Issue # 15

"Cashing Out"
By Dale Glaser

"You seen this?" More asked, as he flipped a magazine onto the corner of the drafting table where Pierce was seated.

Pierce glanced away from the array of blueprints and handwritten notes that blanketed the table's surface and looked at the cover of the most recent issue of Newstime. The block letters just beneath the masthead seemed to leap off the page: GULF COAST GOOD GUYS! The cover image was a collage of photographs of the members of Bad Blood, superimposed over a skyline shot of New Orleans. Near the bottom of the cover ran the lines "America's Newest Hero Team Is Cajun Hot!"

"Pretty cool, huh?" More asked with a lopsided grin.

"I'm sure it'll sell quite a few copies," Pierce replied neutrally. He returned his attention to the plans spread across the table's angled surface, and More could hear the faint buzz of motors controlling the optical zoom in Pierce's helmet visor.

"What's wrong, bossman?" More pressed, picking up his copy of Newstime and flipping through it idly. "They love us ... the article was written by some lady who was on the Natchez when Man-of-War attacked.* Isn't it good that we get our rep out there?"
(* Last issue - DWG)

"We can handle getting our own rep out there," Pierce answered without looking up.

"Sure, but this is a little shot in the arm," More insisted. "Nationwide publicity, what's the harm in that?"

Pierce's hand darted out and snatched the magazine back from More. "The harm is in uncontrolled information about us getting out. Anything an adoring public might know about us, our enemies will most definitely know as well. You've heard a little knowledge is a dangerous thing?" he demanded, snapping through the magazine's pages.

"Uhh ... yeah," More agreed.

Pierce held up the magazine in More's sight, showing a two-page spread with photos of Bad Blood in action on the Natchez. "Any amount of knowledge, in the wrong hands, can be dangerous. I hardly find the thought of someone studying these photos, calculating the way we work as a team in the field, a comforting one." With that, Pierce slammed the magazine down on the drafting table.

"I ... I'm sorry, I just ...," More faltered.

Pierce held up one hand to stop his teammate. In a calmer voice, he said, "It's not your fault, not anyone's fault, so don't apologize. It was bound to happen sooner or later. But every dose of mainstream exposure just makes our jobs that much harder."

"Guess you're right," More conceded despondently. He picked up the Newstime once again, now unsure what to do with it. Pierce concentrated on the blue and white schematics unfurled on the table.

As More was about to leave the room, the Riverboat's intercom system crackled to life. "Hurry, hurry, hurry, kiddees," Ember's voice carried throughout the headquarters. "It's time to step up and see the latest miraculous addition to the Bad Blood crime-fighting arsenal. No lines, no waiting, just come to the communications console and gaze in wonder at what you find there!"

More looked over his shoulder at Pierce, who shook his head in disbelief but nevertheless rose from his seat. More led the way down the Riverboat corridor to the comm-con.

Clifford Zmeck marched down Canal Street, his hands shoved deep into his trenchcoat's pockets, a battered fedora pulled down to cover nearly his entire face. The coat and hat were providing no protection from the elements, as New Orleans enjoyed a warm, sunny day, but rather hid Zmeck's brightly colored skin from sight. A man dressed for inclement weather where none was to be found might seem slightly peculiar, but would soon be forgotten in the Big Easy; a six-and-a-half foot tall powerhouse with metallic orange and magenta skin would stand out like a one-man Mardi Gras float.

Zmeck cared little about how much attention he attracted, but a low-key approach had been called for by his superiors. Once an Air Force sergeant, now an operative for the D.E.O., Zmeck was accustomed to following orders. He consoled himself with the thought that once he was in position, and his contacts had put sufficient distance between him and themselves for 'plausible deniability', subtlety would no longer be a concern. There would be chaos and collateral damage and violence. Lots of violence.

Zmeck reached the brick-paved walkway in front of Harrah's Casino New Orleans and strode between the evenly spaced palm trees lining it. He climbed the front steps and pushed through the revolving glass doors. He pushed his fedora back on his head slightly and allowed his eyesight to adjust to the lower lighting inside provided by flickering electric candles set in gigantic gilded chandeliers.

The casino's interior was designed to resemble the meandering pathways of the French Quarter, complete with ivy-entwined wrought-iron balconies on the building facades, and a domed ceiling painted like the night sky and twinkling with 15-watt stars. High-stepping mannequins dressed in purple, green and yellow jester costumes balanced atop artificially weathered columns, and a replica of a Dixieland band was flash-frozen on a raised stage while canned jazz was piped in by the sound system. The lobby floor was relatively uncluttered, but just beyond began the sea of slot machines and gaming tables, room after room of the promise of riches for those who believed luck was a lady.

Zmeck's eyes, solid electric blue, narrowed slightly as he reconnoitered the area. At this hour of the day the casino had only a handful of patrons, but Zmeck soon isolated the largest concentration of them and headed in that direction. He checked his watch. Ten minutes to mayhem.

Ed Baird and Jack Fenris sat in Mulate's, the remains of their lunches and a pair of freshly refilled beer mugs on the table before them. Baird was reclining comfortably in his chair, while Fenris leaned forward with arms crossed on the table. "So you never feel like Bad Blood ... compromises your relationship with your wife?" Fenris asked, staring intently at his companion.

"Not really," Baird shrugged. "Katarina accepts that being Karnival is something that's important to me, something that's a part of me. And she loves me anyway."

"Does she love you because of it, or in spite of it?"

"She loves me anyway," Baird smiled. "Most of the time I'm willing to leave it at that."

"Don't you ever feel ..." Fenris searched for the words, "... guilty, about setting her up for early widowhood if ever there's a time you don't come back?"

"Cops have wives, firemen have wives, soldiers have wives," Baird enumerated the examples on his fingers. "And sometimes insurance underwriters get hit by buses walking to lunch. The only guarantees we have are that we've got today, and Katarina and I want to spend as many of those todays together as possible."

"You don't think she ever thinks about the morbid possibilities when you're out saving the world?" Fenris pressed.

"I know she does, she's told me so," Baird admitted. "But she doesn't let despair overwhelm her. She prays, she thinks good thoughts ..."

"And that's all it takes to keep her sane?"

"Well, that, and when I do get home, you know ... post-mission sex," Baird nodded. He raised his mug to his lips and took a drink, then grinned over the rim at Fenris. "Better than make-up sex, man."

Fenris gave a little laugh at that. "You make it sound pretty easy."

"Hey, nobody ever said relationships were easy, least of all me. One of the people in the relationship being a super-hero, that's just one more complication you deal with the best you can. But this isn't about your concern for my marriage, is it?" Baird asked, setting his beer mug down.

"Hey, I care, man," Fenris insisted with mock-hurt in his voice, his hand covering his heart. "I care."

"Uh-huh."

"It's just ... all right, there's this waitress at the Cat's Meow, her name's Nancine ..."

"And you're wondering if it's fair to her to even ask her out for coffee, because if she gets attached, she might get hurt, because you live a life of danger, right?" Baird cut in.

"Something like that," Fenris nodded sheepishly.

"That's very noble of you, Jack," Baird commended him. "But just a tad overprotective, don't you think?"

"I don't know," Fenris shook his head.

"Why don't you let her make that decision for herself?" Baird asked. "She might not get that attached to you at all."

"Oh, ha ha," Fenris rolled his eyes, reaching for his beer. Even though alcohol had no effect on his alien physiology, he still enjoyed the taste. Before he could take a sip, however, explosive reverberations shook the restaurant. Guests at other tables ducked their heads or cried out in alarm, but Baird and Fenris were instantly on their feet.

"That sounded like it was just up the street," Fenris said.

"Good thing we're in the neighborhood," Baird reflected. "Ready for danger, my swingin' single sidekick?"

"All things considered, I guess your adventures as Karnival aren't the hardest part of you Katarina has to put up with," Fenris observed, as he and Baird ran out the door. They followed the column of rising smoke that originated a few blocks away at the Harrah's Casino.

"Gentlemen, it has been arduous work, but I think it has been worth it," Ember proclaimed proudly.

"You da man, Rob," Hangfire rolled his eyes with exaggerated boredom.

"You're too kind," Ember inclined his head with mock gratitude. "So without further ado, allow me to introduce the new artificial-intelligence interface for our computer system, the CLOTI." Ember flipped a switch on the console and the screens above began to light up.

"Clotty?" More asked.

"Cross-Linked Omnifunction Terabyte Interface," Ember explained the acronym. "It's cutting-edge all the way. Embedded speech-recognition software, logic circuits that won't hit the commercial markets for ten or fifteen years, hyperdynamic processing, multidimensional relational database generation..."

"It looks like a big red blob," More stated, nodding toward the top screen of the communications console, where a tear-shaped red graphic dominated the glassy black surface.

"Looks aren't everything," Ember countered quickly. "And in this case, they happen to be optional. But I thought it would be easier to use the CLOTI if it had the visual dimension. And since it's on Bad Blood's systems, I figured a drop of blood would be an appropriate avatar." Ember took a step away from the console and gestured More toward it. "Go ahead, ask it a question about anything."

More stepped forward, cast a doubtful glance at Ember, then turned to face the screen. He leaned in close to the monitor and loudly said, "Uhh, OK, Clotty ... what's the weather like today?"

On the screen, in the middle of the blood drop icon, two white eyes opened above a lipless black mouth. The mouth formed words that were simultaneously broadcast through the comm-con's speakers: "Narrow-geographic-parameters."

More looked at the others quizzically. Hangfire explained, "What's the weather like where, tough guy."

"And you don't have to shout at the screen," Ember added. "The s-r is actually hooked into the Riverboat's intercoms, too, so you can talk to the Interface from anywhere.

"Oh," More nodded, leaning back. "Uhh ... Los Angeles."

"Eighty-two-point-four-degrees-Fahrenheit. Ten-percent-chance-of-rain," the CLOTI replied instantly.

"Metropolis," More continued.

"Sixty-six-point-one-degrees-Fahrenheit. Winds-from-the-north-northeast-to-eighteen-miles-per-hour."

Pierce, standing off to the side with arms crossed over his chest, finally spoke. "Ember, where did you say this artificial intelligence framework came from?" he asked levelly.

"I didn't," Ember grinned. Pierce was perfectly still and silent, but the air in the room seemed to change subtly, becoming relentlessly heavier, until Ember continued. "I called in a few favors, here and there. Friends and professional colleagues of mine."

"None of whom would find it suspicious that Robert McDowell is assembling a supercomputer?" Pierce pressed with blatant skepticism.

"Sydney, Australia," More tried for the weather report again.

"Cool-and-overcast," the response issued forth. More did a double take.

"Relax, bossman," Ember insisted to Pierce. "I called in favors. Plural. No single person knew everything I was pulling together. I even did some of the final touches in the integration process myself. I didn't sneak any technicians into the Riverboat in the dead of night for the installation. Chill."

"Chill is not an option around here," Pierce retorted.

"Hey, Rob," More interrupted. "Am I ... boring Clotty here?"

"What do you mean?" Ember asked, turning away from Pierce.

"The last weather report was a bit brief," Hangfire explained.

"Ahh, that's a boring function anyway," Ember dismissed the idea. "You could go to weather.com for that. Here, watch this. I started filling a database with references to crises that we'd want to respond to, giving different priority values to each one ..."

"Based on your judgment," Pierce interjected, unimpressed. Ember ignored him. "There's a logarithmic function that assigns values to things according to priority and proximity. Closest and most pressing things get the lowest values, as the CLOTI checks every available information source, from the Internet to satellite broadcasts. So check it out." His tone of voice changed slightly to one of command. "Run a crisis scan, only return values between one and ten."

"Scanning," the Clotty avatar acknowledged.

"Now this might take a while," Ember cautioned.

"During which time we can refer to your database of downloaded porn?" Hangfire asked sarcastically.

"Cute. Actually..."

"Result-value-equals-two-point-two-three," the Clotty avatar announced, and the surrounding screens begin to light up with further information.

"Two and change sounds pretty low," More observed.

"It is," Ember agreed, growing serious. "The only thing that gets a value of one would be if the Riverboat were actually under attack. Two means somebody on the team in trouble or something bad going down right around us in New Orleans."

"Or both," Pierce intoned, watching intently as the information on the various screens of the comm-con began to take shape. One monitor displayed grainy black and white video footage, identified by superimposed text as security videotape from Harrah's Casino New Orleans, cycling through several rooms filled with overturned tables and marred with other signs of damage. Another monitor showed a cable news broadcast indicating early reports of an unidentified explosion at Harrah's, with helicopter-vantage camera footage of the smoke billowing from the casino's roof. A third monitor displayed scientific readings from a national laboratory analyzing the unique energy signature that had heralded the explosion, while yet another screen listed the current whereabouts of Karnival and Valence. "We're not done talking about this, but other matters demand attention," the former Checkmate Knight announced, leaving the room with his teammates close behind.

Delaina Teague sat across from her best friend, Marcy Dupree, at a steel picnic table in one of the small courtyards behind the Joan of Arc Catholic High School for Girls. It was their lunch period, and their midday meals had long since been eaten. A Walkman radio with portable speakers rested on the table between them, and the broadcast from WQUE filled the air with a weak, tinny stream of Ludacris and L'il Kim, barely able to compete through the noise of other students socializing in the courtyard.

Marcy's head bopped from side to side as she listened to the tunes, but Delaina seemed bored, propping her head up with one hand and playing with her Alicia Keys-style braids with the other. When the song "# 1" by Nelly began to play, Delaina sat up straighter, and watched Marcy intently. Nelly was Marcy's favorite rapper, and hearing a song by him at least once per day was a necessary part of Marcy's rituals. Delaina understood that, and waited through the song as patiently as she had waited for it to come up in the rotation. As soon as it finished, Delaina picked up the Walkman and began dialing a different station on the tuner.

"Can't you let it go one day?" Marcy asked, in a defeated tone that already bespoke the answer.

"Don't think so, girl," Delaina answered, setting the Walkman back down again. Now the sounds coming from the speakers were the static-heavy voices of a police scanner. Delaina had discovered that in the school courtyard the Walkman could intercept a weak version of the scanner signal, probably due to some fluke of the exact position of the steel picnic table. She had listened attentively for several weeks worth of lunch periods. After the daily groove to Nelly, of course.

"...kksshhhkkshhh ... units to 512 South Peters Street ... kksshh-peat all available units respond to metahuman crime in progress at 512 South Peters Street ... kksshhhh" the dispatcher's voice mingled with static emerged from the miniature speakers. Delaina locked eyes meaningfully with Marcy.

"You don't even know they'll be there," Marcy insisted, half-heartedly.

"They'll be there," Delaina assured her friend. "And so will I. Cover for me?"

"Ain't nobody gonna miss you, Miss Thing," Marcy snorted. She shrugged, then added, "I will. Don't do nothing stupid."

"I won't," Delaina agreed. She cast a quick glance around the courtyard for nuns, and with none in sight headed for a small gate in the courtyard wall. She slipped out the gate and walked along the outer wall of the high school to the driveway, then jogged down the driveway. When she reached the street, she broke into a full-out run, the sides of her school uniform's cardigan flapping behind her, her braids bouncing against her shoulders. The Joan of Arc sat in the heart of New Orleans's garden district, and the street was lined by immense oak trees, their branches forming a verdant canopy overhead. As Delaina ran through greenhouse-like streets, towards the riverfront and South Peters Street, she began to fade; every color of her form from her navy blue cardigan to her green and blue plaid skirt to her dark brown skin became fainter, paling to translucent white. As she faded, her apparent speed increased, although the flapping of her sweater and the bouncing of her braids all but ceased. The only thing which did not change was the intense determination of her expression as she drew ever closer to her destination.

The entire Harrah's Casino New Orleans trembled in the throes of shockwaves threatening to raze it to its foundations. Finely attuned energy sensors, such as the laboratory equipment supplying information to the CLOTI on the Riverboat, would be able to differentiate the violent eruptions in the quantum field from the controlled waves and pulses of electromagnetism within the building. But to the passers-by on South Peters Street, and the casino patrons who had fled to the relative safety outside, the ceaseless thunder echoing from Harrah's was evidence enough that a metahuman confrontation was escalating dangerously within.

The largest gaming room in the casino, situated in the center of the building, had been brought to shambles. Several of the large plaster columns had been all but obliterated, leaving only jagged protrusions like broken teeth jutting from the floor and ceiling. Slot machines were overturned in heaps of twisted metal surrounded by shards of glass and brightly colored plastic. The air was charged, reeking with ozone mingled with the smoke of scorched carpet and melted paint.

In the eye of the storm of damage stood Major Force, an insane and malicious grin splitting his magenta alloy-coated face. His powerful arms were upraised, and bolts of solid black energy flew from his fists at Karnival and Valence, who were barely staying ahead of the deadly blasts. And the collateral damage mounted.

When they had arrived on the scene, Karnival and Valence had attempted a high-low approach, with Valence in flight and Karnival in his two-dimensional form skimming along the floor. However, the sheer profusion of objects in the room - slot machines, video poker games, wheels of fortune and the like - had prevented Karnival from sighting Major Force from floor level. Karnival had taken to the ceiling, but in order to see Major Force, he had been forced to draw near enough to be seen himself, and had been dodging quantum field blasts since. Valence had kept Major Force somewhat distracted, but the orange and magenta metal-skinned hulk possessed more field combat experience than either of the two young heroes combined, and was able to keep them both at bay. The unfocused illusions Karnival was able to produce under the circumstances, along with the few retaliatory strikes Valence had been able to make, had had little impact on Major Force.

Karnival attempted another illusory assault. He traversed the ceiling to one of the few columns remaining intact, sliding around to the far side. He waited for three seconds, calming his mind and then envisioning the gaming room. In his mind's eye Karnival pictured a riot of lightning bolts, pale bluish-white arcs of raw electricity forming a chaotic web that engulfed the entire room and enveloped Major Force. As the image took shape in his thoughts, it appeared in reality.

Major Force had been bonded bodily to an alien alloy in the heart of an atomic explosion; electric pyrotechnics did nothing to faze him. Assuming the display of power had actually come from Valence, Major Force barked, "Hey, Magna-Doodle, wanna bet I can throw harder than your stupid charge can repel?" With that he reached out for a nearby slot machine, adorned with iridescent "5 ¢", and hoisted it overhead.

"Stupid?" Valence repeated, rising higher in the air. "Who picked up a nickel slot machine?" Valence brought his hands together swiftly, and as his palms struck one another the slot machine exploded, fragments of the casing falling between Major Force's fingers. As the coins from within the slot machine converged in a cloud behind Valence, he added, "Who doesn't know that nickel is a magnetic metal?"

Major Force scowled; Valence smirked. At the same time, Valence willed the magnetic field holding the cloud of nickels to vibrate at high speed, and the air friction began to superheat the nickels. A moment later a stream of searing projectile slugs rained down on Major Force, who actually staggered backwards a few steps under the impacts.

The damage, however, was minimal, and after the last of the coins sizzled past Major Force raised both fists and unleashed a double-barreled assault of black quantum force on Valence. The blasts drove Valence backwards through the air, and he crashed through the velvet double doors leading to the Blue Dog Poker Room.

Major Force laughed like a gratified schoolyard bully, then called out, "And where'd you go, Crackhead?" He took a few random shots at different areas of the room, hoping to flush Karnival out; the dark quantum energy exploded a Keno monitor and vaporized half a craps table across the room. "Come on, let's play X-Files. You can be Skully ... and I'll be Murder," Major Force leered.

A felt-covered poker table flew out of the Blue Dog Poker Room and plowed into Major Force from behind, with Valence flying and pushing beneath it. Caught off-balance, Major Force was propelled forward, out of the gaming room and into the larger dining area beyond.

A block away from Harrah's, Hangfire's black cargo van screeched to a halt, and Pierce, Ember, More and Hangfire disembarked, hitting the ground running toward the casino.

"Can't believe we had to drive," Ember complained. "Now that Enigma's gone, Valence shouldn't be allowed to leave us hanging like that."

"You wanna try keeping that boy on a leash?" Hangfire inquired.

"Hmmm. Maybe we should build some kind of underground transport system. You know, high-speed tubes that take us back and forth from the Riverboat to little hidden spots in the city like phone booths or utility closets ..."

"Ember, I'm getting sick of telling you to shut up every time we're in the field," Pierce snapped.

"Of course we'd put secret codes on the entrances so only we could use them," Ember finished under his breath. More chuckled, helplessly.

Several police cars had converged in front of the building, and the cops busied themselves attending to the few casino patrons injured in Major Force's initial outburst and controlling the growing crowd. None of the police officers attempted to go near the casino itself, even as the members of Bad Blood charged up the front steps and toward the glass doors.

Several members of the crowd on the street recognized Bad Blood and the buzz of voices increased as all eyes followed the heroes through the entrance until they were lost in the shadows within. Yet none of the onlookers noticed a virtually colorless teenage girl emerging from the crowd, crossing South Peters Street, and ascending the front steps right behind Bad Blood. No one perceived the spectral form of Delaina Teague passing through the doors in pursuit of the arriving heroes.

Pierce led his companions through the wreckage inside Harrah's, arriving after a few moments at the now vacant heart of the maelstrom. Karnival rose from the floor before them, solidifying in three dimensions to stand before them. "In there," Karnival pointed a bony finger at the doorway to the dining area. "Valence shoveled M.F. through the doors a minute ago. Glad you boys could make it - I wasn't exactly getting stellar results against him myself."

"M.F.," Pierce repeated grimly, "Major Force."

"Is that bad?" More asked.

"Could be better," Pierce nodded curtly. "Unfortunately none of us has the firepower to really put him down. Containment's our best bet. Everybody just try to hem Major Force in, and keep the property damage somewhere below 'the roof caves in on us'."

"Is this Force guy that psycho?" Ember scoffed.

"In a word, yes," Pierce confirmed. "Everyone clear?"

"What are you going to do, hoss?" Hangfire asked.

"I'll think of something," Pierce stated. He pushed through the doorway to the dining area, followed by the rest of his comrades. Silently, Delaina Teague approached the doorway.

Several tables in the dining area had already been reduced to splinters as Major Force and Valence continued to trade energy attacks. The ceiling was much higher in the dining area, covered in a mural of a summer day's sky interrupted by antebellum skylines. Valence remained airborne, flying in loops and dives to evade quantum force bolts, while Major Force stood in the middle of the floor, shrugging off every magnetic attack Valence could offer.

The other members of Bad Blood began to fan out around the room, taking up positions to surround Major Force. Valence seemed not to notice; neither did Major Force. The barrage of quantum energies directed at Valence continued, until two black blasts struck opposite ends of a massive wooden beam that curved along the mural's surface, severing it from the ceiling. Valence was directly beneath the beam, and swerved in midair awkwardly to avoid a collision. Major Force paused just long enough to aim and fire a devastating bolt of quantum force at Valence. Valence twisted away but was unable to remove himself from the path of the blast.

Every other member of Bad Blood leapt forward as the dark energy reached its intended target. Rather than striking Valence and wreaking untold bodily damage on him, however, the bolt collapsed as if being drained away, at a point near Valence's right hip. A brilliant green sphere of light appeared in the same location, just before expanding at light speed to suffuse the entire dining area with intense emerald radiance that nothing could stand against.

TO BE CONTINUED ...!

MESSAGES WRITTEN IN BLOOD ...

Send e-mail correspondence to badblood51@hotmail.com

There's an informal group of Bad Blood fans who share comments about the series with me and with each other, and this message from David Sumpter came up recently:

Hey guys, I was just taking a look at this site (because I haven't in a while) and I just took a look at Bad Blood the Animated Series characters. Very Nice. I suggest taking a peek, if you haven't done so already. (Dale, you be quiet about that).

Well I can't be completely quiet - I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Sumpter. If you haven't already checked out all of the Animated renderings here at FDC, it's worth the time to click on over. Mad props once again to EiC Miry Arceneaux for putting them all together.

NEXT ISSUE: Fallout! Look for revelations aplenty as the dust settles around Bad Blood, and a series of events are set in motion that bring the team's past and future together. Don't miss the next chapter in the lives of FDC's all-original team!