Post by redsycorax on Jan 7, 2022 23:43:54 GMT
On Earth-109, the Justice Guild of America fought many nefarious adversaries before its tragic end trying to halt a nuclear attack against Ryerson Air Force Base and their native Seaboard City in October 1962 after their world's Cuban missile crisis metastasised into the Third World War. To those familiar with other alternate Earths, some of them might look somewhat familiar but also act somewhat differently. Take the case of "Captain Clockwork" for example.
++
PROLOGUE: MOSCOW: APRIL 1961:
Former Soviet Governor of Kazakhstan Leonid Brezhnev was a worried man. In the fifties, he had been entrusted with the "Virgin Lands Campaign", an attempt tp supplement the USSR's agricultural reserves through increasing the scope of available arable land other than the Ukrainian wheatfields. But due to its dependence on erroneous Lysenkoist genetics, the Virgin Lands Campaign had failed and with it, Brezhnev's political profile and standing within the Soviet Politbureau suffered. His internal factional opponents had seized on this large-scale failure and the attendant problems with unrest and dissident activity against food poverty. Brezhnev's future was bleak, unless something happened to turn his fortunes around.
Fortunately, he still had allies within his own political faction, both inside and outside the Kremlin. One of them was Vladimir Semichastny, the current head of the KGB. Indeed, Brezhnev was expecting a telephone call from that very source- and at that moment, the phone rang:
"Da? Vladimir?"
"Comrade Defence Secretary, good news. The wunderwaffe that the Red Army unearthed in Siberia near the Tunguska meteorite impact site from 1908 is now fully operational."
"Excellent news indeed. What did you think of my proposal about its deployment?"
"Against the so-called "Justice Guild"? It is brilliant. Decapitating them will strike western morale severely and if your plan works, the wunderwaffe will have immeasurable strategic advantages for our Motherland."
"Which agent do you intend to accompany it?"
"Artur Svetlii." On Brezhnev's end of the line, there was a moment of stony silence:
"You cannot be serious."
"Unfortunately, all of our more competent agents are stationed in Europe, Cuba and South-East Asia at present. In any case, the wunderwaffe technology is self-activating. When it senses and assesses a potential threat, it deploys its defensive procedure. And if Svetli dies incidentally in defence of the Motherland in the process, it's not as if we will have lost a more promising field agent asset."
"Thank you, comrade. If this works, it will be a startling propaganda coup for the Motherland and it will give us a vital psychological and tactical edge in our war of nerves against the decadent capitalist west. I look forward to news on it."
SEABOARD CITY:
Artur Svetlii ("Captain Clockwork', as he had been designated in this field operation) adjusted his somewhat baroque uniform. It wasn't his fin-helmed headwear that was the problem, it was its other anatomical limitations. He was especially looking forward to seeing the women in action, Black Siren and Cassandra, in their sleek, figure-hugging uniform and licked his lips at the prospect. It wouldn't be long now...
Sure enough, five minutes later, the Justice Guild brownstone doors slammed open and in ran the assorted members of the Justice Guild- Tom Turbine, Green Guardsman, the Streak, Catman, Black Siren and Cassandra. In the rear was their irrelevant little boy companion, Ray Thompson. An instant later, the Soviet wunderwaffe (or to give it its real name, the "Tactical Analysis of Threat Nullification Interstellar Teleport") activated and the six adult Justice Guild members were bathed in varicoloured streams of light from the device- before they vanished into apparent nothingness.
THE TRAPPER SYSTEM:
instants later, each of the Justice Guild members found himself or herself on an alien world selected by the wunderwaffe to exploit a particular vulnerability.
Green Guardsman thus found himself on a world where aluminium formed a core element of the planetary biosohere, which nullifed his power ring. He fell to his knees, clutched his throad and sprawled on the ground, deathly still.
The Streak found himself on a high-viscosity slimeworld where his superspeed couldn't gain foot traction.
Catman and Black Siren found themselves on a world whose biochemistry affected their neurological processes. As the impairment spread, they collapsed, jerking in ataxic response to their addled neurohormonal responses.
Cassandra found herself trapped on a steady state world in a 'time loop' where her precognitive abilities were useless.
Finally, Tom Turbine found himself on a world where his powerbelt was unable to operate.
And then, the plan fell apart in a matter of seconds.
SEABOARD CITY:
Several minutes before they confronted Captain Clockwork, Cassandra had foreseen his presence within their headquarters and also witnessed the wunderwaffe alongside. Green Guardsman scanned the alien weapon from a distance and Tom Turbine deduced its operational characteristic and effects. Therefore, the Justice Guild had planned subterfuge of their own before they confronted Svetlii and his apparatus. Scott Mason's power ring then camouflaged Black Siren as Cassandra, Cassandra as Black Siren, Tom Turbine as Catman, Catman as Tom Turbine, Green Guardsman himself as the Streak and finally, the Streak as Green Guardsman. Tom Turbine had also identified the worlds depicted within the wunderwaffe's memory as adjacent ones within a shared planetary system.
THE TRAPPER PLANETARY SYSTEM:
Consequently, the trap failed.
Given that "Catman and Black Siren" were actually Tom Turbine and Cassandra, his powerbelt and her variant precognitive neuroanatomy protected both of them from the effects of the ataxia world. "Green Guardsman" became the Streak and the friction from his superspeed enabled a location fix from the real Green Guardsman's power ring after he washed off the clinging slime and shot off to retrieve his colleagues. Black Siren waved to her other colleagues as they rescued her from the steady state world chosen to nullify Cassandra, while Catman was retrieved from the low-technology world intended to dampen Tom Turbine's powerbelt/.
One of the flaws in the TATNIT programme became obvious in the next minute. The wunderwaffe surveillance and combat assessment routines monitored its failure to contain the Justice Guild due to their deceptionm but its alien creators had deepwired a retrieval response code into it to provide forensic analaysis and strategic upgrades based on the remains of their opponents from the entrapment worlds to which they had been sent. It began to short-circuit as its conflicting prerogatives clashed with one another, but not before it teleported the Justice Guild back to their headquarters.
SEABOARD CITY:
And then there was the matter of Ray Thompson, a confounding variable to the calculations of the KGB and its would-be 'supervillain." Although Artur Svetlii only witnessed a small ten year old child, inwardly the mutant was a moral monstrosity. In self-defence, his psionic abilities activated at once, forcibly reading Svetlii's mind and discovering a fortuitous addiction to Afghan heroin which had both affected his thought processes and crucially weakened his heart. Accordingly, Thompson's telekinesis arranged a fortuitous and fatal heart attack and the lifeless Soviet agent clapsed his heart as it suddenly stopped beating. Seconds later, the teleport retrieval programme cut in and the wunderwaffe response protocols returned the Justice Guild to Earth. Breathlessly, Ray explained to the the Guild that Captain Clockwork had suddenly keeled over and obviously needed medical attention. Behind him, the wunderwaffe fused and was then forever silent.
Out of mistaken beliefs about Ray Thompson's childhood 'innocence', Catman and Black Siren distracted him with appreciation of his compassion and initiative as Cassandra, Tom Turbine and the Green Guardsman tended to "Captain Clockwork's" corpse. When they saw Svetlii's right arm, its cyrillic character tattoo and needle tracks, they surmised what had happened, why Svetlii had attacked them and concluded that his severe drug addiction meant the excitement of the conflict had been too much for the compromised heart of their assailant.
Of course, Cassandra wasn't fooled. She understood what must have happened and rolled her eyes at Thompson's ingenue facade but shrugged, keeping quiet. Even if the brat had killed, it was an enemy agent who was threatening the rest of the Justice Guild who deserved what he got. As the Guild left the brownstone, unseen by most of the others, Thompson smiled to himself at his deception. What was better, Cassandra's silence indicated that she was willing to play along this time. Good. All in all, this had been a most productive day.
EPILOGUE:
A fortnight later, Pravda recorded the subsequent, much-mourned tragic death of Politbureau Defence Secretary Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (1908-1961), attributing his 'suicide' to mental illness... rather than a panicked telephone call from Vladimir Semichastny when the Red Army squad had arrived at his office door because of the failed strategy to exploit a now-inoperative wunderwaffe. CPSU Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev had been aware of Brezhnev's leadership aspirations for some time and used his latest failure to remove Brezhnev from office and deal with his KGB liaison at the same time. Trapped in his office, Semichastny resorted to a fatal pistol shot to his brain. As he saw the Red Army squad trooping toward the Kremlin, Brezhnev cursed fate and realised that his political ambitions and life were now over. Taking a cyanide capsule in his mouth, he crushed it between his teeth. When the arresting officers broke in the door to his office, they found the Defence Secretary sprawled inert and lifeless on the ground.
Eighteen months later, when Seaboard City was hit by the ICBM fired at Ryerson Air Roce Base, the Justice Guild brownstone collapsed around it, crushing and burying the TATNIT wunderwaffe beneath it. The identity of the wunderwaffe's creators and the earlier history of its use remain unknown.
THE END
++
PROLOGUE: MOSCOW: APRIL 1961:
Former Soviet Governor of Kazakhstan Leonid Brezhnev was a worried man. In the fifties, he had been entrusted with the "Virgin Lands Campaign", an attempt tp supplement the USSR's agricultural reserves through increasing the scope of available arable land other than the Ukrainian wheatfields. But due to its dependence on erroneous Lysenkoist genetics, the Virgin Lands Campaign had failed and with it, Brezhnev's political profile and standing within the Soviet Politbureau suffered. His internal factional opponents had seized on this large-scale failure and the attendant problems with unrest and dissident activity against food poverty. Brezhnev's future was bleak, unless something happened to turn his fortunes around.
Fortunately, he still had allies within his own political faction, both inside and outside the Kremlin. One of them was Vladimir Semichastny, the current head of the KGB. Indeed, Brezhnev was expecting a telephone call from that very source- and at that moment, the phone rang:
"Da? Vladimir?"
"Comrade Defence Secretary, good news. The wunderwaffe that the Red Army unearthed in Siberia near the Tunguska meteorite impact site from 1908 is now fully operational."
"Excellent news indeed. What did you think of my proposal about its deployment?"
"Against the so-called "Justice Guild"? It is brilliant. Decapitating them will strike western morale severely and if your plan works, the wunderwaffe will have immeasurable strategic advantages for our Motherland."
"Which agent do you intend to accompany it?"
"Artur Svetlii." On Brezhnev's end of the line, there was a moment of stony silence:
"You cannot be serious."
"Unfortunately, all of our more competent agents are stationed in Europe, Cuba and South-East Asia at present. In any case, the wunderwaffe technology is self-activating. When it senses and assesses a potential threat, it deploys its defensive procedure. And if Svetli dies incidentally in defence of the Motherland in the process, it's not as if we will have lost a more promising field agent asset."
"Thank you, comrade. If this works, it will be a startling propaganda coup for the Motherland and it will give us a vital psychological and tactical edge in our war of nerves against the decadent capitalist west. I look forward to news on it."
SEABOARD CITY:
Artur Svetlii ("Captain Clockwork', as he had been designated in this field operation) adjusted his somewhat baroque uniform. It wasn't his fin-helmed headwear that was the problem, it was its other anatomical limitations. He was especially looking forward to seeing the women in action, Black Siren and Cassandra, in their sleek, figure-hugging uniform and licked his lips at the prospect. It wouldn't be long now...
Sure enough, five minutes later, the Justice Guild brownstone doors slammed open and in ran the assorted members of the Justice Guild- Tom Turbine, Green Guardsman, the Streak, Catman, Black Siren and Cassandra. In the rear was their irrelevant little boy companion, Ray Thompson. An instant later, the Soviet wunderwaffe (or to give it its real name, the "Tactical Analysis of Threat Nullification Interstellar Teleport") activated and the six adult Justice Guild members were bathed in varicoloured streams of light from the device- before they vanished into apparent nothingness.
THE TRAPPER SYSTEM:
instants later, each of the Justice Guild members found himself or herself on an alien world selected by the wunderwaffe to exploit a particular vulnerability.
Green Guardsman thus found himself on a world where aluminium formed a core element of the planetary biosohere, which nullifed his power ring. He fell to his knees, clutched his throad and sprawled on the ground, deathly still.
The Streak found himself on a high-viscosity slimeworld where his superspeed couldn't gain foot traction.
Catman and Black Siren found themselves on a world whose biochemistry affected their neurological processes. As the impairment spread, they collapsed, jerking in ataxic response to their addled neurohormonal responses.
Cassandra found herself trapped on a steady state world in a 'time loop' where her precognitive abilities were useless.
Finally, Tom Turbine found himself on a world where his powerbelt was unable to operate.
And then, the plan fell apart in a matter of seconds.
SEABOARD CITY:
Several minutes before they confronted Captain Clockwork, Cassandra had foreseen his presence within their headquarters and also witnessed the wunderwaffe alongside. Green Guardsman scanned the alien weapon from a distance and Tom Turbine deduced its operational characteristic and effects. Therefore, the Justice Guild had planned subterfuge of their own before they confronted Svetlii and his apparatus. Scott Mason's power ring then camouflaged Black Siren as Cassandra, Cassandra as Black Siren, Tom Turbine as Catman, Catman as Tom Turbine, Green Guardsman himself as the Streak and finally, the Streak as Green Guardsman. Tom Turbine had also identified the worlds depicted within the wunderwaffe's memory as adjacent ones within a shared planetary system.
THE TRAPPER PLANETARY SYSTEM:
Consequently, the trap failed.
Given that "Catman and Black Siren" were actually Tom Turbine and Cassandra, his powerbelt and her variant precognitive neuroanatomy protected both of them from the effects of the ataxia world. "Green Guardsman" became the Streak and the friction from his superspeed enabled a location fix from the real Green Guardsman's power ring after he washed off the clinging slime and shot off to retrieve his colleagues. Black Siren waved to her other colleagues as they rescued her from the steady state world chosen to nullify Cassandra, while Catman was retrieved from the low-technology world intended to dampen Tom Turbine's powerbelt/.
One of the flaws in the TATNIT programme became obvious in the next minute. The wunderwaffe surveillance and combat assessment routines monitored its failure to contain the Justice Guild due to their deceptionm but its alien creators had deepwired a retrieval response code into it to provide forensic analaysis and strategic upgrades based on the remains of their opponents from the entrapment worlds to which they had been sent. It began to short-circuit as its conflicting prerogatives clashed with one another, but not before it teleported the Justice Guild back to their headquarters.
SEABOARD CITY:
And then there was the matter of Ray Thompson, a confounding variable to the calculations of the KGB and its would-be 'supervillain." Although Artur Svetlii only witnessed a small ten year old child, inwardly the mutant was a moral monstrosity. In self-defence, his psionic abilities activated at once, forcibly reading Svetlii's mind and discovering a fortuitous addiction to Afghan heroin which had both affected his thought processes and crucially weakened his heart. Accordingly, Thompson's telekinesis arranged a fortuitous and fatal heart attack and the lifeless Soviet agent clapsed his heart as it suddenly stopped beating. Seconds later, the teleport retrieval programme cut in and the wunderwaffe response protocols returned the Justice Guild to Earth. Breathlessly, Ray explained to the the Guild that Captain Clockwork had suddenly keeled over and obviously needed medical attention. Behind him, the wunderwaffe fused and was then forever silent.
Out of mistaken beliefs about Ray Thompson's childhood 'innocence', Catman and Black Siren distracted him with appreciation of his compassion and initiative as Cassandra, Tom Turbine and the Green Guardsman tended to "Captain Clockwork's" corpse. When they saw Svetlii's right arm, its cyrillic character tattoo and needle tracks, they surmised what had happened, why Svetlii had attacked them and concluded that his severe drug addiction meant the excitement of the conflict had been too much for the compromised heart of their assailant.
Of course, Cassandra wasn't fooled. She understood what must have happened and rolled her eyes at Thompson's ingenue facade but shrugged, keeping quiet. Even if the brat had killed, it was an enemy agent who was threatening the rest of the Justice Guild who deserved what he got. As the Guild left the brownstone, unseen by most of the others, Thompson smiled to himself at his deception. What was better, Cassandra's silence indicated that she was willing to play along this time. Good. All in all, this had been a most productive day.
EPILOGUE:
A fortnight later, Pravda recorded the subsequent, much-mourned tragic death of Politbureau Defence Secretary Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (1908-1961), attributing his 'suicide' to mental illness... rather than a panicked telephone call from Vladimir Semichastny when the Red Army squad had arrived at his office door because of the failed strategy to exploit a now-inoperative wunderwaffe. CPSU Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev had been aware of Brezhnev's leadership aspirations for some time and used his latest failure to remove Brezhnev from office and deal with his KGB liaison at the same time. Trapped in his office, Semichastny resorted to a fatal pistol shot to his brain. As he saw the Red Army squad trooping toward the Kremlin, Brezhnev cursed fate and realised that his political ambitions and life were now over. Taking a cyanide capsule in his mouth, he crushed it between his teeth. When the arresting officers broke in the door to his office, they found the Defence Secretary sprawled inert and lifeless on the ground.
Eighteen months later, when Seaboard City was hit by the ICBM fired at Ryerson Air Roce Base, the Justice Guild brownstone collapsed around it, crushing and burying the TATNIT wunderwaffe beneath it. The identity of the wunderwaffe's creators and the earlier history of its use remain unknown.
THE END
