Previous Post > > Saving the Future – Part 4: See No Evil > > > > Previously: > > Part One by Dancer > > Part Two by Visionary > > Part Three by the Hooded Hood > > > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ll take your views now,” Hatman said. > > > >     There was a cacophony as pretty much the entire Lair Legion spoke at once on the subject of Danny Lyle. > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ll take your views now, one at a time,” Hatman corrected himself. “Dream?” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I don’t believe in irreversible destinies,” answered the champion of chaos. “I call bullshit on the Chronicler. No way to we penalise a kid for what his alternate dimension self did. That’d be like…” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Holding you accountable for your actions in the Moderatorverse?” asked the Librarian quietly. > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Lee,” Jay queued in the keeper of the Moon Public Library. > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The cosmic office-holders have done this kind of thing before,” the Librarian admitted. “Not often, but sometimes. It’s in the records. It’s a part of their jobs. A terrible, awful, necessary part of their jobs.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Are you saying we should go along with this?” CrazySugarFreakBoy! objected. > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m saying we should weigh the facts before we get caught up in four-colour comics rhetoric and simplistic truisms,” Lee snapped back. > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And I’m saying you’re a…” Dream flared. > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Moving on,” Hatman interjected firmly, “Yuki?” > > > >     The purple haired cyborg P.I. dropped a pile of tactical assessment folders on the table. “I’ve checked what data the Chronicler’s chosen to share with us, and yeah, from his point of view it looks like Danny going bad is a done deal. But I’ve checked around. There’s other points of view.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Just none as clear as the person whose whole job it is to keep an eye on this stuff,” Al B. Harper warned. “Hey, don’t glare at me. We can’t avoid facts, and the fact is that the Chronicler of Stories is uniquely positioned to know this stuff. I’m not saying ignore what Faite or Oldman or Woopsa or whoever is telling us, I’m just saying we have to weigh in that the Chronicler knows things.” > > > >     Yuki indicated another file. “If Denial went bad we could probably take him down with the right tactics. On one occasion the Legion has even beaten his pa, the Hooded Hood, by fighting our way through his retcons.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’d be the time his former daughter Troia stabbed him in the back and then Baron Zemo shot him,” CSFB! noted. > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Danny’s not as strong as his father, and his powers aren’t as wide-ranging,” Al B. observed. > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Tell that to the Moderatorverse,” muttered Yuki. > > > >     The Shoggoth oozed a hand over the files to absorb the contents. “You also have scenarios here for if the Legion decide to take on the Chronicler,” he noted. “Most creative.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, well,” Yuki shrugged, “we can’t be letting him demote Earth from the nexus planet, whatever the hell that is. Apparently that’d be bad.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“At any given era there is a focal point to the narrative streams of the Parodyverse,” lectured the Librarian. “Once it was the planet of the Second Oldest Race. There have been several others since. All of them are now gone.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Being the nexus planet destroyed them?” Hatman frowned. > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I suspect they were destroyed when they ceased to be the nexus planet,” Lee speculated. “Do not take the Chronicler’s warning about the Nexus of Unreality moving on too lightly.” > > > >     The Shoggoth shifted, his bandaged head oozing slightly. “I am intrigued that the Chronicler of Stories places such a demand before mortals whom he must know would never accede to it,” he mused. “What story is the Chronicler hoping for here?” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Al B?” Hatman called upon the Lair Legion’s archscientist. “Your take on this?” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There’s nothing can’t be fixed by science,” Al B. argued, chomping down on his bubble pipe. “There’s got to be some way of depowering Danny, or regulating him, or…” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“How about we just help him be a decent human being?” argued CSFB! “Hell, the guy fought for us in the Parody War. He died to save Kerry. He came back because being with her was his Happy Ending. Are we really going to wreck all that? I don’t think so.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“He’s also a murderer,” noted Yuki. “The Chronicler told us, and the collaborating evidence is… convincing.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Then you also need to arrest a bunch of other people,” the Librarian pointed out. “Liu Xi Xian, Lara Night, the Manga Shoggoth, CrazySugarFreakBoy!…” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That was in an alternate dimension!” CSFB! shouted. “It never happened! You don’t see everybody going off on Dancer because she had that evil double from another world that married that Ultra-Humanite!” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, that was actually one of Dancer’s better dates,” admitted Hatman. > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“How’s Kerry taking this?” Al B. asked to defuse the tension a little. “I’ve got the house nanobots on full fire containment mode.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Vizh is with her,” Hatman reported. “He didn’t want to be at this meeting. He said it wasn’t even in question whether we’d do anything to Danny.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well it’s not, is it?” demanded CSFB! “Anyone here think we should kill Denial? Anyone at all?” > > > >     There were no takers. > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“There you are, then,” the deputy leader of the LL told Hatman. “Case closed. Go tell the Chronicler he can…” > > > >     Hallie’s hologram blinked into the room. “We have a problem,” she said. > > > >     Hatman came to full alert, his worried expression vanishing in favour of one that was all action. “What’s wrong?” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You have a call,” the A.I. replied to him. “It’s the President. He wants to talk about Danny Lyle.” > > > > *** > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“This is very simple,” Herbert P. Garrick told Amber St Clare. “Nothing in your U.S. or U.N. charters allows to you incarcerate a prisoner without extradition to proper judicial processes. When the governments of the world insist that you hand over Denial then the Legion’s only recourse is to salute and say ‘Where shall we deliver him, sir?’” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I know what kind of salute you’d get,” Amber snorted. “Look, the Legion is the best organisation to deal with this problem. They’ve got the experience and the expertise.” > > > >     Garrick pointed an accusing finger at the team’s government liaison. “And you’re losing your perspective. Remember that you were appointed to keep an eye on those freaks, not to shield them from proper supervision.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, well those freaks never Obedience Branded me, and they did manage to save your sorry ass and the whole world,” Amber shot back. “So pardon me if I do my job properly, and liase for them rather than act as your spy and mouthpiece.” > > > >     Garrick’s face was cold. “That could be a career decision, Ms St Clare.” > > > >     Amber blanched. > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Tell your little superfriends that SPUD will be here in half an hour to take Lyle into custody. If they resist that then they’re breaking their charter. They’re rogue. That’s the end of all their public goodwill, the end of their government perks and privileges and funding and clearances. They’re the bad guys, and we will come after them with everything we have to save the world.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’d turn against the heroes who’ve saved you so many times?” Amber asked, already knowing the answer. > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’re talking global security here,” Bad News Herb replied. “You think your misfits are the only people who know the Chronicler? Think again. He warned us as well. He warned every nation on the planet. He warned the Carnifax.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“That much is obvious from the two hundred calls we’ve already had demanding that we pass Danny over to their jurisdiction,” Amber answered. “Everybody from Barovia and Spango to Candia and Wakandybar. The Abhumans demand him. The Sea Monkeys claim dominion over him.” Amber shuddered. “And then there was the envoy from the Racoon People.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“But for once the United Nations is backing the United States,” Garrick insisted. “Lyle comes to us. First to the Safe, and then we determine what his future status will be.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“How to kill him, you mean?” > > > >     Garrick shrugged. “How to keep the world safe, Ms St Clare. That’s the job. The Chronicler of Stories understands it. You’d better grow up and understand it too.” He dropped the bulky paperwork on Amber’s desk. “You’ve got half an hour to get him ready for transport.” > > > > *** > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I don’t understand,” worried Marie Murcheson, guest at the Lair Mansion. “If we can not trust our own government, whom can we trust?” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, you’ve kind of missed a century or more of politics,” Flapjack snorted. “These days Tricky Nicky’s looking pretty clean.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Who?” the young woman resurrected from the Victorian era puzzled. > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I am becoming worried,” admitted Glory. “For all the deficiencies of our elected representatives, they are elected. They are constitutionally authorised, by the will of the people. They should have a voice in determining the future of the world.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Surely they will treat Danny fairly, and with justice,” agreed Marie. “We have a judicial process which is the envy of the world.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, law and order shows get pretty good ratings,” compromised Flapjack. He didn’t like arguing with the former Lair Banshee. > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“The governments should be involved in this situation,” whimpered Glory unhappily. “They are the ones whose job it is to determine threats to national security and how to approach dealing with them, with input from the heroes of course. The Lair Legion is becoming very anti-authoritarian and anti-democratic. I wish Dominic was here.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey, it’s fine by me that they’re like this,” Flapjack shrugged. “The masters sit up in the castle playing God, and I get to throw boiling lead down on the rebelling peasants. It’s just like my intern days.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I am sure that the Lair Legion will find a just way to proceed,” Marie reassured the unhappy mutt of might. “Without using molten lead.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Awww,” complained Flapjack. He brightened up. “I’ll go melt down some of the roofing just in case.” > > > > *** > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just go and bust Danny out of there,” Kerry demanded, her fists clenched. The surface of the breakfast table in Vizh’s Lighthouse began to smoulder. > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Because that would stop the Legion finding a decent solution to this?” Vizh suggested. “Because they’d have to take you down too? Because you and Danny would be fugitives for the rest of your lives? Because you’d have to hurt your friends to do it?” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Other than those!” > > > >     Kerry’s possibly-fake adopted big brother and former guardian reached and clasped her hand. “Kerry, you’ve got to have some faith. The LL won’t do anything unfair to Danny. I know them. They might need a bit of bickering time first, but…” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“You think they can protect him?” Kerry demanded. “Against the Chronicler of Stories?” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I have a call in to Lisa’s answerphone,” Vizh assured her. “It’s only a matter of time before she puts down whoever she’s out with and checks her messages.” He thought a bit more. “It could be a fair while, though,” he admitted, “depending on whether he had a high-calorie breakfast this morning.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We can’t just sit here,” Kerry insisted. “Hallie said the government wanted to take Danny away. We can’t let them carry him off and experiment on him.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m sure that Hatty can drag on his judge’s wig and come up with some way to slow them down,” Vizh assured the distraught teenager. > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’ve got to let Danny wake up. Let him defend himself!” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“And we will. Kerry, we’re going to find a way to clear all of this up. It’s probably just a misunderstanding, or a test or something. Just try to stay calm. Or at least sub-nuclear.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Why can’t the Juniors be here? Why can’t I go to FA’s house? Don’t you trust us?” > > > >     Vizh winced. “I think we’d be best where we are, and the Juniors away from Parody Island. That way nobody can do anything stupid.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m pretty sure you’re underestimating yourself, dweebo,” snapped Kerry. Then she burst into tears and hurled herself into Visionary’s arms. > > > >     Hallie’s hologram fizzed in. “You might want to get over to the Mansion as soon as the tide changes and gets the lighthouse back to the island,” she remarked. “It looks like the SPUD helicarrier’s moving into position and Drury’s bringing a confinement team to try and take Danny.” > > > >     Kerry looked up, her eyes blazing. “What?” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Legal games might hold Garrick at bay for a while,” Hallie judged, “but not Dan Drury. This could get serious.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“We should get Danny out of there, then,” Vizh decided. “Into the ghoul tunnels and away.” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Somewhere the Chronicler of Stories can’t find him?” Hallie asked sceptically. “No, I’m afraid our best chance is if Hatty can…” Then she fell silent, her face changing into a mask of shock. “Uh-oh!” > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“What?” demanded Vizh and Kerry together. > > > >     Ã¢â‚¬Å“Danny Lyle!” gasped the Legion’s resident artificial intelligence. “He’s gone!” > > > > *** > > > > Continued in Saving the Future – Part 5: Whodunnit? > > > > *** > > > > 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.

Saving the Future Part Four 3.5: “Fight the Present!”

“This is what I know,” Simon Maddicks began.

“Al B Harper is working on a test in his lab where he’s trying to identify some kind of “evil gene” in this kid Danny Lyle. Who’s Danny Lyle? Well, besides being the squeeze of the sister of the woman I HATE MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD, he’s also the son of the Hooded Hood. I’m sure you heard of him. And on top of all that he may be the guy who becomes the guy known as The Moderator, who took over the Parodyverse a while back and twisted things around so that he and his goons were the heroes.

“You probably don’t remember that. And that’s because he lost. The heroes, who were really the villains on that world, and me, who’s just awesome no matter what reality I’m dumped in, collectively curb stomped him and his entire operation, turning things back to the way things are supposed to be. Except now apparently the Lair Legion are worried this kid may become The Moderator or something worse and destroy the world like his alternate version of himself did. Kapisch? So Harper’s running his tests and if the result is that Lyle will become the big arch villain every little boy dreams of growing up, they might kill him.”

The big man in the army jacket stopped talking briefly, waiting for the mounted policeman to trot past the park bench where he and his companion were sitting, “This is what I plan to do about it.

“I’m going to bust him out of Lair Island. Lyle’s old man was the only boss I had who ever treated me right. Sure he had a fruity accent, but the Hooded Hood was all class. He knew what it meant to be a villain. And his legacy- see, he’s dead now, got blown up during the Parody War- the Hood’s legacy shouldn’t be snuffed out by a bunch so called do-gooders who don’t know the rules. That’s what torques me off more than anything else: these schmucks in the Legion don’t even know their role. They’re getting ready to cross a line, and after that it’s only a matter of time before they all start growing goatees and wearing eye patches and become evil. Like that episode of “Super Friends” where Flash dies and the heroes all turn into asswipe fascist dinks. Follow me?”

“Not really.”

Simon searched for the right explanation, gazing up into the clear night sky over Oft Central Park as if for inspiration, “I’m going to rescue the kid before the heroes kack him in order to serve the greater good, turning themselves into a bunch of even bigger tools.”

There was a long pause, “OK.”

“Now, Part C, Why you need to help me. One, you’ve got your powers that will make it a lot easier to get where we need to go inside the mansion. Second, it’s your job to help those in need. Maybe you don’t normally do that by busting into Superhero Headquarters, but the idea is the same. This Lyle kid doesn’t deserve the death sentence Harper and the others are giving him. Then there’s point number three: you owe me. I saved you, nearly bled out for you, and I’m here to make you pay your debt. So are you in, or do I have to find some other good Samaritan to help me save the heroes from themselves?”

The woman considered what the determined and dangerous man was asking before slowly nodding, “All right, “ said Grace O’ Mercy, the Night Nurse, “Let’s go try and make things right.”


Grace and Simon met years ago here