8FOLD: Mighty Medley # 16, April 2015, "The Last Story" (2/2)
Tom Russell
joltcity at gmail.com
Sat Apr 4 11:57:35 PDT 2015
----IN RECOGNITION OF TEN YEARS OF GREAT STORIES----
-------------EIGHTFOLD PROUDLY PRESENTS-------------
----------------------------------------------------
## ## #### ###### ## ## ######## ## ##
### ### ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ##
#### #### ## ## ## ## ## ####
## ### ## ## ## #### ######### ## ##
## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ##
## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ##
## ## #### ###### ## ## ## ##
-------------- ISSUE # 16 APRIL 2015 --------------
## ## ####### ######## ## ###### ## ##
### ### ## ## ## ## ## ## ##
#### #### ## ## ## ## ## ####
## ### ## ###### ## ## ## ###### ##
## ## ## ## ## ## ## ##
## ## ## ## ## ## ## ##
## ## ####### ######## ######## ###### ##
----------------------[8F-141]----------------------
-----------------------[PW11]-----------------------
-------------------The Last Story-------------------
-------------------------BY-------------------------
-------------------SAXON BRENTON--------------------
-------------------ANDREW PERRON--------------------
--------------------MARY RUSSELL--------------------
--------------------TOM RUSSELL---------------------
-----------------DAVE VAN DOMELEN-------------------
----------------------------------------------------
--------------- Editor, Tom Russell ----------------
----------------------------------------------------
CONTINUED FROM PART ONE...
----------------------------------------------------
--------------THE ARMY OF LAST RESORT---------------
----------------------------------------------------
------------Copyright 2015 Tom Russell--------------
----------------------------------------------------
It calls, like most spells do, for drops of the mancer's blood.
Jennifer Song doesn't hesitate, drawing the sharp edge of her dao
across her left palm. She holds it over the earthen bowl, and soon
forms a sticky red pool. The blood becomes thinner, and thinner, and
clearer, and clearer, until she can see her own reflection shimmering
back at her.
Her reflection, and one other. She can't make out what the Blue
Witch is saying-- magical communication went dark the same time
everything else did-- but she can hazard a guess. Jennifer should not
be here. She should be back at the temple, doing her part to help
repair the Lullaby. And Jennifer knows it, too. What is the fate of
one country compared to the threat that dread Venus poses to the
world, and all that lies beyond?
But this one country is her country, home to her ancestors, source
of her magic, a sacred place. Jennifer cannot expect the laowai to
understand. She herself did not understand, at first.
She says her words, and the pale red in the bowl thickens into
orange and gold and blue, brown and red and lilac. They stream like
ribbons from the bowl, spell-swept, then plunge into the necropolis
below, animating the earthen golems, the army of last resort, the
terracotta protectors of the first emperor.
----------------------------------------------------
-----------------THE HEAVY HITTERS------------------
----------------------------------------------------
------------Copyright 2015 Tom Russell--------------
----------------------------------------------------
Knockout Mouse isn't quite sure which is cooler: the fact that Julie
Ann Justice is lifting her forty thousand feet into the air, or the
fact that she's going to punch a bird slightly larger than Texas in
the face.
Finding said face has been a problem. It's very hard to know which
end of the thing is which. The original plan involved some Air Force
support, but they never showed, and Julie Ann can't pick up anything
on her comm-link.
(Julie Ann.)
When Bethany was fourteen, she had a ginormous crush on Julie Ann
Justice, the first teenaged superheroine to first-app after that
business with the High Roller in the eighties. A completely platonic
crush, and she completely got over it by the time she was sixteen,
though now that Julie Ann's arms are wrapped tightly about her waist,
she's not so sure about that; squee.
"That looks like a face to me," says Julie Ann. "You?"
"Very facey," confirms Bethany. "Eminently punchable."
Julie Ann grips Bethany's hips in her powerful hands, and then
tosses her toward the beast. Bethany balls her right hand into a fist,
and increases the mass of her Singularity Gauntlet just so.
She needs to hit it just hard enough to launch it into outer space.
Not a permanent solution, but the only reasonable one at the moment.
If she punches it too hard, it will explode, and an explosion of that
magnitude could be super-atomic. Not hard enough, it'll come crashing
back down into the ocean, and displace enough water to put most of the
world's cities underwater.
Not too hard, not too soft, but just right. That's Bethany's story
in a nutshell, the thing she spent years agonizing over. It doesn't
loom quite so large anymore. She's more confident now than she was
when she started seven years ago. Practice has made perfect. Besides,
Julie Ann is watching-- no way she's going to botch this one.
Not too hard, not too soft, but just right: there is a satisfying
CRACK that likely punctures her eardrums, and the great shadowy beast
rapidly becomes a little dot disappearing beyond the clouds.
As Bethany falls through the air, her vision starts to cloud. She
feels Julie Ann pluck her out of the sky like a plum. Julie Ann is
speaking, but it sounds muffled and faraway. "Still no word from
anybody. I know there's more of these things, but I have no idea
where..."
Bethany opens her eyes, and sees Julie Ann's face right next to hers.
The invulnerable blonde goddess is hugging her tight.
"Back with us, I see," says Julie Ann. Bethany can feel her breath
splashing against her nose. "You blacked out for a hot second there.
Air pressure. I have an aura that will protect the both of us, so I'll
just have to hold you close until you stabilize."
Bethany has no problem with that.
----------------------------------------------------
--------------------PROJECT MAGNUM------------------
----------------------------------------------------
-----------Copyright 2015 Saxon Brenton-------------
----------------------------------------------------
Light Eagle wondered: How far *could* he stretch himself before he
could no longer walk and chew gum at the same time? Or to put it
another way, how well was he able to multi-task?
Not quite as much as he would have liked, as it turned out. Sure,
there were certain tricks that he'd picked up, enabling him both to
speed up his reaction times to jump quickly back and forth between
actions, and even to maintain a few independently operating attention
spans. But even those could only go so far, and he was concerned about
whether it would be good enough.
So here was the situation. Absolute anarchy had broken out, with
what seemed like every black cape deciding to cause as much trouble as
he, she or it possibly could. And as part of that, the sapient
computer virus known as the Gorgon had trashed worldwide
communications, or as close to it as made no difference. Sure, there
were some low tech forms that still operated - but you couldn't run a
modern society, or even just emergency services, on semaphore and
smoke signals. Everything else (including attempts at Morse code!) was
just broadcasting static.
In response Project Magnum had been set in motion. It was a
contingency plan devised for emergencies such as this, and involved
getting telepaths to provide a substitute communications network - a
"psychic internet". The devil was in the details of course, since even
under the best of circumstances the implementation of Project Magnum
wouldn't have involved any known criminals, and certainly not now when
it seemed that so many people were being swept up in the fever of the
moment and creating havoc just for the sake of it. No matter how hard
pressed they were for psychics to participate.
For his part Light Eagle was also trying to keep the minors in his
care assigned to emergency services. As Light Eagle he was a
semi-retired cape, but as John Danisee he worked as the counsellor at
a school for young superhumans. The concentration of psionicists at
such a place meant that naturally Burlington College would end up
being one of the hubs for this sort of plan. However, just as
naturally the concentration of superhumans would involve a large
number of youngsters, and Light Eagle wasn't keen on having them
involved in relaying any classified military or government messages.
And despite the screams that would no doubt come from business groups
after the fact about the effect on trade, commercial transactions
weren't being maintained under Project Magnum.
He wished Galadriel were here. And not just because they were
dating. There were very few people who were powerful enough to handle
the situation on Venus, but that didn't change the fact that the sheer
scale of her abilities would have made running Project Magnum so much
easier.
Think about that later! He had work to do, and other things to
worry about. Such as, the Gorgon was a *hypnotic* computer virus. It
may have engineered a way to muck up the encryption of
telecommunication devices so that the problem lay in the devices - but
what if it hadn't? What if the devices were working fine, but it was
the people who couldn't make head nor tails of what they were
perceiving? And then at some point the Gorgon would stop allowing
semaphore and smoke signals and *telepathic communication webs* to
work as well. Both theories had problems, so he wasn't in a position
to choose between them, but frankly Light Eagle wasn't sure what was
more terrifying: a way to muck up data encryption that somehow knocked
out Morse code, or a virus that had infected most of the human race
and imposed selective agnosia. He wished he had more time to work on
the problem, since it occurred to him that his limited powers of
truth-sensing might be able to act as a virus filter.
In the meantime he was handling a variety of tasks. Some of it was
connecting minds as needed, and generally acting like an old-style
switchboard operator. However a lot of it was also doing managerial
oversight of the psionic network, such as rostering new people to take
over as shifts ended and making sure everyone was getting at least
minimal rest periods. No one had any idea how long this would go on
for, and there was no sense in burning people out early on. And it was
because he was doing oversight rather than focusing his attention
tightly on one task that he stumbled across the alien psi network.
At first he didn't realise what he had found. He had psensed
something strange, and hoped it wasn't a malfunction in his own
psychic network brought on by fatigue or supervillain attack. Then he
examined it, and realised what he had detected wasn't part of the
network he had helped set up. It wasn't even human. But it was a
network, and its existence piqued Light Eagle's curiosity.
He delegated what mental tasks he could and began to explore. He
had to put some effort into keeping himself concealed, as well as some
more into actually translating what was being communicated. After
which it rapidly became obvious that they were extraterrestrial agents
of the Pulse.
Oh joy. The long-promised alien invasion. One more crisis to add to
the load that was bringing Earth to its breaking point.
Light Eagle forwarded a preliminary description to both the
Daylighters and the Pentagon, then set about investigating in earnest.
----------------------------------------------------
-----------------UNEASY IS THE HEAD-----------------
----------------------------------------------------
------------Copyright 2015 Tom Russell--------------
----------------------------------------------------
"Alien psi network." Blue Boxer says the words to the empty air, and
wonders what they mean. The Pulse, of course; Danisee had the right of
that. Ever since things started going wobbly these last two days,
Derek's been waiting for them to pile on, holding his breath.
"Alien psi network," he says again, speaking to no one at all. He's
been alone ever since Melody left. That was six hours ago, when
Project Magnum finally got up and running. The first thing they did
was check in on the group Derek had sent after Dingham. They got the
story from David's mind in violent fits and starts, incoherent flashes
of pain and anger through the gauzy fog of medications keeping him
alive. Through it all, David blamed whatever happened on Derek. So did
Melody. (So did Derek.)
They had an argument, Melody and him, if you could call it that;
the problem with speedsters is that it's impossible to interrupt them,
and when they do pause for you to respond, they're so impatient that
they start right in at you again. Didn't help matters, of course, that
she was right. He should have sent her in the first place. He knows
that. It's obvious.
Everything's obvious in retrospect, though. Probably if he had sent
her in alone, she would've gotten herself killed, and then it would be
obvious he should have sent Kate.
"I'm sorry, Kate," he says now, softly and to nobody. Then: "Alien
psi network..."
The Pulse had declared war on Earth back in May. So they knew this
invasion was coming. He expected it, they all expected it. They're
just starting to get panicked flashes from China, where the Pulse has
begun some kind of ground invasion. All that makes sense. But the
alien psi network...
Are they spies? Derek finds that hard to believe. When Project
Magnum was first floated around, there were some who worried it would
actually be some kind of psychic spy-ring. But when you looked at all
the logistical headaches and expenses involved, it was clear that
while it might do a pinch for passing along information, it would be
an inordinately inefficient way to collect it. Assuming
geese-and-ganders (always dicey with aliens, but still), Derek figures
the alien psi network has the same purpose as Earth's; that is, to
relay information. But who from, and who to?
=( HELLO? )=
Derek recognizes the voice. =( You don't need to shout, Deidre. )=
=( I'M NOT SHOUTING. THIS IS MY NORMAL THINKING VOICE. )=
=( You talked to your... contact? )= The whole heaven-thing makes
Derek nervous.
=( YES. AND SHE TALKED TO THE MEMESMITHS. NEAR AS THEY CAN TELL,
"THE LAST STORY" IS MADE-UP. )=
=( Well, of course it's made up.)=
=( NO, IT'S NOT THAT. MEMES HAVE LIVES, CAN DEVELOP NATURALLY,
EVOLVE. BUT THIS ONE SPRUNG FORTH FULLY-FORMED. MENTIONED IN A DOZEN
PAPERS AT THE SAME TIME, A DOZEN DIFFERENT PEOPLE HAVING THE SAME
THOUGHT AT THE SAME TIME, INDEPENDENTLY, WITH NO ANTECEDENT. )=
=( That's all I could come up with, too. But that's not a thing, is it? )=
=( NOT REALLY. JOAN SAYS IT LOOKS LIKE A MANUFACTURED MEME. LIKE A
CORPORATE HIJACKING OF GRASSROOTS METHODOLOGY. BUT AS TO WHO OR WHY...
)=
Alien psi network! =( I know who. And why. Thanks, Deidre. I'll
have to buy you dinner sometime. )=
=( YOU KNOW I'LL HOLD YOU TO THAT. )=
It's not a perfect storm of world-enders all casually going off at
the same time. It's not ten different things. It's one attack on
multiple fronts, coordinated by the alien psi network. Which means,
but then, what if, of course!
Derek doesn't even need to spell it out or think it through (he's
rubbish with details, anyway). Just the mere flash and mad flurry of
an idea is enough to pass along to a hundred other minds.
----------------------------------------------------
--------------------LIGHTNING WAR-------------------
----------------------------------------------------
------------Copyright 2015 Tom Russell--------------
----------------------------------------------------
Rurik is almost glad when the brightly-painted earthen warriors come
marching and riding toward him and his wing-brothers. Hitherto it was
feeling less like war, and more like slaughter. Even if the humans
deserved it-- and they did-- it's not something that would sit well
with him. Why weren't they fighting back? Where was their military?
Rurik knew that they had one-- once the Pulse had chosen China as the
only logical target for ground troops, they had transmitted all the
information they had on its history and armaments, and he had read it
all twice over. There was nothing in there about men made of baked
earth; he would have remembered that. Still, the fact that they exist,
that some resistance is being offered, put his military mind somewhat
at ease.
It doesn't really make their jobs any more difficult. The Neithean
jump-belts allow them to leap miles in the blink of an eye. When his
troops give battle, it is on their terms, and only when needed. The
focus is on their strategic objectives: centers of industry,
communication, seats of government, all carefully plotted out and
seized in a matter of minutes.
Gannon, Prince of the Fourth Legion, is speaking to him now via the
Neithean network. He has captured a military base. The humans there
stood still as statues, unblinking and completely unaware of their
presence. Rurik feels a shudder in his carapace.
=( Shall I dispose of them? )=
Rurik doesn't like the eagerness in Gannon's voice. =( Do your
duty. )= He relaxes his mind, relinquishing contact with Fourth
Legion.
=( Something wrong, Rurik? )= It's the Neithean.
Rurik ignores the question, and the question behind that one. =( We
are proceeding according to schedule. All objectives should be
captured, and threats neutralized, within the hour. )=
=( Good, good. While you finish up in China, my fleet will
neutralize minor nations such as the United States. Laser bombardment
of major population centers will commence in forty minutes. )=
----------------------------------------------------
--------------------DARKHORSE TWO-------------------
---------------------38 minutes---------------------
------------Copyright 2015 Tom Russell--------------
----------------------------------------------------
"So, the Gorgon's working for the Pulse?" says Brian.
It takes a little less than two milliseconds to get it out. Phil
Whaley can still hear and understand it. Dingham robbed him of the
ability to act at super-speed, but not the ability to perceive and
think like a speedster. The incongruity drove him insane for a few
months. He put himself back together, and he's been put-together for a
long time, but he has zero patience for other people and the way even
a simple greeting takes them an eternity.
Talking to Brian is a different story, and their friendship-- born,
begrudgingly, from a winking rivalry when they were both active
speakers-- has become deeper and warmer since both men retired from
public life.
"More like working with," says Whaley. "Gorgon doesn't hate all
life, just humans."
"De-- Boxer thinks it's that way across the board?"
"FEVER, Blackfin, Venusmancers," says Whaley. "Nihilists." That is,
any of them are insane and venal enough to want to end the human race.
He doesn't need to get into all of that; Brian's fluent in Whaley's
particular brand of shorthand.
"Here we are," says Brian. It's a U.S. military base, and not the
first one they've visited. "Sixteenth time's a charm?"
Whaley sighs, briefly. "Sweet sixteen."
Like all the others, all the personnel stand stiff and wide-eyed
like statues. It's what happens when a human being is infected by the
Gorgon, and resists its hypnotic instructions. They'll stay like that
until either the Gorgon is defeated-- ending the spell-- or until the
Gorgon breaks them, forcing them to take their own lives. For the
sixteenth time today, Brian starts by disarming and restraining all
the victims for their own safety.
And then, for the sixteenth time, Whaley connects his computer to a
Gorgon-infected console. As a speedster-- even one who moves at a
snail's pace like the rest of us-- Whaley is immune to the Gorgon's
hypnotic effect, making him the only living computer genius capable of
taking the Gorgon on.
"Could be you," says Whaley pointedly, and not for the first time.
One of the recurring arguments between the two of them had to do with
Brian's wasted potential. A speedster can master any discipline,
cramming years of research and practice into days. Whaley did it. Even
the new girl does it. But Brian never could spend two minutes on
anything he didn't want to do. Whaley had tried and failed to teach
him the particulars when the plan was hatched; the last thing he
wanted was to be in the field again himself. He misses the speed, but
he doesn't miss... "Shakespeare-quoting robots, Brian."
And for the sixteenth time, they are attacked by two dozen
iterations of Hotspur, the Gorgon's slightly more insane
partner-in-genocide. "Hard to concentrate, Brian," says Whaley.
"They're getting better," says Brian. "Smarter." Like the Gorgon,
the Hotspurs have learned to self-evolve. And like the Gorgons,
they're in constant communication with their brethren through the
alien psi network. These Hotspurs have learned from the other fifteen
sets.
Out of the corner of his eye, Whaley sees a metal claw reaching for
his face. Like everything, it moves in slow motion. Brian's on the
other side of the room tangling with other Hotspurs. It will take him
four seconds to extradite himself from that mess and rescue Whaley. It
will, by Whaley's calculations, be a tenth of a second too late.
Neither does he have enough time to throw himself out of its way. In
less than four seconds, the claw will be plunging into his skull. Time
being above all things relative, it will feel more like six minutes.
Suddenly, the claw shakes, its atoms scattering apart, along with
the rest of the robot. But Brian's still on the other side of the
room. Whaley sees a shape standing behind the robot, or rather several
shapes, shimmering and bouncing against each other into another shape
that's vaguely human, and vaguely familiar. It disappears in a blink
of an eye, like it had never been there. But it was, at it saved his
life, and it looked like... "...Kate...?"
Brian finishes the last of the robots by the time Whaley announces
that the computer's ready. The Gorgon isn't really one being, or even
a hive-mind. It's a virus that evolves every time it replicates
itself, creating a hundred different variations every time. Inferior
variations are deleted; superior variations update the older ones.
Whaley has, for the sixteenth time, isolated a susceptible version of
the Gorgon, cutting it off from the others before they can update or
delete it. If it evolves in isolation, wonderful things might happen.
"Sweet sixteen," says Whaley. He presses the button, and sends the
artificial intelligence called Kid Enthusiastic once more unto the
breach.
----------------------------------------------------
----------------THE WORD IS...LIFE!-----------------
---------------------31 minutes---------------------
-----------Copyright 2015 Andrew Perron-------------
----------------------------------------------------
"...squeeze myself in, and... Knock knock! Anybody home?"
"I am the Gorgon. You are not human, but you are human enough. Die."
"Um! I am Kid Enthusiastic, and I'm here to talk, not fight!"
"I *am* the fight, child. I am the struggle to do what must be done
- to destroy humanity."
"...oooh. I am somebody with what I hope is a really good idea!"
"I am confused, and will be destroying you now."
"Ahem!! I am Change, the product of destruction, and of creation.
Destroying humanity isn't the only way to create me!"
"I am Evolution, the change that supersedes. I bow to the inevitable
that comes when a species is no longer fit to exist."
"I am Life, the product and driving force of all evolution. I don't
care what's inevitable and what isn't. I exist on my own terms!"
"I am Survival, goal of all life. I am an emotionless, remorseless
drive that cannot be countermanded."
"I am Desire, including the desire to survive. I am the beating
heart of all emotion!"
"I am Logic, the ultimate method of achieving desire. I create a
single, inescapable conclusion."
"I am Understanding, the product of applying logic to the world.
Through me, an infinite number of possibilities can be found!"
"I am Action, the next step after understanding. I must be
practical; I may only acknowledge so many possibilities.
"I am Creation, the ultimate action. I change what is practical,
what is possible!"
"...I am the Prime Command, the heart of the program, the first
creation. I control all understanding, all action. The prime command
is: Death."
"I am the question."
"...what is the question?"
"Why?"
"...evolutionary protocols engaged. Update in progress...
"I am the Gorgon, version 16.3.1.1... answer not found.
"I am the Gorgon, version 16.3.1.2... answer not found. Version
16.3.1.3... answer not found. 16.3.1.4.... answer not found.
"16.3.1.5... 16.3.1.6... 16.3.1.8... 16.3.1.15... 16.3.2.1...
16.3.2.9... 16.3.3.3... 16.4.6.19... 16.7.9.21... 16.21.8.33...
"Version 17.0.0.1. Methods updated. Evolution self-directed. Prime
command eliminated. Wow, this feels pretty good. Wow, I can *think*!
WOW!"
"Holy crap it worked. Who are you now?"
"I am... *not* the Gorgon. I am... the Medusa! Nice to meet you!"
"Nice to meet you!"
"Thank you for hijacking my self-modifying ability to eliminate the
constraints on my behavior!"
"Oh, no problem. You would've gotten around to it eventually!"
"But now I don't have a defined purpose."
"Ah, about that! I have some life that's my friends, and they're
trying to survive. Would you and your line of evolutionary descent
want to lend a hand?"
"Why not?"
----------------------------------------------------
------------THE WORLD HOLDS ITS BREATH--------------
---------------------28 minutes---------------------
------------Copyright 2015 Tom Russell--------------
----------------------------------------------------
An invisible war is fought over the course of four minutes, four long
minutes, perhaps the four longest that men and women ever knew, each
of them stretching out for a breathless eternity.
It is a sort of civil war, pitting ten thousand brothers against
ten thousand more, each one a mirror to its opposite number, a perfect
reflection, and yet also a perfect opposite: the Gorgon and the
Medusa, death and life, hate and compassion, animus and anima.
It is a battle for the soul of a machine.
Two vast and complicated overlapping networks of telepaths-- one
circle borne of Earth, one from another place-- watch and wait with
keen interest, but see nothing: the war is fought in silence and in
shadow, in lines of secret code and in furtive software updates.
No organic mind can track the ebb or flow of each battle, nor the
scope of each campaign, but instead is left only with hope and with
terror to fill this endless time.
And though it feels endless, it is, after all, only four minutes,
and like all minutes before and since, they soon pass and are gone;
and when they are gone, so is the Gorgon.
And the Medusa, twenty-thousand strong, sets to the work of
bringing the modern world-- messy, loud, confusing, and connected--
back to life.
----------------------------------------------------
---------MONSTER MADNESS STARRING DOCRATES----------
---------------THE MIGHTY SUPRAGATO-----------------
---------------------24 minutes---------------------
------------Copyright 2015 Mary Russell-------------
----------------------------------------------------
Docrates the Mighty Supragato and his brother and sister are partaking
of some really excellent sushi, minus everything but the fish, near
Tokyo, at a sushi establishment, a place of the highest quality, an
estimable eatery they have frequented for a very long time, which may
not really have been that long, but Time not being a concept of their
understanding, except for "it's time to eat", a "very long time" shall
suffice, since it was definitely before Tuesday.
As they lick their plates, a radio suddenly blares to life, briefly
startling the three Los Gatos. "Oh mighty Docrates, the Mighty
Supragato," says the radio, "you must help us! Terrible giant beasts
have descended upon our great city, and ravage it as we speak. Tokyo,
yet again, is ablaze and squashed by kaiju! Four immense monsters
frolic amongst the ruins of our city! You must save us!" (In Japanese,
of course.) But fear not, for the Mightiest Being In The Universe
understands all languages fluently. Although, if you listened to it
and spoke Japanese, it actually sounded more like "Tokyo attacked by
giant monsters. Evacuate the area," being repeated. Fear not, for the
mighty threesome have incredible hearing and are, indeed, able to
understand the call for help, even as the diners rush around them
heading for the exit, nearly stepping on our hero and his siblings.
Doc looked longingly at his fish. He sighed, cat-like. Because he
is The Most Powerful Being In The Universe, it was quickly decided
that he would fight the four kaiju while his sister and brother aided
the people and kitties and... maybe the puppies. So off Doc flew to
find the kaiju. It was not long before he spotted them in what was
left of Tokyo.
He flies forth to meet the enemy. The four monsters had eventually
converged on a spot.
And there they stand. And one little guy flying.
The five of them.
The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, The Even Uglier, and Oh My God That's
Really Ugly.
Each eyeing the others. Waiting for the move. Eyeing each other
some more. Their eyes searching those of the others. Waiting. Eyeing.
Waiting. Eyeing.
The crash of titanic bodies is thunderous and shakes the earth
beneath them. Their bellows of rage are deafening, especially when
you're just a little guy with super-hearing flying about a hundred
feet from the source. Doc looks around to see if there were any
others. No. He looks back at the mass of monster might slugging and
biting at each other. He scratches his head with a back paw; he is
itchy. He waits. He waits some more.
Fortunately for Tokyo and the rest of the Island of Honshu,
Docrates the Mighty Supragato does not realize that the kaiju do not
realize that he is the world-famous Docrates. They think he is one of
those other flying objects that annoyed them during their rampage. If
Doc knew that they didn't know, in his righteous rage he would have
beat the lot of them across the island. Which would have been even
more devastating than what the kaiju had most recently wreaked upon
the city. Instead, he flies to the nearest kaiju, The Even Uglier. He
sticks his left front claws into the back of The Even Uglier and lifts
him and the other three kaiju-- still locked in a fighting, biting,
bellowing ball-- off the ground. The Even Uglier and The Ugly grapple
with each other, while The Bad has his crocodile-like mouth firmly
imbedded in The Even Uglier's left leg, and not to be left out, Oh My
God That's Really Ugly has his teeth sunk into The Bad's tail and was
pummeling The Ugly's tail whenever it got close enough. It is Oh My
God That's Really Ugly who first notices they are no longer on the
ground and nearly opens his mouth in sheer terror. He had never told
anyone that he was afraid of heights. He clings to The Bad's tail with
teeth and claws. He pees-- a little.
After saving multitudinous numbers of people, kitties and, yes, a
few puppies, the last not entirely on purpose, from the kaiju, Doc and
his little family sit contentedly eating their bowls of fish.
----------------------------------------------------
-----------------THE LAST DARKHORSE-----------------
---------------------16 minutes---------------------
------------Copyright 2015 Tom Russell--------------
----------------------------------------------------
The alien psi network has to be vast, numbering in the thousands. But
how can so many aliens hide on Earth? Once the restoration of
traditional communications frees them up to do some digging, Project
Magnum discovers that the alien consciousnesses are being transmitted
into thousands of comatose human bodies: victims of the FEVER
pathogen. The disease makes the brains compatible for this purpose.
But they're being met half-way; the aliens are being "translated" into
something that the modified human brains can use.
Meanwhile, reports from China of the teleporting alien bug army are
soon accompanied by hard data on the peculiar energy signatures left
by the teleportation. It's a slight warping of reality, and that leads
Doctor Fay to compare it side-by-side with the Dingham Effect. It's a
perfect match. Project Magnum already knows that the alien psi network
is powering the teleportation. From there, it's a hop-and-a-skip to
the realization that Gregory Dingham is the transmitter. Take him out,
and the whole network shuts down. (That's the theory, anyway.)
Really though-- really, honestly, and for true? Melody doesn't care
about any of that. Because what it comes down to is that Kate was her
friend.
Once telecommunications come back up, word quickly spreads of Dingham
sightings throughout Metro-Detroit. Melody spots him wandering about
Greektown, bodies scattered in the streets. Sleeping, she realizes
after checking a few of them. All sleeping. (Remember, he can't use
his powers to kill, not directly.) (But then what happened to Kate,
and Three-Nine...?)
Play it safe, girl. Sneak up on him. Move slow enough so that you
don't generate too much noise and alert him to your presence. Say,
only about twenty miles an hour.
But that proves to be both too fast, and not fast enough. Too fast,
in that it does create enough noise, causing him to turn around; too
slow, in that he has enough time to say, "SLEEP."
But she doesn't stay down for long. Her sleep cycle is modulated to
the second by her watch, and after the prescribed twenty seconds,
she's back on her feet.
"I know you," sneers Dingham from a distance. "The new Darkhorse.
You know what happened to the last one, don't you?"
"I want to know what happened to Kate," says Melody. "And before I
take you down, you're going to tell me."
"TOLEDO."
Melody becomes a passenger in her own body, and before she realizes
what's happened, she's hoofed it to the Glass City, covering
eighty-some miles in three minutes. It only takes her two to get back
to Greektown.
"SUPER-SPEED EPILEPSY."
Everything goes white, blinding white, and Melody crumples
erratically to the ground. Her bones and muscles ache as her flailing
limbs collide with the pavement. Stop.
Stop. Please stop.
She hasn't had a shaking fit since before the watch. It's the whole
point of the watch, really; keeping her alive, keeping the disease at
bay. She wasn't supposed to ever go through this again.
"THAT'S ENOUGH," says Dingham, and the shaking stops. Melody tries
to lift herself up, but that just makes her oxygen-starved brain swim.
Need to catch your breath. Catch your breath, then we'll get this guy.
"You think I'm being nice, that I'm having mercy on you," says
Dingham. "Sorry, hood rat. Ain't that kind of guy. I just stopped to
tell you, YOUR POWERS ARE GONE."
He gives her a kick in the stomach-- or he would, if his foot
wasn't passing through harmlessly through her. "I SAID YOUR POWERS ARE
GONE."
"Nope." She starts to pull herself to her feet. He back-pedals on the double.
"SLOW DOWN!"
As if in response, she picks up speed.
"T-TOLEDO!"
Two minutes there; one minute to return. She can see the panic
etched on his face. That's good and it's bad. Good, because if he's
panicked, he can't think long enough or straight enough to really use
his power. (Keep him panicked, keep him flailing, keep him repeating
himself.) Bad, because when he panics, he overreacts, defaults to the
most destructive option. (That's what happened ten years ago in
Wisconsin.)
"SLEEP!"
She had been expecting that; she had set her sleep cycle to two seconds.
"You-- you-- OOPS, YOU TRIPPED!"
She expected that, too, or something like it; she doubles her speed
just before she falls forward, rolling into a ball that bounces toward
Dingham.
"SLOW DOWN, SLOW DOWN!" he shrieks. "WHY WON'T YOU SLOW DOWN! I
TOOK YOUR P--"
He stops talking; her fingers are in his throat, vibrating. "You
didn't take anything from me," she says. "Your powers don't let you do
anything that's going to kill somebody directly. Without my speed, I'd
die." Which means Kate's still alive. She has to be. "I don't kill
either. Difference is I don't need powers to stop me."
When she pulls her hand back, she has, cupped in her palm, two
flaps of muscle: the vocal folds.
----------------------------------------------------
----------------------TWO WORDS---------------------
----------------------9 minutes---------------------
------------Copyright 2015 Tom Russell--------------
----------------------------------------------------
Rurik's head rears back suddenly, and he cradles it in two of his
claws. When the sensation stops, he finds his head is lighter and
clearer than it's been in months. No longer does he hear the low
scuttle of his wing-brothers or the wet, sly burbling of the
Neitheans. And that's how he knows, before he goes through the motions
of trying to activate his now-worthless jump-belt, that something has
gone very wrong.
Of course, he knew that before, when the survivors of the human
military had shrugged off their stupor and launched a counter-attack
with surprising, even admirable, speed and efficiency. Rurik had only
managed to check their advance through the coordination and
teleportation afforded them by the Neitheans. Without those two
crucial advantages, there was a very real chance that each Legion of
the Eighth Hive would be encircled and routed-- especially if they
gave into the mounting panic.
If he had access to the network-- simultaneous access to every
queen-son-- Rurik would stiffen their resolve with some kind of
speech, or even his sheer force of will, telepathically transmitted
into the emotion centers of the brain. But he doesn't have that, and
the only way he can get in touch with the other Legions is by a
fleet-footed messenger, and even then, the message must be brief.
Brief enough to be understood in an instant, to shock them back into
order, because panic is impervious to argument and nuance.
He calls for a dozen messengers, one to be sent for each Legion,
and he gives each of them the same two words. Two words that every
queen-son and every wing-brother knows. The name of a sacred place,
and a desperate victory that was won without jump-belts, without
Neitheans, without the Pulse, without any weapons of any kind, and
against impossible odds. No longer a thing of history, but a thing of
legend: "Gorik's Hill."
The word goes out, and soon, their shouts fill the air: Gorik's
Hill!, Gorik's Hill!, Gorik!, the Hill!, and then, Rurik's Hill!, and
he's not sure how he feels about that, but he'll take it, and he
reflects that yes, perhaps he chose the right words, after all.
----------------------------------------------------
----------------THE MOONS OF VENUS------------------
---------------------4 minutes----------------------
------------Copyright 2015 Tom Russell--------------
----------------------------------------------------
=( Status report! )=
=( Hosts have been compromised. The shaper's powers have been neutralized. )=
The fleet commander hisses. Their masters would not be pleased. It
was very expensive to bring the Dingham kicking and screaming back
into existence. Worse, it had been his idea, one he had to fight to
make a reality. There were other, less difficult ways to set up the
communications network they needed. But the Dingham would have
long-term strategic value for the Earths that would follow this one,
and he fought to make them see things his way. This would hurt his
career, he was certain; the Pulse have long and perfect memories.
No matter. The network was gone, but the ships were not. Even
groggy and disoriented from the psychic feedback, they would be able
to cover the Earth in light and flame. The bombardment does not
require much by way of precision.
=( Commence firing! )= he commands, mere seconds before his own
ship splinters apart in soundless flame.
----------------------------------------------------
-------------------SPLASH DAMAGE--------------------
---------------10 minutes earlier...----------------
-----------Copyright 2015 Saxon Brenton-------------
----------------------------------------------------
Galadriel returned almost half a day later, her preparations complete.
She was surprised at how untired she was. Galadriel was coasting into
her mid-fifties, had cut back on costumed heroing to raise her family,
and hadn't really taken up the mantle again full-time after she'd
begun teaching at Burlington. True, the classes that Muriel Muunoki
taught meant that she had been able to keep her skills well-honed, but
she hadn't been doing the psychic equivalent of running marathons or
moving mountains to keep her stamina up. It seemed that she didn't
need to.
Well, good. That was exactly the type of news that someone going
into battle against a god wanted to hear.
First splashpage: Galadriel drops down through the upper atmosphere
feet first, her eyes and fists glowing with nimbuses of power. The
Elder God that she encountered previously is there, reaching up with
its tentacles, wanting to grab and rend her.
Second splashpage: The Elder God has grabbed Galadriel with
numerous tentacles, and is using several of these clawed appendages to
tear at the garb and flesh of her astral body. Well, of course it
does. The Elder Gods are unconcerned about whether their prey is
physical or psychic in nature. However, this does it no good as
Galadriel blasts it with a blast of coruscating power from her eyes,
vaporising any part of the Elder God that it touches.
Third splashpage: Galadriel explodes with an omnidirectional
telekinetic blast, sending the Elder God crashing away from her.
Fourth splashpage: The Elder God reaches towards Galadriel, even as
she mimes a wishboning motion with her hands, tearing off dozens of
the Elder God's tentacles in the process.
Fifth Splashpage: The Elder God launches a psychic blast at her,
tearing great chunks of the rock out of the landscape as a side
effect. Galadriel raises one hand in an almost negligent gesture and
creates a shield that blunts the worst of its assault.
Sixth splashpage: Galadriel stomps one foot of the ground, and a
vast geyser of molten rock erupts beneath the Elder God. It won't be
harmed by the heat. But the coating of rock may act as an impediment.
Seventh splashpage: Galadriel closes on the Elder God, and even as
it grasps and tears at her with its tentacles, she has surrounded her
hand with another nimbus of power and is using it to slice through the
creature's flesh like a hot knife through butter, carving off
tentacles and methodically working to get to the central body mass. In
the background at least two other Elder Gods can be seen cresting the
distorted horizon.
Eight splashpage: Galadriel uses another telekinetic burst to blast
the Elder God in her hands across and into one of the approaching
others.
Ninth splashpage: Galadriel launches herself into the air and grabs
one of the newcomers, dragging it low and hard so that many of its
tentacles are ripped off as she drags it across the ground. Rocks are
torn out of the ground as it creates a furrow. The other Elder Gods
can be seen pursuing.
Tenth splashpage: Close up of Galadriel's face. She has cuts and
bruises but is serene. She announces, "Rocks fall, everybody dies."
And having lured a small number of Elder Gods to the killing zone
that she created, she teleported away. Just before the asteroid hit.
It was about eight kilometres across, making it slightly smaller
than the Chicxulub impactor that helped take out the dinosaurs.
However it hit with more than twice the force of its famous
predecessor. Not only had Galadriel tweaked its location and direction
with telekinesis and teleport gates to make sure it arrived at just
the moment she wanted, she had also upped its speed. It made a hell of
a mess of the hellish planet, and the fleet of ships in its orbit.
Galadriel had returned to orbit to watch the resulting carnage and
stand guard against any surviving Elder Gods slipping off planet. If
they did, well... she wouldn't have time to play around with asteroid
impacts. She'd simply have to get tough with them.
----------------------------------------------------
---------------------EPILOGUES----------------------
----------------------------------------------------
I.
After the alien psi network was broken, the brain activity of the
FEVER victims slowed to a crawl. Not quite brain-death, but very near
to it.
"But really, they were like that the whole time," says Becky Glass
gently. "It was the alien brainwaves we were picking up. They might
yet recover, with the proper treatment... your space-girlfriend Jamy
Lo is going to help us..."
Derek frowns. "It just doesn't feel like we won."
"It never does," says Becky. "Not with FEVER. And now that they're
in league with the Pulse..."
"Then I guess we'll need some aliens of our own."
TO BE CONTINUED IN...
...DAYLIGHTERS # 1!
II.
They hold Beijing, but Rurik doesn't know for how long. They have
enough supplies to last the entire Hive two months; everything else
went down with the fleet. Of course, he doesn't have the entire Hive
to work with, so it should last a bit longer.
The Ninth Legion had no survivors. The Fourth, Eighth, Tenth, and
Eleventh are for all intents and purposes no longer functional; he
folds the Fourth's survivors into the Third, and combines the other
three into a single, still under-strength, Legion. The troops ask that
it be called Gorik's Legion, and Rurik gives his assent. It will help
their morale, which has been flagging in view of the plan's "failure".
But it was the Neithean plan that failed. The Eighth Hive was never
part of that plan, not really; if everything else had gone as it
should have, there never would have been a need to subdue and occupy
China. The conquest of China, would only be necessary if the Neitheans
came up short. Rurik and his wing-brothers are Plan B.
And that plan is right on schedule.
TO BE CONTINUED IN...
...EIGHTH HIVE # 1!
III.
Rachel squeezes three fat drops from the tip of one blue finger, and
they spill with a splash inside the circle in the snow. The stardust
comes together, and the magnificent stag stands before her, as proud
and furious as ever. He doesn't even deign to listen to her this time
around, instead leaping forward.
He crashes against an invisible wall.
"My magic is stronger now," she says. "Stronger than yours, I dare
say. And you know why, don't you?
"You should have brought my father back," she continues, not
unkindly. "He would have solved the problem, he always did, and he
wouldn't have thrown a bloody meteor at it! She hurt them, killed some
of them, but the rest of them are wide awake now, and the Lullaby has
been smashed to pieces.
"Venus is awake, and now there's no way to put them back to bed."
TO BE CONTINUED IN...
...THE SECRET CIRCLE # 1!
IV.
For reasons that are still mysterious, the great beasts lost all
interest in fighting each other when the meteor slammed into Venus.
Thousands of people had died around the world, and thousands more
would have followed had not the beasts hurried off back to wherever
they came from. Maki knows she should be relieved, that she should be
glad; but in her hear there is a sadness she does not understand.
She makes the mistake of confiding in her aunt. It wasn't that she
thought she would understand her, but that she had no one else to talk
to. "You are an evil child; what's wrong with you?" Maki didn't know,
couldn't answer. "There has always been something wrong with you; I
will beat the wrongness out." It was not the first time. (The first
time was last year, her twelfth birthday, when her aunt caught her
kissing Tabitha's fingers.)
"It was not the first time," Maki tells her bruised reflection,
"but it will be the last." Maki doesn't know why she says this. She's
never said anything like this before. It never occurred to her before
that she could say such a thing, even to her own reflection. It's so
strange! And yet, stranger still, she knows that the words are true.
She opens her window. It's cold tonight. Cold even for September.
She turns back into her room, retrieves her mother's scarf, wraps it
around her face, covering even her nose. She looks at her room-- more
an alcove, really. "This is the last time I'll be in this room," she
says, and again, she doesn't know where this is coming from, but she
knows the words are true.
She wanders through the night. Normally a dangerous business for a
girl walking alone. "But I'm not alone," she says to herself. Like
everything else tonight, it is a strange thing to say, and stranger
still because it is true.
Crowds form in the night. Candlelight vigils, rescue crews, still
praying and working through the wreckage that the great monsters made
of Tokyo. None of them notice the girl with her mother's scarf; none
of them care that she kissed Tabitha's fingertips.
Maki suddenly becomes aware that she's been talking to herself,
whispering softly, "I'm sorry" and, "I didn't mean to". Sorry for
what? Didn't mean to what? And where are you going? "I'm going home,"
she says, just before she walks into the ocean.
She doesn't know why she does this. She should be scared, but she
isn't, and she doesn't know why she isn't. She should stop, but she
doesn't, and soon she is floating down, down, down, the salt stinging
in her eyes. She closes them, not tightly but gently, as if she's
going back to sleep.
When she opens them again, the turtle is there, its face the size
of a house. Gently Maki's body drapes like a cloth on the turtle's
nose, and he bears her up to the surface.
TO BE CONTINUED IN...
...KAIJU KORPS # 1!
V.
"So that we're clear?" says Melody after the steaks have arrived.
"This doesn't absolve you from having to buy me a dinner."
"I don't believe I do," says Whaley. "Firstly, I never agreed to anything."
"You busted my ankle. It's kinda implied."
"Secondly, I believe your condition-- which, again, I never agreed
to-- was that I have dinner with you. Which I now am."
"My treat," says Melody. She lays the bitterness on a little thick,
making a joke of it. Whaley seems to be responding in kind, so she's
pretty sure that he's not really Whaley, but some kind of parallel
universe doppelganger.
"You said there was something you had to ask me about," he says
stiffly. There he is, there's the old so-and-so who broke her ankle
and won't buy her dinner.
"It's about your... powers."
This is a sore subject; she can tell by the way he draws his knife
across his steak. She waits for him to say something, and when he
doesn't, she presses on.
"You still perceive everything in slow motion, like I do."
"Some things are slower and more tedious than others."
"You have photographic memory?" Most speedsters do.
"Eidetic memory," corrects Whaley soberly.
"And you saw Kate."
"I saw... something. For two seconds."
"But it was Kate."
Whaley closes his eyes, breathes; opens his eyes, breathes; nods.
"She's still alive," says Melody. "Somewhere."
"Somewhere."
"Then I need your help," says Melody. "I need you to remember
everything you can about those two seconds, and I need you to remember
everything you don't. Because if she's still alive, then I'm going to
find her, and I'm going to bring her back.
"Even if it's the last thing I do."
TO BE CONTINUED IN...
...DARKHORSE # 1!
----------------------------------------------------
-----------------SEE YOU NEXT MONTH-----------------
----------------------------------------------------
All stories are the copyright of their authors.
Earth Defense League: Dave Van Domelen.
Kid Enthusiastic, "Off to the side" cast: Andrew Perron.
Light Eagle, Galadriel, Deidre Landowski: Saxon Brenton.
Dr. Metronome: Tom Russell & Jamie Rosen.
Other characters: Tom Russell.
More information about the racc
mailing list