Sanction
Kell
Thresher
Jason Tulee
Chief Doug Galisky
Warren Tether
Detective Tabitha Harkin
Stacy McKone
Capt. Dane Casey
Captain Compass
Mr. Dusk
#1
"City Under Siege, Part I: Deadly Sanction"
Seattle, Washington had the unique privilege of being home to more super-heroes than any city in the world. It started with the first four—Dr. Jackal, Phantashia, Mist and Phantasm—the founders of the hero team that would come to be called Forte. From that four the legend began, and soon many new heroes found their way, by fate or choice, to Seattle and to membership in the hero team that became a family to them all. For eight years, Seattle never knew a day without some incarnation of Forte there to watch over it and protect it.
But with time, change is inevitable, and slowly, without a discernable moment of passing, Forte drifted into memory and legend. A handful of its heroes were still around the city, and though in retirement, would heed the call if Seattle needed them. But Forte, as a team, was no more. Its rumored secret base grew quiet. Its members, champions all, moved on to new paths. It appeared as though the age of Forte had ended.
But with a new millennium came new heroes to Seattle. The young powerhouse called Max began to appear, and captured the city’s love and imagination. The mysterious Seahawk soared high over the midnight Seattle skies and across its dark waters. The newspapers wondered—was Seattle’s drought of heroism ended? Was this the start of something new?
During this time, anthropology graduate student Davis Alexander, searching for evidence of the recently uncovered native American legend of the spirit protector Ta-co-bet, found himself inhabited by this selfsame spirit and transformed into a massive being of rock and lava, a living representation of the mountain where this new destiny was thrust upon him…Mount Rainier.
And freelance airplane engine repairperson, scientific genius, and bad chooser of men Lucy Toy was carrying on with business as usual in her life, having no idea how things were about to change forever.
Davis Alexander has developed a habit of following wild suppositions in his research, and often finds himself shunned by his peers (and scolded by his degree advisor). His search into Ta-co-bet would have validated some of his theories, but since being inhabited by the spirit, he’s kept all info on this to himself until he figures out what do to about it all. One of the other Native American legends he’s pursued concerns a people that pre-dated history, that held the land around Seattle long before recorded time. Scoffed at again, but undaunted, Davis is on another of his digs with his friend and guide Jason Tulee when their explorations get them into scuba gear and into an underwater cavern.
The cavern is domelike, with a high ceiling, and all its interior walls are covered with markings and glyphs the likes of which Davis has never seen. Water fills the lower portion of the cavern, with the exception of rock islands, the largest of them in the center. There’s some kind of stone alter shaped in the center of the big island, and on it are four crystals that glow with a slight luminescence. As if Davis hadn’t already had the find of a lifetime with the Urn of Ta-co-bet…something like this is also behind his wildest dreams.
As he starts snapping shots of the glyphs with his digital camera, a figure comes leaping from the water, the blue-skinned, loin-clothed figure of a young man in his teens, with bands of coral around his wrists and ankles, a necklace of shark teeth, and a big blade in his hand. He looks angry enough that Davis and Jason are in there, but then looks around at the crystals, and up around at the glyphs in shock, and is suddenly enraged. He rushes Davis with his blade, and through instinct alone, Davis transforms through the spirit of Ta-co-bet into the massive, rocky body of Rainier. The change saves his life, and he and the blue man struggle a bit. When it’s obvious to the teen that he can’t harm Davis, he instead yells at him, accusing him of a dark allegiance and dooming his own world. Davis tries to explain that he’s not allied with anyone, that he just found this place, and has done nothing.
Before they can continue the debate any further, a shimmering oval of energy opens, and a man in a stylish suit and tie, wearing equally stylish sunglasses, steps out of it and into the center island with the alter. He has a crystal like the others in his hand. It too is glowing, and the others start to glow even brighter. The young blue man sees this and screams “No!” in rage and horror. Having noticed them, the man in the tie lowers his sunglasses down his nose, looking over them at the trio. “Huh,” he says simply. He then pulls something very high-tech looking from his jacket that’s about the size of an Uzi. The kid is making a leap for the man, but Rainier grabs him and shields him with his own body. The gun blasts away with a muted “whup whup whup”, spraying crimson energy their way. Rainier takes most of it in the back, and it hurts a lot. Jason has leapt into the water and is swimming down out of harm’s way.
Before Rainier can recover, the man calmly drops the last crystal into place. The cavern suddenly glows as all the rows of glyphs begin to radiate a green incandescence, and begin to spin in opposing directions, almost like a combination lock. A wind from nowhere rips though the cavern, thrashing the waters. The glyphs spin faster and faster, jerking to stops at intervals and starting again, until a final burst of light momentarily blinds Davis. And then, the glyphs are back in place, the crystals no longer glowing.
The blue teen springs to his feet in a rage and flings his blade at the man, but the man gestures briefly with his fingers, and the blade seems to hit solid air mere feet from him and fall into the water. With a grin he gestures again, and the oval opens in the air once more. He steps back through, and is gone.
The blue boy screams at Rainier some more, asking why he stopped him. Rainier, still recovering, mentions that he’d saved the boy’s life, and that was the “why” of things. The teen says that none of that matters now. It has begun. With a last angry look, he dives high into the air and down into the water. Rainier calls after him to stop, realizing he’s just found a living member of this ancient civilization he’s been looking for. But he’s gone, leaving only Jason behind, who’s telling Davis that he’s not going into any more caverns with him. It never seems to end well.
Suddenly, Rainier is pounded with something of a psychic flash through the spirit of Ta-co-bet. It’s a burst of emotion from the spirit of the Earth herself.
And the Earth…is afraid.
Several days later, working on an airplane engine at the waterfront warehouse/hanger that doubles as both her place of business and home, Lucy Toy receives a visit from an old co-worker of hers from her days at Boeing’s Special Projects Division. Jaswant “Jass” Advani, who had quit Boeing after whistle-blower Lucy had been fired on trumped-up charges, had become an engineer at Ares Global Enterprises, a fast-growing international monolith known for its aggressive business tactics and seemingly miraculous luck. Jass tells her things are strange at Ares Seattle. He’s just discovered that all upper management, under the guise of office renovation, have moved offsite, to their manufacturing plant in Bellevue. And all requisition requests being made by his department are being put off, and he’s been poking around, finding out that other departments are having the same problem. It’s as though management has literally abandoned them. Very strange. He suspects there might be massive layoffs coming, as no other explanation makes sense. He leaves Lucy with an offer to come to dinner with him and his wife the following week.
Late that night, however, Lucy gets a frantic call from Jass’s wife Ekta. Jass never came home, and is never late without a phone call. Driving the route from her home to his, Lucy finds his car abandoned on the side of road, with him nowhere in sight. Checking the vehicle, she finds the electrical system is completely shot. But the cause is a mystery. The way it blew suggests some kind of massive surge, something that didn’t come from the car itself.
Jared Banks is flying over a not-so-nice Seattle neighborhood that same late night, soaring in his Seahawk armor. He’s been checking in on some things he’s been hearing about on the streets, and it’s true—an entire mob family just suddenly up and left town. Totally closed up shop. The Biagi family’s sudden absence has left a power vacuum and a lot of mob violence in its wake.
Suddenly Seahawk is blasted out of the sky by a massive energy beam. He hits a rooftop, tumbling across it, dazed. He spots a figure in another suit of armor like his, but jet black in color, with a blood-red “s” painted on its chest. Jet-pack alight, the armored figure is coming down for another shot at him. Seahawk rolls off the roof edge just in time to avoid another blast, and takes to the air again. An aerial chase ensues above and between broken-down Seattle buildings. Seahawk finally switches from prey to hunter and gets the drop on the ebon attacker. The hand-to-hand battle that follows shows Seahawk that this guy knows more than just how to shoot. He’s an expert martial artist. Things are at a stalemate until Seahawk’s attacker activates something on his wrist. The Seahawk armor is hammered with a power surge, as is Jared, since the suit ties into his nervous system. The suit systems are well shielded, but not enough to keep all of this out. Seahawk is staggered. The enemy is upon him again, blasting, punching. Seahawk is really getting hurt. Hurt is obviously the least of what this figure has in mind.
Finally, when it looks like his foe might do him in, Seahawk grabs him like a clinching boxer, fires his jets, and flies them into a power transformer. Seahawk rolls away in time, but his attacker takes massive electrocution. Surviving, but with his own suit now damaged, the armored figure flies falteringly away, leaving Seahawk battered, exhausted, and with way too many questions.
The next day, Seattle’s newest hero and fast-rising sensation, Max, is making a live appearance. Seattle’s current mayor, Vincent Cuccia, arranged for him to show up at a charity fundraiser downtown. Max (known, to only one other person, to also be Bjorn “Bobby” Maximillion McMillan, a young man not far out of high school) isn’t used to this kind of attention. He’s done a number of things since putting on the costume, but he was always in and out quickly. Now, up on a podium, with a few thousand people screaming and cheering as the Mayor introduces him, he’s feeling a strong need for a quick exit. Having girls scream at him like he’s a Beatle is just too much.
He’s posing for a handshake photo with Seattle Police Chief Doug Galisky when there’s a commotion. An officer advises there’s a major fire at ChemaCo, a major chemical company nearby. People are trapped inside. That’s all Max has to hear. He’s up, up and away.
Max finds a fire indeed, and many people coughing in the parking lot as fire trucks pull up. He lands and asks someone who looks authoritative what the situation is inside. People are trapped, he’s told, in research lab 17. Max races into the building (after a quick check of the map in the smoke-filled lobby) and finds his way to the lab. Forcing his way in and past the flames, he finds a number of techs are indeed trapped. As he leans down to pick up an unconscious woman and starts to tell the others to follow him, he spots something underneath a large piece of lab equipment. He can barely see it, but it’s a red light, and it’s flashing…and it’s starting to flash faster, and faster… It’s a bomb, he quickly realizes, and it’s about to go off, and there’s no way he can get all these people out in time.
Suddenly, a hole in reality about the size of a set of double-doors opens, and out steps a beautiful girl. It’s Nightsable, occasional Seattle super-heroine (who, unknown to Max, is Samantha Parker, daughter (sort of, when you figure out the extra-dimensional and time travel stuff) of Forte’s Dr. Jackal). They’ve never yet met, and there’s not time for introductions now. He screams at the people to go, go, go into her gateway, grabs the unconscious woman, and jumps through, knocking Nightsable in with him.
The portal opens out in the parking lot, and they all tumble out. Just as it closes, there’s a deafening explosion, and half the ChemaCo building goes up and spreads all over. Max does his best to keep falling debris from hitting the unconscious woman.
There are only minor injuries from the debris, and many people are treated for smoke inhalation (especially the woman he carried out, who’s rushed to the hospital). He and Nightsable do what they can to assist the firemen in putting out the blaze. Soon it’s contained, and the two young heroes have a moment to rest, get some water, and actually introduce themselves. He finds Nightsable’s even more beautiful in person than in the few pictures of her he’s seen, but he also knows from reading the paper that she’s been seeing Reed Richards’ son Franklin (how’s a guy supposed to compete with that?).
He tells her, and the firemen, about the bomb he saw, but didn’t see enough of it to be of much help identifying it. After his talk with the investigators, Nightsable asks him if he’s met Electro Man. As a matter of fact, he has. Electro Man, former Protector of years gone by and brief member of Forte, now the curator of Seattle’s famous Forte Museum, showed up at a crime scene once after Max had cleaned up and asked him to come by and meet some school kids at the museum. Max had done so, and enjoyed meeting the veteran hero very much (and the kids, too). Nightsable wonders if Max has seen Electro Man lately. The museum closed a couple of days before, and Electro Man hasn’t been seen or heard from since. He never closes the museum, except on holidays. And no one on the staff was given any kind of reason. Just a note left on his desk. She’s starting to get worried about him. Max lets her know he’ll keep an eye out.
Lucy has been checking in with Ekta, and the police aren’t being much help, since Jass hasn’t been gone 48 hours yet. Antsy, Lucy decides to do a little checking. It just seems odd that he disappears on the way home from telling her that he’d been snooping around his company and finding weird things out. She heads over to Ares Seattle, the monstrous complex downtown. Security’s tight there. She can’t just waltz in, so she hangs around until people start coming out for lunch, and asks around until she finds some people Jass works with (she can spot engineers quite easily). They haven’t seen him, and don’t seem to know much. All they can do is confirm what he told her already about upper management leaving.
After a while she spots a balding man in a suit and tie pull up. His clothes and car suggest management. He enters the company quickly, looking nervous. She watches as comes back out, still seemingly in a hurry. And she decides to follow him. She does…and he heads to the Bellevue plant. She parks a ways off and watches through binoculars (which she happens to still have in the glove box since the Steppenwolf concert she recently went to…alone, since she seems to be the only one in her age group who either listens to them or knows who they are), checking the plant out. Security here is very, very tight. Abnormally tight. She sees armed guards, overkill security measures, guard dogs walking the perimeter. Something isn’t right. And if that something has to do with where Jass is, she needs to find out what it is.
Jared is at Tether International’s headquarters (not too far from Ares Seattle, actually), where by day he’s their head of corporate security. Today he’s laying low, hanging out in the special design lab where a couple of techs (some of the very few people that know he’s also Seahawk) are fixing the damage to his armor while he nurses his wounds. His boss, billionaire Warren Tether, is down there, too, listening to the talk of the previous night’s battle.
The techs try to figure out what was done to the armor by the damage to the electrical systems and from Jared’s description. It’s look like a combination surge and EM pulse, a way of sort of doubling the damage done (or at least hedging your bet). Based on the results, they think there might have been some of that alien tech involved, the stuff leftover from the Saoshyant invasion (see Forte #’s 171 – 176). Rumor has it Ares was one of the companies that got the contract to study that tech. From what the techs know of their work at Ares, it’s not that far-fetched that whatever did this to his armor could have come from there. Warren offers up his opinions on Nicholas Ares, the enigmatic founder of A.G.E. He says Nick is known in business circles as ruthless, cunning, completely lacking in moral restraint…all things which arguably make for the best businessman. And yet he’s very charismatic. He and his company have been known to venture into whatever new areas might prove profitable.
Late that night, Lucy finds herself in her car, parked a ways from the Ares plant, unable to believe what she’s about to do. Knowing that there’s nothing to give to the police that would make them look into the plant, other than a wild hunch of hers, she’s decided to take a look inside by herself. Trying to ignore the possible consequences should she get caught, she gets her gear together. She whipped together a number of items to help her in her endeavor.
She sneaks her way to the perimeter of the plant, and bypasses the fence security measures. Activating a small device, she hurls it into some bushes a long distance from her. The dogs in the area suddenly go crazy and run toward it, then run around, back and forth, in frantic confusion. Her “Cat Cloner” gives off a cat scent, but sprays it in numerous directions and different distances. The dogs think there are cats all over the place. With them occupied, she races to the main building before the guards come to check out the dogs.
Another device of hers hacks into the security camera system and orders feedback looping (the downside of the digital storage medium…easy to manipulate). With this used, she sneaks through the halls, not entirely sure what she’s looking for. A guard at one set of doors makes her thinks she’s on the right track. Using a silent device, she sprays an invisible gas around the corner and in his direction. She waits until it wafts his way and takes effect. The guard suddenly clutches his stomach and runs off to find the nearest restroom.
Inside, after some looking, she comes across a door to a large storeroom. It’s filled with weapons, a great number of them, mostly energy rifles. What’s Ares doing stockpiling weapons? What has she gotten herself into?
And the end of a hall is a set of doors marked “Special Projects”. She tries to get through them, but misses the extra security measures added, and the alarm goes off, blaring through the building. Cursing, she runs, ducking into rooms to avoid groups of armed guards running by.
She finally finds a clear way out, and manages to make it back to her car. Speeding away, she thinks she’s clear, but suddenly an energy beam blasts a hole in the road ahead of her. Swerving, she looks back, and sees a black armored figure with a jet-pack flying after her, firing away.
Speeding and swerving on the winding road she’s on, she’s busy trying to figure out what to do next when her car’s electrical system blows out, sending sparks flying from the radio and ignition. She now knows this is the man that must have chased Jass the same way. Knowing her car is about to start slowing to a stop and leaving her dead on the road (maybe literally), she veers off the road down a drastically steep incline, letting gravity be her gas pedal. The car rocks and slams as she grips the wheel to keep control of her runaway vehicle while still trying to look for her pursuer behind. He’s there, and more blasts tear up the ground around her. Finally she flies off a drop-off, and her car lands on and bounces off a cement utility structure, crashes through a billboard, and lands painfully in the middle of a motor home dealership.
Collecting herself, and her gear, she stumbles out of her poor car and ducks into rows of recreational vehicles. Soon the armored one is flying overhead, looking for her. She evades, and soon he’s on the ground searching for her. Lying flat under a motor home, she watches as his feet slowly approach. He starts to pass by, then stops, then takes a couple of steps back. He suddenly drops to his hands and looks right in at her. Holding what looks like a super-soaker at him, Lucy fires. Her Cement Gun plasters his hands to the asphalt. As he struggles angrily with his hands, she rolls out, comes around the other side, and does the same to his feet. Thrashing and swearing, he looks back over his shoulder at her and summarizes what’s going to happen to her if she doesn’t let him go. Still wielding her gun, Lucy demands to know what happened to Jass Advani. He venomously tells her, “the same thing that’s going to happen to you.”
He fires the blasters on his wrists, blowing the cement and a good amount of asphalt apart. He also damages much of the armor at his wrists. He immediately fires his jet-pack at full power, forcing her to dodge out of the way to avoid being cooked. After some resistance, the cement around his feet shatters, and the force of the sudden release sends him flying into the side of a motor home. Not willing to let him get away without getting some answers, Lucy charges the motor home, gun ready. Looking inside, through the hole he created, she can’t see him. Suddenly she’s grabbed from behind and spun around. He grabs her cement gun from her and breaks it. Looming ominously over her, he points his wrist, and one of its blasters, at her face.
A steel cord suddenly wraps itself around his wrist. He looks at it for a second in confusion before he’s yanked bodily away. Lucy looks up and sees Seahawk flying by, his wrist’s harpoon line leading down to her attacker, dragging him through the air. Seahawk drags him harshly into the side of the dealer office, where the villain smashes through the brick. Seahawk had decided to check out the Ares locations, and had arrived at the plant not long after Lucy’s departure. He watched panicked guards run around for a while, then finally flew off. While flying, he spotted the blast of a jet-pack below, and knew he’d found his prey.
Seahawk drops in and the two armored men engage in a furious martial battle. At one point, the ebon attacker tries his power surge weapon on Seahawk again, but finds it doesn’t work. Apparently it was damaged when he blasted out of Lucy’s trap. It looks like this time Seahawk is getting the upper hand, and almost has the other man down. But the foe comes up with a mini-grenade and blows Seahawk back off of the motor home they’re fighting on, into the lot’s gas pumps. Then, with a blast from his sole working wrist weapon, he blows the gas tanks, blasting Seahawk into unconsciousness. Looking like he’s about to drop, the villain takes a last glare at Lucy, then flies off into the night.
Lucy gets the local hose and tries to put the flaming Seahawk out and keep him from cooking. She finally revives him, telling him their attacker got away. The police are going to be on their way soon, and while he doesn’t see any problem with that, she says she’d have to explain that she was attacked after breaking into Ares. It’s obvious they have some talking to do. He pushes her car out of the dealership and into a parking lot across the street, where she’ll have to get it towed from later. They take off before the fire trucks and police arrive, Seahawk flying with Lucy. He makes a call through his armor to his police connection, Detective Tabitha Harkin, to let her know the dealership damage was a fight between him and a villain, so the owners can make proper use of their super-hero insurance. He suggests to Lucy she might not want to go home tonight, in case their attacker got her plate number and wants some payback.
Taking a leap of faith, he suggests she stay on his boat for the night until they figure some things out. He drops her at a distance, tells her which slip to go to at the Bell Harbor Marina, and goes underwater a good mile away, working his way back to the Marina to come up under his boat, up through the secret entrance he uses to avoid being seen as Seahawk. After a quick change, he hears the doorbell at his slip gate, and buzzes Lucy in, introducing himself as Jared as he invites her onto The Giovanni.
They swap information over a late night snack and some mutual first aid. Still more questions than answers by the end. The first step is to figure out who this guy is who was trying to kill the both of them, and either killed or kidnapped Jass. Jared suggests a trip to UNCLE. Someone there could help with this. She says he should go alone, him being the super-hero. He reminds her that she just fought a super-villain with a bunch of homemade high-tech gadgets, wearing what looks a lot like a costume, and that she’s running around trying to solve a crime and expose what may be a big corporate gun-running plot. Sounds kind of super-hero-like to him. He discusses the advantages of super vs. citizen, the leeway to get into places like Ares without getting arrested for it, like she almost had been tonight. At least while she’s looking into this, she might want to think about calling herself a super.
After a prolonged music discussion after their discovery of a mutual love of 70s rock, they get some sleep, Lucy sacking out in smaller stateroom up front that serves at Jared’s son Gabriel’s bedroom when he’s visiting.
The next day, Max gets to thinking more about Electro Man, and decides to check out the museum. It’s still closed, but one of the college interns Electro Man uses is there catching up on some work. The girl, Stacy McKone, describes the strangeness of it, “E.M.” just leaving a note saying he had some things to take care of, and that the museum would be closed until further notice. Max looks around the museum amongst all the Forte memorabilia, interactive displays and media rooms, but finds nothing amiss. When he’s about to leave, he decides to check the grounds. Wanting to get a better vantage point, he flies up onto the roof. Up there, he finds something odd, some kind of burns. Some of them look clearly like electrical burns. The other ones look they were made by some kind of rocket. This looks bad. It now looks clearly, to him, like Electro Man was in some kind of fight up here before he disappeared.
Max decides to discuss this with UNCLE, since they may have some insight and may also be able to get a hold of Nightsable. Maybe their forensics people can help out. He flies down to the UNCLE Seattle office and heads in, only to find a couple of other super-heroes are already there. Seahawk and Lucy are there talking to Corporal Dane Casey. When introductions are made, Lucy introduces herself as Tinker. Seahawk and Max have managed to not run into each other while heroing in the same city until now, as they seem to have inadvertently divided up the work between them into “day shift” and “night shift”. They finally meet.
Dane, sort of the new kid in the office, having transferred in from the Denver office, is only a couple of years out of the academy, but is a walking scholar. His knowledge of all things super is very impressive, making up for his lack of having proved himself in the field. He’s been discussing the mysterious attacker with Seahawk and Tinker, and says it has to be Sanction, an up-and-coming assassin and mercenary who’s been making a name for himself in international circles. He pulls up a 3-D image on the UNCLE computer, based on descriptions and the only existing photograph. That’s their boy all right.
Max spots the jet-pack and brings up what he came in for. Based on what he tells them, sounds like a good chance maybe Sanction came after Electro Man, too. Tinker wants to check the site out herself to verify. The trio decides to do so together. Dane tells them to contact him if there’s anything else they need. Things are a little busy in the office right now, but he should be available. It seems there’s a search on for a rumored training facility for a new super-terrorist group, Mandate, that’s supposed to be in the area. Most of the rest of UNCLE Seattle are out hustling leads.
The heroes head back to the Forte museum, and Tinker’s able to verify with just a whiff of the jet burns that the fuel mixture is the same one used by Sanction. Stacy lets them back into the museum, and there, amongst the statues of former Forte members, they discuss what they know. Sanction seems to be after Seattle heroes. He came gunning for Seahawk, and it looks like he fought with Electro Man, though the outcome is still unknown. Tinker suggests that maybe the explosion Max barely escaped was actually meant for him. Maybe the fire was a set-up to get him there, since it just happened to take place near a pre-announced public appearance of his.
So someone seems to be gunning for heroes in Seattle, and it appears people are leaving Seattle—Ares management and a mob family, at least. And it sounds like there’s a good chance of a connection between Ares and Sanction, based on the tech suppositions, his either abducting or killing Jass and chasing after Lucy after she fled the Ares plant with possibly damning info. Sanction is a killer for hire. Could Ares have hired him? For what purpose? And what’s up with the weapons stockpile?
Lucy, having told Max her real name, feeling silly being called by a code-name, asks that while they’re trying to piece it all together and plan their next move, they go back to her place. If there’s a chance of Sanction coming after them again, she wants to put some more of her “toys” together so she’ll be better prepared. She’ll need to do some shopping, first, too. They agree, all exchange real name introductions (since they’re going to be out of costume), and use Jared’s Expedition for the shopping and drive to Lucy’s “warehome”, where she gets busy building. At Max’s suggestion, Seahawk contacts UNCLE and asks them to contact any of the other heroes in town and warn them to keep on their toes, since it seems they’ve all become targets.
Davis has spent the past few days frantically researching his glyph photos against online and text databases, as well as researching any sightings of blue people in the water around Seattle. On the latter, he does come up with some sightings from the past couple of hundred years. Plotting the sightings on a map, he comes up with a general area of ocean.
As for the glyphs, it’s tough going, but there are some similarities to ancient markings from all different peoples, including Egyptian and Inca. From what he put together, the glyphs in the cavern say something about a banishment, a sealing, a great exodus, and, frightfully, a great destruction. If there was a sealing, it appears the man in the suit with the space-age gun unsealed it….whatever “it” is. He can’t get his vision burst out of his head. Something bad is coming, and he doesn’t know how to stop it. He’s spent time during his research yelling at the ceiling, asking why Ta-co-bet doesn’t just tell him what’s going on and what to do, but no answers come. He’s on his own.
He finally realizes that he needs to find this blue teen, who seems to have all the answers. Having no other viable options, he decides to hire a boat and head out to the sighting area. Maybe Ta-co-bet will help when he gets closer. Night has fallen, and he heads down to the nearest marina bar, asking around for someone with a boat, announcing his willingness to pay cash for someone who can go right now and not ask questions. He finds someone, sure enough, a guy named Reagan (no relation). Davis shows the cash, and they’re off.
They’re tooling around out there, with Davis watching over the night waters, when a hydrofoil comes speeding up on them. A voice on a loudspeaker tells them to stand down. Reagan panics and tries to gun it and take off. The hydrofoil keeps pace with them, and seemingly on autopilot, since the boat’s pilot, Captain Compass, leaps over his boat’s railing and onto their boat. Reagan slows the boat and puts his hands up, giving up. Apparently he hires his boat out a lot. Often to drug smugglers. Captain Compass has been searching for him.
Davis tries to explain that he’s no drug smuggler, but it’s kind of hard to break down exactly why he hired the boat to come out in the middle of the sea in the middle of the night. He finally settles for the truth, as crazy as it sounds, to keep himself from being hauled off to the nearest Coast Guard cutter like Reagan’s going to be. Carrying scattered research and notes with him in his backpack, he pulls out his sketch of the blue teen he’d seen. Captain Compass checks it out and seems to recognize it. He tells Davis to hold on, makes sure Reagan is securely cuffed down below, and makes a call on his radio.
Seahawk, Max and Tinker are back on Jared’s boat, using his computer and it’s remarkable information access (thanks to Mr. Tether) to look up information on Ares Global. The fact that they find out ChemaCo is a subsidiary of Ares makes things look even more suspicious. Jared’s radio goes off, and it’s a call from Captain Compass. The two work together often. The Captain explains about Davis, who seems to be searching for the same blue people that Seahawk encountered a while back (see Seahawk #0). Seahawk had run across a young blue guy matching that description, and a human girl calling herself Thresher, claiming to be the younger sister of the dead Forte hero of the same name, trying to sabotage a freighter they claim was doing illegal dumping in the area. As coincidence would have it, it was an Ares freighter, too.
He tells the Captain to hold Davis there. Max and Tinker decide they’ll go along, too, since at least there’s a possible Ares connection. They head out over the dark night water and meet up at the Mystic II, the Captain’s hydrofoil. Davis attempts to explain to them as he had been to the Captain. Seeing as how they’re super-heroes, he blows the whole wad about the cavern, the guy in the suit, the glyphs, and that the blue kid seemed to think something terrible was coming now.
While they’re still talking, a fog begins to surround the Mystic II. The Captain picks up quickly that fog doesn’t roll in that fast if it’s natural. Suddenly, blue people come soaring up out of the water and land all over the Mystic, surrounding the heroes. Some kind of giant sea steeds rise up as well, ridden by more of the blue people. As the blue people are all armed with big blades and look ticked off, Davis switches to his Rainier form, to the shock of the other heroes (he hadn’t told them that part).
The heroes are ready for a fight when a voice tells the other aquatic peoples to wait. The young blue man Davis had grappled with—and also the one Seahawk had encountered, and knows to be called Kell—climbs aboard. Thresher, a blond girl of about sixteen, comes up with him. He tells his people that he knows Seahawk, and he’s no danger. Ignoring Seahawk, he asks Rainier why he’s come. They were able to sense his approach, thanks to the magic within him. He explains his first reaction, of course, is to want to learn more about their people and civilization, but more immediately, he needs to know what happened in that cavern, and what the thing is that’s coming, and how he can stop it. Kell tells him there’s nothing he can do. Kell’s people are preparing to defend their world below from what’s coming, and the surface-dwellers are on their own. After what they’ve done to the Earth, perhaps it’s pre-destined that their time has passed. Fate will decide.
When the reasonable voice of Rainier seems to be getting nowhere, Seahawk cuts in, angry, yelling at Kell, tired of all his “surface-dweller” crap (he got some of this last time they met). Thresher jumps in to defend her man, screaming about the superiority of the Cassian society over anything above the water (so that’s what the blue guys are called). Kell ends the discussion, and signals his men and women to retreat. They all start heading back into the water and down to the depths. Kell says he honestly wishes them well in what’s to come, but that they’re on their own. He and Thesher dive below the waves as well.
Leaving our four very confused heroes to watch the fog dissolve. Hero
assassinations, engineer abductions, weapons stockpiles, Seattle defections,
mermaid people, and now some kind of ancient destruction coming upon the
Earth?
