Mary sucked noisily at her pipe and said, “I don’t give a tuppenny cuss what anyone calls us, or what we call ourselves, but I’m not going to wear a uniform or a logo, not even if it’s for the finest of whiskeys. And I’m not going to be fussed to talk about us neither, but you three can say what you like, and that also won’t bother me.” She paused for a second before continuing.
“As for what I’m wanting, well, I don’t feel to belong to this world and I want to get back to my own – though it seems as if young Flint here is getting accustomed to the place as maybe he’s doing a bit better here than there, and that’s his choice. But for me that means running down the folk that brought us here, finding out why and how, and hoping to reverse things – but I know that’s going to take time, and in the meanwhile there are folks in this world as need helping just as much as back at home. I feel like I’ve got to fill in the space left by whoever was swopped-out for me, propping-up Container Town and defending the folks that live there – and in worse places. And then there’s the things that’s happened to us since we’ve been here that need sorting – the two kidnappings, a girl wandering around with something like my own old name, and these container-loads of nanites going missing, plus Young Sam’s all-too-solid nightmare… On which last I’m thinking maybe one of you smart young things can use whatever to find out a couple of things, like – who might be the suppliers for that special nasty kind of bullet that the jackal-branded woman used? and who have they been selling to? And I understand you can sort of view images of places on this interweb as if you were flying over? So maybe you could show me likely old industrial places in soviet-type territory to see if I recognise what I glimpsed in my second-sight as being to do with the Setekh symbol? Also, what can we find out about this power of getting-about via shadows? Has it been known before, and has it any flaws or special connotations? Any known users? You see the kind of thing I’m thinking here.”
Sam blinked and nodded along to Mary and all she said, not daring to interject. Truth be told in Sam’s expression, he actually got slightly intimidated and was taken back at Mary’s speech. It’s the longest he’d ever heard her speak in any one instance. Perhaps they were becoming friends’ after-all? And then she dropped a bombshell: of-course she’s not from this world… He looked around the office at the new heart-shaped decoration and sighed inwardly, just for a moment.
“Ah, let me take you back for a moment before we discuss your more pressing issues.” He began, lifting up a single claw: “I don’t know about you, but having a deliberate team identity and some good press and renown will have certain desirable effects.” Ahem. “Firstly, we will draw those who would seek to do us harm and ill out, rather than assaulting the innocence, as we present a block to their goals. Secondly, while we’re out on the job, the masses will more likely want to aid and listen to our instruction rather than not recognizing us or our deeds or authority, resulting in less collateral perhaps.” He paused, “And thirdly: with a good reputation, a couple of stories or interviews, perhaps we would seek to gain important contacts for all of our goals, otherworldly or not.”
He mumbled quietly: “And maybe, just maybe, I can walk around town with my hood down without being called Nessie or a bloody freak for once.”
Akira added in “being known as an investigative agency separate from Flint’s business – how about calling it Stormers Unlimited? Could be helpful?”
Sam again interjected, “I don’t think we’re seriously going to get sponsored by an alcohol company surely? Stranger things have happened, but what would they seek to gain? Always with these things it is what we can do for them, and how much we would be satisfied to gain. I don’t think we’d have to wear uniforms, mine certainly wouldn’t be on for long, but we might be required to make appearances every now and again. Or something.”
He tapped his chin and paced in thought, “Any law, peace-keeping or self-defence manufacturers out there? Could be a good opportunity for some free equipment and for us to showcase and test their latest products. Otherwise, signing up with the Artefact Research Centre and investigating leads could be interesting. I would suggest certain charity organizations, but I’m sure they’d appreciate any help we could offer but may end up draining our time and resources perhaps.”
…During all the above Mary had been sitting quietly with half-closed eyes, obviously thoughtful but not obviously listening to all Sam’s talk of PR.
“You’ll have to forgive me Mary, you were going quite quick there for a second. I knew you weren’t from around here, but to come from a different world? Where exactly have you come from? I take it you’re not talking about Éire, about Ireland? You said that this has been done to you?” He took a step forward to Mary and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, ” I vow I will help you in this. You’ve been a good leader, and a good friend to me. It may be in the future, but I would certainly miss you when you do leave. But…” Young Sam sighed sympathetically, “Home is home.”
Mary blinked at Sam and nodded. “Where Chrono and me come from was the whole real world, far as we knew. Like this one in most respects, except this one is far more ‘advanced’, I suppose you’d have to call it, and recent history seems to have happened real different. For instance, there’s no city of Wessex, but smaller one called Oxford right about where we sit; and Ireland is divided in two halves, one independent and one still a part of the UK. Generally things seem to happen smaller there, but no less messy. But like you said, Home is home…”
First things first, I think we should focus on stopping forces that affect the most civilians before pursing anything else, and right now that means somehow tracking down those missing nanite containers. Perhaps these events are linked and we cannot yet see the connections. There are some famed villain intellects and Machiavellian puppeteers out there.”
Sam nodded, “As usual though, I think you’re right. I’m sure either I or Flint here can consult the infinite pages of the internet to find out some things of which we seek, but I’m sure there’s a few people who may be able to help our search. I’m sure Akira’s power of seeing the past and your second-sight will prove invaluable in all of this.”
Sam immediately started tapping out some notes on his over-sized, rugged, heavy-duty, rubber-protected smartphone-tablet:
Search for Kidnappings: Local police records, old news headlines and stories, social media search, interviewing the family(?), searching last known whereabouts… It took a few minutes but reported what he’d found.
Angelique St. Marie’s background was fairly well documented – Angelique St. Marie was raised by a family with very strong anti-meta¬human political views. Her father was a member of the hate group, the Anti-Metahuman League and openly preached their hateful rhetoric at home. Angelique absorbed this way of thinking growing up and built her worldview around it. To her, every political, social, and economic problem that the world faced could be traced back to meta-humans.
When she discovered the schoolmate she had been dating was a meta-human, she quickly broke the relationship off, blaming her ex for “betraying” her trust and joining “them.” Surrounded by the pressure of anti-meta-human thinking and hate speech, Angelique was completely unprepared for her own latent meta-human abilities when they surfaced.
Her powers revealed themselves when she was at a high school swim meet. The effort of pushing her limits to defeat the rival school’s star swimmer triggered her abilities and, before she knew what was happening, the contents of the pool swept her up and into the air, putting her in the centre of a waterspout.
In a panic, she called out to her parents in the crowd, but her father fled the scene and dragged his wife with him. They have since disowned Angelique and turned their backs on the frightened teen. Abandoned in her moment of crisis, Angelique panicked; when the authorities showed up, things only got worse. She pulled more and more water from the pool, intuitively learning how to protect herself with it and attack in response. Over the roaring sound of the waterspout, she could not hear anything beyond her own histrionics. Her breakout caused her to become unconscious and she was rushed to the Reading Meta-Medical Facility.
It was whilst there that her comatose body was stolen by the Power Corps and apparently vanished.
There are no online records for a Mallory Brooks – the nurses (including Nurse Maguire) remembered that she had been “born with drastic deformities. Her physical abnormalities included a deteriorating nervous system and seriously hindered her organs’ abilities to support her life long-term. Her parents abandoned her within days of her birth, leaving her to be institutionalised by the state. She was shuttled between medical facilities, with her being enlisted on a number of research programmes that treated her more like a test subject than a real human being.
However these various medical treatments failed to improve her condition and robbed her of what little mobility she had been born with.
She had been transferred to Reading General a few weeks before and was being studied by doctors and scientists from KessKorp when, according to eye witnesses, she was stolen, kidnapped, by a robotic figure. Attempts to phone the Police failed to get anyone willing to investigate and all records relating to Mallory Brooks had mysteriously vanished.
Other missing persons/kidnappings had also happened recently but without something to narrow down the search it would be difficult to identify what is and isn’t helpful.
Sam elected to search the New / Old Mary on the internet as well as carrying out a HeroNet search.
This world’s original Mary was apparently in her 70’s though possibly older when she ‘died’ in the 1920’s before another Mary reappeared with the same name and similar features only a few years later. There is no record that Mary was a publicly known meta-human until three years ago when a Mary Anne MacCarty was ‘persuaded’ by an Inspector John Stranger of CI-13 to register with the HCP and then she was recruited by Dalton’s company on a short-term contract with Chrono and two others a few months before.
There was a comment on HeroNet that Banshee seemed to have become more powerful recently and could now apparently turn insubstantial. Her primary power previously had been listed as a terrorising scream.
Container Town was bought and equipped about the same time as Mary graduated from the HCP system but there is no apparent connection online between this purchase and Mary.
There was a link to a Colm MacCarty, 116 years young – Born in 1900, both he and his older brother Shamus MacCarty took part in the Easter Riot in 1919. Colm was arrested by Illustrious of the first Aontacht Eire (Irish Unity) a local superhero team still active across Ireland and found himself helping him to rescue civilians caught up in the riots. Illustrious testified at his trial and he subsequently served only a two year sentence as a result.
His brother had apparently escaped the city after the riots and had vanished, believed dead in the aftermath leaving his wife and his young son Michael to cope alone.
Colm retired in 1960 and subsequently met and married his then 22 year old wife, Alicia O’Donnell. They subsequently had a son Shane. Colm outlived both his wife and his son (both of whom died in an attack on Dublin town centre carried out by the terrorist Emerald).
Next was a search to check on the Nanite Issue (which Sam thought was the most Urgent): Police, Headlines there was nothing in the public domain. They needed to drum up a list of suspects and likely fellows, follow up on the description of the last known vehicle, research the illusion / force field tech that enabled the heist. THe problem was Sam had no idea where to start.
Instead he typed in a series of phrases into his tablet – REAL NIGHTMARE F**K: Nothing made sense. He focused another Internet search for super kill death bullets. Other than discovering that rumours claimed they were terrible things – No obvious suppliers or sellers.
Next he researched Egyptian Jackal gods and Egyptian cults(?) as he wondered whether they should be planning an Egyptian road trip.
Actually references to Setekh was found as often outside of Egypt as within – Napoleon sort of spread Egyptian influence worldwide and the Victorians embedded the symbology into their various mystical rituals… There were thousands of links and some were even to existing cults including something called the Court of Shadows and something called the Seminarium Sinister of Setekh which was linked to assassins as was the Coils of Apep, whatever that was?
There was also the DARK CULT OF ANUBIS (who was also represented by a jackal headed god but separate to Setekh) A perversion of traditional Egyptian worship of the death god Anubis, this blood cult was led by the Black Anubis. Black Anubis was a jackal headed supervillain primarily based in North Africa.
He showed Mary aerial photos of old soviet buildings around the wolrd and sent a message to Jack Taggart at the Endeavour asking for help.
Jack responded within minutes stating that he had only found details of two meta-humans with dream-walking powers; a hero called Dreamweaver and a teen trouble maker who went by the name of Night-Terror. What if this wasn’t a meta but either some form of magical spell or even a vision? The latter wasn’t his area of expertise so sorry…
Mary watched with interest as answers come up on Sam’s screen. Amongst them… was a chatroom statement that stated that super bullets such as Sam had described were supposedly made in the US, nicknamed the Radically Invasive Projectiles (RIPpers). They were rare and hard to obtain. Hexcorp were the primary importers in Europe supposedly. The post had been made anonymously so no way to confirm. So, who had Hexcorp been selling to in Europe?
Mary let out a puff of smoke and murmured, “Maybe we should call in a favour from that Police Inspector Tolliver, see if he can tell us who’s been buying up these nasty things?”
Another quick call and it turned out that Inspector Tolliver hasn’t heard anything about anyone using such a bullet over here but made them promise that if they found out if it was being used in the UK that they would tell him immediately…and rang off.
Finally, when they were talking about the strange shadow-power of the jackal assassin, Mary’s eyes lit up. “We know a lady that we might know something about such occult things.” She grinned at Flint. “How about we get in touch with that nice Naomi van Helsing, see if she’d like to help?” Again a quick call determined that she wasn’t available at the moment but they left a massage asking her to get back to them..
AKira spoke up, “… That’s a thought. Using some of that artefact money, do you folks want to hire a receptionist?! We could do with someone to handle our research while we’re out in the field.” His eyes lit up visibly, if it were possible, a cartoon light-bulb would be animated above his head.
Mary let out a bark of surprised laughter, and then shook her head – still grinning helplessly. “Do what you like with the money, so long as there’s enough left for the things we need to do!” as she pointed to the hole in Chrono’s roof.
Later, as the office meeting was due to break up a small parcel arrived by express courier. The label stated that it was from Naomi Van Helsing and was addressed to ‘Mary Weirdigan’ c/o of Dexter Investigations. Inside was a Native American dream-catcher which seemed to have some sort of spider imagery woven into the centre.
To all but Chrono, there was a distinct if faint feeling of magic radiating from it. Akira touched it and got a sense of antiquity coming from it but nothing adverse. There was also a sense of association with someone or something called ‘Brother Raven’ but beyond that…
There was a message attached. “Hang this in the dreamer’s room and it will detect any dream visits or visitors… The aura it catches will hopefully show motive… Hope it helps. I’ve another possibility, but have to seek permission first. N”
That night Sam hung the dream-catcher above his bed and tried to sleep. Unfortunately that seemed to elude him and he slowly saw the hours roll by…
Eventually his eyes grew heavy and he again felt himself falling, then the smell of the peat assaulted his senses. In the darkness he saw three bright red dots at head height walking towards him and heard the sploshing of footsteps as the creature, the hunter, walk through the wet, boggy land and suddenly the moon came out from behind the clouds and Sam could finally see his tormentor; but this time he also saw the symbol on its chest as though for the first time… Then he heard a twig break behind him and, as before, he turned as the rifle butt smacked into his face…
He sat up so suddenly from the mattress that for a second or two, his head swam as he looked dizzily towards the dream-catcher. It still radiated a faint smell of magical potential but that smell, that taste, hadn’t changed. If it had detected anything, he couldn’t sense it…
He quickly sketched the figure from his memory to share with the others.
Mary confirmed that the drawing of the figure he saw in his dream was extremely similar to her glimpse of the female that followed Sam in “reality” (and took a shot at Mary). She attempted to read whatever she could from the aura in/of the dream-catcher… As far as she could tell, nothing was ‘caught’ in its influence since last she held it – any dream (or vision?) must have ‘come’ from Sam himself and was apparently not externally-influenced at least in any way that she could tell.
There was a mystical ‘after-taste’ to the dream-catcher, a feeling relating to a great hall filled with books (or a library?) and several large crystal shards??? This was somehow connected to the dream-catcher rather than its most recent use.
Superhero Adventures, UK Style 