Post by redsycorax on Oct 17, 2021 23:16:55 GMT
On Earth-109, reporter Lyra Lewis was the vivacious red-haired romantic partner of Tom Turbine. But Lyra was a modern woman, who put her career as a professional journalist first and in a twist of traditional sixties sex roles, she was the one who kept saying no to Tom's earnest entreaties to tie the matrimonial knot. And then, the Cuban missile crisis on that Earth escalated out of control into nuclear war and Lyra was caught in the detonation of the nuclear weapon that wiped out Los Angeles while she was on assignment. Tom witnessed his lover's death and it broke his heart, perhaps contributing to his decision to sacrifice himself trying to avert the ICBM that destroyed Ryerson Air Force Base and much of Seaboard City from detonating a day later. However, several weeks beforehand, the ace reporter had conducted what turned out to be her final interview...
++
In her business suit and neat hat, Lyra knocked at the door of Cassandra Astriides, the newest member of the Justice Guild of America. She'd been looking forward to this for ages and was rapt that the JGA had finally admitted another woman to their ranks after all these years. And there was an interesting angle with the link to ancient Greece and the past, given that Lyra's grandmother was a Classics professor at Radcliffe- or had been, before her recent retirement. As Cassandra opened the door, Lyra was shocked to see the heroine look so haggard. She seemed not to have slept in days. Did it have anything to do with her recent trip to Washington on top-secret business, Lyra wondered to herself?
"Martini?"
Lyra gratefully accepted it: "Mmm, delicious. With all that business in the Carribean, it's been difficult to get olives for these. Thanks for agreeing to this on such short notice, Cassandra."
"No need to stand on ceremony, Lyra. You're the world to Tom and I can see why. Call me Cass. But actually, I wanted to do an interview with you because of your professional rep. Those articles on the backgrounds of the Injustice Guild and their crimes were magnificent last year."
Lyra smiled back at her: "Well, your reputation precedes you too, honey. Your combat moves are something else."
"A side-effect of my precognition. It means that I can predict their moves in advance and counter them. Spoken like a true army brat, incidentally."
Lyra laughed: "Oh, the family was stationed in Edo and I learnt some judo and karate moves. But nothing like yours!"
"So... Astriides family folklore has it that we're the descendants of Cassandra and Agamemnon who did the deed on the way back to Mycenae from the end of the Trojan War. The consequence was my foremother, Pronoia. Her faithful nurse hid her when Clytemnestra murdered the two of them when they docked back in the Aegean and she allegedly left descendants."
"Hmmm. From what my grandma, Dorothy Lewis at Radcliffe, told me about the Oresteia, wasn't it the case that when the original Cassandra was given her prophetic abilities, it was supposed to be a curse and her prophecies weren't to be ...hey, what's the matter?"
Cassandra managed a shaky breath: "Nothing. Look, can we talk off the record?"
Lyra nodded: "Sure. What's this all about?"
"I don't know if Tom's told you, but there was a reason for my recent trip to Washington. Lyra, I foresaw an event which will occur several months from now. There'll be a US/Soviet confrontation over Cuba. Someone will have an itchy trigger finger. What started as a missile stationing crisis will escalate into a nuclear Third World War. Seaboard City will be sideswiped by an ICBM intended for Ryerson USAF several miles away. The Justice Guild... the Justice Guild will die trying to defend the city from the nuclear attack. All of them. Except me."
Lyra's eyes widened: "But why would there be missiles in Cuba...? The Russians...? Oh, of course. The new American Jupiter class missiles that are being stationed in Turkey. That makes sense. But...you told the Chiefs of Staff this?"
Cassandra nodded, her eyes brimming with tears: "They didn't believe me. And you should have heard the Guardsman rant and rave about it when I told the Guild earlier."
Lyra sighed: "Yeah, Scotty's always been a ruler-straight Republican. If Barry Goldwater was their next presidential candidate, I bet he'd sign up in a flash. Don't mind him. Is there any way this can be averted?"
"No. And the reason that I exempted myself from the line-up was that I only have a month or so to live anyway. You see, there's another, darker aspect to my mingled blessing and curse. My precognition ability doesn't come without a price. Every time I use it, I get closer to a fatal aneurysm. But it's worth it, fighting crime and menaces to the safety and security of the country. Except the forthcoming war. History repeats itself, eh? My historical namesake wasn't believed when she predicted what was about to happen to Agamemnon and herself either. You don't believe me either, do you?"
Lyra hesitated: "It...makes sense, Cass. But...why can't it be averted?"
"I don't know, honey. If I were a philosopher, I'd make some arcane remarks about the debate between determinism and free will. If I shared the old family beliefs in the ancient Greek gods, I'd invoke the Moirae, the Fates. Cumulative historical momentum is building up and it can't be diverted, even if that means millions of people will die."
"Look, I'll talk to Tom, maybe he can..."
"Not even your power-belted scientific sweetheart can deflect what's coming, Lyra. I've tried."
"Cass, I'm sorry, but I have to ask. Did you see the Guild die?"
"Yes. All of them. Tom... was parachuted onto the oncoming missile headed for Ryerson. Its containment system was faulty so he died from a lethal radiation dose. Ted..Catman...will die when the JGA brownstone headquarters is hit by the blast shockwave. Donna, Scott and Jake will die trying to contain the blast itself."
"Wait a minute. Did the others tell you about their adventure in 2459? The so-called "Five Hundred Years Later" episode? Where the Guild fought the Cybernoids, ruthless human-faced robots who were created in the twenty first century? Don't you see... in order for that to happen, there can't be an 'inevitable' nuclear war!"
Cassandra nodded: "There's one problem with that. When Tom told me about the Cybernoids, I checked the reel in their JGA film archive. The record isn't there anymore. They remember it, but the event itself never happened. I can't be sure, but I think the sequence of events that led to the Cybernoid's creation in 2060 and their war against humanity has been aborted. And there's something...or someone else. Ray Thompson. He isn't the innocent, rosy cheeked apple pie American boy he seems. He's a covert mutant and he's waiting for the war. I suspect he's dulling their senses so they don't try to actively intervene to prevent it through sowing disbelief and denial. Except he hasn't done a very good job. Jake and his wife Irene believe me."
"Is there anything I can do or say to save Tom?"
"No, Lyra. You'll be in Los Angeles, covering the death of Marilyn Monroe. In a few weeks, she'll take a lethal barbiturate overdose. The Seaboard City Times-Picayune will send you there to track down the manufacturer and ask some searching questions. While you're there...while you're there...on October 28, 1962, a Soviet ICBM will pulverise the city. You'll be flung against a disintegrating building and die instantly from the shock wave."
Lyra blinked: "You've...seen it happen, haven't you?"
"Yes. I'm sorry, Lyra. I had to warn you."
Impulsively, Lyra Lewis embraced her new friend: "Oh, Cass. For you to carry this burden around inside your head. It's a wonder that you don't go mad."
Cassandra wept: "I'm sorry I don't have better news."
Lyra clutched her purse and kissed her on the forehead: "I'll see what I can do. Never say never."
But that was the last time that Lyra Lewis saw Cassandra Astriides alive. The interview turned into an obituary after Cassandra stepped in front of a bullet meant for Donna Vance, the Black Siren, forestalling her death from her aneurysm through sacrificing it for a friend. And at the graveside, she looked pensively at Tom as the two of them held hands while Cassandra was laid to rest. And then she felt an odd, blurring sensation and seated alongside Catman, Ray Thompson concealed a sinister smile. He had read the memories of Cassandra's interview in Lyra's mind and had simply focused a microscopic tendril of his hidden ability and several cells within her mind abruptly evaporated. Lyra forgot the conversation had ever taken place. And her dictaphone contained a puzzling gap as well. But Lyra was a busy professional newspaper woman and had other subjects to preoccupy her, until it was too late.
After that, events unfolded as expected. Marilyn Monroe's body was found at her home in Brentwood, dead from an overdose of chloral hydrate and sleeping pills. The former British dominion of Jamaica became independent. East German border guards shot and killed a teenager trying to flee to West Berlin. An unsuccessful assassination attempt was made against French President Charles de Gaulle. NASA launched the Mariner 2 space probe, but it would never receive any messages from humanity's first excursion to neighbouring Venus. In September, President Kennedy promised that the United States would place humanity on the Moon by the end of the decade- again, another foregone dream crushed by impending events. Bob Dylan released his unintentionally prophetic song "A Hard Rain's Going to Fall". CBS aired the first episode of the Hanna Barbara animated comedy, The Jetsons. Underneath the radar, the USSR agreed to reinforce Cuba against "US belligerence", which would have fateful consequences. I Love Lucy, the Beatles debut single "Love Me Do" and the inaugural (and only) James Bond film Dr No gave some indication of what the ensuing decade could have been like.
But then, on October 14, 1962, a US U2 high altitude flight over Cuba disclosed the existence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. On October 22, Tom Turbine kissed Lyra Lewis goodbye at Seaboard City Airport as his inamorata travelled to the West Coast to investigate Marilyn Monroe's death and the overavailability of chloral hydrate as an adjunct to sleeping pills. Cassandra's prophetic warning had been erased from her mind by Ray Thompson's malice. As a consequence, just over a week later, during the evening of October 27, 1962, Lyra Lewis was outside the Los Angeles City Council building, preparing for her interview with LA County Associate Medical Examiner Tom Noguchi over his diagnosis two months before and his professional observations about the need to stringently regulate barbiturates. And then, the air raid klaxons sounded and seconds later, a nuclear explosion rocked the centre city and Lyra Lewis was picked up like a rag doll and flung against the collapsing facade of a disintegrating building.
In distant Seaboard City, a numbed, weeping Tom Turbine gazed at the engagement and wedding rings that he had planned to present to her on her return from Los Angeles. Burying his grief under stoic resignation, he dried his eyes and phoned the rest of his Justice Guild associates. Something died inside him that long and torturous evening, and it was no surprise that he volunteered to sacrifice himself in a vain attempt to deter the ICBM headed for adjacent Ryerson airforce base. He failed, but his sacrifice, as well as those of his Justice Guild companions, mitigated the scale of the disaster that befell Seaboard City. It is rumoured that as he fell to his death, Tom Turbine uttered a single word: "Lyra..."
THE END
++
In her business suit and neat hat, Lyra knocked at the door of Cassandra Astriides, the newest member of the Justice Guild of America. She'd been looking forward to this for ages and was rapt that the JGA had finally admitted another woman to their ranks after all these years. And there was an interesting angle with the link to ancient Greece and the past, given that Lyra's grandmother was a Classics professor at Radcliffe- or had been, before her recent retirement. As Cassandra opened the door, Lyra was shocked to see the heroine look so haggard. She seemed not to have slept in days. Did it have anything to do with her recent trip to Washington on top-secret business, Lyra wondered to herself?
"Martini?"
Lyra gratefully accepted it: "Mmm, delicious. With all that business in the Carribean, it's been difficult to get olives for these. Thanks for agreeing to this on such short notice, Cassandra."
"No need to stand on ceremony, Lyra. You're the world to Tom and I can see why. Call me Cass. But actually, I wanted to do an interview with you because of your professional rep. Those articles on the backgrounds of the Injustice Guild and their crimes were magnificent last year."
Lyra smiled back at her: "Well, your reputation precedes you too, honey. Your combat moves are something else."
"A side-effect of my precognition. It means that I can predict their moves in advance and counter them. Spoken like a true army brat, incidentally."
Lyra laughed: "Oh, the family was stationed in Edo and I learnt some judo and karate moves. But nothing like yours!"
"So... Astriides family folklore has it that we're the descendants of Cassandra and Agamemnon who did the deed on the way back to Mycenae from the end of the Trojan War. The consequence was my foremother, Pronoia. Her faithful nurse hid her when Clytemnestra murdered the two of them when they docked back in the Aegean and she allegedly left descendants."
"Hmmm. From what my grandma, Dorothy Lewis at Radcliffe, told me about the Oresteia, wasn't it the case that when the original Cassandra was given her prophetic abilities, it was supposed to be a curse and her prophecies weren't to be ...hey, what's the matter?"
Cassandra managed a shaky breath: "Nothing. Look, can we talk off the record?"
Lyra nodded: "Sure. What's this all about?"
"I don't know if Tom's told you, but there was a reason for my recent trip to Washington. Lyra, I foresaw an event which will occur several months from now. There'll be a US/Soviet confrontation over Cuba. Someone will have an itchy trigger finger. What started as a missile stationing crisis will escalate into a nuclear Third World War. Seaboard City will be sideswiped by an ICBM intended for Ryerson USAF several miles away. The Justice Guild... the Justice Guild will die trying to defend the city from the nuclear attack. All of them. Except me."
Lyra's eyes widened: "But why would there be missiles in Cuba...? The Russians...? Oh, of course. The new American Jupiter class missiles that are being stationed in Turkey. That makes sense. But...you told the Chiefs of Staff this?"
Cassandra nodded, her eyes brimming with tears: "They didn't believe me. And you should have heard the Guardsman rant and rave about it when I told the Guild earlier."
Lyra sighed: "Yeah, Scotty's always been a ruler-straight Republican. If Barry Goldwater was their next presidential candidate, I bet he'd sign up in a flash. Don't mind him. Is there any way this can be averted?"
"No. And the reason that I exempted myself from the line-up was that I only have a month or so to live anyway. You see, there's another, darker aspect to my mingled blessing and curse. My precognition ability doesn't come without a price. Every time I use it, I get closer to a fatal aneurysm. But it's worth it, fighting crime and menaces to the safety and security of the country. Except the forthcoming war. History repeats itself, eh? My historical namesake wasn't believed when she predicted what was about to happen to Agamemnon and herself either. You don't believe me either, do you?"
Lyra hesitated: "It...makes sense, Cass. But...why can't it be averted?"
"I don't know, honey. If I were a philosopher, I'd make some arcane remarks about the debate between determinism and free will. If I shared the old family beliefs in the ancient Greek gods, I'd invoke the Moirae, the Fates. Cumulative historical momentum is building up and it can't be diverted, even if that means millions of people will die."
"Look, I'll talk to Tom, maybe he can..."
"Not even your power-belted scientific sweetheart can deflect what's coming, Lyra. I've tried."
"Cass, I'm sorry, but I have to ask. Did you see the Guild die?"
"Yes. All of them. Tom... was parachuted onto the oncoming missile headed for Ryerson. Its containment system was faulty so he died from a lethal radiation dose. Ted..Catman...will die when the JGA brownstone headquarters is hit by the blast shockwave. Donna, Scott and Jake will die trying to contain the blast itself."
"Wait a minute. Did the others tell you about their adventure in 2459? The so-called "Five Hundred Years Later" episode? Where the Guild fought the Cybernoids, ruthless human-faced robots who were created in the twenty first century? Don't you see... in order for that to happen, there can't be an 'inevitable' nuclear war!"
Cassandra nodded: "There's one problem with that. When Tom told me about the Cybernoids, I checked the reel in their JGA film archive. The record isn't there anymore. They remember it, but the event itself never happened. I can't be sure, but I think the sequence of events that led to the Cybernoid's creation in 2060 and their war against humanity has been aborted. And there's something...or someone else. Ray Thompson. He isn't the innocent, rosy cheeked apple pie American boy he seems. He's a covert mutant and he's waiting for the war. I suspect he's dulling their senses so they don't try to actively intervene to prevent it through sowing disbelief and denial. Except he hasn't done a very good job. Jake and his wife Irene believe me."
"Is there anything I can do or say to save Tom?"
"No, Lyra. You'll be in Los Angeles, covering the death of Marilyn Monroe. In a few weeks, she'll take a lethal barbiturate overdose. The Seaboard City Times-Picayune will send you there to track down the manufacturer and ask some searching questions. While you're there...while you're there...on October 28, 1962, a Soviet ICBM will pulverise the city. You'll be flung against a disintegrating building and die instantly from the shock wave."
Lyra blinked: "You've...seen it happen, haven't you?"
"Yes. I'm sorry, Lyra. I had to warn you."
Impulsively, Lyra Lewis embraced her new friend: "Oh, Cass. For you to carry this burden around inside your head. It's a wonder that you don't go mad."
Cassandra wept: "I'm sorry I don't have better news."
Lyra clutched her purse and kissed her on the forehead: "I'll see what I can do. Never say never."
But that was the last time that Lyra Lewis saw Cassandra Astriides alive. The interview turned into an obituary after Cassandra stepped in front of a bullet meant for Donna Vance, the Black Siren, forestalling her death from her aneurysm through sacrificing it for a friend. And at the graveside, she looked pensively at Tom as the two of them held hands while Cassandra was laid to rest. And then she felt an odd, blurring sensation and seated alongside Catman, Ray Thompson concealed a sinister smile. He had read the memories of Cassandra's interview in Lyra's mind and had simply focused a microscopic tendril of his hidden ability and several cells within her mind abruptly evaporated. Lyra forgot the conversation had ever taken place. And her dictaphone contained a puzzling gap as well. But Lyra was a busy professional newspaper woman and had other subjects to preoccupy her, until it was too late.
After that, events unfolded as expected. Marilyn Monroe's body was found at her home in Brentwood, dead from an overdose of chloral hydrate and sleeping pills. The former British dominion of Jamaica became independent. East German border guards shot and killed a teenager trying to flee to West Berlin. An unsuccessful assassination attempt was made against French President Charles de Gaulle. NASA launched the Mariner 2 space probe, but it would never receive any messages from humanity's first excursion to neighbouring Venus. In September, President Kennedy promised that the United States would place humanity on the Moon by the end of the decade- again, another foregone dream crushed by impending events. Bob Dylan released his unintentionally prophetic song "A Hard Rain's Going to Fall". CBS aired the first episode of the Hanna Barbara animated comedy, The Jetsons. Underneath the radar, the USSR agreed to reinforce Cuba against "US belligerence", which would have fateful consequences. I Love Lucy, the Beatles debut single "Love Me Do" and the inaugural (and only) James Bond film Dr No gave some indication of what the ensuing decade could have been like.
But then, on October 14, 1962, a US U2 high altitude flight over Cuba disclosed the existence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. On October 22, Tom Turbine kissed Lyra Lewis goodbye at Seaboard City Airport as his inamorata travelled to the West Coast to investigate Marilyn Monroe's death and the overavailability of chloral hydrate as an adjunct to sleeping pills. Cassandra's prophetic warning had been erased from her mind by Ray Thompson's malice. As a consequence, just over a week later, during the evening of October 27, 1962, Lyra Lewis was outside the Los Angeles City Council building, preparing for her interview with LA County Associate Medical Examiner Tom Noguchi over his diagnosis two months before and his professional observations about the need to stringently regulate barbiturates. And then, the air raid klaxons sounded and seconds later, a nuclear explosion rocked the centre city and Lyra Lewis was picked up like a rag doll and flung against the collapsing facade of a disintegrating building.
In distant Seaboard City, a numbed, weeping Tom Turbine gazed at the engagement and wedding rings that he had planned to present to her on her return from Los Angeles. Burying his grief under stoic resignation, he dried his eyes and phoned the rest of his Justice Guild associates. Something died inside him that long and torturous evening, and it was no surprise that he volunteered to sacrifice himself in a vain attempt to deter the ICBM headed for adjacent Ryerson airforce base. He failed, but his sacrifice, as well as those of his Justice Guild companions, mitigated the scale of the disaster that befell Seaboard City. It is rumoured that as he fell to his death, Tom Turbine uttered a single word: "Lyra..."
THE END