DVANDOM _____ ______ _____ _______ THE CENTURY PACT PART 8 of 12 [ ]__ [ ] [] [ ]__)) [ ] ` [ ]__ #80 - "Goon Fishing" [ ] [ ] [] [ ] \\ [ ] [ ] copyright 1997 Dave Van Domelen [_] [_]__[] [_] \\ [_]___/ [_]____ with assist from Jamas Enright [cover shows Dvandom Force and the Society of Wireless Heroes quaking in fear before a giant shortbread cookie. "And In The Chaos...A Cookie!" proclaims the cover copy.] A kaleidoscope of images flickered on the monitor screen. A hotel room window silently vibrated into dust. A woman, fully clothed, lying asleep on the hotel room's bed. Rapid movement across the city with the woman in his arms. An elaborate trap of smoke and mirrors, which he knew would be doomed to fail before he even implemented it. A surprise turnabout in fate, the woman leaves. [A very compressed view of events in World Tales #13 - Ed.] As the visual records played out on the main monitor, the myriad other forms of data collected during the events of the previous night were displayed on other screens. Even at a slower speed they would have been mere gibberish to the untrained eye, but to those who could read them, they provided valuable context to complement the visual record. And, while not trained in the classical sense, Coppermane could easily decipher this cryptic stream of data. Elements of it still puzzled him, and he linked his enhanced cybernetic mind to the larger datanet in the Century Pact's hidden enclave. His metal face twisted into an approximation of a smile as he found something useful, something which while it didn't explain the mysteries, at least gave him a weapon. Then the door burst open, revealing the angry Steelwind and mildly annoyed Darkheart. Of course, anyone who had known the pair for even a short while, as Coppermane had, would know that the appearances were deceptive. Darkheart was definitely the more dangerously outraged one of the pair, the one Coppermane would have to placate. "That was a very foolhardy thing to do, Van Runt," Darkheart said without preamble, his measured tone showing only a hint of his true emotion. "The Queen Bee is far too powerful a force to make a direct move on this early in the game...you may very well have set us back years with your impatience." Coppermane stopped the datafeed and turned to face the pair, but didn't stand or offer them chairs. It showed just the right mixture of respect and disrespect to keep them off-balance without adding to their anger. "It was a rare opportunity, one which may not have been repeated for years. She was outside her normal protections, in unfamiliar territory, and best yet, under the spell of our friend Mr. Dante. And since the trap had been set already in hopes that such an opportunity might present itself, I sprung it." Steelwind broke in, earning a look of mild annoyance from Darkheart. "Then why didn't you finish her? Now she knows you have the backing of some organization beyond your own, and she'll be out for revenge. The time between an enemy becoming aware of you and becoming a corpse should be as short as possible!" "Things changed. She was significantly more than I expected, I'm not sure I could have killed her," Coppermane replied calmly, if not a little smugly. "Clarify, please," Darkheart requested. "First, there is the matter of her advanced technology, as evidenced by her ability to hide cybernetic enhancements from even my augmented sensors. There shouldn't be human technology this side of 2077 that can do that. And while this does mean she's that much more dangerous a foe, I think we would be better served trying to find her sources before disposing of her. Possibly alien or extradimensional. In addition, the concealed weapon was capable of disrupting my systems...." "For all of about two seconds, Coppermane," Steelwind interjected. "I checked the analysis of the disruptor device, it wasn't enough to let her get away. Why did you let her go?" "Misdirection, I would think," Darkheart replied, a hint of a smile on his lips. "I think I see where this is going, but do continue." "Certainly," Coppermane nodded, pulling up the schematics of the disruptor the Queen Bee had used on him and displaying them on the main screen. "The point you're missing, Steelwind, is that given the adaptive nanomachines housed in my cyborg body, it should have been nearly impossible to disrupt my systems for even those two seconds...nanotechnological agents can react in microseconds to fluctuations like that under normal circumstances. This was another highly advanced piece of technology, and even the two second freeze-up it causes could be fatal if used strategically. Hence, I let her think it was far more effective, so that if we cannot counter it, at least we can expect her to expect more from it than it is capable of delivering." "Okay, I see," Steelwind admitted. "But wouldn't it have all been a moot point if you'd just broken her neck when she gave you that goodbye kiss?" "Maybe. But when I was scanning her for hidden weapons, I picked up some genetic anomalies as well. I scanned further on my way across town, and discovered significant departures from baseline human. At once, I knew the rumors of her immortality, or at least great longevity, were not unfounded. Certainly, I was close enough to tell if she'd had plastic surgery or used makeup to maintain her youthful appearance. I also monitored her brainwaves as I reached my destination, to confirm she was under Dante's dream spell, and I found she was actually breaking free of it on her own. Between the physical and mental signs, my original torture plans seemed highly dubious, but it was too late to back out." "So you played the fool, to salvage what you could from a bad situation?" Darkheart noted. "Exactly. Well, maybe not the fool, but I did my best to seem arrogant, overweening and generally overconfident...without making it obviously an act, that is. She seems to have swallowed it. And when she hit me with the disruptor, it seemed a natural cap to the deception to let her think it was more effective than it really was. If she'd made a move to attack me further, I would have made a show of breaking free just in time, no sense in committing suicide to leave false information, but it worked out reasonably well." "So, what next?" Steelwind asked. "One thing's for sure, she's aware of us, and there's no way I'm going to get another easy shot at her like that. But she's too powerful to leave completely to her own devices, so I suggest a distraction," Coppermane replied, calling up another set of data on the monitors. "Here's the genetic scan I made of the Queen Bee. Now here," another set appeared below the first, "is a record made by Mandrake's machines of the Alt.Rider known as Agent [in Alt.Riders #7-9 - Ed.]. At first glance, there's no resemblance, but at second glance...there's still no resemblance. BUT, and this is the important point, the two are both definitely not human, and both have certain talents related to control of their own bodies, whether it be rapid healing or slow aging. And once you know this and actually look for patterns, well...as the original Kabbalists have proven, you can find patterns anywhere. I say we give this information to Mandrake, he's holding a grudge against Agent, and he's just obsessive enough to find 'proof' that Agent is related to the Queen Bee. Doesn't really matter if there's proof to be found." "Hmm. This has possibilities," Darkheart admitted. "My partner and I will discuss this. We'll be in touch," he finished, striding out the door with Steelwind in tow, leaving Coppermane with his thoughts. Specifically, with the thought he hadn't shared with his erstwhile superiors. What if he'd taken the Queen Bee up on her offer? When she awoke in his mirror maze, she offered to give him his empire back, not finding it to be worth the bother. He could have had it all back, but he refused. At the time, he played it into his blustering act, but part of him really believed what he'd told her then. He didn't want her charity. He didn't want to be beholden to her, or feel he accomplished something only because she let him. It was one thing to force her to return them, to dictate terms as the victor to the vanquished. It was another entirely to be thrown a bone to stop his annoying yapping. And, for all the trouble he'd caused her of late, he got the distinct impression from her that he was hardly at the top of her worries list. So be it. She was going to be brought down one way or another, and if he couldn't be the architect of her defeat, he certainly wouldn't give up the fight and make it easier for her. This was about more than simply regaining lost power, it was about being taken seriously. She didn't take him seriously, never had. But someday soon she would be broken and defeated, and she *would* know he'd had a hand in this. And she would take him seriously. -------]==+ <*> +==[------- The Queen Bee drummed her fingers on her desk, not able to do much else with that hand as it was in plaster. Snapping it nearly off may have been a bit drastic, but she didn't think she really needed a cast to set it. The results had been more than worth the trouble, however. Now she knew she had a weapon against Coppermane should he choose to be annoying. But she still didn't want to have to bother with him. Time to announce her decision. Calling her secretary in, the Queen Bee dictated the following memo: "To all employees in Sig.ago businesses. Due to downsizing, we are forced to close all businesses in that city. You will all receive redundancy checks for one million dollars." One million dollars apiece for so many people? The Queen Bee smirked as she knew that Queen Enterprises would never notice it. Let him eat THAT. -------]==+ <*> +==[------- "So," Steelwind said, to break the silence more than anything else. "So?" was Darkheart's bored-sounding reply. "So...how's Coma Kid?" Steelwind said, jerking his thumb over at the containment tube which held an unconscious Mark Dante to indicate that he didn't mean the real Coma Kid. "Uncertain. Well, that's not true...his condition is obviously that of dreaming. However, he's not supposed to dream anymore, nor do dreams ever last as long as his have. So, the 'what' is apparent, but not the 'why.'" "Cosmic powers?" Steelwind suggested. "Maybe. If there are supernatural beings involved with dreams in this reality, it would make sense that Dante's actions attracted their attention. This may also be a simple act of revenge on the part of Lynk, who seems to have been developing dream-based powers recently. In any case, for now I'm content to monitor and not interfere. Even without a repeat performance, Mr. Dante has been very helpful to the cause, and I'd rather not repay that by destroying his mind in an attempt to wake him. Yet." "Yet," Steelwind nodded. "In other news, think Mandrake will fall for the Bee-bait?" "Uncertain. While still not as clever as he thinks he is, Mandrake is no longer the same fool we recruited [Alt.Riders #8 - Ed.]. He certainly will expect us to try and manipulate him to our own ends at his expense, all the while trying to make him think he's serving his own purposes. But he also must suspect we know this. And we know he suspects. And so forth, to the point of utter stupidity. The best plan is the simplest, the majority of the time. If he wants to play the 'I know you know I know' game, he will regardless of how we present things to him, and his final conclusion cannot be guessed, so we might as well save the effort and give him when he expects. Just present him with the evidence, suggest he pursue the Queen Bee as a way to both advance our cause and revenge himself on Agent...especially since I don't think Agent's teammates would want to help the Queen Bee against Mandrake, causing a moral dilemma for the 'hero'...and let him do what he will. At the least, the decision will occupy Mandrake's more rebellious aspects for a time. And in the unlikely event the two *are* related, so much the better." "Groovy. Anyway, I'm going to go look in on the processing of Mandrake's 'presents' to us, talk to you later." Darkheart nodded silently as Steelwind walked out. -------]==+ <*> +==[------- The Five Stages of a Brilliant Plan. Shock. "She did what?" Coppermane bellowed as he leaned in closer to the computer screen. Not that he needed to, since his vision was acute out to several hundred meters, but old habits die hard. Denial. "No. This must be a hoax. Queen Enterprises may have all the money, but even SHE wouldn't do something so fiscally suicidal as lay off several thousand workers with million dollar golden parachutes...." Anger. "Yes...yes she WOULD. To get back at ME. She knows the chaos this will wreak on MY city, how much Sig.ago depended on the businesses I used to control. She's tearing the heart out of the city with a gilded spoon." Inspiration. "Heh. Heh heh. MUAHAHAHAHA! It worked! She's made a fatal blunder!" Implementation. "Vinnie, get the boys on the phone. Tell them to meet me at the usual place to celebrate their recent retirement and to plan a new business venture. We have a vacuum to fill." When the immortal capo left the room to do this, Coppermane linked directly into the phone system with his cybernetic relays and started making his own round of phone calls. "Hello, Councilman Ayres? Yes, it's *me.* Reports of my death have been, well, you know the rest. Yes, I know you're busy trying to deal with the fallout of Queen Enterprises' little trick...that's why I'm calling. I want to help out. You just get the city council to open up for a new round of bids on trash collection and delivery services, I'll take care of the rest. Ciao." Another call. "Judge Reinhold, long time no hear. Yes, I still have them, don't worry. Now, I need a preliminary breach of contract decision made against Windy City Refuse and Lakeside Transportation. No, they *used* to be my companies, they got bought out in a hostile takeover. Heavens, man, don't you read the morning papers? Didn't get delivered? Oh, yes, I suppose so. Well, check out the TV news when you get a chance...yes, it'll be interesting news. I'll be in touch before lunch." Another call. "Hey, Vito, how's it floating? I hear you've got a fleet of garbage trucks that's not going anywhere until the floodwaters go down in Cin.C, howabout renting them out to me for a couple weeks while I order up some new ones for myself? Thanks...." -------]==+ <*> +==[------- A month later, and about time we got around to actually seeing the heroes, eh wot? [A special warning to those whose brains run on manual transmission: be ready to step down on the clutch, or you might find yourself stripping gears in the next few paragraphs. Thank you, and good evening. - Ed.] Squidman ran his fingers through his hair as he strolled through the back lawn of the King estate, current HQ of Dvandom Force. It was finally quiet again, after weeks of helping out with street crime and riot dispersal in Sig.ago. When the Rain of Pinkslips fell, the Sig.ago.LAN area suddenly had several thousand new millionaires, although it took a few days for the checks to all clear, triggering the first round of unrest. Unfortunately, Sig.ago also now had gaping holes in its financial and service sectors. Every property that had once been owned by Cornelius Van Runt had been liquidated, showing dramatically how deep his influence once ran. Some of the noveau riche had made the mistake of sticking around town long enough for the pangs to start being felt, and Squidman and the others had been called in to rescue them from lynching as the second round of unrest hit. Not that "quiet" was necessarily a good thing. A new consortium formed by several of the new millionaires had picked up several of the services like garbage pickup and short haul trucking, led by a charismatic man named Hunter Red. That most of the members of the Hunter Group were known former cronies of the Little Man, and that Hunter Red himself looked suspiciously like the leader of the Constellation Gang with dyed hair didn't do much to soothe Squidman's nerves. Still, somehow, he felt like today would be a break from all the sturm und drang of the past few months. Maybe it was the tang of spring in the air. Maybe the blooming flowers, or the birds flying north overhead. Or maybe it was the giant cube of Spham falling from the sky. Giant...cube...of...Spham.... "INCOMING!" Squidman shouted as he sprinted for the house, hoping he'd get outside the splatter radius in time. SPLORTCH! [For the benefit of readers without monitors, the planned giant ASCII font has been compressed to normal letters. - Ed.] The wave of Spham Jhelli washed over Squidman, throwing him to the ground an instant before it also decorated the south wall of the house in faintly disgusting brownish pink. "I've been slimed," Squidman groaned, picking himself up and trying to avoid touching anything, holding his arms out and shaking them slightly. Goo dripped from him. Turning around, he saw that the cube of Spham was jiggling furiously from the impact, but somehow had kept together. Behind him the other heroes were poking out of doors and windows and making various sounds of disgust. Stan was already on the phone to the LNH, asking if Captain Cleanup might be available for the afternoon. Sidewinder drifted out to Squidman in his flight suit. "What the hell (TM) is this doing here?" "Jiggling," was the deadpan response. "Wait, there's a door opening!" "Who would be idiotic enough to travel inside a giant chunk of Spham?" Sidewinder asked, making for the perfect setup line. "Never fear, the Society of Wireless Heroes is here!" crowed the short, fat leader of the group, Ned Thunderbox, as he stepped from the cube. He was followed by Blue Bottle, WildCrun, Black Minnie and...Per Annum and the Infra-Humanite! "Aiowwwwww," aiowwwwwwed the Infra-Humanite as he brushed Spham Jhelli from the fur of his ape suit. "Wait, what are they doing with you?" Squidman asked, pointing to the villainous Per Annum and his steaming French associate. "Well," Per Annum oozed, "we seem to have a crisis of such proportions on our hands that it requires the genius of Per Annum and the sheer...the raw...well, I'm sure Neddie and his lads are good for something." "What what what what what?" Ned blurted out, which happened to also be the mystic incantation for summoning his magic thunderbox. "Yes?" spoke a gravelly, deep voice as the thunderbox left the Spham cube. The cube then fell apart under the stress, as it was no longer being supported by magic. Once the Society had pulled itself from the resultant avalanche, Neddie drew himself up to his full three foot two and proclaimed, "The Gooniverse has been invaded by extradimensional Spham, and we need your aid." By this time the rest of Dvandom Force had put on rubber hip boots and waded out to where Squidman was. "So, you need our help driving out the Sphammers? Wouldn't the Order of St. Doomas be a better choice?" Macroman asked. "No, they just sort of went away on their own. Odd, that," Neddie mused. "It was like they got bored." "Then you need our help cleaning up all the Spham they left behind?" Kat suggested. "No, no...not that either. You see, I thought it was Blue Bottle's turn to feed Dustbinman..." Neddie started. "And I thought it was WildCrun's turn, points helpfully at pitiful wretch of a man in black cardboard suit," Blue Bottle said and then spoke his stage directions. His voice was high enough to cut steel. "Mnk mnk...and I thought I was supposed to feed the tiger," WildCrun added. "The upshot of this being, wellll...no one had fed Eccles for over ten years. So he ate all the Spham," Neddie proclaimed. Everyone present turned slightly green at the thought of anyone, even the superhumanly stupid Dustbinman, eating that much Spham. "So, you want us to be pallbearers at the funeral?" Squidman managed to choke out, feeling his gorge rise. "Heavens, no! Eccles is just a bit under the weather, he needs something to settle his stomach. We need you to help us find...the Interdimensional Digestive Biscuit!" "The WHAT?" all of Dvandom Force chorused. "Allow me to explain," purred Per Annum. "You are, of course, familiar with mighty Alt.Lactus, Devourer of Newsgroups, yes? Well, not all newsgroups go down smoothly, so Alt.Lactus created the Interdimensional Digestive Biscuit to nibble on after eating a particularly nasty newsgroup like alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.armpits. But the Biscuit railed at its servitude, it wanted to fly the net.ways freely, and eventually it escaped its master's control. We need to find it and convince it to let poor Eccles nosh on it a bit. So I built this timespace.thingy out of some of the remaining Spham (which everyone knows makes excellent fuel for transdimensional travel) so we could come here and obtain your help in tracking down the Biscuit." "I hate to disappoint you, but we no longer have the ability to...wait, what's that?" Squidman perked up his ears. There was a sort of droning sound, like the propellors of a blimp, or a Zeppelin. Then, like a second sun, the orange and yellow CheeeZeppelin came over the horizon, penguins parachuting from it in black and white waves of feathered fury. Each bore a backpack-mounted unit of some sort, and as the birds moved forwards, the Spham Jhelli was sucked up into these containers. A familiar musical sting started up, and a tall thin figure in overalls dropped down from the CheeeZeppelin on a line, landing in front of Squidman. "Major Denis Bludwulf of PenguinKleen Inc, reporting for duty!" he beamed. "Captain Cleanup couldn't make it, so he referred the job to my new corporation, specialising in tremendous messes. If there's one thing I know about, it's tremendous mess...nosh me knickers and throttle me newsreader! It's the Society of Wireless Heroes!" he said in astonishment, whirling around to face the Gooniversal visitors. "And Per Annum, to boot! Ohhhohhohh....he must have taken fiendish control of your plasticene and string minds! Well, I know how to deal with plots like this...." "Stop fleeing, Bludwulf," Neddie admonished. "He's working with us for now. Here's a copy of the previous few pages of the script, so I don't have to repeat all that naughty exposition." Bludwulf paused and read the script, quietly mumbling the words to himself as he did. "I am not!" he rebutted. "I'm mumbling different words entirely, I'll have you know!" "Anyway, as I was saying," Squidman broke in, "We don't have any dimensional travel methods available to us at this time. Unless we could find the Penguin of Goon...." "Ah, you mean Gladys!" Bludwulf beamed. "Oh, Gladys!" he shouted up to the CheeeZeppelin. A tremendously muscled penguin leaned out of the side door. "Squawk?" it squawked, loudly enough that everyone was pushed back several inches by the air pressure change. "Gladys, we need to go on a jaunt this afternoon before tea, we're looking for the Interdimensional Digestive Biscuit. Think you feel up to it, darling?" Bludwulf asked. "Squawk!" the penguin nodded. This time everyone was braced for it. "Well, there you have it. We'll just finish up cleaning here, then we can go fetch the biscuit for Eccles. So...round the back for a bit of the old brandy?" The Society of Wireless Heroes Stampeded around the corner and out of sight. "Well, it beats more angst," Macroman commented. "Does it?" Kat replied. -------]==+ <*> +==[------- I surf the net.ways alone, doomed by my very nature to be a lonely wanderer of the net.realities, never to know the companionship of my own kind. For I am unique, there is none in all the net.universes like me, and I am forever set apart from those I meet. At best, they fear me because I am different, and while they may not attack me, they avoid me. I cannot get close to them, for I am not *of* them. At worst, they try to eat me. Men call me the Interdimensional Digestive Biscuit, but only a few know me by my true name, Norrin Duun. My shortbread body is proof against the ravages of space, interdimensional non-space and the hearts of stars, as well as being very good at settling the stomach. My master, Alt.Lactus, wished only to use me to ease his pangs after destroying worlds, but I could not stand by and be accomplice to such acts, so I left. So now I surf the net.ways, ever alone, except for short breaks in the monotony, like now. Somehow a large wheel of cheese has managed to enter the Spaces Between that I roam, and it is definitely following me. Was it a new servant of Alt.Lactus, sent to punish or capture his wayward first creation? If so, this cheesy herald would find no easy target in me. For I control the Power Comic, I can manipulate the Celestial Cookie. I turn to face my pursuer, and he pulls to a stop just short of striking me. Then a hatch opens at the top and I realize it is a vehicle of some sort, not a Cosmic Comestible such as myself. "Er, hello," says a man with a squid for a head. "We need to ask a favor of you." "Begone," I say. "Leave me to my solitude, for you cannot offer me anything I need in return, so bargain not with me." "What do you want?" asks a dark-haired man in a strange futuristic business suit with darkness in his eyes before the squid-headed one stuffs him back down into the craft. "Companionship of my own kind. And you cannot offer this, for none like me exist," I sigh. Would that they *could* offer this, perhaps my aeons of solitude could end. "I don't know, he might get along winningly with the non-feral portion of the International Christmas Pudding," comes a voice from inside the craft. My shortbread heart skips a beat. A pudding is not a biscuit, but perhaps it would be close enough to give me temporary surcease? "Speak on," I say, hoping this hope would not be dashed like so many before.... -------]==+ <*> +==[------- "So, Eccles is fine," Neddie said as Dustbinman could be heard to say "Foine, foine," in the background, "the Spham is all gone, and the Biscuit and the Pudding are on holiday in Aruba. All in all, a good afternoon's work, eh wot?" "Indeed it was, my little Welsh haggis," Per Annum crooned. "And now that we've dropped off Dvandom Force, please step this way so we can discuss our further partnership." "Of course, of course!" Ned crowed, following Per Annum off stage. "Oh, wait, I forgot something," Per Annum could be heard to say from off stage. "You stay here, I'll go fetch it." "Ah, that Per Annum, such a nice fellow. Wonder why we ever fought in the first place?" "That was Dvandom Force, not a BBC production, starring Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe, Spike Milligan, David Goldfarb, Mark McConnell, Halle Berry, and an assortment of extras in costumes. Thank you, and good night," Mr. Macro signed off. ============================================================================= Next Issue: Back to the sturm und drang, and hopefully the villains won't crowd the heroes completely out of the issue next time. ============================================================================= Author's Notes: The Society of Wireless Heroes is an amalgam of the Justice Society of America and the cast of the 1950s British radio humour programme known as the Goon Show. More information about them can be found in the Author's Notes for Dvandom Force #39-41, hither and yon. Queen Bee's scene was written by her creator, Jamas Enright, used with permission and all that. I tried to make this issue stand alone fairly well, but you'll probably want to dig up World Tales #13 for more detail on Coppermane's run-in with the Queen Bee. Oh, and in case anyone's wondering, Jamas and I are not engaging in a "My villain is more clever than your villain" contest, it's just that both Coppermane and the Queen Bee have a tendency to think little of their enemies, and Darkheart doesn't think much of anyone.