//|| //^^\\ || || .|. COHERENT COMICS UNINCORPORATED PRESENTS // || \\ || || --X--------------------------------------------- //======================= '|` ACADEMY OF SUPER-HEROES #21 // || \\ || || "The Bell Tolls" // || \\__// || || Copyright 1999 by Dave Van Domelen ___________________________________________________________________________ [cover is the view through a sniper scope of a large crowd, seen several stories below the viewpoint. At the center of the crowd is a man in the distinctive vestments of the Pope.] ACADEMY OF SUPER-HEROES ROLL CALL CODENAME REAL NAME POWERS STATUS -------- --------- ------ ------ Solar Max Jonathan Zachary Spacetime Control ACTIVE "JakZak" Taylor Meteor Sarah Grant-Taylor Superspeed ACTIVE Gawain Salvatore Napier Superstrength ACTIVE Contact Aaron Zander Psi, Mind-over-Body PSYCH LEAVE Scorch Scorch Pyrokinetic ACTIVE Channel George Sylvester Energy Transmutation ACTIVE Essay Sara Ana Rodriguez Gadgeteer ACTIVE Peregryn Howard Henderson Jr. Elemental Mage ACTIVE Lightfoot Tom Dodson Velocity Control PROBATION ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [March 31, 2024 - Easter Sunday - Mexico City] [Note: all scenes take place somewhere in Mexico City on Easter morning.] Mexico City has a lot of churches. This statement is true in the same way the statement "the Pacific has a lot of water" is true. Correct, but something of an understatement. Many of these churches have steeples with a view of the Zocalo, the huge central square of the city. The larger ones were crowded with people trying to catch a glimpse of Pope Pius XIII's Easter Mass...and with security personnel making sure none of the faithful were armed. Some, however, were closed. Usually because of renovations or earthquake damage or simply not being able to safely support a crush of worshippers. These had been carefully locked against intruders, with sensors installed to make sure no one tried to get in. After all, while the Pope was one of the most beloved men on the planet, he was also one of the most hated, and there was no shortage of assassins willing to take the contract on a holy man. A young woman with a camper's frame backpack entered one of the churches with closed towers. This alone was not unusual...hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from all over the North American Combine had flocked to the city, and most of the churches in the city had set up projection screens so that those unable to get to the Zocalo could participate vicariously. What was unusual was that she checked her watch, waited a moment, and then opened the door to the belltower. She was Der Zepter, and she was one of the many assassins willing to take the contract on a holy man. * * * * "Caballero! Caballero!" "Ja-oene!" "Ay, Caballero!" The crowd pressed in on all sides, mostly children but also a number of adults looking to get an autograph, or just see Sal up close. He'd taken up a fairly prominent position in the Zocalo, and it wasn't long before the crush of the crowd was heavier near him than anywhere else. Officially, he was sort of a warm-up act for the Pope. He'd move around the crowd, keeping them from getting restless and generally being an obvious ASH presence at the event. Most of the others were prowling around the edge of things, trying to catch Josh Cole or any other would-be assassins before they could get in range, and someone had to keep the people reassured. And, of course, he was still suffering the occasional twinge from his last encounter with Cole, so he wasn't on combat duty. Unofficially, he was trolling. He was so popular in Mexico City these days that anyone who *didn't* seek him out was suspicious. STRAFE troops and Combine special ops were keeping an eye on the Zocalo, and anyone who didn't seem to pay any attention to Sal was held up to a lot of scrutiny. Even more unofficially, he was trying to keep from being alone with his own thoughts. While he had to wear his helmet for communications reasons, he was glad that it kept his face covered...he doubted he could have maintained a false smile for long. Despite all the gladhanding and autograph signing, his thoughts kept coming back to one thing. The kiss. He flushed red with embarrassment as he recalled how he'd almost broken down the wall of Arturo's apartment in trying to excuse himself and leave. It was such a confused rush that he didn't even remember Arturo's reaction, he was too wrapped up in trying to get out of that situation. Sal tried to convince himself that he'd been revolted by the gentle kiss Arturo had given him, but he knew he hadn't been. Not initially, not until the shock wore off and his Catholic Guilt had a chance to kick in. The Church might have been slowly reversing its post-Godmarket conservative swing, but homosexuality was still officially deemed a sin. Didn't the Bible say over and over that it was hateful in God's eyes when two men did what a man and a woman normally did? Okay, he'd never really raised a fuss over Aaron and Paul back at the Academy. But he wasn't the sort of guy to go shoving his beliefs down someone else's throat...he felt bad that they were probably going to go to hell, since they were also atheists, but that was about it. THIS was supposedly different. It wasn't someone else, entitled to his own beliefs. It was HIM. HE had been kissed. And HE had not immediately thrown Arturo away. And HE had maybe, just maybe, liked it. Which was utterly and totally WRONG. Wasn't it? * * * * Der Zepter reached the top of the belltower and checked the sensors built into her watch. The secsystems were still dead, a false input being fed into the central security computers. The man who had sent her to do this job had also made a great many arrangements for her, including this interruption in surveillance. Sloughing her large backpack to the plank floor, she started to remove parts of the metal frame. As the metal rods emerged, their identity as weapon components became quite clear. They'd only needed to pass the cursory inspection given to those this far from the Zocalo...most weapons didn't have the range to both reach the platform set up for the mass and also penetrate the plexiglass shield around it. Her weapon was a laser of alien manufacture, tuned to cut through the city's dense smog and ignore the transparent barrier around the Pope. A quick flash, and the Pope would be missing important parts of his brain. Der Zepter assembled the main part of the rifle and snapped the sight into place. Peering through it to check the calibration, she swept her gaze over the crowd. Idly, she shifted her view to a few of the other likely sniper roosts in the area, to see if she had any sloppy competition. Hello! There, at the side entrance of an apartment building...a man seemed to be trying to sneak in, but was frustrated by the lock. He had the bearing of a killer, and was certainly carrying enough gear to hide a number of weapons. She stifled a brief mischievous impulse to anonymously call the police and tell them about this other assassin. Maybe she still would. After the job was done, to finger another suspect and aid in her own getaway.... * * * * The assassin known as Divinosta, or 90 in Russian, finally picked the rusting lock. It was only a few years old, as was the entire building, but the corrosive atmosphere of Mexico City took its toll on more than the eyes of the populace. No one seemed to have noticed him, but there was still a chance that some automatic system had tagged him for further watching. He would have to be more careful, and that meant he couldn't afford to use any of the "obvious" weapons he'd brought with him...he'd need the minutes that confusion could buy, so the death now *had* to look like natural causes. Divinosta made his way up the back stairway silently, despite the tendency of the metal stairs to clang loudly when anyone else walked on them. He reflected on the fact that this was a relatively young Pope, although nowhere near young enough to be one of the assassin's "special" targets. In 1989, the infamous Devastator had detonated a weapon that sterilized the entire world. The original Academy of Super-Heroes had found a cure, or so they claimed, and within a year the effects had worn off. However, this meant that almost no one had been born in 1990. Divinosta's parents had both been deep inside a copper mine when the device was detonated, and were shielded. A handful of others were born in 1990...a handful that shrank steadily as Divinosta honed his craft. Those born in 1990 he would kill for free, or for greatly reduced fees. The Pope was a full-fee job, however. And a big one. He was being paid an obscene amount by "anonymous" sources he knew to be the Conclave of Super-Villains just to *try*. If he succeeded, he'd be paid even more. He tried the door of an apartment on the 6th floor. As he expected, the place was empty. All the residents were crowding up on the roof or in the higher floors, hoping for the best view possible. The view from this window wasn't very good, but it was good enough to draw a bead on the Pope. Divinosta locked and barred the door, then opened his kit bag. One weapon he had brought might do the job. Ironically, it was a product of research into non-lethal weaponry...a laser dazzler beam that could induce a stroke in the target. It wasn't reliably lethal, but any effects would look like natural causes.... * * * * Der Zepter counted off a number of boards away from the third of the large silver bells in the tower, then tore up that floorboard. Under it was concealed the powersource for her weapon, a powerful particle accelerator of Santari manufacture that would have triggered a dozen or more alarms on the way in...so it had been hidden weeks in advance by her employer's agents. She inserted the powercore and checked the readings on the weapon. Everything was in the purple...would have been green on a terran weapon. The rifle was completely made of advanced alien technology. Powerful enough to get past normaltech defenses, but not susceptible to any Anchor effects. She could feel the odd texture of the alien alloys even through the nearly invisible plastic gloves she wore. Suddenly, there was a flash on the horizon and a faint booming sound. A storm? She looked out with the sight...there was lightning, but it was coming from the ground.... * * * * "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!" sang, no, screamed a frantic voice as lightnings coursed from his hands and smashed into a line of riot police. Their shields shattered or melted or even imploded as the blazing fury ran across them. "He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored," Josh Cole continued as a small pulse of lightning shot from him to Arin Kelsey, who ran forward and grabbed hold of a riot tank which had pulled onto the road. She exploded, hurling the tank over onto its side and knocking down a partially completed house nearby. "He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword!" Cole screamed as he shattered the remaining hulk of the tank. Several of the police started to run, but others held their ground. They were the only thing keeping Cole from his righteous mission, and they were buying time for backup to arrive. They'd been lucky to catch him out in this development, where there were no witnesses to their brutal exercise of police power. But if they fell back, it would be into a populated residential district, where families sat in front of their televisions waiting to see the Pope. "HIS TRUTH IS..." The police vanished in a succession of green and gold blurs. Cole paused, this oddity penetrating the fog of righteous rage gripping his brain. "Ay, cabron!" a woman shouted, hurling an object at him. Reflexively, he blasted it with his lightning. The bolt sank into the object and surged along a trailing wire. A glistening dome suddenly appeared out of thin air, covering about a block in area. No doubt a bit of technological sorcery created by that hispanic woman. Cole chuckled...their toys were no match for the powers God had given him and his beloved. "Arin, show these people your new skills!" Cole shouted. Sluggishly, as if uncertain of the power she and Cole had spent the past weeks training, Arin raised her hands. A bolt of force lanced out towards the device on the ground, but missed by inches. Before Arin could adjust her aim, the box was pulled back behind cover. A slight pulse arced between Cole and Kelsey, wordlessly carrying his suggestion so that the enemy would not overhear, and then explosive energy surged from her feet, lifting her into the air. Suddenly, she skidded sideways and out of the dome, as if "down" were no longer in the same direction. "Eh?" Cole spat. "I know you're out there, Combine stooges!" he shouted. "Come out and fight me, and know that God is on my side!" Arin landed clumsily outside the dome. "What...what is...?" She staggered, as if waking from sleepwalking. With horror, Cole realized that the Combine's pet stormtroopers might be trying to take control of his beloved's mind! Cole stared at her and prayed that God would not let her mind be taken over. Lightning streamed along the ground and tried to connect to her, but it stopped at the dome's boundary. "So, a coward's trap? You won't...RETURN MY WIFE!" he howled as Arin was hustled out of sight by a figure in white and silver, moving almost faster than his eye could follow. "That's right, we won't return your 'wife,'" announced Solar Max as he rose from behind cover. "Peregryn, NOW!" Cole hurled his mightiest lightnings at Solar Max, but they struck the dome and drained away, causing the dome to glow more brightly. He could now barely see Channel hooked up to the device which had first intercepted his lightning. Somehow it was helping the green-clad supernormal extend the range of his power over energy. Before he could redouble his efforts and try to overwhelm Channel as he had once before, Cole found himself in the grip of irresistable winds, spun helplessly in a vortex that slowly lifted him from the ground. He cast his lightning randomly, running on pure anger now, instinctively hoping to hit something. He was rewarded by the sound of a man crying out, and he thought he could see the dome shudder out of existence...but now his vision was going black at the edges. Cowards! Cowards! Wouldn't fight him directly! Then everything went black. * * * * "Subject Joshua Cole has been captured and secured in mobile containment unit," hissed a heavily-accented voice over Der Zepter's static-filled eavesdropper set. English was the official language of the Combine, so the cops had to speak it in the line of duty. Unfortunately, with the interference caused by Cole's electrical powers making reception iffy, the halting English was harder to understand than fluent Spanish would have been. Still, the news was mostly good. The fight had happened near the outskirts of the city, drawing a great deal of attention from the authorities and shifting forces away from her location. With the Pope scheduled to appear in under an hour, there would still likely be plenty of holes in the dragnet she could slip through once her job was done. Reaching into her backpack, Der Zepter withdrew a small plastic box that was marked as a first aid kit. Inside was a small collection of objects she had been instructed to scatter about the belltower. Some hairs, a bit of torn synthetic fabric, ashes from what might have been a cigarette but which smelled completely unlike anything she'd ever smelled smoked. And so forth. All designed to point a finger at a Santari assassin, just as her gun was designed to do. Her employer, for reasons she didn't ask about, wanted the aliens to take the blame for this job. Fine with her. So long as she got paid. Payment. She shook her head...what was her payment to be, anyway? Somehow, she'd assumed she would be paid well for this job, but didn't recall any specific price being set... Movement in the crowd. She put aside her momentary confusion and looked out to see what was the matter. Someone seemed to be raising a ruckus on the Zocalo.... * * * * "Tarareador!" Rosa cursed under her breath. She'd tried, tried so hard, to keep her "ego signature" in check, but in an unguarded moment she'd started to hum. She tried to look shocked as she turned to see who had shouted "hummer" in Spanish. She locked eyes with a terrified and horribly scarred young man, who was pushing his way back through the crowd as fast as he could. His face, despite the scars, looked vaguely familiar.... "HUMMER!" he screamed, in English this time. "KILLER!" Of course! She must have been sloppy...this was one of the non-para scum who used to run with the 5th Avenue Snakeaters back in Manhattan. She thought she'd killed them all as part of her vengeance on the city. This one must have survived and run to Mexico. And she WOULD hum the same thing here that she'd hummed when she used Marko's claws to rip bits out of this one's face. Rosa, really just a puppet of the telepath Mr. Strings, feigned shock and surprise. "No, no soy tarareador...." But then she caught a flash of motion out of the corner of her eye. A number of men in suits had emerged from the "dressing room" set up behind the Pope's armored stage. They were carrying some kind of sensor...probably psionic in nature. Damn. The Helveticans...the Swiss Guard. The Pope's bodyguards, equipped with the best alien technology the Church could afford. She'd hoped to control one of them during the Mass and have him shoot the Pope, but they were prepared for a mental attack. Ah, well. She'd been in enough minds lately to know that the Pope wasn't likely to survive this day, she'd simply wanted the ego boost of being the one to kill him. Hopefully the next Pope wouldn't be an Anchor...she liked the idea of running the Church. Anyway, time to destroy the evidence. "DEATH TO THE POPE!" she shouted, pulling out a prop gun. It had been easy to smuggle past the security checkpoints, since it wasn't a real weapon. But she didn't intend to shoot with it...she intended to get shot with it. Predictably, the people around her tried to flee or get down, and she rushed for the door concealing the Pope, giving the Helveticans a nice, clean shot. They took it, and Mr. Strings maliciously let Rosa have full control of her mind back for the few seconds it took her to die.... * * * * Der Zepter finished distributing the false evidence and smirked. So many assassins and would-be killers out there. Would she even get a chance to fire, or would the Pope be buried under a ton of bullets the instant he stepped out of his air-conditioned trailer? Maybe it would be better if someone else killed the Pope. The more she thought about her putative payment, the more she found herself uncomfortable with the whole arrangement. She'd have chalked it up to the usual pre-shoot jitters, but she didn't recall any previous assassination jobs either, which was very odd and very disturbing. But she felt compelled to carry out the job, regardless of her scruples or her identity crisis problems. Then a great roar went up from the crowd. The Pope was coming out. Der Zepter put aside her doubts and aimed the beam weapon at the podium the Pope was headed for. * * * * Pope Pius XIII stepped out into the special enclosure built for his benefit, and the crowd took on a respectful hush. The whirr of the air purifiers and the rustling of his own garments suddenly seemed very loud, as they always did. He'd only been Pope for eight years, far too short a time to get used to such adulation...if it was possible to ever get used to it. He looked at the teleprompter-like inside surface of the enclosure, and noted with pleasure that it had been turned off, as per his request. For diplomatic reasons, he was performing the Mass in English...although he would have preferred Spanish...but he'd always been a quick study. He knew the words by heart, in over a dozen languages. If he was to truly lead the Church, he had decided early on, he could not confine himself to the Italian of his birth or the French of the united Europe. "In God's name, I welcome you all," he began, his amplified voice booming out over the Zocalo. "On this holiest of days, I come bearing the love and good wishes of the faithful to this stricken city. For generations, this great city has languished under the pall of man's excess," he gestured at the orangey-grey sky above. "Nothing man has been capable of has eliminated this scourge from your city...even advanced technology beyond the capacity of man has done nothing to help. Some say there is a curse on Mexico City, the curse of Tezcatlipoca." There was a rumble through the crowd. They all knew of the supposed curse, but it was shocking to hear the Pope acknowledge it, especially on this of all days. Then the concern started turning to hope, as people in the Zocalo remembered what the Pope had done when he was simply Vittorio Lombardi, breaker of curses and God's Anchor. "Before we celebrate the rebirth of Christ, I ask you to pray with me to God, for the rebirth of this city. For He recognizes your faith, and does not wish for you to suffer any longer under these cursed skies. Lift up your hearts, your souls and your voices, and pray with me!" A great and joyous noise went up from the city. A million voices all at once, with different words and even different languages, but all with the same meaning. Pope Pius XIII raised his arms, threw back his head and shouted at the top of his lungs. "Lord, show us your mercy!" Suddenly, as if a curtain was being drawn aside, the toxic smog that had strangled Mexico City for decades was swept aside, torn to the four corners of the vault of heaven. People who had never seen a blue sky with their own eyes before wept as the morning Sun shone down with a purity that made the whole city seem reborn. The Curse of Tezcatlipoca was broken. The smoke had been pulled from the Sun. The faithful rejoiced, briefly failing to notice something very important. The Pope was dead. * * * * "Huh. He just dropped dead." Der Zepter put the rifle down on the floorboards and shook her head. Either one of the other snipers had a really special weapon, or they'd all been witness to the greatest irony of the decade. She carefully broke down the weapon and hid the pieces under the floorboards. The powersource she rigged to look like it was supposed to explode as a boobytrap, but had failed in that job. Her job done, she stood again with a growing sense of relief that hers hadn't been the gun that killed the Pope. She wondered if she could even have pulled the trigger. Turning to go, Der Zepter looked at her reflection in one of the highly polished silver bells, and saw Agent Jo Ridley's face looking back.... ============================================================================ Next Issue: Whodunit? Did anyone do it? In the aftermath of the Pope's death, quite a few things hit the fan. Plus, the Church needs a new leader, and the leading contender isn't sure he wants the job. Be here for "Cardinal Sins!" ============================================================================ Author's Notes: The central core of this story was, "So many assassins, so little time." In fact, there's one significant assassin who was prowling around that I didn't get to, because I decided it was already too crowded. Perhaps he'll show up next issue. }-> For those curious about the background of the sterility bomb mentioned by Divinosta, it was part of my original Champions campaign of ASH. The device was designed by Dr. Lirby Koo (TM Hero Games, if it ever becomes relevant I'll come up with a replacement for him in the ASH world) for the Chinese government, but he could never make it permanent. It would sterilize someone for a year, after which repeated exposures had no effect. Devastator bought the design from Dr. Koo and amplified it to cover the entire planet, reasoning that it would at least bring him closer to his goal of destroying humanity. And maybe humanity would kill itself off in the panic. ASH's "cure" was totally bogus, and one of the fiercest intra-team ethical debates we ever had was over whether to fool the public or tell them the truth. One of my players said later that night, "Please, don't have any more noncombat sessions...we won't survive another like this!" Heh. Anyway, losing a whole year's worth of kids would indeed have been a social problem, but it only had minor effects before a big chunk of the world went away.... Credits: Mr. Strings and Jo Ridley created by Tony Pi. Marko and the 5th Avenue Snakeaters created by Matt Rossi III. The song Cole was singing is the Battle Hymn of the Republic, by Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910), set to music by Charles C. McCabe while in a Confederate prison in 1863.