The Shadow Knows! (Final Update 6/3/04)
- Thread starter The Shadow
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The Shadow
Hero
Lela said:
Yes, it does... But is this a comment on SuentisPo's sanity?
If so, I wholeheartedly agree...
The Shadow
Hero
OK, I have bad news, good news, and better news:
Bad News: SP is still sick. No game as yet.
Good News: We may still be able to make it up before next Tuesday.
Better News: He plans to come down next Wednesday for another marathon Shadow gaming session!
Bad News: SP is still sick. No game as yet.
Good News: We may still be able to make it up before next Tuesday.
Better News: He plans to come down next Wednesday for another marathon Shadow gaming session!
The Shadow
Hero
Due to unforeseen developments, I'll be without access to the web for the next four weeks or so. Don't worry, I will be back, and I will have some stories to post for you at that time. It may even be that I'll be able to get them to SP for him to post on my behalf, if he's willing.
Until then, have a great month. My apologies for any inconvenience.
It may even be that I'll be able to get them to SP for him to post on my behalf, if he's willing.Until then, have a great month. My apologies for any inconvenience.
The Shadow
Hero
Hey guys... Just stealing a few moments online to avoid keeping you in suspense. By all means reply to what you see, but I probably won't be able to reply for another couple weeks.
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[To quote the inimitable Bugs Bunny: "Of course you know this means war!"]
[And to quote the even more inimitable - and appropriate - Darkwing Duck: "Let's get dangerous!"
[Trust me on this, Gentle Readers - the Shadow's life is not likely ever to be the same again.]
The Shadow sighed and nodded wearily, acknowledging both Grace's wit and her part in their little conspiracy. "As I said, I think we should start with the former Legion-bodies in custody. It shouldn't be hard to find out what hospitals they've been taken to... and of course I can get us in to any of them. Certainly it will be safer than probing Matt directly - and it may give us clues of what to look for when we do." "Agreed." "How are you planning to soften Matt up for the probe?" "I've got a bit of narcotic that will hopefully take his mind completely off matters at hand." The Shadow nodded and added, "I've got some stuff that saps the will, makes someone more vulnerable to that kind of thing." "Oh. That'll be handy too."
"Where and when should we meet tomorrow?" It was Grace's turn to sigh. "Here, I suppose. And we should probably start early." (The Shadow gathered she wasn't much of an early riser.) "Nine?" "That'll do."
"What about Matt? Should we untie him?" She shrugged. "Do you consider him much of a physical threat?" "He doesn't frighten me much that way, no. Still... do we know that Legion doesn't include a martial artist in their number? Anything they know, he knows." "It's his mind that's the real problem. He's not getting out of there without kicking the door down... and if he can do that, a pair of handcuffs won't make much of a difference, will they?"
"I don't know..." The cloaked crusader examined the door critically for the first time. Surprisingly, it was solid metal and secured with two heavy bolts; it didn't look new. He asked, "Is this house yours?" "Nope." "What kind of room is that?" "A meditation chamber." "Those must be some meditations!" "Must be," she agreed.
They went back inside. The Shadow announced to Matt, "Feel the joy. We're untying your hands." Matt seemed more subdued than he had before. "Great. What happens next?" The cloaked crusader informed him candidly, "We're still working that out," as he removed the cuffs. Matt rubbed his wrists and asked a bit sulkily, "So you're going to keep me locked up in here, huh?" "For now, yes." "Hmph."
As he and Grace went back out, the sable sleuth noted quietly, "You know what this will look like in a court of law." She nodded soberly and started ticking off charges on her fingers: "Kidnapping, wrongful restraint, chemical assault... Have I missed anything? I'm sure a competent prosecutor can think of a few dozen more." "And, of course, there isn't going to be any physical evidence tying him to the kidnapping of the police officers." She nodded again.
"Grace... We are going to have to tread carefully here. Do you know what worries me the most?" Grace visibly braced herself. "No, what?" "What's stopping Legion from cutting a deal with OmniMetal? After all, to all appearances it's now what they'd consider a success!" She closed her eyes. "I really, really wish you hadn't made me imagine that." "I don't like it either, but we have to take it into account. Legion now knows what you look like. It's got a good idea of what I look like - and it knows I'm the Shadow. With OmniMetal's resources..." He let the words trail off. She concluded for him, "We'll have to avoid driving Legion into their arms, along with everything else." "Precisely."
"How should we treat Matt until we know what's up?" Grace wondered aloud. "Why, we make him right at home." That smart remark earned him another dagger-loaded stare. "Except for the locks on the door, of course," he amended.
Grace heaved a sigh. "It's late," she noted, "We both need sleep - it's after four!" "Yes. I'll see you in the morning." As he turned to go, Grace gave him a suddenly fey look, "Alex..." "What?" "Be careful. I've got a really bad feeling about this whole situation." The Shadow took a deep breath, let it out. "Do you get 'hunches', Grace?" "Sometimes, yes." "And is this one of them?" "Yes. Something is very wrong - something we haven't figured out yet." "I'll definitely bear that in mind."
With that he began the long flight back to the base. When he was about halfway there, he was heartened by Carlos' announcement over the commlink, "Made it home, sir." "Excellent, Carlos. Any mishaps?" "Nope, everything's fine." "Good."
But to his surprise, Carlos was lounging about casually in the gym when he emerged from the hangar, rather than at his station by the computer. "Hi, sir." "Hello, Carlos... is something wrong?" "No, everything's fine." The Shadow eyed the young man carefully. There was something subtly off about him... his posture? his facial expression? his tone of voice? "What's going on, Carlos? Anything to report?" "No. Are you OK, sir? You seem, I don't know, tense."
Tense?! With a rush, the Shadow realized what was different about Carlos - he was acting perfectly normal. Too normal. ...Elaborately normal? This had been a highly unusual and stressful night - and Carlos' first night in the field to boot - yet he was taking everything perfectly in stride. Carefully, he replied, "I guess I am a bit tense, Carlos. It's been a difficult night. Tell me, I've been wondering... why weren't you suited up when I came back earlier tonight?" The boy screwed up his face as if trying to remember something that happened weeks ago. "I don't know... I guess... I think I thought we weren't going to be going out again." "I see. Oh, and what did you do with the grenade and screamer you took with you on the way home?" Again that visible strain to remember: "Huh, that's funny, I can't seem to remem- oh, that's right, I put them on your desk. I think."
Very concerned by now, the Shadow swept cautiously past Carlos into the next room and picked up the screamer off his desk. With a start, he noticed a tiny flaw in its casing - a hairline crack that went all the way around. It had been tampered with. That tears it, Alex thought. Without turning around, he asked quietly, "Carlos?" "Yessir?" "Why were you waiting for me in the gym when I came home? You don't usually do that." "Oh," the boy said brightly, "I was hoping you'd tell me what we'll be doing next about Legion. You know, what the plan of attack is." "Ah."
With a heavy heart, he turned and said in a quiet, firm, weary voice, "Carlos, I need you to trust me and do what I say. Something very strange and dangerous is going on." Carlos looked puzzled. "Well, of course, sir. What's wrong?" Ignoring the question, Alex said, "I need you to turn around and place your hands against the wall." The boy's jaw dropped. "What?! Why?!" "Do it."
Moving with hesitant obedience, Carlos turned and leaned into his palms against the wall. Alex put a firm hand on his back, pressing the boy's weight solidly into his braced arms... thereby ensuring that Carlos would not be able to dodge or move away without amply telegraphing his intent. His other hand he rested, with a heavy heart, on his gun. In a voice starting to quiver, Carlos asked, "What's going on, sir?" "Carlos, I believe that your mind was tampered with on the way home." "I don't remember anything like that..." "How long did it take you to get here?" "About an hour, maybe an hour and a half." "It was almost two and a half hours, Carlos." Into the silence that followed, Alex continued, "You are missing an hour of time. And you are acting very strange." "You're acting pretty odd yourself, sir!" "Be that as it may. I have to know what has been done to you, Carlos. I have to probe you. Do I have your permission?"
The boy shivered violently, all over. "I don't know, sir. I don't like it." "I don't like it either, Carlos. Do I have your permission?" Carlos' muscles bunched and tensed, seemingly at random - Alex almost had the impression the boy was ready to fly apart, held together only by his skin. "I... I... don't know!" In a soothing voice, Alex said, "Carlos, I love you. I need you to trust me. This has to be done. All right?" In a voice raw with hysteria, Carlos half-shouted, "I DON'T KNOW!"
This is getting out of hand, Alex thought. He let the Shadow command in stern tones, "Calm down, Carlos! Be still." Then, in his own voice he added, "I'm sorry," as he slipped into the boy's surface thoughts. He got only a glimpse of raw-edged panic before Alex realized through his hand on Carlos' back that the boy was tensing to do something desperate. [Yes, that's right - an Intimidate check of **31** from an acknowledged authority figure didn't even start to faze him...]
Debating briefly on cold-cocking him, Alex made the heavy decision that his mental blast - unpleasant as it was - was less likely to do serious physical and psychological harm. Hating himself for it, he unlocked his shields, letting his internal rage, sadness, anguish flood through into Carlos' mind. The boy stiffened in shock, emitting a strangled cry, then went limp. Alex caught him and lowered him gently to the ground, whispering, "I'm so sorry." Meanwhile, the Shadow efficiently cuffed Carlos' hands behind his back. Together they carried him over to the cot and began the probe.
What he found there drove Alex to his knees, and the Shadow completely out of his awareness. Tears stung his eyes for the first time since Jennifer's death. For a moment he wrestled grimly with his shields; in the end he was victorious simply because there was no TIME to give in to breakdown, tempting though it might be.
Carlos' mind had been booby-trapped. If Alex had probed him while he was awake to realize it, the boy would have been psychically lobotomized; his body would have been a shell in a coma, his mind beyond reach - at any rate to Alex's skill - perhaps forever. The sheer sadistic ingenuity of the mental construct lurking hungrily in the boy's mind appalled him; he had no idea how to even begin unravelling the thing.
Forcing himself to the task at hand, Alex gingerly picked through Carlos' recent memories, on the alert for further surprises. Only an iron act of will kept him from weeping; the young man (my son, his emotions said) had been severely traumatized; he was not likely ever to remember the events of the last few days. (Including, Alex realized with a lump in his throat, their mutual confession of love the day previous.) There was no telling how much information had been gotten out of him, but undoubtedly a lot. "Legion will die," he muttered to himself almost like a mantra. "It will die in fear and..." Then, to his shock, he realized something new.
The mental rapist was not Legion. The signature was quite different from what he'd seen of it before. It was familiar somehow, though - maddeningly so. He'd dealt with this person before... who?!
...Christophilous? No, not the same. But a similar "footprint", a similar warped mentality. Very similar, in fact...
Alex closed his eyes, thinking back to that brief instant he had touched Christophilous' mind while Legion was being obscenely "born". Yes... the man was warped, psychotic, a mad dog, he... He had been manipulated by the same person!
With an emotion halfway between fear and awe Alex saw the shape of the evil before him. Someone had quite purposefully driven Christophilous mad! No doubt the man had contained the seeds of instability, but he began to doubt that they would ever have yielded such terrible fruit on their own. Legion had been... engineered. To what end?!
For a moment, Alex cried out inwardly to the God he had never been able to bring himself to believe in: Why?! How can such a depth of wrong be? But slowly, by degrees, he sank stunned back into the Shadow's iron awareness - though even the Man of Mystery was badly shaken by what had just been learned.
He rose, picked up the phone, dialed. "Grace." Her exhausted voice responded, "This better be good!" "Your 'hunch' was right. Carlos has been mind-reamed." She cursed wearily, then came fully awake. "You've got to get out of there! Now!!" Blinking, the Shadow realized she was right; he was more affected by all this than he'd thought. Though he doubted that even OmniMetal could penetrate Garrity's security, still there was nothing to prevent someone from waiting to nail him when he emerged. "Where should we meet you?" "Do you really want to say it over the phone?" "...Right. I'm coming over." "I'll be ready."
With difficulty, the Shadow managed with Alex's help to gently manhandle Carlos' limp form onto the bike in front of him. Alex held him close with one arm, an incipient lump still in his throat, while the Shadow flew the cycle.
For the second time that night, he joined minds with Grace in the telepathic sharing beyond words before even touching the ground. Her face was grave when he landed; she immediately laid a hand on Carlos' forehead. Alex sensed her doing something, and joined his awareness to hers. She gasped when she saw the construct, then her brows contracted in anger. He could feel the waves of revulsion coming from her as she cursed foully under her breath. "It'll have to wait for the morning. I'm sorry, Alex, I know he's very dear to you; I'm just too tired to tackle that thing right now. If I tried, I'd probably kill him." She did something else, then, and Alex could feel his son sink into a deeper level of unconsciousness. "He'll be out for a good long time, now."
She led him into the house, then into a guest room. Alex laid Carlos on the bed and uncuffed his hands, then rubbed his wrists. He took off his shoes and got him into the bed; remembering bitterly the time he'd done this before - the time he'd first recognized Carlos as more than just an ally. [In the short story "A Night Off".] Grace, knowing his habits, wordlessly pulled a large comfortable chair up to the bed. Alex sank into it gratefully and she let him be. He drowsed lightly there, holding Carlos' hand.
The irony of it all consumed him. He had sat up in the hospital, just like this, holding David's hand as he slept. The animals had hurt his son to get at him... Beaten him, taken pliers to his knuckles. (If not for David's healing abilities, his hands might have been crippled for life.) How could he continue to live this way, if it led the people he loved so well into danger and pain? Was it worth it?
But the Shadow, an almost-tangible faceless presence standing at his side, reminded him silently, Is there a choice? Tears trickled silently down Alex's cheeks. There wasn't. He was committed now. They would not stop until they were destroyed - nor could he simply live his life, knowing they were out there undestroyed.
At length he slept. But his grip on Carlos' hand remained firm.
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Alex flew awake when Grace burst into the room around nine. "Out," she commanded briskly. "What?!" "I'm going to start working on him. OUT." Alex cried out in protest, "Why!" Her voice cut incisively through his distress: "You don't have the skill to help me, and your emotional involvement will distract me too much if you try to observe. Now get out!" Alex meekly obeyed, pacing helplessly up and down the hall... he hated the lack of control involved in that, but at the same time he didn't want to stop... he didn't want to find out what he would do if he did.
Finally, after an hour and a half of eternity, Grace emerged from the room, looking a bit haggard. She nodded to him and told him what he was on edge to hear: "He's OK. I got it out of him." Alex let out a pent-up sigh; he felt empty, used up, when the air left him. "How is he... otherwise?" She took his hand and said quietly, "He's going to be very shaken up by all this. He'll need time to heal before you can rely on him again; and his powers are likely to be quite erratic. How long that phase will last, I simply can't say yet."
Alex closed his eyes, nodded. "How much memory has he lost?" "The last thirty-six hours or so." "Is there... any way of restoring them?" She met his eyes with compassion; clearly she knew which memories were on his mind. "Enough so he'll know what happened during that time - yes. In the full immediacy of having lived it himself... no. I'm sorry, Alex."
"Who has DONE this to him, Grace? At first I thought it had to be Legion, but..." He shared his theory with her, and her brows contracted again. "You're right," she said at last. "The trace isn't like those of Legion you've shared with me. And there IS something familiar about it, you're right about that too." She shivered. "Be glad you didn't fully understand that thing, Alex. It's... ugly. Brilliant, but appallingly ugly." "Yes... Is it just me, or is there a weird mismatch between the technical prowess at work here and the psychological ineptitude of it all? Carlos' act wouldn't have fooled a child, much less somebody who knew him well."
She nodded. "I've been meaning to get to that. This guy, whoever he is, is way too impressed with his own intelligence." "Good. It will make him easier to kill." "...Right. At any rate, he couldn't resist boasting to Carlos about how he'd tricked you." She blinked, then said, "Which reminds me - you need to destroy that box the screamers are in right now." "Eh?" "NOW. I won't have it in my house. There's a locator circuit in one of the hinges." Numbly, Alex fetched the box and disintegrated it (after removing the screamers) using a miniaturized version of Hal's infamous garbage disposal unit. Garrity'll never hear the end of this, he thought bitterly, missing that little tracker. Garrity.
"Grace... My entire network has been compromised! At least, I have to assume they are! Including the man who supplies me with technological toys." "It just keeps getting worse, doesn't it? You'll have to call him."
Alex nodded. "I'll do that shortly. For now... you were mentioning he's full of himself?" "Yes, very. Alex, he..." She paused, studying him closely for a moment before continuing. "He tried to break Carlos by showing him you were a mere mortal, capable of error. Since Carlos already knew you were mortal, it didn't have much of an effect." Alex, whose fists had clenched at the word "break", loosened them with a stern effort of will. In the Shadow's mild, dangerous tones, he inquired, "How else did he try to 'break' him? Did he use Carlos' own past against him?" "No. Just his relationship with you." That's a relief, Alex thought.
She went on, "Apparently he was under the impression that you were pulling the whole cult of personality thing on Carlos." Alex let loose a single bark of laughter at that, thinking of Carlos' cheerful impudence. "If I were in the mood for humor, that would be very funny." "Yes, well, he doesn't understand people nearly as well as he thinks he does. He tried to convince Carlos that you're a dangerous megalomaniac with a god complex... not realizing that Carlos had seen all of your own doubts and struggles."
"It's all of a piece with the act he forced Carlos to play - acting 'normal' when the situation simply didn't call for 'normality'. He did get one thing right, though." At her inquisitive look he pointed out savagely, "I am dangerous. As he'll find out." She nodded slowly, saying nothing. "Who is he, Grace? We both recognize him somehow. How do we know him?" "I don't know! It's almost a pity you shared your theory with me, I'm not sure which are my own suspicions and which are simply in reaction to yours."
"Well, it has to be someone in OmniMetal. Who else has a motive to look out for Legion? Who else had access to the case? Johnson? Torrance? Somebody else? You should be able to guess better than me, Grace - you said you'd probed them for sincerity from your phone booth." Grace thought it over, then her eyes flew wide and she paled visibly. She exclaimed, "He let me in!" Then she began to curse the man's character and ancestry in highly unladylike fashion, up one side and down the other; in another situation it might actually have been instructive.
"Who." "Johnson! He opened his shields and let me probe him, and I didn't even notice! He's a telepath!" "No. He's a dead man, still walking around." "He's played us like a HARP, Alex! He's been using us from day one! ... Do you remember how we both said, 'Is he for real?!' We should have found out." She shook her head in fury, then burst out - incongruously, after her language earlier - "Ooooh! He makes me so MAD!" In a voice gentle with malice, Alex responded, "'Mad' does not even begin to describe my feelings toward Johnson, Grace. I do not want his presence fouling my planet any longer. He is going to die. No, excuse me, I misspoke. He is going to die ugly.."
"Careful, Alex. We have to tread warily here - you said it yourself. Remember, we still have Legion to think about." "Grace, at this point, Legion is a side-issue." When she stared at him, speechless, he continued, "It's very simple. Johnson deliberately drove Christophilous over the edge. He created Legion. Who knows, he may choose to do it again - just to find out what happens. A man like that is too dangerous to be permitted to live. Legion, even at its most psychotic, will only kill you because it hates you. At worst, it'll make you join it. Johnson's worse."
She paid him the compliment of considering his words carefully at length before responding. At last she said, subdued, "You're right. What do we do now?" "You're asking me?" "Alex, I'm very good at putting minds back together, among other things. But I'm not a tactician, nor a strategist. You are." Alex nodded slowly, accepting that. "I know what we need to do, Grace. I just don't want to do it. I... don't want to leave his side." She nodded in her turn, still waiting for an answer to her question.
He sighed wearily. "First I tip off my network to their danger. Then we hit the hospitals, seeking any information that will help us know how to approach Legion. If we're in luck, Matt's actually on the level - maybe we can even cut a deal. If not... well, we'll decide what to do once we know." She nodded. "The phone's in the next room."
Alex dialed. "Hal? Shadwell. Listen closely: There's trouble, big trouble. Dangerous people know you work with me, know what you can do. You either need to head for someplace safe, or else fortify your house against attack. Do you have any defenses built?" "Well gee, Shadwell! I, uh, never thought of it before." "Start thinking about it - or else leave at once." "Wow, uh, I'll see what I can do!" "They'll likely be telepaths. Do you have any defenses against that?"
Hal replied breezily (now that he was back in his element), "Oh, sure! I sold a few hats for mind-defense a couple months back." Alex's jaw dropped. "You what?! To who?!" "Well, gee, now that you ask I don't quite remember. Why, is it important?" "Hal! I thought you didn't know how to block psionics! You said the screamer technology came as a surprise!" "Oh, it did! See, I'd never thought of beaming it before, that was a really neat idea! You just gotta adjust the frequency of the... Oh, never mind!"
Alex controlled his temper with difficulty. "Hal... you'll remember about the danger you're in? You'll get some defenses going?" "Well, of course, I wouldn't forget about something like that. Don't worry about me. ... You know, that screamer business is really pretty clever. I think I see some ways to improve it, though..." Alex sighed; the man's hopeless. "Goodbye, Hal." "'Bye, Shadwell... You've given me an idea for a new project..."
Alex hung up on him. The Shadow at his side shook his head.
[You know, it's a little strange. When I'm playing Alex, I'm not really at all in touch with what's going on inside him; I'm simply reacting to the events at hand. It's only when I come back and try to write it up that suddenly I realize WHY he said what he said, and did what he did. While I knew he was getting shaky mentally, I had no idea he was dissociating like this until I started writing about it.]
[So, Alex has had his first "psychotic break", as you can see - his first gentle little detachment from consensus reality. You know, the part that scared me the most when I wrote about it is that he didn't even notice it was strange - it felt natural. (Isn't that the essence of being crazy?) Still, while he's teetering on the edge, he hasn't yet fallen over; this is an episodic thing in response to extreme stress, not yet a permanent part of his mental furniture. What worries me is that I don't think it will take much of a push at this point for him to end up in La-La Land. SP and I have long since discussed where this could end up going, but I'll let you be surprised by it. (For one thing, I'm not quite certain myself just which scenario will end up happening - if any.)]
[Discerning readers will have seen something like this coming for some time, no doubt. If you didn't know, it is NEVER an accident whether I refer to my character as "Alex" or "the Shadow". Ever; it's always carefully thought out. The last session was only the second time that I've called him "Alex" while he was "in uniform". (When he asked Carlos if he'd be OK going back by himself, ironically enough. And the first time was when he and Hal opened up Christophilous' suitcase - given the chemical reagent bottles, I figured Alex-the-chemist would respond.) And notice that in this one, he's been suited up - hat and all - the whole time, and it just doesn't seem to matter any more. He switches between "Alex" and "Shadow" freely in response to events. That's another scary part, that may not have been wholly noticeable to anyone besides me. And... hmm. You know, I'm not even sure that he's been taking his psi-pills this last night... I'll have to discuss that with SP.]
[*grin* The one comfort I have is that I suspect Johnson will try to give Alex the push he needs, thinking he's being terribly clever... Not realizing something very vital to his own welfare.]
[Alex, you see, has scruples. You know, a conscience. (He talks big about Johnson "dying ugly", but he's really just venting.) But if the Shadow has any scruples, I haven't noticed them yet...]
By all means reply to what you see, but I probably won't be able to reply for another couple weeks.----------------------------------------------------------
[To quote the inimitable Bugs Bunny: "Of course you know this means war!"]
[And to quote the even more inimitable - and appropriate - Darkwing Duck: "Let's get dangerous!"
[Trust me on this, Gentle Readers - the Shadow's life is not likely ever to be the same again.]
The Shadow sighed and nodded wearily, acknowledging both Grace's wit and her part in their little conspiracy. "As I said, I think we should start with the former Legion-bodies in custody. It shouldn't be hard to find out what hospitals they've been taken to... and of course I can get us in to any of them. Certainly it will be safer than probing Matt directly - and it may give us clues of what to look for when we do." "Agreed." "How are you planning to soften Matt up for the probe?" "I've got a bit of narcotic that will hopefully take his mind completely off matters at hand." The Shadow nodded and added, "I've got some stuff that saps the will, makes someone more vulnerable to that kind of thing." "Oh. That'll be handy too."
"Where and when should we meet tomorrow?" It was Grace's turn to sigh. "Here, I suppose. And we should probably start early." (The Shadow gathered she wasn't much of an early riser.) "Nine?" "That'll do."
"What about Matt? Should we untie him?" She shrugged. "Do you consider him much of a physical threat?" "He doesn't frighten me much that way, no. Still... do we know that Legion doesn't include a martial artist in their number? Anything they know, he knows." "It's his mind that's the real problem. He's not getting out of there without kicking the door down... and if he can do that, a pair of handcuffs won't make much of a difference, will they?"
"I don't know..." The cloaked crusader examined the door critically for the first time. Surprisingly, it was solid metal and secured with two heavy bolts; it didn't look new. He asked, "Is this house yours?" "Nope." "What kind of room is that?" "A meditation chamber." "Those must be some meditations!" "Must be," she agreed.
They went back inside. The Shadow announced to Matt, "Feel the joy. We're untying your hands." Matt seemed more subdued than he had before. "Great. What happens next?" The cloaked crusader informed him candidly, "We're still working that out," as he removed the cuffs. Matt rubbed his wrists and asked a bit sulkily, "So you're going to keep me locked up in here, huh?" "For now, yes." "Hmph."
As he and Grace went back out, the sable sleuth noted quietly, "You know what this will look like in a court of law." She nodded soberly and started ticking off charges on her fingers: "Kidnapping, wrongful restraint, chemical assault... Have I missed anything? I'm sure a competent prosecutor can think of a few dozen more." "And, of course, there isn't going to be any physical evidence tying him to the kidnapping of the police officers." She nodded again.
"Grace... We are going to have to tread carefully here. Do you know what worries me the most?" Grace visibly braced herself. "No, what?" "What's stopping Legion from cutting a deal with OmniMetal? After all, to all appearances it's now what they'd consider a success!" She closed her eyes. "I really, really wish you hadn't made me imagine that." "I don't like it either, but we have to take it into account. Legion now knows what you look like. It's got a good idea of what I look like - and it knows I'm the Shadow. With OmniMetal's resources..." He let the words trail off. She concluded for him, "We'll have to avoid driving Legion into their arms, along with everything else." "Precisely."
"How should we treat Matt until we know what's up?" Grace wondered aloud. "Why, we make him right at home." That smart remark earned him another dagger-loaded stare. "Except for the locks on the door, of course," he amended.
Grace heaved a sigh. "It's late," she noted, "We both need sleep - it's after four!" "Yes. I'll see you in the morning." As he turned to go, Grace gave him a suddenly fey look, "Alex..." "What?" "Be careful. I've got a really bad feeling about this whole situation." The Shadow took a deep breath, let it out. "Do you get 'hunches', Grace?" "Sometimes, yes." "And is this one of them?" "Yes. Something is very wrong - something we haven't figured out yet." "I'll definitely bear that in mind."
With that he began the long flight back to the base. When he was about halfway there, he was heartened by Carlos' announcement over the commlink, "Made it home, sir." "Excellent, Carlos. Any mishaps?" "Nope, everything's fine." "Good."
But to his surprise, Carlos was lounging about casually in the gym when he emerged from the hangar, rather than at his station by the computer. "Hi, sir." "Hello, Carlos... is something wrong?" "No, everything's fine." The Shadow eyed the young man carefully. There was something subtly off about him... his posture? his facial expression? his tone of voice? "What's going on, Carlos? Anything to report?" "No. Are you OK, sir? You seem, I don't know, tense."
Tense?! With a rush, the Shadow realized what was different about Carlos - he was acting perfectly normal. Too normal. ...Elaborately normal? This had been a highly unusual and stressful night - and Carlos' first night in the field to boot - yet he was taking everything perfectly in stride. Carefully, he replied, "I guess I am a bit tense, Carlos. It's been a difficult night. Tell me, I've been wondering... why weren't you suited up when I came back earlier tonight?" The boy screwed up his face as if trying to remember something that happened weeks ago. "I don't know... I guess... I think I thought we weren't going to be going out again." "I see. Oh, and what did you do with the grenade and screamer you took with you on the way home?" Again that visible strain to remember: "Huh, that's funny, I can't seem to remem- oh, that's right, I put them on your desk. I think."
Very concerned by now, the Shadow swept cautiously past Carlos into the next room and picked up the screamer off his desk. With a start, he noticed a tiny flaw in its casing - a hairline crack that went all the way around. It had been tampered with. That tears it, Alex thought. Without turning around, he asked quietly, "Carlos?" "Yessir?" "Why were you waiting for me in the gym when I came home? You don't usually do that." "Oh," the boy said brightly, "I was hoping you'd tell me what we'll be doing next about Legion. You know, what the plan of attack is." "Ah."
With a heavy heart, he turned and said in a quiet, firm, weary voice, "Carlos, I need you to trust me and do what I say. Something very strange and dangerous is going on." Carlos looked puzzled. "Well, of course, sir. What's wrong?" Ignoring the question, Alex said, "I need you to turn around and place your hands against the wall." The boy's jaw dropped. "What?! Why?!" "Do it."
Moving with hesitant obedience, Carlos turned and leaned into his palms against the wall. Alex put a firm hand on his back, pressing the boy's weight solidly into his braced arms... thereby ensuring that Carlos would not be able to dodge or move away without amply telegraphing his intent. His other hand he rested, with a heavy heart, on his gun. In a voice starting to quiver, Carlos asked, "What's going on, sir?" "Carlos, I believe that your mind was tampered with on the way home." "I don't remember anything like that..." "How long did it take you to get here?" "About an hour, maybe an hour and a half." "It was almost two and a half hours, Carlos." Into the silence that followed, Alex continued, "You are missing an hour of time. And you are acting very strange." "You're acting pretty odd yourself, sir!" "Be that as it may. I have to know what has been done to you, Carlos. I have to probe you. Do I have your permission?"
The boy shivered violently, all over. "I don't know, sir. I don't like it." "I don't like it either, Carlos. Do I have your permission?" Carlos' muscles bunched and tensed, seemingly at random - Alex almost had the impression the boy was ready to fly apart, held together only by his skin. "I... I... don't know!" In a soothing voice, Alex said, "Carlos, I love you. I need you to trust me. This has to be done. All right?" In a voice raw with hysteria, Carlos half-shouted, "I DON'T KNOW!"
This is getting out of hand, Alex thought. He let the Shadow command in stern tones, "Calm down, Carlos! Be still." Then, in his own voice he added, "I'm sorry," as he slipped into the boy's surface thoughts. He got only a glimpse of raw-edged panic before Alex realized through his hand on Carlos' back that the boy was tensing to do something desperate. [Yes, that's right - an Intimidate check of **31** from an acknowledged authority figure didn't even start to faze him...]
Debating briefly on cold-cocking him, Alex made the heavy decision that his mental blast - unpleasant as it was - was less likely to do serious physical and psychological harm. Hating himself for it, he unlocked his shields, letting his internal rage, sadness, anguish flood through into Carlos' mind. The boy stiffened in shock, emitting a strangled cry, then went limp. Alex caught him and lowered him gently to the ground, whispering, "I'm so sorry." Meanwhile, the Shadow efficiently cuffed Carlos' hands behind his back. Together they carried him over to the cot and began the probe.
What he found there drove Alex to his knees, and the Shadow completely out of his awareness. Tears stung his eyes for the first time since Jennifer's death. For a moment he wrestled grimly with his shields; in the end he was victorious simply because there was no TIME to give in to breakdown, tempting though it might be.
Carlos' mind had been booby-trapped. If Alex had probed him while he was awake to realize it, the boy would have been psychically lobotomized; his body would have been a shell in a coma, his mind beyond reach - at any rate to Alex's skill - perhaps forever. The sheer sadistic ingenuity of the mental construct lurking hungrily in the boy's mind appalled him; he had no idea how to even begin unravelling the thing.
Forcing himself to the task at hand, Alex gingerly picked through Carlos' recent memories, on the alert for further surprises. Only an iron act of will kept him from weeping; the young man (my son, his emotions said) had been severely traumatized; he was not likely ever to remember the events of the last few days. (Including, Alex realized with a lump in his throat, their mutual confession of love the day previous.) There was no telling how much information had been gotten out of him, but undoubtedly a lot. "Legion will die," he muttered to himself almost like a mantra. "It will die in fear and..." Then, to his shock, he realized something new.
The mental rapist was not Legion. The signature was quite different from what he'd seen of it before. It was familiar somehow, though - maddeningly so. He'd dealt with this person before... who?!
...Christophilous? No, not the same. But a similar "footprint", a similar warped mentality. Very similar, in fact...
Alex closed his eyes, thinking back to that brief instant he had touched Christophilous' mind while Legion was being obscenely "born". Yes... the man was warped, psychotic, a mad dog, he... He had been manipulated by the same person!
With an emotion halfway between fear and awe Alex saw the shape of the evil before him. Someone had quite purposefully driven Christophilous mad! No doubt the man had contained the seeds of instability, but he began to doubt that they would ever have yielded such terrible fruit on their own. Legion had been... engineered. To what end?!
For a moment, Alex cried out inwardly to the God he had never been able to bring himself to believe in: Why?! How can such a depth of wrong be? But slowly, by degrees, he sank stunned back into the Shadow's iron awareness - though even the Man of Mystery was badly shaken by what had just been learned.
He rose, picked up the phone, dialed. "Grace." Her exhausted voice responded, "This better be good!" "Your 'hunch' was right. Carlos has been mind-reamed." She cursed wearily, then came fully awake. "You've got to get out of there! Now!!" Blinking, the Shadow realized she was right; he was more affected by all this than he'd thought. Though he doubted that even OmniMetal could penetrate Garrity's security, still there was nothing to prevent someone from waiting to nail him when he emerged. "Where should we meet you?" "Do you really want to say it over the phone?" "...Right. I'm coming over." "I'll be ready."
With difficulty, the Shadow managed with Alex's help to gently manhandle Carlos' limp form onto the bike in front of him. Alex held him close with one arm, an incipient lump still in his throat, while the Shadow flew the cycle.
For the second time that night, he joined minds with Grace in the telepathic sharing beyond words before even touching the ground. Her face was grave when he landed; she immediately laid a hand on Carlos' forehead. Alex sensed her doing something, and joined his awareness to hers. She gasped when she saw the construct, then her brows contracted in anger. He could feel the waves of revulsion coming from her as she cursed foully under her breath. "It'll have to wait for the morning. I'm sorry, Alex, I know he's very dear to you; I'm just too tired to tackle that thing right now. If I tried, I'd probably kill him." She did something else, then, and Alex could feel his son sink into a deeper level of unconsciousness. "He'll be out for a good long time, now."
She led him into the house, then into a guest room. Alex laid Carlos on the bed and uncuffed his hands, then rubbed his wrists. He took off his shoes and got him into the bed; remembering bitterly the time he'd done this before - the time he'd first recognized Carlos as more than just an ally. [In the short story "A Night Off".] Grace, knowing his habits, wordlessly pulled a large comfortable chair up to the bed. Alex sank into it gratefully and she let him be. He drowsed lightly there, holding Carlos' hand.
The irony of it all consumed him. He had sat up in the hospital, just like this, holding David's hand as he slept. The animals had hurt his son to get at him... Beaten him, taken pliers to his knuckles. (If not for David's healing abilities, his hands might have been crippled for life.) How could he continue to live this way, if it led the people he loved so well into danger and pain? Was it worth it?
But the Shadow, an almost-tangible faceless presence standing at his side, reminded him silently, Is there a choice? Tears trickled silently down Alex's cheeks. There wasn't. He was committed now. They would not stop until they were destroyed - nor could he simply live his life, knowing they were out there undestroyed.
At length he slept. But his grip on Carlos' hand remained firm.
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Alex flew awake when Grace burst into the room around nine. "Out," she commanded briskly. "What?!" "I'm going to start working on him. OUT." Alex cried out in protest, "Why!" Her voice cut incisively through his distress: "You don't have the skill to help me, and your emotional involvement will distract me too much if you try to observe. Now get out!" Alex meekly obeyed, pacing helplessly up and down the hall... he hated the lack of control involved in that, but at the same time he didn't want to stop... he didn't want to find out what he would do if he did.
Finally, after an hour and a half of eternity, Grace emerged from the room, looking a bit haggard. She nodded to him and told him what he was on edge to hear: "He's OK. I got it out of him." Alex let out a pent-up sigh; he felt empty, used up, when the air left him. "How is he... otherwise?" She took his hand and said quietly, "He's going to be very shaken up by all this. He'll need time to heal before you can rely on him again; and his powers are likely to be quite erratic. How long that phase will last, I simply can't say yet."
Alex closed his eyes, nodded. "How much memory has he lost?" "The last thirty-six hours or so." "Is there... any way of restoring them?" She met his eyes with compassion; clearly she knew which memories were on his mind. "Enough so he'll know what happened during that time - yes. In the full immediacy of having lived it himself... no. I'm sorry, Alex."
"Who has DONE this to him, Grace? At first I thought it had to be Legion, but..." He shared his theory with her, and her brows contracted again. "You're right," she said at last. "The trace isn't like those of Legion you've shared with me. And there IS something familiar about it, you're right about that too." She shivered. "Be glad you didn't fully understand that thing, Alex. It's... ugly. Brilliant, but appallingly ugly." "Yes... Is it just me, or is there a weird mismatch between the technical prowess at work here and the psychological ineptitude of it all? Carlos' act wouldn't have fooled a child, much less somebody who knew him well."
She nodded. "I've been meaning to get to that. This guy, whoever he is, is way too impressed with his own intelligence." "Good. It will make him easier to kill." "...Right. At any rate, he couldn't resist boasting to Carlos about how he'd tricked you." She blinked, then said, "Which reminds me - you need to destroy that box the screamers are in right now." "Eh?" "NOW. I won't have it in my house. There's a locator circuit in one of the hinges." Numbly, Alex fetched the box and disintegrated it (after removing the screamers) using a miniaturized version of Hal's infamous garbage disposal unit. Garrity'll never hear the end of this, he thought bitterly, missing that little tracker. Garrity.
"Grace... My entire network has been compromised! At least, I have to assume they are! Including the man who supplies me with technological toys." "It just keeps getting worse, doesn't it? You'll have to call him."
Alex nodded. "I'll do that shortly. For now... you were mentioning he's full of himself?" "Yes, very. Alex, he..." She paused, studying him closely for a moment before continuing. "He tried to break Carlos by showing him you were a mere mortal, capable of error. Since Carlos already knew you were mortal, it didn't have much of an effect." Alex, whose fists had clenched at the word "break", loosened them with a stern effort of will. In the Shadow's mild, dangerous tones, he inquired, "How else did he try to 'break' him? Did he use Carlos' own past against him?" "No. Just his relationship with you." That's a relief, Alex thought.
She went on, "Apparently he was under the impression that you were pulling the whole cult of personality thing on Carlos." Alex let loose a single bark of laughter at that, thinking of Carlos' cheerful impudence. "If I were in the mood for humor, that would be very funny." "Yes, well, he doesn't understand people nearly as well as he thinks he does. He tried to convince Carlos that you're a dangerous megalomaniac with a god complex... not realizing that Carlos had seen all of your own doubts and struggles."
"It's all of a piece with the act he forced Carlos to play - acting 'normal' when the situation simply didn't call for 'normality'. He did get one thing right, though." At her inquisitive look he pointed out savagely, "I am dangerous. As he'll find out." She nodded slowly, saying nothing. "Who is he, Grace? We both recognize him somehow. How do we know him?" "I don't know! It's almost a pity you shared your theory with me, I'm not sure which are my own suspicions and which are simply in reaction to yours."
"Well, it has to be someone in OmniMetal. Who else has a motive to look out for Legion? Who else had access to the case? Johnson? Torrance? Somebody else? You should be able to guess better than me, Grace - you said you'd probed them for sincerity from your phone booth." Grace thought it over, then her eyes flew wide and she paled visibly. She exclaimed, "He let me in!" Then she began to curse the man's character and ancestry in highly unladylike fashion, up one side and down the other; in another situation it might actually have been instructive.
"Who." "Johnson! He opened his shields and let me probe him, and I didn't even notice! He's a telepath!" "No. He's a dead man, still walking around." "He's played us like a HARP, Alex! He's been using us from day one! ... Do you remember how we both said, 'Is he for real?!' We should have found out." She shook her head in fury, then burst out - incongruously, after her language earlier - "Ooooh! He makes me so MAD!" In a voice gentle with malice, Alex responded, "'Mad' does not even begin to describe my feelings toward Johnson, Grace. I do not want his presence fouling my planet any longer. He is going to die. No, excuse me, I misspoke. He is going to die ugly.."
"Careful, Alex. We have to tread warily here - you said it yourself. Remember, we still have Legion to think about." "Grace, at this point, Legion is a side-issue." When she stared at him, speechless, he continued, "It's very simple. Johnson deliberately drove Christophilous over the edge. He created Legion. Who knows, he may choose to do it again - just to find out what happens. A man like that is too dangerous to be permitted to live. Legion, even at its most psychotic, will only kill you because it hates you. At worst, it'll make you join it. Johnson's worse."
She paid him the compliment of considering his words carefully at length before responding. At last she said, subdued, "You're right. What do we do now?" "You're asking me?" "Alex, I'm very good at putting minds back together, among other things. But I'm not a tactician, nor a strategist. You are." Alex nodded slowly, accepting that. "I know what we need to do, Grace. I just don't want to do it. I... don't want to leave his side." She nodded in her turn, still waiting for an answer to her question.
He sighed wearily. "First I tip off my network to their danger. Then we hit the hospitals, seeking any information that will help us know how to approach Legion. If we're in luck, Matt's actually on the level - maybe we can even cut a deal. If not... well, we'll decide what to do once we know." She nodded. "The phone's in the next room."
Alex dialed. "Hal? Shadwell. Listen closely: There's trouble, big trouble. Dangerous people know you work with me, know what you can do. You either need to head for someplace safe, or else fortify your house against attack. Do you have any defenses built?" "Well gee, Shadwell! I, uh, never thought of it before." "Start thinking about it - or else leave at once." "Wow, uh, I'll see what I can do!" "They'll likely be telepaths. Do you have any defenses against that?"
Hal replied breezily (now that he was back in his element), "Oh, sure! I sold a few hats for mind-defense a couple months back." Alex's jaw dropped. "You what?! To who?!" "Well, gee, now that you ask I don't quite remember. Why, is it important?" "Hal! I thought you didn't know how to block psionics! You said the screamer technology came as a surprise!" "Oh, it did! See, I'd never thought of beaming it before, that was a really neat idea! You just gotta adjust the frequency of the... Oh, never mind!"
Alex controlled his temper with difficulty. "Hal... you'll remember about the danger you're in? You'll get some defenses going?" "Well, of course, I wouldn't forget about something like that. Don't worry about me. ... You know, that screamer business is really pretty clever. I think I see some ways to improve it, though..." Alex sighed; the man's hopeless. "Goodbye, Hal." "'Bye, Shadwell... You've given me an idea for a new project..."
Alex hung up on him. The Shadow at his side shook his head.
[You know, it's a little strange. When I'm playing Alex, I'm not really at all in touch with what's going on inside him; I'm simply reacting to the events at hand. It's only when I come back and try to write it up that suddenly I realize WHY he said what he said, and did what he did. While I knew he was getting shaky mentally, I had no idea he was dissociating like this until I started writing about it.]
[So, Alex has had his first "psychotic break", as you can see - his first gentle little detachment from consensus reality. You know, the part that scared me the most when I wrote about it is that he didn't even notice it was strange - it felt natural. (Isn't that the essence of being crazy?) Still, while he's teetering on the edge, he hasn't yet fallen over; this is an episodic thing in response to extreme stress, not yet a permanent part of his mental furniture. What worries me is that I don't think it will take much of a push at this point for him to end up in La-La Land. SP and I have long since discussed where this could end up going, but I'll let you be surprised by it.
(For one thing, I'm not quite certain myself just which scenario will end up happening - if any.)][Discerning readers will have seen something like this coming for some time, no doubt. If you didn't know, it is NEVER an accident whether I refer to my character as "Alex" or "the Shadow". Ever; it's always carefully thought out. The last session was only the second time that I've called him "Alex" while he was "in uniform". (When he asked Carlos if he'd be OK going back by himself, ironically enough. And the first time was when he and Hal opened up Christophilous' suitcase - given the chemical reagent bottles, I figured Alex-the-chemist would respond.) And notice that in this one, he's been suited up - hat and all - the whole time, and it just doesn't seem to matter any more. He switches between "Alex" and "Shadow" freely in response to events. That's another scary part, that may not have been wholly noticeable to anyone besides me. And... hmm. You know, I'm not even sure that he's been taking his psi-pills this last night... I'll have to discuss that with SP.]
[*grin* The one comfort I have is that I suspect Johnson will try to give Alex the push he needs, thinking he's being terribly clever... Not realizing something very vital to his own welfare.]
[Alex, you see, has scruples. You know, a conscience. (He talks big about Johnson "dying ugly", but he's really just venting.) But if the Shadow has any scruples, I haven't noticed them yet...]
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The Shadow
Hero
This bit of character info on Carlos was originally going to be an email to SuentisPo, but I decided that it was likely of more general interest. There are some minor spoilers here regarding the Shadow's latest adventure (the one following the capture of Matt), so read that first.
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Thought you might be interested in some new character info about Carlos that has come up as I've pondered his current situation.
First, though, a question: During his time at the base, has he ever been sick? Sick to the point of being non-functional, I mean.
The reason I ask is that I don't think Carlos has any idea how to sit still and let somebody else take care of him. It has rarely happened before; and when it has happened, it's usually been a bad thing in the long run. This is so ingrained in him that it'll probably be hard to shunt aside; though it'll be easier if he and Alex have had this discussion before.
I'm getting a better picture of what Carlos' life was like in the Garcia household. They weren't the bottom of the barrel; there are family situations out there that are worse. But they were bad, and especially to the "whoreson".
You see, Carlos' function in the family was to serve as the low man on the totem pole; the one who wasn't loved, only tolerated. ("Because after all, he's blood." With the unspoken subtext of "Even if he is a bastard.") If Dad is drunk and in a rage, you can usually manage to deflect his anger from you onto the whoreson. If something gets broken, it's easy to put the blame on Carlos somehow. "He's always doing things like that."
If nothing works and Dad does let you have it, you can take out your anger on Carlos up to a point (mostly verbally) and know that Mom and Dad won't intervene.
Is it any wonder he joined a gang? Even apart from the sense of belonging it gave him, all of a sudden his cousins were scared of him. He had a certain power. Even his aunt and uncle (though this of course confirmed what they'd been saying about him all along) trod a little more warily around him, because they knew he could bring a gun home if he felt like it. This doesn't mean he was no longer abused, just that it was rather less gratuitous. Only when he, in whatever twisted sense, "deserved" it. Yes, in his eyes as well as theirs; he's been very slow in overcoming the belief that he deserves to get hurt when he screws up. Being around Alex has been good for him that way, though he still gets very anxious when he makes mistakes.
He also never really had a consistent space of his own. The cousins would always complain about having to share a room with him, so he got moved around a lot. This is why his spot in the base - his cot, a wall to put his pictures on, a place to put his clothes, a desk of his own to sit at and put his books on - is so precious to him. He really doesn't mind having that space open to view; he's used to that... and anyway, what's wrong with being observed by somebody who cares about him? That's the real novelty! (I have a feeling he doesn't like being enclosed, anyway - there may have been a closet incident or two in his childhood.)
Anyway, being sick was not a good thing to be if you were the whoreson in the Garcia household. It almost equated to proof of moral depravity. If he was functional - and lucky - he'd just be ignored. He'd get up and make something to eat (nobody else was going to do it for him), trying to be as inobvious as possible about coughing, sneezing, and so on. If attention was drawn to the fact he was sick, he'd get the lecture about how he useless he was, good for nothing but bringing home germs. (If other kids were sick too, somehow it would be his fault!)
If Carlos was sick enough that he wasn't able to take care of himself, his aunt would do it, under much protest. But that was really bad, because it would raise the accusation that he was "lazy", a drag on the family's resources and time, and that they really ought to turn him out on the street. If he weren't "blood" they would have done it long ago! There were a couple ugly incidents with his uncle inflicting little cruelties on him while he lay there, asking him if he still felt "lazy". Maybe if your arm is twisted a bit more, you'll stop faking and get up and make yourself useful, hm?
The result, of course, is that he would go to extreme lengths to get up and do whatever needed doing, no matter how he felt, or how ludicrous and unnecessary a sane person would see the effort. And since he's reasonably healthy (though his lack of sleep no doubt takes a toll, true), I doubt this is an issue he's had much chance to get reassured about during his time at the base. Perhaps not at all, or perhaps a little - but it's still an issue for him.
P.S. The other thing you really didn't want to do in Carlos' shoes was cry. This would draw down all sorts of unwelcome attention. The fact that he burst into tears upon meeting the Shadow the second time shows that there was inner upheaval of an unprecedented kind going on. You know, I just realized - one reason why their first meeting might have made such a huge impression is that the Shadow, bizarrely enough (from Alex's perspective) showed some sign of caring about him even then! After all, he didn't actually hurt Carlos in any way (the fear that'd been laid on him would have led him to expect it - he wasn't exactly acting in a way his uncle would consider "manly"), and expressed some sort of interest in his welfare. He even stated that Carlos could change for the better, even if he didn't seem to consider it likely. This was a new idea for him. (Plus, no doubt he had an indistinct precognitive idea of where their relationship would go.)
P.P.S. Heh. I just thought of a great line you could pull. Grace has been in Carlos' mind now, and of course she's extremely psychologically astute. If Carlos gets nervous about her helping him out, I could see her matter-of-factly informing him that she's a whore, so she's got no problem with him being a whoreson. "We dregs of society should stick together, right?" (This with deliberate irony, given her gracious manner and expensive house.)
P.P.P.S. Heh, I feel like Gandalf. I just realized that the whole dynamic with his cousins will influence how he relates with David, too. Talk about insecurity; he already knows what it's like to resent the "real" son. And worse, he isn't even Alex's "blood". His instinctive assumption will be that if David doesn't like him, Alex will "turn him out on the street". This may lead to a bit of obsequiousness; but on the other hand, if he's resigned to the possibility anyway, he might just cut loose and say what's on his mind. (ESPECIALLY if David gets mad at Alex in front of him. The sheer "ingratitude" and "childishness" of that, as he would see it, would outrage him.)
Finally, note that while Carlos never talks about it, he sometimes feels intensely guilty about the time he shot Alex. He knows Alex doesn't hold it against him, but still - "I could've KILLED him!" You can imagine that he takes his task of helping Alex get vested up VERY seriously. I don't think Alex realizes that Carlos still dwells on this at times, but Grace probably does; she may try to subtly maneuver that into the open.
P.P.P.P.S. Aaagh! I keep coming up with further ideas after I think I've finished! I'm wondering now how Carlos took the Shadow's interaction with Julio. Consider the similarities. Julio's a year older than Carlos is now, maybe less. He's in a gang up to his eyeballs, he's hit with the biggest fear of his life, spilling his guts with abandon. Yet the Shadow kicks him out of town for good. Sure, Carlos knows the reasons why, even approves of them. But... the subconscious is rarely very rational.
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SP answered my basic question the night after I wrote this. He says yes, Carlos has been a bit sick a couple times, but Alex quickly figured out he was really sensitive about it. We think that Alex's solution has been to simply announce that he could use a night off when it's clear that Carlos is the one who could use it. Perhaps he's done a little prowling about in the base's neighborhood on his own without Carlos being aware of it on those nights.
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Thought you might be interested in some new character info about Carlos that has come up as I've pondered his current situation.
First, though, a question: During his time at the base, has he ever been sick? Sick to the point of being non-functional, I mean.
The reason I ask is that I don't think Carlos has any idea how to sit still and let somebody else take care of him. It has rarely happened before; and when it has happened, it's usually been a bad thing in the long run. This is so ingrained in him that it'll probably be hard to shunt aside; though it'll be easier if he and Alex have had this discussion before.
I'm getting a better picture of what Carlos' life was like in the Garcia household. They weren't the bottom of the barrel; there are family situations out there that are worse. But they were bad, and especially to the "whoreson".
You see, Carlos' function in the family was to serve as the low man on the totem pole; the one who wasn't loved, only tolerated. ("Because after all, he's blood." With the unspoken subtext of "Even if he is a bastard.") If Dad is drunk and in a rage, you can usually manage to deflect his anger from you onto the whoreson. If something gets broken, it's easy to put the blame on Carlos somehow. "He's always doing things like that."
If nothing works and Dad does let you have it, you can take out your anger on Carlos up to a point (mostly verbally) and know that Mom and Dad won't intervene.
Is it any wonder he joined a gang? Even apart from the sense of belonging it gave him, all of a sudden his cousins were scared of him. He had a certain power. Even his aunt and uncle (though this of course confirmed what they'd been saying about him all along) trod a little more warily around him, because they knew he could bring a gun home if he felt like it. This doesn't mean he was no longer abused, just that it was rather less gratuitous. Only when he, in whatever twisted sense, "deserved" it. Yes, in his eyes as well as theirs; he's been very slow in overcoming the belief that he deserves to get hurt when he screws up. Being around Alex has been good for him that way, though he still gets very anxious when he makes mistakes.
He also never really had a consistent space of his own. The cousins would always complain about having to share a room with him, so he got moved around a lot. This is why his spot in the base - his cot, a wall to put his pictures on, a place to put his clothes, a desk of his own to sit at and put his books on - is so precious to him. He really doesn't mind having that space open to view; he's used to that... and anyway, what's wrong with being observed by somebody who cares about him? That's the real novelty! (I have a feeling he doesn't like being enclosed, anyway - there may have been a closet incident or two in his childhood.)
Anyway, being sick was not a good thing to be if you were the whoreson in the Garcia household. It almost equated to proof of moral depravity. If he was functional - and lucky - he'd just be ignored. He'd get up and make something to eat (nobody else was going to do it for him), trying to be as inobvious as possible about coughing, sneezing, and so on. If attention was drawn to the fact he was sick, he'd get the lecture about how he useless he was, good for nothing but bringing home germs. (If other kids were sick too, somehow it would be his fault!)
If Carlos was sick enough that he wasn't able to take care of himself, his aunt would do it, under much protest. But that was really bad, because it would raise the accusation that he was "lazy", a drag on the family's resources and time, and that they really ought to turn him out on the street. If he weren't "blood" they would have done it long ago! There were a couple ugly incidents with his uncle inflicting little cruelties on him while he lay there, asking him if he still felt "lazy". Maybe if your arm is twisted a bit more, you'll stop faking and get up and make yourself useful, hm?
The result, of course, is that he would go to extreme lengths to get up and do whatever needed doing, no matter how he felt, or how ludicrous and unnecessary a sane person would see the effort. And since he's reasonably healthy (though his lack of sleep no doubt takes a toll, true), I doubt this is an issue he's had much chance to get reassured about during his time at the base. Perhaps not at all, or perhaps a little - but it's still an issue for him.
P.S. The other thing you really didn't want to do in Carlos' shoes was cry. This would draw down all sorts of unwelcome attention. The fact that he burst into tears upon meeting the Shadow the second time shows that there was inner upheaval of an unprecedented kind going on. You know, I just realized - one reason why their first meeting might have made such a huge impression is that the Shadow, bizarrely enough (from Alex's perspective) showed some sign of caring about him even then! After all, he didn't actually hurt Carlos in any way (the fear that'd been laid on him would have led him to expect it - he wasn't exactly acting in a way his uncle would consider "manly"), and expressed some sort of interest in his welfare. He even stated that Carlos could change for the better, even if he didn't seem to consider it likely. This was a new idea for him. (Plus, no doubt he had an indistinct precognitive idea of where their relationship would go.)
P.P.S. Heh. I just thought of a great line you could pull. Grace has been in Carlos' mind now, and of course she's extremely psychologically astute. If Carlos gets nervous about her helping him out, I could see her matter-of-factly informing him that she's a whore, so she's got no problem with him being a whoreson.
"We dregs of society should stick together, right?" (This with deliberate irony, given her gracious manner and expensive house.)P.P.P.S. Heh, I feel like Gandalf.
I just realized that the whole dynamic with his cousins will influence how he relates with David, too. Talk about insecurity; he already knows what it's like to resent the "real" son. And worse, he isn't even Alex's "blood". His instinctive assumption will be that if David doesn't like him, Alex will "turn him out on the street". This may lead to a bit of obsequiousness; but on the other hand, if he's resigned to the possibility anyway, he might just cut loose and say what's on his mind. (ESPECIALLY if David gets mad at Alex in front of him. The sheer "ingratitude" and "childishness" of that, as he would see it, would outrage him.)Finally, note that while Carlos never talks about it, he sometimes feels intensely guilty about the time he shot Alex. He knows Alex doesn't hold it against him, but still - "I could've KILLED him!" You can imagine that he takes his task of helping Alex get vested up VERY seriously. I don't think Alex realizes that Carlos still dwells on this at times, but Grace probably does; she may try to subtly maneuver that into the open.
P.P.P.P.S. Aaagh! I keep coming up with further ideas after I think I've finished!
I'm wondering now how Carlos took the Shadow's interaction with Julio. Consider the similarities. Julio's a year older than Carlos is now, maybe less. He's in a gang up to his eyeballs, he's hit with the biggest fear of his life, spilling his guts with abandon. Yet the Shadow kicks him out of town for good. Sure, Carlos knows the reasons why, even approves of them. But... the subconscious is rarely very rational.----------------------------
SP answered my basic question the night after I wrote this. He says yes, Carlos has been a bit sick a couple times, but Alex quickly figured out he was really sensitive about it. We think that Alex's solution has been to simply announce that he could use a night off when it's clear that Carlos is the one who could use it. Perhaps he's done a little prowling about in the base's neighborhood on his own without Carlos being aware of it on those nights.
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The Shadow
Hero
Hey folks. Sorry it's been so long getting the latest Shadow episode up... SP's been deathly ill, and I've been harried beyond belief in my job - I'm a tutor at a university, and finals week can get pretty hellish! But now spring break is here, a blessed week-and-a-half of relaxation, and I thought it'd be fun to explain a bit about the Shadow's origins. (Note that there's an oblique minor spoiler about the Shadow's latest adventure in here - the one right after the capture of Matt - so you might want to read that first.)
As I think I've said before, the Shadow was my very first superhero character. I'd played D&D before, but that's it. Nor even that extensively, as I had no regular group to play with. I was introduced to Champions by the versatile SuentisPo, who I met my sophomore year in college - and though I tease him often, he's still bar none the best GM I've ever met, in any genre you care to name. (Except horror. Not because he's not good at it, but because he's SO good at it that people refuse to let him run it. Well, that, and the unholy light that enters his eyes every time he suggests it...) But superheroes are a favorite of his, and it didn't take long for him to convince me and Loren (a childhood friend of mine at the same university) to try it out.
I chose to emulate the "historical" Shadow for several reasons. First, well, I'm just That Kind Of Guy. When it comes to gaming, anyway, I'm devious, smooth-tongued, and sneaky - I'm not that way in real life, honest! (While I love playing wizards because magic fascinates me, I do a great rogue. In fact, my best D&D character of all time is a gnomish thief-illusionist named Thrimble... but that's for another thread sometime.) I've been a big Superman fan since childhood, but I just couldn't see myself playing somebody like him... A power set suited to my personality and habits was a must.
Second, I have fond memories of my Dad telling me about the radio stories he'd listened to as a kid. He was especially fond of "The Shadow" - though I've since found that his memory deceived him in a number of details. (It's ironic that many of my readers are much bigger Shadow experts than I am myself!) My Dad, for example, was the source for the "rare African herb" that gave the Shadow his power to cloud men's minds... an error that is by now so ingrained in the character that I keep it around even though I know it has no bearing on the radio hero.
Anyway, the Shadow has gone through a number of incarnations over the years... He's always been an Alex, but not this Alex, if you see what I mean.
Shadow I was thrown together with two other superheroes all unwitting in a short-lived campaign. He produced his first immortal line in that first scene... Bear in mind that he is the only one of the three with a backstory of crimefighting; the other two had either only recently decided to try it (the wizard) or had only recently come into his powers (the werewolf).
Picture this: It's a dark alley late at night. The Shadow is tailing a two-bit hood, hoping to get a lead as to his master's whereabouts. He's visible; I can't remember why, probably his mental invisibility required effort back then. Anyway, the other two PC's happen to be in the same alley independently, looking for suspicious activity.
At that point, SP rolls several handfuls of dice for perception and Shadowing checks (as you can imagine, I've gotten ribbed a lot about the name of that skill over the years... And yes, Alex always had a lot of it). When the dust settles, he informs me of what the Shadow is cognizant of:
The hood seems blissfully unaware that he's being tailed. PC #1, a scrawny little guy in a suit (the wizard) is rather ineptly attempting to tail the Shadow; he doesn't seem to be aware that the hood is even there. Meanwhile, PC #2, a burly guy in an overcoat (the werewolf) is rather ineptly attempting to tail the wizard. He, for his part, doesn't seem aware of either the hood OR the Shadow. Finally, the wizard, despite the werewolf's ineptitude, has no clue he's being followed himself.
The Shadow's response to this parade? "What is this, Amateur Night?!" (Followed shortly - after the howls of laughter died down - by the Shadow invisibly slamming the wizard up against a wall and demanding to know what the heck he thinks he's doing.)
It was also in this game that it was established that the Shadow was of a distinctly empirical bent; he refused to believe in magic, insisting it had to be explicable somehow. (This from a telepath!) The wizard PC hadn't been able to come up with a codename for his character; the Shadow dubbed him "Mr. Wizard" (after the old science show) and it stuck.
Anyway, that campaign only lasted a couple adventures... but I enjoyed playing the Shadow so much that I recycled him shortly after in another game. Shadow II was a sometime associate of a fairly conventional superhero group (he's not much of a joiner). He didn't really fit in with that sort of setting, but I had fun anyway. Major plotline: A villain named Nighthawk, a thorn in the Shadow's side, proved to be his long-lost younger brother. (Note that SP and I deliberately designed the current campaign with nostalgia in mind. Many of the intriguing facets of previous Shadow games have been allowed for here - for example, this Alex has a long-lost (half-)brother as well, who might conceivably be up to mischief.)
It was also in this game that the Shadow encountered his trademark villain, his nemesis: The mentalist known as Hexmaster. He was considerably tougher on the mental plane than the Shadow; it took all my wits (and the brawn of the rest of the group) to take him down. He was a recurring villain, along with his two henchmen, Mutater and Leech. (He had a third goon, a brick named Ogre, but he was never a real threat to an invisible mentalist.) The Shadow was very leery of them both - Leech, a drainer, was absolutely fascinated by the Shadow's powers and wanted to steal them. Mutater, for his part, with a little time and effort could shapeshift enough to spray choking clouds of uber-skunk musk around... being invisible doesn't help much against area attacks, I'm afraid. It got to the point where the Shadow would turn invisible at the mere sight of either of them and start maneuvering... which prompted Leech, that creep, to say, "Dang! Why's he so shy?!" I fully anticipate that SP is saving these guys up for the current campaign once some of the current story arcs die down - and I'm both eager and terrified to see how he'll do them in gritty modern fashion, rather than over-the-top four-color. (Think about it - a GM with SP's horrific bent could do some really nasty, scary scenes with a shapeshifter in particular. ... Er. I just realized. That barbed ape-thing might just pass for Ogre... Eep!)
Shadow III was in another short-lived but fun game. Loren (who had played the werewolf against Shadow I) was playing a mystical master of dreams. It was at this time that it was established that Alex was a scientist; his disbelief in magic became a firm characteristic. The two were quickly established as foils, arguing about this topic. (This is a subtext to Alex's ribbing Hal about the "magic" phone that outsiders won't have picked up on. You can bet that SP did!)
Shadow IV was, again, a member of a fairly standard group. Hexmaster turned up again, but the big adversary (not exactly enemy) of the group was Gravitar, who was basically Magneto to our X-Men. Well, him and the Purifiers, an anti-mutant group. The Shadow developed a distinct distaste for their combat robots; his invisibility wouldn't work on them. Memorable scene: We're trying to stop Gravitar and his gang from robbing a warehouse... Gravitar slams us all to the ground with his gravity powers and declaims, "Alas, the tragedy that my fellow mutants should oppose me, even when I try to rob the Purifiers!"
SP was a bit taken aback when the whole group said in near-unison, "This place belongs to the Purifiers?! Well, why didn't you SAY so?!" We did demand proof of his assertion, and his plans for what he wanted to do with the stuff he was stealing, but once we were satisfied, we merrily helped him rob the place. Gravitar became a useful contact for the group thereafter (he turned out to be the British ambassador to the US), although we did often have to oppose him in earnest. (I suspect, though I'm not sure, that this was where SP gained some key insights into what could be done with reluctant adversaries and friends whose interests don't always align with those the PC's. At any rate, those insights later blossomed into one of his finest NPC's ever: Amazing Grace.) Also on this occasion, the Shadow stole an energy pistol from the Purifiers, and was quite fond of using it thereafter - I think that touch of high-tech was what inspired me to create Hal Garrity later on.
At this point, the Shadow went on the back burner to simmer. I started playing a new superhero character, the Phantom (no relation to that silly guy in purple) who proved to be my longest-running PC ever (and in one of SP's longest-running campaigns ever), and until recently I would have said he was my "best". (Not counting an online character I played on a MUSH for seven years, a knight in Roger Zelazny's world of Amber - but that's not quite the same.) Years later, most of the gaming group was dispersed, save for the three who had always been the central core: Me, Loren, and SP. And we still wanted to game, but the dynamics of the smaller group sometimes proved a challenge that stretched me and Loren as players, and SP as a GM.
Anyway, we played a couple fascinating duo campaigns - one involving the Phantom and his friend Erebus (alone, rather than with the rest of their "Shadow-Force" group). I even had a couple short but very memorable solo campaigns with SP, that seriously stretched both our ingenuities. (We learned that one can get a LOT more into character development in a solo setting. There's no problem, after all, with one player getting all the attention! But soon we were in the mood for something new.
We had fond memories of one of the last campaigns of the full group - a GURPS Psionics game in which SP had experimented with a gritty, "realistic" modern setting and found that he was scarily good at it. (The group were psis on the run from the government, who wanted to control their powers.) Furthermore, the "Dark Champions" supplement had just come out, and SP was all afire to try it out.
Well, thought I to myself thought I, who would make a better Dark Champions character than the Shadow? He'd never really fit into a traditional four-color group anyway - too much of a loner, too much given to sneakiness and recon. And so Shadow V was born.
He was a new creation from the ground up. For the first time, I created a fully-fleshed backstory for him. (I'd learned a lot - both about him, and about gaming - since the time he'd gone on the back burner.) His wife Jennifer was detailed. His career was fleshed out. Perhaps most of all, I gave him a teenage son, David. Loren - an award-winning author - chose to create a character based off of one of his own memorable short stories, "The Fix". (Type "Loren Cooper" into Amazon and check him out - I promise you won't be disappointed. If you think I write pretty well, I assure you that he's completely out of my league.)
That campaign - for some reason, we usually call it 'the Shadow game', or sometimes 'the Dark Champions game' - was pure magic. One of the best I've ever played in. The Shadow and the Forbidden shared pathos, grit, ruthlessness, humor, and in the end, an abiding warm friendship - two extreme loners who managed to forge a bond. They complemented each other well as crimefighters, as well - the Forbidden is a truly frightening melee opponent, especially in a "realistic" world, while the Shadow can turn your brain to mush just by looking at you. (And worse, you can't even SEE him looking at you.
A lot of the power of the campaign flowed from Alex's sometimes-rocky relationship with David as well. Perhaps it shouldn't have, but it came as a complete shock to me when SP revealed that David had inherited mutant powers - super-strength and regeneration, among other things. (But, "David I" was not an instinctive fighter like David II is.) There were some very painfully interesting scenes in which David got caught sleeping with his girlfriend (not Twyla - this girl, Wendy I think her name was, has since moved with her family out of LA). Alex is rather straight-laced about that kind of thing.
Amazing Grace was a major factor in this game - and she IS amazing. You haven't seen her in all her glory, yet. And perhaps you won't any time soon, because the really interesting part was wondering what the hell she was up to, and whether she could really be trusted or not. She was a character that you just couldn't help liking, even though you suspected you probably shouldn't. She's courtly; she may be a prostitute, but she carries herself like a queen. And she's just plain sweet! She might poison your wine, but you'd enjoy her company while you drank it. She's like that.
The Shadow's first meeting with her was hilarious - to me, not to him. He was investigating an organized crime ring, and suspected that she was involved somehow. (He had no idea at this point that she was a telepath too.) He's skulking about her house, and comes upon her typing away at her computer. So he tries to slip into her mind... and she notices.
"Well well, who's there?" SP rolled way too many dice of Mind Control, and it seized the Shadow hard. (Her abilities work much better on men than on women.) She gently extracted from him his codename and his purpose for being there, but didn't pry into anything else. (That would be rude.) Except for one thing. "Since you're in my home uninvited, I think it's only fair that you take off your mask. Don't you agree?" Yes, she managed to force Alex to show his real face to her. "Thank you. It's been a pleasure to make your acquaintance, and do come again... though you can knock like a civilized person next time, all right?"
It was strangely inoffensive, because both I and the Shadow knew perfectly well that she could have done a lot worse to him. She became an on-and-off contact for the Shadow and the Forbidden. And to give you an idea of how inimitable she was, when a shapeshifter impersonated her, the two of them saw through the disguise right away. The shifter had her physical form down, but just couldn't pull off her sense of style; she was tawdry, overdone, rather than, well, graceful. I think it's a supreme compliment to a GM, frankly, when your players can tell when one of your NPC's is being impersonated without any obvious clues!
Unfortunately, the campaign came to a crashing halt when SP made a fatal misstep - he dangled Rose in front of the Forbidden. Alas, John had no other motive for fighting crime than his life-hunger. We had a final climactic adventure in which David was kidnapped and tortured, which drove Alex into a killing frenzy. (There was no mercy. None. N-o-n-e. He is NOT a guy you want to make really mad, as Johnson is gonna find out.) Grace was instrumental in locating him and helping us recover him; and she sat up with him for hours in the hospital. But in the end, John shook hands with Alex and wished him a good life, then fled with Rose into the Sierra Nevada. He'd never once mentioned the Council; that was all backstory.
SP and I did a scene between Alex and David over the whole Shadow 'night life' thing, but didn't have the heart to continue the game without the Forbidden. The group moved on to other things... mostly we got consumed with work and the other tedia of real life. (Except for SP, who has the good forture to live with four other gamers, the lucky dog!) Occasionally we got together for a one-off, but that was it.
Fast forward several years. My gaming starvation was reaching epic proportions. (I'd given up MUSHing a couple years previous as it was just plain too addictive.) D&D 3e came out and the three of us discussed it excitedly - it reawakened a lot of nostalgia for the old days. (We'd given up on D&D out of contempt for the system, or rather the lack of a system. d20 was something of a revelation.) But none of us had time to do anything about it. (The three of us did make a point of going out together to see the Shadow movie when it came out, though, for old times' sake.)
Then Loren discovered Mutants & Masterminds, and loaned the book to us. We were in awe. Champions the way it should have been from the beginning! Simple, elegant, flexible, masterfully done. We just had to do SOMETHING. What? Well, Loren ran one fun game of M&M, but hasn't had time since to continue it.
Finally, SP got a new cell phone account that gave him free minutes in the evening. He offered me a solo game in the evening, one night a week. I leapt at the chance. We agreed we wanted to play M&M. What setting? We agreed further that we were getting really nostalgic for some of our old games. SP: "I'll give you a choice. We can revive the Shadow game, or one of our old solo games." Well, I just had to play the Shadow again.
Shadow VI proved remarkably easy to design in M&M. Champions had always strained at handling mental invisibility; it was doable, but it just never felt right. With M&M, it was a breeze! (And had the happy side effect of also easily expanding Alex's power to make other people and things invisible too, as well as letting anyone he wanted see through the illusion - which had been a problem in the old days. We chalked this up to growing experience since the Forbidden left.) But as I wrote up his background, I had the itching sense that I was missing a piece to the puzzle. What made Alex tick? Why was he the way he was?
It came to me in a flash of blinding insight. I suddenly realized that Alex was not in control of his powers. Never had been. He put up a good simulation of controlling them, but really he was only containing their raging power, thinning his shields selectively to let them rush out on someone else. Why, though? It was clear that this had been shaping his entire life since childhood - it explained why he was so stiff, so formal, so reserved. Why should he be so out-of-control, though, when other telepaths like Grace were not? Partly, no doubt, because he'd had a really hard life. But that couldn't be the whole story.
The next insight was when I remembered how sickle-cell anemia works, as well as other genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis. Having one sickle-cell gene is actually good for you; that's why it persists in the population, otherwise it'd die out quickly. It's having two that's deadly. Thus I came to write the "Genetics of Psionics" - which also showed me that Alex had to be sitting on a raging volcano of power. He had to be a really good and strong man, despite his obvious crotchets, to contain it without being destroyed by it. That, and... Of course. Jennifer must have been immune to the vibes that had alienated him from his peers. What did that say about David? And so on... by that point, Alex's father's powers (and their psychological effect on him) wrote themselves. (SP's dictum that the new Shadow universe had only psi powers inborn helped here.)
The next blinding insight was that Alex had been changed by his time with the Forbidden. He was no longer content to be a loner; he wanted company. Plus, the original game had taught me that having reliable information sources was a must. The M&M "Minions" feat beckoned. So did the "Sidekick" feat.
But the juices didn't really flow until I took those ideas and put them together with an idea for a character who'd been knocking around in my head for a long time. A scrappy Mexican kid with a good heart, named Carlos.
Carlos was originally intended as a "sidekick" of sorts for a online character of mine, an elderly Dominican priest on EndlessMUSH with mystical powers. Brother Jordan was merry, wise, insightful, fun to be around... and 800 years old, though he didn't tend to mention that much. Anyway, Brother Jordan befriended a college student in the California university town the MUSH was centered on, and the player and I hit it off. I'd already been thinking that Brother Jordan needed a foil, and the idea of Carlos was born... I suggested it to this other player, he really liked the idea (he turned out to be Brazilian in real life, and said he'd never actually played a Latino character and was looking forward to it), but unfortunately it never came off; he had to leave the MUSH, which shortly thereafter fell apart.
The original Carlos was a homeless street rat of about twelve. He had an innate gift for seeing to the heart of things, which was why he loved Brother Jordan on first sight. (Jordan was a bulwark against the supernatural forces of evil.) Suddenly I realized that gift could have an interesting interplay with a guy who could turn invisible. And... that if I made him a few years older, I could introduce some really powerful dynamics of jealousy and insecurity with respect to David, as well as exploring just what "family" means to a guy who can read minds. From there, the idea of him being a gang member was completely inevitable; his story wrote itself.
Once I had that much, I produced the rest of the campaign material in a creative frenzy. Isn't it great when stuff flows out of you like that? I don't think I have EVER created so many interesting NPC's in so little time - and I wasn't even the GM! I think I'm proudest of Hal Garrity - I must have really hit a nerve, because when I described him to SP, he instantly caught on to the bizarre ways the guy's mind works. The way SP plays him is EXACTLY how I envisioned him from the beginning. I'm also very proud of Maria Volanti, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of her.
SP also does an incredibly fine job with Carlos - the only exception being he (SP) knows no Spanish, and so doesn't pepper in a few words and phrases the way I did in "A Night Off". Also we haven't really developed the banter angle as much as I would've liked, but heck - it's not like they haven't had PLENTY on their minds lately!
The final crowning touches came in "A Night Off", which taught me a lot about Alex that I hadn't yet known. I learned he likes to cook, and is good at it. I learned that Alex's heart has unexpected depths of love, but that he's terrified of hurting the ones he loves. And I learned how badly he needs boundaries between his Alex-life and his Shadow-life. The hat on the banister knob became the symbol of his need to separate the two lives, and a warning of the consequences of mixing them. I learned that the drug he uses is not really necessary, but purely psychosomatic - a crutch to let him believe that he's just an ordinary guy in his "real life".
The rest you know. It's been quite a ride, hasn't it?
As I think I've said before, the Shadow was my very first superhero character. I'd played D&D before, but that's it. Nor even that extensively, as I had no regular group to play with. I was introduced to Champions by the versatile SuentisPo, who I met my sophomore year in college - and though I tease him often, he's still bar none the best GM I've ever met, in any genre you care to name. (Except horror. Not because he's not good at it, but because he's SO good at it that people refuse to let him run it. Well, that, and the unholy light that enters his eyes every time he suggests it...) But superheroes are a favorite of his, and it didn't take long for him to convince me and Loren (a childhood friend of mine at the same university) to try it out.
I chose to emulate the "historical" Shadow for several reasons. First, well, I'm just That Kind Of Guy.
When it comes to gaming, anyway, I'm devious, smooth-tongued, and sneaky - I'm not that way in real life, honest! (While I love playing wizards because magic fascinates me, I do a great rogue. In fact, my best D&D character of all time is a gnomish thief-illusionist named Thrimble... but that's for another thread sometime.) I've been a big Superman fan since childhood, but I just couldn't see myself playing somebody like him... A power set suited to my personality and habits was a must.Second, I have fond memories of my Dad telling me about the radio stories he'd listened to as a kid. He was especially fond of "The Shadow" - though I've since found that his memory deceived him in a number of details. (It's ironic that many of my readers are much bigger Shadow experts than I am myself!) My Dad, for example, was the source for the "rare African herb" that gave the Shadow his power to cloud men's minds... an error that is by now so ingrained in the character that I keep it around even though I know it has no bearing on the radio hero.
Anyway, the Shadow has gone through a number of incarnations over the years... He's always been an Alex, but not this Alex, if you see what I mean.
Shadow I was thrown together with two other superheroes all unwitting in a short-lived campaign. He produced his first immortal line in that first scene... Bear in mind that he is the only one of the three with a backstory of crimefighting; the other two had either only recently decided to try it (the wizard) or had only recently come into his powers (the werewolf).
Picture this: It's a dark alley late at night. The Shadow is tailing a two-bit hood, hoping to get a lead as to his master's whereabouts. He's visible; I can't remember why, probably his mental invisibility required effort back then. Anyway, the other two PC's happen to be in the same alley independently, looking for suspicious activity.
At that point, SP rolls several handfuls of dice for perception and Shadowing checks (as you can imagine, I've gotten ribbed a lot about the name of that skill over the years... And yes, Alex always had a lot of it). When the dust settles, he informs me of what the Shadow is cognizant of:
The hood seems blissfully unaware that he's being tailed. PC #1, a scrawny little guy in a suit (the wizard) is rather ineptly attempting to tail the Shadow; he doesn't seem to be aware that the hood is even there. Meanwhile, PC #2, a burly guy in an overcoat (the werewolf) is rather ineptly attempting to tail the wizard. He, for his part, doesn't seem aware of either the hood OR the Shadow. Finally, the wizard, despite the werewolf's ineptitude, has no clue he's being followed himself.
The Shadow's response to this parade? "What is this, Amateur Night?!" (Followed shortly - after the howls of laughter died down - by the Shadow invisibly slamming the wizard up against a wall and demanding to know what the heck he thinks he's doing.)
It was also in this game that it was established that the Shadow was of a distinctly empirical bent; he refused to believe in magic, insisting it had to be explicable somehow. (This from a telepath!) The wizard PC hadn't been able to come up with a codename for his character; the Shadow dubbed him "Mr. Wizard" (after the old science show) and it stuck.
Anyway, that campaign only lasted a couple adventures... but I enjoyed playing the Shadow so much that I recycled him shortly after in another game. Shadow II was a sometime associate of a fairly conventional superhero group (he's not much of a joiner). He didn't really fit in with that sort of setting, but I had fun anyway. Major plotline: A villain named Nighthawk, a thorn in the Shadow's side, proved to be his long-lost younger brother. (Note that SP and I deliberately designed the current campaign with nostalgia in mind. Many of the intriguing facets of previous Shadow games have been allowed for here - for example, this Alex has a long-lost (half-)brother as well, who might conceivably be up to mischief.)
It was also in this game that the Shadow encountered his trademark villain, his nemesis: The mentalist known as Hexmaster. He was considerably tougher on the mental plane than the Shadow; it took all my wits (and the brawn of the rest of the group) to take him down. He was a recurring villain, along with his two henchmen, Mutater and Leech. (He had a third goon, a brick named Ogre, but he was never a real threat to an invisible mentalist.) The Shadow was very leery of them both - Leech, a drainer, was absolutely fascinated by the Shadow's powers and wanted to steal them. Mutater, for his part, with a little time and effort could shapeshift enough to spray choking clouds of uber-skunk musk around... being invisible doesn't help much against area attacks, I'm afraid. It got to the point where the Shadow would turn invisible at the mere sight of either of them and start maneuvering... which prompted Leech, that creep, to say, "Dang! Why's he so shy?!"
I fully anticipate that SP is saving these guys up for the current campaign once some of the current story arcs die down - and I'm both eager and terrified to see how he'll do them in gritty modern fashion, rather than over-the-top four-color. (Think about it - a GM with SP's horrific bent could do some really nasty, scary scenes with a shapeshifter in particular. ... Er. I just realized. That barbed ape-thing might just pass for Ogre... Eep!)Shadow III was in another short-lived but fun game. Loren (who had played the werewolf against Shadow I) was playing a mystical master of dreams. It was at this time that it was established that Alex was a scientist; his disbelief in magic became a firm characteristic. The two were quickly established as foils, arguing about this topic. (This is a subtext to Alex's ribbing Hal about the "magic" phone that outsiders won't have picked up on. You can bet that SP did!)
Shadow IV was, again, a member of a fairly standard group. Hexmaster turned up again, but the big adversary (not exactly enemy) of the group was Gravitar, who was basically Magneto to our X-Men. Well, him and the Purifiers, an anti-mutant group. The Shadow developed a distinct distaste for their combat robots; his invisibility wouldn't work on them. Memorable scene: We're trying to stop Gravitar and his gang from robbing a warehouse... Gravitar slams us all to the ground with his gravity powers and declaims, "Alas, the tragedy that my fellow mutants should oppose me, even when I try to rob the Purifiers!"
SP was a bit taken aback when the whole group said in near-unison, "This place belongs to the Purifiers?! Well, why didn't you SAY so?!"
We did demand proof of his assertion, and his plans for what he wanted to do with the stuff he was stealing, but once we were satisfied, we merrily helped him rob the place. Gravitar became a useful contact for the group thereafter (he turned out to be the British ambassador to the US), although we did often have to oppose him in earnest. (I suspect, though I'm not sure, that this was where SP gained some key insights into what could be done with reluctant adversaries and friends whose interests don't always align with those the PC's. At any rate, those insights later blossomed into one of his finest NPC's ever: Amazing Grace.) Also on this occasion, the Shadow stole an energy pistol from the Purifiers, and was quite fond of using it thereafter - I think that touch of high-tech was what inspired me to create Hal Garrity later on.At this point, the Shadow went on the back burner to simmer. I started playing a new superhero character, the Phantom (no relation to that silly guy in purple) who proved to be my longest-running PC ever (and in one of SP's longest-running campaigns ever), and until recently I would have said he was my "best". (Not counting an online character I played on a MUSH for seven years, a knight in Roger Zelazny's world of Amber - but that's not quite the same.) Years later, most of the gaming group was dispersed, save for the three who had always been the central core: Me, Loren, and SP. And we still wanted to game, but the dynamics of the smaller group sometimes proved a challenge that stretched me and Loren as players, and SP as a GM.
Anyway, we played a couple fascinating duo campaigns - one involving the Phantom and his friend Erebus (alone, rather than with the rest of their "Shadow-Force" group). I even had a couple short but very memorable solo campaigns with SP, that seriously stretched both our ingenuities. (We learned that one can get a LOT more into character development in a solo setting. There's no problem, after all, with one player getting all the attention!
But soon we were in the mood for something new.We had fond memories of one of the last campaigns of the full group - a GURPS Psionics game in which SP had experimented with a gritty, "realistic" modern setting and found that he was scarily good at it. (The group were psis on the run from the government, who wanted to control their powers.) Furthermore, the "Dark Champions" supplement had just come out, and SP was all afire to try it out.
Well, thought I to myself thought I, who would make a better Dark Champions character than the Shadow? He'd never really fit into a traditional four-color group anyway - too much of a loner, too much given to sneakiness and recon. And so Shadow V was born.
He was a new creation from the ground up. For the first time, I created a fully-fleshed backstory for him. (I'd learned a lot - both about him, and about gaming - since the time he'd gone on the back burner.) His wife Jennifer was detailed. His career was fleshed out. Perhaps most of all, I gave him a teenage son, David. Loren - an award-winning author - chose to create a character based off of one of his own memorable short stories, "The Fix". (Type "Loren Cooper" into Amazon and check him out - I promise you won't be disappointed. If you think I write pretty well, I assure you that he's completely out of my league.)
That campaign - for some reason, we usually call it 'the Shadow game', or sometimes 'the Dark Champions game' - was pure magic. One of the best I've ever played in. The Shadow and the Forbidden shared pathos, grit, ruthlessness, humor, and in the end, an abiding warm friendship - two extreme loners who managed to forge a bond. They complemented each other well as crimefighters, as well - the Forbidden is a truly frightening melee opponent, especially in a "realistic" world, while the Shadow can turn your brain to mush just by looking at you. (And worse, you can't even SEE him looking at you.
A lot of the power of the campaign flowed from Alex's sometimes-rocky relationship with David as well. Perhaps it shouldn't have, but it came as a complete shock to me when SP revealed that David had inherited mutant powers - super-strength and regeneration, among other things. (But, "David I" was not an instinctive fighter like David II is.) There were some very painfully interesting scenes in which David got caught sleeping with his girlfriend (not Twyla - this girl, Wendy I think her name was, has since moved with her family out of LA). Alex is rather straight-laced about that kind of thing.
Amazing Grace was a major factor in this game - and she IS amazing. You haven't seen her in all her glory, yet. And perhaps you won't any time soon, because the really interesting part was wondering what the hell she was up to, and whether she could really be trusted or not. She was a character that you just couldn't help liking, even though you suspected you probably shouldn't. She's courtly; she may be a prostitute, but she carries herself like a queen. And she's just plain sweet! She might poison your wine, but you'd enjoy her company while you drank it. She's like that.
The Shadow's first meeting with her was hilarious - to me, not to him.
He was investigating an organized crime ring, and suspected that she was involved somehow. (He had no idea at this point that she was a telepath too.) He's skulking about her house, and comes upon her typing away at her computer. So he tries to slip into her mind... and she notices."Well well, who's there?" SP rolled way too many dice of Mind Control, and it seized the Shadow hard. (Her abilities work much better on men than on women.) She gently extracted from him his codename and his purpose for being there, but didn't pry into anything else. (That would be rude.) Except for one thing. "Since you're in my home uninvited, I think it's only fair that you take off your mask. Don't you agree?" Yes, she managed to force Alex to show his real face to her. "Thank you. It's been a pleasure to make your acquaintance, and do come again... though you can knock like a civilized person next time, all right?"
It was strangely inoffensive, because both I and the Shadow knew perfectly well that she could have done a lot worse to him. She became an on-and-off contact for the Shadow and the Forbidden. And to give you an idea of how inimitable she was, when a shapeshifter impersonated her, the two of them saw through the disguise right away. The shifter had her physical form down, but just couldn't pull off her sense of style; she was tawdry, overdone, rather than, well, graceful. I think it's a supreme compliment to a GM, frankly, when your players can tell when one of your NPC's is being impersonated without any obvious clues!
Unfortunately, the campaign came to a crashing halt when SP made a fatal misstep - he dangled Rose in front of the Forbidden. Alas, John had no other motive for fighting crime than his life-hunger. We had a final climactic adventure in which David was kidnapped and tortured, which drove Alex into a killing frenzy. (There was no mercy. None. N-o-n-e. He is NOT a guy you want to make really mad, as Johnson is gonna find out.) Grace was instrumental in locating him and helping us recover him; and she sat up with him for hours in the hospital. But in the end, John shook hands with Alex and wished him a good life, then fled with Rose into the Sierra Nevada. He'd never once mentioned the Council; that was all backstory.
SP and I did a scene between Alex and David over the whole Shadow 'night life' thing, but didn't have the heart to continue the game without the Forbidden. The group moved on to other things... mostly we got consumed with work and the other tedia of real life. (Except for SP, who has the good forture to live with four other gamers, the lucky dog!) Occasionally we got together for a one-off, but that was it.
Fast forward several years. My gaming starvation was reaching epic proportions.
(I'd given up MUSHing a couple years previous as it was just plain too addictive.) D&D 3e came out and the three of us discussed it excitedly - it reawakened a lot of nostalgia for the old days. (We'd given up on D&D out of contempt for the system, or rather the lack of a system. d20 was something of a revelation.) But none of us had time to do anything about it. (The three of us did make a point of going out together to see the Shadow movie when it came out, though, for old times' sake.)Then Loren discovered Mutants & Masterminds, and loaned the book to us. We were in awe. Champions the way it should have been from the beginning! Simple, elegant, flexible, masterfully done. We just had to do SOMETHING. What? Well, Loren ran one fun game of M&M, but hasn't had time since to continue it.
Finally, SP got a new cell phone account that gave him free minutes in the evening. He offered me a solo game in the evening, one night a week. I leapt at the chance. We agreed we wanted to play M&M. What setting? We agreed further that we were getting really nostalgic for some of our old games. SP: "I'll give you a choice. We can revive the Shadow game, or one of our old solo games." Well, I just had to play the Shadow again.
Shadow VI proved remarkably easy to design in M&M. Champions had always strained at handling mental invisibility; it was doable, but it just never felt right. With M&M, it was a breeze! (And had the happy side effect of also easily expanding Alex's power to make other people and things invisible too, as well as letting anyone he wanted see through the illusion - which had been a problem in the old days. We chalked this up to growing experience since the Forbidden left.) But as I wrote up his background, I had the itching sense that I was missing a piece to the puzzle. What made Alex tick? Why was he the way he was?
It came to me in a flash of blinding insight. I suddenly realized that Alex was not in control of his powers. Never had been. He put up a good simulation of controlling them, but really he was only containing their raging power, thinning his shields selectively to let them rush out on someone else. Why, though? It was clear that this had been shaping his entire life since childhood - it explained why he was so stiff, so formal, so reserved. Why should he be so out-of-control, though, when other telepaths like Grace were not? Partly, no doubt, because he'd had a really hard life. But that couldn't be the whole story.
The next insight was when I remembered how sickle-cell anemia works, as well as other genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis. Having one sickle-cell gene is actually good for you; that's why it persists in the population, otherwise it'd die out quickly. It's having two that's deadly. Thus I came to write the "Genetics of Psionics" - which also showed me that Alex had to be sitting on a raging volcano of power. He had to be a really good and strong man, despite his obvious crotchets, to contain it without being destroyed by it. That, and... Of course. Jennifer must have been immune to the vibes that had alienated him from his peers. What did that say about David? And so on... by that point, Alex's father's powers (and their psychological effect on him) wrote themselves. (SP's dictum that the new Shadow universe had only psi powers inborn helped here.)
The next blinding insight was that Alex had been changed by his time with the Forbidden. He was no longer content to be a loner; he wanted company. Plus, the original game had taught me that having reliable information sources was a must. The M&M "Minions" feat beckoned. So did the "Sidekick" feat.
But the juices didn't really flow until I took those ideas and put them together with an idea for a character who'd been knocking around in my head for a long time. A scrappy Mexican kid with a good heart, named Carlos.
Carlos was originally intended as a "sidekick" of sorts for a online character of mine, an elderly Dominican priest on EndlessMUSH with mystical powers. Brother Jordan was merry, wise, insightful, fun to be around... and 800 years old, though he didn't tend to mention that much.
Anyway, Brother Jordan befriended a college student in the California university town the MUSH was centered on, and the player and I hit it off. I'd already been thinking that Brother Jordan needed a foil, and the idea of Carlos was born... I suggested it to this other player, he really liked the idea (he turned out to be Brazilian in real life, and said he'd never actually played a Latino character and was looking forward to it), but unfortunately it never came off; he had to leave the MUSH, which shortly thereafter fell apart.The original Carlos was a homeless street rat of about twelve. He had an innate gift for seeing to the heart of things, which was why he loved Brother Jordan on first sight. (Jordan was a bulwark against the supernatural forces of evil.) Suddenly I realized that gift could have an interesting interplay with a guy who could turn invisible. And... that if I made him a few years older, I could introduce some really powerful dynamics of jealousy and insecurity with respect to David, as well as exploring just what "family" means to a guy who can read minds. From there, the idea of him being a gang member was completely inevitable; his story wrote itself.
Once I had that much, I produced the rest of the campaign material in a creative frenzy. Isn't it great when stuff flows out of you like that? I don't think I have EVER created so many interesting NPC's in so little time - and I wasn't even the GM!
I think I'm proudest of Hal Garrity - I must have really hit a nerve, because when I described him to SP, he instantly caught on to the bizarre ways the guy's mind works. The way SP plays him is EXACTLY how I envisioned him from the beginning. I'm also very proud of Maria Volanti, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of her.SP also does an incredibly fine job with Carlos - the only exception being he (SP) knows no Spanish, and so doesn't pepper in a few words and phrases the way I did in "A Night Off". Also we haven't really developed the banter angle as much as I would've liked, but heck - it's not like they haven't had PLENTY on their minds lately!
The final crowning touches came in "A Night Off", which taught me a lot about Alex that I hadn't yet known. I learned he likes to cook, and is good at it. I learned that Alex's heart has unexpected depths of love, but that he's terrified of hurting the ones he loves. And I learned how badly he needs boundaries between his Alex-life and his Shadow-life. The hat on the banister knob became the symbol of his need to separate the two lives, and a warning of the consequences of mixing them. I learned that the drug he uses is not really necessary, but purely psychosomatic - a crutch to let him believe that he's just an ordinary guy in his "real life".
The rest you know. It's been quite a ride, hasn't it?
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