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The Hooded Hood courts controversy and would be interested in hearing our heroes' reactions

Subj: Saving the Future Part 3: That’s the Way the Story Goes
Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 09:44:36 am EDT (Viewed 1 times)


Saving the Future Part 3: That’s the Way the Story Goes

Previously:
Part One by Dancer
Part Two by Visionary


    Hatman stood at the window of the Lair Legion team leader’s office – he still had difficulty sometimes thinking of it as his office – and stared out past the rain-soaked glass into the darkness. “It’s done,” he said. “Some of the others don’t like it. I don’t like it.”

    Jay Boaz’ visitor shifted in his chair, sipped his coffee. “It’s necessary. Nobody has to like it.”

    Hatman turned back to face his guest. “I have questions. We’ve taken an awful lot on trust because of old associations.”

    The Chronicler of Stories drained his mug and leaned back. “Ask them,” he said.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Let’s start with you,” the capped crusader suggested. “And the Dark Knight.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“What about me?” the Chronicler replied. “You know how the cosmic Triumvirate’s offices are filled. Someone is carved out of their normal lifeline and appointed to maintain the Parodyverse. Sometimes that person is called at the moment of their death. If they’re not then often a duplicate version of themselves is created to remain in the time and place they were taken from, to prevent the narrative being disturbed.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You and Dark Knight were different versions of the same man,” Hatman noted. “You were taken to become the Chronicler of Stories, monitoring the narrative flow of the Parodyverse. He stayed on to become the urban vigilante who joined the Lair Legion.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s more complicated than that in my case,” conceded the Chronicler, “A lot more complicated. But let’s say that’s the shorthand version.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Where’s DK now, then?” demanded Jay. “He was one of us, one of our most trusted. But he died, more than once. And every time he came back…”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“He was a little darker,” suggested the Chronicler. “Death isn’t just a revolving door, even for him. Pieces of you get lost.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Almost the last time we saw him… he was insane. He murdered a U.S. senator. Before that he’d tried to nuke a city.”

    The Chronicler shifted uncomfortably. “There were reasons that he considered good. I have enemies, and one of those enemies turned to him to get at me. But then, you’ve met the King of Stories, haven’t you?”

    Hatman had been lost in Faerie, frozen in agony for time beyond telling through the machinations of the first and greatest of the Chroniclers. “I know him,” he breathed.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Then imagine if the King of Stories focussed his full malevolence against you. Imagine if he twisted your beloved murdered wife into a hate-filled revenant to tear your life apart. Imagine if he despoiled everything you loved, destroyed your life’s work, rendered all the sacrifice and pain you’d suffered meaningless. Imagine that and you’re beginning to glimpse what happened to the Dark Knight you knew.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Where’s DK now?” asked Hatman. “Can we help him?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“He’s not here any more,” answered the Chronicler of Stories. “Maybe later, but not now.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re the keeper of the narratives, though,” complained the leader of the Lair Legion. “Surely you could protect your own other self?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I could. I didn’t. I have a job to do and sometimes I have to make choices. Sometimes I have to make sacrifices.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“But the Dark Knight…”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“He’d be the first to agree,” said the Chronicler. “And I have helped him. He’s not here any more.”

    Hatman moved on. “These sacrifices you have to make, then… is one of them Danny Lyle?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’ve contained him,” the Chronicler declared. It wasn’t a question. “That is necessary.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Contained him for now,” Hatman clarified. “We can’t keep him sedated forever. Dream’s already starting to quote comics and movies, and it’s only a matter of time before Dancer calls me up and reverses the charges. Vizh is calming Kerry – as calmed as Kerry ever gets – with chocolate and ice cream. But it’s a temporary situation. Al B’s working on Danny’s DNA sampling.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“The sample will only tell you that the potential exists for this iteration of Daniel Lyle to also do what the Moderator did,” replied the Chronicler. “The most effective solution to prevent this is for you to terminate Lyle before he awakes.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“That won’t be happening,” Hatman assured his guest. “Lyle can be annoying but he’s not done anything deserving of that.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Danny Lyle you hold in custody is a murderer,” the Chronicler revealed. “He caused the death of Lord and Master from Young Heckfire. It was premeditated murder, to prevent Slaughter threatening Kerry Shepherdson again.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Even if that’s true there’s no way to prove it,” Hatman noted. “‘Because ‘the Chronicler of Stories said it’ isn’t admissible as court evidence.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“He’s killed others too. He only tempers his behaviour around the Shepherdson girl – and she’s hardly the best calming influence around. And as we have seen from other realities if he once turns on her then he becomes unstoppable. Do you want to gamble the future of the Parodyverse on Lyle and Shepherdson settling down and becoming a stable happy family?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I… It could happen,” stammered Jay Boaz. “Maybe.” He slammed his fist against the wall. “We can’t punish someone for what they might one day do, possibly, perhaps.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You can. You choose not to. There’s a distinction.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, well then we choose not to. We’ll address Danny’s situation another way. We’ll…” Hatman gritted his teeth. “There’ll be a solution, dammit!”

    The Chronicler waited.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Where’s Epitome?” Hatman demanded again.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I could tell you. I choose not to.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is Epitome’s disappearance part of this whole Moderator mess? Everyone else popped right back afterwards as far as we know. So why not him? We even got a couple of extras, because there was a minor change in reality that kept a kid called Salieri Meng and his mom from being killed in the Parody War so they…” Jay halted in mid-sentence. “It’s not some kind of payback, is it? Some kind of cosmic quid pro quo. Meng in, Epitome out? Because if so…”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Hooded Hood was involved,” the Chronicler noted. “It’s never going to be that simple.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Hood is Danny’s father,” Hatman remembered. “And you’re claiming his mother is Symmetry of Synchronicity, our old foe who’s now one of your Triumvirate as Shaper of Worlds?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes. That’s why Lyle has such potential for damaging the Parodyverse. If you don’t execute him now you might end up weeping on a dead planet beneath a burning sky regretting that you once had the chance to prevent it all but allowed pale ethics to damn all of existence.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is this a Hooded Hood plot?” demanded the capped crusader. “Where is the Hood? Is he really dead?”

    The Chronicler hesitated. “I… don’t know,” he admitted at last. “The Hood has taken precautions during his many schemes, measures to render him difficult for cosmic office-holders to track. That bastard.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“But you know about Danny. So what are the chances he’ll do what you fear, that he’ll somehow become this terrible Parodyverse-breaking archvillain? What odds? One in two? One in ten? One in a hundred?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I am the Chronicler of Stories, keeper of the narratives. I see the weft of the multiverse, the tides of plot and character, the secret eddies of revelation. I am warning you as current leader of the champions of nexus planet Earth that if you do not destroy Danny Lyle you may be dooming this Parodyverse. If you don’t take action then the Triumvirate will have to.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I can just see Symmetry agreeing to wipe out her own son,” snorted Hatman. “And I notice you’ve kept Lisa out of this so far. You think she’s going to buy your brand of safeguarding?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Lisa and Symmetry are new in office,” replied the Chronicler. “They have yet to learn that we are slaves as much as masters. Power and responsibility. I would shield them from those brutal truths for as long as I can. But if you and the Legion will not do what you must then the Triumvirate shall.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“And what’s that? Let’s hear the threat!”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“No threat. I’m not going to play the villain here. But there will have to be… sanctions. Adjustments. Epitome’s disappearance will seem minor. Earth can’t continue as the nexus planet. And once you lose that focus you won’t be at the centre of the stories any more.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is that a bad thing?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Only if you know what happens to supporting characters that aren’t needed any longer.”

    Hatman felt a chill run up his spine. “We’re not talking more happy endings, are we?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Earth has made many enemies. While you remain the focal point of the narratives you stand a chance of holding them back. If the nexus passes elsewhere then you’re a one-page subplot in someone else’s tale. The villain will annihilate you all just to generate some heel-heat.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Unless we kill Danny.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Unless you kill Danny Lyle,” agreed the Chronicler of Stories. “I’m sorry. That’s the way the story goes. Once the Moderator had done what he did there was no other future that could be allowed.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I asked you the chances of Danny doing what you fear,” Hatman challenged. “You never answered.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“At the moment?” frowned the Chronicler. “The future is always changing, always clouded, and never more so than just after a reality storm.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ll take your best estimate.”

    The Chronicler of Stories nodded. “Then I’d have to say one in one. A hundred percent chance. If you do not destroy Danny Lyle then he will destroy you all.”

Continued…

***


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Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2008 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2008 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.






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