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The Hooded Hood continues the daily doses of new-LL emetic

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Posted: Thu Sep 16, 2010 at 09:51:34 pm EDT (Viewed 1245 times)
Reply Subj: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion #347: Underneath, or Deeper Down - Complete
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Untold Tales of the Lair Legion #347: Underneath, or Deeper Down

Part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven.


Previously in UT#346: Deeper Down: As the Legion reminds the criminal underworld why it’s a bad idea to put bounties on new Legionnaires, the latest recruits journey into the mysterious deep tunnels under the Earth on a training and orientation exercise. But it wouldn’t be an LL field trip if there wasn’t a hitch…

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***


    Silicone Sally slithered over to Hatman and whispered in his ear. “Wake up, lover.”

    Jay Boaz came quickly to full consciousness. “I told you, Sally…” he began, but she pressed a finger across his lips.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Relax, boy scout. I’m on watch. There’s something out there. I’m supposed to arouse you.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You mean rouse me,” growled Hatman, nudging Goldeneyed awake with less than the delicate care Silicone Sally had used just now. “What have we got?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not sure,” the pliable playmate said in a low voice. “Nothing that’s appearing on the infrared scanners, but the sonar detectors picked up movement.”

    Hatman put on his Con Ed hat. “It’s going to get very bright in a moment. When that happens, Bry, you’re teleporting to whatever-it-is. Sally, you’re covering me.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’d enjoy that,” Sally promised the Legion’s Training Officer with a wink. “Yes, I know. We’re all about the mission.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ready… two… one…”

    Hatman turned the cavern darkness into brilliant light. Goldeneyed’s flash was brighter still as he teleported himself behind the cringing beings exposed by the glare. The creatures cowered away and slumped as if dead when G-Eyed grabbed two of them.

    Everyone else woke up.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“No room service then?” quipped Citizen Z before she remembered who she was now.

    Alcheman looked over at G-Eyed captives and at the other creatures quivering on the floor around him. “Holeoids?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Hole Man’s servants?” Ham-Boy remembered. FA had once modified the illustrations in his text book.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Turn the light down, Hatman,” Liu Xi Xian called. “They’re terrified of it.”

    Hatman cut the lumens. Liu Xi generated a soft glow to replace the harsh dazzle.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Anyone here speak Holeoid?” wondered Goldeneyed. He sighed. “Yeah, with a sentence like that I’m back with the Lair Legion.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I could try and communicate with them,” offered Vinnie. “I think they speak a debased version of Alko as a trading language, so if I stick to ordering food or personal services then…”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I can manage,” Hatman assured him. “Bry, the goggles please.”

    Goldeneyed’s eyes flashed again and the thick lensed spectacle-helmet on his captive teleported onto Jay Boaz’ head. Hatman took a moment to accustom his eyesight to working on a different spectrum and his mind to thinking in hive-plural.

    What do you want with we? he asked the holeoids in their own tongue.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s a handy trick,” Sally admitted. “All you need to do is collect some clothing from any foreigner you meet.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m sure you do anyway,” bitched CZ.

    Vinnie was trying to follow the conversation. “Interesting. They’re using a customised version of old Ghoul, but it’s got some vocabulary from the Deviate ur-races as well. I’ve got to get some of this written down.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m more interested in why we’ve got a delegation of about fifty Holeoids creeping up on us in the middle of the night,” admitted Alcheman.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is the Hole Man going to attack?” wondered Ham-Boy, “because if so I’m going to put my boots on.”

    Hatman continued his dialogue. The Holeoid replies came from different creatures each time, and sometimes from two or three speaking in chorus.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“They’re a gestalt intelligence,” Citizen Z recognised. “The Hole Man must be their queen, kind of.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ll be sure to tell him you said so,” grinned G-Eyed. “Hatty, can we get a sit-rep update please?”

    With reluctance to leave the collective the capped crusader pulled off his goggles and handed them back to their owner. “Well, we seem to have a mystery.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s in addition to the ages-old carvings and tunnels, the dimensional anomalies, whatever’s keeping the depth pressure from crushing us, and the secrets of the ancient Deviates, is it?” asked Liu Xi.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s the Hole Man, the Holeoid’s chosen leader. He’s vanished.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Vanished?” frowned Ham-Boy. “Well maybe he went back to the surface world. Didn’t he used to be a big-name cosmetics designer before he had some horrible make-up accident?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“He’s not run away. He’s been kidnapped. The Holeoids say he was taken deeper down, into the underworkings where they’re forbidden to go.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“And they want us to rescue him,” guessed G-Eyed. “He’s a bad guy. Why would we do that?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Because the things that took him want to strip his knowledge of the old Deviate devices around the world and use them for their own goals,” Hatman replied, “and they don’t sound like nice people at all.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Who are they?” Vinnie wondered. “Do they speak a demotic version of the Deviate patois by any chance?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Holeoids don’t know these creatures names,” Hatman answered. “All they know is that they’ve only awoken again recently after a very long sleep. They call them the brain eaters.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh yeah,” sighed HB, “This is going to end well.”

***


    Randolph J. Clement hauled the rucksack off his shoulder, dumped it at his feet, and rang the doorbell. The sign above it said ‘Trespassers Will Be Detonated’.

    The door was opened by a dazzling green-skinned young woman in a Paradopolis U sweatshirt and track suit bottoms. Vespiir had been convinced to try native dress in the cold weather when she couldn’t photosynthesise as much through her bare flesh anyway. It discouraged the constant frat pantie-raid attempts on Omega House and the subsequent casualties in the burns unit. “Welcome to the Tent of Juniors,” she curtseyed gracefully, “how may we serve your pleasure?”

    A whole range of possibilities raced through the young man’s mind but he edited them all in favour of, “I’m here to join up?”

    Another head peered round the door, this one less groomed and with gunpowder burns on her Light My Touchpaper and Retire Immediately t-shirt. “You Randy? Got the memo you were coming. Get your butt in here and meet the crew.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Kerry Shepherdson,” Randy recognised. “I brought you sparklers.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ll be sure to put ‘em in some water,” the probability arsonist told him. She kicked the door shut behind him and indicated the other students sprawled around the living room. “Gaz Donarson, our resident demihemighod. Majoring in Phys Ed. Samantha Bonnington who won’t loan me her purple eyeliner and is going to die shortly, majoring in Textiles Design. Danny Lyle, majoring in nothing ‘cause he hasn’t bothered to even enrol. If he wasn’t so damn cute he’d be back on the pavement. You already me Vesp. She’s doing Cultural Studies and Media.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hi,” Randy Clement greeted the Junior Lair Legion Training Programme. “I’m the Mutate Liberation Army. I’ll be majoring in Pol. Sci. It was this or back to the Safe for twenty-to-life in a cell with three quarter-ton bikers.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Which did you pick?” asked Danny.

    R.J. looked at Kerry, FA, and Vespiir and grinned. “I picked the right option.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Thou wilt treat yon maidens with respect,” Harlagaz growled from behind his copy of Groovy Gecko-Girl. “We hast met thy cousin. Mine ladies Kerry, Samantha, and Vespiir art not toys for thy pleasure.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Who, hold on!” the MLA objected. “First off, no girl’s a toy for my pleasure. Sure, I like the ladies, but it’s got to be mutual and it’s got to be fun for both of us, before and after. I’m not that guy who kicks girls around or exploits them. I’m the guy who kicks that guy, okay? Second off, I’m not here to score with my classmates. There’s a whole campus out there I haven’t dated yet. I’m here because, well…”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well what?” asked Samantha, lowering her sunglasses onto her nose to peer at R.J. “Why are you here? The probation order?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Because I hoped maybe… I dunno, maybe I’d find some friends. Buds. Folks who weren’t always judging me or using me or wanting stuff? Yuki Shiro said… well, she said some things that made me think… I dunno, maybe I’m just dumb.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Maybe, maybe not,” FA said. “Jury’s out. But we still have the big sixty-four thousand dollar question.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Here it comes,” sighed Kerry. Vespiir looked around to see if she could spot it, whatever it was.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“How attached are you to that dull brown costume?” Fashion Accessory demanded. “Because it so happens I’ve had a few ideas…”

    Danny Lyle tossed a can of beer over to the MLA. “Take a chair,” he advised.

***


    The crystals of the cavern had been carved long ago into intricate geometric patterns, a 3-D representation of mathematical formulae and scientific constants. The chasm in the centre spiralled down beyond Liu Xi’s range to illuminate it.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s where we have to go?” Ham-Boy breathed. “That’s where the Hole Man got taken?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s the place,” confirmed Hatman.

    Silicone Sally sighed. “If this is the induction training exercise I’m dreading when we get the serious stuff.”

    G-Eyed snorted. “Hey, there was one newbie training mission we did on the moon where we ended up facing the Parody Master and Dirth Vortex. So far this is a milk run.”

    Citizen Z smacked him on the back of the head. “You’ve just got us killed,” she predicted.

    Hatman set Ham-Boy and Alcheman to rigging the tackle that would lower everybody into the hole. He wasn’t willing to rely on a couple of flyers this deep down in such an unpredictable environment. Vinnie de Soth moved over to speak quietly with Citizen Z.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You said Goldeneyed would get us killed saying stuff like that… but you’re not exactly alive yourself, are you?”

    Citizen Z turned to look at the scruffy acting sorcerer supreme. “What’s it to you?”

    Vinnie held up his hands in a pacifying gesture. “Hey, I’m not being lifeist. Some of my best friends are dead. I’ve dated dead people. Ghouls, that is. A ghoul. And a vampire. And a mummy, but that was a one-time thing that I got set up with. Point is, I’m not against people who are dead having an active afterlife, so long as it doesn’t involve eating entrails or sucking haemoglobin.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m sensing a ‘but’ here,” noted CZ.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“But,” Vinnie persisted, “as far as I can tell you’re borrowing somebody. That is, you’re a spirit of the dead possessing a living person.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey Sally, help us secure this hoist, please,” Alcheman called from across the chasm. “Liu Xi, can you enhance the density of these joints I’m welding?”

    Citizen Z glared at Vinnie De Soth. Here eyes glowed a little beneath her full facemask. “What if I am borrowing a body from a friend?” she demanded. “I’m doing good with it.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’d need to be certain it was with your friend’s permission,” the young occultist insisted.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“She’s not in any position to consent or object,” Citizen Z confessed. “She’s been in a coma for months, ever since Baroness von Zemo put her in one. If I hadn’t stepped into her body so it could eat and drink and exercise she’d be dead by now.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Occupying her to help her is one thing. Risking her life by taking her flesh on adventures is another thing entirely.”

    CZ paused just long enough to betray her own doubts. “Without it…” she said finally, “you can’t imagine…”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m not trying to condemn you to hell or whatever it is that’s scaring you,” Vinnie assured her, “but it’s kind of my job to make sure that mortals don’t get victimised by ghosts. And even if it wasn’t my job I wouldn’t let it happen.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“She’s not a victim. Not my victim anyway. I know her. If she was able to express an opinion she’d choose this.”

    Vinnie rubbed his face. “It’s a tough one, Citizen Z. I’m going to have to think about this. I’ll let it go for now but we’ll need to talk some more about this later, okay?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Okay,” agreed the undead avenger. “If you survive that long,” she added in an inaudible undertone.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’re ready,” Silicone Sally called. “We’re going down!”

    Hatman ordered the team and the Lair Legion descended the chasm.

***


    Roni Y Avis looked up as Visionary and Hallie pushed past his receptionist and barged into his office. “You can’t touch me,” he warned. “I’m insured.”

    Visionary sat down across the desk from the unscrupulous entrepreneur and self-proclaimed creator of internet spam. He laid a briefcase in front of him and snapped it open.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You, er, you didn’t bring Kerry Shepherdson with you, did you?” Roni checked. “I’ll sue.”

    Visionary pulled out a thick pile of papers and leaned over the desk.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m totally covered, you know. I’m actually a small shell company offshore of Kenya,” Roni insisted.

    Vizh laid the first set of documents on the table. “This,” he explained, “is a full set of your accounts. All your accounts. Hallie compiled them.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s a hobby,” the Legion’s resident A.I. smiled at the horrified entrepreneur. “I’m really good at gathering information. When there’s two hundred and seventy-three dummy corporations and liability screens between a person and their tax payments, well that’s just like doing the crossword to me. It gave me a very relaxing nine seconds.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“This,” Vizh went on, “would be a file of class action suits against you for previous enterprises. Lisa assembled it for me. She said to mention that as Destroyer of Tales she was pretty convinced that they were going to turn out badly for you.”

    Roni Y Avis shied back from the depositions as if they were poison.

    Vizh laid his next sheaf on the desk. “This is an extradition warrant submitted to me in my role as galactic ambassador, seeking your removal to Caph for crimes against their citizens while certain of their number – some now concubines of the Emir – were visiting Earth.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Caphans still have castration as a punishment for some offences, don’t they?” Hallie checked with the leader of the Lair Legion.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I believe so,” Visionary considered, “but I’d say these charges are only a one-testacle crime. They’re not barbarians.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Wait a moment…” stammered Roni Y Avis.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Now this pile,” went on Visionary, “this is zoning violations for Happy Place construction. You wouldn’t believe how hard it was getting to the bottom of what happened when you tried your tricks out there.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Dancer’s still pressing for answers,” Hallie chipped in.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Anyhow, you’ll see that Yi has made formal application under the provisions of the mutual defence pact from the Parody War that you be charged punitive damages in line with… with…”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“On the same scale that BP are expected to make good on their recent oil spill,” Hallie supplied. “We’re estimating initial compensation and clean up at around thirty billion give or take.”

    Roni shook his head. “This can’t be happening,” he insisted. “You’re Visionary.”

    Vizh leaned further still over the table, until the immoral entrepreneur was pinned back into his chair. “And you’re sponsoring assassination attempts against my friends. What did you think I was going to do?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Vizh is leader of the Lair Legion now,” Hallie pointed out. “He has certain resources. Want to see how deep they go?”

    Roni Y Avis shook his head.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“That bounty on new Legionnaires better vanish in the next two hours,” Visionary warned. “The money better get donated instead to the Zero Street Mission, St Jude’s Orphanage, the GMY Foundation, the Caphan Foundation, and Save the Bunnies. Otherwise all of this paperwork comes back, and next time I bring Donar with me.”

    Hallie smiled sweetly at the shocked Roni Y. Avis as Visionary closed his briefcase. “I won’t come back,” the computer sentience assured him. “Next time I’ll go online. That’s much worse.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“But… that’s Visionary…” whimpered Avis as the possibly-fake man left.

***


    The archway had once been carved with primitive faces like the ones nearer the surface, but this one had been half-melted by lava and defaced by tools.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I think the Holeoids did that,” Ham-Boy reasoned. “Most of the chipping stops about the height their little arms would reach up.”

    Liu Xi touched the shattered gate. “It has a telluric component. I think it channelled that vril force Vinnie was talking about. Once. Someone deliberately broke it.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“There’s dimensional activity too,” Goldeneyed sensed. “Stronger than ever here. I reckon that arch was one of those cross-planet transfer thingies the Hole Man accesses.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Which makes it Deviate technology,” concluded Alcheman. “This carving must be hundreds of thousands of years old. I need some rubbings.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Silicone Sally’s right over there,” sniped CZ.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey,” objected the pliable playmate. “I’m not the one who really needs a good…”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“So we think this was a transport gate,” Hatman interrupted hastily. “HB, get some readings and measurements for Al. In metric units this time, not sausage-lengths. I’m not saying Al couldn’t translate bratwurst to metre units but I don’t want to be at the breakfast table while he does it.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ve sensed this kind of energy before,” Goldeneyed puzzled. “I’ve seen one of these gates.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’re walked past about fifty of them,” Sally pointed out. “If we’d known they were teleporters we could have taken the fast route down here.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Except someone went to a good deal of trouble to bust this one,” Vinnie noted. “I wonder where it went?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Those etchings round the side could be codes,” Liu Xi suggested. “The facial expressions could actually be a language.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Deviates morphed their shapes quite a bit,” Hatman recalled. “Another world’s version evolved into the shapeshifting Skunks. So they might use changes of face to communicate.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“So do we,” Sally pointed out. “It’s called smiling. CZ wouldn’t have heard of it.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, these expressions might have had specific meaning,” Liu Xi persisted. “Right, Vinnie?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Could well be,” agreed her boyfriend. “Someone certainly went to a lot of trouble to make sure we couldn’t read it and find out.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“These monsters who stole the Hole Man?” HB suggested. “Has anyone wondered why anyone would want him?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Deviates fought their wars against the Austernals and later against their servants the Abhumans for millennia,” Hatman said. “The Abhumans operated in the skies, from their Turquoize Zone city on the moon. The Deviates burrowed deep underground and made these tunnels. They both had access to amazing sciences, some of it even salvaged from Celestian Space Robot castoffs.”

    G-Eyed snorted. “Yeah. The Abhumans used their tech to make Racoon People and Talking Apes and Detonator Hippos. The Deviates made… what? The Holeoids?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Whatever it is it’s probably down here,” Alcheman noted. “And it may have awoken and taken the Hole Man to access those lost technologies.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“And the Holeoids cut off the enemy’s retreat by destroying this gate?” suggested Ham-Boy.

    Liu Xi touched the shattered engravings again. “This is old damage. Centuries old. Hundreds of centuries. A very long time since.”

    G-Eyed smacked his forehead. That’s where I’ve seen this kind of energy signature before. Out of time! Comic-Book Limbo! The Stitchlands where we all got exiled!” He pointed to the arch. “This is a stitch-gate! They all are!”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m glad that’s settled then,” HB said. “What’s a stitch-gate? While you were all off in the Land That Common Sense Forgot I was with the Juniors fighting Onslaughter and the Purveyors of Peril.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s a pinch in the fabric of timespace,” Goldeneyed explained. “Imagine space like a handkerchief with two bogies on it…”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Must I?” asked Silicone Sally.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Normally the lumps of snot don’t touch, but if you fold the hanky over then they meet. That stitchgate does the folding, makes a permanent bridge. I do something a bit like it when I teleport stuff.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“But without the mucus,” Alcheman checked hopefully.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It makes some sense,” pondered Hatman. “The stitch-gates being here, I mean, not the snot story. Everything in the Stitchlands was originally dragged from some forgotten reality. The stitch-gates that the Void Scholar set up had to come from somewhere originally.” He glanced over at Liu Xi.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“My… my ultimate grandfather would have known about the Deviates,” the young elementalist admitted. “That still doesn’t explain why this gate was destroyed.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I could probably fix it with help from Liu Xi and Goldeneyed,” Vinnie offered, “but I guess we’re in hot pursuit.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hold that thought for later,” Hatman told the jobbing occultist. “You’re right that we need to keep moving to catch up with whoever stole the Hole Man. Sally, Liu Xi, on point. Alcheman, Ham-Boy, rearguard. Let’s push on.”

    Illuminated now only by Liu Xi’s flame and Alcheman’s generated phosphorescence, the team progressed into the deeper tunnels.

***


    A hippopotamus walked into a bar and ordered a drink.

    This particular hippo was bipedal and wore a kilt and sporran and a tartan forage cap with a thistle in it. Over his shoulder was slung a heavy duty combat rifle.

    He ordered a pint of Boddingtons and an Irn Bru chaser.

    The bar went very, very quiet.

    Sergeant Argus MacHarridan took a long quaff of his beer and wiped the foam off his upper lip. He turned to the next drinker along and glared. “Are you lookin’ at my pint, Jimmy?” he demanded.

    The regular patron scowled up at the Detonator Hippo. “Your kind’s not welcome here,” he said. He pointed round the pub. “This is a raccoon bar.”

    It was true. Everybody else there, from the patron to the barman to the buxom sow behind the bar was a bipedal pricyonid. And they were all looking at the intruder.

    Sergeant MacHarridan took another quaff. “A raccoon bar, ye say? Weeell… that’ll be explainin’ the smell, I ken…”

    A beer bottle bounced off the back of his skull. He broke his bar stool over the assailant’s head. The fight started.

    The raccoons piled on. A few stopped to strap on their jetpacks or grab small hand-weapons. “Pile on!” one squeaked. “There’s only on of him and dozens of us.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Only one’a me?” roared Sergeant MacHarridan. “Ye think? It so happens that ah brought a few’a th’ lads wi’ me!”

    The Most Loyal Order of Her Majesty’s Detonator Hippos blew the door in and joined the assault.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s the heavy brigade!” cried one of the suddenly-beleaguered raccoons. “Send for reinforcements. Shout up Rabid Raccoon from the cellar. Drag Ruckus Raccoon off’a Rumpus Raccoon and get ‘im in to take down these overweight mud-wallowers!”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Raccoon Riot!” one of the rodents shouted.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Come an ha’a go wi’ th’ Hippo aggro!” shouted back MacHarridan.

    The melee accelerated along with the property damage.

    A green baize door at the rear of the drinking establishment opened and another racoon emerged. This one wore a pinstripe suit and wore a diamond tiepin. He surveyed the carnage and exploding hippos and frothing furious raccoons rolled over the fragments of furniture.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Stop,” he said, quite quietly; and such was his authority that the battle stilled for a moment.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“There y’are,” breathed Argus MacHarridan.

    The pinstriped newcomer turned to him. “You have no idea what you’ve walked into, hippo,” he warned. “You’ve found yourselves a world of trouble. You don’t know who I am.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Would you maybe be Racket Raccoon?” asked the Lair Legion’s security chief. “The same Racket Raccoon what accepted a contract tae take the life o’ one of th’ Lair Legion, maybe?”

    Racket Raccoon’s eyes narrowed. “What’s it to you?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m responsible for their safety,” Sergeant MacHarridan warned. “So ah’m here tae ask ye very politely tae cancel the agreement.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Or else?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Or else ah’s going tae relocate your bar into deep space orbit, ye reekin gallowglass, and yuirsel’ wi’ it.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I don’t react well to threats, hippo.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“How do ye react to half megaton explosions?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You wouldn’t dare.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ah’m hoping ye’ll call mah bluff.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I don’t back down,” warned the furry gangster. “You cross me and I’ll rub you out.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ye think?” growled the Detonator Hippo.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I do. What you’ve got to ask yourself if what is really important. Some job you’re doing, or the big things like your family’s health and future wellbeing? Your life expectancy. You’re big and loud and you can blow things up. But you sleep and you eat and you drink and sooner of later I’ll find you when you’re not expecting it and that’ll be it. You. Your comrades. Your loved ones. All of you.” The gangster smirked. “Sometimes you have to learn when to walk away. Your choice.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Aye well, maybe, but there’s one thing ye haven’ae worked out, laddie.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“And what’s that,” sneered Racket Raccoon.

    Sgt MacHarridan leaned in close. “We’re here frae th’ Lair Legion. We didn’ae come alone.”

    Racket Raccoon looked around. “I don’t see no backup, soldier-boy.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s because ye’re looking in the wrong place, sunshine. Y’see, yon Visionary has an old pal what can change size tae be as small as he likes. Fleabot, his name is.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Fleabot? Like those micro-assassin robots Baron Zemo used to make?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Exactly like that,” came a voice from Racket Raccoon’s pants, “Only improved and even better. And lodged in your underwear with a full weapons array primed and ready for discharge.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“In my…” Racket Raccoon’s whiskers quivered.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“What ye’ve got tae ask yourself is,” MacHarridan told the procyonic predator, “What’s really important to ye? Family? Because yuir chances o’ ha’ing one are about to diminish rapidly.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Sometimes you have to learn to walk away,” Fleabot advised the raccoon. “Sometimes it’s after months of painful rehab and reconstructive groin surgery.”

    Sergeant MacHarridan loomed over Racket Raccoon. “Yuir choice.”

***


    There was light up ahead, a bright actinic glow that pulsed every three seconds. Silicone Sally made a pumping gesture to signal a halt.

    Hatman moved forward. “CZ, stealth scouting,” he ordered.

    The undead avenger didn’t move.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“CZ?” Hatman prompted.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“She’s scouting,” Vinnie told him. “She’s left her body here and she’s slipped forwards in spirit form to examine the area.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“She can do that?” Ham-Boy frowned.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Can we put her hand in a bowl of water while she’s out?” asked Silicone Sally.

    Liu Xi shielded her eyes against the glow. Two days underground had accustomed everybody’s eyes to relative darkness. “There’s a massive source of radiation in there causing that light,” she reported. “Mostly on acceptable frequencies. I’ll shield us from the rest but I’m going to have to concentrate.”

    Vinnie took his hands out of her pockets.

    Citizen Z shuddered and stirred. “You’re not going to believe this,” she told Hatman, “but there’s a rainforest in there. A jungle.”

    The Legion moved forwards cautiously. Over the lip of the tunnel mouth the land dropped in a spectacular cliff down to a green tree canopy. The verdant carpet rolled on as far as the eye could see, to where waterfall mist sprays obscured sight.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Agharta,” breathed Alcheman. “So there is an inner world.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m going to take an aerial view,” Hatman decided, pulling out his Eagles cap. “Alcheman, can you do a gaseous scout at lower level? Bry, get everybody down to the forest floor. According to the tracker the Holeoids gave us the Hole Man was brought this way. Let’s see if we can’t pick up a physical trail.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“There’s things floating over there,” Silicone Sally pointed out. “Big jellyfish gas-bag things.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s a whole new ecology,” Ham-Boy said. “Boy, even Professor Wrichards and his three partners didn’t get this far!”

    Citizen Z surveyed the vista with micro-magnifying goggles from her belt pouches. “Somebody got here, though. There’s a structure at four o’clock. I can’t make it out in the mist spray.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Gravity’s weird here,” Ham-Boy noticed. “Look, see that lake down there? Doesn’t it seem to kind of fold up the wall?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“This whole place is like a giant tube, with gravity pushing out,” Liu Xi reported. “That pulsing thing like a sun in the middle is doing it. It’s artificial and very old. I can’t even begin to untangle the energies knotted up inside it.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Don’t try,” advised Vinnie.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Deviate-tech?” speculated Ham-Boy. “I betcha it’s Deviate-tech.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Okay, it’s a long way down,” Goldeneyed said, peering over the ledge. “Sally, you’re going to have to grapple me down – no comments, CZ. Once I’ve seen bottom I can jump back here and ‘port you all one by one.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’ll need to mark this spot so we can get back here,” Vinnie advised. “Because look, it’s closing up already.” He pointed to the crystalline walls. They were swelling, slowly replicating to fill the entrance hole into Agharta. “This was designed as a self-contained world. When something punches a hole out – like I guess these creatures that took the Hole Man did – it’s designed to seal itself off again.”

    By the time everyone was on the weed-choked ground Hatman was back. “I got a better view of that structure,” he said. “Domes and arches, mostly, kind of organic-looking. Ugly blotchy purple and black colours.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Citizen Z’s home city?” suggested Silicone Sally.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s the direction the tracker’s leading,” Goldeneyed confirmed. He swatted away a two-foot long dragonfly creature. The meganeura monyi fluttered away to hunt smaller prey.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“There’s going to be a whole ecosystem here. A food chain,” noted Alcheman. “Watch out for the top predators.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“That would be me,” hissed Citizen Z.

    Hatman released another HED-drone to take recordings and set a course towards the structures. He pulled on his Wolverines cap to help him with the tracking. “We got about thirty kliks ta cover so we better get goin’,” he told the others in a rougher-than-usual Canadian accent.

    The Lair Legion set off away from the crystal wall that formed the cylinder’s end and trekked off into the alien realm.

***


    Amber St Clare didn’t bother to knock. She walked right in to Deputy Director Norton’s Office and glared at him.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“What the hell is this?” demanded the head of OPS Special Operations.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s an intervention,” Amber told him fiercely. She held out her priority clearance pass. “I’m Liaison Officer to the Lair Legion under the Special Powers Act 1998, UN Resolutions 399 and 520, Presidential Special Order 632, and the Parody War Accords. These are my colleagues Miss Asil Ashling, special attaché to Sir Mumphrey Wilton, and Miss Tandi 9000, personal assistant to the Legion Chair.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Which involves less lapdancing than you’d imagine,” confided the former sexbot.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re probably wondering why we’ve barged into your high security office,” Asil said to the confused Director. “If it helps here’s written clearance from Aaron Soames, your boss. He was interested in what you’re up to here off the books as well.”

    Director Norton’s face darkened. “Don’t try playing political games with me,” he warned the three women. “You have no idea…”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“We have a pretty good idea, Norton,” Amber interrupted him. “You think I got this job because I look good in a two-piece suit? I’ve been doing this for years now. I’ve got half the senate and congress on my speed-dial. I know every lobbyist in Washington. So believe me when I say that whoever you think you can pick up the phone and call I can pick up the phone and call someone better.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’ll see your secret conspiracy and raise you an international, interplanetary, and interdimensional alliance,” threatened Asil.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Or we’ll just tell people what you’ve been doing,” Tandi offered. “Guys generally listen when I want to talk to them. And newspapers.”

    Amber dropped a file onto Norton’s desk. “We know about your deal with Factor X. About the project to marry together recovered Technopolis and Parody Master biotech. About your attempts to recreate the Divine Spark experiments using recovered alien organics. We know that your department contributed to a kill-bounty on Ham-Boy so long as you could examine his corpse afterwards to work out how he generates those spontaneous processed meat products of his.”

    Asil took up the theme. “Now the Office of Paranormal Security knows about it too. Officially. So it stops. But first you call up the Mind’s Eye and you tell her to have Gregor Vassilych call off his dogs or he’s next on the list.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Then you can wait here till the OPS Special Investigators arrive to clear out your office,” Tandi suggested. “Gosh, this Legion job is much more fun than I’d expected. Shall we give Director Norton a spanking now?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I think he’s going to get one,” Amber replied, staring at the white-faced administrator. “Maybe sometime these secret conspirators will get the idea that we don’t like their nasty little plots and they’d better just go away. And maybe they’ll get the idea that we’re not helpless victims. That I’m not helpless. That I do my job. Right, Norton?”

    The Director didn’t reply. Once he’d made the required phone call and the women had left he sat behind his desk and waited for the consequences.

    A pair of Special Agents came in. “Hmph,” he said. “I was expecting Soames to send his pets Dawes and St Germain.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’re not from Soames.” The Special Agent pulled his sidearm and screwed on a silencer. “We’re with the Project. The boss doesn’t like screw-ups.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Wait!” stammered Norton, backing his wheeled chair away from the desk. “Tell the Omni…”

    That was as far as he got.

***


    Vinnie shielded his eyes as he looked up to the artificial sun. As its day-cycle progressed the pulses became longer and more sustained. The mist-clouds cleared so that the lands laid out five hundred miles away on the far side of the tube-tunnel could be glimpsed. “That thing’s got a semi-mystic quality,” the young occultist decided. “I think it’s made of pure vril energy. Whoever did that managed a magnificent feat of arcane engineering.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, we saw what the Abhumans could do when they made Savage Park,” Goldeneyed remembered. “They were able to repurpose that abandoned Celestian machinery to make those anti-tech field generators that sustain the arctic jungle. The Deviates presumably had access to roughly similar levels of weird science for this.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Did anyone ever wonder if the Celestians weren’t actually careless in leaving behind so much of their equipment?” Liu Xi speculated. “I mean, if they’re so unknowably competent and all-powerful wouldn’t they bother to pack up their tools properly before they go?”

    Alcheman nodded. “That’s a good point. If Austernals and Deviates were a giant planet-wide lab test then it’s a really sloppy researcher who leaves behind stuff that’ll contaminate the experiment.”

    The conversation broke off as the team had to negotiate a steep shelf where a giant waterfall cascaded down into a fern-choked valley below. Ham-Boy had to distract a pack of knee-high therapsids with a spray of mincemeat. Citizen Z scared away an ambitious bear-sized gorgonopsid simply by glaring at it.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re suggesting that these Space Robots left their kit deliberately,” Silicone Sally frowned. “Like leaving cheese for rats at the end of a maze, to see if they can work out their way to it?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Adapting to the environment and learning to use it is a key test of a species’ evolution,” Alcheman noted.

    Liu-Xi shooed away an inquisitive swarm of primitive winged insects with a gentle breeze.

    Ham-Boy hastily pulled his foot out of a tunneler beetle burrow-hole. “So these two souped-up evolutionary branches scrambled for the Celestian-tech and then used it to make other beings like themselves?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“To kill each other,” said CZ sourly.

    Hatman led the team in a wide circle round the lake where a family of scutasauri, ancient giant turtles, grazed on a shingle shore. “We’ll find a place to camp. Look for a cave we can defend.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I can make one,” Liu Xi offered.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Don’t,” advised Vinnie de Soth. “Remember how the wall of the Agarthan tunnel repaired itself? I think this whole environment is set to a steady state. If you start making wholesale modifications there might be… backlashes.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You can sense elements, though, right?” Ham-Boy remembered. “Can you just sense where there’s a good hole to hide in?”

    The elementalist closed her eyes. “Not round here,” she said. “Maybe off that way a bit?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Through the forest of thorny alien trees,” Sally sighed. “Naturally.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I can clear a way,” promised Alcheman, touching the tattoos on his biceps to become vanadium steel.

    The plants here were primitive, punctuated by weird twisted stems with oozing bulbous buds similar to those from the Silurian fossil record, the first terrestrial biota on Earth. Even with their powers the Legion has to fight their way through the undergrowth, startling tiny land mammals as they moved forward.

    Sally looked up at the vril sun. As the day progressed the flashes had changed with it. Now the dim periods between the bright bursts were getting longer. “Did you know we’d be getting into something like this when you took us camping?” she asked Hatman.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’re Lair Legion. Interesting stuff usually turns up,” replied the capped crusader.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Like us intruding in some giant artificially-created terrarium,” wondered Citizen Z. “What happens if the curators are still around and don’t like us messing with their collection?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“What happens if they have that Celestian machinery we were talking about, Mr Hatman?” worried Ham-Boy.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Someone here probably has it or some Deviate stuff derived from it,” Alcheman reasoned. “Why kidnap the Hole Man and bring him here for his knowledge of Deviate systems otherwise?”

    Vinnie sighed. “Everybody always misses the point about this Celestian experiment stuff. There’s something that’s always overlooked.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“So tell us, spooky,” Silicone Sally prompted.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hatman and G-Eyed were there, years back, at the return of the Celestian Host. You remember? Mile high Space Robots hanging over every city on Earth? Countdown to them demolishing the planet?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh, I remember,” breathed Bry Katz. “I still get flashbacks.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“We prevented them from doing it, though,” Hatman said. “They have rules too.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes, well done on that,” Vinnie assured him. “Point is, the Celestians came ready to wipe out Earth and end their experiment. For them it was over. Whatever test they’d set we’d failed. They were ready to try again on a different planet, like they’ve done a thousand times before.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“What are you saying?” wondered Alcheman. “How did we fail?”

    The young occultist shuddered. “Maybe the test wasn’t to grab the Celestian tech and go to war. Maybe the test was to leave it alone and not kill each other? Maybe that Space Robot junk was just another fruit tree in another garden of Eden?”

    Ham-Boy looked around, more spooked than ever. “Maybe this is the garden?”
        
***


    The B.A.L.D. Terror Squid was a vast submarine-come-battle-robot, current favourite headquarters of the Mechanism Only Designed for Eradication Matters, the supreme and absolute leader of the terrorist science faction. MODEM was a giant head in a hover-chair and right now he was very red in his massive flat face.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“What do you mean no reply from the Prague lab?” he screamed at his beehive-masked communications chief. “What’s happening to them? What’s happening in Sweden and Abu-Dhabi and Topeka and Guatemala City? I want answers!”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I think we’re under attack,” his security chief advised.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“No, really?” scorned the killing organism, charging up his disintegration headband. “Because I was thinking maybe we’d just forgotten to pay the phone bills!”

    The Terror Squid shook. “I mean we’re under attack right now,” the security chief clarified.

    Alarm klaxons sounded as the Squid took another hit.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“What is it?” MODEM demanded. “Nothing can sneak up on us like this. This vessel was designed to be a match of Colonel Drury’s vaunted helicarrier!”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’d have to say it was… um… a giant robot arm,” admitted the security chief. “They got in close through some kind of temporal distortion and now they’re…”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Incoming message from the attackers,” communications warned, channelling it to the main screen.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Right,” said Visionary. “It’s your choice. We can do this the easy way or the Donar way.”

    CSFB! leaned into camera and waved. “Surrender or become Terror Sushi!”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Main weapons vents clogged!” shouted weapons command. “Some kind of goo that’s dissolving the airlock seals!”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’d be the Shoggoth,” Yuki said via the ship interior broadcast system she’d just hacked. “And this next noise is probably the warning alarm about your reactor core, right Al?”

    A new and alarming screech added to the chaos. “Right, Yuki. I’d say it’s about nine minutes before that whole vessel goes boom.” The archscientist e-mailed a critique of the energy core failsafe systems to the SPUD science boys for later consideration.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Kill them!” ordered MODEM. “I want Dreadnones and Assault Mantas and Psychic Mines and the whole array out there five minutes ago.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Not going to happen, old chap,” Sir Mumphrey noted, borrowing the comm-link. “Five minutes ago is where I just sent Donar.”

    The Squid lurched over ninety degrees as the hemigod of thunder grappled it.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Er…” swallowed MODEM, “perhaps this is the time to negotiate?”

***


    The vril sun flickered into its daytime mode again, lighting up the vast canopy of Silurian vegetation, attracting clouds of insectiforms swarming up into the warming air. Deep below the Earth the enclosed biosphere of diurnal activity went to day cycle.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m glad we don’t have to cook the local flora or fauna,” Alcheman admitted, chowing down on Ham-Boy’s latest breakfast contribution. “I’d feel wrong to try and stick-roast some species that’s supposed to have been extinct since before the dinosaurs.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Although I’m wishing we’d recruited French-Sauce-Boy, Light-Salad-Boy and Dessert-and-Cheese-Tray-Boy to the team as well,” admitted Silicone Sally.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, some kind of vegetarian option superhero,” agreed G-Eyed. “but we brought enough provisions for another week, and Liu Xi can refresh our water bottles for us.”

    The Chinese elementalist in question and Vinnie De Soth arrived flushed from their early-morning patrol. “Did you discover anything new?” asked Citizen Z slyly.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“There are more of those face-carving marker posts,” Vinnie replied. “I’m guessing from their expressions that they’re not welcome mats. More like warnings or keep-out signs.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“They’re grown, not carved,” Liu Xi contributed. “The same crystal as the walls of this place.”

    Hatman finished his mission log. “Okay, we’re heading down to the domes,” he said. “Now we’re close we’ll go in by air. CZ, unship that Z-Wing flyer of yours. Take Vinnie and Ham-Boy with you. Sally, you’ll be a harness for G-Eyed and Liu Xi. I’ll fly with you. Alcheman, can you make yourself weightless and tag on?”

    The chemical crusader nodded and fingered his tattoos. “Methane, I think, this morning,” he decided. “It smells unpleasant but I get better perception than with some of the thinner gases, and if I don’t say gaseous for too long I don’t get disoriented.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Remember, we’re going into a possible hostile zone,” Hatty briefed. “This domed city is probably where these things that took the Hole Man are shacked up. They might have prepared defences. They might even have salvaged some advanced tech. So keep a good lookout and watch for each other.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I always keep an eye out for Silicone Sally,” promised Citizen Z.

    Hatman gave the undead avenger a quelling glance. “Right, you know what you’re doing. Let’s go.”

    The Legion took to the air, startling a cloud of dragonflies. Z-Wing and capped crusader flew low over the forest canopy, but not low enough to be in range of the tree-dwelling proto spider mesothalae that lurked in the branches.

    The city itself was a collection of twenty-three domes, rising from the blackened ground like greasy bubbles on soap. Some hemispheres were a mile across, others less than half that. Many intersected. The surfaces were striated black and purple, not quite opaque but maddeningly not transparent enough to make out the curious internal architecture.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Does anyone see an entrance?” asked Hatman. “Alcheman, see if you can find one.”

    The alchemical adventurer had no way of replying in his gaseous form but he drifted down until he could resume a humanoid mercury shape and flow about the base of the constructions.

    Where he tested the wall it suddenly peeled back to create an oval entranceway with an iris door.

    Hatman had the rest of the team land nearby. They cautiously approached the portal.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Look at the markings round the doorway,” Vinnie said. “Not a screaming face in sight. These characters are almost geometric. Mathematical.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“So whoever put those keep-out markers was different from whoever built this city,” reasoned Ham-Boy. “Maybe they knew what they were talking about?”

    Liu Xi knelt down so she could lay her palms on the scorched black crystalline floor. “This is going to sound weird, but… I don’t think this city’s been here very long.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s a bit big for a caravan,” objected Silicone Sally.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’re seen cities move before,” Vinnie argued. “Paradopolis was kidnapped that way once. The Parody Master stole away places that might threaten him, like Wakandybar and Ausgard, until they all got put back at the end of the Parody War. What if this was another of them?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Maybe,” Liu Xi said, uncertainly. “This feels like something very recent.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“The Holeoids said that something had woken up, returned,” Citizen Z remembered.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well this could be the place then,” concluded Goldeneyed. “Shall we get on with the going in part?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Precautions,” said Hatman. “If we’re separated, make your way back to the homing beacon we left where we originally came into Agharta. If we encounter anybody, try to talk first unless you’re attacked. We’ve only got the Holeoids’ perception that the Hole Man was kidnapped. Even if he was then there may have been a good justification for it; Holey’s hardly one of the white hats. This could be a first contact with an entirely new species. Let’s not blow it.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“A whole new species,” Alcheman breathed, wonderingly. “Just think about that!”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“A species the Holeoids call ‘brain eaters’,” remembered Silicone Sally.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, at least you’ll be safe,” offered CZ.

    Vinnie tried runic combinations on the door-rim until the great iris slid open.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Here goes,” said Hatman, pulling on his explorer’s pith helmet. He led the way in.

***


    Asteroid H was a large chunk of space debris in geosynchronous orbit around Earth. Originally a fragment of the planetoid-sized Doomworld that had once menaced the planet, the hollowed out radar-shielded rock was now a base for the Hero Elimination Revenge Project Extermination Squad – HERPES.

    On the green-lit command and control deck, the twin leaders of the fascist terrorist organisation looked over the holotable. “Report,” commanded Greta Fokker, Madame HERPES. “What he hell is going on down there?”

    Tactics One was a smart man, and he still had the lash marks from the last time he’d not had an answer for his glorious leaders. “We’re getting confused reports of random attacks on various power bases,” he confessed. “I’ve taken the liberty of hiring an analyst to offer an assessment.”

    Hans Fokker scowled. “An analyst. We don’t need some egghead theorist to…”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s Joshua Parkson, sir,” Tactics One explained hastily. “Blackbird.”

    Hans and Greta exchanged glances. That was different. Blackbird was a consulting criminal, the villain’s advisor. “He’s here?” Greta asked, looking around the command level.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“He prefers not to leave his suite at the Safe these days,” Tactics One explained. “We have a real-time video link. I’ll put it through now, shall I?”

    At a gesture from Hans the signal was spliced to the main screen. Blackbird was just folding and setting aside his Gothametropolis Squire newspaper, having calculated the likely moment that the Fokker twins would patch through to him.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“This is costing you five million dollars a minute,” he told the HERPES leaders, “so pay attention. You made a serious tactical blunder when you all decided to set a bounty on new members of the Lair Legion. You were counting on it sending a message to them and it did. It was the wrong message.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’re hearing rumours of attacks on B.A.L.D. and Screwdriver and the Ninjas,” Greta said, “and Factor X has just withdrawn his bounty notice.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It was obvious that the Lair Legion was going to push back,” Blackbird scoffed. “These are people without the sense to back off against the Parody Master and the Carnifex. You think the threat of an assassin is going to do it? Really?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You are saying that the attack on our U.S. Base Sixteen may not be the end of it? We may be targeted for reprisals by the heroes again?” Hans said. “Which base will they assault next? We can have a counter-response ready to make them sorry they ever dared. I’ll seed the site with a micro-nuke if I have to.”

    Blackbird shook his head. “They’ve been following a definite pattern. It’s fascinating to calculate it, a whole new methodology borne from the interplay of Visionary, CrazySugarFreakBoy!, Shiro, and Wilton. Chaos harnessed to an ordered campaign. They’ve been working their way up the food chain until they got to the parts of your operations that would be the most painful to lose.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“What do you mean?” demanded Greta. “You can’t mean they’d try to find Asteroid H.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“My transmission feeds on US and Chinese spy satellites picked up a sub-space signal beam heading out from Extraordinary Endeavour Enterprises last night,” Blackbird noted. “It was aimed roughly at the Coalsack nebula, which was the last reported location of the Austernal Exploration Vessel Aunt Sally. That suggests to me that the Legion is planning some kind of spaceborne or near-space venture.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’re shielded,” Greta insisted. “We have the best countermeasures money can buy.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“They have Al B. Harper and a Shoggoth who thinks the laws of physics are quaint and optional.”

    Hans Fokker turned suddenly to Weapons One. “Move the station to Röte Alert,” he ordered. “Scanners to maximum. Scramble all combat troops.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hail HERPES!” saluted Weapons One. “All stations! All stations! Combat condition Röte. This is not a drill!”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“If they come here we will make them sorry they ever dared face us!” warned Greta. “Their Austernal vessel is tiny. We have weapons enough to burn a city from the face of the planet!”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes,” sighed Blackbird, “but the point is…”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I think you have had enough of our money, Herr Amsel,” Hans Fokker interrupted. “Good day.” He made a slicing gesture across his throat for Tactics One to cut the link. “We know what to do now. The Legion without the element of surprise will die before the might of this installation.”

    Weapons One rose from his operations desk, holding an earphone to the side of his head. “Sir, Madame, we have detected a shielded energy signature approaching.”

    Hans and Greta exchanged savage grins. “Focus our main array upon it and destroy it. Maximum power. Vaporise it entirely.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hail HERPES!” responded Weapons One, passing the order. The command deck lighting went from poison green to blood red.

    The lighting dimmed more as the main batteries fired.

    Tactics One frowned. “Is this reading right? The shielded object you found is only two feet long?”

    The weapons pounded the incoming bogie. Its stealth shielding vaporised.

    It didn’t.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s a stick,” Tactics One read from his data-feed. “A baseball bat. With a nail in it. Travelling at MACH two. And it’s not even scorched.”

    Then Mjalcolm impacted with Asteroid H.

    Sparks sprayed across the command centre. The monitor screens flickered then returned to life. “There!” warned Weapons One. “Just behind that stick. A second shielded transient. Bigger!”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hull breaches and fires on levels three through nine,” warned Tactics One. “And I’m getting reports that… that there was a blob of jelly travelling on the bat. And it’s loose.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Fire!” Hans Fokker shouted. “I want that hidden object out of my sky!”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Firing!” confirmed Weapons One. “It’s stealth shielding is down too. It’s… a goat chariot. And that baseball bat is flying back to it. And we’re picking up audio of what sounds like a Viking drinking song sung to the theme tune of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Another cloaked signature right off our hangar deck!” warned Tactics One. “This one’s a ship. It’s that Austernal vessel that Blackbird was warning us of!”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“All weapons commit to those targets!” Greta Fokker ordered. “Everything we have, bring those things down!”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Lasers and practical ballistics are vanishing as they get near the Austernal target,” Weapons One warned.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Wilton’s time-tricks!” snarled Hans Fokker. “He will pay for what he did to our father! I should have been the one to overthrow Count Wolfgang! Keep firing. The Englander cannot sustain such shifts for long.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“They cannot penetrate our defence grid without being destroyed,” Weapons One assured. “Even if they have infiltrated their Shoggoth we can chase them off then burn it out. Their assault has failed.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ve got them on scope,” Tactics One called out. “CrazySugarFreakBoy! and Yuki Shiro are waving at us! In fact CrazySugarFreakBoy!… appears to be dropping his pants.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Kill them!” shouted Greta. “Kill! Kill! Kill!”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Everything we have!” agreed Hans. “Concentrate it all on bringing down those craft before they flee out of range!”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yet another cloaking field coming down!” warned Tactics One frantically. “And this one isn’t small!”

    The SPUD helicarrier shimmered out of Al B’s third stealth field a hundred yards astern from Asteroid H.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hans and Greta Fokker,” Colonel Dan Drury, head honcho of the Super-menace Principle Undercover Directorate called over the radio feed. “Wah-hoo!”

    And the helicarrier fired its first broadside.

    In the Safe metahuman penitentiary, Blackbird finished the sports section and hummed to himself.

***


    Inside the dome the air was thick and stuffy. The walls held static and sparked when touched. There was an unpleasant deep hum just at the edge of hearing.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Information, anyone?” demanded Hatman, shining a torch over the blotchy dark interior.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“This isn’t the same stuff as the crystal walls of the tunnel outside,” Liu Xi reported. “This stuff is… I don’t know. Twisted. Sick. I don’t like probing it.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s creepy, right enough,” Silicone Sally agreed. “Does anyone else feel like we’re being watched.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m getting a reading on the Holeoids’ tracker again, guys,” G-Eyed called out. “Down that corridor there.”

    Vinnie trailed after the others, his mind working furiously. “The Austernals made the Abhumans and then the Abhumans took over the war against the Deviates. But why? What happened to stop the Austernals fighting? Did the Deviates make Agharta, or was Agharta the Celestian technology they salvaged? Is this whole place the Space Robots’ test tube? Why are the materials and design – and feel – of this city so different from everything around it? Who set warning markers…?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Vinnie, keep up,” Alcheman advised. “This isn’t a good place to get lost.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“This isn’t a good place. period,” said Citizen Z quietly.

    Hatman stopped at another of the black metallic sphincters. “Let me just get my burglar’s balaclava on and I’ll soon get this open,” he assured his team.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I keep thinking something’s following us,” Ham-Boy noted, “but when I look it’s just the weird way the light reflects off these curved walls.”

    The team progressed deeper in. Alcheman turned himself into calcium carbonate to mark their route back. Ham-Boy decided on a back-up method and left a trail of sausages.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“The dimensions are really screwed up in here,” Goldeneyed warned. “Deliberately, I think. It’d take the Shoggoth to figure this out.”

    Liu Xi brushed against a twisted support lintel and shied away. “There’s vril in these walls, like the caverns above. But this is different. The energy here feels twisted, wrong. Sour.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You just described this whole place,” Sally shuddered. “You getting dead people on your spook-radar yet, Citizen Sunshine?”

    CZ was too distracted to respond to the barb. “There’s something here, but I don’t know it was ever alive as we’d define it. It’s… just on the edge of my perception. Like that damned hum.”

    The next dome chamber was vast and contained crystal columns like museum showcases.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Are these pickled people?” frowned Ham-Boy. “Eew.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s a trophy room,” guessed Alcheman. “Look at these specimens. That’s a Raccoon Person. And there’s a Detonator Hippo.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Treesloth Myrmidon, Sea Monkey, Dynamo Dolphin,” added Hatman, pointing at the crystals. “And I’m guessing that ape must be from Vesalia. All races that the Abhumans created to battle against the Deviates.”

    Liu Xi examined a 3-D representation of a volcanic isle. “This looks like a battle diorama,” she noted.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah, if it was a D&D session,” snorted Ham-Boy, looking at the various monsters placed across the model.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s Kaibutsu Shima,” recognised Goldeneyed. “Monstrous Isle. We’d heard it was where the Abhumans mixed up their battle-races.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Now we know why they abandoned it in favour of Savage Park,” Hatman reasoned. “Looks like it was attacked, maybe captured, by the Deviates.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“So this is a Deviate museum?” Sally asked. “I always figured there’d be more underwear on display.”

    Vinnie looked around the great hall unhappily. “Someone wants us to see this. The doorway opened right where we were. The interior’s shuffling around to accommodate us. What are they trying to tell us with this display?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“That the Deviates always win in the end?” Citizen Z suggested. “But they didn’t. They got beaten. They got nearly wiped out. The last of them were locked away forever.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Let’s keep moving,” prompted Hatman. “We can figure this stuff out after we extract the Hole Man.”

    As if in response the intermittent trace of the kidnapped villain started up again. The tracker in G-Eyed’s hands lit up again and began to ping.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“How convenient,” hissed Citizen Z.

    The team’s footsteps echoed round the bleak deserted halls.

***


    They met in Badripoor’s exclusive Charity Club, its plush interior recently refurbished after an unfortunate visit from Tom Black. Several of the overstuffed chairs were vacant.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s a disaster,” fretted Justus Screwdriver. “Three of my best recruitment chains shattered, hundreds of millions in contract penalty clauses.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You got off lucky,” Montiver Hole of ZOXXON told him. “Avis has gone into hiding in South America. MODEM is in OPS custody. Nobody even knows what happened to Hans and Gretel Fokker.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“We were careless,” admitted the Mind’s Eye – or her psychic projection at least. “The Lair Legion seemed disorganised and vulnerable. Who would have believed they could pull themselves together so quickly and organise something like this?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is it over, though?” demanded Molestro the Mirthless, leader of the Sinister Oriental Stereotypes. “Or will they just keep coming? Where will it end?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“They are forcing us to extreme measures,” warned Thighmaster. “Extreme extreme measures. They put one of us in the hospital…”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I don’t think we’d want to see the Lair Legion responding to your extreme measures,” Pelopia, Priestess of Order warned. “If this farrago has reminded us of one thing it is that the heroes have significant resources if sufficiently motivated to mobilise them. Besides, it appears that the Legion is only targeting those agencies who actively sponsored that ill-conceived assassination order. The Order of Order has faced no affronts.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Nor the Church of the Apostate,” agreed Mother Bartok. “Although with the blasphemous and degenerate Visionary in charge it can only be a matter of time.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“What we have seen is that the Legion has teeth,” agreed Magenta St Evil. “We have discovered that we cannot attack them with impunity. So. What we require now is a co-ordinated and better-planned campaign, harnessing our combined resources in a massive onslaught that changes the balance of power on this planet forever.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Or we could cut our losses and wait for another day,” suggested the Mind’s Eye. “All out war is good for short-term business but can be bad for long-term profits.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Have you all forgotten how it was when the Legion was gone?” challenged Baroness von Zemo. “Have you? We all glimpsed something then, a different world where nothing stood in the way of our ambitions. It is too late now to shy away from this escalating conflict. We must push on, push back, and grind Visi… the Lair Legion into the dust!”

    The Baroness’ words settled in the minds of the people in the room.

    Then Screwdriver snorted. “MODEM, Norris, the Fokkers, Avis, von Doom, Origami-San. How many times does it have to happen before it’s our turn? Elizabeth von Zemo may have her crusade, Mother Bartok her inquisition, but I’ll be taking a vacation.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Is this it, then?” demanded Magenta St Evil. “This is what the greatest criminal minds on the planet are reduced to? Quivering away in fear of the heroic Lair Legion? Is it?”

    Nobody had noticed the additional throne-like chair that had always been positioned in the shadowed corner. “I think not,” said the Hooded Hood.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You!” said the Baroness.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“So it is true,” said Screwdriver, shifting uncomfortably. “The rumours of your return.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Indeed,” agreed the archvillain. “I am here to apologise.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“To.. to apologise?” puzzled Thighmaster.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes. I apologise for my absence. I apologise for my manipulations which prompted you to such foolish actions as to set a bounty upon the new members of the Lair Legion. I apologise for neglecting the input which previously earned my occasional soubriquet of ‘the cowled crime czar’.” The Hood pressed his fingertips together. “Now that you have understood the futility of ill-considered and peremptory actions against the Lair Legion I intend to return to my former duties and guide you to a different conclusion.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re… taking over?” swallowed Molestro.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I am resuming my advisory role,” responded the archvillain. “That is why the Lair Legion are now raiding the headquarters of the Anti-Fur League rather than this hotel at this very moment. Anybody who does not wish my benevolent support need only say so.”

    There was uncomfortable silence inside the Charity Club.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You set HERPES and the others up to cross the Legion,” accused Beth von Zemo at last, “so you could make your power play.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Am I not… the Hooded Hood?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“And what do you want this time?” Montiver Hole asked nervously.

    The Hooded Hood settled back on his throne. “Everything.”

***


    Ã¢â‚¬Å“The tracker’s going frantic,” Goldeneyed reported. “Holey’s gotta be right behind that door.”

    Hatman switched out his Con Ed helmet and zapped the right part of the door-rim to short-circuit the mechanism. The iris twitched open.

    The Hole Man knelt in the centre of the room, his mouth slack, his eyes half-closed. He drooled.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Don’t go to him,” Hatty warned. “It’s a classic trap. Liu Xi, is he really there?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“As far as I can tell. His matter’s there,” the elementalist said.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Sally, fetch him to us,” the training Officer commanded. “Keep one arm wrapped around Alcheman. Alcheman, solid lead please.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Done,” confirmed Michael Wooster. “You can go, Sally. Er, there’s no need to knot yourself round there.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Hey, this far from a mosh pit a girl’s gotta make her own fun,” Sally grinned. The pliable playmate stretched herself out across the darkened domed room towards the mis-shapen ruler of the Holeoids.

    The Hole Man looked up suddenly and screamed. “Umsharrrrr!!!!”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“What?” asked Ham-Boy confusedly.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“What?” snapped Vinnie worriedly.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Uh-oh,” called Hatman urgently. “Sally, get him out of there now. CZ, Liu Xi, make sure the way out’s clear. We’re going now!”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“But what’s an Umsharrrrrr?” puzzled HB.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Umsharr’s a primal psychic predator entity from the dawn of time,” Vinnie reported. “The reptile races who were written out of existence on Earth before the rise of mankind wrote about him and feared him.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“The who what?” Sally asked, reeling the Hole Man in. “Never mind. He’s bad, right?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I don’t know about him,” Hatman said, “but in the Land That Common Sense Forgot we met some psionic humanoids with octopus heads that split people’s skills open to drink their minds. Brain eaters, in fact. And they called themselves the Spawn of Umsharr!”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“And everything in the Land That Common Sense Forgot got bounced back into regular reality,” Goldeneyed recalled.

    Vinnie winced. “And now the things that the Deviates created to take out an Austernal Omni-Mind and get their old enemies out of the war are home and awake, millennia after the Abhumans managed to bind them just before the Abhumans themselves got locked behind a Negativity Zone barrier by their own treacherous Maximess! The Spawn of Umsharr are awake.”

    Citizen Z stopped up short. “The Spawn of Umsharr are here!”

    The tentacle-headed beings oozed out of the walls and surrounded the Lair Legion. Their long prehensile face-cilia twitched in anticipation. The trap was sprung.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Fight their mind control!” called Hatman, reaching for his Thinking Cap. “Fight their…”

    Ham-Boy clobbered him from behind with a hock of venison.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“No!” gasped Citizen Z, swinging her battle-stave at the incoming monsters. They took it off her and ripped open her host body’s skull.

    Alcheman shifted to diamond but then changed back and stood docilely as the tentacles clamped onto his cranium. Sally squealed as the creatures assailing her found she had no organic mind to suck but shredded her consciousness anyway. Vinnie remembered the psionic defences that had been drilled into him from boyhood – for protection from his siblings – and shut out the Spawn’s whisperings. Liu Xi Xian seared him into a pillar of fire.

    Goldeneyed teleported away blindly and was washed into the deep vril tides that pulsed around Agharta. He was lost.

    The Hole Man curled into a ball and began to sob.

***


Next Time: Stranded subterranean princesses, a pet dinosaur, a choice of dead girlfriends, a curse made flesh, Sally stoned, Amber in love, Liu Xi skinny-dipping, Jarvis’ wife, the new new Citizen Z, and the rise of Umsharr Unfettered! Watch out for Untold Tales of the Lair Legion #348: The Core, or Deepest Down

***


Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2010 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2010 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.



Fascinating glimpse at the Holeoids' collective consciousness.
"Brain eaters" is never a promising name for a new adversary.
Good to see Randy finding a new home and circle of friends.
Thorny ethical quandry Vinnie is caught in there.
We're definitely playing hardball with our old foes now, aren't we?
Nice metafictional nod to an unfinished story.
Looking forward to what follows. \:\)



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