It was a nice quiet morning. They were all on standby whilst the Police (and Rabbi Shallach Ben Holmz’s homeless network) scoured London for clues or rumours as to the current whereabouts of the kidnapped people.
Max had left a text message with Mary to call him later that day as he might have had some more results about the parasite, which was definitely alien in origin.
They especially wanted to know if there a way to safely extract one from a host…
Sam also wanted to speak to him about something else; a couple of things actually. Wonder if they would be willing to let him join them for social gatherings or media interviews? Didn’t they have an internet radio station of their own? Need to do a bit of research.
A quick internet search turned up an online media “empire” run by an Alex Challenger-Wildeman.
Alex turned out not to be Doctor Alexander Challenger-Wildeman (the A.I. he’d meet previously) and not one of the kids; apparently ALEX was another A.I., one in a robotic body and going by the amount of Frankenstein Complex paranoia linked to it (he?) on the web, the AI was either illegally imprisoned in Romaine Wharf or was about to take over the world and start robotic Armageddon.
Regardless he (he’d decided to call it he until he knew different) ran the families’ Challenger News Syndicate which specialised in stories, photos and video feeds of superheroes in general and the adventures of the Challenger-Wildeman family in particular. For some reason every public picture of the family was also branded Challenger News Syndicate and somehow Alex had created a photographic monopoly on family images… Wow, paparazzi photos just didn’t exist!
There was also an internet radio station (branded as Radio Argos) which has a large audience both for its wonderful blend of music and its debate shows on superheroes and mysterious events around the world all run by various DJ’s, most of whom were too weird to be real people. ALEX again?
As he searched, a HeroNet IM appeared… “Want to appear on one of the shows sometime? AL”
What? How..? Apparently AL monitored his newsfeeds in real-time and could run a lookup search on enquiries; something to think about.
He’d had a bad night’s sleep. He’d woke up screaming a name – one that somehow he associated with the Black Dragon-like creature though he didn’t know why; Tiabult. That and a feeling of intense hatred for the name, though again he didn’t know why.
Whatever the name meant, and a search on Google and HeroNet hadn’t helped identify it at all, it had caused a raw emotional response in him. Just saying it made him want to vomit.
His disturbed sleep could have been due at least in part to his having to tell Mama Chi last night that he couldn’t be a greeter for her at the Jade Restaurant any more. She’d actually cried! Thankfully the tears dried up very quickly when he produced the two life-size cardboard stand-up figures of himself he’d had made for the restaurant floor. She loved it! He’d also had to promise to visit the restaurant regularly as well.
Waking early as a result of the apparent dream which he couldn’t remember, he grabbed a torch and headed back down the hole in the ground and wandered round some more in the Basement complex. So much room, they just had to figure out what they wanted to do with it but Akira seemed keen on turning some of them into bedrooms… Did Sam want to give up his container and his neighbours who ignored his looks and welcomed him every morning usually with a cooked breakfast? Thank you Bertha especially.
He made a crude map of the two floors for everyone to discuss. If they took Bethany up on her offer, they’d have the money (but what about the skills?) to renovate the complex. Otherwise they had the £20,000 plus their own HCP payments but they really needed to make a decision about what to do with Flint’s office and apartment (and what help they could afford to give Flint’s brother Jasper).
In the meantime, he’d contacted the paparazzi photographer who’d helped them before; Tony Jason and suggested they meet up at the Endeavour pub sometime for a drink and a chat. Jason had quickly agreed. Not sure what he was going to say though.
Possibly he might know more about the DNAscendant process or even UK Patriot?
In the meantime he downloaded the last season of Britain’s got Meta-Talent. Not impressed. For the first six episodes the panel of sarcy, bitter judges went around the UK and held auditions for meta-humans; they seemed to like making fun of the contestants, putting through to the house only the most photogenic or damaged contestants rather than the most talented. These then went on to be tested in combat, in teamwork and in showing off to the cameras which followed them 24/7 so that the public could then decide who to vote off one by one. The final, six months in to the competition, had consisted of a group battle against each other and the public then voted for who they wanted to win. A quick search on YouTube for Tracy Willis (she of UK Patriot fame)’s final had shown she’d won as much for her physical attributes which she wasn’t shy in showing off and using on the male contestants as for her ability in the final combat.
There wasn’t a lot to be found on the internet about the DNAscendant Process.
The DNAscendant procedure apparently consisted of a genetic manipulation process that could change a mundane homo-sapien into a meta-human or force a Breakthrough in anyone with a suppressed meta-gene. Although not illegal to participate in the Process itself, it had a high mortality rate and could reduce any surviving subjects’ lifespan by up to thirty years apparently. Illegal bodyshops offering the process existed throughout America, Europe and Indian continent and again the name Labyrinth cropped up as did another; CrimeNet in connection with it. Both organisations seemed to provide the DNAscendant procedure yet both seemed very different based on survivor’s description of the processes. It was a long, often difficult process and the results were apparently extremely unpredictable.
He also had to think about possibly asking Annie to dinner. Would she want to be seen out and about in her robotic body? Or, with him..?
———————————————–
Mary headed back home, having given her statement to the Police as to what had happened. She found it interesting that Dalton’s security hadn’t contacted the Police about the incident that morning, despite the two dead bodies lying in the chamber. She’d asked Marcus if he might be able to update them as the results of their ‘raid’ on the research facility.
She had also received a text message from Max to call him later that day as he might have had some more results about the parasite, which was definitely alien in origin.
A quick chat with Bertha confirmed that young Ace was still in the camp, though there was a lot of concern over the unhealthy nature of her relationship with Jimmy Gordon who she was convinced was mainlining again.
As she was thanking Bertha for keeping an eye on things, a call came through from Marcus. The Police had experienced real problems getting admission to the chamber and in the end had to secure a search warrant before Dalton’s Security would allow them access. Inside the chamber they found the heap of damaged droids they had described but no bodies and no armour. The security personnel had eventually admitted that they’d been told to say nothing about the attack when, about 30 minutes after Mary and the others had left the premises, a group of people in suits and MI-6 ID’s had turned up and removed the security tapes and several large containers from the chamber. One of the supervisors finally produced an authorisation slip and official Government D-notice signed by a J. Smith… Marcus had approached MI-6 to see if they had been involved and was waiting for an official response.
No corpses meant no official enquiry at least at the moment, but why pretend to be MI-6 if the man behind this was Sir Damien Dalton? She thanked Marcus for keeping them in the loop and ended the call.
Before she could think about it further another call came in; from a highly excited Max. He’d managed to successfully remove the parasite alive from the rat and had completed his initial analysis. Alien, nothing like it even in the Ziru Sirka’s AAB (a galactic encyclopaedia apparently) and definitely attracted to a Stormers’ kairomone trace. Although only having limited intelligence as an individual, they did seem to act as a transmitter/receiver to some sort of controlling hive intelligence. Please don’t tell Akira but the bad news was that operating on the host rat had resulted in the parasite killing the rat. They had had some success in extracting it first by “temporarily” killing the host; as the brain died, it had detached itself from the host’s brain and burrowed out of the ear canal. In the test, the host rat was unable to be revived but theoretically the human brain should be able to survive for longer after physical death and could potentially be revived after the parasites departure, hopefully undamaged, but he couldn’t promise that.
He’d also thought about the creatures reaction to kairomone and he’d found that spraying it on another rat had caused the creature to detach from its original host and attack the other rat. Unfortunately again, the original rat hadn’t survived the frenzied attempt to leave it for the other host, however a human just might.
Just spraying the kairomone openly might attract unattached parasites but weren’t sufficient to cause a parasite to detach from a host. It obviously needed both the scent and a live host to cause it to leave its current occupant.
What is certain is that these creatures are attracted to stormers and will try and inhabit them even if they were originally in another meta-human.
He would make arrangements to house the creature at the ARC and carry on testing but he doubted he would find out much more. The creatures’ transmission signals were apparently some form of telepathy and were untraceable but had to be either controlled from nearby or else were interdimensional in scope. Given the possible connection to the nanites and Terminus, he bet on the latter.
He had also had a brief look at the holoprojector and excitedly confirmed that it was Ziru Sirkan is origin and yes he could reverse engineer it but was sure that someone had already done that as there was a world-wide patent on it already. He then asked if she knew what Sam had wanted to know about it.
She chuckled and said, “Well, best ask Sam hisself, but in a general kind of sense I reckon he’d like one for a friend to use, a friend that can’t really get out and about without a little help in the appearance department.”
“Ah, so he wants some form of disguise? Interesting, I’d need enough projector lenses sufficient to circle the wearer’s midriff but there is certainly sufficient processing power in one of these to power it. I’d also need a 360o scan of who he wanted to look like though that could be created graphically… Tell him to phone me..?”
Promising to pass on the message, Mary sat back and lit her pipe while she thought through everything.
Next morning, Mary contacted Young Sam and Akira and passed on what both Marcus and Max had told him.
“So do we think one of these filthy beasties is sitting inside Sir Dalton’s head? If so I reckon we need Max to have found a safer way of getting them out than he has so far before we try anything…”
Afterwards, Mary headed over to Flint’s loft and picked up a hip-sized bottle of Flint’s favourite whisky which she stored safely in one of the pockets of her capacious coat.
She also made a mental note that when the team visited the St. Catherine’s Private Members Library she will see what she can find out about demonic imps, especially anything known about their haunting and plaguing particular humans unseen by anyone else, and how to get rid of them.
That night, as it got dark, she wandered back to the shed for another look at the basement. As she came close she came across Jimmy Gordon inside the junk yard shooting up. That was enough to kick him out but how to make sure Ace didn’t go with him?
As she thought about it, she chuckled and changed into Banshee and decided to scare the willies out of him. She floated over and saw a discarded and cracked tv screen in front of him. She elected to materialise via the crack in the screen as though emerging from the TV. His eyes widened as he grasped for breath. “yooou’re not real!” Mary smiled and slowly widened her jaws to inhuman levels and let loose with a terrorising scream that caused him to drop his syringe, which smashed on the metal shards at his feet and curl up into the foetal position as she slowly, gravely, silently, approached next to him. His eyes widened in fear and for a second she thought he would have a heart attack especially as the fear was being heightened by whatever shit he’d pumped into his veins.
She got so close, that she could see himself in his drug-enhanced pupils despite the darkness, and whispered in his ear silencing his whimpers. “I am death incarnate I am your future and I will be your NOW unless…” She drifted even further and smiled. At that, his bladder burst, soaking his jeans and filling the air with the sharp, pungent smell of ammonia.
“Beware my wrath, but most of all beware harming young Ace, for on her brow I see that written which is Doom unless the writing be erased.” Putting a little terrorising shriek into her voice, she could hear his heart close to bursting with fear. “I WILL come back and eat you whole (doing an impressive jaw-drop at the same time) if you doesn’t straighten-up and fly right, get clean and treat your women well. “As for Ace, any harm comes to that girl and you’re going straight to hell.”
Flowing back through the crack in the TV screen Mary disappeared round the scrap heap before fully materialising. Should she let him stay in Container Town now she knew for definite he was using again and if she kicked him out would she also be kicking out Ace?
Let’s see what tonight’s little stunt did… In the meantime, perhaps it was time to reread a certain book… It must have been decades since she had last done so. As she walked back to her container she whispered to herself, “God bless us, every one!”
Superhero Adventures, UK Style 