Reading Dvandom Force #42 is extremely advisable at this point. It's
available from eyrie.stanford.edu and other major outlets.
Marmalade Dalek Productions Presents
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-* T H E L E G I O N O F O C C U L T H E R O E S *-
Issue Six
"This Too, Too Solid Flesh"
By Paul Hardy
An ACRAPHOBE title
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
To: tourniquet@lnhhq.org
From: green.trenchcoat@lnhhq.org
I really don't know how to begin this. I've been trying to
think of when everything began. When all the things that I'm stuck in
the middle of and can't get out of started; I'm not sure, but I think
it was when I first met Martin. I met him on the El, in Net.ropolis,
eight years ago. I was feeling lost and lonely at the time; I'd just
moved to Net.ropolis, and it was different and stranger than anywhere
else I'd lived before. And then this guy just comes up to me on the El
and asks me out- well, I thought he was a crazy at first, but I called
and checked a few things, and found out that he was okay; so I went
out with him.
He was wonderful. I'd never met anybody like him before. He
was a junior lawyer at a firm in the city, and such a nice guy... I
don't know. I don't think I can describe him all that well. He was
kind, and sweet, and lovely, and good looking, and I fell in love.
There. That's what happened. I don't know if that's exactly
the start of it all. I don't know if it really has a start; I can't
drag you into this and drop you in the deep end. I'm not much of a
writer. I've never tried anything like this before. But, oh god, I
have to do this. I didn't know how much I needed to do this. It's like
some sort of pressure inside me, trying to break out, that I was so
busy keeping in before, and never noticed. That's the worst thing
about being Green Trenchcoat, I think- he was so much a way of keeping
things secret (that's what I made him for), but I never knew how good
he was. He kept things secret even from me. And I am Green
Trenchcoat. Or I think I am. I don't know. It's easier to be calm when
I'm him. Easier to be solid and unmoving. But it was still getting to
me and I couldn't escape it, it was getting so bad, even when I was
hiding in his form.
I'd never be doing this without you. I think I left that door
open on purpose; I've been getting so confused, so mixed up about
everything that I wasn't sure of what I was doing anymore; and feeling
so guilty that I couldn't do hardly anything. I did something
terrible, or I tried to. I failed. Thank god I failed! Afterwards, I
couldn't believe I'd done it.
I tried to replace her. I tried to take my counterpart's
place. I should start at the beginning. This doesn't make any sense,
if I start here. I'll go back and start- god, I'll have to start all
the way back, and tell you all about me, and where I came from. One
thing after another. That would be best.
--
"I should expel you," said the Ultimate Ninja. "I should throw
you out and forget about you." His eyes were of steel, and gave the
impression that a ginsu blade would not be far behind if provoked.
Green Trenchcoat stared back. There was nothing in his eyes.
"I've had enough of traitors. I've seen too many of them. I've
killed many of them. I didn't want one of you to become one of them."
Green Trenchcoat barely moved even to breathe.
"If it wasn't for Sig.Lad's recommendation, you'd be out of
here already. The moment I found out, you would have been gone. But
no. He says you have emotional problems."
Green Trenchcoat was breaking inside.
"That excuses nothing. Hitler had emotional problems. But for
you, they want me to keep this quiet. I don't like it. I don't like it
at all."
So foully betrayed, again and again-
"But they say you need help. So get it. And sort yourself
out. Or get out."
-and thus becoming a betrayer-
"Anything to say?"
Green Trenchcoat's eyes wandered in confusion. No, there was
nothing to be said.
"Go on, get out of here. Go and see Special Bonding Boy. Or a
psychiatrist. I'll give you a month to straighten yourself out. Go
on. Move it."
Green Trenchcoat rose, his mind absent and burning. He turned
and left.
--
I was born in Wolverhampton, on May the 23rd,
1961. Wolverhampton is one of the parts of Birmingham, not really
Birmingham, though- all the towns around there have gotten so big that
it's all one city now, and everyone who doesn't live there thinks of
it as Birmingham. But it's really Wolverhampton, and that's where I
grew up. My parents were nice sometimes, I suppose. When I was young,
anyway. I've got lots of vague happy memories of when I was small, and
mum and dad treating me like a princess, because I was the only child
they had. They were quite well off, and sooner or later, they sent me
to a public school in the area, where I lost most of my accent and
learned how to be a proper little girl, which is pretty much what
girl's schools taught in those days. My mother ran a business called
my father- he was the one with the job, but she was the one in
charge. She wanted me to be like her. Dad preferred to let my mother
get on with running his life, and otherwise take things easy. I often
wondered if he did this so he wouldn't have to worry about
thinking. He was an executive or something in a big bank in
Birmingham- probably the Midland, but I can't remember. He was quite
happy where he was, but my mother had political ambitions, which meant
that she had ambitions to get him into parliament.
This all seems distant and unreal. I haven't thought about my
parents in years, and now that I have to, it's really slowed me
down. Sobered me up. If I hadn't known them, I wouldn't have thought
that they could have existed; but that's me now talking. Me then
didn't know much else; all the parents of all the other girls were
just as high-flying, except those who were there on scholarships, who
didn't get spoken to very much, which wasn't fair, but then nothing
was at that school. I didn't realise it until later. I remember one
girl we bullied remorselessly, until she cried, and she never stopped
crying. Ten years later she committed suicide, leaving two children
and an absent father. I don't know if that has anything to do with
anything, but I remembered reading about it in the paper, recognising
the face and the name, and feeling bad about it. I suppose I wasn't a
very nice child, but very few were. Still, I was lucky that my parents
weren't living abroad like some of the other girls'; at least I saw
them most of the time. Some girls only saw their parents for summer
holidays and occasional visits.
Like I said, my mother wanted me to be like her; she expected
me to marry some dull halfwit and steer him into some powerful
position and run things through him. She never actually said this; she
never sat down and explained her strategy like that. She just lived
like that and let me know that that was the best way to behave. After
all, she was my mother, and I looked up to her and trusted her, though
I did so much less as I grew older. She'd say things about my father,
always demeaning him, always making him look like an idiot, and she
did it as though she were sharing an inside joke with me.
But poor dad! I couldn't help feeling sorry for him. Always
pushed around by mum, always doing what she said. It was as though he
didn't have a brain of his own. But he was a nice man; he was
friendly, he told jokes, he never wanted to hurt anyone. I liked him,
and loved him more than I did my mother.
I don't know if this actually has anything to do with Martin,
or my world, or being a superhero, or anything. I don't know if I
should really go on with all this stuff from when I was a kid. It
doesn't really make a difference; I made a clean break and changed
away from all of it. But I feel like I want to tell it. The only
person I really told it to before was Martin. And he's dead.
I can still see him. He didn't die with all the others,
waiting for the end to come. He killed himself. I can't remember it
without crying, and wanting to die myself. He's still lying there- no-
he's in ashes- and I couldn't believe how cold he was, how heavy he
was. All of him was dead. Every last bit. Even his spirit died. I
betrayed him- I could have gone back earlier, but I didn't know, I
didn't know, I wasn't sure, it didn't make sense.
No. I've got to stop thinking about it! He's dead and I'm
alive and I've got to do this. Okay. I've made a decision. I'm going
to tell everything that's important about my life, whether or not it
has to do with what's happening now. Maybe it does and I don't know
it. Maybe I'm screwed up in ways I don't know. Maybe this is a load of
bullshit and I'm just being self-indulgent. My mother always told me
you only ever had to rely upon yourself. I think she was wrong. I hope
she was wrong.
My parents died when I was nineteen. But a lot had happened
before then. As time went by- I couldn't take my mother anymore- she
was smug and arrogant, and my dad- well, I liked him, but he never
stood up to her, and he should have. She treated him like shit and all
he did was ask for more. So I grew apart from both of them. I tried to
be the thing they would most hate, so I could hurt them as much as
possible, and most of all, I wanted to be different to my mother. I
don't think I ever actually thought like that at the time, not in so
reasoned a way. And maybe I would have turned out as I did anyway; it
was the way things were going back then, in the seventies. I knew lots
of people who were doing it. I became a punk.
You should have seen me- spiky orange hair, a ring through my
nose, black eyeliner, ragged denim jacket, leather trousers or short
skirt (really short skirt), hanging around with everyone in the clubs
or on the streets, listening to the music, doing the drugs, going to
the gigs, getting pissed every time I could and smashing something.
My mother sent me to a psychiatrist, who I told to fuck
off. My dad shook his head, looked disappointed, said exactly what my
mother told him to say. But I think I saw him smile a little bit, once
in a while, though he really was as disgusted as mum was
sometimes. They were both old when they had me; when they were young,
Germany was still dropping bombs on the country. Being a punk was
great, at least for a while; it was a lot of fun, screwing around,
breaking things. And the best thing was, that mum had lost her grip on
me. I was doing and being everything she hated, failing where she had
succeeded, succeeding where she had failed. I'll never forget the look
on her face when she came to get me from a police cell, where I'd
spent the night after I'd smashed in all the car windows in one
street, and then thrown up at the end of it. That look was all I
wanted. Disgust, disappointment, embarrassment, hatred; I'd gotten to
her. When she got me home, she tried to give me a lecture on being a
responsible citizen, getting married, having kids and all the rest. I
shot back with as many swearwords as I could manage, and a lot of what
I'd learned elsewhere. I'd been paying attention to some classes, if
not many, and reading a few things I knew she wouldn't have liked. So
when I called her a patriarchal capitalist whore, she went red in the
face and ordered me to go to my room, furious and bursting.
I wasn't really bothered with trying to piss her off after
that; I'd done enough. She didn't bother to do anything to change me;
she wrote me off as a lost cause, though she kept on about how I would
change in time. Maybe I would have. In the meantime, I managed to get
through my O-levels and A-levels well enough, though I didn't make it
to university or college or anything. I failed by a couple of grades
and didn't get a place through clearing, so I ended up on the dole,
not really caring about much and spending most of my time getting as
pissed as I could on what I had- my mother wouldn't give me anything,
though she didn't kick me out- and generally not getting anywhere.
And then they died, all of a sudden. Just like that. On the
M1, just north of the Watford Gap, coming back from London. They had a
Mercedes that piled into the back of another car that stopped too
soon, and before long a dozen cars were in the pile-up. They weren't
wearing seatbelts; hardly anybody did, in those days. They died, and
the doctors told me they didn't suffer. Which was bullshit. My mother
took five minutes to die. She suffered, alright. I didn't know how to
feel about it. I mean, I was broken up, all tears and nightmares, but
part of me was happy that they were gone, which made me feel guilty
all the more.
It was like they were frozen; I couldn't get through to them
again, ever. They were stuck as they were, and they couldn't
change. My mother would never get to know me as a human being rather
than a disappointment; and dad would never stand up for himself. They
were lost, and so was I. I still am, I think. I still feel bad about
it. Martin helped me with all that; we talked and talked, and- oh,
shit, I'm going ahead again. I keep wanting to talk about Martin. I've
got to wait until I get there. Okay. My parents.
They hadn't made a will for ages, and the old one was
bungled. So I lost all their money, though I don't think my mother
would have wanted me to have anything anyway. With what little the
family solicitor managed to scrape together from their estate, I had
them cremated together, paid off the solicitor, and found somewhere to
live.
--
A path was cleared in the cafeteria. Green Trenchcoat passed
through it.
"I heard he was with the Brotherhood-"
"Why would ninj do that, anyway?"
"Have you heard-?"
"Oh, god, it's him. Don't look."
"What did he _do_?"
"Betrayers never prosper."
"Ask Dvandom Force. They know. But they're not telling. It's a
conspiracy."
"Do you need any help?"
Green Trenchcoat almost dropped his tray in surprise. Someone
was talking to him. Actually talking to him.
"Look, you've had some problems, and I want to be able to help
you..." Special Bonding Boy. Him again. Green Trenchcoat didn't want-
couldn't face- couldn't think about it-
He was too earnest. What was behind that look that said he
wanted to help? More voices? More whispers? More betrayal?
"Leave me." So weary. A flush of pain. Green Trenchcoat closed
his eyes.
"You need help."
"No. Please..."
"Please...?"
"Please leave me. Go." Green Trenchcoat opened his eyes and
they boiled at Special Bonding Boy. "Go. I do not need your help."
Hoarse, now. "GO!!"
Special Bonding Boy stood his ground. Green Trenchcoat stared
at him like fury. This little man. Who would take off the lid and
brave poison. Too much poison. He couldn't take it. Green Trenchcoat
couldn't stand it.
He threw his tray to the side, clattering around the wall,
turned, and marched heavily out of the cafeteria, trying not to hear
all the voices that followed, but unable to protect himself from them.
--
That was it for my childhood, and my youth, I suppose. Nothing
was ever the same after that. I couldn't go out and have fun in the
same way anymore; now that she was dead, and not there to be hated so
much, I couldn't keep on defying her. I felt like a failure, which was
stupid, but there it was. I washed the dye out of my hair, took out
the nosering, dressed smartly, and applied for a job. Eventually, I
got one.
The next few years weren't much to talk about. I got older,
that's all. A few brief flings, a few gropes at office parties; never
anything serious. The last boyfriend I had before I left England
dumped me for a barmaid. It pretty much summed up how things were
then; I just drifted along into whatever happened. The job was
alright; a publishing firm. I read quite a bit, worked fairly hard,
managed to make my way a few rungs up the ladder, but I knew there
wasn't much point in trying too hard; even if it hadn't been almost
impossible for a woman to rise high in those times, I don't think I
could have made myself care enough to do so.
I didn't really have any close friends in those years,
either. I worked there for five years before I moved; and I never got
close to anyone, not even the men I went out with. Especially not
them. Maybe that's why they kept dumping me. Sometimes it was really
bad, like when all those managers, the ones with the stale breath and
the delusions of being attractive, expected you to play along in
return for favours and preference. I never told them where to stick
it, which is what I wanted to do; that would have cost me my job, and
apart from those irritating advances, it was just the kind of thing I
wanted; a place where I could be cosy and comfortable and not have to
think too hard, or at least, if I was thinking, I was thinking about
something that wasn't difficult to think about. So I ignored all the
lecherous sods and went out with people who tried to be nice. But they
all turned out the same underneath.
I don't know why, but Martin was different. I could tell him
anything, and I did. Almost. That was the hardest thing; keeping all
the Green Trenchcoat stuff from him. He never knew. He died not
knowing. He didn't know why I left and never came back; he thought I'd
left him. Shit, later with this, later.
So I drifted, and didn't get anywhere. The country went
through a recession and a boom and I scarcely noticed, apart from the
way that orders, and then prices, seemed to be going up at the firm. I
never bothered voting or anything; what was the point? I thought. One
lot of idiots dumped us in a mess, and the other lot coasted out of it
at the cost of more unemployment than there'd ever been before. What
was the difference? A lot of people didn't understand why I was so
apathetic. Neither did I, really. I just wanted to drift, get a few
pleasures out of life here and there, and wander on until it ended. I
didn't have a lot of enthusiasm for anything. Maybe, with my mother
gone, I didn't have anything to work against. I'd never had any ideals
other than to be the opposite of her, which I'd managed. So there
wasn't much else to do, but earn a wage, watch TV, have tired affairs,
and feel lonely at night.
Loneliness is one of the worst things. You've got to talk to
people or you'll either stagnate or go mad. All I've been through,
everything I've done, leads me to learn this one thing. And I've been
stupid to forget it, even when I knew it. I didn't realise how screwed
up I was. I didn't realise how much I needed Martin to stay sane. I
spent six or seven years without close friends, without people I could
talk to; some people spend longer than that, shit, lots of people do,
and never complain. But it can be hell inside your own skull,
especially when you're the one keeping people out. The only one I can
blame for my idiocy is me; I could have done more. I could have been
more outgoing, I could have tried harder to be more attractive, nicer
to people... I don't know. Maybe I couldn't Maybe I'm overanalysing
all this stuff. Maybe I should get on with this. I think I need some
coffee first, though.
--
A door. The name: "Tourniquet, United-Force". Maybe she was
in. Oh, god, he hoped she was in.
He needed help so badly, needed someone he could still trust...
He raised his hand to knock.
What if she'd told somebody else? What if she'd shown that
mailing to somebody else?
No. She wouldn't. She couldn't. No.
But she'd heard. Everyone else seemed to. She'd surely
heard. What must she think now? After all that spilling of guts, all
that had happened was that he'd ended up screwing up again. Even
worse. Nearly destroying everything.
What would she think of a traitor?
She would hate him. And her. She would hate her most of all,
for being so weak, for not seeing through Acton Lord's lies.
Green Trenchcoat's hand faltered.
She would call her out. Tell everyone. So disappointed. So
hurt.
She'd screwed up. He'd screwed up. Both of them. The one of
them. The same person. The same fucked up bitch.
He couldn't knock. He couldn't face her. He just
couldn't. Face falling, he stepped back from the door, and walked
away, breaking.
--
That's better. It tastes good, this coffee; something else I
learned from Martin, taste in coffee. Real, ground, rare and expensive
(unlike the stuff I was having earlier- blech). I feel almost like
he's helping me, urging me to speak. Or write, or whatever. I miss
him. I miss the way he was nice, and kind, and sweet about so many
things. I even miss his accent, and I used to hate American accents.
I would have drifted on like that until I died, but somehow I
ended up in Net.ropolis instead, and met Martin. The firm I worked at
was part of a larger firm, which had it's head office in Net.ropolis,
and wanted to do some recruiting from the branches; like a lot of
companies, mine regarded Britain as the fifty-first state when it came
to organising. They wanted about five people to go over and help the
Net.ropolis office reorganise a few things, and it was particularly
us, because we'd shown just about the best profit over the last few
years. And they chose me to go. I'm not exactly sure why; I'd made a
few good decisions, I suppose, and I was always pretty good at the
creative stuff, but I wasn't quite management or responsible for
much. But I suppose I made enough right moves somewhere along the
line, because the head office simply made the decisions from the
employee records. Either that or there was a mix-up somewhere.
So, in 1985, I came to Net.ropolis, supposedly for six months,
but in the end, for much longer. They paid the airfare, and pointed me
in the right direction for finding an apartment- small, quiet, and a
short trip away on the El. That's something we don't have in Britain,
generally; railways are either big things that go all over the
country, or they're underground- you couldn't build an elevated
railway in London. It just wouldn't work. I was used to buses, and
spending a good part of each day in the company of West Midlands
Transport, watching fares go up year by year. The El wasn't much
different; you just had to climb a load of steps before you got on,
that's all.
It wasn't the only difference. Net.ropolis was huge and
strange- I suppose that Birmingham would seem the same to a foreigner
who didn't know all it's little streets and ways, but in Net.ropolis,
I was the foreigner, and lost in a strange grid system of roads that I
didn't understand. It was everything. The money, the plugs, the
accents, the cars, the TV, the buildings, just the way people lived. I
ws pretty much lost for a few weeks, but slowly it started to make
sense, though I never did work out why American plugs only had two
pins. How do they earth the damn things if they haven't got a third
pin? Technology isn't my strong point.
The job was fantastic, though. It was interesting, a lot more
than working in Birmingham had been. The company was going through a
few changes, and we were helping to sort all the distribution stuff
out, how books were ordered, how they got around, all the special
arrangements for delivery to the fifty-first state, all that
stuff. Just all this freedom to change things and make it work
better. Like I said, it was only six months, but I ended up staying
longer; my manager liked me and wanted to keep me around. I suppose I
was getting a bit more enthusiastic about life.
The strangest thing about Net.ropolis, though, was the
superheroes. We didn't have many back in Brum- it was a fairly dull
place for that sort of thing. There was the Lion, of course, but he
was nothing like the people in Net.ropolis; you heard about the Lion
stopping muggings and racial attacks, foiling robberies and so on,
helping the police with their enquiries. Truth to tell, superheroing
is generally frowned on in Britain, like the rest of Europe; most
paranormals helped out a bit more quietly, unless Israishus wanted
them.
But Net.ropolis- Net.ropolis was a madhouse compared to the
relative sanity of Birmingham. It made the papers more interesting to
read, but on top of that there was always the risk of getting mixed up
in some superpowered battle in the streets. Insurance premiums were
ridiculous, what with all the supervillians around. Why so many
supervillians would congregate in a city with the highest number of
superheroes per head of population in the world is beyond me. One
attracts the other, I suppose. Of course, Israishus assigned most of
them there- that's the big difference between this world and
mine. There's nobody running things here. But then there's a lot less
trouble here, as well.
I got used to it, to not seeing the Queen's head on the money,
to all the drivers on the wrong side of the road, to all the strange
accents. I got used to the El ride in the morning and evening, to the
strange things on TV, to seeing films months before they got to
Britain. I settled in; I suppose I would have become much as I had
been in Birmingham. But then everything changed. I met Martin.
--
The razor blade was a sharp thing meant to cut through
hairs. Vicky held it and looked at it. Just a bit of metal. Forged
somewhere. Sharper than anything. Tears weren't forthcoming. Vicky sat
on the edge of the bath and looked at a razor blade; an old thing,
really, since she hadn't had to shave since she'd become Green
Trenchcoat. But it had been there, lurking in the back of the cupboard.
So sharp. Straight through skin and veins. So easy. Do it the
Roman way; run a warm bath. Cut along the vein. Drift back and slip
away. Forget everything. There was an afterlife, if you wanted it; and
if you didn't, there could be oblivion. Gone forever, don't send on
the post.
All it would take would be to fill the bath, get in and open
the vein. She could stop the Spirit from keeping her alive; these
days, it didn't care so much. It would let her go if she really wanted to.
Is this it? A red bath in a strange and distant universe?
She didn't even need the blade, really. But it would feel
better if it hurt. She wanted to hurt herself. She would feel better
then. If nobody would punish her, then she would do it herself. Punish
and punish and punish. Let the blood flow.
But here. No, this place was wrong somehow. This wasn't
right. Anyway, the computer might notice, and call for help before it
was over. She could just imagine that- sanctimonious bastards all
tutting and saying "It's because she's a traitor. She couldn't handle
the guilt. Maybe it would have been the best thing, but we can't allow
it."
Allow. It was her life to take as she pleased. But not here.
She left the bathroom and went to her terminal. Hacked it with
green light.
"Where is Occultism Kid?"
Not in the LNHQ.
"Good."
--
Oh, Martin. I can't talk about him enough to tell you about
him. He changed me in so many ways. He listened to me when I talked to
him, when I told him about everything that had happened to me. He had
taste, he had style, he looked good, he was clever, he was everything.
We met on the El. We met there and a few days later I saw him
again. Nothing like this had happened for ages- nothing so fun, so
romantic, even. I couldn't believe it. I'd been expecting somebody
from the office to make a pass- I'd even been sizing them up and
wondering which ones I'd prefer to make a move, if they ever got round
to it. I couldn't have started anything. That was the way I
was. Asking somebody else out- I was always so scared they'd say no,
laugh in my face and tell jokes about me behind my back, big paunched
men in a bar talking about women.
So I was surprised. He left his name and phone number- okay, I
was dubious at first (I read the newspapers, I saw the news, and even
with that many superheroes, it wasn't that safe a city), but the card
was a business card, and I phoned up the firm, Watersons to make sure
it was real. So I phoned him, and he was the one who was surprised. We
met in a bar on Thirty-Fifth, and then had dinner- Cordiglione's. I
made a bad joke about it sounding like it was owned by the Mafia, and
funnily enough, a couple of years later, it turned out that it was,
and got shut down, which was a pity. It was such a great evening. He
told me he hadn't expected me to call back- I was still a bit worried
about him, I wasn't sure of him- he'd expected me to call the
police. And the strangest thing was that he was almost as fucked up as
I was- a bad relationship a month behind, scared to ask anyone out
that he knew from familiar places, ending up doing something strange
and spontaneous on the El.
And he actually liked me. I couldn't believe it. He wanted
more than just for me to like him- oh, he wanted that, sure, but he
was giving something back as well. He cheered me up, he made me laugh,
he made me feel better. We parted that evening and arranged to meet
again. And that was the beginning of it all. Within a week we were
going out, and life was suddenly a dozen times better than it had
been- someone to talk to, places to go, new people to get to know, not
to mention regular sex that actually meant something.
In the end, I suppose, we would have got married. In this
world, that's what happened. But of course, I ended up as Green
Trenchcoat and that changed everything. I couldn't tell him; it was
too dangerous. After a while, there were too many people who would
have killed him just because he was my lover. So I had to lie, or at
least, never mention it. I wish I could have done. I wish could have
just told him, but Israishus said it was a bad idea- and after what
happened to Jim- The Particle, he doesn't exist here, his daughter was
murdered- I knew he was right. That's why the sex change, of
course. The last thing anyone would have expected, and it worked, at
least until everything got so shitty.
After I became Green Trenchcoat- hang on. I suppose I should
do the "Origin Story" thing. Not that it was really very interesting
in my case- well, okay, I suppose it was, but it wasn't anything
really spectacular. I had dreams, for about a month before, horrible
things. All pollution and sickness and pain. I'd wake up in the middle
of the night, sweating like a pig, and driving Martin nuts. He started
on at me about going to see a psychiatrist, and I was about to when I
found out what the dreams were all about- it was the Earth Spirit
getting me ready for all of this. The previous agent was dying, and I
was getting some of what it felt like- the poor bastard had tried to
stop a toxic dump, and had gotten most of it on his head. It took him
a month to die, trapped in a landfill. It was terrible.
I don't know why the Earth Spirit picked me. It just did; it
always does, or at least it did on my world. Things were bad enough
that it just decided it needed a human agent to do something about it-
we're powerful, but I don't think we were ever powerful enough to do
the job properly. There's too many things to deal with. You can't be
everywhere at once, though I tried at first. Being around helps,
though. People started to get the idea, and things got a little
better- but they never changed that greatly.
It's different in this world. The Earth Spirit is there, but
it never bothered to create a guardian; it was never that
desperate. It puts up with me, though. It lets me carry on, even
though it doesn't need me and it never calls for me. For that I blame
the Leviathan. I should have died with Martin and the rest of the
world, but it wouldn't let me, or the other two.
When the Earth Spirit first came, I thought it was another
dream; green, glowing, beautiful, wonderful; more real than real. It
happened one night; Martin was in Los Angeles, and maybe the Spirit
had planned it that way. I spent a week getting used to all these
things I could do; more than I could imagine was possible, even for a
superhero. I spent that week dazed, shining, mad; after Martin had
given me a reason to be happy, here was another reason to be
ecstatic. It's like life; I can feel it, it's something I can't
describe properly. I somehow got used to it.
Then, of course, it hit me that I really ought to go and see
Israishus. He's someone that doesn't exist here, or on your world, I
imagine; on my world, he was someone we needed. He was older than he
looked, a lot older- centuries, maybe. He kept the whole superhuman
thing together, set up the Network so we could work together
efficiently and deal with all the threats better than we could have
done alone. Without him, my world would have died a hundred times
over; there was something about recent times that had made us a target
or something- it was so much more dangerous than on this world.
Israishus kept the LNH, Euroforce, the Dragons, the Aussie
Squad, the Northerners, the Black Flags, Alternative Arrest and all
the others- so many groups, many he'd started himself- all working
together, all funded, all staffed. There were hardly any heroes that
wouldn't answer to his call if he needed them. I knew I had to help,
even if I couldn't help much.
He wasn't all that surprised to see me. He knew what was going
on, and had already planned what to do; there were two of us who had
just started out, just reported to him- the other was Andrew, Demon
Boy- and he wanted a small group that could deal with mystical
stuff. He got us and two more experienced people- GrimLad and
Mr. Trenchcoat- and started off the Legion of Occult Heroes, basing us
in the LNHQ. Kirsty (Leviathan Lass) joined a year or two later.
Israishus suggested some sort of disguise- and I came up with
the sex change. I was rather surprised that it was something I could
do, and it took a while to get the hang of it, but when I was with the
LOH, it was worth it. People tended to be wary of a tall, mysterious
man- as myself I'd have had a different effect. It was something I
needed at the time, but now it's like someone strangling me; I can't
say anything when I'm him. I can't speak. I always end up talking like
somebody out of an old film. It's just impossible to be me when I'm
him.
Well. Things went along for a few years. At first it was
great, but things soon got bad. Keeping something from Martin was
always painful. And I kept having to go off with the LOH, and
explaining my absences to Martin and the firm was difficult; well,
this all took a while to really develop, but by the time I left my
firm were ready to fire me and Martin was exasperated. He didn't
understand; he thought I was ill. I think he still loved me. Oh, god,
I know he still loved me. I wasn't sure until I read his note- I must
have hurt him so badly. So often never there and in the end, vanishing
completely. He died because of me, not because of what killed everyone
else. But he would have died anyway. I should have been there! I
should have bloody been there! Maybe I could have helped. Maybe I
could have kept the place alive. Something. I don't know.
Stupid. Of course I couldn't do anything. It was too
big. Everything was dead. Feeling that- that absence, that loss- when
I went back there- that was the worst thing ever. I was so used to
feeling life all around. And then there was death, all over, all
around, everywhere, too much of it, and collapsed, had a seizure (or
so the others said). But still I wish I'd been there when it
happened. There with Martin.
We ended up here after a mission that had taken two weeks-
that was the longest I'd ever been away, and in some ways I was
dreading going back. The Shishirishni, some foul bunch of nasties from
a nether dimension, had decided to cause havoc on our world. We
managed to get them out, but we knew they'd only come back at the
first chance. So we had to follow them; Mr. Trenchcoat wasn't there,
and GrimLad had to keep the portal open, so it was just the three of
us, for two weeks, chasing murderous imps through dozens of awful
planes. Eventually, we managed to close them down, and then we started
trying to get back, but GrimLad's portal had gone down for some
reason, and we had to make it on our own. We eventually got back to
what we thought was the right place, but it was here, in the middle of
Retcon Hour.
Most of the rest you know, except what I have to tell you. I
don't want to do this, really- okay, I know I have to, and I suppose I
want to that way, but some of me really doesn't want to say this. To
say what happened, what I did.
--
Net.ropolis was charcoal. Everywhere. Dead, battered,
burnt. Most of the buildings still stood, but all were gutted, ruined,
destroyed. The streets were full of ashes and charred corpses; grey,
brittle bones poking out of mounds of grey carbon. Vicky, dressed in
ragged clothes, walked the streets of a dead city.
The sun was too hot. Something was wrong with it, and Vicky
did not care. This was desolation, and everything was dead. She passed
by burnt out cars and tried to work out where she was, and where she
needed to be. Did it really matter? He had surely been burnt with the
rest.
Anywhere was as good as anywhere else. As long as it was this
city.
There was the El. Still standing, somehow, ashes and smoke
covering the oxidised metal structure that had kept the trains far
above the ground. It gave shadow from the heat; heat that was
beginning to be irritating. Maybe here would be good enough. Hell, it
wasn't a good place that she was looking for. A bad place was better,
and here was as bad as any. Worse, rather.
It wasn't the same station. She was fairly sure of that. It
was somewhere else. But it was the same sort of thing. Close enough.
Hidden from the sun, she sat against a steel pillar and
examined her wrists. Yes. This would do. She took out the razor blade.
Now.
She bit it into the vein. Puncturing. Blood oozed out. The
blade was too sharp to hurt, at first; and then the soreness of sliced
flesh. She pulled the blade down, along the vein, and that hurt. Skin,
vein, tendons that got in the way, parted; blood began to flow,
streaming down her arm and dropping onto the dry, ash-blown
sidewalk. Now the other arm.
The same; the razor blade made into red metal by blood, she
tossed aside. No more need for it. Blood passed from her wrists and
covered her clothes. She rested her arms upon her legs and let the
blood drip between them, pooling it on the paving slabs. Letting it
drip below.
Martin had done this. How had he felt? Maybe she would find
out. Maybe.
After a while, she passed out.
--
I must have been going mad. I was going mad. As soon as I had
a chance after we got here, I went home. I couldn't believe it when I
saw myself walking into the building; I only just managed to avoid not
being seen myself. Maybe it would have been better if she had seen
me. I don't know. But there it was- me, with Martin, happy with him,
hell, married to him. But I was outside. I didn't understand at first,
until it dawned upon me. A parallel universe. A fucking parallel
universe! How, I didn't know, but it had to be. I tried getting home-
usually, I can just follow the trail back to the dimension the Earth
Spirit is in, but that plane was here. It didn't make sense. And there
they were. Having fun, living their lives. I started watching
them. They were trying for a baby. I think that was the worst
thing. They were so alive. I felt like something dead, something out
of place. I even thought for a while that I was a ghost.
I worked out that this Vicky had never become Green
Trenchcoat. So she'd had everything that I nearly had; she'd gotten a
better job, she was married to Martin, she'd made her mind up that she
wanted to get pregnant, all the things I could never manage because of
being Green Trenchcoat. Martin had wanted kids for ages, but I hadn't
liked the idea- I didn't want to become like my mother. But in this
world, Martin had finally persuaded her- or maybe she'd changed so
much that she no longer had to worry about being like her mother. My
mother.
I couldn't take it. There was nothing here for me- all Green
Trenchcoat is is a mask. He was never real. He never had a life. And
there was everything for her, all the life I wanted and needed. I lied
to Andrew and Kirsty, I said I hadn't found anything, but I'd found so
much that I couldn't stand it. So I did what I did.
I tried to take her place. At first I planned it just as an
idle fantasy, but I knew too well that I could do it. I was so
desperate. I put on the best clothes that I had, let myself in and
made myself at home. I tried to forget about her- god, I was so
twisted, I thought that just by being there I could make her go away-
I made dinner, I made myself up, and when Martin came back, I made
love to him. After so long, it was almost more than I could bear. Those
few hours in that apartment were probably the only happy time I've had
since I left my world. And then she walked in.
They caught me out with questions, and I ran away, in tears- I
couldn't believe what I'd done. I'd tried to take her place, a place
she had every right to, though I've as much right to it as she. I wish
I was her. I didn't want anything else. I still don't.
That's it, I suppose. Nothing's happened since then, except I
suppose I've gotten worse, but I've recovered enough of my brain not
to do anything else stupid. I still can't handle it, knowing they're
out there.
Maybe I should blame my writer. I never even knew I had one
until I came here- that's the strangest thing about this place. But I
can't really take it in, you know? I feel like I've done the things
I've done. Me, not some idiot with a keyboard. But if it is for real,
all this writer stuff, then I can only hate him for what he's
done. All these people, all my feelings, these are real, and all he's
ever done is twist them and kill them and hurt them. But I really
don't know if I can accept his existence. Stranger things have turned
out to be true, though.
Whoah. Hard to believe I've finished all this. It's taken
ages. Two days! And there isn't that much text to show for it. A lot
of the time I was sitting here wondering how to phrase the things I
wanted to say. Drinking more coffee than was probably good for me. I
really ought to go back and change a lot of it I suppose, make it
better- I've just looked back and some of it's painfully bad- but
letting it stand is probably the best course. At least it's honest.
There are things I should do. I should talk to Andrew and
Kirsty; it's so good, sometimes, to see them so happy, but sometimes I
hate them and envy them. I should stop lying to them. I should stop
being Green Trenchcoat and just be myself. I should apologise to Vicky
and Martin, explain what happened, hard as it might be. I don't know
what they'll think. They'll probably hate me.
But most of all I've got to get over Martin. He's
gone. Dead. Lost. I've got to get that into my head. It's just so
difficult when he's walking around with a parallel universe version of
me only a few blocks away. But I need to put him behind
me. Grieve. Not forget, but find some other way to live. Maybe even
find somebody else, though I just can't imagine being with anyone
else.
Shit. It could be worse, couldn't it? Well, maybe, maybe
not. I just need to get through this.
Thanks for letting me tell you all this. I think I would have
died if I'd never told anyone. I'll see you soon.
Love,
Vicky.
--
"Come on, _live_!!!"
Was this death...?
"Don't die. Please don't die..."
Martin...?
She tried to move, but her body was weighed down somehow. So
heavy. So tired. She wanted to sleep.
There was a movement nearby. She heard somebody gasp. They
went away a short distance.
She tried to say something. Was this death? Her muscles felt
cold and didn't want to move. It was difficult to breathe deeply
enough to speak.
The person came back. "Here. Drink this."
Something wet on her lips. Was it cold? She couldn't feel. She
managed to open her mouth a little.
Water trickled in. It tasted good, and her mouth was dry. She
swallowed some, with an effort.
The voice was almost breaking with relief. "How do you feel?"
he asked. Not Martin.
She mumbled. Tried to make words. Where was she? What was
going on? Was she dead or wasn't she?
"Whoa. Take it easy. You've lost a lot of blood. Rest for a
while."
Alive?
Oh, god, no. No.
"Mm..." she tried to speak. "mm.. I... alifff..."
A relieved chuckle. "Yeah, you're alive. I think you're going
to make it."
"Whyyy..."
"I found you. I couldn't. I just couldn't watch you. You were
still alive. I had to help."
"Ss.. not... help...."
"Yeah. Maybe. Rest for now, okay?"
Things faded for a while.
She became aware of the ground again. Hard and warm. She
opened her eyes; it was easier, now.
It was night; the stars were out in a cloudless sky. She could
hear movement to her left. She managed to turn her head an inch or so.
"Welcome back." Him again. Who was he? He moved over.
Good god. He was made of- of night, and stars.
"Hey-" He saw her alarm. "I know. I look weird."
"Who...?"
"Constellation. I come from another dimension." Constellation?
Yes, it was him. She hadn't recognised him up close.
"But... you said... you weren't coming back..."
He looked puzzled. "I didn't say that. I promised to come
back."
It didn't make sense.
"Do I know you?" He asked.
"Not... really. I saw... you at... the stadium. When you
left."
"What stadium? I went from the LNHQ. Are you sure you know me?"
No. To be perfectly honest, no. "No..."
"How did you survive, anyway? I'd thought- well-" he looked
pained- "everyone was dead."
Who was this guy?
"I was... taken away. With-" a sudden urge to cough. Her lungs
heaved. They subsided. "...with Demon Boy... and Leviathan Lass..."
Constellation's expression lit up. "The Legion of Occult
Heroes? You were with them? Where did they go? What happened?"
"We were... taken away. By the Leviathan. Didn't know about
this until... until too late."
"...We...?"
"I'm-" cough, cough- "Green Trenchcoat."
"Ah... last I heard, he was a man...."
"No. Just a disguise."
"No shit..." Constellation looked bemused.
"What... happened to you?"
"Well, I, uh, ended up here a few days after you guys left. I
used to be a bad guy back in my world, but, well, things sort of got
weird, and I ended up like this. And (don't laugh) but I've got an
alien in my head helping me out. I call her Dot. Shit, that doesn't
matter. Nothing matters anymore."
Vicky remembered. The movie file.
"All this started happening a week or two after I got here. It
wasn't affecting me for some reason, so I offered to go and find
help. Well. Nobody would come. So I came back to say, I don't
know, say I was sorry. And I found all this. And you were here."
"Yes."
"I suppose it was a lucky chance, you know?"
"You should have left me."
"I... I couldn't." He was silent for a moment. "I had to save
something. I couldn't just let it all be dead."
"I... understand..."
"Yeah."
They sat there for a while, and Vicky felt some strength begin
to return.
"Do you feel okay to travel?" He asked.
"No. I feel like shit."
"I'm sorry..."
"Don't. I would have done the same, if I'd found you."
"Do you know somewhere we can go?"
Go... somewhere to go. Back to it all. Oh, god, back to it
all. Back to what she'd done and people who had trusted.
They could go somewhere else. Another dimension. But sod
it. Suicide hadn't worked. Running away probably wouldn't either. She
couldn't escape.
"Yes," she said.
The Guinness was settling. "I love this," said Andrew,
grinning and inspecting the slow accumulation of the head. "Gorgeous
stuff..." Kirsty looked dubious and stuck to the cider, in her opinion
a far more palatable drink. But this was an Irish pub, so Andrew going
crazy over a pint of Guinness was somewhat to be expected, especially
given that it still wasn't easily available in cans. The place was
warm and thankfully lacking in most of the possible Irish stereotypes,
unless you counted the row of taps that produced stout on demand; just
a pub, really, in the more Irish part of Net.ropolis; still not the
same as back home, but at least it looked vaguely familiar.
"So what are we going to see, then?"
Andrew looked up from the Guinness, which was coming along
nicely. "Um. Well... there's all the usual stuff at the multiplex..."
"We've seen it all. I'm up to here with Ralph Fiennes."
"There's the Skylight. They're doing a Kurasawa season. What
is it today... Ran, I think..."
"What's that?"
"Japanese version of King Lear."
"If I want to see Shakespeare, I'll watch Kenneth Branagh."
"With tights or without?"
"With. Definitely."
"We could go to Harbour Lights. I've absolutely no idea what's
on, but it's usually something good."
"Not if its Derek Jarman again. I can't stand Jarman."
"...Thought you liked Blue..."
"Only because there weren't any actual pictures."
"Okay. There's the Dave Thomas Film Society..."
Kirsty raised an eyebrow, darkly. Andrew sighed. "...or maybe
not. Okay. The Regal, then..." Kirsty grinned.
"You really don't like Disney, do you?"
"Hate it. Loathe it. Detest it. What are they playing?"
"101 Dalmatians."
Andrew sighed. It could be worse. At least it wasn't the
bloody Lion King. "When?"
"About an hour."
Andrew lightened up. "Time enough for two Guinnesses, then..."
The first was finished, and he supped it contentedly. Kirsty drank as
well; it was a good, dry cider, and plenty of time to drink
it. There'd been plenty of time to drink, lately. Things were pretty
quiet, except for one thing- Green Trenchcoat, who'd been acting weird
lately. There was a great deal of gossip flying around about him, and
not all of it kind. Andrew and Kirsty had talked it to death, of
course; they still couldn't work out a way of getting through to
him. He just wasn't letting anyone in. It was sad, but there was
nothing that could be done until he decided that he wanted some help;
he had a nasty tendency of small scale violence when provoked these
days, and Kirsty had a few bruises to show for it.
"So. Any ideas on what to do about Green Trenchcoat?"
Andrew frowned. "Nothing new. Apart from dropping him in a
deep well- nah."
"Yeah," smiled Kirsty. "Maybe he could do with it."
"Maybe. I doubt it. He just doesn't want to talk."
"We should get wReamhack to dig up his records."
"He doesn't have any. Remember?"
"He must have some somewhere..."
"Possibly. Yeah, okay. I don't think it'll work, though."
"Probably not, but we've got to try something."
"Excuse me?"
There was a man standing next to the table. Kirsty and Andrew
looked up; he wore a trenchcoat and an Irish accent with a natural air.
"Yes?" said Kirsty.
"I have an envelope to deliver to you two. Here." He placed a
small, brown, unmarked envelope on the table."
"What-? Who are you?"
"Just some Irish guy. I'll see you around. Oh, and Harbour
Lights are playing Withnail & I in half an hour. You might want to get
a move on."
"Hey-" but he had already vanished amidst the crowd. The door
swung open on the far side of the pub.
"Come on," said Kirsty, grabbing the envelope and starting
after the man. She and Andrew headed for the door, bursting out into
an empty street. Cars and trucks roared by, but the man in the
trenchcoat wasn't there.
"Shit," said Kirsty. "I hate it when that sort of thing happens..."
"What's in the envelope?"
Kirsty shrugged and opened it. There was a single sheet of
paper. It read:
THE RULES OF THE GAME.
"Does this make any sense to you?" asked Kirsty.
"Not in the slightest. Is that a letterhead?"
"I don't think so. Just a squiggle."
"Maybe it means we should go and watch a Renoir film."
"I doubt it. This is too weird."
"Yeah, well, let's get our pints back before somebody nicks the-"
The pub exploded.
A wave of heat threw Andrew and Kirsty to the ground, and
glass flew over their heads; fire and furniture burst from the
windows, a man was thrown through the door, spirits caught fire and
limbs were torn. The street stopped still in amazement and people dove
for cover.
Andrew and Kirsty raised their heads from the sidewalk and
looked back at the blazing heap where their drinks had
been. "Jesus..." muttered Andrew.
"Come on... We've got to help-" coughed Kirsty, struggling to
her feet. "Get a couple of strong ones to clear the rubble..."
"Yeah." Andrew pronounced a couple of names. Two burly but
relatively human-looking demons appeared, and Andrew instructed them
to look for survivors; they set to with surly looks. Kirsty went with
them whilst Andrew checked the man who had been driven through the
door; he was bleeding heavily, and Andrew patched him up as best he
could.
Pulling aside rubble, Kirsty and the demons uncovered
survivors. Five were already dead. A dozen more injured. Two more
likely to die.
Hours later, fire trucks ringed the area, and ambulance crews
swarmed. A detective brought them coffee whilst they huddled in
blankets.
"Six dead. Fifteen seriously injured. One of them's not gonna
last the night unless there's a miracle," said the detective as he
passed the cups. Kirsty looked at him, tired but angry.
"Who did it?"
The detective shrugged. "Come back tomorrow. Let the
investigators get on it. My guess is it's a mob hit. Except there
wasn't anyone they'd wanna hit in there."
"Anyone else?" asked Andrew.
"Not unless it was someone after you two. You said you'd just
gone outside, right?"
"Yeah."
"I'll get someone to take you over to the precinct. Better do
the statements now."
"Fine."
"You guys did a good job, okay? There's a coupla people gonna
be wakin' up tomorrow 'cause of you."
"I'll feel better if I find out that the people who aren't
gonna wake up didn't die because we were there," said Kirsty.
"Yeah. I guess," said the detective, and left.
"Somebody is going to be seriously hurt for this," said
Kirsty.
"Allow me to help you on that one," said Andrew, sounding grim.
"You're welcome."
They finished their coffee amidst blue and red flashing
lights.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CREDITS:
Written by Paul Hardy
Green Trenchcoat, Leviathan Lass and Demon Boy created by Paul Hardy
Ultimate Ninja and Special Bonding Boy created by wReam (Raymond Bingham)
Occultism Kid created by Josh Geurink
Tourniquet created by Mongoose (Robert Armstrong)
Constellation created by Dave Van Domelen
Some Irish Guy created by Andrew Farrell
All characters are copyright and TM their creators.
THANKS TO
Everyone who voted for me at the Raccies. That's a lotta cheques in a
lotta mailbags :-)
Chris, for guilting me into finishing this.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-PENTAGRAMS-
-Yeah, I know, it's been a while. This issue was originally
going to be the famous crossover with the LIR, but it looked like
Badger was going to need some time before he could link it into his
continuity, so I decided to grab everything that I was going to use
for the Green Trenchcoat Special and repackage it with some additions
as an issue of LOH. My apologies to anyone who reads just for Andrew
and Kirsty. Most of this issue was written in a frenzied burst of
inspiration last night, and it probably shows.
-Anyway. On with the issue five mailbag.
Russ Allbery:
-------------
>Very good story...I enjoyed it even though I haven't seen any of the
>shows it was referring to. The bit with Green Trenchcoat and Acton
>Lord is intriguing...I'm interested to see about what you and dvandom
>do with that.
-We had fun. Heh. Heh.
Mario Di Giacomo:
-----------------
>That was silly....very silly...
>
>Naturally, I loved it. I'm a bit disappointed you failed to work in
>scenes from red dwarf, hitchhikers, young ones, dr. who, or at least
>blackadder, but hey, gotta leave room for the sequel, right? :)
-Generally, I was trying to avoid the more obvious stuff
(though I couldn't resist lots of Monty Python and Prisoner) just so I
could be horribly obscure and confuse people. Unfortunately, it didn't
work. :-)
Jessica Ihamaera-Smiler:
------------------------
>Just dropping a line to say how much I enjoyed the latest episode. It
>was nice to see the guys and gal of LOH take a foray into silliness as
>a change from their normal doom and gloom. :-) I particularly liked
>all of the House of Commons scenes. Although I found it particularly
>disturbing when I recognised all of them, I'm worried now. Even
>Strike!, which I have seen once and didn't like (Jennifer Saunders as
>Meryl Streep and all of those bloody oranges). I have come to the
>conclusion that I watch too much tv. :-) I'd give it up right now were
>it not for the fact that Five Go Mad on Mescalin is on tonight. :-)
>And poor Bicycle Repair Lad having it humiliatingly revealed that he
>is an American, poor guy. I'm glad that Vicky has managed to pour out
>her story to Tourniquet and I'm looking forward to the one-shot.
-Well, this was (effectively) the one-shot, and I'm afraid
that the doom and gloom is back to stay. I like doom and gloom. It's
my favourite colour.
>Ying tong yiddle I po!
-You can't get the wood, you know.
Steve Hutchison:
----------------
>Very nice work. Good characters, well written, nicely balanced,
>sufficiently horrible yet humorous. I was also gratified to notice
>that I did get most of the britcom references. However. Terry
>Gilliam is a yank. I know, it rankles, but he is. As you know. So,
>citing his animations as british comedy ... I dunno. Was Star Wars
>british because it was made at Pinewood?
-I was under the impression that he worked here because no-one
else was mad or clever enough to employ him...
>Incidentally, I like the letter column best of all ;-}
-Welcome to heaven :-)
Chris Gumprich:
---------------
>(Haven't read the story yet, saving it for after finals, but the first
>paragraph was very impressive!)
-I'm looking forward to your opinion of this one. I'd love to
help you review things, but unfortunately I've discovered something
rather shameful over the last term: I HATE REVIEWING AND
CRITICISING!!! (bit of a bummer if you do English Literature :)
-Well, that's it until the next one. Hopefully I'll manage a
bit better than three months between issues next time.
-The Raccies are long over, but not forgotten. I love you
all. I apologise for making you wait. I will write more. Honest.
-Plug time: all my LOH and NTB stories, along with the odd few
other bits and bobs, are freely available on my web page, which is
looking rather cute and updated at the moment (ah, Netscape1.1b1...
bliss...). The URL is:
http://www.csv.warwick.ac.uk/~enubf/
or, if you want to go straight to the stories:
http://www.csv.warwick.ac.uk/~enubf/fiction.html
-Be seeing you.
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Next Issue:
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Hong Kong cops never reload. Tune in next time to find out why.
--
And these are the words of a supposedly literate student of
English Literature at the University of Warwick...
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Paul Hardy - enubf@csv.warwick.ac.uk - http://www.csv.warwick.ac.uk/~enubf/
