Anime Mundi: From Bad To Mangaverse |
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| [The Foundry]
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Issue #26, “Anime Mundi, Part I”WHAT HAS TRANSPIRED SO FAR (“The Search,” Issue 25): The Foundry goes off in search of the missing Atlanteans from the “Whisky In A Jar” storyline (Issues 18-20). Max improvises a gigantic scanning antenna using VoxDots, Captain Atlantis’ sensing device, and the wiring and piping emanating from City Hall. This device successfully located the brainwave patterns of the “merfolk”—somewhere in a four-block area underneath the corporate headquarters for both the Throckmorton Group and Oregon Journal MediaCorp. Vic and Joshua send Pyro and Energon to investigate the Sauvie Island leads discovered in “Happy Birthday, Don’t Be A Stranger” (Issue 24) while Tabula Rasa, Frisson, Jeopardy, Velocity and ‘Porter search the Old Underground. Vic and Dani decide that it would be best to divert the attention of the Throckmortons, should they be involved somehow. Vic calls Jean-Pierre d’Aubaine and prompts him to tighten security in preparation for a Checkerhead raid. He then calls Inspector Shinmen and tells him what may be lurking underneath the two skyscrapers’ underground parking garages. While Throckmorton Group Security tries to obstruct the Checkerheads, the Foundry slips into the Old Underground. They discover an unused sewer cistern that Shadowstrike may have overlooked. Shortly after entry, they discover a vampire and an Atlantean standing sentry near an array of fiber-optic cameras. They strike up a conversation with the Atlantean and gain entry into Dr. Patria Morii’s underground sanctum. The Sum of All Fields and the two “anime chicks” from “Highly Illogical” (Issue 14) greet the superheroes at the door and guide them toward a conference room where the doctor is displayed on a viewscreen. After some small talk, they discover:
The Sum of All Fields, the two anime women, two Atlanteans and the room itself team up against our heroes. Only Jeopardy manages to escape unharmed, and that is after mind-controlling an Atlantean into helping him. Upon reaching the surface, Jeopardy and the Atlantean discover that a computer virus somehow infiltrated into COMETPRO powered armor suits and caused them to act of their own volition. The suits ran amok, blasting anything and everything along Main Street—buildings, vehicles, cops, reporters, you name it. Despite the capture of four of the team—Tabula Rasa, Frisson, ‘Porter and Velocity—the Foundry succeeded in one part of their mission: The Atlantean that took Jeopardy up to the surface was able to make contact with his people, averting an invasion of the West Coast.
MONDAY 10 JUNE 2002, 2:43 p.m. Pacific Time OREGON JOURNAL MEDIACORP BUILDING, 1016 BROADWAY S.W.: Jeopardy slumps against an overturned police SUV and surveys the devastation. Checkerheads and Feds are littered about, too many to assist. The prone and unmoving form of Inspector Matt Shinmen is in the middle of the street between two heavily-damaged and twitching COMETPRO powered-armor agents. Three more suits of armor lay half a block away, unmoving. Medics are picking up and carting off Caballera and Gemini from Team Hyperion. About a dozen police and FBI vehicles still burn out of control, and a haze of smoke obscures everything above the fourth floor of surrounding buildings. Three television stations’ satellite trucks have been reduced to smoking husks with blackened dishes, their tires burned off. All the buildings within a one-block radius bear blown-out windows and doors, and sprinklers in the buildings contribute to the stream flowing down Main Street toward Commerce Boulevard. All Jeopardy can think of is Danielle. He knows someone is standing over him and speaking to him, but he cannot hear. Danielle is down there. He makes note of the logo on the leg strap of the man’s holster . . .
. . . before a woman’s voice calls to him in his mind: Jeopardy, we can be of mutual assistance. Special Agent Antonio Marcoli turns away from Jeopardy and saunters over toward another agent dressed in black. He utters one word to the agent: “Report.” “Whoever this is, they’re still jamming all frequencies,” says the agent, cupping his hand over the receiver and leaning into the phone booth, “but we have land lines. I’ve notified Foundry Control, they’re sending Energon and Pyro for the rescue team. Brother Knight and Halitosis are on their way from Hyperion HQ. I’ve got Washington on the line; they’re having kittens about the suits malfunctioning.” Marcoli takes the receiver as the agent offers it: “This is Marcoli. Get me Phase ALPINE Control, this is an Umbra Zero Zero Priority. You can look it the $#^& up later, just patch me through—yesterday!!” As Marcoli lowers the receiver from his mouth, the agent reports: “This has to be a virus. Unit 903 reported some strange gibberish on his HUD before the suits went nuts.” “Yes, this is Marcoli, Antonio, 8790113697, Umbra Zero Zero. I need the Horseman at this phone number’s GPS coordinates. Also, I need Skyhook ready for a three-point field goal, at the very same coordinates, as Plan B. I need--.” Marcoli’s jaw drops as he listens on the other end. He hangs up and says simply, “We’re screwed.” “What’s wrong?” “Paladin Noir has been dispatched to fly up and investigate why Skyhook suddenly is malfunctioning. It may take an hour to reroute him.” Marcoli leans against the opposite side of the pay phone and opens his black duster, revealing an odd-shaped oversized pistol in an underarm holster. “We’re not supposed to bring this bastard out unless it’s World War Three,” he adds, pulling out the high-tech weapon and handing it over to the agent, “but this is as close as it gets. You’re on the rescue team. Any hostiles, you know what to do. Whatever happens, this thing returns to the weapons locker even if we don’t, capisce?” The agent nods and tucks the weapon inside his suit.
MONDAY 10 JUNE 2002, 10:46 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time SOMEWHERE IN GEOSYNCHRONOUS ORBIT: A spherical, radio dish-adorned black object shifts its position and opens a compartment on its earthward side. At closer inspection, the object bears no markings. Neither do the two lenses that appear. The object dwarfs the booster-rocket fragment marked “CCCP” that flies past it. Seventeen thousand miles below, Paladin Noir streaks past the Himalayas in the sights of the black spherical object called Skyhook. As soon as the crosshairs line up with the speeding superhero, the second lens lights up and unleashes a strobing white-hot beam three feet wide and seventeen thousand miles long. Somewhere in China, a smoking streak plows into a mountainside. MONDAY 10 JUNE 2002, 2:46 p.m. Pacific Time SOMEWHERE UNDER DOWNTOWN RAVENSGATE: Patria Morii watches the crosshairs and Chinese moutainside fade from one of her viewscreens. She turns her gaze toward another viewscreen, also with crosshairs, as that cursor moves across a star map. The crosshairs begin flashing when they intersect upon one particular star: ThetaXi1138. “Number One’s detoxification process is ninety-two percent complete,” reports The Sum of All Fields, gesturing to a blue water-filled tank in which the red-headed anime chick is floating. “The autosurgeon has completed its work on Number Two.” “Thank you,” Morii says as she types numbers into a console, then stands up and walks toward the medical lab. “Have you initiated your internal repair subroutine?” “Negative,” the android replies, adding: “Your attendants required my assistance with preparing our prisoners for immersion therapy. Subjects one through four will be on-line within one minute. At that time, I will initiate—.” “Thank you, that will be all,” says Morii, approaching a large metallic table obscured by banks of electronic machines. “Continue monitoring the immersion, then initiate self-repair once all four are on-line.” “By your command,” replies the android. It walks off toward a bank of fluid-filled tanks opposite the flywheel generator. Morii steps in between a pair of machines and manually checks the raven-haired anime girl’s carotid pulse. The girl, deep in an anesthetic slumber, does not move. The doctor reaches into a vest pocket, pulls out a postage-stamp-sized plastic patch, removes the backing strip, and places the patch just under the girl’s right ear. The girl breathes in sharply and opens her eyes with a start. “Relax. You’ve been through surgery to repair some internal ruptures. You need another fifty to seventy minutes of rest in order for the cellular repair to stabilize.” “Are, are we out of d-danger?” Number Two mumbles. “What happened?” “One of The Foundry mind-controlled you into shooting Number One, then Number One shot you,” Morii replies as she pulls a silver sheet over the girl and folds it under just below her chin. “You’ll be needed for duty, so I brought you out of anesthetic early. I’m keeping you in restraints until I’m confident the cellular repairs are stable.” “Have we captured all of The Foundry?” The girl’s voice is stronger; the stimulant is taking hold. “No. One of them escaped with an Atlantean, so that leaves three of The Foundry at large and our Atlantean Gambit neutralized. Thankfully, we have enough CPU capacity from the four we’ve captured to enact our backup plan.” The Sum of All Fields announces, “Immersion sequence complete,” from among a group of android technicians and Atlantean and vampire attendants. In front of them, in four of seven tanks filled with a translucent bluish liquid, are the silhouetted, unconscious and unclothed forms of Danielle Devereaux, Vic Charlton, Maximillian Morell and Namor Christianson. All four are attached to a myriad of wires and tubes. MONDAY 10 JUNE 2002, 2:53 p.m. Pacific Time LOCATION UNKNOWN: Danielle Devereaux awakens with a start. The sudden falling sensation will do that. Just as the disorientation from sitting up too soon results in falling back onto the bed. She is surprised to feel no pain, and equally surprised to find that she is not in handcuffs or leg irons. She is, however, inexplicably drawn to the flat-screen video monitor across from her bed. On it is KRGO’s Muffy Bennett, or someone who vaguely looks like her: This year’s Metahuman Kumite competition features an unprecedented 13 new competitors, all vying for the title of Champion Gladiator. Chris Creegan will have more on this later, but first the changes in the tournament structure. The Rules Committee has drawn up a new points system, taken from citizen suggestions. Entrants will receive three points for a kill, two for a simple victory, and one for a draw. Tournament will be triple-elimination, with characters who have died three times remaining permanently dead. Must be the drugs. She’s not a cartoon! echoes through Dani’s mind as Muffy continues: Rules remaining from previous years allow for fugitive-criminal competitors to enter the city-state under immunity from arrest or prosecution, and for incarcerated criminals to receive early parole in exchange for risking their lives in competition. Criminal competitors who finish in the top eight of the field of 64 will receive a pardon from the Empress Mayor and a stipend from the tournament sponsor, the Throckmorton Ravensgate OtakuCorp zaibatsu. Incarcerated criminals sentenced to the Kumite who refuse to compete, will be executed on live television. In the next cell, Maximillian Morell rolls over on his back and attempts to enter a trance, hoping to meditate the drugs out of his system—or tune out the ridiculous cartoon universe invading his sight and hearing. With an overview of the new competitors this year, here’s Chris Creegan. Chris? Thank you, Muffy. Thirteen new competitors, fifty-one veterans comprise the 2002 Metahuman Kumite field. First Citizen d’Aubaine, Minister of Information, says he hopes the new rules will reverse the trend of sagging ratings by encouraging lethal combat. He says, and I quote, “People are tired of seeing the same old faces, it’s high time we shook things up,” end quote. The most prominent new face this year is that of the Empress Mayor’s cousin, Ice Princess Frisson. Danielle Devereaux was sentenced to the Kumite after being found guilty of sedition and conspiracy. Her uncle, Joshua Caine, had this to say about her plight: Vic Charlton sits up on the bed, shakes his head and runs his fingers through his hair. He is surprised to find he has a Mohawk as erect as a cockatoo’s crest, and equally surprised at the cartoon version of Joshua on the cartoon-world TV screen. Somehow, Vic has the presence of mind to note that no one’s lips are moving in sync with the audio tracking: Dani has no one but herself to blame for this! I told her if she didn’t behave I’d spank her without pants! That last line gets Namor Christianson’s attention. He sits up, looks around, notes that he and his companions are being kept in adjacent transparent cells. Along a common inside wall are four doors, marked BATHROOM. What causes him to murmur one word—“Cool.”—is the anime in which he’s found himself. Well, that and Frisson’s costume. The coolness factor begins to fade as he hears Chris Creegan’s voice being piped in—and not matching Cartoon-Chris’s lip movements: Also sentenced to the Kumite are the Ice Princess’ accomplices—‘Porter, Velocity X and Zazen Raja. The latter, former Information Ministry newsreader Vic Charlton, also was convicted of treason. “Zazen Raja?” Vic mumbles, incredulous. “I think we’re in a VR of some kind,” says Max, to which Vic retorts, “Could you try and deduce something more obvious, please?!” “No, think about it,” says Dani. “We’re sharing the same hallucination, so obviously we’re connected to the same machine as Kergillian. Morii needs us alive for some reason, or else she’d have had her associates kill us.” “Has it ever occurred to you,” says Vic, “that maybe our bodies have been discarded and we’re just brains in a jar somewhere?” “Scientifically impossible,” replies Max. “Removing a live brain from a skull would damage the—.” “SHUT UP!!” is the reply from Vic, Namor and the guard at the desk across the hall. “Let’s not lose our focus here,” says Dani. “We’re in a VR and we’re allowed some modicum of self-awareness. That in itself presents some hope, and maybe a clue.” “Yeah,” snorts the Checkerhead guard from behind his newspaper, “it’s a clue that I’m as real as you are, so you can play your little mind games as long as you want. It doesn’t change the fact that you have to finish in the Elite Eight or you’re toast!” “Morii mentioned using Kergillian as a CPU,” says Vic, ignoring the guard, “so she needs our brains for some task one brain alone can’t perform.” “That’s a lot of brainpower,” interjects Namor, to which the guard retorts, “Yeah, and you still landed in here, Einstein!” “Oh, yeah?” spits Namor. “I can just blip out of here and take—.” “Ever heard of chaff, kiddo?” says the guard. “You do one teleport and the security systems here lay down enough airborne debris that you’ll blow yourself up with your second teleport. Of course, there are other countermeasures in this cellblock for, say, ice and speed powers, which is why I can kick back and read my paper without any worries.” “Whatever it is she needs us to do,” says Max, also ignoring the guard, “it entails complex and/or rapid calculations.” “You think it has something to do with that flywheel?” asks Vic, to which Dani replies, “Maybe. That magnetokineticist in the middle of it is a clone of someone Energon and Jeopardy put in Sheridan.” “Complex calculations involving a Tesla flywheel point straight to an operating hypothesis,” says Max. “She’s been able to contact the 22nd Century without us or the flywheel, so maybe she’s discovered how to open a trans-temporal gateway without Nthium.” “Isn’t that a stretch?” queries Vic. “She doesn’t strike me as being any brighter than you or Frisson.” “Intelligence is only partially relevant,” says Dani. “Falling apples struck countless geniuses for thousands of years before Newton ever started wondering about gravity.” The narration of Muffy Bennett continues, stopping conversation dead: The opening ceremonies will begin in five minutes, apparently without 2001 champion Energon. He has committed to return to the Kumite, but no one knows whether the iconoclast will show up for the ceremonies, or the opening-night banquet hosted by Kumite co-sponsors NecroTek, Soylente Verde and Red Dragon Bistro. Here, he can be seen . . . Onscreen, a cartoony cyborg-like Energon floats above some surreal-looking android or cyborg with his brain exposed inside a transparent cranium. Energon unleashes a torrent of multi-hued energy from his hands and eyes, causing the android to begin sparking and arcing, then finally explode. . . . in the climactic championship match against cyborg Bill Robinson. One final overpowered volley of hybrid magnetic-cosmic radiation and it spelled danger for Bill Robinson. “I wonder why Morii’s using the anime motif,” says Vic, to which Max replies, “Maybe she’s tapped into ‘Porter’s subconscious and is manipulating it. Of the four of us, ‘Porter, you’re the only avid anime and manga fan.” After the opening ceremony, the first bout will be a free-for-all cage match pitting Ice Princess Frisson and her co-conspirators against veterans Red Doug and the Leopard Prince, and rookies Bio-Organic Battle-oid and Jack the Prince of Darkness. Officiating the bout will be The Solemnancer and Sports Doctor Patria. “Jack?!” sputters Namor, looking at the cartoon likeness on the TV screen. “You know, Max,” says Vic, “I think you’re onto something, because now Morii’s giving us something to keep us busy.” A group of twelve powered-armor soldiers enters the hallway. One of them approaches the guard and says, “We have come to escort the prisoners to the playing field.” “I wonder,” says Dani, “if Oscar was able to escape, and where the rest of the team is. We have no idea how much time has passed, and whether they’ve mounted a rescue attempt. We could be fighting our own teammates to the death.” “I wonder why we’re allowed three deaths each instead of one,” says Namor. “That sounds like a video game, except you can’t gain extra lives with more points.” “I wonder if you brain donors’ll ever shut up,” says the guard. “Place your hands through the feeding slots, wrists and palms up. Anyone who doesn’t comply will get a really uncomfortable pair of cuffs.”
MONDAY 10 JUNE 2002, 3:13 p.m. Pacific Time OREGON JOURNAL MEDIACORP BUILDING, 1016 BROADWAY S.W.: The Mistrunner hovers over Broadway as emergency crews pick up the last of the wounded from the street. The powered-armor suits are gone, and Feds and Checkerheads are searching the surrounding buildings for anyone trapped. The smoke has dissipated somewhat; now the visibility ceiling is five floors higher. Parked against the pay phone is a Harley-Davidson chopper. Its tall leather-clad rider, the face-painted Halitosis, part-time superhero and part-time rock star, walks over toward the huddle next to an overturned police cruiser. Inspector Matt Shinmen, Chief of Operations Tommy Gunn, Special Agent Antonio Marcoli, Special Agent Johnson, Energon, Brother Knight, and Jeopardy are deep in conversation. Shinmen is wrapped in a blanket and sitting against the roof of the cruiser. “I don’t care how you feel,” snaps Gunn, “I’m relieving you of duty as of now. You’re taking the first uncrowded ambulance out of here and getting checked for a concussion and internal injuries.” “But—.” “Shut up, Matt,” Gunn hisses, then turns to Marcoli. “What backup do you need from us?” “Keep the perimeter, hold your remaining ECM officers in reserve to mop up anything that escapes from below. HRT will assist on the perimeter and provide direction on mop-up. Johnson and I will accompany these gentlemen downstairs and—.” “And lady,” interjects Jeopardy. “Lady? Where?” snaps Brother Knight. “She’s somewhere around,” says Jeopardy. “She says she’s a ghost.” “Um, Jeopardy,” says a disembodied voice, “a word with you, please.” “Who the hell is this lady?” mumbles Shinmen, rubbing his head. “I’ll let her introduce herself,” Jeopardy replies, as the disembodied voice of Pyro, more insistent this time, says, “Jeopardy, a word, please.” A female voice echoes through nine minds clustered around the overturned cruiser: I can help you if you’ll allow me to. |
