DVANDOM _____ ______ _____ _______ THE SIG.FILES PART 3 [ ]__ [ ] [] [ ]__)) [ ] ` [ ]__ #68 - "Falling Out" [ ] [ ] [] [ ] \\ [ ] [ ] copyright 1996 Dave Van Domelen [_] [_]__[] [_] \\ [_]___/ [_]____ -------]==+ <*> +==[------- [cover shows Kat from above, falling from a great height over suburbia. She seems to be unconscious.] "Coming into control range of O'Warez airport," Squidman said, more to break the uncomfortable silence than anything else. It wasn't like they had to get a clearance to land on a runway or anything. Lynk hadn't said much of anything the entire way back, and she was the only one who hadn't found somewhere else in the craft to be. "Hm," she replied, obviously lost in thought. Now, Squidman may not be a leading expert in behavioral analysis, but he didn't have to be one to tell something was bothering Lynk. Having been the subject of one of her "bothered" moods a while back, he knew it wasn't going to be something trivial. "Anna, you've been staring into space all the way back from Andale Atoll. I'd ask if there's something you're not telling us, but I KNOW there's something you're not telling us. What is it?" She looked down and pretended to study the control panel in front of her. "Nothing I really want to talk about without being sure," she finally said. "Does it have to do with the Warlord?" She shook her head. "Oh, no...nothing to do with our present case. More of a personal thing. With Kat. She's been acting oddly lately, and I think there's more to it than just 'Kat being Kat.'" "But...you don't want to get more specific than that?" "I'd rather not. I mean, if I'm wrong it'd be...well, let's just say it's not something I'd want to act on without being sure." Squidman knew he didn't like the sound of that. Kat was certainly far from being a paragon of virtue, life as a mercenary and spy tends to beat those tendencies out of you. On the other hand, Anna tended to be quick to judge and harsh in her judgments, as he well knew, so it may not have been anything serious. Before he could take the conversation any further, the ship lurched to one side, alarms going off in the cabin. "Hull breach!" Squidman shouted, wrestling with the controls. "If I'm reading this right, it came from inside the ship!" Lynk yelled back, clinging to her seat with all her might. Sidewinder practically fell into the cabin. "What the heck just happened?" Then he almost fell back the other way as the ship came back under control. "Systems say Kat and Doug were in the room where the breach hit," Squidman said, pulling on his cowl. "Integrity field has compensated and sealed the breach, but sensors are down, we'll have to see if they're okay the old fashioned way. "Sidewinder, you take the controls, in case there's another hit." "Okay," Sidewinder grumbled, being left behind again as the action moved to another area. When Squidman and Lynk reached the room, they found Macroman standing, somewhat confused, before a large rent in the side of the ship. "What happened?" Squidman asked. "I'm...not sure. Kat and I were talking, I guess I turned my back for a moment, and the next thing I know I'm having to hold on for dear life to avoid being sucked out the hole," he replied, managing to avoid making direct eye contact with either of his teammates. "What were you talking about?" Lynk asked, perhaps a little more urgently than Squidman felt the question merited. "I'd rather not say," Macroman demurred, turning to look out the hole at Sig.agoland below. "It was...personal." "Fine," Squidman replied, starting to manually bring some of the room's systems back online. "What do you mean?" Lynk demanded. "This could be..." "I SAID 'Fine.' What part of that don't you understand? We've got a possible crisis back at the HQ that needs attending, remember? Kat had a reason to leave, and I don't think I want to go poking too deeply into this issue until we've dealt with the immediate crisis. Okay?" Squidman asked pointedly. "*Fine,*" Lynk sighed, turning to stalk back to the control cabin. Squidman put a hand on Macroman's shoulder. "We'll talk about this later, okay Doug?" "I...okay." -------]==+ <*> +==[------- If you were to ask 100 people where they would least likely want to wake up, and specified that they couldn't pick "In bed with [insert name here]," it's a fair bet that a good number of them would pick "At 4000 feet without a parachute and falling fast." Of course, this is exactly where Kat found herself cycling back into awareness. To be more specific, 4000-some feet over the southern suburbs of Sig.ago. Fortunately for her, not to mention for whoever lived 4000-some feet straight down, lack of a parachute didn't really bother Kat. After all, when you can control your own shape to the extent of being able to mimic a carpet, falling great distances is not inherently hazardous. While she wasn't currently able to become fully flat thanks to the mysterious lump in her abdomen, she was able to form a reasonably sound airfoil shape and turned her fall into a rapid glide. Sensors now fully on line, she picked up the Slipstream a few thousand feet up and heading away. Decision gate time. A) Signal them to come pick her up, and warn them that somehow Macroman had developed a second, very hostile, personality. Oh, and by the way, tell them she may have caused this personality to develop while she was mind-raping him over the past few weeks. B) Run away and find someone else to hang out with that could keep her now-former teammates from wreaking some sort of vengeance on her for her actions. It should be counted in Kat's favor that she actually spent a second or two pondering this choice before picking B. Turning as camoflaged as she could, she turned and headed west, away from the rest of Dvandom Force. -------]==+ <*> +==[------- "It doesn't LOOK like anything's wrong from here," Sidewinder noted, pointing out the canopy at the Dvandom Force HQ building. "Wait, there's one or two broken windows over on the East face there...." "Ground to Slipstream, am I getting through?" Stan's voice crackled over the radio. "Barely, Stan," Squidman replied. "Sounds like you're using a handset or something. We should be touching down in a few seconds, and..." Stan cut him off. "No! Do NOT land on the roof! The entire building is unstable, even getting too close could collapse it!" Sidewinder eeped and pulled back on the stick, veering the craft away from the building. Fortunately, the Slipstream used gravitic technology, so there wasn't a strong backwash to knock the building over. "What happened in there?" Squidman demanded. There was an embarrassed pause. "Rabbits. Techno-organic eight- legged rabbits." "Bwah?" "I think you'd better land first, we can talk about this better on the ground. The helipad on the Illi.net Bell building next door's been cleared for you," Stan sighed. It had apparently been a loooong day for him. "Who the hell(TM) would send cybernetic rabbits after us?" Lynk asked. -------]==+ <*> +==[------- A techno-organic rabbit, this one with the proper number of limbs, gnawed contentedly at a piece of chobham armor plating. A metallic hand reached out and stroked its wiry fur gently. "Aw, lookit the bunny, George!" said the owner of the hand just before he released an energy pulse that destroyed the creature. "HAHAHA! I guess I bounced it too hard!" "If I were optimistic, 'Lenny,' I'd think you actually read the original Steinbeck," said an even-toned voice from nearby. "But I'm not an optimist." "No one ever *said* you were an eye doctor," the first replied. After a few seconds of icy silence, he added, "That *was* a joke, Darkheart." "Was it?" the cyborg replied with the faintest hint of amusement in his voice. "Anyway, if you're quite done tormenting the test subjects, give me a status report on your little project." An uninformed listener might expect Steelwind to bristle at his partner's casual assumption of command in the absence of their former leader, DeFacto V. But while much about the pair had changed in the past few months, their deep link of friendship had not. Nor had the man formerly known as "Joe" lost sight of his own greatest flaw: he could not lead his way out of a room with one door. And while Darkheart wasn't the most creative or insightful of leaders, he did a damnsight better job of it than Steelwind could. "Well, I was right about one thing...the 'bugs' made a great terror weapon. Rapid reproduction and ability to assimilate raw materials into their structure allowed them to reduce the Dvandom Force's building's structural integrity to about, oh...42% of original levels before they were detected. In fact, they outperformed my expectations, apparently picking up a sort of groupmind intelligence in large numbers that compensated for the utter mindlessness of the individual subjects." "This would agree with my observations that a certain critical mass of nanomachines is necessary for full mental augmentation," Darkheart noted. "Although I admit I am surprised that this critical mass could be built up via multiple independent bodies." "Anyway, the upshot is, while they did get destroyed, they also pretty much ate the heroes out of house and home in the process. AND," he held up a finger, "the nanomachines did not uncontrollably infect other hosts, but stayed within the form we chose...more or less." "Indeed. We may be ready for tests on higher life forms within a few days. And if the utopia we were cast out of cannot be brought about by a single all-powerful being, then perhaps an army of lesser beings can accomplish the task...." -------]==+ <*> +==[------- Stan was just getting out of the elevator on the roof as the rest of Dvandom Force disembarked from the Slipstream. All but one, anyway. "Where's Kat?" Stan asked, holding up a plastic box with some pieces of...something...in it. "I need to ask her about this." Lynk shot a look at Macroman, but Squidman held up his hand in a "cool it," gesture and said, "She's gone missing. We'll deal with it as soon as we get the immediate situation under control. What's in the box?" Stan shook the box slightly, causing the fragments of technogarbage to rattle around. "Pieces of roborabbit. They look a little like what I saw of DeFacto's humanoid body, and I hoped Kat might be able to confirm or deny." Squidman pondered this for a moment. Could Kat's disappearance be linked to this? He hoped Doug would be willing to talk about it soon. As it was, things were falling apart way too quickly for his comfort. "Okay, maybe we can run this past Doc Stomper, he's done a few analyses of Kat he could compare this to. What about the building? Is it salvageable?" Stan shook his head. "It's not even stable enough to risk going in and salvaging personal effects. These blasted critters didn't show their faces until after they'd pretty much eaten most of the major structural supports. It's only happy thoughts and some antigrav generators from LURGI that are keeping it up now." "LURGI?" Sidewinder asked. One musical sting later, a tall gaunt figure was on the roof with them. "Looniversal Urgent Relief Generation Institute, at your service," said the elderly man. "Major Nick Bloodnock and his howling penguins, here to save the day." To emphasize the point, a few penguins in the background howled. Well, they tried to, anyway. It sounded more like agonized squawking, really. Lynk bapped Sidewinder on the shoulder. "That's what you get for asking." "How much longer will the antigravs hold out?" Squidman asked. Bloodnock turned to one of the penguins who wore the blue and gold of technical support. It chittered at him, but he couldn't understand a word it said, so he grabbed the penguin's charts and looked at them himself. "Ah, well, the LURGIs [Lift Units: Reverse Gravity Impellors - Ed, and yes this is a running joke] have a power supply of fninteen minutes, of which squodge have passed, so you have plingety-two left." Everyone just STARED at him. Squidman was the first to recover from this. "Okay, Lynk, do you think you could project the entire building into some other dimension where we could keep it safely? I'd rather not just drop the thing and lose all of the material inside." "Whoa, whoa. I've never even *tried* anything too much bigger than human yet," she said, backing away. "Even just the four floors we lived on would be a big stretch." "At the risk of sounding a bit cynical, but how do we know we even HAVE anything worth salvaging?" Sidewinder asked. "I mean, aside from a crummy ASCII picture thirty-one issues ago, the Writer hasn't really done much of a job describing the place. The only one whose room has gotten any real attention is Kat, and the main point of that was to indicate there wasn't really anything in it. Most of our equipment was probably eaten by the bunnies, or we have it here in the Slipstream." "He has a point, you know," Stan added. "It's not like we have LIVES to any extent that we'd have built up a lot of personal effects. And the other stuff can be replaced by the insurance." Macroman did a doubletake. "We're insured against robobunnies?" "And the agent thought I was insane!" Stan cackled, then ahem'ed and regained his composure. "Oooookay," Macroman replied. "Anyway, I *do* have a few personal effects back there, mostly some pictures and Alan's old burnt-out wristcomps. I'll do a quick fly-in for them and then we can let the place drop," he said, heading into the Slipstream to pick up one of the spare sets of Robo Warrior harnesses. "Hey, guys, there's an insurance adjuster downstairs having a nervous breakdown," Kid Pocky said as he popped out of the stairway. -------]==+ <*> +==[------- Rule number one of surviving as a free agent is, "If you torque off someone, go to work for their rivals or enemies." The reasoning behind this is pretty simple, really. Rivals will take you in because it's an easy way to irritate the people you're running from. Enemies will take you in because they think you'll be loyal to them and fight the people you're running from. Additionally, you can always betray your new faction from within to try to get back in the good graces of your original allies. Of course, where this broke down for Kat was that even considering the subfactions and inter-clique rivalries within the two main groups in her home reality, she'd pretty much honked them ALL off eventually. She'd managed to keep playing them off each other for a while after that, but flight was really her only option. Now she had a whole new set of factions to cozy up to. She was a little sad to have left Dvandom Force...she was actually starting to consider them as friends, despite her years of telling herself that friends were inevitably lethal. Not that she had no chance of getting back with them, of course, but for the moment it was safer to assume she would not be welcome back in the DFHQ. She looked out the window of the bus at the passing rows of houses, all pretty much the same, all in their own way the same kind of gilded cage that Chiplex had been for her. A sign drifted by. "The Kiwi.net Club Welcomes You To: PERTH, ILLI.NET." =========================================================================== Next Issue: Kat joins the court of the Warlord! Dvandom Force tries to find new housing (and boy, will they have a doozy of a security deposit!) while trying to figure out what happened to Kat and how all of the plot threads running around here fit together. Lynk's curiosity gets the better of her (if there's still space in the issue).... And now, a new backup feature that will run through issue 70... Tales of the Warlord Part 1 - The Styrene Man November 4, 1944 [Allied Command outside Londo.net] "Gentlemen, our spies bring troubling news," Field Marshall Thynne said gravely. "As you have all seen, the Net.zis have been bombarding Londo.net and the surrounding countryside with their fearsome Sig.Heil vengeance weapons. The v1.0, while inaccurate, has devastated acres of territory with BUAF and asterisks. The v2.0 promises to be even more terrifying if the Net.zis can make and launch it in quantity." "Och, n'we knaew it a'reedy," interjected General Angus McAngus. "Bu' whae NOO d'yae hav' t'tael oos?" Field Marshall Thynne waited for the drone of bagpipes to die back down, then put his hands on the table and said, "Sirs and otherwise, we have received reports that indicate the Sig.Heil v3.0 is nearing operational testing status. The v3.0 would blanket the entire WORLD in a signature file of unprecendented bandwidth and destructive power. Unless they are stopped, no one will win this war." "But that would be a catastrophe!" wailed Colonel Seagoon. "Why, without a winner, how will the betting houses know who to pay?" "Indeed," agreed Thynne. "And so, for the sake of our nation's gambling industry, it is of vital importance that we find someone who could make it past German lines, find the v3.0 and destroy it beyond all hope of rebuilding. The Net.zis are desperate, and may be willing to use this weapon rather than lose the war." "You mean, they bet on themselves? How unsporting!" Colonel Seagoon exclaimed. "I put all my money on Italy to place." "You'll starve," Thynne noted, before returning to the matter at hand. "Who, WHO I ask you, could accomplish this feat? All of the net.heroes and former P.U.L.P. agents we know of are otherwise committed." Mutters ran through the room. Finally, one man timidly said, "If this really is a signature file weapon, what about the Warlord?" "Nonsense!" Colonel Jampton replied. "He hasn't been heard from since the Great War, he must have died in it." "Don't count your corpses until they're buried," came a voice from the doorway. There, clad in shining silver chainmail and a helmet, stood an imposing figure. He slapped the twin Colt 1911's at his hips and said, "Gentlemen, rumors of my demise are, as the American author Twain liked to say, greatly exaggerated." -------]==+ <*> +==[------- Wearing a black sweater and pants over his chainmail, the Warlord had been parachuted behind German lines at night and stealthily made his way to the labs at Peenemun.de, where the Net.zis were still creating their most potent secret weapons. Security was tight, but he knew the ways to get past it by subtle use of the occult sig.powers he had learned in his trip to the far Orient. While not much use in a straight fight, they served him well in matters of stealth. He was not like his predecessors, all brash men of bold action and bolder appearance. He preferred the silent, unseen way and found it distasteful to have to parade about in shining armor like some king. But it was necessary if he was to maintain the illusion that there was only one, immortal Warlord over the centuries. Finally, he was inside the compound itself, having attached himself to a passing truck as its signature file. He knew he had to be careful from here on in...while the Net.zis had used technological means rather than mystical, they certainly had the knowledge to detect some of the uses of his powers. And, perhaps, counter them. The only things he could now count on were his agile mind and his automatic pistols. Turning a corner, he found the building he was looking for. The most heavily-guarded structure on the compound, it was invisible from the air thanks to camoflage netting and other precautions. Inside would be the Sig.Heil v3.0's only existing prototype. Net.zi High Command wouldn't allocate resources for more than one, for to pour too much into this project would be tantamount to admitting defeat...something they were not yet prepared to do. Warlord entered the building, finding it mostly empty. Apparently even Net.zi mad scientists needed to sleep. Thanks to his studies with the Unlagging Tulk.edu, he needed very little light to know what was around him, so left the switch unturned. Besides, turning on a light might tip his hand.... The lights flared on. "Zo, vat haff ve here?" sneered a man in a Gestapo uniform, standing by the light switch. "Allied spy, yes?" The Gestapo man wouldn't have made his move unless he had already alerted the base, Warlord reasoned, so no need to keep this quiet anymore. Warlord pulled out his twin pistols and they barked death at the black- clad Net.zi. Who looked forlornly at the holes in his uniform and tsked. "Now I vill haff to find a seamstress to repair zis." He extended his hand and his fingers stretched out with a squealing sound to wrap around Warlord's arms, pinning them to his sides. "I really must thank ze Amerikaner Doktor Amick-Tention for his vunderbar invention, ze Super-Molder Zerum. After our spy copied ze original notes, ve perfected ze process. Sadly, it only vorked on me...ze others died horribly. As vill you." Warlord struggled to no avail, the squealing of his foe's styrofoam flesh shattering his concentration and keeping him from calling on any of his more arcane abilities. "You don't know what you're protecting here," Warlord gasped out. "If this weapon is used, it could destroy the whole world!" "Vat care I for zat? I serve mein Fuhrer, unto Ragnarok itself if need be!" Obviously reason wasn't going to get through to this jerry, Warlord realized as he started to feel his face turn red from the pressure. He'd be popped like a grape if he didn't break free somehow. But this was no ordinary styrene, it was far more resilient and tough than anything Allied science had come up with. But wait...maybe it still had one weakness of its type. "You filthy rotten goose-stepping goose-buggering goon!" Warlord shouted as he struggled for breath. "You couldn't find your own fly without consulting Mein Kampf first!" "Insults vill get you no quicker or less painful a death, spy." "No, but your breath might, dung-eating son of a mastiff! It's a good thing you're not bio-degradable, because no self-respecting dung beetle would have anything to do with your corpse! Not that that's stopped you from trying to do it with one!" The Styrene Man started to look uncomfortable, like a man who was sweating profusely, but he had no water in him to sweat anymore. He tightened his grip. "ACK! In a hurry to get it on with my corpse or something, you body-bagging compost-humping...." Suddenly the torrent of flames had its desired effect, causing the Net.zi to blaze like a roman candle. His stretched arms crumbled like spent fuses as he ran through the lab trying to reach a fire extinguisher. Warlord hurriedly brushed off the burning fingers still attached to him and threw off his sweater as it caught fire as well. Spying a canister of compressed gas, Warlord took aim and fired at it as he dove out the window and into a pile of late-autumn snow. It made a very satisfying BOOM as the escaping gases met the burning Net.zi.... NEXT ISSUE: The trenches of WWI!