[000SUPERGUY: October 28, 2007 - Dreamscape] One of the lingering side effects of the poorly-understood and highly- plotdevicey process that copied Anna Martel from Anna Tanner was that she had a high degree of control over her dreams, which were usually lucid. She was careful not to tread on the toes of the local dream hierarchy, of course, but she'd met Dreamweaver in person a few times, and in dreams on several other occasions. Dreamweaver was rather understanding about the whole "nanotechnologically built copy of someone from another reality" business, but Anna supposed one would get used to that sort of thing while working as a Superguy. Even a largely retired one. Still, that made this morning's dreaming all the more disturbing. She was standing on a sere landscape, with dry grass and spindly trees that sank roots deep into parched soil. There were no clouds in the sky, but more than the usual number of moons. Yet, for all that, the place had a feeling of familiarity. And a feeling of menace. When nothing seemed to be happening to fulfill that ominous foreboding, she decided to pick a direction and start walking. But downhill or uphill? Uphill might give her a better view of the landscape, but in this sort of terrain down usually meant towards a river, and that might lead to the dreamers whose waking life was shaping this landscape. After all, it certainly wasn't anything Anna would summon up by choice. Her own Harnegu was lush and green, for instance, and even had she been dreaming about Kansas, it didn't have that many moons overhead. Unless there was another alien invasion going on, of course. Downhill it was. She was already feeling parched, and a river would also mean something to drink. Of course, she was usually thirsty in dreams when she went to sleep drunk...a warning of the next morning's hangover. She hoped she hadn't agreed to anything too stupid after the fifth pitcher came around, but as often happened in those rare dreams where she didn't have control, Anna couldn't really recall recent events of her waking life. Finally, she heard a faint burbling of water, and saw plant growth that was, if not lush, at least a little less pathetic. The stream she reached was muddy and barely enough to flow as opposed to oozing, but she still knelt to cup a little water into her hands. As soon as she touched the water, though, that feeling of dread intensified, her ever mental alarm jangling. Jerking back as if burned, she shook the water off her hands and wiped them on her skirt. "Poisoned water?" she mused aloud. "Who dreams of poisoned water?" The breeze seemed to be a little colder all of a sudden, but only around her legs. Blinking, she looked down and saw her skirt was turning black where she'd wiped off her hands, and becoming threadbare at an astonishing rate. NOW she was surrounded by dreamers. "Emoviate!" one shouted. "Wait, what?" Anna started to ask, then she noticed that the black stain has spread to everything she was wearing, turning it black and tattered. An incredible sense of futility and whininess pressed down on her, and she just wanted to run from all these PEOPLE who didn't UNDERSTAND how HARD it was to be HER! The crowd parted before her, as if more afraid to touch her than they were eager to mock her. She ran and she ran and she ran and she ran and she ran.... And she woke up, her skull pounding and her mouth feeling like five miles of Road Race From Hell. The Sun had already come up, and there was enough light flowing in the window to reassure herself that she wasn't wearing anything black.... __--__--__--__--__--__--__-- \\NEW// --__--__--__--__--__--__--__ .|,Coherent Comics Presents \\ // #3 - Literary Devices --X------------------------- E }X{ ARCHS copyright 2007 by the '|` A Superguy/LNH Tale // \\ Dvandroid (Dave Van Domelen) --__--__--__--__--__--__--__ // \\ __--__--__--__--__--__--__-- [October 28, 2007 - St. George, KS] "Talk fast, Dr. Zwarghoff, before the authorities show up to investigate the disturbance," Richard advised. The chunky little Caseologist laughed, a nervous sort of bark. "Oh, they're used to the occasional explosions from here, I doubt anyone will come by before business hours on Monday. The neighbors don't even bother calling in complaints anymore." Kat raised an eyebrow and reassessed the surroundings with an eye towards outracing a detonation. "Talk fast anyway," Richard narrowed his eyes and tapped the short blades of his butterfly knives together for emphasis. "Fine, fine, no need to get snippy about it. It all started back in June of oh-five, when they finished building New Call Hall to replace the one you people got blown up...." * * * * [June 13, 2005 - Manhattan, KS] "Ah, that new building smell," Paul smiled as he stepped into the lab. Now that he'd found something to call his own accomplishment, his attitude had brightened considerably. It was gleaming and shiny and clean, all ceramic and steel surfaces. Not to mention movable blast shields and numerous chemical wash stations. "Er, can I help you?" a dumpy little man asked, standing up from behind a counter. "You're Doctor Hans Zwarghoff, right? I was told I'd find you around here somewhere. I'm Paul. Paul Oakthorn, new research associate." Zwarghoff's expression curdled. "Oh. You. The guy without so much as a Master's degree who's being put in charge of the lab for reasons I can't even begin to fathom." Paul held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "Whoa, I'm not trying to stomp on the pecking order or anything. And I do have degrees, sort of. Just not with any institution accredited in this reality." "What are you, some kind of superguy?" Paul pulled a pair of shades out of his pocket and put them on. "Now picture me with the beard dyed orange, and carrying a longbow." Hans squinted. The Mask Principle was sometimes hard to pierce even when the person wanted you to, but finally it came to him. "You're that superguy who got old Call Hall blown up! And they're giving you another... wait, that makes sense, really." "It does?" Paul blinked. "I mean, it makes perfect sense where I come from, but...." Hans nodded. "Anyone capable enough to either directly blow up an entire research building, or to inspire someone else to blow it up simply on the off-chance you might be able to whip up something threatening, is the kind of person that granting institutions can't wait to throw money at. I've only managed to blow up my garage, and no one thinks of ME as a threat yet, so I guess that's why I'm the assistant, even though I have my PhD in Caseology and a record of publications as long as my arm." "Think of it as more a partnership than an assistantship," Paul put a comradely arm around Zwarghoff's shoulders. "A lot of my training is for the rules of my home reality, and while I'm picking things up pretty quickly, there's still a lot I don't know about how these 'Altiverses' work. That's where you come in. To start with, what can you tell me about spam?" * * * * [October 28, 2007 - St. George, KS] "So, the scuttlebutt was right," Kat snapped her fingers, clacking the armor plates of her gloves together. "You *were* trying to mix spam and cheeez!" Zwarghoff shook his head emphatically. "Do you take me for a complete moron? The first thing I told him was that spam was insanely dangerous, and I wasn't *that* desperate for a research grant." "The Fromage Initiative didn't involve spam, then?" Richard asked. "Indirectly," Zwarghoff admitted. "You see, They wanted to find a means of accessing other realities without using spam, because They may be dangerous, but They're not stupid. But Paul was a perfect pawn for They, since he not only came from a different reality, but he also brought with him a completely new look at the caseological sciences. You people...or your originals, anyway, used a cheese-powered dimension-traveling dirigible, yes?" "Well, the CheeeZeppelin's d-hopping was really powered by a penguin, although I suppose Stan...Paul's original...might have worked on that transdimensional cheddar my original asked about [in Dvandom Force #37 - Ed, glad for Google]," Richard replied. "A pengu...never mind, don't want to know," Hans shook his head. "Anyway, Paul did have some ideas, although they involved processed cheese, or 'cheeez' as he insisted on spelling it, not cheddar per se. He reasoned that just as spam was analogous to heavily processed meat, he might be able to apply similar methods to cheese and create a dimension-traveling power source that lacked the hazards inherent to spam. And that's what the Fromage Initiative was...a program trying to open dimensional gateways using cheese. Like the one our leathery friend escaped through." "That wasn't leather," Kat muttered. "I know naugahyde when I see it." "Not important," Zwarghoff insisted. "So, leaving out any technical details for the moment, exactly what happened two years ago?" Richard asked. "Well, you were probably told that I was on vacation that week, but that's a lie." "We kinda suspected that," Kat nodded. "Yeah, They didn't want anyone asking me inconvenient questions, so They faked up records of me being in Las Vegas that week. Not too had to do, for someone with They's resources. Anyway...." * * * * [October 27, 2005 - Manhattan, KS] "We have a stable cheeezball," Paul said, peering over the blast shield. "Looks like five centimeters diameter," he added, eyeing the floating orange sphere. "I'm getting some high Tannion readings," Zwarghoff warned. "It could be getting ready to expand." "I know, just be ready to kill power if it goes over ten centimeters. I don't think the cleaning crew would appreciate it if we filled the lab with transdimensional processed Cheeez Spred (TM)," Paul chuckled. "Roger that, not to mention trying to get the stuff out of my ears," Hans nodded. "Interdimensional energy sensors are showing green. We have a bridge between altiverses. At least, I hope that's what green means. That manual was straight off of Engrish.com," Paul frowned. "No kidding. But I think the translation we got from our Mad English Department people is on target." "Right. Inserting probe," Paul typed in some commands at his keyboard, setting a robotic arm into motion. It moved a thin rod towards the floating cheeezball. "Time to get some idea of which altiverse we're connected to." "Please let it be 000BIKINIBABESWHOLIKEGEEKS," Zwarghoff sighed. WHERE CAN I GET A TICKET TO 000BIKINIBABESWHOLIKEGEEKS? WAIT, WHY DOES KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY HAVE A MAD ENGLISH DEPARTMENT? IS ZWARGHOFF RIGHT THAT IT'S NOT IMPORTANT WHETHER THE INTRUDER LAST EPISODE WAS WEARING LEATHER OR NAUGAHYDE? WHO THE ARE "THEY"? I BET THE AUTHOR DOESN'T EVEN KNOW! Answers to some of these, but probably not the first one (sadly), on the next...SUPERGUY! =========================================================================== Author's Notes: The "Literary Devices" of the title are foreshadowing and flashbacks. Simple as that. Honest. I have no insidious hidden meaning here, move along. A quick bit of background for anyone hopelessly lost at this point, which I suppose might have been helpful in the notes for #1. In Dvandom Force #48, time got sort of splintered at the climax of the X-Post Facto arc. A bunch of Kopikat's nanomachines got splashed across time, space and dimensions, and some of them landed in the Superguy altiverses, where they absorbed local materials and assumed the forms of four of the members of Dvandom Force: Sig.Lad, Cheeez Arrow, Rotanna and Kopikat herself. The possibility that more of them landed elsewhere, perhaps in 000SUPERGUY directly, will be addressed elsewhere, eventually. :) Anyway, after a number of adventures during which they acquired elemental powers (and the codenames Skysabre, Oakthorn, Forgeheart and Katena), the quartet found themselves in 000SUPERGUY and discovered that they were merely copies, which caused a certain amount of existential angst. In Exarchs #25 they settled on new names (mostly). Sig.Lad, aka Richard Franklins, kept his "real" name, but was more comfortable going by Skysabre. Cheeez Arrow, the most filled with existential angst, changed his name to Paul Oakthorn and moped around for a while, but as you can see from this issue, he eventually got over it. Rotanna, whose original eventually became the Looniearth's Dreamqueen, took the name Anna Martel (since her elemental weapon as Forgeheart was a big hammer). And Kopikat went back to being Kat Anders, having gotten over the whole existential angst thing about 80 years and two or three bodies ago (a human scanned into a robot body in the 2160s and then having her body converted to nanomachines and then put in a new body that turned to living stone will get you over that sort of stuff). In the wake of events shown in New Exarchs #1, they lost the bulk of their powers, both the original powers they had as copies of the Looniverse people, and the elemental powers they acquired during "A Season In Crimson," but echoes remain. Richard is still a talented swordsman and general adventurer, with an adaptable mind and various personality traits that seem air-related. Paul was still an expert archer and had his knowledge of Cheeez science, although his affinity for wood was apparently totally gone. Anna still knows a little magic, but nothing useful in a fight, and as seen this issue she still has some dream-related abilities. And Kat is still cursed with perfect recall of every bit of her century and more of life. This puts them nicely at the level of pulp SciFi heroes. Oh, and in case you're wondering why there was no (TM) after "Road Race From Hell", Hell is no longer trademarked, they disincorporated a few years ago.