9pm, 31st December 1999
The sky outside was already filled with the cacophony of numerous explosions as multiple fireworks were set off early. However, instead of celebrating the arrival of the new Millennium with the rest of the world, the Balance were sitting in a drafty, old community hall on creaking folding chairs with a number of other ‘heroes’ from this era; including several members of the Protectors, London Watch and a selection of independents from Héros sans Frontières.
Danni sat beside the three of them, happily inhaling her third cup of coffee. On arriving in this era a few hours before, she had immediately arranged for the comatose Locker to be transported to St. Margaret’s Hospital for emergency medical attention while they got to listen to someone calling himself Daedalus lecturing them about the end of civilisation.
He claimed to be the original mythical Greek ‘inventor’ of the same name though that was obviously impossible though he was clearly long-lived. He was dressed in partially unfastened power armour fashioned in Greek style and was droning on about the risks of the so-called Y2K and some fresh-faced kid called Saul Rattigan who’d made a fortune out of supposedly ‘fixing the problem’.
Despite only being kids when the Millennium Bug had been considered the world’s ‘biggest potential disaster’, both Mace and Akira were familiar with the concept and how it had been averted on their timestream at least. Their own presence here and now was a sign that Danni thought there was some temporal disruption at play. Meanwhile a fidgeting Mace was whispering to the others that she wasn’t happy as she ‘did not do London.’
Upfront, Daedalus was still talking. “So the issue is that a terrorist group backed by Saul has emerged that claims they have the power to massively reduce the population and destroy civilisation, sending humanity back to the dark ages. From what we have seen, they may even have the capacity to achieve those aims.
The Zero Population Growth (ZPG) organisation is claiming to behind this, using a backdoor into computers to crash all computer systems upgraded to be Y2K Compliant and they then propose to send a signal that will trigger EMPs worldwide that would shut down all other computers online worldwide forcing humanity into chaos… Given their spokesperson is Saul Rattigan they may be able to achieve their aims.”
“And make humanity fodder for a vampire takeover,” muttered a very relaxed looking Danni as she supped her coffee.
Vampires? Was this related to another potential vampire uprising? There did seem to be something about the previous events following a pattern… The first attempt at a vampire takeover they encountered had been in 1666, then again in 1888 so was there a reason they were now in 1999 or should that be 2000? Coincidence, or was there a mystical reason for the events happening when they did?
On stage and completely unaware of Danni’s comments, Daedalus was still talking, “So what’s the big deal about Y2K, anyway? Two years ago, the man on the street had never heard the abbreviation ‘Y2K’. Now, in 1999, you can’t open a newspaper without seeing it. What are we dealing with… an empty panic, a cynically fuelled Full employment for programmers plot, or a genuine disaster in the making?”
Akira however was still quietly moaning to the team about needing food, “after all it has been over a century since I’d last eaten” he muttered. Mace smiled and promised him a veggie kebab as soon as they could get away.
Nearby sat the Protectors; led by the Aslan-like human chimerian, “Wildcat” (though at this time he was still going by the name “Chat Noir”, so-called because of his habit of wearing black). He wasn’t their issue though, they were having to try to avoid two of his teammates that they knew (would know?) in the future. Sitting just behind him was their team’s armoured weaponsmaster known as ‘Hotshot’, with the arm-mounted Cesta’s that he used as a weapon delivery system, sprawled with his mask off revealing a younger, uninjured Jack Taggart (the future barkeep of the Endeavour) beside a familiar dark-haired woman who he was trying to cadge a cigarette from. That explained a lot thought Mary, remembering the framed photo of the Protectors behind the bar.
The woman chain-smoking was also familiar, despite calling herself Pagan in the here and now; it was an unaltered and strangely un-aged Naomi Van Helsing, her only disguise being a pair of dark glasses.
There were others present in the hall that Mary recognised – including Impulse who sat two rows down, her apparent ‘teammate’ from Dalton’s Defenders who’d been trapped in a cylinder beside both her and Chrono when they’d first arrived in this universe. He would be subsequently genetically experimented on by Dalton and turned into Emp; but in the here and now he was just a young kid, he looked to only be 16 if that, though he has to be at least 18 to have obtained his HCP license.
Then there was a face familiar from a framed photograph, Inspector Marcus Tolliver’s famous uncle, Protector still powerfully built despite being in his 50’s. Beside him sat a man in a black trench coat, full face mask with a black fedora hat that sounded a lot like Chrono, even down to the slightly slurred speech – was this their Chrono’s original version from this paratime? He had been introduced as being a speedster (but then Chrono’s had never been very forthcoming about his time-altering powers) and was currently known as Rush.
Danni had explained earlier that she needed them to stand in for three other heroes, that this temporal mess would redirect them from where they had to be and which, if they weren’t where they should be at this time and date, would derail their own timeline. Other TimeWatch agents had been assigned to distract them and get them back on track of being where they had to be whilst the Balance took their place on this operation.
So here they sat, supposedly Héros sans Frontière jobbers, unaffiliated heroes called in when their specific skills were required. Banshee was pretending to be her own paratime twin from this time and place so could get by with calling herself Banshee, Akira on the other hand had been referred to as ‘Clown’ and ‘Mace’ as ‘Crossbow’ and they were assumed to be HsF members thanks to Psipher’s temporary interference with the official records.
She did caution them against getting too friendly with anyone they would eventually interact with in the future such as Jack, Pagan, Impulse, etc. They’d taken that to heart so were caught completely by surprise when a woman carrying a composite bow entered and sat in the row behind them. The woman had Mace’s undisguised facial features! Mace was just thankful that she had her Holographic Personality Recognition Circuit switched on. As the woman sat down behind them, she placed her composite bow beside her and nodded curtly at Danni who obviously knew her.
In front, Daedalus was still droning on about the issues of programmers abbreviating the year code to only two digits. “…Now worry. This is not just a problem for desktops and mainframes. Computer chips contain clocks and calendars, too. Your home’s central heating has a computer chip that keeps track of the day. So does your VCR. So does a nuclear missile. If any one of these three things loses track of what day it is, inconvenience could result and many chips can’t be reprogrammed. They must be physically replaced with a computer program (or chip) that will not hiccup at the end of 1999 – one that stores years as a full four digits – is termed “Y2K compliant.”
Mace couldn’t take it any longer and whispering asked Danni who the mysterious woman behind them was. Danni leant low and whispered back, “Ah, that’s Agent Sparrow currently of MI6. Best avoid her, she’s trouble.” Of course, Danni had never seen Mace without her anonymity collar activated and had never seen her undisguised face.
Who was this Agent Sparrow Mace wondered, a close relation obviously, but who? A sister, aunt..? Or could this possibly, finally be her mother? Despite the desire to find out more, she felt paralysed by fear and awareness that any attempt to talk to her might derail her own timeline…
On stage, Daedalus was still droning on. “So when an innovative tech company, Saul Rattigan’s, invented new integrated circuits grown on a single crystal and sliced into a pre-programmed chip two years ago and gave away the technology for free to companies and governments they jumped at it and adopted the process as a quick way to bypass the whole Y2K issue. The problem with an integrated circuit like this though is that it is impossible to alter whatever data or programming it already contained, though new data could be added and it is impossible to discover what was already programmed in. Too many governments and companies, including the UK’s, failed to look this particular gift horse in the mouth and adopted the technology as a cheap solution to the problem, and I’m old enough to remember another gift horse that also caused a few problems. It’s only in the last couple of days that we discovered that ZPG were behind the discovery. Not all computers have been upgraded with this, as many still couldn’t afford to upgrade.”
That caught Mace’s attention and momentarily distracted her from trying to figure out who the woman with identical facial features to her was as she was aware that single state circuitry of this complexity wouldn’t be invented for another 15 years, first confirmed proof of temporal interference.
Then a video was projected onto the bare walls of the hall showing a youthful Saul Rattigan standing against a ZPG logo. “We just want to say that we love the people of this world, but damn most of you are just too stubborn to change your lifestyle so the next logical step is to decrease the number of people in the world using its resources. If we can get rid of enough people, then our way of life can become more sustainable again.” Daedalus muttered that this ZPG broadcast by Saul Rattigan had been sent at midday that day.
“An electromagnetic pulse (or EMP) will definitely destroy integrated circuits, whether or not they have date functions – and indeed, whether or not they’re installed in a piece of equipment. With the loss of the automated equipment that makes and designs the chips), the entire IC industry might have to “bootstrap” itself up from the discrete-components era. To add to the problem is that Rattigan’s company was also responsible for programming a series of charged-particle-beam satellites for the USA – satellites currently orbiting the planet as part of Operation Wideawake. A global EMP could be triggered by discharging them into the atmosphere and we have no idea what their ready status is.
So what would be the effects if ZPG succeed? First, it will get dark… and, in northern areas, cold. Power plants will shut down. This is actually a very real concern: many don’t have a backup generator system for their main computers; if anything knocks them off the grid, they will be a long time starting up again.
When the lights go out, people will be frightened, and they’ll be more frightened when they can’t get news on their TV, when there is no newspaper delivery, when the neighbour’s short-wave radio tells them it’s this way, or worse, all over the world. Soon people will get thirsty. Some water-treatment plants will be taken down by power outages. Others have their own generators, but will lose control of their computers and pumps. Clean water will quickly be in short supply.
Ironically, this may come sooner in developed countries, where pampered citizens aren’t used to water rationing. Then people will get hungry. Grocery stores contain about three days’ supply of food. Individuals in their homes may have a day’s supply, or a week’s. Few have more. Food depends on the rail network to move from rural to urban areas.
Hospitals will be choked with emergency cases. They’ll have their own power generators and fuel supplies, but there just won’t be enough beds, especially if hungry people start looting and fighting… or cold people start flocking toward the lights to find warmth… or air-traffic computers malfunction and planes go down.”
Several diagrams flashed onto the wall as Akira decided to engage the woman with Mace’s facial features in conversation, despite Mace’s obvious anxiety. He turned and whispered, “Nice bow, have you been into archery for long?”
She smiled, Mace’s smile he couldn’t help noticing, and leant forward to whisper, “Thanks, yes I use a bow a lot, I find it useful especially in my travels. You can’t always rely on finding suitable ammo when you’re out there…” Danni snorted at that comment. What did she know that they didn’t?
Despite Mace’s pulling at his arm, he continued, “I’ve dabbled a bit myself, what’s the pull strength of your bow?” Again she smiled, “It’s adjustable but I’ve currently got it set for a 75lb pull. Now I need to concentrate on the briefing if you don’t mind?”
Daedalus was finishing off his presentation, “They have elected to use Greenwich Mean Time to activate their plan for the new Millennium and we have reason to believe the activation equipment is located here in the UK. The Protectors will be undertaking the assault on Jodrell Bank to try to stop them from sending the signal to activate the charged-particle-beam satellites. London Watch will watch for terrorist activity designed to disable the army’s ability to respond should something happen in London. The rest of you will split into several teams to protect key installations while our European allies will be ensuring that any intercontinental attacks are dealt with promptly… So sorry folks, I appreciate you being here today to deal with this emergency and hopefully the evening will pass without incident.”
As he finished speaking, the teams began to separate and head for their destinations. They had been allocated to guard Mondial House, a main telecommunications hub in central London on the banks of the River Thames, which was known as an international switching centre. They would be joined by Protector and Danni and would be safeguarding the main telecommunications exchange to ensure the ZPG don’t activate a backdoor to shut down computer systems via the telephone network.
As they travelled across London, Mace asked Danni how she knew Agent Sparrow. A look of disgust crossed her face as replied, “Sparrow is a member of the Locksley family and a member of the Agincourt Irregulars. No, I won’t explain, look them up for yourself when you get home. She is also a rogue time traveller working for British Intelligence, for a section that specialises in unusual and irrational phenomena, and she has made a name for herself in intelligence circles by being exactly where she needs to be at the correct time. She does so with the use of a captured temporal device, a ‘passport’. Sparrow doesn’t spend a lot of time flitting from one time period to the next; instead, she travels to the future, researches the past, and then inserts herself at points where she can be most effective. She does not like using firearms, preferring bows and blade weapons as she can put together weapons in any era she finds herself in. SIS maintains a large number of counsellors whose job is nothing more than reminding Sparrow who she truly is, in order to help neutralise the chronal instability she unfortunately builds up on every mission.
Sparrow is largely incorruptible and has Britain’s best interests in mind, though not necessarily those of TimeWatch or the ‘proper’ timestream. Agents might find themselves at cross-purposes with her on one mission, only to be working side by side on the next. She is exceptionally prepared, something that has come to annoy more than one of her enemies. Luckily, she’s hilarious and witty to banter with, loyal to her friends (mostly) and her country (always), seldom holds a grudge, and is diplomatic enough to smooth over disagreements even with TimeWatch.”
Danni went on to explain, “This is a fluid point in time, anything could happen. Our history of this point is time changes every time we check it. We hope by bringing in yourselves, to stabilise this period once and for all.”
Outside, everyone was already getting ready to party like it was 1999, except them. They introduced themselves to the engineering staff on duty and arranged for a patrol of the premises but everything seemed normal. There had been no data breaches and nothing was amiss.
An hour passed uneventfully until Protector was called away to check on some irregular transmissions the engineers had intercepted, leaving the others to wander the darkened corridors of the building. As they passed the only occupied workstation, one of the engineers casually asked who was guarding the Black Fibre Network under the BT Tower?
When the didn’t know what that was he went on to explain that he would have thought that would have been a more likely target for terrorists rather than trying to hack into the commercial channels. The ‘BFN’ had the ability to override all telecommunications channels in the event of a war or nuclear attack and had recently updated to do the same with mobile telecommunications… It also handled comms to the UK’s missile silos and submarines and a nuclear missile would act as an EMP just as effectively as a charged-particle-beam discharge.
As far as they could remember, no one had been assigned to the BT Tower, probably because no one knew about the Government’s secret network and the Tower being its primary access point. Then Protector returned looking apprehensive.
“Weird, someone calling herself ‘Tin-Can Annie’ has just hacked into our comms system, a neat trick in itself and claims that we’re looking in the wrong place for the control unit. She says we need to check out the BT Tower. No one’s ever heard of this Tin-Can Ali or Annie before and most are ignoring it. What do you think? Want to check it out?”
Tin-Can Annie? Wasn’t that what Annie used to call herself before she upgraded? It was too much of a coincidence. They left Danni, now armoured up and Protector to guard Mondial House as they set off for the BT Tower, flying as stealthily as they could, given the sky was aglow with exploding fireworks. As they headed for Fitzrovia, near London’s West End, it was hard to miss this tower of steel, glass and radio disks jutting vertically into the sky despite it being surprisingly unlit. At first glance, it appeared to be a case of wild and modern architecture, but this structure was older than people originally thought and had a deep history in the city. Known previously as the General Post Office Tower and then Telecom Tower, it now went by the name BT Tower, and remained one of London’s signature structures.
They arrived close to the dark 600-foot tall, concrete and glass tower and elected to undertake a reconnaissance before heading in. The first thing the noticed were the dozen men wandering outside all dressed in near identical raincoats and hats. That definitely wasn’t normal but there was always the possibility that they were either Police in disguise or even SIS operatives.
They ‘hid’ Mace’s bike in a nearby alley, hovering several metres in the sky as they decided how to proceed. It was a big building, the first 15 or 16 floors consist of utility platforms for communication; the next 35 meters opened up to house multiple antennae and satellite dishes; and then several more floors allocated for utility and functional space. The 34th floor was the now closed revolving restaurant and finally a 40-foot weather radar capped the tower off.
As Akira couldn’t teleport in blind, it was decided that Banshee would transport Mace and herself into the main ground floor lobby to carry out a recce, by turning them both insubstantial and invisible to ‘sneak’ passed the patrols. They would check out the ground level before sending for Akira.
Inside, apart from emergency lighting the reception area was dark but something was moving near the stairwell. It took them a couple of seconds to realise that they had struck gold. The meandering figure was none other than Saul Rattigan himself! He walked towards a wide column and stepped behind it. Another man, also dressed in a raincoat stepped clear on the other side. Shapechanger?
Had they thought about it, it hadn’t been that long since they had seen another shapechanger but this felt different somehow. Banshee moved her passenger towards a shadowy back wall and allowed Mace to resubstantialise as she then moved to try to intercept the morphed figure.
It was only after Mary had left that Mace realised the wall behind her seemed to be moving and hissing like a living thing. Despite the risk of being seen she stepped forward slightly and saw the shadow at her feet follow her, scuttling forward of its own volition.
Outside, Akira could see several of the men in coats suddenly stop then proceed to the main doors and stare inside. It was obvious that someone or something had alerted them and he needed to take action before they entered the building.
Realising their stealth approach had failed for some reason; Banshee substantialised herself and unleashed an aura of fear at the people gathering at the entrance. They scattered, leaving some slightly luminous mucus on the door. Akira smiled and prepared to rush towards the door as he muttered under his breath, “He who gathers has little and he who scatters has much, and we have got more than we wanted it seems.”
He activated his commdot and transmitted, “Mace, we’re in trouble here.” He ran towards the door unleashing a series of mystical blasts at the gathered figures.
Inside the Tower, Mace turned to see that the darkness behind her was formed of thousands of cockroaches of every size acting in unison, threatening to swamp her and responded, “I need help inside, now..!” before activating her grav-gauntlet and sweeping it across the wall crushing the bugs. The loud squelch as their chitin suddenly cracked and splattered meant her location was no longer a secret.
Akiras’s blasts highlighted that the figures standing in front of him were not human as it revealed that they were actually composed on hundreds of thousands of cockroaches gathered into the shape of a man, held together by a ‘coating’ of mucus. The first blast missed its target but revealed that inside the ‘chest’ of its target, protected by the roaches, was an alien bug the size of a melon that he immediately named a ‘brain bug’. His next blast was aimed at chest height, but only succeeded in roasting dozens of the roaches protecting it. His next two blasts failed as the human-looking creatures warped themselves round the blasts in a very inhuman way. Thankfully, the next couple of blasts hit but as they retained their humanoid shape, he had to assume he’d missed frying their brain bugs. Still it cleared the path for him to get inside the building and start to transform the metal door and frame into a putty-like substance and smear it into a single, mixed consistency before removing his hand, leaving it sealed behind him.
As he turned he saw a massive three metre-tall cockroach like creature standing on its rear legs dragging a cylindrical device with dozens of wires dangling out, towards the stairwell.
The ‘Bug Boy’ as Akira immediately nicknamed it, stopped and pulled out a device that resembled a 1950’s Flash Gordon ray gun and pointed it in their general direction. Meanwhile the creature that had been Saul jumped at Banshee who immediately reacted by unleashing a wail of the Banshee at the figure. The scream slammed the creature against the wall, decimated some of the disguised roaches and splashed a layer of mucus against the wall even as a solitary human scream echoed up from the basement as a consequence.
The gigantic bug with the ray gun fired but the scream must have affected it as the blast went wild, giving Mace the opportunity to unleash an EMP bolt at the head of the device it was cowering behind, the one that looked strikingly like a homemade nuclear bomb. The bolt hit and sizzled as the readouts on the cylinder died. From across the room Akira cheered, again drawing bug boy’s attention and a second blast from its ray gun. He managed to dodge but the heat from the ray as it skimmed his arm melted a section of his sleeve. This required a response and quickly. He shouted over his comms for Mace to put her rebreather in as he planned to use the Somnambulant Spell of Sirrion.
Mace knew that Akira’s Somnambulant Spell of Sirrion created a thin, pinkish mist, rising up from the ground that put its targets into a deep sleep but what if as Bug Boy fell asleep it somehow reactivated the bomb..? She screamed “No! and I mean no Akira, it’s too risky…”
Akira decided reluctantly to not expend mystical energy into a spell before they knew what they were actually facing and instead responded with several ethereal blasts at the ‘prawn’, one of which caught it in the head and fried it, causing it to drop to the ground dead.
The act caused screeching and hissing to echo all around them as though the building itself was responding to the attack. The ‘Saul’ creature began pulling in more and more roaches causing it to expand in size. Banshee immediately responded with a wail that again smashed it against the wall behind it and again crushing dozens of the individual bugs. It responded by expanding its ‘arm’ out, forming a living ‘bridge’ of squirming bugs stretching towards Mace. She dodged and the living, squirming tip of the ‘arm’ smashed into the column behind her raining crunched bug bits down on her head. Banshee used the distraction to immediately head towards the stairwell, passed the hopefully disarmed bomb as he headed down towards the basement.
As ‘Saul’ tried to reform its living club and slam it down on top of Mace she unleashed a baton round at the middle of the ‘arm’ causing it to shatter into two, cascading individual bugs down on top of her. She kept up a series of bolts at the bug collective; the next bolt found and dazed its brain bug but it took a couple more shots before another bolt found and killed it. This time the resulting scream from the basement sounded fatal, before being cut short.
Mace responded by running for the stairwell where Akira joined her and to her surprise, levitated the bomb through the doors and onto the landing where he turned and again used his transformation powers on the metal door and frame to mould them together, sealing it behind him. It would hopefully stall any other bug boys for a few minutes at least. He left the deactivated bomb wedged against the sealed doors as he headed down the stairs to join the others.
As they entered the basement, their eyes took in the inhuman scene that the area had been transformed into. It was dimly lit and excessively hot, the smell was sulphuric and humid but it was the sights that were worse. At the centre of the room was a roach-like creature, several metres tall and with massive pulsating egg sac that was constantly producing half metre-long soft eggs that gradually hardened as they were pushed out the end of the sac. There were several hundred of the eggs ready to hatch lying round the chamber. Surrounding what he assumed was a queen was a couple of the tall, roach warriors like the one that had been pushing the bomb.
That organic horror however did not hide the technological horror of the multiple transparent chambers that ran along the wall behind her, each of which contained an unconscious, mucus-covered human being. One of the chambers was badly cracked and contained a familiar body, one no longer covered in mucus; it was a naked and very dead Saul Rattigan. It seemed these bugs needed access to the original person in order to duplicate their shape (and did that include access to their memories and personality?)
What the..? A quick head count revealed that there were twenty or so unconscious victims not counting the dead Saul and an incoming message was blocking their transmitting out for assistance.
A familiar female voice from a disembodied Annie came over their comms, “Damn! The bad guys just tried to launch a series of nuclear missiles. I’ve managed to interfere with the launch from the sub but I was not quick enough. One has launched and I can’t stop it. It’s working autonomously and is aimed at Greenwich. If it hits it will take out most of London and with the Black Fibre Network compromised there is no way to warn other nuclear powers about what had actually happened, so this explosion is likely to set off a nuclear exchange between America, Russia and other countries with Britain caught in the middle. ”
Then Danni’s voice immediately interrupted the team comms to quickly explain that this obviously never happened in their version of reality so somehow they have to make it not happen now, whatever it took.
Annie meanwhile had continued her plea, “The assumption is that it is intended for a high altitude explosion affecting the Earth’s magnetic field. By detonating a one megatonne warhead 400 kilometres up, the gamma rays would hit the upper atmosphere, ejecting electrons, which would then be deflected by the Earth’s magnetic field radiating an electromagnetic pulse over a wide area and it would be goodnight Sweetheart to modern day civilisation as per the ZPG propaganda.
However, this missile is coming in too hot and low. It’s less than a couple of miles up and I think its trajectory means its intended to explode on impact and irradiate whatever remains of the South of England after decimating London and beyond.”
Again Danni cut in, “You must stop it at all costs. Good luck… Let me know if have any ideas. I can get Rush to freeze it in the sky above London for about 30 seconds if anyone can get to it and somehow stop it from exploding. It might mean splitting the team up though.”
Mace meanwhile continued firing baton rounds smashing the eggs as Akira quickly discussed how to deal with the missile with Banshee. They were rewarded with the Queen ripping itself free of its egg sac and with three of the warrior bugs rushed them, spitting bubbling fluid at both Mace and Banshee that sizzled when it hit the floor.
“No time”, Akira shouted, “get the people out, Mace” as he teleported up to the street and looking skyward saw a blazing star flying across the sky. It was low enough he should be able to teleport to it assuming Chro… Rush managed to freeze time without doing the same to him. He had a couple of options and if he was lucky, he might even survive the encounter. He levitated into the air then shouted to Danni just one word, “Now!” as he teleported towards where the Trident missile would be in a couple of seconds time.
He appeared, floating in the sky a dozen metres from the third stage of a metallic Trident II missile suddenly frozen in the sky. Nearby an armoured Danni was floating in the sky holding a shaking Rush who was freezing the missile mid-flight. Time had stopped but he had less than 25 seconds left to find a solution. Turning it into cheese wouldn’t work, there were too many different materials involved in its construction and it would expose him to the radioactive material inside. Time was speeding by.
Down below, Banshee and Mace were busy fighting the Queen and the warrior bugs. Banshee unleashed a terrorising scream that staggered and incapacitated two of the warrior bugs but didn’t affect the other bug or the Queen who responded by a psychic attack that Banshee managed to immediately shake off but left Mace dazed and confused. However, she had a task to complete, freeing the prisoners. Leaving Banshee to cope with the bugs she staggered over to the cylinders and using her grav-gauntlet she fire a wide sweep that shattered all of the tubes and pushed the mucus clear of the victims trapped inside. As each was cleared of the psychotropic goo, the victims appeared to awaken and stagger free of the shattered chambers – each release accompanied by an inhuman screech from the floors above. Freeing the captives seemed to be hurting the bug ‘colony’.
Having liberated the captives, Mace immediately staggered to rejoin Banshee in fighting the Queen and her warrior entourage even as Akira was floating closer to the Trident missile and considering his options. He could try levitating the missile into space but it would definitely kill him and might not stop the missile from crashing and irradiating the land below. No he needed assistance, guidance from a higher authority and he thought he knew who or rather what to ask… He began a plea to a triad of higher beings he never thought he would ever have to call on – a prayer that would have consequences he would have to face at some point, just not now. Thankfully, all such audiences happened outside of time… He needed that. Nearby, Danni was holding a shaking Rush as she tried to hover the pair of them in the sky while he tried to temporally freeze the missile. Akira had about 10 or 15 seconds left at most before it resumed its destructive passage. Already the missile shuddered as it tried to break free of its temporal prison and its jets spluttered.
Akira had a really off the wall idea that, if the Heavens were willing, might, just might, mean he would survive this encounter but for it to work he had to make a sacrifice – in this case he offered a year of his life. Ah well, it just meant he would have to settle for only living to ninety-nine rather than a hundred. He began the thankfully short prayer to the Triluminary, known as The Modrossus requesting a Judgement. The Modrossus was an amalgam of three potent mystic entities: higher entities known individually as Abbridon, Heshem, and Lamal and the single greatest force for positive and protective magic known to mortal mages.
Almost instantly, a glowing being with three heads appeared in front of him: male, female, and androgyne, with the faces of a lion, a serpent, and an eagle, each with a glowing rune on its forehead. He knew that Danni and Rush couldn’t see the higher being as he pled for a Judgment.
This was is a fearsome invocation, calling upon the highest mystic order to judge the petitioner’s, Akira’s worthiness. He knew that the judgment rendered by the triple-power would be fair but dispassionate. Of course, that might not be in his favour.
His plea to the mystical Triluminary was short and sweet. How could he save his world and get rid of the missile. His plea acknowledged that he might not personally survive the solution. As though in response, he ‘saw’ in his mind a desolate wasteland, decimated by nuclear bombardment in its relatively recent past and now populated only by cockroaches of every size. These were the Ezeru.
Well, they’d always said the only thing that could survive a worldwide nuclear exchange would be roaches, just no-one expected them to gain sentience as a result.
Then in his mind the mystical Compass of Ahgrazul manifested, a gift from Heshem, the hooded one. Akira now knew where he had to be, he just needed to get there and that meant entering the pathway between realities. He manifested the Seventh Wheel of Weyan to transport both himself and the missile away, though the veil between realities. As soon as he did, time restarted and he was forced to restrain it’s massive push and mass with his Theurgical-Kinetic ‘grip’ while he navigated the Convergence looking for a suitable portal. Thanks to the Compass in his mind, he ‘knew’ the pathway he wanted was close. He allowed the crimson mystical ‘fluid’ to wash him towards his proposed destination, hoping the missile’s astro-inertial guidance system had reset or been deactivated when the stars it had been using for guidance had disappeared after it had entered the mana-filled mystical Convergence.
Then he saw it, a scar in the corridor walls that glowed an unhealthy, sickly green, a wound in realities that ‘sang’ of pain to him. Through the translucent barrier, he ‘saw’ the irradiated wasteland that apparently was the Ezeru’s original homeland, a decimated parallel world that was slowly fading from existence. He used his Theurgical-Kinesis to rip the scab open and drop the missile through the tear before he allowed it to heal over again. Seconds later the missile exploded. Cockroaches were supposed to be capable of surviving a nuclear attack but hopefully not a direct hit of such thermonuclear destruction.
Exhausted, he collapsed back into the embrace of the red mana ‘river’ and allowed himself to drift in the mystical current. In this near comatose state, he failed to see several of the alien, mermaid-like inhabitants of the Convergence gently gather his floating, depleted body and guide it towards another, familiar dimensional rip. They guided him through the wound in reality even as he started to awaken.
Even as the missile vanished from the sky, Banshee and Mace were fighting for their lives against the acidic spittle and bone-shattering clatter of the warrior’s pincers and mandibles as they advanced. Banshee took the opportunity to grab hold of the Queen and insubstantialised them both. The Queen continued struggling with Banshee in that state. Despite its size, strength and the multiple cuts and wounds the creature was inflicting, Banshee managed to hold on to the creature despite its attempts to break free of Banshee’s physical embrace.
One chance, Banshee began to phase through a nearby wall with the queen then allowed it to pull free while its head was still travelling through the wall. It turned physical with its head trapped in the brick wall. It died instantly. Meanwhile, Mace unleashed a series of unsheathed bolts at the heads of the warrior bugs that seemed to be paralysed by the sudden death of their queen. Unable to dodge, the bolts were deadly.
As they both headed up to the street, they passed several colonies of roaches as well as warriors, all seemingly paralysed by the death of the Queen. As soon as they walked into the street, an exhausted Akira teleported in beside them with a Cheshire Cat grin plastered across their face.
Seconds later Danni confirmed over their comms that she was arranging for a TimeWatch clean up team to ‘port in to clear up the ‘infestation’ and ensure there was nothing left that could still unhinge the timestream.
Seemed she was familiar with the Ezeru; a race that would evolve in a distant, post-apocalyptic irradiated future from mutated cockroaches. A future that TimeWatch operatives had subsequently prevented from occurring, shunting their parallel reality into a dying timeline. In response, they had tried to strengthen their own genesis and survival by infiltrating Earth’s history and finding opportunities to construct their own origins by recreating the environmental circumstances that led to their mutation through increasing the level of background radiation on Earth far above what is survivable by humanity.
A day later, after the team had recovered from the New Year festivities and rescuing Locker from the hospital, Danni transported them forward in time when they found themselves arriving back in their present in the Beacon Room of the BASEment mere minutes after the attack on Westminster Bridge; which was still being televised live.
Jeeves immediately rushed to help them transport the still unconscious Locker to the Med-Bay and then, having connected him up to life support he made a call.
Within ten minutes Annie with Young Sam rushed in and Annie started a series of diagnostics on the young hero including an MRI followed by cross-examination of the team to find out what had happened to him. After about an hour of examinations and tests she pulled the team together in the Lounge and explained that it appeared that his coma was somehow self-induced. She spoke with Sam who rushed outside and flew away in their speedster. Half an hour later, he returned with an alien-looking humanoid with a plume of spikes on her head, a teacher from Claremont school, and a shy white-haired pupil with blazing fiery eyes. The boy was immediately familiar to both Mace and especially to Akira as he had once used a mystical sun to attack him in the training chamber months before. This was the student, Ashen.
The teacher hovered over Lockers’ head not moving for about 30 minutes then walked over and quietly talked with the boy. He nodded then headed in and started to quietly talk to Locker as she left the Med-Bay and firmly shut the door behind her even as Young Sam smiled and switched off the speaker system.
“You don’t want to overhear Ashen, he has the ability to command people as well as make them forget things and I don’t think you want that to happen to you. Rhan has figured out what has happened to Locker but I’ll let her explain herself.”
Rhan bobbed her head, almost birdlike then spoke in fluent English, “I am a sort of telepath and I uncovered a mental conditioning in the boy. He has been in the presence of a powerful vampire, Boire? Somehow, this Boire used his abilities to reprogram Locker’s mind over several months of captivity, though that part is very confused as he believes he was somehow trapped outside of time. The last clear memory he has is of falling into a polluted river then a fragmented cacophony of memories covering months of torture. Anyway, the programming was to force him to try to kill you three and then ‘self-destruct’ by committing suicide. He has been fighting and countering this conditioning ever since, in the only way he could – by putting himself into a form of slow self-destruction by coma.
Ashen is the closest person we have with similar abilities to Boire and I have asked him to try to use his Voice abilities to try to blot out the conditioning. If that does not work then I will have to administer a mindwipe but, and here is the rub as you Terrans say, the conditioning is so deeply interwoven with his identity as Locker that to succeed I would need to wipe his memory of ever being Locker, of ever being a member of the Balance. Until we can be sure that his programming has been removed we will need to blank out everything that might trigger it – his whole Locker persona.”
She stopped and looked at them, “Its either that or we let him will himself to death rather than follow his conditioning.”
Three days later, a still unconscious Jerome Tolliver was transferred back home even as an exhausted Ashen explained that he had tried to set up new neural pathways to hopefully allow Jerome to rediscover the original unprogrammed Locker one day but that there was no way to be sure. He’d been spending every waken moment in the Med-Bay with the unconscious Locker trying to use his Voice of Allure to counter Boire’s programming, only resting when forced to do so by Sam.
Rhan explained though that just in case, the link to his having once been Locker has been wiped from his memory. He no longer had any memories of being Locker, or being with the Balance – the gaps in his memory has been filled with a year of travel to Europe and India and meeting new friends. His father and young brother would maintain the illusion which should hold as long as he had no contact with the team, in case that resparked Boire’s conditioning and set him off trying to kill them followed by himself.
When Jerome woke a few hours later his Dad and younger brother were present to explain that he’d accidentally knocked himself unconscious when he’d got off the plane from Mumbai but he was now home and safe. His computer had been purged of its video recording software and collection of edited vlogs and his costume had been stored with the Balance where it occupied a place of honour in their trophy area.
Meanwhile, back in the Endeavour a small group of people were toasting a young hero called Locker who was no longer with them. It was a sombre event and reluctantly, the team and their support staff left the bar to return to the BASEment…
The Ezeru and TimeWatch were created by Kevin Kulp.
Superhero Adventures, UK Style 