She’d thrown plenty of cigarette lighters out the window, but tonight was the first time her dear Red Devil was being pelted with them from the skies.
Technically just one, but it scared the shit out of Lita when it came smacking across her windshield. She pounced on the brakes and backed up when she saw it. It was actually pretty neat; an old-school Zippo with a little stop-watch motif etched into the side. The dark gray hippie-punk thought nothing of it when she picked it up and gave it a flick.
“Hmph.” she shrugged. “Someone musta broken their thumb up on the 50th floor, this shit strikes fine.” She used it to fire up her umpteenth cigarette before snapping the lid shut and stuffing it in her denim jacket. Just like that, her paw went down and that bloody red Bug roared away down the road once more.
She was on a quick midnight patrol, hunting for anything that might be off on her side of town. In the south, the new security team fanned out across several blocks for a midnight patrol. In the western half of the city, Mack Malten and his cadre of bikers were working on some more underground connections for her.
For the hell of it, she whipped out the old flip phone and gave Professor Smith a ring. She figured if anything was gonna go tits-up first, it’d be in the city’s mad science division up north.
At first, the elder white wolf didn’t pick up. It was on her second try that she got him, only to hear the chevalier scientist bellowing at the top of his longs over a torrent of sound. “YES M’DEAR, HOW ARE YOU?”
“Shit, everything alright?”
“SOMEONE MUST’VE ORDERED A THUNDERSTORM IN THIS AREA. WITH EXTRA GAIL. GUESS IT MUST LOOK GOOD ON CAMERA.”
“Fucking designer weather,” the hippie-punk grumbled to herself. “NEED A RIDE OU–”
She was cut off by silence on the other end of the line. “Yo Doc, everything fine?”
“Yes, fine.” he replied in his dignified English tones. “Guess the old girl realized she was overdoing it. Even the rain stopped.”
“Shit, lemme roll up anyhow, now I’m curious.”
“See you then!”
With a quick cut of the wheel, Lita made tracks for Smith’s lab. The drive over would also give her a chance to see what one of the idle class had ordered. The whole idea of “designer weather” always bothered her. It wasn’t what it was called of course, but it was one of a dozen-plus more “social activity” programs added to module itineraries. The whole thing meant more photo opportunities, something to keep the hobbyists busy with all sorts of esoteric phenomena. She’d never let a real tornado go ripping through the 300s of course, she’d just create a hologram of it, but with plenty of real wind for effect. It was the real wind that did the damage which, in her prime, was fixed in an instant. But now, given her lapsed state, it was a miracle the buildings hadn’t crumbled from all the weather she heaped on them.
The strangest part was how, as she started to reach the northern districts, all her worries about the weather were non-existent. No wet streets, no heaps of autumn leaves, no upturned trees from the park districts. Whatever the Professor experienced, either it was exceptionally localized, something else, or worse, A.C.E.S. regaining her strength.
As she drew closer to the lab, she could finally see something on the road, but it wasn’t the last of a shower.
It was a bumper.
She was able to steer clear of it, but hopped out to get a good look at it.
It was black with chips of white at the top, but not metal. More like plastic or fiberglass. It was the front end of what looked like a proper Firebird, straight from the Old World 80s. It was cracked to tell with scorch marks on its tip.
“Helluva crash you musta had,” she remarked nonchalantly. If she had the room for it, she would’ve plucked it up and stuffed it in the Red Devil, but with a V8 in the front, and a heap of odds and ends in the rear where the old engine was kept, there wasn’t anywhere to tuck it away.
Carefully, she lugged the bumper to the sidewalk and made tracks for the Professor’s lab. She pulled right up to that rich green Jaguar and laid on the horn. When the white-furred, black-clad dandy emerged, he did so with something in his hand.
“Well I just found a bumper to a Trans Am on a dry street two rights and a left ago, whatchu got?”
The elder English scientist produced a few stray shards, sharp crystals that glistened in the evening’s blue.
“If my structural analyzer’s still worth its credits,” he began, “Diamonds. Genuine diamonds. At least the remains of such, these were likely from a jeweler’s cut rather than raw material.”
“The hell it do,” the hippie-punk piped up, “fall into your lap?”
“Why yes actually. When I was out on the terrace pondering that dry road you mentioned.”
The dark gray wolf gave a solitary blink.
“Teach, I just had a zippo thrown at me from an apartment window back on my block. You got a diamond pitched your way, and I found the scorched bumper of a car way back there.”
“Makings of a good mystery, wouldn’t you think?” he replied rather blithely as he climbed into the passenger seat.
Lita shrugged her shoulders and bugged her eyes. “Well when you put it like that instead of ‘OH SHIT, CRAP’S RAINING FROM THE SKIES,’ sure why not?”
“My bet’s still on the aesthete weather apparatus,” Smith continued, “Just that A.C.E.S. is now fully coming undone and isn’t generating weather at all, just…well stuff it seems.”
“Lemme run this through the rest of the posse then.” Lita plugged her phone into her center console and dialed 110. When the dial-tone ended with a triple click, she knew she was calling into all corners of the Avenger’s Creed. From her newly-minted security team to her gangland friends, all the hounds at her beck and call were on the same hot line long enough to hear her message.
“Head to Getalong Gang,” she began, “Keep eyes peeled for weird shit raining from the skies. Wicked Witch might have a few more screws loose than usual. I got a lighter and a bumper, Professor’s got some gems. Source believed to be designer weather programs. Check your local forecasts if you’re ever gonna see the rain again. Over and out.”
She hung up and booked the Red Devil back towards the Firebird bumper. When they got there, however, it wasn’t just the bumper on display. A wheel took its place on the street and two side mirrors sat smashed on the opposite sidewalk, the plastic casing cracked and vomiting shards all over.
When Lita pulled the Red Devil up to the tire, a white hubcap pocked with five holes near the center when rolling along like a tumbleweed past the battle-worn Bug.
“A spot of conjecture m’dear,” the Professor piped up, stroking his chin, “but this might not be a weather program at all.”
“Honestly, I started thinking that way when I saw the bumper, I just didn’t have a good enough explanation for it all.”
Their suspicions were confirmed as, whizzing back past them was the same tire.
Then came the bumper’s rattle on the sidewalk, the mirror glass filling back into the side mirror plastic. Something was drawing all of these wrecked parts back together smack in the middle of the road. Just not into the shape of a car.
All the stray pieces, try as they might, flew across the tarmac only to smash into one another, then to be sent flying back to their place. The bumper tumbled back to where Lita had found it, the mirrors shattered against the brick wall before landing back on the sidewalk, and there that plain tire went, rolling back down the road.
“Teach,” Lita said softly. “I been here before.”
“This exact street, or–”
“NO!” she barked. “I mean this forwards-backwards-forwards crap.”
“Steady on,” the elder white scientist soothed. “Explain precisely.”
“Was a coupla years ago,” the hippie-punk began. “Found a fella was robbing ol’ apartments and I got him dead to rights. Even after killing the bastard, he came right back up for seconds and we spent the whole night at each others’ throats. He had this device he used to piece himself back together. Like if his car exploded, he hit a button and the flames all went right back where they came from. I run the fucker over and he just fills back up and takes off.”
“So a sort of concentrated temporal manipulation,” Smith observed. “Limited in scope and duration, but still the principle of the thing.”
Lita nodded, shifting gears and pulling away from the scene.
“Where are you going?”
“Taking you to where I left ‘im,” she replied. “I ain’t finished yet. He had a much bigger rig in the boot of his car. One that used diamonds like the one in your pocket. And...shit, he drove a Firebird like the hunks of one we passed!”
The Professor steepled his fingers and buried his muzzle between them. His brow furrowed as he thought before realizing what was transpiring if Lita was proven true.
“By God, the bastard’s done it.”
Smith said in such a muted, almost defeated tone. It sent a chill down Lita’s spine as she realized just how much Smith knew.
“He was one of them civvy scientists, wasn’t he? Like obviously he knew a thing or two, but he was like...one of you fellas. Wasn’t he?”
“Worst, I read the sodding paper he wrote.” Smith’s sharp English tones grew distant before he continued. “The diamond was a refractory device, similar to prisms which break light into the base color spectrum, part of this ghastly engine he designed to phase through time. Andre Freeling was the chap’s name. I won’t pretend he was the most agreeable fellow, but he didn’t strike me so cruel. He was articulate enough to get the point across, and the theory held some merit. We simply didn’t think there was enough energy in all of Haven to transcend those bounds.”
“And he found enough to get through” Lita began.
“But evidently not enough to come back in one piece.” Smith replied.
Only the mighty revs of the Red Devil’s engine filled the space between thoughts as Lita and Smith pondered what they might find in that alleyway. All throughout the drive back, she got calls from all corners of her burgeoning network. The one-eyed gangster Mack Malten called in with his usual “Hey Urbie,” followed by a mouth-frothing tirade about three white hubcaps whizzing by the bikers.
“One bastard lost his head, the other two got real close buzz cuts with nicks on the ears.” As always, Mack was blase about deaths among his ranks.
Lita could only say find shelter and hang tight until it blows over. Tan-furred security lead Rick Laitham rang in with reports of gears raining in the 500s, a tailpipe stopping a mugging by slicing the bastard in half, and puddles of engine oil sending the street-cleaner units into a panic near Comm/Ent.
“How you getting intel this far afield?” Lita quizzed.
“I’ll give you the skinny on the network I got after we get this squashed.”
“Smart fella,” she teased. “You don’t give away the family secrets on open airwaves. Stay safe, find shelter, keep in touch with your hounds.”
All along the way, one thought haunted her the most; how would he make his return? With all sorts of crap just flying back into existence, hunks of Trans Am finding themselves scattered across the city, would he even return to the place he left at all? Maybe he would be somewhere in the 300s. Maybe he’d land smack-dab in the middle of Comm/Ent. Hell, at that rate, he could probably get dropped right into the top-secret labs where the A.C.E.S. server banks are held.
The only thing left swirling more than Lita’s mind as she wove her prized Beetle through the maze of Haven was the sight that greeted her and the Professor at that lonely old alleyway. Almost exactly where the thief Andre Freeling parked his Firebird for their great voyage through time, the hippie-punk and the chevalier scientist were met with the sight of brickwork, tarmac, and the night sky itself melting across the alleyway, swirling into a globulous mess of black, white, red and blue.
Lita swung the Red Devil into place to get a full view of what was about to transpire. Smith leaned in, eyes narrowed intently.
“If this is where he left, this must be that anchor point,” the older white wolf surmised. “He made mention of it in his hypothesis.”
Slowly the galaxy of visual mush began to spin faster and freer. The swirling gave way to flecks and streams of light rocketing off the formation. From out the now increasingly chaotic strips of reality whipping about came first a piercing red body. A red that begets yellow, then green, then blue, all colors merging into one body.
Then that body went black as midnight with eyes whiter than any star Lita had ever seen.
The body straightened up and looked at the two wolves in the Bug.
“My God, Freeling,” Smith gasped beneath his breath. “What have you done?”
There came no answers, no words, just those piercing white orbs in that void of a body, the portal dissipating into tentacle-like strips of refracted, melting reality writhing behind him.
Slowly, the shadowy hound raised an arm, fingers outstretched and palm facing the car. Those white eyes locked onto Lita and she began to feel a pull she had never known before. Stronger than the best drugs, the best sex, stronger than any of her nobler intentions cultivated over the years.
What he wanted she couldn’t say. She could feel there was something he wanted from her, but without words, there was no knowing the truth of the matter. She felt the shadowed hound pulling her closer and closer until she noticed something peculiar about the dissipating portal.
It was growing more and more fractured, more and more vaporous, its wispy strains multiplying without growing, the texture almost sickening in its density. On a gut level, though, she knew what it meant: this portal was closing. And there wasn’t a chance in hell she was going to let this bastard hang round here. Her thoughts were confirmed when she saw from out his blackened murk lines crossing lines, the impressions beginning to glow green. They were coming in and out of view, as the strips of melting reality flecked away behind him.
She couldn’t get the words out, but her mind flew right back to that hellish night when Nic came out of the desert and into Haven. The night a simple cop-raid turned into a discovery into the bizarre underbelly of the city’s electric infrastructure. Infrastructure, it seemed, that Freeling had become a part of.
“Teach?” Lita asked.
“Yes,” the white wolf replied.
“Call me crazy, but he might not be going through time.”
When Professor Smith caught one of those fleeting glimpses, he knew what she meant. “By God, it’s impossible though. He had no mainframe access, no terminal, he couldn’t have just phased through!”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Lita growled. “Send ‘im back where he came.”
She revved the Red Devil up, pounding the throttle with her sandaled paw. The Professor straightened up and focused hard on the bizarre monstrosity before them.
“I figured you’d try it this way.” Smith remarked coolly. “Just one thing.”
“What?” she snapped as she turned towards him.
“Aim dead center.”
The hippie-punk flashed a devilish grin. “Smart man.”
She dug in the clutch, yanked the gear lever, and pinned the throttle down hard.
“This is payback for that busted rib you left me that night.” she growled as the Red Devil leapt on on his rear wheels and hurtled towards the shadowed hound. It was a short run, which meant a short stop. Lita kept her eyes on the prize, and once she felt close enough, down came both paws on the brakes.
The Red Devil dropped down on the beast with a grotesque crunch before she felt the swift vortex’s pull of the vortex on the car. She hadn’t even gotten him in gear when–for the briefest moment–the Bug fell in.
The black-and-red puree she made of the time monstrosity lay scattered before her and the Professor’s eyes as they saw what looked like an eternal hall of mirrors. Reflections upon reflections upon reflections. Drops of blood and clouds of black danced about the endless prismatic void before them. When Lita turned to the Professor, he looked like a negative photo of himself. White was black, black was white. He tried to call out to her, but his voice was refracted beyond discernment, like a million audio recordings laid out on top of each other creating the ultimate chorusing effect.
It all came to her slow motion, something which drove stakes through her mind. Her mind could think quickly enough to get that gear lever in reverse, but her inverted body took an eternity. She felt her paw making that glacial slide from the brake to the throttle and everything within her was screaming to hurry up.
They were almost past the first mirrors when she at last felt the gear lever click into place and the press of her paw against the sandal bed, and the sole against the rubber pedal. The Bug made a roar that echoed into eternity as it lurched backwards, Lita and the Professor lurching forwards as the wheels spun slowly in reverse.
Their last glimpse saw the red flecks glow green as they scattered down that endless hall of eternity, a grid faint in the distance, but always coming in and out of view.
Then they were back in Haven.
Like nothing had changed, like nothing had been wrong. The tarmac hadn’t melted, the bricks remained level as T-squares, the city hadn’t fallen into whatever space-time singularity or digital hellhole they had just glimpsed.
They were also back at Smith’s lab.
Her faculties restored, Lita pounced on the brakes once more, The Red Devil skidding to a stop outside the apartment. She sat there for a moment, gazing off into the middle distance. The Professor finally came back around and looked at the shell-shocked 20-something.
“Easy m’dear,” he soothed, rubbing her back. “We’re safe, we’re here, we’re now. Just not where we were.”
Lita’s body swayed briefly, Smith worried the dark gray driver was about to pass out on him. Instead, she kept swaying for a second before holding up both of her half-gloved hands. She wiggled her fingers about for a bit before she turned to look at the Professor.
“So that was real.” She said it in as plain a manner as she could. No jokes, no quips, just pure amazement.
The white wolf scientist looked puzzled, before recognizing what she was doing. “I do believe you have indulged in lysergic acid diethylamide in the past. Was the experience comparable?”
Lita shook her head. “No. This felt like my body was turned inside out, all my fur bristling my blood and muscle. Made me realize how matted I done let it get. All acid done me for was making me feel like I was floating for a bit.”
Quickly she dove for the phone and dialed 110. When the three clicks sounded off, she made her call. “Now I want my two team leads to come back to me one at a time. First Mack, then Rick. Tell me what’s happened in the past five minutes.”
She hung up and swung the Bug around. She hung a left onto the street where she had found all the car parts trying to reform.
Nothing was there.
When her first call came in, Mack was about as stone cold as she ever heard him.
“Urbie.” he said with that gruff voice of his. “Lonnie got his head back. The hubcaps are gone.”
All Lita could say was “received.”
When Rick came in, a similar tale of confusion was all in his voice. “Everything vanished. All parts. One of my guys stopped the mugging manually.”
Again, Lita gave her plain reply of “received.” She turned to Professor Smith who already realized what she was after. As deep as he dug into his pockets, he couldn’t find the diamond from the time machine.
When Lita returned to the Professor’s lab, something caught his eye in the alleyway.
“Stop right here!” he barked, diving out of the car before she even hit the brakes.
Quickly his cape batted in the air as the Professor raced towards a body lying in the dead-end street. He was white-furred and stark naked, with a thick snout, and a pool of blood creeping from out the back of his head. When Smith knelt down and pulled open one of his eyelids, he saw the ice-blue eyes of Andre Freeling.
When Lita came over, she recognized the hound instantly. “Shit, he still got one of them little bracelets on and everything.”
She pointed out the little leather strap around his right wrist with the small button dead center.
“But if he’s here,” she asked. “Who’d I hit back in the Eastern District?”
Professor Smith stood up and looked back to the main street.
“To tell you the truth, m’dear: I haven’t the faintest idea. On one hand, maybe Andre didn’t crack the code of time, but found a way into the digital world. Maybe that was his shadow self he left on the door, the conscience that remains when diving through that great electric sea. There’s been talk of those who use virtual reality rigs having out-of-body experiences, but I’ve yet to see a formal experiment. And yet…”
He let the thought hang in the air, almost afraid of saying the thought out loud himself.
“There is that wild chance the mad bastard made himself a time machine after all. And something he found in the bounds between time and space found him. And almost us. Whatever the truth, something in A.C.E.S. seems to have reset the clock.”
For the rest of the night–perhaps forever–those words haunted Lita, though they left her with only one last bit of business. When she returned to the Creed’s headquarters, she drafted a memo that she sent to the Force back east, addressed directly to Knox.
“IMPORTANT. Suspend further development to all progress made with regards to files sent under the name Operation: Backmask. Dangerous beyond reason. Possible link to Station 607 Incident, unsure at present.”
The next morning, she got her reply.
“No files found under such title.”
A little Lovecraft goes a long way, in more directions than you'd think. Nice work.
I think the comic here is the coolest!