When we last left our heroes, the group had gone their
separate ways following the debacle with the Hand Made Man, and had a trulyexplosive start to 2014…
Gareth has been staying with Alia for weeks. One afternoon, Alia’s pimp, Smokey, knocks on
their door, and after chatting with her for a second, he asks to see “her fag”,
motioning to Gareth. Out in the hall,
Gareth speaks with Smokey and a short, fat, balding man in a nice suit. They let him know that the mayor wishes to
meet with Gareth regarding the tragedy at his apartment. They let Alia accompany Gareth as he’s led to
the street level where a television crew is setting up outside; Mayor DiBlasio and
Luthor Grant are visible through the doorway.
A woman starts doing Gareth’s makeup, donning ear buds when he and Alia
wish to speak privately. Alia tries to
get Gareth to bow out, telling him it isn’t good to be visible and public. Before he can process it, though, he’s
dragged out to the blinding lights of the press conference. DiBlasio grandstands, makes big promises, and
informs Gareth that the city is going to give him a new place to live. Gareth just stares. At one point, he hears someone coughing. It is Luthor, Drake’s old pal, and when he
wipes at his nose and mouth, there is blood.
Alia texts everyone, “Holy shit Gareth’s on TV”.
Since the news broke about her new-found wealth, Morgan has
been staying in a Holiday Inn. The same
evening as Gareth’s press conference, she hears the sound of helicopters, very
near, outside her window. There are two
of them, hovering in the space between buildings, both of them with news
channel logos; when she opens the curtains, she is blinded by flood lights. There’s a knock at her door, and through the
peep hole she can see a crowd of people, all press, clamoring at her door to
get a snippet, a soundbite, anything.
She ignores them, turns the television on loud. A note sips under the door of the room adjoining
hers, “I can get you out of here”, which she also ignores. After nearly half an hour, the deadbolt on
the adjoining door starts twitching.
Morgan shoves a chair under the handle; there is more press on the other
side. She calls the front desk, asking
them to please do something. They inform
her she has over 800 messages waiting for her.
In another half an hour there is more shouting in the hallway, but this
time it is clear that some security detail has taken charge and removed the
press.
One man remains in the hall with a couple of police, and he
introduces himself as Josh Goldman, and he works for her now. She cracks the door to take his card. He’s nebbish and fumbling, the CFO of Oracle
Group, one of the hedge funds created by her double. Once in her hotel room, he starts talking at
her, running through all the things she needs to do now that she’s insanely
wealthy. So much of it goes over
Morgan’s head, overwhelming her. Josh
offers to take her to her Bentley, which will take her to her helicopter, which
can take her to her house in the Hamptons
if she wants to leave the city for a while.
She says she’d rather stay in the city, and after some coordinating and
gladhanding, he says he can get her the presidential suite at the Waldorf, but
they’ll have to kick Prince out, but it’s okay since The Artist owes them some
favours anyway.
Josh presents her with three separate cell phones, all
pre-set to only dial certain numbers, for separate purposes. They’re about as secure as can be, and she
can’t use any others. He of course
freaks out when Morgan starts to use her own cell phone to contact the rest of
the group, saying that they’ll have to get her a “family” phone for personal
numbers. He is utterly at a loss when
she shows him her Goom-radio, but excuses it as just another eccentricity of
the wealthy and connected, although he won’t let her use it until they can
figure out how to secure it. He leads
her through the hotel lobby, where they are utterly mobbed by press. They climb into a swank Bentley and head to
the Waldorf.
Wally hasn’t been doing much the past few weeks. He and Alexis are still together, although
she isn’t living with him. He spends
most of his time working in his lab.
That same evening, he hears paper slide under his front door. Grabbing his gun, left over from the raid on
the apartment building, he finds that there is an envelope from an unknown
source. Donning gloves, he brings it to
his lab and scans it for contaminates.
Nothing. He opens it and finds a
notice that his rent is four days past due, which is funny, as he’s lived in
this new apartment for four months and never had to pay a dime. The bill comes to over $7,000. Knowing something is wrong, Wally runs to a
corner store, buys a burner, and calls Hank.
It rings and rings, never going to voice mail. He checks on line, to see if Hank is dead or
in jail. Nothing. It then occurs to him that he hasn’t heard
from Alexis in a couple of days – she’s usually good for at least a daily text
message. He heads back out to try to
find her.
As he passes through the lobby and onto the street, he
notices people watching him, spying, pulling the old advance-and-follow. It seems there is a whole conspiracy of
people monitoring him. He also notices a
man who has been tailing him, but seems separate from the conspiracy, an old
school PI by the looks of him. Not
caring any more, Wally walks right up to the guy, calls him out, demands to
know who hired him. The guy won’t say
and starts making threats right back, but says it would really be easier if
Wally just lets him go along to… wherever Wally’s headed. They come to somewhat of an accord, and Wally
agrees, although he really needs to shake the other group. They dip into a subway station and, just
before boarding the train, the PI tosses something into a trash bin and shouts,
“ANTHRAX! NINE ELEVEN!” Mayhem, of course ensues, allowing them to
get away cleanly. The guy convinces
Wally to detour to a titty bar he knows, which has great steak, and where “They
let you touch everything.” Wally sees an
opportunity to get this guy drunk and talkative, so they make their way to the
Joie de Beave. The PI is greeted by name
(Jimmy), and they are given a booth, and set up with steaks and beer.
Alex arrives home from his new job, knowing immediately that
something is wrong—there is heavy condensation on the door handle of his
apartment, and it is freezing to the touch.
Seeing nothing in the hallway, he goes in. He immediately notices the 12-year-old boy
with electric blue skin, a leather loincloth, compound eyes, and gossamer wings
– his were the hands that reached through the portal in Alex’s closet some
weeks before. His daughter, Debbie, is
there, too, lying naked on the dining table, her chest and ribs folded open. She’s alive, though, breathing, and
frightened. There is another figure,
tall and limby, looking to be made of sticks and pieces of wood, sporting rams
horns, and with black eyes, no nose, and a lipless mouth. It is standing over Debbie, arms elbow deep
in her chest cavity. The boy speaks,
saying that Alex’s daughter is valuable, and if she is so valuable to him, why
did he not want the substitute they made and left for him in the underground
tunnel with the red door? The stick man
pulls out her still-beating heart, considers it, and puts it back in. The boy tells Alex that he is not the
original Alex, that the original is dead.
It won’t let Alex reply. They are
pulling her apart to understand why she is more valuable than the replica he
rejected. Both creatures speak without
moving their lips. Eventually, the stick
thing pushes Debbie’s chest back together and begins sewing her up with
vines. As the creatures back away, the
boy says, “We will speak again, Shadow”, before leaving through Alex’s bedroom. Alex rushes to Debbie as the room grows warm
again, brushing the vines from her chest.
She comes to, gasping, and Alex holds her as she sobs.
Drake is summoned by Yuri-ko, when he arrives to her office
atop the Chrysler, her tattooed right-hand man is there as well, seemingly
recovered. Madame Butterfly comments to
Drake that he doesn’t have many friends left as she turns on the TV. The
news is covering DiBlasio’s news conference regarding the apartment
explosions – a tweaked out, nervous Gareth is visible behind the mayor. Drake sees Luthor standing behind them,
notices the coughing and the blood. M.
Butterfly makes a comment about Luthor being ill due to some broken Pledge he made with Drake, wondering
what he did to bring illness upon himself.
The channel changes, showing coverage of Morgan being rushed out of her
hotel. M. Butterfly tells Drake that she
can feel the Vanishers, and knows he can feel them too, and that they’re angry
about what he did. She calls out Alia,
saying that it is interesting that “the whore did not support your artist
friend.” She leads them into a room
lined with little geisha dolls. As she
passes through, their heads all turn and slowly follow her. When it is Drake’s turn, their heads all whip
around, on alert. M. Butterfly says it
is because they hate him, because he “didn’t kill him”, presumably referencing
the Hand Made Man.
She tells him that the police are ready to arrest him, for what she does
not specify, and that now is the time to mend fences with his old friends. The Vanishers are now more interested in
Drake than in her. She hands him a phone
that he can use to contact Morgan; their companies have dealings with each
other. As he leaves, she lets him know
that if he ever needs to hide from Them, her safe room is open.
Alia waits just inside as Gareth finishes his little photo
op. She overhears the mayor telling
Gareth that they’ll be in contact within 48 hours regarding his new
apartment. Once the circus is gone, Alia
and Gareth decide to go out somewhere to get several drinks. They hail a cab, although it soon becomes
obvious that the driver is not going in the right direction, putting them both
on alert. They turn into an alley so
narrow that they can’t open their doors.
Alia pops her claws as the cabbie turns around, revealing himself to
have the same blue countenance and compound eyes as the boy in Alex’s
apartment. Alia tries slashing at the window
separating the driver from his passengers, but is ineffective, and so starts
kicking at the back windshield. Gareth
huddles out of her way as the thing begins talking at them, without moving its
mouth. It tells Gareth that he also
turned down their offer, and that Gareth saved “its” life, and why. Gareth mutters something about there being
too many questions. Before the creature
can continue, Alia finally shatters the back window and, grabbing Gareth by the
collar, pulls him out with her. They
book it back to the street, and stumble in to the first bar they find,
proceeding to get good and drunk.
Back in the Bentley, one of Morgan’s phones ring, the caller
ID showing the call coming from Yuri-ko.
It is Drake. While they talk,
Josh hands Morgan a dossier on Yuri-ko and the dealings they have together, to
the tune of $1.4 billion. The one thing
missing is a photo of the woman herself, as she is very private and elusive. Drake is asking if Morgan would like to meet
for dinner, privately. Josh is beside
himself at the chance to get a sighting of Yuri-ko, as her picture could be
worth, well, lots to the right people.
Drake gives Morgan the address to his private penthouse and says to have
her people contact his people. When the
call ends, Josh informs her that she was speaking with the one and only Charles
Winston Drake. Morgan argues that it
wasn’t really C.W. Drake, just
someone who is an awful lot like him.
Josh argues it a bit, but brushes it off as just another weird quirk of
the rich.
Once Debbie has calmed down, Alex sends a mass text to the
group about his blue intruder. Alia and
Gareth reply that they’ve seen something similar that same night, and do they
want to do another group meeting. Back
in the car, Josh asks Morgan if she’s got some issues he should know about,
regarding this support group, and she brushes him off. Wally replies back asking them to “Cut me out
of your loop. And get new phones.”
Morgan is shown up to the penthouse of the Waldorf, and she
and Josh are greeted by a massive body guard who opens a set of double
doors. Inside, they find The Artist
Formerly Known As “The Artist Formerly Known As Prince”, roller-skating aroundthe suite on a pair of skates emitting purple sparks. He rolls up to her, taking both her hands,
and asks her if she believes in love.
She replies that she does, he kisses her hands and rolls away, calling
for “The Revolution!” A bunch of people,
also on skates, follow him out, carrying bags and other personal effects. Once they’re alone, Josh scours the suite,
saying that Prince is notorious for leaving behind odd gifts for people. Sure enough, in the large bathroom, a bubble
bath has been set up, with candles and flower petals all around, and a stack of
warm pancakes is sitting to the side. A
note reads “Indulge yourself & make love to your tummy”.
 |
| Make love to it |
Alia and Gareth finish drinking, and she accompanies him
while he purchases another bump, staying with him while he shoots up to be sure
he is as safe as can be, and just in case more faerie people show up.
Wally continues drinking with Jimmy, but the guy is iron
clad and doesn’t let anything slip no matter how inebriated he gets. The guy is nice enough, though, offering to
let Wally stay with him since he’s being watched by some other unknown
group. Wally concedes and at the end of
the night they both return to the fleabag motel Jimmy calls home. There’s a threadbare couch in the room, and
Wally sleeps there for the night.
Morgan prepares for her dinner with Drake, her people
outfitting her with beautiful evening wear, complete with a brooch that doubles
as a camera and microphone – Josh wants any information he can get on Yuri-ko,
and assures Morgan that this sort of thing happens often. When Morgan gets out of her car at Drake’s
building, right across from Central Park, she
is hit by a wave of cold malice washing out of the park and into the
building. She heads inside, turning back
just once to notice a man driving a horse carriage around the park, and she notes
that he bears goblinoid features. Once
she’s ridden the elevator up, she is shown into Drake’s penthouse, where he greets
her with an obviously forced “So lovely to meet you!” Both are aware that they technically don’t
know each other in their new lives.
Drake has cleaned up, is clean shaven, different but not. Morgan excuses herself to the powder room
where she removes the brooch, leaving it and her handbag behind when she
returns. Drake notices the change,
cottoning on, and relaxes immensely once they determine that they are alone –
he’s even dismissed his staff for the evening.
He wanted to check with her, now that she’s come into this bizarre new
life, to make sure she is doing well and to genuinely offer any assistance he
can, being well acquainted with the world of the madly wealthy.
There’s a problem, he tells Morgan, related to their last
endeavour related to the Hand Made Man. Drake has pissed off something powerful—Morgan
comments about the wave of malice she felt outside.
They continue talking for just a while longer when they both
notice Drake’s front door creak open.
Two objects resembling hockey pucks slide in on the floor. There’s just enough time for Drake to hit his
panic button before ———
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