Saving the Future – Part 20: Good Intentions Previously: The Lair Legion, their island headquarters, and the SPUD helicarrier have been missing for four weeks, and the criminal fraternity of the world is enjoying a world without heroes. Baroness von Zemo has arranged for the villainous Purveyors of Peril to masquerade as a new Lair Legion. Kerry Shepherdson, Fashion Accessory (Samantha Bonnington), Ham-Boy, and Harlagaz have recruited exorcist Vinnie De Soth and boy genius Salieri Meng to try and locate the missing heroes. But Danny Lyle, Kerry’s boyfriend and the Hooded Hood’s son, has restored his father’s Portal of Pretentiousness and claimed Herringcarp Asylum; and such things always have a price. Previous Chapters The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Who's Who in the Parodyverse ***     The glass of the mirror was so old that in certain light it appeared to be black. The rim around it was of chased silver and some unidentifiable ancient wood. The whole Portal of Pretentiousness was almost ten feet across and seven feet high.     Danny Lyle sat before the black glass and stared into its depths. He seemed far away.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well?” demanded Kerry Shepherdson. “What’s wrong with him?”     Vincent de Soth, exorcist for hire, shook his head sadly. “Nothing simple,” he replied. “That Portal is an elder artefact, created by the powers of the Parodyverse as part of a trap for the Dread Dormaggadon. The same plot carved apart the Mythlands and reshaped the whole of time and space. When Danny used his powers to draw the portal back into existence who knows what he stirred up? These things always have some kind of cost.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So fix him,” Kerry demanded of the rumpled-looking young man with the untidy hair. “Exorcise him or de-curse him or something.” For a moment the dark-haired young Irish lass looked pale and haunted. “He’s slipping away from me, Vinnie. I don’t know how or why or what to do about it.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Danny loves you,” Vinnie assured her. “He first mastered the Portal for you and he remade it for you.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That just makes it worse. I’m to blame for this. For him… being consumed.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s not you. You never asked to be kidnapped by the Parody Master. You didn’t cause all the heroes of the Parodyverse to vanish. Um, did you?”     Kerry snorted. “Before I got my allowance off Dweebionary? Okay, so the guilt thing isn’t going to help. What will?”     Vinnie ran his hand through his tousled hair in bafflement. “I guess… maybe I could try and find out some more about the Portal of Pretentiousness. Maybe that will help me understand what Danny’s staring at all the time.”     Kerry nodded. “Good plan. How?”     Vinnie looked uncomfortable. “There’s somebody I can talk to.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Fine you do that. I’ll work on the other part of the plan.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There’s another part?”     Kerry bundled the young occultist to the door and shut it after him before turning back to Danny and pulling her t-shirt off. ***     Roni y Avis was feeling nervous these days. He’d pulled a lot of deals and his type of scam usually worked. When it didn’t he ended up arrested by superheroes. Except these days the superheroes weren’t doing arrests. Roni was sweating as he remembered the times he’d annoyed Baroness von Zemo.     That’s why Roni wasn’t in his office. He was hiding out in a roach motel near Fresno. And still there was a knock on his door.     Roni didn’t answer. He fumbled in his bedside drawer for a handgun.     The blast of flame blew his door off its hinges and sent blazing fragments across room. Before the inventor of internet spam could react the weapon was snatched from his one good hand (Baron Zemo had severed the other one years ago) and he was pinned to the wall.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This isn’t any way to treat a client, Roni,” Wyrmfood scolded.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ah. No. Sorry. I see that now. My mistake,” said Avis, trying to sound casual. “Error of judgement. I was expecting someone else. Not… um…” he didn’t recognise his attacker.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m Tina Drummond,” the disfigured humanoid dragon supplied. “We met before when I looked different to this. Back when I was Wyrm Bait of the New Battlers. Cute delinquent hottie with dragon DNA implants? Fire breath, draconic charm, winged flight, near invulnerability? Ring any bells?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ah, yes. Tina. Of course I remember you. You’re, er, looking good.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m looking like someone psionically peeled my epidermis off, Avis. Because that’s what Fashion Accessory did to me. Left me for dead. I only survived because someone thought I’d be fun to experiment on and mutate more.”     Roni Y Avis felt something trickle down his chin. It was blood. For a moment he thought the dragoinoid has torn his throat out. Then he realised that Wyrmfood was still seeping.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I can see you have a few scores to settle there, then.” Roni admitted.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh yes. I’ve been promised that Samantha Bonnington will suffer far worse than this, and for all eternity. I’ve seen the game plan. It’s truly horrible. And there’s not much better in store for her friends.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Right, well, good luck with that,” Roni babbled. “Lovely to bump into you, but I was just getting ready to check out. Important deals on the Left Coast, you know.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m working to a master plan, Roni,” Wyrmfood explained to the hapless entrepreneur. “And you are going to help me.” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hello.” Vinnie de Soth stood in absolute darkness in one of the subterranean vaults of Herringcarp Asylum. Most of the ghosts didn’t come to this part of the building. It scared them.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Listen, we need to talk,” Vinnie tried again. “I need your help.”     The air seemed colder, as if something was drawing all the heat to somewhere else. Vinnie felt the hairs on his arms prickling.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I know this is an imposition. I know it’s hard for you. I wouldn’t disturb you if it wasn’t important.”     The darkness seemed to throb with deep purple blotches, as if there was a whole spectrum beyond black that mortals can never see. Vinnie swallowed hard and resisted the urge to flee for his life.     Then she was there, the pale young woman in the ragged hemp tabard, her hair wild and her eyes pure black. She turned slowly to look at the man who had disturbed her.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey,” Vinnie said nervously, waving a hand at her. “We, um, we met before?”     She glided towards him. Her legs never made any motion. Vinnie knew that if she passed through him he would die.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I don’t want all your secrets,” he assured the phantom. “Well, I might want them but I’m not asking. I’m guessing there’s a pretty grim and gory story there and it’s probably too late for me to do much about it now. I do need to know some stuff about the Portal of Pretentiousness.”     The ghost paused so close to Vinnie that his breath passed through her face.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Please,” he asked her. “I’m trying to help prevent a tragedy. I need to understand something about the nature of the Portal. About its origins. About how it’s used. Can you help me?”     The phantom of Herringcarp nodded her head very slightly. In life she would have been pretty.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Will you help me?”     There was a long pause, and then the girl turned and glided away. Vinnie followed her through the labyrinth of cold dark chambers.     Towards the library. ***     The massive chasm extended down through the rain forest floor and descended as far as the eye could see. Further down the walls seemed lined with ancient stone, and there were carvings across them.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Tell me again why we’re here ruining our complexions with sunburn and giant mosquitoes,” Fashion Accessory demanded of the thirteen-year old boy genius who perched unhappily on the edge of the carpet she was causing to hover over the pit.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Wherein art the things we needs must smitheth?” demanded Harlagaz, peering into the maw.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And tell me again why Ham-Boy insists on wearing that ridiculous meat cowl to make him sweat more,” FA went on. She was hot and peevish and no matter how often she reconfigured her flowing white outfit it never did enough to keep her cool.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey, I have a secret identity,” objected the world’s meatiest hero.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But it’s not like you’re likely to have any loved ones to protect,” snapped Samantha testily.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Mayhap I couldst make it snow?” Gaz suggested diplomatically.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’re here,” interrupted Salieri Meng, equally impatient with the buffoons he had to work with, “because this is the clue the Lair Legion never had time to investigate before they vanished. This hole and several others opened up just days before similar stonework showed up on Parody Island. An investigator who descended into this one never came out again.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So we’re staying well out of the pit,” Ham-Boy urged. “Come on, guys, tell me we’re staying out of the pit.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Mayhap I shouldst go and visit yon Glitch in Seattle,” grumbled Harlagaz. “Mayhap there I wilt find smiting.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well we’re here,” FA told Meng. “Do your geekery and let’s get back.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We will need to get closer,” advised Salieri Meng. “There’s some kind of residual energy on those stones, and I need to get some readings so I can analyse them.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But not down there, right?” checked Ham-Boy. “I didn’t pack.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“”Let’s just do what we came to do and get out of here,” Fashion Accessory growled, lowering the carpet past the lip of the chasm.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Art we allowed to widdle into yon pit?” wondered Harlagaz speculatively. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Tell me what’s wrong,” demanded Kerry.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Nothing’s wrong, Firecracker,” answered Danny Lyle, lying on his back staring up at the canopy of the four poster bed in his Herringcarp Asylum bedroom. “Why should anything be wrong?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Okay, let me try again,” Kerry ventured. “Tell me what’s wrong or I’ll burn off all you body hair from the waist down.” The probability arsonist had her own way of showing concern.     Danny winced. “Apart from the usual what’s wrongs? Apart from your Lair Legion going AWOL and rampant fake Lair Legions hunting us down and every damn occupant of the Safe getting loose and declaring Happy Hour?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, apart from that. You’re worrying me, Danny.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, I dunno. How about cosmic office holders declaring open season on me, going to the world’s governments and convincing them I’d be safer with my head stuck on a pike somewhere?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“They’ll never find you here at Herringcarp. Salieri reckons even the major cosmic office holders have trouble scanning the Asylum.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh, that’s alright then. I was bothered that I wouldn’t be safe hiding away here for the rest of eternity, never able to leave.” Danny shifted to look into Kerry’s eyes. “How can you even stand to be with me, Kes? You know what I did to you in some alternate reality.”     Kerry knew. “Your other you betrayed other me and enslaved me into some nasty machine that leached my powers. Then he went from reality to reality grabbing other Kerrys until he was able to turn himself into the Moderator and try to claim the whole Parodyverse. Old news. But that wasn’t you, was it?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What’s the difference between us, then?” Danny wondered. “What’s to say that tomorrow morning I won’t wake up and think it’s a good idea here?” He closed his eyes. “What if the Chronicler of Stories is right and I’m going to doom the Parodyverse?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What if he’s not?” demanded Kerry. “He’s also on my list.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What if I become the Moderator? Or worse?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Then you’d be on my list too. But you won’t. You love me. I love you. We’re together. Always.”     Danny wrapped his fingers around Kerry’s hand. “Always,” he replied.     The Portal of Pretentiousness had shown him how long that was. ***     Samantha Bonnington stood over Salieri Meng as he sequenced the images he’d taken of the chasm on his laptop. “Well?” she demanded, automatically exchanging Meng’s shirt for an identical cleaner one. “What is it?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey, it’s not like I can just come up with this stuff in two minutes,” complained the seventh-smartest boy genius on the planet. “I had to devise a special buffer just so my laptop would work in this creepy Asylum of yours.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’d like it on record that this is so not our creepy Asylum,” Ham-Boy insisted.     Harlagaz looked around the shrouded gloom of Herringcarp. “Tis easy to see how these surroundings didst twist the heart and soul of our friend Zachary,” he noted. “There is much here that ist unwholesome.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I changed Meng’s shirt already,” FA replied.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It is a bad place,” agreed Ham-Boy. “And now it belongs to Danny, and he’s changing.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Kare’s on that,” Samantha replied. “She’s relying on us to solve the stupid sudden pit mystery.” She poked Salieri in the back. “So?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So my initial tests suggest that the rock and the carvings on it are older than the Earth,” suggested Salieri. “They’ve been phased out of reality for a very long time, but now something’s triggered them back in. Those carvings somehow connect to latent energies I can’t quite identify, but they’re not triggered yet. Some of the wavelengths are similar to those when the Lair Mansion vanished.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And who ist the foul perpetrator of yon big holes?” demanded Gaz.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah. I might need a bit more time before I name targets,” sighed Salieiri. “And maybe a pizza.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well I can’t afford to wait for you to get your nerd in gear,” FA told the boy genius. “I have a meeting with my agent.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Be careful out there,” Ham-Boy warned her. The Purveyors of peril were still hunting Juniors.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m always careful,” Samantha grinned at him. “”But I’m hoping that my civilian identity is a success.” ***     Vinnie De Soth shielded his eyes with his hand. “Whoa,” he said, backing off from the conflagration. “I didn’t even know that ghosts could burn!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well they can,” Kerry Shepherdson told him with satisfaction. “All those long brittle winding sheets? Just asking for napalm.” She looked through the gloom where various vicious wisps were flailing in columns of eerie green witchfire and smiled with the satisfaction of a job well done.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Very, um, instructive,” Vinnie offered nervously. “I’ll have to pass that on to Liu Xi if I ever find a way of finding her.”     The probability arsonist shot a look over her shoulder to the crumpled exorcist. “You’re seeing Liu Xi Xian?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Seeing’s about the limit of what we’re doing right now,” Vinnie answered. “I mean, not that I’m thinking of doing anything. Anything bad. Or that I’m seeing things I shouldn’t be seeing.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hm. Can’t think why you’re still at the seeing stage,” Kerry smirked.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m very worried about Liu Xi.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, we all have our moments like that with her. She’s kind of hard to understand. Hard to get to. Sometimes I think there’s a shy nice person inside that shell she wraps herself in. But I’ve never really had the time to burn through it and find out.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“She can be a very nice person, yes,” agreed Vinnie. “Anyway Kerry, this is about as far as you can go.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’re only talking about her,” Kerry answered defiantly. “I might even be able to give you some tips about how to…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I mean as far as you can go on this mission,” Vinnie clarified. “We’re at the shadow gate, and it’s not safe for you to go any further.”     Kerry shot him a hard stare. “And you think it’s safe for you to leave me behind? Listen, I let you drag me to those creepy ghouls to interpret that old scroll you dug up in the Herringcarp library. I trailed after you while you visited that smelly pawnshop. I was with you when you talked to whatever the hell that was under the Englehart Bridge. And eew about the goat, by the way. So if you think I’m staying behind now because of an abandoned taxidermist’s shop full of highly flammable ghosts…”     Vinnie and Kerry stood in the gloom in the boarded up dustiness of an old building deep in the tiny alleys of Gothametropolis’ Sixways district. The ancient rotting stuffed animals perched on display cases seemed to watch them as they talked. Beady glass eyes seemed to reflect unholy hellfire.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This place isn’t the problem,” Vinnie insisted. “But beyond this door here there’s another place. A not nice place. You can’t follow me there.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is it a place where we can finally find out what’s happening to Danny?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Maybe. The parchment from the Library that the Abyssal Greye translated suggested some possible origins for the Portal of Pretentiousness. Rupert Weismann discerned which of those origins was the truth. The troll under the bridge traded us the key to this doorway. But beyond here it gets pretty nasty, and I can’t take you with me, no matter how bad the third degree burns get.” Vinnie screwed up his eyes and waited for the pain.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Vinnie, do you really think I’d leave you to face whatever’s in there alone?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Kerry, can you imagine what your boyfriend would do to me if I let you come to any harm? Danny’s imaginative.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Vinnie, I’m coming with you and that’s it. Now do whatever spooky things you need to do to open this shadow door thing and let’s go. This isn’t negotiable. Not unless Liu Xi likes her boyfriends deep fried and crispy.” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Howdy,” Solly Tempest (Agent to the Stars) greeted Fashion Accessory as they met in the restaurant atop the Twin Parody Tower. “Samantha, this is Val Vortex. He’s the producer at Big World Studios, the people behind the Phantomhawk trilogy.”     Fashion Accessory flashed Vortex her Hollywood smile. “Hi. Nice to meet you at last.”     It was nice, she realised. Most movie producers were fat and old. Val Vortex was trim and looked maybe thirty. He had well cut designer stubble and he wore all the right labels. He was ticking all the boxes.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Good to meet you at last, too, Samantha,” Vortex told the California blonde in the classy black dress. “Solly says you’ve been looking for the right part to break into movies.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I have. But I’m considering my options carefully. So many girls make the wrong moves heading to the big screen.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Samantha’s a real trouper, Val,” Solly supported his client loyally. “She’s already climbing to the top of the catwalk. Or is that the front of the catwalk? Anyway, she’s headlining the summer line from Fashion Fairy Fabrications, and she’s likely to be optioned for an NBC sitcom in the fall.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes, I’m aware of all Samantha’s talents,” agreed Vortex. “That’s why I had that little Avis man put us in touch. I need the right girl for my next project, and it’s going to make the Phantomhawk series look penny-ante.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Really?” FA breathed, transfixed. “How interesting.”     Vortex gestured for a bottle of champagne. “Samantha, let’s talk.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m certainly listening, Mr Vortex.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Call me Val,” the producer suggested, pouring her a drink. Val was more informal than calling him the Void Scholar. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Aaaagghh!” screamed Vinnie.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yaaaaaaahhh!” screeched Kerry.     They both tumbled onto a dirty tiled floor scattered with abandoned syringes. A dim green light filtered in from the algae-stained roof panels. The air was thick with dust.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What the hell was that?” demanded the probability arsonist, dragging herself to her feet and trying to stop shaking.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Between,” Vinnie told her. “As in between places that aren’t nice and places worse than that. I tried to warn you.”     Kerry looked around. The travellers had appeared in an abandoned laboratory. Broken bell jars and abandoned petrie dishes decorated chipped worktops. Piles of rubble and leaves swept in through broken skylights covered the detritus of scientific wreckage. “And where are we now?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, not the dungeons of Morgosa Le Fay, which is kind of where I thought the trail was heading,” Vinnie admitted. “Morgana managed to plunder the Lost Library of Lurkosa before it was swallowed by the Elder Cataclysm in an Age Uncalled For. That scroll I found was a page from a book from that library. So I was trying to use the page to locate the rest of the book.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This doesn’t look like a library,” Kerry commented. “This looks like an abandoned government lab.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, I’m a bit puzzled by that,” admitted Vinnie, examining a 1970s telephone and the rusted remains of a centrifuge. “Why would we get diverted here?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Maybe this Morgosa knew we were coming?”     Vinnie shook his head. “This isn’t her style at all. Not enough velvet. Not enough blood. If we were diverted through the Void it was somebody else interfering.”     Kerry wrenched open a cobwebbed door. It came off in her hand. A corridor beyond led to other chambers and a stairway down.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Um, do you always make a beeline for the cellar that says ‘Forbidden. Do not enter. Extreme danger.’?” Vinnie checked.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Who doesn’t?” grinned Dancer’s sister.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“People who enjoy living?” Vinnie ventured.     Kerry expressed her opinion of people who didn’t have an adventurous streak and burned the padlock off the cellar door. “If there’s a big baddie trap let’s find out then deal with it,” she suggested.     The basement was as deserted as the rest of the complex; except that here the 1970s reel-to-reel computer banks and twelve inch cathode screens had been supplemented with later technology, some of it still in place. A bank of glass specimen tubes were lined against one wall. Giant blow-up images of various insects decorated the walls. Stacks of concertina-fold computer paper outputted millions of numbers in six-digit columns of zeroes and ones. One broken electron microscope was still bolted to a research bench.     Nothing leaped out and killed Kerry and Vinnie.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Okay, still wondering what the deal is here,” Kerry admitted. “Looking to the spooky specialist to be answer guy.”     Vinnie sighed, entered the room, and looked round. “Okay, let’s see. It’s a biochem lab, judging by the equipment. They were working with insects. It was probably finally abandoned about a decade ago.”     Kerry picked something up from the pile of debris. It was a pair of skimpy panties. “And they had a party before they left?” she speculated.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Umm…” mumbled Vinnie, blushing. But a search of the room found more abandoned clothing strewn in far corners. Quite a lot of it.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So, good-time swinger biologists doing bug research,” summarised Kerry. “What has this to do with the Portal of Pretentiousness or Danny slipping away into the Twilight Zone?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Working on it,” Vinnie promised her.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, well work…” Kerry began, opening the first locker in a long row against one wall. Then she shrieked. A pile of bones had toppled out on her.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Kerry!” shouted Vinnie, rushing over to pick Kerry up from beneath the human remains. “Are you okay?”     A few of the bones sizzled as she pushed them aside. “Okay’s not quite the word,” she admitted, scrabbling back to the occultist. “I guess I’m still spooked by that shadow journey.”     Vinnie picked her up and held her for a moment. “It’s okay,” he promised her. “They’re just dead.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh, well that’s okay then,” Kerry snorted.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I mean they’re not undead or anything. Just a couple of corpses stuffed into a locker. A male and a female, judging by the pelvises.”     Kerry looked at the tangle of bones. There was no meat left on them. They were polished bare. “So it was a really great party and they did some really brutal spin the bottle forfeits.”     Vinnie became very aware that he was holding Kerry in his arms. He hastily let her go and backed away.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’d better check the other lockers,” Kerry said, turning from him abruptly. “Carefully.”     Vinnie and Kerry discovered the other corpses, two by two. Twenty-four picked clean skeletons carefully arranged in intimate positions in the abandoned lab.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I can’t help thinking that we should call someone,” Vinnie worried. “But who do we call?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Us,” Kerry answered. “Right now there’s no-one else. No Legion, no SPUD, no Xander. We have to deal. So what happened here, and why is it important?”     Vinnie thought she looked pretty good when she was earnest and intense. “We, um, we need to check for clues. Those abandoned clothes. Are there wallets? Purses?”     A thorough search found a few ID tags on discarded lab coats but no other identifying information.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Are there ghosts here?” Kerry demanded. “Can you talk to them, Vinnie?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Um, I guess I could set up a séance and find out. It could take a while.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Take a while. I’ll check in with FA and tell her we’re delayed doing X-Files.” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What I’m looking for is something special,” Wyrmfood explained. “A piece of ordinance unlike any other.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“My employer specialises in unusual requirements,” conceded the Mind’s Eye. “What were you looking for?” For some reason the draconic girl’s mind was closed to her telepathic probings.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m looking for a weapon that can take down an Ausgardian. Something that will permanently cripple but not kill. Something that will leave him immortal but shattered, trapped within a body wracked with pain for all time, unable to move, unable to do more than scream. Any ideas?”     Nadya Prokofiev paused for a moment while she consulted telepathically with her principle, the multinational arms dealer Factor X. “Yes, I think something could be arranged,” she reported at last. “But such a thing will not be inexpensive.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Money is no object at all,” Wyrmfood promised. “There are some things that money can’t buy.” ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is there anybody there?” Vinnie asked, sitting with Kerry inside a white chalk circle. “Anybody who wants to talk with us?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Or who has information about Danny Lyle,” added Kerry helpfully.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Er, maybe it would be better if I did this?” Vinnie told her. It was distracting enough being crowded with the probability arsonist in a confined magic circle. Her perfume was driving him nuts.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Sorry. Just trying to be helpful,” Kerry told him sourly. Vinnie was really getting on her nerves right now for some reason. He hadn’t bothered her this much before.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m Vinnie de Soth,” the young exorcist announced to any spirits in the room. “Is there any presence here who wants to tell me their story?”     There was no reply. Vinnie could feel Kerry’s heat at his back.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Anything?” she asked him.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not yet. We need to be patient. And to concentrate.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I am concentrating. You’re the one who seems to be slacking off. Where’s the ghostie, Vinnie?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Look, this isn’t like you looking at something and making it explode, or your boyfriend just denying something by speaking. I don’t have super-powers. I have to make do with knowing things and with taking the time to get results the hard way.”     Kerry scowled. “Not seeing any results right now. Only seeing a self-important jackass.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Better than a self-absorbed paranoid with the attention span of a flea.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What?” gasped Kerry. “How dare you? I can…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I know what you can do,” Vinnie told her. “I don’t give in to bullies as a matter of principle.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m not a bully!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You threaten people with your power to get your way. You’re cranky all the time and you never think of anyone but yourself or one of your tight little clique. I think bully’s a pretty fair word.”     Kerry flushed. “Yeah? Well why should I care what a loser dweeb living in a basement who ran away from his mommy thinks about me anyhow?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Because you’re so insecure you’re ready to fly into a rage over anyone who questions you, no matter what you think about them!”     Kerry snarled into Vinnie’s face. Vinnie caught her and kissed her.     The sudden lip contact became serious. The two of them knelt there, in Vinnie’s chalk circle, locked in embrace.     Their kiss was urgent and brutal. Vinnie was already pulling Kerry’s shirt up over her chest when she pushed him away and cried “No!”     Vinnie toppled over the circle, sprawling onto his back. His shirt was torn open, the buttons scattered amongst the debris of the floor. “No,” he agreed. “Sorry. Really sorry. It’s this place. There’s some kind of compulsion.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is that what you call it?” Kerry demanded, furious with Vinnie and with herself. She pulled her t-shirt down as far as it would go, but that only served to outline her bosom better. “What do you think you were doing? I’m with Danny!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And I’m with… nobody at the moment I admit, but still I wouldn’t do that to you. Or Danny. I’m not that guy.” And yet the attraction was there between them, alluring, compelling, a mixture of anger and lust.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We need to get out,” Kerry agreed. “We need a cold shower.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes,” agreed Vinnie. “Only in separate showers.”     They scrambled from the floor and fled.     Something watched them go. ***     Wyrmfood placed the 8x10 photo on the bench. “Ham-Boy,” she noted, gesturing to the image. “Weak link of the Junior Lair Legion. Generates raw meats of various kinds from extradimensional pockets then psionically controls it. Nobody knows how.”     The diabolical Dr Moo leaned over to look at the picture. “Oh, there’s a fairly standard method,” she replied. “It’s usually an interpretative link to the realm of corposant fire with a matter rearrangement shunt during the interface that creates whatever key substance the mind of the summoner is attuned to. Meat, webs, fabrics, vegetables, weaponry, the end product doesn’t matter. It gets drawn into our reality and becomes real.”     Davidowski, Dr Moo’s rat lab assistant interjected. “Don’t get her going on the conservation of matter again,” he pleaded. “Just say what you came for.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I came for a way to stop Ham-Boy,” Wyrmfood told the world’s greatest geneticist. “I know what you can do, because I know what you did to me. Now I want you to come up with something special for the world’s meatiest hero.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And what’s that?” Dr Moo asked, peering over her half-moon spectacles with marginal interest.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This,” Wyrmfood replied, pushing some calculations from the Void Scholar across the table to the cow queen of crime. “I want you to come up with a way to interfere with Ham-Boy’s powers so that when he uses them he doesn’t draw meat from whatever that place was you said. He pulls it from inside himself. And I want that to become a continuous loop, ripping his own guts out for the rest of his life, unable to stop.”     Moo and Davidowicz exchanged glances.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Um, you’ve got a drop of spittle on your muzzle,” the rat told Wyrmfood politely.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Can you do it?” demanded the dragonoid.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Sure,” agreed Dr Moo. “It’s an interesting puzzle. Give me a couple of days.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And then Ham-Boy is burger chow,” hissed Wyrmfood. ***     Danny was staring into the depths of the Portal of Pretentiousness again.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I thoughteth thou was to take a break from yon scrying,” objected Harlagaz. “It art not healthy to be watchething too much on yon magic mirror.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Says the guy who spent forty-eight hours non-stop on the Xenathon,” snorted Ham-Boy. “But seriously Danny, we need to talk. Salieri’s come up with some info. Any idea where Kerry is?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“She got back with Vinnie about an hour ago, just after me,” Fashion Accessory answered. “She seemed pretty upset. Said she needed to shower.”     Salieri Meng, the world’s seventh-smartest boy genius, sighed. “Well when she’s finished making herself beautiful you can tell her that I tracked down the info on that mysterious lab she and De Soth discovered. It was originally a Zemo bio-lab in the sixties, back when the Baron was still undercover. It was raided by SPUD in the seventies and became part of something called Project: Genesis. It was used to investigate captured alien biomatter.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“How can you know this stuff?” Ham-Boy demanded.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Because I’m very very clever,” Meng explained curtly. “Also, the title deeds and utility records are on file at the Moon Public Library and I’m a member.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“So what did they do at the place?” FA demanded. “Why all the skeletons?” Vinnie and Kerry had made a brief report.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“It was closed down in 1979,” Salieri went on. “Then briefly reopened for some reason about five years back. Then it was quarantined under a level one containment order by the Office of Paranormal Security. No-one’s been in there since until today.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Was it quarantined because of an incident where twenty-four lab people died?” wondered Ham-Boy.     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Looks like. As for the research, it looks like they were still examining some alien swarm bioform and some accompanying technology. A real Area 51 scenario.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And what art there to smite therein?” demanded Gaz, cutting to the chase.     Meng shrugged. “As far as I can tell there’s no reason for Kerry and Vinnie to end up there. If there was a threat it’s been dormant for a long while, or its got smart enough not to be noticed. I can’t get more details because all the SPUD files are locked down right now for obvious reasons.”     Fashion Accessory shrugged. “Oh well. It’s not like we don’t have more important things to worry about right now. I’ll let Kare know about your findings as soon as she decides to emerge from her washday, Sal.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Salieri.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Whatever.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Now can we please get back to prying Danny away from this damned Portal?” pleaded Ham-Boy. “What can you see in there anyhow, Denial?”     Danny’s eyes narrowed. “Plenty,” he replied. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh crap,” Kerry gasped, turning to her side and rubbing her face. “What have we done?”     Vinnie shuffled over to the other side of her bed, looking for his pants. “Something unforgivable, I think. I don’t know what to say.”     Kerry pulled the bedclothes around her torso, biting her lip. “I don’t know how it happened. I never meant it to.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Me neither. I promise. It was like a compulsion. But there’s nothing like that. No curse. No geas. No love draught. I just wanted you.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And you had me. What the hell will I say to Danny?”     Vinnie looked horrified at the thought of Kerry’s boyfriend discovering their infidelity. “I… Does he have to know?”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Of course he does. I’m not lying to him. I love him.” Kerry blinked back tears. “And then I go do this to him!”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m sorry. I’m not like this, Kerry. I don’t do things like this. It was just that… you…”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I know. I feel the same way. But it’s wrong.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Very very wrong.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Wrong.”     They tumbled together back onto the bed, and started again. ***     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Excellent work,” the Void Scholar congratulated Wyrmfood as they stood in the abandoned biolab. “I think that should put a different perspective on Mister Lyle’s relationship with the probability arsonist.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“All in a day’s work of destroying Sammie and her little super-friends,” Wyrmfood smiled. “And I couldn’t have done it without help from our special guest star.”     The insects crawled like roaches from every crack and crevice in the room, scuttling together to build up a human form. Finally the body clothed itself in artificial flesh and bent down to pull on a discarded lab coat. “It’s a pleasure to be finally restored to my full self again,” admitted Dr Loveray, alien emotion-twisting swarm entity. “I have so much to catch up on.”     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m sure of it,” agreed the Void Scholar. “Amuse yourself. I’ll let you know when I require you to entrance Samantha Bonnington.”     Wormfood giggled. “Oh, I’m really looking forward to that one,” she spat. “Two down, three to go!” *** Coming Next: It’s time to resolve who’s the Legion, and then it’s time to let them take on Onslaughter. Tune in (or tie-in) next time for Legions. *** 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 #18: Now Get Out Of That by the Hooded Hood #18.1: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #18.2: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #18.3 Crossing Lines by CrazySugarFreakBoy! #18.4 Shooting You With My Smile by CrazySugarFreakBoy! #18.5: Funeral For a Friend by L! #18.6: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #18.7 Playing Both Ends by CrazySugarFreakBoy! #18.8: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #18.9: Adventures in Parodyverse by Jason #18.10: Valued Employee by Visionary #19: Probable Cause 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.