Untold Tales of the Lair Legion #346: Deep Down
 Go to part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, briefing notes.
Previously: A new Lair Legion has lined up – but there’s a huge bounty on their heads from the criminal underworld. While Training Officer Hatman takes the newcomers on their first field exercise the rest of the team must deal with the assassination order. The problems? The murders were ordered by many more than one villain, and the training trip is to one of the strangest places on Earth.
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***
The great two-headed pterodactyl screeched once then power-dived towards the LairJet.
It was distracted from its attack by a shower of meat, then by a great cloud of choking carbon dust, then by a high wall of searing flame. As it wheeled aside there was a flash of bright yellow light as Goldeneyed teleported Citizen Z atop the beast. The undead avenger stabbed her battle-stave deep into the creature’s neck, blasting it with psionic waves of fear.
The monster screeched again, this time in terror not anger. As it shook G-Eyed and CZ free Silicone Sally snaked out of the LairJet hatch and snatched them from their fall.
“Not bad,” Hatman told the group from behind the aircraft’s steering yoke. “In fact I’d call that very promising.”
The monster wheeled away into the distance. Alcheman reformed from carbon dust to his familiar human shape. Ham-Boy closed the outer hatch after him. Vinnie De Soth dropped his sick bag in the trash bin. “Promising?” said Vinnie. “I’d call it a flaming great pterodactyl.”
Liu Xi Xian reached over to soothe her lover. “It wasn’t one of the firebreathing monsters,” she comforted the acting sorcerer supreme, “Otherwise it could have ignited the LairJet before it ever got close.”
Hatman arced the Lair Legion aircraft down towards a rocky plateau near the summit of Mount Ranai and switched to VTOL to set the vehicle down. “Next test,” he told the new intake of Legionnaires, “Who can tell me about this place?”
Silicone Sally shuddered. “Nobody told me there’d be a pop quiz. I think I brought a note.”
Alcheman believed in being prepared. “We’re about nine hundred metres up the largest mountain on Natuna Besar, the biggest of about two hundred seventy small landmasses that make up the Natuna Islands in the Raiu Islands province of Indonesia. The place is noted for its remarkable avifauna, with seventy-one species of bird registered, including the near-threatened Lesser Fish-eagle, the Natuna Serpent-eagle, the rare Silvery Pigeon…”
“Are we going to fight any of them?” hissed Citizen Z, “Because otherwise I don’t need the briefing.”
“The Green Iora, the Brown Fulvetta and the Green Broadbill,” concluded Alcheman determinedly.
“I’m pleased that Alcheman took the time to look up some background,” approved Hatman. “Sometimes the smallest detail can help, and you don’t know what that might be till it comes round.”
“But in deference to your objections I’ll omit describing Natuna Banded Leaf Monkey,” offered Alcheman. “Even if it is amongst the twenty-five most endangered primates on Earth.”
“Don’t blame me,” Silicone Sally declared, by reflex.
Ham-Boy craned his neck to look out of the LairJet’s windshield. “So why are we here?” he wondered. “Are we saving the Natuna Banded Leaf Monkey?”
“More importantly,” said Goldeneyed, “why am I here, Hatty? I can see you wanting to take the newbies on a shake-down flight, see what they can do and stuff, but I’m old school. I’ve both been there and done that.”
“You’ve been out of the game for a long time,” Liu Xi Xian pointed out. “You may have skills that need honing.”
“That’s pretty much it, Bry,” Hatman admitted. “We felt bringing you on the training expedition was a good way to get you back in harness.”
“I notice nobody tried to bring Sir Mumphrey along to save the monkeys,” muttered G-Eyed.
“I don’t think we’re here for the monkeys,” predicted Vinnie de Soth. He stared out over the bright canopy of trees and the coral reef beyond but his eyes were drawn back to the stark majesty of Mount Ranai. “There’s mystical activity here. Old, faded, almost forgotten but…”
“Dimensional activity too,” Goldeneyed admitted. “Somewhere in that direction.”
“Interesting,” noted Hatman. “So the trip’s paying off already. Okay, listen up and I’ll brief you fully.”
“Can you brief us fully outside so I can work on my tan?” checked Sally. Citizen Z glared at her.
“A briefing would be good,” Ham-Boy admitted. “After that battle at WallyWorld we all got hustled onto a LairJet and brought here so fast we didn’t even get time to pack.”
“There’s survival kits in the lockers,” Hatty assured him. “But it seems like the criminal underworld has put a price on new Legionnaire heads. Vizh thought it would be a good idea to get you folks out of the firing line for a few days while that gets sorted out.”
“We could sort it out ourselves,” Citizen Z hissed. “That sort of thing should be discouraged.”
“In this case Donar and the Shoggoth will be doing the disencouraging,” Hatman noted. “With an assist from CSFB!, Yuki, and Al B. I think they’ll have it covered.”
“While we check out the underworld opening to Aggartha here on Natuna Besar,” Vinnie surmised. When everyone turned to look at him he blushed.
“Hey, Vinnie’s sorcerer supreme,” Liu Xi defended him. “He’s supposed to know this kind of stuff.”
“An opening to the underworld?” Silicone Sally frowned. “What underworld?”
“On the whole I think I preferred WallyWorld,” admitted Ham-Boy. “At least the departments where people weren’t trying to kill me.”
Alcheman pulled the lever that operated the door hydraulics and the new team of Legionnaires carried their equipment down onto the plateau shelf. A clear blue sky was now helpfully free of multi-headed pterodactyls. The spectacular cliffs cascaded down to a lush rainforest. Beyond that the sea sparkled in the morning light.
“Not bad,” admitted Silicone Sally. “Could have used a few nightclubs and a cabana pool but we can rough it.” She peeled off her jacket to reveal a brief black bikini top.
“The pretty view’s over this way,” Liu Xi pointed out to Vinnie, shading her eyes from the sun and opening her elemental senses to the full. She could feel the island from its deep rocky roots to the sparkling sea lapping at its shore. And something else…
G-Eyed smacked his hand to his forehead. “Of course! Mount Ranai! Citizen Z – the other, original CZ, I mean, the evil one that turned out to be Beth von Zemo – she came here during the Parody War to cut a deal for us with the Hole Man. There’s a shaft here that goes down into his subterranean kingdom.”
“There are several such entrances,” remembered Alcheman, who had once been engaged to a world-class explorer. “Mount Epomeo in Italy, Brazil’s Mato Grosso, the Kentucky Mammoth Cave, King Solomon’s Mines…”
“The Great Pyramid of Giza,” contributed Vinnie.
“And also Monster Isle, which probably explains the guard-pterodactyl,” reasoned Goldeneyed. “Yeah, aren’t there ancient Deviate tunnels that have weird shortcuts allowing really-quick travel all round the planet?”
Ham-Boy nodded. “I remember reading that in one of Dr Wrichards’ old accounts of his fantastic adventures with his three partners, when he stopped the Hole Man stealing London.”
“All of you are right,” agreed Jay Boaz. “And these Deviate tunnels have been on the Legion’s to-do list for some time. We’ve just not got around to looking at them, making an assessment of them.”
“We’re going to explore Deviate tunnels?” frowned Silicone Sally.
“I’m sure it won’t be your first time,” declared Citizen Z.
“So I don’t particularly like dark underground passages,” snapped Sally Rezilyant. “What are you going to do, arrest me again?”
Liu Xi Xian moved over to look down the deep vertical shaft. “There’s some vast primal forces dormant down there,” she noted.
“For sure,” agreed Vinnie de Soth, glancing back at his new team-mates.
“We’d better get going if we’re going to find answers,” suggested Alcheman.
Deep down.
***
When the folks in Nugent, Omaha, talked in disapproving tones about Druzie’s being one of those bars and advised their youngsters to stay clear what they actually meant was it was one of the chain of underground supervillain recruitment centres dotted across the planet. Druzie’s was one of the places where a metahuman criminal on the run could hide out, where a villain seeking work could contact Justus Screwdriver of Factor X, where a thug looking to sign up as a minion could hire out his muscle.
Usually it looked like a roadside biker bar, populated by some heavy-drinking heavier-beergutted gang members and a few working girls. Today, quite a line was forming at a trestle over by the backroom behind the juke box. Today was recruitment day.
The procedure was simple. Hopefuls queued up and filled out a brief form covering their health, criminal record, and skillset. Help was at hand from Screwdriver’s recruitment team for those who had trouble with the idea of pens, perhaps a quarter of the candidates in line. Likely candidates were taken into the backroom for a genescan and medical assessment by Dr Hate; those who met the personality profile and physical potential could begin their new lives as minions, enforcers, toadies, or, for a possibly-fortunate few, raw material for illegal metahuman enhancement techniques. The survivors of that process would have higher-paid jobs waiting for them.
Druzie’s was hardly a major recruitment centre, so when the recruitment team turned up there was always a line. Half a dozen bored metahuman muscle-men who ran security for Dr Hate’s team leaned at the bar and by the door assessing the hookers while the local yokels signed up for cannon-fodder duty.
There were some potentials today, though. The kid who did those tricks with flick-knives might have a future on some wanted list. Ferrethands got a decent contract offer, although somebody had to sign for him and he required a special clause about help going to the bathroom. And the huge mountain man in the shabby long-coat drew attention just by his sheer bulk.
“Name?” the bored clerk at the trestle asked the big man.
“Donar,” replied the giant with a small, unfriendly grin. “I art called Donar Oldmanson.”
The clerk looked up, suddenly less bored. “Donar? That metahuman name’s already taken by…”
“By me,” agreed the hemigod of thunder, leaning over the desk. “Hast thou a problem with that?”
“D-donar?” stammered the clerk, gesturing wildly to the strength-enhanced enforcers round the room. “Donar!”
“Aye. ‘Tis said that some felon hast placed a bounty upon new members of mine team. The Lair Legion wish to express our displeasure at this for the nonce. I hath come to discover of thee at what addresses our displeasure shouldst best be expressed.”
“Get him!” screamed the clerk. “Pile on! Bring him down!”
Donar slammed the first guard through the juke box and the wall beyond, flattening Dr Hate and Ferrethands under collapsing bar-room.
The Ausgardian cracked his knuckles. “Bringeth it on.”
***
The Legion flew down the vertical hole, Alcheman in gaseous form, Vinnie and Liu Xi joining Citizen Z on her Z-wing flyer and Ham-Boy and G-Eyed roped by Silicone Sally’s flexible form and carried down by Hatman with his Rockets cap. Once out of the light of the sun and into the deep shadow the shaft became bitter cold. Liu Xi Xian generated heat and light for the travellers.
It took around two minutes to reach the bottom of the shaft. Alcheman did a quick depth calculation and shook his head. “Why isn’t the pressure crushing us?” he worried.
“You’ve complaining?” asked Ham-Boy.
“Keep all the scanners rolling,” called Hatman as he exchanged his Rockets cap for a spelunker’s helmet. “We need to record as much information for Al B. and Hallie as possible.”
“There are dimensional shelves here,” Goldeneyed confirmed. “I think I’d better stick to line-of-sight teleporting unless it’s an emergency. Liu Xi, you’d better nix the void-folding too.”
“I’m not using void any more,” the elementalist replied. “It turned… problematical. I’m working on my abilities with the other primal states.”
“Like Georgia and Alabama?” suggested Silicone Sally.
Alcheman peered around him at the basalt shaft. “I’m not sure if this is natural or artificially made,” he admitted. “It’s fascinating in any case. I wonder who carved these shapes?”
“Shapes?” Ham-Boy puzzled. “Oh great, now I can see faces in the patterns and that’s going to keep creeping me out!”
“You can see faces in the patterns because somebody carved faces,” Liu Xi suggested.
Vinnie moved over to the wall and admired the huge crude carvings etched across the stone. “The Deviates were here too.”
“Well, we knew they built underground constructs,” said Hatman, looking round with his miner’s helmet on.
“Can I get the Cliff’s notes on the Deviates next?” Silicone Sally asked Alcheman.
“Not from me,” admitted the chemical champion. “I’ve heard them mentioned but…”
“The Celestian Space Robots came to Earth in prehistory,” Goldeneyed supplied; after all, he’d been to that time period. “On their first visit they force-evolved two sets of proto-humans, one to the unchanging immortal Austernals and the other to the ever-morphing irregular Deviates. And then the two sides set about seriously trying to kill each other.”
“Eventually half a dozen master Deviates rose from the long war,” Vinnie chipped in. “One based on each of the six senses.”
“There are six now?” fretted Ham-Boy.
“Minimum,” confirmed Citizen Z.
“You even met one of the Greater Deviates yesterday,” Hatman told the world’s meatiest hero. “Gromm, the Living Flatulence. Although technically that Gromm’s a version from another reality, brought here long ago by the Hooded Hood. All this world’s Deviates have been eliminated or bound now.”
“So these tunnels have been abandoned a long time,” reasoned CZ. “That means all kinds of other things probably moved in, right?”
“The Hole Man, for example,” guessed Alcheman.
“And he had to get those holeoid servitors from somewhere,” added G-Eyed.
“There are legends of the ancient realm of Aggartha,” offered Vinnie. “It was plundered by the people of Shangri-La, long before Shangri-La fell.”
Citizen Z looked up sharply. “Shangri-La? Jarvis’ first wife came from there. They were aliens.”
“And Shangri-La’s another old footnote we’re just not going to get into,” said Goldeneyed determinedly. “So what are we looking for, Hatty?”
Hatman pointed to the tunnels running away through the carved mouths of the monsters making up the wall frieze. “We’re going to spend a few days checking out these passages. Mapping them if we can. Camping out. Learning to work together. Becoming a team.”
“We should have brought marshmallows,” said Silicone Sally.
Ham-Boy put his hand up. “I can manage wieners,” he offered.
“This should be a fascinating exploration,” admitted Alcheman, moving forward. He ignited his hand to light the way with a phosphorous glare.
“Right up to the point where the monsters jump us and rip us to shreds,” replied Goldeneyed; he’d done this kind of Legion mission before.
***
The B.A.L.D. research facility in Rakvere, Estonia specialised in psionic development. Security was enhanced by the guards each leading round a straight-jacketed telepath, unsuccessful test subjects that still possessed sufficient mental enhancement to sense intruders or to squirt a brain-frying psi-bolt at an attacker.
Yuki set up a counterwave to further shield her already protected human brain inside it robot skull and dropped the guards with just enough inefficiency to make it fun. She was more merciful putting the telepaths on the ground.
“All clear,” she transmitted without speaking out loud along her comm-channel.
“Jolly good,” came back the crusty tones of Sir Mumphrey Wilton. “Best be letting the ungodly know that we’ve arrived, what?”
“Letting them know right now.” Yuki kicked the reinforced front door across the reception lobby. There was a gratifying array of sirens.
The Chief Scientist on site was in bed at the time of the Legion raid. It had been timed like that. He woke from an uneasy sleep – the telepathic signals tended to bleed despite the psi-buffers so nobody at the Rakvere Compound ever really had good dreams – and staggered to his computer console.
“Emergency purge protocol Mengele,” he ordered the machine. The computer sent a micro-data-pulse along the secure line to B.A.L.D. central lab half a world away then began a rapid hard-drive scrub. For some reason the scrub was much faster than expected.
“That’d be because I’ve time-shifted your actual computer-innard whoosits off to the future, I’d imagine,” Sir Mumphrey explained to the baffled Chief Scientist. “Got some colleagues who’d be interested in readin’ the stuff on there, what? And it’ll be needed for your trial.”
Behind Sir Mumphrey the trained combat telepaths discovered that the eccentric Englishman had long since learned how to use his temporal pocketwatch to baffle psionic assaults and mind control. Then Yuki Shiro dropped on them from the ceiling space like a small pink-haired act of God.
“Needed you to send the emergency signal, though,” Sir Mumphrey explained as he aged the Chief Scientist’s weapons to dust and strode forward. “Did you get what you wanted, Miss Shiro?”
Yuki crumpled an expensive defence droid to scrap metal between her hands. “Oh yeah. The tap I put on their buried comm-lines will let me trace that emergency pulse all the way through their relay beacons back to their HQ. I think we got MODEM’s home address.”
“Splendid, m’dear. Did you require this blighter conscious for any reason?”
“No, I think we’ve got what we came for.”
“Top hole,” approved Sir Mumphrey, and smote the Chief Scientist with the enthusiasm of a man half his age.
***
Hatman decided to end the first day’s hike in a massive crystal chamber that had its own soft luminescence. Ancient hands had carved some of the glassy columns in the same brutal style as the bas-reliefs the explorers had been encountering all day.
“Folks who can scan for stuff better do it now,” said Hatman, reaching for his own deerstalker for a bout of Sherlock Holmes diagnostics.
“Same dimensional energies as all the rest of the tunnels,” Goldeneyed sensed. “Seems strongest in those glowing lines that light up the walls. Here they run right through the crystal columns.”
“That’d be vril,” Vinnie supplied. “A mystic earth-force that emanates from the world’s core. Some people claim there’s a second sun down there, but mostly I think that’s an analogy for the vril nexus. Of course, this being the Parodyverse you can never be too sure.”
“There are great elemental energies here,” agreed Liu Xi. The young elementalist laid a hand on one of the sparkling pillars. “Massive telluric pulses, like the world’s heartbeat. Somebody shaped them, once, channelling the power like humans make water canals.”
“There are no spirits of the dead,” Citizen Z contributed. “Everything here is so old that even the echoes of life have faded away.”
“Cheery,” swallowed Ham-Boy. “So even the ghosts stay away from here.”
Alcheman stared round at the great bell-shaped chamber, admiring the natural cathedral of glass. “This is fascinating, though. We’re looking at the artefact of a culture that prospered and died before humans had discovered fire. A whole species with its own rituals and traditions and laws and goals. I can’t begin to imagine what they were like. There’s a lifetime’s work of anthropology and archaeology down here.”
“But no wine bars,” sighed Silicone Sally. She stretched her arms to loosen herself up. “And no sauna places.”
“If we’re camping here for the night I could manage a pool of hot water,” Liu Xi offered. “If I throw in a little air manipulation I could probably get us a jacuzzi.”
G-Eyed approved. “Not enough of our adventures include hot tubs.”
Hatman released a pre-programmed Holographic Display Emitter. Usually the small floating mechanical eggs acted as receptacles for Hallie’s computer consciousness. In this case it just followed its pre-programmed recording cycle so that the sights and sounds and energy readings of the site could be examined back at the Lair Mansion.
Liu Xi led the girls in the party off to find a private bathing spot. Alcheman unshipped the pile of carbon-based rocks he’d been gathering up on the journey and piled them in a makeshift hearth. He ran his hands over them, shifting his form to chemically react with the stones until he’d got a fair equivalent of coal, then smeared a little of himself over it as accelerant before lighting a campfire.
“That’s a neat trick,” admired Vinnie. “I might have one too.”
“I was warned never to play cards with a sorcerer,” Ham-Boy remembered.
“Or a Sorceress,” G-Eyed shuddered. “Especially when she suggests strip poker.”
Hatman grinned. “This is something Vinnie and I were discussing earlier. His trick, that is, not a game of strip poker. We’re kind of trying to get past the Lisa induction procedures.”
“There’s three people on this new team who want to retain their secret identities,” Vinnie pointed out. “Four, if we count Goldeneyed wanting to conceal his name and, um, race, from the general public.”
“It’s nothing personal,” Ham-Boy assured them. “But I managed to go through my entire Juniors training as HB without having to take my mask off and…”
“I’ve learned first hand that it’s dangerous to be publicly known,” Alcheman said in grimmer tones. “I went to a good deal of trouble to undo that mistake.”
“And that’s your choice,” Hatman assured him. “The Lair charter guarantees anonymity. But it still makes long trips like this, or undercover work in plain clothes, pretty difficult.”
Alcheman remembered his recent visit to Profanity’s escort agency. “Point.”
“That’s why I worked on these obfuscation talismans,” Vinnie explained. “It’s a fairly simple spell, really, but it should conceal your secret identities pretty well. While you wear these you can take your masks off – to eat, for example, if they’re full face like G-Eyed’s or Citizen Z’s, or just for comfort – and nobody will be able to recognise you, or photograph you, or anything.”
Goldeneyed took one of the medallions and slipped it over his head. He peeled his black facemask away and turned to Hatman. “Jay?”
“I can see you,” answered the capped crusader, “but my eyes and mind keep sliding off your description. That’s one clever bit of magic, Vinnie.”
“And one up on your sorcerer supreme predecessor Xander the Improbable,” commented G-Eyed. “I don’t remember ever seeing him do any magic at all.”
“I’m not that good yet,” Vinnie confessed. “I still need spells.”
Ham-Boy cautiously tried out a talisman too. “Well?”
“Ugly,” G-Eyed told him. “Very ugly.”
“What about mages?” Alcheman demanded. “Could other sorcerers see through this illusion?”
“Possibly,” conceded Vinnie, “but before that the talisman would turn cold, giving you warning. And any wizard good enough to get past the obfuscation could just see under your mask anyway.”
“So you could do that?” realised Ham-Boy. “Say, have you taken a peek to see who CZ really is?”
Vinnie shook his head. “Breach of ethics. And also rude.”
“Can’t blame us for being curious, though,” Goldeneyed argued. “I mean, come on, the last CZ turned out to be an archvillain infiltrating the Legion to take over the planet.”
“Vizh has the full story on her this time,” Hatman assured the others. “I guess it’s need-to-know. So we’ll let it lie for now, and hope that some day Citizen Z feels able to tell us a little more about herself.”
“And how she can tell that there aren’t any dead spirits here,” HB noted.
***
HERPES Security Commander Clench opened his bionic hand and dropped the beaten mass of superhero onto the floor. “We found him snooping the perimeter,” he reported. “He’d gotten past the first tier of security but he triggered the biosensors on the second one.”
Watch Officer Seven looked down at the crumpled shape. The blue and gold superhero costume was a little bit worse for wear now. “Who is he?”
“Calls himself Cosmic Commando,” sneered Clench. “See the clever CC logo on his chest, there? I never heard of him. He’s new. Guess he was lookin’ to make a rep, breaking into a HERPES operation on his first go-out.”
“Well, the career of the Cosmic Commando’s going to get cut tragically short on the dissecting bench. Does he have any actual superpowers?”
“He was a little stronger and faster than average, but not fast enough to avoid the tangle nets. I haven’t done a full scan yet for special equipment or gene-enhancement.”
“He’ll tell us himself when we use the torture probes on him.”
Cosmic Commando stirred in his shackles. “Nooo… not the torture probes!”
“He’s awake already?” Watch Officer Seven questioned.
“Thought we kicked more crap outta him than that,” admitted Security Commander Clench. “Maybe he’s got a healing factor? That’ll make interrogating him a lot more fun.”
“Your days of evildoing are over, villains,” warned Cosmic Commando from his foetal position on the Watch Commander’s floor.
“Unmask him,” Seven ordered. “Let’s see who this loser is.”
Cosmic Commando squirmed. “No… you can’t reveal my secret identity. I have to protect my loves ones and spread fear amongst the criminal underworld.”
Clench dragged him up and tore away the blue and gold full-face mask.
A grinning glowing yellow-hued face looked back at him.
“Criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot,” grinned CrazySugarFreakBoy! “Dumb too, to bring me right in past all those levels of security you’ve got on the base.”
The wired wonder kneed the shocked Security Commander in the stomach. He slithered out of his security shackles and hurled them to bring down Watch Officer Seven as the HERPES agent tried to reach to the alarm.
Clench powered up his killing hand.
CrazySugarFreakBoy! silly-stringed him to the wall. While the security agent was struggling free the sucrose superhero leaped to the alarm panel. “Warning, warning!” he called out. “We have intruders on the base. They’re dressed as HERPES agents. All genuine HERPES agents are hereby ordered to remove their pants. That way we’ll know to shoot anybody wearing pants. Arrest any agent that looks like they’re not in regulation underwear. Check closely. Do not panic. This is not a drill!”
Security Commander Clench ripped free from the wall and came at CSFB!, his bionic hand pulsing with killer radiation.
“You do know that you punch like a girl?” CrazySugarFreakBoy! checked as he easily evaded the cyborg. “Worst problem faking being knocked out by you was trying not to laugh.”
“Die, freak!” screamed the livid Clench.
“Been there. Done that. Gave it up.” CSFB! landed a heavy nose-shattering punch on the Security Commander.
“You’re in a major HERPES base and you’re all alone! You have no chance. Hail Herpes! Apply…”
CSFB! had heard the chant before so he put Clench down with a fizz-bang whiz-bang into his spittle-flecked mouth.
“Two down, a base to go,” the wired wonder approved. He set his wrist walkie-talkie to broadcast the Star Wars theme tune at maximum volume from every speaker and comm-channel on the base and went to ask his questions.
***
“I have no wish to bathe. I shall merely keep watch,” Citizen Z told Liu Xi Xian.
“Yeah, I figured you’d be into watching,” sneered Silicone Sally, skinning out of her bodysuit and sliding into the steaming bubbling pool.
The undead avenger glared at the pliable ex-felon. “I’m watching you, Sally Rezilyant,” she warned. “You’ve weaselled some League immunity for your past crimes for now, but one mis-step and I’ll see you destroyed.”
“You mean like when you ambushed me then sent me to prison without any chance to even speak up for myself?” accused Sally. “Do you know what they were going to do to me in the Safe?”
“Give you a tiny taste of the misery and horror you inflicted on other people during your time serving Elizabeth von Zemo?” suggested CZ.
“Hey, time out!” called Liu Xi Xian. “We are supposed to be allies, even if we’re not all friends. We’ve had a long day’s trek and we’re tired and cranky. Let’s just enjoy what relaxation we can and not quarrel.”
“My quarrel goes back a long way and is measured in centuries,” warned Citizen Z.
“Confirms my guess about where you conceal that battle stave when you’re not using it,” said Silicone Sally.
“I mean it,” Liu Xi told them. “That’s enough. I’m the youngest one here. I shouldn’t have to play peacemaker.”
Citizen Z stifled whatever retort she’d been going to make back to Sally. “I’ve waited a long time. I can wait longer.”
Liu Xi was puzzled, though. “You keep saying things like that, about hundreds of years. But I can sense the elements in your body – I can’t help it, I see elemental forces like everyone else sees the visible spectrum – and your body’s not that old. You’re what, twenty? Twenty-five?”
“I’m none of your business.”
“You can see elements?” Sally asked, interested. “That must be amazing. I have a degree in polymer chemistry from University of Michigan.”
Liu Xi almost responded with an incredulous “You?” The qualification didn’t seem to fit with busty blonde Sally’s party-girl image. She caught herself at the last moment.
“Yeah, I have hidden depths,” Sally grinned, reading the Chinese elementalist’s face. “Even nude in a hot tub. So tell me, what do you read about my elemental structure?”
Liu Xi Xian slipped into the pool beside Sally, brushed her fingertips over her team-mate’s face, and concentrated. “Well, you’re made up of some kind of polymer involving silicone and some really weird long-chain molecules I can’t quite read…”
“That’d be the big X-factor from my college chemistry accident that gave me my powers,” Sally admitted. “Anything else?”
“You’re ingesting some silicone-based lubricant to nourish your flexibility. And there’s… I don’t know, some kind of electrochemical force at work in you that I haven’t seen before.”
“That’ll be the bit I don’t understand about what happened when I got transformed, then,” Sally observed. “So far nobody’s been able to work out what that is. Not Beth. Not Leticia. Not Al B. Ah well. I don’t suppose you can conjure up some soap?”
Citizen Z watched the young elementalist intently. “I can see you too, Liu Xi Xian. There is a darkness about you also. A gathering darkness. A void. And you are missing something important, something inside.”
Liu Xi Xian shuddered but did not explain further.
***
Auditor Supreme Wi Shee Wah Shee of the Supreme Inner Ring of the Ass-Raping Ninjas Student Loan Collection Agency sat in his Dojo of Despair putting account dockets on a series of filing spikes and muttering as he worked. “Evisceration… evisceration… gross violation… reclaim body parts… evisceration… foreclose on orifices…”
Somewhere in the distance of the complex there were alarm gongs and muffled sounds of explosion, but Wah Shee did not concern himself with things like that. Such concerns were left for Origami San, leader of the order, and his energetic young martial arts enthusiasts. Wah Shee was a people person; which is to say he enjoyed screwing up people.
“Make a note on client 73392,” he instructed his personal assistant, Squatting Lotus. “He dared to question his interest payments. Ensure that he encounters the Ramrod of My Wrath, preferably in a public place at some family event.”
Squatting Lotus slipped a palmtop from the folds of his mini-kimono and made a note.
Wah Shee shifted position on his bamboo mat to ignore the exploding helicopter that had just tried to lift off from the vehicle compound. Such events were not his concern.
“I note that client 79301 has actually made repayment,” the Auditor Supreme disapproved. “This is not good.” He put that account aside for special consideration; there was always a payment loophole to claim punitive fees. Wah Shee enjoyed ordaining the punishments.
Squatting Lotus ducked as a large fragment of kamiza sliced through the paper wall and whizzed over his head. Wah Shee ignored the distraction and spiked another student claim on the reprisal pile.
“Honoured Wi Shee Wah Shee,” ventured Squatting Lotus, “you have a visitor.”
The Supreme Auditor looked up irritably at the face-bandaged intruder to his Dojo of Doom. “No refunds,” he snapped. “I am very busy. File any claims at the Shimosecki of Sarcasm.”
The Manga Shoggoth didn’t move, except possibly to ooze onto the tatami a little. “The reason you are very busy is because your accounting methods are sloppy,” the loathsome elder being replied in a deep bubbling gurgle.
Wah Shee’s head snapped up, his eyes narrowed in rage. “You dare to criticise…”
“Your problem is that you are holding your financial returns in linear base-ten modular bundles,” the Shoggoth explained, leaning over to inspect the records. “That is very inefficient. Once you eschew Euclidean and Pythagorean fallacies and embrace wider mathematical concepts you will find the work is so much easier and more fun. Also you may regain proper bowel function.”
Wah Shee watched in horror as the Shoggoth flowed from his bandages and enveloped his accounts.
“You need to stop all that financial association of cause and effect,” the Shoggoth went on. “It only leads to time/space and anxiety rashes in private areas… the Great Plateau of Leng, for example. I’ll just reassign these number values to something a little more aesthetically creative and map the adjustments in a trans-temporal manner over your international banking facilities.”
“No, wait!” objected Wah Shee as he tried to follow what the monster was doing, “You’re revoking the loan-base!”
“Nobody should suffer slavery,” growled the Shoggoth, “not even financial slavery. It is wrong. I have rebalanced your accounts to remit such debts and reinvested your holding in mushroom growth on the Hidden Tenth Planet of Ylibb, home of They Whose True Face May Never Be Shown On Wikipedia. There are some interesting mushroom futures just now, and mitosis time is coming.”
“What are you doing?” screeched the Auditor Supreme. “Origami San will destroy you for this!”
The shapeless gelid blob of the Shoggoth moved to indicate a dark lump caught like a fly in amber within it – a fly in jello anyway. “Origami San is busy right now. Meanwhile I am going to recompile your asset books in a more logical and appropriate manner.”
“Nooooo!” shrieked Wah Shee, seizing up his Wakizushi of Wounding and hacking futilely at the elder creature.
“Yes,” insisted the Shoggoth. “Watch carefully as I carry the infinity. Oh, and do not place bounties upon members of the Lair Legion. Visionary does not like it.”
Squatting Lotus’ duties have changed nowadays. Mostly he has to wipe up the Supreme Accountant’s drool and feed him lentil soup.
***
They cooked sausages over the fire, holding them out on sticks even though Liu Xi Xian argued that she could simply order them to cook.
“This is an American tradition,” Goldeneyed explained to the Chinese girl. “A campfire thing.”
“We have campfires in Canada too,” Hatman assured him. “And sausages on sticks.”
“And ghost stories,” suggested Ham-Boy. “It’s not a real camping trip without a fireside yarn.”
Alcheman snorted. “You know, I had all kinds of ideas about what it would be like in the Lair Legion, but I never really expected a Boy Scout sleepout. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. Just unexpected.”
“Welcome to the LL,” answered Hatman. “Unexpected is us.”
“Well then, I’ll go first. Did anyone know there’s supposed to be a ghost of the funeral train that carried President Lincoln round the country after his assassination? Well, they say…”
That got the evening off to a good start. G-Eyed chipped in with the story of a maniac hitch-hiker, then Hatman spoke of the terrible flesh-eating Wendigo. Liu Xi Xian told the tale of the Song Dynasty scholar Zhuxi who wrote a book to prove there were no ghosts. Ham-Boy recounted a local Piney Oaks story about a dead man’s hand that always found its way home. Vinnie brought the storytelling to a close with a tale about the lost city of Carmosa and the doom of its inhabitants as the Fairly Great Old Ones rose.
“Maybe that’s enough for one night?” said G-Eyed in a strangled voice.
“Note to self,” shuddered Silicone Sally, “never ask a sorcerer supreme for a ghost story ever again. Ever. Again.”
Hatman assigned the watches and the explorers retreated to their sleeping bags. Vinnie and Liu Xi managed to re-zip their rolls into a double and vanished inside with some furtive shushing and an occasional giggle.
“That sure looks warm,” Sally noted in a whisper to Goldeneyed. “Maybe we should try it, huh?”
Bry Katz’ answer was interrupted by an intake of breath from Citizen Z. “Get your shots first before considering her offer,” the undead avenger advised Goldeneyed.
***
Flapjack peered into Lair Lab One with caution. Al B. Harper pulled off his VR goggled and peered back.
“Ah,” grimaced the Lair Legion’s hunchbacked major domo. “I, er, didn’t know anyone was here. I thought all the hero-types were out, um, heroing.”
“I do my best heroing here,” the team’s archscientist answered. “Was there something you wanted?”
Flapjack glanced guiltily at the data discs with Yuki’s construction stats on them and at the VR array. “No, nothing. Just tidying up, that’s all.”
Al B finished the dregs of his extra-caffeine coffee and sat back in his modified control chair. “Well, since you’re here you can assist me. I’m about to fight crime.”
“How wonderful, sir,” fawned the butler insincerely. “However, there is the matter of sniffing the laundry for freshness to get to and…”
“Just pull the big lever over there, would you?”
Flapjack froze in mid-letch. “The… the big lever…” he said like an addict being offered a stash. “You want me to pull… the big lever… master?”
“Yep. I want to convince Peter von Doom that it was a bad idea chipping in to an assassinate-the-newby-LL’ers fund.”
Flapjack fondled the big lever lovingly, admiring it’s smooth hard leveryness. “Peter von Doom is hidden somewhere on the planet. Nobody knows where his current secret hideout is.”
“Which is why I’m not bothering to look for it,” Al B. Harper lectured. “But he still picks up his e-mails, which is just enough for me to get at him without ever leaving this chair.”
“Shall I… pull the big lever?”
“Yes please. Position two.”
“The big lever hath posithtions?” Flapjack was so excited he lost control of his lisp.
“Position two.” Al B. pulled on his VR goggles and began to type on an imaginary keyboard.
“Position two!” shouted Flapjack, happily. “Oh, if only there wath a thundersthorm!”
“Good morning, Peter,” Al B. said into his throat-mike. “No, don’t get out of the bath on my account. Besides, those suds are the only thing protecting you from being another sad webcam example of the depravity of the internet.”
“Oooh,” sighed Flapjack. “Shall I get you VelcroVixen’s e-mail next, Dr Harper? Please?”
“Yes, I dare,” Al B. replied to his distant adversary. “Really, given those poor excuses for firewalls you were pretty much inviting me in.”
Half a dozen devices around the lab exploded. Flapjack yipped and ducked beneath the straying wreckage.
“Ah, you were inviting me in,” Al B. realised. “A feedback trap. Not bad.”
Three experimental combat drones in the corner of Al’s laboratory lit up and began to move.
“Um…” Flapjack said.
“Of course, I anticipated the possibility of a reverse malware package transfer and prepared a sterilisation counterpulse squirt.”
“Sterilisation?” the butler winced. “Help?”
The combat drones crashed down again, pinging quietly as their flame-throwers cooled.
Flapjack noticed something else. “Should that ray-gun over there be moving on its stand independently?” he worried.
“It’s not a raygun,” Al B. told him. “It’s just a quantum matter disassembler. A lab tool. It simply takes apart objects on an atomic level to see what they’re made of.”
“Oh… good. I’d hate for us to get zapped by a raygun, but a quantum matter disassembled is so much better.”
“Yes, this is about the contract on the new Legionnaires,” Al B. spoke into his throat-mike. “I don’t care how much indigestion CrazySugarFreakBoy! gave you, Peter, that was over the line. That’s why I’m releasing the destruct codes into your primary equipment bays right now.”
The quantum matter disassembler oriented on the archscientist. Flapjack hit it with a big spanner until it stopped buzzing.
The combat robots started up again.
Al B. reprogrammed them with one of Dancer’s samba routines. It looked better on Sarah Shepherdson.
“Yes, yes, very ingenious,” Al B. conceded to his distant opponent, “I didn’t even know that nuclear bombs could be miniaturised that much, let alone that you’d planted one in the kidney of the hotdog vendor outside EEE as insurance against my intervention. But really nukes aren’t very imaginative, are they?”
“There are nukes now?” Flapjack worried, looking round. “Should we, I dunno, evacuate the city? Hide under a table?” He looked round hopefully. “This could be Amber’s last chance to know my love.”
“Yes, I can see you’ve committed your whole facility to my total destruction, Peter,” Al B. declared. “Which is why I now say: Flapjack, put the lever to Position Three!”
“Position Three!” beamed the hunchback. “Yes, sir!”
Al B. pulled off the VR goggles. He didn’t need to see Peter von Doom leaping out of the bath screaming.
He shut down his equipment and helped Flapjack put out the fires.
“Did we… win?” the majo domo ventured. “No nuke, for example?”
“Oh sure we won,” Al B. agreed. “Easy once I’d got Peter to commit all his e-resources for me to scramble at once. He walked straight into it. Let’s hope he learns his lesson.”
“To use better firewalls?”
“Not to mess with the Lair Legion.” Al B. replied. “After all, there’s always Position Four.”
“There’s a Position Four?” gasped Flapjack of the Carpathians. “Um, excuse me, sir. I have to go somewhere private and… think about that. Right now.”
Al B. shuddered and returned to his work. Somewhere there was a hot dog vendor in need of a barium meal.
***
The Hole Man squatted on his anthracite throne, surrounded by his pale bloated servitors. “Show me the intruders,” he commanded.
A dutiful silent Holeoid caressed a memory crystal to replay the Lair Legion entering the shaft at Natuna Besar.
“Do the Deroids know about them?” the Hole Man demanded. “The Morshlock Queen? The Burrowers Beneath? Have they roused the Aghartan Echoes?”
If the Holeoids replied it was without sound or motion.
“What do they want?” the strange ugly man who ruled the undertunnels asked. “Why are they coming here now? Can they know how close we are to the completion of our great project?” He glanced over his shoulder at the complicated reconstruction of some massive ancient engine.
The Holeoids waited and watched.
The Hole Man rubbed his chin. “Show me the bit again where they use the hot tub,” he decided.
The Holeoids did not move.
“I said the hot tub!” insisted their master. “It’s not that you’re not attractive in your own special ways, but occasionally a man needs to see body hair and secondary sexual characteristics. Besides I might need a bride eventually when I’ve destroyed the surface world and rule over the shattered remains of humanity so I have to do some market research.”
Still the Holeoids remained motionless.
“Obey me!” the Hole Man insisted.
The Holeoids all fell over, slumping in deep nightmare-haunted sleeps.
And the monsters came.
“Who are you?” the Hole Man screamed as they glided into his throne room. “What do you want with me?”
He knew the answer as they pulled knowledge of the machine out of his brain. They wanted his secrets. They wanted the Deviate technology scattered in the deep forgotten places of the Earth. They wanted to enslave all that lived.
They wanted to hurt him.
The Hole Man screamed for the Lair Legion as the monsters closed in around him
***
Next Issue: A new Junior, a Terror Squid, a betrothal, a betrayal, meganeura monyi, artemis salina, and the Legion make more visits without appointments, as their new recruits go where no Legion has gone before in UT#347: Underground, or Deeper Down
No holeoids were harmed during the making of this issue.
***
Parody Earth History Revision Notes: The Briefing
Visionary: Okay, I know this can be a bit complicated, but pay attention and I’ll make sure you know about this stuff.
Fashion Accessory: Whoa. First date flashback!
Vizh: No, really. You need to understand all the stuff they don’t put in the history books.
Danny Lyle: Like the second shooter at the Kennedy assassination?
Vizh: No, not like that. There was no second shooter. At least we don’t know about any second shooter.
Kerry: Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you. You’re an agent of the Man.
Vizh: What man? Where did this man come from?”
Vespiir: Perhaps this man was the hidden assassin of whom you speak?
FA: There’s certainly enough websites say it was the Man.
Harlagaz: If foul deeds wert done and the villain hath not been fathomed and smooten then this clear we shouldst leave yon class and go forth to wreak justice.
Vizh: No more wreaking! Or smootening. Just listen. The Celestian Space Robots are these unfathomable mile high beings created to maintain the integrity of the Parodyverse.
Harlagaz: Mayhap we couldst use a time machine to go back and prevent yon shooting? Then we couldst discover yon Man who wast the second shooter and chastise him to the uttermost.
Danny: I have a question. If these Celestians are unfathomable how did you work out what they’re created for? If you know what they do then the word you’re looking for is “fathomable”.
Vespiir: Are we allowed to question Master Viisionary when he is dispensing his wisdom? Will he not smite us with his wroth?
Kerry: nah, you heard the Feebster. This is a no-smootening zone. You can’t have one law for the kids and another for the adults.
FA: Except when it comes to fashion. There should be an age limit on spandex and lycra.
Vizh: So the, um, possibly slightly fathomable Space Robots visited Earth in prehistory. That’s before humans invented lycra, Samantha. And they accelerated the evolution of some of the squiggly lemur-type lifeforms that would eventually become the human race.
Vespiir: Is this around the time that your Devil was hiding dinosaur skeletons? I was handed a tract by the loud shouting woman who said I was a blatant sex object and all kind of other nice things.
Gaz: Yon loud wench went more quiet when I toldeth her that mine grandfather is All-Pappy of the Ausgardian Gods.
Danny: Only because she was choking on her tongue. No really. That’s why I had to hit her.
Kerry: Yes. And it’s why I had to make her handbag explode.
Vizh: So the Celestians came to Earth and created a race of Austernals, immortal beings able to control every molecule of their bodies.
FA: Yeah, my power’s a cut-down version of theirs. I can only do fabrics and stuff though. And now all the Austernals have gone into their Omni-Mind gestalt and left the planet and they didn’t even leave me with the keys to their city.
Vizh: And the Celestians created the Deviates, a genetically unstable race of short-lived but rapidly-mutating multiforms.
Gaz: Mayhap twas they who didst murder yon Kennedy?
Vizh: The Celestians left and the Austernals and Deviates competed for the Earth. They each grabbed abandoned Celestian evolutionary technology and created other accelerated races. Can anybody tell me the names of any of these beings? Anyone?
FA: The French? They can be pretty fast with their hands?
Kerry: The Muppets?
Vizh: Anybody at all?
Vespiir: Master Bill Cosby?
Gaz: President Kennedy?
Danny: Okay, Vizh, don’t pop a vein. The Austernals created the Abhumans. The Abhumans in turn took over the war against the Deviates and engineered a bunch of other races like the Racoon People, the Detonator Hippos, the Vesalian Apes, the Sea Monkeys, the Dynamo Dolphins and stuff. The Deviates made a pile of others like the Morshlocks and maybe those gomers on Monstrous Isle. Abhumans discovered this metamorphing gas that taps powers from the Negativity Zone to give them their unique abilities like Uhuna’s healing gifts. Deviates made a bunch of deep underground tunnels for sending newbie legionnaires down. They all had a big fight and the Deviates got clobbered and sealed away forever. Can we go now?
Vizh: Er, well, that was largely correct, I suppose, in a broad sense.
Vespiir: At least until Master Hatman and the others make their discoveries on their journey.
Kerry: Okay, we’re fully briefed, despite all attempts to the contrary by some supervillain boyfriends to unbrief some of us. There were these big Space Robots that set up some action figures to fight each other and the two sides made more action figures until the Sesame Street People took out the Smurfs or whatever. End of story.
Gaz: Now we go to smite yon Man?
***
Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2010 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2010 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. |
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