Post by redsycorax on Dec 18, 2021 0:22:47 GMT
On Earth-109, Catman's adopted daughter Denise (Catgirl) Blake and Tom Turbine's niece Tina (Terrell) Turbine were the only survivors of the Third World War, which began when a catastrophic miscalculation by a Soviet submarine commander rapidly escalated into a devastating nuclear war which destroyed much of the United States, Eastern and Western Europe, China, Japan, North and South Korea and the entire USSR. Although Ottawa and Vancouver were both hit, relatively mercifully, no other Canadian city was, enabling the quick relative recovery of the True North, once it had permanently closed the border to its devastated Southern neighbour. An exemption was made for Catgirl and Tina Turbine, who became naturalised Canadian citizens.
For decades thereafter, relationships between Canada and the successor states to the United States were glacially frozen. Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, although ostensibly a "Progressive Conservative", in fact led a highly independent foreign policy when it came to issues like condemnation of South African apartheid, reluctance to station nuclear arms on Canadian soil despite the NORAD agreement between Canada and the United States and was also open to enfranchising indigenous Canadians and presided over a Cabinet with the first female Cabinet Minister, Eileen Fairclough. When the War happened, Parliament was adjourned and apart from those who represented Ottawa and Vancouver, none of its elected members were killed during the nuclear exchange. Closing the border was initially a controversial policy for southern-based political representatives in those Canadian provinces that bordered what remained of the United States, but the spread of lawlessness, anarchy and disease from that quarter led to support for Diefenbaker's tough southern border policy. His Liberal successors, Joseph Pearson and Pierre Trudeau, pivoted and made Canada's southern border policy a matter of bipartisan accord. Thus, gradually and over time, population drift began to accelerate away from the depressed areas to the south to less affected, more northern cities. As for Catgirl (and then, Catwoman) and Tina Turbine, they resettled in Toronto, now Canada's capital.
It is sixteen years since the Third World War and Pierre Trudeau is now Canadian Prime Minister.
++
The late seventies were not a time for heroes. In depressed southern provincial Canadian border towns, cross-border fallout from the Third World War had caused a steep rise in mutant births and infanticide was prevalent in such cases. Subsistence farmers received little public assistance and in their shacks and hovels, tried to eke out meagre crops from the poisoned land. Pandemics were allowed to run their course and medical care had all but vanished in the lawless conditions that prevailed. Of course, things were worse across the border in the post-American nuclear wasteland. Famine and even cannibalism were rife there. As well as Canada, Mexico and Carribean and Latin American nations closed their land and sea borders with the wreckage of the United States. There was a theoretical provisional government in Texarkana, but it held actual little power beyond its self-declared "federal district' territory. At least there was stable government there. Across the world, nothing at all survived in the sere, devastated wastelands that had once been Russia and Germany. Closer to home, Cuba would be uninhabitable for millennia. Isolated settlements still lingered on in Scotland, France and Italy, although Ireland was mostly intact.
In Toronto, Tina Turbine and Catwoman continued crimefighting, apprehending criminals and illegal criminal immigrants on both Canadian coasts. At times, they were asked their opinions about affairs and events across the southern border, for there, there were literal monsters.
As the two women strode toward an appointment with Prime Minister Trudeau at Parliament, they were intercepted by a particularly talkative CBC reporter:
"Miss Turbine. The post-American survivor state of Franklin has just legislated for the recognition of mutant infanticide. What are-?"
"Mr. Boudine. As you well know, infanticide is a criminal offence under the Canadian Criminal Code. Franklin is not within Canadian territorial limits and therefore, we cannot comment about foreign affairs in a sovereign entity not recognised by our federal government in any case."
"What about you, Catwoman?"
"Speaking personally, Mr Boudine, I'm a practising Catholic. I agree with the teaching of His Holiness Pope John XXIV about the profound immorality of the slaughter of newborn mutant infants."
"The Church has changed its teaching when it came to contraception, abortion and female ordination, all of which are now recognised. Might it also do so with mutant infanticide?"
"What my colleague Miss Turbine has said is quite correct. Infanticide is a criminal offence in this country and Parliament has shown no inclination to relax the penalties for it in the foreseeable future, nor are there any case law indications that our judiciary is similarly inclined. Now, if you'll excuse us both, we're due to meet Prime Minister Trudeau at a debriefing session."
As they entered the Toronto House of Commons building, Tina breathed in a sigh of relief:
"Infanticide?! Is that how far we've fallen, Denise?"
"I try not to think about life south of the border these days, Tina. I don't know who I feel sorrier for- the desperate women who find out that radiation proximity down south hasn't sterilised them and it's too late for an abortion, or the poor misshapen mutant babies who get drowned, shot, thrown off cliifs or ruined buildings, or asphyxiated."
"We're just lucky our radsuits worked all those years ago and that our children are healthy and well."
"I mean, you hear rumours about what goes on in the Ontario and British Columbia frontier towns. Although there aren't many women there anyway- at least, not women who want to have children now or later, anyway."
"Ah well. At least we'll have some good news for Trudeau about the disruption of the heroin trade from the Peoples Republic of Indochina for Trudeau. That was a lucky break..."
But miles south of the current Canadian capital, another consequence of the Third World War was everlastingly present. Life on Canada's southern border was hard and acidic bitterness was rife toward their southern neighbours, not only because Ottawa and Vancouver had been hit in the War, but also because of the legacy of crossborder fallout drift and fatalities, detonation flare blindness and impact deafness, burns and scarring and all too many lingering progeny of the nuclear exchange. Because of the trauma, dislocation and consequences of the War, satanist cults had arisen, initially underground. However, with the Liberals in power, sexual freedom and abortion access weren't regarded as 'deviant' in contemporary post-apocalyptic Canada now. However, the satanist cults had gone beyond that and also practised human sacrifice and infanticide.
And worse still, one of the satanist practitioners was a metahuman. Before the war, Reggie Hewson had been a construction worker in southern Ontario. As with other cryptomutants like Ray Thompson in Seaboard City, radiation had awakened Hewson's latent metahuman abilities- monition, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, sensory manipulation and telepathy. Even before the War, Hewson had been on the ethical borderline and now, he had assumed the identity of Baphomet after his (opportunist) conversion to satanism. Thus far, Baphomet had killed seven CSIS [Canadian Security Intelligence Service) and Royal Canadian Mountie officers previously sent to investigate the dark undercurrents within Ontario border life.
In troubled times, ecstatic experience-based religions spread like wildfire and frontier satanismmet the needs of situational transgression amidst the hardscrabble frontier inhabitants of Far South Ontario.
Lilith Crewe, his high priestess, knocked on Hewson's door one evening:
"Evenin', Lill. What brings you out this time o'night?"
"Calvin from Ontario Mainfreight talked to me in the pub tonight. He heard that the Feds will be sending down those two meta women down here. I don't like this Reg. Maybe we should leave town until they decide it's some lurid folktale and then head back up Toronto way."
Hewson shook his head: "Our religion does a power o'good for these people here, Lill. Gives 'em security, purpose, hope and so what if a vagrant, lunatic or other dispensable is taken to Satan's clutch?"
Lighting a cigarette, Lilith leant back on the doorframe:
"I know I don't regret that either, Reg. Nor those mutie infanticides where they're called for. Not all women here are blessed with Holy Sterility and rather mutie unbabies are culled than some poor destitute strugglin' war widow is left to bring up some drooling, incontinent cretin.;
Hewson grinned: "See, that's what I like about ya, Lill. You're a straight talker and true believer who isn't intimidated into denying our faith. Leave those women to me. They won't expect what's coming."
"'Baphomet?' Pinch me, Tina! We haven't taken a time trip back to the fourteenth century while I was asleep, have we? Because that sounds like something out of the folklore associated with the medieval Knights Templar."
Tina Turbine raised an eyebrow as she drove the Adapted Environmental Vehicle down a dilapidated dirt road not in frequent use:
"Hey, that's right. According to history, Philip V of France led a moral panic against them as a political threat, arguing that they were all a bunch of gay devil worshippers and/or crypto-Muslims, because apparently the name Baphomet was a corruption of the Islamic Prophet Muhammed. Or else, they were Gnostic heretics like the Cathars in French Provence. But surely, wasn't that just a lie devised by Philip and their other enemies because he wanted to seize their properties and financial assets?"
"That's what we learnt in University history classes."
"And no offence, but isn't the whole concept of 'satanism' only 'shocking' if you're either a devout religious person or an alienated angry former Christian who turns 'devil worshipper' because of transgressive chic? Unfortunately, though, this borderer crowd have taken things further by roping in human sacrifice and infanticide. Surely they can't actually believe..."
"It's flipside dualism, I guess. The Ontario frontier towns used to be highly religious and relatively prosperous due to northbound tourists from the United States, as well as customs officials who lived near the border for work purposes. After the war, pandemic disease and ecological fragility caused a loss of faith in their former religious beliefs and bitterness, so they 'changed sides', perceiving they were 'abandoned' by a fickle, vindictive god."
"Tina! Look out!" As she braked the AEV, Tina saw what Denise was concerned about- as a bazooka shell soared above them and shattered an overhanging rock above the road.
"Thanks, amiga. Yep. Vehicle sensors indicate old US ordinance, which isn't surprising. My guess is either that was salvaged from across the border from a defunct US army unit or the spoils of a cross-border war with a renegade former US Army unit soured into a raider gang."
"Triangulating...there." In kevlar armour and with powerbelt hardened skin, the two women raced toward the origin point of the attack, although Tina had monitored the area around it and found it clear of covert mines.
Miles away, Baphomet swore. That Turbine woman had the adept scientific mind of her late uncle, the Justice Guild leader Tom Turbine. This might be more difficult than he had previously supposed.
Catwoman had deduced the reason for the attack: "We must be under surveillance, Tina. That means they were warned, which also implies that there must be a border security leak, which explains the shell that almost hit us"
Their next obstacle was not slow in arriving. It consisted of a ramshackle roadblock. From their ragged and patched makeshift uniforms, these weren't Candian border patrol staff. One corpulent, gap-toothed figure tottered over to the AEV and hissed:
"Go back home, citysiders. You're not welcome here."
Tina shook her head: "We're on government business. The bandit Baphomet has killed too many border patrol personnel and law enforcement officials. He will be brought to justice, with or without your co-operation, sir."
Catwoman was more placatory: "Look, we have food and medical supplies in the boot if you need them."
The borderer sneered: "Without a doctor or nurse to dispense 'em, what use is that? And some of these folks ain't had schooling."
Catwoman replied: "Look, there's a taped soundtrack in the boxes. Press the on button and it'll tell you how to dispense the medicine."
"Oh, leave them be, Cyril! Can't you see they're tryin' to help?"
The obese man turned on the newcomer, who was an older woman in her fifties or sixties. He snapped:
"You keep out of this, Tilly Makepeace!"
"Oh, the hell I will! You've not got sick children at home like Aggie and Nell over there, you pompous idiot! Thank you for your kindness, ladies."
"That's okay, Mrs. Makepeace. I just wish I was a doctor instead of an engineer, so I could help you folks personally."
"We don't need your interference-"
"Shut up, Cyril! I won't tell you again." For a small woman, Tilly Makepeace carried herself with authority and discipline and obviously wasn't intimidated easily.
Then Tina's eyes widened. Around Tilly's neck, she saw a familiarly designed pendant. She'd last seen one like it over sixteen years ago, around the neck of Justice Guilder Cassandra Astriides:
"Mrs Makepeace? Are you a precog?"
The older woman's face broke into a broad smile:
"Yes indeed. You're Tina Turbine and Catrwoman, aren't you? My cousin Cassie Astriides served in your kinfolk's Justice Guild back in the late fifties and early sixties."
"Witch!" Cyril Walker muttered, stalking away.
"At least I don't serve some ridiculous concoction of folklore and medieval conspiracy theories!" Tilly called back at his retreating form.
"One a' these days..."
"I'm so sorry. Please ignore that old windbag. I do."
"Mrs Makepeace-"
"Tilly, Catwoman. Anyhow, folk don't have musch time for that Baphomet rigmarole in this town. I reckon Cyril's the only one here who is. Despite intimidation and threats from that fool and his reprobate gang, I don't scare easily. Would you both like to stay with me while you tell me what brings you to these parts?"
From the hills, Lilith Crewe watched and cursed to herself. This was bad. Matilda Makepeace was her chief rival as the area midwife, foiling attempts at mutant infanticide with her wretched bleeding heart prattle about muties being an element of the 'interconnection of all life." Worse still, like her kinfolk across the border in vanished America, she had the Foresight in her and eluded all attempts to end her repeated meddling. Reg wouldn't like this.
"I know," Hewson telepathed,"and this complicates matters. Makepeace is a blindspot whenever I try to see the future in my own precog episodes. She's a stray roll o' the dice and that worries me. As for that moron Walker, I've had it with his stupidity and incompetence. He was told not to betray our presence here, yet as usual, his stupidity made him disobey an order from the top. He's a liability. You have my full permission to do what we agreed on. Damn him, pushing Turbine and Catwoman into Makepeace's arms. Well, he won't do that again."
And thus, from Tilly Makepeace's cabin, after Tina and Catwoman were seated sipping camomile tea, shrieks of pain and horror were heard. Tilly looked out:
"I thought that would happen. That's Cyril's place."
"Why? I thought you said he was one of their own."
"He was. They don't tolerate failure or missteps. Gaia. Even if he was an ornery lickspittle devil-man, I didn't want him to perish that way."
"How did he-?"
"They shot him at close range. Lilly Crewe, his henchwoman and her posse."
"We'll take care of her tomorrow, then."
"Yes. You can get her on multiple infanticide charges. She strangles any mutant baby she delivers. Says it's an act o'mercy."
"Anything else we ought to know?"
"She's Reggie Hewson- Baphomet's- chief henchwoman and 'high priestess.'"
And so it was that Tina Turbine and Catwoman turned up on Lilith Crewe's doorstep the next morning:
"What d'you want?"
"Don't play the innocent with us, Mrs Crewe. We know you're implicated in countless infanticides and sectarian human sacrifice activity in this area."
"Who are you outsiders to come here and tell us what to do? And interfere with our way of life?"
"Because your sect is engaged in human sacrifice. And don't play the religious freedom card with us, lady. Meaningful religious freedom doesn't extend to the 'right' to kill people in cold blood."
"Ah. Well, I reckon friends of mine would take strong objection to that, Miz Turbine. Now, Reg!"
As a pyrokinetic blast arced toward them from inside the house, Catwoman's shield was already deployed as Tina strode inside, her powerbelt on full. As Lilith Crewe brandished a carving knife at her, Tina slammed her aside as Catwoman handcuffed the groggy figure. In the midst of the room, his eyes glowing supernal crimson, was Reginald Hewson:
"Well, hey there. Guess you must be the feds from Toronto come to take me in."
"It's no good trying to stop us. Tilly told us what tricks you might manifest. So this is it, is it? Do you honestly think we haven't fought psis before?" Tina said, as she struggled for footing against telekinetic debris and household furniture thrown at her:
"You're not the first feds to come to these parts tryin' to stop us. Although you might be the last if they have any sense. Damn it. Why don't you both drop?"
"Oh, I don't know. Because you haven't taken on other metahumans before now, have you, Mr Hewson?" Catwoman said, as she brandished a fire extinguisher at his remaining pyrokinetic efforts, while he tried to direct a telepathic burst at them, but found, to his mounting unease, that both women were impervious to it. Tina Turbine finally reached him and laid him out with an uppercut to his jaw. Catwoman produced two psi-null handcuffs and a supplementary harness and roughly pulled the groggy figure into them.
From their cabins, the remaining foulweather satanists glared at Tina and Catwoman as they manhandled Hewson into the back of their AEV. Watching them was Tilly and her two adopted mutant children. One of them was a bicephalous little girl, while the infant in her arms had manipulable tentacles in place of arms and legs:
"Oh, they're beautiful, Tilly. So are you all packed and ready to go?"
Tilly nodded: "Thank you for giving me and the children these opportunities, Miz Turbine. Appreciate it."
"They deserve a better life than they'll get out here. And for that matter, this area has been neglected for far too long. Even if that cult of Hewsons will fall apart now he and Crewe are in our custody. Where civil authority fails, opportunists and malignant tinpot authoritarians think they have a chance to grift off it. No longer, not here. And Tilly, I promise, you won't regret your decision."
"And Tina. Catwoman? Your kin would have been so proud of you today."
"Well, so would yours, Tilly. For all the good you've done here and all the good you'll do in the future."
EPILOGUE:
Several decades later, a beautiful young bicephalous woman came up to Tina and Denise, long since retired from their days as the Worlds Greatest metahumans, and hugged them. And as the starship they were on decelerated toward the retinue of planets that orbited Tau Ceti, Alexia Makepeace sat down to tell her mother's old friends about how their lives had changed when they were rescued from the wastelands. Around them, a mixture of standard human and mutant colonists thronged. Because sometimes, a small act of kindness can blossom into something far greater.
THE END.
For decades thereafter, relationships between Canada and the successor states to the United States were glacially frozen. Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, although ostensibly a "Progressive Conservative", in fact led a highly independent foreign policy when it came to issues like condemnation of South African apartheid, reluctance to station nuclear arms on Canadian soil despite the NORAD agreement between Canada and the United States and was also open to enfranchising indigenous Canadians and presided over a Cabinet with the first female Cabinet Minister, Eileen Fairclough. When the War happened, Parliament was adjourned and apart from those who represented Ottawa and Vancouver, none of its elected members were killed during the nuclear exchange. Closing the border was initially a controversial policy for southern-based political representatives in those Canadian provinces that bordered what remained of the United States, but the spread of lawlessness, anarchy and disease from that quarter led to support for Diefenbaker's tough southern border policy. His Liberal successors, Joseph Pearson and Pierre Trudeau, pivoted and made Canada's southern border policy a matter of bipartisan accord. Thus, gradually and over time, population drift began to accelerate away from the depressed areas to the south to less affected, more northern cities. As for Catgirl (and then, Catwoman) and Tina Turbine, they resettled in Toronto, now Canada's capital.
It is sixteen years since the Third World War and Pierre Trudeau is now Canadian Prime Minister.
++
The late seventies were not a time for heroes. In depressed southern provincial Canadian border towns, cross-border fallout from the Third World War had caused a steep rise in mutant births and infanticide was prevalent in such cases. Subsistence farmers received little public assistance and in their shacks and hovels, tried to eke out meagre crops from the poisoned land. Pandemics were allowed to run their course and medical care had all but vanished in the lawless conditions that prevailed. Of course, things were worse across the border in the post-American nuclear wasteland. Famine and even cannibalism were rife there. As well as Canada, Mexico and Carribean and Latin American nations closed their land and sea borders with the wreckage of the United States. There was a theoretical provisional government in Texarkana, but it held actual little power beyond its self-declared "federal district' territory. At least there was stable government there. Across the world, nothing at all survived in the sere, devastated wastelands that had once been Russia and Germany. Closer to home, Cuba would be uninhabitable for millennia. Isolated settlements still lingered on in Scotland, France and Italy, although Ireland was mostly intact.
In Toronto, Tina Turbine and Catwoman continued crimefighting, apprehending criminals and illegal criminal immigrants on both Canadian coasts. At times, they were asked their opinions about affairs and events across the southern border, for there, there were literal monsters.
As the two women strode toward an appointment with Prime Minister Trudeau at Parliament, they were intercepted by a particularly talkative CBC reporter:
"Miss Turbine. The post-American survivor state of Franklin has just legislated for the recognition of mutant infanticide. What are-?"
"Mr. Boudine. As you well know, infanticide is a criminal offence under the Canadian Criminal Code. Franklin is not within Canadian territorial limits and therefore, we cannot comment about foreign affairs in a sovereign entity not recognised by our federal government in any case."
"What about you, Catwoman?"
"Speaking personally, Mr Boudine, I'm a practising Catholic. I agree with the teaching of His Holiness Pope John XXIV about the profound immorality of the slaughter of newborn mutant infants."
"The Church has changed its teaching when it came to contraception, abortion and female ordination, all of which are now recognised. Might it also do so with mutant infanticide?"
"What my colleague Miss Turbine has said is quite correct. Infanticide is a criminal offence in this country and Parliament has shown no inclination to relax the penalties for it in the foreseeable future, nor are there any case law indications that our judiciary is similarly inclined. Now, if you'll excuse us both, we're due to meet Prime Minister Trudeau at a debriefing session."
As they entered the Toronto House of Commons building, Tina breathed in a sigh of relief:
"Infanticide?! Is that how far we've fallen, Denise?"
"I try not to think about life south of the border these days, Tina. I don't know who I feel sorrier for- the desperate women who find out that radiation proximity down south hasn't sterilised them and it's too late for an abortion, or the poor misshapen mutant babies who get drowned, shot, thrown off cliifs or ruined buildings, or asphyxiated."
"We're just lucky our radsuits worked all those years ago and that our children are healthy and well."
"I mean, you hear rumours about what goes on in the Ontario and British Columbia frontier towns. Although there aren't many women there anyway- at least, not women who want to have children now or later, anyway."
"Ah well. At least we'll have some good news for Trudeau about the disruption of the heroin trade from the Peoples Republic of Indochina for Trudeau. That was a lucky break..."
But miles south of the current Canadian capital, another consequence of the Third World War was everlastingly present. Life on Canada's southern border was hard and acidic bitterness was rife toward their southern neighbours, not only because Ottawa and Vancouver had been hit in the War, but also because of the legacy of crossborder fallout drift and fatalities, detonation flare blindness and impact deafness, burns and scarring and all too many lingering progeny of the nuclear exchange. Because of the trauma, dislocation and consequences of the War, satanist cults had arisen, initially underground. However, with the Liberals in power, sexual freedom and abortion access weren't regarded as 'deviant' in contemporary post-apocalyptic Canada now. However, the satanist cults had gone beyond that and also practised human sacrifice and infanticide.
And worse still, one of the satanist practitioners was a metahuman. Before the war, Reggie Hewson had been a construction worker in southern Ontario. As with other cryptomutants like Ray Thompson in Seaboard City, radiation had awakened Hewson's latent metahuman abilities- monition, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, sensory manipulation and telepathy. Even before the War, Hewson had been on the ethical borderline and now, he had assumed the identity of Baphomet after his (opportunist) conversion to satanism. Thus far, Baphomet had killed seven CSIS [Canadian Security Intelligence Service) and Royal Canadian Mountie officers previously sent to investigate the dark undercurrents within Ontario border life.
In troubled times, ecstatic experience-based religions spread like wildfire and frontier satanismmet the needs of situational transgression amidst the hardscrabble frontier inhabitants of Far South Ontario.
Lilith Crewe, his high priestess, knocked on Hewson's door one evening:
"Evenin', Lill. What brings you out this time o'night?"
"Calvin from Ontario Mainfreight talked to me in the pub tonight. He heard that the Feds will be sending down those two meta women down here. I don't like this Reg. Maybe we should leave town until they decide it's some lurid folktale and then head back up Toronto way."
Hewson shook his head: "Our religion does a power o'good for these people here, Lill. Gives 'em security, purpose, hope and so what if a vagrant, lunatic or other dispensable is taken to Satan's clutch?"
Lighting a cigarette, Lilith leant back on the doorframe:
"I know I don't regret that either, Reg. Nor those mutie infanticides where they're called for. Not all women here are blessed with Holy Sterility and rather mutie unbabies are culled than some poor destitute strugglin' war widow is left to bring up some drooling, incontinent cretin.;
Hewson grinned: "See, that's what I like about ya, Lill. You're a straight talker and true believer who isn't intimidated into denying our faith. Leave those women to me. They won't expect what's coming."
"'Baphomet?' Pinch me, Tina! We haven't taken a time trip back to the fourteenth century while I was asleep, have we? Because that sounds like something out of the folklore associated with the medieval Knights Templar."
Tina Turbine raised an eyebrow as she drove the Adapted Environmental Vehicle down a dilapidated dirt road not in frequent use:
"Hey, that's right. According to history, Philip V of France led a moral panic against them as a political threat, arguing that they were all a bunch of gay devil worshippers and/or crypto-Muslims, because apparently the name Baphomet was a corruption of the Islamic Prophet Muhammed. Or else, they were Gnostic heretics like the Cathars in French Provence. But surely, wasn't that just a lie devised by Philip and their other enemies because he wanted to seize their properties and financial assets?"
"That's what we learnt in University history classes."
"And no offence, but isn't the whole concept of 'satanism' only 'shocking' if you're either a devout religious person or an alienated angry former Christian who turns 'devil worshipper' because of transgressive chic? Unfortunately, though, this borderer crowd have taken things further by roping in human sacrifice and infanticide. Surely they can't actually believe..."
"It's flipside dualism, I guess. The Ontario frontier towns used to be highly religious and relatively prosperous due to northbound tourists from the United States, as well as customs officials who lived near the border for work purposes. After the war, pandemic disease and ecological fragility caused a loss of faith in their former religious beliefs and bitterness, so they 'changed sides', perceiving they were 'abandoned' by a fickle, vindictive god."
"Tina! Look out!" As she braked the AEV, Tina saw what Denise was concerned about- as a bazooka shell soared above them and shattered an overhanging rock above the road.
"Thanks, amiga. Yep. Vehicle sensors indicate old US ordinance, which isn't surprising. My guess is either that was salvaged from across the border from a defunct US army unit or the spoils of a cross-border war with a renegade former US Army unit soured into a raider gang."
"Triangulating...there." In kevlar armour and with powerbelt hardened skin, the two women raced toward the origin point of the attack, although Tina had monitored the area around it and found it clear of covert mines.
Miles away, Baphomet swore. That Turbine woman had the adept scientific mind of her late uncle, the Justice Guild leader Tom Turbine. This might be more difficult than he had previously supposed.
Catwoman had deduced the reason for the attack: "We must be under surveillance, Tina. That means they were warned, which also implies that there must be a border security leak, which explains the shell that almost hit us"
Their next obstacle was not slow in arriving. It consisted of a ramshackle roadblock. From their ragged and patched makeshift uniforms, these weren't Candian border patrol staff. One corpulent, gap-toothed figure tottered over to the AEV and hissed:
"Go back home, citysiders. You're not welcome here."
Tina shook her head: "We're on government business. The bandit Baphomet has killed too many border patrol personnel and law enforcement officials. He will be brought to justice, with or without your co-operation, sir."
Catwoman was more placatory: "Look, we have food and medical supplies in the boot if you need them."
The borderer sneered: "Without a doctor or nurse to dispense 'em, what use is that? And some of these folks ain't had schooling."
Catwoman replied: "Look, there's a taped soundtrack in the boxes. Press the on button and it'll tell you how to dispense the medicine."
"Oh, leave them be, Cyril! Can't you see they're tryin' to help?"
The obese man turned on the newcomer, who was an older woman in her fifties or sixties. He snapped:
"You keep out of this, Tilly Makepeace!"
"Oh, the hell I will! You've not got sick children at home like Aggie and Nell over there, you pompous idiot! Thank you for your kindness, ladies."
"That's okay, Mrs. Makepeace. I just wish I was a doctor instead of an engineer, so I could help you folks personally."
"We don't need your interference-"
"Shut up, Cyril! I won't tell you again." For a small woman, Tilly Makepeace carried herself with authority and discipline and obviously wasn't intimidated easily.
Then Tina's eyes widened. Around Tilly's neck, she saw a familiarly designed pendant. She'd last seen one like it over sixteen years ago, around the neck of Justice Guilder Cassandra Astriides:
"Mrs Makepeace? Are you a precog?"
The older woman's face broke into a broad smile:
"Yes indeed. You're Tina Turbine and Catrwoman, aren't you? My cousin Cassie Astriides served in your kinfolk's Justice Guild back in the late fifties and early sixties."
"Witch!" Cyril Walker muttered, stalking away.
"At least I don't serve some ridiculous concoction of folklore and medieval conspiracy theories!" Tilly called back at his retreating form.
"One a' these days..."
"I'm so sorry. Please ignore that old windbag. I do."
"Mrs Makepeace-"
"Tilly, Catwoman. Anyhow, folk don't have musch time for that Baphomet rigmarole in this town. I reckon Cyril's the only one here who is. Despite intimidation and threats from that fool and his reprobate gang, I don't scare easily. Would you both like to stay with me while you tell me what brings you to these parts?"
From the hills, Lilith Crewe watched and cursed to herself. This was bad. Matilda Makepeace was her chief rival as the area midwife, foiling attempts at mutant infanticide with her wretched bleeding heart prattle about muties being an element of the 'interconnection of all life." Worse still, like her kinfolk across the border in vanished America, she had the Foresight in her and eluded all attempts to end her repeated meddling. Reg wouldn't like this.
"I know," Hewson telepathed,"and this complicates matters. Makepeace is a blindspot whenever I try to see the future in my own precog episodes. She's a stray roll o' the dice and that worries me. As for that moron Walker, I've had it with his stupidity and incompetence. He was told not to betray our presence here, yet as usual, his stupidity made him disobey an order from the top. He's a liability. You have my full permission to do what we agreed on. Damn him, pushing Turbine and Catwoman into Makepeace's arms. Well, he won't do that again."
And thus, from Tilly Makepeace's cabin, after Tina and Catwoman were seated sipping camomile tea, shrieks of pain and horror were heard. Tilly looked out:
"I thought that would happen. That's Cyril's place."
"Why? I thought you said he was one of their own."
"He was. They don't tolerate failure or missteps. Gaia. Even if he was an ornery lickspittle devil-man, I didn't want him to perish that way."
"How did he-?"
"They shot him at close range. Lilly Crewe, his henchwoman and her posse."
"We'll take care of her tomorrow, then."
"Yes. You can get her on multiple infanticide charges. She strangles any mutant baby she delivers. Says it's an act o'mercy."
"Anything else we ought to know?"
"She's Reggie Hewson- Baphomet's- chief henchwoman and 'high priestess.'"
And so it was that Tina Turbine and Catwoman turned up on Lilith Crewe's doorstep the next morning:
"What d'you want?"
"Don't play the innocent with us, Mrs Crewe. We know you're implicated in countless infanticides and sectarian human sacrifice activity in this area."
"Who are you outsiders to come here and tell us what to do? And interfere with our way of life?"
"Because your sect is engaged in human sacrifice. And don't play the religious freedom card with us, lady. Meaningful religious freedom doesn't extend to the 'right' to kill people in cold blood."
"Ah. Well, I reckon friends of mine would take strong objection to that, Miz Turbine. Now, Reg!"
As a pyrokinetic blast arced toward them from inside the house, Catwoman's shield was already deployed as Tina strode inside, her powerbelt on full. As Lilith Crewe brandished a carving knife at her, Tina slammed her aside as Catwoman handcuffed the groggy figure. In the midst of the room, his eyes glowing supernal crimson, was Reginald Hewson:
"Well, hey there. Guess you must be the feds from Toronto come to take me in."
"It's no good trying to stop us. Tilly told us what tricks you might manifest. So this is it, is it? Do you honestly think we haven't fought psis before?" Tina said, as she struggled for footing against telekinetic debris and household furniture thrown at her:
"You're not the first feds to come to these parts tryin' to stop us. Although you might be the last if they have any sense. Damn it. Why don't you both drop?"
"Oh, I don't know. Because you haven't taken on other metahumans before now, have you, Mr Hewson?" Catwoman said, as she brandished a fire extinguisher at his remaining pyrokinetic efforts, while he tried to direct a telepathic burst at them, but found, to his mounting unease, that both women were impervious to it. Tina Turbine finally reached him and laid him out with an uppercut to his jaw. Catwoman produced two psi-null handcuffs and a supplementary harness and roughly pulled the groggy figure into them.
From their cabins, the remaining foulweather satanists glared at Tina and Catwoman as they manhandled Hewson into the back of their AEV. Watching them was Tilly and her two adopted mutant children. One of them was a bicephalous little girl, while the infant in her arms had manipulable tentacles in place of arms and legs:
"Oh, they're beautiful, Tilly. So are you all packed and ready to go?"
Tilly nodded: "Thank you for giving me and the children these opportunities, Miz Turbine. Appreciate it."
"They deserve a better life than they'll get out here. And for that matter, this area has been neglected for far too long. Even if that cult of Hewsons will fall apart now he and Crewe are in our custody. Where civil authority fails, opportunists and malignant tinpot authoritarians think they have a chance to grift off it. No longer, not here. And Tilly, I promise, you won't regret your decision."
"And Tina. Catwoman? Your kin would have been so proud of you today."
"Well, so would yours, Tilly. For all the good you've done here and all the good you'll do in the future."
EPILOGUE:
Several decades later, a beautiful young bicephalous woman came up to Tina and Denise, long since retired from their days as the Worlds Greatest metahumans, and hugged them. And as the starship they were on decelerated toward the retinue of planets that orbited Tau Ceti, Alexia Makepeace sat down to tell her mother's old friends about how their lives had changed when they were rescued from the wastelands. Around them, a mixture of standard human and mutant colonists thronged. Because sometimes, a small act of kindness can blossom into something far greater.
THE END.