With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

[Mr Zoat]

25th October 2282
07:10 MTZ

I take a careful look at the grizzled prisoner opposite me as he glowers through the bullet-resistant glass. Through the grill in the bottom I can hear him quietly wheezing, a result of the injuries he sustained when the left side of his power armour's torso was hit by an anti-tank rifle, bending it inwards to crush his ribs. The rest of the armour was melted near-solid; they had to get him out with drills and chisels, and the NCR army only bothered doing that because they thought that he might have actionable intelligence.

And that's not his only injury. I can see a dozen small scars and burns earned through a life in the wastelands. Three years in the NCR's care with minimal medical aid and surrounded by violent criminals hasn't exactly been easy.

I mean, my goodness. Forty years since Navarro. And he wasn't exactly young when it happened.

"How the heck are you still alive?"

The skin around his eyes tightens as he moves his glare from 'hostile' to 'openly contemptuous'.

"I AM ALIVE BECAUSE I DO NOT HAVE WEAK MUTANT BLOOD IN MY VEINS! I HAVE PURE AMERICAN VINEGAR!"

He looks like he wants to keep shouting, but there's a tremor in his chest and he has to brace himself to avoid showing weakness.

Sergeant Arch Dornan is the longest serving surviving member of Enclave personnel still in NCR custody. He was captured after the NCR/Vault City alliance stormed the Sierra Army Depot and he was moved here once they realised who he was. This is the man who led the evacuation of Navarro once the command post was destroyed by Brotherhood Paladins, and who organised the remaining free Enclave units in California into a cohesive force.

And then he sided with Doctor Anderson in their election and it was all downhill from there. New Reno may never recover.

"Well, when you're immune to disease and radiation and can punch out a brahmin, it's time to stop pretending you're not a mutant. FEV's powerful stuff."

"THAT IS US GOVERNMENT PROPERTY, MUTIE!"

"The US government never finished it. I would be happy to share my expertise, were the US government a going concern."

"THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IS NOT DEAD SO LONG AS ONE LOYAL SOLDIER REMAINS! AND I AM NOT YET DEAD!"

"Sergeant, how would you like to get out of prison while still alive?"

…

He continues glowering at me for a few moments.

"I'm listening."

"The NCR is rather pleased with me at the moment. I've been helping them make friends, dealing with a few potential conflicts and we recently killed a giant super mutant god. Caesar's next on the chopping block and then that's basically it. The territory of the former United States will be home to peaceable successor states, several of which conform to the borders of pre-War states. Texas is back, and Oklahoma, and Colorado, and the Republic of the Rio Grande."

"Get to the point, mutie."

"The Enclave claimed to be the legitimate government of the United States, using emergency continuity laws to pass authority from one leader to another. But the people of the wasteland don't recognise their authority, not only because the Enclave tried to kill them all with FEV, but because they didn't vote for them. America is supposed to be a democracy, and the constitution makes it clear that you do need to have federal elections every few years. You tried fighting the entire wasteland twice, and it didn't work."

I lean forwards slightly.

"Have you considered more covert means?"

"What the hell do you mean by that?"

"I believe that the best way to ensure ongoing peace in North America is to re-establish the United States. For a while I've been picking up Enclave survivors and shipping them off to Iowa. Governor Autumn really just controls a single town and some farmland at the moment, but there are a lot of hard-working and patriotic Americans there who'd be glad to see you, and the other Enclave personnel in NCR custody."

"Iowa."

"Not sure what Iowa did to piss the Chinese off, but they nuked it pretty hard during the War. Now, the radiation forms a barrier around the area their Garden of Eden Creation Kit purified. Point is, if I talk the reformed states into reforming the United States, that will be one Governor, two Senators and however many congressional representatives who were members of the Enclave."

"YOU EXPECT ME TO SIGN UP TO A GOVERNMENT OF THE MUTANTS BY THE MUTANTS FOR THE MUTANTS?! I WOULD RATHER ROT IN HELL!"

"A person who is born to either naturalised or natural-born American citizens is an American citizen. That means that virtually everyone you dismiss as 'mutants' is in fact an American citizen. They may be mutants as well, but they are legally American citizens. The Constitution puts some fairly strong restrictions on the way a legitimate government can treat its citizens, and the fact that the Enclave refuses to recognise that is another rather serious strike against it. Not… A serious strike as in 'something that makes people dislike it', I mean a serious strike against its claim to be the legitimate government when it fails to respect the very laws which give it power."

I shrug.

"I mean, if the government doesn't follow the law, why should anyone else?"

"MUTANTS ARE NOT CITIZENS OF MY COUNTRY!"

"The Constitution makes no provision for depriving a person of their citizenship on the grounds of genetic alteration. You don't have to like us, but you can't deprive us of our rights. But that's rather beside the point. The point is; do you want to see any kind of America restored and then work to make it more like what you think it should be, or do you want to die here?"

I could give his mind a little nudge, but… That sort of thing tends not to stick. If I drop him on Autumn and Granite like that he'd probably end up as the nucleus of a hard-core Purist movement that will create even more trouble for me later on. And cost me virtually all of my credit with the NCR. No, this does need to be something he decides for himself, and I can feel his thoughts churning.

As far as he's concerned, Iowa, Nevada, California, it makes no difference. He'll gladly fight and die for the Enclave, completely convinced of the legitimacy of his cause. Some Enclave soldiers I've met weren't convinced that releasing the FEV Plague was the right thing to do at the time, and the ones like Granite who spent time since the Fall of Navarro living around wastelanders are now firmly convinced that it was wrong. Others like Dornan have drunk all of the Kool-Aid.

One nation, under the Enclave, with mindless obedience for all.

But Dornan needs someone else to set the agenda. His insistence that he's not an officer is something he feels deeply. He isn't comfortable making policy decisions himself. And he knows Granite and knew Autumn Senior. They are part of the group of people he's used to taking orders from.

"What else?"

"You and all Enclave personnel remaining in NCR custody would be loaded into trucks and put on the road with a small escort of my people. Any who don't take this deal will be 'killed attempting to escape', which is one of the reasons why I hope you'll convince as many of your fellows as you can to accept it. Governor Autumn already knows that some people will be coming, and they've made the arrangements to receive you. I believe that you will technically become a member of the Iowa National Guard, though in practice your responsibilities will remain the same. Or you… Could retire. You've served with distinction for a very long time-."

"I've failed my country twice, mutie. Do you have any idea what that's like?"

"Restoring Britain has somewhat fallen down my schedule, but I'll get there eventually."

"I can't make this decision myself. But if I'm alive, I can always come back and kill you later."

I smile broadly. "That's the spirit. You'll tell the others?"

He nods, grudgingly. "Get the guards out of the way for half an hour. We'll be having a free and frank exchange of views."

I nod. "Good to hear it. I'll see you with the trucks tomorrow."

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd November 2012
04:25 GMT +3

"…obviously not going to work, but at least it will be over."

Zagreus and I walk towards Themyscira City and away from the forest. Since Demeter is obviously not a neutral chaperone, they ended up agreeing on Gaea. Which also put her in the perfect position to witness Hades swear an oath to her that he would release Persephone from all obligations if it didn't work.

Persephone seemed marginally happier after that.

"No faith in your father's attractiveness?"

"Mother clearly saw him as a threat for a reason. It was unfair, but affairs of the heart aren't obliged to be fair. They have nothing in common and no political reason to be together."

"How about you?"

He glances at me, frowning. "Me? I'm not five years old. I can cope perfectly well with my parents separating."

"No, I mean, from the sounds of it you have a modern view of marriage."

"I am modern. For virtually all purposes I'm a modern… A human with a few magical abilities."

"An unageing human with a few magical abilities. I've seen agelessness impair people's ability to learn new things."

"Fortunate for me. And whether I prefer the modern version of marriage depends on what you mean. Marriage should be a publically stated commitment, not something you abandon when it becomes inconvenient or when the initial.. shine comes off the relationship. A marriage entered into by two people because they share life-goals can be a perfectly good marriage."

"But..?"

"There's no 'but' to it. Father let his emotions cloud his reason. He should have known that just driving up in his chariot and picking Mother up wasn't the right thing to do. It was Zeus, for Gaea's sake! There's a gap between 'sticking to your promises' and 'living a total fantasy'! If anything, I should-."

He stops, staring at me.

"No."

"What?"

"No." he shakes his head. "You aren't that cunning."

"If you could give me a little more..?"

"For a moment, I remembered your claim that Eris didn't cause the Trojan War, she just brought the pettiness of everyone else to the surface. And it occurred to me that I could interpret what you've done here in a similar light."

"Oh-" I shake my head. "-no. I don't think like that."

"I realised. But when Father fails, you'll have been able to do what even Demeter couldn't do: ending their façade of a marriage."

"No problem with Macaria being made regent?"

"No. Out of the three of us, she's the one with a connection to the dead. And she wants to be part of this new pantheon that Hephaestaean is drawing together."

"Have you met your new God of War?"

"No, I've been too busy bracing myself for whatever explosion you would create. Did Kratos break a clinch long enough to accept?"

"No, you got Týr."

"Your suggestion?"

"I did suggest it as a half-joke to Diana a couple of years ago, but he volunteered without any direct contact with me."

"Convenient."

"Are you familiar with virtue ethics?"

"Of course I'm familiar with virtue ethics. I come from the society that invented the concept."

"Virtue guards against bad luck. Not completely, but to a significant degree. If you put flour in a sieve and shake, fine grains rain through while larger parts are broken up or trapped. Likewise, any system that can't survive a little chaos probably wasn't that good anyway."

"You think chaos is a virtue, guarding against bad systems?"

"The philosophers John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor argued against censorship on the grounds that even if an opinion was utterly vile, it was still worth having the opinion aired so that people could remind themselves that it was vile and practise the counter-arguments with a real example. My point is that it's always worth having someone test things, even if they're wrong. Because… If a man prodding a fence with his foot can knock it over then it probably wasn't going to withstand an actual storm. And if this many fences are falling over, they're probably overdue for a kicking."

"Have fun with that. We've finally got enough judges trained up that I can afford to go back to Africa, so it's not going to be my problem."

"You sure?"

"You tell me."

I take a look at his desire network and… Yes, he's pretty much done with this whole situation. That's a shame, but I understand where he's coming from. His role in the whole thing was supporting Hades and if his sister would rather do it…

"I see that you are. Thank you for helping out for as long as you have."

I hold out my right hand. He bows his head slightly with a smile as he takes it.

"I'll be happy to go back to hippos. You don't have anything… Else planned for our pantheon, do you?"

"Planned?"

He steps back into the woods, slowly fading from view.

"Nice safe hippos and lions…"

I shake my head, sight Menalippe and transition over to her.

"So."

She looks me over cautiously. "What news?"

"Hephaestaean has his pantheon more or less together, final negotiations pending. Macaria is temporarily taking over Erebos while her parents use the waters of the Lethe to either save or finally destroy their marriage. And I still don't know where John Constantine is."

She frowns. "Who?"

"He's a magician… You've never met, but he disappeared and I've been looking for him..?"

She nods. "And you are not an easy man to hide from. Please explain what you mean by 'use the waters of the Lethe'."

"Temporarily regress to the point where they first met and see if they can form a relationship without Zeus and Demeter sticking their oars in. Other than Hades maybe ending up single, it shouldn't affect anyone here."

"Thank the gods for small mercies."

I don't draw attention to her unfortunate phrasing.

"And I'll try to avoid upending Themysciran religious practice again for at least a decade. Thank you for your forbearance."

Now. Constantine.

 

[Mr Zoat]

Dear John

5th November 2012
23:12 GMT

"Do you have a-"

"FUCK!"

The surprised… I want to say 'cultist', but this might actually be an unusual but accepted part of Hinduism for all I know, so… 'Ritualist', loses hold of his goat, which writhes in his grasp, smacking him with its horns before freeing itself and making a break for it.

"-license to butcher that goat?"

The ritualist takes a moment to take stock of the situation, then straightens himself up and brushes some of the goat hair off his robes.

"I do, actually. So-."

"Doesn't look stunned to me." I look around the… Rented business unit? Reminds me a little of the place John set up that withering spell to try and weaken Nabu. "And this doesn't look like a licensed premises."

"I've got a religious exemption."

"No you don't. If nothing else, because those stopped existing the moment Doctor Balewa finished explaining to the Select Committee how ritual sacrifice could be used to power certain types of spell." I drop to the floor. "Now, de facto, I'm not sure how well that law has actually been enforced, but in this instance I would respectfully suggest that now is the time to fold."

"Right, fine." He pushes back his hood, revealing a face covered in ritual face paint. "What do you want?"

"I'm trying to find John Constantine. Unfortunately, I've been getting nowhere."

He frowns, paint flaking slightly as his brow furrows. "Thought you and him were pretty close."

"You know how that goes with John. I take it you haven't seen him?"

"Not since just after that thing with that Lich."

"'After'?"

"Yeah… He.. just sort of turned up in my flat. Like he does, you know?" I nod. "Asked me about a couple of rituals… Don't know why he bothered if he can just talk to the Atlanteans about it."

"Most likely because the Atlanteans study magic scientifically, building their understanding in a gradual, controlled way. There are any number of rituals and evocations they don't know about and probably wouldn't try."

"Uh." He nods, actually looking a little pleased.

"What?"

"Well, with those Dolmen Gates and.. things, people like me… People have been trying to set up… Professional standards and that. But no one gets that we can't do that stuff." He shrugs a little self-consciously. "Just nice to hear there's stuff we can do that they can't, too."

"Not to… Harsh your mellow, but… They're magical scientists. They'll get it eventually, and then they'll be better at it because they'll understand how it all works. Particularly if they can study other people doing it so they've got somewhere to start."

"And they pay for that?"

"Um. Probably? I'm not sure if they've got a system for hiring locals, and… Atlantis doesn't exactly have large reserves of foreign currency, but I can introduce you if you want?"

He nods. "Sounds good."

"But going back to John..?"

"Oh yeah, he wanted to know this spell… Okay, you know how the soul goes through multiple cycles of life, death and rebirth?"

"I'm Lord Hades's marriage counsellor."

He frowns. "Who?"

"Ancient Greek God of the Dead."

"Oh. Do Greeks have samsara?"

"No, reincarnation is voluntary and random, and it's more… Because you're bored of the underworld than any sort of journey of spiritual discovery. But I'm familiar with the idea."

"Right, well, the soul retains… Development between incarnations, but it doesn't keep most of the memories. There's some leakage, but mostly… The new incarnation is a new person. That's the whole point; you can't learn if you're constantly doing the same things."

"Alright."

"But it's hackable."

"Reincarnation is hackable?"

"You can't change-. You can't reliably change where you reincarnate." He shifts awkwardly. "I mean, I've read scrolls which say you can, but the system picks up on it and makes your next life miserable, and there's no point because you don't remember it anyway."

"Karma's a bitch."

"No, it sounds fair to me." He shrugs. "But it's not just that. Because the soul does retain development, the memories of all your past lives have to be encoded in it, right?"

"Not all of them, but… Yes? That's where past life memories come from."

"But it encodes more than people remember. There's rituals you can use to get more access. Even talk to your own past incarnations, if you want."

"And that's what John asked about?"

"Yeah." He shrugs. "That was the main thing. We were talking for a while, and I don't remember… It was mostly about that."

John's past incarnations? I don't remember anything about that in the comics. Sure, there were other Constantines, and other synchronicity wave travellers… This is more than I've gotten from anyone else.

"Do you remember anything else about his visit?"

"He had a Tesco bag that glowed the whole time."

"What colour?"

"White, with blue and red-."

"The glow, not the bag."

"Gold."

I nod. "Did he say where he was going?"

"No. Didn't even say goodbye, I just turned around and he wasn't there anymore."

"Mind if some colleagues of mine take a look at your apartment? We're really quite eager to make sure that John's alright."

"Sure." He shrugs. "Sure, no problem. Ah, about those Atlanteans?"

"Do you have time now?"

He glances in the direction the goat fled in. It's gone.

"Might as well."

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd November 2282
15:26 CDT

"Hey."

I continue focusing on-.

"Hey! Chief mutie!"

I open my eyes and smile at the junior Enclave officer sitting opposite me.

"Word to the wise: not a good-."

He frowns. "The hell's up with your accent? Where the fuck are you supposed to come from?"

"Eastbourne. It's a town on the south coast of England."

"That really how they talk on the East Coast?"

"No, not New England. The country New England was named after." Nothing. "It's on a small island north of France?"

He blinks uncomprehendingly.

"The fuck's France?"

Ah. I had wondered if Douglas was just a little slow, but it's starting to look like the Enclave had a very… 'Specialised' education system. Since the Resource Wars couldn't really be described as any sort of moral struggle they're covered in roughly the detail the Boer Wars got in GCSE History, while the struggle against China is covered-.

I was going to say 'like World War Two', but actually they aren't given the historical context to understand Chinese culture. It's just covered a lot.

We could correct that. There are a few Chinese ghouls who survive into the present day in northern Denver, the result of their old home country's one attempt to actually land troops in America. A lot of them are reasonably mentally coherent, but… Talking to Chinese Communist Double-Mutants is probably a hard sell at the moment.

Instead, I reach into my pack and.. pull out.. a map of trans-Atlantic shipping routes. Most of the books which survived the exchange of nuclear weapons at the end of the war have mouldered in the intervening period, and while maps have been preserved, those were mostly maps of North America. This was a bit of a find; preserved in a sealed case in the office of an East Coast shipping company.

I open it up so that the East Coast of America and Western Europe are both visible.

"See? New York here, and-"

"Uh-huh."

"-Europe is over here, this bit's France and-."

"Kinda small for a country, ain't it?"

"The original thirteen colonies which made up the United States didn't cover all that big an area. It just grew a lot due to-"

"Destiny."

"-a lack of industrialised competition from local tribal groups, allowing unfettered westward expansion. England is this bit; the southern part of Great Britain."

"An' that's where you're from?"

"Originally. Just here." The scale's too small to show Eastbourne, but Brighton's marked on there. "And my point is that it's not-."

"How'd you get here, then?"

"As far as I've been able to tell? Alien abduction."

He frowns. "Fuck you."

"Polite to constantly interrupt people. What's your name?"

He hesitates, and a few of the other Enclave soldiers in the truck who'd been eavesdropping start smirking. Then he takes a moment to glare them into awkwardly looking away.

"Lieutenant Orwich."

"Pleased to meet you. My name is Krono."

"You, ah…" One of the soldiers shifts awkwardly in his seat, not quite able to contain his amusement. "You not going to tell him your first name, L-T?"

"Did I hear somefuck say 'please make my whole platoon do a hundred push-ups'?"

"Ah." I frown. "Not that I want to undermine your discipline here, but your full name, rank, and serial number are the three things you're obliged to tell me according to U.S. Military Code of Conduct."

He looks like he's just had to suck a whole lemon. "It's… Mary."

I blink. "Your… Parents were Johnny Cash fans?"

"Yeah."

I lean forward, pat him reassuringly on the left thigh with my right hand and then lean back.

"Any plans for when you get to Iowa?"

He shrugs. "I'm a soldier, but I'm a power armour man an' I doubt we'll have anything except a couple a' suits of reconditioned T Forty Five. Fuckin' Iowa, man."

The Enclave developed their signature Advanced Power Armour suits after the war, but with the Poseidon Oil Rig destroyed in a nuclear blast and all of their facilities overrun the technology is nearly lost. Anderson had just restarted APA Mark II production back up when the NCR attacked New Reno, but they were only able to field a couple of squads with it. Most of the power armour they used was old suits they were forced to preserve using maintenance instructions due to the lack of skilled personnel and repair facilities.

"It's a fairly safe area, and Governor Autumn really needs farmers and engineers more than infantry."

The Brotherhood might have acquired the designs from Navarro before it got destroyed during their fight with the NCR, but if so then they're not sharing. Skynet might know, but it's not particularly cooperative and it's quite possible that Anderson wiped that portion of its memory banks. The NCR is having people study captured suits, but… Their researchers are variable in quality. Their efforts at power armour so far are limited to stripping out the servos and strapping unpowered articulated plates to their soldiers so I'm not hopeful. My people could probably help, but heavy armour doesn't fit our tactics.

"He can cashier me if he wants." He thinks for a moment. "There any mutants in Iowa?"

"Do you mean 'regular people who aren't part of the Enclave', 'regular people who didn't come from a Vault', or 'ghouls and super mutants'?"

"Yeah, those."

"Those were three-." Hm. This isn't working. Try something a little different, with just a little telekinesis to make sure that I get the sound right. "THOSE WERE THREE-"

Every member of Enclave personnel in the truck clenches.

"-SEPARATE OPTIONS, MOR-ON! YOU WILL ANSWER MY QUESTION AND YOU WILL ANSWER IT NOW!"

"'Regular people who aren't part of the Enclave', Sarge-. God-. Damn, you did his voice well!"

A nervous laugh comes from several of the braver soldiers, the rest settling for unclenching.

"Thank you, it's a part of my mutation. To answer your question, we haven't located any wastelander survivors. The area is too radioactive for long term human habitation away from the area purified by the G.E.C.K. There are some ghouls in the old cities, but they appear to all be of the feral variety and they're mostly staying where they are. None of the known sources of FEV are anywhere near Iowa, but it's not impossible that a couple of super mutants have wandered this way. There are a few mutant animals around, but the scariest things are leg worms and they've already worked out how to keep them away."

"The fuck's a leg worm?"

"It's a type of tunnelling lamprey that waits just under the ground until someone stands on it, then lunges up and bites off their leg."

His eyes boggle.

"Fuck the fuck?"

"But they can't dig fast, and a few ultrasonic emitters with keep them away. Or you could just wear-."

WHOOOOSH!

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd November 2282
15:31 CDT

A sudden increase in temperature and the slight crackle as the truck's inertia suppression field activates. A quick psychokinetic yank and the soldier closest to it ends up in the middle-

"Gah!"

-of the truck as my psychokinetic barrier strains to keep the heat isolated. A picture of my environment forming in my mind, I reach outward with my psychokinetic abilities just as whatever just got fired at us causes the truck's armour to redden.

The truck brakes hard, soldiers grabbing onto their seating in an attempt to stay upright. Lieutenant Orwich looks at me, then at the sealed rear of the truck. I nod, pressing the switch that releases the doors and causing natural sunlight to leak into our compartment.

Lieutenant Orwich points. "Everybody out!"

Enclave soldiers are trained and motivated to a degree that only the most highly skilled NCR soldiers can match. There's no pushing, no shoving and definitely no panicking. Instead they get out as the truck comes to a halt and the ball turret mounted light machinegun on the front opens fire at something we can't see.

The lieutenant and I are the last ones out, the side of the truck glowing brighter as… Some sort of radiation weapon hits it again. We're on a… Partially restored section of the Interstate 90. Survivors from Heaven's Gate who fled from the Crimson Acolytes cleared it of pre-war wrecks in order to extract their steel and radiologicals, and while the road itself is mostly in okay condition there's no immediate cover other than our trucks. The soldiers are hitting the tarmac-flecked concrete while they try and spot where the attack is coming from.

Lieutenant Orwich glances up at me. "We get our guns back now?"

The other trucks are pulling to a halt, guns pointing towards where our truck is shooting. I quickly glance at my Geiger watch, and… We're not truly into the radiation belt just yet, but we're close enough that everyone's going to be on a RadAway drip after this. I'm at a half-crouch; my force field, armour and psychic abilities mean I'm a lot safer than the disarmed Enclave soldiers and I need information.

Who the hell uses pure radiation weapons around here? No one I can think of.

Three other trucks open fire, while another drives up alongside ours to cover the hole in its armour. I gesture down the convoy. "Second truck from the rear. Stay in cover unless they get closer."

Lieutenant Orwich nods, rising to a sprinter's crouch. "Evans, Lewis, get moving." Two of the soldiers scramble up, dashing towards the rear of the convoy using the cover the trucks provide. "Everyone else, stay down and wait your turn. You know who this is?"

I reach my mind out towards the pilot who's supposed to be providing air cover.

**Jeri, what's going on?**

**[Picture of a ruined town, confusing heat and radiological flares which mean nothing to me twinkling sporadically.]**

**Meaning?**

"Davis, O'Shaughnessy, go!"

**Can't see shit, Krono. You know how alla this radiation messes up the sensors.**

**Can you at least put some fire downrange?**

**I can shoot up that ruined town, but there could be other people in there.**

WHOOOOSH!

Shields on the truck providing cover to us flare as the frontal armour heats up-. I throw up a shield, feeling the pressure of… Gamma radiation, it's a gaser, and a big one. The side door of the truck is flung open as the passenger dives-

BANGBANGBANGBANG!

-out an instant before the ammunition starts cooking off, bullets ripping into the lightly armoured-

"Aghuargh."

-interior. I wince as the driver collapses into a bleeding lump, then catch sight of two Ghost operatives shimmering into invisibility as they activate their stealth suits and run in the direction of our attackers.

**Link up with infantry and provide fire support at their direction.**

"Scott, Vaughn!"

**Sure thing chief.**

"Stuart!" Lieutenant Orwich glances back at me. "Mutie Chief! Head in the game!"

"Just coordinating our efforts, lieutenant." **Does anyone have a visual?**

**[A window in the second floor of an old office building. Something inside it moves.]**

I take a moment to **[get the bird's eye view of that location]** from Jeri and calculate the angle… Good enough.

**Jeri, hit it.**

Lieutenant Orwich crawls forward to check on the gunner. A little stunned, but basically alright. She scrambles back into the front compartment of the truck, psychic energy gathering to try and keep the driver alive while she readies a stim-pack plunger.

In the distance I see the invisible saucer's disintegrator cannon open fire, pale blue streaks of light raining down-

-**[on the building, bricks and metal coming apart but something glowing yellow tanking the hits.]**

I try reaching out in that direction with my mind, but radiation messes up remote viewing and… I can't feel a mind over there. Which means that it's probably a turret, or.. another robot. Yellow force fields are pretty darn tough, so it's-.

Plumes of dust erupt from the ground between us and the town, yellow glows appearing from each of the newly created holes and then moving towards us at speed.

**[The Ghosts take cover, showing an image of large… Robots, or some type of novel power armour. They have a force field tower shield on their left arm and what looks like a multi-barrelled energy weapon with an axe bayonet mounted directly on their right.]**

**Let them pass you and fire on them from behind. Jeri, hit them.**

The robots are approaching at a loping run, far faster and more organic looking than anything RobCo ever managed. They remind me a little of the C-series, but lighter and with longer legs. They'll be here-

"The fuck?"

-in fifteen seconds, more or less.

**Break out the pulse weapons and anti-armour.** "Lieutenant, get yourself a gun. We'll need to flank them to avoid the shield."

I draw my plasma pistol, and take a moment to wish that someone with mech-empathy was here. I can sort of interface with electronic systems psychically, but I'm not good enough at it to get through to robots that have already locked on.

I see the robot's gun arms come up as they enter effective range and open fire, targetting the gaps between the trucks with high accuracy. Rate of fire's not all that high, but those shots would melt through a normal person if they-.

The saucer opens fire with its disintegrator cannon, the robot it targetted diving to the side to evade the shot with incredible agility. All of the others then raise their shields over their heads, and the second robot targetted takes a short volley without any-

CRACK!

-difficulty, but the position leaves it open to a gauss rifle shot from our column which hits it square in the chest. The robot is knocked off its feet, but turns it into a roll and leaps back into action with only a small amount of visible damage.

CRACK!

Shields back down, the gauss shot hitting and being turned aside by the yellow energy barrier. Disintegrator bolts-.

Gamma guns go up and open fire. I can't see the shots-.

The air shimmers, the saucer becoming visible as it twists in the air and tries to climb!

**I'm hit!**

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd November 2282
15:33 CDT

"That a vertibird?"

"Flying saucer." **Jeri, report!**

**Ah, shit, drive system [a complicated technical image, now smouldering and sparking] so I'm going to have to set down or bug out.**

I nod distractedly. The anti-gravity and drive systems are separate, but hanging motionless in the sky isn't a good idea around anti-aircraft weapons that can detect invisible targets.

**Cease fire, go directly upwards. If they've got pre-War AA programming-.**

**Already doing it.**

I get a.. slight impression of her vector, as well as the mild frustration that I thought she'd need to be told to do that. Our saucers can use their inertial dampeners to change direction on a dime, and that's fooled sentry guns programmed to shoot down Chinese jets and rockets before. These robots… They keep running towards us while firing along the saucer's predicted vector, spread out their fire when they fail to hit it, and then-

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

-they lower their guns and go back to suppressing our convoy. Their guns don't appear to be able to easily penetrate the armour of our trucks but I-

"AAgh!"

-start hearing cries and yelps as our people are hit by energy beams they can't see. The Enclave personnel aren't wearing armour due to technically being prisoners until we hand them over to Governor Autumn and my people are only wearing light armour. I think the main plates could take the sort of hits the robots' weapons are doing but they don't cover the whole of the body.

"The fuck are those things?"

At this range, machinegun fire from the trucks is hitting their shields in a constant barrage. It's not getting through or visibly weakening them, but the kinetic force appears to be forcing the robots to slow or risk losing their footing. One actually does, right leg sliding away as some scree shifts and causing the robot to roll-

CRACK! CRACK! FOSHUUM!

-on its back as it tries to recover, only to take two gauss shots to the back, followed a moment later by an anti-armour rocket. It slides back along the ground, carapace blackened and breached.

Without slowing, two of the others turn their guns on it and fire, frying its torso and shield generator.

"Lieutenant, you should probably join your men."

"Naw. The Sergeant can organise 'em as well as I can. I need to coordinate with you, 'cause I get on with muties so well."

Surviving records show that he was a dedicated Anderson-supporter while Dornan was on the fence until the election.

"Fine." I draw my plasma pistol and offer it to him as the robots charge up the shallow slope to the road. "Take this and try to not die."

He takes it and checks the power cell. "I'll repossess this government property."

**Psychics, hold-** Lieutenant Orwich starts as he hears my voice in his head for the first time. **-and tank, infantry, flank and shoot. Trucks, reverse off the road away from them. Signal readiness.**

**[A waves of affirmations from my people, and a confused acknowledgement from the Enclave soldiers.]**

**Ghosts.**

Pulse grenades appear from nowhere, sailing towards the oncoming robots and detonating with a surge of electromagnetic radiation. A few robots stumble, but only those whose casings had been damaged with gauss fire. Good insulation, then.

Ten metres away, the trucks aiming downwards to have their bullets bounce off the yellow shields.

**Trucks reverse, psychics forwards.**

There's a roar of engines as the trucks hit reverse and then I'm focusing on the three robots closest to me. Lightning gathers around my hands as I rip electrons from any available atom and contain it for a moment before directing it to arc at the closest! It raises its shield but that's not conductive and the lightning leaps around and earths itself-

The robot I'm targetting and one of its fellows shoots me, psychokinetic barrier and inertial nullifier taking the hit and… Ow, but I'll live.

-in the robot's chassis. Part of its gun arm explodes immediately, making the robot stagger sideways and block its neighbour. Shield's still up and that axe looks a bit glowy-.

I wince as I lift the damaged robot off its feet and force it back, trying to-. The robot behind it leaps over its flying comrade, machinegun bullets from two of the retreating trucks bypassing its shield and pinging across its chassis. Lieutenant Orwich takes a shot with my pistol, narrowing missing the shield emitter housing and hitting nothing but air.

The robot repositions its shield to block the machinegun shots, plants its feet and lunges! Compressed pneumatic rams send it flying at me, and I-! Drop and roll while pushing at it with a psychokinetic thrust!

The axe comes down next to me, concrete clicking and cracking as heats up around where the axe head has bitten in.

Roll and pull myself up, robot swinging lean and shove, robot stumbling past me lightning! The robot spasms, swinging its axe clumsily at me as it shudders-.

Lieutenant Orwich darts in, stepping around its gaser and shooting it in the upper torso at point blank range! The plasma eats through the armour and penetrates into the internal mechanisms, the robot collapsing-.

Dodge!

The robot with the destroyed gaser swings its axe, narrowly missing me and forcing me to stumble into the line of fire of one of the truck machineguns. I wince as some of the force gets through my protections, knocked forward in time to need to-

Dodge!

-another axe swing, this robot crouching behind its shield as it takes quick but cautious swings at me. Ah, back up back up, lightn-.

OOF! Bah! It shoulder charged me! I'm on my back and-. It's swinging at Lieutenant Orwich and lightning takes a few sec-.

A flash to blue-white energy and the robot stumbles-

CRACK! CRACK!

-as one of the Ghosts hits it with a pulse grenade and the other shoots it. I haul myself upright and blast it with lightning, making it spasm and collapse as Lieutenant Orwich steps up to give it the coup de grâce with my pistol.

I look down the line-. The three intact robots turn and bound away, shields covering their backs and blocking shots from the newly armed Enclave soldiers. Other robots are on the ground, broken and battered and surrounded by soldiers who aren't taking chances. I see a.. dozen dead and another dozen injured-.

"Ah, fuck."

And Lieutenant Orwich has seen it too. One of my psykers is clearly dead and two of my soldiers are injured, not counting the driver shredded by the cooked off ammunition. The rest are Enclave soldiers, caught in the open or punished for their impetuousness.

**Sergeant, guard both sides of the road.**

Dornan glares at me suspiciously for a moment before gesturing to the soldiers around him, a gauss gun firmly in his grip. I jog to the closest still-living casualty, right arm baked black by the gamma beams and breath irregular. I draw a stim-pack from my-. I draw an intact stim-pack from my robes and stab it into the unharmed flesh near his shoulder as I gather psychic energy to meld the flesh back into functionality.

Lieutenant Orwich has followed me, glaring at the back of my head.

"Mutie chief… The fuck was that?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

6th November 2012
21:22 GMT

"Mm." Giovanni Zatara looks around the flat with an air of disapproval. Minor wards of dubious providence hang from the walls, and honestly the place could do with a vacuum. "Yes, this does seem like somewhere an associate of John's would live. Laever!"

His hands and eyes glow faintly… Gold.

"Sir, I can't help but notice that your magic has changed colour."

"I could feel what Nabu was doing. It has changed my approach a little."

"Do I need to be concerned?"

He flicks his right hand, dismissing the glow. "How do you mean 'concerned'? The Lords of Order are ancient magical beings, but they are not all that is orderly."

"I'm perfectly happy to fight any Lords of Order who turn up, but I-."

"Please avoid doing so."

"But I do realise that seriously disrupting Earth's magic systems can have a plethora of knock-on effects and you'd probably prefer it if I didn't feed them all to the Ophidian."

He frowns slightly. "Hm."

"Found something?"

"I was trying to work out what would happen if you fed all Lords of Order to the Ophidian."

I smile-.

"That was not a suggestion."

"No. Of course not. Going out and killing an entire species because one of them wronged a friend of mine would be a massive overreaction. And, also murder." … "But if I did..?"

"Every mortal magician who draws upon Order would be free to pursue order as it exists in their eyes, without any kind of moderation or oversight. I think that the Lords of Chaos would find the result entertaining."

"Would they attack the material universe?"

"The Lords of Chaos are not that unified or predictable."

"Because she could eat them as well." I shrug. "In theory."

"If I remember correctly, the Ophidian was bound to the Orange Light Fountain, unable to leave or otherwise act on the material universe."

"That's true."

"You should not assume that either the Lords of Order or the Lords of Chaos could not do something similar. And they would most likely imprison you as well."

I smirk. "Is it bad that I take that as a compliment?"

"It is certainly strange."

"It would mean that they don't think they can kill me in a meaningful way. That the most they can do is contain me indefinitely. I would be the sort of monstrosity that people like the League fight when they inevitably break out and threaten all creation."

Mr. Zatara straightens up slightly. "Is that something that you want?"

"No, of course not. But it's like… It's a sign of respect, you know? That I'm so dangerous that they'd need to do that. Hey, do you think Batman's working on something like that?"

"I would be surprised if he was not."

We stand there looking at each other for a moment.

"So, John Constantine?"

"I believe that I can feel the magic he used, even beneath all of these… Charms. It is an interesting variation on his usual synchronicity magic, allowing him to shift into a form he had earlier in his life."

"So he can convince the world to treat him as a normal man rather than a Lord of Chaos."

"Yes. If John Constantine has ever been a normal man."

"That might go some way to explaining why I haven't been able to find him."

"It would allow him to hide that he was hiding by creating a presence that was not his. That does not necessarily mean that this is how he has avoided you."

"Because John's made a career out of juking beings in my weight class, I know."

"Or he is avoiding you because you are not convenient, and will call upon you when he has need of you."

"If I knew for certain that's what it was, then I wouldn't be looking for him." I raise my eyebrows. "Can we use what you detected to find him?"

He thinks for a moment.

"It might be possible to use the runic array in orbit to detect similar feats of magic. I do not think that I have the power to perform the spell required, but Doctor Mist will."

"Which won't find John, but might tell us where he's been."

"Or other people using the same spell. Do you have any knowledge of John's prior incarnations?"

"No. Honestly, I'm surprised that he had any. That usually requires some link to a mythos that has reincarnation."

"We live in a multicultural age, Paul."

"He had access to the Tower of Fate. I'm… Wondering if he could adapt the spell he learned for something else."

"Speaking with the previous incarnation of someone else?"

"Maybe… I just don't think John would look for advice from himself. Not about something like this."

"He may simply have been eliminating possibilities. But unless you have a clue of some sort, finding out will have to wait until we can ask him ourselves." He takes a last look around the flat. "I will speak with Doctor Mist about the spell."

"Thank you."

"Do not mention it. I do not like the idea of John unsupervised any more than I like the idea of you unsupervised."

"Thank you."

He turns away and opens the front door, marching out into the London streets. I take a moment-

"Try and be a good guest."

-and send out a wave of orange light, cleaning, tidying and performing minor repairs. Oh, and replacing asbestos and lead with things less deleterious to human health. Feeling slightly happier about the spick and span look of the place, I follow Mr. Zatara through the door and lock it behind us.

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th November 2012
11:35 GMT

Dr. Balewa nods. "Yes, it can be done. It can even be done legally, though I am not-" He frowns. "-sure that the laws concerning magic are well thought through."

"It's the nice thing about having a Security Council majority that doesn't give a fig about privacy or know anything about magic."

"I am not comfortable with this."

"Then… You should probably have spent more of your life teaching, I guess." He looks at me in an interrogative manner. "You're old enough and powerful enough to have had plenty of opportunities to fix things about human civilisation that you don't like."

"My magic does not make me omniscient."

I hold up my right hand, shaking my head. "I'm not talking about crowning yourself God-King of Earth. I'm talking about educating decision-makers so they're a bit less ignorant." I shrug. "I don't actually mind you not having done it-"

That is a direct lie, and I wish Diana was here to hear it.

"-but it's a bit rich to complain about the consequences now."

"I suppose that I should take my share of responsibility. But I em not to blame for the wilful ignorance of thousands of men for dozens of generations."

I don't know about that. At this point he should probably have a good idea of how people think and behave. I don't expect much from most people, much as I'd like them to surprise me. But if you're going to be on the League you've really got to take that responsibility.

But moving on.

"So… Are you willing to? Do you need me to do anything?"

He turns his head towards Mr. Zatara. "Are you certain that this is necessary?"

He nods. "I think that it is for the best. John Constantine is not someone who should be left unobserved."

"Then I shall do it. I do not need any materials, but it will take an hour for me to fully acclimatise myself to Earth's thaumic systems, even with the array's aid."

I nod. "Um. I'm never really sure, but… Do you want me to stay here to… Show that I'm paying attention, or should I just come back in an hour?"

He waves me away with his right hand. "You are free to leave. I will send you the locations when I em finished."

"Thank you. I'll-."

"But before you go, I think that I should ask if you are going to do anything which is likely to cause a large disruption to Earth's thaumic fields."

"Does overthrowing Zeus count?"

"If it were something that you had not yet done, then it would count."

"I'm trying to avoid…" Um. "Would making all plants on Earth highly deadly to demons count?"

"Yes." / "What do you mean?"

"Okay, you remember how I gave Euanthe a piece of wood I got from Eden, and she used it to give herself anti-demon thorn armour?"

Mr. Zatara's face falls slightly. "She is going to do the same to all of Brazil."

"Less Brazil, more the entire world. Other than disrupting long-running demon magic based spells I couldn't see a downside so I just left her to it."

Dr. Balewa and Mr. Zatara share a slightly awkward look.

"I think that perhaps I should go to Brazil."

"Um, okay, but I don't think Euanthe ever met you, and… Have you ever met Doctor Isley?"

"Yes. Once. While I was in Gotham and she was Poison Ivy."

"Okay, look, I understand what this sounds like? But maybe you should leave this one to me."

He looks at me. After a moment his mouth twitches into something that might be trying to be a smile, but then it dies.

"Why don't we both go."

"Ah, okay. Do you want me to go first and make a zeta tube construct? I'm pretty sure that there aren't any zeta tubes near their temple-palace."

"Thank you, that would be helpful."

I nod, raising my right hand to my forehead.

"Rightho. See you shortly."

7th November 2012
08:38 GMT -3

I generate a zeta tube construct as I have a look around. The growth appears to have.. grown slightly, but otherwise not much has changed in the last-

"Recognised, Zatara, One One."

-week. Mr. Zatara looks around as he appears, taking everything in as if for the first… Time.

"Have you not been here since they took over?"

"Legally, this is a nation in a civil war. The League is not supposed to choose a side."

"Which is reasonable, except that it might have reassured other countries if you spoke to the Accala or Euanthe about what their plans were." Hm, why would-? "Oh."

"Yes."

"Because if there was a peace settlement, then Accalacan would get a seat in the United Nations General Assembly."

"Why do you assume that it would stop there? The Accala control a large area of South America, an army of superpowered soldiers and a ruler who can control all of the plants in the world."

"But they've… Got no economy, no trade, and they certainly won't assume Brazil's debts. Atlantis would be a better choice for the Security Council than Accalacan would be."

"Perhaps. But people do not see Atlantis, and Atlantis has been happy to stay under water ever since it sank. And everyone knows that Accalacan could conquer the rest of South America if it wanted to."

True. And the reason they haven't is that the Accala and their immediate allies don't particularly want to rather than any actual difficulty they'd encounter.

I find myself frowning as we walk into the temple-palace.

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th November 2012
08:49 GMT -3

I mean, yes, France and Britain hold onto their seats more due to the power they had in the early 20th century rather than their current power. Pre-Sheeda Brazil might have qualified if the Accala had come to terms, and I think I remember reading an article about Brazil Prime being a candidate for eventual elevation. But there isn't an objective standard. It's more 'was this country strong enough to demand a seat at the table when they were being handed out'.

I mean, Germany or India-. Once India recovers from the Sheeda. Germany has a modern army and India has nuclear weapons. Both have decent economies. But Pakistan wouldn't be happy with India getting a seat, and… China probably wouldn't be all that happy either. Germany is… Fairly harmless? Historical jokes aside, they've got good relations with their neighbours. No nuclear weapons, but that's more a matter of desire than technical capacity.

Oh, no, the Russians and Chinese would see them as being too close to America. I seem to remember the idea of Japan Prime being upped getting quashed for the same reason. I wonder if there's actually been any sort of discussion about what the standard is? I mean, the scariest country on Earth at the moment is Bir Tawil, and that doesn't even have any inhabitants most of the time.

I wonder if I could get-?

"This way."

Walking ahead of me, Mr. Zatara heads up a bark-covered staircase and up to the next floor. A doorway made up of interwoven root-covered vines peels open, revealing Dr. Isley behind an actual desk covered in… Paperwork.

An.. ink-fern which reminds me a little of Swamp Thing's old shampoo fruit-.

"Shampoo!"

Dr. Isley looks up from her work with a half-smile and runs her left hand through her hair.

"I'm glad you noticed."

"No, we were just-. Your hair's beautiful, but I was thinking that you can actually put Swamp Thing's shampoo plant into mass production."

"Why would I want to?"

Mr. Zatara glances at me before giving Dr. Isley his full attention. "I think that Paul has taken my comment about joining the Security Council more to heart than I intended."

"Security Council?" Dr. Isley looks understandably confused. "Is that why you're here? You need to talk to Hugo about that. He handles international relations."

"No. I am here because Paul has just told me about Euanthe's plan to make all plant life poison to demons."

She smiles faintly. "I get the impression that he just drops things like that in the middle of the conversation."

"Yes, he does."

"It's not that I like doing it, it's just how things happen. The world is a strange and magical place and it's not my fault if people can't keep up with me."

Dr. Isley finishes making some sort of note and then allows her ink fern to retract its-. Stigma!

"And you should sell those as well."

"The ink quality isn't good enough to compete against normal pens and they only produce for about a month a year if you don't use magic on them." She returns her attention to Mr. Zatara. "Do you want her to stop? Because I don't think she'll listen."

"No, but I would like to see her work. I am concerned that what she is doing may have unintended consequences."

Dr. Isley shrugs, standing up from her desk. "She hasn't moved, so I can show you to her. I don't know if she'll actually talk to you or not. Do you do a lot of magic with plants?"

"No, but I could if it would help."

"She doesn't like it when I do that."

Mr. Zatara starts slightly. "I thought that you were incapable of doing magic."

"No, I can't use my soul to interface with the local thaumosphere in the normal way. That doesn't mean that I can't do magic at all. But since Euanthe told me not to do it anymore I've stopped experimenting."

"She made you stop experimenting?"

I roll my eyes. "Yes, funny. I assumed that if it was that uncomfortable to her that it was doing some sort of damage I couldn't perceive and so I stopped, given that she clearly doesn't have a problem with humans who know what they're doing manipulating plants."

Dr. Isley frowns. "That makes me a little curious… But if she told you not to do it, don't do it."

"Not a problem." I take another look at her desk. "Do you have a paper tree as well?"

She blinks, then stares at me-.

"Yes I know where paper comes from. I know how big an operation commercial paper making is, and I don't think that the Accala or their allies have any paper mills."

"I created a type of tree that grows sheets of paper as part of its seed pod. But we don't have any printers." She sighs. "I miss computers already."

I nod. "Not a problem. Excuse me."

I bring my right hand up to my forehead,

sight my destination and step out, reappearing

7th November 2012
11:53 GMT

on J, near their computer research centre. If I'm honest, compared to the giant trees that serve as their residences, this whole place looks like an oak apple. Like something's-

"Agh!"

-gone badly wrong with the whole thing.

I wave at the back of the fleeing local and head over to where Enneret is smoking a… Blood cigar?

"Enneret."

He waves a couple of fronds at me. "Lantern."

"How's work?"

"Good. You?"

"One of my homeworld's continents now looks a lot more like a place you could call home." I nod at the building. "Have they got a working home computer yet?"

"Yes." He perks up quite a bit. "Much better than what Alstair had before. Queen Hyathis is very pleased."

"Are they ready for export?"

"Export?" He puts out his cigar, stowing it in his clothing. "That would need to get approved by both parties to the agreement, but given how far away Earth is that shouldn't be a problem. I didn't think you had that many druids."

"Earth laughs at declarative statements. Who do I need to talk to?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th November 2012
10:28 GMT -3

Dr. Isley looks around as I materialise, prize in a large case in my right hand.

"What's that? Why can't I feel it?"

"Warded. There's an alien plant inside. Euanthe never had any problem with those before, but given how heavily engineered it is I thought I'd check that no one was doing anything that required intense concentration."

"What does it-? A plant computer?"

"I know of two planets with advanced plant-based civilisations. I introduced them about a year and a half ago, and they've been cooperating ever since. If Euanthe turns out to be able to handle this-" I raise the case slightly, then lower it again. "-I can arrange for a visit."

"How many did you get?"

"Just one, to test out. They can make more pretty quickly, but after you study it for a bit you might be able to make your own."

"Did you actually want us on the UN Security Council?"

"No, no-. I mean, I don't.. have an opinion. If I wanted it to happen I'd be doing more work than this. But if you get there, then-"

"Hugo's the head of state."

"-go him." I nod at Euanthe and Mr. Zatara. They're sitting in the lotus position facing one another, Euanthe's bonsai plant floating in the air between them. "What are they doing?"

"Checking what will happen if Euanthe succeeds. Zatara offered to help her with it if she helped him first."

"How much longer do they have to go?"

"I don't know. What they're doing… It's on a level far beyond anything I can do."

"But you're watching carefully and learning from it?"

"I was. Now I've lost my place."

"Ah. Sorry."

"No. No, the job comes first." She exhales. "I'm not used to having people depend on me. Or… Look up to me. Not since Gotham University."

"Didn't you used to employ a few henchpeople?"

"As Pois-." She shakes her head. "In Gotham, I thought they were idiotic meatbags helping me cause their extinction. I didn't think of them as actual colleagues. I wouldn't have noticed how they felt about me."

"Do you talk to any of them now?"

She shakes her head.

"Do you-?"

"Doctor Mist to Orange Lantern."

"Excuse me." I raise my ring to my left ear. "Orange Lantern here. Are you ready to perform the scan?"

"That is not quite how it works. I em contacting you because I have detected someone using the spell now."

"Now? Where?"

"In Northern Ireland, the city of Belfast."

"What?" I frown. "But the only.. person there-."

Ah.

I hand the case to Dr. Isley.

"Please work on this with Euanthe when she comes out of this. I'm afraid that this requires my immediate personal attention."

"I will send you the coordinates."

"Thank you, but I think I've got a pretty good idea where he is."

"If you know where he is, why have you not already made contact?"

"Because he wasn't there. Moving

now."

7th November 2012
13:28 GMT

I appear in the air, a.. short distance from the office of a major publisher. I've been here before and I recognise the desires there. But my target… There. A restaurant, getting lunch.

"Should I join you?"

"That-."

I want to say, 'that won't be necessary, thank you', but the fact is that my relationship with the British government is nothing like good enough to storm in, do my thing and then leave without it causing a huge mess for everyone else. Whereas Dr. Balewa has a Justice League warrant, can legally make arrests and is by default treated as the expert that he is in the field of magic.

"Would be helpful, thank you."

An arc of white runes flicker in the air, vanishing as he steps through.

"What do you know?"

"Once upon a time, a magician called John Constantine wanted to avoid going to hell."

I drop down to street level, causing a minor disturbance in the local population. Though it's not so much 'run and hide' as 'get your camera'. Winds roil next to me as Dr. Balewa appears. Once he's regained his composure I march in the direction of the restaurant.

"So he created a golem with his blood and magic, and gave it enough of his memories that it could stand in for him in the ritual sacrifice. And the only good memory he gave it is his memory of his relationship with professional illustrator Kathryn Ryan. Suffice to say, the Demon Constantine doesn't like his progenitor-"

I shove open the restaurant door and march inside.

"-very much."

Everyone's staring at us, though only Ms. Ryan does so with any sort of familiarity. I've only spoken to her twice, but I'm fairly distinctive. The man opposite her, with violet strands trailing between them… Clearly isn't The Demon Constantine.

Very clearly.

I can even see the desire set that doesn't match his at all.

And we know that those desires weren't there a year ago.

I form a construct around him and yank him out of his seat.

"Hey! What the feck-!"

And we feed on the spell and it collapses, causing his appearance to snap back to John's before rotting into his demonic form.

"You're under arrest. Again."

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th November 2012
13:46 GMT

"…John Fecking Constantine!"

I nod sympathetically as Ms. Ryan paces, rants and gesticulates. She turns back to stare at me.

"Were you watching?"

"I have been attempting to track John down for a while, but I only checked on you on those occasions I introduced myself. I didn't even know that you were dating, much less your partner's true identity."

"And I can't believe you." She resumes her pacing. "I can't believe you! This is why I broke up with John in the first place."

"I can give you my full itinerary for the last two years if that helps. Though a lot of the details will be redacted, it should be enough to prove that -in the politest way possible- an Irish illustrator who briefly dated one of my contacts isn't someone it makes sense for me to spend a lot of time watching."

"Fine." She shakes her head. "Now what's happened with that hallion John Constantine?"

"Don't know. I'm looking for him, and we tracked The Demon down because he used a spell we know that John used."

"What is it-? He?"

"Simple as I can put it, it's a demon John created using his own memories. He included his memories of his relationship with you, which-"

"That-! Fecking-! Bastard!"

"-is why The Demon chose to seek you out. In his defence, we have no reason to believe that it meant you any harm."

"It was wearin' somebody else's face!"

"It's entirely possible-" Ring, check.

Compliance.

"-that the face didn't belong to anyone and was a novel creation."

Statement is incorrect.

Well, did he at least pick a dead-?

No.

So that's a murder investigation now. Pass it on to the police and Dr. Balewa.

Compliance.

"And even if it wasn't, he's a demon. He's stronger and tougher than a baseline human, before you even take the magic into account. If he meant to do you harm-. We should check your home."

Her face falls. "You think he-?"

"No, but it would be unwise to take a chance. Doctor Mist is a highly capable magician and will be able to find anything… Though if he acts like John there'd be… One fetish and maybe a mark of some kind. Nothing too heavy duty."

She signs. "God."

"I imagine that the police will want to contact you for more details. Do you want to phone someone, or do you want me to escort you-?"

"No. No." She shakes her head. "Fecking-. I'm going back to work, and then I'm joining a fecking nunnery!"

"I would advise against making any major life choices while under this sort of stress. There are many perfectly good men out there."

She manages a fraction of a smile.

"Not in my age group there aren't."

"Um. Doctor Mist is single?"

She shakes her head. "No. I'm going back to work. You get the bastard, and the bastard who made him."

"We will, and you have my sympathy for what you've been through."

"'Been through'?" She shakes her head. "He was the perfect boyfriend. That's why I'm so-! Angry now!"

"On the off-chance that -aside from lying about who he is- he's been honest and not-."

"You asking me if I want to keep him? No, no, a thousand times no."

"That's clear at least." I perform a shallow bow. "Thank you for your time."

I step out,

reappearing outside of Dr. Balewa's workshop on the Watchtower.

Britain hasn't gotten around to building a new prison for magicians. Instead, they've signed an agreement to send such people to Spain, where the European Union has pooled their assets to hire Atlanteans to build one. That might have to be revised if magic use becomes more common but for now Europe doesn't have enough magicians for more prisons to be necessary.

I think the Atlanteans studying John Dee's work in the Tower of London are more fascinated as to how the heck it kept working this long than impressed with its construction.

"Doctor?"

"Come in."

I press the open button, then walk into the workshop. The rest of the room looks more like a cross between a library and an alchemist's workshop than the sort of place that Sephtian uses, but I imagine that's due to the fact that he's not a trained thaumaturgist. The Demon Constantine is being held in a kneeling position by phantasmal hands, not bothering to struggle against them. His head's bowed and his hair is flopping forward to half-obscure his eyes. The air around him shimmers with the spell that Dr. Balewa is using to keep his magic contained.

"John, we're looking for John. Tell us where he is and I'll try talking Waller into letting you have a potted plant."

"I don't know where he is."

"John, our rules of engagement won't let me turn you into a construct, but both myself and Doctor Mist can perform temporary modifications to your thought processes if we-. If he judges it necessary to the performance of our duties. I don't think they'd have a lasting impact, but you would find the process quite uncomfortable."

"You can use Wonder Woman's lasso if you like. I really don't know."

"Then do you have any leads?"

"Yeah. One or two."

"Would you care to volunteer them?"

"Bit pointless drawing it out. Make it a cactus? I don't want something I can kill too easy."

"I see no harm in asking about a cactus."

"Last time I saw him, he was behind some heavy duty wards while looking at… I don't know what he was looking at. Seemed interesting. I don't know where he is right now, but I can show you where he was and give Mist a description of the spell. Good enough?"

"That would be splendid."

 

[Mr Zoat]

2nd November 2282
17:49 CDT

"You're a little late there, Krono. We were starting to get worried."

I nod absently, the handset of the truck's radio in my right hand.

"We were attacked, Lieutenant Governor Granite. Some novel sort of robot, a squad of them."

"Casualties?"

"Thirteen dead, two of mine and eleven of yours. Our air cover's fallen back for repairs. We dealt with the injured in situ."

I can almost hear him blink in confusion. "Where's that?"

"Near where we were attacked, just outside the radiation belt."

"What sorta weapons did the robots have?"

"Gamma radiation-based guns. The type the basic robots had would burn through regular combat armour, and the support variant made a mess of two of our trucks. We had to leave one behind. They also had force field shields, and I think their control systems were networked. They could coordinate perfectly, though they didn't seem to be able to detect my Ghosts."

"Power armour?"

"We don't have power armour with us. Given how it affected the truck armour, I think the support weapon would penetrate most types of power armour."

"Hell. What about their armour?"

"Gauss guns went through it easily enough, though that didn't stop them unless it hit somewhere vital. No particular resistance to psychic powers."

"Any get away?"

"Yes. Three. I didn't think it was a good idea to follow them into their territory."

"Think they're headed our way?"

"We didn't see them last time we drove through, or any time before. They weren't impeded by the radiation at all. We salvaged the wrecks and I'm hoping that your people would have a look at them."

"Can do. You gunna head back out right away?"

"No. Given your shortage of power armour, I think it would be best if my people stuck around for a little while, until we know one way or the other if the robots are a threat to you."

"I appreciate that. I'll let the Governor know and we'll sort out somewhere for you to stay until this gets sorted out."

Which is going to be awkward. East Coast Enclave weren't… Quite as genocidal as the West Coast Purists, but they're uncomfortable being this dependant on someone who isn't hailing them as the rightful government of America. Getting their arses kicked twice by some random vault dweller rather took the wind out of their sails, but they wouldn't be the Enclave if they were a friendly, easy going sort of people.

"I'll see you shortly. Over and out."

I put the radio down, and take a moment to look through the truck's front window. Dust storms are very common in this part of the states, and most of the dust is radioactive. It's not much of a problem for the Enclave's G.E.C.K., which will happily keep feeding on radiation long after its initial miraculous activation, but it wrecks our visibility. If we ran into something we'd get next to no notice. I've never seen a feral ghoul capable of controlling complex machinery but we've had the occasional 'ghoul strike' while driving through here before. And those robots weren't bothered by radiation.

I can't see anything much but the road directly ahead of us, and psychometry isn't giving me anything either.

"How long until we get there?"

The driver glances at me. I instinctively want to tell him to watch the road, but there's no other traffic and the road is ruler-straight.

"Couple of minutes until we get clear, then another half-hour to Independence City."

I nod, patting him on the shoulder. "Let me know if you see anything."

"Will do, chief."

I carefully extricate myself from my seat and turn around, opening the armoured hatch between the cabin and the troop compartment and walking through, then sealing it behind me.

"That Granite?"

Sergeant Dornan's face betrays no emotion, his eyes fixed on me.

"Yes."

"How did that happen?"

"He and his squad turned up in Groom Lake pretending to be wastelanders after they skipped town ahead of Doctor Anderson's assassins. We knew they weren't, but they had more education than my tribe so we put them to work fixing up the old air base. When Anderson lost New Reno I realised that keeping him with me might risk alienating the New California Republic." I shrug. "I already had Independence City going, so it seemed like a good place to send them."

His eyes narrow slightly.

"Is that so."

I smile and nod. "I had some people watching Elder Lyons. My people's aircraft make long distance scouting easy, and we wanted to know where every Brotherhood chapter was. Lyons seemed like a good man, so my Ghosts decided to lend him a hand."

By breaking into their food storage lockers and leaving fresh fruit and vegetables, something that eventually resulted in them trapped in some Elmer Fudd rabbit trap the Brotherhood's half-crazed quartermaster rigged up and needing me to bail them out.

"After the East Coast Enclave lost their confrontation with everyone else in Washington DC, I decided that evacuating them was preferable to losing their technical expertise."

Dornan grunts.

"Why was it that you decided to back Anderson over Granite? I understand Anderson hating wastelanders after he was taken as a slave, but you lived in California and Nevada for years. You must have known that the wastelanders were just people."

"I had my reasons."

"I do need to know that you're not going to try murdering the Lieutenant Governor."

"Anderson's not alive to give me orders. I'll only kill Granite if Autumn orders me to."

"I'm pretty sure that Governors aren't allowed to order National Guardsmen to kill their Lieutenant Governors. America isn't supposed to be a military dictatorship, Sergeant. And Iowa certainly isn't. We're not acting under a State of Emergency; we've transitioned back to normal civilian rule. The rule of law and the Constitution of the United States of America."

"If that's what Autumn orders me to do, that's what I'll do."

And the rest of the Enclave soldiers in the truck are going to take their lead from him, even if they're not going to say anything. Lieutenant Orwich has their respect as their officer. Dornan's an institution. And I think… He's not committing because he doesn't want to have to make another choice after his last big one blew up so badly. He hasn't seen what we've done in Iowa and for all his deranged patriotism hasn't ever lived in America. He doesn't get it, and given his age probably won't.

"I-."

"Krono!" The shout comes from our driver. "Leaving the dust now!"

I nod, and after a moment's hesitation reach back and pull open the interlock door.

"Ladies and gentlemen, take a look at your new home."

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th November 2012
09:22 GMT -5

Slaughter Swamp. The magical arsehole of Connecticut. Place of unbirth of Solomon Grundy and a Sheeda swarming ground, burned with considerable white phosphorus prejudice by the US air force during the Harrowing. Not that that changed the water table, but as I look past the burned tree stumps and hard-baked ground to the civil engineering crew who are working to turn this into Slaughter River Through Reclaimed Agricultural Land, I'm forced to conclude that we're unlikely to get a trace on John Constantine here.

Did he have some sort of foreknowledge? Was it just obvious that the place was no good, so he used it to disguise himself? Or is the Demon just listing places we can't possibly check?

No, no, he knows that if it comes to it we can just ask Diana to lasso him. The only reason he'd lie was if he needed to delay us to a particular point in time, and given that we interrupted him in the middle of a date that seems unlikely. I mean, he might well have automatically triggering contingencies, but since there's nothing that can extricate him from a prison Dr. Balewa built for him the worst that can happen is that some confederates we don't know about go into hiding and it's John that I'm looking for.

"Orange Lantern to Doctor Mist. I don't think I'm going to find anything here. Moving to next site."

"Understood."

I transition to a small farm in Kansas, frowning slightly as three FBI-owned cars pull off the verge and drive away. Not sure what that was about.

And I'm also not sure that a foreigner like me can even access the Heartland, but I've got my flag, my apple pie and my Happy Meal. And… I put a strip of chewing gum in my mouth.

"Flipping rituals."

When I was very young, I heard something about chewing gum causing an increase in stomach acid production which would cause potentially fatal stomach ulcers. I avoided it like the plague ever since, and developed a bit of a complex about chewing in general.

I chew, once. And check for recording equipment, because I'll need to put actual effort into this. Make it sound genuine.

Deep breath.

"Abraham Lincoln in Sixty two,
Your guidance lead us through,
And now your spirit shall aid us,
In subduing the Kaiser too."

Oh please Nike open the damn yes!

I fly at speed to a patch of ground where the grass looks just a little too green, and as my feet land on it-! The farm vanishes, the road vanishes, and I'm surrounded by empty grassland and-. That's a herd of buffalo.

The Heartland. America's collective delusion about its true nature.

No, that's a little harsh. The generous version would be to describe it as a dream of all the best characteristics of the nation. I think Robert mentioned something about a English version called Abaton, though it.. sounded like a silly place.

"Uncle Sam! Firebrand Two!" One of the buffalo looks up at me for a moment, then goes back to grazing. "Anyone?! I'm looking for John Constantine, and I'm not afraid to plant a Union Jack standard here if that's what it takes!"

I hear the cry of a bald eagle, and then the ruffling of wings as it comes in for a landing nearby. It furls its wings and looks at me expectantly.

"What?"

"Is that a Happy Meal?"

Talking eagle. Fine. I disintegrate the chewing gum, the foul substance having served its purpose.

"Yes?"

"You gunna eat it?"

"Of course not, it's a Happy Meal."

"You mind passing it over, then?"

"Ah. I'm not sure this is eagle-safe. In.. fact, I'm fairly confident that it's not."

"Is it American?"

"Yes."

"Then it's safe for this eagle." He cranes his neck towards the bag. "Come on, man. Do you know how long it's been since I smelled McDonalds?"

"No. I-."

I sigh. Then I open the bag, then the box, then unwrap the burger and lay it on the ground. The eagle does a hop-run closer and jams its beak into the bun in a decidedly uneaglelike manner.

"Thanks, buddy."

"Do you want the..? Fries as well?"

"Yeah I want the fries. If the question is 'do you want fries with that?', the answer is always 'yes'."

I tear through one surface of the small packet of fries and lay it on the ground next to the burger. "So..? You represent the American obesity epidemic?"

"No." He picks up the lettuce leaf in his right claw and tosses it aside. "Freedom."

"I've got a couple of questions."

"And you're free to answer them."

"Have you seen a British man named John Constantine?"

"Blue suit, long jacket, blond hair? Yes, he came through here a few years ago."

"'A few' as in one or two, or 'a few' as in longer?"

He swallows some burger as he thinks about it.

"It's not that easy to keep track of time in here, but I think it was longer."

Darn it. The Demon wasn't lying, but it's not useful.

"Do you want the orange juice as well?"

He peers up at me.

"Of course I don't want the orange juice. I'm an eagle."

"Right. How silly of me. How about Uncle Sam?"

"Haven't seen him for years."

"Is that unusual?"

"He basically lives here. Or he used to. Went out one day in Seventy Four and didn't come back."

"That sounds like something you should be worried about."

"Easy come, easy go."

"Could you track him down if you were in the material world?"

"Maybe. Probably. Why?"

"Because while I've been getting distracted a lot lately, this sounds like something that I need to fix."

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th November 2012
09:46 GMT -5

"F-eh."

The eagle's head darts left and right, fascinated Americans careful to keep out of potential lunge-distance but none the less forming a huddle of street-theatre appreciation. We're walking the streets of Washington to see if he can pick anything up. Or rather, I am while he rides along on a construct perch. So far he hasn't got a dickybird.

"What?"

"What's that smell?"

"How old are you?"

"I was here to greet the first European settlers." He ruffles his wings. "My cries echoing out across the bay, welcoming them to a land where men might stand tall."

"Funny, I don't remember Leif Erikson mentioning that."

He swivels his head towards me. "Who?"

I roll my eyes, and he goes back to watching for… Whatever eagelic manifestations of American Freedom watch for. "I mean, compared to the older American cities, I don't believe that Washington DC smells that bad."

"Are you talking about shit?"

"Shit, sweat, the unwashed masses with limited access to sanitation. Things like that."

"I'm an eagle. I don't care about human shit. Unless there's blood it in."

"Why, what's..?"

"Well, I wouldn't kill a human, but if they're going to die anyway there's no point wasting the meat."

"Ah… Just… Let me know if you smell… Human blood like that while I'm here."

"You want some?"

"No, but I'm willing to trade American food for the opportunity to get people medical attention."

"Deal."

"So… Do you have a name, or are you just The Eagle of Freedom?"

"That's not a name, that's a title." He points his wing out in what can't be a natural gesture for an eagle. "What's over that way?"

"About a quarter of the city? In a direct line…" Fiddlesticks. "The White House, where Uncle Sam is currently visiting."

"Sam doesn't smell like that."

"Well, maybe…" I take another look at the crowd. A few people are just following us along, creating an obstacle for the traffic as we go. "Don't talk about it where other people might hear that and report back?"

"Oh, no. None of these people can hear me. I'm a spirit animal."

So they've been recording me talking to an eagle… Acting like I was having a conversation with an eagle-.

"Okay, but they can see you, can't they?"

"Of course they can see me, I'm a giant bald eagle. Did you think they were seeing a budgie?"

"I don't know, you're a spirit animal. Last time I dealt with a spirit animal for any length of time, it was a construct enslaved to my ring. And it died."

"Yes, they all see a huge and glorious eagle, and they feel just a bit more proud and liberated. That's why they're following us."

"No, I think that's more of a 'follow the fuckhead' thing. We're street theatre."

"No, I'm pressing their cultural buttons and making their spirits resonate with the soul of the nation." He spreads his wings and poses for the crowd. "Feel my American spirit!"

"You said they can't understand you."

"No, I said they can't understand what I'm saying."

"I could set my rings to translate for you, if you want."

"This is a spiritual journey for you. It's not supposed to be for everyone."

"Like A-."

"Yes like America. Everyone has a chance to soar, everyone has a chance to plummet to their death because they misjudged a thermal. Do you see a parachute on my back?"

"No."

"No. That's right. And speaking of America, where's the Japanese embassy?"

"Massachusetts Avenue. Why?"

"Not a lot of Shinto shrines around here, but there should be one in the embassy."

I frown. "I can just fly us to-."

He flaps his wings as if to demonstrate his vigour. "I'm not a cripple, I'm just inclined to preserve my energy. It's a wild predator thing."

I pick up the perch and fly towards the embassy, to the pronounced disappointment of the crowd. "You mean lazy."

"It's instinctual."

"Why do we need a Shinto shrine?"

"I know Lady Liberty 'diversified her portfolio', and I need to talk to her."

"Will she understand what you're saying?"

"Of course she'll understand what I'm saying. We're part of the same pantheon, even if she has jumped ship."

"And you're not upset about that?"

"It's not easy being a spiritual manifestation in a monotheistic country. Besides, the Japanese could use some personal liberty."

"I'm pretty sure they've got liberty."

"No, the doors are open, but their minds are stuck in their pens. You know?"

"I know what you mean, but I'm not sure you're right."

"Let me know when you become a spirit animal."

I stop in the air and stare at him, my human body retreating and my snake body coming to the fore.

"Like now?"

"Ooooh I just guanoed myself. Okay. Spirit snake animal. Yeah."

"Right. I've just got a job."

"I have a job. And when I find him I'm going to peck Uncle Sam in the face until he gets back to doing his."

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th November 2012
09:52 GMT -5

I wave at the Japanese soldiers converging-but-not-too-quickly on me and the eagle.

"Nothing to worry about. We just need to borrow your shrine to talk to one of your gods really quickly."

The sergeant is demonstrating why he's the sergeant, already on the radio and getting instructions while the rest just take in… Yeah, I know how that sounded. People need to get used to statements like that. He nods, smiles at me and waves me through.

"Thank you."

"Private Tanaka! Escort Orange Lantern!"

"Sir!"

The indicated private marches into the building, two of his colleagues opening the door for us.

"This is nice." The eagle looks around as we walk through the building, nodding appreciatively. "I don't get this treatment in American embassies."

"I'm sure there's a metaphor there."

Down a corridor, through a door, and then turn off through another door. Private Tanaka stands aside and indicates an image of… I think that's Susano-o-no-Mikoto, appropriately enough, along with various decorations.

"Thank you, this will be perfect. Do you want to watch?"

"Sir, I am a Christian!"

"Then, thank you, please return to your post."

He about-faces and walks out, rotates to firmly sneck the door and then marches away.

The eagle then leaps off his perch and flies at the-. Dives into the image, a painting of an eagle in flight appearing next to the multi-departmental deity.

"Orange Lantern to Doctor Mist."

There's a delay of a few moments.

"Doctor Mist here. Can I assume that he was not there?"

"You can. I've acquired an eagle."

"I do not think that you are supposed to take them from the wild."

"No, from the Heartland. He represents freedom or.. something, and he's helping track down Uncle Sam."

"He is not helping you to track down John Constantine?"

"Ultimately we need to find both of them. There can't be that many high-end magical hiding places."

"You are quite wrong in that assumption. There are at least as many hiding places as there are minds on Earth."

I frown. "You think he could be hiding in someone else's mind?"

"I have been trying to understand John Constantine's mind. To understand why he does the things that he does."

"Overwhelming curiosity and learned ruthlessness?"

"Do you understand what is meant by synchronicity wave riding?"

"Roughly. Moving in time with the universe. The Question does it as well." Hm. "Sounds a bit like a Jedi thing, really."

"Tell a person of an ancient spiritual practice and they stare at you blankly. Mention something out of a George Lucas movie and suddenly everybody is a thaumaturgy scholar."

"That's a surprisingly modern reference for you?"

"In my second century of life, I developed a technique to allow a portion of the Dream to intrude into the world in response to a storyteller's words. I could even preserve the shared dream in a bottle so that it would be experienced later. Cinema is a poor substitute in some ways, but I like it. To return to the point: I believe that I can understand why he has done what he has done."

"Well, yes. He couldn't cope with being connected to Order and Chaos at the same time."

"He usurped Klarion's greater arcane presence. He did not do the same to Nabu."

"Is that a deduction on your part, or do you actually know that?"

"John Quinn has allowed me to study the Helmet of Fate, now that it is… Empty."

"It's empty?"

"Nabu is no longer at home. The power of Order flows through it more freely now that it is not interrupted by a mind."

"Did you ever meet Nabu while he was..? Alive?"

"No. I did feel his presence when he first arrived on Earth, but by the time I reached Kahndaq to meet him he was already using host bodies. The point which I wish to make is that John's relationship with Order is fundamentally different to his relationship to Chaos."

"Alright. I mean, he can't pawn off his Chaos power in the same way he did the Helmet."

"On the contrary, it is my belief thet he would seek to do just thet. John Constantine is not a man who seeks responsibility. I do not think thet he would throw it aside if it came to him, but if he could escape it, I think thet he would."

I think about that for a minute. Yes, John had a shed or two filled with low to mid level magic artefacts. But he never really bothered to use them until he had a specific need for them. Otherwise… Well, the journey was the point, not the destination. But I don't remember him dumping stuff off, either.

Except that one time with Bran the Blessed's severed head, where he cooked it and fed it to some of his friends rather than trying to do something clever to boost himself. But I'm comfortable describing that as a statistical outlier.

"Yeah. I think you're right."

"He has a power which he does not want, but he will not toss it aside if it might harm others."

"Unless he were drunk or thought it the lesser of two evils. He's not that cunning."

"Who would he trust with thet power?"

"He'd synchronicity ride until he bumped into someone. Or into someone or something that… Let him find someone. That's why he asked about reincarnation."

"Thet is not all. There are rituals which make it easier for a person to become other than what they are. He may not have been looking for someone else, but rather looking for a way to become that person himself."

"That's certainly-."

I glance at the shrine, and-. And see that the picture is showing quite a lot of lightning and an eagle flying in my direction.

"Call you back!"

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th November 2012
09:56 GMT -5

Armour, construct shield with runes linking it to my tattoos to help it absorb magic, actual spell eaters and-.

The eagle bursts out of the shrine, back-winging to slow down as he ducks behind my fortification!

I'm staring at the shrine and the image isn't moving but that doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't about to.

"Eagle?"

"We have a problem."

"Details? What did Lady Liberty say?"

"Didn't see her. That Susano guy intercepted me and he was not pleased to see me." I hear him ruffle his wings, and I glance at him-.

And spot the smoke rising from his tail-. Construct fire extinguisher!

"Agh!" His head jerks around and he spots the lingering smoke. "Oh. Thanks."

"Again, what happened?"

"He doesn't want us to find out what happened to Sam."

"Is that what he said? Because Lady Liberty didn't mind telling me that the person walking around dressed like Sam isn't Sam."

"No, he said that I 'should not disturb matters'."

"That doesn't mean that it's his personal desire."

"Of course it does. They're self-interested in the extreme. Anything that helps their pantheon, they do. Including sabotaging other pantheons." His ruffles his wings. "If they weaken our culture and subvert our nexuses, they can alter it into something they can use, their manga and anime and mutating girls to have cat ears."

"I think you.. might be-."

"Culture is the form of the thoughts we can think, the mental landscapes in which we arrange our universe. And that goes double for things like us."

"I'm not arguing that point, but everyone likes cute girls and almost everyone likes cats. Ancient Kahndaqis had girls with cat ears. That's not a specifically Japanese invention."

"That's not the main point. The point is that Susano is competing to win, and if that means sabotaging every other culture then that's fine with him."

With no angry god forthcoming I dismiss my barricade construct.

"So you're not the embodiment of economic capitalistic freedom."

"No, I'm personal freedom and liberation from oppression. If someone runs a race faster than me then they get to win, but hamstringing the competition at the starting gate is still cheating."

"So you think that Susano thinks that whoever it is pretending to be Uncle Sam will sabotage American culture?"

"To his advantage."

"Did he say anything about John Constantine?"

"What?" He glances at the shrine. "Was I supposed to ask him about him?"

I sigh quietly. "No, I suppose not. Okay, plenty of people benefit from sabotaging American culture, me included. And I could probably replicate Uncle Sam's abilities if I had to. Do we have any leads on who they are or what their aims are-"

"The subvers-."

"-other than the very vague one you came up with."

"No. Eagles don't really investigate crimes."

"Do you have any ideas?"

"I could claw his face off?"

"You could claw a normal man's face off. This is someone who's successfully pretended to be Uncle Sam, who is stronger and tougher than a normal man."

"I'm stronger and tougher than a normal eagle when I'm fighting on the side of freedom."

"And I'm… Quite a bit stronger than an eagle."

"Yeah, um. Okay, I know that your heart yearns for freedom as much as anyone who isn't America can, but…"

"What?"

"If you fight fake Sam, real Sam might die."

Why would-?

"Because I have enough spiritual presence that destroying another nexus stamps my nature onto it in place of its own, and America really doesn't need to be more avaricious."

"Well… I was going to say that we might never find him if you kill the person who hid him, but what you said is true as well."

"Okay, but that still doesn't help us find Uncle Sam." I shake my head. "Orange Lantern to Doctor Mist."

"Are you well?"

"Heh, how would I tell? Eagle, do you want to try contacting Lady Liberty in another way, or something else?"

"I mean… We could try the statue."

"The statue depicting-."

"It's an American statue. Since she's jumped ship, she might not hear it."

"Okay, we may as well try it."

I return my armour to subspace and generate a construct perch, which the eagle jump-flaps onto. Then I start walking towards the embassy entrance.

"Is there any particular reason why another.. symbol of America can't defeat the fake Sam?"

"Like who?"

"Superman?"

"Not magical enough."

"Ah… Swamp Thing?"

He eyes me suspiciously. "I heard about Brazil. Is that going to be a thing with you?"

"No, it's just that America's a bit short of magical patriots. Ah, Zatanna Zatara?"

"She… Might work, but I'd really rather just get Sam back. I don't know what would happen if someone else stepped in and I'd really rather not find out if we don't have to."

"Alright, Statue of Liberty it is. And then if it doesn't work I need to check on one of Constantine's past locations while you come up with a new approach."

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th November 2012
10:03 GMT -5

"Hey!"

I turn and look at the Statue of Liberty's tiara window as a… Complete stereotype of an American tourist waves to get my attention. Male, overweight, collar of a Hawaiian shirt sticking up past the neck of his jumper and coat, an actual camera rather than a camera phone and an 'I ♥ NYC' baseball cap.

I suppose that stereotypes have to come from-.

I frown and look at the eagle.

"That's an actual tourist, right? Not some sort of Platonic manifestation of the touristic ideal?"

"What?" The eagle blinks, then leans forward to peer at the window. "No. That's just a guy."

"Okay."

I drift closer to the window, seeing a wallette of raised phones recording me as I do so.

Maybe cleaning the outside of the statue in a blaze of orange light wasn't the best idea.

"What can I do for you, sir?"

"You mind posing for a picture? With your eagle too?"

"Oh, he's not my eagle. He's an eagle-shaped manifestation of the American yearning for freedom."

"… Oh." … "Does he pose?"

"Ah." I look at the eagle. "Does he?"

"Do I-?" He twists his head to a ninety degree angle. "Bring the perch closer to the window."

I do so, then drop down slightly so that I'll be out of shot and he starts prancing. Wings out, head thrown back and neck undulating as he… Squeak-cries, before lowering his head and making a prey-mantling gesture with his wings. Then he raises his right leg and waves at the watchers, much to their delight.

"Is that magic, or are people just really easy to entertain?"

"Sideshow entertainments will never go out of fashion."

I lower my eyes to meet those of the statue, now filled with life.

"People love to be distracted from their troubles and shown something new and interesting."

I glance up, but no one is reacting to the talking statue.

"I assume that they can't hear you?"

"If there were any truly dedicated to the cause of liberty, they would be able to. Unfortunately, that sort of selflessness is-"

"Ma'am."

"-rare."

"Good morning, Blue Lantern."

Alan nods. "How worried should I be that the Statue of Liberty is talking?"

"Do you believe in the value of personal liberty?"

"Undoubtably."

"Then not at all. Rather, you should be concerned that you alone can hear me."

"It's about Uncle Sam. You're almost certainly right; the eagle says that the new fellow smells terrible and that he hasn't seen Uncle Sam since the seventies."

"Sam takes it hard when the country he represents lets him down. After President Andrew Johnson reversed Special Field Order Fifteen he spent the rest of the Reconstruction era doing farm work for freedmen."

"I take back half of the rude thoughts I've had about him."

Alan nods. "I didn't really believe him when he said what he was when we met back in the forties, but it sounds like he was a better man than I thought he was."

"Can you give us any idea where he is now? Or who it is that's trying to replace him?"

"You know who it is. You've spoken to them directly, something few others have."

"I.. talk to a lot of people."

"Who would take a beautiful dream and turn it into something tawdry?"

"Most people? One thing I have in common with-. You haven't seen John Constantine, have you?"

"No, not him. Though if you see him, punch him in the crotch for me."

"No queue jumping. But seriously, I've got no idea who you're talking about. I meet a lot of people who'd like to infiltrate a government. If you're implying that he's some sort of Reach infiltrator, then I'll fly over and kill him right now-"

"Paul?"

"-because that would be the best thing to do, Blue Lantern, and I'll show you the intelligence files later if you want proof."

"I don't know what a 'Reach Infiltrator' is, but that isn't it."

"Then why are you hesitating to say his na-? You think he'll hear you. But my tattoos mean that he can't hear me. Which implies global-. America-wide arcane reach, and an interest in political corruption and manipulation. Now that the First is out of the way, those are two groups with a one-name overlap, if we're talking about a single individual."

"We are."

Alan frowns. "Who's she talking about, then?"

"Blue Lantern, have you had magic-defying runes cut into your soul when I wasn't looking?"

"Well, no, but I'm wearing one of your wards."

"I'd rather not risk it." I look up at the eagle, who is currently shaking his tail feathers at his fans. "Eagle, we know who's doing it."

"About time!"

He salutes his crowd, then drops down to land on a perch Alan's generating.

"Who is it?"

"Allegedly, the Prince of the World. That git arranged for my first death, so I-."

"My God!"

What's Alan-?

Oh.

The giant yellow face now affixed to the Statue of Liberty regards me impassively for a moment.

"I see what you were trying, but any of my chosen appellations work as a notarikon of my true name. Which means that I can hear them. Goodbye, Lanterns and turkey."

 

[Mr Zoat]

Twilight, Local Time

Guh!

A painfully laboured breath, then I take a moment to mutter swears that would sear a saint's ears at everyone involved in this whole fucking fiasco. And because I'm not John Gadzooking Constantine I don't forget to include myself in that.

But I don't insult whoever it was that designed Belle Reve's magic cells. That was good. Damn good. Heh.

I reach across to my jacket pocket without really thinking about it, feeling for a packet of Silk Cuts and finding only my own bare chest.

Shit, yeah. That's the downside. Couldn't find a way past the spells and couldn't just ride out on synchronicity wave because it turns out that demons can't do that. All the memories he left me with, the one he used so much that he couldn't keep it from me, and it's sodding useless. Couldn't make a deal with the guards because they've go around in groups of four and they got remote monitoring. Couldn't summon help, not with all the wards they had up. Couldn't force my way out.

But I'm a demon. All I had to do to get free was die. Create a feedback loop in the spells the Atlanteans put on the chains wasn't easy, but… I'm a demon. Drain too much magic away and I just fall apart, which would normally send me right down to the bottom of the heap down under. Not a good place to be.

But a few drops of blood hidden away somewhere and that's an anchor. A demon glyph to draw power from some kind of old ritual murder no one remembers, and I'm back.

Naked, broke, hungry, thirsty, achy, and… Hell, I don't even know what the date is. Probably cold, but that sort of thing doesn't bother me anymore.

I take a moment to let a good long frustrated breath out from between my teeth.

That's it for Satanus, then. No more Colin Thornton means no more DMN junkies, no more free cash and no more cover from other big dogs looking to put the bite on someone with John's face. Satanus might get out and he might claw his way back up the hierarchy in Hell, but that's not going to happen soon.

I turn in the direction I vaguely remember the closest village being and start walking. There's brambles and a bunch of other angry plants I've never learned the names of, but I've walked from one end of Hell to the other. My feet do what I tell them.

What am I even going to do now?

I was just doing favours for Satanus so he'd owe me. His chance of getting power in Hell is… Probably better than the other high up demons doing it. But one sniff of John…

And then there's the other bloke.

I made a deal. I wanted to be me, he wanted to be him. He's keeping away from me and we've both got a reason to keep that up. Which is the best way to do it. But with John not around I'm comparing what I'm doing to what he's doing-.

Is this how John felt about it? I was getting a grip on… I thought I was getting a grip on him, with him not around and me…

If John's not around, why not just take his life? Not like it's hard, and I'm already John-shaped. One part of his soul running down the John-shaped furrow in the world rather than the other.

So what the fuck am I doing here? If I'm going to be John, I need to go be miserable in London, feeling all of the pain and misery that makes up that place. Where I can get a crap beer with crap service and be pissed enough not to care.

Fuck me, I think I can hear a road. Don't know who's driving around at this time of night, but I can get people to do what I want as easy as he can.

No, hang on. Favours.

I stop, looking around for-. That'll do. A tree with bark flat enough to write on. No pen, nothing in me stomach, ground is… Cold and dry. Runes drawn in mud are shit, anyway.

My own blood it is, then.

I walk up to the tree, putting my right forefinger in my mouth and biting the soft skin. My teeth are sharper and my blood more magical than John's, so this shouldn't be quite as difficult as it was for him. There's a few demons who should answer me without too much grief, but right now I'm vulnerable, and the list of demons I can trust not to take the piss…

Is about one.

At least her being on Earth means I don't need to summon up the energy to let her out.

It takes effort to stop my blood from clotting, and add a little something to stop anyone I don't want hearing this… Probably. The way people are learning magic right now I can't rely on that. Only good thing is Atlanteans don't have much to do with demons -or British street magicians- if they can help it.

Fuck me I'm tired.

I slump down, the blood from my finger wound trickling onto the ground. I take a moment to focus and the cut closes. Alright, the walk and the spell wiped me out, but it's not like I can die.

Rest my eyes for a minu-

FLASH!

-tefuck! I shield my eyes with both arms as the whole area goes violet and-.

And it's like a scab getting knocked off my soul, and all the things about Kit that John gave me as a sop before he packed me off to Hell come flooding to the surface and all the weakness I tried to bury comes rushing back and I'm crying and I don't even have proper tear ducts anymore.

"John, whatever happened to you? Are you alright?"

"Knock it off, Elle."

She had been reaching out, but now she hesitates.

"Oh. It's you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"John isn't exactly an easy man to get along with, and you're made of the worst parts of him."

She folds her arms across her chest, and my memories of his meetings with her mean I spot straight away that for once she's not doing it to emphasise her breasts. And her clothes… Elle wasn't an all-tart all the time sort of hellwhore, but her conservative clothing seems to fit in a way it usually didn't. Something John did, but what? There's a few magicians who've sent sex demons to nunneries before, but they weren't trying to convert the demons. And Elle…

Oh that's her game. I make myself stop blocking the memories, remembering that brief period of his life when it was all coming together. Simple domestic stuff that he'd never had before and that meant so much. And now she's looking at him curiously.

"Not just the worst parts, then. Why are you here?"

"Long story. You got a spare jacket or something?"

"Why would you-? You're naked?"

"Long story."

"Here."

She takes it off and tosses it to me. I-. Steady, stand up and put it on. It's too tight, but at least I could sneak into town without getting arrested right away.

"Cheers. Any idea what day it is?"

"Sixth of January."

Over a month. Heat should have died down a bit, and it's not like I left the stove on.

"Alright. Thanks. I owe you. Point me at the nearest town and I'll get out of you-."

"I'm not letting you out of my sight."

 

[Mr Zoat]

6th January 2012
07:30 CTZ

Clothes bought from a tramp. The other diners are giving me dirty looks, but all Elle has to do is meet their eyes and they turn away, feeling guilty about getting irritated about what is clearly a nice Christian act of charity.

John didn't mind owing people. I'm a demon, and right now I'm on the wrong end of this transaction.

"What happened in Fawcett City, John?"

Well there's no point in lying, is there?

"Satanus gave me a job offer. He was trying to get made King of Hell, needed to convince the rest of the demon upper crust to go along with it."

"And so you tried to murder an entire city?"

Bit rich her coming on all high and mighty, but they haven't served breakfast yet.

"So I helped him do something he was going to do anyway, only a bit more subtly than he was originally planning. And I got out of Hell, which made it all worth while."

"You don't like Hell?"

No harm in explaining, I suppose.

"How long was I down there, before I became a demon?"

"Oh. Not long enough."

"Yeah. When John made me, he used his own demon-tainted blood to hold me together. Nergal's blood. Which let me use Hell's magic but doesn't exactly make me a native. And then his plan was for me to bind the soul of some damned arsehole to me and dump all the torment on him. Which worked just fine until some bastard did a séance and summoned him up. And then it hit me."

She doesn't look impressed.

"We all go through that. Even the ones who used to be angels had to fall and burn and suffer before they adjusted."

"Doesn't make it right."

Her eyes dip, and she's thinking about… Well, probably hundreds of things. What happened with Tali first of all.

John kept his empathy, but I don't actually enjoy people suffering. Not if I don't already hate them. She does, or… Did.

"What happened to you, anyway?"

"You want to know why I ended up in Hell? I barely remember."

"The violet thing. You don't feel like yourself."

"John and the Orange Lantern offered me power as a bribe to stay out of their way. It changed me. I'm not even really a succubus any more."

Huh. Possible, I suppose. Converting one type of power into another. That's basically what becoming a demon involves, but…

"How?"

"A spell focused through a piece of crystallised love. So you're out of luck."

"Why's that, then?"

"It was my love for Tali that let it work. They can't just grab a demon and change them, or they would already have done. If John gave you all his worst characteristics -and I can barely believe that there was anything left- then there's no way that-."

"I've been in love."

I mostly say it because I don't like people saying that I'm limited. Yeah, yeah, that's the only reason why I said it. Having the ability to feel human emotions mostly removed isn't something I've ever learned to live with. I don't have John's ability to read people because I can't really empathise with most things regular people feel. Which means that I only understand total bastards and him.

But I repeat meself.

"Why would John have given you any of his memories he actually liked?"

"Because it was the only way to convince me to kill meself and complete the ritual. If I didn't feel any affection for anyone I'd have told him to fuck off."

"I know John's girlfriends. Which one?"

"Kit Ryan, if you must know."

We've been leaning towards each other, and we both lean back as the waiter appears with our breakfasts. I'm playing up the homeless angle with a full fry up while Elle's just having bacon and eggs. He doesn't look at me more than he has to in order to aim the plate at the table, but his gaze lingers on Elle and she gets a warm smile.

She nods.

"Thank you."

"No problem ma'am. Enjoy your breakfast."

I've already gotten scrambled egg and fried slice on my fork and into my mouth. They hadn't quite worked out how to feed us at Belle Reve, and for a demon like me it's not just about shoving fuel down my throat. This egg was freshly cracked, and destroying chicken ovum is ritualistically empowering.

The waiter heads back to the counter and I lean forward again, mantling my food and keeping knife and fork going all the while.

"Have you seen her?"

"What?"

"Since you got back on Earth. Have you visited her?"

"Oh yeah, she'll be dead pleased to see me."

Him. Just another reason it pisses me off, really. I haven't actually had a relationship with her. She's literally the only person I could even think of being involved with. If I-.

But if Satanus is in prison… And I'm on Earth. People are looking for me, but dodging-. Most of them's easy enough.

"You know… They could do for you what they did for me."

"Doesn't seem likely."

But it could. More to the point, I've got John's memories of people back on the other side of the Atlantic. I know spells that'll let me… Absorb parts of John from the environment. Become… Something more like a whole person, even if the new parts are made of John.

Cheryl's back over there. And the other one's not going to care about her.

"She might."

John doesn't need his life or his messes any more. And if he doesn't need it, I suppose I might as well take it like everything else he didn't need.

Or maybe I just want it to be true.

"She might. She might at that."

7th November 2012
10:06 GMT -5

The old wizard stops whatever spell he was casting and grabs his headset.

"Orange Lantern? Blue Lantern?"

"Doubt they'll help, mate."

"What have you done, demon?"

"Held back things you didn't know to ask about. How about we make a deal?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th November 2012
Roughly 10:07 GMT -5

"Alan?"

"Yeah?"

I push myself off the ground, ignoring something semi-liquid sticking to my gauntlets and cuirass.

"You alright?"

"I've been better."

I look left and see Alan picking himself up slightly more gingerly, his back and left side soaked in the same stuff that my ring is now cleaning off me.

Oh, it's… Blood. A thin film of the stuff is spraying down from somewhere above us. Frowning slightly, I generate a construct umbrella and set my environmental shield to clean me off. Alan copies me, though his umbrella is more classic and less aerodynamic.

"You mind cleaning me off?"

I raise my left hand, a beam of orange playing over him and pushing the blood down like a window washer's scraper pushing suds off a window.

"Thanks. That was bringing back some very uncomfortable memories."

"Happy to help."

I look around. It looks like we're still on Liberty Island, though I'm a bit worried about…

Oh.

The torch of the Statue of Liberty appears to have been replaced by a sprinkler, coating the entire island, a swath of the sea and part of the mainland with a fine misting of vitae. New York itself appears to have been replaced by… Gotham? No, not gothic enough. Hub..?

No. Blüdhaven. Looks like Blüdhaven. Which might explain why no one's shouting about the rain of blood: they're used to it.

Boss Smiley's face is still there, big and yellow, but it doesn't look animated any longer. I fly up, and… No, no reaction. The dimensions of the hands and feet have changed a little and-. The date on the tablet now reads August MDCXIX, which is probably an important date in American history.

"Where did that eagle fellah go?" Alan floats up behind me. "Did he come with us?"

"Don't know. Eagle!?"

"Where is here, anyhow? That doesn't look much like New York to me."

"Rough guess, this is a part of America's collective psyche. Maybe another part of the Heartland-."

I take a closer look at the Statue's tiara.

"There he is."

I drift closer, peering in through one of the glassless window to where the eagle is hunched up in one corner, shivering and fluffing his feathers up.

"Eagle?"

"We're in the bad place we're in the bad place…"

"Is he okay?"

"Alan, I would never normally suggest this, but I think we might need to cheer him up by singing uplifting American patriotic music."

"You must be desperate." He floats up alongside me "Maybe a dead mouse or something?"

"It may surprise you to hear this, but I don't routinely carry dead mice around with me."

"You don't?" He.. actually sounds surprised. "I just thought you had one of everything in there."

"No, because sustaining a larger subspace volume slightly reduced my maximum charge. I try to only carry things I've got a reasonable chance of needing. Usually, I can just fabricate food, but…" I look up at the blood fountain. "I'm a little worried about the sort of spiritual energy it would pick up around here."

Alan flies right up to the window before awkwardly clambering inside. The room inside looks tatty but basically structurally sound, as if… Someone deliberately built the interior to look untidy and it's setting off my OCD.

"Hey, buddy." Alan kneels down next to the clearly freaked out eagle. "You doing okay there?"

"We're in the bad place! We're in the bad place. And that's really bad."

"Okay, can you tell us about it?"

"This is the opposite of the Heartland!"

"Like, the..? The Lungland?"

"What?" The eagle raises his head slightly above his wings so that he can stare at Alan. "What? How is a lung the opposite-?"

"Footland?"

"No-! Like… Like blackhear-rrrrrr…" … "Evil Heartland."

"I'm going to guess that while the Heartlands is a sort of idealised America, this is the less optimistic place."

"Yeah." The eagle nods. "All of the worst bits and the worst interpretation of the rest with none of the positive bits."

"Is it dangerous to you?"

"It's dangerous to all of us. But… No, just being here won't hurt me. But the locals will know that I don't belong here."

"Good show. What locals are we-?"

Something taps on the left side of my helmet. Unlike my heavy armour which doesn't have a separate headpiece, my current generation light armour's helmet let's me look left and right without compromising the protection. So I turn my head, and am greeted by the face of a bird.

"Still alive then? Okay. Let me know if that changes."

"Oh no."

I narrow my eyes. "And what are you supposed to be?"

"Oh, you know. This and that. Don't mind me."

"She's the Vulture of Death!"

"No I'm not." She looks away for a moment. "Scavengers have an important role in the ecosystem, I'll have you know. We don't usually kill things ourselves."

"Someone else does all the work and you get all the benefit!"

Alan looks at the vulture. "You two know each other?"

"Oh. You know." The vulture ruffles her wings. "It's the Nixon-Kennedy thing. 'When they see you, they see what they want to be. When they see me, they see what they are.' We're naturally antithetical. He bangs on about freedom. I just do my thing."

"Eagle, if you want to get out, you need to pull yourself together. You've crashed, there was no parachute, but you're still alive. Do you want to stay that way? Do you want to rescue Sam?"

"Yeah." The eagle straightens up slightly, then flaps its wings and flies over to perch on the edge of the tiara window. "But this is going to be hard."

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th November 2012
Roughly 10:16 GMT -5

"Eagle, vulture, any idea how we get back to the material world?"

The eagle's back on Alan's perch, but he's slightly hunched over and his head jerks around to stare in a new direction every few seconds. Since we have no idea where we're going Alan and I opted to take position directly above the Liberty Fountain-.

"And you don't think this is the blood of patriots and tyrants, do you?"

Alan frowns. "Patriots and-? Oh. I'm not sure that fits, thematically. Americans are supposed to be willing to bleed to see tyrants brought down, it's virtuous behavior. I think it's more likely to be the blood of innocents ground under wheels, something like that."

I turn my head to look at the vulture on my pauldron, who ruffles her wings.

"I don't usually ask where the blood comes from."

"I thought that vultures could smell corpses from a mile away."

"Corpses generally stay in one place, and by the time they're dead enough to smell the bleeding has generally stopped. Kind of why I was hanging around here, actually. If I see something bleeding this much it usually means that something is about to die and it's time to short it."

"Short it-?" Ugh. "You're the Vulture of Freedom, because in a free economy asset stripping and short selling and debt loading are viable strategies, even if they're harmful to society as a whole."

"I don't kill things. But if they're dying anyway, why not fill my beak?"

The eagle actually perks up, staring at.. either me or the vulture.

"She is death! Death!"

Alan chuckles quietly to himself, prompting the three of us to turn and give him a funny look. He just shrugs.

"Oh, come on Paul. How many new experiences do you think I get at my age? It's not all positive, but… What was it you said? When I'm confronted by evil, I will rejoice, because when I'm done with the evil then it won't be there any more." He looks over at the city. "This place is a mess. But if it's literally the worst parts of American history made manifest… What happens when we fix it?"

"I think it's meant to be broken."

He looks a little disappointed. "Well, now. That doesn't sound like you. What happens to America if we change things around here?"

"We… Mind control an entire country, which is something I'd rather avoid doing."

He frowns. "Is that how it works?"

"This place is a representation of the American psyche, right?"

"Ah."

"Now, the influence is probably two-way at this point, so we can probably justify some improvements, but I don't want to root-and-branch the whole place."

"No, I… You're probably right. So, any idea how to get out?"

The eagle shrugs. "Normally, you find a site of spiritual significance and make a ritualistic connection. But that Prince of the World thing forced us through."

"Whow whow whow." The vulture fans out her wings and then goes rather still. "The Prince sent you here?"

Alan nods. "That's right."

"You're not getting out, then. This is his place. He controls the ways in and out."

"This is the bad place!"

Alan strokes the eagle's head in what I imagine is supposed to be a reassuring way. It doesn't appear to be helping.

"Paul, any ideas?"

"I imagine that-. Okay, before we go any further, did you read my report of my meeting with Boss Smiley?"

"Ah… Yeah, but I don't remember all the details."

"He claimed to be an arcane life form devoted to controlling humanity by limiting our development. He offered me a deal where I could develop all of the technology I want with his institutional aid but he would control what went mainstream."

"So we find him and beat him up?"

"If it were that simple I'd have already done it. He's nebulous, hard enough to pin down that even the angels weren't sure that he even really exists." Great. "At least we know who's replaced Uncle Sam; the living embodiment of political corruption. Vulture, does he actually..? Have a physical form here?"

"Maybe."

"'Maybe' as in you want something for telling us, or 'maybe' as in you don't know?"

"'Maybe' as in I'm only here so I can eat you when you die. I'm not about to share what I know about the god of my conceptual world because that sounds like a good way to have a little accident."

"Do you know Professor Demetrios Prokopios?"

"No?"

"He's the man who protects Earth's economy from people like you. Not always successfully, but well enough to keep things functioning in a nearly-sane way. He's a friend of mine. So I'm pretty sure that he'd be rather happy if I removed you as a problem."

"You can't risk it. And you don't want to mind control people."

"Ah, it's about judging the greatest risk to people. And I don't need to kill you, not when I've got an orange power ring. I can just convert you into orange light. Or brand you into compliance and then undo it once we're finished. I don't think that would cause lasting harm, but given what you are I don't think I'd mind too much if it did."

The vulture peers into my eyes for a moment, then cringes slightly. "I can respect a strong negotiating position. He's strongest at focuses of political power."

"Washington."

"The First of the Fallen used to come here, in the guise of Abraham Lincoln. He hasn't been here recently-."

"And he won't be back."

"Boss Smiley's people don't appear when he's around."

"His people?"

"I don't know what they are, exactly. His favourites. The aspects of corruption that he likes the most."

"And what can they do?"

"Anything. This is their place. Everything here's as bad as Boss Smiley likes it to be, which is pretty bad."

Right. Conceptual realm, conceptual beings. We can… Probably only beat them by playing their game better than them.

Alan nods. "But we can get out in Washington?"

"Rule by force is a pretty normal thing, here. If you can pull it off then you've been vicious enough to demand it."

"Then I guess that's where we're going."

"Yes, but after I find out where this blood is coming from."

I angle myself to fly down, then stop when I feel Alan's hand on my shoulder.

"Ah, Paul? Maybe you shouldn't do that."

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th November 2012
Roughly 10:20 GMT -5

I stop, then turn back towards him.

"Why not? I mean, it's right there, and that much blood can't be healthy."

"Do you think it's coming from John Constanteen?"

"Ah, no, but-. Ah, it's pronounced 'Constantine'."

"Okay, Constantine. You know he's not in there, don't you?"

"Yes?"

"And Uncle Sam probably isn't either?"

"Probably not. If he'd lost that much blood I think he'd be dead. Eagle?"

"Oh yeah, dead. He can take a licking but he's only got the same amount of blood as a normal person."

"Right. And that Smiler guy isn't either. This place…" He turns his head to look at the city, then raises it slightly to try and see beyond it. "It's some sort of American nightmare, but it was here yesterday and it'll probably be here tomorrow. Maybe it would be better to stay on-task."

"Yeeeeaaah but… It's just, that can't be a good sign, right?"

"Probably not. But the way I see it, there's always going to be a worst thing about a place, and we can't change history. If we can't risk fixing the whole place then it's best to just keep going." He give me a sly smile. "Besides, don't you wanna give Smiley a blacker eye for getting you killed?"

"My death was temporary. The damage he's doing to the psyche of the human species is ongoing." I glance at the torch, but he's right. That's not of primary importance right now.

Wait a moment.

"Doctor Mist called you in, didn't he?"

"You just repainted the Statue of Liberty, Paul."

"I cleaned it! The green colour was from the rust!"

"And that's why the Justice League has a Paul Protocol."

I throw my arms up in delight! "YES!"

Alan frowns, puzzled. "Ah… I don't think I understand what you're so happy about."

"How many people can say that the Justice League have a plan specifically to deal with them?"

"A.. few dozen..? Mostly bad guys?"

I nod, still smiling. "Exactly. Washington DC next?"

"I…" Alan considers for a moment, then nods. "Can't hurt."

"Eagle? Vulture? Any anti-air weapons along the way we should worry about?"

The eagle shrugs. "I don't know. I make a point of not coming here."

"There's a metaphor about people with different points of view not talking to each other, there. Vulture?"

The vulture nods. "Washington is defended by the entire Military Industrial Complex. Weapon emplacements as far as the eye can see. Let me know when you get into range, so I can hop off and get first dibs on your remains."

Alan nods. "How about if we come in from above?"

"You could, but you'd have to avoid the Star Wars Defence Platforms."

"Underground?"

"Putrid worms. They're pretty common in Washington. They hide underground so that no one can see-."

"Yes, thank you, I worked that one out."

Alan nods. "So how do we get in there?"

The vulture ruffles her feathers. "Be a vulture? They don't bother me."

"Could we sneak in?"

"I don't know. I've never tried." … "Because I'm a vulture."

"Okay, well I don't feel like trying to fight some sort of magic reflection of America's military power. How about you?"

The eagle shakes its head. "No. Do you think we could inspire them to side with the real America?"

An interesting question, and one I started wondering about when I read The Ultimates. Skrulls infiltrate the Pentagon and give one set of orders to the American military. Then Captain America gets on the radio and asks for backup, and he's the one they choose to obey. A bit Great Manny, maybe, but it showed people doing what they thought was right rather than what they were supposed to. But…

"I don't think that's how things work here. But I suppose that we won't know until we get a closer look. If we fly that way slowly we should get some warning before we reach their cordon."

Alan nods. "Alright. South west, or along the coast?"

"Given how big the American navy is, I'd have thought that directly west and then directly south would be best."

"Over New York?"

Ah… "Vulture, how high up do you have to be before the Star Wars Defence Platform starts shooting?"

"I'm a black vulture, not a fried chicken."

Alan and I look at each other, then we both raise construct shields over the group, the eagle immediately jumping off his perch and awkwardly hovering in the exact centre of the shielded area.

And then we're off, the streets of Evil New York passing beneath us. They're like… Every idea of what grim and decaying tenements would look like, but taller and built along narrower streets and… I think the roof is bigger than the ground floor?

Alan's head jerks around as he spots something. "Did you see that?"

"See what?"

"Someone was trying to climb out of that.. window, and it kinda… Swallowed them back up."

"Vulture, are there any real people here?"

"I think of myself as a real person, yes."

"Material people, or are they all manifestations of the American psyche?"

"I think it's just you. But I haven't looked everywhere."

"Which means that's probably a living metaphor for… Poverty? Violent communities? So if as a general policy we're not touching anything we don't have to…"

"Yeah. It's just… Seeing folks in need and not stepping in…"

"Not the heroic thing to do, I know. But like you said…"

"Yeah. I kinda wanna have it out with that Smiley guy, too."

 

[Mr Zoat]

4th November 2282
06:12 CDT

"Hey, Mutie Chief!"

I raise my right hand and wave at the group of Enclave soldiers heading for morning exercises. That's apparently my name now, and I think their use of it marks my promotion to 'house mutant'.

Progress, of a sort.

Central Iowa is… Nice, actually. The main settlement is surrounded by walls of rammed earth, wide enough for a walkway to have been included for the sentries to walk along at the top. The buildings… Mostly barracks and sheds at the moment, are built with walls of reclaimed bricks and stones, held together with newly created mortar. The roofs are corrugated iron, and noisy as heck when it rains. But good quality building wood isn't something that grows quickly, and there aren't enough quality animal hides in Iowa for the locals to use instead.

The ground is covered in some of Diana's quick-growing grass, the shade of green looking somewhat.. odd to my eyes. It's quite a bit brighter than what I remember of the pre-War plant, something that's carried over into the improved plants growing in the carefully marked off fields outside of the stockade. Even the G.E.C.K.-supercharged land around here can't grow much in winter, but land for wheat and potatoes to be grown is closest to the walls, fields marked out with metal poles and wire fences. Actual trees have been planted at sites marked out for future settlements, in the hope that the wood will be ready for construction work when they get that far. No birds singing; their migratory instincts would get them killed by the radiation clouds. But there are chirping sounds coming from the insect enclosures and a quiet hum from the bee hives under the grunts and exercise songs coming from the 'National Guard' soldiers.

All in all, not a terrible place to live.

I nod at the guards outside the settlement's 'research centre', and they let me through without issue. I think this was some sort of meat processing plant before the war, but it has since been repurposed into somewhere for the scientists of the 'Iowa Environmental Protection Agency' to work in. Mostly they do soil and crop analysis, making sure that the G.E.C.K. is still doing its thing and we're not all getting unknowingly irradiated. They've also got a back room filled with partially assembled suits of power armour that they haven't actively tried to hide from me but didn't include in my tour.

Hey, if they want to spend their time doing that it won't be me who goes hungry.

Now, where is-?

**Doctor Rubens?**

**W-huh-? Oh. The-. Krono. I'm in the electronics workshop.**

I nod and walk down the corridor in that direction. Until recently, vehicles were a rarity in the wasteland, and even today the trucks in my convoy represent an appreciable portion of the total functioning vehicles in North America. But doing farm work without either tractors or draft animals is extremely hard work, so the IEPA's engineers and scientists have been hard at work turning recovered vehicle wrecks into farm vehicles. Of course, right now the remains of the robots that attacked us are taking priority.

I open the door at the end of the corridor, entering the workshop from the side. The closest vehicle will eventually be a combine harvester, the high-torque engine system from a Great War tank powering a newly built wheelbase and the rotating harvester. Once it's finished, anyway. At the moment it's a mechanical skeleton that probably won't be finished until July, with the partially-welded harvester sitting off to the side so that it doesn't get in the way.

The electronics workshop is at the end furthest from the garage doors. There's an actual clean room for delicate work, but since we're not exactly doing a lot of precision work here it's mostly just used for creating the micro vacuum tubes virtually all local advanced technology relies on. Next to that there's a couple of workbenches with power packs, volt and amp meters, soldering irons and such other tools of electronic engineering that the scientists and technicians here might need.

Doctor Rubens glances up from the robot leg she's disassembling. She's wearing overalls that were once pristine white, but have now been reduced to a pale grey. Most enclave clothing is that colour, a little lighter or a little darker. They like wearing pre-War uniforms but there are only so many of those around and while they are hard-wearing the dyes do fade eventually. Cotton production has started returning to the NCR, Texas and the RRG but… Ah… At the moment it's mostly used for underwear more than anything else as other clothing can be made from the more readily available leather or fur. Twin Mothers is basically the only place that has wool.

"It's not RobCo."

I nod. "I suspected."

"This leg is more like a human cybernetic. I've seen similar things in Washington on a few occasions. Though the design is obviously different."

"Have you been up all night?"

She jerks, tearing her eyes away from her work to look at me.

"It's morning?"

"Yes, it-."

"Then I guess it's time for my morning stimulant!"

She walks over to a thermos flash and unscrews the lip, peering at the contents. Then she pours out a cup's worth of Costa Cafeinada's 'enhanced' product into a ceramic mug and puts the mug into a microwave. That's probably a terrible way to drink good coffee, but that would only be an issue if Costa Cafeinada made good coffee rather than relying on the highly addictive chemicals they've bred into their coffee plants.

"I'm not sure that's a good-."

"Oh please." The microwave pings and she extracts the now-steaming mug from it. "I filtered out their weird chemical additives. It's just coffee." She slurps down a mouthful before returning to her station.

"It's still highly addictive."

"The day I take lessons on narcotics from a mutant tribal is the day I move to China."

I mean… Technically…

"You didn't know that… China is currently a capitalist monarchy? In as much as it… Still exists, I mean."

"China is communist."

"China was communist in much the same way that the Enclave was the government of America. When the bombs fell, it stopped being the case to any significant degree. Since they didn't really have Vaults it was the groups furthest away from the big cities that survived to rebuild, and… One of those places was Taiwan. The… Taiwanese ended up occupying most of the region around Beijing, killing off what was left of the central communist party."

She's not moving, just staring at me.

I smile awkwardly. "So about the robot..?"

"So, it-? We.. won..? The War..?"

"You could see it like that? I don't think the current Emperor likes America very much, and China is a going concern while America has only reassembled itself at the state level, but you definitely beat the communists with a little help from your allies."

I'm not entirely sure how Taiwan managed to remain independent after America pulled out, though I suspect the short range nuclear missile batteries and the truly ridiculous number of sea mines still in the region might have had something to do with it. Then when America went on the attack after the invasion of Alaska they were only too happy to host the Americans in return for 'development aid'.

"But the robot?"

"Yes-. Yes. I was about to crack open the CPU and see what I'll need to add to the wish list in order to access it." She puts the mug down and picks up a head from the parts bench. "It's not a pre-War design so I doubt that I'll have what I need here."

I nod as she puts it down in front of a hydraulic metal cutter. She clamps the head in place and picks up the cutter.

"Okay. Power on…"

With a little difficulty she gets the end of the cutter to grip the head, making a small incision. Then she moves the cutter and makes another close by before turning the cutter and snipping out the metal between the two incisions. That lets her get one prong of the cutter inside so that she can cut around the edge, peeling back the armour to reveal-.

Dr. Rubens pokes the substance in the skull's interior.

"Why is there a brain in this robot?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

4th November 2282
16:34 CDT

"Doctor. Mister Krowno. What do you have for meh?"

Governor Autumn stands at parade rest, his two power armoured bodyguards staying a few paces back. They don't actually wear Advanced Power Armour. Instead, they've got something called Hellfire Armour, and given that the pauldrons and helmet have a noticeably different shape than standard APA I've encouraged them to switch over to that variant entirely for their more sophisticated units.

"They're using brains, s-. Governor." Dr. Rubens uses a wand to point to one of the heads we took apart more carefully once we understood enough about their interior structure to do that without mangling anything. "They're cybernetically augmented to handle the robotic frame, but there aren't enough synthetic components in there to do all the work."

"Am ah to unduhstand that somebody is making a new type of robobrain?"

"Yes, Governor. Only this time, they're using human brains."

Autumn frowns, disgusted. "What mannuh of man would stoop so low?"

I nod. "General Atomics, but these use a different interface system. I'm not sure-."

Doctor Rubens rolls her eyes. "General Atomics used chimpanzee brains for their robobrains. Not a lot of chimpanzees in America today. This is new."

"With the greatest respect, Doctor, I am something of an expert on human brains. The robobrains guarding the Vault-Tec headquarters in Washington D.C. were definitely using human brains, as were the ones recovered from the Sierra Army Depot."

She blinks, a refutation rushing to her lips before the obvious fact that I will have checked makes itself known to her thought processes.

"How do you even know what a chimpanzee looks like?"

"Greenway Hydroponics kept records of just about every animal and plant that they could, and I've got good relations with them." She frowns slightly. "The old U.S. government's seed bank project? I told you that was where your G.E.C.K. came from."

"That-. May well be, but-."

"But human brains can serve the same purpose?" Autumn has walked closer, taking a look at one of the board-mounted engineering diagrams. "Is theyah anything left of the man inside?"

Dr. Rubens shakes her head. "No. The system for providing tactile feedback isn't complex enough."

That's not a certainty. Diana's brain exists in a similar system, but she's got an entire facility and a ZAX mainframe to get input from. These… Mechanoids? Don't have that, and we couldn't find a remote communication device.

"I…"

Autumn turns his head my way. "Mister Krowno? You disagree?"

"We couldn't detect any trace of the chemicals that General Atomics used to wipe the brains they used. The damaged caused to the prefrontal lobe by the cybernetics suggests to me that whoever did this wasn't interested in preserving the personhood of whoever's brain this was. And Doctor Rubens is right about the deleterious effect a lack of tactile feedback has on the human mind… But I wouldn't want to draw a firm conclusion without more information."

"Such as hwat?"

"If we pierced the cranial armour of one with a still-living brain, then I could try communicating with them telepathically."

"It seem to me that doing that would be something of a risk."

"I've communicated with diseased minds before, and robobrains."

"Ah was referring to the difficultah of bringing one of these things down. Ah trust you to make a determination of your own abilahties yourself."

I shrug. "You've the governor, Governor. I'm happy to make the attempt."

"Have you discovahd anything that would give us a clue about how many of these machines arh out theyuh waiting for us?"

Dr. Rubens shakes her head. "With communications being as difficult as they are and with.. what we know about recent mutant displacements, anyone who was making these could easily get hold of a lot of human brains."

"Come now Doctuh. Please do not refer to our fellow Americans in so derogatory a mannuh."

I nod. "The people of Heaven's Gate are pretty close to pre-War human baselines, physiologically speaking. So there's no real way to confirm if that's where these brains came from. It could equally be some sort of virtual reality Vault that no one else has discovered."

"Ah see. What else have you discovuhd?"

Dr. Rubens moves along to a group of devices extracted from the robot's torso.

"They don't run on nuclear batteries. They appear to generate electricity by feeding on radiation in their environment. We found these devices on the inside of their air intakes; they're breathing in the radioactive dust clouds to keep themselves going."

"So they cannot leave them."

"Not for long, at least. And their guns don't have space for power cells; they run them purely off their own internal batteries."

"Could we modify them for our use?"

She nods. "Yes, but they're not much better against armored targets than our existing weapons. I don't know how worthwhile it would be."

"And against unarmored targets?"

"Slightly superior. Do you have something in mind, sir?"

"It seems to me that these would make excellent worm killuhs, if combined with an eyebot and some mannuh of lewuh. And what about the powuh sources themselves?"

"They won't work here; there's not enough radiation. I could build some sort of charge station that a patrol could take with them into the dust clouds so they could recharge their power cells, that wouldn't be too difficult. Or we could build a power plant in the clouds and lay a cable back into the settlement."

He nods. "Mister Krowno, have you seen this technology in use by anyone else?"

I shake my head. "No. This is the first I've seen of it."

"Ah see. And is theyuh some limitation on how long these robots can operate?"

Dr. Rubens nods cautiously. "Yes, their peak draw is far more than they can generate outside of the very worst radiation zones. They use them to charge their internal batteries and capacitors, so unlike the fusion cells in our power armour they can only fight for… I'd say twenty minutes at most before they would shut down due to lack of power. Even less if they wanted to give themselves time to disengage."

"Is theyuh any advantage over the fusion cell that I am simply not seeing?"

"They'd be easier to manufacture. We salvage our atomics from pre-War sources but these can be made without doing that."

"Which suggests that whoevuh made these does not have access to a storehouse of advanced pre-War technology. Aftuh all, the design of the fusion cell was not considered to be a state secret."

"That seems likely, Governor."

"Then this design is theyuh own?"

"Not entirely. The arms and legs are based on the designs for pre-War cybernetics, as are a lot of the chassis and motor systems. But the robot-. Cyborg, is something."

Autumn nods thoughtfully, not looking at either of us.

"Mister Krowno, I fear that ah must call upon your services. Given the events of our recent past, ah have no desire to seek affray with owuh new neighbours. Yet they attacked you without warning, and ah cannot risk hwat little of the Enclave still remains to the vagaries of fate."

I nod. "I'll speak to the Sergeant about putting a team together to do some exploring. See if we can make contact."

"Ah would be most grateful. Yet I am aware that our situation here is dependent on your embassy and intervention with owuh former enemies. Do not risk yourself unnecessarily."

"As you say. Governor. Doctor."

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th November 2012
Roughly 10:38 GMT -5

I aim my clay pigeon launcher up over the hillock we're hiding behind and fire, the ceramic projectile flying-.

Boomboomboom!

Ratatatatatatatata!

Shooooom!

And small fragments of it rain down on the-.

Alan thrusts his right arm forwards, a fairground claw machine grabber punching into the ground and coming out with a squirming, blind, writhing worm that smells horrible, drips acid so that it will hurt anyone that touches it and can only bite, consume and excrete.

A bit heavy-handed, but that's the sort of place we're in.

"What.. do I..?"

I shake my head. "It doesn't matter, Alan. Chuck it away and it will go back to what it was doing before. Throw it at the Complex and they'll kill it, but it will immediately be replaced by something identical. It lacks the capacity to be anything other than what it is."

"Okay, but is it an animal, or just-"

It spits a blob of acid at him, which he blocks with a stars and stripes kite shield.

"-a really nasty person?"

"Its mindset is too different for me to tell for certain. I think animal, but that might be a result of its inherent magics keeping it simple rather than an indication of a total inability to cogitate."

"I don't.. like cruelty to animals, but if it's literally an embodiment of political corruption then I guess I'll live with myself."

The arm construct swings and the worm goes flying towards the Complex. I wait for the-.

…

I wait for the guns..?

Nothing. Alan frowns interrogatively at me. Why would-?

I nod. "Because it's supposed to be there. The Complex doesn't think that corrupt politicians are its enemy; they're its friends."

Alan creates a periscope construct and uses it to peek out of cover. "Think I could pass as Carter?"

I look at his blue glow.

"No." I look around as I try to-. "Wait, where did the vulture-?"

"Darn it. Eagle, did you see-?"

"I smell something!" He tilts his head back, sniffing the air. "An American icon!"

"In here? Lead the way!"

The eagle doesn't hesitate, leaping and flapping upwards and westward, Alan and I right behind it. I glance back at the Complex as we go, the colossal fortress walls and buttress-mounted guns seeming to glare at us as we go. And it might actually be glaring if it has the type of intelligence that I suspect it does. The eagle picks up speed, and I see… Some sort of main road, and there's the vulture, flapping towards… A humanoid figure, wearing a somewhat soiled suit and missing a portion of its head. And both his arms.

The vulture flies past them, lading next to a lump of something on the ground behind the unsteady figure. The face looks-.

Alan gasps!

"That's Kennedy!"

He dives down, and I can feel his drive to rescue someone from this place bubble to the surface. A blue glow reassembles the man's arms before Alan really thinks through what he's doing, and then he's left floating in the air just in front of the dead president.

The dead president whose face is… Kind of hanging in there, but a large piece of his skull and most of his brain is just sort of gone.

Alan spots the vulture tucking in.

"Hey, get away from that!"

"Why?" It gulps, swallowing a beakful of temporal lobe. "You can't tell me that this brain is keeping him alive."

"That-." Alan realises that he has a point as the late President Kennedy stares at him with a vague smile on his face. "That's no excuse. What happened to waiting until he's dead?"

"He has literally no brain. Why does me eating-" The vulture pecks up a little more, then tilts her head back to swallow. "-a little bit of what he's not using matter?"

I scan the available brain matter, but… Yes. This isn't Kennedy, not in the flesh. This is the idea of Kennedy, or… Possibly the man's soul. There isn't any organic matter there for me to analyse.

"M-m hmm hmm hm."

Kennedy's humming? Why is he humming God Save The Queen? I mean, thanks, but in this position I wouldn't start humming The Star-Spangled Banner.

"Paul, I-. I don't know how to fix a man's brain. Not when it's this far gone."

"Ah… I don't either. But I don't think that's the issue. The Vulture of Freedom is right. This is Kennedy's soul, or something like it. Organic repairs aren't this issue. Though you could have cleaned up his excrement when you-"

"Darn it, yeah."

"-repaired his arms."

"Hrrrn hrn hrn huuuughnuuhnuuuh."

"I think this is going to have to be a magic thing."

"So we can't help him out until we can get Doctor Mist or Giovanni in here."

"No. I mean… Look, someone who knows how to damage souls has had a go at him, right? We can't fix that. But we can fix him-. Or rather, since I don't think we need him to go running off after Marilyn Monroe, you can."

He looks sceptical.

"This isn't the best time to talk me through some whole new ring power, Paul."

"On the contrary, it's the best time. As President, he can walk us through the Military Industrial Complex. And since he's dead, even if you get it badly wrong you can't kill him because he's already dead."

"Ah…" Alan looks at Kennedy's injury, his gaze going through the man's head. "I can't exactly say that you're wrong there, but I don't know what you want me to do."

"Sometimes, people come to represent more than they actually are. Kennedy did a lot of bad things during his time in office, but Americans seem to regard him fondly. He was a focus of hope."

"And you think I can draw on that hope to fix him up?"

"I think you might be able to draw on it to make him better."

Alan takes a breath, then raises his ring.

"Guess I won't know until I try, huh?"

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th November 2012
Roughly 10:43 GMT -5

"So how does this work?"

"Somewhere, there is a place where the hopes of all things that can hope or have ever hoped are inscribed upon the very structure of that place."

"Uh… Huh."

"The Honden of Hope. I use the Honden of Avarice whenever I do my teleportation thing. However, just connecting to it should be far easier."

"Do I have a..? Blue-Ophidian?"

"An Entity, yes. Its name is Adara and it's a… Giant… Bird-like alien. As far as I remember it's a good deal more easygoing than the Ophidian, but we shouldn't need to get its attention anyway."

"Is it dangerous?"

"Anything as powerful as an Entity is dangerous, but it shouldn't be hostile. In the unlikely event that you encounter it, remain calm and offer it birdseed."

"Ph-?"

It takes a second, but then he realises that it was a joke.

"Seriously though, what should I do?"

"I can't say for certain. It will probably just be curious, so show it your hopes and where they come from. If it wants to help, then let it, but I imagine that once it sees that you're genuine it will go back to whatever it was doing before."

Hm.

"Eagle, do you want to help?"

The eagle tears its eyes away from the remains of the fallen president.

"How?"

"Alan's going to be using all of the hopes associated with President Kennedy to try to restore his soul to something approaching what it should be. Honestly… It's more likely that he's going to overshoot and turn him into the best president that America can imagine because who people think about a person -particularly after they're dead- has only the most tenuous connection to what they were actually like."

Alan frowns. "I thought I was just going to be fixing him up?"

"And this is why it's important to ensure that your afterlife arrangements are secure. He can't be 'fixed', any more than I could have scooped the chunks of brain he's dropped and shoved them back into a living person to repair their brain."

His face drops. "Oh. That's…"

"That's better than what everyone in my home parallel gets. So if you ever wonder why I keep going on about it, that's why. From my point of view, everyone here who does is like… Like someone with AIDS who's got an easy-to-use hypodermic with the cure loaded into it right next to them, but is so lazy that they'd rather die horribly than reach over and fix themselves."

Huh. That got 'real' rather quickly.

"But this way we turn him into some sort of perfect dream president and he can… Eagle, would he be Heartlands material if we did that?"

"I think so? I'd have to see him afterwards to know for sure."

"So there you go." I nod at President Kennedy. "That, for eternity."

"I'm a… Doughnut…"

"Or a demigod."

"Okay." Alan nods. "I'm on board."

I incline my head towards him. He frowns, then spots that his environmental shield is barely there.

"Oh. Just a moment." He closes his eyes and his shield burns back into life. "Everyone deserves better than this, and he certainly does."

"Okay, now, keep your eyes closed and focus on the things that inspire hope in you. For me, I feel hope every time I go to see the Beresfords and see that they really don't want to go back to being thugs. Every time people I know make good decisions without me needing to talk them through it, and I see it's not just me pushing the world up a hill in a wheelbarrow."

He nods, eyes still closed. A few moments pass, then his flame grows into a bonfire.

"Good. Now, keep doing that, and imagine… All the things that make you angry or hateful moving away. They're still there, still part of you, but they're not where you are right now."

"Uh-huh."

His aura dips for a moment, then burns back, the flames not any larger but… Steadier.

"Next, your selfish desires. Everyone has things that they want for themselves, but all of yours are somewhere else. They haven't stopped existing and they'll be there when you need them, but your hopes are all that surround you."

He nods slowly.

"Next, your fears. A normal animal reaction to danger, but yours have no place here."

Hm. Skip will, since it should synergise with any mental effort. Hope is what we're using, and… Compassion and love.

"It is a noble thing to help others without the desire for reward, but that is not where you are. This is a place for inspiring others, not aiding them directly. Your compassion is elsewhere, waiting for you when you leave."

The flaming effect is basically gone, though the size of his aura has continued to grow. I wonder if that's what I look like when I meditate?

"Love is our particular attachment to those closest to us. But you are somewhere universal, and the particular only serves to distract you. All around you are your hopes made manifest."

His mouth moves, opening and closing a little like he's feeling around for the words.

"I see it."

"Good. Now, your hopes are the walls and the ceiling and the floor, but on the other side of one is the chamber for someone who shares that hope with you. Can you picture that?"

"It's like I'm… There."

And now he's gone slightly translucent. Um. Okay, just carry on.

"We're looking for images of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Every person he inspired is there with you, and we need their hopes. Can you see them?"

"I can. It's… All so beautiful…"

"Now you've seen how he exists in that place, in their minds, draw the blue light to you and make it true. Make Kennedy the Kennedy they believe in."

Alan opens his eyes, and they're pools of blue light as he reaches for Kennedy's broken head.

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th November 2012
Roughly 10:51 GMT -5

I cautiously look at the two men sitting at the side of the idea of a road. One is floating just off the ground in the cross legged position, his eyes closed. The other keeps reaching up to his head as if to check that it's still there, then jerking his hands down.

"Green Lantern."

"Yes, Mister President?"

"This administration-." The younger man twitches slightly. "I feel that I have just incurred some great debt to you, but I don't seem quite able to recall what for."

Alan floats upright, though his feet don't quite touch the ground.

"You were in a bad way, sir, and I put you back together. But I'm afraid that America needs your help."

"It's my duty to the free world to aid our greatest hero." President Kennedy has a confused frown as he pulls himself to his feet and dusts himself off, and I find myself smiling at his description of Alan. "What seems to be the problem?"

"An evil spirit-."

"Alan, Alan. Just a… Just a minute."

Alan looks at me, his eyes still glowing pits.

"All of those emotions that were somewhere else, you feel them begin to return as you move away from the blue place. Remember all the things that made you angry? They're with you again, burning under your-."

Alan gasps, dropping to his feet and his eyes returning to normal.

"You alright?"

He nods. "Is that what it's like for you?"

"Don't know, but maybe."

"Ah. I need a moment-."

"No problem. Mister President." I step forward and offer him my right hand. "Orange Lantern."

"Any friend of Green Lantern is a friend of mine."

He takes my hand and I feel a tremendous sense of reassurance and warmth at his presence. It's like meeting my father again after being at university for a term.

I don't think I like it.

"Sir, we're in a magic realm where all the worst parts of the American psyche are real objects or people. We're trying to get to the part which corresponds to Washington so that we can deal with the spirit of corruption that has kidnapped Uncle Sam and replaced him in the real world."

"And where do I come in?"

"A manifestation of the Military-Industrial Complex has fortified the outskirts with a giant wall, but I'm hoping that they'll open the gates for the President."

"A wall around Washington? Unthinkable. I'll demand that they tear it down!"

"Sir, I'm not sure that a direct confrontation with the Military-Industrial Complex would turn out well for you."

"I choose to tear down the Military-Industrial Complex, not because it is easy, but because it is hard."

Alan nods, creating a platform under the Super President's feet and rising into the air. The birds and I follow them, the great grey walls of the Military-Industrial Complex growing steadily closer. I see the missile batteries and flak guns train themselves on us.

"Green Lantern, put me on the radio."

An old style radio microphone appears in front of him.

"To the forces occupying the capital of the great nation, I am the President of the United States. With the authority invested in me by the Constitution, I as Commander in Chief order you to stand down."

The guns keep tracking us, but… We're over their perimeter now and they haven't fired. Close up, the walls tower into the heavens and we're flying almost vertical in an attempt to clear the battlements.

"Our purpose is to defend America. Why would the President order us to stand down?"

"Total war makes no sense in an age where great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn."

"What alternative is there?"

"Too many of us think that peace is impossible. Too many think it is unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable, that mankind is doomed, that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade. Therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable and I believe they can do it again."

…

Huh.

Okay. Didn't feel too bad that time.

"You clearly don't understand what we're about. But this sounds like a problem for The Brass."

There's a clunk, and a section of the wall slides away while the missiles and gun batteries return to the neutral position.

"Come on in, Mister President."

"Thank you."

The five of us fly forward into the gap, prompting me to frown at the vulture.

"Why are you still here? The Military-Industrial Complex didn't kill us."

"Early days."

We enter the tunnel, which… Keeps going, the entry gate sliding back into place behind us, followed by a bulkhead shutter-. And then another, and another, slamming down the moment we're past them.

Alan glances back. "Friendly, aren't they?"

"Perhaps we should have pretended to be arms lobbyists."

Kennedy shakes his head. "That would be unwise. The Military-Industrial Complex that besets this great country is not friendly towards foreign competition, even from our most stalwart allies. They would sell an armed robber a bullet to shoot their own mothers if they could turn a profit that way."

The inner door opens ahead of us, but I can't help frowning.

"Did anyone else hear the way he said 'The Brass'? Because-."

"The M.I.C. leaves complex decisions to me!"

The titanic robot made of shining brown metal standing towering over Washington raises its shoulder and forearm mounted cannons.

"And I've decided to designate this place a free-fire zone!"

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th November 2012
Roughly 10:55 GMT -5

Cannons. Big cannons. Battleship cannons, Second World War era, no longer in use. Can't see a loading mechanism, magic. Robot has… A face that would probably mean something to someone who knew more about the minutia of American military history than me.

Odd that I can't see the wall from inside-. Right.

Kennedy raises his right hand in what I think is meant to be a placatory gesture. "This is not-."

KABOOM!

Guns fire and we frantically evade, Alan creating a shield to protect Kennedy. Some of the fusillade slams into the invisible wall behind us, momentarily disrupting the image of… Hah, the idyllic landscape visible from here that certainly doesn't actually exist out there. Some shrapnel from fused explosives hits my construct shield, causing cracks-.

"Avarice!" Something bangs, and a second later there's a iron chain wrapped around my construct shield. "Just what we need! And hope! Do you know how many hopes I've sent to die?"

The chains glow orange-. They're sucking the light out of my con-!

I drop as the construct fails, the chains above me clanging into each other and then leaping back towards their master.

"Paul?!"

I land on the road, take a few staggered steps-. Ring, charge?

One hundred and twenty three percent remaining.

"Uninjured, reporting energy draining chains. You?"

What did I lose?

Twenty seven percent maximum charge of one ring.

That's not sustainable.

"I felt… Like a thousand of America's sons were asking me why I threw their lives away."

"It's The Brass, a manifestation of the worst of America's officer corps. I'd guess that he saw the same thing, but didn't feel guilty about it. Can you still make constructs?"

"Kennedy and the eagle are giving me a pep talk."

"Good show. Guns seem to be slow firing."

I rise back into the air, trying to keep what appears to be the statue of a giant phallus between me and where The Brass fired its chain from. Looking closer, I see something moving across the upper portions of its armour…

The worms. The worms are carrying the ammunition to reload its guns.

"What do you think, fly up to it and flick them off?"

"While I'm struggling to think of killing corrupt worms as something that would worsen the American political process, it's still mind control."

"The old one-two?"

"I think we need something less literal. Weaken it under its own rules, then get it to stand down." The worms are squirming away from the guns now. "Ultimately, it's a distraction."

"Alright, but I've been working on this for a while."

A giant blue gun forms in the sky to my right, positively inviting the guns The Brass trains on it to fire. But Alan fires first, the beam lancing out and striking-.

Striking an invisible force field around The Brass. And I know this is going to be a painful metaphor, but I can't-.

"The Veil of Legitimacy! So long as I wear the uniform, I'm untouchable by your un-American weapons!"

There it is-.

Guns-

KABOOM!

-into action and I'm moving as the two shots pointed my way fly past what's probably a very nice monument of some sort in the real world and detonate around me, shards of magical shrapnel slamming into my construct shields. They hold, but they take a battering and I'm already moving to try to avoid a possible chain-.

The chain wraps around the monument and emasculates it.

"Got any paint?"

"What colour?"

"Green and red."

"Can't say I-. Did that thing just wreck the Washington Monument?"

"Probably. Cover me?"

"As long as it's not in paint."

"It's not worth my time to roust you out." The Brass reaches down to somewhere I can't see, then straightens back up with a… Giant rugby ball with a radioactive symbol on the side. He pulls his right arm back, ready to throw. "Time to use strategic weapons!"

"I am not President Truman, and you are not General Groves." I fly upwards, and spot Kennedy strolling towards The Brass in the open, eagle flying along with him and the vulture lurking off to the side. "The authority to unleash this great nation's nuclear arsenal belongs to the president alone. You do not have the right to use the nuclear football."

Sounds like an opening. I fly around The Brass's right while his attention is focused on Kennedy, fabricating-. Would a hologram projector be easier? Yes, I can't guarantee that paint would get through. Drones, stealth drones with holoprojectors.

Fabrication complete.

Okay, that should deal with the Veil of Legitimacy. How do I stop the worms handing resources to The Brass that would be better applied elsewhere? Actually, The Brass hasn't walked anywhere since we arrived. What fuels The Brass?

Gain a little height, and… Looks like there are cables plugged into his lower legs, running to somewhere… The same place the worms are coming from, underneath… A twisted version of the Lincoln Memorial. Clearly there's something there, but I'm sure there will be other defences in place that I can't see.

Tally ho.

"You want the football?"

"The football is rightfully mine."

"Then you can-." The holoprojectors get into position and activate, and suddenly The Brass is wearing the uniform of a Soviet Lieutenant. "What the hell is this?"

Alan fires again, his shot tearing through The Brass's armour and sending the giant guns on its left shoulder plummeting to the ground. And while that's happening I fire out titanium chains, wrapping up the worms around the Memorial in something they can't just melt their way through-.

"Not too shabby, boy."

The stone figure sitting on the seat mimes clapping. They're… A slightly wrong version of-.

"Bad Sam."

"Lazy, boy. Lazy." He stands, brick dust puffing of him as he pats himself down. "And since you're here in mah place of power, ah will have to give y'all a hidin' for it."

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th November 2012
Roughly 10:58 GMT -5

Okay, new Americanan, and I've got no idea what he represents. He looks like Uncle Sam, though his hair's a little longer and… More dishevelled? His smile is a little more manic as well, giving the discordant impression that he heard a hilarious joke not too long ago and is about to share it with me.

"Who, then?"

"Boy, ah am disappointed. The way Boss Smiley's been carrying on about you, ah thought you'd have me all added up the moment ah stepped down from that there chair."

"One of his favourites, then. Or an aspect of him?"

"Ah suppose you could say that we're all aspects of him. And we get along well enough. Never been one for changing things that aren't broken, though ah am not averse to doing some breaking."

He hesitates for a moment, regarding me curiously.

"Perhaps the issue is one of a difference in culture on the other side of the Atlantic. Allow me to illuminate the matter."

He takes his hat off his head and taps the stovepipe. It immediately inverts, the horizontal bars being replaced by vertical stripes and the ring of stars moving to the rim. He looks at it for a moment, smiling, then puts it back up upon his head.

"That clear things up for-."

"Johnny Reb. How have you outlived your country?"

"A people, a political community, are not defined by lines on a map, boy. Elsewise, every nigger born in the country would be the equal of every white man. It's culture. And while I will admit that I have taken a licking, I'm going to hang on until the final bell."

He glances behind me as The Brass fires its remaining cannons, a colossal pillar of dust and rubble erupting from the ground!

"People are impressionable creatures. Tell a lie often enough and they forget the truth. Even when the truth is written down plain as day." He reaches up to tap his hat with his right forefinger. "There are still folks today who say this was about freedom from the Federal Government, as if slavery wasn't guaranteed under the constitution. That's where The Brass's chains come from, in case you were-"

CLANG!

"-wondering."

Chains!

"Ah seem to recall hearing that you aren't entirely of pure stock yourself."

Warning!

Yes, yes, I know.

I'm wrapped in chains from top to bottom. I can still see out through the gaps, but I focused too much on Johnny and lost sight of-! Can't just slide out as there isn't physically enough space, except-. Ring, can my armour stand the pressure these chains are applying?

Armour can withstand highest demonstrated chain pressure.

Which would make sense as the chains slaves wear aren't supposed to actually kill them, they're supposed to bind and suppress them. Drop construct armour and make my environmental shield skin tight.

Compliance.

Clank!

"I see you know your place."

It's uncomfortable but survivable. And the drain has… Stopped?

No, but it is reduced.

Extrude a rope under my right foot. Is the additional drain measurable?

Yes. One hundred eighteen-. One hundred sixteen-.

Got it, drill down.

Compliance.

Try and find a corridor. If you can't, send it towards the Memorial through the ground. Show me what it's seeing.

Compliance.

Not a lot, and then… We're through. Tunnel, some lighting, lots of worms moving with a purpose, some carrying things while others are just sort of oozing over the equipment. Equipment leading toooo…

Oh no.

Leading to Uncle Sam, strapped to a gurney, chest bare and with the left side… Cut open. Tubes of… Something, are being fed into it and flow from it. Not sure what's happening there but I doubt that it was done with friendly intentions.

So, objectives: free Uncle Sam and have him beat the stuffing out of Johnny Reb. Can't do much else about Boss Smiley in this regard. Then… Get out, with Uncle Sam's help.

Ring, plug into the tubes going in and find out what they are.

Compliance.

The chains holding me part slightly, freeing part of my helmet. Johnny Reb walks closer, some sort-. That's a branding iron, and the brand is red hot.

"Been a good long while since ah've gotten the opportunity to use one of these on a living man."

Glowing red iron is… Probably not going to go through my armour, but it's magical and I shouldn't assume things. The worms don't really have eyes, and-. Plug in there-.

Blood and powered kaahuite. Where did he get that-? They're pumping blood mixed with solid pieces of evil into him. Because that makes it count as his blood? Blood type… A Positive, naturally. Install filter and disintegrator.

Compliance.

"I've been branded before."

"Then you're used goods, boy. Can't get full price for yah!"

"Slavery violates the Thirteenth Amendment."

"But you must remember that ah'm cut from a different cloth, and that Article One Section Nine of the Confederate Constitution describes things rather differently. Doubled down in Article Four in case somebody forgot."

"Alright, but I don't understand why that makes you align with Boss Smiley. By the standards of the time there wasn't anything particularly corrupt about owning people."

Blood is flowing back into Uncle Sam's body and I think it's time to rush the final stages.

"Corruption is a tool, boy. Boss Smiley opposes change that he doesn't control. Why would ah want to change a perfect civilisation? Why would ah want less control?"

"So… Just to check, you aren't part of the magical reflection of the United States of America? You're separate?"

"You'd best believe it, boy. Now-."

"Then I have no reason to leave you alive."

Construct chains lash out below us, worms dragged to the side of the room as a construct chirurgeon quickly and carefully removes the outflow in Sam's heart. His eyes start focusing almost at once… Yes, low blood pressure, best leave the in tubes in for a moment. No easy way to get rid of kaahuite but I can work on that later. Blood pressure… Normalising, that'll have to do. Tubes out heart sealed chest closed.

"And how exactly-?" His eyes dip down. "Your feet are glowing, boy."

He lunges, brand burning into the armour of my helmet as I redirect a construct upwards from below, and smile at him.

"So are yours."

Construct hands punch up through the pavement and drag him down!

 

[Mr Zoat]

7th November 2012
Roughly 11:02 GMT -5

"Yaagh!"

Still wrapped in chains, I have no clear view of it as Johnny Reb falls into the newly dug pit, slides down the ramp of earth and rubble and rolls straight into a pile of worms. But my rings do, and they're kind enough to share it with me. The worms squirm and slime, one vomiting at him-

"Goddamn worthless-!"

-and covering his right arm and the right side of his chest with acid bile.

"Ah!"

He drops his branding iron and tears off his coat and shirt, tossing the smouldering garments to the ground to reveal the reddening skin beneath. More than human toughness, but not invulnerability.

Extricate myself.

I create a circular saw construct and use it to try to slice through the outside of the chains. It dies immediately, the orange light sucked into the metal and relayed to The Brass. X-ionised saw instead, try that. It's.. cutting, but far more slowly than it should through iron links.

On his gurney, Sam's eyes flutter open with a low groan. "Nrgggh show Dickie how tricky I can..."

He blinks and focuses.

"Snivelling Worms, I don't need to unchain a million to deal with you."

The straps binding him glow red, blue and white-. Yeah, he's got that. My saw is almost through the first link, but I think that I'm entangled in a chain net rather than-.

"BRASS! PULL THE VARMINT IN!"

Ah, gr-ah!

The Brass pulls fast, pressing me into the chains as Washington shoots beneath me. I lose my constructs-.

"Eagle!"

There's a squeaking noise, like a rubbing wheel being dragged by degrees across a linoleum floor, as the eagle flies past at high speed.

"Uncle Sam is under the Lincoln Memorial! Along with Johnny-!"

Oooff!

Right into the side of The Brass, a blue boxing glove slamming into him somewhere above me. He doesn't move, but hopefully without Uncle Sam's corrupted blood to fuel him he'll be a little more manageable.

"Paul, you need a hand?!"

"Would be nice!"

Clack!

Yes, that's a link. Between the cutting and the force of the impact, it's given up the ghost. Unfortunately I'm too surrounded by chains that I can't make another saw without the drain draining me dry. Ring?

Forty seven percent remaining.

Well, there's my knife-

KABOOM!

-and damn that's loud! Okay, I've got just enough range of movement to… Draw it. Angle's awkward, but if I push it like that I think I'm-.

Clank.

I drop, chains falling away as I half-fall half-slide down The Brass's armoured back, the construct metal cutter Alan used to free me floating over my head as I-

Forty five percent remaining.

-try to-

Forty one percent remaining.

-establish an environmental shield but the patch on my helmet where Johnny Reb branded is glowing and the orange light just isn't forming and-

Thirty eight percent remaining.

-my armour's flight system is damaged and I'm struggling to get the chains off me because this doesn't look like-

Thirty five percent remaining.

-a survivable fall.

"Hate to nag, but-!"

Clank.

There's a noise like a carslide at a salvage yard as the chain net falls apart around me and-

Thirty one percent remaining.

-I tear my helmet from my head and chuck it aside as I'm free again, environmental shield reappearing as I slow my descent and swap to my heavy armour.

"Thank you! Back of the legs!"

I use the armour's flight systems-

"You get back here!"

-to zoom over Washington, heading for the Lincoln Memorial as The Brass shouts impotently in my wake. I see the eagle dart into the hole I made for Johnny Reb-.

A strange jangling sound makes me viff to the left, but a quick look behind me shows me that Alan has cut through the blood cables and… Some.. sort of great crane is currently pouring.. gold coins into a slot on The Brass's upper back-.

Blood and treasure, and the corrupt link between arms lobbyists and the M.I.C., got it. Alan smashes the crane with a construct mallet, causing coins to fall all across Washington and sending the unbound worms into a feeding frenzy. I see one worm catch three coins in its mouth, and it starts to grow even as it swallows.

"…bled you out, you damnyankee!"

Sam comes flying backwards out of the entrance the worms were using to refuel The Brass, landing on back with a huff of exhaled air. He starts pushing himself up at once as Johnny Reb marches out after him, fists balled.

"A million gallons for defense, but not one drop in tribute."

Sam doesn't look entirely steady as they square up, and given how uncharacteristically unkempt Sam is at the moment they actually look pretty similar.

I form a construct railgun.

They'll look similar until I shoot Johnny's head off, anyway. Load crumbler round and fire.

Compliance.

The gun hums and Johnny's head explodes.

Sam frowns slightly as I come in to land.

"Are you alright?"

"I've been better, but nothing a weekend rest cure won't fix up."

"Okay." I walk towards Johnny's body. "Let me just check-."

A chain whips out and slaps my railgun round aside with one swing wrapping itself around my torso again! Johnny's body rises to its-. His feet, his head regrowing as I watch.

"The South shall rise. You have struck me down and ah have become more powerful."

Sam runs at him. "One free man is worth-."

Johnny ducks and punches, and Sam goes flying backwards into my hole as Johnny's fist finds his gut.

Right. Crumbler gauntlets, squeeze.

The chains starts decaying, but it's all too slow. Johnny looks at me with a snarl, then drops the chain and jogs after Sam. "No more playing around. I'm gunna finish you for good." He reaches down to grab Sam around the throat with his right hand, hauling him up. "You-."

Clang!

"AGH!"

Johnny staggers back, hands covering his face where… Sam just hit him with his own branding iron. But he's still not exactly looking fresh, so-.

There's a colossal krumph behind us as The Brass hits the ground, while the eagle swoops out of the tunnel and grabs Johnny's hat in both talons!

Maximum power to motive systems. Brute force the chains!

Snap! Snapsnapsnap!

"Faihn!" Johnny turns and runs back towards the Memorial, which shimmers as he starts to fade from sight. "Another taihm!"

"Chains."

The remains of the chain he used on me fly at Johnny like a bolas and make him collapse to the ground as Dr. Balewa walks out of the Memorial.

"I know those well."