Talyesin's Tales

Previously on Squirrelman: Sins of the Past

Squirrelman, Ace and Ragdoll fought a mad scientist calling himself Dr. Hi-Q in a secret lab Downtown. In the ensuing battle, Dr. Hi-Q was killed.

Talking over their cases with the rest of the newly-formed Crimefighters' League, Phenom stated that he had fought Dr. Hi-Q after the trio had seen the doctor die.

Later investigation with Doc Sterling revealed another lab beneath the first lab, where a clone of the metahuman mass murderer Harvest was being grown. The controls of the clone vat were accessible to only one man - Dr. Hi-Q.

Squirrelman enlisted the aid of the speedsters of Action City to comb the city for clues to the whereabouts of the apparently still living Dr. Hi-Q.




Starring!

Matt Mattheson ......... as Squirrelman
Kimmy Sinclair ................ as Ragdoll
Rick Duncan ........................... as Ace
Lisa Dumont ................... as Physique
Anna Kimble ................. as Darklight
Stephanie Cooke ............. as Blue Jay
Jay Allen ........................ as Red Bolt
Mike Washington ............. as Dragon
Trevor Andrews ............... as Phenom
Jessica Wagner .............. as Rapunzel
Katie McCormick ............ as Superia
Hank Scott .................. as Powerband
Wayne Masters ... as Midnight Avenger
Jill Suzuki ........................... as Naiad
Hannah Cohen ................... as Psifire
Kyle Drake ........... as Troubleshooter
Jackson Archer ............ as Moonbow
Steven Rand ............... as Showdown
Alistair Crombie ............. as the Mole
Cricket ............................... as herself


It's still raining.

We're waiting outside an old abandoned warehouse on Busiek Way, just outside of Speedway. Speed Queen's tip said Dr. Hi-Q and his goons would be pulling a hijacking around midnight, then bringing the trucks here for unloading.

So we wait.

I hate waiting.

I especially hate waiting in the rain. But I've figured out how to bend my new tail over my head, keeping the worse of the rain off, at least.

We've got the place surrounded. Mole and Cricket are even underneath the place, so there's no way out that way. And we played it smart this time. We stopped at the Spire before we came, borrowed an anti-teleportation field generator. So no one is getting out that way. Doc Sterling is still in Washington, working on the DMA hack. Julia says he's doing a lot better now that he has a rough idea of how the database was penetrated. All the same, his little breakdown has me worried.

The only good thing about waiting is it's finally giving me some time to think. Think about everything that's been happening.

One of the things I've learned since coming to this alternity is that coincidence doesn't just happen. Reed's assertions that Kosmos Konstantinopoulos is some kind of arch-villain aside, everything that's happened the last couple of weeks seems too well orchestrated to be just a series of unfortunate events.

"Why is it always an abandoned warehouse?" Kimmy asks me. We're sitting under a bit of an overhang, hidden in shadows. She's further back, keeping the rain off as much as possible.

"Sometimes it's abandoned brownstones," I answer.

"Just once I'd like to go up against some guys who have, you know, those high-tech secret bases in exotic locales."

"Sure, but then where would we go on vacation?"

We sit there for a few more minutes. Kimmy hates waiting as much as I do.

"What are you thinking?" she asks me eventually.

"I'm thinking there's too many coincidences going on lately."

"Such as?"

"Annie O'Day was killed in a necromantic ritual, conducted by a sorceress of considerable power. A sorceress who may or may not be the same sorceress who, from the future, cast a chronomantic spell to bring the original members of the Crimefighters' League together in the Kane Sanitarium, trapping us there, hoping to kill us. Who may or may not be the same sorceress who spoke to Baron Blackheart, 'in a dream,' telling him which criminals to gather in order to form the League's Implacable Foes. Only she overdoes it, tells him to get more bad guys than we currently have on our team. So we wind up recruiting to match off, and the Crimefighters' League grows. If I didn't know better, I'd say she was trying to help us."

"Okay."

"And that's another thing. The worst prison break in Action City history just happens to take place just as we discover a plot to clone Harvest, the worst metahuman mass murderer to ever walk the Earth, in a secret lab Downtown. That kind of timing isn't just coincidence. The prison break's kept us busy for the last thirty-six hours. And that has me worried."

"Me too," she says, which is a big admission from her. "Anything could be happening down there while we're up here, looking for the only guy who has access to the off switch."

"The timing of the datahack has me worried too. It just happens to take place at the exact moment of the worst prison break in Action City history? Come on."

"You think the Revolutionists are somehow behind the datahack?" She looks skeptical.

"Maidstone used to be on the Warpers, right? Which means she's been through the DMA, registered and all that. I'll bet if we check the rap sheets on the others, the rest of the Revolutionists I mean, they've all probably been through the registration process. I mean, every convicted powered criminal has to be registered too, right?"

"I'm not sure it goes into the DMA database, though. I know it goes into the FBI files, from local jurisdiction to federal. But whether or not the FBI shares that information with the DMA is subject to bureaucracy, you know."

"Right. Despite his best efforts, the World's Smartest Man still hasn't gotten rid of all the red tape in the world." I raise my goggles up so she can see my eyes. "And I'm worried about Reed, too."

"I know you are," she says, putting a hand on my arm. "He'll be okay. He probably hasn't been thwarted this severely in a long time. He'll get over it."

I just nod, and go back to watching the warehouse.

"But to answer your question," I say after a bit, "no, I don't think the Revolutionists are behind the hack. They were busy here, remember, stealing Aztec statues and planning the worst-"

"-prison break in Action City history," she finishes for me. "I know, Squirrelly. You don't have to keep saying it."

"I know. It's just..."

"Just what?"

I look at her again.

"I can't shake the feeling that it's somehow my fault."

"That is fucking bullshit, Matt, and you know it."

"If we had stopped the Revolutionists at the Museum-"

"Bullshit."

"If they hadn't gotten away-"

"Bullshit."

"If I had planned our attack-"

"Bullshit, Matt!"

"Will you let me finish for Christ's sake?"

"No, I won't. I'm not going to let you beat yourself up over something that you couldn't have prevented." She grabs me by the chin and makes sure I'm looking her in the eyes. "Could. Not. Have. They had to be planning this for months, Matt. Months. The 'worst prison break in Action City history' doesn't just happen, spur of the moment, 'Oh hey, let's go break everyone out of Bendis and the Kane,' 'Sure, I didn't have anything planned this afternoon anyway.' They spent months planning it, obviously the Aztech was the final step in their preparations, and nothing by that point, nothing, could have stopped it." She lets go of my chin. "So stop being such a fucking martyr. It's a real turn off."

I've got to laugh. "Okay," I chuckle.

"What else?" she asks.

"Downtown."

"Yeah."

"There's a lot going on down there that no one seems to know anything about. The secret lab filled with Praxis tech, that seems to have just suddenly appeared. The secret lab under that secret lab, where someone we thought was dead is cloning the worst monster you could possibly clone. The UnSeelie basically building a town of their own. The Carnival of Shadows moving in and setting up their freakshow, scaring away honest, bloodsucking Action Citizens."

"All under the not-so-watchful eyes of the Mole."

"Right. Which either says he's in cahoots, completely blind, or some kind of master arch-criminal is involved."

"And if it's Downtown arch-criminals..."

"Then Lord Hades must be involved."

"Who no one has seen in years."

"So we need to find the one guy who knows more about Lord Hades than anyone else, Doc Steele. Who Showdown says was in Colorado a couple years ago."

"Which happens to be where Harvest died."

I look at her. I hadn't thought of that.

"You think they're connected somehow? Doc Steele training martial artists in the same state that Harvest died?"

"No," she says, shrugging. "I was just thinking out loud."

"Okay."

"Reed seemed to think that Annie O'Day's death was related to Doc Steele somehow."

"Yeah. He thought the sorceress looking for someone or something in the guts and soul of an associate of Doc Steele's had to point back to Doc Steele somehow."

"If Reed is right..."

"Then it's possible the sorceress looking for Doc Steele is the same one who keeps trying to stop the Crimefighters' League."

"Which means a foe of Doc Steele's is a foe of ours."

"And we haven't even been properly introduced."

"To Doc Steele or his foe?"

"Either. Both."

"Ace, calling all Crimefighters," Rick's voice comes in over the nanobead. "Looks like we got ourselves a party, kids."

I lean out slightly, to get a better view of the street. Headlights of a truck, heading in. Couple others behind it.

"Let them in, and make sure Hi-Q is there before we move in," I say, pulling down my goggles, letting my eyes adjust to the nightvision the Costumer built into them.

The trucks roll in, Praxis trucks by the logo painted on the side.

"That's him, riding shotgun in the lead truck," Phenom says over the nanobead. His eyes are almost as good as Blue Jay's.

"Let them start unloading," I say.

The trucks back into the loading bay and the goons get out. I don't have a good vantage point from here so I give Ragdoll a look and climb out into the rain, across the high-tension wires that run from this building to the abandoned warehouse, and along the warehouse roof. Ragdoll's right behind me, not making a sound. We creep to the edge, crawling really, stomaches flat on the roof to keep them from spotting us.

I inch my face over the side to check out the opposition. They're moving boxes into the warehouse. Some of the boxes look big and heavy, but the goons are moving them on their own with no problem. So I take a better look at the goons.

They're not human, not by a long shot. Some of them are robots, androids, synthetics, whateverthefuck you want to call them. Some of them remind me of orcs or trolls or some kind of thing like that - big, ugly, fanged mouths, pig snouts, greenish skin, greasy-looking red hair. They're all wearing leather jackets and jeans, even the robo-goons. I get a count - nearly three dozen, split just about fifty-fifty, robogoons and orcs - and pull back.

"Squirrelman calling all Crimefighters," I whisper into the nanobead. "Robots and monsters and Hi-Q, oh my." I give them the low-down and call the ball. "Superia, Psifire? You two are on Hi-Q. Don't let him get away. The rest of us are crowd control."

I hear the door to the loading dock roll shut.

"Now! Move!" I say, running for the skylight. Ragdoll is a second ahead of me, jumps up and smashes the glass with a well-placed kick, falling through. I'm right behind her.

Everyone's got their own way of making an entrance. Phenom smashes through the wall; Physique kicks in the heavy steel door; Ace tosses in a flash card and a smoke card; Red Bolt vibrates himself through the wall; Dragon crashes through the ceiling, Blue Jay following close behind; Anna's standing there, arms crosses, like she's always been there; Psifire just appears like an illusion; Powerband carves a hole through one of the truck bay doors; a hole crumbles in the centre of the room and Mole and Cricket leap out; Moonbow lowers himself on a swingline into the room, arrow notched; Midnight Avenger slides out of a shadow - it's after midnight, he's got his powers until one ayem; Naiad gushes out of a water pipe that suddenly blows its seals; Superia teleports in, I didn't know she could do that; Rapunzel lowers herself in through the skylight after Ragdoll and me; Troubleshooter crashes through a window; and Showdown, well, he's a newbie. He just opens the door and runs in.

Hi-Q's head suddenly bursts into green flame and I know Psifire's got him trapped in a psychic hold.

"Give it up now and you won't get hurt!" I order the goons.

"We got you outnumbered, meatzzzzzac!" one of the robogoons yells.

"We've got you outclassed, son," Ace laughs.

"Trash these assholes!" one of the orc guys yells.

The fight goes a lot harder than it should. The robogoons turn out to be clockrockers, some of which have brand new weapon attachments. Flamethrowers in their mouths and switch-swords in their arms, sort of thing. The orc boys have big fuck-off knives, like something out of Star Trek or whatever, all curved and notched and blood grooved. They aren't the least bit scared of us, even though we're, you know, kicking their asses.

"They aren't impressed at all," Ace says to me at one point. We've managed to get boxed in, backs to the wall, surrounded by three big clockrockers with whirly blades and pointy bits.

"They're acting like they don't know who we are," I say, then it hits me. They don't know who we are. We changed our costumes. Sure, we all match now and that's fine, but our street cred went out with our masks. Something to think about when we aren't fighting for our lives.

Anyway, we eventually take care of them all, put them all down for the count. Troubleshooter's got something in his bag of tricks that shorts out the clockrockers, and the big orc guys turn out to be redcaps, some kind of UnSeelie goons, that Anna puts to sleep with a wave of her hand. But they're one more link to Downtown, and I'm not liking that at all.

"Let him go, Hannah, I want to talk to him," I tell Psifire. The flames around Hi-Q's head extinguish and he looks all around, seeing he's surrounded. Troubleshooter's got him in handcuffs, too.

"To what do I warrant this most unexpected and unwelcome intrusion?" he asks.

"Project Solstice," I say.

"Ah."

"What's the access code?" Ace asks.

"Why should I tell you anything? Just who are you people?"

I step up, face to face, maybe an inch from him.

"I'm Squirrelman," I tell him. His non-cybered eye widens a little. Good to know my rep still works, even without the mask. "This is the Crimefighters' League. You may have noticed we haven't called in the cops yet. That's because, Doctor, we aren't going to fuck around with you. What's the access code?"

"Are you threatening me, Squirrelman?"

"Threatening you?" I say. I hold up my hand, right in front of his face, so he can see it really close. Hot squeeze out my claws. Retract them. Out. In. Out. In.

Then I grab him by the balls.

"Now, I'm threatening you," I tell him. "What's the access code?"

"I can't tell you," he says, his voice shaking a little.

"Sure you can, Doc," Ace says behind me. "What's the access code?"

"No, I mean, I-"

Psifire screams, "Look out!"

But I'm already twitching away when Dr. Hi-Q's head explodes.