The cover shows Contact staring up at a symbolically gigantic and shadow-draped Pope, with a slender sliver of moonlight over the Pope's shoulder fragmented into numerous colors by a stained glass window. //|| //^^\\ || || .|. COHERENT COMICS UNINCORPORATED PRESENTS // || \\ || || --X--------------------------------------------- //======================= '|` ACADEMY OF SUPER-HEROES #91 // || \\ || || Kheper's Path III: Crossing Midnight // || \\__// || || Copyright 2008 by Dave Van Domelen ___________________________________________________________________________ ACADEMY OF SUPER-HEROES ROLL CALL CODENAME REAL NAME POWERS ASSIGNMENT -------- --------- ------ ---------- Solar Max Jonathan Zachary Spacetime Control AMERICA "JakZak" Taylor Meteor Sarah Grant-Taylor Superspeed AMERICA Scorch Scott Handleman Pyrokinetic CANADA Green Knight Salvatore Napier Strength, Regeneration MEXICO Fury Arin Kelsey Concussion Blasts MEXICO Contact Aaron Zander Psi, Mind-over-Body DIPLOMATIC Breaker Christina Li Telekinesis DIPLOMATIC Essay Sara Ana Henderson Gadgeteer VENUS Peregryn Howard Henderson Jr. Elemental Mage VENUS Beacon George Sylvester Living Light VENUS Geode Unknown Living Crystal VENUS Lightfoot Tom Dodson Velocity Control TRANSIT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [June 18, 2026 - Vatican City] "Thank you for agreeing to see me, your Holiness," Aaron Zander said as he entered the small room deep in the Vatican's sub-basement complex. It looked like it had been designed as someone's office, the only concession to its location being a tasteful plaque on one wall with the Papal Seal. But as soon as the door closed he could *feel* the silence descend on him in a way that had nothing to do with Pope Paul VII's minor Anchor talent. The room was clearly soundproofed. "Please, sit," the Pope motioned to the only other chair in the room. There was also a low bench, apparently meant for kneeling, and Aaron could make out a seam on the wall where a privacy screen might extend. "Should I lead off by saying how long it's been since my last confession?" Aaron smirked slightly as he took the offered chair. "Ha, perceptive of you, young man. This is indeed a confessional. What it lacks in the artistic stylings of those in the cathedral above," his head jerked upwards slightly, "it more than makes up for in privacy. Certain politically and economically powerful people have more need than most to unburden their souls to God, but don't dare do so where any might be listening." "Which is why we're meeting here, and not in an audience chamber," Aaron nodded. "Indeed. My audience chamber is reasonably secure, but it would be difficult to be certain no one from the Church would be able to overhear," his tone darkened slightly. The Pope led a double life, not only leader of the Catholic Church but also one of the few surviving members of the old Anchorite Conclave, a group led at one point by the recently deceased Devlin Marx. And certain aspects of his membership in the Conclave would sit very poorly with the Church hierarchy...such as the fact he worshipped pagan gods. No amount of syncretic circumlocution would save his position if that point came to light, and knowledge of it had given Aaron the leverage needed to get this meeting. "I'll get straight to the point," Contact said, "since I'm sure you're quite busy and would rather not dwell too much on this issue. In my investigation of the death of Devlin Marx, I found that someone involved in the matter wore a suit of Santari bodyguard armor, the same model as your Helvetican Guard wears. A model that is, strictly speaking, illegal for sale on Earth, meaning that it takes more than just money to get it." The Pope considered this for a moment. "No, you don't think I had a hand in this, do you. But perhaps I know who did, yes?" His previously very faint Italian accent started to strengthen. "I can perform some discreet inquiries regarding the status of the suits owned by the Holy See, of course, but assuming the armor was sighted in Manhattan...well, it would be difficult for one of the Helveticans to 'go off the reservation' as you Americans put it, for long enough to cross the ocean. Even using a suit that was officially offline for maintenance," he added, as if struck by a sudden inspiration. -+Does something strike you as odd here?+- Paul asked, his voice distant and a little flat, the way it got when Aaron was in the presence of an Anchor. The memories and much of the personality were a "natural" part of Aaron now, a sort of high-functioning neurosis, but without his own telepathic talent at full capacity, the psychic "ghost" tended to feel more like Aaron just talking to himself. +-Like what?-+ Aaron thought back, the exchange taking place more quickly than verbal communication could. Aloud, he noted, "Whoever acquired the suit may have used the same seller the Holy See did. Plus, of course, even if you can't help me on this particular lead, you're in a good position to know who might want Marx dead and have the resources to accomplish this." -+He looks like you used to whenever you were talking to me, before you learned to hide it. Like he's in telepathic contact with someone else, although even an Anchor as weak as he is couldn't be in psi link without the signal being so powerful we'd be hearing it too.+- Paul VII chuckled darkly. "Archangeli simplified that matter considerably for you, my son. I doubt there is anyone left alive from the old Conclave that could accomplish this...aside from myself, of course. And I do suppose I might have a motive to kill Marx, if I thought he was about to reveal my secrets. But, as your presence shows, my secrets are less tightly held than they once might have been, so killing Marx wouldn't have helped me in the least. Even the fact that someone *else* killed him has led you to my door and threatens my position. Perhaps someone else wished to set numerous pins tumbling with a single blow, killing the Eye of Horus in such a way as to cast unfavorable light upon me? The recently re-emerged Triton would certainly be inclined to that sort of convoluted plan." +-He's wearing a wire, maybe?-+ Aaron thought to Paul while part of his mind paid attention to the Pope's words. -+Seems likely. He might not want just anyone in the Church listening in on this conversation, but he's bound to have one or two Conclave sympathizers in the ranks for support.+- While his powers were blunted by the Pope's Anchor ability, Aaron was still able to use them on himself, and started adjusting his own hearing, filtering things a normal person could hear into one part of his mind while cranking up the gain and focusing in on the vicinity of the Pope's ears. Over the expected sound of pumping blood and echoing ambient sound, Aaron picked up a second voice. "...in fact, Triton's probably engaged in a campaign against you! Subverting Aegis, framing you for murder...." "In fact," the Pope said a heartbeat later, "I wouldn't be surprised if this is tied in with the fact that my agent Aegis seems to have switched his loyalties to Khadam. You may wish to investigate the possibility that Chancellor Radner has embarked on some complex plan to bring down the Vatican. That...does something trouble you, my son?" -+Damn *straight* it's troubling me. You know that voice on the other end of the earpiece. We both do, even through the masking and pitch shift.+- +-So much for my vaunted poker face, though. How do we play this? Preferably without either getting killed or starting another international incident?-+ Aaron asked his other side. -+Dissemble for now.+- +-Right, I've got an idea.-+ "I was just thinking...I can tell this room is soundproofed, and we're pretty far underground, but how good is the signal shielding? I had to leave my comm with the Helveticans, but there's a lot of people running around with electromagnetic snooping abilities," Aaron explained. "Ah, but most of those abilities require active violation effects, so I suppose I never had to worry about them personally," Paul VII smiled in a reassuring, grandfatherly way. "But heavy shielding or jamming would interfere with other parts of the complex, so we prefer to rely on simply being careful about not letting electronics into the confessional." "And," the faint second voice seemed to mock, "no amount of shielding can protect you from your own guilty conscience, can it?" -+His reaction to that...he really thinks that voice is his conscience, doesn't he?+- +-That simplifies matters. If he's being manipulated rather than being allied to her, I think it's time to let him know what's going on.-+ "No, shielding can't stop a guilty conscience," Aaron said aloud, and the Pope's eyes went wide. He felt his senses dull slightly as the older man drove his Anchor as hard as he could. "And I'm not reading your mind, your Holiness. Because you're not hearing the voice of your own conscience, you're hearing the voice of Mr. Strings." Lancing out faster than the eye could follow thanks to his "mind over body" talent, Contact drove the fingernail of his right little finger down the Pope's left ear, emerging with a small flap of what looked like skin, but with a tiny bump on the backside. Almost at the same moment as his hand came away from the Pope's head, the tiny bump detonated in a yellow flare. "Yah!" Aaron yelped as his finger was charred by the self-destructing device. He reflexively rerouted the pain response and started enhancing the healing process. Stunned, the Pope clutched the side of his head and stared at Aaron's burned finger. "No, not your conscience at all," Aaron repeated. * * * * [May 12, 2026 - Tegucigalpa, Honduras Sector] "Isthmus. TeGOOOciGALpa," Ross Hoekstra muttered under his breath. He figured it was about time to move on, given that he could finally pronounce the names of the State and city he was living in. "Honduras" was an easy one, of course, although picking up on the subtlety of the local pronounciation was a little tricky. Tegucigalpa was a nice enough place for a Sector capital in a Minor State, Hooks supposed. Most people preferentially spoke Spanish, but since English was the official tongue of the Combine Hooks could get by most places without having to break into his own halting Spanish. It was close enough to the "frontier" of South America that regulations were on the loose side, and it didn't take much to stay out of the official eye. But he did tend to stand out a bit, and he'd known from day one that he shouldn't get too comfortable. Besides, summer was approaching, and as nasty as a Manhattan summer *could* get, a Honduras summer was pretty much that way the whole season through, from what he'd heard. Hooks's blackcel purred in his pocket. If not for the fact he'd been obsessing about this call all week, he might have thought it coincidental that it came while he was thinking about moving on. "Hola, que pasa?" he answered. Protective coloration...anyone watching would think he was just talking to someone local. "She misses you, and wants you to come visit," spoke a carefully neutral, computer-modulated voice that could have been anyone, but Hooks knew it was either Marx or one of his flunkies. Mind you, Hooks could probably be considered one of Marx's flunkies at this point. "Usual way?" In other words, head to the airport, flash his very well-made fake ID and pick up tickets to wherever it was Marx wanted him to move next. Although, in this case, the code meant Gimble would be at the other end of the trip, and Hooks was trying very hard to not start jumping up and down in joy. "Yes. We'll see you in Detroit." The joy was replaced by a sense of unreasoning dread as the connection was cut and Hooks put away the phone. Why did it have to be Detroit? Hooks heard things, it was his power. People would unburden their greatest secrets to him. And bits and pieces about what he'd heard about Detroit told him that his irrational fear of the place wasn't so irrational. "They check in, but they don't check out," he muttered under his breath as he headed back for his apartment to start packing. The rent would keep getting paid for a few months, so if anyone had picked up his trail here it might get a chance ot go cold.... * * * * [June 20, 2026 - Washington, Federal Sector] Unlike the confessional under the Vatican, this room was very heavily shielded against everything that the very paranoid Combine Security Agency people could think of, including the sort of Pranir-made neutrino transmitters they thought might have been part of the device Aaron had removed from the Pope. Much like that room, though, a great many sins were likely confessed in this room...but less for absolution and more to make sure everyone was on the same page. If you're going to sin, at least be organized about it. "I believe everyone's here," Chancellor Stockwell nodded, looking around at the small gathering. His position may have been the next best thing to a figurehead, but he did have the power of veto and enough personal influence over the Canadian House of Representatives that he was a lot more "in the loop" than one might think based purely on his Constitutional job description. "Senators, Director, Mr. Zander," he looked around the table. Jason Okuma, the senior of America's two Senators and likely the most politically powerful man in the Combine, got right down to business. "Just in case the company here doesn't make it painfully clear, Mr. Zander, we're not taking this matter lightly. State secrets may have a half-life somewhat shorter than that of a high transuranic element, but you will NOT be the one to kill this one off, got it? We're going to need every second we can get to try to do damage control groundwork before it comes out that the leader of the Catholic Church was being influenced...or even outright controlled...by Tyra Dumont." "You don't have to keep it entirely to yourself," Senator Juana Herrera temporized. The senior Senator of Mexico was notoriously comfortable in the role of "good cop" to Okuma's "bad cop" when it came to political wheeling and dealing. "Anyone fully cleared to know about the extent of the Strings affair will be getting briefed, or has already been briefed, depending on how quickly we could get them into a secure room. And that includes Miss Clark, obviously." The director of MetaPsych would be hard to keep out of matters in any case, was the unspoken coda. Aaron nodded. "I apologize for taking so long to get back, but..." "But when your hand explodes next to the Pope's head, it tends to raise all sorts of interesting and complicated questions, yes," Okuma smirked. "And you'd still be in the Vatican in time to see the Christmas Mass if I hadn't leaned on some friends in the EU. Fortunately, the telepathic message you sent to our security head in the Rome embassy let us get things moving while we waited for you to get back." "To get to the nub of things," Stockwell drummed his fingers on the tabletop, "how certain are you that it was Dumont at the other end of that communicator?" "Completely," Aaron assured them. "As part of our attempts to prepare for the return of the Impossible Five, I've reviewed recordings of all our fights against them, and the current Burnout is part of that footage. Her voice was electronically distorted, but I've got a rather good ear. She's also vicious enough that I doubt my removal of the device triggered the self-destruct...she probably sent a signal as soon as she realized she'd been compromised." Herrera arched an eyebrow. "And, hopefully, the Vatican can be convinced of that last point. Some voices within the Church are claiming your rash actions endangered the Pope, and if you'd left well enough alone an expert could have removed the device more safely. But," she shrugged, "that's neither here nor there. And the majority seem grateful that you saved him, so we're probably okay on that diplomatic score." The CSA director finally spoke up. Aaron didn't know his name, and suspected that any that might be offered would be false anyway. If the man wasn't an Anchor, he was as hard to telepathically read as one. "Based on what you *have* been able to tell us, I'm fairly confident we've identified the model of 'tap' that Dumont had on the Pope. It's a standard, if expensive, element of Pranir trade espionage. Planted on a willing agent, it's like putting a wire on them while having the option of remote 'suicide' in the event of capture. On an unwitting agent, it's usually not placed anywhere that the charge would be lethal. So, the question that's going to be keeping the Pope's security up nights is, 'How did Dumont get that thing in the Pope's ear?'" "The question *I* want answered is, 'Who wanted us to find it?' though," Aaron countered. "Someone laid a rather expensive false trail down, to point those investigating Marx's murder at the Pope. Unfortunately, about the only person I can eliminate as a suspect at this point is Burnout, since while she'd certainly like to see Marx dead, she wouldn't have done it in such a way that could lead to so valuable a puppet." "Fine," Okuma nodded. "And I agree, there's something fishy going on here, especially if news as big as the Pope's situation was only a by-blow. Once the Director here is done with you, I want you back on Marx's murder case. Someone's playing a very dangerous game, and I want to know the rules before we make a disastrous move." * * * * [May 16, 2026 - Detroit, Michigan Sector] "Kim Bell" watched nervously as the nurse carried "Cindy" from the room, then looked back at Doctor Albert Reyes. "Don't worry, Ms. Graves," the middle-aged hispanic man assured her. "You won't revert to your exoskeletal form while you're with me. And I think Innocenza needs to start getting used to time spent apart from you, lest separation anxiety become a serious issue for her later in life. She's not far, and I'll have her brought back in when we're done. Mr. Hoekstra will get some time to get acquainted with her as well," he grinned. Gimble had been glad to see Ross, but a little wary. Marx was bringing everyone important to her together, which could be just a convenient way to hold them over her head. "Now," Reyes steepled his fingers, "I think we can find a way to let you control your metamorphoses. You have, no doubt, been told at some point that Magene effects are purely exercises of the will, which probably made you feel even worse because it meant you couldn't even control your own power, yes?" Gimble nodded, apprehensively. The painful molting, the eating of offal...the first time someone had told her it had to be "voluntary" she nearly broke her code against making weapons in order to find a way to murder the guy. "You've had an extended period of 'normalcy' thanks to your daughter, so hopefully your psyche has healed in some ways, and your self-image has adjusted to match your current form," Reyes waved a hand up and down as if to take in Gimble's human body. "This will help a great deal if it is the case. But, I warn you, you likely have a great deal of buried trauma, and we're going to have to un-bury it before you can properly deal with it. This is the sort of thing I'd prefer to take slowly, over the course of many years, but..." he trailed off. "But Marx needs me functional as soon as possible," Gimble smiled wryly. "Or he needs to know for sure I'll never be of any use." "Harsh, but true," Reyes admitted. "And, as such, and because of certain exigencies I am not permitted to reveal, I am going to be...skirting the edge of professional ethics in our sessions. If not crossing several lines." "If it means I never have to be a humanoid dung beetle again, I'll risk it," Gimble snarled. "Let's do this." "Very well," Reyes sat back in his chair. "Let's start with the obvious place...the first time you transformed. I doubt the proximal trigger was the true cause of your problems, but it's as good a place as any to start." "It was the Fourth of July," Gimble started.... * * * * [July 4, 2013 - Utica, New York Sector] Macy was in the garage. The Pattersons were her third foster family this year alone, and while they seemed nice enough, Macy was getting tired of being bounced around the system. People got tired of having their foster daughter wake up screaming in the middle of the night four or five times a week, she guessed. Macy could hear distant popping sounds, which made her uneasy. A lot of people in America still celebrated the old Independence Day, even though America had been made merely a part of the Combine years ago. And even though July Sixth was a day most people didn't want to celebrate at ALL. This year was the fifteenth anniversary of That Day, so a lot of official July Fourth celebrations had been cancelled. Macy wasn't sure what That Day really was, though. No one wanted to talk about it, all she'd gathered was that a lot of people died and all the heroes went away. Macy was only thirteen and she could have told you there were no heroes left in the world. She'd known that her entire life. If heroes existed, then she might not be with the Pattersons. Or the Ortegas before them. Or the Jacksons, the Prescotts...et cetera, et cetera. Macy turned her attention back to the small electric motor in her hands. It had belonged to a lawnmower, the chassis of which was stuck in a corner of the garage where it slowly fell apart. In the few months she'd lived with the Pattersons, all the lawn work had been done by a service anyway. Her "brother" Billy certainly never did any yard work. He just hung around with his stupid friends. Right now he was probably setting off illegal fireworks with them, accounting for the popping. Macy had found she had a knack for mechanical things, which was one of the reasons she'd been placed with the Pattersons this time. Utica was apparently a pretty good town for education, and she was going to get into some sort of magnet school for pre-engineering once the summer was over. Macy frowned as the popping got louder, closer. The sound nagged at her memory, but she forced it aside and concentrated on the motor, tracing the wiring and connections and trying to figure out what was wrong with it. Maybe she'd use it to make something that would kick Billy's butt for him. An automated butt-kicking machine. She smiled a little at the idea. Macy heard a faint creak and looked up just in time to see a hand reach through the slightly ajar garage door and toss in a firecracker. "Think fast, Messy!" she heard Billy's voice cackle. POW! Macy REMEMBERED. Images she'd kept hidden from herself for years, twisted by the passage of time, tied to that sound. They came flooding back, and it actually HURT. She hadn't thought sadness could actually feel like pain, but it DID! She probably screamed, she certainly felt like she should. Macy's vision blurred, separating into hundreds of facets for a moment before reassembling. She felt numb, somehow, and the clatter of the motor as it fell from her hands was strangely loud. Macy saw Billy stick his laughing, stupid face in through the door. Then she saw his mocking expression turn to horror. "BUG MONSTER!" he shouted, vanishing from sight as he ran screaming. Macy whirled around in alarm, mentally chiding herself for probably falling for another stupid prank. Nothing was behind her except the usual clutter. Wait...she could still see the front of the garage even while facing the back? Macy finally noticed her hands. The blackness on them was not grease, it was a hard chitinous shell. Her arms were spindly and covered in fine spiky hairs, and her shirt was straining against the new and utterly inhuman shape of her torso. Macy Graves fled into the dusk and was never seen again. Several days later, however, Gimble arrived in Manhattan.... * * * * [May 16, 2026 - Detroit, Michigan Sector] Macy was shivering, her knees pulled up to her chest. Doctor Reyes let the silence go on for several long minutes, before finally asking, "What was it you remembered? What was the firecracker the trigger for? Can you remember that for me now?" * * * * [June 22, 2026 - Manhattan, Autonomous Sector] Another day, another secure meeting room. -+We're certainly spending a lot of time in this sort of place lately,+- Paul observed wryly. -+And each one more heavily secured than the last...the anti-psi shielding here is better than in Washington.+- "A point of pride," Gene Clark smirked. "Maybe not stronger, per se, but more precise, and it doesn't give me a headache. Not that the CSA goons care if they give telepaths a headache," she sniffed. As the Director of MetaPsych, she got enough headaches without inducing more artificially via psi heterodynes. Where most barriers to telepathy simply broadcast a white noise at the range of frequencies used by the human mind, the ones in MetaPsych installations were more like curtains than smokescreens. Of course, it took super-science to pull that trick off, unlike the normaltech heterodyne fields, but it was worth the extra investment in resources. "I don't think they care about giving normal people headaches either," Aaron shrugged. "Anyway, now that we've got the fields up, here's what I know that falls under your clearance," he flashed a bundle of information telepathically. "You're getting pretty good at compression," Gene nodded, as she skimmed the surface and started to pick apart the dense ball of data. It was a trick that really only worked with other telepaths and a few rare people with the right sort of mental discipline, but it saved a lot of time. The actual digestion of the information still took place at normal speeds, but if you had limited "face time" it allowed for making the best use of that time. "So. I have my suspicions, and the core point is that I think Jessa Dumont's the key to whatever Marx's plans were, regardless of whether this was a suicide or just an ongoing plot that got interrupted by an inconvenient murder. There's no way she's still mindblind," Aaron frowned. She had supposedly burned out her talent entirely in the act of sealing her sister away in Cockatrice's body [CSV #21 - Ed.], and had never admitted to having regained it, but no one at MetaPsych seriously believed she was still without psi ability. "And your little talk with Doctor Detroit was the key to your realization?" she smirked. TwenCen entertainment was popular at MetaPsych's Manhattan branch, and she quickly flashed a series of impressions into Aaron's mind to explain the joke. "Exactly," Aaron nodded. "Marx had plans for Jessa, and regardless of whether she was able to carry them out, she's got to know enough about this situation to be worth tracking down. This goes beyond a murder investigation now, it could have serious global...even interstellar...ramifications if things went the way they could have." "And if the plans went totally south, there's still a good likelihood that Jessa knows quite a bit about Marx's business dealings that even Mr. Whitman doesn't. Andrea scanned Whitman while you were gone, with his permission," she noted, referring to Andrea Roguelin, an empath who often worked with the NYPD. "Unless he's a lot better at concealing his thoughts and emotions than we think, he's utterly clean. Marx kept him out of the loop on the shadier stuff, apparently setting him up to take over just the legit business side without having to worry about any legal liabilities." "And the Pope was a dead end, productive as it may have been," Aaron countered. "He really didn't know anyone else we didn't already have on the list of possible suspects, and prior to Rebus's attempted elimination of all Anchors he wasn't even that high up in the old Conclave's power structure. He just ended up the equivalent of Assitant Director Callahan." Callahan had been the highest-ranking surviving member of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 1998, and despite a marked lack of charisma or imagination he had been the "father" of the North American Combine, using FEMA's resources and "hidden" governmental powers to re-establish a stable government within weeks of the disaster of July 6, 1998. Like Callahan, Cardinal Stagliano hadn't been particularly big in the Conclave, he was simply the biggest fish they had left once Rebus was done. "Are you sure you need to do this, though?" Gene asked, genuine concern in her voice. "There's other ways to find Jessa. You don't need to use the chair." Aaron shook his head. "She's already had enough time to get offworld if that was part of the plan, in which case the Hlidskjalf is the only tool we have left with even the ghost of a chance," he referred to Odin's "high throne" at the top of one of the Trade Towers. Peregryn had used it a few times, but every attempt by telepaths from MetaPsych to make use of it had ended in fatality, or near enough. Everyone thought MetaPsych had free access to it, so the failures were one of the organization's more closely- guarded secrets. "You could at least get Peregryn to come to Earth and do it for you," Gene suggested. Aaron shook his head. "Much as I personally trust Howard's discretion, he's not cleared to know about some of this material. In fact, I was specifically directed by the Director of the CSA to *not* suggest he look into the matter unless there was absolutely no alternative. Never mind that he probably already knows most of it anyway. No, it's pretty much going to have to be me...or you, I suppose, since you have the clearance. But don't even suggest it. From all reports, the Hlidskjalf overloads telepaths, and your barriers aren't as strong as mine, especially since I've got Paul to watch my metaphorical back." "I know. I wrote most of those reports. I've seen with my own eyes, felt with my own mind, what happened to those poor bastards who volunteered to sit in Odin's throne," Gene looked away, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. "Can it at least wait until morning? I know it's selfish of me, but...." Aaron stepped closer and took Gene's slender body in his arms. "It's okay. You can be selfish tonight." ============================================================================ Next Issue: What will Gimble remember, and will it help make her whole or simply shatter her to pieces? Will Contact be able to use the Hlidskjalf without frying his mind? Who will survive to see the end of ASH #92, Kheper's Path IV: Newborn Dawn? ============================================================================ Author's Notes: No link to the comic "Crossing Midnight" is intended or implied, I've never even read it. :) The Hooks scene was originally going to reference the "Send him to...DETROIT!" scene from Kentucky Fried Movie, but I used that for the cover of The Reverse Engineers #2, so I changed things here. Speaking of changed plans, Gimble's Big Trauma was originally going to be revealed in this issue, but between the growing length of #91 and a realization that #92 would be stronger if I didn't spread out the climaxes, I decided to move the scene. Because I am a geek, I looked up the status of the Moon for the June 18 scene. In 2026, the New Moon is June 15, so the depiction on the cover is at least correct for the time of year, even if the scene on June 18 didn't take place at night. Finally, if you're wondering if you missed something important off- screen regarding the Aaron/Gene relationship, you'll just have to wait and see. :) Not all cliffhangers involve horrible fates.... ============================================================================ For all the back issues, plus additional background information, art, and more, go to http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/ASH ! To discuss this issue or any others, either just hit "followup" to this post, or check out our Yahoo discussion group, which can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ash_stories/ ! There's also a LiveJournal interest group for ASH, check it out at http://www.livejournal.com/interests.bml?int=academy+of+super-heroes ============================================================================