🚀 go-pugleaf

     "Hey, Bert, look at this!" said Sam, glancing up from one of the telescopes
on the observation deck of the Link Tower, the third tallest structure in Bob
City. (See twelve states from this point)
     "What is it?" Bert asked.
     "Take a look."  Bert took the telescope, and looked off toward the south.
     "What the Hell (tm) is going on out there?" he said, squinting in an
attempt to get a better view of the unmitigated carnage taking place around the
old penitentiary.
     Sam took the telescope and stuck another quarter in the slot.
     "I dunno.  Pretty impressive, though."
     "Yeah.  Think we should go check it out."
     Sam drummed his fingers on top of the telescope and shifted it from side
to side a bit.
     "It's past round knob," he said, "Out of our jurisdiction."
     "Good.  It looks pretty dangerous.  Lemme have another look."

                                   ***********

                         A SYMPHONY FOR TAROT AND BUZZSAW
                                 Third Movement
                                 "Iron Sabbath"

                                   WRITTEN BY
                             (in alphabetical order)
           Ben Brown, Lawrence Brown, Eric Alfred Burns, Bill Dickson
                   Mason Kramer, Chris Meadows, Gary W. Olson
          Daniel Pawtowski, Bill Paul, Jesse Taylor, and Dominic White

                            EDITED INTO COHERENCY BY
                                 Gary W. Olson

                                   ***********

     It had been a rock.  Adam was sure of that.  A rock had hit the tree at
several hundred miles an hour, shattering it and exploding.
     A mage was coming -- he had to get up -- had to fight oh god the mage
was--
     Adam was blown back by some spell, he was knocked back on the ground, his
systems unable to fully compensate.  He managed to get to his feet and whirl
around just in time to see the mage finish an incantation--
     Adam's helmet filled with fog -- he couldn't see a thing!  He clawed at
it, and finally hit the emergency release, throwing the helmet to the side.  He
grabbed his gun and--
     Another magical blast threw him off his feet, and then two hands, burning
with blue-green Saint Elmo's Fire, lifted him up and yanked him close.
     "What the Hell are you doing?" Scholarman spat into Adam's face.
     "You!" Adam blasted back.  "I should have--"
     "*What* *are* *you* *doing?!*"  Scholarman's vehemence rocked Adam.  "I
knew you were an imbecile, but shooting an unarmed man with a sniper's rifle?
What kind of monster are you?"
     "Me a Monster?"  Adam threw Scholarman's hand's off.  "Me?  You bloody
mages are gonna destroy everything, unless we--"
     "What is a mage?  Huh?  Tell me that, you know so much!"
     That caught Adam off-guard.  "You -- you can't confuse me!  Don't try
to--"
     "What is a mage, you idiot!  Who is it you want to kill?"
     "A mage uses magic!  Happy?  Because now I'm gonna--"
     "A mage uses magic," Scholarman mimicked, then letting the Saint Elmo's
Fire blast into a fist that rocked Adam back.  "A mage uses magic.  What is
magic?  Huh?  What is it?  If you can't define the term, you shouldn't use it!"
     "Magic's what... it -- Radian--"
     "Radian's a woman.  She isn't magic.  What's magic!?"
     Adam stared.  His mind was a whirl.  He didn't want to hear this, but he
couldn't bring himself to stop.  "I... I--"
     "Don't bother.  I couldn't tell you, and I'm an expert.  Some people say
it's a force, some people say it's life itself.  Some people say it comes from
imagination and some people say it's the side of physics we haven't found yet.
What I can tell you is that magic can't be dismissed as good or evil.  It's
complex -- as complex as any other issue or force in this world.  And you
idiots are trying to make it simple.  Clear cut -- kill the mages.  We'll be
happy when the wizards are dead.  We'll be safe when the witches are burnt.
Well the Hell with you!  The only evil I've seen here today is you!"
     "A Mage raped and killed my mother!" Adam screamed.
     Scholarman slowly walked up to Adam.  His face was twisted with cold rage.
"So," he said, "you're saying that all magi raped and killed your mother?"
     "I--"
     "Do you know what it's like to be put in such a helpless position?  Do you
know what it's like, to be accused of such a hideous crime that you never
committed?  Did I rape your mother?"
     "I--"
     "*Did* I?  Did I kill her?"
     "You -- no, but--"
     Scholarman's voice became deadly quiet, like a sharp knife ripping through
flesh.  "Listen to me, little boy, and listen good.  A man raped and killed
your mother.  A man.  Just like a man tried to blow the head off an innocent
man three minutes ago.  I don't know who did such a horrible thing to you, but
I know this much... you're a lot closer to the man who killed your mother than
I am."
     Adam shook his head, tears streaming down his face.  "It's not true," he
said.  "You mages... you have to be... I couldn't have... I couldn't have shot
Mike--"
     "You what?  You *what*?"
     "I... I--"
     "You killed your leader?  Your best friend?  And you call *me* evil!?"
     Adam didn't say a thing.  He felt to his hands and knees, Mike's dying
body in his sight.  Sarah's hated.  Sarah -- she was a mage!  What if the
others had killed her already.  His mother's face swam in his sight....
     "That's it," Scholarman said.  "Someone has to stop this before something
even worse happens.  This is insane."  He limped towards the building.
     Adam knew he should stop him.  He should call into the building on his
radio and warn them.  But he didn't know what to believe now.  He just didn't
know.

                                   ***********

     A deafening blast and the piercing noise of awesomeantium wrenching apart
filled the brain as a spike of awesometonium the size of a telephone pole rode
the electromagnetic currents down the length of the Awesome Force One and
shattered throught the muzzle doors.
     They watced through a cloud of their own debris as the shaft plunged into
the middle of the port side of their target.
     The enemy ship rocked against the blow and flames leapt from the gaping
hole the shaft had created. It dropped altitude a little, but spun around and
rose back up to fire a barage of lazer cannon fire from the undamaged
starboard guns.
     The blast rocked the ship again and Damien tried to stiffle an agonized
scream.
     "Where are the cats?" Anne yelled.
     "How should I know, you left them in the trauma room?" Chris answered,
trying to bring the bow to bear on the ship again.
     "Right, I've got to get Damien to the trauma room."
     "No!" Damien protested.  "I've got to get to my gun. I've got to get up
into the turret!"
     "Anne!  The trauma room took a direct hit!" Chris said looking at a panel
on his left that showed a schematic of the AF One. Red dots were blinking in
every section of it.
     "Are the cats still there?" Anne asked.
     "I think so, nothings moving, but their are definitely life signs."
     "Damien, don't move!  I have to get the cats."
     "Anne!  No!" shouted Chris.  "Don't!"  But she was out the door and the
ship was in line with the driver again.

                                   ***********

     "I am getting *very* pissed off!" Shadebeam growled, as she cast twenty
Jehovah's Witnesses and literature-bearing LaRouchites upon a startled pocket
of revolutionaries.  They managed to perforate half the Airport Pests with
bullets, but the rest pressing forward, incessantly asking them to take copies
of the Watchtower and/or Lyndon LaRouche's remarkable explanation of how the
Queen of England is really Monte Hall in disguise, until the revolutionaries
disappeared under the mass of their bodies.
     Overhead, the air battle was raging, and it sounded like things were
going very badly for the Awesome Force One.  Almost as badly as things were
going on the ground.  Despite initial successes, the revolutionaries were
well entrenched, and the initial thrust of the counter-revolutionaries charge
had been successfully blunted.
     A mage materialized next to her, trying to remove a goop of some kind from
his face.  He couldn't see the armored anime suit that was bearing down on him.
Shadebeam recognized this one -- Wayne.  Reacting swiftly, she dove, knocking
the pale mage to the ground, as gunfire ripped overhead, clipping a heroic
figure whose chest insignia read 'INNOCENT BYSTANDER'.
     "Agh," the mage said.  "What happened?"
     "You nearly got clipped, guy," Shadebeam said.  "Here, lemme get that crap
out of your eyes...there."
     "Thank you," said the mage, sitting up.  "I...say, you look like...who
are you?"
     "Shadebeam," Shadebeam told him.  "Who're you?"
     "My name is Dar," Dar said.  "You have saved my life."
     "Well, *duh,*" Shadebeam said.  "I just told you that.  Say, you seen
where Radian went?"
     "Radian?"
     "Five foot five, wears black a lot, skin paler'n yours, bit psycho at
times but generally a good egg.  Seen her?"
     "No," Dar said.  "I had this goop, you see..."
     "Nevermind," Shadebeam said, looking up.  "I see her.  Nice chatting with
you.  Say, got any cigarettes on you?"
     "I don't smoke," Dar said.
     "You're an evil mage and you don't smoke?" Shadebeam asked, incredulously.
Dar shrugged.  "Okay, thanks anyway."  Dar watched as Shadebeam flew off, and
had all of three seconds to rest before Unorthodox Girl hit him with a copy of
the Watchtower, wrapped around a brick.  He slumped to the ground, rolling down
a short hill into some foliage.

                                   ***********

     It was the law that separated man from the animals, so they said.  The
law preserved order.  The law protected the weak, in defiance of Mother
Nature's own edicts.  But it offered no protection if there was no one to
enforce it, and it offered even less when those who enforced it failed to
abide by it.  The law was fragile, but when it worked, its strength was
inspirational.
     The thing the Superuser loved most about crime fighting was the law.
Having spent a large part of his life dealing with computers, he sometimes
found it difficult to relate to human affairs without becoming confused.
Computers operated under a set of strict guidelines.  Some were complicated,
but all were predictable.  Understanding why computers did things was a simple
matter of understanding the rules.  Understanding people was much harder,
because people had no rules: more often than not, people did things just
because they felt like it.  There was no programming logic or instruction set
that governed the way people felt, and that bothered Bill, who was used to
thinking in such terms.  The only way he could make people fit into his
machine-oriented perspective was by factoring in the law.  So long as people
obeyed the law, the parallel between man and machine was maintained, and
things at least appeared to make sense.
     The unfortunate result of this perspective was a severe case of narrow-
mindedness.  A computer couldn't violate any of its laws.  But people weren't
computers.  The structure and order imposed by the law was only an illusion.
The Superuser knew this, but tried hard to forget it.  The alternative was
madness.
     The Superuser was surprised by the firepower the Revolutionaries had
amassed and spent considerable time and effort attempting to disable it.
There was a slew of machine gun batteries dug into the perimeter and disabling
them was tricky.  Luckily, the Superuser's speed and flight capabilities
allowed him to slip behind them before they could draw a bead on him and slag
the weapons with plasma bolts.  This was a risky maneuver since it cost him a
lot of stored power to generate the plasma, but it was also the safest avenue
of attack.  Concussion blasts would have created flying shrapnel.  Electric
stun bolts strong enough to knock the gunners out immediately would have
caused burns.  But slag the guns, and nobody gets hurt.
     This gunners fell back on sidearms and braced themselves as the Counter-
Revolutionary forces approached.  Reinforcements arrived, which the Superuser
wasted no time in engaging.  Slagging the guns wouldn't work this time -- no
choice but to stun them, burns or no burns.
     A small band of mages, perhaps five or six, made surprising progress
against the remaining opposition, aided by a spell that had rendered their
bodies intangible.  Immune to bullets and carrying rifles of their own, they
pushed right up to the Revolutionaries' front lines and opened fire.
     The Superuser spied them out of the corner of his eye and found himself
reacting without even thinking.  He dropped in front of the Revolutionary
militia and activated his shields just in time to save them from a volley of
lead.
     "What did you do that for?!" demanded one of the mages, a heavyset
Italian.
     Hearing this question left the Superuser feeling both angered and
frustrated.  In his mind, there was no alternative.  There was no question
about it: it was the law.  Like a computer that couldn't violate its
programmed instructions, he was bound by the law.  Why couldn't they see
that?
     "We are not here to rack up a body count!  Anybody who doesn't feel they
can go along with that is invited to leave!"
     "What choice do we have?  They're not going to play by the rules, why
should we?"
     This new question brought only more frustration.  There was also fear;
fear of what lay outside the rules, fear of what the world would look like
without the rules.  The only way to fight the fear was to embrace the law.
     "Because *we* don't want to become *them!*" he replied.  It was the only
sensible answer, the only answer possible for one who could not ignore the
law.  "You don't have to kill them!  Disarm them!  Knock them out!  They can't
touch you; there's no way they can stop you!"
     The battle drew the untouchable mages away, leaving the Superuser to
subdue the Revolutionaries he had saved.  It was clear his argument had little
affect on them.  Still troubled, he leapt into the air again, and instantly
regretted it.
     His sensors had spotted the special unit of Revolutionaries coming up
behind him, but he'd ignored them.  There were no metahumans among them, and
a combination of cockiness and temporary stupidity led him to the conclusion
that they posed no threat.  And they didn't, until they fired a specially
constructed taser net at him and bathed him in about fifty thousand watts of
RF.
     While the battlesuit's insulation protected him from the jolt, the
intense radio waves were able to penetrate his computer core and scramble it
memory badly enough to force a hard reset.  The damage was easily reversible,
but the shutdown cut the Superuser's flight systems out from under him and
brought him flopping to the ground in a most undignified fashion.  Strangely,
as stunned as he was by both the impact and the current, he was more stunned
by the unorthodox nature of the weapon, which appeared to have been
constructed out of a chain link fence, a bazooka and a modified army field
transmitter.  It then struck him where it must have come from.
     "Unorthodox Lass," he groaned. "Or was it Girl... oh, whatever."
     The Revolutionaries whooped and cheered, and congratulated each other on
their victory.  The Superuser saw them approaching and tried desperately to
free himself from the net.  Fortunately, a mage rushed to his defense, a
native American with silver hair, who kept them at bay with an repeating rifle
that looked like it had come straight out of an old western.
     "I hope it doesn't take you long to get out of that thing," he said in an
oddly relaxed tone, "we got lucky with Custer, you know."
     "I'm almost back on-line... should only be another few minutes.  Uhm,
pardon my asking, but I sense a distinct lack of magic at work here.  Am I
missing something?"
     "The Spirits aren't very helpful when it comes to guns," said the old
Indian as he squeezed off another round.  "Medicine they know.  Weather they
know.  But they couldn't hit the broad side of a buffalo if they were sitting
on it."
     The Indian's next shot never came.  A bullet caught him in the shoulder
and threw him down.  His rifle landed right in front of the Superuser's nose,
and though he was still tangled in the net, he had one arm free with which to
use it.  A Revolutionary soldier closed in, apparently intent on finishing the
job that the errant bullet had started.  The battlesuit was still a few
minutes away from being operational.
     "Gonna kill us two birds with one stone with this one." the soldier
drawled, "One less magic user and one less redskin.  Can't beat that deal."
     "I don't suppose it would help if I said I was a 49ers fan," said the
Indian.
     The Revolutionary grinned a typical ignorant hick grin and cocked the
hammer on the 9mm in his hand.

(continued in part two, following...)