This message Premiere #5: The Triumph of Evil was posted by *intense content warning* on Sunday, February 10, 2002 at 07:24.
The Red Watchman had been one of the first. Back when the early Science Council had sought volunteers for the genetic enhancement program, when hundreds of bright young candidates had submitted to the dangerous metagene therapy which might transform them into superhumans, Assak Malavi was one of the few who survived and prospered. Gifted with the ability to override chemical and electrical activity he made an early reputation in the founding ranks of Technopolis’ science heroes. But most of his early heroism was forgotten when he turned on his fellows to become the greatest mass-murderer in the history of his world. Few objected to his eternal imprisonment after his genocide of every inhabitant of the South American continent.
It was Premiere who had brought him down, of course. Who else would have been able to resist the body-twisting power of the Red Watchman, and had the courage to take on his army of mutated criminals? Who else would have attempted to challenge the harnessed warp-demons, or to rise from brutal torture to battle an implacable foe who breathed evil and spat hatred?
The Science Council had not dared to destroy the Red Watchman. Failsafes hidden across the planet would have been triggered by his death, and it would be the work of a generation to isolate and neutralize them. Instead he was held in permanent stasis, frozen between one moment and the next, a silent unmoving study in horror and power.
That was how Dr Zalas had found him. The head of the Science Council was confident that he could control the Red Watchman even as he had enslaved other enemies of the state to work for the common good – or Zalas’ good. If Biohazard, Psiworm, or Thermonuclear Man could be controlled, surely the Red Watchman was no greater challenge? It was Malavi alone whose power would enable the creation of a full viable genetic clone that would allow Zalas and his colleagues to achieve immortality. The Red Watchman could do nothing but comply, secretly and silently. Zalas prided himself on his cleverness.
Then Zalas had died at the hands of Technopolis’ greatest guardian, and his mind transferred to the clone Red Watchman has prepared for him. The genetic safeguards placed by the science villain cut in, and like the other reborn Science Council members Zalas found himself the slave puppet of a creature which had no mercy. The Red Watchman laughed as he had the noble Science Council delegates crawling around the floor on all fours licking each others’ backsides like dogs.
From there it was easy for the Red Watchman to reclaim his captured technology, and to power up a full-sized dimensional transfer device to drag Technopolis across far realities to pursue the enemy he wanted revenge upon more than anything else. The citizens of Technopolis could do nothing to stop him. The Science Council could override every aspect of the technology-regulated lives, from door controls to oxygen supplies, from temperature regulation to food distribution. The science heroes might have been a threat but most were left behind out of the city when Technopolis made its dimensional jump. Of the rest, all the newer ones had been implanted with the Science Council’s obedience chip and could be over-ridden anyway. Once Red Watchman had emptied the prisons of the science villains there was plenty of muscle to bring down any remaining resistance.
The Red Watchman now absolutely controlled the most scientifically-advanced city ever built by humans, supported by a fanatical army of super-powered criminals, in a world never prepared for an invasion of this kind. His great enemy Premiere hung red and helpless before him. Life was good.
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Deathspore was rather annoyed when the heroes intruded on his amusements. He had just managed to pick out the prettiest of the dead young men strangled by his parasite weeds and was having them dance for him in the town square before having them act out some interesting tableaux he had in mind when the Lairjet roared overhead. He sighed and had the boys shamble back to the zombie crowd of his victims. There would be time for fun later, he supposed.
The Lair Legion came in fast and hard. They had presumably come across Union, or Hopewell, or Shady Oak, towns which had already been sources of Deathspore’s amusement. He hoped it was Shady Oak they had seen. The wedding scenario had had shaped with the spore-animated corpses of his victims had been particularly funny. There was one bride who couldn’t say she hadn’t had a memorable wedding night. Now this world’s science heroes were racing into Pleasant Ridge, presumably to try and stop Deathspore before he could express his perverted artistic vision on a larger population center such as Laurel, Mississippi, a mere four miles down the highway.
There was a golden flash as Goldeneyed blinked in beside the villain and hammered him to the ground. Deathspore had the deep roots he had been spawning under the main square burst up and burrow into the young hero’s flesh. Another fast-moving Legionnaire streaked into him, carrying him high into the air. Deathspore breathed upon Nats, filling his lungs with quick-breeding disease spores. More of the twisting vines caught them both as they fell.
Hatman came down next, his Sonics cap pulled low over his brow, shredding the foliage with an ultrasonic barrage that made it hard for Deathspore to think. Uncontrolled, the spore-zombies went ape, scrambling forward to dive upon Dancer, NTU-150, Sorceress, and Donar.
Then Fin Fang Foom rose up and unleashed his fiery breath across the square, searing plant and zombie alike.
Deathspore giggled and had the dead mothers shamble forward to attack him, their still-living babies clutched across their breasts. As he expected the dragon hesitated just long enough for him to infiltrate a micro-organic mutagen into Foom’s cardiovascular system.
Donar shouted something in a thick archaic accent and suddenly the square was drenched with pelting hail. The zombies slipped and slid in the sudden downpour, and only NTU-150’s targeting scanners allowed him to pick them off with pinpoint precision. Ignoring the tightness in his lungs Nats moved in to save the children.
Deathspore span off another shower of fast-replicated bio-drones. As they flew they grew, sending leech-like organelles at Hatman and Sorceress. The Sorceress gestured and Deathspore felt his dominance of the plant kingdom around him challenged. While he was distracted Dancer somehow slipped trough the bio-drones and managed to plant a solid kick on his squishy midriff.
The science villain toppled backwards into NTU-150, who released a phased electric shock through Deathspore. The villain screamed once as he toppled to the floor blackened and twitching.
Far away the Red Watchman watched with interest and turned to Dr Zalas. “Now, I think,” he suggested.
______________
Premiere hung naked and bleeding in the power-dampening shackles of the pain rack, as he had done for forty-eight hours now. For two whole days and nights the enemies he had fought all his life to imprison had been working on him to take their revenge, and they had hardly even started.
Around him the Red Watchman’s pogrom of hero cleansing continued. Helpless to do anything to stop them, Premier has watched as over a thousand science heroes had been tortured to death before his very eyes by the laughing minions of the science archvillain. Right now Paradise Lady was being raped by Thermonuclear Man, Flashfry, and Hellspine. Her husband Counterstrike had just been blinded but he could hear her screams. Since Counterstrike’s arms and legs had just been amputated there wasn’t much he could do to help her anyway. Like all the other atrocities, this was being broadcast live across Technopolis on the public comm-channels to a captive audience.
Psiworm snuggled close to the captive Premiere and whispered into his ear. “Look at her squirm. Listen to her beg. You know you want to join in. You know in your secret heart that you could revel in such deeds. Give in, hero. Take her.”
The drugs were at work in Premiere’s system, eroding his will, provoking inappropriate responses, subverting his body. Psiworm intruded into Premiere’s brain, snaking past his remaining defenses, seeking to break the hero’s will as the master had ordered.
“Nnnnoooooooo….” howled Premiere, pulling again against the pain shackles, opening up old wounds to slick his body again with blood. “I won’t… I won’t…”
Just then Paradise Lady literally exploded. “Ooops,” laughed Thermonuclear Man who had been squatting behind her. “Premature evaporation!”
“Hey, there’s plenty more where she came from,” grinned Red Bounty. “Let’s bring in some more of the folks mega-hero here has affection for. The ones Psiworm delved out of his memory and emotions.”
“He’s close to breaking,” Psiworm promised. “I can feel it. He’s holding on by the barest margin.”
“Then let’s pour it on,” Hellspine cackled. “Are you watching, Technopolis? This is what we do to heroes now!”
______________
The hologram of Dr Zalas floated on the command deck of the SPUD helicarrier. Dan Drury, director of SPUD, swore at it. “What the hell have you done to our team in Pleasant Ridge, Mississippi?” he demanded.
“Why what do you mean, Colonel Drury?” the chairman of the Science Council asked blandly.
“I mean that damn huge black dome over the whole town, with the Lair Legion inside it,” Drury snarled.
“The bio-security field?” Zalas shrugged. “A courtesy to your nation, that’s all. As I told you when we reported the escape of our felon Deathspore it would have been better if you had allowed one of our own science hero teams to deal with the matter for you.”
“We don’t need your tin-pot soldiers crawling over US soil, mister!”
“Excuse me, Colonel, but I rather think you do. Your… Lair Legion is it? Your would-be science heroes managed to subdue Deathspore but not before he was able to infect them with biohazards, rendering them and the whole town infectious. Fortunately we have been able to establish a force field to contain the contamination until such time as our scientists are able to devise a treatment for your operatives.”
“So how did you manage not to mention that this joker was contagious in the briefing materials you sent us?” Drury growled.
Zalas ignored him. “In the interests of peaceful coexistence between our two nations I am ordering the deployment of peacekeeping science heroes in your major metropoli until such time as the remaining fugitive science villain escapees can be found. Perhaps our trained operatives will have more success than your… people in keeping the peace?”
“We don’t want your damned power-geeks active in our cities,” Drury warned.
“That is a shame, Colonel,” Dr Zalas replied with a thin smile, “since it is already done.”
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Dismantling the Clockwork Soldier was a matter of great enjoyment for the science villains. The way he continued to jerk and emit random phrases as they stripped out his mechanical brain circuit by circuit, the tricks they were able to make him do, distracted attention from Premiere for a short while.
The last science hero hung limply in his chains and tried to preserve the vestiges of his strength and his sanity. “If you’re going to do it,” he whispered, “do it now.”
“What?” a soft female voice behind him gasped. “How did you know?”
“Enhanced senses and a lot of experience,” Premiere answered under his breath. “Foom and the LL had to check out what was going on here. Slipping their stealth operative aboard the grav-car was a logical move. But you never expected things to get this bad this fast.”
“No,” agreed the terrified Ziles, who had been a helpless and unseen spectator of the holocaust for the last two days.
“So if you’re going to deactivate my power dampers so we can try and stop the villains, it’s now or never,” said Premiere.
Clockwork Soldier screamed, soiled himself, and crawled in spastic circles while his enemies played with his disemboweled wiring.
Ziles slipped the lockpicks from her tunic and went to work.
This poster posed from 195.92.198.71 when they posted
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