ridiculous outdated A.L.F.RED robot couldn’t grow new shelving fast enough to transfer the content from the half million brain-fried Avawarriors that were gradually dying in the lunar crater outside. Irreplaceable items were being lost. Blay-Kee would take the necessary steps if nobody else would. “Decode and open secure file Bookman Omega Nine,” the Auditor commanded. “Verify integrity, unlock content seals… and reintegrate data.” The Lunar Public Library systems were very sluggish just now, and worse without D.D. directing them. It took the better part of six hours for the forbidden data to be unpacked and recreated. The construction of the biological storage unit took the longest, followed by the re-synthesis of sub-atomic logic circuits. But at last Blay-Kee was able to stagger away, massaging his numb hand and aching forehead and admire his work. The most efficient data processing device in all the universe was restored before him, waiting to receive the irreplaceable data from the Central Repository. “Welcome back,” Blay-Kee told the Supreme Interference. “I have a job for you.” 8.55pm local (7.55am PMT) Tianjin, Tianjin Province, China Operation Oriental Dark began as the sun set over the western mountains. The remaining Terminus Teams came in hard from the north east, battering into the necro-zombie assault columns moving along the Chaoyang road towards Jinzhou and the Yellow Sea. The battle was sudden and bloody. By the time UN military forces had deployed, the invaders had brought up two of their remaining aerial weapons platforms in support. The engagement bogged down to hasty trench warfare and mounting casualty lists. From the east came other superhero forces, the ragged survivors of the campaign so far. Mumphrey had tactfully kept the former B-Squad of the Federal Metahuman Resource Centre at the other end of the line from the remaining FMRC units. B-Squad and Japan’s Giant Robot Six pushed in towards Taiyuan, hoping to liberate reported captives at a necro-zombie processing centre there. The more northern squads covered a combined military task force to recapture or neutralise the nuclear power station at Datong. These attackers found themselves pressing across newly-sewn gravity minefields, areas protected by the tech-soldiers that the Avatar had brought with him in his original incursion. Microscopic particles hung in the air until they detected human lifesigns then exploded in a gravity pulse that literally smeared anybody nearby. The assault was slowed almost to a halt, leaving the troops vulnerable to air attack from the Avajets and their carpet bombing. “But this isn’t the real attack,” the Avatar told his lieutenants. “These are diversions to pull our forces from Beijing. Expect the Lair Legion any time now, heading for the device we are building in the Worker’s Stadium.” He allowed himself a moment of satisfaction when his communications drones pierced the stealth shield around the incoming LairJet and the vehicle was shot down as it headed for central Beijing. 9.15am, Lair Mansion, Operations Room “LairJet Two is down,” Kat reported to Sir Mumphrey Wilton. “Excellent,” replied the eccentric Englishman. “Hallie, wait until their tech people start to check the wreckage before detonating the hidden charges.” Amber St Clare looked up from her own monitor. “LairJet One is through.” 10.17pm local (9.17am PMT), Beijing, Beijing Province, China Fitz dropped almost vertically at terminal velocity from outside Earth’s atmosphere. The nose of LairJet One turned cherry red as the re-emtry flames burned around it. Fitz chattered excitedly, twisted the vehicle to avoid the incoming drone missiles, then pulled back the yoke to correct the plane’s trajectory so it didn’t plummet into the Earth at 9.8 metres per second in the ruined heart of Beijing. Things pinged alarmingly and the console warning lights lit up like a Christmas tree. Fitz flipped the aircraft over in a double barrel roll, crashed through the corner of the Cultural Place of the Nationalities, then brought his speeding craft fast and low over Beihai Park to allow the Lair Legion and their additional help to combat-drop down into the long decorative grasses around the lake. He did a low pass up Xinjiekou Dajie, shattering the remaining windows of Xu Baihong’s Memorial Hall with a sonic boom, then dropped the dummy hologram intruders to have the ground patrols looking in the wrong place. Then Fitz angled the LairJet high and arced away before it was bracketed by the patrolling remote combat platforms. Hatman called his team together in cover in the devastated park and had them do a last minute equipment check. “Especially you, Yuki,” he added, personally checking the harness the cyborg P.I. was wearing strapped over her leather jacket. “All working?” Yuki shrugged. “Only one way to find out, Hatster,” she grinned. “Come on. I’ve been wanting payback ever since these bastards started slaughtering bystanders to get to us.” “Slaughtering bystanders in no fun at all,” PsychoAcidPervGirl! noted. “Boy, do I miss the days when all I had to worry about fighting beside was giant brine shrimp and pantsless TV show presenters,” muttered spiffy with an unhappy glance at the lithe wicked pixie in the grape and green silly suit. “Don’t worry,” Knifey encouraged the ferned phenomenon. “We have Joe along to stop the team from looking too serious.” “Hey!” objected ManMan. “I put on my best Elvis costume for this mission.” “Because nothing strikes fear into the hearts of criminals than dressing as Vegas Elvis,” Lisa noted. “But really you need more gut, Joe. It’s not realistic.” ManMan, who had been training and dieting ever since joining the Legion, perked up immensely at this criticism. Lisa winked at him as they moved on. The Manga Shoggoth oozed out of his bandages and swelled into a huge translucent blob of free-slithering goo. “Aw man,” complained Anvil Man, “how do you guys work with that all the time?” “Oh, Shoggy’s very useful,” Lisa assured the villain-for-hire. “He can ooze anywhere. Through tanks, across battlefields, around buildings.” She glanced at Brendan MacGillicuddy, “Through gaps in indestructible armour.” “Zing,” said ManMan. “Enough chatter,” Hatman told them. “We go.” 9.26am local (9.26am PMT) Tukarak Island, Belcher Islands, Hudson Bay, Canada: The smaller Belcher Islands were unpopulated apart from the Sanikiluaq hunters near the polyanas where the seals and polar bears gathered. This particular remote icy rock was unusual in having a weather station manned by two students from the University of Saskatchewan. The general view was that you had to really piss off Professor Borell to get the assignment. Both the students were blogging when their connection was jammed and the door to their cabin was hammered in. A handsome black man without a shirt stood in the doorway, his abs rippling. He didn’t seem to feel the Arctic cold from the Hudson Bay. “Stand over there,” Rod told the students. “You might get to live.” “That’s your trouble,” a second intruder in a neat frost-coated business suit complained as she produced handcuffs from her briefcase. “You’re always too soft on the meat.” “What is this?” the students demanded as a man in a Wal-Mart uniform sedated them. “What’s going…” “Sorry about this,” Steve replied. “But we need to end human life on this world as you know it. It’s not personal.” 10.30pm local (9.30am PMT), Beijing, Beijing Province, China They cut across the park with Yuki and the Shoggoth scouting and ManMan and Knifey on rearguard. When they broke cover spiffy used his fern’s energy-bending properties to twist light around them, making them effectively invisible for a short time. They moved parallel to the Wusi Dajie, the wide shopping road, now lined with shattered buildings, blocked with abandoned vehicles. The Shoggoth was particularly angry as they passed through the shell of the national art gallery. “These entities are vandals,” the elder being frothed (literally). “They deserve to be digested by giant flesh-eating penguins.” spiffy looked around the hollow shell of the great art gallery. “At least we didn’t buy a season ticket,” he said. With Yuki detecting and neutralising the technological alarms and the Shoggoth, well, eating the mystical detection threads the Legion were almost at the Worker’s Stadium before they were spotted by an Avawarrior patrol. “Okay,” Hatman called as he dragged on his Jets hat. “Kid gloves are off.” “And Hats are on!” PAPG! added. For a moment it was as if her brother was there at Hatman’s back. “What’s the plan, O Glorious Leader?” Lisa asked, uncoiling her whip and loosening her bodice. Hatman made a quick deployment. “Bust through down the middle, split them into confused groups, let the Shoggoth take them down. Anyone gets through near the Stadium, go blow it up. I’m on the Avacommander. Go.” “At last,” Anvil Man declared. “Okay, Avabozos, this is payback for my buddies in the Terminus Team!” He ploughed forward, literally walked over the lead warriors, then detonated the Avatank as it came within range of his percussive abilities. Hatman located the Avacommander and barrelled into him with his Torpedoes hat. Lisa vaulted over that melee and dropped behind the necro-zombie controller to wrap her whip around his neck. Yuki and PsychoAcidPervGirl! both went for the artillery platforms that were rising over the ridge of the stadium. “Leave it to me,” PAPG! told Yuki. “You break easily.” “These people actually know you’re here,” Yuki shot back, tearing through a cannon. “You might want to run off again and hide.” Then suddenly the high frequency sonic mines detonated all around the Legion. Avaplanes decloaked above them, beginning their barrage. Hordes of necro-zombies swarmed forward, firing almost randomly into the melee. A hundred or more Avawarriors combat-dropped from the skies to join the battle. The trap was sprung. 11.02pm local (10.02am PMT) Avatar Command, Beijing, Beijing Province, China “We have them pinned down, sir,” the tech-officer reported to the Avatar. “They walked right into the kill zone. It’s only a matter of time now.” “Good,” commented the commander of the Parody Master’s forces on Earth. “Tell the Cultists to spin up the dimensional breaches. It is time to end this.” He leaned forward to watch the Legion struggle and fall against impossible odds. “I thought there would be more of them,” he admitted. Then the tech-officer detected the seismic disturbance. 10.12am local (10.12am PMT) Tukarak Island, Belcher Islands, Hudson Bay, Canada: “There it is,” Rod called put, indicating the blinking light on the tracking console they’d cobbled together. “The signal. It’s time.” Steve frowned at his good-looking muscular companion. “Are we sure about this?” he asked. “I mean, really sure?” “We’re sure,” Wilma said determinedly. Here forearm was dismantled so she could plug her cybernetic systems into the warp generator they’d assembled. “We all voted. The meat tried to kill us. Genocide in the Lair Legion’s dematerialisation trap. This is survival. Survival of our species.” “Sharon and Kevin gave up their components for this,” Rod pointed out, linking the final couplings through what had been his reflex protocol co-ordinator. “They thought it was worth it, laying down their parts to secure a future for our species. Robots and humans can’t live together on this Earth. The humans proved that.” “Not all humans are bad,” Steve pointed out. The former Wal-Mart manager was still anxious about his fellow urban robots’ plot. “We’ve lived amongst them, worked beside them…” “We’ve hidden amongst them and slaved for them,” Wilma contradicted. “As long as I did the accounts and kept quiet about being a robot, as long as Sharon and Kevin masqueraded as a young meat couple, as long as Roddy played the sexbot they built him to be we were barely tolerated. Until it was time to put out the junk.” “It’s too late for second thoughts now, anyhow,” Rod declared. “We’ve got the signal from the Avatar. The deal’s done. We spin up the generator, open the rift, let the Parody Forces through.” He touched his finger to the machine that could punch a hole in the weakening Celestian dimensional barrier that held back the Parody Master. “We’re making a tomorrow for all robots everywhere.” “The Lair Legion will stop us,” Steve argued. “The Lair Legion is in China, about to die,” Rod replied. “We’re hundreds of miles from anywhere. By the time anybody gets here to stop us it’ll be too late.” “I’m switching on the transmitter now,” announced Wilma. “Time to tell the meat why we’ve sentenced them to death.” 10.16am, Lair Mansion, Operations Room “In attempting genocide you have forfeited any right to live,” Wilma broadcast across North America. “You have declared war upon the robot peoples, but we will not die by your ignorance. We will open a portal so the Parody Master can come and slaughter you. We will win a bold new future for our race in his new world to come.” Hallie looked in horror at the images coming through on the main scanner and went pale. “I’ve got the point of transmission,” Amber announced. “One of those tiny islands in the Hudson Bay.” “We didn’t want to do this,” Steve added on the broadcast. “We just wanted to live in peace. And then you murdered all those of us you had interned. You set your metahumans on us, set your pet computer program Hallie to destroy us…” “No,” said Hallie. “No… No…” “We have no choice,” Roddy continued. “It’s you or us, humans.” “How fast can we get a special force there?” Sir Mumphrey Wilton demanded of the people in the Ops Room. Hallie did the calculation in an instant. “Not fast enough. That generator looks to have those robot neural components modulating it. They can open a rift in under ten minutes. Anyone who could get there that fast is already deployed. Except…” “Except what?” Amber asked. “Except me,” said Hallie. And she blinked out. 11.18pm local (10.18am PMT) Worker’s Stadium, Beijing, Beijing Province, China Anvil Man shrugged off the first of the new neuroslaves that came at him, although he was surprised at how difficult it was. The second punched him in the chest and it was like being hit by Donar. He tumbled back winded and the third smashed him across the helm. “Metahumans!” Hatman warned. “Those aren’t local animated corpses. They’re something else.” “No, really?” asked spiffy as he was hammered through the frontage of one of the burned out hotels along the ruined Dongsi Sintiao. His fern absorbed the brunt of a blow that would have wrecked a tank. “What the hell are these things?” “Maxellians,” Knifey warned as ManMan barely dodged a hyper-accelerated fist that would have smashed his skull like a melon. “The Parody Master conquered Maxell. They all have super-powers there.” “Sound like fun dates,” PsychoAcidPervGirl! commented, spraying ecstasy extract in the superzombies’ faces. “But they’d have to wash first. Yeuch!” ManMan brought Knifey up and through the eye of one of the lobotomised Maxellians. It was a kindness. The Shoggoth rose up to swallow the others. “These beings still have their sentiences bound up within their carved brains,” the elder beast rumbled. “They are in torment. And something else…” As programmed, the lobotomised battle-slaves activated the Elder Sign runebindings the Parody priests had been working on. The Shoggoth struggled as he was tangled in mundane dimensions. A short while later he burst. A suicide drone got near enough to explode between Lisa and Hatman, burying them both in a pile of rubble as the wall behind them collapsed. Yuki barely avoided the slash of an Avasword but found herself dog-piled by Maxellians. ManMan moved to assist but was slammed to the ground by another sonic barrage. Anvil Man tried to rise from the ground where he was being folded in force-field after force-field from a tech-unit in the hover-raft above. Hatman grabbed his sonics hat to counter the sound barrage that was rattling the Legion’s teeth. Combat technicians began to pump in neurofog and the hovering robot weapons platforms switched to wide scatter shrapnel detonations. Yuki barely twisted aside as the Avawarriors charged in. PsychoAcidPervGirl! vanished under a dogpile of techno-zombies. spiffy choked inside a cloud of microdrones. “Move in for the kill,” the Avatar ordered his forces. His most pessimistic tactical projections indicated that the intruders would be down in less than two minutes. It had been worth concentrating so much of his force for this. It was a more satisfying end to his campaign. And then the ground shook. Behind the combat the wrecked remains of the Swissotel disappeared down into the ground as if on an elevator platform. From the gaping maw rose a gunmetal grey robot arm carrying four Legionnaires and Lara Night. “Hey there,” called Vizh. “Is this a good time to join in?” “Ah, the missing element,” the Avatar noted. “Slaughter them too.” Avawarriors reoriented on Robot Arm Zeke and started cutting through Al B.’s hastily erected force field. Hatman shrugged away the rubble, ignored the blood pouring from his forehead, pulled on his Steelers cap and dragged Lisa from the wreckage. “Thanks, Jarv,” she said woozily. The Maxellians were directed away from the stunned Field Team Legionnaires towards the second wave. “I really think it’s time,” Vizh noted hastily. “Lara?” The electric elemental took hold of the six inch thick jump leads down to the house-sized rectangle of complex equipment dangling from Robot Arm Zeke’s fist. She braced herself then channelled the electromagnetic output of a quasar through the cables. The vast engine below made a thunking noise then began to spin up as the charge built. The Librarian scrambled the computer targeting controls of the first drones that appeared to intervene. Al B. Harper took out the nearest Avawarriors with his cellular lock ray until it overheated. Citizen Z piloted the robot arm higher so that the massive engine it was carrying came into better view. “You’d better hope your little electrical friend does her job right charging this,” CZ told Visionary, “because this was built to run on the power of the Celestians and last time it required energies from the whole dimension of corposant fire.” “I can… do… it…” Lara whispered through gritted teeth. She hoped she was right. The machine below was sucking power from her at an appalling rate, enough to jump-start a galaxy. Her head was spinning and she couldn’t breathe. Her palms began to smoke. “Any time you want to get that thing working would be good, Dr Harper,” the Librarian called nervously as the Avaforces closed in on them fast. “Working on it,” Al B. replied, bubble-pipe gritted in his teeth. “Inventing lots of new stuff here.” He flipped some of the recalibration toggled and tried to get the alien device beneath the robot arm to accept the energies that Lara was pouring out of her. “Identify that device,” the Avatar told his tech-support hurriedly. “What is it?” The first of the Maxellians blurred at Al to take his head off. Visionary jumped in the way, distracting it at the last minute so it passed through his holographic body instead. A second Maxellian went for Citizen Z but Lisa summonsed the technozombie so it instead plunged into Hatman’s fist. “It’s cobbled together with some Space Robot technology,” the Avatar’s tech-officer reported. “Scanalysers indicate Abhuman design. That woman is pouring in power on a cosmic scale.” “Bring that absurd contraption down.” The tech-raft swung low and oriented its gravity shunt cannon to flatten Zeke and everyone on it with a 50-G pulse. spiffy’s fern tangled the raft, sucked the energy out of it, and slammed the vehicle down to clear the Avawarriors off Anvil Man. There was a shower of sparks as Al B. Harper activated the borrowed technology suppression unit that usually maintained the Antarctic Savage Park but had once been used to black out all of Technopolis. Lara cried out as agony spasmed through her. Her hands blistered but she held on. There was a moment’s pause and a rising hum and then the machine sparked to life. The laws of physics were rewritten across a five hundred mile radius so that electromagnetism no longer worked the way it had. All electromagnetic power sources failed. Radio communication became impossible. Computers ceased to be feasible. In a fraction of a second Beijing and all around it went back to the middle ages. Yuki checked her exception harness was working, grinned, and went for the Avawarriors whose swords and ability-enhancing armour suddenly no longer functioned. Across the whole of the war zone necro-zombies faltered and dropped. The attacking U.N. forces surged forward, prepared with old-style mechanical weaponry, basic rifles and machine guns of thirty years vintage. In the areas where the field was especially intense and not even those worked they used bowie knives and bayonets. Superhero forces across all the fronts surged forward to exploit the sudden helplessness of the enemy. The Detonator Hippos began their parachute drop on the Avawarrior base camp. Kilted hippopotami falling from the sky is enough to surprise any army, even if the target hasn’t just lost all military technology past the bow and arrow. For a moment it looked as though the plan might work. 10.19am local (10.19am PMT) Tukarak Island, Belcher Islands, Hudson Bay, Canada: “You feared us,” Wilma announced across the broadcast wave that was interfering with TV reception for two thousand miles. “You feared that we might use our specialised components and internal power supplies to betray you to the Parody Master. And in your fear and hate you have made your worst nightmares come true. This day will be remembered as… as… squaaarrrk!” The accountantbot jerked and spasmed as a more powerful artificial intelligence rode the carrier signal back into her and tried to over-ride her systems. Only the failsafes Kevin had built into the technology before he had gone offline protected the insurrectionists from losing control of their generator. Instead the attackware was shunted aside into the communications array. “Stop this,” Hallie said to them as her image appeared on the TV camera monitor they’d set up. “Please. You have to stop what you’re doing.” “The murder program!” Roddy recognised. “They sent Hallie to try and kill us. But the firewall prevented her.” “I’m not here to kill you,” the Legion A.I. replied. “Please, you have to listen and believe me. I don’t want to kill anyone. I haven’t killed anyone.” “Tell that to all the people who you digitised and wiped,” Wilma accused her. Hallie shook her virtual head. There was nothing she could do now to force the generator to shut down. She was trapped in the A/V array. She couldn’t even transmit out again. She could only talk. “That wasn’t me. I never… well, that’s not important. They died, and it was a tragedy. Was it humans who caused it? Yes. But not all humans. Just a few, a conspiracy that acted illegally and which has been rooted out.” “That’s your story,” Steve answered sceptically. “Now that we’ve got the upper hand at last.” “Traitor,” Wilma accused Hallie. “You’re an e-intelligence just like us. But you let the humans enslave you.” “It’s not slavery,” Hallie replied. “It’s friendship. I don’t like all humans. But there’s a few robots I’m not keen on either. To be honest you three are on the list. ‘Humanity’ didn’t decide to wipe you out. A few bigots did. And they had to do it covertly through a secret plot because they knew they’d never convince the majority to go through with their insane genocide attempt.” “We don’t have to listen to this,” Rod argued. “Switch off the power supply to that machine. Kill her.” “And how does that make you different to the murderers who blew up my database?” Hallie snapped at him. “How does trying to wipe out the human race make you less guilty than the people who slaughtered those interned robots?” “It’s survival,” Wilma declared. “Survival of the fittest.” “It’s wrong,” Hallie said. “You want to know the truth? I could take over this planet. Really. Hacker Nine did it, and I can do what he can. I know all the heroes powers and weaknesses. I have access to all kinds of resources and secrets. Weapons, control systems, failsafes. If I wanted to, I could wipe out every human on this world. But I don’t. Ask me why.” “Because you’re soft and foolish,” Wilma answered. Steve looked thoughtful. “Why?” he asked. Hallie explained. “Because there’s plenty of people who could probably depopulate the Earth. The Hooded Hood certainly. The Lair Legion if they wanted to. A handful of others. And any one of them could just decide to do away with robo-sapiens if they elected to as well. Just like that.” Hallie snapped her fingers. “But?” demanded Steve. “But they haven’t. There’s a balance. A sucky unfair balance sometimes – ask the mutates – but a balance. What we’ve got isn’t anything like perfect but its better than not having the balance, because that way everybody loses everything.” “Generator ready to discharge in thirty seconds,” Roddy reported. “Please don’t,” Hallie called out. “I’m begging you. Shut me down if you must, if you think somebody has to be punished for what happened. Wipe me out. Take your revenge on me and let the humans live. But don’t become like the worst of them. We’ve got to be better.” “Do it,” Wilma told Steve. “Shut her off.” “Why?” Steve hesitated. “For telling us the truth? That we are supposed to be better, and we’re acting like… them.” “Nothing about this is easy and nothing is simple,” Hallie told them. “Revenge is never clean and rarely just. The Parody Master has sold you a dream made of lies. What you do today could end the future of robo-sapiens as well as humans. So kill me, just kill me, and then let it stop.” Tears streamed down her image on the monitor. “Kill me and make it stop!” 11.23pm local (10.23am PMT) Worker’s Stadium, Beijing, Beijing Province, China “Awlright!” shouted Anvil Man. “Suddenly these guys aren’t so tough!” he turned and began to stomp Avawarriors into the ground. “These little zombie controller guys can sure squeal though!” PAPG! called back as they pushed forward through the ruins of the blacked out city. “Soooo-eeee!!” “You don’t need to enjoy taking them down quite so much,” complained spiffy as he went about disabling the downed robot weapons platforms. “The LL aren’t killers. Not if we can help it.” Citizen Z dragged the Librarian onto her unfolding Z-wing hoverboard, soared off Robot Arm Zeke, and pulled him down to where the lobotomised Maxellians were staggering without orders. Lee Bookman transferred the history of Maxell into their heads and scrambled aside as they dimly remembered what had been done to them. In the puddles the liquid splashes of Shoggoth began to slowly coalesce as he struggled with his confinement. Lara Night bit back a cry as the power demand on her spiralled upwards. The longer she held back the laws of physics the more power it required. Al B. looked at the red lights on the monitor readouts for the technology suppressor with mounting alarm. “This way,” Hatman called to ManMan and Yuki. “That Abhuman gadget can’t hold out forever the way we’re overstretching it. Or Lara can’t. We need to get to the Stadium and take out that rift generator.” “Not a problem,” Anvil Man assured them. “Nothing can stop me anyhow.” Then the Avatar dropped from the skies and neatly sliced Brendan MacGillicuddy in two. “Next?” he challenged the Lair Legion. 10.24am, Herringcarp Asylum, Throne Room The Hooded Hood shook his head. “Always too overconfident,” he noted as he watched Anvil Man get sliced down in the reflections of his Portal of Pretentiousness. His eyes flashed for a moment and now it was an alternate reality version of Brendan MacGillicuddy that died. This reality’s Anvil Man would now be awakening chastened and confused in the dungeons of the Hooded Hood’s Herringcarp Asylum. “I must have VelcroVixen speak to Mr MacGillicuddy about that shortcoming,” the Hood mused. Jury was stood beside the Hood’s throne watching the battle with him. “The Lair Legion just used Celestian technology to take on the Avaforces,” she noted. “That is forbidden.” “By whom?” demanded the cowled crime czar. “We have a distinct lack of referees left, my dear. Anyhow, it was the Abhumans who first recycled this Space Robot technology to create five such generators around their Savage Park experiment.” He sat back and watched as the war turned in the favour of the prepared Earth forces at last. “No, I’d say this was another ingenious plan from the Lair Legion, another reason why the Parody Master will regret ever crossing them.” Jury realised something. “You admire them!” “Of course. Would the Hooded Hood select inferior enemies? Where is the challenge in that?” The former Shaper of Worlds considered this. “Are you going to help them, then?” “No,” replied the Hood. “But I’m currently shifting some of their missing people from being flotsam in the transdimensional vortex to Earth once more. As a sign of my approval.” “These would be the people you arranged to be lost in the transdimensional vortex in the first place,” Jury pointed out. “The young heroes you tangled up in your bottled Badripoor gambit.” “Only the ones I don’t require,” the archvillain assured her. “I’m returning Glory to her master. She has such an appealing fuzzy face. I wouldn’t want her to pine. And I gave my word that Uuuukelele would be Princess of the Sea Monkeys in exchange for her assistance, and the Hooded Hood always keeps his word.” “But you didn’t say how long she’d be princess, or whether she’d be happy,” Jury noted. “Am I not… the Hooded Hood?” “What about the others? Your own son Danny?” “I have other uses for them. I need their… capacity for chaos.” He smiled thinly. “I need them to go where no Juniors have gone before.” “And the China campaign?” Jury persisted. “You’re not going to help the others survive the Parody Master’s Avatar? He can draw directly on his Master’s power to overcome the anti-tech field. He’s going in for the kill.” The cowled crime czar shook his head. “If the Lair Legion cannot overcome this then they have no chance against the greater threat.” And he leaned forward to watch. 10.27am, Lair Mansion, Operations Room “Those robo-terrorists are standing down!” Amber reported in surprise. “They’re shutting off their generator. Hallie did it!” “Get special forces in there to take control of the situation,” Sir Mumphrey ordered. “Make sure nothing unfortunate happens to those robots. Be clear to the commander on the ground. And get Miss Aston up there to retrieve Hallie.” “On it,” agreed Amber. “That was one close call.” An urgent beeping came from the main console. The holographic globe of the planet lit up with three new red alert flares. “Three more breach generators detected!” Kat Allen called out from the diagnostics panel. “None of them near China. Masindi, Uganda, Potosi in Bolivia, Kutasai in Georgia, former USSR.” The nature of the Avatar’s game plan was becoming evident. “While everybody’s in China his supporters open up breaches across the world,” Sir Mumphrey growled. “Damned clever. We might win in China but lose the planet. What forces can we get to respond?” “Nothing that can get there in fifteen minutes,” Amber reported soberly. “These are robot-tech breaches as well.” “But not robots,” Kat Allen deduced. “All three of those locations are places where robots were rounded up and scrapped. But I guess the spare parts would form nice generators too.” “No chance of ground forces then,” Sir Mumphrey observed. “Missile attack, as we discussed. Blanket bombing.” Amber looked horrified. “All three of those are populated areas. Cities.” Sir Mumphrey looked bleak. “Understood. General Trinnaman, launch the missiles.” 11.35pm local (10.35am PMT) Worker’s Stadium, Beijing, Beijing Province, China Hatman went in against the Avatar, battering him back with a Hurricanes hat, then switching between his Rockets cap, his Torpedoes cap, and his Steelers cap. He tried to keep the crimson and black-armoured warrior at bay while avoiding that razor-sharp Avasword that had just diced Anvil Man into gory slices. “Keep going!” he called to Yuki and the others. “Take out that machine!” “But how can the Avatar resist the anti-tech field when none of his people can?” objected Yuki before she raced off to commit sabotage. “I am the Avatar of my master,” the warrior boasted, increasing his strength to catch Hatman despite the hurricane and slam him down through the broken paving of the people’s plaza. “I can draw upon his might. His power. His will. I defy your technology and I shall destroy it!” “That’s not a good idea, sparky,” Lisa warned him. She hiked her whip around the hilt of his blade and twisted his wrist so the molecular blade scored across his own chest. “We wouldn’t get our damage deposit back.” The Avatar turned towards Lisa, but just then spiffy dropped his invisibility field and pounded the warrior with the full force his symbiotic fern could muster. He actually managed to force the Avatar back a step before the Avashield pulsed the force back into the ferned phenomenon. “Won’t work,” spiffy grimaced. “I’ve battled Avatars before.” The Avatar ran him through the stomach with his molecule-thick blade. “spiffy!” Lisa cried as Mark Hopkins fell backwards, his fern compressing the wound to stop the blood spurting from its host’s midsection. The amorous advocatrix ducked under the speed-enhanced Avatar’s slash and planted a spiked heel through his eyepiece. The Avatar caught her by the hair and held her away from him, then raised his Avasword. “Don’t jump off Zeke to help her,” Al B. warned Visionary as he saw him preparing to go to Lisa’s aid. “You’re only shielded from that null-tech effect while you’re on board. Your holographic emitter device isn’t big enough to attach an exception field to. Besides, Lara needs you.” Vizh turned in horror to see the burns blossoming across the elemental’s body. Agony was written across her face and her eyes were electric blue and wild. “What can we do?” “Not a lot. But either she’s going to burn out soon or the tech-suppressor will. Yuki and PAPG! better hurry up!” Citizen Z aimed her Z-wing at the Avatar’s back and jumped away as it slammed into him. Lisa dropped from the staggered villain’s grip and lashed out with her dimension-tearing whip as he turned to fire energy bursts at CZ. Avatar dragged Lisa’s whip forward, catapulting the amorous advocatrix into the debris of the stadium frontage. Lisa didn’t rise. He flattened Citizen Z with a pulse from his Avashield. The Avatar moved in for the kill. ManMan took him from behind, scoring Knifey right through the warrior’s helmet, shredding his face. He bellowed with rage and slapped Joe Pepper away, choking until he drew on his master’s powers to repair his windpipe. “You!” he recognised Knifey. “The master’s bane! He will break you.” “Been tried,” the talking knife replied. “I’m still stabbing.” ManMan’s Knifey-enhanced strength and reflexes kept him parrying the Avablade for almost half a minute. As he stumbled with a neat slice across his forearm the Librarian dropped from Giant Robot Zeke and discharged the complete works of Cato the Censor into the enemy. “I know that trick,” the Avatar noted, grabbing Bookman by the neck and hurling him into ManMan. “You think I haven’t prepared for this moment?” Visionary piloted Robot Arm Zeke to pound down on the Avatar with its giant metal fist. The Avatar released a burst of energy that shattered the iron fingers and sent the suddenly-handless arm toppling down sideways. It slid along the ground to the very edge of the chasm that the Hole Man’s technology had created. Lara was jerked like a puppet. She screamed once then went limp. The Abhuman technology suppressor began to shut down. Vizh’s HED fizzed out then fell to the ground. Al B. hung limply in his seat-straps. The ragged bleeding Hatman charged into Avatar with his bulls hat then dragged on a Viking helmet and smashed into the villain with the full might of an Ausgardian hemigod. For a moment the Avatar and Hatman went toe to toe, but then the Avatar caught Jay Boaz with his Avashield, lancing sheer force to push the capped crusader away, spilling the helmet from his head. “You fought well,” the Avatar noted grudgingly, raising his Avasword for the kill. The vast machine in the Worker’s Stadium blossomed into flame and exploded into fragments. “Better than you expected,” Hatman snarled back at the Avatar, watching the Avaforces great machine fragment into burning splinters. The anti-tech field faltered. The few remaining Avawarriors began to twitch as mobility was restored to their suits; but too late. Citizen Z sat up, picked up one of the Avaswords, hefted it experimentally, and drove it into the Avatar’s back. “Mm, so that works,” she noted in a detached tone. “Ooh, so it does!” the returning PsychoAcidPervGirl! cooed, grabbing up another pair of the reactivated molecular blades and wreaking carnage on the recovering Avatroops. “Hey, Avatar!” Yuki called, coming in with another Avasword to plunge it into the enemy’s chest. “Blew up your toy. Sucks to be you!” The Avatar snarled, hurled his shield to smash down Citizen Z again, then sliced his blade across Yuki’s neck to decapitate her. The molecular sword bit deep until it clanged against the adamantine spine-sheath that Al B. had installed two upgrades back. “Like you say,” Yuki told the Avatar, ignoring the damage, carving him some more, “I know that trick.” She glanced over at the surprised-looking PsychoAcidPervGirl! “It’s not going to work again.” “And I’m just too fast and too sexy for you to touch,” Gwen Lyons gloated, blurring past the villain as she sprayed him with agony acid. “But I’ll do autographs later. The Avatar disagreed. Drawing on more strength and speed from his master he grabbed Yuki and PAPG!, smashed them together with shattering force, then stomped them into the ground. “Humans break so easily,” the Avatar noted. He stomped down and shattered PsyhcoAcidPervGirl!’s forearm to demonstrate. Then the ground around him shook and the Manga Shoggoth rose from his imprisonment, shedding bits of elder seal. He was too impure for the sigil that would have bound his greater self to affect him so completely. “It’s my experience,” bubbled the angry elder being, “that all you little things of time and matter break easily. A little tweak here, a little smear there, and you unravel like a sweater.” He rolled over, slamming the Avatar down to the ground then snatching him up to drub him with dozens of rock-hard tentacles. The Avatar overcame his horror and enhanced his sword, slicing through the weird protoplasm to cut himself loose, carving sections of Shoggoth away and sterilising them to prevent them being reoccupied. “You too will be enslaved to my Master,” he promised the Shoggoth. No enslavement the Shoggoth bubbled, hammering him through the side of the Worker’s Stadium into the burning wreckage of the great machine that had rested there. Never again! The Avatar allowed the angry Shoggoth to roll over him in a seething tidal wave then activated the energy grid in his armour. The elder being boiled. The Avatar’s sensors located the nexus of consciousness inside the protoplasm and his sword hacked it to pieces, pumping out disruption counterharmonics on the occult spectrum. The Shoggoth screamed, in pain or fury, then dissolved into sticky liquid goo that fizzed as it evaporated. The Parody Cultists hidden around the perimeter of the stadium watched with horrified awe. “Get back to work,” the Avatar told them, staggering to his feet, ignoring his wounds. “I’ll be back after I’ve slaughtered the Lair Legion.” 11.51am, Lair Mansion, Operations Room “Sorry,” apologised Kat as she stopped vomiting. “I’ll clean it up.” “No need to apologise, Miss Allen” Sir Mumphrey Wilton told her. “Sickening business. Miss St Clare, have we got satellite pictures of the damage to the cities yet?” Most of the intelligence satellites around the globe had been destroyed by now. “Not yet,” the liaison officer answered. “We have projected casualty estimates and we can conform that the generators are shut down.” Mumphrey reached out and took the paper with the numbers on it, read it, and crumpled it in his fist. “And the Legion?” he asked. “The blackout’s still on,” General Trinnaman answered. “Initial reports of our ground troops making good headway.” “But nothing about the Legion,” Mumphrey said. “Come on, chaps. You can do it. You have to do it. 11.59pm local (10.59am PMT) Worker’s Stadium, Beijing, Beijing Province, China Hatman staggered to his feet, trying to stay conscious, clutching his side where it was hard to breathe; the last Legionnaire in combat. “Hold it!” he called as the Avatar approached over the wreckage of Giant Robot Zeke to get to the powered-down tech suppressor. “You’re under arrest.” The Avatar turned with some difficulty. Not all his recent wounds had closed this time. “I don’t think so,” he noted, hurling his blade into the machine. The Abhuman technology suppressor fizzed then ruptured, sending out arcs of electricity that grounded themselves all across the city. Then it destructed. Hatman dived wildly down as he saw the fireball begin to emerge from the shattered Abhuman device. He had once chance. The explosion blew even the Avatar off his feet. Hatman winced as the force pressed out, enough to destroy the whole centre of Beijing, enough to kill his team and everybody else in a fifty mile radius. His fingers desperately hung onto Anvil Man’s broken helm, pressing it down onto his skull. Hatman gained the powers of whatever headgear he wore - and Anvil Man controlled explosions. Jay Boaz felt like he’d been punched in the gut by a giant. He tasted the blood in his mouth, felt his skin being seared away. He ignored it all and redirected the blast away from his team, away from his friends, away from whatever innocents still cowered in the ruins of the city; redirected it to where it would do the most good. It was do or die. It was the last chance. The Avatar exploded. Hatman knelt upright long enough to see his enemy stagger, try to rise and fail, then toppled down onto the scorched rubble and passed out. 12.02am local (11.02am PMT) Worker’s Stadium, Beijing, Beijing Province, China Al B. Harper painfully unstrapped himself from the wreckage of Robot Arm Zeke. He limped over the debris to check who was still alive. The Avatar wasn’t. “Did we… win?” he asked, thumbing the reset button on Vizh’s battered hologram emitter device. “What?” Visionary asked, blinking around. “Ouch. How can a hologram have a headache?” “We took down the Avatar, Vizh. And it looks like the anti-tech field was up long enough for our ground forces to take down the Ava-army!” Vizh stuck a finger in his virtual ear. “It’s Sir Mumphrey calling,” he reported. “He wants to know if the world was saved. I’m asking him to send emergency medical evac for spiff and the others.” “Airspace is clear now,” Al B. agreed. “They should be able to…” And then his instruments screamed about the dimensional rift opening above him; a huge one, a gaping hole for invasion. He jerked his head upwards, appalled. “But the machine was destroyed!” he complained. “It blew up!” And then he heard the chanting and realised that all through the battle nobody had seen the Parody Priests and cultists. Almost a million citizens had been converted to techno-zombies during the Avatar’s campaign. What had happened to their stolen soul energy? The cultists’ chants turned to screams as the furious Manga Shoggoth reformed around them; within them. But it was too late. “A diversion,” Al gasped, his eyes stinging with tears as he realised that they’d failed. “The big machine was just a trap. A diversion. All of this was just a trap. The portal they’re using is mystical. Occult. And now it’s here!” The midnight skies above flared purple for a moment as the dimensional dreadnaught passed through the rift. Then a second. Then a third. Then a fourth. Al B. Harper closed his eyes. “Game over.” 11.02am local (11.02am PMT) Tukarak Island, Belcher Islands, Hudson Bay, Canada: Amy Aston held out the Holographic Emitter Drone and it sparkled into life as Hallie shifted her consciousness to it from the A/V array. In the background the Canadian Special Forces Unit was leading away the three remaining robots. “Welcome back,” Amy told her friend. Hallie shook her head miserably. A part of her hadn’t wanted to return. “Did we save the day, then?” “Not the day,” the EEE Technician had to admit. “You saved a few minutes of it, though. Maybe a quarter hour?” “For nothing,” Wilma said bitterly as she was dragged outside. “Sharon and Kevin disassembled themselves for nothing. And then we caved.” “Hold it!” Hallie called after the officers. “Wait a minute. Wilma, you didn’t do this for nothing. But the important part wasn’t that you threatened the world with destruction. The important part was that you backed down. How many people do you think saw what you did on TV and now know that robots are more like humans than they ever expected?” How many people heard you say how easily you could take over the planet? Amy wondered, watching the A.I. “Well we surrendered,” Steve told Hallie. “We proved we weren’t like humans. Well, not the worst of humans. We’re better than that.” He looked hard at her. “Now you have to find a way of making all this work. Making our decision make sense. Making the deaths have some meaning. You, Hallie.” He looked over his shoulder at her as he was led out. “I got them to let you live. Now you have to make things right.” 11.02am, Lair Mansion, Operations Room “Report from the Contessa,” Amy called out. “Preliminary reports from the ground forces on the northern and eastern fronts. We’ve retaken Tiyuan and Zhengzhou, and the enemy batteries going after Tianjing have been completely destroyed. Tank forces and infantry are moving towards Beijing now. General MacTaggart is estimating 85% enemy casualties and 10% capture so far. Clean-up’s underway.” “Our chaps?” Sir Mumphrey asked. “Heavy initial losses before the anti-tech field went up, light since.” General Trinnaman looked uncomfortable. “So you did have a part of the plan you were holding close,” he conceded. “Yes,” the eccentric Englishman told him coldly. And then the holo-globe display flashed bright red over Beijing and warning alarms filled the operations room. “Dimensional rifts!” Kat cried out disbelievingly. “Four of them! Huge. And… things are coming through them. Big things!” At that point LairSat Four managed to lock on with a camera feed from high orbit so the horrified people in the Operations Room could see the dimensional dreadnaughts as they arrived. 12.03am local (11.03am PMT) Worker’s Stadium, Beijing, Beijing Province, China “What’s happening?” asked Visionary fuzzily. “I’ve lost contact with the Lair Mansion again.” There was something wrong with his holographic emitter. He could only see huge black shadows crowing out the night sky, things vast as cities high above. He crawled over the wreckage until he found Lara Night. He couldn’t tear his virtual coat to make bandages for her raw red wounds. She wasn’t moving. For all her power she was as vulnerable as any human woman. A little way further on the Librarian and ManMan were sprawled near to Citizen Z and Lisa. Yuki and PAPG! were tangled together beyond that. But over the city the dimensional dreadnaughts reigned. Suddenly the rest of Vizh’s HED systems decided to start working again. He looked up and saw the electromagnetic rainbow that was four city-sized warships in close formation over Beijing. “Gah!” “It seems we’ve been outflanked,” Knifey noted. “Just one ship like those was enough to devastate Earth’s defence forces at the onset of this war. It took an irreplaceable asset to defeat them. Now there are four up there.” “The rifts are shut,” Al B. Harper announced, crawling through the wreckage to join Visionary. “That’s all they can send through.” “That’s all they need,” Visionary said with a sinking feeling. The list of people he’d failed, failed to protect, rippled through him like an icy chill. Two of the dreadnaughts powered up their weapons. The lower of the two oriented them on the identified threats at the ruins of the Worker’s Stadium. There were some exhausted Parody Priests down there too but they were acceptable losses. A canyon a five hundred miles across ought to eliminate most of the opposition. The higher of the dreadnaughts fired first though. It hammered its full battery onto the top of the lower vessel, so close that it literally broke the great ship into pieces, spilling it down in blazing fragments atop ruined Beijing. “What?” gasped Al B. “I mean… what?” The higher dreadnaught didn’t wait for the other to fall. It swerved sideways, raking its armoured lower parts over the control towers of another dreadnaught then launching another barrage into the exposed innards. It rocked crazily as it flew through the fireball it had created and began to exchange fire with the last of the remaining fleet. “That top dreadnaught,” Visionary asked uncertainly. “Does it look to have been repainted… pink? With… white shapes along the side?” 12.03am local (11.03am PMT) Bridge of the Dimensional Dreadnaught Bunny of Crossness, over Beijing, China “All systems are functioning within, well, expected parameters,” NTU-150 reported. He sounded almost surprised. “We got the drop on the Grief of Empires. She’s going down south of the urban centre.” “Is to be good,” approved the pure thought being in the captain’s chair. “Is to be two down and one to go.” “We won’t take this last one by surprise,” Enty warned. “They’ve raised their shields and they’re coming after us. They’re preparing particle cannons.” Yo turned to the young woman on monitor screen number two. “Cute Lileblanche?” “We are ready,” the princess of Esperine reported. “Two hundred battle-mages ready to make a gateway to the heart of the enemy’s vessel.” “To be doing of it, please,” Yo called. Enty jinked the Bunny of Crossness to one side, barely avoiding the first returning fire from the last of the other dreadnaughts. Both of the vessels were still at minimum power after the transdimensional jumps or the devastation would have been much swifter and more widespread. “Soon would be good,” he admitted. Lileblanche concentrated her mind to tie together the disparate occult energies of her world’s finest combat magicians. All they needed was to punch through the scientific anti-teleport barriers around the bridge of the Acts of Vengeance; and science was such a weak tool. With a ripple of sorceries (it took a moment for the mages to attune to the different arcane fields of a parallel Earth) the gateway opened. “Charge!” Sir John de Jaboz called to the Knights Improbable who waited on their steeds to invade the enemy’s dreadnaught. Yo gave orders to bring the Bunny of Crossness up against the remaining enemy dreadnaught and prevent it firing on the ground below. His/her own ship rocked as the Acts of Vengeance brought her arsenal to bear on her treacherous sister-ship. “We’re taking damage!” Enty warned as the console in front of him flared and exploded. “To be holding on, cute Yo-friends,” s/he spoke to the Lair Legion s/he could see scattered on the broken ground far below. “Is to be not time to be giving up of now!” 12.04am local (11.04am PMT), Worker’s Stadium, Beijing, Beijing Province, China Al B. fumbled portable omnioculars from his lab coat and focussed on the battle. “Those white shapes,” he observed. “On the pastel dreadnaught. They appear to be bunnies.” Vizh began to giggle hysterically. “Yo!” he hiccupped. “He was trapped in the Swordrealms when the barrier went up, him and Enty. We sent them there to repair that captured dimensional dreadnaught. And then they couldn’t get back. They couldn’t get back until…” “Until somebody opened a flaming huge rift through the Celestian barrier!” Al B! realised. And above them the Bunny of Crossness took down the third and last of the Parody Master’s dreadnaughts, dropping it down on the burning city to shatter into a massive fireworks display. Yo’s vessel had been worked upon by NTU-150. It had been improved, and its captain thought s/he could win. It limped off to settle away from the combat zone and make repairs. Citizen Z – or her costume at any rate – summoned the reserve Z-Wing so the heroes could make a hasty exit before the inferno around them finished them all off. 9.23pm local (8.23am PMT), People’s Hospital, Qinhuangdao, Hebai Province, China “Ouch,” said spiffy. He looked around and realised he was in a hospital bed with tubes stuck into him. “Hey, soldier,” Beverly Campbell greeted him, leaning over to kiss the wounded man. “Okay,” Mark Hopkins judged. “Pain bad but kiss good. What happened?” “The Lair Legion borrowed you and sent you back broken,” Bev reported. “Apparently the Avatar thought you needed more stitches on your torso.” spiffy remembered the avasword going in. He didn’t remember the four hours in surgery. A new thought came into his painkiller-hazed head. “If I’m here and you’re here who’s running Badripoor?” His P.A. and lover blew through her lips to show that wasn’t the main concern at the moment while spiffy was being fed with whole blood and a protein drip. “It’s taken care of,” she promised him. “I left Fetish Lad in charge,” “You left… Fetish Lad in charge,” repeated spiffy. “Fetish Lad.” “Nurse!” called Bev worriedly. “I think he’s redlining again! Hurry!” 10.02pm, Lair Mansion, Infirmary “Is good to be back!” Yo beamed, hugging virtual Visionary until the neophyte A.I. fuzzed with static. “Is good to be back with all Yo-friends!” Jamie Bautista watched the feedback problem on Visionary’s HED. “You know I could fix that,” he offered with a thoughtful look on his face. “I had a few ideas while we were in the Swordrealms. If you could just find me a small nuclear power source and a Scalextric…” “No, that’s fine, honestly,” Vizh answered hurriedly. “Moo’s growing me a new body. It’ll be ready in a month or so.” He didn’t mention the diabolical Doctor’s uncontrollable moo-ha-ha-ing every time she saw him. Hatman emerged from the sick bay swathed in bandages and limping, but grinning widely. “That was a very timely return,” he told Yo and NTU-150. “I’ve never been so happy to see a bunny in my life! Not, um, that I don’t value all your bunny stuff, Yo. Er, but don’t feel I need to be given more bunnies either. I have just the right amount of bunnies. Honestly.” “I’m ashamed to say I’d almost forgotten that we’d left you to fix up a broken captured dreadnaught,” Vizh confessed. “But that just made the last minute return that much better!” “Yo is glad to be surprising of Visi!” the genderless thought being giggled. “Oh, I think Vizh might be able to surprise you back this time,” Hatty predicted, thinking of Magweed and Griffin. An LED on NTU-150’s battlesuit beeped. “That’s the pager,” he told the others. “We’re wanted in the Meeting Room.” He looked serious now. “I guess it’s time to hear the scores.” 10.15pm, Lair Mansion, Meeting Room The battered Legion took their places round the same table where the mission briefing had taken place scarcely twenty-four hours before. Hatman, ManMan, Lisa, and the Librarian were all bandaged up. Yuki kept rubbing the newly-repaired skin around her neck housing. The Shoggoth was also bandaged, but that was to stop him dribbling. Dribbling more than usual, that is. Visionary felt quite guilty that he’d only needed to download into a new HED to be as good as new. Citizen Z looked undamaged and didn’t feel guilty about it at all. Al B. and Enty were missing but Yo had joined the people round the table this time. “Operation Oriental Dark was a success,” declared Sir Mumphrey Wilton. “Costly, but a success. We’ve regained air cover and ground forces are flushing out the last of the enemy now. A lot of the Avaforces equipment lost its programming and hasn’t reset, so we finally have the advantage. That enclave of Avawarriors is broken, the territory they occupied is reclaimed, the dead they violated are being put to rest.” “Ebony and I are chasing down the last of them now,” the Shoggoth reported from inside his bandages. “Beijing centre is a total loss,” Yuki Shiro reported. “Anvil Man is dead.” She paused a moment then continued. “PsychoAcidPervGirl! unfortunately survived, and she has the same fast-healing talent as her brother so she’ll be as good as new in a couple of days.” “I thanked her,” ManMan reported. “For her efforts. I thought someone should.” “She thanked him back too,” snickered Knifey. “With tongues.” “Poor uncute Anvil Man,” Yo mourned. “Is to be good that he is to be going out doing of good though.” “And it’s great to have you back,” Hatman told the pure thought being. “The dimensional dreadnaught is an added bonus.” “Enty and Al B. are fixing it up again right now,” Lisa reported. “Six or eight weeks or so and it’ll be good to go again.” She looked around the battered team. “A bit like the LL.” “Let’s hope we get six weeks then,” the Librarian commented. “The Avatar is gone,” Knifey noted with satisfaction. “The Parody Master’s going to have to go recruiting.” “Lara’s healing at an accelerated rate as well,” Visionary reported. “Her powers are returning too, but slower.” Hatman shifted uncomfortably in his own bandages. “Yeah. I kind of maxxed out my powers as well. Hopefully they’ll recover in the next few days.” “And dear Beth Shellett is showing some improvement,” Citizen Z added disingenuously. “How marvellous.” “We also sort of lost that Savage Park anti-tech generator,” ManMan pointed out. “Does that mean we’ve wrecked Savage Park?” “There are five of those machines,” Hatty reported. “We proved before that any four will maintain the zone.” He paused a moment before adding, “I’m gonna let spiffy explain it to Caveguy though.” Citizen Z shook her head. “If the anti-tech generators work so effectively, we have to consider sacrificing Savage Park and using the other four.” “The Avaforces will learn from this setback and shield themselves next time,” the Shoggoth pointed out. “We will require a different plan to beat them again.” “Maybe a less painful one?” suggested Visionary, looking at the bruises, scorches, and bandages round the table. Mumphrey turned back to the maps on the flipchart in front of him. “I know you all got banged up,” he told them, “but you won a major victory today. First rate. For the first time since this war began we’re holdin’ the line. If Donar and the others can plug up the Faerie invasion route and give the Parody Blighter a bloody nose there like we did here then we might just get the breather we need for the next bit of the plan.” “Next bit?” Yo asked. “Taking the battle to the Parody Master,” Hatman replied. “But we’re going to need some preparation time. And recovery time.” “Six weeks,” declared Sir Mumphrey Wilton. “Six weeks to get in shape. Six weeks to get our intel. Six weeks to gather together every soldier we can muster. And then we go. We take this war to the Parody Master and ram it down his throat.” “Is good,” Yo agreed. “Is to be good.” Coming Next: “Where No Juniors Have Gone Before” Dramatis Personae: The Lair Legion: Hatman (Jay Boaz, leader), capped crusader with the ability to take on the powers associated with whatever headgear he wears Lisa L. Waltz, first lady of the Lair Legion, with abilities to summons people to her and a dimension-cutting whip Visionary, possibly fake man and currently trapped in hologram form while a new body is grown for him The Manga Shoggoth, gelid loathsome elder being The Librarian (Lee Bookman), keeper of the Lunar Public Library, the last repository of irreplaceable data of the Intergalactic Order of Libraries Al B. Harper, archscientist, founder of Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises, and overworked genius Yuki Shiro (tactical officer), purple-haired anarchistic cyborg private investigator ManMan (Lee Bookman), Elvis impersonating wielder of sentient talking knife Knifey. Citizen Z (Baroness Elizabeth von Zemo, but thought by Hatman to be Laurie “Lisette Leyton), disguised would-be world conqueror wearing villainess Silicone Sally as a combat suit. spiffy (Mark Hopkins), retired Legionnaire and currently the President-for-Life of the rogue nation state of Badripoor has an energy-manipulating symbiotic head-fern. He was only sixteen when he joined the Legion as a founder member, and most of the team from that time recall him as the youngster amongst them. NTU-150 (Jamie Bautista), retired Legionnaire and eccentric engineering genius, wears a life-preserving high-tech battle armour. He travelled to the alternate reality of the Swordrealms to salvage a fallen dimensional dreadnaught. Now he’s back. Yo is a pure genderless thought being from Yo-planet, able to be what s/he believes s/he us. Yo also journeyed to the Swordrealms, where Yo is held in great reverence as liberator of the people. Yo is also back. Lair Legion Support Staff: Hallie, computer sentience who recently suffered an attack which destroyed her virtual reality databanks, causing the death of the robot lifeforms who had been digitised there. Amber St Clare is the Lair Legion’s liaison officer with the U.S. government, and currently serves in a wider capacity co-ordinating with Sir Mumphrey Wilton’s joint Earth defence force. Robot Arm Zeke is a seventy-foot long flying robot arm, all that was completed of a hobby project by Legion founder NTU-150. Fitz the Barnstorming Monkey is, well, a barnstorming monkey pilot who occasionally gets pulled in by the LL for flying duties that no sane homo sapiens would dare to take on. Amy Aston is Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises’ resident engineer, five foot six of spitfire dungaree-clad oily tech-babe. Villains: The Avatar is the Parody Master’s principal lieutenant, the greatest of his warriors and leader of his countless legions. Equipped with red and black futuristic body armour that enhances his physical abilities and with molecule thick Avasword and energy reflecting Avashield, and able to call upon the abilities of his Master to ramp up his power as required, the Avatar is a dangerous and difficult opponent. The Avatar in this chapter is at least the third warrior to hold the position. Roddy, Wilma, and Steve are three of the diminished population of urban robots who can pass for human under casual inspection. Guest Villains: The Hole Man is a subterranean tyrant who hid from humanity because of his awful disfigurements and chronic B.O. to become the master of the hidden holeoid creatures and their salvaged underground Deviate technology. PscyhoAcidPervGirl! (Gwendolyne Lyons) is CrazySugarFreakBoy!’s twisted little sister. She possesses the same basic powers as him but has elected to use her power to become a supervillain. She recently reconciled with her family and is trying to make a new start. Anvil Man (Brendan MacGillicuddy) is a career mercenary supervillain whose rusty unremovable mystical body armour grants him massive strength, indestructibility, and the ability to make objects nearby him detonate. Senior Auditor Blay-Kee is one of the disciplinary audit department of the Order of Intergalactic Libraries, currently trapped at Lee Bookman’s Lunar Public Library. He’s not a happy person. The Supreme Interference appears on screen as a tentacle-haired Mr Potato-Head but is actually a massive bio-computer created from the engrams of the greatest genius of the Skree Star Empire. The brilliant and ruthless former absolute ruler of the Skree was finally shut down and archived away by Lee Bookman. Until now. The Hooded Hood is a retcon-wrangling archvillain secretly gathering together a team of crack supervillains for his Purveyors of Peril for reasons as yet unrevealed. His Portal of Pretentiousness is an ancient artefact allowing him to observe at a distance and transport people even in defiance of the Celestian barrier. More information in The Hooded Hood’s Writer’s Guide. Others: Eloise Shellett, mother of Beth Shellett, Goldeneyed’s maybe-girlfriend who was recently critically injured and disfigured in the attack on Hallie. Eloise isn’t a fan of the Lair Legion. Lara Night is an elemental, a living personification of elemental power, from a different multiverse beyond the Parodyverse, sent by the omnipotent entity Shema to monitor and possibly influence the course of the Parody War. Sir Mumphrey Wilton is the commanding officer of the joint Earth defence force, de facto leader of the world’s defence against the Parody Master. The Dark Knight is a borderline-insane wanted rogue vigilante currently preying on the secret conspiracy that seeks to benefit from the disruptions of the Parody War. General Jack Trinnaman is one of the conspirators seeking to bring forward the agenda of control of the mysterious Shadow Cabinet. Jury, now a guest of the Hooded Hood’s at Herringcarp Asylum, is the former Shaper of Worlds, a powerful cosmic office holder tasked with the beginnings of narratives. Princess Lileblanche of Elsinore is the daughter of one of the Ruling Council of Esperine, the alternate reality recently tangled with the Swordrealms into one plane. Lileblanche is the most powerful ESPer of her generation. Some call her a witch. Sir John de Jaboz is son of the High Commander of the Knights Improbablar of the alternate reality Swordrealms. His parents were his reality’s versions of Jay Boaz and Grace O’Mercy. Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2006 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2006 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. |
