++++++++++++++++++++++ ///||| ******* ||| ||| + ACADEMY OF + /// ||| **** **** ||| ||| + + /// ||| *** * ||| ||| + SUPER-HEROES + /// ||| *** ||| ||| + + ///||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| + # 8 + /// ||| *** ||| ||| + + /// ||| * *** ||| ||| ++++++++++++++++++++++ /// ||| **** **** ||| ||| .|. COHERENT COMICS /// ||| ******* ||| ||| --X------------------------ '|` UNINCORPORATED "The Rest Of The Story" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright 1995 by David Van Domelen Permission given for archival at the Eyrie site, all others ask first ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [cover is an homage to the cover of Academy #0, but instead of a composition book it shows a manila folder. And where Aaron had written "Transfer NOW!" on the cover in Academy #0 is stamped "Dangerous Truths" in red.] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ROLL CALL ||//| ||\/|| ()<<| SOLAR MAX METEOR ||\/|| ||\\| - JakZak Taylor - Sarah Taylor-Grant || || + | + |\ /| --|-- GAWAIN CONTACT | >< | + | + - Sal Napier - Aaron Zander |/ \| (((( O )))) SCORCH ESSAY O===C (((( - Scorch - Sara Ana Rodriguez | \\ /\ >>>=- CHANNEL PEREGRYN /()\ // - George Sylvester - Howard Henderson Jr. /____\ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ His official name was Li Zhou. Or to be more accurate, Li Zhou 35255. With almost a billion citizens and only a few million traditional, acceptible names, numbering was necessary for the government to keep track of everyone. It was the dichotomy enforced by the enlightened government of the People's Republic of China: everyone needs a unique name, but no one should have an indivdual name. For common use, most citizens ignored the numbers and kept to the old system of distinguishing between similar names. So he was also known as Li Zhou the doctor, son of the blacksmith and cousin of that lucky Li Peng who got a job in Beijing and...well, you get the picture. Li Zhou was more of a medic than a true physician, but he was one of the few in the small collective so they called him doctor. His real name, the one his parents had secretly given him and which he considered to be his own, was Wong Fei Hong. The original Wong Fei Hong was a legendary figure in 19th Century China, a fearless doctor who fought against oppression. Li's parents had desperately wanted such a legendary hero to arise and throw off the shackles of the Beijing "communists" and had raised him on tales of the old hero. The true tales, not the altered ones supported by the government. He had even become a doctor to follow in his namesake's footsteps, despite not having much of a skill at it. Still, devotion can make up for lack of skill. And make no bones about it, this new Wong was just as devoted to freedom as his legendary precursor. The China he grew up in became even more vile and dark as the years wore on, with any who spoke up mysteriously disappearing. Demons with the bodies of snakes roamed the countryside freely, and it was rumored that these demons ate the dissenters. Wong was determined to do what he could...but there was nothing he *could* do. Until now. He had been called to a nearby house because the young son of a family friend had suddenly started behaving oddly. By the time Wong had arrived, the young man was glowing! He had no idea how to treat this case, but was given no chance to try as soldiers burst in and started to drag the boy off. One said something about needing to hold the glowing boy down. Another said it wasn't possible and pulled out a gun, holding it to the boy's head. Wong Fei Hong could take no more. He tore off his restrictive jacket like it were tissue paper. Like a flash of lightning he had reached the soldiers and with two rapid punches they were flying across the street in a spray of blood. A new power he had never felt before filled the young doctor's limbs, he felt like he could move mountains! More soldiers came, and more soldiers fell. Wong was a whirlwind of deadly fists and feet, meting out justice against the hated oppressors. People overcame their fear and cheered him on from behind half-open windows. Bullets whizzed past him but none seemed to touch him. He raced as fast as his feet could carry him towards the garrison and ripped the gate from its posts. Then the machinegun fire tore into him and he jerked about like a doll shaken by a petulant child before falling to lie still in a spreading pool of his own blood. * * * * Christi Walker listened to BBC 1 over her headphones as the sky started to lighten. Some horrible news about a nuke going off in China a few hours ago. Served the PROCcies right, she thought. Probably one of their own people what did it. Or maybe it was an accident...Chinese gadgets never seemed to work as well as everybody else's. The news didn't have much more to say, since the borders were still pretty well sealed and no one had been inside China for decades and all that. Although the poor folks in northern Japan probably hadda brace for some fallout or something. She looked out at the huge silhouettes against the oranging sky. She always turned off the lights at Stonehenge before dawn because it looked so beautiful seeing them black against the sky. She thought of what she'd do the rest of the day once her shift was over and Ian came to relieve her. Maybe hit the shops a bit, then head home for dinner and bed. She snorted at thinking of Ian. Tour guide fluffhead he was. He didn't care about these magnificent stones, about the power they held even after all this time. He just gave his spiel to the touring rabble and collected a paycheck. A nice fat one, since Stonehenge custodians tended to be targeted by fundie groups for violence. Not much now, but a lot more a few years back. Now people mainly ignored the place, which Christi thought was a real pity. The sun started to peek over the horizon. Christi turned to watch, since this was the day of the year that it rose between two fallen stones which formed a triangle. The rioters at the turn of the century hadn't been able to do much to the place, but someone had wrecked his car against a stone making it fall against another which had been leaning the other way. She wondered what significance this new marking point might have when the old gods come back. She felt a flush of guilt. No one was supposed to hold any truck with the old gods anymore, not after the horrible stuff that happened in the late 1990s. But spending all her nights here, she couldn't help but start to feel a certain awe at any gods who could inspire a primitive people to build something so magnificent. And she sometimes hoped they would return. "We have," whispered a voice in her head. Shocked, she leaped up and spun around to see if it was Ian playing one of his practical jokes. "The spirits of the earth and woods who took no part in the battles of other gods still live, and now we are back. You who have tended our special place and held us in your heart when others did not have our gratitude." A warm glow suffused Christi and she felt better than she had in years. That ache in her knee from the time she'd gotten a little too rough in football disappeared. Her slightly fuzzy vision (she'd been meaning to see the optometrist for weeks, but never got to it) sharpened. And though she didn't know it at the time, her tonsils and appendix grew back. "Seek out those that still believe and tell them that there is once more a spirit in this land...." * * * * The Australian "outback" has never been a very hospitable place. And ever since the Dreamtime opened up in 1997 and swallowed up all the people, it had been shunned even more. But as the sun reached its highest point on July 5th, there was a shifting of light and suddenly the emptied towns and villages were full again.... * * * * If you watched carefully, you might notice the bandages under JakZak's clothing, or how he was careful to avoid certain movements. If you didn't watch carefully, you'd swear he was in perfect health...only two weeks after being charred over a large portion of his body. It was one of the benefits of having a high Tesla Index, rapid healing and general ability to soak up damage. To look at the assembled heroes, you might think they'd been in a minor scuffle two weeks ago, not fought for their lives and gotten maimed. The only one absent was Lightfoot, and even he had finally awaken and started his accelerated healing yesterday. "In the eight days since Devastator's plan was completed, a few odd incidents have been reported here and there. Enough to prove that the Barrier is no longer fully in effect, but not enough to indicate a complete breach. It looks like Devastator got what he wanted." He paused to let that sink in. "China is in a major upheaval as far as we can tell, with their central government lost in the fireball in Beijing. Their military has assumed control, that much we know, but they've been very successful in keeping any other news from leaking out. But it's not over. It's quite likely that someone is still at large that can be held at least partly accountable...that craft that fired on Devestator's base may have been piloted. The purpose of this meeting is to share the data we've all gathered in the last week. Howard, why don't you start?" Howard "Peregryn" Henderson Jr. nodded. "A number of 'nearby' realities have already become permeable. The Dreamtime in Australia being one you all know about. In addition, teams in the Amazon report no sign of the pocket reality we found there, which would indicate that it was assumed back into Svartalfheim...hopefully none of the Norse deities noticed, they were among the more destructive during the Godmarket. So far there have been numerous minor manifestations, mainly of an elemental variety, no 'name' gods have contacted anyone I talked to. The spirit of the Earth has become significantly more robust in the past week, lending credence to that hypothesis of Devastator's. There seems no immediate danger of the Causality Wars returning, but our defense now has definite holes in it. Reality is slightly more malleable to our wills...and the wills of the gods...than it was prior to the detonation." "Well, this works both for and against us at the moment," noted JakZak. "Does your analysis concur, Essay?" "Yah," replied the hispanic gadgeteer. "A number of test gadgets I had around the lab from last month now have anywhere from five to thirty percent higher outputs and efficiencies. Since I did nothing else to improve them before testing, it's gotta mean the difference is in me. Best performance seemed to come from the wilder stuff." Paul interjected, "I talked with Metapsych. Most of the psi talents noticed no change, so presumably the rules governing telepathy are relatively unchanged. But the precogs have gotten about twice as accurate in short term tests." JakZak nodded. "This dovetails with my own experience testing my various reality warping powers. Not all applications of violation physics have gotten more powerful or easier. The best performance comes from those that deal with spacetime and alternate dimensions, what Peregryn would call the Fourth Pillar stuff. Other applications depended on how closely linked they were to this... elemental effects that depended on spirits have gotten better, but not those that don't, for example. "It's safe to say that if Devastator were still alive, he'd be even more powerful than before, since his powers lay mainly in the area affected. Let's hope he's not. Dan, what have you found about the situation?" Grind called up an image on the meeting room's projection screen of a blurry shape with an energy beam lancing out of it. "I felt that the other areas would be adequately covered by the rest of you, so I concentrated on our mysterious visitor in orbit. This image was recorded by our transport as we held position near the orbital platform. I enhanced it as far as feasible without direct knowledge of its identity," the image sharpened, but was still fairly indistinct, "and was able to at least get an analysis of the energy beams from this. The beams were composed of highly focused Cerenkov radiation. Or Tsaran radiation, as it is known by those who actually use it as a weapon." "The Planetary Confederation?" gasped Sal. "Before jumping to any conclusions," continued Grind, "I wanted to make sure it wasn't a Pranir ship. They have had access to Tsaran-style weaponry for some time now, and Devastator did have some Pranir working for him. It would make sense that any Pranir partners he had would be paid to ensure the destruction of the platform. However," he paused ominously, "the team dispatched to the Amazon did find the Pranir ship which must have been used by Devastator's allies. And it did not show any sign of being fitted with weapons other than a few guided rockets. Accessing records from the interdiction satellite in high orbit, I confirmed that it was the only Pranir vessel to enter the Western Hemisphere during late June. This alone would not be proof that it wasn't Pranir, except for something else I found in the interdiction satellite's records. Or rather, didn't find. There was record of our ship, and of the platform, but not of the interloper's ship. While the software wasn't something I'm very familiar with, it didn't seem like the records had been erased. And since we could visually sight the interloper, *and* record images of it, it wasn't cloaked in any fashion. At this point I did make the conclusion that the ship was of Planetary Confederation origin. Once I had done this, I fed a list of known PC ship designs into the computer and was able to further enhance the image based on that data." The image became crystal clear and then grew to fill the screen. "It is a Galactic Warrior personal fighter craft. Furthermore, the enhanced markings match a known pattern. This ship belongs to Delta Rose, the Galactic Warrior Corps member assigned to Earth during the Second and Third Heroic Ages." "People," said JakZak quietly, "I believe a trip to Australia is in order. If anyone knows where to find her, it would be the United World. And given what Grind's told us about their Mr. Cook, I wouldn't be surprised if they even sanctioned this...." * * * * ==I have some new information,== sent a now-familiar mental voice. Aaron sat back from the computer screen and concentrated on it. ++Give it to me, Gene. Paul says hi, by the way, but he's in a meeting right now.++ ==Cary Allen, one of our diviners, managed to get his boosted power levels under control and focused on our little problem for me. He's still not very clear on things, but he was pretty sure that the United World building was somehow important.== ++You know, the more I hear about those guys, the less I trust them. The politicians are okay, but the covert types are really just letting the power go to their heads.++ ==Well, they may simply think they're in a position to know what's best for us. Fine line. Anyway, I linked up with our best long distance telepath and did a surface scan of the place. No invasion of privacy or anything, just counting heads.== ++And...?++ ==And we found a room in the building which doesn't exist. As far as psiscans are concerned, there's never any minds in there. But a quick bounce into the optic lobes of a few minds in the area confirmed that there *was* a door to that area. We kept surveillance on it for the rest of the business day, and suddenly the blank spot moved.== ++Someone's using a psi damper?++ ==Not like any we've seen, and I thought we'd seen them all. It was more like...well, an anchor effect on brainwaves. Like someone with a mind so alien that it interfered with not only attempts to read it, but also attempts to read anyone in the area. And before you ask, I have successfully read Pranir minds...disgusting little snakeowls. Sorry, shouldn't let my prejudices slip through like that.== ++Hey, I'm not offended. I've actually had to fight the things. So, what now? More surveillance?++ ==No, this looks like something that will have to be done face to face. Pack your bags, we're headed for Australia. Fill Paul in when he's out of the meeting, but tell him to keep silent about it...this is a MetaPsych operation.== * * * * ==Move quickly,== warned Gene. ==The psychic invisibility Carly's projecting only makes people ignore us if they're not actively looking for us. Sooner or later, someone's going to realize something's up and sound an alert.== ++Fortunately, the UW Building is more or less open to the public during the day, so most people wouldn't even notice us without the 'please ignore me' effect/power.++ Aaron winced as his mindspeak slipped into old habits. Must be the stress. The pair strode confidently down the hallways, doing their best to act like they belonged there. The less suspiciously they acted, the easier Carly's job would be. Best to let her save her strength for when they trip some automatic alarm...making the guard in the control room ignore them would be much harder. At this range, the psychic dead zone was like a beacon of nothingness, and it was easy to home in on. Fortunately, the UW Building was laid out in a simple grid pattern and not some twisted artistic architecture, so they had a good chance of finding the source without having to double back anywhere. ++Paul tells me ASH is here too, looking for someone else. We should be careful to avoid running into them, I doubt Carly could block us out from all of them....++ Just then they turned a corner and almost ran right into a tight knot of people approaching from another angle. UW Security forces. Aaron started to pump up his muscles in case he needed to make a break for it with Gene. --Wait! It's us!-- mentally shouted Paul. "Guys, this is Gene, one of the heads of MetaPsych," he added verbally. With the two pointed out to them, the rest of ASH was able to see through the psychic invisibility shroud. A dark-skinned security agent spoke with Grind's voice. "A little trick we picked up from our Eurasian counterparts, with the help of Essay's holographic projector and Paul diverting any attention from the possible flaws. I take it you're also looking for Delta Rose?" Aaron nodded. "I guess we are. She's certainly alien enough to cause the psychic fog we've been tracking. The room we're headed for is just down the hall." "As is the room we're headed for, according to the data Grind pulled from a terminal back there," added a security agent with JakZak's voice, cocking his thumb back to indicate the direction from which they came. Just then, a doorway down the hall opened. "Don't stand there in the hall arguing," spoke a feminine voice from inside the room, "come in." * * * * When they entered the office, they were met by the steely gaze of a slim woman with short-cropped black hair and brown eyes. "Dyed hair and colored contact lenses," commented Grind matter-of-factly. "It *is* somewhat difficult to be inconspicuous with hot pink hair and eyes, you know," replied the woman. "Although it worked well enough during the Punk years." She turned to face the group as a whole. "I had hoped for a few more weeks to act before you found me, but I doubted I'd get it. Once I had to tip my hand directly in orbit, I knew it was only a matter of time before the resources arrayed to find me would succeed. Although I am a little surprised that MetaPsych independently located me so soon." Aaron started to get an expression of "So *you're the one who blew up the satellite" but it faded as Paul quickly filled him in via a quickburst mental transmission on the information Grind had discovered. The holodiguises gone, JakZak stepped forward in full armor. "We really only have one question, although it looks like it covers more ground than I initially thought," he nodded at Aaron and Paul. "Why?" Delta Rose sat back in her chair. "A simple question, I suppose a simple answer is in order. To save the galaxy. Of course, your next question would be 'How does breaking the Barrier save the galaxy? Not to mention what the hell manipulating Paul and Aaron's lives has to do with it?'" She paused as several of the assembled nodded grimly. "I'm afraid the answer to that one will have to start a few millenia ago, it's a bit of a Big Picture sort of thing. The short form is that all the trials I've put you through...the separations, the Pranir organlegger mission, the breaking of the Barrier...were all intended to make you stronger and weed out the weak. And since you're Earth's best real defense, you have to be as strong as possible. You were iron, but we needed steel...and steel is made in flame and fury, not in comfort and security." "You *knew* Arin would crack, didn't you!" Sal interjected angrily. "She was just a tool to be used or broken to you!" Delta met Sal's blazing hot gaze with her own icy cold one. "I knew she would never be able to get over her fear of her own abilities, never be able to actually learn to use them to their fullest extent, without some kind of shock. She was put on the Grad team because of that high potential, and because I hoped she would be shocked out of her shell. Unfortunately, when you put a pot in the kiln, it may become stronger, but it can also shatter. She shattered. I'm sorry that she was destroyed, but not sorry for what I tried to accomplish. The stakes are too high to take it easy. It may already be too late. I spent several years hoping the Premier of China would simply die of old age, not wanting to risk an international incident by having him assassinated. Fortunately, Devastator's plans advanced my own, so he was allowed to succeed." "You mean actively helped," corrected JakZak. "Yes, actively helped," she admitted. "But as I said, the stakes were high, far higher than the millions killed in Beijing. Higher than the billions on Earth. You're all familiar with the Galactic Warrior Corps, right?" George replied, "A sort of interplanetary version of the Federal Marshals of the Old West. Dispensing law and keeping the bandits at bay. Not really able to deal with major problems themselves, but they could call in units of the Army if needed." "That was the cover story, yes," said Delta. "A few of us were assigned to each sector, more in the more developed regions and less in the hinterlands like Earth. We had enough power to go after individual criminals and deter a lot of crime, but we had to call in the Confederation Navy for bigger jobs, like attempts at empire-building. But that was only our 'day job,' if you will. Our true responsibility is far more important. "Several thousand years ago, the Santari/T!rir alliance had spread over a large chunk of space and the Planetary Confederation was formed. The T!rir kept everyone in line by slowly and carefully parcelling out dribs and drabs of highly advanced technology developed during their ancient imperial days. Certain technologies were deemed too dangerous to use, but too useful to simply destroy, and were hidden about the Confederation. The Galactic Warriors Corps was founded at that time with the overt purpose of keeping the peace, but the true purpose was safeguarding the T!rir technology from abuse. Only those at the very top of the organization knew this secret purpose. "Over the centuries, other races would often develop their own dangerous technology. The T!rir kept close watch over all scientific development and would suppress any dangerous discoveries, adding any prototypes and data to the stockpile protected by the Galactic Warriors. Often they would distract the world in question by providing another piece of technology that perhaps had the same purpose, but was considered less dangerous. The inventors would then seize upon the new and improved theories and abandon old and inefficient...and dangerous...ones." As usual, Dan had jumped ahead several points in the argument, and said, "So Earth was interdicted not to protect us from the outside universe, but to protect you from us." A few "lightbulbs" lit up on the faces of his teammates, but just as many gave him a blank stare. "Yes," admitted Delta. "To explain for the rest of you, the Magene is perhaps the single most dangerous weapon in all of reality...for it brings with it the power to reshape reality. To date, that is still a safely kept secret, else one or more of the petty warlords would have swooped down on Earth and started taking slaves. When the disaster happened 25 years ago, my superiors felt that the Magene had been wiped out and Earth was no longer a threat. They brought me back for reassignment. "However, the last few decades have been ones of serious decline for the Confederation. The T!rir ran out of secrets they could risk handing out, reducing their power immensely. Many powerful worlds withdrew from the already unmanagably large Confederation and founded small kingdoms. Others stayed in the Confederation for political leverage with the pro-PC citizenry back home, but ignored any edicts passed by the now almost powerless Senate. Funding for all central government groups was cut back to the bone as member worlds no longer wished to contribute taxes. The Pranir started to run wild on worlds we had previously kept them from, such as Earth. More and more Galactic Warriors died because they couldn't get backup from a diminished Confederation Navy in time...not to mention that ships which had once been in the Navy were often now recalled by their owners and became part of the problem, part of the fleets of petty warlords looking to carve out larger estates for themselves. At this point, I was brought into the upper echelons and found out the truth of our mission. A decision was made by the few of us remaining that we couldn't let our charges fall into the hands of the warlords, better to destroy them. Most of the technologies were easy to dispose of...just let them do their jobs. Your astronomers will be noticing a large number of supernovas over the next few years as a result of several stockpiles being destroyed in rather spectacular ways." She paused to catch her breath and then sighed. "There was a very close debate over whether Sol should have joined them. By this time, we knew that the Magene was expressing itself again. I argued for letting you protect yourselves, so I was assigned to come back here and do whatever it took to bring this world up to the point of being able to fight off a concentrated attack. My timetable got moved up dramatically a few months ago when our sensors reported activity on Alpha Centauri's one habitable planet. It could be nothing, but it probably means someone has figured out that 'interdicted planet' means 'planet with something powerful to be found.' We also know that the most powerful weapon to be found on that world was moved here thirty years ago." "The Arcanovore," whispered Peregryn. "An entity of immense power and immense hunger, capable of draining an entire world of its life energy and arcane power. It almost destroyed the Earth in 1993, but was stopped by Tymythy Twystyd and the rest of the Raiders. Buried in northern Montana to allow the stolen energies to return to the biosphere...and when all the mages sacrificed themselves five years later, everyone forgot about it. Its location is recorded in Tymythy's journals." "Exactly. And if it's unleashed by someone looking for weapons of mass destruction, it's quite likely no one will be able to put it back in the bottle again...and the universe will die to feed its hunger. The fact we suspect it still lives was the other potent argument against destroying Earth...a supernova would only free it. You people have to be able to defend it against all comers. And I'm not sure you're up to the job, even after everything I've done to try and stack the deck in your favor. "If you think things have been tough so far, it's only going to get tougher...."