Talyesin's Tales

In consulting with the Sterling Family, Squirrelman and his teammates come to the conclusion that with all the suspicious activity in Downtown, the infamous Lord Hades must somehow be connected. Reed Sterling informs them that there is only one man who knows more about Lord Hades than he himself... the man known as Doc Steele!




"Who?"

"Augustus Octavian 'Doc' Steele," Reed says.

Nope. Still nothing.

"Come on Dad, explain," Jerry says, crossing his arms and leaning on a console.

"Doc Steele was what was once called a 'gentleman of adventure',"Reed explains. "In the twenties and thirties, there wasn't a cause he wasn't involved in, a madman he didn't thwart, a battle in which he didn't have a role."

"Like Grandpa?" Jeannie asks.

"No, I think it's safer to say that my father was a mercenary adventurer," Reed says flatly. He and his dad never really got along all that much. Sergeant Buck Sterling was your hard-fighting, hard-drinking type, who never really understood his genius son.

"Like your maternal grandfather then?" Julia asks, laying a hand on Reed's arm.

"My grandfather was a treasure hunter masquerading as an archaeologist," Reed smiles.

"Okay, so he was a bored rich guy who went looking for trouble," Physique says simply.

"Doc Steele was more than that," Reed says. "I met him in '61 when I first stopped Lord Hades, in Manhattan. Steele had been in Tibet at the time, meditating in Shangri-La. He and Lord Hades had fought a dozen times before, going all the way back to 1921."

"Whoa, wait a minute," I say. "This Steele guy was fighting Lord Hades in the twenties? Is he even still alive?"

"It's an excellent question, Squirrelman. I'd say probably not, except, as he explained to me, he was the last of his kind, a genetically superior offshoot of humanity, bred by the Society of the Illuminated Way. It was a secret society dedicated to the perfection of the human mind and body, founded by Doctor John Dee, Queen Elizabeth I's Court Astrologer. Doc told me he was over 80 years old in 1961. Judging by physical appearance alone, I'd have placed his age at around 40. I suspect that Dee probably had discovered some of Nicolas Flamel's books on longevity in the human system, incorporated with a variety of techniques culled from across the globe-"

"Reed."

"Yes, of course, sorry. As I was saying, given that, I'd say there's a reasonable chance Doc Steele is still around. Though as to where... your guess is as good as mine."

"Doc Steele, Doc Sterling?" Ace asks.

"Ah. Yes. Well... I was still in my teens when I met him. Easily influenced, you see? He was a very impressive individual, both intellectually and from pure presence. And, well, I did have seven doctorates under my belt. So I started calling myself Doc Sterling. As far as I know, his 'Doc' was a simple nickname."

"How is it no one has ever heard of this guy?" Ragdoll asks.

"Well... you have to understand. Before Airman went public in 1939, the vast majority of adventurers tried to stay... under the radar. And the governments and media kept it that way. I mean, if word got out that Earth was invaded by aliens today, most people would say, Yeah, so? But back then, there would have been panic, hysteria, riots... deaths. The adventurers of the day did not seek fame nor glory, but adventure for its own sake. A very different world. I mean, today any school child can tell you the latest exploits of their favorite heroes, but who remembers the adventures of Terence Fleming, Agent I-5? Annie O'Day, Girl Pilot? Mycroft Greystone, the Logician? John Lord Phillipston, the Aristocrat Avenger? Atya, the Witch Warrior? Or even the mystery man known only as The Wraith? Of them all, Doc Augustus Steele stood most imposingly, came the closest to renown and fame, but no one now remembers any of their exploits at all."

"So how do we find him?" I ask, getting us back on subject. Reed's a great guy, but if you let him he'll talk your ear off. Besides, it's late and I'm tired.

Reed thinks for a second and says, "Let me get back to you. There are a number of lines of inquiry I'll pursue, the first of which will be to contact the monks of Shangri-La."

"Sounds like a plan."

We say our goodbyes and head off our separate ways. Ragdoll and I head back to my place. Shower and straight to bed.

Kimmy does something she rarely does. She rolls over and puts her head on my chest, one arm across me, holding me. I put my arm around her shoulders and hold her.

Then I feel something wet on my chest.

"Kimmy?"

"I thought I lost you." So quiet I can barely hear her. She's crying. I've never seen her cry.

"Hey... you didn't, right?"

"When I saw you falling... I got distracted, didn't see you get caught. I thought..."

I wrap my arms around her.

"Kimmy... this is our life. I wouldn't go back to being just an accountant any more than you could just be a marketing analyst."

"You think I don't know that?"

"I know you do."

"This is exactly why I didn't want to join a team."

"Because I have a habit of falling all the time?"

"Because a team winds up going up against bigger threats, and bigger threats mean a greater chance of ... of someone... dying."

"Hey... I'm not going to die. You think I don't know if I die you'll kick my ass? You think I want that?"

She sort of snort-sniffles a laugh at that one. She wipes at her eyes with one hand.

"I guess not."

"No way," I smile at her in the dark. I reach my hand for her jaw and tilt her face toward mine, kissing her.

"Ugh, gross," she sniffles. "I'm disgusting."

"You're always beautiful to me. Except that one time you fell in that pile of trash and came out covered in garbage juice? Seriously gross."

She's laughing again. She wipes her nose with the hand and then gets up to go blow her nose and splash water on her face. She comes back to bed.

We make love. It's not our normal post-collar, adrenaline-rush, try to break the bed, raise the roof, sex. It's slow and gentle and somehow even more intense than normal.

Afterwards, just as I'm drifting off, I hear, "Remember... you die, I'll kick your ass."

A couple of days go by. Nothing much happens. I stop Scream Queen from stealing a bunch of Romanov jewellery. Kimmy and Rick check out a couple of spots for potential HQs, which I'd love to be involved with, but I'm busy at work, training my replacements, introducing them to our clients, all that fun stuff. Farrah finishes downloading all the paperwork necessary for registering with the Department of Metahuman Affairs. What a nightmare. There's about fifty forms that have to be filed in the right order. And an appointment to meet with the Department and be classified, which is another way of saying test all my powers and see how powerful I really am.

I'm coming home from work, waiting at the bus stop. The bus lands in front of me and we get on.

This is something I will never tire of - taking a flying bus to and from work. This is the keenest thing about normal life in this world.

Only today the bus is a little more crowded than usual. It's not hard to figure out why, most of the people have crowded to the front of the bus. Which is also not hard to figure out why.

At the back of the bus there's four or five robots in ripped leather jackets. One of them is carrying a boom box, playing that noise of theirs. I talked to a couple of synthetic beings about it, they told me it's a pure binary data stream, incredibly moving for the right ears and right central processing units. All I know is, it sounds like those old dial-up modems, only really loud.

Clockrockers. I hate these guys.

Most of them are obsolete models with faulty processors. Ever since being declared sentient beings, they can't be scrapped or rendered for spare parts. So the obsolete models have nothing to do once they've been passed by, and a lot of them wind up resenting humanity. They join gangs of other sentients, deface themselves. Literally. They rip off their simulated human features.

So the five of them are taking up space for twice that number, scaring off the normals with attitude and noise. There's a couple of former industrials with no human features left at all, one who was probably a robo-receptionist or a pleasure model once only she's torn out most of her hair and half her face, one who was never a human model that looks like a garbage can on wheels, and a big gold-coloured one with the boom box.

I've had a long day. These bots with their noise making life annoying for everyone else because they think they've been dealt an unfair hand? I don't have a lot of patience with them. So I do something a little stupid.

I push my way to the back and ask them to turn it down.

They ignore me, or can't hear me over the SSSSCCCCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHH BEE DOO BEE DOO SCCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. So I ask them, a little louder but always polite, to turn it down.

If there's one phrase I'd like eradicated from the English language, it's, "Something that big shouldn't move that fast." I mean, all I ever run up against is big things moving fast.

A bunch of things happen, pretty much all at the same time.

I spot what would be a lapel pin on a human's jacket, only it's bolted to the side of the gold one's head. It's a black letter K that looks like criss-crossing lightning bolts, set in a white circle, set in a blood red rectangle.

I have time to think, The Krieg. Great. Neo-Nazi Clockrockers.

I start twitching backwards away from the gold one as he lunges for me, faster than something that big should be able to move.

His arm shoots up and reaches for me, I've twitched out of range, but it extends, grabbing me by the throat. He's standing, I'm hanging there. He pulls me close to his face.

"ZZZZZcrew you, meatzzzzzack," he says.