Superhero Adventures, UK Style

(Inspired by the novel ‘Neverwhere’ by Neil Gaiman)

Harry Powers, Director of AEGIS had persuaded Frankie to put his video call straight through to the team. That meant at this time of the day that the team were gathered in the lounge, lounging and Mary enjoyed the look of annoyance on his face whenever he glanced at his screen and saw Mary puffing away at her pipe, in what he assumed was their work environment…

They had first met Harry when they had discovered the parasite identification goggles and revealed that one of his agents, Jethro Ash had been ‘compromised’. Since then he’d been working with Annie and the Challenger-Wildeman family to duplicate the technology to identify those infected and extract the ‘brain beasties’.

He explained that after a couple of months of covertly identifying victims and working on perfecting the parasite extraction procedure he was finally ready to start publicly deploying the goggles and arrest (or should that be rescue?) anyone found to be infected. The plan was to deploy the googles at all ports, government buildings and army bases as well as in the UN whilst offering all countries the technology and procedures so they too could duplicate and ‘clean their own houses’, so to speak.

His issue was that since they had started work on duplicating the technology, silver storm activity had increased across the country and it had changed its methodology; Not only had there been more instances of the Nanites appearing across the country in the last few months but each storm had been smaller in scope and more targeted.

When the first storm had occurred back in 2012 it had been a worldwide event and had affected and powered up hundreds of people with the meta-gene as well as knocking everyone else unconscious. The silver mist, which they now knew was composed of tiny robots, had been random in who and where it had been unleashed. Since then the metallic storms had become increasingly smaller, specifically targeting people with meta-potential and rarely now affecting any other people unless they were nearby.

However, despite his best efforts most of these Stormers vanish immediately after suffering breakthrough, before his team could arrive on-scene and almost all attempts to track them down afterwards had failed. It was as though they had vanished off the face of the planet. It wasn’t just here in the UK. The same thing was happening elsewhere too and that worried him.

What if they were being infected by the control parasites and were now in hiding, a fifth column of powered slaves ready to attack as he was preparing to resolve the threat? By his estimation there must be at least a hundred missing Stormers in the UK alone, worldwide probably more than a couple of thousand missing and that could be just the tip of the iceberg. Who knew what was happening in the USA, China or the Caliphate?

The only clue they had until today had been something an arrested Stormer had said, that immediately after a storm had activated her dormant Meta abilities, a girl had appeared out of nowhere and told her to make her way to London’s China Town – specifically Cho Street in Lime House district and find ‘Trap Street.’ Of course, there is no such street; it had to be a joke as in cartography a trap street is a fictitious entry on a map added for the sole purpose of tricking potential copyright violators.

The girl genuinely believed for some reason what the stranger had said and was making her way to London when she was caught stealing from a jewellery store.

Then he pulled out a letter from his inside jacket pocket and opened it so that they could read it, “To the Balance, we need your help, I need your help. Come to where we met the first time and look for Trap Street and I will meet you there. Repulse.”

“This arrived this morning addressed to you but care of me. Does this ring any bells? Does it mean anything to you?”

Akira nodded at the others. When they had first met Mace, it had been in London, in Cho Street. It was also where they had encountered a group of Metas calling themselves jokingly the Untouchables. Hadn’t their leader called himself Repulse? Sam had made a big thing out of the guy being a heritage hero even if he looked more like a leftover from the punk era. He had magnetic powers and had been looking for a Trap Street too, before three of them had vanished in front of their very eyes in a busy part of London as a couple of the Terminus zombie-troops has attacked one of the girls with him.

They instinctively kept this information to themselves though as Harry continued, “Look, I need to neutralise these control bugs as soon as possible and need to identify where these Stormers are hiding and confirm one way or another whether they are a threat to the nation, can you help?”

After confirming with Harry that AEGIS would stay away until they had discovered what (or who?) Trap Street was and if it was a threat, they started to get ready. Akira grabbed the parasite identification goggles from the trophy area and Mace prepared her sky-cycle then they set off in the Crate. As they flew Mace checked if Frankie had any information on recent disturbances in the area. Beyond the usual pickpocketing, the only intelligence that she could track were rumours on the Police’s Holmes system about two tongs, the Wing Cho who claimed to control London’s China Town and the Choy Lok On gearing up for a war and an apparent recruiting drive by both camps to hire Metas… Could they be behind the disappearances?

Soon after, Mace deployed her bike as Mary put the ship into security hover mode and they began to examine the area. Nothing, Where Repulse, Solvent and Blackstuff had apparently vanished was an extremely narrow alley running between two shop fronts. Mary was sure though that when they had seen the three of them run away that narrow lane had been a lot wider..?

It was about an hour later that the team happened to glance around and see the impossible. The narrow alley now appeared to be a wide thoroughfare, admittedly cobbled leading to what seemed to be a Georgian Stable house with a set of double carriage doors. Standing in front of them was a green Mohawk-haired punk puffing away on a roll-up standing beside a young woman in a mix mash of clothing and wearing bands of makeup over one eye as though it were some form of war paint.

Mace smiled, she’d seen similar patterns on others, worn by people paranoid about facial recognition who believed the random patterns on their faces made identifying them electronically more difficult. She wasn’t sure she subscribed to that particular theory herself.

The man waved at them even as the girl shouted over, “Are you the warriors Repulse spoke about? Then follow us.” She turned and walked back to the carriage doors. “You wankers coming?” Repulse said in a voice that still held a strong Germanic edge to it. Mace jumped on her cycle and followed as the others walked across. The girl touched the frame of the door and suddenly it glowed blue as the doors opened on an impossible sight. The inside was larger than outside and seemed to have once been some sort of engineering site with platforms on several levels left over possibly from when a massive turbine had been removed, but why would you need a water-powered turbine in Lime House?

Dozens of people mostly dressed in warm, cloaks and hoods and wearing surgical face masks meandered around – this was obviously some form of marketplace rather than just shelters. Those would likely be located away from the entrance where the residents could feel safe

Then Frankie’s voice came over their Comms, <<Designation: The Balance, according to your ‘Stable door’ Protocol trackers the team has instantaneously been transported to Camden in North London, I am trying to triangulate your exact location from several nearby mobile transmitters but it would appear that you are currently underground. Can you confirm that you are safe?>>

Interesting, Mary glanced outside and saw the street they had walked down narrow back down into a tiny alley even as the big doors closed. She did notice the frame still glowed blue even after it had closed. Was it powered by magic, a mechanism or some form of Meta power transference – she desperately wanted to ask but was convinced that not only would it not be answered but the very asking could potentially cause offence.

The woman stopped in front of a small man, no taller that herself dressed in a decorative turban, she nodded to the man then turned to face them. “Welcome to London Below, Repulse here has vouched for you so I would ask that you keep our location a secret. I am Lady Door of the House of Arch and it is my duty and privilege to maintain the arch network of paths. Welcome to our refuge.”

Behind her several of the tunnels leading off the main artificial cavern were glowing a consistent blue around the arches, were they the network?

She waved to the man in the turban and said, “This is Lord Midas Balthasar of House Temple and he has kindly agreed to be your guide.”

Mace asked, “You called this your refuge. There are about a thousand Stormers who have gone missing, have they come here, to you for refuge?”

Door and Balthasar both nodded, “Some” said Door, “thanks to the Arch network we are, ah connected to cities and towns across the country and beyond. London just happens to be the largest underground refuge in Britain and Stormers have sought sanctuary and safety both here and in several others, but of late, contact has been lost with the Glasgow Underground, Yorvik Beneath and the Cardiff Subterranean as well as many of the smaller communities. The links have gone dark and we’ve been unable to contact the settlements. Attempts to visit have either resulted in the messenger vanishing or being unable to find a way in. Nothing like this has ever happened before but all of the settlements that have gone dark had Stormers sheltering amongst them. The same has happened abroad, in Berlin and Amsterdam – we’ve no idea how far beyond but people are getting scared. I was grateful that Lord Balthasar was willing to shelter our Stormers at Temple, away from the others who are frightened and scared and might end up hurting innocent people as a result.” Balthasar nodded then explained in a quiet voice, “We’re not able to protect them anymore at least not without some idea of what we’re facing. Every settlement below that has sheltered Stormers have gone dark, but those without have been left untouched. To that end Repulse has asked for you to come and lead them to somewhere safer than we can offer them.”

Out of a nearby glowing archway stepped two figures. The female had short dark hair and carried two machete-like swords but was dressed in strips of leather that covered just her modesty – Mace had seen similar clothing in bondage and S&M shops in Berlin. Balthasar introduced her as one of  their guides Edgeware and accompanying her was a man in a long cloak and hood that almost concealed his whole face, or at least it did until he looked up to reveal a skull-like head. Suddenly Mace remembered a Meta criminal in the 50’s who went by the name Graveyard. He must be over a hundred by now yet looked no different from when he had disappeared decades before. He had had limited invulnerability of sorts but no other real powers she could remember.

Balthasar explained that the team must follow them as they headed for the sanctuary of Temple while the Stormers would try and make their way to them, hopefully meeting halfway but regardless far enough away  from the settlement that the others there would be left untouched.

Repulse would also be travelling with them. Together they nodded their farewells to lady door and stepped through the glowing arch and found themselves in a long arched medieval-looking tunnel with multiple arches. Despite being underground there were lighting apparently working off a concealed generator somewhere. They walked for about a mile along deserted corridors before turning and walking through another glowing arch. According to Frankie they were now under the Elephant and Castle and the passageway took a definite roman look to it as they passed over mosaics set into the floor of interconnected rooms.

Up ahead the next couple of rooms were dark and unlit. Something was filling the doorway into the rooms beyond and it was moving, wriggling and warping as though in pain.

Mace readied a Dazzle bolt and fired it so that it embedded in the wall above the doorway revealing a black, bald-headed man whose body was inhumanly spread across the entrance blocking anyone or anything from getting through. “Come and get some ya muckas!” he shouted in an almost Geordie accent even as a semi-transparent female with short, white hair seemed to be dissipating sections of his elongated tar-like body. Standing nearby in a cloud of acidic mist was a tattooed and ring-festooned female in a multi-coloured Mohawk and nearby watching were three identical stationary figures. Each wore a red hooded cloak but it barely concealed a metallic armoured body that was either robotic in origin or was wrapped around extremely anorexic wearers. They appeared to be simply observing for the moment. The tattooed female was Solvent and the nervously giggling, fizzing insubstantial female had to be Fizzgig; they, with the tar-like figure blocking their progress who they were sure was Blackstuff, were the remaining members of the Untouchables. Repulse (who Mace was sure was Solvent’s boyfriend) seemed in shock at the sight in front of them.

Taking in the scene, Akira had an idea and raised his googles. Although given her insubstantial nature, he couldn’t be sure about Fizzgig he clearly saw a parasite embedded inside Solvent’s skull at the base of her brain. Banshee was equally sure as she saw a sickly yellow aura glowing on the back of Solvent’s head, “The droids or whatever they are, seem to be controlling the girls, take them out.” She shouted as she immediately followed it up with a Wail that washed over the cloaked figures but seemed to do no damage or impact them at all. That was definitely not human. His theory confirmed (or at least not disproved) she tried to reach out to Repulse to ask him to try and damage them but he was too focused on Solvent and tried to run to her, forcing Banshee to hold him back.

Despite the fading light from Mace’s bolt Akira unleashed a series of mystical blasts at the cloaked figures, missing two of them but thankfully staggering the one in the centre. Seeing this, Repulse waved his hands in their direction and the staggered figure began to crumple.

The other two droids responded to the assault with laser attacks in their general direction. The blasts missed them but struck the two guides. Edgeware staggered back into one of the alcoves with a surface burn even as Graveyard seemed to absorb the other blast as he protected Balthasar with his body but then Solvent turned and she unleashed a mist of acid towards them. That flowed faster that they would have expected. Edgeware and Graveyard grabbed at Balthasar and sheltered him between them in the alcove as Banshee reached out and grabbed at both Akira and Mace (who immediately grabbed for her bike) and she managed, just, to insubstantiate them and herself even as the acid floated around them. She shouted, “Stay close and don’t let go of me!”

It seemed as though Solvents’ unleashed miasma was already dissipating as Banshee and her ‘passengers’ rushed forward and into the clear air behind its passage being careful to avoid the puddles of acid it had left behind. As soon as they were clear and on safe ground she released her teammates while remaining insubstantial herself. She followed it up with a shattering shriek, again focused on the cloak-wearing ‘droids’ hoping that taking them out would break their control over Solvent and Fizzgig who was literally insubstantialising bits of Blackstuff’s elongated body into nothing. The scream washed over the remaining two armoured figures, causing multiple circuits to shatter and causing the two figures to crumple against the wall but unfortunately, they still weren’t out.

Meanwhile Solvent was preparing to unleash another acid attack against them. Mace wasn’t willing to let her, she jumped on her bike and slammed it as hard as she could into solvent knocking her to the ground even as it continued its flight slamming into the remaining droids. Up close and personal, she grabbed an EMP arrowhead from her sheath and slammed it close to their head units. She was rewarded with sparks and dimming lights as the two remaining robot-chassis powered down and collapsed.

She looked at the acid damage to the front of her cycle and looked back at Solvent only to see her raise herself from the ground and, despite her injuries, run at Repulse who seemed undeterred by her attempts to burn him. It was only later that she remembered that Repulse had previously been able to use his control over human electromagnetic fields to power both girls down. Unfortunately a hyped up Solvent was uncontrollable and as they collided her acidic aura flowed over and burnt at his face and arms but still he held on to her.

It gave Akira a chance to cast a spell on the almost gleefully sadistic Fizzgig who was still ripping away at Blackstuff’s tar body. He called up the fearful spectre of the Baleful Bindings of Bal’Hemoth, which could bind even the insubstantial and cast it at Fizzgig. The mystical dark metallic chains flowed through her until she was in their middle then they collapsed in binding her arms and legs stopping for the moment her assault on Blackstuff. Bal’Hemoth, iron-fisted master of order and enslavement would have dominated her if she hadn’t been insubstantial, still they could have count that as a win even if it was only temporary. It didn’t stop a near unconscious Blackstuff from trying to snare her with an extension of his tar body as well though it passed through her ghost-like body.

That still left Solvent in play and unless someone acted quickly, Repulse would die from acid burns. Banshee had a really stupid thought and decided to go for it anyway. She flew over, substantiated herself and grabbed hold of the caustic creature and turned them both insubstantial. That meant that Solvent was now in phase with her and as long as Banshee held on to her she was at risk of a physical attack from Solvent, even an acidic attack? She held on for the moment as she tried to move her away from the injured Repulse.

Mace tried to see if she could activate one of the lasers from the collapsed robotic figures and in tracing the control cable discovered that the ‘droid’ was controlled by a disembodied human brain and stem – if as she supposed these were connected to the Terminus, they were obviously unwilling to waste anything. Their dead were seemingly ‘recycled’ as zombified Omegadrones and apparently if they were too badly damaged then the brains were transferred into robotic shells for use as organic control circuits… making these Omegadroids? Gross!

As she tried to salvage a weapon from the shattered remains, Akira was forced to maintain his binds on Fizzgig to stop any further attacks on Blackstuff even though he had no idea how he’d restrain her once the bindings dissipated.

Banshee meanwhile was still grappling with Solvent who hadn’t yet realised her powers would work against her but that was only a matter of time. She suddenly had an idea – Banshee had previously discovered that Fizzgig’s own insubstantial state was in phase with her own, so. Trying desperately to keep Solvent at arm’s length, she flew as fast as she could and rammed her captive into Fizzgig’s bound form. The ensuing crash resulted in Fizzgig being dazed and she immediately resubstantiated herself though for the moment she remained bound. Solvent however had managed to get loose of Banshee’s grip and was about to unleash an acidic storm when Banshee let rip with a terrorising scream. The sound washed over everyone. Still hidden in the alcove, Balthasar and his escorts slid to the ground in panic as the scream brought everyone except his teammates to their knees. Mace used the shock to grab a number of stun bolts and proceeded to tranquilise first Fizzgig and Solvent then as Blackstuff allowed himself to resume his human form she realised that the extent of his own and Repulse’s injuries she would need to put them out temporarily as well. Being Metas they would heal fast but their injuries were extensive and they would need all the help they could get.

Again Akira put the detection goggles back on and confirmed that both women were definitely infected with a control bug – now that Fizzgig was substantialised it was easier to confirm. They tied both women up and placed them on the back of her bike then loaded Blackstuff on as well. If they reactivated then he stood the best chance of surviving a second encounter.

Balthasar persuaded his two escorts to carry the unconscious Repulse between them as they continued their journey to find the Stormers.

Another half hour passed and a couple of destination hops later using the Arch network confirmed their almost random pattern, with them first heading to an underground room in Sevenoaks (at least according to Frankie’s attempts to try and track their locators) before jumping back to a massive nuclear shelter in Hendon. Then a final jump brought them back across London to an abandoned subway station and tunnel at Hyde Park. That was where they saw them; the advance party of Stormers were under attack.

Thankfully the railway station was well lit and they could clearly see the small troop of red cloaked Omegadroids marching out of the tunnel led by a woman –again armed with a sword, what was it with female Terminus warriors and their swords? – dressed in black armour with golden spikes on her shoulder. In front of them were several Metas; a woman with green translucent skin and red hair seemed almost normal compared to the ever morphing clay-like figure that stood beside her forming human parts like a man who’d swallowed dozens of other people who were now trying to break free. They also saw a lizard-like female, a Quasimodo-like figure, a multi-coloured spasming stick-figure of a man and a multi-limbed cross between a spider and a woman as well a woman with a snake like face and gorgon ‘snakes’  for hair. They were sheltering with a number of others behind a force field generated by one of the metas. On the other side of the shield, their side was a floating, white mechanical pod that was discharging hundreds of swarming familiar-looking creatures; multi-limbed, three cm long with pincers they immediately recognised as control parasites. They had arrived too late to help the advance party of Stormers and only the force shield were preventing the parasites from infecting the Kairomone-emitting Stormers. Even as they watched they saw the shield weaken. How long had the Meta, they weren’t sure which but the big bucks were on the stick figure with the lunatic grin and the shuddering limbs, been holding these hundreds of control beasties at bay?

The pod appeared to be some sort of dimensional portal rather than a container – it was too small to contain the number of parasites already present never mind the constant flow still occurring.

Basnhee went insubstantial and rushed at the black armoured female only substantialising long enough to unleash a corrupting touch on the warrior. The tactic worked in that it left her dazed but like other Terminus warriors they had encountered previously, she seemed capable of fast regeneration.

Mace followed it up immediately with an EMP bolt at the droids, its pulse seemed to stagger one and cause several minor malfunctions in another but the other two she could see seemed undamaged. It did give Akira the opportunity to manifest a force cage around most if not all of the control bugs as well as the gate pod even as three of the droids targeted them with their lasers and let fly. The energy bolts aimed at Banshee passed through her in her current insubstantial state but it did force Edgeware and Graveyard to abandon the bike and its cargo and pull Lord Balthasar into an old railway stairwell for safety. Mace was almost hit, but screamed with anger as her bike’s paintwork suffered several glancing shots. One of the shots did manage to skim Akira’s arm leaving a nasty scald but he ignored it as he was forced to maintain the cage which was now bulging under the number of creatures inside it still flowing out of the pod.

They had seconds at best before the harlequin-skinned yet still grinning youth collapsed and his shield went down allowing the avalanche of control bugs inside the force cage to suddenly rush towards the Stormers,

Banshee unleashed a terrorising scream, primarily at the armoured female – other than slowing down her rapid healing from banshee’s earlier attack, it had little effect on her but several of the Stormers fell to the ground even as the shield collapsed. Mace kept up a barrage of bolts at the droids, one hit centre of the forehead and it collapsed to the ground as several other bolts knocked the others back or forced them to focus their own attack on ensuring the bolts did not hit. Two more droids showed damage as well.

Then she felt herself being spun around as one of the Stormers, the one like a cross between a spider and a female human caught her arm in several strands of webbing. Seemed some of the bugs had managed to get away from Akira’s force cage after all. She twisted round before the strands could solidify and broke free.

Then she glanced up, saw the eyes of the snake-headed gorgon, and managed to look away just in time even as she called out to the others to “watch out, Medusa’s about!” Some others weren’t so lucky. Banshee and Akira both managed to drop their gaze and focus on the Terminus attackers but Edgeware and several of the others looked into her eyes and were paralysed (but thankfully not turned into stone though their limbs felt like it), trapped inside their own bodies they could apparently do nothing.

Banshee abandoned her attack on the warrior female and rushed into the group of Stormers turning substantial as she did so and knocking the Gorgon to the ground as she grabbed the webslinger and turned them both insubstantial. Given the number of limbs, that the woman had to struggle with Banshee was surprised that she managed to hold on to her but hold on she did. “So, that’s what dancing with a spider was like” she thought as she was suddenly glad she had never suffered from arachnophobia.

Mace again resumed her assault on the droids. These bolts were deadly accurate – staggering two and completely incapacitating a third. None remained undamaged in some capacity or other.

Akira elected to focus his mystical blasts on the warrior female and was rewarded with staggering her and knocking her to the ground, her healing had no time to recover from the earlier attacks, never mind his.

Unfortunately Banshee’s spider-like opponent broke free from her attempts to hold her and she fell towards the ground hard, thankfully crushing a couple of parasites that Akira hadn’t managed to contain. Then all hell broke loose as the gorgon managed to catch their eyes. For a second that lasted an eternity all three of them felt their will slip away as their muscles began to… Seize… Up… Banshee had one last chance before she was completely frozen; she unleashed a powerful wail that echoed around the chamber. It took two of the droids offline immediately and left the remaining one so badly damaged it was incapable of movement, it smashed up bits of Mace’s bike, knocked several of the Stormers out including the spider hybrid and distracted the Gorgon so badly that it broke the paralysis. It also gave Akira a chance to reach out and touch the tiles on the wall beside him and use his transformation abilities to turn it into a mirrored surface. The Gorgon looked over and saw her own reflection and was transfixed. As he’d suspected, hoped really, the transformation had been manifested in her in the way it had because of a love of Greek myths and that meant she had assumed the same weaknesses as the literary version, including being vulnerable to her own powers.

One of the Stormers, the one resembling a turtle even down to the half shell on his back, began walking around and helping to heal some of those that had been injured (and happily putting their parasites temporarily to sleep).

Now he had to dispose of the control critters before he could allow himself to rest and slowly began to constrict the cage to either crush or force the bugs back through the pod to wherever they had come from.

It was then that they heard a screech from the tunnel as a weird cross between a long necked serpent and a body builder appeared in a hover chair, his purple skin glistened as he held a glass of red liquid to his mouth, and in a high pitched voice said to the female warrior, “Stand down, Solas. Protect my children please. I, Slaed the Slaver, I, we surrender just do not hurt me. I may be a clone but I’m still vital to Lord Omega’s plans and must be protected at all costs!”

As he spoke the control bugs in the force cage began to crawl inside the pod and vanish, dozens at a time, though to where, the team didn’t know. That would be another mystery for the Claremont-Wildeman’s to confirm. It did seem as though they had just found the creature’s hive mind.

The creature in the chair took another sip from his cup and then continued as though being arrested was just another indignity. There was something almost Oscar Wilde about the creature as in its high pitched voice it continued its pleas, “I must be protected as I am unique in this parallel and my clone brothers lack my personal knowledge of your species and variant, my life must be preserved at all costs! To that end Solas and I surrender and throw ourselves upon your mercy, mighty warriors.” As it said that, it slowly took one last sip, allowed the cup to fall to the ground and raised its arms above its head.

As it did so, the spider woman suddenly panicked and ran. Mace merely looked up and unleashed a tranquilliser bolt as she tried to run down the tunnel. It hit the back of her head and she collapsed almost instantly to the ground.

Now they just had to get everyone, including the rest of the London Stormers following on behind to a place of safety and arrange for those who have been infected to be freed from their control bugs – oh, and arrange a cell for the slaver and his female protector.

It took some persuasions on their part but they finally managed to convince Lord Midas Balthasar that the safest place for the Stormers was to remain in London Below and that they would help protect them.

As the Balance oversaw the transfer of the anaesthetised Stormers and the injured Metas back to London Above then they put a call into AEGIS so they could imprison their prisoners and treat the injuries of the others.

As she spoke with Harry, Mary tried to be sure she understood the implications of what had happened, apologising (somewhat ironically) for being a tiresome old woman, so slow on the uptake. “So, this Slaver-fellow – he was the only one behind these most recent more focused silver-storm events? Do we know what his real motive was? Was it just titivation on his part, for amusement, or what? But he had access to the mind-worms and could control the infected subjects. So is he a member of the race behind the threatened invasion? If so we should be talking to him, no?”

Harry explained their current theory; that the creature claimed to be a servant of this Lord Omega, the apparent ruler of Terminus, whatever that was. It referred to itself as a geneered creature, cloned and specifically engineered to act as the controller and hive mind for the bugs, which he referred to as Tsochar parasites (and which it could mentally subjugate for the benefit of Terminus). He promised that he would keep them in the know about what his interrogators discovered and once he was sure that he had successfully neutralised the threat he represented then he would allow them access to it for themselves.

Several days later they received a message from London Below in the form of a handwritten letter informing them that Lady Door had organised an expedition to the nearest ‘dark’ settlement, accompanying them herself so she could reactivate their de-powered and darkened archways. They found the inhabitants had been locked up after the arrival of some outsiders – identified as a woman leading a squad of robots who had enslaved the Stormers in their community and then made them act as their prison guards while they moved on to capture their next target. When Slaen had been captured, the captivated Stormers had collapsed unconscious leaving the mundanes trapped until the arrival of Lady Door and her expedition.

Seeing the fear, Lady Door had agreed to ensure all of their previously mind-controlled Stormers were transported topside and the authorities informed where to find them. She hadn’t been happy about the decision, but the others in their settlements no longer felt save living alongside Stormers. She was now setting up expeditions to all of the other settlements as fast as they could, hoping they could find them before too many died.

They informed Harry to be on the lookout for his missing Stormers being found in towns and cities around the country and that many of them would be infested and unconscious. He thankfully didn’t ask how they knew. He did set up a special mobile extraction team to deal with the sudden appearances of unconscious Stormers.

A few weeks later, they received another call from Harry Powers. “As you suspected that creature, Slaed, is the control behind the bugs – his abilities allow him to control them anywhere worldwide. Only place we’ve found where his hive mind can’t control them is deep underground so we’re sending him to the Deep Six prison facility on Rannoch Moor. Our dampeners don’t seem to stop him but theirs seemed to – a combination of being six hundred fathoms, over one kilometre down and their psi dampeners apparently.

Well done, his capture means that the existing parasites around the world have been rendered non-sentient which makes it easier to extract them, as their hosts aren’t being controlled. Operation Liberation is in full swing and it is hoped that all of the other countries will follow suit very soon now we have confirmed the problem and provided them with a solution.

It will not necessarily stop Terminus from attacking but at least their advance meta-forces have been effectively neutralised. Thank you.”

AEGIS – Authority for Enforcement, Gaols and Intervention Services.

Government unit established to support the Police by providing Armed Response and Police Backup (Enforcement), Exotic/Meta-human and Power Nullification Detainment, Research and intelligence-gathering.