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Rhiannon
In Reply To
The Hooded Hood's daily story for fun-loving PVB fanatics.

Subj: Good but still too short.
Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 at 03:00:36 pm EST
Reply Subj: #323: Untold Daily Tales of the Lair Legion versus [Spoiler you won’t be able to guess] - updated for Sunday
Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2007 at 12:35:42 pm EST


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#323: Untold Daily Tales of the Lair Legion versus [Spoiler you won’t be able to guess]
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> Go straight to Saturday's additions
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> What you need to know to follow this story: The Parodyverse’s greatest heroes are the Lair Legion. Led by Hatman (Jay Boaz) and his deputy CrazySugarFreakBoy! (Dreamcatcher Foxglove), the team also includes the Lovcraftian elder being the Manga Shoggoth, G-man superman Mr Epitome (Dominic Clancy), cyborg P.I. Yuki Shiro, the Librarian (Lee Bookman), archscientist Al B. Harper, and the possibly-fake Visionary (Vizh isn’t in this chapter, since he’s busy with Untold Tales #324). The Legion are headquartered at the Lair Mansion on Parody Island, supported by some unusual staff including computer sentience Hallie and loathsome hunchbacked butler Flapjack.
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> It’s been a tough year for our heroes. Even before the intergalactic Parody War from which the team is still recovering the Legion had to survive a government attempt to control all superheroes through a Metahuman Registration Act. The team finally exposed this manipulation as the work of the mysterious Shadow Cabinet, and have kept the Cabinet’s operative Edward Cromlyn (a.k.a. Gramayre) incarcerated for questioning in their mansion ever since, slowly assembling a case to find and bring down the sinister arch-conspiracy.
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> For those who are really into continuity, this story probably takes place after Tom Black #1-3 and at the same time as The Compound #1-3, Shadowrat #1, and Untold Tales #324.
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> This story is dedicated to those people who wanted some lighter, shorter, and more regular material.
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> Previous chapters at The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom.
> Descriptions of cast at Who's Who in the Parodyverse.
> Locations explained in Where's Where in the Parodyverse.
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***

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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Francis Edward Cornhill,” briefed Contessa Natalia Romanza, flicking the projector slide to show a middle-aged man in a grey business suit. “Secret Service courier, nineteen years service. He was last seen yesterday. Then he vanished.”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m sorry to hear that,” Hatman admitted, “but what makes this Lair Legion business?”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Two reasons,” answered the superspy agent of the Super-menace Principal Undercover Directorate. “The first is how he vanished.” She pressed a button on the remote and the projected image switched to CCTV footage of Cornhill entering an elevator in a building lobby somewhere. The décor was government institutional. “This is from the lobby camera, Cornhill getting into the elevator. This is Cornhill in the elevator from the internal car camera.”
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>     Hatman and CrazySugarFreakBoy! watched as Cornhill checked his tie in the mirrored back of the elevator. Then he blinked out – simply disappeared! The last CCTV shot was from the ninth floor landing and the empty lift opening.
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Okay, that’s definitely metahuman,” CSFB! enthused. “Teleportation, invisibility, disintegration, time travel…”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You said there were two reasons we should be involved,” Hatman interrupted his enthusiastic deputy. “What’s the second one?”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s what Cornhill was carrying in that briefcase he had with him, there in the FBI headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee,” the Contessa answered. “He had the entire case files of the ongoing investigation into Edward Cromlyn and the Shadow Cabinet.”
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***

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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Okay, I’ve checked the crime scene,” Al B. Harper reported over his comm-card to Hatty. “All the usual scans for dimensional and temporal displacement and whatnot. There’s some kind of residual signature, but it’s not anything I’ve ever seen before.”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It tastes a little blue,” the Manga Shoggoth offered, creating a pseudopod tongue to lick the side of the elevator car. “With a hint of sushi.”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What are you saying then?” Hatman asked. “Was Cornhill teleported out or what? Can we track him?”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Maybe if G-Eyed was still around,” Al B. sighed. “Or even Lisa to summons him. Our options are a bit more limited now. I can program this energy signature into the LairSats around the globe and try and spot if it manifests again, but that’s about it. Otherwise we’re pretty much at a dead end here.”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That is not dead which can eternal lie,” the Shoggoth comforted him. “But it is depressing that this place has gone back to having just three dimensions now, isn’t it?”
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***

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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Science and sorcery aren’t the only ways to track this,” Yuki told Mr Epitome. “There’s other ways too. Right, Lee?”
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>     The Librarian nodded and handed over a dossier he’d compiled from the Lunar Public Library archive. “Three thousand, one hundred and sixty-one scattered reports of disappearances from elevator cars in the last two years,” he announced. “Everything from full-scale missing persons cases to lifted wallets. Very few are as well documented as the Cornhill case at the Memphis branch of the FBI but some very weird stuff.”
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>     Mr Epitome speed read the material. “Some of this could be accounted for by pickpocketing or fraudulent testimony,” he reasoned. “Although why anyone would want to claim their false teeth vanished from their mouth while they were riding an elevator at Mimble’s Department Store is something of a mystery. And that girl in Paris who claimed her underwear was stolen as she went up the Eiffel Tower…”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Was this before Josh Clement vanished?” Yuki checked. “Although come to think of it, that could actually be his happy ending.”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“None of the cases is too remarkable by themselves,” the Librarian admitted, “but taken together there is a remarkable body of evidence of strange things happening in elevators.”
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>     Mr Epitome scowled as he noted the missing persons list. “There is something of a correlation here,” he observed. “There’s a disproportionate number of rich people here. Industrialists, politicians, scientists. And that’s not counting the Euro-MP who claims his pants and jockey shorts vanished as he rode to the thirtieth floor with his secretary.”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ve been trying to find if there’s any common elements, like the elevators all being from the same manufacturer,” Yuki reported, “but so far I’m not seeing a pattern. The reports are from all over the world, new buildings and old. They’re so diverse that unless you look for them you’d miss the pattern altogether. If this Cornhill guy hadn’t vanished like he did carrying what he did we might never have got onto this.”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And this is just the last two years,” Lee Bookman noted. “Who knows how many years this goes back?”
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***

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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This is the place!” CrazySugarFreakBoy! called out to Hatman as they raced into the lobby of the Gothametropolis Hilton. “Al’s signature-recognition gizmo is going into warp drive!”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Which elevator?” Hatman demanded, surveying the bank of six doors which led into the city’s most expensive hotel.
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>     The doors of the third car from the left pinged open. “This one,” CSFB! said. He ventured inside, scanning around with his walkie-talkie wristwatch. Hatman put on his engineer’s hard-hat and followed him.
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>     The car was wood-panelled with a discrete gold panel with the floor buttons on. A uniformed car attendant looked at them in puzzlement. “May I assist you sirs?”
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>     CSFB! flashed the footman a happy smile. “Don’t mind us, we’re just fighting crime. Carry on.”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Which floor, sir?”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’re fine here,” Hatman told him, but the attendant had already closed the doors and pressed the top button.
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’re going down,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! worried. “What the…”
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>     All the lights in the car went out.
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>     Hatman reached for his hatility belt to get his Beacons cap. His hatility belt was gone.
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>     The lights flickered on again. The doors slid open on the ground floor of a mid-rent tourist hotel in Singapore. Two dozen surprised Japanese tourists gazed on Hatman and CrazySugarFreakBoy! as the heroes realised that every last scrap of their clothing and equipment had vanished, leaving them stark naked.
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>     The cameras began to flash as well.
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***

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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“As a PR exercise that could have gone worse,” offered Al B. Harper. “At least the Legion’s getting some good exposure.”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Shut up,” glowered Hatman, back in the Lair Mansion, back in pants, with a number of reserve hats clipped to his leather belt.
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It made April happy anyhow,” grinned CrazySugarFreakBoy! “She’s getting a big blow up poster for our bedroom wall and already the Dream/Hat shippers on the internet are…”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Can we get on?” asked Jay Boaz irritably. “Somehow some weird teleport effect or something stole my hatility belt and CSFB!’s silly suit and kit, and that just doesn’t happen.”
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>     Dream got a little more serious. “Yeah, I need my gear back. Okay, this all-black costume I’ve adopted for the moment looks pretty cool, and Mr Book’s marketing people are licensing the action figure version, but we need to find out what’s going on here.”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I am currently examining the places where previous potential incidents occurred,” noted the Manga Shoggoth. “Many of the lift cars have a similar taste to the one in the FBI building.” He paused a moment as he shifted his consciousness between half a dozen different biomasses he has spawned across the world. “Hmm. I also see that Gad Guard and Najica Blitz Tacitcs 2 have been released.”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’d say he wasn’t paying attention, but he’s a loathsome elder being whose consciousness works entirely differently to ours,” sighed the Librarian.
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We all need to pay attention,” growled Mr Epitome. “Not only has vital case evidence against Cromlyn and his Shadow Cabinet cabal been lost but the Legion’s fighting strength has been severely compromised and two of it’s members were made to look ridiculous.” He glanced over at CSFB! “More ridiculous,” he qualified.
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The scanners are still working,” Al B. noted, “but the problem is response time. Unless we get a manifestation within reasonable LairJet range then the energy event is over before we can attend to it.” He paused a moment then began sketching on the table top. “I wonder though if we could perhaps provoke an event by synthesising the key vorticies of an encounter parameter? If we designate n as the vector constant and…”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And another Legionnaire has left the building,” sighed Yuki. “Okay, I’m going to try and track this another way. Lee, you’re with me.”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I am?” blinked the Librarian. “Why?”
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>     The cyborg P.I. grinned. “We’re going for a drink.”
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***

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>     Grosso’s was a seedy bar in the seediest part of Gothametropolis’ seedy Hogan red light district. Down a flight of cellar steps at the end of Toenail Alley was an iron door with a hatch in it. A little faded sticker on it said “No super-powers, no service”. Nobody in their right mind would try to get past Oliver the doorman unless they were a serious hardcore super-villain.
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>     Yuki Shiro hammered on the door and flashed Oliver her best smile. “Hi there, Ollie,” she said. “I’m back.”
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>     The doorman looked unhappy. “I can’t let you in, Miss Yuki,” he told her. “It’s more than my job’s worth. Grotto said that next time…”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Does grotto make you pay for damages?” the cyborg P.I. asked. “Do you know how much replacement metal doors cost?”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Miss Yuki, I can’t guarantee your safety in here.”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well I should hope not. What’s the fun in that? Just open up, Ollie. If you like I can lay you out unconscious afterwards to show you put up a good fight.”
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>     Lee Bookman followed Yuki into the dark smoky interior of Grotto’s. “Is this really a smart idea?” he asked doubtfully.
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well I should hope not,” Yuki repeated. “Where’s the fun in that?”
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***

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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We have questions,” said Hatman, sitting down opposite the one criminal the Legion felt was so dangerous that he was still confined in holding cells beneath the Lair Mansion.
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You always have questions,” Edward Cromlyn noted, sitting back on his metal-frame chain and observing the leader of the Lair Legion.
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, well this time we have questions that you’re going to answer,” Mr Epitome explained, leaning over the desk at the fallen fixer for the Shadow Cabinet.
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>     Cromlyn yawned. “Good cop / bad cop? They were playing those games a hundred years ago.”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not good cop / bad cop,” Hatty answered. “Human cop / human cop. You answer our questions, of the next person to come asking will be the Manga Shoggoth.”
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>     Cromlyn’s sneer took on a somewhat fixed appearance.
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“A man vanished out of an elevator, in a secure FBI building, while the security cameras watched him,” Epitome summarised. “How and who did it?”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That wasn’t Special Agent Francis Cornhill, by any chance?” Cromlyn blinked. “Oh my…”
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>     Hatman saw the unease in the prisoner’s eyes. “What do you know about this?” he demanded.
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>     Edward Cromlyn shrugged. “They’re coming after me. My former employers, I mean. They’re taking your case apart, and then they’ll kill me. Right here in this cell probably, despite all your precautions. Maybe that hippopotamus thing works for them, or even one of your team. Maybe they’ll use a teleporter like Dimensionweaver to simply teleport my stomach away. Maybe it’ll be a curse-worker like Morgosa le Fey. Maybe it’ll be the Bonewalker and he’ll have my skeleton climb right out of my body and dance for him. It doesn’t matter. I’m going to die.”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Then you’ve no reason not to talk,” pointed out Dominic Clancy.
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We can protect you,” Hatman told the prisoner. “Twenty-four seven if we have to. This mansion still has some mystic defences. Marie Murcheson can sense if there’s a cosmic-level attack and…”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“If I talk, I die as soon as I begin to speak,” Cromlyn replied. “As if I’d want to join the dots up for you insignificant pissants anyway. But it sounds like they’re starting to tidy up loose ends now your Parody War is over, just like you are. Only more seriously.”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What does that have to do with an agent vanishing from a moving elevator?” interrogated Epitome.
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well,” Cromlyn replied, “I guess that’s what you need to find out, isn’t it?”
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***

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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“See, the plan is,” Al B. Harper told the Shoggoth and CrazySugarFreakBoy!, “that we set up exactly the same conditions and energy signatures that we detected in those other incidents, but we set them up here, on this elevator in the Lair Mansion. We see if we can replicate the event, replicate the phenomenon.”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I can probably scent the arcanosphere with the appropriate spoor,” offered the Shoggoth helpfully. “Although I may need to ingest more pickles.”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So we could open up a doorway to the baddie’s Fortress of Evil and take him down?” CSFB! summarised.
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Maybe,” Al qualified. “This is still pretty experimental.” He reached for the tech-board he’d erected on the garage level beneath the Lair Mansion and hooked it into the controls for the elevator. “Hallie, please transfer control over to this panel.”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’ve got control,” the Legion’s A.I. confirmed. “I’m putting up my firewalls now.”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Are we good to go?” CSFB! bounced impatiently.
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We might need a little more phlogiston on the sub-space bypasses,” offered the Shoggoth. “Just a moment. There. Perfect.”
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>     It was big red button time. Al B. pressed it.
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>     The elevator began to descend.
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“CCTV problem,” CSFB! warned. “But hey, it’s showing me The Venture Brothers. ‘Do not be so hasty in entering that room. I had Taco Bell for lunch!’”
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We have an event!” warned Al B. Harper. “Watch out. Anything could come out of that door!”
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>     The bell chimed and the car opened.
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>     Seventeen screaming nuns who had just been travelling down from their Rome hotel rooms to travel to Vatican Plaza rushed out of the elevator in hysterics, demanding to know where their habits had vanished to, then got themselves embedded in the gelid translucent biomass of the Manga Shoggoth.
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>     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This is going to look so good in the Daily Trombone,” sighed Hallie.
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***

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> Continued with less nuns tomorrow…
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***

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> Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2007 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2007 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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