“Invitation and RSVP”

By Steve Seinberg

“No, hey, I am, too. And thanks again for the invite, I can’t wait to check out your, uh, establishment. I hear great things.”

“Well, thank you. We certainly like it, and it’s always rewarding when our hard work meets with approval. I hope you’ll enjoy your inaugural visit to the House.”

“Oh, I’m sure I will. So I’ll definitely come alone, and then…well, it’s probably a stupid question, but is there some kind of dress code? Like, do we need to wear tuxedo jackets over our working gear, or…?”

The woman known only as Roulette smiled briefly over the secure phone line. “No, we actually expect and encourage all of our guests to be in their customary working garb. Cleaned and pressed is always nice, but if you’ve just come from a battle or a shoot-out with the local gendarmes or some such, we of course understand.”

“No, no, I’ll be squeaky-clean. Hygiene is my middle name.”

“Mr. something-Hygiene-Terrible. Your parents must have had quite the unusual taste in nomenclature. At any rate, you now have the location where we’ll be making our ‘pick-up.’ We will gather you up exactly at midnight. Please be punctual, and understand that we will only allow for a very small window of opportunity if you’re late.”

“Midnight? What is it, a rave? I can try to score some Ecstasy for it, I guess…”

“Hardly that – our patrons are generally the sort who like to keep late hours, that’s all. Night people – you understand. And you needn’t bring anything special along other than what you would usually be carrying, and some funds for wagering on the events.”

“Right – I gotta go and do some research on these Global Guardians characters. Sounds like it’ll be one whale of a fight.”

“We’re hoping. And there will of course be an additional warm-up bout or two before the main event…and perhaps even a surprise on top of that!”

“Sounds sweet.”

“Indeed. Well, I’m afraid I have to move on for now – things to attend to, I’m sure you understand – but it’s been a pleasure. I look forward to meeting you...Mr. Terrible.”

“Like-wise. Thanks again – see you soon.”

Roulette cut the connection on her end, and Mr. Terrible folded up the borrowed – well, stolen – cell-phone.

“And that, Key-man, is that.”

The Key grinned in a way that made Mr. Terrible want to go and take a shower. “Excellently well done,” he said. “Now…there are two further matters to discuss. The first will be your departure from the facility. As I’ve mentioned, I have made arrangements with an associate who will be ferrying you out and away from the House once you have Prometheus’ Ghost Zone key in your possession.”

“Right, you did say…although you didn’t say who it was exactly, so’s I’ll know who to look out for.”

“True…and this is for a reason. My associate, as I have also mentioned, is exceedingly guarded about his involvements in many dealings these days – keeping a low profile, as the youngsters are saying these days.”

“Keeping it on the down low.”

“Once again…?” The Key looked perplexed. It was a better look for him than the leering or the preening, but not by all that much.

“Keeping it on the down low…or the D.L., even. That’s how the youngsters put it.”

“Ah, I see. Wonderful.” He didn’t sound overly enthused about being corrected, but at the same time, the seeker of knowledge in him was also clearly happy to be brought up to date on where exactly the leading edge of slang had progressed to. “Very good, then: my associate prefers to keep his dealings on the down low these days.”

“Right. Which I totally understand, I do. Totally. But then that kind of raises the question of how exactly do I find your associate to make my escape with him if I don’t know who it is I’m supposed to be looking for?”

“Ah, worry not, my Terrible friend – he will find you. He has been well apprised of the situation, and will be watching. He, too, is an invited guest of the House, and though he has been out of touch with Roulette, and has not been to her establishment for quite some time – not since it was at its previous location, in fact – he will have his wits about him, and will be observing you closely.”

“Well, that’s comforting…in a really creepy sort of way. But okay – so I grab the Ghost Zone key, and your pal steps in and zaps me out of there? That’s about the size of it?”

“That is about the size of it. But for the one last thing so that you are aware of all of the details: I, too, will be monitoring your performance.”

“You? Wait, you’re not going, are you? Were you invited? Why didn’t you say so?”

“No, no, I was not invited, and I am not attending in person.”

Mr. Terrible tried not to show his relief – he’d had an immediate vision of himself and the Key double-dating like they were going to a super-villain prom or something, and he’d had this grotesque unbidden mental flash of the Key wearing a crazy, elongated, pinstriped tux and holding up a corsage made of, like, bleeding flowers, or little frog’s heads on stalks or some crazy thing…and that also raised the thoroughly uncomfortable question of what, exactly, would someone like the Key actually date…?

He shook his head to try to dispel the grim visions, and pressed on. “But if you’re not coming in, then how exactly do you figure on monitoring? Like I said, Roulette is either a techno-wizard herself, or she’s got somebody like that on staff, and word is that that place is sealed, man – nobody gets in or out without her say-so, nobody films or takes pictures, and absolutely no what she calls ‘remote viewing.’ How do you figure on bypassing her security for all that? Her, like, firewalls and whatnot?”

The Key was back to his preening, gleeful mode. Mr. Terrible wondered idly if he practiced doing little dances in front of the mirror when he was alone. “You have heard some certain whispers about me, yes? Certain rumors about my specifics? My character traits and abilities?”

“Yeah, sure, I guess so.”

“You have quite likely heard tell of my heightened sensory capabilities? I was admittedly too free with this information when I first reawakened from my long sleep-state.”

“Well, yeah. What I heard was that where most people – like me, say – have the five senses, the taste, smell, hearing, touch, and sight, you got…well, I can’t honestly even imagine what the hell they might be, but I heard that you got yourself eleven separate senses. I mean…is that really true?”

“Oh, it really, really is true!” The Key clapped his hands together, a gesture that really put Mr. Terrible off his feed. He looked like nothing so much as an impossibly tall, impossibly thin, impossibly demented child cavorting around inside somebody’s nightmare. “I won’t attempt to explain them all for you – imagine trying to explain, say, the color violet to a person who has been blind since birth – but suffice it to say that yes, there are avenues of information-gathering open to me that no one else in the world would even know about or understand, let alone might know how to safeguard against!”

“Well, that’s…Super-Terrific Happy Hour, man.”

The Key cocked his head, not getting the reference.

“Oh, sorry. Just something from an episode of ‘Seinfeld,’ I always liked the phrase. It doesn’t really matter. The point is, you’ll somehow be able to keep track of what’s happening in the House with your super-senses once I’m in?”

“Yes, indeed…with just a little help from you.”

“Oh, yeah? Uh…how so?”

“Well, as I said, I won’t go into all the details, but one of the greatest elements in my personal evolution has been the transformation of my hair. It is not simply a decorative mane of long, luxurious tresses, though one might certainly be forgiven for thinking so…”

What Mr. Terrible was actually thinking was Long, luxurious, *greasy* tresses…

The Key continued. “My hair has since become a new sensory organ for me, or if you will, a collective sensory organ, as each individual strand now gathers information for me.”

“Wow, really? That’s…you mean like antennas or something?”

“I suppose that might be a decent, if overly simplified way of looking at it.”

“Okay, so that’s…that’s cool and all, really, but, I mean, how does that help us?”

“Another difference between my own hair and that of the garden variety human is that humans shed their hair follicles on a frighteningly regular basis.”

“Um…”

“I do not.”

“Oh. Okay…” If they had been playing chess, Mr. Terrible would have tipped over his king and surrendered at this point. He had less than zero idea what this Nature Channel tangent about the Key’s fabulous hair had to do with spying on him inside Roulette’s domain.

“In fact, my own hair is so loathe to take leave of my scalp, that should a strand be removed…it will reattach itself given the opportunity.”

“No kidding. You know, you should sell that action to that Hair Club For Men dude – you’d make a frigging fortune. Wouldn’t even have to do super-villain stuff anymore, you know, unless you wanted to.”

The Key waved the possibility away with a facial expression that spoke of foul odors in the vicinity. “Furthermore, my friend, when one of my glorious strands of hair is removed from my scalp…it continues to transmit information to me. We remain connected unless and until it is destroyed. And the range of this information transmission is quite considerable. Quite considerable.”

“So are you saying…?” He couldn’t quite bring himself to finish the thought.

“When the time is upon us for you to travel to your rendezvous point and be taken to the House, I will pluck a single strand of my delightful hair from my scalp, and we will tie it around one of your forearms. Roulette and her people will almost assuredly not even notice it, will give it no thought at all if they do, and will certainly have no way of detecting information transmission of that nature, or blocking it. Thus, I will be entirely aware of your dealings as you traverse her little den of violent iniquity.”

Mr. Terrible tried to suppress a series of shudders – the thought of having one of the Key’s long, greasy hairs wrapped around even his jacket sleeve brought on some considerable nausea. “So, uh…yeah…so what’s it like? Like you can hear through your hair, or see through it, or…is it like radar? I’m just curious.”

The Key all but blushed at the interest, and stroked his locks like a coquettish high-school girl. “Well, again, it would be impossible to convey exactly what the information flow is like, but you would not be too remiss to think of it as a sort of combination of sight, sound, and some kind of radar, yes. And in some ways, it is also more precise than the senses of either hearing or vision.”

“Well, that sounds pretty…um…yeah, pretty awesome. So, okay, I guess we got us a game-plan. We got a couple days…think I might go out and grab a bite to eat, see a movie or something, you know.”

The Key frowned. “I think I might prefer that you not actually take your leave until we are ready to put our operation into effect.”

“You…what? You want me to stay here? The job doesn’t go down for another two and a half days – you want me to stay all cooped up here with you for that long?”

The Key spread his hands, silently testifying as to the unavoidableness of it all. Mr. Terrible couldn’t help but notice that the Key’s key-shaped blaster weapon happened to be uncomfortably close by the arch-villain.

“What, you don’t trust me?” Terrible demanded. “You think I’m gonna sell you out or something? Why would I do that?”

“It isn’t a case of me not trusting you specifically, my Terrible new associate…just a case of me not trusting anyone in general. And since you are a subset of that larger set of ‘anyone’…you see my dilemma, I’m sure.”

“Look, man, I wasn’t prepared to be camping out here for half a week. You have to at least let me go get some groceries or something, and some clean under-drawers and all. My toothbrush, and like that? You did just hear me bragging to Roulette about my hygiene, right?”

“Well…ah! I can propose a possible solution, and one that will provide us both with a test run with respect to my ability to monitor your doings from a remote distance!”

“You mean…you want to…” “Exactly!” More preening and hand-clapping, and then the Key reached up and plucked one of his long, oily hair-strands from its home. He held it out, one end in each long, spindly-fingered hand, and advanced on Mr. Terrible. “This way you can gather your things, I will know you’ve done nothing to warrant unhappiness or disapproval on my part, and we’ll both know that my surveillance works! Now, come, my friend…hold out your arm.”

Swallowing back a lump of gorge, Mr. Terrible held out his arm.

For many people, becoming one of the most powerful sorcerers on Earth might have seemed like an unqualified blessing. For Hector Hall, however, it had most definitely been a mixed bag at best.

The son of two World War II-era heroes – Carter “Hawkman” Hall and Shiera “Hawkwoman” Hall – Hector had spent time in his earlier years gaining plenty of understanding of the trans-mundane simply from following the exploits of his parents, and then as a hero in his own right known as the Silver Scarab. He’d had his fair share of contact with the mystical realms as the Scarab, but taking on the mantle of Dr. Fate, a mantle with centuries of history behind it, involved an undeniable ascension to a whole new plateau of wizardry. Hector had done his best to get an acceptable grasp on the powers and responsibilities that came along with the vestments of Dr. Fate that he now wore, but truth be told, he had found it all a bit overwhelming, and still did so, although things were slowly improving.

One of the greatest obstacles Hector had faced in mastering all of the things that came with the mantle of Fate had been the constant distraction caused by the long-term absence of his wife, Lyta. The one-time heroine known as Fury, Lyta had been missing for well over a year now, and although Hector himself refused to give up hope, almost everyone around him, friends, relatives, and teammates alike, had written Lyta off as surely deceased. Although he had managed to move on beyond the point where his anguish at Lyta’s disappearance was a constant, screaming presence in his mind, Hector still missed her horribly, and spent most of his free time sending his astral form out far and wide, tirelessly searching for clues as to her possible whereabouts.

He was presently returning from one such mental sojourn, his ghostly awareness melting silently and invisibly through the walls and floors of the JSA Brownstone as his spirit sought to return to his body, which was floating cross-legged in mid-air in the privacy of his quarters. Depressed but nowhere near beaten after another unsuccessful journey, he was distracted enough to pause one floor away from his room when he heard two of his passing teammates mention his name.

Rick Tyler, the young hero who had inherited the mantle of Hourman from his father, Rex, and Delilah “Dee” Tyler – no relation to Rick – the newly-inducted Phantom Lady, had a bit of history predating Dee’s recent arrival, and seemed to be tumbling headlong into a torrid love affair, much as Hector and Lyta once had. Hector liked Rick quite a bit, and was pleased to hear that the JSA upper echelon was taking a chance on him, and assigning Rick leadership of one of the four new “sub-squads” they’d created, and that they had furthermore placed Hector in Rick’s group, along with Dee and their other relatively new teammate, the Crimson Avenger...and it was Hector and Crimson that Rick and Dee were discussing now. More specifically, it was Crimson they were discussing, and Hector was simply being named as an incidental associated factor.

The thing about the Crimson Avenger was that she was a mystically-charged young woman laboring under a strange curse that on the one hand empowered her – granting her the gift of teleportation and bestowing upon her a pair of enchanted antique handguns that could shoot through anything and never ran out of ammunition – but on the other hand drove her to seek out and slaughter a never-ending parade of wrongdoers, killers who had slain innocent victims and then escaped any consequence. She was a highly questionable choice for membership in the Justice Society as she not only used lethal force in her activities, but also by her very nature was compelled to give precedence to her crusade of vengeance regardless of her own desires to adhere to the JSA’s codes and agendas. Only the presences of Hourman, who had led Crimson through an exceedingly trying adventure a year before and subsequently had her trust, and Hector himself, whose gifts in the area of sorcery might be applied so as to minimize the effects of Crimson’s curse, had persuaded the JSA higher-ups to allow Crimson on board. Hector had made some strides in affecting the Avenger’s condition, but mostly without his teammates, non-mages all, knowing any of the specifics. Hector had feared that this might become a matter of increasing concern for his allies, and judging by what he was hearing now, he hadn’t been wrong.

“Look, Rick, I think it’s amazing that you’re getting to lead one of the smaller squads, I do – you’ve worked so hard, and you deserve it – but I really worry about the Avenger. I know you shared a heavy experience with her, and the two of you bonded somewhat, but she’s also the victim of this enormous magic spell kind of thing that’s a lot bigger than her. She can’t control it, and she can’t control herself.”

“Well, but Hector’s been working with her, Dee...”

“I know that, but tell me this: what exactly did Hector do? I know Dr. Fate is regarded as one of the most powerful wizard-types in the world, but that rep was earned mostly by his predecessors. Hector’s been struggling, you even said so yourself...and what did he do, specifically? He said that he made Crimson more manageable, and she agreed, but we still don’t know what that all involves.”

Rick Tyler sagged back against the nearest wall and sighed. “I know. You’re right. I was just so glad the big guns wanted to give Crimson a chance that I didn’t want to dig too deep into whatever it was Hector did.”

“I understand, Rick – but now they’re not only your teammates, they’re the other half of our little four-person squad, and you’re in charge of them. You need to know what’s up with your people.”

Rick took her hand, and Dee moved into his embrace, still trying to voice her concern. “I don’t have anything against Crimson necessarily, or Hector for that matter,” she said, “and I’m definitely not trying to make trouble here – I’m just trying to look out for you.”

They kissed, and Hector could feel their passion even in his immaterial state. “I know,” Hourman said, stroking the long, full, black cornucopia of her hair. “I know. And thanks for always getting my back...”

Hector decided to drift on and leave them their privacy, even if they hadn’t known it was being somewhat violated. He reached his room and reflected on their exchange even as his spirit reentered his physical form.

The truth was that they were right to be concerned. The magic informing the Crimson Avenger was incredibly potent, and also outside of Hector’s experience – he had thus far been utterly unable to identify who or what had created the spell that empowered and compelled the Avenger. He had also been unable to remove it or alter its major parameters. Despite his best efforts, he’d been completely unsuccessful in trying to eliminate her need to track down her never-ending succession of killers. All he’d been able to do – and he knew Dee Tyler, and Rick probably as well, would have raised some very serious and understandable objections to this – was to force her vengeance train onto a track of his own choosing.

After her last slaying, instead of allowing the curse to randomly select Crimson’s next target as it would have done if allowed to operate unmolested, Hector had substituted in a killer of his own choosing that the curse would find acceptable under its guidelines. Namely, he had scripted things so that Crimson’s new quarry was a black-hearted, immortal wizard by the name of Mordru – who was without question a murderer and corruptor, a man as deserving of vengeance as any other alive, but who also just happened to be the long-time arch-enemy of none other than...Dr. Fate. Not only had Hector himself done battle on several occasions with Mordru, but so had most of his predecessors. If asked, his justification for gimmicking the curse like this would have been that not only would Mordru’s death down the barrels of the Avenger’s guns quite arguably have been warranted, but in all honesty, it was also highly unlikely that it would ever really come to pass. Mordru traveled into other dimensional realms quite frequently, and even journeyed up and down the time-stream, so it was very possible that Crimson could exist for decades without ever actually even encountering the man, much less killing him...and then there was the equally real possibility that even if she did stumble across him, she would find herself unable to carry out her directive. Mordru was a powerful enough sorcerer that even Crimson’s enchantment might prove ineffective against him. Hector had reasoned that given all of this, by rewriting the program for Crimson’s guns, he was indefinitely deferring her next act of murder, and thereby enabling her to do some fine work with the JSA – after all, when one of her targets had been temporarily unreachable in the past, she had been free to pursue her own aims until that target again became accessible (the curse had the patience of the damned, and did not deviate from a target once chosen). Hector had no idea how exactly his superiors in the Justice Society might view his actions, although he strongly suspected that they’d see them as under-handed and self-serving for the most part, and probably unacceptable...and he was pretty sure that if the matter did come to light, he’d have to agree with them. All he could do in the meantime was try to stay focused on his search for his wife, and on keeping things working for the Justice Society as well as he could...and hopefully the Phantom Lady wouldn’t press the point too much (not that he’d really blame her if she did).

He opened his eyes, settled back down to Earth, and unfolded his body, allowing the feeling to reawaken in his limbs. His spirit was once more returned to his flesh, but sadly, in no way did Hector Hall experience any kind of feeling of coming home. Lords, how he missed Lyta...

“Alright, everyone…” Roulette clapped her hands together sharply, all schoolteacher-esque. “In about thirty minutes, we have an incoming visitor, and as you’ve all been made aware, this is a very important acquisition for us.” As she spoke, the chopsticks she generally employed for keeping her long, reddish-brown hair up in a sophisticated-looking bun cast odd, scissors-like shadows across the walls behind her. “Let’s go over this one more time, so you all know your assignments.”

The Hybrid were all arrayed before her in one of the small conference rooms she liked to maintain. The absence of the now-deceased Behemoth was felt in terms of there being significantly less physical space being used by the group, but aside from some token expressions of sympathy made in general, none of his teammates seemed especially torn up about his passing. Roulette herself had been surprisingly mellow upon hearing the account of his demise, and was willing to write it off as a result of his own carelessness in squaring off against Olympian, a foe she had been quite clear to characterize for them as a fairly big-time powerhouse. She seemed to feel that the success in securing the Greek hero for her combat games actually outweighed the loss of one of her operatives, and as Touch ‘N’ Go had predicted, Roulette had indeed been intent on making sure that his teammates had returned with his corpse so that she could at least retrieve the miracle metal promethium from his system. Once she’d determined that the survivors of the mission had had the presence of mind to ferry Raiden’s promethium-laced corpse back with them, she seemed happy enough to just move right on to other business…

“Ms. Bal, Ms. Sharp, and Mr. Calhoun, I want all of you with me when we greet our guest. He’s still a largely unknown quantity in the super-criminal underworld, and the extent of his abilities remains vague. Mostly, he’s reported to simply be a lunatic in a garish mish-mash of costume elements stolen from both my grandfather and Michael Holt, and he’s said to be a fan of knives – both for throwing and for plain old stabbing-and-slashing. Beyond that, there have been no reports whatsoever of him possessing any extra-human abilities; still, best never to take chances in these situations. Mr. Calhoun, you will frisk him upon arrival when I give the word, and relieve him of his weapons until such time as we’re ready to put him into the arena. Ms. Bal, you will act in the capacity of personal bodyguard with respect to myself, and Ms. Sharp, you will do the same for Tap, who will also be present – you will all remain at absolute combat readiness until we can ascertain that this ‘Mr. Terrible’ is no real threat. Is everyone with me so far?”

Nods and murmurs and grunts of assent.

“Captain Harel, and Ms. Lopez – you will be readying for departure – assuming all goes well with this acquisition, and we’re able to squirrel away our new capture in the holding cells without complication, you will be joined by Mr. Calhoun, and you will all then immediately depart to put into motion our next acquisition: Michael Holt himself. Still all clear?”

More terse agreement. The Hybrid were already visibly readying for possible battle: Calhoun was squeezing his metal fists and tensing his bare, gleaming metal shoulders; Amelinda Lopez was drumming her fingers on her seat and tapping her heels on the floor like an over-caffeinated child with Attention Deficit Disorder; Angelika Bal and Cassandra Sharp were both clenching their jaws and arching their backs; and Captain Israel Harel was flexing his great blue saurian wings as much as he could within the confines of an indoor space, and hooking his taloned fingers as if he already had bleeding prey caught in them.

“Very good. We’ll be greeting our guest in Transport Room A, and then the Holt retrieval party will be departing next door. I want all of you in full combat regalia – fly your Hybrid colors proudly, and remember that the H’s you wear on your belts also now stand for the House as well – do not disappoint me. These two men are irredeemable scumbags who desecrate my grandfather’s legacy each and every day of their miserable, misbegotten lives – barring any unforeseen circumstances, that all finally ends tomorrow night in the big arena. No failures, people. Dismissed for now, and regroup in your appropriate Transport Rooms A.S.A.P.”

The Hybrid filed out, looking all-business and primed for action already. Amelinda Lopez spared one last look back as she followed Curt Calhoun out the door, and was darkly amused to see that Roulette’s chopstick shadows now looked like the razor-sharp beak of some exotic or alien bird of prey, about to devour the clock that was ticking away on the wall behind her…

Next Issue: Mr. Terrible gets a less hospitable reception than he’d bargained for from his hostile hostess and her hard-nosed hoodlums...Mr. Terrific also experiences Roulette’s hospitality by way of the Hybrid...and it’s the start of festivities proper at the House!