REAL NAME:
Unkown

POWERS:
Unknown

HISTORY:
In development…

See more of Apollo Cities characters by clicking here.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

After asking Luke about the compassionate and sentimental side of the story would be like, he gave me a list of relationships that will be the main focus of the movie. And wow, quite frankly saying there will be a lot just doesn’t come close:

Oroku Saki & Oroku Nagi

Oroku Saki & Hamato Yoshi

Hamato Yoshi & Tang Shen

Turtles & Splinter

Turtles & Turtles

Baxter & Wife/Daughter

^ Yes this is good, very good, finally some interaction between ‘each other’ in this movie. Honestly I’ve felt things grow cold between the turtles, and even between Splinter. While not all these relationships feature love and growth as a family (such as the turtles will have in the movie), each will have a unique theme from the other. Take Oroku Saki and Hamato Yoshi for example, it will be of conflict and how things turned for the worse between them. With some detailed information about these relationships we can clear your thoughts of doubts and idea’s you may think will be relevant to the purpose of each relationship, but for now, I’m afraid you’ll just have to keep those doubts and idea’s till the time that I do have the information XD.

- – - – - – - -

Well changing the subject, let’s talk about the turtles weapons and how the turtles weapons greatly match their personalities:

So where did they get their weapons, was Splinter involved?

As the person who trained the turtles and understands their abilities and character better than anyone, Splinter would have also decided who shall use which weapon. Ensuring the right turtle receives the right weapon is a huge responsibility. The sword is suited for a different personality than the sai, and only the right personality will bring out the weapon’s true potential. This is something only a ninja master would know, like Splinter.

So why were the turtles chosen to use their weapons?

The first thing that must be done is to analyze each weapon to better understand how they would compliment the user. The weapons in our vision are their own character and possess their own personality. In a sense, this allows us to create a relationship between each turtle and their weapon. The more they understand each other, the more powerful they will become together.

CONTINUE READING.

Truly, now that I’ve viewed that article, I can see why each weapon was chosen for each turtle. Now, if only I can see a REAL ninja turtle action scene, far more played out and detailed (I even hope to see some matrix styled action 83) then even the latest CGI-Film released back in 2007.

Okay guys, that’s it for now, stay tuned for the next update =D.

There have been recent reports of mutations in the H1N1 virus that may be associated with more severe symptoms in Ukraine and Norway. Similar mutations have been observed in other countries as well. The following is a typical example of how the WHO explains the situation and what they plan to do about it in English language media:

From: Radio Australia News, November 27, 2009

The World Health Organisation says it’s investigating reports of mutations in the swine flu virus, after half-a-dozen countries recorded cases in which the virus was transforming.

The Geneva-based organisation says it’s following up on data received from China, Japan, Europe and the United States to see if there is any turn for the worse in terms of severity.

What, exactly, does “following up” mean in this context?

To get an answer, we need to switch to a Spanish language media outlet, Milenio, a Mexican news site (November 26, 2009).

En México se detectó el primer caso de mutación del virus de influenza humana A(H1N1), que corresponde a los reportes y las defunciones de abril, cuando inició la epidemia en el país, señaló la directora del Indre, Celia Alpuche Aranda.

La titular del Instituto de Diagnóstico y Referencia Epidemiológicos precisó que la próxima semana iniciarán una metodología que diseñó ese organismo para secuenciar rápidamente y poder determinar si hay más casos con la mutación del virus, y si son graves o leves.

En entrevista, Alpuche Aranda explicó esa investigación fue solicitada a todos los países por la Organización Mundial de la Salud, puesto que además de México también se han encontrado casos en Brasil, China y Estados Unidos.

El ocurrido en México corresponde al segundo paciente grave que fue atendido en el Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Respiratorias, que se comparó con otros tres casos que se registraron en Estados Unidos, pero en enfermos leves.

En esa ocasión la OMS determino que no se trataba de una situación particular, pero en días pasado en Noruega se reportaron casos graves de personas que contrajeron la enfermedad con el virus mutado, por lo que todos los países empezarán a buscar detenidamente si hay más registros.

Celia Alpuche explicó que no se ha llegado a consenso alguno en la OMS que verdaderamente pueda confirmar una mayor virulencia del A(H1N1), porque se ha encontrado en pacientes graves pero también en enfermos leves.

“La indicación de la OMS es que a partir del 20 de noviembre empecemos a buscar detenidamente en un muestreo aleatorio si esto está verdaderamente asociado. Nos lo pidió a todos los países”, comentó la directora del Indre.

English translation

The first case of of mutation in pandemic H1N1 in Mexico was detected when the pandemic begain in the country in April, said the Director of INDRE, Celia Alpuche Aranda.

The Institute for Diagnosis and Reference Epidemiologists will begin rapid sequencing methods next week to determine if there are cases of mutated virus and if these are severe or mild.

In the interview, Alpuche Aranda explained that the investigation was requested of all countries by the WHO because cases have been detected in other countries besides Mexico including Brazil, China and the United States.

The case that occurred in Mexico corresponds to the second patient with severe symptoms who was treated at the National Institute of Respiratory Diseases and was compared to three patients in the United States who had mild sickness.

Originally, the WHO had determined that this was not a special circumstance, but in recent days severe cases in Norway with the mutated virus is the reason why all countries will begin to look with greater attention to see if there are more cases.

Celia Alpuche explained that there is no consensus at the WHO as to whether there is a more virulent H1N1 because it [the mutation] has been observed in patients with both severe and mild symptoms.

“The instructions from the WHO is that from November 20, we should begin to look extensively at random samples to see if there is an association. This has been requested of all countries”, said the Director of INDRE.

So, as of November 20, 2009, the WHO has apparently instructed all countries of the world to commence a program of rapid sequencing of random samples to look for mutations in the pandemic H1N1 virus that may be associated with increased virulence. Further, it would appear that such mutant strains may have been present since April, but that it took the more recent data from Norway (and possibly Ukraine) to prompt them to begin the mutant search.

I have been arguing for such a program of extensive sequencing since the beginning of the pandemic. Such sequencing is now cheap and relatively easy due to recent advances in the technology. Comparing large numbers of samples from “mild” and severe cases is the only way to determine if a more virulent strain exists and if it is increasing in frequency. The WHO, the CDC and other public health agencies have squandered valuable time in starting this program.

I suppose I should say: better late than never, but one wonders what finally got the WHO to take this obvious step.

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World Health Organization Issues “Warning” About Bird Flu and Swine Flu Combining to Create “Deadly” Virus

20 Reasons Why Vitamin D Is Better Than a Swine Flu Vaccination

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A Doctor Has Come Out in the Open About BELARUS – Situation is Bad – Lung Destruction Seen

D225G Ukraine-Norway Link and China Spread

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Mutant, drug resistant H1N1 showing up in U.S. – YouTube

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Boy in Omaha With Lung Failure on Respirator – Mutant H1N1?

Last-Ditch lung bypass for worst ARI/Swine Flu cases

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Virologist Says Swine Flu – Came From Lab or Vaccine Making Company – Though WHO Disagrees!

flashback: European labs discover flu vaccines contaminated

H1N1 Re-infection raise Pandemic Concerns

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Are Populations Being Primed For Nano-Microchips Inside Vaccines?

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American Medical Association: No Mandatory Flu Shots… for DOCTORS

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WHO acknowledges Canada’s Side Effects from Recalled Vaccine

Swine Flu Vaccine Now Ready For Toddlers 6 month-olds plus – Calls to be made to Encourage Vaccine to People – this is not good news

Singapore: 27 “Official” Adverse Side Effects from Swine Flu Vaccine

2.5 million begin Hajj amid Swine Flu fears

τττ

Reported flu stats by country

(courtesy of Flu News Network)

Canada
•  Vaccine allergic reaction prompts pulling of one lot (Link)
•  Saskatchewan has 2 more deaths, 11 total, 30 in ICU (Link)
•  Peterborough, Ontario man, 32, fights for his life (Link)
•  4 more deaths in BC, 34 total deaths so far (Link)
•  Health Canada says flu vaccine reactions an anomaly (Link)
•  2 new deaths confirmed last week in Nova Scotia (Link)
•  Alberta’s H1N1 flu rate nearly double national average (Link)

China
•  Hong Kong reports another death case of influenza A/H1N1 (Link)

Egypt
•  Confirmation of 10th death, 140 in hospitals with H1N1 (Link)
•  Egypt reports 11th death case of A/H1N1 flu (Link)

India
•  Chandigarh confirms 2 more deaths, total now 6 (Link)
•  3 recent deaths bring total deaths in India to 558 (Link)

Morocco
•  Confirmation of 114 new cases of H1N1 (Link)

The Netherlands
•  Dutch queue for H1N1 jabs in blanket plan (Link)

Serbia
•  17 deaths and 344 cases (Link)

Turkey
•  Confirmation of 112 deaths thus far  (Link)

United Kingdom
•  More children ‘than expected have had swine flu’ (Link)

United States
•  US: ECMOs can save lives of some of the most severely ill (Link)
•  CA: San Diego confirms 8 more deaths, total in SD now 45 (Link)
•  IA: Iowa State produces and supplies only H1N1 vaxx for swine (Link)
•  KS: Kansas confirms 2 more deaths, 21 total (Link)
•  MI: Michigan confirms 54 deaths since April1  (Link)
•  MN: Minnesota adds 6 new confirmed deaths from H1N1, 35 total (Link and link)
•  NH: 25 yr old Dartmouth student died of H1N1 (Link)
•  NJ: Morris County man is state’s 29th swine flu death (Link)
•  OR: 1 new death, 15 hospitalizations (Link)
•  RI: Rhode Island man 8th death since Sept. 1 from H1N1 (Link)
•  SD: “Healthy” 12 year old dies from H1N1 (Link and link)
•  TX: Mechanical rocking bed helped save a young mom’s life (Link)
•  TX: San Patricio County confirms 2nd death from H1N1 (Link)
•  WV: Physician confirmed to have caught H1N1 TWICE (Link)

General News
•  Avian flu: WHO warns of resurgence (Link)

Follow the link: Righteous Ninja

DueceZ (David J. Benson) is the performer this time, awesome… >:D

- – - – - – - – -

Here’s the other article of interest, details on how the previous Ninja Turtle movies were a success and why THIS movie can be an even GREATER success: Ninja Turtles: Secret of the Movie

Sample:

What made the turtles a success in the past?

Ninja Turtles were a huge hit with children in the late 1980’s. The concept of a “ninja” was very exciting and still relatively new to American culture. Ninja Turtles had everything a child would want to see all wrapped up into one show, ninjas, mutants, pizza, skate boards, and funny jokes. In contrast, shows like GI-JOE were more true to life. The superhero genre had not yet taken off in the way it has over the last decade as a result, the audience was not as spoiled by special effects and big budget productions as they are today.

In 1990 the first live action movie was made for the relatively small price of 13.5 million and grossed a little over 200 million worldwide. It was the first successful live action movie that began as an animated series. People were excited to see their Saturday morning heroes come to life on the big screen. However, as Ninja Turtles grew more popular, more hands went in the decision making pot. Passion and creativity were slowly replaced by a committee of businessmen. It was unfortunate that the next three films did not find the same success as their predecessor.

Our challenge is to bring back the fire and excitement that people had for the first live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.

All for now guys, stay tuned for the next updates =D.

Hey Gang,

For Turkey Day 2009 I figured what better way to celebrate here at The Trash Cinema Collective than with the 1972 Anti-Drug, Pro-Christian, Mutant Killer Turkey film…Blood Freak!

That’s right, hold onto Plymouth Rock and prepare yourself for horrendous audio, unintelligible mumbling, bio-hazardous turkey meat, real life turkey decapitation, bible thumpers in red hot pants, sibling rivalry, turkey poking, mutant sex, cock blockage, a God live ever present narrator, the complimentary use of the term “husky”, real life amputees, lots of screaming, copious blood squirting, and poultry rage!

This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the indispensable help of Team Trash Cinema: Erica Andrus, Justin Falco and Terrius Greene whose performances bring this Thanksgiving Holiday Special to life. Thanks again, gang!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving and Stay Trashy!

-The Primal Root

Rogue buries her finger in Wolvie's chest.

I told you we’re back. Another Superhero Throwdown regular, Rachael W., weighs in this week’s challenge with this sweet submission.

Rachael:

An experiment with four Copic Markers and more of an outlined style, then edited in Photoshop. I often have to restrain myself from saying this phrase on a daily basis to the important people in my life.

Make sure you check her own design site, RachaelWDesign. You won’t be disappointed.

MY REVERIE EVAPORATES at the chirrup of the Zephyr phone. I snatch it quickly from my belt, but otherwise remain defeated in my rickety office chair.
            “What is it?”
            “Is that Zephyr? It’s Hallory O’Hagan from MMI.”
            “Oh, Hallory, Christ, hello. Sorry. I was expecting someone else,” I lie.
            “That’s cool. Where are you now?” she asks in her ever-effervescent voice.
            “I’m, uh, actually outside some bad guys’ lair right as we speak.” I grin, pained, the expression unpleasant. “Talk about a Tarantino moment.”
            Hallory titters. “I guess it seems like a silly time to want to discuss figurines with you.”
            “Hey, I get fanboys wanting to talk about my figurine all the time.”
            “Well it’s definitely time we revamped your line. It’s been, what, ten years?”
            “Sure.” I shrug. “Those plastic fuckers last forever.”
            “Okay,” Hallory replies with enough trepidation that even I can discern it. “Did you manage to talk about the line of dolls with the other Sentinels?”
            “New Sentinels,” I correct her. I’m pretty sure I blew the rights to the old team name in a poker game, though it is equally possible it was Mastodon who walked out with the winner, taking with him the keys to Omeganaut’s Omegamobile (which he later crashed and sank in the bottom of the Bay) and the rights to Aquanaut’s first-born child. Boy was that a night.
            “Look,” I tell the hot redhead on the other end of the phone, “it’s still a little premature to discuss this. We haven’t actually finalised the team.”
            “Really? I thought we were booking media for the launch next Friday?”
            “Well, yeah. . . .”
            “I might have some interesting feedback for you, then,” Miss O’Hagan continues unperturbed. “Focus groups have thrown up a few names you might want to consider.”
            “For my . . . team?”
            “Well for the action figures, but yeah I guess they need to be on the team too so we can licence them, right?” she responds.
            “Okay,” I shrug, uncomfortable yet intrigued. “Who?”
            “Shade, for starters.”
            “Shade’s, like, British. From London.”
            “We’re getting some very good numbers for her at the moment, and beside you’ll need ethnic diversity, right?”
            “So they tell me.”
            “What about Paragon and Jocelyn?”
            “Jesus,” I hiss. “I don’t think so.”
            “Why not?” Hallory asks. “Have you even heard the figures they’re talking for wedding pictures?”
            “Let’s keep going down the list.”
            “Cusp? I don’t even know who that is.”
            “I’m working on it. Next?”
            “Okay. Red Monolith.”
            “He’s, uh . . . he’s dead.”
            “Okay well that’s not happening then. Do you think we could acquire a licence from his estate? Sort of a, ‘friend of the New Sentinels’ angle?”
            “Jesus, lady, I don’t know,” I stagger a sigh. “I’m beginning to think you could get a licence to kill if one really existed.”
            “I’ll take that as a compliment,” she says and I can practically hear her purring down the phone. She is so mine.
            “Do you actually have any suggestions I can use?” I ask.
            “Okay. Well how about Nocturne? If you can’t go with Shade, Nocturne’s another good coloured option.”
            “I don’t think we call them ‘coloured’ any more,” I remark.
            “I’ve got another idea, not sure what you’ll think about it.”
            I scratch at my mask and realise I am still not wearing one. “Go on.”
            “The groups were indicating boys from eight all the way through to thirty-five were pretty keen on a modular, kind of transforming robot sort of guy,” Hallory says and barely drops pace as she continues on with the spiel. “I’ve had production mock up a few costumes and the copy guys have suggested a few names: Contraption Man? Mr Roboto? Rocketman?”
            “But I don’t know any . . . transforming robots . . . I don’t think.”
            “I guess that’s the point,” Hallory says. “You could think of it like meeting your obligations to equally represent minorities on the team. Have you asked yourself, do you have the machine world covered?”
            “Honey, I don’t think the machines have a lobby group we need to worry about, unless they’re armed. . . .” I think briefly at this juncture about Think Tank. “Next thing you’ll be making suggestions for a fucking superhero with Down’s Syndrome or something. It’s not happening, okay?”
            “Zephyr, the numbers are really good.”
            “I’m sure they are,” I say.
            She waits a beat. “Even for a disabled person, we’re getting feedback that there’s a lot of angles as far as accessories go, there’s even a synergy between the robot guy.”
            “There is no robot guy!”
            “Only because you’re being so negative about it.”
            “Christ, Hallory,” I say, sounding spent. “You know I love you and everything, but you have to listen to what you’re saying here. The two members of my team you’re most interested in don’t exist, and maybe they’re having an affair together? The robot guy and the girl with mechanical legs?”
            “It’s not a bad idea.”
            “I’m hanging up now. I’ll fax you the final roster when I get the licences signed off.”
            A gravid silence hangs between us. I don’t know if I’m sympathetic just because I want to get into her pants, but I feel guilty about chewing Hallory out and there’s nothing but embarrassed, possibly sullen vibes emanating back down the phone line.
            “I’d green light the Red Monolith toy, though,” I say reluctantly. “He would’ve liked that.”
            “Cool,” Miss O’Hagan comes back. “I’ll courier you over some new concept art. Where should I, uh, do that?”
            “No concept art,” I snap. “He wore red and black, with yellow panels under his arms. And a motorbike helmet, damn it.”
            I snap the phone shut and jam it back into its purse hard. I am fuming with anger and yet mostly I’m just annoyed at myself. I consider annihilating the TV and instead exercise just a modicum of control, giving it enough spark to power it on. The widescreen resolves into a picture of British actors picketing the skyscraper where the Union Jacks have their base. Seeker’s vanishing fortress is certainly a better deal than a headquarters where even a bunch of freakin’ thespianoids can manage to find you. As the small crowds wave their placards, Protector himself appears – the third British super to bear that name – and tries to settle the crowd with an inaudible speech that soon turns to violence. It’s not a good look as he jets through the crowd bowling women and policemen over, bottles smashing the glass façade of the building lobby. I reflect on an image of his teammate Lionheart, last time he was in Atlantic City, with a beard of puke dribbling from his chin into some stripper’s lap.
            I glare at the screen throughout a twelve-minute commercial break, promos for American Hero, Celebrity Heroes, Heroes: Where Are They Now, You Can Be A Hero, Heroes Unlimited, Arena Heroes, Down And Out In Atlantic City and London and a cooking show with some raven-haired British bint who eyes the camera insouciantly and looks like she’s licking up cum as she devours a mess of chocolate cake and cream on a child’s-sized spoon.
            A newsbreak live from the NBN chopper shows some ridiculously buff dude with black hair and a gold cape fucking around the top of the Silver Tower, seemingly inspecting the array of antennae and digital receivers. NBN splices in some of the free-to-air feed Chancel himself provides, giving a fish-eye lensed view of the stranger up close, a furrow to his otherwise fine, completely unfamiliar features.
            It’s enough for me. I’m angry and already dressed. I press my mask into place and stomp through to the wallspace and the open window and basically throw myself out and plunge into the glimmering dusk.

IT’S ONLY A couple of seconds across the city at the speed I’m travelling. Golden Boy hears me coming and turns as I use the concrete ledge as a brake and snarl, “Who the fuck are you?” as the news copter whirrs around for a new angle.|
            The other guy has about half-a-foot on me, which isn’t anything unusual as I’ve explained before, I’m just ordinary height. He has shoulders like a bull, black hair in a sort of Imperial Roman cast, a gold circlet around his brows matched by the cape and little sandals. His arms and legs are bare, the rest of him in a clinging reddish blouse, thick belt and trunks.|
            “A spiritu fornicationis, Domine, libera nos,” he chuckles. “This-a question, it is rhetorica, no?”
            “What?”
            The foreigner smiles and next thing I know there is immense pain in my chest as eye-beams lance through me. I lose all strength and drop from the air – not a good thing when we’re about forty floors from the ground – and it is only rebounding off the hard concrete ledge that jolts me back into awareness long enough to grab for a hand-hold. Meanwhile the dude in the cape gives a final once-over to the audio-visual apparatus on the outside of the tower, glances at me and then rockets heavenward.
            I’m a ruin. I only just manage to roll onto the ledge and lay there for long seconds with the smell of my own cooked bacon filling the air, even with the competing cross-winds. The news helicopter turns around and a megaphoned voice booms my name a few times before I manage to sit up and, gasping, actually trying not to break into tears of embarrassed, pained frustration, I probe the wound to my chest in disbelief.
            “Who the hell was that?”
            The leather is scorched and peeling and basically destroyed. Likewise for the top-most layers of my skin and pectoral muscle. It hurts like a bastard and if it wasn’t for my own persistent physiognomy I’d be winging my way to the ER right now. All I know is I need to get somewhere private and strip down. Victim of my own adventures as I have been so many times these past years, I am a veteran at this routine and manage to get to my feet without much more than wincing. I remember once seeing a Canadian hero called Manowar do the same thing after a few of Cogito’s goons triple-teamed us with some of these industrial lasers he’d whipped into weapons. Poor bastard didn’t realise he’d been nearly cut in half by the beams and stood only to watch his intestines and liver pour onto the ground. I think somehow he lived, though he’s been institutionalised ever since. I guess you don’t adjust easy to seeing your insides in the dirt.
            I give the chopper a little wave and a wan smile and shrug, oh well, for the cameras. I have to shake myself off a moment to ascertain that my powers haven’t deserted me completely and then I do the crouch thing and pretty much abscond from the whole disaster, avoiding the news loops for the next two days that show me getting my arse handed to me from pretty much every angle Amadeus Chancel could provide.
            Everyone’s happy enough to lend their own little comments to my performance, but they don’t even think to ask who the hell was my opponent. The only time anyone even thinks to address the matter – and to add insult to injury, it’s Nightwind – the panellists just shrug their shoulders and move on to the next schmuck.
            From my sickbed, with the wound healing nicely, I scrub Chancellor’s name from the ‘potentials’ list and work the phone, whittling down the final candidates via conference call as the big night comes ever closer.

REAL NAME:
James Cole

POWERS:
Black Jaw’s powers, if you can call them that, are not Psionic in nature but stem from a mutation instead.
Blackjaw can see in multiple spectrum’s and doesn’t need any sleep. It’s the latter that eventually drove him insane and caused his self surgical addiction in where Blackjaw replaces his diseased and dying body parts with mechanical ones.

HISTORY:
While precise records weren’t always kept fifty years ago it is believed that James Cole looked directly into the body of the hero SOL and was negatively effected by the psionicly modified solar rays. He became obsessed with SOL and the obsession eventually helps drive him mad. Blackjaw and Sol eventually kill one another in mortal combat over Apollo City creating the “Power Storm” that still effects the city today.

See more of Apollo Cities characters by clicking here.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

1. Mutant genes ‘key to long life’ -

There is a clear link between living to 100 and inheriting a hyperactive version of an enzyme that prevents cells from ageing, researchers say.

Scientists from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the US say centenarian Ashkenazi Jews have this mutant gene.

They found that 86 very old people and their children had higher levels of telomerase which protects the DNA.

They say it may be possible to produce drugs that stimulate the enzyme.

2. Atheist billboard goes up in San Diego – It’s gotten some great publicity here and in this CNN video. As always, there’s someone in the video claiming that the billboard is attacking people, which perfectly illustrates the level of delusion we’re dealing with here as the ad simply says, “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone.”

3. Right-Handed Chimps: Clues to Language Origin -

Most of the linguistic functions in humans are controlled by the left cerebral hemisphere. A study of captive chimpanzees at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center (Atlanta, Georgia), reported in the January 2010 issue of Elsevier’s Cortex, suggests that this “hemispheric lateralization” for language may have its evolutionary roots in the gestural communication of our common ancestors. A large majority of the chimpanzees in the study showed a significant bias towards right-handed gestures when communicating, which may reflect a similar dominance of the left hemisphere for communication in chimpanzees as that seen for language functions in humans.

4. Westboro Baptist Church shifts focus from gay-bashing to Jew-bashing – Why do I continue to report the antics of these media whores when I know all they care about is getting attention? Because they are my favorite religion ever. They illustrate what is wrong with religion perfectly and get called lunatics by mainstream religious folks despite the fact that they share nearly identical positions. The only difference between Pat Robertson and the WBC is that says gays are evil on TV before an audience of millions while the WBC has to get creative in order to get their audiences.

The shirts read, "I'm not with stupid."

I AM DOWNTOWN. The air is chill and the traffic thrums and stalls around me like angry geese, horns going off in a cavalcade. My arms are full of things a man in my financial situation has no right to afford, but I have a cheque due from the management company for a bunch of voice-overs I did the previous week and they even paid me to sign a pile of forms I didn’t exactly read. I’m excited but nervous because I feel the change in the air and it’s not just the first flakes of winter snow.
            I ignore the incipient fender benders around me and step over a homeless guy lying in front of the department store asleep with his cock out and the biggest take-away mocha chill latte I have ever seen in my life spilled across the pavement beside him, a rich woman’s small dog lapping unseen at the edge of the puddle with its eyes going wide as it steps into a little of the human sensorium. The black guys at the entrance of the shop eye me like a rival gangsta, which I ignore because, you know, I’m cool with that shit, and I nod on the sly and make up some kind of fucking hand signal for a laugh that makes one wince and the other screw up his face in bewilderment. Oh yeah, and I have dropped about fifteen of these tiny little cute pills I found down the back of the couch, gagging on the lint, the pink hearts familiar to me and not actually candy as you might expect. They give me a fire in my belly and an iron rod I have to practically strap to the side of my leg as I amble into the big lit-up store, ignoring the more Christmassy decorations with my arms already half-filled with shit I shouldn’t be buying.
            I’m moving house soon. That explains the back-of-the-sofa foraging and also why I am not at home at 6pm without a good excuse, no-one to cook my dinner or give me the hairy eyeball when I turn up at nine smelling like woodsmoke or brine or ectoplasm or Asian pussy with no real explanation to offer to a family who apparently all knew about the ridiculous one-man play my life had become. It just lacked a title. Perhaps, Zephyr the Amazing Doofus. I could think of a dozen things more harsh if it wasn’t for my happy pills and I’ll be frank with you that it’s a nice surprise to get a little holiday from the black mood that has been following me of late.
            I have only just recovered from finding myself standing somewhere in the middle of the Eighth Century pushing corpses into a swamp with just a handful of unspeaking, black-cowled so-called priests as my accomplices. As Seeker glibly explained – troublingly so for someone who is practically a born-again-Christian – by the time Ash and the guy from the Jackass crew’s bodies turn up, they’ll have been decayed for centuries and unidentifiable. I thought I read or watched something once about peat bogs actually preserving people better, but I am not going to get into a slanging match with a bunch of Wallachians who don’t actually speak anyway, except among themselves, and even then in low whispers.
            I am buying the essentials: clean underwear, rewritable DVDs, disposable razors, cue tips, a new hairbrush, toothbrush, shoe brush, boot polish and five cans of leather refresher that makes the emo chick behind the counter raise her heavily-pierced eyebrow, an effort by itself, and she laughs gently and makes some joke about me having a fetish and because I’m a little high I just nod and leer and say, “Yes, Veronica, and that is not all I can do,” and successfully creep her out. If I had my mask on she would so be mine. I dig the purple highlights in her hair, the chalky face, the pubescent cleavage straining at the secretarial white button-up blouse the shop makes her wear. I think of Cusp and my daughter Tessa simultaneously and it’s not the most comfortable sensation I’ve had all week.
            In front of a display of the latest holo-projection TVs my Zephyr phone starts blurping and I look over my shoulder, knowing already I am going to risk it despite the mild shopping turbulence around me. I pile my things onto the carpeted step beneath one of the TVs that is showing news footage of the Pope setting down in Newark and whoever it is on the other end of the phone, I cannot hear a fucking word they are saying. I cut the line and realise I have five text messages, three of them from Seeker about “team business,” one from the guy who still manages my web forum and one from Streethawk, of all people, asking if the rumours are true that we’re putting together a new squad. Sorry Bruce, no homos allowed, is what I think to myself and then catch myself on the television suddenly, brows crinkled as I ponder how exactly I turned out to be such a homophobic beeotch given my upbringing – and it’s disorienting trying to work out why I can see myself on the holoscreen until I realise a salesman is demonstrating a handicam to a bunch of East China tourists who look like they have never seen an electric light let alone a DVD camera.
            The phone rings again. I put my finger in my other ear. It’s the guy from the web forum again, I can’t remember his name for the moment as he’s telling me something about an irate fan who keeps demanding he pass on a message about the end of the world. I give a good laugh – it’s not easy being Zephyr on the phone when I’m not in costume and I’m surrounded by other people – and I tell my little helper not to worry about it and I have a pretty good idea who it is. This is a lie, of course, but I am not about to go sweating the psychiatric foibles of every loser who finds himself at contactzephyr.com.nu(.)
            On the regular televisions I see shaky footage of a guy in a wrestling suit straining like someone with a blocked ass and then he swells and blisters and grows to about the size of a small elephant and goes all red and angry-looking and the words COALFACE appears as the surface of his body blackens and cracks open like the mantle of a volcano and I have to admit to myself, that’s one nasty-looking motherfucker, and that’s why I am glad it appears to be just a TV show. I pick up my purchases and decide to go buzz the perfume section and see about buying an early birthday present for Tessa, marvelling at my uncurtailed freedom and wondering where exactly it is that I am going to sleep once Beth settles on a date for taking back the apartment.

THE PHONE IS ringing while I take a dump and it’s not just my sullen alpha waves that mean I don’t move a muscle, letting it drone on and on and on, my thoughts a thousand miles away and the sky outside filling up with black ink.
            Eventually the phone is quiet. I shower, do my “ablutions,” which is a term I guess writers of Stoker’s era used to avoid describing the messy business I clean off my knuckles with tissue paper the consistency of gauze wrap as I sigh, filled with discontentedness, and then stand at the wide bank of apartment windows gazing across the cityscape as night descends like an inexpertly hung stage curtain, staggering down unevenly but eventually consuming the whole thing in darkness until the audience, uncomfortable in their seats, shift and wonder what purpose this development, how does the staging match the set design in bringing forward the central themes of the piece, assuming an author somewhere, intentionality, a coherent structure, the inevitability of climax and resolution, only to find the circus has moved on and run off with the price of their admission.
            My life, for the moment, lacks all of these details. When I go to dress, half-a-quart of milk gurgling in my stomach and a vague craving for Swedish meatballs unconquered, I realise my costume smells like a homeless man’s trolley. The comparative luxury of my situation affords me a clean outfit and the almost Japanese ritual of the process of costuming myself in leather and turning the old suit inside out and hanging it to air in the wallspace obscures the central fact I now have few reasons to dress like an ordinary person, that without those silently knowing figures so recently extracted from my life I am one hundred per cent superhero on call without much else to show for my existence.
            While I might long for a different kind of normal, the feeling of familiarity and safety brought by my leather encasement is a comfort I might find hard to describe if I had to, if there was anyone else with which to share my thoughts except you, my phantasmal darling. Briefly I think of Cusp, Seeker, Vulcana, Devil Betty, handicam footage of my daughter and Shade turning pirouettes at mach over the Silver Tower. While I admit I am feeling sorry for myself, and it might be the comedown from self-medication making it such a drag, the tomb of the apartment and the desecration of my sacred private life revealed by the bare refrigerator, strewn magazines and empty pizza boxes underlines the reality beneath my funk. I am no has been when I am Zephyr, yet even slumping on the sofa and staring at the disconnected television and I am already moving imperceptibly back toward being that person who, in a parallel life, declined to climb the maddening tower and went on to live a plain, inglorious and altogether unremarkable life. Perhaps I would’ve been happier. Perhaps I could’ve kept Beth, though it’s questionable I could’ve wooed her in the first place without my lightning trick and incredible strength to seduce the girl she so quickly ceased to be upon our graduation. More likely I would’ve met some girl behind the desk of a pharmacy, a library, a video store, raised a brood of weird-looking children and continued on through ignominy to the anonymity of death.
            Oh God.
            In the bathroom I contemplate my face in the mirror, my mask gone. Whatever fate awaited me – presuming the intersection of my life with that lightning bolt was anything other than fated – the very fact of my existence is underwritten by my paternity. Electrical storm or no, whatever else, they tell me I am John Lennon’s son. The Preacher Man. Yet we look nothing alike. Or, almost nothing alike, unless there’s something I’m missing.
           There is an iconic image of Lennon from the Summer Rebellion. I move through the apartment to my computer in the wallspace, many of my things in boxes in preparation for the move. Excel spreadsheets from Sal Doro’s disc about the Azzurro Corporation is open from my half-hearted review of the web of complex company structures and asset holdings that one of Sal’s journo colleagues had inexplicably to hand. It is quickly minimised as I pull up Firefox and perform an image search to get the picture I am after. It’s just a few seconds between this and that and then my alleged father’s face is staring out at me, the Preacher Man bearded and cross-legged in a white linen robe with heavy beads around his neck, floating in the air over the writhing hordes of protesters and London bobbies with Perspex shields and grimaces marring their moustachioed faces. He has one hand raised above him and the word “stop” nascent on his lips. Distracted that moment by a cameraman, perhaps an inherited trait after all, he turns his face sixty degrees towards the viewer and unintentional immortality. Put that in your cosmic peace pipe and smoke it, grandpa.
            I’m eating at my parents’ place tomorrow night. All will be revealed, I suppose.
            I sigh and wish I had a cigarette and my eyes drift down the initial table of thumbnails from the internet search and suddenly I find myself looking at quite a different, but nonetheless familiar face.
            My half-brother, Julian.

Several other genuinely great Halloween costumes showed up on other websites after the previous post about costumes in poor taste. Hands down (no pun intended) the best costume I found is this one from instructables.com

Pity I won't remember this later...

Makes me wonder if the designers were taking thalidomide or acid…

Attack of the Mutant Artificial Trees
Attack of the Mutant Artificial Trees

Attack of the Mutant Artificial Trees Game
Attack of the Mutant Artificial Trees Game Description : Miles outside the city, a delivery truck is in route with a mysterious payload! The artificial trees have mutated and are sucking the spirit out of Christmas. Help the elf beat these bad guys by hitting them with snow balls!
How to Play Attack of the Mutant Artificial Trees Game? Use Mouse to interact.

I AM READING the Post with some disdain, my back to a girder in the otherwise fully translucent diner, trying to kid myself that I am flicking through the political and world news sections to get to the sports and not Nate Simon’s Tuesday column. The little fuck has been hinting at the breakdown in my friendship with Twilight for two weeks running now, but he hasn’t even tried to call to verify his information. Thanks to Christ he doesn’t know half as much as he could, even if he’s already spilled twice as much as I’d ever want the average Joe Public to know about how Twilight and I came to blows and sent half the city (actually just Rhode Island) into the Abyss. I am not presently accepting calls from the Mayor’s office for fear they might have some crazy idea about reparations.
            Fortunately the Post reporter has a new bag. Sal Doro covers the big fish (like me, normally), which is why I guess Simon is left speculating on the disappearance of some dude who works the south city and calls himself Crusader. Original. While I have barely heard of this guy before, I don’t think the fact some fruit in a costume fails to stop three daytime robberies and a laundry fire justifies a missing person report. If he’s anything like I was when I was starting out, a really bad zit was enough to keep me low for two weeks at a time.
            I flick through this trivia and check the other items. I see Eris has been at her own unique brand of chaos again, hospitalising a guard at the storage vaults attached to the State Museum of the Americas. Hebrew parahuman Allan Silverman has demanded an invite to an upcoming session of the City States Symposium in Atlantic City with predictable results. Mastodon and Cipher have teamed up to smash a Yardie drug den, which begs a far more interesting story given the old man’s pharmaceutical pursuits. An emissary from a parallel earth has apparently left Atlantic City in disgust after being refused entry to the Flyaway. The stock price for most major drug companies took a hit last week following rumours a German sorcerer had eradicated all strains of influenza. Turned out not to be true. Pity. Meanwhile a villain called Dragonmaster, a Brit, I assume, since I’ve never heard of him, has come out of the closet to a men’s mag. One look at the scaled leather costume the guy wears and you’ve got to wonder who was left to gasp in surprise at that particular revelation.
            Oh, and Windsong has been seen flying formations over Staten Island with a British super, the renowned bisexual beauty Shade. The thirty-something bisexual beauty Shade. I make a note to self and grit my teeth and barely look up at the sweet Minnesotan farm girl who delivers my espresso as a pizza delivery guy cutting up the sidewalk outside hits a dude in a suit and his moped goes hissing out-of-control toward a fountain. I snap the newspaper shut and patently ignore the chaos, my hand around the warm mug a pleasure to savour as I fight against the invisible forces that would otherwise suck my mood.
            Surprisingly the gossip pages have absolutely nothing about Seeker’s decision to form a new group of Sentinels. Considering it’s been the talk of the top end of town the whole week past, I find that amazing. Either someone has hushed the city’s reporters, they’re saving it for a special issue, or else Atlantic City’s costumed elite are keeping quiet for one rare moment in their lives, reasons unknown.
            Mickey Rourke enters the diner and I sink lower in my chair. I owe him thirty bucks and last time we got wrecked at Halogen I may have told him I’d pay him back with a hand-job. He’s just crazy enough to want to collect just so he can see me squirm. A disturbing individual.
            I snap the paper again to straighten the crooked columns and my phone, sitting on the table with more papers from my agent and my house keys, lights up and displays Seeker’s name.
            “Speak of the Devil,” I grin in answer somewhat inappropriately.
            “We need to talk.”
            “About the Sentinels?”
            “. . . yes, about the Sentinels. The New Sentinels.”
            I nod and smile to myself. “Where’ve you got that castle parked?”
            The door to the diner swings open and she is standing there with her phone to her ear in that ridiculous Paula Abdul outfit.
            “I brought a ride,” she says. “Come on.”

IT IS WEIRD in the cab, the feeling we’re both thoroughly disguised as we play-act in our secret identities. Seeker’s trying pretty hard to show she’s a street-smart and stylish broad, not at all the arch conservative, borderline religious psycho we’ve sometimes considered her over the years. Great jugs an’ all, but any time the old Sentinels tried to have the least bit of fun, either Seeker would blow up in a tirade reminding us of our higher calling, calling us all juveniles, or else she would go off in a sulk that managed to cast a pall over at least the majority of our worst excesses. Now if someone could explain to me why in the back seat of a yellow cab there’s more sexual tension than my junior high prom, I’d really appreciate it.
            “So, uh, it’s Loren, right?”
            “It seems like a million years ago, but yeah,” she replies.
            “You’re from . . . Atlantic City?”
            “Is anyone?”
            She gives a breathtaking laugh filled with only half the confidence she’s trying to project. I glare at the cabbie through the rear view mirror and make sure he’s got his eyes on the road.
            “My folks were from Willagee, Nebraska. Pa brought us to Atlantic City right after the Kirlians. He was a builder. Made his money in the upgrade.”
            “And so it’s here where you . . . ?”
            Seeker wrinkles her nose, acknowledging we don’t have the best privacy by giving just a curt nod. Adorable. Fucking hell. I nod to myself and stare out the window and am kinda surprised when she keeps talking.
            “I was fourteen,” she says. “The visions came first. Apocalypse. Death from Space. All very sci-fi. I woke up one night re-enacting that scene from Ghostbusters, you know, floating above the bed covers? Our family priest knew a pastor who knew a rabbi who knew a cardinal. I’m sure you can follow what I mean.”
            “And from there?”
            “Well, to cut a long story short: the Wallachian Brotherhood.”
            “The guys in the castle?” I ask.
            “Yes.”
            “The brotherhood.”
            “Oh, there’s women too. I never asked about that. . . .”
            “And they are, exactly. . . ?”
            “A fifteen-hundred-year-old secret society dedicated to keeping the doors closed between our world and the next,” Seeker says in a relaxed voice that does nothing to detract from her measured and careful pronunciation.
            “Okay. So they hunt monsters and stuff who sneak through?”
            “In the early days, that’s how it began,” she says. “It got complicated once they perfected their own technology on a parallel earth.”
            “And these are the guys who are offering to sponsor the New Sentinels a base?” I ask slowly.
            “Well we’ll need one.”
            “I thought Devil Betty. . . ?”
            “I don’t know, Joseph. As I said to you before, I’m not that comfortable with the, uh, demonic overtones of that name.”
            “So a kid makes a bad wish on a shooting star after listening to too many Marilyn Manson albums.” I shrug. “To paraphrase something I heard recently, just because she used to worship the Devil doesn’t necessarily make her a bad person.”
            “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” Seeker replies.
            “Okay.”
            I stare out the window with the patented gaze of one of those small pampered lap dogs rich women like to take with them on trips across town. Through the glass of the taxi window the downtown area flicks past at a haphazard pace. Finally we get stalled in traffic again down near the harbour and for some reason I start chuckling about a joke in an email I got from Nautilus a couple of days back.
            “What’s so funny?” Seeker asks.
            “It’s nothing.”
            “Hmmm. By the way,” she says, “I meant to ask you, have you heard from Darkstorm in the past few days? I can’t get him to answer his cell.”
            “Hmmm no,” I reply. “Years ago he used to have this message drop at a laundry in Chi-town. That place secretly run by goblins or elves or whatever the hell it was. You want to stop by there?”
            “No,” Seeker replies. She stares out the window now, just in time to catch a homeless man introducing two tourists to his dancing chicken act. Loren’s pretty eyes flinch at the sight, making me wonder just how innocent can the girl be given some of the things we’ve seen in this life.
            “I’m sure he’ll turn up in the end,” she says, distracted.
            “How’s Vulcana doing, by the way?”
            The brightness re-enters Seeker’s eyes.
            “Better every day. This is one of the benefits of the Wallachian Fortress I want to talk about with you, Joseph. The Brotherhood’s clerics will have her fighting fit in no time at all.”
            “I wonder how Connie feels about that?”
            “Why in Heaven would you say that?” Seeker frowns. “Her arm was off. I’m sure she’s thrilled to get back to how she was.”
            I nod, inner turmoil defused as the frantically eavesdropping cabbie drives us to the rendezvous with the disappearing castle.
            It only takes Loren a moment to mindwipe the driver once we’ve parked, and since I’m a little short of change, I offer to pay and catch her up, leaving the disoriented cabbie parked in a tow zone as I scamper to eventually follow the hot brunette in the high-heeled boots disappearing into thin air outside the boarded up walls of the construction site.

I like Fridays, because they are so short.
However, I dislike Fridays because they are toooo short, so I am left with 12 hours of nothing to do…
My feeling for going out these evenings have come to a halt, there is really nothing to do.

Me and a coouple of friends went and at a japanese restaurant in town today, Nagano.
It was very scrumptious, we sat at a ‘no shoes’ table and had a very good time together chilling and chattin^^

I bought some new sketchbooks today cuz they had a sale at a bookstore in town, and I also baought a new nice pen ^^
I love pens, and each time I go into a bookstore I always go for the pens and try them out.
Because I am an artist, just give me a pen and paper and I will create a peice of art, or atleast sit occupied for a couple of hours just doodling for fun…
-These sketch books were funny though, dunno why they chose such a cover…?
My friend and I are considering to attend a Croqui class sometime soon, hehe!
I have always wanted to try it out, draw some hot girl but from what I have seen it is always some sort of either big hairy fat guy or a ugly skinny faghag bitch or fatass bitch…

Found this really ugly piece of girl clothes shit…
I mean seriously, I have seen worse, but this freaks me out!
Personally, I think this dress looks like one big fucked up mutant pussy!
-Does anybody agree with me?

I dont even wanto mention what I think Red SlushPuppy looks like…okay, what the fuck…It totally looks like mangled and mushed up pussy…
Im not that sick but I can imagine thats what it looks like, along with a fuck load of blood…

-Lucky Red SlushPuppy tastes wonderful!

This picture was taken over a year ago in Gothenburg, I actually miss that place now still.
I was out this night with my friend Inzy, and Stockholm really is booring, if you are not going to go somewhere whether it be the cinema or a club, there is really nothing to do…Just a load of boring streets.
In Gothenburg there are long lanes and stuff, a nice waterfront and also Liseberg very locally…
I cant help myself to think about witch bitch over there though…she still ruins that nice town for me :/

PUSSY!

Fringe: Season 2: Episode 2: “Night of Desirable Objects”

Charlie begins his last mission.

A spate of disappearances prompts Fringe Division to track down a subterranean creature, mutated by the One Ring yet another rogue scientist. The usual impossibilities aside, this episode was refreshingly easy to watch.

This episode is debunked at Popular Mechanics and Polite Dissent, and you can read more about it at Fox, IMDb and the A.V. Club.

Random thoughts

Walter has acquired a state-of-the-art laboratory with virtually unlimited resources, and yet has to use sequenced instant cameras to record an accident reconstruction? Surely a high-speed digital video camera would have been more appropriate.

Walter’s offhand remark, “we’re all mutants,” is quite interesting – he’s referring to the natural, random mutations that change DNA sequences and occur in all lifeforms. Random mutation is one of the principles of evolution by natural selection, but in this episode, like before, the creature in question has been deliberately created.

It’s a good job that Andre’s wife wasn’t diagnosed by House, because it’s never lupus.

When Olivia and Peter drove up to Andre’s house, they failed to notice the big hole in the ground near the empty police car – they might increase their efficiency if they worked more closely with local law enforcement.

“You’ve come a long way, Charlie Francis.” Nice to have to occasional literary references.

IT TAKES MASTODON a second or so to realise we really are going to have a rumble. Then he does his foot-stamping trick and if things were quieter you’d hear the leather straps of his chest harness strain with the stretch as he swells from just over six foot to a little over nine. Now his shoulders are the size of Christmas hams and his mutton chops loom about the size of small cats duct-taped to the side of his grinning, leering face.
            “Alright Zephyr, this is more like it.”
            “Take it easy, old man,” I say as I hurtle across the chamber. “Don’t break anything.”
            By that I mean anything of his own, of course. I’m quite happy for him to hand these guys their heads and we’ll just bury the corpses wherever the Wallachians suggest. Across the room I see Ash dragging himself away from the mound of disgustingness he has helped create, while the chick with the whip and the chick with the sword seem intent on looking scenic rather than helpful.
            I crash into the space previously occupied by Captain Jackass. In my wake another portal opens overhead and I should’ve seen this one coming, knowing this motherfucker plans ahead for all these sorts of things as metal shopping cart after metal shopping cart suddenly start plunging toward me and into the room. There’s something awkwardly painful about being hit by raining metal trolleys that I think the madman understands only too well. Even for me, as the first one rebounds from my forearms, head and knee simultaneously, it’s more than just my ego taking a battering.
            Pouring on a bit of super-speed, I manage to get out from beneath the metal rain, but Seeker and the Don aren’t so lucky. It’s only that I manage to wing Jackass with another lightning bolt that the portal sucks closed and the damned things stop coming. Moments later on the other side of the room there’s another sizzling noise and, through a hole no bigger than my fist, a shower of golf balls pour into the room. Ash and Madame Lash – there’s a good rhyming couple for you – go down on their arses and its only by the grace of her rubber-band teleporting trick that Samurai Girl gets to bitch-slap Jackass and force the latest wormhole closed as well.
            “Nice moves!” I yell. “Now watch your back.”
            The dude calling himself The Drill flies straight for Seeker, but there’s nothing I can do for her right now as the one with the kneepads starts unhooking goodies from his belt-pack and tossing them at me in the centre of the room. The first one is little more than a firecracker and then the next thing I know there’s tear gas flooding across the scene and I have to cover my nose and mouth with my hand and squint to get a good sense of his location. Perhaps Prankster has superhuman powers of regeneration to back up his gimmicks. If not, he may have a problem eating with anything other than a straw or perhaps a wet nurse after my tightly-clenched left connects with the side of his jaw and introduces him to the hard stone floor.
            Madame Lash does something lame with her whip. I suspect she’s trying to create a vortex to disperse the gas, which is a sweet idea except for Murderboy leaping from one wall to another and finally landing on her back and sinking his teeth into the side of her neck. To her credit, powers or none, the lady freaks out just fine enough to fling the weird-ass villain over her shoulder in a practised judo move. Just as emo-boi rights himself, she does a reverse spinning kick that sends him across the room and into the aforementioned pile of shopping trolleys.
            I am distracted by a right cross to my jaw. Spinning about, I can’t see anyone, and then fingers tap me on the shoulder and, like a total cad, I flip about and yet another punch snaps across my jaw. Their saving grace is there’s no superhuman strength in the blows. Across the chamber I see the so-called  captain give a little wave and then, through one of his teleport discs, his foot comes through and tries to get me in the jewels. No dice. I grab the good captain’s ankle and channel more than a handful of volts back through the portal. If he hasn’t fouled himself, I’d be surprised. The hole in space collapses taking his errant limbs with it.
            Time to get things moving.
            Through the tear-gas haze, Ash appears like a homeless man to grab The Drill either side of his helmet. The bad guy has put a few holes in Seeker’s shoulder and she’s laying on the floor looking uncharacteristically limp. It doesn’t matter. Ash is pissed. His fully unleashed power is lethal. The Drill’s head disintegrates into a hissing pile of white-hot dust and the helmet kind of falls apart as the silica of the dead bad guy’s skull and tissue pour from the front vent like sand from a broken hourglass. The still very rubbery and real headless body plops onto the floor next to Seeker, who screams shrilly, thereby drawing almost every eye in the room to the scene.
            Mastodon has been maced by Prankster. Samurai Girl has lines of drool hanging from her chin, two canisters of tear gas still gushing nearby. Madame Lash has lost her whip. She has a black eye and is bleeding heavily from a neck bite and another to one of her breasts, which has slipped free from her heavy corset. I direct a quick zap toward her assailant and the hair-dyed freak cartwheels away with the sort of noise I’d expect a cat to make.
            “Time to finish up, Don!” I yell with my eyes streaming, half-squeezed shut.
            I almost stumble over The Drill’s corpse, shield Seeker with my body as Prankster and then Jackass circle. I’m trying to do the maths and it won’t add up and that’s when I belatedly realise we’re missing someone.
            “Okay, where’s the other fucker?”
            If you thought Murderboy was creepy, it’s Kid Kaos who is the real psycho case on their team: Captain Jackass’s pet serial killer, which he keeps on a close emotional leash – except when he lets the leash go pretty long. And when he does, that’s trouble, because the Kid is a natural assassin. He can ghost as well as turn see-through, so you never know where he’s gonna appear.
            This time he wobbles back into view directly behind Ash, who is standing there in the white bodystocking I know his mum probably sewed for him, palms clawed and radiating their own dangerous vibe. Only he doesn’t have a clue about the danger immediately to his rear and the Don and I barely open our mouths before Kid Kaos slots into place, his turn to grab Ash by the skull and twist.
            Somehow amid his descent to the hard stones, Ash’s rolling eyes swivel around until they find mine; and they stay locked on me as Kid Kaos ghosts the young hero’s head into the stone floor and leaves it there, buried, fused, the corpse’s back painfully arched, arms splayed. And I swear, a hot white rage is building up inside me, but it’s tempered by a tiredness too, that everything has to end like this and that it’s not just Captain Jackass and his crew who have no respect for how things should be, but that it’s life itself that doesn’t respect the conventions of our particular genre. Ash was a nineteen-year-old hero just starting out in the world. He’d moved here from Detroit because he never had anything to do. Now he’s just a hundred-and-eighty pounds of pre-packaged meat going to spoil, or more likely wind up alongside the guy he killed in some nameless Wallachian garbage dump or swamp or unholy fucking backwater. I’m tired with the idea of payback, but until something better comes along, that’s the only option I have.

SO WE TEAR into them. Kid Kaos fades from view before I can blow a few thousand volts through his chest. Murderboy runs up one wall and vaults, something sticky about his hands as he crosses the ceiling like a monkey and comes down on Mastodon, who promptly throws him halfway across the room.
            Prankster pulls another weird-looking gun and fires at me and a net flops out, heavy little balls on the edges as it goes over. I put a scorch mark in the middle of his chest and he goes backward, adding to his bruise collection for today, but in the moment I struggle with the net, Jackass throws up one of his discs over my head and dusty red recycled house bricks suddenly pour down in their hundreds. Between the bricks and the dust I go down for a moment.
            I am relieved to see Samurai Girl run at just under mach around the room. She swings with practised swipes and cuts Murderboy and Jackass and bounds out of the way as Kid Kaos rematerialises. If I weren’t so angry I’d be amused by the sight of the hockey-masked freak picking up a pair of bricks and disappearing with them again. It’s not so funny when he materialises near Mastodon, phases the brick invisible and leaves it lodged in the big guy’s stomach. The Don twitches and drops as his system goes into shock and it’s really only blind luck that my own short circuit hits the fading assassin before he’s gone completely. Mask and all, Kid Kaos slides about ten feet and remains curled with a smoky residue overhead.
            I’m on hyper alert. When a teleport disc appears beside me, I throw myself into it and out the other end, grappling suddenly with the team leader before Jackass headbutts me with the helmet and I feel my nose break, no big deal, the blood running down my face unnerving as I blindly grasp his scarred, malignant face and start to squeeze. At the same time I hammer short right jabs into his ribs, feeling them break, and somewhere amid all that the laughter goes out of him and he begins to freak, thrashing wildly, screaming, clawing at my grimace as I ram my knee into his crotch and then make the mistake of hurling him bodily across the room.
            He bounces across the stone and comes up with his face bleeding almost as bad as the sword-wound to his side. Captain Jackass spits blood and shakes his head, face a mask of fury.
            “You can have this one, Zeph. Next time you won’t be so lucky. I’ll make sure of it.”
            I am left to ponder any hidden meanings in this as he throws teleport discs underneath his mates, including the unconscious ones, and they disappear in short notice from view.
            I wipe leather across my bleeding face without much satisfaction as Samurai Girl tends to Seeker’s pierced shoulder. Madame Lash isn’t going anywhere and that’s even more terribly true for Ash. Mastodon drops to his knees as well and gives me a nod with his grave face.
            “Could do with a few more hit points there, boss,” he says.
            I can only nod. “At least this time the little bastard didn’t dump me in the Himalayas when he was finished,” I try and grin and fail.
            The silent cowled figures of the Wallachian monks appear through a distant doorway bearing the now familiar sight of a floating stretcher. I hold up my hands for two more.
            “Not so crash hot, huh Zephyr?” Seeker says in a pained voice.
            “I guess we weren’t really geared up for that,” I say. “Any idea how the hell they found us here?”
            “I’ll have to ask the priests in charge of the cloaking device,” Seeker replies. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
            I motion to the dead kid. “Tell it to him.”
            “The Wallachians, you know. . . .”
            “Keep your fucking priests off him,” I say more harshly than I intend, but the vision in my mind’s eye is compelling and probably not completely inaccurate. “It could’ve been a worse death.”
            “Ash might have something different to say to that,” she says.
            “I’m not about to find out. Leave it be.”
            We exchange knowing looks, hers doe-like, mine taciturn, and Madame Lash gets up in the middle of our exchange and grabs her rig and staggers for the door like a drunk hooker in search of a payphone.
            I harrumph. “I’d better see the lady out.”
            And that’s that.

“How about we play around with DNA and actually create a superhuman being”?

Yes, it’s been contemplated widely, but then it’s never been possible with ‘ethics’ cropping its officious little head and turning the idea to stone. So I’ve been trying to think up an ethical way to bring superheroes out of the pages of comic books and have them walk/fly/crawl among us.

The way I see it, gene manipulation is the only way to go. Unlike the half-baked theory we’ve read in comic books in which most superheroes were either blessed/ cursed with their extraordinary powers after being exposed to radiation by some means.

Take Marvel’s friendly neighbourhood Spiderman who got his arachnid powers when a radioactive spider gored its pincers into his hand or Daredevil who was sauced with nuclear waste. Back here in the real world, mutations of this sort aren’t likely in the least.

Chances of radioactivity altering your entire genetic make-up instantly giving you the ability to shoot sticky webbing through your wrist, scale walls with protrusible hairs made up of steel-like keratin or gaining ‘spider-senses’, are as likely as you seeing Punisher pirouetting in a pink tutu (apologises for any mild trauma that description might have caused). And in the case of Daredevil, if you were deluged in nuclear waste, the reaction with your cells will have you sooner floating to heaven than kicking Kingpin butt with the use of your echolocation powers.

That rules out radioactivity mutating cells to give people abilities that defy nature. Which leaves us with GENE MANIPULATION!

Now the legendary method of genetic engineering requires identifying and isolating the gene you want switched- using restriction enzymes, and then filling the vacant spot with the new gene. Sounds simple? Far from it. And then there’s rejection of the new gene to worry about… But it’s been proved to work in the making of a Frankenstein chicken! Alright, not exactly “Frankenstein” although I’d like the bolt of lightning scenario, it’s a lot more dramatic. But the chicken did have its moment, as scientists waited with bated breath, purple in the face and about to pass out– for a tweet. No, it wasn’t a geeky chicken that was ’social network’ savvy, it was a chicken with the vocal chords of a quail.

What’s brilliant about this method is that the switch is made at a very early embryonic stage. So all we need is a few eggs and sperm (of which there’s plenty), have them fertilized and allow the embryos to develop in a laboratory. Of course this is a bit of a trial and error method and we’re going to have quite a few anomalous and abominable looking animals before we create a chimp that can defy gravity and whiz through the air…

And this is the bit where I can’t seem to think of a way around that hulking nemesis ‘ethics’. Standing rigid with folded arms in our way it’s going to be tough but just think, “what if”? What if we had our very own clone army with super powers?

Of course there are more obstacles that stand in our way. The next problem hurled at us, is what will these superpowers be?

Sadly, choice is limited. Taking into consideration the forces in the laws of physics that keep our good planet Earth from floating  aimlessly through the vast expanse of the cosmos, we are restricted to certain superpowers.

Here’s why (for convenience of reference let’s name our superhero Bandu), Bandu won’t be able to have Flash’s power to travel faster than the speed of light because E=m0/-1√v/c2!

According to a concept proposed by none other than the wire haired physicist, Einstein:

If an object is already travelling near the speed of light, it can’t move much faster, no matter how much energy it absorbs. Its momentum and energy continue to increase, but its speed approaches a constant value—the speed of light. This means that in relativity the momentum of an object cannot be a constant times the velocity, nor is the kinetic energy given by 1⁄2mv2.

So Bandu will just keep getting heavier as he runs a nice groove around the planet, deeper and deeper, until he finally hits magma! And Bandu is toast.

But what we can do is add on specific genes from other animals. Gills are a bit complex… but we could try. Webbed feet? Organutan arms? Think of the possibilities…

So if you’ve got any suggestions as to how this can be achieved ethically do feel free to share your ideas. I’ll be sure to credit you in my acceptance speech when I’m awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Disclaimer: No animals were harmed in the writing of this post. Mosquitoes, on the other hand, were shown no mercy.

Przez moment nic się nie działo, aż wreszcie zza wraku przerdzewiałego samochodu wyszła znajoma dziewczynka. Jej białe ubranko było paskudnie ubrudzone zielonym i brązowym szlamem, którego było pod dostatkiem w kanałach. Gdy zbliżyła się bardziej bez większych trudności można było dostrzec ślady po potoku łez, jaki wylała opłakując skrzydlatego opiekuna. Obecnie jej buźka nie zdradzała jednak smutku czy rozpaczy, lecz wielką determinację. Po śmierci białowłosego anioła szybko uciekła, kiedy tylko zabójca spróbował się do niej zbliżyć. Teraz wróciła do nich i nic nie wskazywało na to żeby miała sprowadzić na nich kolejne kłopoty.

- Zabierzcie mnie ze sobą. – wydusiła w końcu z siebie. Cała drżała, ale zacięcie nie schodziło z jej twarzy. Zrobiła parę kroków w kierunku Balalaiki rzucając kobiecie wyzwanie swoim spojrzeniem. – Skoro to wszystko co mówił Za’afiel jest kłamstwem to nie pójdziemy do raju, prawda? Skoro aniołki nie są prawdziwe to czym my jesteśmy?

Złapała za swoją sukienkę i szybkim ruchem przełożyła materiał przez głowę, po czym rzuciła go w błoto. Stała teraz przed nimi jedynie w bawełnianych majteczkach, które wyglądały na przemoczone. Na całym jej drobnym dziecięcym ciele pojawiła się gęsia skórka. Radża nie przejmowała się zimnem, jej głowa była zajęta rzeczami, o których dziewczynki w jej wieku nie powinny mieć nawet nocnych koszmarów. Rączkami próbowała objąć anielską pieczęć, która tkwiła w samym środku jej brzuszka. Nie była w stanie za nią złapać, ani tym bardziej jej wyrwać. Zrezygnowana padła na kolana, prawie do pasa lądując w paskudnej wodzie. Znów podniosła wzrok na kobietę próbując coś powiedzieć. Je usteczka poruszały się nie wydając dźwięków, lecz zarówno mężczyzna jak i Balalaika wiedzieli, jaką treść chciała im przekazać.

„Zabierzcie mnie ze sobą.”

- Twoje problemy, to twoja sprawa dziecko, ale możesz z nami iść. Dopóki nie będziesz nas opóźniać. – chłodna odpowiedź kobiety nawet na twarzy zabójcy wywołała ledwie dostrzegalny wyraz zniesmaczenia. On zresztą nie czekając już dłużej podszedł do dziewczynki i podniósł ją z ziemi. Ta nie protestowała. W jego potężnych rękach wyglądała teraz jak niemowlę.

- Na miłość boską, ostatecznie to tylko dziecko. Nawet ja nie mogę jej tutaj zostawić. – powiedział z dostrzegalnym wyrzutem w głosie. Nie chciał wdawać się jednakże w niepotrzebne dyskusję, nie w takim miejscu. Ruszył w dalszą drogę nie oglądając się na towarzyszkę.

Po niespełna kilkunastu minutach Radża udowodniła, iż nie tylko nie będzie ciężarem, ale również potrafi być przydatna. Do tej pory wtulona w zabójcę, nagle odżyła i gestem rozpostartej dłoni nakazała przerwanie marszu. Oboje dorośli obrzucili ją spojrzeniami pełnymi irytacji i ciekawości jednocześnie, która zresztą szybko została zaspokojona. Jakieś dwadzieścia metrów przed nimi, tuż na krańcu widoczności, przesuwały się przed nimi zdeformowane ludzkie kształty. Nie mogli dostrzec szczegółów ich budowy i raczej nie chcieli.

- Błądźcie cicho to sobie pójdą. Nie potrzebują więcej jedzenia. – wyszeptała małą przewodniczka, a oni nie zamierzali się spierać z nią co do tej kwestii. Mutanci posiadali różne rozmiary. Niektórzy nie mieli nawet metra wysokości, inni z kolei wyglądali jak chodzące czołgi. Kim oni byli? Czy zawsze mieszkali pod Jeruzalem? Na te kilka pytań pewnie żadne z nich nie usłyszy nigdy odpowiedzi.

Balalaika o mało nie krzyknęła, gdy poczuła jak coś śliskiego obciera się o jej łydkę. W wodzie wiło się coś podłużnego. Macka, nie, kilka macek wracało teraz po udanym żerowaniu, do jakiegoś nieznanego monstrum. O mało co nie nadepnęli wcześniej na nie. Pytanie tylko czy nie zostaną zauważeni? Po kilku kurewsko długich minutach, obrzydliwe kończyny bestii jednak zniknęły tak jak i stado humanoidalnych potworów.

- Możemy już iść. – powiedziała dziewczynka, ale zabójca odczekał jeszcze dobre trzy minuty zanim ruszył dalej. Przez te chwile grozy jedyną oznaką zdenerwowania tego człowieka było kilka kropel potu, jakie spłynęły mu po twarzy. Nic więcej. Nie wyglądał też na osobę, która nie miała już po prostu sił na emocję. Raczej wydawał się kimś, kto przeszedł całe piekło wzdłuż i wszerz eliminując całą diabelską brać.

- Dzięki mała. Teraz już jesteśmy bezpieczny. – zakomunikował, gdy wreszcie opuścili najstarszą część miejskiej kanalizacji. – Jeszcze trochę i będziemy mogli odpocząć.

Nie kłamał, w krótkim czasie doszli do niewielkiego włazu znajdującego się w ścianie korytarza. Zamocowany był przy nim niewielki panel kontrolny, w którym przewodnik wklepał kod otwierający przejście. Znaleźli się może nie w najprzytulniejszym miejscu, jakie Balalaika widziała, lecz było to o niebo lepsze od kanałów.

- Witajcie w moim domu, czujcie się jak u siebie. Tu nikt nas nie znajdzie. Musimy najpierw odpocząć, a potem porozmawiać.

„Dom” był de facto ogromną piwnicą, bardzo dobrze wyposażoną piwnicą, z jednym głównym pomieszczeniem, które zajmowało pewnie większość jej powierzchni. Z niego wychodziło kilka drzwi, do takich pomieszczeń jak łazienka czy niewielki magazyn. Panował tu typowy dla mężczyzn chaos, wszędzie można było znaleźć jakieś śmieci i broń, która zdawała się być wszechobecna. Cóż można było narzekać, ale najwyraźniej przyjdzie im spędzić tutaj trochę czasu.

THE CHANGE IS coming to Atlantic City, and at last those of us who spend our times in costumes and masks posing for the cameras and occasionally getting our heads kicked in before them can relax, knowing at least now, as the first snow comes, it is not because the harbinger of some alien god is preparing to walk onto the set and begin throwing cars and buildings around with gay abandon. It’s simply getting cold. Winter is yet to arrive, but here in the northernmost quadrants of the city that buried the ghosts of old New York, that first touch of frost seems to be coming earlier and earlier each year no matter what the boffins say about global warming. You can see and feel it on the streets. The cops spend more time blowing on their coffees than tackling the crime rate, the hookers have taken to wearing coats and the homeless people are drawing even less attention from the upwardly mobile than usual as the weather soaks into their weary metabolisms and those at the fatal ends of the population curve simply don’t move any more as the snow starts stacking up around them, the result being an unexpected burial with Miracle On 41^st Street trappings.
            It’s not all doom and gloom and hell we’ve really only had one day where the city called out the snow sweepers. The kids are still filling (new) Central Park without enough to toboggan, it’s never too cold for an ice-cold Coke – they’re considering me for a new ad campaign so I am practising my smile a lot and trying to look carefree – and the cold weather also means less street battles as a few of the more sensible bad guys decide to holiday somewhere warm and return to conquering the world when the weather improves.
            Being a child of this weird megalopolis I love it all, and it’s only the fact that cold weather means the inevitability of Christmas that some of the shine comes off my enthusiasm.
            It’s not like I have a lot to cheer about. For some godforsaken reason I am yet to quit my apartment and hand it over to my seemingly forever angry and increasingly estranged wife and our darling progeny, the superhuman prodigy you’d know best as Windsong. Beth has full custody, having threatened to gang up with her lawyer pals and cut off visiting rights altogether unless I agreed. She’s shitting in her LeCroix of Paris stockings that any time we spend together, Tessa and I are going to play dress ups and plan her future crime-fighting career. Funny that I was married to this woman for seventeen years and she can’t understand I don’t want our daughter dragged into this crazy life any more than she does.
            The bigger problem remains Tessa. I guess saving the city from Ras Algethi on her first outing has somewhat gone to her head. Sure we hardly talk about anything else on our walks, coffees at Gonzo’s, lunches at Ribaldi or Piccolo or that theme sandwich bar in SBSCC Tower where the waiters dress as mime artists and beatniks. God forbid we should discuss why her loving parents of fifteen years are seeking divorce. However I’m really only just learning now how filled with this costumed, larger-than-life world my little girl’s head is – she who, among so much of the world, I thought I knew so well.
            The diehard fans have discerned and may well even be pleased to know I have embarked on a minor costume redesign. The identical leather ensembles do little to change the previous version except my insignia is no longer red but gold. My publicist’s idea. I hear more from the disgruntled guy who maintains my online forum than the public relations queers I have allowed to siphon off ten per cent of my income, even from the marketing deals I made before I hired them (unlike Miss O’Hagan, I was fully aware just how little I was drawing in). Nonetheless when the Enercom phone flashes, or buzzes I should say, if it’s Hallory O’Hagan I always pick up. What the hell. Technically I am single again and its my inner Irishman craving a redhead.

SEEKER’S INVISIBLE FORTRESS has the crazy acoustics like you’d expect from any thousand-year-old castle. The frustration in my voice bounces vibrantly off the walls, coming back to us just in time to blend with the sound of my boredom as I throw down the clipboard with doodle marks all over the page, my micro tantrum getting pretty much no-one’s attention as Seeker and Mastodon stand in the enormous, austere chamber power-tripping on the three flunkies before them.
            “Try-outs have barely started and we’re already down to these nobodies?” I say more loudly this time.
            If at first you don’t succeed and all of that.
            Mastodon turns and gives me his best badass scowl, but I know he’s just playing school captain because he thinks he might get into Seeker’s pants with his responsible older superhero act. He didn’t spend three years on the same team with her as I did. No-one’s going there. The frigging Pope’s not getting any pussy from Seeker. Well you know, of course he’s not, but you know what I mean. If anyone was going to score with our perfect preacher and resident Cheerleader for Christ, maybe he’d be the guy to do it. Or maybe not. Hell, this is a lifelong habit of mine, speaking with no real good idea of what I’m gonna say next.
            The new kids on the block are Ash, a white kid in a kimono called Samurai Girl and, believe it or not, a dominatrix who speaks in the third person named Madame Lash. I’m not sure she’s got the whole ‘hero’ thing down yet. I could tell from the moment she walked into the room that Mastodon wanted her on the team. Only thing we haven’t told Mastodon yet is that we’re only offering him a Reserve position. It’s not the age. It’s more that Seeker’s not too comfortable with the old boy’s pharmaceutical interests and the faceless Wallachian monks who prowl the corridors down here stop and flatten themselves against the walls when Mastodon goes past. Perhaps its just those fucking horn things jutting out from his collar, but I doubt it.
            As my last outburst resounds from the walls, the teenager with the Asian sword suddenly appears in my face – a good trick, since I can still see her across the room out of the corner of my eye – and waggles her finger before slapping me and disappearing again.
            “What the –?”
            “Show some respect, mister,” she says.
            “How about you earn some?”
            “Easy, people,” Mastodon adds in the folksy tone he has assumed for the evening.
            “Hey, ‘Don, give me a frigging break here,” I start to say only to get cut abruptly by a hand signal from my offsider and nominal co-captain Seeker.
            “Everyone please try and remain calm,” Seeker says. “Zephyr, I know you’re impatient to finalise the roster, but please. We have a lot of people interested in the new team and I want to give everyone who applies the courtesy of a real try-out.”
            “Madame Lash thanks you, Seeker,” Madame Lash says and scowls at me.
            “Hey lady,” I add, ignoring Seeker’s ongoing implications. “I’ve never even heard of you before, so don’t go giving me all that ‘tude, okay?”
            “Jesus, you are like twice the arsehole Madame Lash has heard,” the corset queen replies.
            “Heh heh, sounds like she’s got you pegged, Zeph.”
            “No seriously, ‘Don,” I say. “Don’t you think we’re going to have a little problem with a bondage fetish on the team? And in this place, don’t you think that’s a bit bizarre?”
            “You’re in all that leather and you’re sayin’ I have a fetish? Madame Lash finds that rich.”
            “Zephyr,” Seeker warns.
            “Jeez guys, can’t we all chill?” the bald guy Ash says. His face is a mask of warring emotions. “I was really pumped about these auditions, but now I’m not so sure. Shit.” He sounds like he’s gonna cry.
            “Okay, okay,” I say and put up my hands and a little of the heat goes out of the room, but even though I am grinning I feel like a total ass because there’s no way I am letting this one go, even if the others think I’ve suddenly learnt a little diplomacy. “Just tell me what your powers are, Lash baby, and I’ll relax.”
            “Powers?” she says and blinks.
            “Yeah,” I reply. “We all see the whip and that’s awesome. Ditto the cleavage. Very nice. But what can you do?”
            The others look like they want to voice a protest – Seeker looks like she wants to boil me alive – except for the fact it’s a pretty good question and Madame Lash is a bit slow to answer.
            “We already had to kick Madrigal out of here, so, like, you know, we need to know who you are and what you do, since you don’t have a reputation of your own to trade in,” I say slowly, a wiseguy despite trying to be even-handed. “How else are we gonna know you’re not some plant, you know, a Cheese agent or something?”
            “Cheese agent?” Samurai Girl frowns.
            “K.A.A.S., you know, the uh European um, death to parahumans mob?” Mastodon shrugs.
            “Kaas is Dutch for cheese,” I take my turn to say. “It’s an old joke.”
            “I’ll have to remember that.”
            Eyes swivel back to Madame Lash looking increasingly infuriated.
            “If you’re not interested in the power of my lash, then perhaps Madame Lash should take it elsewhere,” she cries and pulls the handle of the whip from her belt and unrolls the sucker and gives it a whopping great crack. Mastodon flinches and grins.
            That’s my cue for another one-liner, but instead, the air above our heads sizzles with a faintly familiar noise and then a handful of costumed figures sporting enormous grins start dropping through. I recognise the leader of the cohort almost straight away, as well as the figure beside him, and I’m on my feet quicker’n you could shit.
            “Well well,” I say loud enough to make sure my colleagues hear clearly. “If it isn’t Captain Jackass. It’s been a long time, pal. I see you brought your boyfriend.” I gesture to the crouched figure in the black bodystocking, a hockey mask on his face: Kid Kaos. “Got some new friends too though, huh?”
            “Just like you, Zephyr,” the madman says and giggles and steps forward, only the jaw of his scarred face visible beneath the spray-painted gridiron helmet he wears. “We heard you was havin’ a party. Can’t do that without inviting the Kaos Krew, Mister Zephyr! You know what I always say: you bring the babes, I’ll bring the raging boners!”
            As if on cue Jackass’s allies scatter at his gesture as another one of his portals opens up over the young trio in the middle of the room and through the hole in space-time pour a few hundred pounds of decomposing crap including bones and a decaying treacle that may or may not be dog food. Ash immediately drops to his hands and knees and starts puking, while Samurai Girl uses super-speed to evade and Madame Lash just gets the fuck out of the way like any sensible person would.
            Jackass is one of the guys who gives the supers world a bad name. With no real agenda except proving himself above the law and out for his own brand of retarded laughs, the self-styled captain exists just to piss into the wind for heroes everywhere. He adamantly refuses to play ball with some of the standard expectations of the genre, including clear distinctions between good guys and bad. He doesn’t want to take over the world – just make the rest of us look like arseholes.
            I open up with an electrical attack, but the captain teleports out of the way and the charge hits his long-time accomplice instead. Kid Kaos kicks out wildly and lands on his back twitching like a frog in a biology experiment.
            Jackass pops up from another black energy disc just inches behind Seeker, leaning his diseased chin on her shoulder and tilting his head playfully.
            “Silly me,” he yodels. “I’ve introduced myself, but not my friends.”
            He sinks back through the portal before Seeker can properly turn and nail him, and moments later the caped fuckwit reappears on the far side of the room, his companions around him.
            “Guys,” he says, “meet Zephyr and his little team. We’re inviting ourselves over to play, but I’m sure they won’t mind. They look like sports. And Zephyr, these are my new recruits: Murderboy.”
            A preppy-looking but nonetheless Emo kid runs fingerless-gloved fingers through his dyed black comb-over and turns abruptly, striking a deliberate mock model’s pose.
            “Prankster.”
            Stockier than any of the others, this guy wears a kevlar vest and heavy skate armour. A slim backpack that may or may not be a parachute and an ordinance belt with a variety of grenades and canisters jingles musically at his deliberately bad dance moves.
            “And The Drill.”
            The fifth member of the team also wears a helmet, though its like the one Red Monolith wore, complete with a tinted face visor. He pulls a pair of power drills from holsters at his sides and crosses them over his chest in a clear imitation of the skull and crossbones. The bastard then levitates into the air, head touching the ceiling some forty feet up just to show us he’s got powers in his own right.
            “Well gosh, Captain,” I say and do my own fake chuckle. “Shame you didn’t let us know you were coming. Now we’re just gonna have to kick your ass!”
            I give a roar and blaze with energy that throws the room into an electric blue focus as I launch from the floor and power straight towards my grinning nemesis.
            Sure I know that wasn’t the wittiest line in history, but this is no comic book. I hate this guy, hate everything he has ever done and hate nothing so much as the total disdain he has for how we do things here on my patch – and by that I mean the whole of Atlantic City. So once again, it’s my turn to hand this guy his asshole and show him how to wear it as a hat.
            I figure it’ll be a good training exercise for the kids.