8FOLD/ACRA: Jolt City # 23, "...Their Last Adventure!", NOTES

[Andrew Perron]

On 9/7/2015 8:59 PM, Tom Russell wrote:
<snip>
 > In what was meant to be their
 > coup de grace, Caracalla switched on Derek's implant...
 >     ...sending the Blue Boxer and the Green Knight upon...
 >
 >
 >            "...THEIR LAST ADVENTURE!"

I hope it's okay that I read this as a Star Wars crawl.

 >     EIGHTFOLD PROUDLY PRESENTS THE FINAL ISSUE OF
 > ////////////// [8F-150] TOM RUSSELL'S
 >      ////  //////  /// //////  ////// /// ////// \  //
 > // ////  //  //  ///   //    ///    ///   //     \//# 23
 > //////  //////  ///// //    ////// ///   //      //PART 1

WOOOOOOOOO!

 >     Pope Benedict XVI holds his trembling fingers to his mouth. Why do
 > they tremble?, he wonders. He knew this day would come. Even before
 > his election, he had prepared himself every morning, just in case this
 > was the day that the dread Dyzen'thari would at last shatter the skies
 > with their terrible, twisting, searching tentacles and sharp, snapping
 > beaks. Fifteen years ago, when the Sacred Congregation under his
 > prefecture had found and placed the Mystery King, he knew that it
 > would happen in his lifetime. By the time of the death of his
 > predecessor, the Signs of Warning had multiplied; the College of
 > Cardinals knew that the next pope would be the one to see them through
 > the crisis. As the highest ranking member of the Secret Order of the
 > Aedifex, Ratzinger was the obvious choice.

Ohhhhhhhhh. o.o I love this artful welding-together; of course such precautions 
would exist within the world. <3

 > Jolt City.
 >     Roy Riddle's manse.
 >     Riddle is about to pour his morning tea when his wall crucifix
 > begins to glow and beep. Riddle puts the tea kettle and cup back, not
 > without some longing.
 >     "Well. I had better get my magic sword."

Aaaaaaaaaa. <3 (How Dresden-esque.)

 > Bethany stands in her hotel room and stares for a moment, just for a
 > moment, at the spot where Derek used to be, before he was thrown back
 > into time to his almost certain death. She liked him. He was a smart
 > kid, but clumsy as hell, and with no one to watch his back, there's no
 > way he's coming back. "I'll miss you." [1]

Awwwwww. *opens up the Notes post while reading this*

 >     "Big right hand," she whispers to herself. Her hand tenses in her
 > Singularity Gauntlet, and she dials it up, all the hell the way up.
 > The impact of the punch is incredible, like a thunderclap a thousand
 > times over, the sound itself shattering glass, cracking stone, sending
 > cars off the street.

Very anime, in the good way. <3

 >     When she opens them, her eyes are red and burning, soaking wet with
 > tears, but the damn light is gone. The tentacles aren't, though
 > they've pulled back some, swinging listlessly. Won't be too long
 > though before they get back their get-up-and-go. So, the
 > punch-to-end-all-punches didn't do very much. Not going to use that
 > trick again-- Bethany doubts the city would survive another one, not
 > to mention herself.

So often, action scenes fail to provide this kind of follow-through, but it 
makes the impact of the action so much stronger.

 > She's in no shape for this. Of course, she
 > never has been, has she? What kind of superhero stammers and mumbles?
 > What kind of superhero is afraid to punch people? What kind of
 > superhero is afraid of people, period?

Hmmmmm. Now I'm thinking about a story all about superheroes coming out with 
their problems and anxieties and such, on a mass scale - bringing the problem of 
representation into the text.

 >     But she knows where this is going, where this line of thought
 > always goes, and the last thing the world needs right now is her
 > table-of-one pity-party. She's not sure if the world really needs her
 > right now, if she's going to be good for much else other than punching
 > things while the real heroes find the real solution. But she knows the
 > world sure doesn't need her to be whining about how ugly and
 > insignificant she thinks she is.

YOU CAN DO IT BETHANY

 >     "The Bethany," he says. "Are you the Bethany? Is your name, is your
 > name Bethany?"
 >     "I'm not going to..."
 >     "Are you the black mouse," well, gee, that's vaguely racist,

Heeheehee

 >     "Miss, are you alright?" says the priest.
 >     "Yes. Yes, I just had a... a..."
 >     "...a flashback?"
 >     "...Yes. Sort of."
 >     "But it was wrong. You died in it."
 >     "How did you...?"
 >     "Time is collapsing. And pulling apart." The priest smiles,
 > privately and sadly. "It's only going to get worse. Until you stop
 > it."

Oooooooh. <3 <3 <3 Very good, very good.

 > Riddle's manse.

Riddle's demense!

 >     "Not just the walls," says Riddle. "Not just space, but time
 > itself. They're not beings that are meant to exist in time; there's no
 > such thing as time in their universe. They're not only here and now,
 > but also there and then, attacking all points of time at once. You've
 > never heard of them before because it didn't happen then until now,
 > but now that it's happening now, it's also happening then. They're...
 > they're breaking time. They're breaking it now, and have always been
 > breaking it ever since now, and at a certain point, maybe a handful of
 > hours from now, they will have broken time, and because they've broken
 > it in the future, time will break now, time will break in the past,
 > time will always be broken. The universe is unraveling at the seams,
 > and never would have raveled together in the first place. It's a
 > threat to all Creation, Bethany."

And the thing is, that doesn't quite make sense, but that's okay, because it's 
an attempt to explain something that's even more complicated than that explanation.

 >     Riddle nods. "Legendary figure that shows up in different places
 > and times, with different names in different languages, each of which
 > roughly translates to something like 'builder'.

So which of our characters is this going to be, I wonder. <3

 > The Vatican is
 > amplifying latent Hope. The, uh, the magic sword is part of that. (I,
 > uh, we don't carry them  around normally.)

Heeheehee.

 >     "The Aedifex gave us numbers," says Riddle. "For hundreds of years,
 > we struggled to figure out what they meant. In the eighteenth century,
 > it finally became clear; they were coordinates. Latitude, longitude.
 > Pointing here. The place where we would find you. In the early
 > nineteenth century, the Church founded a settlement to prepare for
 > your coming, the town of Saint Juliet, which was corrupted to Saint
 > Jult, and then..."
 >     "Jolt City," says Bethany.

:D :D :D That's rad.

 >     "Through dummy companies and sympathetic philanthropists, the Order
 > of the Aedifex has been pumping money into Jolt City for decades,"
 > continues Riddle. "Over half of the Kistler Building's budget comes
 > from the Church. To give you any tools you might need. And this church
 > here in Jolt City was built to house all of our research, all of our
 > findings, so that it would be on hand when the time came.

This is the kind of retcon that superhero universes can easily become too full 
of, but with you in charge, Tom, I feel pretty safe in investing in this history.

 >     "Like you? You're this Mystery King?"
 >     "Apparently."
 >     "Because your name is Roy Riddle?"
 >     "Because my name is Royal Riddle.

Heh heh heh.

 >     "But it's not," says Bethany. How thick can this guy be? "If this
 > prophecy is real, then you need to find the real person and not waste
 > time on me! I'm not important. I've never been important. I'm nobody.
 > I'm nothing!"

How RTD Who. <3

 >     "That's not true," says Riddle gently. "None of us, not even the
 > least of us, are nothing. And you're very far from the least of us,
 > Bethany. The Aedifex thought you were important. Thought that you are
 > brilliant. That's his message. The message I'm supposed to give to
 > you, from him, over the span of a thousand years."
 >     He clears his throat, and recites: "Bethany, you're a genius. So
 > save the world."
 >     "Derek?"

Ah! That's which one. :D

 >     "Or a million Dereks. Each being thrown back to a random place and
 > time. Alternate timelines, alternate pasts, all converging and echoing
 > and mixing up with each other because time is breaking.

How Moffat Who. <3

(These comparisons, by the by, are not criticisms. These are really fun and 
useful story elements and I really like 'em in this story; they deserve to be used.)

 >     "It's Derek," says Bethany, beaming.
 >     "And Martin," says Riddle.
 >     "What?"
 >     "Uh, a friend. Sometimes the Aedifex appears with a sort of
 > bodyguard. A... a knight. He usually..." Riddle wipes at his eyes with
 > his sleeves. "He always dies, protecting the Aedifex. The Aedifex dies
 > too."

Ooooooooh. <3 Yes good.

 >     "So, I'm the Bethany," she says. "Not because of destiny or it was
 > foretold or blah-blah-blah, because even if that stuff was real, you
 > could have it wrong, I could be a red herring. And it's not because of
 > something special I have to do, just me, everything on my shoulders.
 > It's because Derek's my friend, and he trusts me. Which means I don't
 > have to save the world all on my own. I don't even have to be the
 > person to do the heavy-lifting."

Awwwwwwwwww! <3 That's an AMAZING way for the time-travel prophecy trope to go. 
Sweet and original. I love it.

 >     She opens her eyes. "I know what we need to do. I know who we need
 > to save the world, and it's not me. Padre, I need you to make a phone
 > call."
 >     "Neither one of us is Spanish."

Heeheeheehee.

 >     "Do you know Dr. Fay?"
 >     "Fay Tarif?" says Riddle. "Yeah, she's on my inter-faith bowling team."

I love. So much. <3

 >     "Sounds great, but," ZAP!, "I'm pretty much well and truly stuck in
 > Chicago. Tentacles in the sky, and some so-called heroes have nothing
 > better to do than harass me." [7]

Shades of Civil War. >:/

 >     "You want me to be your superstar, I need you to, to treat me like
 > a superstar. I need you to move mountains. To get stuff done. To be
 > the, the, the bitch that doesn't ever back down. I thought that was
 > you. Is it?"
 >     Bethany can almost hear Trimmer smile on the other end. "That would
 > have been really bad-ass and impressive if you hadn't been mumbling
 > the entire time." (Well, she's a bitch, alright.) "Yeah, I can get it
 > done."

Yessss, good complicated fraught relationships.

 >     "Great," says Bethany. "I'm going to get you in touch with her..."
 >     "No need," says Trimmer. "I got Kate on speed dial." She hangs up.
 >     "I..."

XD Amazing.

 >     One second, the doorway is empty, and the next (zip!), Brian
 > Clipper is setting down Dr. Metronome. Brian greets each of them in
 > turn with a little nod: "Dr. Fay. KO Mouse. Some priest guy."
 >     "Hey Brian," says Dr. Fay. "You are like the absolute worst at
 > retiring." [10]

He really is. <3

 > Emotional, whatever,
 > a frequency is a frequency. It's vibrating one way, we can vibrate
 > another. A physical, actual, concrete, palpable vibration. We can
 > build a machine to vibrate at the counter-frequency."

Innnnnnteresting.

 > I almost ran into a building on the way here."
 > "Almost ran me into a building on the way here," corrects Kate quietly.

Heeheehee.

 > "We're not going to vibrate the earth. We're going to vibrate the
 > internet. A wireless network that surrounds the planet, information
 > pinging up and down satellites, we're going to send that vibrating in
 > opposition to the Dyzen'thari."

Oh my god. :D

 >     Bethany takes a deep breath, then starts to take off her glove.
 > "This is the Singularity Gauntlet. It's... it's the source of my
 > powers. It's what lets me turn my fist as light as air or as dense as
 > a dwarf star. I've had it for years now, and I know everything about
 > it. And I think, with a little bit of help," and here she nods to Dr.
 > Fay, "I think we can use this to make the internet just tangible
 > enough that a machine powered by Dr. Metronome can grab hold of it and
 > give it a good, hard shake." Bethany, you're a genius; so save the
 > world.

OH MY GOD. :D :D :D :D :D THAT'S REALLY RAD.

 > Oh, Knockout Mouse, I could kiss you for this."
 >     "Not if I kiss you first," says Bethany. Dr. Fay starts to smile,
 > but then (oh my gosh, am I really doing this?) Bethany plants one on
 > her, right on the lips. Dr. Fay flails her arms, her eyes big and
 > white. Bethany releases the clincher.

:D :D :D :D :D :D :D

 > She
 > opens her eyes and makes a fist, not just with her hand, but with the
 > air. She can feel the internet in the air, thick like a hot day in
 > August, wet and oppressive.

So rad. *.*

 >     Dr. Fay doesn't say anything; instead, she throws a lever. The
 > quivering all around them increases suddenly, like a car going from
 > ten to fifty in the time it takes to spit. Then, just as suddenly, the
 > shaking becomes less intense. And yet the glass chamber looks less
 > like an object, or even an approximation of one, and has become
 > scattered bits of color all around them. Now nothing looks like an
 > object.

cooooooool o.o

 >     "They're fighting back," says Dr. Fay. "The Dyzen'thari are fighting back..."
 >     "Bethany...!"
 >     "She sounds like she's in pain!"
 >     "That's because she is," says Dr. Fay. "They're tearing her apart!"

Ohshi--

 >     "Wait," says Dr. Fay. "Something... something's happening..."
 >     Bethany opens her eyes. Kate is still scattered in a
 > thousand-thousand little balls of light, tumbling around with a
 > thousand-thousand pieces of glass and steel, but all of them are
 > contained within the box. Slowly, the shaking of the air all around
 > them begins to pick up speed again.
 >     "... tremendous build-up of energy in Nevada," Dr. Fay is saying.
 > "Something pulling at the Dyzen'thari! Keep going, Metronome!" [18]

AW HELL YEAH! <3 <3 <3

(I was wondering if you were going to show that moment on-screen. I wonder if I 
should decide exactly what it was. @.@)

 >     The tank takes a moment to become itself again, and slowly,
 > something Kate-like comes together and staggers out of the box.
 > Bethany blinks and Kate has become solid. Kate pitches over, puking
 > profusely and with gusto.
 >     Bethany has her arms around her. "It's okay. It's okay. You did
 > great, by the way."
 >     "I feel great," says Kate, her throat scratched all to hell.

Awwwwwww. <3

 >     "I'm not getting any readings," says Dr. Fay. "But it's not
 > official until it's on CNN." She snaps her fingers, and a TV remote
 > flies toward her. She catches it and flicks the television on.
 >     Yes, the Dyzen'thari are gone. But so is Las Vegas. [19]

DUN DUN DUN.

TO BE CONTINUED...

(Actually, I'm-a just paste together all my reactions.)

 > He must have closed his eyes again, because everything's gone
 > black. He opens them, and now everything is white. Not sure how long
 > he had them closed. It didn't seem like a long time, but there's more
 > white than there was before. Losing consciousness? Blacking out? Not
 > great, Derek. You need medical attention. Let's find out where you
 > are.

No dying! Unless you're one of the past Dereks that's fated to die, but--

 > No houses, no trees, no power-lines, nothing that screams
 > "civilization" or "hospital". Just an endless expanse of snow. But the
 > air has that dirty, grimy feeling that he missed in the past. So if
 > he's not back in 2008, he's closer than he was.

--I don't think so.

 > Fingers are numb. Clumsy. Tips are burning, hurts to touch things.
 > He reaches into his pocket, scraping across the little felt-lined box.
 > (Still there. Good.)

Fascinating ontological mystery. (Does this count as that? Hm.)

 > "I know that!" she snaps. "Let me finish. (Sorry.) Lacey is on the
 > phone with Whaley right now. She's going to get one of their locals to
 > pick you up and get you to a hospital. Sounds okay?"
 > "Will she be good-looking?"

Well, you're healthy enough to banter, so you should be okay...

 > His eyes are blurry and his throat is dry, but everything else
 > feels kinda floaty. Must have him on some of the good stuff. He
 > considers calling out, or looking for a big red button to push. He
 > feels the words forming in his head, Okay, let's give a big ol' hello,
 > but then finds minutes later that he still hasn't done it.

That's some pretty good stuff.

 > "You were in rough shape. It was a close call. What happened?"
 > "I went back in time."
 > "I know that part. What happened? And when?"
 > "... I don't want to talk about it."

DANGIT.

 > He leans forward urgently. "There was a little box..."
 > She smiles knowingly. "Yeah, that's still around."
 > He lets himself slide back, relieved.
 > "Moving a little fast, I think."
 > "It's not for that," he says, annoyed.

Awwwwwwww. <3

 > "Bah, uh, Knockout Mouse? Is she here?"
 > "She was," says Glass. "But she was needed on the moon. Helping the
 > Extras with a psychic shark from space. Superhero stuff. You know how
 > it is." [2]

Awwwwww. <3

 > Not really; for Derek, superhero stuff just means internal bleeding
 > and crashing into telephone poles.

Well, and also time-travel and saving the world, *jeez Derek*.

 > "Yeah," she says. "It was the moon. You kinda get over it after a
 > few minutes, but then you look at the Earth and, you know, wowza.

<3 <3 <3

 > "And yes," continues Bethany, "the Fitzwalter crowd has shut up for
 > the time being. I'm..." She blushes again, terribly happy. "I'm out,
 > Derek. Out in the open. They know." She holds up her Singularity
 > Gauntlet. "They all know. I've had to lie about it for so long, always
 > worried that someone would find me out, always holding everything in,
 > and now it's like I can breathe again."

Yesssss. <3 (Also, now I'm thinking of her as Garnet.)

 > "Everyone knows that the world was saved by two people who don't
 > have natural powers," says Bethany. "Me and Dr. Metronome. Two people
 > that wouldn't be given the tech we have if we followed Fitzwalter.
 > Chicago's holding strong, and they're pretty pissed at me, but they
 > can't touch Metronome right now, which is good for her. But everyone
 > else is thinking twice about Fitzwalter."

Awwwwww! Excellent! Good job being representational, you two.

 > Derek smiles. "I don't mind, really. It's weird, but I don't. All
 > that time, I was so hungry for people to see what I was doing, to get
 > the spotlight. I was so angry when the Architect got all the credit
 > for taking down the Gorgon. That was my idea. I was the one that
 > figured it out.

Yeah, relatable.

 > But, you know, he's the one that actually did it. And
 > it's not something that I could have done. I'm okay being the man
 > behind the curtain. I mean, Lord knows I'm terrible at punching
 > things."

Character growth, woo! <3

 > "You want a blowjob," she says flatly.
 > "A little bit, yeah."
 > She puckers her lips together and blows twice in his face.
 > "Blowjob!" she sing-songs.
 > "That's not a..."
 > She does it again. "You got another one!"
 > "But..."
 > And again. "You're insatiable! You know, you're a really lucky guy,
 > you just got three of 'em in a row. My jaw is really tired now." She
 > kisses him on his cheek.

thIS IS TOO ADORABLE HELP <3

 > Roy Riddle visits Derek the next day. "I would have come sooner," he
 > explains, "but I was needed in, um, in Rome. I guess I'm an Archbishop
 > now? Still kinda getting used to that."

And Bouncing Boy is fat again! <3 No, wait.

 > "Wouldn't you?" says Riddle. "When they told me I was this, this
 > person, this person who was foretold for centuries, that I had some
 > part to play, it gave me this sense of purpose. Like I counted. But it
 > wasn't me at all. It wasn't that I was special. It was that you needed
 > a priest, and I happened to be the guy you thought of."
 > With a little bit of difficulty, Derek sits up in his bed. "Roy.
 > You were the guy we thought of because of who you are."
 > "We?"
 > "Me and Martin," says Derek. "Martin told me about the first time
 > you met. How he just blurted out everything to you, told you his whole
 > story, the good and the bad. Because he just trusted you. Right from
 > the start. You have a face that people trust."
 > Roy looks at the floor, embarrassed.
 > "I always trusted you," continues Derek. "Didn't always get along
 > with you, or agree with you, but I always knew I could trust you. And
 > I guess I needed someone to talk to Bethany, someone that she would
 > just trust right from the get-go. And so of course you were the first
 > person I thought of."
 > "Thank you," says Riddle quietly.

Awwwwwwwwwwwwww. GOOD JOB.

(And good job tying in the fantastic elements to the emotional throughline <3)

 > "Thank you, Archbishop," says Derek. "You saved the world."
 > "So did you. You're, uh, you're technically a Saint, by the way.
 > Secretly."
 > "Good to know," says Derek.

XD Amazing.

 > "I, uh, I may have prayed, more than once, for your intercession."
 > "Did it work?"
 > "Not really."
 > "Sounds about right."

Heh heh heh.

 > "Martin was with you," says Roy.
 > The elephant in the room. "He was."
 > "Maybe he got back, too," says Roy hopefully. "Just one of him had
 > to make it."
 > "Maybe," says Derek. But he knows it isn't true.

Eesh... but hmmmmm. Hmhmhm.

 > The house is dark, not pitch-black dead-of-night dark, but the
 > blobby browns and grays that strain the eyes. It's also cold-- end of
 > November without any gas. As a result, it doesn't feel particularly
 > welcoming. Doesn't feel like his house, the house he grew up in, the
 > house his father left him, the house he's been fighting for so long
 > and so hard to try and keep. Doesn't feel like it's worth it all.
 > Feels like it belongs to a stranger.

:< *plays the blues*

 > "No," he says, faltering. "Martin's gone. He's gone." Don't do
 > this. Not on the phone, not with some person you don't even know. "He,
 > he died. Protecting me. So that I could make it out alive, and he knew
 > that's what he was doing, and he did it anyway. And I, I'm not even
 > worth it. He was my, he was my friend. He was my best friend. Everyone
 > looks at me, and they know what he did, I didn't even tell them but
 > they know, and they know that I wasn't worth it. He should have been
 > the one to come back. He's the one they need! Not, not me. Not me."
 > "I'm going to talk to my manager, and see if we can't waive these
 > charges given the special circumstances. Can you hold for a minute?"

That's some good customer service. ;.;

 > She sends the email. He hears her take in a deep breath, holding it
 > pensively. She releases it. "Derek, I don't really know you, and I
 > didn't really know Martin. But it seems to me that if he did that for
 > you, that he thought you were worth it."
 > He doesn't know what to say to that. After a while, he thanks her
 > and hangs up.

Awwwwwwww... This scene is expressing these emotions really well.

 > Last year, he spent Thanksgiving with Martin, Dani, and Pam. For
 > reasons Derek never quite understood, Dani had got it into her head a
 > long time ago that she knew how to cook, and she clung to it something
 > fierce despite all evidence to the contrary. Leading up to
 > Thanksgiving, it became apparent that Dani had decided to handle the
 > dinner herself, including the turkey.

Awwwww.

 > "Bounty hunting doesn't have a future in it?" says Derek, bemused.
 > "Oh, it does," says Pam. "It's called a bullet. No thanks."

Heh heh heh.

 > "Alright, I'll take it." The turkey turned out alright, more than
 > alright, and Derek didn't forget his promise. The day before
 > Thanksgiving he called Pam, both at her office-- it went to the
 > machine-- and on her cell-- the number had been discontinued. He sent
 > her an email, but never got a response.

Aw. :<

 > Bethany had called him that night, and asked if he wanted to come
 > with her to Pill Hill to see her parents and family. He turned her
 > down, said it would just feel kinda weird. "What would you say? This
 > is Derek, I met him jumping on rooftops?"
 > "I would say, this is Derek, he's my boyfriend mostly."
 > "Mostly."

Awwwwwww. <3

 > Derek pops into the Kistler Building twenty minutes before class,
 > hoping to find Dr. Fay alone in her lab. He's in luck; it's just her
 > and Alistair, her Apelantian lab assistant, who is presently working
 > on solving a very long and complicated equation that he's scribbled on
 > the inside of his tank with a special water-proof marker.

Alistair is pretty rad too.

 > Luckily, he doesn't have to. "So, how was the whole time travel thing?"
 > He blinks. "You know?"
 > "Duh."
 > "Well, I guess that makes sense. You being a genius and all."
 > "Really," says Dr. Fay, "it wasn't rocket science. You are
 > objectively terrible at it."
 > "I."
 > "Objectively. Even Trini Tran knew."
 > "Trini Tran?" says Derek. "The, uh, the cute one?"
 > "Yes, the cute one, because that's my primary means of identifying
 > other human females. Your girlfriend's a good kisser, by the way."
 > "I."

DR. FAY IS SO AMAZING.

 > "But, if what I was told is true, you are kinda responsible for a
 > secret faction within the Catholic Church that funds a huge chunk of
 > my budget, so I guess I kinda owe you one. That same group apparently
 > funds a full-ride scholarship for JCU through various holdings. If you
 > want to apply for that scholarship, I would be happy to write you a
 > letter of recommendation. My understanding is that the new Archbishop
 > would also be quite happy to write such a letter. It's likely that my
 > recommendation along with his would carry a lot of weight, even if he
 > is lousy at bowling. Not a sure thing, but..."

Oh, very nice. <3 Derek, you have a really good support network.

 > "Life has a way of opening doors for me, letting me take a
 > peak, only to slam them in my face."
 > "You're being dramatic."
 > "I'm being realistic," says Derek. "Good things just don't happen
 > to me. They never have."

Nope, nope, pretty sure that's dramatic. Possibly even melodramatic.

 > "Oh my God," she says, "it was a joke. Derek, you're pretty much my
 > favorite superhero."
 > "What about Julie Ann Justice?"
 > "Okay, I lied," says Bethany.

Heeheehee.

 > And you're good at making friends, you're
 > good with people."
 > "That's not really a superpower."
 > "But it is," says Bethany.

"Being a good friend is a superpower" is one of my favorite tropes. <3

 > "Every time you have a new project, every time you're working on
 > something, you have this energy, this drive," she says. "There's
 > something dynamic about it, about you, and what's more, you know how
 > awesome you are, how remarkable you are, you brag about it. And in
 > those moments, you're moving and you put everything you have into it.
 > Absolutely everything. And when it's done, you've got nothing left.
 > You just get empty and depressed (and depressing) and you stay that
 > way until you start working on something else. Recharges your
 > batteries."
 > He stares at her for a moment and nods. "You're not wrong. That's
 > me. Always has been. Always."

Bethany is also a good friend.

 > He finds the box where he left it, and opens it to make sure it's
 > still inside. It is; he snaps it shut. "I'll keep your promise,
 > Martin," he says.
 > Then he goes back upstairs.

DUN DUN DUN.

TO BE CONCLUDED...

 > "It concerns Pamela Bierce."
 > "Pam? Is she okay?"
 > She bites her lip. "No. I'm afraid she was in Las Vegas."

...oh :<

 > "My name is Jennifer Straight, and I was her attorney. You'll be
 > getting a letter about this in the next few weeks, but she asked that
 > I inform you that you are the primary beneficiary for her life
 > insurance policy. In the amount of fifty thousand dollars. There is a
 > double indemnity clause covering... unusual circumstances, and this
 > qualifies under that clause. The total amount payable is one hundred
 > thousand dollars."
 > He's flabbergasted. "It doesn't make sense. Why me?"

Awwwwwwwwwh. :<

 > "You must have mattered to her, Mr. Mason," she says softly. "Is
 > Mr. Rock present?"
 > "No," he says. "He's... he was also in Vegas."
 > "I'm so sorry," says Jennifer. Then, remembering herself: "I hope
 > they find him alive and well."

(Interesting)

 > "I'm so sorry, Derek," says Bethany. "I didn't know Pam..."
 > "You would have liked her," says Derek.

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! :<

 > "I know after I'm gone it's going to be tough for you."
 > Bethany puts her hand on Derek's.
 > "Jerking off, I mean."
 > ("Oh my God, Pam.")

XD XD XD

 > Then, Pam laughs. It's a private, inward laugh that
 > escapes involuntarily and spontaneously. Derek realizes that it's
 > probably the last time he'll hear it. His face scrunches up, red and
 > flush.

OH NO THE FUNNY THING BECAME SAD ;.;

 > "Yeah," says Derek. "For such a long time, I've been wanting for
 > things to turn around, for something to fall into my lap. But not
 > this. Not like this. Not. Not Pam." He sits down atop the roof and
 > hugs his knees to his chest. He looks out into the black, sparkling
 > sky. "I liked Pam."
 > "I know." She sits next to him.
 > It starts to snow.

I have to activate my fictionsuit so I can GIVE HIM ALL OF THE HUGS.

 > "Let's not just stand here in the foyer," says Dani. "You want some
 > coffee?"
 > "Tea?" he counters.
 > "Tea," she says, her voice dripping with disgust.

Heeheehee.

 > "Marsha's your sister?"
 > She nods. "She's not home much. She's at the hospital with her
 > daughter, Melody." [1]

Oooo! Origin story.

 > He stares at her, wondering if she meant it the way it sounded. He
 > decides it doesn't matter. "I'm sorry for the way I acted, too. After
 > my dad died, I kinda went off the biscuits. I was angry at the time,
 > and I took it out on everybody. But you especially. You were just
 > trying to help me and I treated you like crap for it." He looks at the
 > floor. "I'm sorry."

DEREK YOU ARE A GOOD PERSON.

 > "Well, he did," insists Derek gently. "That's, uh, he's why I'm
 > here. He asked me to give you something. To give you this." He takes
 > the little felt box out of his pocket, and sits it on her table.
 > Dani sits down and stares at it. "I know what that is," she says,
 > her eyes welling up. She sniffles, hard and deep; it sounds almost
 > like a snort. "He tried to give it to me once before."

oh noooooo

 > "We got them out. We were taking them to a castle about two miles
 > out. Really, just some walls, not really a castle. It was on the other
 > side of this river, not very wide but it was deep, and across the
 > river, there was a bridge." He stares at the table. "Big stone bridge.
 > Thick. Roman, probably. We had just crossed it when we saw the other
 > army closing in on us. And we were moving slow. There was no way we
 > could outrun them." He pauses, taking in a breath. "Martin went back
 > to the bridge to hold them off, buy us enough time."

Aw, jeez, Martin. Maybe you could've been donating your blood to widows and 
orphans at the same time, huh?

 > "I must have fainted then. And then I woke up in Russia last
 > month." Derek looks up at her.

Hmmmmmm.

 > "I know what you're going to say," says Dani. "That I wasn't really
 > dead, just trapped between dimensions. And that it was a fluke. That
 > the implant in Martin's neck keyed in to just the right frequency to
 > prevent me from getting lost. That once he got to the place where I
 > died, the implant brought me back to a physical body. But that. But
 > that's not what happened.
 > "What happened was, Martin loved me so much that he brought me back
 > from the dead."

Yesssss. :D I mean, it makes sense - if emotions correlate with physical 
vibrations, including those for moving between dimensions, then the right 
emotional vibration can clearly affect someone's dimensional state. It's 
basically the flipside of the trick pulled earlier in this issue.

 > "Fair enough," says Derek. "I think I know how to take down FEVER."

Oooo. o.o

 > "A new team," says Derek. "Not just that, a new kind of team. They
 > don't appear to have any kind of centralized organization, so we won't
 > either. Not really a team, more like a social network."

Ah! :D The Daylighters! <3

 > "Do you play backgammon?" says Derek.
 > "Oh, Jesus," says Trimmer. "I'm not in the mood for some half-assed
 > analogy."
 > "All my analogies are full-assed," promises Derek.

Heeheehee <3

 > "I'm not a nerd," says Trimmer. "I'm too busy being a grown-up. But
 > I understand what you mean."
 > "You're not convinced, though," says Derek.

To be fair, I'm not convinced she's not a nerd.

 > "You're not wrong," says Derek. "And that used to irk me something
 > awful. But you know what? That's not who I am. I'm not smart enough,
 > not skilled enough, to figure out exactly how to do a thing and to
 > pull it off. I'm not really the detail guy. And I'm okay with that,
 > because I'm smart enough to know who can do it. I'm not the guy who is
 > going to solve the problem. But I am absolutely the guy you want to
 > look at the big picture and notice that there's a problem that needs
 > solving in the first place."

Sounds like a leader to me.

 > Something in her eye! She doesn’t know how right she is, muses
 > Caracalla as he watches the meeting via the secret nanocamera imbedded
 > in the iris of Trimmer's left eye.

Ewgh.

 > It's not that the plan was thwarted. In retrospect, he sees that it
 > had to be thwarted, that it couldn't be hatched unless it was stopped.
 > If Derek hadn't taken his little sabbatical through time, the world
 > would never have known about the Dyzen'thari, and the Order of the
 > Aedifex would never have been founded. His father never would have
 > been approached by the order. And when his father died, the Order
 > never would have approached him to continue his father's work. And
 > then he never would have discovered who he was, who and what he really
 > was.

Nice. <3

 > They still
 > think that FEVER has been around, secretly plotting, for over two
 > decades, quietly laying the groundwork for their failed attack. They
 > still think it's a long game that he's been playing. Because this
 > victim disappeared for a day back in eighty-eight, they think that's
 > when the implant was installed, but they still can't figure out why
 > FEVER chose him or her in the first place. When the fact of the matter
 > is, Caracalla chose them because they disappeared all those years ago,
 > to give the appearance of the long game. The trickiest part was making
 > the disappearance of Kara Caller in 2007 look like just another
 > intricately-planned part of their scheme.

Ahhhhhh, that's a pretty nice twist--

But even that wasn't
 > especially difficult to pull off. It's a wonder how many problems you
 > can solve when you throw a few billion dollars at them. No one
 > suspects that he's been at this for only six months! The six greatest
 > months of his life. The only time he's felt truly alive since his
 > father died.
 > There is a knock at his door. "Mr. Cradle? Your supper is ready, sir."
 > "Be right down," says Anders.

...

Wait, WHAT?

Hrm. I'm not sure how I feel about this twist - Anders was screwed-up, but the 
worst thing he did before was taking his father's stuff away from Martin; a jerk 
move, but only that. On the other hand, "discovering who and what he really was" 
implies things that might explain it... we shall see, I guess. @.@

 > Christmas Eve, 2008.
 > Ray had reserved a plot for Martin between his marker and his
 > wife's.

Awwwww.

 > Martin's marker isn't as big as Ray's, nor as gaudy, and it looks a
 > little out of place: but that was Martin.

;.;

 > It's a little yellow necklace, the color of gold, clasped at the
 > back, from which hangs a small cross. It was her father's, and she's
 > worn it every day since he died.
 > Next to the necklace is the little felt box. Almost without
 > thinking about it, she puts the ring on the necklace, and then wears
 > the both of them. It feels right. She's not sure why she didn't think
 > of it before.

Awwwwwwh, Dani. :<

 > She is about to turn back inside when, almost as soon as it
 > started, the rain slows down to a canter, and the gray sky turns
 > orange and red. She feels something start to burn against her skin.
 > The ring...?
 > And then she sees him, standing across the street, soaked
 > through-and-through. He smiles, that same sheepish cat-got-the-milk
 > grin he's always had. He stares at her for a moment, and she stares at
 > him, and then finally he starts to walk across the street.
 > A truck comes by, barreling down the road and blocking her view,
 > and Dani wonders if he'll still be there when the truck passes.
 > He is. Dani lifts her umbrella to let him in. "Hiya, hero." [8]

Oh my goodness. o.o I REALLY LIKE THIS ENDING AND APPROVE A LOT.

 > Like everything I've ever done,
 > JOLT CITY was for Mary,
 > Who brought me back from the dead.

Awwwwwwww. You guys are the power couple. <3

 > [3] "The black mouse": Bethany is African-American, and her codename
 > is Knockout Mouse. "That comes from the hill": She hails from Calumet
 > Heights, which is sometimes called Pill Hill.

Ah, that was the one I didn't get.

 > [5] Pretty much everyone, yes; Derek's identity is known to Martin
 > Rock, Roy Riddle, Dani Handler, Pam Bierce, Fay Tarif, Trinity Tran,
 > Becky Glass, the Department of Homeland Security, and Caracalla/FEVER.

SO BAD AT THIS.

 > [6] Kate is Kate Morgan, the second Dr. Metronome, a character I
 > co-created with Jamie Rosen back in JOURNEY INTO # 1, which takes
 > place in early 2005.

And who is also rad.

 > This naming system was first applied
 > to the Bethanys in JOURNEY INTO # 20, though that story takes place in
 > June 2013, so this is "chronologically" the first time we're seeing
 > it.
 > I'm going to have to do an Eightfold Timeline one of these days...

Indeed!

 > [11] I'm not really a huge fan of Care Bear Stares, Everyone Thinks
 > About the Doctor at the Same Time, Dream of a Thousand Cats kinda
 > solutions myself.

I SURE AM. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 But it's really interesting that the Dyzen'thari are 
basically built for such an approach, and you intentionally went in a different 
direction. That's quite cooltimes!

(And it's interesting that, honestly, you used the exact kind of approach that 
would work with that trope.)

 > [16] Bethany is actually thinking of Cato the Younger, who died in
 > this gruesome, but legitimately hardcore, fashion in 46BC at the
 > conclusion of Caesar's civil war; Cicero died three years later when
 > he was proscribed by the Second Triumvirate.

Interesting place to put a mistake.

 > [18] The something that's happening in Nevada are the events alluded
 > to by the narrator of the original Dyzen'thari story in MIGHTY MEDLEY
 > # 1. That story was written by the Dyzen'thari's creator, Andrew
 > Perron, who was kind enough to let me use them in this arc. Thanks,
 > sir! Hope you dug what I did.

ABSOLUTELY. <3

 > Really, everything big and scary that's happening in the Eightfold
 > Universe in 2014 gets started with this story. And, in fact, as we
 > shall see, it gets started long before this...

WOO!

 > [2] The "Extras" are the Extra-Special Agents, apparently a team of
 > government operatives led by Extra-Special Agent Steve Shooter. They
 > were first (and last) seen in that hallmark of modern literature, "Doc
 > in Space: An Untold Story of Docrates, the Mighty Supra Gato starring
 > Docrates, the Mighty Supra Gato and Extra-Special Agent Steve Shooter"
 > (MIGHTY MEDLEY # 17), which also took place on the moon.

Ah! Okay. <3 That's pretty rad.

 > [3] "Most Preferred Hero": the "main" hero for a municipality. As
 > Batman is to Gotham, as Superman to Metropolis. The Green Knights were
 > MPHs for Jolt City since the seventies.

Innnnnteresting.

 > [6] In November 2007, Canton used Derek, whose father Moses had
 > recently been murdered, as a sort of poster-child in order to gain
 > overwhelming popular support for Proposal A, a ballot measure that
 > mandated higher police staffing levels. On the outside, it looked like
 > it would put more people on patrol, but in actuality, it required that
 > administrative positions, previously held by non-police officers at a
 > lower rate of pay, be held by police. The bill effectively crippled
 > Jolt City's budget, exacerbating the city's financial troubles.

And of course the mayor wouldn't, say, raise the corporate tax rate or decrease 
tax breaks to businesses to pay for it. >:/

 > The Triumvirate appears to have been successful: Proctor is now the
 > major tech company and employer for Jolt City, and Canton is now its
 > mayor. Its "silent" partner, Pocket Vito, died as explained in note 4,
 > and has been replaced by the demonic-looking mobster Ronove. What they
 > will do with this power is anyone's guess.

Fuel for future conflicts!

 > [8] The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act halts foreclosure proceedings
 > for military personnel on active duty. Glass likely would have
 > enrolled Derek in some arm of the military.

At this point you're one off from the note numbers in the story.

 > [11] AATS = Advanced Alien Technology Studies. Dr. Fay's class for
 > hand-picked super-geniuses that lets them muck around with mad
 > scientist stuff.

Dr. Fay = best.

 > [3] Glass may have been one of the CIA agents who played "World of
 > Warcraft" and other MMOs in 2008. The theory was that terror groups
 > were using MMO chat functions to exchange information in secret,
 > recruit like-minded individuals, and plot terror attacks. This theory
 > was problematic for a number of reasons, and according to the NSA, did
 > not result in any successful counter-terrorism operations, nor any
 > actionable intelligence.

Amazing.

 > The final six issues, eighteen through twenty-three, form the final
 > arc, chronicling the adventures of the Green Knight and Blue Boxer.
 > While still focused on character psychology and interpersonal
 > relationships, it's definitely more action-oriented, and that comes
 > out of a concerted effort on my part to write honest-to-gosh superhero
 > stories complete with action sequences, puzzles to solve, villains to
 > defeat, cool ideas, world-building, and plot twists.

Heck yeah!

 > It seemed like the right move at the time, though now I wonder if I
 > shouldn't have posted each part as an individual installment. The
 > story posts for these six issues alone add up to seventeen fairly
 > large chunks of story; that is, the last six issues are as long as the
 > previous seventeen put together. These days I'm leaning more heavily
 > towards serialization, and shorter installments, so if I had to do
 > them all over again, I probably would be writing these words after
 > finishing #34 rather than #23.

I think that's fair - that's the direction I'm moving in too.

(As a tangent... think Beige Midnight could've been somewhere between thirty-six 
and forty-eight issues, to be honest, and would probably have been received a 
bit better in that format. OTOH, I can understand the twelve-issue miniseries 
both working better as a parody of Event Comics, and as something to keep one 
working - it's probably a lot easier to go "Only six issues left!" than "Only 
twenty-four issues left... haaaa...")

 > But it really came into its own
 > with number twenty onwards, as we had scenes seen from the points of
 > view of several different characters.

Yesssss. I love it.

 > That's one of two big reasons why JOLT CITY is coming to a close--
 > besides the fact that I always intended it to end when 2008 did--
 > there's been a pretty significant shift toward "widescreen"-style
 > storytelling in my writing, and JOLT CITY has always been more
 > intimate, more restricted. This shift in my writing has also resulted
 > in an equally significant tonal shift toward things that are more
 > upbeat.

It is noticed and appreciated!

 > That said, 2008 is a
 > hard year to live in and write about for six years, so I'm more than a
 > little glad to at last have put it behind me.

That's fair. @.@

 > I joked with Mary that this final issue was "classic" JOLT CITY, in
 > that it had a bunch of action up front, then a disproportionate amount
 > of denouement.

Heeheehee.

 > I wanted to say good-bye to them, and send them off on their way. I
 > won't write another story about Roy Riddle, or Dani Handler, or
 > Martin.

That's fine, I'm good with this ending. :D

Derek has a future ahead of him, as does Bethany-- though not,
 > sadly, a future together-- but when we see them next, it will be six
 > years down the road, in 2014, in the thick of the Pulse War. And by
 > the time I'm done with that whole mess, it'll be 2020.
 >
 > It's been great fun; thanks for coming along on the ride!

Woo! <3 Thank you for bringing us along on the trip! And good job closing out 
your series as you desired.

Also, as a final note: I'm curious about your decision not to show any of the 
time-travel trip directly, especially as you did so at the end of #22.

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, an interesting storytelling technique.