Previous Post Saving the Future – Part 18: Now Get Out Of That Previously: Scattered across strange interlinked lost worlds, the Lair Legion, their staff, their Mansion, and the SPUD helicarrier and crew struggle to survive, to reunite, and to learn where they have been transported and how to return home. Unexpectedly explorations of the lands have turned up Yo, Nats, and Uhunalura. The heroes’ efforts have been hampered by the attentions of many of the evil powers dominating the thirty-two remaining realms stitched together in the Land That Common Sense Forgot.     But the most potent threat is one they brought with them. Powerful psionic Edward Cromlyn is no longer a prisoner in the Lair Mansion. Instead he has taken control of the telepathic squid-headed Spawn of Umsharr, forged an alliance with the undead of the Eternal Empress, psionically altered Al B. Harper to be evil and to serve him, and has begun to take his revenge upon the heroes that have thwarted him. Al B. Harper has captured the helicarrier and mentally dominated its crew. Cromlyn has captured the Lair Mansion, except for the computer core where Visionary, Hallie, and local adventurers Thungore and Glumkeep are trapped.     Meanwhile Champagne and Grace O’Mercy, the Night Nurse, have travelled to the mysterious Tower of Light said to have created the thirty-two realms, and have discovered it is Visionary’s lighthouse. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So what do you think is happening?” Griffin worried as he carried Glory invisibly and intangibly through sections of the helicarrier. He was starting to strain to keep the dog with him, but he wasn’t going to let her down. “All those people just fell over and twitched, and then a few minutes later they got up one by one and started making the ship work.”     The helicarrier was off the ground now, its automatic control systems compensating for the damage it had taken. The occasional sway of the deck from side to side betrayed that the vessel still wasn’t in top condition.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It was a psionic attack,” Glory told him. “A very powerful one. Given the range and how many people it affected it was probably a multiple attack from many telepathically connected minds. Some of the troopers I found had encountered squid-headed things that could do that.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You mean these people are being controlled by an evil gaes?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They’re telepathically dominated,” the mutt of might agreed. “You’ll note though that Colonel Drury and Contessa Romanza and Yuki Shiro are locked away and are being kept unconscious for now. Somebody isn’t sure yet how strong the influence is.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Can we wake them up?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They’re very securely guarded. I think your earlier instinct was best. We need to locate Anna and recruit her help.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Will she help us though?” worried Griffin. “I mean, Al B. shut her down just like that. And before he did, he said she’d been… killing people.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We will find out when we find her,” Glory said. “I have some ideas about how to reboot her.”     But Anna wasn’t where Griffin had left her. “Al’s taken her!” the boy wailed.     Glory sniffed the ground. “She is still wearing Yuki’s jacket,” the pooch of power noted. “This way.” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What manner of wizardry is this?” demanded Thungore. Lee Bookman’s headless corpse toppled to the ground, but as it did it shifted into a leathery wizened humanoid with webbed fingers and emaciated limbs. The real Librarian appeared gasping next to the corpse.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ooh, a changeling,” Glumkeep, companion of heroes, noted, poking the dead Space Fandom with his foot. Already the corpse was deliquescing into smelly goo. “I don’t suppose it mentioned where it was keeping its treasure before you trimmed it’s hair?”     Thungore wasn’t paying attention. He’d spotted Marie Murcheson’s bloody corpse lying over by the computer console. “The maiden!” he cried. “Cruelly slain! And I didn’t even get to bed her!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You could try now,” considered Glumkeep, “but it’d be kind of messy.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You have to find help for her!” Hallie cried out. “You need to… I don’t know who you could call for this, but get someone. Get Jarvis or Lisa or Enty!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The evil enchantress!” Thungore recognised. His blade again passed harmlessly through her hologram.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re not too good on the learning curve are you?” Glumkeep sighed at his hero. “She’s an illusion, remember?” He looked at the hard drives and data nodes that the Librarian had exposed. “Better to find where she hides her soul and destroy that,” he advised. A big part of a companion’s job was showing the barbarian where to smite.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Better not to,” Lee Bookman advised, struggling up from the floor where he’d fallen beside Visionary. “Better to just all calm down and talk like rational, sensible human beings.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So you’ve not met Thungore the Mighty?” Glumkeep noted.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Another evil double necromancer!” the barbarian thundered, raising his runeblade to dispatch the Librarian. “I shall make short work of you!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And by short he means about a head shorter,” Glumkeep quipped. That was another part of his job description.     Lee backed away towards Hallie. “I really think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick, um sword here,” he advised the hero. “You see, that thing you killed was a Space Fandom, a kind of body-replacing shapechanger. It replaced me when Harper and I were heading towards Ur Vakir, the city of the Spawn, and of course it replicated my powers and knowledge. But then it got caught along with Al B. and psionically altered by the psychic squids and after that it actually thought it was evil me. Ironic really. Um, you could put down that rune sword now.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I haven’t got the wrong end of the sword,” Thungore assured the wicked necromancer that served the evil enchantress. “I’m pretty sure I should have the hilt so you get the pointy end.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Don’t hurt him!” shouted Hallie.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Why not, vile temptress?” shouted the barbarian. “So die all enemies of Thungore the Mighty!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Because if you try to hurt him, I’ll shoot you,” Visionary suggested. Bookman’s brief touch when he’d got up had removed the obfuscation of data from the possibly-fake man’s mind. The discarded Nazi revolver had been dropped by the definitely-fake Bookman. “Let’s all just calm down and nobody needs to get sprayed with bullets.”     Glumkeep appeared from the shadows behind Visionary and held his blade at the Legionnaire’s throat. “Let’s stay calm,” the companion of heroes agreed, “and drop the weapon.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hah!” mocked Thungore the Mighty. “So there!”     Meanwhile Hallie had made a discovery. The over-ride codes that Al B. had implanted to take over her HED had over-ride codes. In fact the whole over-ride system looked to have been designed to be over-ridden at need by the resident A.I.; almost as if the designer had wanted something that looked like it might take down a hologram sentience while leaving her with the ability to overcome it if she chose.     Hallie flicked the over-ride over-ride then hardened her hologram to sudden solidity. She formed a holo-dagger out of her memory templates and came up behind Thungore to hold it at his throat. “Like the big smelly barbarian said,” the A.I. told them. “Hah!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Now can we talk?” the Librarian asked plaintively as the standoff became clear. “Only according to these scanners there’s a huge horde of squid heads and one world-class psionic on their way down here to get us right now.” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Rezyliant.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Maddicks. So.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah. So. Lots of so.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah. Tons of it.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re working for the good guys now?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Do I look like some kind of bleeding-heart wimp do-gooder? Nah, I was just hiring out as a merc and I happened to be raiding the Lair Mansion about the time it went walkabout. You?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh, sure. Same. Except I was jumping down a big deep pit shaft for ZOXXON on some investigation contract for Useless Monty. I’m in no way actually helping these heroes. Pfheh! The very thought.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, me too. ‘Cept right now it makes sense to stick around for mutual defence. Spare cannon fodder, stuff like that.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Absolutely. That was my thinking as well. That way I can… turn on them when they least expect it. Yeah. That’s it.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well technically I’m still on contract to Harper for keeping his kids alive. It’s just a gig I picked up until my wonderful Shrike costume turns up again.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I was just subbing too, filling in time until the Baroness didn’t want to molecularly disassemble me.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Plus, the good guys are watching us. They’re just waiting for us to screw up so they can come down on us. Like how they made that dimbulb with the accordion follow me round everywhere tempting me to off him. they nearly got me with that one.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s not like I wanna be trapped here at the boy scout dino-camp.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And I sure didn’t ask to get dragged away from the native village where lots of locals wanted to have sex with me.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Same here. I kind of liked being the centre of attention before Hatman turned up.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You only got Boaz. I got the Weirdo Human Shoggoth and Kid Mumphrey. And then I got the sex princess and Captain Useless. And now I’ve got Foxglove drivelling on about redemption arcs and tryin’ to drag me into his Globetrotting Geekians. Like I wouldn’t have to off the lot of them in the first fifteen minutes.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Same here. Absolutely. I wouldn’t want to turn good and try to be a hero. Nosir.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Right.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Right.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Right.” *** [This section features material from Jason]     Crossing the ship through the vents was dangerous but necessary. It was a very cramped space, so that armed soldiers would be less than willing to go there with equipment and risk getting stuck. It was also filled with cold air from the air conditioning, so locating a heat signature in there would be almost impossible.     Al B Harper could turn the air conditioning down until it became dangerous to remain in the vents, or flood them with constant EMP radiation to continually require her to reboot. Anna knew that, so she tried to follow a route that had as many emergency escape points as possible. That way she couldn’t be herded to an ambush.     She finally stopped after travelling for a bit through the vent system, into a junction which left her just above a ventilation fan - to keep from any noise she made from being heard - yet shielded from its stiff gust, close to two exits and somewhat close to a third.     That particular junction was a metal box located just above a ventilation fan. Air rushed below it, and upward to ducts above. The designers of the Helicarrier jokingly called it ‘The Bomb Shelter’ on the schematics. There was a reason for that nickname. It was a place that an operations expert would know the value of, but a designer like Al B. Harper might not recognise as a tactically useful location.     Anna reviewed her immediate objectives: locate Griffin, diagnose what had happened to the people on the helicarrier, locate other allies, sanction Al B. Harper. And what then? All Anna’s new-found confidence about the future, her hard-won sense of security and belonging were shattered.     Her enhanced senses warned her of the heartbeats and her enhanced reflexes prepared her to attack as soon as Griffin made himself and glory visible. Anna halted in mid motion, her palm inches from the boy’s face.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m still untouchable,” he told her. “Um, are you okay?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Griffin!” Anna recognised. “And Glory!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This is good,” the dog wagged. “It was going to be difficult to attempt a manual reboot while Griffin held you in his intangible state. I only have paws.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I was looking for you,” Anna promised the boy. “You looked after me.”     Griffin smiled. “It was the right thing to do.”     The helicarrier swayed as it changed course.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What do we do now?” Griffin wondered.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Survival, intelligence, strategy, tactics,” Anna reeled off.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We stay here for a while to recover, then find out what is going on, then stop it,” Glory translated. ***     Bill Reed perched on a high ledge atop the pre-Incan ruins and stared across the vista of the strange new world. Uhuna climbed up to join him. “Are you alright, Bill?”     Nats shrugged. “Feels weird, that’s all.”     Uhuna glanced down below his belt. “It felt fine to me,” she worried. “Shall I check with my biomapping gifts to…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not that. This. Being back. Being alive and not being, you know, a Hell Lord or a psycho-depressive or a carrier of an alien telekinesis amplifier or anything. Just being me.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Even you are allowed to have good days, Bill Reed.”     Nats turned to her. “Is this one of them, though? I mean, putting aside the whole being-trapped-in-a-Land-That-Common-Sense-Forgot with half the LL missing, is this a good day? It’s so long since I had a baseline day I just don’t know.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“How long were we trapped in that crystal of frozen narrative?” Uhuna wondered. “The natives said we’d been their for as long as their ancestors remembered.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Time seems to work differently here. Everyone in the camp arrived a few days apart from each other. Some of those SPUD guys have been here a couple of months, some just a couple of days. I’m guessing we arrived pretty early to the party.”     Uhuna blushed prettily. “It was quite a party,” she admitted. “While it lasted.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It was,” Bill agreed. Then he caught up. “What do you mean, while it lasted?”     Uhuna laid a hand on his chest. “Oh, Bill. I never thought I’d understand anyone as well as I’ve come to know you. I mean we were a wonderful couple, a blazing romance, but now you’re wondering how to tell me you want a break from me.”     Nats looked uncomfortable. “I am?”     The princess of the Abhumans nodded. “We were very intimate – and not just in the physical sense – for such a long time. Tangled with each other. Now we’re apart again, back in the world… well some world… we both know we need some time apart to remember who we are.”     Nats remembered why he loved the girl. “You want to see other people,” he smiled ruefully.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No. Well, yes, but I’m not talking about that. I’m not sure I’ve quite had my fill of you yet, Bill Reed. But before we ever ended up crystallised together helping the Vine People make babies my life had been a pretty chaotic maelstrom. I was exiled from Atticland, then I fell in love with you, then we were going to get married, then you got dragged from the altar to Hell, then I fell in love with Josh, then I met you again, then I lost Josh, then I lost you, then I sold my soul to Regret to save the LL, then I died, then I got rescued from Sage Grimpenghast, and then we saved the day through the power of love. And sex. I think I need a moment to catch my breath.”     Bill snorted ruefully. “Yeah. I got the power to fly in an origin I really need to revisit someday, then I was delivery boy at the Interdimensional Transportation Corporation, then I joined the Legion, then I fought a guy who claimed to be my father, then I got an alien Psychostave, then I got fired from ITC and joined Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises, then I lost my Psychostave and absorbed it into me to enhance my telepathic abilities… Or was that before EEE? I think there was a Transworlds Challenge in there somewhere too. Crap, I so need a back issues list.” He looked over at Uhuna. “I have a lot of issues.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And we both need time to sort ourselves out,” Uhuna told him. “When the Legion gets us back to Earth – and they will get us back to Earth – we need to spend some time apart so we’ll know if we want to spend time together. I think that’s what you wanted to say to me but didn’t know how, wasn’t it?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Pretty much. Except I wanted to add that you’re the best thing I’ve ever had in my life, and I love you now and always, and I don’t regret a minute I ever spent with you except the times I made you cry.”     Uhuna looked at Nats appraisingly. “You’re not the same as you used to be, you know,” she told him. “You don’t have to be the old Nats. You can be Nu-Nats. Nats-point-two.”     Bill smiled despite himself. “I’m a work in progress,” he admitted. “Watch this space.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And we will keep having regular sex until we get back to Earth for our break, won’t we?” Uhuna added anxiously. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This is the Happy Place?” Amber asked, looking around at the rolling green hills and distant treeline. “It seems kind of… bare.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yo is working on redecorating,” the pure thought being in the Zorro costume assured the Legion’s liaison officer. “Yo is to be having to make of this Happy Place as by Yoself because is not to be joined to the big Happy Place. Yo is never before appreciating of how much work cute-Yi is to be putting into that Happy Place.”     Magweed came forward to greet Dancer and the others “Wherever we are it’s not attached to the usual places. The fairie creatures here are… stunted. It’s like everything here is disconnected and slowly dying.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Even the sun,” noted Flapjack. “Hey, does this Happy Place come with hot and cold flowing bimbos? Cause when I’m usually talking about entering the Happy Place…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Children present,” snapped Amber.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This place makes no sense at all,” complained Herbert Garrick, kicking a sod moodily.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is to be the Happy Place,” Yo explained to him. “Be happy!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Aunt/Uncle Yo is a being of pure thought,” Magweed explained more explanatorily. “S/he and his/her whole race evolved from conceptual happiness. Eventually they made a home in the physical Parodyverse with us, but they always maintained the Happy Place they’d come from. It’s part of them.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Everybody is to be having of a Happy Place,” Yo beamed. “Is just to be sometimes hard to be going there when is most to be needed. So Yo is to be helping of cute-Dancer and other people when is needed to escape of uncute-mind-chaining-Cromlyn.”     Dancer had been to the Happy Place before. “But we have to go back eventually,” she remembered. “And when we do it has to be to the exact same spot we left; in my case stark naked with Cromlyn controlling me!” Dancer had never needed an escape to the Happy Place more, nor dreaded a return from it worse.     Amber shuddered in sympathetic horror. “We’ve only got brain-sucking octopi,” she admitted.     Yo patted Shep on the cheek she’d been so recently about to carve. “Is to be alright,” the genderless thought being assured her. “Yo will be to be making it so uncute-Cromlyn’s bad thinkings cannot be controlling of cute-Dancer, at least of a littling while.” S/he loaded a Happy Place bunny into the woman’s arms to comfort her. “And then Yo will be showing of cute-Dancer how to be getting back of probability powers if that is what she is to be wanting. Then Dancer can be kicking of Cromlyn’s uncute-butt.”     Dancer blinked. “You can do that? Get me back to being the Probability Dancer? And then get me back to Edward Cromlyn?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yo is to be thinking so.” ***     Grace picked up her arm and reaffixed it, hissing at how much it stung. “This was my second-best uniform,” she complained.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And that was… something pretty horrid,” Champagne admitted, staring in grim fascination at the dissolving knot of excess angles that the Night Nurse had just overcome. “That vampire prince wasn’t exaggerating when he said the tower was defended. The logic tests and puzzle traps were bad, but the things that keep popping out of the shadows… was that last-but-one thing an eight foot carnivorous hamster?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That was a tough one,” the Night Nurse agreed. “If it hadn’t somehow got a hedgehog embedded in it’s foot we might have been in real trouble.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Whereas being lost in an alien land having seriously annoyed the vampire queen who rules the most powerful faction around and who specifically wants you dead isn’t real trouble?”     The sun was almost up. Grace realised how slowly she was regenerating. She could already feel a prickling on her skin. “We’ve made the front door,” she said. “I really think I need to go inside.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“One minute,” Champagne advised her. “There’s things we haven’t worked out, yet. The Eternal Empress said that this tower of light had been here for as long as anyone remembered, and she’s, well, eternal. Or at least older than Cher. The locals believe that an ancient lived here that brought together the lands, a good deal more than thirty-two of them, and stitched them together with gates. And then he vanished.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes, that’s pretty much it,” agreed the Night Nurse. “Can we do the rest of the plot resumé somewhere that doesn’t give me terminal sunburn?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But we recognise this as the Willingham lighthouse that Visionary took over after he won it from the Necromancer General,” the international jewel thief went on. “And Vlastimock Bogoff had it from some unpleasant elder god worshippers before that. We always assumed they built it.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So?”     Champagne pointed up to the stone and slate structure. “So look at this place. No sign of electrical lighting. No modern curtains. No indication it ever had a doorbell. No screw holes where the window-boxes go. No childrens’ toys scattered around. No satellite dish, or bracket marks, or even salt marks from high water. No random burn marks. Grace, this place has never been near the sea, and it’s never belonged to Visionary.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Then what, it’s a disguise? An illusion? A trap?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s never belonged to Visionary,” repeated Champagne, “yet.” *** [This section features material from Jason]     The helicarrier was underway, but deep in the bowels of the ship the fugitives had no way of knowing where of why. Griffin waited with Glory until Anna returned from her scouting mission. The mutt of might looked up as her enhanced senses smelled the android’s return, but Griffin saw nothing.     As Griffin stared up at the android, she pixellated back from glassy transparency, and reappeared before him. “I didn’t know you could--” he started to say.     Anna smiled. “I can do anything Yuki can, except mine uses a lot less power. I can remain invisible almost indefinitely.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s so cool!” admired the boy.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You can do it too,” Anna pointed out.     A little smile of realisation played over Griffin’s features. “Oh yeah. I guess. But mine doesn’t look as cool as yours.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Did you find anything out?” Glory enquired. The dog had been huddled up next to Griffin to keep him warm and because she still needed protection from the psionic control wave. “Did you find what you were looking for?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I found out that Al B. Harper’s running the show. He’s mind-controlling the SPUD personnel and the people Yuki brought with us to run the ship. He’s heading for a definite destination and preparing for air to surface combat.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Other lost people?” Griffin worried. “They wouldn’t stand a chance against this ship!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Lair Legion would,” Glory gestured, “but if they assaulted the vessel they’d encounter the same psychic domination. In fact that might be the operational goal.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Did you see Yuki and the Contessa?” worried Griffin.     Anna shook her head. “They’re in maximum security, with Drury. I don’t know how well my detection countermeasures would fare against those sensor systems and now’s not the time to find out. We’re on our own.” She laid a small bundle of microtools down in front of her. “But I did manage to find what I needed for our immediate objective.”     Anna closed her eyes, and felt a secret mechanism within her awaken. A second later she opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue. On that tongue was a small, smooth metallic device that resembled a tiny in-the-ear hearing aid. She dried it against her sleeve and worked on it for a while with the tools.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s ready,” she announced at last.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Then do it, please,” Glory asked.     Griffin shot the dog and the android a worried look then removed his hand from Glory’s back. As soon as the pooch of power became solid Yuki shoved the device in Glory’s ear.     Glory staggered for a moment then stood up again.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Are you okay?” Griffin asked anxiously.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I am a little dizzy but I will be fine, thank you. I did not know that Anna contained concealed internal compartments,” the mutt of might noted as the psionic interference jammer cut in. “Nor that she contained such equipment.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s a back up,” Anna answered. “I’m very well designed with multiple redundancies. The jammer doesn’t run all the time because it has to analyse the specific psionic frequency before it can protect me, but now I’m up I’m at least shielded enough that the standard telepathic field that’s covering this ship can’t affect me. You’re wearing my secondary protection, at least for as long as the battery charge holds out.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Which means that I too can now operate in these ducts,” Glory agreed. “That leaves the next phase of this mission to me.” There were new security codes that Anna didn’t have, and hacking them might tip off Dr Harper to her awakening. “Take care of Griffin for me, please.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Be careful,” the boy whispered as the dog vanished up the duct. He was trying to be brave.     Anna reached out to Griffin. As the boy reached back and touched her she joined him in his intangible state, where contact between them was possible. She gently pulled Griffin down across her lap and took off Yuki’s jacket. She placed the jacket on top of him and gently brushed his hair back.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Anna--” Griffin asked, looking into her eyes. “What other cool stuff can you cough up?”     He could hear her chuckle even over the noise from the big fan below them. “I have a small hidden container, but it can only hold a single item small enough to swallow. At the moment what Glory has in her ear is it.”     A minute or two passed with nothing but the fan below them making a sound.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Anna?” Griffin asked in a small voice.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes?” the android responded.     He whispered, “I’m cold.”     Anna nodded. The reason why that particular junction was called the Bomb Shelter then became apparent. Anna touched her left hand to the side of the metal duct, and activated the electromagnet in that hand. A panel slid sideways over the opening of the box, closing out the wind and noise from the air conditioning ductwork, except for a small tube running along the door which siphoned in just enough air to prevent suffocation.     When closed, the box was only large enough to sit up in, and perhaps lie down. It was still rather cramped, it was pitch dark, uncomfortable, and eerie.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This small chamber is one of the secret design features of this ship.” Anna whispered to Griffin. “Rumor is the designer had a soft spot for certain kinds of liquor not allowed aboard military vessels, so he created this spot to hide them.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Why aren’t we taking over the ship yet?” Griffin asked.     She could hear the worry in his voice, and she wanted to reassure him. “I wish I could.” she replied. “Unfortunately we are hostages, not heroes. Our friends could be harmed in the process, or this ship could simply self destruct and kill us, our friends, and people below as well. Al B Harper is very intelligent and knows this ship well. I can’t underestimate him. We need preparation and planning, and we need time.”     Griffin closed his eyes and sighed and lay down across Anna’s lap again, as he was tired from his headache, the vibrations and trying to sit up in the low clearance box.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Griffin, everyone else is reasonably safe.” Anna tried to convince him. “We must take care of ourselves.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is it true you killed a bunch of pirates?”     Anna paused for a moment, then looked down and nodded. “I was forced to protect myself and Yuki--” she began.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Please don’t kill anymore, Anna.” he asked her. “Everyone’s going to be scared of you. I don’t want them to be, you’re too nice.”     Anna felt saddened as she gently stroked Griffin’s head in a futile attempt to ease his headache. She already wasn’t happy she had to kill all those pirates - the fact that it saddened Griffin too broke her heart.     The only sound after that was the distance rushing air on the other side of the panel, and the vibration of the fan beneath them. In the silence, Anna’s mind was filled with thoughts and worries.     They sat like that till Glory returned from the auxiliary computer core to report that her work was done. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Right, stop that,” the Librarian commanded Thungore and Glumkeep, and maybe Vizh and Hallie as well. “This isn’t the time for stupid posing. A young woman is already dead and somebody who stole my form did it so if you people don’t focus and stop being idiots I swear I will take down the lot of you!” He seemed quite upset.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So… the other Librarian was the evil one?” ventured Visionary. “Are we sure?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hallie, stop that ridiculous commando stuff and secure-seal the area before we’re neck-deep in squid-heads,” ordered Lee Bookman. “And neutralise any command codes that Al B. Harper or I know. Cromlyn has them all now. Thungore, put down that ridiculous sword or I’ll teach you how to read and write. Glumkeep, let go of Visionary before he hurts you. In case you haven’t noticed we’re the good people. The bad people are swarming down the corridor towards us right now.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Sealing the computer core,” reported Hallie. “Ooh, I see you’ve upgraded the security here quite a bit.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We had a few problems,” Vizh admitted.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We have a truce… for now,” conceded Thungore. “but later there will be a reckoning.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Although I need to do the maths for him,” admitted Glumkeep.     The pressure doors on the Mansion computer vault sealed closed before the first Spawn of Umsharr could pass through.     The siege began. ***     Archscientist Dr Al B. Harper finished the redesign of the helicarrier’s comms array about two hours into flight over the swamps of Zothar. He tapped in secure codes and connected through to Edward Cromlyn, who carried the Librarian’s comm-card.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ve accomplished everything you wanted,” Harper reported. “I’m en route now to defeat the rest of the Lair Legion, then I can pick you up so you can convert them properly and permanently. I expect to be done with the Umarr site by 2400 tonight and the carrier will be in position to destroy the free city of Golgamoria by noon tomorrow.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Very good,” admitted Cromlyn. “I don’t suppose you happen to have another over-ride code to get me into the Lair Mansion’s computer labs? It appears that the Mansion’s wretched artificial intelligence has sealed herself in there with the rag-tag useless end of the Mansion’s denizens.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“No codes you don’t already have. Who have you got in there?” Al wondered.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The data sprite, some hairy locals, and Visionary. Somehow they’ve killed Bookman.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Too bad,” shrugged Al B. “Watch out for Visionary. He’s more dangerous than you think.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He’d have to be. The lab is shielded with lead and independent force fields,” Cromlyn noted. “My psionic commands can’t penetrate it. Do you have a back way in?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Just threaten your other hostages. Vizh’ll cave to that.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I don’t have other hostages,” Cromlyn almost spat. “They teleported out.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We don’t – they don’t have anybody who can do that not,” Al B. argued. “Sounds like you’re suffering from a cascade of screw-ups down there, Edward.” Perhaps it was time for the archscientist to reconsider who was the best person to end up running the thirty-two realms after the Lair Legion had been put down?     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Just do your job, Harper, and obey your master.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“As you say, ‘master’. At least there are no screw-ups at my end of the job. Harper out.” ***      The young man in the SPUD uniform moved without looking left or right, like all the other mind-controlled personnel on the helicarrier. He passed without challenge into the secure containment area – after all, who had thoughts to challenge him? He found the control panel and after a good deal of experimentation managed to open the heavy confinement cells.     He went up to Drury and injected him with a neural assault desensitiser from the medical bay. Then he saluted. Badly. “SPUD Agent Beezleyhuxtoy reporting for duty, sir!” *** And next… The Secret Origin of the Willingham Lighthouse, the Return of the Probability Dancer, Die Hard, Helicarrier Style, The Siege of Golgamoria, The Awful Truth About the Land That Common Sense Forgot, and much, much more, in So That’s What That Was All About, coming as soon as the damned thing is finally finished. *** *** Previous Chapters: #1: “And just when did Danny find time to take over the Parodyverse?” by Dancer #2: "Sometime you have to turn flammable again!" by Visionary #3: That’s the Way the Story Goes by the Hooded Hood #4: See No Evil by the Hooded Hood #5: Whodunnit by the Hooded Hood, Visionary, Killer Shrike, and Jason #6: Suspicious Behaviour by the Hooded Hood, Jason, Hatman, and CrazySugarFreakBoy! #7: Accusation and Denial by the Hooded Hood, JJJ, Jason and L! #8: The Final Solution by the Hooded Hood and Dancer #9: The Land That Common Sense Forgot by the Hooded Hood #9.1: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #9.2: Chad and Ronnie by L! #9.3: “In addition to cappuccino and personal hygiene these tribespeople have not yet invented underwear.” by Dancer #9.4: Lone Lost Boy & Heroines Hanging Together by CrazySugarFreakBoy! #9.5: From Dross into Gold by Killer Shrike #9.6: Old Friends and New Allies by Visionary #9.7: Taking a Swim by L! #9.8: A Post-Swim Chat by L! #9.9: Champagne and the Land That Common Sense Forgot by Champagne #10: The Age of Villains by the Hooded Hood #10.1: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #10.2: The Baroness #55 by JJJ #10.3: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #10.4: Ewe Gotta Have Hart 1 by Killer Shrike #10.5: Ewe Gotta Have Hart 2 by Killer Shrike #11: An Age Undreamed Of by the Hooded Hood #12: The New Lair Legions (And Other Heroes) by the Hooded Hood #12.1: I Hate You by Visionary #12.2: Champagne and the Tower of Laments by Champagne #12.3: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #12.4: The Hearing by Visionary #12.5: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #13: Exploring the Forbidden Valley, or Samantha Featherstone and the Crystal Goddess by the Hooded Hood #14: Real Heroes by the Hooded Hood #14.1: “I’d like to be clear that I’m a no-skewer zone, and have been since college.” by Dancer #14.2: Catherine & the Danger Zone by L! #14.3: “Do you know how much shaving I had to do to put this thing on?” by Visionary #14.4: “Well we can’t just wait here till we find a use for Visionary. We’ll starve to death.” by Dancer #15: Change and Decay by the Hooded Hood #15.1: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #15.2: Hazardous Chemicals by Killer Shrike #16: One Moment In Time by the Hooded Hood #17: Slaves of the Brain Eaters, Thralls of the Blood-Drinkers by the Hooded Hood *** 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.

I guess the lucky part of the story for Al B Harper will be that while Anna is angry with him, her priority is looking after Griffin - so at least Al will get out of this alive. Plus she doesn't want to hurt Griffin's feelings by killing anyone else.

Also fortunately even when the Lair Legion faces hordes of psionic beings, Anna is intelligent enough to figure out non-lethal uses for her extremely lethal eye lasers.

Looks like Hallie is going to get a chance to take over the world, just a different one. And I wonder what the chances are that Yuki or Anna are holding on to Hallie's lost memories?