Superhero Adventures, UK Style

A couple of days after what he liked to refer to as “the curious case of the woman in chains”, Akira was sitting in his “new” office. HIS Office! Yip, he could even see the capital letters in his mind. It had his name on the door, on the sign in the street, even on the business cards. Akira Steadman Investigations; it had a certain…

His reverie was interrupted by ringing; it was the intercom to the street.

Looking at the screen Adam had installed, he saw a man in a flat-cap and mackintosh. Akira sensed no threat and buzzed him in. His bruises had all but healed and he was quite ready to entertain the notion of beginning another investigation. Hopefully something more exciting than tracking down a straying husband…

As the figure entered the office he called out “Hello..?”

“Morgan!!!” Akira recognised the Welsh lilt immediately and ran to the door to throw his arms around the man who had been his father from the age of three.

“Chai, bach” replied Morgan quite overcome at the obvious and spontaneous affection.

“No-one’s called me that for years. Come in; let me take your coat and that ridiculous dai-cap. Did you think it would be cold in Wessex?”

“I didn’t want to be recognised. I thought I might have been followed.”

The thought of his new life impacting on anyone at Skomer Vale had never occurred to Akira. “Sit down. Is Angharad alright? Brother Thomas? The others..? Has something, anything happened? Who would be following you?”

“You’re still curious then, Chai and impatient.  Let me catch my breath and I’ll tell you all I know.”

Akira’s first attempts at saying the word ‘child’ had led to Morgan and Angharad giving him the nickname Chai. It had also led them to ask others to refer to him by this name rather than as ‘the child’ or worse as ‘the unfortunate child’. It still made him feel both vulnerable and protected at the same time.

“Please Morgan, I’m sorry, look, sit down I’ll fix you some tea and you can tell me all about your journey.”

“Diolch <Thanks>, a tea would be lovely. You have a fine set-up here bach, is all this yours?”

“I have a couple of associates who share the rent and the case-load with me. We’re starting to get busy now after the Battersea incident…”

“Sorry?”

Akira had hoped that Morgan had seen the news footage. Adam had had the idea of getting Tony Jason to front the distribution of some of the video footage he’d captured on his surveillance drone. Three images and clips in particular had proved very popular and had appeared on everything from the BBC news and Vixen Media to the Daily Skeptic and the cover of Power Week; an image of the Professor (without sound), the moment when as a team they took out the last two bombs (thankfully the clip stopped before he hit the ground) and the moment when a half-ton bug-eyed monster had appeared on an island in the middle of Battersea Boating Lake. That was his favourite clip. The look of utter confusion on its face as its four arms flayed about in a vain attempt to get a grip on something it could tear apart had been priceless. Of course if he’d been just a second later in teleporting back, the arms would have seized hold him and he’d have been ripped apart. Vixen Media in particular had paid Adam quite well for the exclusive of that (and Tony hadn’t complained about his commission either).

“I thought you might have… I forgot there was no TV’s or newspapers allowed in Skomer, sorry.”

“Don’t worry bach, lovely cuppa. Listen, I’ll get straight to the point. We think you may be in danger.”

“What do you mean?”

“Someone’s been asking after you; your parents, your whereabouts, everything. They pretended to be a visitor, spent a couple of days working the gardens. By the time I found out that they were asking everyone about your past, your family and your abilities – They’d gone; and so had all the paperwork, little as it was, that we had on you and your parents. The bastard, sorry! Excuse my language, but this really upset Angharad; even broke into the house and took the lock of hair she keeps, kept in her vanity case.”

Akira felt his blood boil. Angharad was the sweetest and most charitable person he’d ever known. There were no cameras or other technological marvels allowed at Skomer. The lock of his childhood hair was all she’d had to remember him by. He suddenly felt very homesick and decided he would replace some of his… Then he remembered his shaven head. He’d have to get the original lock back!

“Who was it? What did he look like? Are there any clues to where he went? Or where he came from?” For the first time in years, Akira could feel his heart race out of control… His face was flushed.

“Chai, Chai, calm yourself! We were never in any danger, but we think you are. Almost everyone I’ve spoken to described a man of varying appearance. I myself saw him as a short, inoffensive, little bloke. Angharad remembers someone tall and dark. Amâpura even swears he was Asian. No, what worries me most is that he went on to Ffrwd Dylluan. He knows about your family.”

“Forward Dylan?”

“FFrwd Dylluan, means the Stream of Owls in Welsh.. Despite now being in England. Its the ancient home of the Steadman family, it’s in the Severn Valley near Brichester just across the border in Mercia. It used to be part of Wales until the thieving… Anyway!”

“I’ve never heard of it before – you never told me.”

“I’m telling you now – so listen. Then I have to go, every second I’m here may be putting you in danger.”

Akira realised that the converse was also true, and not just Morgan but all at Skomer Vale.

“Apparently the first Steadman is reputed to have been some kind of Arab that came back with Richard after the Third Crusade. The king granted him some territory in what was a conquered part of Wales for some reason. He was reputed to be a great warrior but also a healer and a scholar. There are those that say he was the first Fisher King. Some say he brought with him a wooden cup that was said by some to have been used to catch the blood of our saviour at Golgotha.”

“The Grail?”

Morgan shrugged, “Some call it that. After his death legend claims it was in the keeping of the monks at Strata Florida Abbey for centuries. As the Steadman line was thought to have died out, the cup was supposedly passed to the Vervaine Family at the time of the reformation. What happened to it after that, no-one knows but by the 1800’s it had apparently disappeared. I don’t know if the fellah is after you, is a treasurer seeker after the cup or after a good story, but I had to tell you.”

Despite his desire to get away as soon as possible, it was over an hour later before Morgan had finally left. Akira’d quizzed him about everyone ‘back home’ even the sacred bullock Shamu and the elephant Shakira.

So what to do now? He tried to do some research online but his computer skills were non-existent and despite having access to Chrono’s top of the line computer equipment he got nowhere. What he really needed was a researcher… A researcher like Annie?
Ok, but was it fair to treat her as a resource? He needed to talk to the others about employing her but why should she swop a life behind the scenes at the ARC for a life behind the scene hidden away in the BASEment? There would be even less people to interact with, if she joined us… But with her skills she’d made a brilliant researcher and investigator if there was some way to make sure people didn’t point and stare..? She could even help out here, especially here…

Ok so, where to start? 10 frustrating minutes later and zero results – he decided to contact Annie and ask for assistance anyway. As before, she seemed happy to help if she could.

Steadman was a common name, with 15,197 people sharing that name making it the 642nd most common name in the UK. There was no obvious Arabic origins for the name and no obvious link to either the Holy Grail or the Fisher King.

Genealogy really wasn’t her thing; too many people with the same names for her to make any sense of the information, sorry! The Vervaine family name for example had apparently died out at St. Mary Mede during the Jacobite Rebellion or not, since the name and variations of the same were still cropping up over the centuries.

Information on the Holy Grail was almost infinite depending on what you wanted to believe. It was a cauldron, a plate, a bejewelled goblet and a simple wooden or clay cup or even a blood descendant of the Christ. There had been over 72 different cups identified as the Grail in medieval times, most were complete fakes created by Monks in order to attract pilgrims to their church or monastery.

She did find historical records in some recently translated parchments from the third crusade that told a tale of how Muslims supposedly took the sacred cup from a Christian community in Jerusalem to Cairo. It was then given to an Amir in return for help he gave to some Egyptians who were suffering a famine. That Prince subsequently took the cup and, in the company of a foreign king, had crossed the seas to the Shadowlands. That cup was supposedly wooden but with crystallised ‘blood’ inside the bowl and it had the power of healing (or immortality depending on how you translated it).

There was no other mention of that particular cup that Annie could find, at least on the Internet but she said she had a friend, Ophelia, who might be able to help… Legends and mystical artefacts were sort of her thing. It might take some time though.

Moving on, she checked out the legend of the Fisher King for him.

In Arthurian legend the Fisher King, or the Wounded King, was the last in a long line charged with keeping the Holy Grail. Versions of his story varied widely, but he is always wounded in the legs and incapable of moving on his own. In the Fisher King legends, he became impotent and unable to father or support a next generation to carry on after his death. His kingdom suffered as he does, his impotence affecting the fertility of the land and reducing it to a barren wasteland. All he is able to do is fish in the river near his castle, Corbenic (a place of mystery all of its own), and wait for someone who might be able to heal him. Healing involved the use of magic. Knights travelled from many lands to heal the Fisher King, but only the chosen could accomplish the feat. That was Percival or Bors or?

Again, there was a variation of the story in which the Fisher King was able to “heal” others with the use of the ‘blood cup’ but couldn’t or wouldn’t use it on himself. He was supported or possibly even opposed in his ‘work’ healing the land by a coven of Grail Maidens led by the Vivaine (who might also be the Lady of the Lake) and of all things seven ravens, or to be more precise ‘The Seven Ravens’.

Well it had been fun helping with him, but she needed to get back to work but if she found out anything else she’d be in touch and the phone went dead.

Ok, what now..?

He’d forgotten to ask Annie about Ffrwd Dylluan, apparently the ancient home of the Steadman family.

Ok so even he could use the voice recognition search engine on Chrono’s computer. After several false  returns (though, it fairness he’d enjoyed the quotes from Dylan Thomas) he finally found it – a derelict mansion and a small cottage in the grounds once belonging to a Michael and Gwendoline Steadman. The reports claimed they had mysteriously vanished in 1995 leaving no heirs and the house has remained intestate ever since.

Google maps showed a location near something called the Devil’s Steps, near Brichester in the Severn Valley in the County of Mercia…

The National Trust had a page detailing a brief history of the property. It seems that they were hoping to claim it as property of the state and renovate it. It was built on the remains of a castle from about the early 1200’s which was subsequently destroyed during the reformation and a 12 bedroom mansion was built over the foundations sometime during the English Civil War. Its owners seemed to have remained aloof from the various political scuffles over the centuries and surprisingly the family who eventually became the Steadman’s remained untitled though they were seen locally as the equivalent of local nobility. Like so many propertied families, the family had been unable to maintain the estate  after the Great War and had subsequently moved into a cottage in the grounds. The last heir had been Michael Steadman. His father.

As he was reading, Akira suddenly felt a sharp and brutal pain on the back of his head; as though someone or something had tried to rip his (non-existant) hair out by the roots. In his mind he could ‘hear’ a distant voice chanting “Ushma Zerei Nasht Ho” over and over.

Reaching to rub the back of his head he couldn’t help remembering that was the spot that Angharad had cut the lock of hair from.

Then he felt a mind probing his. A brutal presence, monstrous in its desires was somehow invoked and was coming for him. That he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Whatever was going on, he knew he was being targetted. Some… thing? Was coming for him, it was angry and wanted to kill him…

Mary sat inside her Container trying to figure out the best way to approach the younger Mary when it suddenly happened. Pain, intense cutting pain as though someone or something was trying to claw her mind into pieces…

Was this what Jeeves had experienced every day? No wonder it had driven him mad… The pain increased until it was hard to think. It was intense, burning cold. She could feel its emotions – hatred, it wanted her dead, destroyed, and removed from existence in the most painful ways possible. It has been searching for her and her kin and having found a trail, had discovered what it felt was an utter abomination. Her!

The hatred was raw and burning and came from something that wanted her annihilated. She could feel it (whatever ‘IT’ was) searching for her, in her mind, her soul. Something that felt frustrated because another had temporarily bound it until it had carried out another task. It was Ban Sidhe screaming to kill the Ban Sidhe she inhabited.

So many, many years ago she had made a bargain as the last of her line with the Ban Sidhe spirit that had haunted her family for centuries; that she, a human, would possess the presence of that fae spirit and together they would both survive. When they merged it had been a struggle to see who would be the dominant partner. She’d won and it was she who now controlled the merger. Over the years the Ban Sidhe presence had accepted and even approved of the outcome and together they had merged into a single cohesive being.

But what if the Fae spirit had won the struggle?

What if this world also had its own Ban Sidhe? One that had also haunted the MacCarty line? One that elected instead to possess a human host to carry on its vengeance? Turned it into a powerful presence with one goal; to hunt down the last of her lineage? For a second she felt herself inside the mind, in a dark and angry abyss. She could feel its hunger to kill, frustrated temporarily by a different but nearby target.

She could feel its search for MacCarty blood and its tentative search for the remaining souls, its desire to punish each and every one of them. Five tendrils led from that mind through the astral aether; to herself, thankfully partially blocked by the cold iron of the container that surrounded her, to the Young Mary in London, to an old spirit near death across the sea in Dublin, another two presences to the North and two to the East across an ocean. The last two radiated darkness. That was all that remained before it could seek its rest in the darkest recesses of Hell.

She gazed into a mystical abyss and now that abyss was staring back!

For the moment, it (whatever ‘IT’ was) knew she was nearby (and so close to the victim it had to destroy so it could be released from its captivity) but the Fae had always been unable to cope with the presence of Iron and that was what surrounded her on every side. Thankfully the BASEment would also have too much iron in its construction to allow it a clear trail there either.

Suddenly the question of what to do about young Mary had taken on a more sinister element; how could she protect her? She didn’t exactly feel protective about the two to the east but the others could, no would, need her help.

She knew this abyss would come for its victim soon and once it had dealt with that her kin and her would be next…

Mary took in a deep breath to steady herself, and then reached for her faithful harp.  She needed some healing music for herself this time, to smooth away the pain and clear her head.  As she played she thought back to the confused moments when they first exited the abandoned Battersea station, the dazed survivors being calmed and questioned, loaded into ambulances – the huge relief she had felt at seeing her namesake amongst them, apparently quite well.

She had tried to speak with Tolliver, asking that the group be kept together and if possible transferred into the safe-keeping of the Challenger-Wildeman family as soon as possible.  “They may all be infected with something that only the Family can diagnose and cure, especially the young man with the telephone – especially him.”  As a statement it was not quite true, but she hoped it would be by the time the transfer could be effected.  For surely The Balance (she’d thought, ironically) would make sure the Professor’s notes and comments were put into Max’s hands immediately, along with a description of the events (which could be replayed, courtesy of Adam).

If what she wished had come to pass then she knew just where the other Mary was just now.  If so… she reached for her phone and contacted Max, apologising for interrupting his important work.  “But this is urgent.  Please don’t ask questions.  Make sure that the Mary MacCarty you have with you is, from this moment on, always in an area surrounded by heavy metal – iron, especially.  You understand, she’s under a dire occult threat.  I’ll be with you myself as soon as possible.”

Max interrupted her to point out that Romaine Wharf wasn’t really set up to handle so many unknown guests and anyway he didn’t really want to invite complete strangers to stay in his home with direct contact with the kids. And they wouldn’t necessarily have coped well with Flossie underfoot or a very protective Nanni watching their every move.

Instead, all of the victims had been temporarily put up in a nearby hostel, though some, including the young man, Reni Moriarty, had been released into the care of their parents. Having seen the video footage and the notes Max and Tess had arranged for him to come in for further testing of the so-called cure as soon as he could confirm it would have no long lasting effects.

The good news was that with the exception of Reni and the girl that had been in chains, Charlotte Randell, the rest of them had tested negative for active meta-genes though they all had the potential, hence their inclusion in the Professor’s experiment.

When Mary mentioned about the other Mary being at risk from an occult attack and needed to be protected by surrounding with iron, Max seemed almost bemused by the request.

If Mary felt that strongly about it, then yes he would organise for the young Mary to come back to Romaine Wharf and yes he could arrange for her to stay in their guest quarters. If Mary felt it was ‘ABSOLUTELY’ necessary, he’d figure out some way to ensure it was surrounded by iron. He couldn’t understand, other than some superstitious nonsense, why he had to use Iron instead of plastisteel but if it set her mind at rest… How long would she need to be here?

When Mary stated it wouldn’t need to be with them for more than a day at most, Max again raised whether this iron shielding was really needed, especially for such a short period of time? When Mary got insistent, he again agreed he would do so and switched off.

That hadn’t gone as well as she’d hoped.

She then descended into the BASEment and sought out Adam. As she walked into the living area she found herself in the middle of an Escher lithograph come to life.

Seems at least some of the “toys” Adam’d requested from the Challenger-Wildeman family had arrived and a dozen 1 metre tall insect-like robots ran everywhere (including up the walls themselves) altering partitions and ceilings, laying cables, pipes and… Was that a 6 seater settee they were apparently manufacturing out of raw plastic? A large fabricating machine sat in the centre of the main recreation area serenely creating bespoke wall and floor panels.

Adam seemed to be totally tranquil as he stood in the middle of all this, masterminding the chaos around him into some form of organised… chaos..?

He looked up and smiled when he saw Mary. “Hi boss, everything’s on schedule. I could do with another pair of hands though. Do I have your permission to allow my friend Mikey access? I assure you she will be discrete and I really could do with her help, especially when it comes to setting up the various systems. Oh, and we need a computer specialist and…”

Mary agreed and interrupted his list-making to ask if he could take time out to make a further modification to their grav-car.  “I know it might make it slower and less responsive, so it would be best to make this change easily reversible, but can you add some kind of pure-iron screening to its armour?  I need the machine to be occult-proof.”

“Ah, look I don’t want to doubt you or anything; but occult? Magic? I thought that was either parlour tricks like ol’ Jeevesy does or some form of unconscious psychic ruse? You telling me it’s real, boss?”

Mary knew that the majority of people, and particularly the scientific community, believed real magic users to be psychics who used the ‘illusion’ or psychosis of magic to colour their meta-abilities. Mages were therefore considered by most to be deluded meta-humans.

“It’s real… It’s what gives me my powers. I don’t register as either a psychic or meta-human. Most magic-users don’t, unless that is also part of their DNA – you see magic is invisible to all tests or scanners. If they were all deluded meta-humans, that wouldn’t be the case would it?”

She could see he wasn’t convinced.

“I know it’s hard to believe – when you see someone supposedly using magic, all you see is the effect and that’s easy to rationalise away. It’s easier to believe that someone’s used psychokinesis to freeze someone in place and then used the power of his mind to tear someone in two that to believe that someone conjured up an invisible creature to attack his victim. To another magic user (and for that matter the victim) however they ‘see’ what is really attacking them…

Thankfully it’s rare. Look even if you think I’m a deluded old lady, completely doolally, can you help? Someone’s life may depend on it.”

“Sure boss, I’ll leave the dwarves” gesturing towards the robots “on autopilot for a couple of hours. What exactly do you want? If you want the whole of the raft covered in sheet iron, that might take me a couple of days to buy the sheet metal, mould it and then figure out what to do about the windows and windscreen or can that be left uncovered?  It’ll be a bitch to fit and will cause her to fly like a crate but…

A short-term alternative might be if I purchase some mesh – does it need to be solid or can we use mesh? It might take me some time to hunt down sheets made from iron though… Can stainless steel or aluminium be used instead? That would be easier to fit and less of a dead weight but still leaves us having to fly on instrumentation…

The simplest solution would be to use mesh to construct a cage for the inside of the raft surrounding the rear seats or does it need to be the whole vehicle?”

After a moment’s thought and in the interests of speed, Mary asked Adam to simply encase the back seats of the grav-car in as dense an iron web as he can manage at the moment, but he had to use iron not substitutes.

Adam wandered off to his room to power up his PDA and see what he could purchase locally.

At best, assuming Adam could find the materials he’d have something ready by tonight. So did she wait or risk flying there herself in insubstantial form, or perhaps ask Akira to come and teleport her there..? Given the limitations of his powers and the distance that he could travel per jaunt that wouldn’t be much faster than flying herself there…

And when she got there, what? Did she introduce herself as young Mary’s great, great grand-aunt back from the dead or..?

While that was happening she called up Sam (copying-in a message to Akira who was not immediately available) and tipped them off that the informant Reni Moriarty should be coming into the Challenger-Wildeman base for further tests quite soon.  “It would be good Sam, if you could be there and use your powers of persuasion to try to discover just how he got so close to the Professor’s operations, and maybe who he was trying to ring when we started releasing the prisoners from the tanks in the abandoned station.  Was he trying to report-back to someone?”

After that all she then could do was wait as patiently as she could for the grav-car to be ready and for Adam to give her a lift to the Challenger-Wildeman base. In the meantime Jeeves popped in with a steady supply of coffee (later substituting Earl Grey before she became too hypertensive) and a selection of sandwiches with an apology that the kitchen wasn’t yet installed which limited what he could prepare…

It was late afternoon when Adam finally called to say that he was as ready as he could be.

When she arrived in the hangar, the Grav-vehicle, or the Raft as Adam preferred to call it, seemed the same as always – until she opened the back door and saw that the rear of the vehicle was now enclosed in sheet metal. A door allowed access. Inside even the floor and rear of the vehicle was covered in the grey metal. It meant that the seats had needed to be pulled forward so that the metal could be inserted behind. Adam apologised for the lack of lighting inside but he hadn’t had the time to rewire the interior. He had found and placed a couple of magnetic battery lamps inside so she wouldn’t be in complete darkness.

As she sat in the back with her harp on her lap, she quietly strummed out some simple healing tunes as Adam rushed her to the 50th floor hangar at Romaine Wharf.  Being under threat from this otherworldly Banshee was going to make life difficult for her until and unless she can find some permanent solution.  It made for a nervous ride, her thoughts remained inconclusive.

Meeting Max she immediately apologised for her earlier presumptuousness.  “But this young woman is particularly close to me, and occult threats are real.”  She managed a stiff smile.  “If you like I’ll come in some time when you’ve got nothing better to do and you can try to analyse my powers and see if you can find any other explanation for them.”

Max smiled back as they walked down the corridor, “I already know you don’t register as a meta-human. However that doesn’t mean you aren’t, it just means our testing regimes aren’t currently quite as thorough or as comprehensive as I’d like. To misquote Clarke’s third law – magic is indistinguishable from a sufficiently advanced biological evolutionary uplift. Where you see magic, I see a delusional psychokinetic… What is witchcraft to the ignorant is simple science to the learned.

Sorry, I don’t buy the whole mumbo jumbo and hocus pocus experience.   You’re welcome to your delusions of course as long as your superstitions don’t interfere with anything I’m doing. Or endanger me and mine of course.”

Mary realised that magic was something that she and Max would never agree on and asked Max if she could join the other Mary MacCarty in her iron-defended safe space for a private conversation.

After a moment’s studying the girl’s face, Mary says, gently enough.  “We two share a name, my dear, and also some DNA.  How that has come about I do not know, and I doubt that you do either – but we are in some sort family, and so I’m glad that you are free now, safe and well.  However, just because we are related I have to tell you that there is another danger threatening, with designs upon your life and soul.  I do not know if you believe in magic, but it is real.  And that is why I asked for you to be defended all around by iron as a matter of some urgency.  In a short while I mean, if you’ll agree, for us to travel back together to another iron-defended space where you can live protected for a while, and in some comfort, as with some help from my friends we try to remove this shadow from your life.  Is there anyone that you would need to tell about such a move?  I’m afraid I know so little of your background and history.  But we have time now for you to tell me, if you’d like.”

At first, young Mary seemed reluctant to talk but slowly, gradually her story came out.

Her mum had only been 16 or so when she got pregnant with Mary. Her… Her biological father had apparently also been young and according to Gran not the settlin’ type.

So, she’d been raised by her mum as a single parent, though in reality it had been mostly Gran and Grandpa who’d done the real raising and even that grudgingly. She had always assumed that her ‘biological’ father had done a runner. Knowing her mum though, she could understand why. She was an alcoholic and a bad-tempered one at that. As her periods of sobriety got less frequent their arguments had got more common and Mary had elected to spend less and less time at home… Especially when some of her mum’s boyfriends had started to show an interest in her when her mum was drunk and unconscious!

Then a few months ago she’d come across a letter hidden in one of her mum’s old diaries. It was from her father. It seemed he wasn’t the reason her parents had separated, her mum’s family had upped and moved away when they’d found out she was pregnant. The letter was a plea to stay together, to raise their child together and suggested that if the baby was a boy she name him Colm after his granddad and Mary after his great aunt if it was a girl.

For a moment old Mary’s thoughts slipped – Colm, the name of one of her nephews who’d died in the Easter Rising, during the “Éirí Amach na Cásca”, except the Easter rising hadn’t happened on this particular world.

Unaware her audience had momentarily drifted away, young Mary continued.

The letter had been signed Roy MacCarty and while there was no address the envelope had a Wessex postmark and was dated two months before her birthdate.

She stupidly told her mum she’d found the letter, whilst she was drunk and the argument had got really heated, ending with her mum telling her to get out. Enough was enough, she went to stay with her grandparents for a couple of weeks but they hated that she had decided to call herself MacCarty now and was determined to find what had happened to her biological father.

She decided to head to Wessex and see what she could find out about her father (by this point she’d dropped the ‘biological’ prefix Mary noticed) and had ended up broke and vulnerable. She’d been offered somewhere to stay in Container Town. But before she could find out anything about Roy though, she’d been kidnapped. First by some horrific ghostly presence and when she escaped from that and elected to temporarily move to London and stay in what she called London Below with another runaway called Mike she’d again been kidnapped – by some madmen this time who wanted to test out something called the a Silver Storm on them… They’d moved her several times and kept her sealed up…

Why’d all this happened to her? And now this..? A bag lady, no offence, turns up in a flipping grav-vehicle (heck there are millionaires out there that don’t own their own grav-vehicle) and tells her that she is again at risk this time from an ‘occult threat’ and claims to be family and that she wants to keep her safe.

“So, the real question is who are you and what do you want from me? Perhaps that should be who, or what, are you? And do you know where my father is?”

Mary realised that everything that had happened to the Young Mary risked turning her into a perpetual victim – always expecting the worse from her existence. The young girl needed something to go right for her and soon if she was to turn her life around.

Then she saw Max standing at the doorway. Wonder how long he’d been there? He looked concerned… and nervous? He stumbled his words when he asked her if the young Mary wanted anything to drink and proceeded to list a very long list of liquid refreshments he could get her (none of which were alcoholic she was glad to hear). As he spoke he looked so young, so insecure; so unconfident. His presence and demeanour, heck his intellectual prowess had always made him seem in his early 20’s but looking at him now, stuttering, shuffling his feet she could see for the first time that he was a very lonely and shy boy not yet 20 and nervous… In the presence of a pretty girl! His eyes never left young Mary’s face for a nano-second. Not a lot of experience with girls not his sisters, methinks?

Young Mary on the other hand was completely oblivious to the effect she was having on Max (even accidentally calling him Mac’, something he quickly rushed to correct).  Ok, she hadn’t expected that particular twist.

Mary took a moment for thought and nodded, almost to herself.  She then beckoned Max to come and join them, saying, “You’d better hear this, too,” before turning to the girl again.  “OK, so there are a lot of questions there, and you’ve a right to ask them all, and have answers too, at least of some sort.  And I’ll answer honestly, but you’re gonna find some of it hard to believe. But… Well, you know my real name is Mary MacCarty, just plain that. My natural place is in some sort of world time-line that’s parallel to this, shares some but not all of the events and has developed differently, but I was snatched across into this version by some fellers for their own purposes which I have yet to figure out, and I can’t find my way back.  I got free of their attentions, and ended up as part of some sort of semi-official super-hero outfit – they call themselves The Balance….” she shrugs, “…which is why the grav-car, and me being able to ask favours of young Max here, which not everyone can do…” she favoured Max with a fond smile, as if to say ‘he is a good lad, worth knowing’, before continuing.

“Back in my version of the world I was the last of the MacCarty blood-line – things happened differently back there, I’ve said.  The MacCarty blood-line was ancient Irish royalty, going way, way back, and we had our own Ban-Sidh, or mourning-spirit. According to tradition it was the result of an unholy pact made centuries before. The problem was, with me being the last of the MacCarty’s there, our Ban-Sidh would also have no existence once I died – so we sort of came to an arrangement.  We blended.  She got to live on, and so did I – with some extra abilities thrown into the mix, which is why I can do what I can do, and what I do, do. Fair enough.  But it seems things went much different in this reality.  The MacCarty Ban-Sidh is apparently still what she was in my world; separate, only crazy-mad, and hunting down all the surviving MacCarty’s to destroy them and this creature is more powerful that I remember.  That’s why I was in such a rush to protect you, that’s why all this iron.”

Mary continued. “You asked what I wanted of you?  But it’s more what I want for you – to live a long and full and happy life, safe from all these threats and troubles.”

Mary nodded. “Which brings us to your family in this world; my colleagues – and the good Max here – have plenty of ways to try to trace your father, Rory, and we’ll be getting straight onto that, and I’ve a feeling he may be somewhere in the north.  But I think there may be another old person of our lineage still alive in Dublin.  They’ll also be under threat from this other Banshee. I don’t suppose you might have any clue who that might be, or how to find them?”

“I don’t know anything about my fathers’ family, sorry.”

“That’s why I’m asking you to come live in our secret place for a while, to be defended and respected, have some time to get your life right the way you want it; to be protected, at least until we can permanently sort out this other Banshee problem.”

“Or she could stay here” Max said suddenly, “I mean for a while, if you wanted to of course…”

Young Mary looked up as though seeing him for the first time and smiled. Smiling suited her Mary thought. “Thank you but I think I need to go even if she isn’t actual family, At least if I understand you correctly? I mean we apparently share DNA but not actual family ties..?”

Mary listens and then finishes with, “I’m not going to try to force you to come with me.  You need to be able to choose for yourself, and I know all this may strike you as just too weird, but I hope you’ll trust me, at least to test-out a little how things go, see more of what’s around all this from a place of safety; which doesn’t have to be under my wing, if you’d rather not.   Max has said he would be prepared to offer you shelter here, if you’d prefer – now he’s heard what I’ve had to say.”

She again smiled at Max. “Thank you, seriously thank you for this” pointing to the guest room “and for the offer. It means a lot really does, but I heard when I arrived about you being worried that my being here might put your brothers or sisters at risk. I can’t allow that, not after all your help.” She looked him in the face, tilting her head ever so slightly. “Though perhaps, only if you wanted to of course, you could visit? I don’t have that many people I… I trust. Would you..?” Max nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

The two Mary’s climbed into the back of the Raft and Adam immediately set off for the BASEment. On arrival Jeeves came over to greet them. “Ah young Miss, will you be joining us?” Young Mary looked puzzled. “Haven’t we met before, when I first came to Wessex. You were in the park, you told me about Container Town didn’t you?” Jeeves nodded slightly “Whatever you need please let me know. I’ve set up a room for you and there are some clothes there that should fit. I’ve arranged for you to have an internet link to your room and there is food and soft drinks in a fridge in your room.”

Mary watched as the girl went with Jeeves to look at her room leaving her to her thoughts. The Ban Sidhe was apparently momentarily hindered from its revenge on the family with having to track down and attack another target, whoever that might be. This gave her, them a window of opportunity before it came for the remaining MacCarty’s. Perhaps it would be a good opportunity to go visit Dublin and try and find the relation there whilst Sam and Akira tried to find and protect whoever the creature was currently being unleashed at? Mary’s presence trying to protect its target might actually make things worse.

Anyway, Sam’d already identified another MacCarty; Colm, still living in Dublin. I’m sure he (or Annie?) could track down an address for him. At 116 of age, he wouldn’t be around much longer and he might be Roy’s grandad (could he be this world’s equivalent of her nephew Colm?) which would make him Young Mary’s great-grandad.

She smiled to herself, perhaps Max could join them? Maybe even act as pilot?