For the superhero community of Halcyon City, it’s a war zone.
Tyran Enterprises worked hard to make itself the only power in the city. Now that their premier superhero team has been exposed as a set of cloned shells run by remote control, they’re falling back on more faceless measures such as security robots, force fields, and energy projection weapons. And every time someone destroys something with the name “Halcyon” on it, Tyran offers to pay for repairs or replacements, provided the rebuild says “New Tomorrow”.
Emboldened by the Seven Wonders’ successful example, everyone from veteran locals to new arrivals are pushing the limits of these new security measures. Reliable jobbers like Handmaid, ambitious up-and-comers like Patchwork, chaos agents like Redline, and even villain teams like the Architects of Evil and the newly arrived Fulcrum Force, are all doing their thing.
A combination of armed law enforcement and coordinated superhero efforts used to keep it all under control. Now the Seven Wonders have opened the floodgates, and seem content to watch the flood rather than meddle directly.
For most citizens of Halcyon City, it’s life as usual if you don’t read the papers or watch the news on television. But those citizens are doing that less and less. A whole generation of heroes seems to have failed them, to be replaced by a powerful mega-corporation that makes big promises and seems to be keeping at least some of them. When there’s nothing but bad news, it’s easier to just stop reading any of it.
The most important thing, Andi decided, was changing the name of their new home in orbit. “It’s not the Quill Compound any more. Jason Quill is gone. He left it to Harry. And ‘compound’ makes it sound like we’ll be in some kind of standoff with the FBI.”
“What do you suggest?” Harry had asked.
“Q-Base,” said Andi, Fuko, and Trace simultaneously.
Clearly they’d already talked about this. Harry was too busy to push back, and so “Q-Base” had stuck.
Aboard Q-Base, then, the work continues at breakneck pace.
The base has a reactor that can sustain power indefinitely. There are force field generators meant for long-term stay in space. Trace has assigned himself the work of making sure these systems can be relied upon. His own quantum acoustic tech isn’t quite as good as Byron Quill’s force field systems, but his submarine tech is superior at keeping the complex from leaking air into space.
Doctor Zap, the True Atlantean squid, has likewise agreed to ensure that the softer systems for life support and food production will serve. He, out of everyone aboard, is most at home in zero gravity, as it’s not that different from swimming in water. He’s overjoyed at the ability to talk to humans without relying on his cumbersome translation computer, and when he isn’t at his work he’s indulging his boundless curiosity by asking questions.
Andi is asking her own questions, specifically of Harry’s family who are still on board. She’s methodically taking notes on every encounter they ever had, with every villain currently in the city - starting with the Seven Wonders. Everyone knows the time for secrets has passed. Now is the time when anything, even a half-remembered anecdote about a battle one time, could mean victory or defeat.
Fuko, the Atlantean-trained ninja, is putting her training to work coordinating superhero efforts in Halcyon. She can’t match the power and complexity of an entire corporation or a whole city full of villains, but she can help the heroes down there put out fires. Q-Base now has telescopes pointed permanently at the city far below, giving the team a bird’s eye view. She works with ASIST in real time to dispatch heroes to deal with villains nearby, and - regrettably, every so often - ask heroes to withdraw when they’d be outmatched, or when something more important is happening elsewhere.
Mirage, once a mental clone of Alycia Chin and now having realized her true nature and purpose, is cataloging the stuff available to the team in Q-Base using the vast knowledge she inherited about everything contained there. Harry made it clear that their priority was transportation options to get back to the surface, and she found three immediately. She’s building a database of gadgets in the warehouse that meet Harry’s rules: safe around civilians, easy for the team to use, and useful to the villain problem. The list is kept short by the first two rules, but it’s growing.
Harry is left to play errand boy for everyone else. When someone needs something done, he goes and does it. Components, cables, batteries, consumables, containers - anything that needs to be moved elsewhere or wired up or packed or unpacked - he does it all. To run in zero gravity, he’s set up handholds all over the complex.
Five days after the complex launched itself into orbit, Trace has had time to debug, test, and verify the most promising transportation option available to Q-Base. It’s called the Teletube and it’s built like a big white cylinder at the center of a ton of complex machinery that hums even when the power cable isn’t plugged in. The idea is that it transposes two volumes of space - one in the chamber, one at the destination. There’s a targeting laser that needs to be attached to the outside of Q-Base, and the shields need to drop when the system is operating, but it’ll work.
It’s time for the team to get back on the streets and help out more directly.
The team is suiting up in the Teletube. Harry’s going over the briefing once again, as a refresher.
“First rule, rule #1, the unbreakable Harry Gale Rule: we’re here for the people.”
“Villain rules of engagement. Show mercy, but no tolerance. Every villain on the street is stirring shit up. Nobody gets a pass for good behavior. We go in, we knock 'em down, we leave 'em for the robots. If the robots are hurting people, we hit the robots.”
“Tyran employees are people too. We’re here for them too. We worry about the all of Tyran’s crimes another day. That includes the Stellar Six.”
He looks up at his mother. A mixture of feelings cross her face - she was one of the people cloned to make the Stellar Six, and Harry knows she knows it - but after a second she nods her agreement. Harry goes on.
“The Seven Wonders want the adult HHL. That means the Gales. If they appear, anyone targeted retreats. We’re not ready to engage them, not yet.”
Everyone nods their agreement. Harry runs through a comms check, reviews the status of the various little systems in his own suit, and then looks around. Face after face is staring back at him. Most look determined. Some are smiling.
Harry smiles back. Time to make up for all the days he’s been away from the fight.
“Mirage. Engage Teletube.”
The world closes around them as though they were inside a book being shut by its reader. It re-opens with a view of a major street in Halycon City - Ransom Boulevard. The white glow of the Teletube’s energy begins to dissipate around them.
The situation on Ransom is a battle between the Architects of Evil and Tyran’s security robots. Two indie heroes, named Pencilneck and Hearken, are doing their best to keep a civilian evacuation going from the shops and businesses that line Ransom.
Mirage is monitoring. Strategies have been worked out. Everyone’s going to follow orders. If the order is “improvise”, they’re ready for that too.
“Stingray - Shields up, tackle Blaster of Paris,” Mirage orders. The villain has one schtick - plasma blasts - and he’s not very imaginative about using them. Stingray slams his fists together, activating the quantum-acoustic barrier emitters on his forearms, and he leaps forward. Sure enough, Blaster sees him and starts opening fire.
“A10 - tackle Flying Buttress.” Andi doesn’t need to be told twice.They’re both bricks, he’s a dick, and she’s gonna finish him with a well placed kick. But right now she has to keep him from helping his teammates. Good enough.
“Ninjess - disarm Madhesive.” The glue-using bad guy loves coating battlefields with his chemical sprayer, but he can’t do that if the hoses to it are cut or the spray head is blocked. Ninjess has enough throwable tools to take care of that. His other gimmicks, like glue grenades, will be dealt with via darts.
“Mercury, steal Madhesive’s glue. Immobilize Rubble Rouser with it.” Harry has to wait - actually wait - for Ninjess to create the openings he needs to pull this off. He spends those 13 whole seconds rushing civilians off the boulevard and onto side streets or other safe places, streaking past Pencilneck and Hearken who move like comparative statues. Pencilneck is using his stretching powers to stop debris from falling on people, and Hearken’s ultra-voice is effective at motivating the crowds, but some people just can’t move fast enough. For them, Harry’s there.
Rubble Rouser is animating concrete constructs out of the debris that have already fallen, as well as the material of the boulevard itself. The senior Gales are already on this, without any prompting from Mirage. Aside from the odd rescue, they’re using their vibratory powers to shake the constructs back into granite grains before they can fully solidify.
Ninjess has plugged up Madhesive’s glue gun with a grenade of her own that erupts into self-hardening construction foam. She’s got kunai - ninja knives - in both hands, and is busy cutting every hose and strap she can find that keeps the glue fiend’s gear attached to his suit.
As it begins to fall away, Harry dashes past. He grabs the backpack and runs. Already, glue is spilling out of the attachment points where the slashed hose used to be. He leaves a trail of it as he runs, spiraling closer and closer to Rubble Rouser as she frantically tries to animate more constructs. Finally he throws the whole thing down on the street and streaks away, along the narrow gap he left in the pattern.
His uncle Matt streaks in as he streaks out. The Comet’s special move is a high-speed impact, and he’s wound up for just this moment. He slams into Rubble Rouser. The impact is enough to send her falling straight into the biggest puddle of Madhesive’s strongest stuff, and there she’s stuck.
Stingray has managed to trap Blaster of Paris inside a hemispherical shield. The villain is angrily shooting at the barrier, and probably will be doing so for awhile. That frees the inventor up to work on another problem - like Flying Buttress.
“Full Nelson!” he shouts at Andi. She ducks under the flying man’s clumsy attempt to punch her. Based on his rather ugly remarks so far, he’s holding back, trying “not to injure a delicate flower of womanhood”. Andi, who does not regard herself as any such god damn thing, has no scruples about taking advantage, and pulls his arms into a lock. It won’t last, but it doesn’t need to.
Stingray rapidly switches suit modes between frog and octopus. He launches himself into the air, sprays a cloud of blinding ink into Buttress’s face, then kicks off his chest and lands in a crouch on the ground.
The villain is clawing at his eyes, shouting and raving, when Andi winds up a haymaker and sends him down to the concrete like a falling meteor. She descends, elbow first, and doesn’t let up until she’s very satisfied that Flying Buttress is out for the count.
Madhesive is just a guy in a costume and a lot of pain at this point, as Ninjess has relieved him of everything he was carrying and struck several vital areas for good measure. The team finishes by encircling Blaster of Paris, who although not the quickest on the uptake has realized he’s now very outnumbered.
“I… give up?” he offers, with a weak and worried smile.
“Smartest move you ever made, bro,” Stingray says mockingly.
The older Gales have Teletubed back to Q-Base before anyone could really take notice of their presence and alert the Seven Wonders. That leaves Harry to speak to the two heroes who were on the scene.
“Thought you guys ran for good,” Pencilneck says, sounding more than a little suspicious.
Harry could explain the situation. He could tell the story of the Seven Wonders and their vendetta against everyone in the HHL. He could make an excuse.
What Harry does is own up.
“We left. We’re back now, and we’re gonna make up for that time. You’ll see more of us. Right now, though, we gotta keep helping out. You two did great out here, by the way.”
The two local heroes smile at each other, and appreciatively back at Harry.
“That means much from you, Mercury,” Hearken says softly.
Harry grins. “We’re all in this together. Look forward to working with you two again.”
He heads back to his team, and calls in on comms. “Mirage. Four members of the Architects of Evil under Tyran robot supervision. Next assignment.”
“Current assignment marked as resolved. Congratulations. Your new coordinates are…”
There’s another problem to take care of, of course. There always will be, Harry feels.