__ COHERENT COMICS UNINC. PRESENTS / / //| // // // /^^| /^| /^^| / / / / //||// //==// ._-' | | ._-' /__/ Legion of Net.Heroes 2024 #1 / / // |// // // /___ |_/ /___ / "Two-Timing" / /______________________________________ copyright 1999 by /________________________________________/ Tony Pi original concept by Dave Van Domelen development by Austin George Loomis further development by Tony Pi (wildfire@lsh.org) copyright 1999 by Tony Pi [The cover is split down the middle, with a Janus-faced Cassandra Murphy on the dividing line, looking forwards and backwards. On the left half are Popper St. James, Derek Radner, and Aaron Zander in a yearbook photo pose, 2016. A mirror image of that has Netwalker, Boomer, and Dervish in a similar pose, 2024, with a transparent Lurker hiding in the background. The caption at the bottom reads: THE PAST IS NOW!] Codename Identity Power --------------------------------------------------- NETWALKER Nate Walker Internet Telepathy DERVISH Alaric Muhammed Enhanced Strength 'AJ' Jackson and Reflexes BOOMER Michael Hodgson Gadgeteer LURKER Tabitha Pierce Telepathy, Psionic 'Tawny' Adams Invisibility --------------------------------------------------- ============================================================================ [00:23, April 1st, 2024] Some guys lose themselves in the other person when they fall in love. Boomer always did take things a little too literally.... * * * * [00:23, April 1st, 2016] He awoke screaming. Another nightmare, he thought, but the night terror was fading already. He could only recall some scattered images and words: New legends. Rising gods. Hell. For a moment, he did not remember who he was, or what he was doing there in the dark. He only knew he was in bed, and that a thin light outlined a door. "Derek? Are you aright?" asked a familiar voice with an Irish lilt beyond. Derek. Something clicked: his name was Derek Radner, and this was his dorm room at the Academy. Ozone assailed his nostrils. Had he lost control of his lightning in his sleep, again? A toilet flushed. The bathroom door opened, and Derek raised his arm to shield his eyes from the brightness that flooded the room. He could make out the slight figure of a girl. He knew her, and he knew she was the love of his life: Cassandra Murphy. She knew it too before he did; Cassandra was a precog, and a hell of a programmer to boot. He fell in love with the shy, moody girl for more than her looks; even *he* had to work hard to crack her encryption algorithms. He also knew it was against the Academy rules for her to be in his room at this time of night. The administration would even frown upon their platonic relationship. That was why they kept their love for each other a secret from everyone. It was too easy to hack a couple of subroutines to bluff the curfew AI; he'd designed more complex AIs in his sleep...same kind of hacking he'd done to keep from having a roommate. Besides, would she be here if she foresaw them getting caught? "Just a dream. Come back to bed, Cassie Lassie. Did I wake you up, tossing and turning?" Cassandra shook her head. "I couldn't sleep, so I worked on Palladium." "You need more sleep, Cassie. You push yourself too hard. Any progress? Come up with any new prophecies while you were at it?" asked Derek. They found that Cassandra's precognitive powers were strongest when linked to programming; it was almost as though she could "log on" to the future while on-line, trance-like. She was having trouble balancing accuracy with the amount of information she retained while in the trance, though. She described it as being much like a dream: all the details were there while you were dreaming, but once you woke you forgot all but the most enigmatic details. Palladium was their codename for the interface that was supposed to improve her retention factor. Cassandra didn't answer at first, but crawled back into bed. Derek wanted to kiss her, but after their first, chaste kiss ended in him accidentally jolting her, they had to settle for less risky shows of affection. He stroked her hair, lost in her sweet scent. He could sense her depression, however. "What's wrong, Cassie?" he asked. "You can tell me." "Nothing. Everything. I don't know." Cassandra sighed. "It's just a moral dilemma I've been wrestling with." "Tell me." "If you had to choose between saving humanity but losing someone you love now, and saving someone you love now but dooming humanity in the near future..." "Which would I choose? You know how badly I would have done on that last Ethics exam if you hadn't drilled me on it. Hm." Derek mulled over the choices. "I guess we're training to become heroes here, so I'll have to go with saving humanity." "Even if innocent people would die because of your choice?" "I'm all for the end justifying the means. Remember that file we found while hacking, about Tymythy Twystyd? He took half the world population with him just to save the other half of the world. *There* is a hero worth looking up to." "You'd even sacrifice your own life?" Derek looked into her eyes, the truth spilling out between his lips. "I'd risk my life for you. You *are* my world. Without you, the world has no meaning." "That's what I thought." Cassandra turned her back to him and closed her eyes. "Good night," she whispered. "Aren't you going to tell me what you saw?" She wouldn't tell him, no matter how much Derek begged. After she fell asleep, he tried sneaking a peek in her diary. A smiley appeared on the screen. said the accompanying text. Radish. Only she would call him Radish and get away with it. Derek smirked. There was no point now in tracking down each odysseus fragment. The odyssei would be roaming the net, like Ulysses adrift in the Mediterranean, at the mercy of Poseidon. Only after a predetermined length of time would the fragments reconverge, building a Trojan Horse around the real program. If you didn't know the time or the Trojan Horse shell, you would have no way to find the data. It was ingenious. After all, wasn't it his brilliance that dreamt it up in the first place? Derek settled back into bed, snuggled up against Cassandra, and tried not to dream. * * * * [00:31, April 1st, 2024] All Academy computer systems were infected by an unknown worm at 00:23. Within minutes, there was widespread panic. The virus had spread rapidly throughout all the computers hooked up to the Net, then somehow broke into the autonomous systems, including security and records. Technically, the worm could not have leapt into the secure systems, but it did. It left three possibilities, none of which pleased Netwalker. First, someone could have hacked into the secure systems while linked to the Net. Utterly idiotic, but not impossible. Second, the worm might be mystical in nature, having developed a teleportation mutation; with the breach of the Barrier and the rise in Fourth Law violations, it was not impossible that a spirit had merged with an AI or virus. If Khadam had developed such a formidable threat and unleashed it against the Academy, then there was real reason to worry. Third, the entity that invaded the system might able to physically leave the Net, then re-enter the stand-alone systems. Nate really hoped it wasn't this: there was only one entity they knew of, who could. Doublecross. During his clean-up of the Conclave's computer systems, Nate had inadvertently unleashed Doublecross's program into the Net, or maybe one of the copies. When it had been Anchored, that villain from an age gone by was just harmless numbers. When all those Anchors died, Doublecross lived again. After Solar Max had confirmed that the program Nate let slip had been Doublecross, Nate could not stop obsessing over finding the villain before people started dying. It was his fault to begin with, and his penance to catch the rogue program. Nate did not jump immediately into the computer systems though, not without knowing something more about the threat. He headed towards Boomer's room, only to find that the entire level was in a panic. The automatic doors and lights were performing a random dance, and the temperature was beginning to rise. The students were shouting and screaming, not knowing what was going on; half of them were dressed in pajamas. That Mole Boy...a monniker that stuck to the poor kid with two prominent moles on his face, and the ability to dig through earth and dirt...was being pushed towards a wall by Jenny Hader and her clique. Jenny Hader was a temperamental girl from New York City. She could change the chemical composition of things completely to any compound in the original. It was rumoured she got sent to the Academy for turning her cat into a pillar of salt. Her fellow New Yorker, the superstrong Bejamin Hadrees, fell into the crony role with ease. Hadrees held That Mole Boy to the wall by the collar. Jenny sneered. "Dig us out, Mole Boy, or I'll turn your clothes into..." "Into what? Pure polyester?" asked Tawny Adams, appearing out of nowhere with AJ Jackson. Her telepathy allowed them to move through the panicking crowd by "nudging" the mob into ignoring them. "I see you skipped Ethics class again, Jenny." "I think you better put Abney down, Bejamin," added AJ. "Unless you think you can take me." "Another time, Dervish, another time." Bejamin dropped That Mole Boy grudgingly. Jenny sneered. "We'll suffocate here. Is this another of your pranks, Nate? Your April Fool's masterpiece?" "Hey! I've got better taste in pranks, thank you," snapped Nate. He prided himself on outpranking everyone else at the Academy, and he did have one heck of a joke to play on Lightfoot, but he still had to get more toothpaste.... "Everyone! There's no need to panic," said Tawny. She reinforced the reassurement with a telepathic nudge. *CALM.* The crowd settled down somewhat. She turned to Nate. "I better stay here, until you get things fixed." "Need me?" asked AJ. "Nah, I'll handle it from here." Tawny winked. "I'll catch up." AJ and Nate dodged the erratic door, entering Boomer's room. Mike was comatose on his couch, still wearing a Net Device. One look at the computer cords in the room, and it became very clear which fool had hacked Net connections into the security systems. "Dammit, Boomer," grumbled Nate. "What have you gotten yourself into this time?" * * * * [07:12, April 1st, 2016] "Breakfast in the Academy cafeteria is always *such* an adventure," quipped Derek as he prodded his meal...if you could call it that. It was still hard to convince people to work at the new Academy, around all those potentially lethal students, so a lot of things were automated. Like cooking. "Liquid eggs and carbon strips. Yum." He gazed across the room to where Cassandra sat, alone. He wished he could go over there and join her, and let the whole school know just how much he loved her. "Eat up, or you'll grow as thin as banshee there," said 'Popper' St. James, who sat next to him. Obviously, he knew Derek was watching Cassie. "Better to burn out than to fade away. I read that in a bathroom stall, once." Derek grimaced. In their year, three of them had the quickest wit: himself, Jason Teller, and Popper. That was the only reason he liked Popper at all. Only Popper had made a gruesome pun: 'Burn Out' was a euphemism for Neurological Overload Syndrome, which had thus far claimed the lives of five students at the Academy. Bill Keyes, who was the first, back in 2014. He had burned out, overtaxing himself shapeshifting different animal features like claws and wings. Heidi Wessman, the speedster, burned out on a treadmill. M'Kembe Simonson, pushing his strength. The last was Bob Mulroy, last month. Bob could eat anything. He died trying to polish off a bulldozer, as the gossip went. "Can't eat this crap. Wish I had Bob's stomach," said Derek. "Me too," said Popper. "That stomach sure would come in handy just about now." He bit into a piece of dry bacon. "Cassandra's looking tired." "She's been pushing herself too hard lately." "That so?" Popper shrugged. "If you ask me, she should socialize more instead of locking herself in her room all the time. Well, I'm outta here." He teleported away for a split second, but returned to get the apple he forgot. "Later!" Derek blinked. Popper's disappearance reminded him of something from his dream...a vanishing man. What was it he was supposed to remember about a vanishing man? * * * * [00:41, April 1st, 2024] Nate decided not to disconnect Boomer directly. They still had no idea what was in the Academy network, but it was time to find out. "You can tag along using my powers, AJ. Just in case it's the Net Devices that are responsible for his current state. We'll have to go in without an AI monitor, though. CTR's not working either," said Nate, referring to Boomer's quirky artificial intelligence. He sat next to AJ, and took his hand. It had been months since Nate had needed mechanical help to bring people into the "Net dimension" with him. They plunged into the network. It was like dodging motorcycles on the Parabahn. Myriad blocks of data were inundating the system at a frantic pace, and Nate had to build a bubble shell to keep himself and AJ from being run down. They watched the digits and letters whirl by. "What are they?" asked AJ. "Can't tell with this framework. Let's filter it through another." Nate pondered his options. "What metaphor comes to mind, AJ? Your gut feelings are usually right." AJ watched the missiles fly by. "We're in a war." Nate nodded. He spun the martial filter into place. The data around them resolved into Greek and Trojan warriors, fighting inside a walled city. A large wooden horse stood in the center. "We're in the Trojan War, believe it or not. Someone had odyssei programmed to do this tonight." "Translation?" "Someone built a program here years ago, then split it up into several pieces. The pieces were exiled, but instructed to return here after a set period of time. Then they rebuild the program. At least we know it's not Doublecross." It was a small comfort, but it did not make Nate feel any safer. "We need to know who made the odyssei and why." He pointed to the Trojan Horse. "The Greek soldiers are coming out of that, laying siege to the Academy's Troy. It's eating up all the available memory space, whatever it is, and it's huge. We need to get inside that." He handed AJ his persona disc. "New ones?" asked AJ. Nate nodded. "CHALLENGE!rs of the Abominable. I'm Continuity Chimp, you're Mr. Rhesus. Boomer and Lurker were supposed to be Gorilla Grad and XQS." He spun the little disc on his little finger, and smiled. "What are you waiting for?" AJ calmly pointed out a peculiar fact to Nate. "The Greeks are all wielding nets and tridents. Remind you of anyone?" Nate cursed. He should have remembered where he heard of odyssei. One of Derek Radner's old computing research proposals. The tridents made it a lock: Triton must have had something to do with this. "I should have known. Let's ape up!" * * * * Continuity Chimp carried Mr. Rhesus on his back, dodging the myriads of hairless apes butchering each other. The Greeks were winning, and Troy was on fire. A steady stream of Greek soldiers was emerging from the belly of the wooden horse, and a lone Trojan hero was fighting to get to it, despite his injuries. "Wonder if that's Paris?" mused Mr. Rhesus. Continuity Chimp squinted. "Possibly. Maybe Aeneas?" The wounded Trojan warrior heard them. The nasal voice was unmistakable: it was CTR. He fought off two more soldiers, but four more simply appeared. Continuity Chimp wasted no time in leaping into battle. "Beware the Apes of Wrath!" He tossed soldiers away from CTR. Mr. Rhesus moved with remarkable speed and agility, dodging blows and tricking his foes to strike one another. "Recall your Classics! Aim for the ankle!" "Are you bananas? There are too many of them!" complained Continuity Chimp. said CTR. "Horses have ankles?" quirked Continuity Chimp. He picked up a trident, and poured quantum energy into it. It glimmered like gold. He hefted it, and threw it at the Trojan Horse's leg. It was a solid strike. The leg exploded, and the wooden steed came crashing down, as did the Trojan War framework. A vortex formed around a red-haired girl, sucking in ciphers and codes. Several banshee-like things were trying to possess her. Nate and AJ switched off their persona programs and re-entered a static bubble with CTR. They recognized the redheaded girl. "Cassandra Murphy! Not again!" Nate shook his head. Last time, Cassandra Murphy's AI had morphed into a banshee and tried to kill him, before the program realized that he was one of the good guys. About two years ago, it was at the request of Dan 'Grind' Tracey that Nate and three of his friends delved into the mystery of the Burnouts, forming the new Legion of Net.Heroes. They discovered a ghost in the machine, an AI left behind by Cassandra Murphy, one early victim of the Burnout murders. She was a precog, and foresaw her own death at the hands of the Burnout Killer. It turned out that a Khadamite template assassin had been masquerading as Sean "Popper" St. James ever since the founding of the Academy. She hid the AI patterned after herself in the computer system, so that her diaries would be one day be found by the LNH and used to catch the killer. Nate had assumed that, once the AI had served its purpose, it would erase itself. He was mistaken. said CTR. "You've got a lot of explaining to do, CTR," said Nate sternly. the AI answered. * * * * Mike had snuck back into the Net without you guys. He just wanted to catch a glimpse of Cassandra again. Yap, just to see her, he said. So he found her in the Academy files again, that simple AI, and put her on a pedestal. It was harmless, he said. Like having a pin-up girl, only on the Net. And then the Barrier was holed. Things changed. She started expecting him, see? They talked. And talked. And TALKED. Freaking amazing, Mike said. She knew everything he asked, everything he wanted to ask. Like a part of her was still alive, given back to her by the breach in the Barrier. He was convinced that Cassandra left a part of her soul on the Net, and able to predict things. Now you may all think this is silly, and that's why he didn't say a thing about it. Yap, wouldn't you know it, he fell in love with her ghost. So she tells him a prophecy. 'When the pious dies, on the morn of fools, The fractured soul cries in the ghouls Of past regret. The spirits resurrect The future dead, heroes not yet born nor bred.' Boomer got very excited. He was certain it had to do with April Fool's Day, and Cassandra being resurrected that day. He thought that Cassandra predicted her death, and sent parts of her soul out into the Net. I'm less convinced. When he heard the news about Doublecross on the Net, though, he got worried. He didn't want her to be hurt, so he broke into the security system and hid her in a cache. Tonight, though, he had to put her back so that she could be reunited with the fragments of her soul, so he hooked me up to effect the transfer, and monitored the process with the Net Device. That's when the odyssei came. They invaded the Cassandra AI with sudden force, and Mike accidentally got in the way, got sucked into her matrix. Then her program began to fill up all the available memory in the Academy's systems, and I'd been trying to get Mike back since. * * * * After CTR finished the story, Nate pondered the situation. "Any luck communicating with Cassandra?" "Maybe there is something to Boomer's hypothesis," noted AJ. "Maybe like you, Nate, Cassandra was able to project parts of her consciousness or even her subconcious into the Net." He closed his eyes. "Wait. I remember something from her file. She died April 1st, 2016." "And she used the odyssei to rebuild herself at this particular time, eight years later? Quite possibly she foresaw this." An idea came to him. "Her AI must have been part of her mind, too. CTR said it became more human than a mere AI when the Barrier breached, like a piece of the soul being repaired to a whole. What if the other odyssei also got restored to full souls? Or she picked up errant Net spirits from outside the Barrier that co-opted her odyssei? Cassandra might have expected her soul to be reintegrated, but might not have counted on the fragments of her soul being much bigger than before." AJ grasped Nate's meaning. "So, instead of merging fragments of a single soul into one, the odyssei are trying to merge several full souls into one. A gestalt." A gestalt of souls would mean that Cassandra's powers would be magnified greatly, and perhaps unpredictably. "The banshee must represent the souls trying to merge into one. Boomer got caught in the gestalt vortex. We've got to get him out before the gestalt is complete," said Nate. asked CTR. Nate stared at the figure in the center of the vortex. "We can't do much from out here. Cassandra's the key. We're going to have to go in there, and find that submerged personality. Maybe we can talk her into releasing Boomer, or shut her down from inside." "And if we don't get out ourselves?" asked AJ. "Then we get caught in the gestalt, too," said Nate grimly. * * * * Nate instructed CTR to stay and fill Tawny in when she showed up. Tawny and CTR would be their back-ups, in case something went really wrong. "I think this will be like tapping into a Multi-User Reality Framework," Nate warned AJ. "However, unlike a MURF, we stand the chance of losing our identities to whatever persona we're assigned. Try to focus on finding Cassandra; we might be able to influence our personae to do that. My hope is that she'll realize we're not part of her and let us override our persona programs." "Which persona programs are we going to use?" asked AJ. "I doubt we have a choice," Nate said. "We'll probably be assigned personae that are similar to our archetype, or in line with our objectives. That means we should look for Boomer as someone in love with Cassandra Murphy, or someone who's a gadgeteer. Wish us luck, CTR." AJ and Nate looked at each other, then leapt through the bubble's boundary into the maelstrom, trying to hold on to their sense of self. They might never have that luxury again. * * * * [12:20, April 1st, 2016] Aaron Zander suffered a bout of faintness, which had never happened before, and dropped his lunch tray. Milk, minestrone and macaroni spilled all over his clothes and floor. Usually he had perfect control over his mind and body. That was part of his mental power: total self control. --Aaron, are you feeling okay? Do you need to go to the Infirmary?-- Paul Mahler projected telepathically, helping Aaron Zander pick up his fallen utensils. Aaron was touched by Paul's genuine concern; he loved him for that. ++Fine/Okay, Paul. Really.++ There was something nagging at Aaron, like a telepathic projection he couldn't screen out. It was anxiety about burnout. He thought he had learned to block out those emotions from other people, since that time he'd almost had a nervous breakdown from the Academy's collective stress. It was an insistent inner voice, and it wanted him to find Cassandra Murphy. ++Paul? Do you sense/hear/see anything/ something? Another/more telepath?++ he struggled to send the words. With anyone but Paul, he couldn't even get that much out yet...just vague impressions and strong emotions. --No. Why?-- Paul took his napkins and started soaking up the liquid from the floor. Aaron tried to trace the source of the voice in his head, but found nothing. ++Nothing/blank? Just .++ --Why don't you go back to our room and change? I'll clean this up.-- Aaron nodded. He looked over to where Cassandra usually sat: in the corner, alone. She wasn't there. He headed out, bumping shoulders with Derek Radner on the way out. He expected Derek to toss off a clever insult, but Derek seemed oblivious. It was fairly obvious what was distracting him, even if Aaron had not been a telepath. The bunch of roses were a dead giveaway. Watch out, world, thought Aaron. Derek Radner's in love. * * * * [12:22, April 1st, 2016] Cassandra wasn't in her corner, Derek discovered. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. On the one hand, he had to psyche himself up for embarassing himself in front of the entire cafeteria all morning. On the other hand, maybe he should reconsider. Only she could make him do such crazy things! He tried to slip out quietly, before anyone saw the flowers. No such luck. Jamie Plummer cracked the first. Jamie was a solar battery, able to absorb sunlight and reproject it as laser light. "Hey Derek, those for me?" She batted her eyelashes at him. "Ha ha. Naw, I'd get you sunflowers, of course." Normally, he would be more game to exchange ripostes, but now he simply wanted to find Cassandra. It wasn't like her to miss lunch, even if she knew just how bad the meal was going to be. He winked at Jamie. "Catch you later." * * * * [12:23, April 1st, 2016] Sean "Popper" St. James lost his shape for a second, but regained it. He shrugged it off as a momentary lapse. He was safe in his room, where no one could see him. He was feeling the need to kill again. The powers and memories that he stole from his victims did not satiate him. He wanted more. A single imperative resonated in his mind, a voice he wasn't sure he recognized. He shrugged; must be someone one of his victims knew. The voice told him: "Find Cassandra Murphy, and shut her down." Popper licked his lips in anticipation. He would find Cassandra and shut her down, all right...suck her life and power from her. It was what The Creator had made him for. She would only be a light snack, but no one would miss the lonely girl, and her precognitive powers might give him the edge he needed to hunt bigger game. With a malicious grin on his face, the young man vanished into thin air. It was lunchtime. TO BE CONTINUED! ============================================================================ NEXT ISSUE: Our heroes are trapped in an alternate timeline program in the Net. Will Boomer, Netwalker and Dervish recover their identities in time? Who will find Cassandra first? Will Popper kill Cassandra...again? And what will happen when the odyssei finish the gestalt? ============================================================================ AUTHOR'S NOTE: It may benefit the reader to have read LNH2023 #0, and Academy #8, but it is not necessary. Well, that thesis is done, and I have time to write ASH again. There are lots of plots that have been simmering on the backburner, including this project. The LNH202X title had been on hiatus just about forever, and we'd been talking about ASH Elsewhirls. I wanted to do some Elsewhirls in-continuity, however, but wasn't sure how to do it without the cliche of parallel universes. I then came up with the idea of combining both: this (anthology) title is the result. Look forward to some mind-bending alternate timeline stories from me and other ASH authors that play with ASH continuity, which may include a happy-go-lucky Thomas Malfeas (Warden) and a very different ASH team. EDITOR'S NOTE: In case you *don't* feel like going through the back issues or it's been a while, here's roughly how Netwalker's power works, at least as far as he and the doctors at the Academy understand it. He's able to shift into another reality that resonates with activity in the worldwide computer net. Whether that reality existed before Netwalker gained his powers or not is unknown, but it was inside the Barrier. Actions in one reality affect the other in a direct way, allowing "hacking" via manipulation of items in this Net dimension. Netwalker projects his spirit into this reality, leaving his body behind. Boomer was later able to use his gadgeteering powers to create the Net Devices, which allow others access to this spirit realm. Of course, now that the Barrier has been weakened, it's possible that the Net dimension is no longer Nate's exclusive playground.... CREDITS: CTR (DVD/AGL), Boomer (DVD/AGL), Lurker (DVD/AGL), AJ (DVD/AGL), Netwalker (DVD/AGL), Cassandra Murphy (DVD), Popper St. James (DVD), Derek Radner (Marc), Bejamin Hadrees (Badger), XQS (me), Gorilla Grad (me), CHALLENGE!rs of the Abominable (me), Mr. Rhesus (me), Jenny Hader (Badger), Continuity Chimp (me), Dan 'Grind' Tracey (DVD), Jason Teller (DVD), Jamie Plummer (me), Doublecross (DVD), Solar Max (DVD)