Lee
"Budgie" Barnett is a writer of comedy and of comic books. He first
broke into the business with three stories in Imperium Comics' TRAILER PARK
OF TERROR, before getting his first big break with Marvel in X-MEN UNLIMITED
#4, which hit the shelves in August 2004. Well known in the UK Comics industry
for the annual Hypotheticals panel
he devised and presents with Dave Gibbons at the UK Comics Festival, he's been
described as being to accountancy what Indiana Jones is to archaeology. He currently
writes GOING CHEEP at the Pulse.
It was the first time he’d felt prolonged pain since he’d gained powers, and on balance, Davies believed that he would rather not have had to feel it this time. Something slithered over his face and from sheer panel, he lashed out with his mind. A hole, no more than two inches across, was blown straight through the creature, allowing air through the hole. He gasped at it and then grasping exactly what he’d just done, he pictured himself surrounded by tiny bulldozers. And then he started their engines.
To onlookers it looked as if the creature had been on a wire and had been pulled back suddenly. The cables disconnected from Davies with a horrible sucking sound as they was torn away from him.
Gordon, who’d been watching, concerned, shouted to Davies, but Davies, who hadn’t heard him properly ignored him. He turned to face the creature, by now standing up and ready to charge again. Davies looked around to see if there was anything he could use, and saw the metal pole. It had been crushed flat by the weight and now, Davies realised, was completely useless.
Well, maybe not completely, he thought and held his hand out. The almost completely useless poll flew into the air, and Davies sent it spinning towards the creature. It had only made three revolutions when it hit the creature… side on. The creature didn’t even notice it as it started a run at Davies.
An amplified voice came over the area. “Davies, this is Gordon. Brain and Brawn, man. Brain and Brawn!”
What the hell is he going on about? thought Davies and then as he moved backwards, it clicked into his mind. You defeat brains with brawn and brawn with brains, he realised. And my powers come from my mind! What powers can I use to defeat this bastard?
He stopped and faced the creature as it ran towards him… and the concrete on the ground in front of it rose up with a tearing sound. It formed a wall that the creature smashed into, bouncing back. It tried again and the six feet wide, ten feet tall wall moved to frustrate it. Without looking up, a large limb started growing out of its head testing the ‘wall’ to see how far up it extended.
Davies let it get to two meters before he pictured what he wanted and the crushed flat metal pole leaped into the air and neatly sliced off the limb before twirling around as if it was being handled by a cheerleader. As it did so, the pole seemed to grow in thickness as Davies concentrated on unflattening it. One end formed a barbed spear head and once completed, the pole shot away from the creature behind it. As Gordon, onlookers and millions of viewers watched, the pole seemed to snap into ten separate objects, each with a barbed spearhead. Once that was completed, there was a shriek of metal as eight lampposts and the remaining sign poles all left the concrete, all split into foot long weapons and all formed the spearhead. In ten seconds there were a little over two hundred lethal looking spearheads.
In eleven seconds, they started moving at the speed of bullets. At eleven point two seconds, they hit the creature.
Twenty might have been enough had they hit the right spots. Fifty would pretty much have done the job even if placed randomly. Two hundred and eight?
It didn’t stand a chance as the impact of the weapons literally tore it apart. But Davies wasn’t taking any chances. Three seconds later, the weapons all withdrew to a distance of ten feet. He lifted into the air and hovered over the remains of the creature. He mentally shoved the remains together… and then slammed the metal flights into it again. And again. And again.
He lowered himself to the ground and fell to his knees, exhausted. He could feel the sweat on his forehead and wiped it off, grinning at Gordon who was walking towards him, shaking his head in astonishment.
“You don’t muck around do you?” Docherty was pleased that Davies had wiped the sweat away – it had been interfering with his sighting. Upon witnessing the astonishing end of the fight, he’d returned to the truck and set up the tripod in seconds, attaching the rifle to it carefully. He’d then screwed on the huge silencer and had slid the infrared sight into place.
Now he stood, aiming carefully, sighting along the length of the weapon. He had a perfect shot, a set of crosshairs superimposed over Davies’ head.
He pulled the trigger. An hour earlier, Monkton and Williams were in Monkton’s house, relaxing after a delicious meal prepared and cooked by Monkton’s wife. Williams was in a well-stuffed armchair, his feet stretched out, while Monkton was standing by the bar.
“Very passable, that, very passable bit of risotto,” Williams said, extremely satisfied.
Monkton poured himself a brandy and raised the bottle in Williams’ direction. “Drink?”
“Yes, thanks,” Williams replied, and watched as Monkton got another glass and poured a sizeable measure for him.
Monkton walked across to Williams and passed him the glass. “Cheers,” he said and raised his glass.
Williams raised his glass and thanked him. He paused for a moment and then grinned. “A toast,” he started. Monkton looked askance at him and then sighed. Williams was always coming up with strange and weird toasts. It appeared that tonight was no exception. Without standing, Williams looked into the middle distance and recited,
“Here’s to the health of your blood Here’s to the blood of your health If your blood isn’t healthy Your health must be bloody, … so here’s to your bloody good health!”
It seemed oddly appropriate, and Monkton touched his glass to that of Williams.
“It’s a bugger, no doubt,” Monkton ventured and Williams was in no doubt to what his colleague was referring. Monkton sat on the sofa opposite Williams. “How the hell are we going to do it?”
“Davies, you mean?” asked Williams. “Well, he’s right on two scores.” He sat forward, watching the brandy as he gently swirled the glass. “First off, his credibility is down the toilet. Even if he were to change the name, no one would ever let him forget that he was known, even for a short time, as the Pubic Defender. The news organisations would never let it go.”
“I wonder if…” Monkton said, thinking.
“Yes?” asked Williams.
“No, forget it, it’s not ready.”
Williams was used to this. Monkton would start to extemporise some bright idea, but by the time he’d started to say anything about it, his brain had already seen the flaws. On those occasions, he’d either say “forget it,” in which case the idea was a dead duck or he’d say he needed to think about it, which meant that Monkton knew there was a way around it and he just needed to consciously know what it was.
Monkton looked at Williams. “You said two things.”
Williams stretched out again. “Yes, well number two is that he was right that he needed to be fired. We’ll do that in the morning.” He stood up and walked to the bar. Then he turned around and looked at Monkton, a look of revelation upon his face. “You know there’s only one way to pop this, don’t you?”
Monkton swallowed the remainder of his brandy before he joined Williams at the bar. “If I knew that, my dear fellow, we wouldn’t be having the conversation.”
“He has to go public,” Williams said.
“I rather think that the public angle has already been taken care of,” Monkton said dryly.
“No, no, you’re not where I am. I don’t mean operating in public, I mean, he has to go public.”
Monkton stopped in the act of pouring himself a second brandy. He looked at Williams, realised what he meant and then continued the pouring. He took a swallow and then said “Full court press, you mean?”
“Yes,” Williams said, sitting down again. “Saturation coverage. Television interviews, Sunday supplement features, the lot. We play this so that it’s Ian Davies that’s the story, not whatever he calls himself.” He glanced at Monkton, but the senior director was merely standing there, his brandy in one hand.
“Go on,” said Monkton, waiting to see Williams warm to his theme.
“We get him interviewed by a big name, someone the public is used to trusting. Not one of the morning television imbeciles, but a heavyweight, someone the chattering classes are accustomed to see interviewing Prime Ministers and Presidents. That way Davies is lent credibility by whoever interviews him.”
“If so-and-so thinks he’s worth his time, he must be worth ours?” Monkton suggested.
“Exactly,” said Williams. “And then we go for the big kill.”
“Hold it a moment,” said Monkton, “Davies was right on another point. What’s he going to do for money. We both know him, he wouldn’t accept charity. And can you really see him doing endorsements? And what about our fees?”
Williams snorted. “Our fees? Stop thinking in the short term, Peter. When it leaks out that we’re his PR people, we can bill everyone else whatever the hell we want. But we do this one pro bono. That won’t hurt the story either. Money hungry PR firm does it for nothing, for the public good? We’ll have every worthwhile account in the country.” He paused briefly. “But you’re right – no endorsements.”
He finished his drink. “But you agree it’s something to think about?”
Monkton nodded. “It’s a start. Sleep on it and we can flesh it out tomorrow before he comes into the office.”
Williams stood and placed his glass on the bar. “OK, I’m heading upstairs.”
As he was heading out of the door, the idea that Monkton had had earlier crystallised in his brain and he said to Williams’ back, “you know this would be a lot easier if he could be officially sanctioned.” Williams stopped and turned to look at Monkton, a smile starting on his face.
And then he turned away, his brain already working and left the room. Monkton drained the last remaining few millilitres of brandy and hit the television remote control, intending to check the news before bed. He watched the scene unfolding on television and saw Ian Davies float out of the sky and gently land before what Monkton thought a particularly ugly statue.
In disbelief, he watched the next few minutes, while he regained the power of speech. He then walked to the door and shouted up in an accent that betrayed his East End origins. “Lester? Get your arse down here, sharpish! Things have moved on.” And then he turned to stare at the television again as Davies destroyed the creature again and again. If the bullet had been fired at Davies more than 36 hours previously, there’s no doubt that he would have been dead before he’d heard the sound of the bullet. Even if he’d have seen the bullet somehow, the human brain takes about a twelfth of a second to respond to any stimulus. He literally wouldn’t have known what hit him.
Further, even this evening, had he been looking away from Docherty’s position, it’s also more than probable that one second after Docherty fired, the body of Ian Terrence Davies would have been falling to the ground minus a head.
But this wasn’t thirty-six hours previously, and it was merely dumb luck that at the very moment Docherty pulled the trigger, Davies turned away from Gordon to point at the remains that he’d just more than efficiently created. A fiftieth of a second later, he saw a black dot in his peripheral vision. Two fiftieths of a second later, his brain had processed what he’d seen, interpreted it, told the rest of his body that it had grown in size and was now recognisable as a bullet and autonomically told his muscles what to do.
As far as Gordon was concerned, Davies was turning away from him when he dropped to the ground as if shot. Ironically, it was precisely to avoid this situation that Davies had hit the ground, and time seemed to slow down for him for an instant as he felt the bullet’s path come so close to him that he could feel the scorching of the air as it passed him. Less than half a second later, Davies was in the air, his brain having already calculated the velocity of the bullet and the precise vector from which it had originated.
Gordon barely heard a comment from Davies that he was well and truly fed up with people shooting at him before Davies levelled out at fifteen feet and launched himself at the van. One of Docherty’s colleagues always commented that you knew how much trouble you were in on a mission by how softly Docherty swore. If he was merely irritated at something or someone, he swore in a normal tone of voice. If it was mildly serious, his voice lowered and decreased in volume. And if someone had really screwed up, Docherty swore almost at a whisper.
Docherty couldn’t believe it. He’d never seen anyone move so fast. The instant he’d pulled the trigger, David had reacted. For an instant, he thought that Davies must have precognitive abilities, but then with the force of a three ton elephant in heat, it hit him. No question about it, he thought, he moved after I took the shot.
He took his eyes from the sight and went for another bullet. His eyes were off the sight for no more than three seconds, but when he returned, all he could see was a uniform black. In the half a second it took to realise what the black was, he swore so softly that only a really sensitive microphone could have picked it up.
The van door was torn off its hinges and Docherty had a very close up view of Ian Davies. A very close up view. And, convinced that this was his last moment on earth, he expected his life to flash before him. It didn’t. What he was thinking about could be summed up in two words: “Oh shit.” In COBRA the members of the committee watched Davies defeat the creature and then waited for the unfiling to occur. It had already been agreed what the press statement would say: “The man known as the Public Defender died today as he had lived, defending those less fortunate than himself. Unfortunately, due to wounds created by his brave battle…” It would have been a fine eulogy and, The Prime Minister thought, would have guaranteed the next election for him and his party.
A pity then that the best laid plans of mice, men and Prime Ministers so often go astray. When the PM saw Davies rip the door from the van, he sank back in his chair in disbelief. He shivered. He’d heard of this reaction, but had always thought that it was an exaggeration, created by those who just couldn’t deal logically and rationally with real life. But his logic and reason didn’t assist in the slightest as he felt his blood run cold. What the hell were they going to do now?
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Docherty’s Head of Section grab for one of the telephones on the table and start punching numbers. The members of the Committee heard the ringing tone ring once, then again and a third time before it ended with a click. Then a voice came on the line.
“Hello?”
The Head of Section heard the voice of his top agent and said merely “put him on.” He looked at the Prime Minister with an expectant expression and gestured for him to speak, pleading with his eyes.
There was a pause as a new voice was heard through the loudspeaker.
“Yes?”
The Prime Minister carefully cleared his throat and asked if he was speaking to Ian Davies…
This Week's Artist: Robin Riggs Robin Riggs is probably best known for his two year run as inker on THE INCREDIBLE HULK and four year run inking SUPERGIRL. His most recent work has been on DC'S BLOODHOUND. Although he lives in the United States with his wife, he retains his accent which apparently sounds perilously like that of the author of this novel. Robin's portfolio is here.
