Talyesin's Tales

In the aftermath of an invasion from an alternate reality, Squirrelman's allies Ace and Ragdoll get into a heated discussion on the nature of their involvement and efficiency during the attack. In the end, they agreed on one thing at least - a name for their team. From that argument was formed... The Crimefighters League!




So we stood there for a couple of seconds, all our hands together.

"Now what?" I ask.

"Well, normally Coach yells 'Break!' and we all rush out onto the field," Physique jokes.

"Yeah," Ace adds.

"Actually," I say, taking my hand back, "I meant what do you guys want to do now? I'm going to see Doc Sterling."

"Then let's go,"Ragdoll says.

We climb on Physique's skycycle and Ace gets on his flying card and we head over to the Sterling Spire. It's located in the heart of the city, one of the tallest buildings in Action City, with a wide base that narrows to an elegant needle-sharp point. There's a landing pad about halfway up the west side, and that's where we head.

We land and head into the waiting area. The Spire is still on alert, so we wait until someone on the inside notices and lets us in. Ace and Physique are not quite flirting, so I head over to Ragdoll, who's looking at the city from the balcony.

"Hey," I say, putting my arm around her. She's got her arms crossed against the night chill and the wind.

"Hey yourself," she says back quietly. And, surprisingly, leans into me.

"Why'd you pull me off of Achilles back there?"

"The mass teleport thing?"

"Yeah."

"If he could order in the evac of an entire city block, why didn't he use it in the club?"

Yeah... why didn't he use it in the club?

"That's... Yeah." I frown at that. "Yeah, that's fucked."

"So we needed to let it go, because... I mean, why not teleport everyone out? Especially his boss? Unless..."

"Unless he was specifically told not to use the teleporter? That's what you're thinking, right?"

She laughs a little.

"Yeah. But why?"

"Could be the teleporter wasn't in range, I mean... it's on the Praxis Orbital Platform, right?"

"There was only a couple of hours between the bomb and the ship crash, Squirrelly. I'm no tech-head, but shouldn't the platform have been in range?"

"I dunno... let's ask Reed."

That's when the doors open up and let us in. The Spire stands down from red alert, and we take the lift up to the Main Lab.

Doc is already back. His daughter, Jeannie, is at a control panel near the ceiling with her brother, Jerry, fixing something and arguing. The only way to tell Jerry from his twin brother is Joe has longer hair.

"Look! Look where I'm pointing!" Jeannie orders her brother.

"THIS goes over here and THAT goes over there!" Jerry argues back.

"Hiya Doc," I say.

"Hi everyone, please, come in," Reed says, then turns to his kids. "Kids! Guests!"

"Sorry Dad."

"Sorry Daddy."

"Holy socks," Reed mutters to himself, grinning. He looks at us and shrugs. "Kids."

"They're both adults, Doc," Ragdoll smirks. "Only just barely for Jeannie, but..."

"They could maybe act like it for a change." He's smiling though, so he's not really upset. He turns to Physique and says, "Lisa, how are you?"

Physique blushes a little, which would be cute if it weren't so completely weird on her.

"No change yet," she admits, with a rueful smile.

"Give it time."

"I'm trying."

He nods and turns to me.

"So what can I help you with?"

I tell him all the details about all the Praxis tech we found in Downtown, how Johnny Giggles set us up with a Praxis bomb, how Achilles used the Praxis mass teleport system.

"Oh, and Konstantinopoulos asked me to give you his regards."

"Did he."

There's a long-standing rivalry between Praxis Technologies and Sterling Enterprises, but I'm getting the impression that it's somehow more personal than that between them.

"All this Praxis tech in Downtown, I can't help but think it's... suspicious," I say.

"I'm inclined to agree," Reed says. "It's certainly curious at any rate."

"Plus the UnSeelie," Ragdoll adds.

"The UnSeelie?" comes a voice from the doorway. It's Julia, Reed's wife, beautiful as ever. She gives everyone warm hugs, then says, "There are UnSeelie in Action City?"

"A whole Court," Ace says, explaining about the settlement we found. The more he tells them, the more upset Julia looks.

"Reed, that's not a Court, that's an entire Seeming," she says to her husband. She turns to us and explains, "An UnSeelie Court is nomadic, it moves from place to place. That way they can cause a lot of havoc, and it's difficult for the Seelie to plan a counterstrike. A Seeming is a permanent settlement. It means they feel confident enough there to defend against any attacks."

"So... not good, then," Physique says.

"No, not good at all," Julia answers. "We might have to look into this, darling."

Reed's just nodding. He doesn't like magic. It offends his sense of logic. Which is funny because he married a princess of a magical kingdom in an alternate dimension.

"Oh," he says, remembering something. He turns to a workbench and hands me what looks like a belt with a long wide strip of flexible metal hanging from the middle.

"Thanks?"

"I noticed you were repairing your tail when we spoke the other day," he says, smiling. "I tossed this together. Thought it might be useful."

"What is it?"

"A tail, of course. Take off your old tail and I'll show you how to work it."

"Work it?"

"Yeah, it's really nifty."

I take off my ratty old tail, which is just as well because when Achilles grabbed me it tore a little and was just about to fall off anyway. I put on the belt.

"It goes under the shirt," he says. I put it under my shirt, the strip of metal hanging out the back.

"Okay."

"Now press the buckle."

I press the buckle and something... really... weird happens.

First thing that happens is the strip of metal suddenly morphs or activates or whatever, and there's a FLOOF! noise and it's covered with fur.

The next thing that happens is it starts moving.

"Whoa," I say.

I can feel it, in my head. Like suddenly having another arm. An awareness. I can't really describe it.

"Nifty, huh?" Reed is grinning like a kid.

"Wild," I say, grinning back. I move it around a bit, experimenting.

A prosthetic tail. Something he just 'tossed together', in his spare time. Because he saw me mucking around with my old one over the vidphone.

"Reed..." I'm really touched and grateful and wondering how to thank him.

"Stop, please." He waves it off.

"No, seriously. Thanks."

"There's even a compartment at the base for your I.D. and your epipen," he says.

"Epipen?" Ace asks me.

"Yeah, I have allergies," I say.

"To what?" he asks.

Everyone's paying attention now. I sigh.

"Nuts."

There's a moment of silence.

Ace explodes in huge gasping laughter, doubling over. Everyone but Reed and Ragdoll are laughing, because they already knew, but they're smiling with the others.

"Squirrelman!" Ace manages to squeal out, between gasping for breath. "Allergic to nuts!"

"The irony hasn't escaped me," I say.

My tail is twitching back and forth, responding to my emotions. I'll have to keep that in mind.

"Can we get back on topic?" I say, taking my epipen and I.D. out of the hidden pocket in my old tail and packing them away into my new tail.

"Of course," Reed says. "All this activity in Downtown makes me feel Lord Hades is somehow behind it."

"Why Hades?" Ace asks, wiping away tears under his mask. "I thought you put him down back in the eighties?"

"No, unfortunately," Reed says, crossing his arms. "He has an annoying habit of escaping whenever we're about to catch him. I always suspect Hades whenever anything suspicious happens in Downtown. It was meant to be his outpost for further attacks against the surface world."

"Why Action City?" Ragdoll asks. "Isn't that kind of stupid, making your beachhead at the most mask-populated city on Earth?"

"That's my fault, I'm afraid," Reed explains. He rubs the back of his neck, clearly a little embarrassed.

"No darling, it isn't," Julia says sternly.

"I'm the one who thwarted his attack on New York City in '61. He chose my home town in retaliation. He's attacked Action City a dozen times because of that first defeat."

"That's because he's a psycho loonie, Dad."

"He's a brilliant genius, Jerry. The line is often blurred."

"Why would he suddenly start using Praxis tech? I thought his preference ran to that Atlantean stuff?" Ace asks. Reed looks impressed.

"It's true that he tends to use scavenged and repaired Atlantean technology, supplemented by Subterran technology," Reed says. "Perhaps he's trying to upgrade? I wish I knew. We've fought over a dozen times, but I know so little about him."

"Well, we're going to have to find out if he's behind all the Downtown activity," I say. "You're the expert on Lord Hades, Reed. If you don't know..."

"No... there is someone who knows more about Lord Hades and the Subterrans than I do," Reed says. "If he's still alive, that is."

"If who's still alive, Reed?"

"If you want to know more about Lord Hades, you need to find one man," Reed says, looking doubtful.

"You need to find Doc Steele."