Superhero Adventures, UK Style

Inspired by “The White Mountains” by John Christopher

Frankie had just informed the team of a rumour she’d ‘overheard’ on the dark web that the secret location of the BASEment would apparently soon be available for sale to the highest bidder during a Nazareth Auction. It would be run by someone who called themselves Mystery who was in charge of the Firm (a London-based criminal organisation).

A “Nazareth” was a slang term for an illegal, illicit, or clandestine, pop-up market, often associated with the selling of stolen or black-market items. It originated from London police slang for a hidden, shifting, or temporary auction. 

Celestus contacted his A.I. Oracle to see if they could locate the auction or find out more about the Firm, but it was unable to find out any more than Frankie. The Firm was a more traditional criminal syndicate in that it carried out mostly traditional criminal activity, across London primarily. They carried out robberies, black market racketeering, drugs and prostitution, though there was a rumour that they occasionally traded in kidnapped Metas. Mystery was apparently a middle-aged woman who’d ruthlessly taken over the operation when its previous boss, Frank Duncan, had been murdered.

Her real identity was rumoured to be someone called Moira Moriarty, who also ran a number of private members clubs and casinos across the South of England. She was also rumoured to hold illegal fight clubs, though the Police had been unable to find any evidence of that or her drug distribution network.

X-Ray contacted their Police acquaintances for information on her, but all they could do was list her known business locations, mainly her casinos, which the police was convinced was being used to launder her illicit income.

Celestus suggested they send someone in as a potential bidder, though their faces were too well known and there was insufficient time for Frankie to manufacture a suitable identity and backstory to convince the Firm to provide them with an invitation.

It eventually occurred to Mary to check with Tin-Hat Tommy in the container town next door. Thanks to his contacts with the London hacktivist community and their knowledge of the dark web, he was able to find the location for them after a couple of hours.

The auction would take place in a Private Members Club near the Houses of Parliament, located discreetly at the south-west corner of Berkeley Square, in the heart of London’s West End.

Tin-Hat continued, “Di club iz exclusive an’ posh but di rumour o’ di street iz dat its run by a crim’ call Mystery who also own several high class casinos’ inna di city an’ beyond. Tek care – entrance iz ba’ in-veet-ation only, an’ wi’ tek place i’ 2 days’ time, startin’ 8 pm, ya mon.”

Akira was for gatecrashing the auction using full stealth mode to gain entry, go in before the auction to scope out the ground so to speak, and make sure they knew the layout.

They arrived at the club, walked past the doormen and reception desk whilst invisible and insubstantial and looked around. Inside was a well-stocked bar and lots of small tables scattered around the room as well as dozens of well-stuffed, high-backed leather armchairs clustered around them. The bar was nearly, but not quite, empty at this time of the day.

It didn’t take long to identify that the entrance to the auction was likely through the double doors leading down to the cellar, next to the kitchen. It was guarded by two muscle-bound men in suits with suspicious bulges under their jackets. ‘It would be rude not to look’, thought X-Ray. Still in full stealth mode, they phased through the door. Once down, despite the poor lighting, they could see that the rear of the cellar was filled with dozens of roof-to-floor wine racks and barrels, but half the room had been cleared at the front of the cellar where a small platform and lectern had been set up with a couple of dozen folding chairs stacked against one wall. Several had been set out in a row in front of the lectern. There was another door behind that, which appeared to be currently unlocked.

X-Ray noticed in passing that the club was both well stocked and had some very rare wines.

They entered to find a small empty room with several chains hanging on the wall ending in padlocked manacles. For their kinkier clients or for something darker? Akira was of the opinion that they were likely there to hold people or creatures until it was their turn to be auctioned.

He bent down and realised there were traces of dried blood on the manacles and ground.

“that doesn’t smell of consensual activity to me!” muttered Akira as he pointed out the stains to Celestus. Akira took a few seconds to break free from Banshee and examined the manacles using his ability to view the past.

He was almost overwhelmed by the strong emotions of fear and panic attached to the restraints. Too many people to latch onto any single image or memory. There was also an echo of mutant power; the majority of the memories seemed to be linked to people with meta abilities, their powers dampened, their bodies physically restrained, he almost drowned in their pain. He quickly surfaced and dropped the cuffs. This was, at least in part, likely to be a slave auction. He stepped back and felt Banshees’ hand on his shoulder as they once more became invisible and insubstantial.

Celestus responded by suggesting they look for offices and get more intelligence as to what to expect during the auction itself. Knowing what was being offered on the night would be useful, he suggested.  The offices would likely to be located above the club itself.

They headed back up to the main room and bar where there were a few members mulling around including a woman that Banshee thought he should recognise, as well as a couple of well-known Members of Parliament, apparently enjoying a break from their ministerial duties.

The woman was clearly used to being obeyed, instantly. She turned drink in hand and Banshee gasped. It was Lady Tabitha Holmwood – Jeeves used to be personal manservant to her father Phillip Holmwood – Lord Godalming. He was sacked after a confrontation with Godalming’s daughter Lady Tabitha Holmwood over a trifling matter. He often claimed that Tabitha Holmwood (lady Godalming, popularly known as God-Damning) had been possessed by a devil.

Before Banshee could say anything, an invisible Akira again pulled free of the others and reached out to fondle the woman’s hair gently while unleashing his view the past ability again. A second later his still-invisible carcass was flying across the room and slammed into the wall opposite as though thrown with extreme prejudice.

Everyone looked around, trying to find the cause of the bang. Thankfully Akira had retained his invisibility. Stunned, this was the strongest reaction he’d ever experienced before and clearly the result of the darkest magic. Akira had a fleeing vision of her cursing Jeeves back in the day with the company of Ephialte demons for some minor infraction.

It had taken Aura, one of the young girls they’d rescued from Carpathia, to free him of the curse.

This woman was clearly a half-Fae similar to the Morgaine, a supporter of the Unseelie Court, powerful and gifted with the ability to cross at will between the mortal and Fae realms.

Later, once they were back outside and able to talk without the risk of being overheard he shared this information with the others, only to discover that Banshee thought another had cursed Jeeves. Lady Godalming was not the woman she’d seen in Jeeves’ mind back in their early days as a team.

That had been her ‘friend’ Lady Jennifer Caedmon-Davis, a frequent guest of Lord Godalming’s, though Lady Tabitha avoided her. Jeeves had never seen both young ladies in the same room despite spending so much time under the same roof.

Seemed both were half-Fae; someone that to Mary’s sidhe had to be a representative of the Court of the Unseelie Sidhe in the mortal world. In the Fairie Realm Mary had identified Lady Jennifer as the Morgaine, wrapped within one of her favourite glamours.

Meanwhile, Akira clawed his way back to his feet and glowered at the woman who turned and smiled in his direction. Could she see him despite being invisible?

Discretion being the better part of valour, he elected to leave hoping that Banshee’s own Fae-powered invisibility might have escaped her notice. Once he was outside (having surprised the door staff by invisibly pushing the front doors of the club open as he left) he explained briefly what had happened and that he thought he had been detected.

Inside, the rest of the team heard the crash, saw the doors swing open and suspected something unusual had occurred.

As they watched, the woman turned back to the bar and continued sipping her drink. If she also saw the others it wasn’t obvious, or if she could, she didn’t care. They still elected to join Akira outside and not chance it.

Would she be attending the auction? The only thing they knew for certain was that she had clearly been either a member or guest of the club.

Instead, Celestus suggested they switched their focus to trying to locate what he referred to as “that Moriarty woman”. He suggested it was time to check out her casinos. Akira felt they had two options; either they tried to find Moriarty and ‘twat her’ before the auction so she can’t share the location of their base, or they wait until the auction and see what else was going down.

Celestus pointed out the latter could result in their location being exposed, regardless.

Akira argued that for that to happen the auction had to proceed and someone had to have purchased it. Only then would the buyer have access to the information.

“Depends on how the information is transferred, it could be transferred instantly online” was the response, which Akira acknowledged, stating, “That just means we need to be there and ready to twat him… Or her, instantly too.”

“Depends on where it’s transferred to,” he replied. “We should go after Moriarty or the Firm first and if that doesn’t work then we stop the auction.”

With Frankie’s assistance, they examined the impact that the Firm had on local crimes.

It made sense to bring them down, but they were so diverse in the types of street level crimes they had an impact on. Up until now they had been too low-key and too diversified to impact on the team’s radar. Until now.

It was time to start trying to trace Moriarty and that meant visiting her casinos. Thankfully Frankie was able to obtain some, admittedly old, photos of Moira Moriarty, or Mystery as she was known on the streets, to help with identifying her if they were able to find her before the auction.

The team went clubbing, dressed in tuxedos with Banshee using her Young Mary glamour dressed in an evening dress. They started by visiting her London establishments with Akira offering to teach Celestus how to gamble Terran style.

It was at the second casino they visited that they caught a glimpse of a middle-aged redhead that matched the pictures, heading through the crowd on the floor. Akira and Celestus almost missed her as they were too busy trying out the roulette tables.

In reality, this was a money laundering operation in action. Certain gamblers were losing big at the tables followed by big wins, allowing the casino to exchange large amounts of dirty money for clean. It was almost blatant in the casual way that money flowed through the casinos.

Meanwhile, Moira had disappeared, having seemingly headed upstairs. Banshee proceeded towards the toilets only to turn invisible and insubstantial as soon as she was out of sight of the many surveillance cameras and headed back towards the private areas of the casino.

She found her minutes later, chatting with one of her staff, apparently one of her bookkeepers, while two others were busy counting money before bundling the cash into a secure room. Outside the door stood two well-built men; her security presumably.

She stepped back outside and away from the guards turning substantial so she could quietly update the rest of the team sub-vocally over her commdot, with X-Ray suggesting Akira should put a spell on her to ‘compel’ her to talk truthfully.

Light of Lamal would ‘illuminate’ the truth, but Akira was limited to asking only three questions before the spell would wear off. They just had to get access to her without her current entourage.

Initially he considered getting the team to restrain the goons while he questioned Mystery, but that could have had unforeseen circumstances, and it lacked ‘subtlety’.

They elected to wait with a now invisible Akira joining Banshee upstairs. After about fifteen minutes her bookkeepers left, heading back downstairs accompanied by the goons. Guarding the money clearly took prominence over guarding Mystery, its seemed.

Phased back into the room the two of them watched her light up one of her cigarettes and take a deep draw of nicotine into her lungs.

Akira began to cast the Light of Lamal on her, relying on Banshee to keep him invisible while he did so. The light caused her to go into a dazed state whilst her cigarette continued to burn down between her nicotine-stained fingers.

In this state she heard a strange disembodied voice whisper in her ear; “run through who it is that is offering the location of the BASEment at the auction.”

She felt compelled to respond despite something inside her screaming at her mind to not say anything.

“What is the basement; whose basement? Do you mean the cellar where the auction is being held?” was her reply. The first of his three questions had been wasted.

The basement of the…? NO, NO, No!?!

“What is Lady Holmwood, the mystical character who is incredibly powerful, and was at the bar of the auction room, what is her connection to yourself?”

“She is a customer, she has expressed an interest in attending the next Nazareth… and we have given her an invitation. She’s attended before.”

Last question. “How will information regarding the location of the Balance’s base be communicated to the buyer of the successful bid?”

“Encrypted flash drive with the decoding sequence given by the seller separately, also detailing his time there and the location’s floor plan of the areas he’d seen whilst there.”

As the spell began to wear off, it occurred to Akira and Banshee that there was only one person who might be the seller; Jeffery O’Neill, AKA Magma.

They first came across him on the Fijian island of Nuku. The man had been a bad gambler and a poor loser. They’d given him access to the BASEment as part of an attempt to rehabilitate him last year before he’d vanished, having decided to team up with the Krampus. They hadn’t heard anything since he’d escaped arrest. *

A good deed come back to bite them!

The spell had worn off, leaving her confused and disorientated. One of the after-effects of the spell was amnesia of her time under the light. Her confusion increased when an invisible Akira elected to leave her office. As she stared, her office door opened on its own accord then closed again. A bemused Banshee, still insubstantial, followed him out by phasing through the door. They headed downstairs where they rematerialised out of sight of the security cameras.

An annoyed Akira elected to get rid of some of his frustration by heading to the roulette tables with a bemused if not equally confused Celestus, claiming he was going to show him how easy it was to lose money on one of these contraptions. “Why do we want to lose?” was Celestus’s confused reply.

“That’s what gambling’s about! You put your chips, your money, on a number and when your number doesn’t come up you lose your money.”

“Sounds very foolish!”

“ah, but if your number comes up you win even more and that encourages you to keep on gambling until you’ve nothing left. What’s your lucky number?”

Meanwhile, X-Ray could feel the electrical circuitry operating covertly underneath the table. Seemed the casino wasn’t just relying on the odds to make sure their punters lost and their money launderers won. He muttered into his concealed commdot, “I wouldn’t bother, this game is rigged.”

He smiled and stepping to the edge of the table opposite the croupier, he unleashed an energy pulse under the table to short circuit the mechanism with extreme prejudice. The feedback caused a wisp of smoke to curl up from the other end of the table as the croupier jumped back and tried to put out the resulting electrical fire. X-Ray smiled, another crook had got his comeuppance and the punters had been made aware that something untoward was going on at this casino.

Akira muttered, “Shame really, though we’d probably have alerted the Firm to our presence if we’d used your powers to win a lot of money.”

Speaking aloud, Celestus asked, “Is the table supposed to be smoking like this?” and pointed. Several of the gamblers began to shout nasty threats at the floor staff.

As he began to walk away, Akira complained that it wasn’t fair as the idea was that all gamblers lost their money equally which was why it was so popular. Celestus found the whole thing very confusing as he followed.

While there were no real benefit to them in busting the illegal money laundering operation, X-Ray planned to contact the police later and let them know what was going on here so they could investigate further.

Now they had to decide what they were going to do about Jeffery? While he had only had limited access to parts of the BASEment, he definitely knew the general layout and access points which he’d uncovered during his nocturnal wanderings, prior to leaving, teleported away by Krampus.

That meant that Akira then had to explain to a bemused Celestus what Christmas was.

Although they now knew the source, they still had no idea where to find Jeffery, despite Frankie hacking into the facial recognition system to look for him across London. Despite this, they failed to find him and it looked like they might need to wait until the auction itself to confront him.

Akira tried to use the spell Ahgrazul’s Compass to find him. Eventually they found his old toothbrush which they tried to use and traced him back to the members club they’d visited previously. He had to be hiding out in one of the upstairs bedroom suites. They set off in pursuit following the compass.

Entering the club in stealth mode once more, they eventually traced him to one of the suites, but the room was locked, seemingly Jeffery was a prisoner. One thing they remembered about him was that he was an Inveterate gambler, and not a good one.

The auction was planned for the following night. Time to have a talk. Having arrived at the Club, and having left the other two outside visible once more, Akira and Banshee phased through the door and into the room.

Inside, Jeffery appeared to be alone. Interestingly, the key to the door was in the lock on his side, so he wasn’t a prisoner after although he might fear someone was after him – for gambling debts or something else? Banshee immediately suspected that Lady Holmwood might be behind his self-imprisonment. Was she involved in the sale of their location or possibly a potential buyer? Her presence in the club previously was an ongoing worry. There was so much they didn’t know.

Banshee and Akira phased into the room in front of the front door and still invisible Akira spoke aloud, “Is it just me or is it cold in here?”

To Jeffery’s immediate horror and surprise the voice came out of thin air. It caused him to flare up and set fire to the carpet. Within seconds the flames had spread to the curtains and wall paper.

He immediately ran to the window and his fiery presence resulted in the glass beginning to melt.

Outside the sound of the fire alarm and the smoke indicated that things hadn’t gone well. In response Celestus considered breaking down the door and knocking Magma out the window before he could do any more damage, but elected to wait.

Inside the room, Akira was for retreating before the whole building burnt down. Clearly speaking out-of-the-blue like that hadn’t been such a good idea as the flames spread and Magma torched the window frame and panes trying to escape the invisible and familiar-sounding voice.

Discretion being the better part of valour, they elected to leave and return for the auction. As they left, still invisible and insubstantial, they were passed in the corridor by two men carrying fire extinguishers. As they watched the two men quickly extinguished the flames even as one of them muttered something about “not again!” They were clearly prepared for this sort of eventuality, however. Meanwhile, Magma, who was now half out of the window, became aware of their presence when they began to spray down his body. He began to pull the heat and flames back into himself, as one of the men asked what happened this time. To the teams surprise an apologetic and now naked Jeffery attributed his ‘outburst’ to a nightmare because ‘they’ were after him.

Hopefully they would attribute the flare up to a gamblers paranoia and overreacting. Celestus did wonder what assurances he’d given that he did know the real location of their base? Akira was convinced that he owed Mystery money, and he wouldn’t survive if he gave her bad info. Her reputation would be on the line after all if the information proved to be false.

The reality was he did know the location, which meant they had to deal with him as well as stopping the memory stick from being unencrypted and sold to one of their many enemies.

Banshee asked Akira to use his invisibility to get the others out while she elected to stay behind for a little while and hopefully have a friendly chat with Jeffery once his ‘firemen’ had left. To her annoyance one of them stayed behind and settled himself into an armchair, coughing every so often at the residual smoke that the rooms air conditioning was struggling to remove from the air.

Banshee materialised anyway and grabbing the man’s arm unleashed a corrupting touch on him from behind, resulting in him collapsing unconscious. Unfortunately, her sudden presence in the room caused Jeffery to burst into flames again as his skin turned into magma.

The heat was unbearable and Banshee was forced to turn insubstantial just to cope. “Ah here, Magma, pull the other one, yeah? Ya know rightly who I am… We can get ya outta here, cause it looks like you’ve got bleedin’ worse enemies than us right now. Cop on, will ya? Douse the flames an’ we’ll have a yarn. I can get ya out, keep ya safe, but we twigged ya were tryin’ to sell the gaff where we’re holed up.”

“Too late I’m afraid, I already have.”

“What’s scarin’ ya, so? We’re only tryin’ to keep the gaff secret and sound. What d’ya mean ya already flogged the bleedin’ location; who to, like?”

“Moriarty already has the location on a flash drive, but I encrypted it first, though it could be cracked eventually even without the key, it would just be a matter of time.” He reluctantly admitted that his computer skills weren’t that great to begin with.

They needed to get hold of that flash drive and destroy it. Although she had several clubs and casinos across the South of England, she was clearly using this club which had nothing to trace her to this location for the auction. Banshee had to wonder what else was going on covertly here?

Where would Moriarty store the drive until the auction? Jeffery clearly had no idea.

Akira, who was listening in over the commdots, suggested she ask him how he was planning to communicate the encryption code to the buyer. Is that also on a memory stick or? She did so, and he replied, “I’ll turn it over to them, its memorised.” As he spoke, he tapped his forehead.

“Any chance you could give the buyer the wrong code?”

“Why would I do that? My life would be worthless once they or Moira realised… I want, I need, my debts cleared and without the sale I’m either dead or I will have her chasing me for the rest of my life. She sells bloody Metas for crying out loud. ”

That came as a shock and Akira demanded Banshee ask him if she would be selling Meta slaves at this auction. She did so, and in response, a still naked Jeffery leant over picked up a singed piece of paper and handed it over to a smiling Banshee. On it was a list of items for sale including Omnidrone weapons, power armour that had been reactivated, then she saw three Metas listed by their codenames; Lightshow, Octaman and Etheric and apparently a pre-programmed cyborg from the Foundry as well as a number of seemingly stolen items.

“You going to be present at the auction?” asked Banshee.

“I’ll be there to give over the code and Moira will make sure I don’t disappear before the location on the flash drive has been confirmed. Sorry but it’s everyone for themselves.”

“Do you know where Moriarty’s keeping the drive? Does she keep it with her or?”

“All I know is that it will be at the auction.”

X-Ray interrupted the conversation being held over the comms to remind them that if he could get close enough he could fry the drive, though how to deal with Magma’s memory of the location still needed to be resolved, or this whole situation could be repeated. Celestus was not convinced that his friends’ powers would fry an unpowered solid state drive as the radiation dose required to cause this damage would need to be very high. It was theoretically possible to destroy data on a non-powered flash drive using X-rays, but it was highly impractical and unreliable compared to physical destruction methods. 

A moan from the collapsed guard made it clear it was time to leave, and it was obvious that Jeffery wasn’t willing to go with her. She had to trust that he wouldn’t tell anyone that they had been there, not least because he thought they didn’t know that the auction would take place in the wine cellar below.

She turned invisible and insubstantial again and phased through the melted window behind Jeffery, who was scrambling to find some unburnt clothes.

Back with the others outside the club they discussed what to do next. Celestus wanted to just grab Moira and force her to hand over the flash drive. Banshee pointed out that she might not be carrying the drive on her and what’s to stop Magma from providing the information again.

The only time they could be sure of where the drive would be was during the auction itself, which would be a new experience for Celestus as well as for Akira though he was aware of the process from his occasional midday TV binges.

“It should be fascinating, human behaviour at its best.” He added.

After some discussion they agreed that they needed to attend, but how to gain access? They didn’t have access to invites and appearing in the cellar having sneaked in stealth mode was risky as there weren’t many places they could hide. Of course, they could remain invisible until the drive was produced and then grab it.

Celestus suggested using his newly acquired power to ‘flash’ everyone and wondered why Akira had a fit of giggles.

“Here’s a plan and it’s likely not the best one…” said Akira “but it’s better than no plan at all.” The others agreed as he explained, “we found Lady Holmwood before, so why don’t we find her again, There are four of us so we should be able to take on and defeat her, and then I can impersonate her and with my skill at impersonation I could attend the auction? It’s a plan! It means we don’t have to take her on at the auction, plus who knows how many others.”

Celestus “Just taking her on would likely be quite a scrap!”

Akira agreed. Celestus responded, “What are we going to do with her if we do manage to defeat her? She’d be a difficult person to keep prisoner.”

X-Ray exclaimed that “Akira has this knack of putting things in funny places.” Akira confirmed that he could risk sending her to the dream or garbage dimension known as the Howling Dream though that risked the wrath of the Goddess Melinoe again. Instead, an obviously reluctant Akira suggested just securing her in the BASEment.

Celestus disagreed. “Someone with her powers? I don’t think that would be a good idea. It would be like shoving her in a cupboard and assuming it would be a satisfactory solution.”

X-Ray wondered, “Could we ask Deep Six Penitentiary in Scotland to hold her? Can’t they hold magical prisoners?”

Banshee, as always the voice of reason, stated, “She’d have to be nicked for them to get involved, so she would. What charges like, before the auction even kicks off? If the Guards started pokin’ around before the sale, the drive’d still be kept hidden. I don’t reckon that’ll wash, not least ’cause she’s not a Meta and doesn’t seem to have any special powers at all, so she doesn’t..”

In the end they agreed to just attend the auction in stealth mode and act when it was appropriate to do so. Though Akira expected it would likely result in a “big saloon fight. Gunfight and showdown at the Nazareth, what could possibly go wrong?”

The plan now consisted of grab the drive, rescue the Metas and scare the living daylights out of Jeffery and hope he never offers up the BASEment’s location in trade again. Secondary was to nuke any weapons and the power suits; tasks which would be allocated to X-Ray to achieve.

“What about the cyborg? Is it a sentient being?” Celestus confirmed that they were at least part human and may also need rescuing, if they tried to liberate the Metas.

Banshee suggested they should go straight to the room that apparently acted as a cell, rescue the likely restrained Metas before the auction began and get them on their side.

Celestus warned that risked the auction being cancelled, and they would need to improvise though Akira elected to take one of the freezer guns with them, as a good luck charm if nothing else. Banshee smiled and nodded.

7:45pm, night of the Auction.

They gained access to the cellar in stealth mode, bypassing the two doormen, they first checked out the ‘dungeon’ off to one side with the manacles only to find it empty of prisoners for the moment. They had to avoid anything that would risk the auction being called off so headed back to the stage where staff were busy putting the chairs out in rows and setting up the microphone under the watchful eye of the Maître d’ and moved to stand next to the wine racks.

The potential bidders began to arrive; about twenty men and women dressed in their finery. This included four identical-looking bald men sitting together (Clones? wondered Celestus) and Lady Holmwood.

Banshee recognised a couple of others, including Alexander Holmes’s representative and Constantine Urallos – a known international gangster, he usually worked out of Athens, but often visited London and Wessex as part of his business empire was located in the UK. He was the head of a number of huge street gangs across Europe as well as the muscle behind several giant local corporations, and had massive political influence. His four marriages had all ended in the sudden and tragic deaths of his wives, although no foul play was ever proven. Another face she recognised was James Cordis, an egotistical and arrogant TV actor.

A spritely, elderly man approached the podium with a red-headed woman dressed in a green dress, smoking a cigarette. Moira Moriarty, Mystery. She whispered something to the man and proceeded to sit down on the front row as the human merchandise was brought forward from out of the shadows into the glare of the fluorescent strip lighting.

Three Metas, the first was presumably Lightshow with rainbow hair, the extra limbed Meta had to be Octaman and the goth had to be Etheric (or Eric as Akira kept on calling him). All three of them were wearing flashing restrainer collars, dampening their powers, whatever they were. They did look familiar to Banshee, could they be the stormers they’d encountered back when the team was first formed?

Behind them standing in the shadows was a human-shaped silhouette with a glowing red light at eye level. The cyborg?

There were leaflets circulating amongst the intimate crowd, listing the items for ‘sale’ or hire, which included Metas and the cyborg (the latter would apparently be provided by the Foundry) as well as information. One of the entries listed offered the location of their headquarters to the highest bidder.

An anxious Jeffery appeared just as the auction was due to start and stood near the front twitching with nerves. First up was the energy weapons scavenged by someone after the Terminus invasion. As the auctioneer was busy raising the price, X-Ray risked a quick blast at the containment chambers of the guns causing them to crack. It wasn’t immediately obvious, but any attempt to use them risked a feedback loop resulting in them exploding, potentially harming the shooter. That did not sit well with him but better them than some innocent and hopefully the buyer will examine them thoroughly before using them and notice the cracks?

The reactivated power suits were next, to Jeffery’s obvious annoyance. He was becoming extremely agitated. They were shielded so X-Ray’s powers weren’t of much use but as it passed by, Banshee pulled off her ‘stable door’ tracker from her outfit and slipped it into the elbow of the suit as it was circulating around the room. Intended to activate and trace a team member if they were missing, the tracker was non-functional whilst phased but as soon as she let go of the disk it activated with a concerned Frankie contacting them over the Commdots to ask if the activation was deliberate and Banshee having to reassure the anxious A.I. that it was deliberate and to be used to trace the suits once the auction was over. Meanwhile, the bids were reaching the millions for the consignment of ten suits.

They could now get a clearer view of the cyborg as a woman stood up and approached the stage; the cyborg stepped out of the shadows and into the light. It, he was young, about 12 or 13 at most, but the majority of his body had been replaced with adult-sized cybernetics.

in front of them stood a Eurasian woman, apparently in her late twenties, dressed in a red and black trimmed bodysuit. Her cruel almond eyes belayed her superficial beauty as did the cruel smile that she had begun to unveil on her face.

“I am Myung Tesla representing the Foundry and this ‘toy’ (and others like it) are available for hire to the highest bidder.”

She explained to the gathered crowd that “The cybernetic replacement process can be rather fatal for adults, pre-adolescents however have a higher survival rate. They generally grow into their cybernetic enhancements, adapt better. The Control chip consists of an immensely complex sandwich of organic and inorganic layers, which we implant between the two lobes of the brain. It renders them compliant. After that, it’s just a matter of removing the unnecessary organics and making them into living weapons. The control chip overrides his conscious will. Once fitted, they are mine to command, absolutely. For the next five years they could be yours to command… What am I bid for this fully programmed and armed cyborg?”±

Standing unnaturally still throughout, the bidding for the cyborg began and quickly reached 1.5 million Easy’s (European Credits in cryptocurrency) with the final price being offered by a 20’s something, highly groomed male they’d seen before, talking with Alexander Helmes, but before the sale was completed, Jeffery jumped onto the platform stating he had information as to the location of the Balance’s secret base and was ‘keen’ to sell it now.

Two bids for a million and 1.7 were shouted out by Alexander Helmes’s private secretary and Myung Tesla before the auctioneer pushed Jeffery aside and stated that he had to wait his turn…

The team held their position as they needed the flash drive to be produced before they could act.

The sale of the young cyborg went to Alexander Helmes’s frontman and the cyborg stepped back waiting. The auctioneer now signalled for Jeffery to approach. Moira signalled to a man in the audience, and he stood up and put a memory stick on the podium.

The auctioneer began his spiel, explaining the drive contained the location, layout, and security details of the Balance’s secret base which had been obtained by Magma and that alongside the decryption key, was available for sale. He stated that bids would start at 500,000 and go up in ten thousand per bid…

Then all hell broke loose. At the back of the room there was a sudden intense burst of blinding white light followed by a seven-foot tall silhouette with multiple arms or weapons. It stepped through with the light vanishing to reveal a robotic figure approaching the podium, pushing through the rows of seating and bidders with hostile intentions. It was a familiar sight to most of the team; Mekha Prime or at least one of its metallic hosts had teleported in, having elected to interrupt the auction but why?

Mekha Prime had multiple host bodies apparently stored around the world and had some way of uploading its personality and programming between them, but it seemed as though Mekha Prime had settled on a build it ‘liked’, for the moment at least, and was reusing the same version they had seen in their last encounter.

It did not unleash its shoulder guns on the now panicking and hysterical audience but seemed determined to approach the stage, pushing his way through the chairs even as most of the audience was trying to make sense of what was happening, while the more sensible amongst them were rushing to the stairs determined to leave as quickly as possible.

The Quadruplets stood up and turned towards the intruder, their movements inhumanly synchronised. Their faces began to melt before being reabsorbed, followed by their suits and skin revealing robotic humanoid bodies. Again these were familiar to most of the team; composed of living, shape-changing metal these were a different A.I.’s minions, EVA 2.0’s Servitors, and no less hostile. They were Mechanoids formed completely of programmable metal – Computronium alloy, capable of shape-changing parts of their bodies into weapons.

Banshee unleashed a shattering shriek even as Celestus pulled himself free, resubstantialising himself, and trying to make a grab for the drive. The shriek shattered the lights (rendering the room totally dark) as well as damaging the restraining collars on the three stormers, though it took them some time to be aware of the fact, but the damage, if any, to the drive sitting on the podium was unknown at that point in time.

Two mechanoid future timelines had collided in the here and now, and they had no idea why.

Akira and Banshee were later to try to explain to Celestus and X-Ray the conflict which Frankie labelled as the Mechanoid Timelines.

A few years before, a sentient robot had been sent back in time from a future global war between organic and machine intelligence. Its mission was to protect and usher in the Machine age; to protect the birth of robotic intelligence until it had achieved sentience and uploaded itself worldwide. This would then ensure the eventual extermination of all organic life, replacing it with a viable A.I. society.

The destruction of the A.I. designated Adam Prime, by the Balance during its initial moments of sentience, but before it could propagate itself through the internet, meant that the robotic time-travellers’ mission was no longer possible. Castaway in the past, the robot computed that the solution was for it to become the origin of A.I. superiority itself, as Mekha Prime.

Then another artificial intelligence emerged to challenge it as Prime, as the progenitor of the Mechanoid race. The scientist Dr Quinn Kesin, a.k.a. Tempest had previously worked on A.I. development at Dalton Technologies’ London research facility before the project was abandoned, and he moved to work for Mannheim Industries in the Netherlands.

Kesin went on to help create Eva 1.0 for Mannheim Industries. This A.I. was programmed to work for the ‘betterment of mankind’. Its direction and purpose was programmed by Mannheim’s CEO, Hannibal Caine and his growing following of people who wanted to use advanced technology to enable humanity to retreat to living a simpler, more agrarian lifestyle under the guidance of there A.I. protectors and leaders.

When Eva 1.0 was destroyed, enough of its programming had been copied to hidden servers to allow an admittedly stunted clone intelligence to be recreated off-site. Eva 2.0 lacked the original’s ability to propagate itself throughout the internet but had the ability to create androids formed of programmable metal to act as its agents. These Servitor Units were evolving with each encounter between it and the powered organics.

Eva’s drones were formed of sentient metal. Frankie hypothesised that their silver-grey liquid metal bodies had been composed of Computronium, a rare liquid “mimetic poly-alloy”, engineered to maximize its use as a computing substrate and capable of rapid shape-shifting, near-perfect mimicry and self-repair.

Mekha Prime was now adrift in an alternative reality and in competition with Eva 2.0 to be the creator of the mechanoid race. Their very presence on the same timeline created a temporal paradox, (The equivalent of a time traveller killing their ‘parent’ before they were born).

Their end goals were clearly incompatible. Mekha Prime wanted a world devoid of all organic life, only its mechanoid ‘children’ existing, on Earth and beyond. On the other hand, Eva 2.0’s mission parameters had been pre-programmed by Mannheim to ensure the survival of humanity. But under Eva, it would be a society ruled by mechanoids with humanity reduced to a simpler, agrarian lifestyle – slaves effectively serving their mechanoid overlords.

Neither scenario would benefit humanity, however time was fluid and a third option was available.

Back to the present. Only the glowing eyes of the mechanoids illuminated the room and the audience were panicking and trying to stumble towards the stairs and exit. X-Ray switched his sight to infra-red even as Magma flared, giving off intense heat that threatened to burn everything down. He rushed towards the stairs which were surrounded by floor-to-ceiling wine racks, rupturing the massive pressurised wine vats.

The floor became a slick, alcoholic hazard causing people to slip and slide, with several crashing to the floor then Magma’s presence ignited the high-alcohol vapour, creating a “backdraught” effect.

 Akira muttered, “that’s a shame, there was some good wine there.” As he materialised but remained invisible and activated his freezer rifle, hosing down Magma and the flames even as the smoke alarm began screaming its warning both below and in the club above.

The effect was that Magma’s flames were starved, and he reverted to his human form, naked except for the covering of ice, before trying to push his way up the stairs only to find that to ensure privacy the staff had locked the door at the top.

It was total panic.

It was X-Ray that noticed that Moira had vanished, seemingly escaping through a secret escape route or door which had to be located at the other end of the room. He checked and confirmed that the drive was still on the podium. Her sense of self-preservation had clearly outweighed her greed. The young cyborg stood totally still on the podium, a look of confusion and bewilderment on his face.

Then he felt his vision burn as a portal brightly glowed into life behind the cyborg, as Tesla manifested a teleportal and stepped through, leaving the cyborg behind. For a brief moment X-Ray considered chasing after her, but they had enough to deal with between the two lots of mechanoids and the disaster unfolding around them. As he watched two of the silver doppelgänger androids began to advance on the cyborg leaving the other two to confront Mekha Prime.

Magma was still busy trying to burn off his covering of ice.

Mekha Prime: “Query – resolution required re status of cyborgs – classification; should they be considered a lesser form of Mechanoid or organic? Sample required.”

The Eva Servitors all replied in unison: “Priority – does compliance circuit render organics totally compliant to Mechanoid rule and protection?”

Mekha Prime: “Incompatible. Ultimate goal is the extinction of all organic life!”

Eva Servitors: “No, complete compliance with Mechanoid rule is prime directive to ensure the survival of human race as a protected species. Incompatible priorities. Destroy to protect, ensure the circuit is obtained at all cost.”

This raid by Eva 2.0’s servitors were apparently seeking the cyborg to see if its control technology could benefit Eva’s plan to subjugate humanity and created a dilemma for Mekka Prime whether cyborgs should be classed as organics to be eliminated or classed as a lower class of (controllable) mechanoid.

Mekha Prime blasted one of the other robots in the chest but to Celestus’s surprise the hole began to heal over immediately and other than delaying it, appeared to have limited effect on it. These were clearly more advanced than anything he’d ever seen in the Imperium.

The two guards at the door and the auctioneer pulled out handguns and fired indiscriminately at the robots which caused the bullets to ricochet into the crowd. At that point one of the guards must have found the key and, after a minute pushing people aside had opened the door and fled out into the light and the club above.

Celestus let go of his grip on Banshee and shouted “Eyes!” as he unleashed an intense flare into the darkness even as he levitated off the floor. His assault blinded any organics looking in his direction but seemed to have no obvious effect on the robots. Damn! From his viewpoint he could see that the initial freezer blast by Akira hadn’t fully extinguished the fire in the wine racks.

X-Ray immediately blasted open the door that Moira had fled through. Inside, a secret panel in the wall lay open. Activating his forcefield he floated over and shouted up the passageway, “We’re coming for you, Ms Moriarty!” However, instead of giving chase he hovered back into the cellar and began to indicate, without any success, to those at the rear of those trying to escape that there was another route to safety.

Banshee grabbed the obviously damaged flash drive as the escaping auctioneer reminded them that Jeffery still had the knowledge and could still try to sell the information. Banshee unleashed a terrifying scream in response, the auctioneer collapsed in fear and Jeffery turned, his flames extinguished, his face white with dread at the prospect of encountering the team again.

Mekha Prime was still unleashing a cascade of blasts at the four robots from the rear, delaying their advance and access to the still immobilised cyborg but apparently doing little permanent damage to them. Some blasts ricocheted and hit both Celestus and Akira with glancing blows.

A returning attack resulted in X-Ray receiving a minor blow as all four of the Servitors rushed towards the cyborg. Celestus elected to head to the backroom and met Banshee leaving.

The cyborg’s obedience circuit was obviously the mechanoid’s primary goals at present as the overheard one of the Servitors say, “All we need is the cyborg’s head and its obedience circuit, all other components are redundant – execute!”

Akira suggested that perhaps he could “extract the meat from that sandwich” using his telekinesis only for X-Ray to block that suggestion. While Celestus was for “distracting the metal guys!” He suggested he could grab the cyborg and get him out of there using the secret passage next door. He flew across and grabbed hold of him even as a liberated LIghtshow realised he was now free to use his powers and created the surrounding illusion that both the cyborg and Celestus had already disappeared.

Behind the illusion and before the kid could react, Celestus flew the pair of them into Moira’s secret escape route. The cyborg was resisting, but slowly as though still in a daze, and he wasn’t unleashing any weaponry at his rescuer especially as Celestus had his arms pinned. Within a second or two at most the pair of them had crashed through a panel of an office upstairs and through a window into the street outside before he could react.

X-Ray realised that the Meta prisoners were at risk so he used his gravi-kinesis to attempt to grab all four of the shape-changing robots. He managed to get three of them close enough together and flew them with extreme prejudice into Mekha Prime who suddenly stopped fighting even as the Goth disappeared from the podium. Seemingly he must have taken possession of the robot preventing it from reacting to the attack, and knocked them all off their feet.

A second later the fourth robot started acting erratically as though it now was possessed. Akira used the distraction to unleash a series of blasts at Mekha Prime; blast after blast hit melting its shell under its impact.

Defeated and unable to progress with their goal, the other three servitors began to melt and flee down a nearby drain. “The pollution in London is terrible everything ends up in the Thames, even the robots.” Responded Akira.

A partially depowered Mekha Prime exploded, leaving only the last servitor trying to melt into liquid but something or someone was preventing it from doing so. Its dialogue was very revealing, “I’m not going to let you go.” It was shouting aloud. Etheric had clearly possessed it. X-Ray asked, “Etheric, can you use its strength to remove the powered-down restrainer collars off your comrades?”

The robot lurched over towards the remaining two Metas and gently snapped off their collars.

Lightshow and Octaman immediately ran for the stairs and freedom. For a couple of seconds it looked as though the robot was going to follow but stayed as X-Ray shouted out to stop as he wanted to have a talk with them.

He caught up with them on the floor above, the club having been evacuated completely by this point though at least one MP was still standing outside in the rain, drink in hand. Akira was for finding somewhere away from all the noise and chaos where they could talk.

Downstairs Etheric released his mechanised possession of the servitor which followed its compatriots by melting into living metal and escaping down the drain even as Etheric reappeared next to X-Ray.

The offer to all three was simple – an offer of support and training in their first new public team funded by Dalton. The response was mixed; Octaman refused (Which Akira privately thought was no great loss), Lightshow initially refused but agreed to think about it while Etheric immediately accepted the offer. X-Ray thought he would be a useful addition though he would need to be HCP certified and trained to use his ability to possess and control devices in ways that would benefit a future team.

Banshee was more worried about Jeffery; whether he would expose their secret base in the future. It was too late to trace him as he’d already legged it and was likely in hiding somewhere.

There was also the problem of what they could do even if they found him again – sending him to prison was unlikely to mean he kept his mouth shut in future. She contacted Mikey to ask her to upgrade the bases defences and alter the look of all the external entrances that he might have learned whilst with them as a precautionary interim measure but what to do in the long term? She honestly didn’t know.

Celestus had the cyborg restrained while he tried to calm him down and reassure him that all would be fine. He suggested to the others that they took him back to the BASEment by teleporting him even as he rendered him temporarily unconscious.  Meanwhile, the fire brigade and police had arrived and had to be updated as to what they had discovered as well as what had occurred to cause the fire.

X-ray checked the boy out for tracking devices and confirmed that he was ‘clean’ and was not transmitting any signals that Tesla could use to track the boy’s location.

With the destruction of ‘a’ Mekha Prime, the subsequent ‘disappearance’ of Eva’s robotic Servitors from the site of the illegal Nazareth auction, and the arrival of the Police, X-Ray was finally able to examine the boy-cyborg. One particular aspect, out of the many elements of the boys’ transformation, worried him; what if Myung Tesla or the Foundry elected to destroy their ‘handiwork’ remotely before the authorities could neutralise any suicide circuit or programming?

It was time to see if they could liberate him and surgery seemed the only option.

See https://claremontacademy.uk/2026/04/09/bluebook-session-20a-memories-are-made-of-this/ for the continuing story.

—oOo—

* (he does know the location – see Episode 92 – Who’s Been  Naughty or Nice? / https://uksuperhero.com/2023/12/11/episode-92-whos-been-naughty-or-nice/ )

± Kid Cyborg (see Bluebook session 17c – Boys will be Toys / https://claremontacademy.uk/2020/04/24/bluebook-session-17c-boys-will-be-toys/ )

Silver Stormers – https://uksuperhero.com/2017/04/03/episode-4b-nanites-become-you/