Cosmics: The Future (part 2)

...continued from yesterday...

After running a number of blocks, eventually the Twilight Man stopped outside the door of a simple townhouse. It was on the outskirts of Millenia, in a reasonably affluent-looking neighbourhood. As I neared the front of the house, T.M. knocked on the wooden door. I stood beside the man of mystery as we waited for an answer.

After a short wait, the door opened a little. The Twilight Man turned to look at me. He nodded and simply said, "Come in" before making his way inside.

It was dark in the entrance hall as I stepped inside and there was one was inside to greet us. It was just a dark, gloomy, empty hallway.

"This way", the Twilight Man said and walked over to a door without looking back.

I followed the masked man of mystery into another dark room lit only by candles. In fact, candles were positioned everywhere around room. Also, at one end of the room there was an old, wooden table with four chairs around it. Otherwise the room was bare of furniture.

"Greetings Unicorn", said a voice.

It was then I noticed the three women sitting around the table. For some reason, I just hadn’t been aware of them before that. The Twilight Man stepped forward at this point and introduced the others.

"Mark. This is Miasma" he indicated the woman on the left and then turned to the young woman on the right, "and Voodoo". Both nodded but for now said nothing. "In the middle is Tarot. These three are all seers. They say they've seen our future".

The Twilight Man moved back whilst I took a moment to look at the three women.

The one on the left was blonde, good-looking and probably in her early forties although she looked younger. She wore a smart, dark blue business suit and blouse like a high-rolling manager or politician. She looked vaguely familiar, like one of the US senators on the West coast. She smiled warmly as I looked her way but said nothing.

It took me a moment to realise that I knew the young woman on the right. It was Renee Dubois, a teammate of mine during my days in the Young Cosmics. She still had long, straight dark hair and a haunted look about her just like she had all those years ago. However, her eyes looked tired and bloodshot; she seemed weary and exhausted. She didn’t appear to recognise me, although the shadows that surrounded her made it difficult to tell.

The third woman sat between the two and was obviously in charge. The subdued lighting in the room hid a lot of the details but there were a few things I could tell about her. The first was that she was old. She looked to be in her seventies, her face wrinkled and her long hair grey and brittle. She also had a vaguely Asian look to her, although her apparent height didn't agree with that assessment. Covering her eyes was a simple dark, satin cloth with what looked like a stylised Eye of Horus stitched into it in golden thread. Even though her eyes were covered, she seemed to be looking right inside me.

In this third woman's left hand was a pack of cards and in front of her were other cards arranged in a cross shape. Without looking at them, she turned one of the cards over. I couldn't quite see what was on the card but it looked like two naked people - a man and a woman - side by side.

"You're wondering why you are here, aren't you?" whispered the old woman called Tarot.

"Well, now that you mention it, yeah", I replied, feeling a little foolish in such theatrical surroundings. I glanced across at the Twilight Man but just kept himself to the shadows.

"Please sit down and let us tell you your future". She indicated the chair opposite her, which suddenly moved of its own accord. Either it was a cheap parlour trick or the woman was a cosmic with some sort of telekinetic ability. Whatever, I sat down.

"The reason the Twilight Man brought you here is because we asked him to", began Tarot. "We have convinced him of our cause and that the future we see shall come to pass. We are the Coven"

"O-kaaay. Right". Again, I looked toward T.M. wondering what this was all about.

"What they said is true, Unicorn", the Twilight Man replied. "Apparently the world is going to get a whole lot darker in a few months time. Listen to them".

I turned back to Tarot.

"He is right", continued Tarot. The Eye of Horus seemed to looking at me. Tarot reached out and turned over another delicate card. This showed what looked like a king sitting on a throne holding a sceptre.

"Each of the three of us here has the power of divination. We can see into the future. Miasma can part the mists of time to see what is to come. Voodoo's connection to the spiritual loa gives her knowledge of the future. For me..." the old woman paused trying to decide what to say and seemed to select her comments carefully "...the cards help me focus on the things to come".

She turned over a third card. This depicted a woman in robes sitting between two pillars with a moon at her feet and scroll in her hands. Without looking at the cards, with her head still held forward, she continued.

"You have come here so that we can tell you what is to come and what you will do. We have seen the future. We have tried to change it. But still the future prevails"

"You mean to tell me that you've had some visions and you want me to believe the future can't be changed? That we have no free will?" I asked, not believing what I was hearing.

The Twilight Man spoke up again at this point. "I know how it sounds but believe me when I tell you that these three have told me 'bout things that are going to happen and have happened. They predicted Bedlam's attack earlier and many more things besides. And I've tried to change these things - stop certain disasters from happening - but nothing I do changes things".

He bowed his head after this whilst the shadows appeared to smother him in their dark embrace. My eyes widened in shock; nothing ever spooked the Twilight Man! I quickly turned my gaze back to the Coven.

"As the Twilight Man says", continued Tarot, "we knew of the villain's attack today and your involvement with him. That was why the Twilight Man was there to help and how we knew where you'd be to bring you here".

Tarot turned over another of the ornately patterned cards. This one depicted what appeared to be the devil above two humans. She continued talking.

"Unicorn. We have seen the future. Chaos is coming, a war against a cosmic so powerful it will destroy the country. Tensions between cosmics and normal humans will increase. We see death and destruction. Fear followed by flight".

Another card was turned and this showed a picture of a skeleton riding a horse. Tarot immediately turned over a further card and this depicted a man riding a chariot with two horses, one black and one white, pulling it.

"The chaos will kill many, riots against cosmics will rage across the planet”, she continued. “Eventually the cosmics will flee into space, to the red planet, some by their own power but many in a ship. You will lead them to this ship and into the skies, Unicorn".

The woman known as Tarot turned over another card and, for a moment, this appeared to show an old man carrying a staff in one hand and a lantern in the other. However when I looked closer, the image appeared to be more that of an angel with a horn in his hand.

"I...” I started but Tarot interrupted me.

"I... We are concerned about you", said Tarot turning over another card, this one showing a beautiful woman sitting on a throne whilst wearing a crown and holding a sceptre. "But you need to be told the future so you can prepare for it. So you can accept it".

And this they did. They told me that sometime in the near future something would attack us, something very powerful. The Cosmic Knights would be hard pressed to repel it. The attack would destroy much of the country and destabilise worldwide politics. At this point, many cosmic villains would take advantage of the recent chaos, which in turn would cause even more problems for normal people.

Due to this, the public's view of cosmics would take a nose-dive. The Cosmic Powers Registration Act would be brought back into force, but this time across the globe. This would be followed by minor civil wars erupting between cosmics and then many executions and deaths. In the end, life on Earth would be hell for a cosmic.

"This is our dreaded future", the old woman said, turning over another card and revealing a burning castle or tower hit by lightning.

"No", I replied. "If this is the future, which I’m not sure I can really believe, then it's just one possible future. We can change it - or at least try".

I looked at the three of them and then to the Twilight Man, trying to reason with them. He shrugged but said nothing.

"You do not understand. You are full of doubt and confusion", continued Tarot, ignoring my concern. "So we shall give you this. Remember it well. Soon a swift child shall bring foreboding news from the time-lost man with the power of the storm. Heed this child and prepare the Knights".

Whilst talking, Tarot turned over two remaining cards side-by-side. One showed a large stylised sun complete with a stern face and a child below it. The other presented a man in robes holding a wand high in the air. He was standing behind with a table and what looked like the symbol for infinity floated over his head.

Only one card remained. Tarot's hand hovered over it but she did not turn it.

"For now", said Tarot wrapping up the little meeting, "that is all we can tell you. But we shall meet again. You will have many questions and we will answer them then, in your future. Thank you for your time, but you need to leave now to get to your prior engagement before... she misses you, Mark".

It was the only time that this Tarot had called me by my real name. And something about the way she said it sounded familiar. But, I could not place it.

The final tarot card distracted my attention. Reluctantly, the woman known as Tarot turned it over. This showed a wheel floating in the sky. The wheel had runes or marking on it and was held aloft by four creatures. Somehow, I knew the name of this card - the Wheel of Fortune.

It seemed that the turning of this chaotic card signified that the meeting was over.

The Twilight Man led me away even though I still had many questions. They seemed to want something from me, although I wasn't sure exactly what. Still, the Twilight Man trusted them and that meant an awful lot.

As we reached the front door to the house of mystery, the Twilight Man pulled something out of his utility belt and handed it to me. It was a small card with an address written on it.

"This is something to do with the witches in there. I was doing a bit of research and finally turned up something earlier that might be of use. You need to find Kid Kinetic and give this to him. Let him investigate this".

The Twilight Man’s cowl hid most of the man’s face but his mouth smiled. He opened the door and we stepped outside into the cool shadow of the building.

"After that, I guess we'll meet back at the base", said the Twilight Man, noticing me looking back at the house.

I pocketed the card and stared at the building for a few seconds, wondering whether to head back inside and confront them. But something told me not to. Not now anyway. Like they said, it was getting late and Sam would be waiting.

"Yeah, see you..." I started to say but, as I turned round, I saw that the Twilight Man had gone. He'd pulled his usual disappearing act again. Sighing, I walked away from the building and thought about what had happened and about what the Coven had told me about the future.

Cosmics: The Future (part 1)

Death and destruction.

Fear followed by flight.

This is our future. Or at least, this is what I've been told is in our future. Something terrible will happen, something that will affect the whole world, and human kind will come to fear cosmics. That fear will turn to hate. And eventually, those of us who are left will be forced to leave this planet and seek refuge on Mars.

I'm told it won't happen tomorrow or next week but soon, perhaps in a year. And I've been guaranteed that there's nothing anyone can do to change it. The future is, apparently, fixed. So much for free will. All I can do is decide whether I join those preparing for this future or try to fight it. And even that isn't really a choice. Not in the end. When push comes to shove, I join those leaving this Earth to the resultant chaotic hell. Or so they tell me.

They are the Coven.

It all happened yesterday, just over a year since the latest incarnation of the Cosmic Knights was formed. Whilst teleporting across town to get to a dinner date with Sam, my wife, I noticed flashing blue lights, the squeal of sirens and the pounding of collapsing buildings coming from near the centre of Millenia. I ported over to the top of a building near the scene of the disturbance and looked down. There was Bedlam, one of the Masters of Mayhem, not seen since he'd attacked the Cube a few months ago.

There seems to be very little information out there on Bedlam. He generally appears to be a large, musclebound guy standing around 7 feet tall, with blue skin and horns spiralling out from his head. He looks like a demon on steroids - but is as dumb as a brick, doesn't say a lot and has serious anger management issues.

Anyway, as I stood there on the roof of the building watching, Bedlam picked up a cop car and smashed it into the ground, breaking it into pieces. Fortunately no one was in the car at the time. But still, enough was enough. One port later and I appeared in front of the big behemoth.

"Hey, no damaging public property!" I said (or something equally witty) whilst waving my hands in front of him as a distraction.

"Go screw yerself!" was all the big, blue guy said in return, always a great conversationalist. Rather than talk a little more, he just glared at me and then swung a huge fist in my direction. Luckily, Bedlam isn't that quick so it was easy for me to port out of the way.

"Aha! You missed, ya big lug", I retorted, whilst porting in behind him.

In retaliation I tried punching the villain but, as expected, all that did was tickle him. Bedlam grunted and turned around trying to grab me. I ported again, punched, ported, punched, ported, punched. Each of my hits landed and, although Bedlam staggered back a little, my punches just seemed to make him even more angry.

By now he was getting bored of trying to grab me so instead he bellowed some colourful language far too obscene to repeat here and then grabbed a nearby lamppost. He swung it at me but missed, smashing it into a wall behind me instead.

Obviously not impressed with my punches, I decided some other tactic was required. It was time for my newly developed multiport.

"Hey! Ugly butt. Over here!" I yelled.

As Bedlam paused and glanced my way, I ported over to him. He began to lift the post to try swat me away again and, as he did, I grabbed ol' Big Blue and ported him one foot to the left. Then, whilst the twinkling stars of my last port still hung in the air, I ported him again. And then again and again. And so on until Bedlam had been ported about ten times. Finally, I teleported away from the guy to see what effect it had.

Bedlam stood there, obviously disorientated. He held his head in his hands and growled in my direction. Surprisingly, he was still conscious. A second later, even more surprisingly, he had picked up the dropped lamppost and swung it at me again. I wasn't expecting it. The metal club hit me and hit me hard. I went flying backwards into a building.

Luckily, my gleaming force field is practically indestructible. I felt the blow but the post didn't penetrate my shield. It was a minor injury but I felt it nonetheless. Still reeling, my vision swam as I stood up. Bedlam had moved towards the edge of the police cordon and was approaching a female police officer. She stood her ground, holding a pistol up to ward of the big cosmic villain. I knew the gun would do her no good against Bedlam and that I should port over to get her out of trouble. But I was still groggy from that last hit. I could hardly move, let alone port. I staggered forwards but I wasn't going to make it.

Thankfully, someone else saved her. Out of nowhere a figure in dark grey swooped down on a swing line and snatched the woman out of Bedlam's deadly grip. In response, he howled in anger (and said a few more choice words) whilst turning to face the newcomer. The howl was met by a flight of three crescent shaped blades, which zipped through the air and struck the guy in the face. Unsurprisongly, Bedlam swore again.

I turned to look at the dark figure as he dropped down to the ground and let the police officer escape to freedom. Instantly, I recognised our rescuer. His mask and grey cloak were unmistakeable. So was his glowering, confident manner. It was my fellow Knight, the Twilight Man.

Shaking my head to clear it, I ported over to Bedlam and, whilst he was recovering from the Twilight Man's attack, hit him with another flurry of blows. When Bedlam began to swing his muscle-bound arms again, I ported away next to the Man of Mystery.

"Hi T.M. What brings you to this part of town?", I asked, a little surprised to see him.

"Later Unicorn. First let us tackle this adversary", replied the Twilight Man in that monotone, foreboding voice of his.

"Sure, so shall...", I started but never got to finish. The Twilight Man was off, leaping into action. He launched a couple of moon blades at Bedlam to distract him and, at the same time, fired off his swing line around the villain's feet.

Feeling a little foolish standing there talking to nobody, I also leapt towards Bedlam. Flipping in the air, I launched a foot at the muscle-man's face, kicking him solidly on the nose. I then jumped up, ported and landed behind Bedlam. With as much strength as I could muster, I kicked the cosmic creep in the small of his back whilst the Twilight Man yanked on the line wrapped around his feet.

Bedlam went down, smashing into the sidewalk with an almighty thud.

"Yeah!" I yelled punching the air, but the Twilight Man quickly brought me back down.

"Unicorn. Hit him with a horn blast, before he recovers", he called out, his voice a sharp order. I turned towards Bedlam and concentrated.

The twinkling of my force field intensified around my head. A single, shining horn of light began to appear from my forehead. This was my ultimate offensive power - a beam of pure force that hit as hard as a missile. Over the years, my horn blasts had been getting gradually more powerful but also more uncontrollable. Nowadays, I was reluctant to use it and then only against the most powerful of opponents.

Against Bedlam however, its use was justified.

The beam of blinding energy shot out from my forehead, crackled through the air, and slammed into the back of Bedlam's head. The villain groaned with pain. He tried to lift himself up but finally fell back to the ground, unconscious.

Dust hung in the air where Bedlam had fallen and gently floated down into the crater. Part of a building behind me dropped to the ground with a dull thud. There was a quiet moment before everyone gathered - police, fire department, bystanders - started to react.

In that moment, the Twilight Man grabbed me and pulled me to one side.

"Follow me", he said matter-of-factly.

He then added "You need to meet some people" and ran off into a side street.

Shrugging, wondering what was going on, I sprinted after the dark figure as the people behind me began to tidy up the mess left by Bedlam's attack.

To Be Continued...

Cosmics: Unicorn and Blindsight

Samantha - Sam to all who knew her - stepped into the room that was to be her workplace for the foreseeable future and slowly turned her head from side to side. She couldn't see anything because she'd been blind since birth but her enhanced cosmic senses more than compensated.

She could hear the deep throb of the air-conditioning fans, the higher-pitched whine of the computer fans and the whir of the hard discs in the server. She could smell the chemical cleaner used to mop the floor, the traces of aftershave of the workers who had set up the equipment and the fresh leather of a new reclining chair. She could also feel the vibrations of people moving nearby and the slight draught from the air-con.

She was blind but her other heightened senses gave her clues and hints which she could use to build a reasonable picture of her surroundings. However, these were secondary compared with her cosmic ability to 'sense' mass.

Every object with a mass had its own gravitational pull and Sam was somehow able sense this. The Professor once said she could detect "distortions in the gravitational space-time matrix" or something like that. Actually, she had probably described it in a much more lengthy and convoluted manner but what it came down to was that she could "see" the general shapes of objects. She couldn't see their colour nor their texture and the shape and size was not exact but it was enough for her to know where things were.

She moved into the room, gently tapping her slim staff in front of her. Of course, she didn't really need the staff anymore. She'd acquired it when the special glasses the Professor had built for her had begun to fail. The loss of her electronic sight had left her blind again but that had the surprising side effect of allowing her enhanced senses to emerge. Now, she could almost see like normal, at least normal for her. She could navigate without the staff but she kept it, if only to use it to protect herself. Just like the Twilight Man had taught her.

The Twilight Man had taught her many things as well as how to fight with the staff. She'd been good with computers even before she'd met him but he'd enhanced her skills significantly as well as adding to her detection and deduction abilities. She had learned a lot since joining the Cosmic Knights. So, she hoped, had Mark.

Putting down her staff, Sam sat in the comfortable leather chair at the computer desk. Unusually there were no screens in the room - she had no need of them. Instead, above the keyboard there was a Braille reader that would show her what she typed. Also there were some speakers and specialised software that would read out what would've appeared on the screen. A microphone allowed her to input voice commands.

However she didn't need most of this. An interesting by-product of the bio-electronic interface to the Professor's special glasses was the ability to connect to nearby computers over a Wi-Fi connection. Her wireless neuro-connector only allowed her to read information from enabled computers but this meant she could 'see' the information that would've appeared on a screen.

Leaning down, Sam switched on the PC terminal. In this small room she had her own server and the PC in front of her was connected to this. The server in turn was connected to the Knight's mainframe and to a huge database of information and utilities. This in turn was connected to the various local authority facilities and, of course, to the worldwide Internet.

Once the machine had booted, Sam 'connected' to the terminal and decided to do a little web surfing. She wanted to get herself familiar with the local network and then perhaps have a look at what new cosmic related news there was on the 'net. But she knew she couldn't spend too long surfing - she had a dinner date to get ready for.

Meanwhile...

The muggers in the parking lot didn't know what hit them.

They'd been accosting a young woman who had just opened the door of her car when a flash of twinkling lights appeared next to them. The lights said, "Boo!" and then punched one of them, knocking him to the ground.

Reacting quickly, the other dark-clothed attacker pointed his gun at the shining man, who just said, "Didn't your parents ever tell you it's rude to point" and promptly disappeared.

Before the man could turn, his feet were knocked out from underneath him. He fell to the ground and his gun dropped from his hands. A swift punch from the glittering man made sure the mugger stayed down.

Her rescuer looked at the two fallen men and tsked. "Only one wisecrack", he muttered before turning towards the woman. He gave her a warm smile and said,

"Hi. I hope you're okay? Yeah? Well, could you please call the police because I have to go. Dinner date, y'know. Thanks!"

And with a *pop* he was gone leaving behind a swirl of twinkling stars.

The woman blinked. It was all over in a matter of seconds. One moment two men were pointing guns at her and the next they were on the floor unconscious. What had happened? Was her shining knight that Unicorn guy, the new recruit to the Cosmic Knights? Where had he gone?

Cosmics! She shook her head in disbelief. Reaching a quivering hand into her purse, she pulled out her cell phone and dialled 911, whilst the tantalisingly brief vision of her ruggedly handsome rescuer in his skin-tight costume played upon her mind.