.|. COHERENT COMICS PRESENTS ----X----------------------------------------------------------------------- '|` =====, ======== ====. ===. ======= ======= // // // )) //|| // // ===== // //===< // || //=== //=== // // // \\ //==|| // // `===== o // o // // o // || o // o ======= o Superhuman Tactical Resources and Affiliated-Field Experts original concept by Dave Van Domelen development by Marc Singer and Terrone Carpenter Issue #15, "Impossible Missions" (STEP TWO of THE PYRAMID SCHEME) by Marc Singer Copyright 2000; a Legacy House production ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- [cover shows STRAFE fighting in the Sistine Chapel. The camera angle is such that the famous "Creation of Man" panel from the ceiling is at the center of the page. Grind is leaping across the room, blotting out Adam and approximating his pose. There's a small golden pyramid at the bottom of the cover with about 40% of the height colored in red. "PYRAMID SCHEME: STEP TWO"] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Editor's Note: The Pyramid Scheme crossover runs through many titles at once, but not all of the titles will run through all the same thematic "steps" of the story. So don't worry, you didn't miss an issue...STRAFE did not have a "Step One" for the Pyramid Scheme. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Badakshan, Afganistan. August 2, 2024.] Fire rains down on the Q'el-eh-Fatah valley and the helicopters are circling in for the kill. Terrorists scramble for the cover of assault vehicles or fortified guardboxes but the copters move too swiftly, mowing down rows of turbaned men, illuminating the compound with the destruction of another missile battery. Only the squat, brutish bunker at the center of the compound remains unbroken, its muddy brown stones blending seamlessly into the mountain behind it. The bunker has flown the flags of the Moslem Coalition, the Soviet Union, even the British Empire...but in 2024 it carries no flag at all. It is now dedicated to the service of a single man. This man has trained his followers well; they attempt to man vehicles or arm rocket-launchers in the hopes of mustering a counter-attack. None of them attempt to flee the valley, or even to take cover in the bunker, whose great metal doors roll shut. Instead they return fire against the helicopters, screaming curses as they die. Nobody on the ground notices as one copter disgorges a lithe, well-muscled young woman in black commando gear. She hovers beside the transport and surveys the carnage beneath her. Although she wears bulky goggles, the North American Combine's satellite imaging is able to capture her face, frozen in a moment of anguish and disgust. [AGENT: KLEINVOGEL, JENNIFER.] Then she begins ferrying the rest of her commando unit down to the valley floor, two at a time, dodging the streaks of missile fire and tracer bullets. The first two passengers, both men, hit the ground running. The larger, mahogany-skinned man takes several rifle bursts in his chest but keeps moving, vaulting into a foxhole and punching the terrorist who shot him, his face contorted in an expression of agony... [AGENT: DRAKE, ANTHONY.] ...while the shorter man wears a harness covered with guns, which he draws and fires with blinding speed. He empties the clips almost haphazardly, yet every bullet seems to find its mark: terrorists holding bazookas, APC drivers, even the gunslits on the guardboxes. A decommissioned Makarov tank, unable to raise its turret enough to hit the helicopters, begins rolling towards the gunman instead. He dives directly in its path, rolling under the treads and out of the field of fire of its stuttering machine-guns. He pops up behind the Makarov, leaps onto its back, and begins pumping shots inside through the gunslits and air vents. After a few shots he finds the onboard ammo magazines and leaps off, framed against the tank's internal explosion. [AGENT: TELLER, JASON WILLIAM.] Kleinvogel lands with her other two passengers; the five agents regroup and charge through the opening left by the demolished tank, pushing for the bunker. Teller's bullets and Kleinvogel's gravity-enhanced bodyslams fail to dent the dusty metal doors. Undaunted, a short, emaciated young woman...her build and timid demeanor almost suggest she is still a young girl...calmly steps through the stone wall. Several seconds later, the bunker doors slowly scrape open. The young woman waits in the antechamber, looking guilty; she is standing in the center of a circle of dead guards, all of whom appear to have shot each other quite by accident. [AGENT: SMITH, LANA. "FADEAWAY."] The agents run through the bunker, their images captured on a succession of black-and-white security cameras. The few terrorists who remain in their path are felled swiftly and with a minimum of force. The agents search each room, kicking in doors, scanning the contents, tossing in grenades when they are done. This procedure carries them to the very heart of the bunker, deep inside the mountain, where several terrorists in robes...long white ones, covered in gold hieroglyphics...guard another locked steel door. The fanatics fire on sight, until the agents dispatch them with ease. Smith starts to walk through the door, but the fifth agent waves her back. "He's too dangerous," he says, in a deep and resonant voice. "You shouldn't go in alone." The man crouches down before the keypad lock...a unique design, one which has both upper and lower case letters and the numbers 1 through 8. The fifth man furrows his perfect features in an expression of anger and determination. [AGENT: TRACEY, DANIEL. "GRIND."] Tracey ponders the lock for several seconds, while the sounds of combat thunder through the bunker walls. Then he snaps his fingers and says, "Chess coordinates. The key is a series of moves." The other STRAFE agents watch him cautiously. It's been less than a month since Tracey's obsession with Rebus peaked, and they still don't know how he's going to react under the pressures of a field encounter...whether he's going to be the kind of leader they need. But when Tracey types "e4 e5 Nf3 Nc6 Bb5 a6 Ba4 Nf6 O-O b5"...the opening known as the Archangelsk variation...the door swings wide open. The five STRAFE agents charge in, fists and weapons at the ready. They find themselves staring at a holographic image of Lorenzo Archangeli, Rebus, which bows politely and then winks out as the projector's battery dies. The stone cell is completely empty, except for the holographic projector and a small chessboard with 28 chess pieces, arranged neatly into a pyramid. The penultimate tier is missing, creating the effect of a floating capstone, or the eye on the back of an old paper dollar. Tracey growls, "I should have known it wouldn't be this easy." Then he sees the piece of parchment lying on the floor next to the chessboard. Dan Tracey picks it up and reads, "The Sphinx at Gizeh...." * * * * [Stuttgart, Germany. August 2, 2024.] The vogue-ghouls scream, but there's nowhere to run. The paranormal gang members wear tight-fitting leather and latex, often painted to resemble the color schemes of famous twentieth-century villains like Devastator or present-day ones like the Conclave of Super-Villains...which does not endear them to the EUROPA agents crashing through every door and window in the industrial loft. Ymir chills them a few extra degrees when he freezes them; Rasputin makes his illusions just a little more malicious so they'll beg for mercy. Hotspur simply swings through the windows, kicking two vogue-ghouls in their chests. "T'think que yaz Geisten 'sider yeselves rebels," he shouts, in thick Eurolac. Hotspur remembers that it was a fight with vogue-ghouls that got him suspended from EUROPA, but he reins it in this time, only heating their guns and blades until they're hot enough to sting. As the ghouls drop their weapons, Harry Keane lets his fists do the rest. "Yaz nicht rebellin' 'genst fuck-all," he says, and he decks them. After the brief and lopsided fight is over, the magnetic ghost of Saori Taya, Oni, drifts through the walls to approach Claire Auger, the EUROPAn known as Arc. "No sign of the Princess," Oni says, "but I think you'll want to take a look at this." Arc jogs through the decaying hallways, trying to keep pace with Oni; sometimes Saori forgets that not everyone can phase like her. Oni leads Arc into a large, trash-strewn room, where she stops short at the sight of Rebus. The holographic image bows politely and then winks out as the projector's battery dies. In front of the holographic projector, surrounded by trash, Rebus has left a small chessboard. The black side is represented by fourteen pieces; the white side has thirty-two, but they are all pawns. Then she sees the piece of parchment lying in the debris next to the chessboard. Claire Auger picks it up and reads, "The Sphinx in Thebes... Massachusetts...?" * * * * "There was a woman in a steel-built city who had all that money could buy, she had gold and dividends and trains and houses, and she had pets to play with, but she had no sphinx." --"The Sphinx in Thebes (Massachusetts)" [Monte Carlo, Monaco. August 5, 2024.] At sunset, the promenade was filled with tourists, sightseers, sunbathers going to and from the beaches, gamblers taking quick and desperate breaks from the casinos. So many couples lined the embankment that nobody paid any attention to two more strolling arm in arm, the women wearing stylish Silvestri summer dresses, the men fashionable white suits. It looked for all the world like a normal double date. But this date was made possible only by the mutual interests of STRAFE and EUROPA. Still, Jen knew Teller was secretly thrilled to be working with Claire again, even if he tried not to show it. And she supposed this romantic stroll could almost be considered quality time with Dan...if only it didn't involve Rebus.... "The poems come from Lord Dunsany," Dan explained. "So do the chess puzzles, oddly enough; we found the 32-Mover while you got Dunsany's Game." "Do you think he's planning something involving this Dunsany?" Claire asked, in excellent, lightly accented English. "Doubtful," Dan said. "Dunsany was just a writer...although the Lovecraft influence doesn't bode well...." He shook his head to clear that thought. "I suspect Rebus chose the poems and chess problems for some confluence of content. We need to work on interpreting them." Claire nodded in agreement. "I'd already considered that. I think the woman in my poem..." she had no doubt it was left for her, "could represent Princess Ursula. Wealthy, demanding, and in grave danger." Dan frowned grimly at the analysis. He didn't mention that there was another, darker interpretation of the poem...that the woman might not signify Ursula but Claire herself, trying to decode the Sphinx's riddles and paying the ultimate price for it. "You were looking for the Princess of Monaco in Stuttgart?" he asked, changing the subject. "That's right. Ursula's been missing since March...not entirely unusual, she's apparently prone to impromptu trips on her daddy's credit line. But this time there haven't been any bills...and when Interpol checked out the princess's Alpine lodge, they found this." Claire passed Dan a glossy photograph: a tiny pearl, painted pink and placed on a neatly folded pair of Gaussner ski gloves. "The Laughing Oyster," Teller commented, with sudden interest. He knew he was no good at figuring out Rebus's mind games; in fact, some tiny part of him was a little worried that Dan and Claire were bonding over it, even if Dan was no longer the No. 1 Eligible Paranorm. But the Laughing Oyster had captured everyone's attention with daring heists pulled all over the Eurasian Union, heists that might have been termed "impossible," had the Oyster not succeeded at them so spectacularly. "I thought he'd been quiet these past couple months." Claire shrugged her shoulders. "It is possible he's sitting on this latest caper...as the crown princess, Ursula is worth more than all his previous thefts put together." Then Claire pulled her lower lip into a pouty frown which Jay found incredibly fetching. "But there haven't been any ransom demands. We can't figure out how he's making any money on this one. And now Rebus enters the picture...perhaps he's stolen the princess from the Oyster..." Dan shook his head brusquely. "There's a simpler explanation," he observed, "and in some ways a worse one. The Oyster's crimes ended three weeks before the Conclave of Super-Villains raided our super-prison, the Cavity, with a new membership. They had to have a very skilled thief on hand to crack that facility. Additionally, reports from ASH indicate that the Laughing Oyster was involved in the Montreal incident last week." Jen jumped in. "So if we want to find Princess Ursula..." Dan finished her thought. "We find the Conclave. Or more accurately, we find whatever it is they're *stealing*. And I have a theory about that as well..." "The missing chesspieces?" Claire asked. Teller alone looked confused, so Claire explained. "I compared Rebus's chess problems, and in both of them he's taken out all the bishops." Dan nodded, allowing only a faint smile to curl the corners of his mouth...which Teller knew to be a sure sign of praise. "That's right. My question to you is, do you have any idea what the missing bishops could mean? What kind of theft it's supposed to signify?" Claire hesitated...prompting Teller to blurt, "Oh brother, it's EUROPA business, isn't it? C'mon, Claire, what do you know?" She glared at him, then looked up and down the promenade to make sure they weren't being observed. Then she reached inside her purse and activated a small white noise generator. Then she tilted her wide-brimmed hat forward so her lips couldn't be read by satellite imaging. "Jay, If you tell *anyone* that I told you this, I will hunt you down and kill you in the most sexually humiliating way possible. Preferably involving ferrets. Rebus used to be part of the original Conclave, the group of anchors, where he went by the name Sphinx. Among that group's leaders were his father, Devlin Marx and...Pius XIII. The Pope." "The POPE?" Teller shouted. Or rather, he tried to...he got to "The P--" and Dan Tracey's hand clamped over his mouth. "Quiet, Jay," Dan commanded. "Claire, are you sure?" "Positive," she said. "We never had the chance to investigate, because Pius died soon after...and I understand Rebus had some indirect involvement in *that*...but I've done some digging and I found that Cardinal Stagliano was a protege of Pius's. A very *close* protege. And a member of the Conclave." "So the current Pope, the Bishop of Rome, is also connected to Rebus," Dan mused. "And where did Triton and his Conclavers visit less than a month ago...?" Teller pulled Dan's hand away and said, "The same place we're going next...." * * * * "Time dallies like a fool at her feet when he should be smiting cities. [...] There are temples all about her that he has forgotten to spoil." --"The Sphinx at Gizeh" [The Vatican. August 7, 2024.] The cavernous marble hallway held centuries of religious icons and artistic treasures, but the six agents remained focused on the backs of the two Swiss Guards who were leading them to meet the Vatican's new chief of security. The STRAFE team wore their militaristic black dress uniforms; Claire wore the more sedate and friendly blue of EUROPA. The rest of her team was still chasing after Princess Ursula, but Claire was now convinced the Laughing Oyster was in fact a red herring. She'd come to Rome because she wanted to make sure at least one EUROPA agent was present for the real action. The guards showed them into a large, well-furnished private office where they met Castor Ierulli-Kiris, Vatican Chief of Security, formerly of EUROPA. And when Claire saw the pained look on his face, she knew her uniform... indeed, her very presence...had been a terrible mistake. Without missing a beat, she said, "It's good to see you, Cas," but the young man didn't answer. Instead he rose and leaned across his large desk to shake Dan's hand. "The name is Aegis now. Captain Tracey, I never had the chance to thank you for your touching words at my brother's funeral." "I wish I could have said more. Your brother was a brave man. Aegis, I think we all know each other well enough to be direct. We have reason to believe that the Vatican is either being targeted or has already been robbed by both Rebus and the Conclave of Super-Villains." Aegis leaned back in his overstuffed armchair, idly toying with some of the many insignia on his overdecorated black-and-yellow uniform. "Yes, I've read your report. I'm happy to inform you that the Vatican has not been robbed, but if those swine should come we'll be ready for them. We appreciate your warning." Claire was slightly shaken by Aegis's blase demeanor. "Nevertheless, we'd like to know if you have any idea what they might want to steal. It's our best hope of capturing them..." "We prize our privacy here, Ms. Auger. We also have some of the finest security on the planet. Let us handle our own matters. And if that will be all, then good day." He buzzed for the Swiss Guards to reopen the doors. "You can't just brush us off like that!" Jay blurted. "I'm chief of security of a sovereign state, Mr. Teller," Aegis said, coldly. I can do pretty much whatever I please." "But dammit, we need your help! These pigs murdered your own *brother*!" "I am AWARE of that, Mr. Teller!" Aegis's face turned bright read as he leaped out of his chair. "I am aware of a great *many* things..." he looked, with contempt, from Teller to Claire, Claire to Teller.... "Get out of my office at once. Get out of the Vatican." The six agents barely spoke as the Swiss Guard escorted them out of the building. Teller shuffled his feet, unable to look at Claire. He knew she didn't blame him for what happened with Aegis, but it was awkward just the same. Once they were back in the streets of Rome, he sighed and said, "Well, that was a bust." "On the contrary," Dan said, "it couldn't have gone more perfectly." And as they watched, he reached down and peeled the top layer of skin off his right hand. * * * * "If she ever finds his secret we will put out his eyes, so that he shall find no more our beautiful things -- there are lovely gates in Florence that I fear he will carry away." --"The Sphinx at Gizeh" [The Vatican. August 8, 2024.] It was a vault in the truest sense of the word. A very long, very high chamber formed by the extension and intersection of row after row of worn Gothic arches, cut long ago from the rock at the foundation of the Vatican. This vault had held banned books and heretical screeds of every kind: the pagan atrocities of the ancients, the condemned treatises of Galileo and Bruno...even, some had rumored, the forbidden Sixth Clastic of Simon Filius himself. The Vatican's current rulers had improved considerably on the vault's secrecy by adding a vault of a different sort...a thick metal cube set into one wall and protected by a heavy steel door. The door was in turn protected by closed-circuit video cameras, motion detectors, laser tripwires, and eight of the most advanced guards on this or any other planet. None of the security measures detected the tiny, girlish face which poked out of the vaulted ceiling, scanned the room, and receded back into the rock. Lana Smith rose a dozen or so feet before she found open space; she had to partially solidify her vocal cords if she wanted to talk. Lana poked her head up in an unused vestry and spoke into her headset mike. "I found our room," she whispered. "It's filled with goons, though...weird glowing guys who look about as solid as me." "Your headset camera caught it all," Dan Tracey answered. He was in the security operations center, stepping briskly over the bodies of watchmen who'd been chloroformed into a dreamless sleep. "And I'd love to know how the Vatican got hold of Scytharian Titan-Killer units, but that's a question for another day. Take your team and go in." He typed several commands into the security console, setting the vault cameras to record the last five minutes on an infinite loop. "The guards won't be a problem." "I still can't believe we're doing this," Claire said, looking very uncomfortable. "Breaking into the Vatican. I'm damned to Hell forever." "If it's any consolation," Dan said, "I can think of a couple of Popes who'll be waiting for you." In the vestry, Jay Teller and Jen Kleinvogel stepped out of the shadows and grabbed Lana's wispy hands. Closing her eyes, Lana ghosted and pulled them down into the rock with her. A few months ago, she thought, she never would have tried to ghost this much mass for this long...she'd worry too much about losing it and solidifying and getting stuck here forever, caught in a stone scream...but that, she reminded herself, was the old Lana. She reemerged through the vault's sharply-peaked roof, tugging Jen and Teller after her. Normally she would have sunk quickly through the open air, but Jen activated her antigravity sheath, leaving them bobbing around the ceiling like three languid balloons. Teller glanced at his watch. When it clicked over to 17:00:00, he whispered, "Okay." Lana let go of them and rose back into the ceiling while Teller and Jen adjusted the lenses on their bulky Spectra Goggles. Soon they could see the laser tripwires, glowing vermillion with infrared light. Jen slowly drifted down, negotiating the maze of light without touching or interrupting any of the beams. Teller rode down on her back. While Jen sank through the three-dimensional labyrinth of light, Teller drew a bead on a numerical keypad at the far end of the vault. With a plastic popgun. Dan fed him a sequence of numbers over the headset; when he had them all, Teller tugged for Jen to hold level. He squeezed the trigger four times, sending four plastic balls hurtling silently across the vault. They struck the keys, opening the outer door and deactivating the vault's internal security. Except for the Scytharian guards, who saw the volley of toy projectiles and zeroed in on the source...the two intruders hovering outside the high-security storage unit. Their photonic computer brains sent alerts to the security center...not knowing no one there was conscious to hear them... while their energy bodies charged up, preparing to fry the invaders. Then Dan Tracey, Tony Drake, and Claire Auger ran breathlessly into the room. Tony jumped through first, taking a Scytharian laser beam squarely in the chest...and giving Dan time to lunge for the nearby security console. Dan pulled off his glove in mid-flight, exposing his right hand, which he then slammed onto a large glass plate. The console scanned his handprint. IERULLI-KIRIS, CASTOR. The robots paused, unsure whether to shoot the intruder or acknowledge their master. Dan typed a hurried command, in flawless Latin, and the guards snapped their arms to their sides, awaiting orders. "Another victory for the Tesla Branch," Dan said, peeling the fake skin off his hand. Its predecessor had recorded every millimeter of Aegis's chilly handshake; this one had duplicated his prints perfectly. Dan had sent Lana to scout the Vatican well before their meeting, and had known exactly which security measures he'd have to defeat. "You all right, Tony?" "Fine," Tony said. The blast had torn a perfect circular hole in his uniform, but hadn't damaged his skin. Tony never even got sunburns. "We're at just over eighteen minutes." Dan typed in another set of commands and activated more of Aegis's overrides. The inner vault door rumbled open. "Right," Dan said. "Let's take a look at this treasure." Teller stepped inside and saw that Lana was already there, as planned, only she was shaking her head with disappointment. The vault held nothing more than an airtight glass case, which held a velvet cushion, which supported a small pink pearl painted with a tiny, mocking smile. "Looks like Kilroy Was Here, chief," Teller said. "We've got nothing." "They'll have records." Dan's fingers became a flurry of motion as he typed commands into the security console. "The Book of Thoth...?" He quickly shoved in an optical disk and began downloading. The rest of his team was pacing around the vault, either admiring the architecture or trying to glean some infinitesimal clue from the violated case. After a few moments, however, Jen perked up and marched slowly but purposefully to Dan's side. "There were eight Scytharian units in here, right?" she whispered. Dan's voice turned. "Yes..." "Well, there are only seven now." Dan looked up. She was right. He calmly lowered his goggles and began scanning through the spectra. Jen did the same. They saw Teller, Tony, and Claire kneeling around the pedestal, while Lana gazed at the old wall paintings. They saw them as shining purple ghosts, basking in ambient ultraviolet radiation. They saw them as pulsing red heat images...which were joined by a fifth blob, running rapidly towards Dan and Jen. Before either one could react...even Dan...something batted the sides of their heads. Both STRAFE agents collapsed under an electrical jolt, their Spectra Goggles reduced to static. "Intruder!" Dan gasped. "Goggles on!" "Well this is ironic," Teller muttered. He dropped his goggles into place, fiddled around for infrared...and was felled as a loose stone hurtled into his face. Tony was stunned as his goggles were yanked off his head and then twisted around his neck, pulling him to the ground. Lana's instinctual ghosting proved counterproductive, as she felt something dive *through* her. Claire didn't waste any time trying to spot the intruder. She simply ran for the far end of the vault, which lay at the end of the ghost's path of destruction. Claire had a little stored momentum, which she used as super- speed. But she reached out with her mind's eye and found another source of energy, a lithe humanoid figure moving at top speed for the far wall and its small ventilation shaft...Claire expelled her energy in a burst of strength, leaping across the vault and tackling the ghost. Their impact with the cold stone floor only made Claire stronger. It also dislodged the ghost's holographic generator, revealing a svelte young woman wearing a black CSV uniform with a white chest emblem, shaped like a crown. "I'm tired of these games." Claire pulled off the thief's facemask... and discovered she was pinning herself. The stunned expression on the thief's face must have matched her own; the woman had a second, smaller holo-generator mounted somewhere around her neck and attached to a miniature camera. "Let me guess," Claire said, not appreciating the joke. "The Laughing Oyster. Peregryn was right about your gender." "It's Tiara now, actually." She nodded down at her emblem. "So you were piggybacking on our own break-in?" Dan asked. Tiara noticed Dan, and smiled coquettishly at him with Arc's stolen face. Neither Teller, Claire, nor Jen were particularly happy about that. "Well, yes and no. I was in here several minutes before you were. You might have made a lovely diversion for my escape, though." She examined his form- fitting outfit. "And I do mean lovely." Dan ignored the comment and inspected her holo-generator. Fiddling with the settings, he pressed a button...and briefly looked like a Scytharian Titan-Killer. "Nice trick," he said. "But what's the point of breaking into a place you've already robbed?" "That's my question as well." All seven heads spun around...with Tiara lifting hers as best she could...to see Aegis entering the vault with several humans in bulky armor. Their gold and black colors and chevrons marked them as Helvetians, elite members of the Swiss Guard; and they were pointing their weapons at everybody. "I see we've captured a member of the esteemed Conclave of Super- Villains," Aegis observed, "and some even more politically useful prizes." He stared spitefully at Claire. "I should warn you," Tiara announced, barely able to contain her glee, "I have diplomatic immunity. And you'll find that the Vatican honors it." "That gift from Chancellor Radner," Aegis replied, "will only help you *outside* this vault." He planted his right hand on the security console, activating the Scytharians. Only five of the Titan-Killers blinked into attack formation; two units, whose metallic components were particularly battle-scarred, remained inert. "You are all under arrest," Aegis announced, "and your interrogation begins here. Titan-Killers, begin recording." Dan pointed to Aegis and the Helvetians. "Titan-Killers, detain the intruders." His voice was an almost-perfect match for Aegis's. The Scytharians, now obeying two men identified as Castor Ierulli-Kiris, blinked and quivered under the conflicting orders. "I don't have time for this nonsense." Aegis scowled, and the six enemy paranorms went wild: Claire rocketed off Tiara with an excess of speed energy, Lana began fading into near-invisibility, Jen Kleinvogel shot around the room like an erratic comet, unable to control her direction or speed. Aegis was unleashing one of the most devastating paranormal powers on record, pushing the other paranorms towards burnout. And duplicating their powers. The only other beneficiary was Tiara, who, unfazed by the attack, rolled to her feet and grabbed her holo-generator from Dan Tracey's quivering hands. Her body disappeared behind a screen of empty space. Dan Tracey forced his muscles to stop spasming, and took one step away from Tiara. "Helvetians, switch to auto-targeting!" Aegis screamed. "*Shoot her*!" But even though the Helvetians could see her heat signature, shooting Tiara proved to be another matter entirely. The bulky armor suits didn't move well through the narrow vault, and every time they could draw a shot, they were interrupted by a wildly careening paranormal. Tiara ducked and wove between the stone columns, using them to block several bursts from the Helvetians' energy-cannons. Above them, the vault ceiling shuddered. Dan Tracey took another step forward. And another. Aegis tried to pinpoint Tiara's holographic distortion with Jason Teller's keen vision, but he'd somehow lost her. His Helvetians were still spraying the room wildly, hitting more columns with each second. Then Aegis switched to the ratiocinative powers of Daniel Tracey, and noticed there were now seven flailing STRAFE agents...one of whom was rolling into an air vent. "She's switched images, shoot her!" But he didn't have time to point out which one, as Dan Tracey stepped forward and punched him solidly in the face. Aegis dropped, and the overwhelming flood of sensory information that had comprised Dan's burnout, eating away at the edges of his self-control, finally ceased. "Let's get out of here!" Dan screamed. "Titan-Killers, execute program alpha!" The Scytharians, responding to the subroutine Dan had uploaded into the security console, instantly grappled with the Helvetians. Dan pulled Jen and the other dazed agents to their feet and led them to the far end of the vault. "After her, after her!" Claire converted her kinetic energy into strength and smashed open the far wall, exposing an ancient air shaft. The ceiling trembled again, sending chunks of masonry tumbling to the ground. Behind them, power-armored guards wrestled with shimmering photonic killers, spraying stray shots everywhere. "Come on, come on!" Dan herded his agents into the air shaft, then dove through after them. He could see Aegis ducking out the door at the opposite end of the vault. Then the final columns snapped, and the entire ceiling collapsed. * * * * "We will kiss thy painted face, O Sphinx, if thou wilt betray to us Time." --"The Sphinx at Gizeh" They emerged, coughing and covered in dust, from a metal grate in the floor of one of the collonnades which ran from St. Peter's Basilica down to Bernini's colossal, elliptical Piazza San Pietro. While the other agents pushed back a crowd of startled tourists and strictly ornamental Swiss Guards, Dan reached down and pulled up Lana. The tiny girl was exhausted after ghosting the agents through multiple walls and floors. "Captain," Tony said, carefully avoiding Dan's real name, "we're nowhere near our getaway." "No," Teller shouted, "but we're near *hers*!" He pointed between the columns to a sleek black Ferrari accelerating straight down the middle of the piazza, scattering tour groups and pigeons everywhere. The car weaved around the center of the piazza, which held...and here Dan knew they were all victims of some monstrous cosmic game...an ancient Egyptian obelisk. The STRAFE agents ran across the piazza, trying to catch up to the Ferrari. The Ferrari wound through the crowded ellipse, swerving to avoid any barricades or pedestrians. Jen took to the air and tailed the car, setting off every flash bulb in the piazza; the other agents vaulted over the plaza barricades just as the Ferrari reached the Via della Conciliazone and darted in the direction of the river Tiber. A _Carabinieri_ squad car ground to a halt in front of the STRAFE agents; its high-pitched and melodic siren momentarily amused everyone except Claire, who wrenched the doors open and began pulling out policemen. The agents hopped inside, and the squat orange-and-white police car groaned after the Ferrari. Following the hovering black dot of Jen's antigravity sheath, Dan effortlessly weaved the car around overloaded city buses and friars who stumbled into traffic. "I don't mean to distract you," Tony said from the back seat, "but we've got company." A half-dozen black sedans pulled out of the internal roadways of the Vatican and surged after the police car. "Of course," Teller said. "Because STRAFE never does *anything* with one bullet when one hundred will do." Grumbling, he rolled down the window and drew his guns. "No civilian casualties," Dan cautioned him. "I got it, I got it." He leaned out the window and sized up his shots; taking out the cars would be easy, but on streets this crowded, they'd almost certainly hit someone before they stopped.... "Where's a conveniently- overturnable fruit stand when you need one?" he groused. "Coming right up," Dan said, through clenched teeth. He wrenched the wheel hard to the right, pulling them off their pursuit of the Ferrari and down a side street barely wider than the car. Half the Helvetian sedans took the bait and followed them. As Dan tilted the car on two wheels to squeeze past a parked delivery truck, Teller saw his chance. He sat in the open window, leaned across the roof of the tilting car, and opened fire straight down into the street. The bullets ricocheted off the cobbled pavement, bouncing back up into his best estimate of the truck's fuel tank...and as they passed it the truck exploded, falling on its side and blocking the Helvetians in the narrow alley. Burning fruit rolled out in every direction. Dan spun the car through a tiny, heavily crowded piazza...centered with another obelisk...and blasted his musical siren for all it was worth. They rocketed down an avenue of astonished nuns, then pulled up alongside the Tiber, just before the Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II crossed it. Dan fell in behind the three other Helvetian cars on the broad embankment; now Teller had room to work his magic. "Yee-HAH!" he shouted as Dan drove between two of the cars, giving him a prime opportunity to cause some blowouts. He hollered again as he took out the engines of the cars and watched them recede into the background. And then he kept on screaming, even though there were no cars left to shoot, because suddenly he was seeing everything in too much detail, he was seeing the lines of angle and force that connected everything, he was seeing the feverish edge of burnout...Aegis bobbed up from behind the star-shaped Castel Sant' Angelo, soaring on borrowed power. Combining Jen's speed with Claire's kinetic energy battery, he easily caught up to Jen and tackled her in midair. The black Ferrari rolled smoothly underneath them. "Jen!" Dan shouted. "Damn." He stopped the car; the agents, except for the delirious Teller, all hopped out. As if in response, the Ferrari skidded to a halt on the center of the bridge and Tiara hopped out as well. Aegis floated above them, holding Jen in a brutal hammerlock with Claire's strength. "Surrender, all of you!" he screamed. Claire looked at Teller's quivering body. "I don't think so." She grabbed Lana and hurled her straight at Aegis. Lana grabbed Jen, and then both ghosted through Aegis's grip. Dan, Claire, and Tony stayed close to the car, each warily adopting a fighting stance. "Whatever we do," Claire whispered, "we've got to keep him from taking Tony's invulnerability." "No," Dan said, "we'll *make* him take it." He grabbed Teller's guns, aimed them at Aegis, and prepared to fire. As anticipated, Aegis dropped Arc's strength and poured all his concentration into duplicating Tony's invulnerability; he wasn't personally familiar with Lana's powers and so didn't take the more expedient route of letting the bullets pass through him. But Dan never fired those bullets. He held back as Tony ran across the roof of the _Carabinieri_ car and sailed into the air. Fighting to keep his perceptions straight, resisting the rush of burnout, Tony twisted into a kick and drove his feet square into Aegis's solar plexus. Tony felt the unyielding tension of a steel-hard chest shudder up his shins; his own power had protected Aegis from the damage. But not the pain. Aegis, expecting complete invulnerability, was completely unprepared for the pain that exploded through his torso. He and Tony tumbled to the ground as one, and when Tony landed on him, he wasn't protected by anybody's power. Aegis passed out. Tony, still fevered from the near-burnout, collapsed on top of him. Then all heads turned to Tiara, who was poised delicately on the side of the bridge. She saluted them...and waved to Dan...and fell gracefully off the side. The agents ran to the edge of the bridge. Tiara had fallen onto a speedboat, unmanned, which was taking a preprogrammed route down the Tiber. As the agents watched, two hydrofoils extended from the hull and the boat began planing away downstream. "I'll see you later, _caro mio_!" she called to Dan. The STRAFE agents, and the one very worried EUROPAn, heard more sirens and ran back to their stolen police car, dragging Tony inside. "I guess this was a bust, too," Jen said. "Not exactly." Dan slammed the car into high gear and plunged into central Rome. "We got a name." The Book of Thoth, whatever that was. Dan was afraid he had some ideas. "And yet I fear that in his ultimate anguish he may take hold blindly of the world and the moon, and slowly pull down upon him the House of Man." --"The Sphinx at Gizeh" Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Eighteenth Baron Dunsany TO BE CONTINUED... =========================================================================== Next Issue: STRAFE's investigation of the Book of Thoth takes them to a local hero with a story to tell. Morgan Adams stars in "Black Capricorn Days." =========================================================================== Author's notes: For those interested in reading the complete text of the Dunsany poems, here's some links: The Sphinx at Thebes (Massachusetts) http://w1.2638.telia.com/~u263807840/Writers/Forfattere/Dunsany/sphinx_in.htm The Sphinx at Gizeh http://w1.2670.telia.com/~u263807840/Writers/Forfattere/Dunsany/sphinx.htm