The Retarded Warrior and 
DARK Lore Presents:

                   ** Lengths and Extremities: Part 5 **
                      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                                 * * * * *

	After the San Caradine Crisis, a mutant breed of electrons were
discovered floating around in the atmosphere. These were usually two or
three times larger than the ordinary kind that chemists were used to and
were highly excitable, capable of delivering a charge in direct relation to
their size, a range between 3.20598 x 10^-19 to 4.80897 x 10^-19 Coulombs.
These were called ETHER (Electronically Transmitted, High-Efficiency
Radiation) and gave special people special abilities.
	Those who stood out from the rest of the population couldn't be spotted
by looks alone. The variant was in their blood.
	Haemoglobin in normal human blood contains a porphyrin ring at its
centre. At the core of the porphyrin ring is an iron atom that gives blood
its scarlet red colour. When the iron atom is replaced by one of another
element, the entire porphyrin ring gets changed around and the blood takes
on a different colour and the person through whose veins the blood flowed
found themselves capable of playing with the ETHER in strange and fantastic
ways.
	Forbidden Image was an ETHER Manipulative; 15% of his blood was a dark
shade of jade green and contained an aluminum core which allowed him to
weakly attract the electrons of gaseous, diatomic elements within a seven
metre radius with his head as the centre. The valence (outermost) electrons
of the gas get plucked like guitar strings so that they leave their original
orbital around the nucleus, jump to a higher orbital and then jump back. In
jumping back, energy is released in the form of coloured light with which he
occasionally painted images in the air around him and at times, most notably
when he was drunk, his creations could get exceptionally crude and nasty.
Though he was a party favourite (his pornos were short but NEVER
scrambled!), his abilities didn't come without work nor did they present
themselves without effort.
	He had to dig through a library full of books before he was able to
find a text of quantum mechanics with colour charts for nitrogen and oxygen
(there were many with charts for hydrogen but hydrogen didn't make up a
large enough portion of the air for him to work with.)
	Memorizing the charts took a full year's work and learning to put
different colours in different places to render an image that looked like
something other than a multi-coloured blob of light took another. After he
had all the basics down pat, he had to polish up on his artistic abilites
(which were plentiful to start with) and learn the lighter side of smooth
animation.
	Having to concentrate on doing all these things at once (drawing images
was hard enough, but having to work with oxygen intermingled with nitrogen
made things considerably worse), and sometimes doing them at length sapped
his strength and in particularily rough cases, gave him headaches that
pulsated like a bass drum behind his temples.
	Usually he used his abilities sparingly to entertain his friends with
less detailed graphics but when the time came and extreme circumstances
arose, he stepped on the gas and pulled out all the stops manipulating his
powers to their limits, creating illusions that appeared so real that they
were hard to separate from life itself.

                                 * * * * *

	 "Cut the engine and get your hands up," Sifton said. "Slowly." He took
a step back and opened the door before yanking Dennis out by the arm and
flinging him front first into the side of the Lexus, kicking his feet
shoulder length apart and frisking him with one hand while leaning the
business end of the Franchi against the back of his neck.
	Pulling a nickel-plated Beretta from the recesses of Dennis's silk
jacket, Sifton dropped the gun to the ground with a clattter and then called
out "The rest of you come out with your hands on your heads or else
Sanderson's brains get sprayed to the four winds."
	The passenger side door popped open and a man, who Sifton could only
assume was Dennis's long-time partner in crime, Leonard Wu, otherwise known
(for whatever reason) as Forbidden Image stepped out with one hand clamped
over the base of his skull while the other held his Beretta high over his
head like a dirty diaper, pinching the grip with his thumb and forefinger.
	"Toss it over," Sifton said, stepping back out of Dennis's reach should
he attempt to catch the gun as it flew over the car or try some other
disarmament technique.
	With a flick of the wrist, Forbidden Image complied, lobbing his weapon
over the roof of the Lexus and into the street.
	"Karen James and whoever else is in the backseat: get out before I
smoke both your friends."
	After a short pause, the back door on Forbidden Image's side swung
slowly open and a man in a black trenchcoat pulled himself from the seat to
the pavement. With his hands empty and raised high in the air, he turned
around and Sifton jumped. No one had ever told him that he had an identical
twin but here was someone who was his exact mirror image and the man seemed
to glow dimly with a cold, unnatural grin painted on his face.

                                 * * * * *

	Karen laid on her stomach in the backseat of the car, biting her lip
nervously and wishing that she and Elminster had stayed in this night.
	Her heart jumped into her throat when she heard the Manhunter call her
by name and demand that she get out of the car. Before she could decide
whether to obey or not, small specks of red and blue light began to buzz
about before her eyes like fireflies. They came together immediately to
spell out a glowing message that shivered in the air. It read: "Open door,
will take care of rest - FI"
	Having been told about Forbidden Image's abilities before hand, Karen
nodded silently to herself and reached over for the door handle. With a
shove, the door swung open and she shrunk back to her original spot near the
middle of the backseat.
	The words melted together into a ball which elongated and then took on
a rough, humanoid shape. The body rippled and a loose-fitting overcoat grew
out of its back. Hair sprouted on its head followed by eyes, a nose,
eyebrows and many other fine details.
	Karen looked on wide-eyed as the entire figure was washed over with
colour and, wasting no time, got out of the car and surprised the shit out
of the shotgun-toting Manhunter.
	Dennis tapped the inside of his wrist twice on the car roof and a wide,
eighteen-inch telescoping barrel broke through the cotton-latex padding
surrounding the Derringer Wrist-Snap strapped to his forearm. He spun around
and pointed the gun at the Manhunter who was still staring in disbelief at
his 'twin'.
	Dennis tapped the paperclip trigger on his wrist again and fired off a
load of buckshot straight into the Manhunter's face.
	His head disintegrated into a mess of red and grey with bits of skull
sprinkled throughout and his Vision helmet flew backwards with the blast and
rolled to the curb at the other side of the street where it was caught by a
sewer grate.
	The other Manhunter who was operating the radio spent no time sitting
idly by and immediately scrambled into the driver's seat, popped the car
into gear and tried to make a speeding run past the Lexus and race off down
the street.
	Dennis threw himself against the side of his car, giving the Buick a
wide berth. It zipped by without showing any intention of hitting him but he
lunged at the Franchi shotgun anyway. Snatching it out of the Manhunter's
limp hands, Dennis flipped it into semi-auto and took a shot at the speeding
car.
	The rear left corner of its trunk exploded, sending shrapnel scattering
across the street. A second blast hit the tire, reducing it to molten strips
of rubber that stuck to the asphalt and at the same time sending a jet of
flame gushing outwards.
	That corner of the Buick skipped into the air and landed on the bare
axel sending up a spray of sparks as the car spun along the road, coming to
a stop after two revolutions.
	Lowering the gun to his side, Dennis pointed at the near-wreck.
"Leonard," he said, "get Bessie."
	Forbidden Image dissipated the illusion which was standing motionlessly
next to the car, reached under the front passenger seat and got out what was
technically called a Heckler & Koch model 69A1 40mm Grenade Launcher. It was
to Dennis what a Spencer rifle was to all the hillbilly villains from the
old Bugs Bunny cartoons: 'Bessie'.
	The grenade launcher looked like an average sized handgun except with
an extremely wide barrel and a pull out stock that resembled the handle of a
bicycle pump.
	Reaching again under the seat, Forbidden Image retrieved a grey-tipped
high-explosive shell which looked like an enlarged .38 round. He loaded
Bessie and pulled the stock out to its full one-foot extension, aimed and
fired.
	The grenade hit the car as the Manhunter was getting out the side door.
The cab filled with orange flames and the windows blew out. At the same
time, the front and back ends separated from each other like the two
portions of a cracked egg, allowing the rest of the flames to escape into
the air in a flaring spiral. Immediately after the grenade took its effect,
the gas blew as well, sending the welded pieces of metal in the rear end of
the body off in different directions. The trunk lid was lifted into the air
and landed with a tremendous clang a short distance down the road.
	Dennis and Forbidden Image both got back into the car and Karen poked
her head up. She whistled in awe upon seeing the blazing wreck just ahead of
them. "What a mess."
	"That's what we do," Dennis replied and handed her the shotgun. "Stick
this under the seat."
	She did so quickly and then asked "Now what?"
	"We take you home as promised," Forbidden Image said and, pushing the
stock back to its minimal length, shoved Bessie back into its niche.
	The Lexus purred back to life and weaved its way around the burning
Buick and the orphaned trunk-lid and continued down the road.

                                 * * * * *

	The rest of the Firecracker Squad was gathered a short distance outside
the Eaton Centre's front doors with Raines checking to see if the second
Genesis was still in working condition while Wilkens sat on the first,
looking on.
	McAlister was behind the wheel of their unlikely getaway vehicle, an
unmarked Toronto Department of Sanitation garbage truck, talking to Black
Cat on the radio while Turnbull loaded Elminster, cuffed hand and foot, into
the back.
	"Sifton has Sanderson," announced Black Cat.
	"Okay, we're outside the Eaton Centre prepping for extraction,"
McAlister replied.
	"We're too far from your location," said Black Cat. "The Lexus led us
almost all the way to the power plant. We'll have to meet back--" He stopped
in mid-sentence and gasped. "Sanderson! He's...he's..."
	"He's what?" McAlister asked, straightening himself. But before he
could get an answer, he heard what sounded like a shotgun blast come through
the radio.
	"Holy shit!" Black Cat cried. "Sifton's dead! Sanderson's killed
Sifton! He's killed..."
	McAlister heard the sounds of some hurried shifting and shuffling and
the sound of a car engine being gunned and then the line went silent.
	Turnbull got into the dank and musty smelling cab of the garbage truck,
slamming the door shut behind him. Seeing McAlister's sour expression, he
asked "What's wrong?"
	"Black Cat's got trouble. Sifton's dead and Kosk just dropped the
line."
	The two of them stared helplessly at the radio for a short span of time
until the silence was broken by a thin, hissing static.
	"The connection's gone," muttered Turnbull. "Either Kosk's turned off
the radio or it's been destroyed."
	"We'll go back and pick up Satchel and Morris's bodies," McAlister
said. "And then we'll swing by Black Cat's last location and check it out."
He started the truck and rested his hand on the wheel before adding "I think
they're both dead, personally."
	Turnbull glanced over gravely and said "Me too."
	McAlister stuck his head out the window and yelled "Raines! Wilkens!
Ready to go?"
	They gave him the thumbs up and the four of them made a u-turn and
headed back south down the street.SAUCE00Lengths & Extremities Part 5       The Retarded WarriorDark Illustrated    19941017)1

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