Issue #005 – – – – – controlled by Sarah Saunders – – – – – Credits 11

Imo and I dashed across the street and into the open door.  We could hear the chatter of the guns as Ivan Knight’s guards blasted wildly at the Brotherhood Of War assault behind us, but nobody saw us slip into the building.  As I passed the threshold I shifted into my cat form.  It doesn’t make me more graceful, sadly, but it’s a good disguise and I find it’s quite effective when you need the element of surprise.  Even in Helix City, nobody expects a half-woman half-cat in their face.

Imo pointed and I laughed as I saw blue glowing cartoon arrows appear in the air and glowing ethereal cookies making a line on the floor.  Melderact’s guidance spell at work and clearly the old wizard had a sense of humour that I had not previously credited him with.  The two of us dashed along the corridor, passing door after door as we followed the magically illuminated cookie trail.

Up ahead a door opened and we tensed for a fight, but the two women who emerged were no threat.  Staggering and clearly under the influence of some illegal substance they  did not seem aware of their surroudings and Imo and I pushed past them without incident.  The arrows led us up a flight of stairs, which were sodden with damp and creaking with age and wear.  “Careful,” I told Imo, aware he was much heavier than me.  Ironically, it was my foot that found the weak spot and went through the floor.  Imo caught me under the arms and prevented a tumble.  “Thanks,” I grinned at the monster.

When we reached the third floor Imo was ahead and following the arrows when I called him back: “Wait.”  The door we’d passed was ajar and the dim office within was better furnished than the other open rooms we’d seen.  Most of this place was just a crash pad for customers who’d paid good money for a few hours of oblivion.  But this was different.  “I want to look,” I told Imo, who looked anxious to move on.  I have always thought that probably it is just my imagination which assigns these emotions to the monster, and yet since the speaking episode in the bar I’ve been questioning that.  Is there an alert intelligence lurking within that horrific form?  No way to know, I guess.

I stepped behind the dark oak desk.  No cheap piece of furniture this.  I pulled open one of the desk drawers – or I tried to at least. It was locked.  “Open this, big fella,” I asked.  Imo loomed over me and wound his tendril “hands” through the catch.  With a jerk he pulled the drawer free.  I grinned widely.  The drawer was full of little bags of rolled notes.  “I think we just found some drug dealer petty cash,” I said, pulling the bags out and stuffing them into my shirt pockets.  Imo watched passively as I did this, but I could feel a growing agitation about him.  “Okay, okay,” I said.  “I get it.  We have to hurry.”  I turned for the door and stopped.  A man stood there.  He wore a very smart black suit, Armani I think.  He was young, good looking, but his eyes were cold.

“You appear to be stealing from me,” The man said.  His accent was very heavy Russian.
“Yes.  About that,” I told him.  “It’s not how it looks.”
“It is precisely how it looks,” The Man said.  “I am Ivan Knight.  That money, though only a trifling sum, is mine.  Perhaps you will return it?”
I glanced at Imo and put a hand on him to stop the monster going after the drug lord.  “You should get out of the way, before Imo here decides you are an obstacle.”
The kingpin grinned.  It was a vicious grin, full of violent promise.  I watched as two of his front teeth grew longer.  Oh shit.  He was a vampire.
“Your monstrous friend is terrifying to humans, I expect,” Ivan Knight said.  “But he cannot harm me.”  I did not know if this was true.  Imo was powerful; strong, very difficult to injure and immune to many forms of attack.  But a match for a full-blood vampire?  I had no idea.  I didn’t much want to find out.
“Okay,” I said, placatingly.  “I’ll put the money back.”
“Too late, cat girl,” Ivan said.  “I have not fed tonight and I wonder – how will your feline blood taste?”

Now listen – I am fast.  I can move very quickly when I want to.  But I barely even saw the vampire move.  One second he was at the door – the next he was in front of me.  His hand on my throat, his eyes locked onto mine.  He leaned in, pulling me towards him.  His jaws opened.  I felt frozen by his stare.  I saw those fangs, dripping and moist.  I knew my life was about to end.  And just then, Imo picked him up and threw him against the wall.  All this happened in the space of about two seconds.

Ivan and Imo clashed in the middle of the room.  Imo’s plant-like tendrils slashing and hammering at the vampire.  Ivan put an arm right through Imo’s body and out the other side.  Had Imo been human, the vampire could quite literally have torn out his heart.  But Imo is not human and he seemed unphased by the attack.  I came around behind the pair and delivered a series of blistering kicks and punches into the vampire’s sides and back.  He barely seemed to notice me.

Although Ivan Knight was half Imo’s size, his vampiric strength was immense.  As the two were locked into combat he suddenly twisted his grip and actually managed to lift Imo off the floor.  It was a strange sight and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen Imo be manhandled in quite this way.  I wasn’t immediately afraid for him though since the pair didn’t seem able to do much damage to one another.  It all become much more terrifying when Ivan threw Imo out of the window.  The crash of glass and the crunch of splintering wood was followed by the thwump of Imo hitting the floor two stories below.  He’d probably be fine, but now he wasn’t here.  And I still was.

“Now,” Ivan grinned again.  “Your bodyguard is gone.  Where were we?”
“I think I just declined a dance?” I told him, trying to edge towards the door.
“You aren’t going anywhere young lady. I am faster than you.  I am stronger than you.  In almost every sense I am your master.  Which, after a taste of your blood, will become the permanent order of things.”
“Not on a first date,” I told him.  “I’m not that sort of girl.”
“Enjoy your humour while you can,” He snarled.  “For there will be little enough of it in your life hereafter.”
He came at me with that preternatural speed and I dived at the door.  Even as I did so, I knew I was not going to be fast enough.  He had me.

But the bite never came. I hit the floor and rolled back out into the corridor.  Glancing back over my shoulder I could see Ivan Knight.  He was pounding on what appeared to be an invisible wall.  He was screaming in fury too, though I could hear nothing.  It was like somebody had hit his mute button.  Weird.
“Come on,” said a voice at my shoulder.  Standing there was a middle aged man.  He wore dark slacks and a woolen cardigan over a beige shirt and tie.  The scholarly look was completed by a pair of spectacles.  “Look,” I told him.  “I’m getting a bit tired of this.  I’m the cat-person.  It’s me that’s meant to do the sneaking up.”
“Sorry,” the man said.  “You were distracted by the ravaging vampire.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Drake Chapterhouse,” The man said.  “I’d stay and exchange pleasantries, but my magical shield will only hold the vampire for a short time.  So we’d better get on with our escape.”
“But I’m supposed to be rescuing you,” I told him.
“Really?” He asked.  “Well thank you then.  And you did.  It was only because his attention was on you that I was able to free myself from Knight’s hypnotic hold long enough to use my magic.”

We dashed along the hall and down the stairs, quickly returning the way I had come.  At the main door, Imo was crashing back into the house.  My friendly monster stood over two of the beefy guards, having clearly knocked them senseless to charge back to my aid.  “Don’t worry,” I told him.  “I’m fine.”
Somewhere up above us there was a roar of such absolute rage that I felt all my furry hackles raise.  “Oh dear,” I said.  “Does that mean what I think it means?”
“Yes,” Drake said.  “Ivan Knight is free.  Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Issue #004 – – – – – controlled by Fraser Machin – – – – – Credits 4

Lionheart wasn’t good at hiding.  His sheer size and striking appearance tended to make even the attempt pretty pointless.  But in the darkness of the car park he managed to lurk in the shadows long enough to watch some of the prisoners he’d set free stumble out of the rear door.  Distantly, he could hear sirens.  This should be good news in normal circumstances, but with his fuzzy memory he didn’t want to take any chances.  He wanted to be gone before the cops arrived, but he also wanted to see what his fellow gladiators did.

Oddly, of the twenty or so who had been imprisoned, only half-a-dozen emerged.  He didn’t know if this meant they had been recaptured inside, or they just didn’t want to be set free.  But these guys did.  As a pack they loped off along the road, keeping to the shadows where they could.  They were a big, ugly group of dangerous-looking bruisers.  He was struck by the fact that he could not remember seeing any of them before – yet he also felt he had been a gladiator in the arena for some time.  Something strange was happening to his brain and it wasn’t just the result of his mental altercation with the Tophat Twins.

Lionheart trailed the gang.  He wasn’t particularly good at moving stealthily either – in this instance nothing like his namesake.  But for every bit that he was bad at being quiet, the group he was following were worse at observation.  And so it was that the hero was able to trail the small group as they made their escape into the alleyways and backstreets of the city.

The escapees moved quickly for people their size and put plenty of distance between them and the club before they took  a break, ducking into the ground level of a block of low-cost apartments and huddling near the elevator, which was marked clearly: “Out Of Order.”
“What we gonna do?” muttered an immense slab of a man with a low brow and a heavy enormous forehead.  His powerful arms were too long for his torso and his muscular physique was made up of unlikely slabs stacked atop one another to give the impressive of a wall of sheer power.  “We must find somewhere to hide out,” said the smallest of the group, a silver-grey skinned freak with a third eye in the middle of his forehead.  “Like where?” said a metal-plated behemoth in a white T-Shirt with the word: “Truck” emblazoned on it’s chest in red ink.

Lionheart, whose fast-healing had already knitted up the worst of his wounds, stepped from the shadows by the door and growled: “Mind if I join you?”  He didn’t know whether to trust any of these guys, but he thought safety-in-numbers was a pretty safe tenet in this sort of situation and besides – he needed some answers.
“You!” Said the only woman in the group.  She was enormous, possibly the most muscular of them all and her voice was low and gruff.
“Yes,” Lionheart nodded.  “Me.  I set you free.  I was hoping you could help me in return.”
“You got us out, man,”  Truck nodded amiably.  “We owe you.  What you need?”
“I seem to be having some memory issues,” the Hero told them.  “I’d really like to fill in the blanks.”

Some quiet discussion revealed who the six escapees were.  Neanderthal was the low-browed giant who Lionheart decided was probably good in a fight but wasn’t about to solve a logic puzzle any time soon.   Area51 was the little man with the third eye.  Truck was Truck.  Sally Slab was the enormous woman.  Man Mountain, despite his name, wasn’t particularly huge.  More like the size of the average American wrestler.  He probably would have been imposing in normal circles, but next to these monsters he wasn’t overly impressive.  The final member of the group was Fe Guerrero, a Latino streetfighter who seemed constantly to be like a coiled spring, wound tight and ready to strike.

During chatter with the six, Lionheart managed to establish some of the recent history that his mind seemed unable to retreive.   He’d been a fighter for about three months, having taken part in various “low level” battles before this evening’s fight.  He also discovered that the granite beast he’d defeated was called Foundation and had been widely tipped to win the battle.  The group did not know where Lionheart had come from or how he had been captured, but suspected his story must have been something like their own.  Some of the group were freaks, simply looking for a way to eat in a city that hated and feared them.  They’d volunteered to participate before they’d discovered how brutal it was, after which they’d found they were not free to leave.  Others were on-the-run unlicensed Abnormals who’d fallen into the clutches of the Gentleman King while trying to avoid the authorities.

“We can’t hang around here for long,” said Truck.  “Sooner or later somebody will come through here and report us.  We’ve gotta make ourselves scarce.”
“A group like us?” Sally Slab laughed, though there was no humour in her voice.  “How are we going to hide?”
Lionheart’s memory was very vague, really only flashes and faint images, but as the woman spoke one clear idea floated to the surface in his mind, like an air bubble rising from deep underwater.  “I know a place, I think,” he said.  The others looked at him quizzically, but there was general assent.  There was simply no obvious leader amongst this group and they were apparently happy to defer to the man who had freed them.

Half an hour later the group were gathered by an old metal fence on the very edge of Helix Point, the only part of the glitzy portion of the city to really look “run down.”  Some years earlier the industrial sector had migrated to The Port and the edges of the city and the huge old buildings they had previously inhabited had not yet been redeveloped.  Beyond the fence sat a huge empty parking lot and after that a massive building.  A rusty old sign, hanging down on the left side where it had slipped a screw, read: “Sydonyn 5.”

“What is this place?”  Truck asked.
“I don’t know,” Lionheart said.  “I can’t remember.  But it’s big and its deserted.  Whatever security is in place to keep folks out wont be much of a challenge to us.  Isn’t this as good a place as any to hide out, lick our wounds and decide how to move forwards?”
“Nobody appears to be using it,” Sally accepted, eyeing the dark windows and empty lot.
“Can’t you check it out and see if there’s any danger inside?” Man Mountain asked Area51.
The silver-skinned freak turned all three eyes on him: “What do you mean, check it out?”
“With your brain and that,” Man Mountain said.  “You know, mind shit?”
“Put your prejudice back in the box.  I don’t have psionic powers,” Area51 assured him coldly.  “I’m just strong and fast.”
“Oh,” Man Mountain looked stumped.  “Are you sure?”
“I think I’d know,” Area51 said grimly.

“Come on,” Lionheart told the group, trying to keep them focused.  It was clear that once the danger was over there would be some personality clashes within the team, but he would worry about that later.   “First things first,” He told them.  “We need medical supplies, food, shelter and security.  This building is the answer to all those, I think.  Once we’ve got a base, we’ll need a plan.”  And a costume, Lionheart thought.  Something like my old costume, but maybe a little darker.  To match the darkness he could sense all around him.  To challenge it.
“Okay,” Sally agreed with an amiable grin, clapping Lionheart on the shoulder with one enormous hand.  “Lead the way, boss.”

Issue #005 – – – – – controlled by Bill Treadwell – – – – – Credits 12

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Cassandra said.  “Who are you?”  She expanded her gesture to Hourglass too.  “”Who are both of you?”
“Straight to the point,” the short man said, chuckling.  “I like her.”
“I thought you would,” Hourglass nodded.
“I’ll tell you what I can,” the man said. “But understand this, young lady – nobody knows the full story here.  I’m sure of that.  Some grand event is taking place, wider and broader and more vast than you can imagine.”
“Okay,”  Cassandra said.  “So fill me in with what you have.”

“My name is Jorge Hernandez Benito, I was born in America, as were my parents.  My grandparents were Cuban.  They came to America just after the Second World War, shortly before the famous battle between Gran Destructivos and La Bestia Noche destroyed the home country.  We thought this place, at least, would be free of the darkness that seemed to be creeping over the world.  Sadly, as you probably have seen, it was not.  It simply took longer to reach America than some other places.  Perhaps ironically, it has gripped Helix City – once a place of shining virtue the world admired – with even more ferocity than elsewhere.”

Cassandra could tell this was a man who, once he got started on a story, liked to tell it at his own pace.  She decided it was better to let him run with it and ask questions afterwards.

“When my parents died I spent some time on the wild side,” Jorge said.  “I wasted what little they had left me drinking too much and spending too  much time in bars and nightclubs.  I gambled.  I knew many women.”  He smiled when Cassandra cocked an eyebrow and he patted his generous belly.  “I was not always this shape.”
“One night, I got into a fight.  I cannot remember why, or even whose fault it was.  But this man, he had many friends and I was alone.  They had a dangerous look about them and I felt sure they meant to do more than just beat me, so I ran.  They chased me out of the rear entrance of the club and through the streets.  I managed to stay ahead of them, but I was getting tired so when I saw the stairs down to a basement I dashed down and tried the handle.  It was unlocked.  I slipped inside and I hid.”
“This is an origin story,” Hourglass smirked, “You get to hear a lot of them when you hang around with super-types.”
Jorge nodded: “In the darkness of that strange and musty cellar I found an item.  What you might call an artefact.  It changed everything.”
“You gained super-powers?  What can you do?” Cassandra was fascinated.
“I can sense things, mostly.  Mystical things.  Strange things.  Magical things.  I can glimpse beyond the curtain of reality to the things that lurk beyond it.  This is why I am now called The All-Seeing Eye.”
“Are you really All-Seeing?” Cassandra breathed.
Hourglass laughed.  “He wishes!”

“That was an interesting story,” Cassandra said.  “But it hasn’t really explained very much.”
“I know, there’s a lot to tell.”  Jorge agreed.  “Over the last couple of years my powers have begun to reveal things to me.  Things that few other people even suspect, let alone know.  This reality around us – it is fake.  Nothing is supposed to be like this.  The darkness, the evil that seems to be rising on every side – it’s a construction.  It has been made, by something or someone.  It has a purpose.  We are but actors in it.”
“I’m not an actor,” Cassandra assured him.
“You are.  But you are one of the special ones.  You still have some connections to the original reality.  I do not know why some have this and some do not, but there are others like you.  I have taken to calling you Misfits, because commonly you feel that you do not fit into the world as it is.”
“I do feel like that,” Cassandra agreed.

“So tell me about your revolution,” Cassandra prompted him.
“It is not my revolution,” Jorge said.  “I am but a bit player.  But I have felt other forces at work.  Whatever has turned our world dark is not without its own enemies.  There are allies, though we cannot seem to communicate with them.  Some great battle is being fought still.  It may seem that these mighty powers will decide the end of this story, that beside them we humans are dwarfed.  But that is not the case.  The real battle is being fought right here, by those who will take up arms.”
“How do you know who to trust?”
“I don’t,” Jorge said.  “Though perhaps my powers make me better able to judge than most.  My instincts told me to trust Hourglass when she fled into Viktor’s bar to escape the Bullies.  My instincts tell me to trust you.”
“But when I met Hourglass she was with a street gang!” Cassandra pointed out.
“There was an Abnormal with that gang,” Hourglass explained.  “The All-Seeing Eye here found him and sent me to find out if he was recruitable.  I was trying to feel him out by hanging with the gang when you showed up and quite a lot of people got dead in a hurry.”
“Sorry about that,” Cassandra said.
Hourglass shrugged: “Shit happens.”

“Okay, I have more questions,” Cassandra told them.  “How come I only remember being a cop?”
“In this reality, that is all you have been.  But this reality did not unfold in the way time and space are supposed to.  I believe it was simply created, whole and complete.  Which is why there are things that don’t seem quite right, things that don’t fit.  It’s why some of you have slipped through the cracks.  No intelligence, no matter how vast, can properly simulate the entirety of evolution, time and space.  There have been mistakes.  I believe these mistakes represent our best opportunity to put things right.”
“If I kick in with you guys, where do I stay?  I can’t go back to the police if they’ll detect my powers.”
“Your choice,” Jorge said.  “I can help you avoid detection if you wish to continue with the cops while you explore the truth.  Or if you want to make a clean break, we can help you hide and give you a place to stay.”
“Here, at Viktor’s?” She asked.
Jorge laughed: “No.  Not here.  This is a very special place.  You wouldn’t want to stay here all the time.”  She was going to ask him to explain what he meant by that, but she could somehow see from the set of his jaw that he wasn’t willing to share any more about that right now.

“Okay then,” Cassandra said.  “Last question.”
“What?” Hourglass and The All-Seeing Eye asked together.
“Is there a good cocktail available in this dive?  Chasing Hourglass through the city streets was thirsty work.”
Hourglass laughed: “A girl after my own heart.”
“Then, get me to a cashpoint.  I have a feeling I need to drain my bank account as quickly as possible.”

Issue #005 – – – – – controlled by Keith Nixon – – – – – Credits 109

It did not take Got Gal long to decide what she wanted to do.  After all, it wasn’t as if she had a whole lot of options.  In the old days she was pretty sure she’d have gone and met the public – put them at ease.  That didn’t seem a good idea given what things appeared to be like now.  She thought that finding Captain Courage was an idea that had some legs, but it was also potentially disastrous.  After all, he was working with the authorities here.  The same authorities whose agents she’d just delivered a severe beating to.  Her encounter with them hadn’t filled her with confidence that there was much help to be had there.

“What’s the best way to contact a superhero?” She mused aloud as she cruised over the city.  A light wind had picked up and the new moisture in the air suggested rain wouldn’t be far behind.  She quite enjoyed flying in the rain, but the fact is she needed some clothes and somewhere to crash down and think about her next move.   She was over the suburbs right now and could see a great many examples of exactly what she was looking for.  Clothes.  On washing lines.  This wasn’t going to be her proudest day – but needs must.  This was an emergency situation.  She needed to get to it too, because those drying clothes weren’t going to be hanging outside for long if the weather turned.

A little later she felt nearly human again.  She was dressed in some tight blue jeans, a snug white T-shirt that accentuated her figure and a light blue shirt tied at her waist.  She could do with a bath and some sleep, but at least her super-heroic nature was no longer obvious.  Which was lucky because several police helicopters had passed overhead.  She imagined that news of her fight with the special ops guys was spreading fast.  Instead of flying, she was walking, and although it had spat a little the rain had not yet really materialised.  She pulled a pair of sunglasses from her pocket and slipped them on.  She’d spotted them on a small table by a cook-out grill.  She felt a little guilty.  It hadn’t taken much to turn her into a petty criminal.  She sighed.  There was probably going to be more of this while she got her bearings.  She’d have to do some really, really good deeds to make up for it.

Walking the streets of the suburbs she thought that of all the parts of the city she’d seen, this area was least transformed.  The strong bond of families and neighbours meant that the darkness she’d noticed elsewhere was held, at least partially, at bay.  There were too many shady characters in doorways selling illicit packets of some sort of drug or another to youngsters.  Where run-down houses and unmowed lawns had used to be rare, there were rather more now.  The creeping hand of decay could be seen – but its reach was limited here.  It gave her hope.

She didn’t really know what she was going to achieve by wondering aimlessly.  The Suburbs had always been her haunt.  The maze of streets all looked quite similar with the flowerbeds and the automated watering systems and the Jerrys and Maggys and Peggys who called this place home.  It was comfortably bland and deceptively quiet.  She knew that much more went on behind these walls than people could imagine and that even here trouble and danger lurked where you least expected it.  She was worried about her predicament, but her mood was buoyant.  It usually was.  She was a happy sort of person.  And it had been several hours since she’d had to crawl in a sewer pipe.  This may be a new record.

“Miss?” A voice called out.  She glanced across and saw an elderly man walking a small dog.  The mutt was a mongrel, so mixed in lineage that no trace of any discernible breed remained.  “Hello?” She replied.  Unsure why he was hailing her, but ready for trouble.  She couldn’t really see how this old fellow was going to be any trouble, to be honest, but she had learned not to judge a book by its cover.  “Are you lost?” The man asked.
“Lost?  No.  Why would you think that?” She asked.
“I don’t mean lost, geographically,” He said.  She thought that an odd comment.  Was he some kind of nut?
“I’m sorry,” She said, “I don’t understand.”  While thinking: don’t mess with me, my friend.  I can kick balls into space.
“Sometimes,” The Old Man said, “You have to just trust in a stranger.”  He smiled.  It was a kindly smile.
She smiled back: “Are you hitting on me?” She laughed.
“Maybe thirty years ago,” He said.  Then smiled again: “Or forty.  I have a knack of finding people who need help.  It’s been with me a long time.  If you’d like, you can come back with me and share a cup of coffee and a cheese sandwich.  You look like you need it.”
She eyed him cynically: “No offence, but I don’t know you and you don’t know me.  You shouldn’t make assumptions about people.”  Though a cheese sandwich really did sound good.

Just then the air filled with the sound of a helicopter again.  Only, unlike the earlier sweeps, this one was much lower.  Odd.  Why?
“You should come with me,” The man said, more urgently now.  “They’re looking for you and they have a Brain with them.  She’ll be able to detect you.”
Got Gal strode across the road and grabbed the old man by his lapels.  “How do you know?” She demanded.  Obviously, he was not what he seemed.
“No time to explain,” He said.  “I’m not with them.  You can trust me.  Let me take you somewhere safe.”
Well, she thought, I am a fugitive desperado.  She grinned a little at the idea, realising that it wasn’t something that she should take pleasure in, but taking pleasure in it anyway.  It was kinda cool.  “I’ll come with you,” She said, “But any funny business and I’ll put the beat-down on you.  Old or not.  Don’t think I wont.”
“Don’t worry,” He said, hurrying on and beckoning for her to follow.  “No funny business.  I am fairly sure that even at my age, particularly at my age, having tender parts of my anatomy propelled into space is not something I want to experience.”
“Good,” She nodded, following close behind.

That helicopter was way too low.  She suddenly wanted out of here quite badly.  She could almost feel somebody prodding about with their mind.  It was creepy.  “Oh,” She added as an afterthought.  “If you know anything about Captain Courage, that would be useful too.”
The old man stopped.  “Captain Courage?  Why?”
“I want to meet him,” She said.  “Do you have information?”
“Oh I know plenty about Captain Courage,” The Old Man growled.  “That bastard killed my wife.”

Issue #005 – – – – – controlled by Wayne Gildroy – – – – – Credits 88

Oakheart was good at brooding.  He supposed it came with being a living tree, he did not see the need to rush pointlessly.  If something was difficult and dark he was ready to spend the appropriate time mulling over the facts and considering his options.  He wasn’t bulletproof and he had seen those hunters show no compunction about using lethal force, nor any real remorse after they had done so.  He might have lasted a bit longer than the young man but he was fairly sure the outcome would not have been much different.  It was in his nature to feel responsible for others – hadn’t he always tried to keep people safe?  But there was no useful function to be served by beating himself up over something he couldn’t change.

“They would have killed me too,” he rumbled, this obvious conclusion being clear in his mind.  “Nothing gained by that scenario.”  He determined that, instead, he would look to garner justice for the young man in the longer term.  He had a feeling that this strange new world was not a “quick fix” if it were even in his power to fix it at all.  “He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword,” he said sadly, remembering some phrase from his past.  “Very well,” he whispered, gazing at the old abandoned fountain as if it were some ancient altar before which he could pledge earnestly.  “If these hunters are quick to kill, perhaps they will find that Oakheart will bring violence back upon them?”
Yes, he thought to himself, his countenance grim.  It was clear he must work in a different way.  If they would bring murder into his domain then he would respond in kind.  “Please let them try again,” he growled.  He did not sound like himself – but the world was not itself either, so perhaps this was the logical recourse?

The early morning light saw Oakheart lurking amidst the copse near one of the main gates.  He could see commuters, even at this hour, beginning to make their way into the place where they would toil their day away.  Time passed, more pedestrians appeared, the city got busier.  A group of surly young men were gathered near the old steel arch, several of them sitting on the steps that led up to the Lincoln statue.  These, he could see even from this distance, were real gangers, not the fakery he had witnessed the night before.  He thought he recognised the colours, East Fivers?  Something like that.  Mostly teenagers, not really doing any harm right now, just hanging out and scaring passers-by with the sheer fact that they were there, dressed like that and in a group.

A cop approached, though there was something odd about his uniform.  Instead of the usual blues, his jacket was black and his cap adorned with a steel logo – it looked like a bull?  Oakheart listened, though at this distance he couldn’t quite make out all the words.
“Move along now,” One of the cops instructed aggressively, his hand slipping suggestively to his nightstick.  The young men swore at him, gave him the finger – typical shows of youthful faux-masculinity, but not particularly threatening or aggressive, as gang responses go.  The second cop decided he didn’t like it anyway and produced a taser.  Now the young men came to their feet, appeasing.  “Hey man, take it easy,” He thought one said.
“No need for that, man,” Said another.  “We’re going!”  The cop tased him anyway, the young man crashing to the floor and thrashing there as the high voltage charge burst through his nervous system.  The first cop was laughing.  “Hey boys,” He sneered: “Your pal peed his pants.”
Oakheart could see from the dark stain that the young man did appear to have soiled himself.  He frowned at both the rough behaviour and the unprofessional tone of these officers of the law.

Just then one of the youths pulled a gun from where it had been tucked at the back of his jeans.  The atmosphere changed.   “You think that’s funny, shocking my bro’ ?” The young man spat.  “You think you can just do whatever you like, right?  Well maybe you won’t still be laughing when I make you a few new air holes?”
The cops weren’t laughing.  The first one narrowed his eyes: “You don’t want to be playing this game, kid,” He said.  “Our gang is a lot bigger than yours.  You fire that gun, you and your boys will be running for the rest of your short, miserably, drug-addled lives.”
“Put the gun down, Carlos,” one of the smaller young men pleaded.  “Louis is fine, look.  He’s fine.”  The fallen youth did not look fine.  His face was swollen from where it had hit the concrete in his fall.  His hands were grazed and he was pale and shaking.  His nose was bleeding.  His lip was split.  But none of that was going to kill him.  The second cop, who had produced his own gun and was pointing it at the fallen man, certainly did seem able and willing to kill him.
“So what’s it gonna be?” Said the first cop.  “Put the gun down, or your ‘bro’ here,” He sneered the word ‘bro’ like it was an insult, “Is the one who gets the new air holes.”

Oakheart could see this standoff was not going to end well, though he could not immediately decide who was in the right.  Both sides seemed to have spiralled quickly out of control and while the cops had been unpleasant, rude and brutal with the taser, the gang clearly went about armed as well.    To make matters worse, none of them were actually in the park, but just outside it.  And there were so many people around now.  Anything he did would be a real spectacle.  Oakheart had almost resigned himself to sitting this one out as well when something happened to complicate the situation.

“No, Josie!  No!” Shrieked a woman who was struggling with four large grocery bags while chasing after her little girl.  The child, perhaps six years old, was in turn chasing after a cat, clearly with the intention of petting it.  The cat, apparently not willing to be manhandled by this strange and noisy little human, ran right between the cops and the gangers.  It was a perfect scene – if some aspiring photographer had captured that moment on film then it almost certainly would have won awards.  It had foreground and background interest, it was dynamic and it was thrilling.  There was emotion, there was danger, there was a frenetic combination of movement and intention.  Either the cop or the teenager were going to fire their weapon and Oakheart could see there was every chance the innocent child would be in the worst possible place at the worst possible moment.

Issue #004 – – – – – controlled by Ken Thompson – – – – – Credits 34

“You know what would be really useful right now,” Midnight Runner muttered.  “Infra red eyesight.”  Sadly, this wasn’t in the range of powers available to him.  His heightened eyesight, which improved his vision in dark and low-light environments, would have to do for now.

Very carefully, the hero raised the pulse rifle and readied it for action.  “Xara?” He whispered, hoping for some sort of response.  Nothing.  There did used to be communications functionality down here in Deep Storage, he was sure – but he visited the area so rarely that he couldn’t remember whether this was definitely the case or not.  Which seemed odd.  He had thought he knew every inch of his system’s capabilities.

“Okay then,” He muttered.  “I’ll have to do it old school.”  Moving quietly to the silver display screen on a nearby wall he brought up the area schematics.   Punching the keys, he was careful to remain alert to movements in the darkness around him.  He pulled up the records for chamber number three, “Dark Future.”  Supervillain, powers unknown.  Huh, he thought.  That’s pretty useless.  He rubbed at his temples, where a headache had begun to make itself known by that pressure on his forehead and soreness behind his eyes.  He hadn’t suffered from a migraine in months and had hoped he was rid of them.  But he recognised these early symptoms.

“Okay then,” he said, raising his rifle and advancing towards where he had heard the sound.  “Looks like I’ll have to go in blind on this one.”  Around him a barely-perceptible light blue aura formed as he willed his force field up to full power.  His hands were surrounded by the telltale blue glow of the plasma energy that he held restrained – for now.
“Come on out,” He said.  “You’re probably a little confused.  I can help.  I don’t mean you any harm.”  He waited.  There was no response.  So he advanced some more.   He pondered the name – Dark Future.  Sometimes you could get a clue from what they called themselves, but this sounded pretty generic.  He supposed “future” might signal some kind of time powers, though he really hoped this wasn’t the case.  He hated those guys.  You didn’t know if you were coming or going when you fought them – and sometimes this was because you were both coming and going.  Not good for a blossoming migraine, all that messing about with possibliities.

“Come on,” The Midnight Runner called into the shadows.  “We don’t need to do this.  Let’s go upstairs, crack open a couple of beers, sit down and chill out?  Talk this through reasonably?  You’ve just come back from the dead, you should be celebrating.  I don’t want to cause you any harm.  There’s no need to be scared.”
The silence was broken by a low – and really quite creepy – laugh.  “Scared?” Came a deep, threatening voice from somewhere up ahead.  “Of you?  I doubt it.”  The Midnight Runner raised an eyebrow.  “Arrogant, much?” He called back, trying to pinpoint where precisely the voice was coming from.  He felt a breeze pass his left cheek, barely more than a whisper of air.  “I can afford to be,” the voice said from behind him.  Oh crap, The Midnight Runner thought.  A speedster!  A really, really fast one too.
“Right then,” He said, pressing his back to one of the machinery banks to avoid being surprised from behind, “Here’s your situation.  We’re sealed in here.  You can’t get out without me, and I won’t be taking you out until you calm yourself down and come talk to me.”
“You’ve had me locked in a glass box,” Dark Future spat from the gloom.  “I don’t think you have any intention of ever letting me out.”
“You were dead!” The Midnight Runner protested, though he was aware this was not precisely true.  It was more complicated than that.  Thinking about it all made his headache worse, so he tried to stop doing so.  Time for that later.

The Midnight Runner was sitting on the floor, his hands tied behind his back, his gun  -disassembled – on the floor in front of him.  The main lights were on now (he didn’t even know Deep Storage had main lights!).  He was very confused.  How did he go from being prepared to shoot the villain to being a captive?  In an instant?
“You must be very puzzled,” Said a tall, dark-haired naked man who strode into sight.
“Yes,” The hero agreed.  “I know you’re fast, but nobody is that fast.  What happened?”
“I’m not just fast,” Dark Future told him.  “Now, I’ll be taking your clothes.”
“You don’t have to do that, I have plenty of spare clothes upstairs.  You’re welcome to them!”
“I am not fooled by your pretence at friendliness,” Dark Future declared.  “You wish to put me back into the glass box.  I do not wish to go there.  This world is strange, I can feel great changes.  I have a feeling that I might rather like it.  Though I doubt it will like me.”
“Look,”  The Midnight Runner said, though he was having trouble concentrating past the pounding in his head.  “You can’t just go wandering about.  You’re not supposed to be here.  You don’t fit.”
“Do you?”  Dark Future asked, astutely.  The Midnight Runner slumped.  This was, of course, the truth that he was trying to avoid. The truth he had tried so hard, for so long, not to think about.  “No,” He agreed.

“You are lucky,” The Villain said, now in the Midnight Runner costume.  “I am not given to leaving enemies alive in my wake.  But in this instance I will not kill you, though it would be easy for me to do so.  I must first understand the nature of this place and what has happened.  Until I know if you are important or not, you shall live.  Once I determine that you are precisely what you seem – a sorry excuse for a corporate sell-out buying your own safety with convenient silence, I will end your life without qualms.”
“You can’t get out,”  Midnight Runner said.  “This place is impregnable.”
“You’re wrong,” Said Dark Future.  “You came in here, didn’t you?”
“That was then,”  The hero said.  “I sealed the place tight.  I’m very careful.”
“I have no doubt you are,” Dark Future said.  “But if the door was open recently then to escape this place I need only be there when you opened it in order to leave.”
And with that, Dark Future was gone.

Back Then:
When the elevator doors opened on the basement level nobody stepped out of the elevator.  At least – nobody visible did.  The Midnight Runner had become invisible en route and was now operating in his best stealth mode.  He moved swiftly across the landing to the silver door which was clearly marked “Private – Staff Only.”  He ran his hand over the panel, which was disguised as a discoloured wall tile and spoke the secret phrase.  The locks unsealed and a hiss of air escaped.  The Midnight Runner crept inside, sealing the door behind him.  Deep Storage was not airtight, it was climate controlled.  There was no need for a hiss of air to escape.  But he was far too busy to think what else that might have been.  Like somebody moving extremely fast in the darkness.

Okay, so this wasn’t good.  A professional security consultant and licensed superhero, undermined in his own headquarters. Tied up and naked in his own basement.   He’d better hope nobody found out.  This was going to be terrible for his reputation. He was already working at the bonds to untie his arms.  He would escape in short order and when he did he would go after Dark Future and teach him a thing or two about catching people by surprise.  But first he’d have to get rid of this damned migraine.  He should probably think about giving Xara the command word too.  The one he’d prepared for just this situation.  The one that would instruct the computer to remind him of all the things he had deliberately forgotten.  He knew such a thing existed, though he did not know why.  He guessed, when Xara filled him in, everything would be a lot clearer.  But just how terrible did a secret have to be that he would have gone to such lengths to blot it from his own mind?

Issue #004 – – – – – controlled by Rene Sawatzki – – – – – Credits 2

Countdown was struck by a moment of rare panic.  The rules by which you could mess about with time were nowhere near as strict as popular science-fiction would have you believe.  He knew this because though he had been dragging creatures from the past to aid him for quite some time, he had yet to experience a sudden change in the future world because of that.  (Of course, it may be that he was creating changes all the time, but that since those changes become the new reality he would never notice – but that was too philosophical for right now.)  Even so, he was pretty sure that you weren’t ever actually supposed to meet yourself.

With that in mind, Countdown froze everything.  Or perhaps “froze” was the wrong verb.  There was no change in temperature.  He simply used his ability to tamper with the local linear field to lock time precisely in its place – like a photographic snapshot.  The effect was limited in scope – in this case, just to the two individuals in front of him and the area about ten feet in diameter around them.  But it gave him a few moments to consider what to do.

That, he looked at the drunken man being held up by Shannon, was definitely him.  No doubt about it.  He didn’t much like the way he looked.  Round stomach, age showing at the eyes and the edges of his mouth, certainly not fit and healthy.  Why had he let himself go so badly?  He could feel the effects of this time stasis wearing away at the pool of energy which was at his disposal.  It was a big pool – he was quite gifted where raw power was concerned – but it was not limitless.  And this particular use of his power ate away at the reserves like no other.

He glanced at the watch again.  It’s hands were still spinning, but had slowed dramatically.  His presumption was that this was some kind of paradox warning.  He wasn’t sure that was the case, but it seemed to fit.  He didn’t know what the consequences would be of a paradox in a remade reality but in his view things were already quite complicated enough without adding that to the mix.  With one last regretful look at the beautiful Shannon Collins, he turned and fled the scene.  It was some comfort to know that at least one version of him had actually got the girl.

When he was well clear of the area, Countdown let the power field fade.  His range was limited anyway and the further he got from the stasis field the greater the toll on him, so it was something of a relief.  What would they think?  That they’d imagined it?  Countdown had no idea.  Nor would he ever, he expected.  He couldn’t risk seeing either of them again.  He’d have to stay away from that part of Madden Heights.  For now, he decided that he’d head towards Downtown.  It had always been the strangest part of the city and he was sure it was a good place to start looking for clues as to how to sort this mess out.

An hour or so later he stood on the quiet streets of the city in the small hours of the morning.  He was in something of a quandary.  He needed somewhere to rest – some base to call home and out of which to operate.  But he had no money and no easy way of making any.  He took the hourglass out and looked at it.  He wondered what would happen if he shook it again.  Shrugging, with no other obvious course of action, he tried it.  Nothing.  “Oh well,” he muttered.  “So much for that.”  Just then his eye caught something in the gutter.  It lay just on the edge of a drain, poised to drop down into the darkness.  Quickly, he rescued it.  A wallet.  He opened it and looked inside.  Officer Philip Lawrence, said the metal badge inside the front flap.  There was also a couple of credit cards, a membership card to a local gym and a couple of hundred bucks in cash.  Countdown smiled: “Things are looking up.”  Just when he needed it – some cash!  Luck?  Or something more?

The linear hero checked into a seedy hotel.  His room was small and the paint was peeling, but the sheets were clean, there was a shower with at least some hot water and it was somewhere to rest.  He’d been able to book a week and still have plenty of cash left over.  Tomorrow he’d continue trying to find out how to fulfil his mission.  But right now all he wanted was a few hours of oblivion.  His head hit the pillow and he was asleep in moments.

“Hello John,” Said the familiar voice.  It was Old Father Time (if that was who he actually was, Countdown decided to presume it was for now).
“Hey,” The hero said.  “You’re talking to me in my dreams?”
“No choice,” The old man smiled.  “It’s the only way I can easily reach you in the new reality.”
“Okay, well I’m here.  It’s completely different.  I don’t know where to start.  How about some guidance?”
“Get yourself settled.  You’ll need some money, but you can get that by using the money you found in the Blue Star Casino and betting on Lucky Sevens.”
“Fair enough,” Countdown said, not doubting this factoid.  “Then I can replace the original cash and return the wallet to its owner.”
“Don’t worry about that,” The Old Man said.  “It’s owner may be a cop, but he’s also a prize asshole.  Forget about it.”
“Are omnipotent powers allowed to say ‘asshole’ ?” Countdown asked.
“I’m not omnipotent,” The Old Man said, “If I were, things would be much easier.”
“Okay, so I get the cash and get settled.  Then what?”
“I’m still feeling my way through all this too,” The Old Man said.  “But from what I can gather you’re going to need to look into the affairs of a big company called the Bull Corporation.”
“I am?  Why?”  Countdown asked.
“Because they are a front for something much larger. They are a key player in all this.  I don’t know exactly how, or why, but they are.  So that’s your job.  To find out.”
“How?”
“I am an ancient power of time and space,” he replied.  “You come to me when there’s a time and space issue to resolve.  You are the superhero,” The Old Man pbserved.  “I come to you when there’s a super-villain issue to resolve.  You have a job to do,” He smiled, not unkindly.  “Go do it.”

Issue #004 – – – – – controlled by Frank Devocht – – – – – Credits 13

Nelson tried his best not to be impressed.  He knew Wild Thing was watching him to see his reaction and he was determined not to react precisely because of that, but he knew his guard was slipping.  “Not bad,” He admitted, grudgingly.  The pair stood in Wild Thing’s headquarters.  He knew that licensed superheroes got a lot of cash from the state in order to do exactly as they were told, no more no less.  When the state said: “Jump” they asked: “When, where, how high and into what?”  But he had no idea they were funded this well.

“Come on over,” Wild Thing said, leading him to a raised platform in the center of the warehouse, upon which were loaded bank upon bank of computer equipment.  Nelson sat in one of the huge bucket control chairs and felt it adjust itself mechanically to his size, weight and shape.  It felt like angels had made a chair just for him and had it shipped from Heaven especially.  “Chairs aren’t up to much though,” He lied.
“Yeah, right,” Wild Thing grinned knowingly, “You’ve never been so comfortable!”
Nelson grunted, ignoring the control panels and the flashing lights, the personal amusement arcade, the espresso coffee bar, the ranks of trophies and mementos in glass cabinets (including, for no obvious reason, a giant penny) and all the other paraphernalia that made this the archetype against which all other superhero bases must be judged.  “Let’s keep the chit-chat to a minimum,” He said.  “Do you have some sort of ability to process tech?”
“Sure,” Wild Thing pointed at a glass case from which dozens of wires sprung.  “That’s a Detection Identification Unit.  What do you want to scan?”
“The business card,” he said.  When Wild Thing looked puzzled he clarified: “The one Death, Esquire gave you.”

Placing the card into the machine, Wild Thing pressed a green button on the top.  He made no attempt to adjust any of the settings.  “It’s okay,” He explained when he saw Nelson’s raised eyebrow: “The other dials and buttons are for show.  For when I have girls back here?  The only one which actually does anything is the green one.”
“How does it work?” Beast Nelson asked.
“No idea,” Wild Thing laughed.  “I failed science in school.  As far as I’m concerned it’s a thingumy that tells you what other thingumies do.”
After a few minutes a readout printed from a slot in the DIUs base.  Wild Thing looked surprised.  “Hey!”  He said.  “It’s a tracker.”
“Well of course its a tracker,” Nelson sighed, exasperated.  “How did you think Death, Esquire was finding you in order to send minions after you?  Magic?”
The look on Wild Thing’s face made it clear that this was precisely what he had thought.  “Look,” He argued, seeing Nelson’s scathing expression: “Magic happens.  You know that.  Don’t you remember when the Witch King destroyed half of the city back in 2005?  That plague of giant frogs didn’t come out of a test tube, you know.”
“Yes,” Nelson agreed, “There are weird things out there.  But they aren’t common.  You should first presume a logical answer.  Only when you’ve ruled those out do you look to the strange and otherworldly for explanations.”
Wild Thing shrugged: “Okay big brain.  You sure don’t sound like any bouncer I ever met.”

“If this character is tracking you,” Nelson said, “Then this card is sending out signals to him, either radio frequency or GPS or something similar.  We should be able to turn the tables here.  Take the fight right back to the grim reaper wannabe.”
“Uh, right,” Wild Thing didn’t look keen.  “The Straw Man gave us a tough fight and he was just a servant of the boss.  Are you sure this is the best plan?”
“No.  But I can’t see how else we’re going to stop him wanting to kill you.  I’m not suggesting we go without any intel. though.  Are there any other heroes who might want to help us, or maybe might know a bit about how to fight this guy?”
“Other heroes?” Wild Thing laughed.  “We aren’t a social club, you know.  We aren’t all friends.  You’re the first team-up I’ve ever had.   The government doesn’t encourage us to hang around together and groups and teams are expressly forbidden.”
“Of course they are,” Nelson pointed out.  “That would make you a threat, instead of just a novelty.”

“Okay then,” Nelson said.  “If that’s not going to work we need to set a trap.  He’s tracking the card.  So we put the card somewhere and we set up a few surprises for when his minions come calling.  I think, if we can bring a couple of them down, he’ll get annoyed enough to come in person.  Then we finish this in the proper way.”
“What’s the proper way?” Wild Thing asked.
“We beat the living crap out of the bad guys, drag them to the cops and get them locked away.  And anything that isn’t alive in the first place?  We just smash that until it isn’t going to get up again at all.”
“Ah,” Wild Thing grinned.  “Now you sound like a bouncer.”

Issue #004 – – – – – controlled by Sarah Saunders – – – – – Credits 13

“Okay then,” I nodded.  “I think we’ve got a deal.”
“We have?”  Melderact looked surprised, and then delighted. “Excellent!  That is good news.  Progress at last.”
“So where do we go from here?  Who’s the first stop on our magical mystery tour?”   To be honest, I really didn’t trust the old Sorcerer for squat, but right now he had piqued my curiosity and I had to admit, I had long thought that things were not as they should be.  When you live Downtown dark thoughts are pretty common so I’d taken them to be the usual consequences of living in Weird Central, but it felt now like there really was something wrong.  You know what they say, you’re not paranoid if they really are out to get you.

“There is an individual I want you to make contact with.  I think it is better that do you this as the gentleman is not given to sorcerers of my persuasion.”
“Okay, I already like the sound of him,” I said.  “Who, and where, is he?”
“Normally, you’d find him in Helix Point, but right now he’s not at home.  He’s in The Yard.”  I didn’t like the sound of that.  The Yard was definitely not my turf, as it were.  It was a rough neighbourhood, but Downtown is too.  It’s just that Downtown’s type of rough I understand – strangeness and circus clowns and freaky shadow monsters.  But The Yard was a whole other ball game.  Drugs, gangsters, miserable poverty, the sort of place where if something good happened, they shot it full of holes because it looked suspicious and out of place.  “Why is he in The Yard?” I asked.
“He’s been captured,” Melderact said.  “I was trying to make contact with him when he ran afoul of somebody else and in the ensuing battle he came off the worst.”
“This is already getting complicated,” I complained.
“Don’t worry.  I can give you all the information you need to set him free with the minimum of inconvenience.  Trust me.”
“Oh yes,”  I agreed.  “Trust the evil wizard who wants to rule the world.  What could possibly go wrong?”

Several hours later, not a million miles from dawn, Imo and I stood in the street taking in the site before us.  To say the huge old four story tenement building had seen better days was an understatement.  In any part of the city the authorities still actually gave a shit about this place would have been condemned.  Instead, the dangerous old ruin groaned and leaned and squatted along the street like a fat old leech feeding on the carcass of some dead beast.  “Any chance you might say a few words?” I asked the Monster, who regarded the building ponderously, as was his wont.  I thought I sensed some understanding there, but he did not repeat his earlier performance.

“I don’t get it,” I said, aware that I was probably deliberately wasting time while I psyched myself up for the action.  “I mean, this world is pretty dark, but the people here are real people.  The city is a real city.  Why does Melderact think the old world, if there really is such a thing, is better than what we have?”  Imo didn’t respond, but he did shuffle his bulk a little, usually an indication that he was listening.  Or whatever passed for listening for him.  “What about you? I mean, if the old world were restored, what would happen to you?  Would you cease to exist?  Would you go back to being mindless?  Not that you are exactly full of witty and sparkling repartee right now,” I teased.
Imo rumbled and raised one of his tendril hands, indicating the building.

I looked over.  Clearly it was some sort of drug den.  Sorry looking wasters were coming and going.  Money was illicitly changing hands at the door.  Four very huge men were guarding the main entrance, each broad enough to fill a doorway on their own.  I sighed.  I think he was suggesting it was time to get a move on.  I knew he was right.   The sorcerer had told us that the man we needed was trapped inside this building, which was in turn owned and controlled by a gang boss called Ivan Knight.  Melderact said that at 5 AM there would be a disturbance in the street and that this would be my opportunity to slip past the security.  He’d cast a guidance spell that he said would lead Imo and I to wherever the hostage was being stored and then all we had to do was break him out and get away.  He suggested it would be easy. I didn’t believe him.   Frankly I didn’t believe much of what the villain told me.  I fully intended to check the facts out for myself, but first things first, a rescue seemed a good way to start.

“Okay then,” I said.  “Are you ready?”  Imo didn’t say anything.  But he looked ready.  Well, he looked the same as he always looked, but then I always thought he looked ready.  I guess I’m just a glass half full kind of girl.  My watch gave me just a few seconds to five.  I waited.

The far end of the street exploded into a great gout of purple fire and flashing silvery star effects.  It was like the world’s largest firework, but it was on the ground and it was giving off a lot of heat.  Even several hundred yards away I could feel it warming my face.  The burly guards came down the path and peered along the road, shielding their eyes from the brightness.  From the light, figures emerged.  Dressed in baggy purple pantaloons, bare-chested and strong, a dozen or so men came charging towards us screaming wildly.  “Brotherhood toughs,” I said.  I don’t know a lot about The Yard and it’s powers that be, but this gang was well-known and I recognised them.  The Brotherhood Of War had that distinctive and colourful uniform.  The doorman pulled uzis and pistols from inside their leather coats and headed to block the attack from their rivals.

“Well what do you know,” I said to Imo.  “A perfect distraction.  Just like Melderact predicted.”
But Imo was already crossing the road and heading towards the now-vacant door.  The fight might not last long.  Brotherhood guys were reputedly tough, but they didn’t use guns.  They weren’t Abnormals, so I couldn’t see them standing up to sustained weapon’s fire for long.
“Okay then,” I followed my monstrous companion.  “I don’t know who you are, Drake Chapterhouse, but we’re coming to save your sorry ass.”

Issue #004 – – – – – controlled by Bill Treadwell – – – – – Credits 14

Something changed in Cassandra as she put her costume on.  She felt it shift, like a part that hadn’t fit finally slotting into place.  This was right.  This was how things were supposed to be.  It seemed crazy, to disregard your entire life in favour of some momentary insanity and yet she had not felt so calm and at ease in a long, long time.

“You look good,” Hourglass told her.  “No cheap suit there.  You’ve had that professionally tailored by somebody who knows how to cut fabric and materials for our sort of lifestyle.”
“But it’s not mine,” Cassandra muttered.  It was though.  Of course it was.  It fit perfectly.  It felt wonderful.
“Well, it’s from the cabinet in your front room,” the other woman pointed out, artlessly.  “Come on, let’s head to Viktor’s.  I’m sure at least some of your questions will be answered there.”

Hourglass went out of the window into the night.  Cassandra stared in wonder.  She had simply vaulted out on the fourth floor.  Expecting to see a bloody mess on the ground below, Cassandra tentatively peered over the edge.  The woman was down on the street, but she was fine.  Just standing there waiting.  She beckoned – come on.  Instinct took over and, even though part of her brain was screaming what am I doing, Cassandra leapt out of the window too.

Twisting in mid air, Cassandra snagged her windowsill and pulled her body athletically against the wall.  Her movements were very quick.  When her hands and feet struck the stonework she stuck fast.  No need to actually climb, she seemed able to simply crawl down the wall.  In fact, it seemed perfectly natural as if she had done this a thousand times, though she didn’t remember ever having done anything like it before.

“Wallcrawler, huh?” Hourglass asked her as she dropped to the side walk below.  “Fast, too.  Trained, or powered?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Cassandra qualified.
“Come on,”  Hourglass grinned, “Keep up if you can.”
The woman took off at a run, staying close to the buildings, moving rapidly but always in the shadow.  She was athletic and quick, but Cassandra had no problem keeping up.  It was easy and she barely broke a sweat.  Glancing back and seeing Cassandra right behind her, Hourglass laughed and pushed harder, faster.

The evening became a wild, frenetic, exhilarating dash through the shadows of the city.  Cassandra was thrilled by it.  Her senses came alive, revelling in the exertion and the challenge and the freedom that her new found talents gave her.  Although the dash lasted nearly quarter of an hour, Cassandra never had to try very hard to keep up with the other woman and when the race was over she was barely breathing hard.  “Wow,” Hourglass said, her own chest heaving, “It’s been a while since anybody was able to stay with me.  You seemed like you could have overtaken and left me in your wake,” she grinned.  I could have, Cassandra thought.  “Anyway, we’re here.”  She indicated a run-down old bar.  The windows were grimy and unwashed.  the neon sign which read: “Viktor’s” was faulty, the letters lighting up in fits and starts, usually with one or more of the characters remaining dark.  “Looks tasteful,” Cassandra observed, wrly.
“It may not look like much, but it’s safe.  Broadly,” Hourglass told her.
“Broadly?”
“Yeah.  This is Helix City.  Nowhere is safe.  Not safe safe, anyway,” the costumed woman clarified.  By the way, what should I call you?”
The words came out of her mouth before Cassandra had a chance to think about the reply: “Vermilion Widow.”  Huh?  She had no idea why she had called herself that.  She wasn’t a superhero.  Why had she given herself a superhero name?  Why that name?  But, again, she felt instinctively that it fit.
“Okay,” Hourglass nodded.  “Follow me.”

The two woman entered the bar.  Cassandra kept a close eye on her companion.  She wasn’t ready to trust this stranger yet.  They weren’t friends.  “Shadows are my only friend,” she said.  Then checked herself.  That sounded like the sort of line a mysterious caped vigilante would come out with, didn’t it?  Was she going crazy?  Where were these thoughts coming from?  Cassandra mentally shrugged.  No point worrying about it.  Everything was out in Twilight Zone territory now and she could only hope that Hourglass was right and somebody in this place would have some answers for her.

Cassandra followed Hourglass to a booth.  There were not many other patrons here.  A weird-looking older guy and a young couple were chatting in the back booth.  Cassandra noticed the young man was very good-looking – a fact that she immediately put out of her mind.  She had other things to think about.  A pair of Hispanic women were sitting at the bar.  A young girl was feeding money into a very dirty old slot machine.  “Sit,” Hourglass said.  Their costumes didn’t seem to draw any undue attention.
“Okay,” Cassandra said.  “We’re here.  Now what?”
“Wait a second,” Hourglass told her.
A short and very fat man appeared from a side door and walked towards them.  He was red-faced and dressed in a dapper suit which sadly just made him look shorter and rounder.  He stopped at their table and smiled – a very warm and very genuine smile which Cassandra found herself returning.
“Ah Hourglass,” he said.  His voice was deeper and richer than Cassandra had been expecting.  “Brought us another stray?”
“This one’s interesting,” she said.  “She’s a cop.”
The little man frowned: “Oh dear.  Are you sure this is wise?”
“She’s also an Abnormal.  And I think she might be one of the misfits.”
“Really?” The little man peered at Cassandra.  “Memories a bit hazy?  Feelings of not fitting in?  Strange emotions that seem out of place?”
Cassandra nodded: “That’s it.  Am I going crazy?”~
“Far from it, my dear,” Said the man, kindly.  He shoved into the booth, causing Hourglass to scoot along to make room.  “Far, far from it.  It is everything else that is going crazy.  You are one of the fragments of sanity.”
“I’m sorry?” Cassandra puzzled.  “How do you mean?”
“All this,” The small man gestured around at the room.  “Everything.  Hourglass and I.  This bar.  This city.  The whole world.  It’s a lie.  A crazy, twisted, evil lie.  You and a handful of others are all that remains of the true world.  But reality is out there somewhere, trying to find a way back in.  Pushing at the edges.  Pulling at the cracks.  You, my dear, are part of that reality.  You are the start of something.  A revolution, perhaps?”