"Wiping the dirt from his hands"
Issue 8

Written by Gary Dreslinski

Edited by Ralph Angelo

---

"Would you like some more tea?"
"No thanks, I'm fine."
"You're not actually drinking that are you?"
"I'm processing it through my system. Same idea, different mechanics."
"Fascinating."
"Wanna trade?"

The man who was born with the name Clifford Steele smiled and shook his
head, "No disrespect intended, but no thanks."

The man who was born with the name Clifford Steele, who's human form
was but a mangled memory on the scrap pile of life, nodded, "Can't
really say I blame you too much. I wouldn't wish this fate on your best
friend."

"Don't you mean 'on my worst enemy'."

The one formerly known as Robotman smiled, "I guess that all depends on
who your friends are now, doesn't it?"

Cliff Steele acknowledged the hit with a pained expression, "We find
friends where we can."

"You seem awfully good at making them I've noticed."

"Isn't that what you strive to do? To make new friends?"

"Personally I wouldn't have made them from voodoo."

"It's not even close to voodoo... these are processes I learned
from..."

Robotman held his metal hand up to stop his human counterpart, "Not
interested. Its all voodoo to me."

Cliff Steele shook his head, "Am I really this stubborn?"

"We've been this way from birth. Wouldn't think that a couple of
lifetimes in a tin can or being from an alternate reality would change
that would you?"

"I guess not."

"So, what are your intentions now?"

"Well, I thought I might hang around a bit, work with my new Doom
Patrol..."

"Not sure that it's a good idea," Robotman countered, "Having two of us
wandering around that is."

"Well, you're not planning on restarting DP are you?"

Robotman glanced over to where the succubus Leah was trying to hold a
conversation with his counterpart's Patrol. She didn't seem to be
having too much luck, other than with the woman who, for some reason,
they called the Geek. "I..." he started, giving her a small hand wave.
She waved back with a half-hearted smile and a wave. He looked back at
his counterpart, "I've been considering the idea."

"I would have thought you would be settling back into domestic bliss.
Maybe do a little yard work."

"That'll be nice, once I get the bastards that killed Dorothy... and
who are dragging the Chief's name through the mud."

"Is that even possible anymore?"

"Well, he stood for a lot more than he did at the end. There's still
those memories to take into consideration."

"I guess you're right. Personally, MY Niles Caulder died early on in a
battle against the Reese."

"The Reese? I'm afraid we never had one of those."

Clifford smiled, "You didn't miss much. A basic collective being that
went from one reality to another reshaping the lives of the poor saps
it came across. They pretty much gutted the Chief before getting bored
and moving on to something else."

"Easily distracted huh?"

"Very, which is part of what made them so dangerous. You never were
quite sure if they were just going to up and leave in the middle of the
battle, or stick around until you had to find a way to blow them to
bits."


"Must have been hard to take, losing the man early on like that,"
Robotman observed.

"Rita took it the hardest." Clifford replied, thinking back to the day
she had retired from the freak business and went back to acting. It had
been hard for all of them...especially after the "accident" on set that
had cut her Hollywood comeback short by a head.

After judging the proper two beats to wait, Clifford looked back up at
his metal counterpart, "So, how about we team up to get the people you
want, you then settle back down and watch some sitcoms, while me and
boys carry on the good fight."

Robotman shook his head, "Its not that simple and you know it."

"WHY can't it be that simple?" Clifford exclaimed, "Why can't we just
do this the easy way?"

"You know as well as I do that there would be repercussions of there
being two of us here for any extended period of time."

"Maybe - maybe not. The universe is a quirky place. Maybe we would be
one of the things it would overlook."

"Not very likely," Robotman countered, "You of all people should know
better than that. We Cliffs have a big neon kick-me sign on our backs.
No way the powers that be would ever resist the chance to get in a free
lick."

Clifford smiled, despite himself, "Well, maybe we could just help you
against these Cult fellows. Quite frankly, I'd like a chance to make it
up to the Chief myself."

Robotman hesitated, he looked into the very familiar, the very human,
eyes of the man who should have been himself. "Fine," he said finally,
"But after that, you need to put these... things... back the way you
found them, and go back to your own reality."

The man who was Clifford Steele nodded, "Of course. We give the bad
guys a lick they'll never forget, and then we all go back to normal."
he replied, not meaning a single word of it.

---

From Gotham, she could have gone anywhere... done anything... instead,
she found herself in Rhode Island, near the so-called "Justice Cave"
that had once served as the headquarters of the Justice League, as well
as the temporary home of the ones that called themselves the Doom
Patrol. It stood empty now, or nearly so.
She could feel the cold within... pushing the heat out of being around
her.

Killer Frost could feel the cold within... and greeted it with her
being. "Niles Caulder!" she called out to it.

"Gone," The Cold answered. "Dead."
"Impossible." Killer Frost responded, "He is the one I seek. He must
yet live."
"Of the cold now," the Cold told her, "He is with us, where the dead
have many eyes."

"Tell me where to seek him," she demanded.
"He is no more. No one is no more. Soon - all will be Cold."
"Everything is going to die then?" Killer Frost asked the Cold as she
stretched out her arms to embrace it.
"The Cold shall claim them all..." it boasted.
She smiled, as she absorbed the core being of the Cold into herself.

It did not scream, nor did it struggle. It simply went from one cold
and dark home...to another.
She submerged the being of the individual Cold, superimposing her own
unto its structure.
"Tell me," she whispered to herself.

It did.

---

Down the rabbit hole, and hang a left.
Bumpity bump bump bump
He sang to himself, a little. Once in awhile she would join in as well.
But not often. After all, it was serious business that they were
engaged in. Considering that their daughter was in the hands of some
whackos, Punch and Jewelee were in fairly good spirits. If beating
anyone who wouldn't tell them what they wanted to know within an inch
of their life and beyond would be factored into the criteria for being
in good spirits. Which for them was the case.
"I want my baby," Jewelee hissed into bystander's face, "Where is she?"

The elderly man didn't answer, so Punch hit him in the groin a couple
of times. Finally the guy starting talking - they all starting talking
in the end.
It was mostly gibberish with bits about "oh my god" and "psychos" and
random bits of screaming. But the message was there for those who cared
to hear it. Messages between the words, messages that were meant just
for them.
"Due west 2 blocks" one would say. The next would tell them south on
Roosevelt until they came to the big sandwich shop. The one after that.

Punch grabbed people at random, but every one of them had a piece of
the overall puzzle.
"Maybe they're all in on it," he suggested in a lucid moment.
Jewelee shook her head, "Someone's using us. But why us? And why now?
What do they want us to do?"
"Maybe they want us to find our daughter"
"Maybe they want us to make cheese"
"Maybe they want world peace"
"Maybe they want us to make sweet monkey love in the back of a hearse"
"Maybe they want to teach the world to sing"
"Maybe they just want us to keeping guessing"
"Maybe"
Jewelee didn't answer, she simply kept walking, her mind playing
hopscotch against a damn good stone thrower. Every other move seemed to
be blocked and she had to twist and turn to make the next free square.
No matter where they turned, Cliff Steele appeared to be one step ahead
of them with the baby.
Punch had asked around, even placed a couple of prank calls to the
local DEO office in hopes of turning something up. The only lead that
he had was with some guy called Robotman. Some claimed that he and
Cliff were the same guy, others said that they were in the Doom Patrol
together. Punch wasn't sure who to believe, so he ignored most of it.
The only one he really paid any attention to was that Fisk guy with DEO
who told him that the line was being traced, and that he knew exactly
who was calling and which phone was being used. Punch took that to
heart: it was good to have name recognition.
He did however jot down an address on a piece of paper. A piece of
paper that he promptly crumpled up and put in the bottom of his pocket.

An address that, through their process of hit and miss, or hit and hit
some more rather, they were fast approaching.

---

There was a time that he wished that he had never heard of the Doom
Patrol. A happy time, a time of great peace and understanding. One of
those moments of bliss that everyone wishes that they had and don't
truly realize until a couple minutes after they've lost it. There was a
moment, a real solid moment when he could count himself happy. The
moment that the Doom Patrol no longer mattered to him.
That moment seemed to stretch across forever. It seemed to end almost
the minute it started.
He wished he could go back there and enjoy it for the bliss that it
was.
But he knew that he couldn't.
He owed them all too much to stand by and let it happen.
He owed too much to the people who had given so much of themselves.
He was Danny the World, formerly Danny the Street and a fully
functional sentient being. More sentient, he liked to think, than many
of the beings that lived on him.
Surely more sentient than most of the populace of Earth, his former
home. But he owed Earth - and those semi intelligent beings that
dwelled there, the ones that would walk down his paths and never
realize that they were experiencing something special. They would never
even look up to see that he was trying to talk to them, that he was
trying to relate. He owed them something anyway. If nothing else, he
certainly owed the ones that knew what they were looking at. The ones
that kept coming back to talk to him, to get to know him not just as a
street, but as another member of the greater consciousness. He owed
them enough to at very least see what he could do to help stop what was
happening to his former home.

The alien invasion* - and, something else, had left its mark on the
planet.
(* Cold Armageddon of course! - GD)
Something was very wrong. No, not very wrong - VERY wrong. The type of
wrong that was putting a strain on the ecosystem. The type of wrong
that went right down to the crust. The type of wrong that would soon
spell the end of Earth as people knew it. That is, if they knew Earth
as a planet that stayed in one piece.

---

The Men in Mauve watched events unfold without comment. Things were
coming to pass, as things have wont to do. More to the point, they were
coming out according to plan. Pieces were in motion toward each other;
fates were being cast into die and being rolled across the sky in the
ultimate jackpot.
They tested the structure of the Earth, surely it was due to fall apart
soon, but the players were already heading into the wings and dress
rehearsal was long over.
They examined the beings of the Cult of Niles Caulder, watching them
fawn over the baby girl they called the Chosen One. Truly she was, but
for entirely different reasons than they thought. She was Chosen
because of who would pick her, not because of what she would become.
But then again, trusting any mortals to get universal truths correct
was perhaps too much to expect.
They watched as one of the Cult members picked her up from where she
had been placed, and took her to another place very similar in many
ways. Except of course the fact that this new one also housed their
holiest of artifacts - the head of the man known as Niles Caulder.

The Men dressed in mauve watched, waiting for the head to respond to
the newest offering brought before him. But it did not seem to notice.
Its hollow eyes just kept staring straight ahead, oblivious to all.

"He is pleased" one cult member proclaimed.
"He is displeased," another argued.
The head made no move to correct either of them as the girl who was the
Chosen One reached up and touched his decapitated self. He made no
sound as she ran her little hand up the side of his face, nor when her
fingers found their way into his long vacated sockets. Nor was it HIS
cries that echoed throughout the chamber as she giggled and through his
head halfway across the room.

The Men in Mauve watched in silence as the Cult of Niles Caulder stared
at their greatest artifact and mentor being mistreated by their Chosen
One, wondering how they would react.

For a moment, there were only stares. Until the laughter followed, as
they seemed to realize some great joke that only they could see. The
men that wore mauve did not understand mortal humor. Nor did they try
to do so. This was clearly one more reason to prove how right they were
to assume that it had very little to do with the greater workings of
That Which Was and Shall Be.

They turned away from the destruction of one icon and the building of
another to put another piece into play.

---

It caught his attention. He wasn't sure how it did. But it had.
A small crack in the structure of the planet. Small enough that it
could still be corrected, if action was taken. But big enough that it
could be deadly if left unchecked.
Ordinarily, he would have never bothered checking for anything unusual
in the makeup a planet that wasn't even his - and yet was.
He was Dr. Fate after all.
He stared at the crack, wondering for a moment if he should call in the
other s in the Justice Society. Mother Box chimed in the negative.
He trusted her instinct.
A little spell, that would be all that it would take. A little spell
and everything would be fine.
He started the incantation, never suspecting for a moment that it was
about to go wrong.

---

Agent Holland Golightly slammed down the phone. "She's still not
answering her cell."
His partner, Agent A. Kat shook his head; "They warned us that we might
not be able to get a hold of Chase once she took the field. Since she
left to 'check out a lead' she hasn't reported in."
The DEO agent nodded from behind his desk, "I know. I was just hoping
to save her the grief. From her reaction, she's taking this case
personally, and she doesn't know that she doesn't have to. She hasn't
seen the real lab results, hasn't heard anything that's come in since
she left."
"So what do you want to do? The Director has all ready set in stone
that no one is to go after her. He says that this is something Agent
Chase is to handle by herself."
Golightly sighed for a moment, waiting for his partner and friend to
get to the "but".
Kat milked the silence for a moment, before breaking into a smirk,
"BUT, I don't see any reason why we can't use the information we have
to launch our own recon mission, maybe we're just going out for some
donuts. If we just so happen to run into a certain agent, through a
communications mix-up of some kind, I'm not sure what it would hurt to
set her straight on a couple facts."
Golightly stared ahead for a moment, "Of course, Bones isn't the type
of guy who really enjoys 'communications mix-ups' within ranks. That
sort of thing could backfire on us big time."
"Should I go get the donuts or do you want to treat this time?"
"I got it last time. It's your turn."
"I know - but since you seemed to be so thoughtful, I thought that you
might just..."
"Screw what you thought and lets go get those donuts. We have work to
do."

---

NEXT: The end of the world as we know it.