1999: A Superhero Novel

by Hodden, TE

  Warner screamed as his body melted into the light of the soul fire.

  The inferno faded away.

  Summers dropped to her knees. “By the laws of Mars, the sentence is passed.”

  Catherine stepped over. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure,” Summers said, in a weak voice. “I just need to lie down for a few minutes and…”

  She toppled over in a faint.

  10100

  Melisa ran back to the Operations Room, and tapped open several screens, leaping into a chair, and skidding between the computer consoles in flurries of keystrokes.

  Angel followed. “How can I help?”

  “Channel hop!” Melisa said. “It isn’t running at the same time on every channel, so find me the ones where it is just starting!”

  Angel stared across the hall to the kitchen, and tapped the remote control, to scroll through the channels. “Cookery channel!”

  “Number!” Melisa said, skidding to a computer and running the analysis kit on the satellite channel. “I got it! I found it!”

  “The one with the old films!” Angel reported.

  Melisa skidded to the next console and scanned that channel. “Yes!”

  “The news channels are showing it!”

  “No good,” Melisa said. “Sorry, they are just playing a recording.”

  “The one with the woodwork shows!”

  Melisa skidded to the third computer and locked on. “Got it!”

  She wheeled back to the first console. “The only way they can be doing this, is to be taking over the satellites. Which is why it’s lagging on different channels. Different satellites, with different positions, and… different defences and security protocols, you see… some were quicker to crack than others, but that benefits us, because it means I can track the signal back from different satellites, and…”

  Angel laughed. “And suddenly you can triangulate, and get a fix on his signal.”

  “Right,” Melisa said, as one by one the computers tracked the signal back. She tapped her earpiece. “Harris?”

  “Here,” he said in a gruff voice, over the link. “You saw it?”

  The computers crunched the numbers. It churned them into co-ordinates, and brought up a location on a map.

  Melisa grinned. “Do your friends on the Nomad have any satellites over Welles Fields, Nevada?”

  “Huh,” Harris said. “Why?” He chuckled. “Yeah, you’re ahead of us. We are directing a satellite there now. We need a few seconds.”

  “Seconds?” Angel asked, leaning over the table. “That is… convenient? What is it watching?”

  Harris drew a breath. “That’s the bade news. Welles Fields used to be used for testing atomic weapons. It’s… kind of a ghost town. Hang on, I’m having them patch you in, now.”

  The satellite image opened on the wall display. A vast swathe of the Nevada plains had been turned to a dusty, sandy, wasteland, the scrub and grass burned away to dark, bare earth. There were the burnt and broken remains of buildings, hints of picket fences, suggestions of houses build in varying styles (all of them from the fifties, or earlier), with other ruins that suggested a classical civil building, a schoolhouse, and a diner, all dropped in a cluster that didn’t quite make sense. A length of freeway and a strip of railroad, each with their own bridges, that led nowhere.

  There were three people, in full body hazard suits, disassembling a lightweight satellite dish, of a silk thin material around a wire frame work, stowing it in hardened cases. They hurried down the slope to a hatchway in the foundation of the bridge.

  Angel breathed out. “Is there some kind of bunker beneath the bridges?”

  Harris spoke in a taut voice. “I didn’t know of one, but I guess, they had to test bomb shelters somewhere, right?”

  Something caught Melisa’s eyes. “Scan north, into the ruins.”

  The image tracked north, to the ruins of the civic building, with the hints of classical stylings. There was something revealed at the rear of the building. A blocky shape tucked in a nook, beside the basement access.

  “See!” Melisa said. “That blocky shape. Is that an old asbestos air filter?”

  Harris growled. “Well damn.”

  Angel straightened. “We can load a Manta and meet you there.”

  “Agreed,” Harris said. “I’ll call in Osprey too. Oh, and Mel? I’m letting the Captain’s crew access the Honour Guard archives. They are going to run analysis on every voice print we have. We’ll see if we can recognise that voice, under all the distortion. Okay?”

  Melisa tapped her security code into the computer. “I’m authorising it now.”

  “Understood,” Harris sounded relived. “Thank you.”

  “What about me?” A faint voice in the background of Harris’s end of the link asked.

  “You’ll be safe here, Elois,” Harris said, his voice full of promise. “I can’t think of anywhere safer.” His tone changed. “Mel? I’m going to need you to bring me some spares from the armoury.”

  10101

  The Echo followed her escort down through the accommodation decks of the USS Nomad. The prim young lieutenant opened the door to a cabin, a roomy and comfortable stateroom by the standard of an aircraft carrier. “Ma’am. If, you need anything else¬”

  “No,” Echo said, quickly, “thank you. I just… need some time alone. To process.”

  The lieutenant bowed her head. “Of course. I’m sorry. It must have been… I can’t begin to imagine Ma’am. When you can manage to eat, dial four zeros on the phone, and ask for the duty officer.”

  Echo nodded, and offered a thankful smile, as she closed the door, and locked it.

  She turned and walked into the stateroom, looking around. She sat on the bed, and stared into the full-length mirror on the wardrobe door. Elois Croft’s reflection smiled back. It was pretty enough, in a gawky, kind of a way, but didn’t suit her smile, the open features twisted in an unbecoming way about the venomous smirk.

  “Well,” Echo said, in a soft purr of a voice, “the mischief I could cause here.”

  The Lord of Misrule stepped into the reflection, appearing to lean against the desk. “No. Not yet.”

  Echo pouted. “After all these years, you would have me waste my chance to wreak such beautiful havoc?”

  Misrule’s expression hardened. “After all these years, and so much work, you would tip our hand before all our pieces are in place? For now, observe and learn. When the time is right, my friend, you will have your merry mayhem, but not yet.”

  Echo made herself use one of Elois’s sweet and innocent smile. “As you wish my Lord.”

  Misrule tapped his lips. “Soon... Soon I will let slip your chains, my child. Your patience will be rewarded. You will be more than compensated for these last years.”

  Echo’s smile twisted, becoming malicious and greedy. “They have a Yeoman among their ranks, you know.”

  “I know,” Misrule promised. “And when the time comes, he will be yours to torment.”

  “And the others?” Echo whispered.

  “Who do you want?” Misrule asked.

  Echo smiled. “Their champion. Their Praetorian.”

  Misrule chuckled. “Then obey your orders, and he will be yours. When the time comes.”

  10110

  Charlie sat alone at the very prow of the boat, huddled into a ball, his chin resting on his knees.

  They were at the far edge of the Twilight Sea, where the obsidian waves met the volcanic wall. The boatman guided them to a long jetty, hewn from blocks of ash grey stone, rich with fossils and patterns.

  Tilda snarled under breath, and rose to her feet. “This is not the way to Ethis!”

  “No,” the boatman said. “But, nevertheless, it is the way you must travel.”

  Tilda folded her arms. “I paid for a service.”

  Robin scoffed. “You paid?”

  Tilda’s jaw set. “We agreed terms. To seek our answer, and safe passage home. This is not safe p
assage.”

  The boatman chuckled. “And you have no answers, only a question. This is the path you must take.”

  “This?” Tilda demanded. “Into the Millponds? Never!”

  Charlie watched the eels circling beneath the boat. “What are the Millponds?”

  Robin leant over to him. “You don’t know?”

  Charlie shrugged. “It is not a name I have ever read… anywhere.”

  “No,” Tilda agreed. “It is not a name you will read. It’s…” She paused. “It’s where the unquiet sleepers are sent, so they don’t disturb the dreams of others. Pollute them.”

  Charlie pushed his unease down deep. “And that is where I will find my answers?”

  The boatman pointed at the quayside. “That is where you must go next.”

  The boat pulled alongside the quay.

  Charlie hopped onto the steps, and strode along the quay. Robin laughed and followed him.

  Tilda ran after Charlie, and grabbed his arm. “We can not go into the Millpond.”

  Robin pointed to the boat, that was already drifting back out to sea. “We can’t go back, and I’m not keen to stay here. So, what other choice is there?”

  Tilda opened her mouth to answer. She waved away what she was about to say, and opened her mouth again. She looked back at the sea,

  Charlie put a hand on her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

  She stared at him. “I have seen what lives down among the Millponds, in the shadows, in the cold of the grave. There are reasons, boy, that we police the Veil, that see realms like the Millponds go undisturbed. There are places even the Yeomen should not venture.”

  Charlie raised an eyebrow. “You can imagine nothing worse?”

  Tilda shook her head,

  “And,” Charlie said, his voice softening, “if something from down there has made its way to Earth?”

  For a moment, just a moment, Tilda’s expression opened in horror. She clenched her teeth, and buried it all under her scowl. “Well, obviously, we will not let that happen, will we?”

  Robin chuckled. “Obviously.”

  They walked on through the archway, and descended down through the seemingly endless spiral stairs. The volcanic rock gave way to an ocean green stone, covered in a luminous silver moss. The stairs ended at another archway.

  Charlie paused and waved through the archway at the monastery gardens beyond. “How can that make sense? The sea was deeper than the stairs, and… there’s a sky! What happened to the cave?”

  Robin laughed, and took his hand. “Why does everything have to make sense?”

  “Because…” Charlie floundered. “Because magic does make sense. It’s how it works,”

  “Not always,” Robin said, with a grin. “Sometimes it just…is.”

  Tilda seethed. “Now is not the time to joke.”

  They stepped through the archway.

  The walled gardens were full of drizzle, under a cloudy sky. The stone planters overflowed with grey roses, and silver leaves. The roses spilled out, and up the slate blue walls, that divided the gardens into cells. Underfoot was ash grass and dark brown flagstones. In the centre of each cell, was a pond of dark water, that constantly rippled and moved.

  Charlie stepped to edge and stared into the water. It stretched down like a well, and at the bottom of the pool was one of the sleeping dead, thrashing and wrestling against the heavy chains that bound them.

  There were reflections in the water, hints and fragments of the sleeper’s incoherent nightmares.

  Tilda dragged him away. “Boy.” She nodded to the far side of the cell. “Look.”

  A monk was watching them. He was young, but bald, his scaled flesh patterned in every shade of grey, his eyes the bronze orbs of a shark. He wore loose, baggy, robes, and leather sandals. He gestured for them to follow.

  Tilda spoke in a whisper. “Do as he wants. Make little noise. Do not look in the pools.”

  Charlie nodded, and followed the monk through the many cells of the garden.

  Robin took his hand. “The monks are the keepers, and caretakers of the sleepers. The gardens try to encourage peaceful dreams,”

  Charlie kept his voice a whisper. “Does it work?”

  The monk looked back and gave him an awkward shrug.

  “Sometimes,” Robin whispered.

  After more cells than Charlie could count, they reached the fortified walls at the edge of the garden, and a set of ornate gates. Beyond this was a forest that curved alongside a lake. Dark water poured from an outlet in the fortress wall, rippling into the lake, disturbing the skin of leaves that floated on the plate glass water.

  Charlie watched the water. “Run off from the dreamers?” He whispered. “To wash away the bad dreams, before they stew in them?”

  The monk smiled and nodded.

  Charlie took another look at the trees. The branches twisted and curled like tentacles, bending ways that were not natural, and occasionally ending in clawed tentacles instead of leafs.

  Robin nodded. “The nightmares saturate the soil. They… corrupt things. Beyond the walls are the things that feed on the corruption. Left unchecked they would try to get into the gardens and disturb the sleepers. So… the monks try to tend for them too.”

  “How?” Charlie whispered.

  Tilda shifted nervously. “Why do you think they have a forest?”

  The monk took them down a winding path, to where the oldest, strongest, trees grew. Creatures of nightmare, demons and monsters, were bound to the trees, some staked to the roots, some chained to the trunks, some hung from the branches.

  Symbols were carved into the bark, naming each of the horrors.

  The nightmares grew silent and still as they approached, stopping to stare at Charlie. In the corner of his eye, he could see them sizing him up, weighing their chances to strike.

  The took them off the path and a down a slope, to a boggy marsh, where the trees were askew, subsiding into the murky waters. A rainbow of toadstools and mushrooms covered the collapsing trees.

  Only one tree stood upright. It was squat and fat, with jet black bark, and mushrooms where there should have been leaves.

  The monk stood on the cusp of the marsh, and pointed to the tree.

  “Right,” Charlie said.

  Robin marched to one of the askew trees, braced against it, and gave it a hard shove. There was a groan of complaints from the roots, as it toppled across the marsh. She waved her hands. “After you, Charlie!”

  Charlie hopped onto the trunk, and held out his arms for balance, as he crossed the trunk to the black tree. Tilda followed him, on her tiptoes.

  Charlie gripped a branch of the tree, and stepped down onto the roots.

  Tilda hissed on a breath. “Careful. Slip now and the water will take you!”

  Charlie considered the silver chains that hung from the branches. They had been there so long the tree had grown over them He brushed the moss from the black bark, revealing a crudely carved symbol. A skull, from which ever branching tree roots grew. “Do you know what this is?” He wrinkled his nose. “I’ve seen it on dead worlds. It’s something from the Schism war?”

  “No.” Tilda tutted. “That is how little you know, Boy.”

  He stared at her. “Well, to be fair, I didn’t get much training.”

  Tilda stared skywards. “Oh well, excuse me, but you might have noticed I was dead! Which was more or less your fault.” She shook her head. “As it happens any Yeoman should recognise the symbol of the Necrex. He was a…vulture, who preyed on the dying worlds, left burned or bleeding out by the war. He would infect their wounds, and make the worlds fester in decay.”

  “He,” Robin said, angrily, “is why there is only one Yeoman, and there should be an army. He purged us. He killed us. He hunted us down, our brothers and sisters, and slew them, for sport.”

  “For power, more like,” Tilda scoffed. “He is the shepherd of ghouls, ghasts, and¬”

  The water rippled.

  Char
lie tensed. “What was that?”

  “That,” Tilda whispered, “is why coming here was a bad idea.”

  A nightmare millipede, the size of a shire horse, broke from the water, rising up like a rearing cobra. The nightmare lunged forwards, its mandible pincers closing about Tilda’s chest, as it dragged her down into the swamp waters.

  “No!” Robin screamed, leaping onto the fallen tree. “Tilda!”

  The surface of the swamp grew still.

  Robin stared at Charlie. “She’s… gone….”

  Charlie rubbed his face. “No. I can’t let it devour whatever is left of her soul. She would never let me hear the end of it.” He gave Robin a smile that was a lot braver than he felt. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  He plunged into the swamp, and the darkness swallowed him whole.

  10111

  Melisa’s breathing echoed around her, within her hazard suit, as she crept through the dusty scrub, couched low, following the Navy SEALs. The SEALs wore tactical armour over their bulky hazard suits, and carried their blunt faced carbines close to their chest.

  Harris and Barney had scouted ahead with Captain Lionheart, they were waiting by some rocks, looking down at the ruins of Welles Fields in the valley. Barney glanced up at Melisa as she and Angel crouched beside him.

  “How are we looking?” Melisa asked.

  Barney gestured at his armour. “According to the suit, the radiation down there is pretty rich. Even in the hazard suit, you don’t want to be in the ruins for more than three hours. On the plus side, we have Harris, whose armour is pretty nimble, and the Captain, who is effectively immune to the radiation, so…”

  Angel nodded. “Is that enough of an advantage?”

  Lionheart, pointed down to the valley. “If we approach from that angle, it will be pretty difficult for their security cameras to spot us, and I see two ways into the bunker. One under the bridge, and another in the basement of the civil building. I don’t know if that was meant to be a town hall, or a courthouse, but it has a hatch, if we can work out a way to open it.”

  Lionheart gave them a helpless look. “We’ll have to get closer to see what we are dealing with, but I don’t think they will be expecting the firepower your team lends us. Osprey and I can take Alpha Squad to the bridge. Venator, take Beta Squad and the rest of your team down through the second entrance. We sweep through, contain them all, and shut them down, before they find a way to make good on their threats.”