Post by redsycorax on Oct 18, 2018 3:45:01 GMT
The events of October 1962, when the Soviet Union and United States faced off against one another over the placement of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, a Soviet client state, had divergent resolutions on different alternate Earths. For example, on Earth-Prime, the two superpowers turned back from the brink and negotiations were soon underway to remove the offending missiles from Cuban territory, and although the Cold War continued for another twenty eight years and there were other close shaves (most notably in 1983), it did not experience the horrific contingency of a nuclear war. However, on other Earths, the "Cuban Missile Crisis" is known as the "Cuban War"...or else 'the Third World War." For example, on Earth-9, the Atom precipitously intruded into Cuban airspace, triggering a devastating if localised nuclear exchange that destroyed Cuba and the now-submerged former US state of Florida outright, as well as incinerating Washington DC and Atlanta. Mercifully, the Atom had sufficient metahuman capabilities to partially compensate for his error in judgement, and while millions died in Cuba and the southeastern United States, he was able to deflect sufficient nuclear missiles from both the United States and Soviet Union to avert further tragedy.
Other alternate Earths were far less fortunate. Take Earth-109, for example. On this world, the early sixties were the era of a group of low intensity metahumans known as the Justice Guild of America. Tom Turbine had superstrength and limited invulnerability, Catman was a Batman analogue, the Streak was a speedster but could only reach the speed of sound without harsh consequences, Green Guardsman had a power ring that was vulnerable to aluminium, and the Black Siren had a supersonic cry. The organisation also had a mascot, Ray Thompson, and was based on Seaboard City on the eastern coast of the United States. For the most part, the Justice Guild of America was the product of a more innocent age in US history, and focused its attention on preventing crime and battling supervillains such as the Injustice Guild. They ignored developments in foreign policy and the escalating nuclear arms race throughout the fifties until one dark day, in October 1962, it became impossible to do so any longer.
The pressure had been building for years. The United States was unsettled by the sudden overthrow of the Batista regime in Cuba and its growing closeness to its mortal adversary, the USSR. The construction of the Berlin Wall and stationing of nuclear missiles in Turkey, as well as the Bay of Pigs invasion fiasco, led to the Castro regime's decision to reciprocally allow the Soviet Union to launch ICBMs from the Carribean island, inevitably but belatedly discovered by high-altitude US surveillance aircraft due to cloud cover. By the time that they detected, they were fully operational and able to reach the east coast of the United States in a quarter of an hour. This led to a US naval blockade and announcement that the USSR would defy it in its assistance to the fledgeling communist state, before it backed down. Worried conversations were had in the United Nations, Kremlin and White House and both nations sent naval fleets and airborne bombers to the flashpoint and conducted nuclear tests. It didn't take very much to set the tinderbox alight.
On October 27 1962, two US destroyers, the Blandy and Domado, detected a Soviet B-130 submarine en route for the USS Randolph. Unaware that the B-130 carried nuclear-tipped missiles of its own, the Blandy dropped depth charges and in a moment of panic, the B-130 commander, Anatoli Shumkov, bereft of his incapacitated executive officer Vasili Andropov, made a fateful and haunting decision, using one of his vessel's nuclear tipped torpedoes to target and hit the USS Randolph. Water erupted into superheated steam and the resultant sudden flash of blinding light caused permanent vision loss to onlookers in Cuba and Florida. Given that act's consequences, these poor souls would not have to worry about their sudden blindness for much longer. An hour later, US marines and USAF personnel stormed ashore in Cuba. Almost immediately, one of the Soviet field commanders ordered the launch of one of the Soviet-based Cuban nuclear missiles against the invaders. Instants later, the US Guantanamo Bay base was vaporised beneath a roiling, dark red mushroom cloud. Seconds later, a second volley of missiles was launched. One detonated fifteen minutes later above the Lincoln Memorial and killed President Kennedy, Vice-President Johnson, the US Supreme Court justices, and whomsoever were present from the US Senate and House of Representatives -but not before the doomed US President had opened a certain briefcase, inputted codes and authorised the use of US nuclear weapons against the USSR and its satellites. From that point, there was no turning back.
At the same time, a firefight had broken out above the city of Berlin as USAF and Soviet airforce fighter jets engaged in a dogfight while the people on both sides of the newly constructed wall looked on nervously. Havana was the second city since Hiroshima and Nagasaki to face nuclear obliteration in vengeance for the fate of Washington DC. In distant Moscow, the Red Army seized power and shot Krushchev at point blank range, killing the last Soviet Premier almost instantly. Several hours later, Soviet and Warsaw Pact troops advanced into West Berlin and breached the West German border, in a haze of coventional ordinance. It wasn't long before the devolution of strategic command to local Red Army commanders resulted in the use of Soviet tactical nuclear weapons against NATO troops in West Germany. Finally, Soviet ICBMs fell on one site in Canada and nineteen within the United States- NORAD's wartime Cheyenne base in Colorado, Omaha Nebraska, Syracuse New York, Groton-New London Connecticut, Norfolk Virginia, Tucson Arizona, sites in North and South Dakota, San Diego California, Spokane Washington, Columbus Ohio, New York City, Philadelphia, Colorado Springs, Detroit, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Honolulu and Ottawa, the Canadian capital. In retaliation, NATO hit Baku, Baikonur, Chelyabinsk, Moscow, Vladivostok, Murmansk, Archangel, and more than one hundred and thirty two other Soviet cities which housed Red Army and airforce detachments. The Soviet Union was obliterated.
Amidst the chaos and intense loss of life, Seaboard City was caught in the middle of the growing international tragedy. Tom Turbine watched the unfolding cataclysm with a sense of unbelief and numbness. He had just returned from a briefing at Seaboard City Hall, his heart heavy, and for good reason. Lyra Lewis had been reporting for WSBS-TV in New York when the television screen he'd been watching suddenly showed a red, roiling cloud of debris, light and heat, before the body of the woman he loved was picked up and slammed away against the side of a building, which then disintegrated, and then the screen went white and then black as the Emergency Warning System activated. He looked down at the box and the ruby ring in his numb hand. After Lyra had returned from New York, he would have proposed to her. What was wrong with him? Why couldn't he cry? Why couldn't he feel anything? He knew he had to be strong for the others. "Man of Iron", indeed.
"Ted, has the world gone insane?" Black Siren asked her partner Catman, as she elegantly kicked a looter in his gonads, while the Feline Fury finished tieing up a set of related opportunists. He looked up and saw another two Soviet missiles blazing southeast toward the Atlantic coast and another target. Boston, he realised. He checked the police copysheet from his Catslair and replied:
"That's the last reported outbreak of civil disturbance, Donna. I'm just grateful the local police have been keeping things civilised, even if the Seaboard City Police Department watch house is overflowing at the moment. Poor old Sargeant O'Shaugnessy..."
An elderly woman hobbled up to the crimefighters:
"Thank you, Catman and Black Siren. Thank you, and thank the Justice Guild for just being out here, risking your lives, at a time like this. I don't think you realise how much hope you give the rest of us."
"Just doing our duty, ma'am." Catman said, managing a weary smile after five hours of tending to episodes of civil chaos in the small Atlantic coastal city.
"No, I mean it. You Justice Guild people could have gone away, left us all to anarchy and murder, but you've all stayed at your posts. I saw Green Guardsman and the Streak earlier tonight, evacuating the children's hospital, even though, any minute now, one of those bombs could wipe us all out. Oh look, here. I brought more coffee than my old husband and I can manage with. I know it's a small thing, but...God bless you all."
As they watched her negotiate the footpath en route to one of the rare buses still running, Black Siren said softly: "And God bless you, ma'am, for being an ordinary, decent person. It's because of you and others like you that we don't give up. Ted?"
"I wish I had your faith, Donna."
"If not for people like that dear old lady, then what are we doing any of this for? I just hope she and her husband are safe and sound at the end of this. Come on, Tom'll be wondering where we are." Black Siren climbed into the Catcycle sidecar as her companion mounted the main saddle and gunned its throttle.
In the Justice Guild brownstone, Green Guardsman and the Streak had just arrived. Scott (Green Guardsman) Mason shared none of the foreboding and sense of loss that his counterparts did. Although not religiously inclined as Black Siren was, Scott viewed the events of the last few days as signs of resolution and sacrifice against the threat of international communism. Of course, Moscow, Warsaw, Prague, Budapest and Sofia were all charred, buring desolate infernos full of smoke and corpses, and Cuba would be uninhabitable for thousands of years, but Scott Mason reckoned that although the current events were heartbreaking, they were not insurmountable. But then, Scott's parents were long dead, he lived for his work as WSBS-TV chief executive, and he'd fought in Korea a decade ago before he found the mystical artefact that had transformed him into the Green Guardsman.
For the Streak, it was less clearcut. He'd kissed his wife Irene and hugged his children, Jay and Jesse, after making sure they were safe in a civil defence mountain shelter. Then he'd sped southward to rejoin his colleagues. All he cared about was whether his family was safe, nothing more. However, he also knew his duty as a Justice Guild member was to stand alongside his colleagues at this time. He hoped that he would be able to return to Irene, Jay and Jesse at the end of this ordeal, but even if he couldn't, at least he knew the most precious thing on Earth was safe from the turmoil, anarchy and mass murder of the nuclear holocaust around them. Glancing at Green Guardsman, he wondered if his colleague was on those amphetamine drugs that his truckdriver friends talked to him about.
Tom Turbine raised his head and cleared his throat. This wouldn't be easy, but it had to be said:
"Fellow members of the Justice Guild of America. As you are aware, the Soviet Union and United States are at war with one another and there are millions dead across the continental United States and even in Hawaii. While we do not possess the magnitude of abilities to make a difference in that greater theatre of conflict, we will continue to stay here in Seaboard City until the end of hostilities or until word comes to evacuate its remaining inhabitants. We will continue to do our best to protect this corner of the United States and all who call it home."
"So say we all." Black Siren said, clearly and resonantly. Her hand found that of Catman.
"So say we all." Catman said, as his eyes met those of the woman he loved.
"So say we all." Green Guardsman nodded, his smile broad.
"So say we all." The Streak finished, gazing down at the photograph of his family in his hand before he slid it into a uniform pocket.
"Say, where's Ray?" Green Guardsman said, noticing that their teenage mascot was not at the venerable brownstone.
"His mother said he'd had trouble sleeping, so I decided to call this one at night. I'd like to thank the Seaboard City Times-Picayune press for covering this meeting. Godspeed you and your newspaper in these difficult times."
As the long, hideous night went on, half a world away, ICBMS were descending on Berlin, Bonn, and the cities of East and West Germany as NATO/Warsaw Pact fighting reached the inevitable point of no return. Within an hour, Paris and London were incinerated as were other major British and French cities. Beforehand, however, British Prime Minister MacMillan and French President Charles de Gaulle had launched their own smaller complement of nuclear missiles into the inferno. While Antwerp, Amsterdam and Rotterdam weren't hit, deadly fallout clouds began to spread westward from the charnel house that had once been Germany. In the distant United States, Ray Thompson was falling asleep as his mother softly sang his little sister's favourite nursery rhyme to aid her rest from the day's terrors as well- Pop Goes the Weasel. As she fell asleep, one of the last remaining set of co-ordinated ICBMs arced above the Chinese mainland, heading for Japan and South Korea, while in response, US retaliatory strikes had been launched several minutes ago against North Korea's corresponding strategic targets. In a matter of minutes, thousands of years of civilisation, art and literature flared into obscene heat, blinding light and mushroom clouds.
If there had not been an airforce base only twelve miles away, Seaboard City might have managed to survive what happened next. But it did, and out in the dark of the Atlantic, there were still Soviet submarines determined to carry out the wishes of their incinerated masters in burning, charnel house Moscow thousands of miles distant. Despite the electromagnetic interference from the detonations in Miami, Atlanta, New York, Washington, Philadelphia and Boston, the sub's sensors locked onto an intermittent set of messaging co-ordinates. The navigational and guidance systems locked onto it and instants later, a Soviet Navy ICBM erupted forth. Its propulsion system was damaged, although given the paucity of antiballistic missiles or remaining fighter jets still available for countermeasures, the odds were on that it would reach its destination, Ryerson Air Force Base, in forty minutes. Ten minutes later, a surviving coast guard vessel saw the arc of light as the missile flew past high above it, and radioed Civil Defence. Miraculously, it was still able to reach it through the static caused by multiple nuclear detonations on the eastern coast. Why it targeted Ryerson may never be fully known. Perhaps the commander was from a small Russian town that had been incinerated in the bombardment of the USSR and wanted vengeance in kind. Perhaps he was a completist and utterly dedicated to his task, wanting to insure the remnants of the United States could never wage war again.
The air raid warning klaxon rang out across the startled city five minutes later. Catman looked up:
"There must be one on course for Ryerson. All the air force personnel there will die and the blast will devastate Seaboard City's outlying suburbs."
Tom Turbine nodded: "I know I asked for a vote earlier and you all assented, but... if any of you want to seek shelter now, we won't think poorly of you."
"No, Tom," Black Siren said,"we protect and serve. If we can stop or even mitigate what's about to happen, we owe it to the people of this city to try to shield them from the blast. What do you want us to do?"
"Scott, Jake and Donna, we need you to use your power ring energy blasts, superspeed and sonic scream if anyone else fails to stop this. I'm an engineer, I've worked on these before this. Scott, drop me on the missile so I can try to defuse it. If that fails, I'll try to alter its trajectory so it hits some distance away from Ryerson and Seaboard City."
"Tom, you'll die." Ted said softly
"If it comes to that, yes. But at least we may be able to prevent more substantial loss of life." Tom said.
"We're with you, then, Tom."
"Are you sure, Jake? What about Irene and your family?"
"I've already said goodbye to them. For whatever it's worth, everyone, it's been an honour and a privilege serving with you."
"Donna, you don't have to..."
"Ted, I've fought alongside the rest of you for the last fifteen years. I've lived and worked alongside you and I'll die with you if it's necessary." Catman took his companion in his arms and kissed her deeply, with tears in his eyes. She was blinking back her own as they parted, and each member of the Justice Guild of America prepared for the role that they had to play in the unfolding drama.
"She's a remarkable woman." Tom Turbine said as Green Guardsman and he accelerated over the Atlantic to rendezvous with the onrushing missile.
"That she is. God keep you, old friend." He dropped onto the sleek body of the missile, just above its main instrument panel, holding his breath as he unscrewed it and prepared for his task, shining a pencil torch at the innards of its guidance system and targeting array as the wind whipped around him, dressed in a gas mask and radiation suit. He ached inside, knowing that he would never be able to say goodbye to Lyra, but soon, he might be able to see her again, albeit not on this world. No time to think about that now. He had to finish this task, even if it meant his own life. And although he had limited invulnerability, this was beyond his bodily constraints. Tethered to the missile, he kept at his work.
But the Soviet engineers had been too proficient in their deadly task, and Tom Turbine watched as the timer on his wrist ticked down past the point of no return. It crossed the Atlantic coast, now only forty miles away from Ryerson airbase and the surrounding suburban outreaches of Seaboard City. It was too late to abort it at sea, and he cursed his luck softly, although no-one could hear him. He was running out of time and options. The only thing that he could do now was to insure that the missile went off course and didn't cause substantial loss of life. But by now, the hard radiation was taking a lethal toll. His eyesight blurred, but he was finally able to pull the last wire away from its guidance system and it emitted a satisfying hiss and curl of smoke as it began to falter in its trajectory as its engines spluttered and finally died and it started to fall. But by then, Tom Turbine was oblivious to what was about to happen, perhaps mercifully so. His tether broke and he fell to the ground below, breaking his neck and spine as he landed. Perhaps mercifully, he was dead from radiation poisoning by then and therefore would not witness the sacrifice of his comrades.
As one, the other three members of the Justice Guild directed their energies toward the oncoming missile. Green Guardsman exerted all his willpower at the bright, shining pinpoint, Black Siren unleashed a devastating sonic cry and the Streak ran backward and forward, trying to establish a wind barrier that would protect the inhabitants of the city and USAF base from the tragedy that was about to unfold. Their concerted efforts had their inevitable conclusion as the weakened and disoriented missile detonated, vaporising anything within a ninety metre radius. Green Guardsman, Streak and Black Siren didn't even know what had happened, given that the blast pressures, heat and light moved faster than the speed of a pulse between a neuron and synapse, so they didn't feel any pain as they passed from existence. Catman turned out to be the last survivor of the Justice Guild as the blast pressures moved outward and hit the JGA brownstone. He had finished sealing a description of their final adventure into a blast proof capsule and sealed it. As the roiling, blinding shockwave hit the building, Catman said: "Donna..." The wavefront slammed into the Justice Guild headquarters and debris and falling masonry and debris crushed Catman beneath it, killing him instantly.
Seconds later, the debris, heat and blinding light impacted against the subway station near the brownstone, throwing the train off its tracks, shattering its windows and the platform at which it had been standing. There was no-one there at that time of the morning, except for a newspaper delivery person who was incinerated as he left the stairs upward to the main street and died of third degree burns several hours later. Some of the Seaboard City Times-Picayune final edition copies (October 29, 1962) survived, shielded from the brutal fires outside, carrying the grim but prescient headline JGA Die In Battle. In a suburban street, an icecream truck was sheltered in a deep basement, although a jolt started it playing its accompanying refrain Pop Goes the Weasel. But it would be several decades before the survivors of Seacoast City saw anything like 'ice cream' again. Destruction scoured its streets, shattering windows, melting exposed metal and plastic, charring any human flesh in the open and leaving some to fortuitiously vaporise, others to perish agonisingly of third degree burns and others to die from broken legs, blindness and radiation poisoning in their shattered homes. A fortunate few had made it to fallout shelters in time and a fair proportion of those were resilient enough to ford the maelstrom outside. However, in some cases, their occupants were driven to madness and suicide by the cries of terror and pain they heard outside at the time of impact and the days afterward.
Outside the shattered, burning chaos that had once been Seaboard City, grimmer thresholds were crossed. In the northwestern Pacific, Vladivostok presided over the immolation of six South Korean cities before a Guam-based ICBM launch vaporised the Soviet Pacific submarine bases and missile silos there. Retaliation was swift as a surviving Soviet Navy submarine sheltered in the Aleutian chain launched its own deadly complement of missiles toward North America, vaporising Vancouver and Seattle within seconds of one another. Minneapolis joined it five minutes later. From then on, the conflict started to ebb, apart from rogue submarine incidents like the ones that pulverised Guam and tragically, Stockholm in neutral Sweden. Across Europe, the death toll was in the millions. The former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe had been destroyed outright. Altogether, out of a pre-war global population of an estimated three billion, nearly five hundred million had perished. China, Turkey, Switzerland and Northern Africa all suffered collateral damage from fallout and atmospheric damage as temperatures plunged from the soot and debris from the devastated charnel house cities across hundreds of miles. Civil order collapsed across North America, Europe, Japan, North and South Korea. China escaped significant immediate damage and recovered quickly, but the balance of global power on the devastated planet had shifted east and south. In the postwar world, China, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand, South Africa and India emerged as major players. However, they had their hands full trying to deal with the renegade remnants of US and Soviet naval taskforces as well as combat famine, the collapse of puppet regimes left and right and plague in the remainder of Africa and Asia and spared little thought for the devastated hinterlands of North America and Europe. As time went on, resentment grew against the former superpowers that had brought this magnitude of calamity upon humanity and the ascendant interests outside the funeral pyres of that vanished world decided it was best to shut the door and leave them to their fate.
In Seaboard City, just two hundred and twenty five people survived out of a prewar total that had numbered twenty five thousand. When they emerged from their fallout shelters, however, the surviving inhabitants of Seaboard City had another obstacle to confront. Ray Thompson's parents and sister had died in their inadequate fallout shelter, but their eldest son had...changed, latent genes given agency and purpose by the intensive radiation that the boy had been exposed to. Physiologically, he was stunted- but he also had acquired startling telepathic abilities as a result of his abrupt mutation. His head was bulbous, his eyes reddened and with the power of his opened mind, he was determined to resurrect what had just been lost. While some of the surviving inhabitants of Seaboard City fought his psionic subordination and servitude, others preferred to live within the seductive lotus land that the mutant offered to them, living in a brightly lit fantasia where the devastation and loss of nuclear war had never come. In tribute to his friends and colleagues, Thompson also 'resurrected' the Justice Guild of America, vacantly eyed automaton images who lived in the feigned, amnesiac innocent facade of a conservative, utopian past, epitomised by the empty ice-cream truck and its repetitious, seemingly innocent children's rhyme. It would remain that way for decades to come, until an alternate universe metahuman organisation called the Justice League of America travelled inadvertantly to Earth-109 and Seaboard City in April 2002 and dissolved the fabric of fantasy and artefice that Thompson had constructed. The Justice Guild's phantasms broke free and had one last victory, before Seaboard City's inhabitants awoke to the realities of a world without their long-vanquished champions. But thanks to the Justice Guild's nobility of spirit and ultimate sacrifice, at least a handful of them were still alive to witness it.
THE END
Other alternate Earths were far less fortunate. Take Earth-109, for example. On this world, the early sixties were the era of a group of low intensity metahumans known as the Justice Guild of America. Tom Turbine had superstrength and limited invulnerability, Catman was a Batman analogue, the Streak was a speedster but could only reach the speed of sound without harsh consequences, Green Guardsman had a power ring that was vulnerable to aluminium, and the Black Siren had a supersonic cry. The organisation also had a mascot, Ray Thompson, and was based on Seaboard City on the eastern coast of the United States. For the most part, the Justice Guild of America was the product of a more innocent age in US history, and focused its attention on preventing crime and battling supervillains such as the Injustice Guild. They ignored developments in foreign policy and the escalating nuclear arms race throughout the fifties until one dark day, in October 1962, it became impossible to do so any longer.
The pressure had been building for years. The United States was unsettled by the sudden overthrow of the Batista regime in Cuba and its growing closeness to its mortal adversary, the USSR. The construction of the Berlin Wall and stationing of nuclear missiles in Turkey, as well as the Bay of Pigs invasion fiasco, led to the Castro regime's decision to reciprocally allow the Soviet Union to launch ICBMs from the Carribean island, inevitably but belatedly discovered by high-altitude US surveillance aircraft due to cloud cover. By the time that they detected, they were fully operational and able to reach the east coast of the United States in a quarter of an hour. This led to a US naval blockade and announcement that the USSR would defy it in its assistance to the fledgeling communist state, before it backed down. Worried conversations were had in the United Nations, Kremlin and White House and both nations sent naval fleets and airborne bombers to the flashpoint and conducted nuclear tests. It didn't take very much to set the tinderbox alight.
On October 27 1962, two US destroyers, the Blandy and Domado, detected a Soviet B-130 submarine en route for the USS Randolph. Unaware that the B-130 carried nuclear-tipped missiles of its own, the Blandy dropped depth charges and in a moment of panic, the B-130 commander, Anatoli Shumkov, bereft of his incapacitated executive officer Vasili Andropov, made a fateful and haunting decision, using one of his vessel's nuclear tipped torpedoes to target and hit the USS Randolph. Water erupted into superheated steam and the resultant sudden flash of blinding light caused permanent vision loss to onlookers in Cuba and Florida. Given that act's consequences, these poor souls would not have to worry about their sudden blindness for much longer. An hour later, US marines and USAF personnel stormed ashore in Cuba. Almost immediately, one of the Soviet field commanders ordered the launch of one of the Soviet-based Cuban nuclear missiles against the invaders. Instants later, the US Guantanamo Bay base was vaporised beneath a roiling, dark red mushroom cloud. Seconds later, a second volley of missiles was launched. One detonated fifteen minutes later above the Lincoln Memorial and killed President Kennedy, Vice-President Johnson, the US Supreme Court justices, and whomsoever were present from the US Senate and House of Representatives -but not before the doomed US President had opened a certain briefcase, inputted codes and authorised the use of US nuclear weapons against the USSR and its satellites. From that point, there was no turning back.
At the same time, a firefight had broken out above the city of Berlin as USAF and Soviet airforce fighter jets engaged in a dogfight while the people on both sides of the newly constructed wall looked on nervously. Havana was the second city since Hiroshima and Nagasaki to face nuclear obliteration in vengeance for the fate of Washington DC. In distant Moscow, the Red Army seized power and shot Krushchev at point blank range, killing the last Soviet Premier almost instantly. Several hours later, Soviet and Warsaw Pact troops advanced into West Berlin and breached the West German border, in a haze of coventional ordinance. It wasn't long before the devolution of strategic command to local Red Army commanders resulted in the use of Soviet tactical nuclear weapons against NATO troops in West Germany. Finally, Soviet ICBMs fell on one site in Canada and nineteen within the United States- NORAD's wartime Cheyenne base in Colorado, Omaha Nebraska, Syracuse New York, Groton-New London Connecticut, Norfolk Virginia, Tucson Arizona, sites in North and South Dakota, San Diego California, Spokane Washington, Columbus Ohio, New York City, Philadelphia, Colorado Springs, Detroit, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Honolulu and Ottawa, the Canadian capital. In retaliation, NATO hit Baku, Baikonur, Chelyabinsk, Moscow, Vladivostok, Murmansk, Archangel, and more than one hundred and thirty two other Soviet cities which housed Red Army and airforce detachments. The Soviet Union was obliterated.
Amidst the chaos and intense loss of life, Seaboard City was caught in the middle of the growing international tragedy. Tom Turbine watched the unfolding cataclysm with a sense of unbelief and numbness. He had just returned from a briefing at Seaboard City Hall, his heart heavy, and for good reason. Lyra Lewis had been reporting for WSBS-TV in New York when the television screen he'd been watching suddenly showed a red, roiling cloud of debris, light and heat, before the body of the woman he loved was picked up and slammed away against the side of a building, which then disintegrated, and then the screen went white and then black as the Emergency Warning System activated. He looked down at the box and the ruby ring in his numb hand. After Lyra had returned from New York, he would have proposed to her. What was wrong with him? Why couldn't he cry? Why couldn't he feel anything? He knew he had to be strong for the others. "Man of Iron", indeed.
"Ted, has the world gone insane?" Black Siren asked her partner Catman, as she elegantly kicked a looter in his gonads, while the Feline Fury finished tieing up a set of related opportunists. He looked up and saw another two Soviet missiles blazing southeast toward the Atlantic coast and another target. Boston, he realised. He checked the police copysheet from his Catslair and replied:
"That's the last reported outbreak of civil disturbance, Donna. I'm just grateful the local police have been keeping things civilised, even if the Seaboard City Police Department watch house is overflowing at the moment. Poor old Sargeant O'Shaugnessy..."
An elderly woman hobbled up to the crimefighters:
"Thank you, Catman and Black Siren. Thank you, and thank the Justice Guild for just being out here, risking your lives, at a time like this. I don't think you realise how much hope you give the rest of us."
"Just doing our duty, ma'am." Catman said, managing a weary smile after five hours of tending to episodes of civil chaos in the small Atlantic coastal city.
"No, I mean it. You Justice Guild people could have gone away, left us all to anarchy and murder, but you've all stayed at your posts. I saw Green Guardsman and the Streak earlier tonight, evacuating the children's hospital, even though, any minute now, one of those bombs could wipe us all out. Oh look, here. I brought more coffee than my old husband and I can manage with. I know it's a small thing, but...God bless you all."
As they watched her negotiate the footpath en route to one of the rare buses still running, Black Siren said softly: "And God bless you, ma'am, for being an ordinary, decent person. It's because of you and others like you that we don't give up. Ted?"
"I wish I had your faith, Donna."
"If not for people like that dear old lady, then what are we doing any of this for? I just hope she and her husband are safe and sound at the end of this. Come on, Tom'll be wondering where we are." Black Siren climbed into the Catcycle sidecar as her companion mounted the main saddle and gunned its throttle.
In the Justice Guild brownstone, Green Guardsman and the Streak had just arrived. Scott (Green Guardsman) Mason shared none of the foreboding and sense of loss that his counterparts did. Although not religiously inclined as Black Siren was, Scott viewed the events of the last few days as signs of resolution and sacrifice against the threat of international communism. Of course, Moscow, Warsaw, Prague, Budapest and Sofia were all charred, buring desolate infernos full of smoke and corpses, and Cuba would be uninhabitable for thousands of years, but Scott Mason reckoned that although the current events were heartbreaking, they were not insurmountable. But then, Scott's parents were long dead, he lived for his work as WSBS-TV chief executive, and he'd fought in Korea a decade ago before he found the mystical artefact that had transformed him into the Green Guardsman.
For the Streak, it was less clearcut. He'd kissed his wife Irene and hugged his children, Jay and Jesse, after making sure they were safe in a civil defence mountain shelter. Then he'd sped southward to rejoin his colleagues. All he cared about was whether his family was safe, nothing more. However, he also knew his duty as a Justice Guild member was to stand alongside his colleagues at this time. He hoped that he would be able to return to Irene, Jay and Jesse at the end of this ordeal, but even if he couldn't, at least he knew the most precious thing on Earth was safe from the turmoil, anarchy and mass murder of the nuclear holocaust around them. Glancing at Green Guardsman, he wondered if his colleague was on those amphetamine drugs that his truckdriver friends talked to him about.
Tom Turbine raised his head and cleared his throat. This wouldn't be easy, but it had to be said:
"Fellow members of the Justice Guild of America. As you are aware, the Soviet Union and United States are at war with one another and there are millions dead across the continental United States and even in Hawaii. While we do not possess the magnitude of abilities to make a difference in that greater theatre of conflict, we will continue to stay here in Seaboard City until the end of hostilities or until word comes to evacuate its remaining inhabitants. We will continue to do our best to protect this corner of the United States and all who call it home."
"So say we all." Black Siren said, clearly and resonantly. Her hand found that of Catman.
"So say we all." Catman said, as his eyes met those of the woman he loved.
"So say we all." Green Guardsman nodded, his smile broad.
"So say we all." The Streak finished, gazing down at the photograph of his family in his hand before he slid it into a uniform pocket.
"Say, where's Ray?" Green Guardsman said, noticing that their teenage mascot was not at the venerable brownstone.
"His mother said he'd had trouble sleeping, so I decided to call this one at night. I'd like to thank the Seaboard City Times-Picayune press for covering this meeting. Godspeed you and your newspaper in these difficult times."
As the long, hideous night went on, half a world away, ICBMS were descending on Berlin, Bonn, and the cities of East and West Germany as NATO/Warsaw Pact fighting reached the inevitable point of no return. Within an hour, Paris and London were incinerated as were other major British and French cities. Beforehand, however, British Prime Minister MacMillan and French President Charles de Gaulle had launched their own smaller complement of nuclear missiles into the inferno. While Antwerp, Amsterdam and Rotterdam weren't hit, deadly fallout clouds began to spread westward from the charnel house that had once been Germany. In the distant United States, Ray Thompson was falling asleep as his mother softly sang his little sister's favourite nursery rhyme to aid her rest from the day's terrors as well- Pop Goes the Weasel. As she fell asleep, one of the last remaining set of co-ordinated ICBMs arced above the Chinese mainland, heading for Japan and South Korea, while in response, US retaliatory strikes had been launched several minutes ago against North Korea's corresponding strategic targets. In a matter of minutes, thousands of years of civilisation, art and literature flared into obscene heat, blinding light and mushroom clouds.
If there had not been an airforce base only twelve miles away, Seaboard City might have managed to survive what happened next. But it did, and out in the dark of the Atlantic, there were still Soviet submarines determined to carry out the wishes of their incinerated masters in burning, charnel house Moscow thousands of miles distant. Despite the electromagnetic interference from the detonations in Miami, Atlanta, New York, Washington, Philadelphia and Boston, the sub's sensors locked onto an intermittent set of messaging co-ordinates. The navigational and guidance systems locked onto it and instants later, a Soviet Navy ICBM erupted forth. Its propulsion system was damaged, although given the paucity of antiballistic missiles or remaining fighter jets still available for countermeasures, the odds were on that it would reach its destination, Ryerson Air Force Base, in forty minutes. Ten minutes later, a surviving coast guard vessel saw the arc of light as the missile flew past high above it, and radioed Civil Defence. Miraculously, it was still able to reach it through the static caused by multiple nuclear detonations on the eastern coast. Why it targeted Ryerson may never be fully known. Perhaps the commander was from a small Russian town that had been incinerated in the bombardment of the USSR and wanted vengeance in kind. Perhaps he was a completist and utterly dedicated to his task, wanting to insure the remnants of the United States could never wage war again.
The air raid warning klaxon rang out across the startled city five minutes later. Catman looked up:
"There must be one on course for Ryerson. All the air force personnel there will die and the blast will devastate Seaboard City's outlying suburbs."
Tom Turbine nodded: "I know I asked for a vote earlier and you all assented, but... if any of you want to seek shelter now, we won't think poorly of you."
"No, Tom," Black Siren said,"we protect and serve. If we can stop or even mitigate what's about to happen, we owe it to the people of this city to try to shield them from the blast. What do you want us to do?"
"Scott, Jake and Donna, we need you to use your power ring energy blasts, superspeed and sonic scream if anyone else fails to stop this. I'm an engineer, I've worked on these before this. Scott, drop me on the missile so I can try to defuse it. If that fails, I'll try to alter its trajectory so it hits some distance away from Ryerson and Seaboard City."
"Tom, you'll die." Ted said softly
"If it comes to that, yes. But at least we may be able to prevent more substantial loss of life." Tom said.
"We're with you, then, Tom."
"Are you sure, Jake? What about Irene and your family?"
"I've already said goodbye to them. For whatever it's worth, everyone, it's been an honour and a privilege serving with you."
"Donna, you don't have to..."
"Ted, I've fought alongside the rest of you for the last fifteen years. I've lived and worked alongside you and I'll die with you if it's necessary." Catman took his companion in his arms and kissed her deeply, with tears in his eyes. She was blinking back her own as they parted, and each member of the Justice Guild of America prepared for the role that they had to play in the unfolding drama.
"She's a remarkable woman." Tom Turbine said as Green Guardsman and he accelerated over the Atlantic to rendezvous with the onrushing missile.
"That she is. God keep you, old friend." He dropped onto the sleek body of the missile, just above its main instrument panel, holding his breath as he unscrewed it and prepared for his task, shining a pencil torch at the innards of its guidance system and targeting array as the wind whipped around him, dressed in a gas mask and radiation suit. He ached inside, knowing that he would never be able to say goodbye to Lyra, but soon, he might be able to see her again, albeit not on this world. No time to think about that now. He had to finish this task, even if it meant his own life. And although he had limited invulnerability, this was beyond his bodily constraints. Tethered to the missile, he kept at his work.
But the Soviet engineers had been too proficient in their deadly task, and Tom Turbine watched as the timer on his wrist ticked down past the point of no return. It crossed the Atlantic coast, now only forty miles away from Ryerson airbase and the surrounding suburban outreaches of Seaboard City. It was too late to abort it at sea, and he cursed his luck softly, although no-one could hear him. He was running out of time and options. The only thing that he could do now was to insure that the missile went off course and didn't cause substantial loss of life. But by now, the hard radiation was taking a lethal toll. His eyesight blurred, but he was finally able to pull the last wire away from its guidance system and it emitted a satisfying hiss and curl of smoke as it began to falter in its trajectory as its engines spluttered and finally died and it started to fall. But by then, Tom Turbine was oblivious to what was about to happen, perhaps mercifully so. His tether broke and he fell to the ground below, breaking his neck and spine as he landed. Perhaps mercifully, he was dead from radiation poisoning by then and therefore would not witness the sacrifice of his comrades.
As one, the other three members of the Justice Guild directed their energies toward the oncoming missile. Green Guardsman exerted all his willpower at the bright, shining pinpoint, Black Siren unleashed a devastating sonic cry and the Streak ran backward and forward, trying to establish a wind barrier that would protect the inhabitants of the city and USAF base from the tragedy that was about to unfold. Their concerted efforts had their inevitable conclusion as the weakened and disoriented missile detonated, vaporising anything within a ninety metre radius. Green Guardsman, Streak and Black Siren didn't even know what had happened, given that the blast pressures, heat and light moved faster than the speed of a pulse between a neuron and synapse, so they didn't feel any pain as they passed from existence. Catman turned out to be the last survivor of the Justice Guild as the blast pressures moved outward and hit the JGA brownstone. He had finished sealing a description of their final adventure into a blast proof capsule and sealed it. As the roiling, blinding shockwave hit the building, Catman said: "Donna..." The wavefront slammed into the Justice Guild headquarters and debris and falling masonry and debris crushed Catman beneath it, killing him instantly.
Seconds later, the debris, heat and blinding light impacted against the subway station near the brownstone, throwing the train off its tracks, shattering its windows and the platform at which it had been standing. There was no-one there at that time of the morning, except for a newspaper delivery person who was incinerated as he left the stairs upward to the main street and died of third degree burns several hours later. Some of the Seaboard City Times-Picayune final edition copies (October 29, 1962) survived, shielded from the brutal fires outside, carrying the grim but prescient headline JGA Die In Battle. In a suburban street, an icecream truck was sheltered in a deep basement, although a jolt started it playing its accompanying refrain Pop Goes the Weasel. But it would be several decades before the survivors of Seacoast City saw anything like 'ice cream' again. Destruction scoured its streets, shattering windows, melting exposed metal and plastic, charring any human flesh in the open and leaving some to fortuitiously vaporise, others to perish agonisingly of third degree burns and others to die from broken legs, blindness and radiation poisoning in their shattered homes. A fortunate few had made it to fallout shelters in time and a fair proportion of those were resilient enough to ford the maelstrom outside. However, in some cases, their occupants were driven to madness and suicide by the cries of terror and pain they heard outside at the time of impact and the days afterward.
Outside the shattered, burning chaos that had once been Seaboard City, grimmer thresholds were crossed. In the northwestern Pacific, Vladivostok presided over the immolation of six South Korean cities before a Guam-based ICBM launch vaporised the Soviet Pacific submarine bases and missile silos there. Retaliation was swift as a surviving Soviet Navy submarine sheltered in the Aleutian chain launched its own deadly complement of missiles toward North America, vaporising Vancouver and Seattle within seconds of one another. Minneapolis joined it five minutes later. From then on, the conflict started to ebb, apart from rogue submarine incidents like the ones that pulverised Guam and tragically, Stockholm in neutral Sweden. Across Europe, the death toll was in the millions. The former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe had been destroyed outright. Altogether, out of a pre-war global population of an estimated three billion, nearly five hundred million had perished. China, Turkey, Switzerland and Northern Africa all suffered collateral damage from fallout and atmospheric damage as temperatures plunged from the soot and debris from the devastated charnel house cities across hundreds of miles. Civil order collapsed across North America, Europe, Japan, North and South Korea. China escaped significant immediate damage and recovered quickly, but the balance of global power on the devastated planet had shifted east and south. In the postwar world, China, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand, South Africa and India emerged as major players. However, they had their hands full trying to deal with the renegade remnants of US and Soviet naval taskforces as well as combat famine, the collapse of puppet regimes left and right and plague in the remainder of Africa and Asia and spared little thought for the devastated hinterlands of North America and Europe. As time went on, resentment grew against the former superpowers that had brought this magnitude of calamity upon humanity and the ascendant interests outside the funeral pyres of that vanished world decided it was best to shut the door and leave them to their fate.
In Seaboard City, just two hundred and twenty five people survived out of a prewar total that had numbered twenty five thousand. When they emerged from their fallout shelters, however, the surviving inhabitants of Seaboard City had another obstacle to confront. Ray Thompson's parents and sister had died in their inadequate fallout shelter, but their eldest son had...changed, latent genes given agency and purpose by the intensive radiation that the boy had been exposed to. Physiologically, he was stunted- but he also had acquired startling telepathic abilities as a result of his abrupt mutation. His head was bulbous, his eyes reddened and with the power of his opened mind, he was determined to resurrect what had just been lost. While some of the surviving inhabitants of Seaboard City fought his psionic subordination and servitude, others preferred to live within the seductive lotus land that the mutant offered to them, living in a brightly lit fantasia where the devastation and loss of nuclear war had never come. In tribute to his friends and colleagues, Thompson also 'resurrected' the Justice Guild of America, vacantly eyed automaton images who lived in the feigned, amnesiac innocent facade of a conservative, utopian past, epitomised by the empty ice-cream truck and its repetitious, seemingly innocent children's rhyme. It would remain that way for decades to come, until an alternate universe metahuman organisation called the Justice League of America travelled inadvertantly to Earth-109 and Seaboard City in April 2002 and dissolved the fabric of fantasy and artefice that Thompson had constructed. The Justice Guild's phantasms broke free and had one last victory, before Seaboard City's inhabitants awoke to the realities of a world without their long-vanquished champions. But thanks to the Justice Guild's nobility of spirit and ultimate sacrifice, at least a handful of them were still alive to witness it.
THE END