Countdown, Issue #003

Issue #003 – – – – – controlled by Rene Sawatzki – – – – – Credits 4

Countdown’s journey home was uneventful, though he kept his eyes very tightly peeled for any sign of whatever the mystic watch was warning him about.  A lot had changed that was for sure.  The city was completely different.  Gone were the gleaming facias, replaced by drab and discoloured peeling posters and bad paint jobs.  The towering silver skyscrapers were still there, but they were slate grey, or black, their architecture more severe and uglier.  Even those buildings that reached skyward whose fascias were entirely glass managed to have a macabre hue, the dark windows like the black eyes of some predator peering out into the night.

Helix City had always had its share of the homeless, but now they were everywhere.  Every alley had a resident; a group of drunks huddled around a fire, an old man asleep on a pile of soggy cardboard, a wretched woman of indeterminable age hugging her shopping trolley full of refuse and waste like a priceless treasure.  Sometimes, screams pierced the night – their direction and origin unknown.  Nobody seemed to care.  Those people who moved along the highways kept to their own business.  Cars did not slow, good samaritans did not emerge to investigate a disturbance.

Countdown crossed the edge of Downtown and into Helix Point.  Here the city came alive somewhat.  There were just as many vagrants, but these were outnumbered by groups of drunken, boisterous pleasure-seekers, worried-looking tourists and tired workers on their way home from long low-paid shifts.  There were police here, though they didn’t seem too concerned with what was going on.  Countdown saw a purse snatched right in front of two cops, but no attempt was made to pursue the criminal until the woman promised some sort of monetary reward to the officers.  They proceeded to shoot the criminal down on the street and recover the purse.  They did not check the fallen man at all.

It took nearly an hour to reach the edge of Madden Heights.  Countdown lived here.  Not in one of the largest houses – those were the preserve of movie stars, hgh-ranking local politicians, union bosses and other important folk.  But nevertheless his home was luxurious.  Countdown wondered whether it even still was his house anymore.  Upon arrival at the site the question was answered.  His house was not even there.  Where it had stood there was a small copse of trees, carefully landscaped to be a delightful feature here in the richest part of the city.

Of course.  Silly of him really.  Since he did not even exist in this version of reality the house couldn’t possibly be here.  He’d had it built himself, using money he’d earnt from his software business after its brief but successful float on the stock exchange.  But all that was gone.  In this world, there was no John King.  For the first time since all this started the enormity of the situation filtered through.  Perhaps he had been ignoring the unfolding scenario, it’s sheer scale being one that was hard to comprehend.  But the simple fact that his home was not only gone, but had never been, hit him like a hammer.

Laughter nearby caused him to look over his shoulder.  A couple were making their way along the road.  The man, clearly more than a little tipsy, appeared to be partially leaning on the woman for support.  She was laughing.  “Stand up!  What’s the matter with you?” she teased.  “Can’t handle a few pints?  This is just pathetic.”  He could tell from the affection in her voice that the woman was not really angry.  He supposed he should hide – a costumed man may have caused barely a stir in the city centre where superhumans and those who wanted to look like they were superhuman were common, but in Madden Heights it would be a big deal.  He was about to duck into the trees and use his chameleon ability when something made him pause.  He recognised the girl’s voice!

“Look,” she was saying, “I can’t carry you home.  You’re twice my size you big lump!”
Countdown stepped out in front of them.  He was gaping in shock and wonder.  “Shannon?” he asked.
The woman looked up and jumped in fright at the sudden materialisation of a costumed figure on the quiet road in the middle of the night.  “Oh!”
“It’s okay,” Countdown told her.  “I don’t mean you any harm.”
“We haven’t got any money,” The girl said.  He stared intently at her.  It was Shannon.  A little older, but just as beautiful.
“Is your name Shannon Collins?” He asked her.  She nodded, while trying to shake the man leaning on her out of his stupor to warn him of what appeared to be danger unfolding.

Shannon Collins had been John’s girlfriend, briefly, in college.  But his serious nature and her happy-go-lucky impulsiveness had never really worked.  It was something he’d long regretted and had wondered in his idle moments if there’d ever be a chance to fix it.  That chance had ended when, a couple of years ago, he’d heard that she had died in a tragic car accident on the freeway.  He’d been quite upset about it at the time, but had lost himself in work and in his superheroics, as he always tended to do with problems.  Now, here she was.  Alive, apparently, in this remake of the world.

“Do I know you?” Shannon asked him.  She cocked her head to the side in that way that was so familiar and endearing.  For some reason, Countdown took the watch from his pocket and looked at it.  The hands were now spinning so fast that he could barely see them, they were a blur over the etched numerals on the face.  “Maybe,” he said.  He was unsure how much, if anything, he should tell her.  Probably he should tell her nothing, but neither did he want to simply lose touch with her.  As he pondered what to reveal the man on her arm managed to stand straight and looked at him with bleary, drunken eyes.  “Whatchoo wan’? ” the man slurred.  “We don’ wan no trouble.”
Countdown gaped.  The man in front of him was horribly familiar too.  Because it was him.  John King.  A little older.  A lot the worse for wear.  But Countdown was facing an alternative version of himself.