🚀 go-pugleaf

     Journal entry, January 16th, 1997.  The day I have predicted has
finally come.  *He* has returned.  I know I am not mistaken -- I sensed
it just as I sensed his disappearance nearly a year ago.
     I had become concerned that I would not be able to complete my plans
without the key ingredient.  I am pleased to say that this is no longer
as large a concern.
     I  need only to extract the ingredient from its current owner.

    <----     -----     -----     -<*>-     -----     -----     ---->

Fourth Wall Productions presents...

THE TEAM FORMERLY KNOWN AS THE HERO PATROL

Episode Number Forty-Five

DISTANT EARLY WARNING
Part One - "Ten Months Later..."
by Mike Escutia

"Here's a speck on the canvas
of future projections
A drop in the bucket of tomorrow's successes
If I have the faith and know-how
I might watch our ship come in
My full potential"
--Swirling Eddies, "Potential"

    <----     -----     -----     -<*>-     -----     -----     ---->

     "Another new year, another new semester of school," Rob said as
he climbed the stairs to the third floor of Johnson Hall, headed for
his first e-mail check of the day.  So far, the fourth day of the second
semester of his senior year of college at Emerton Falls University had
been only so-so, namely a Communications class and a philosophy class
(the latter being taken to fill in a general education requirement), but
it was still early in the day.  And, unfortunately, the week, as well.
     "Hey, Rob," the consultant on duty in the lab said as Rob entered.
"Fun day?"
     "Hey, Mike," Rob replied.  "You don't wanna know."
     "Didn't think so," Mike chuckled as Rob sat down at one of the
terminals.
     "And what about you?" Rob asked.
     "Oh, I'm doing pretty good, considering that it's only the fourth
day of school and that I'm working in a computer lab in the middle of a
day that falls in January."
     "Oooooooo," Rob commented.  "Newbieland."
     "Oh, shut up."
     Rob grinned as he returned his attention to his terminal.  "Ahh,
it's good to be back here."
     "Glad you like it.  By the way, did you see the paper?"
     "Yeah, but it ran away before I could grab it," Rob replied.
     "Dowh!  No, I meant the headline on the front page."
     "Aha.  Yup, saw that.  Rezzy's been busy lately."
     There was a pause, as each waited for the inevitable to happen.
     "You still miss it?"
     Rob shrugged.  "Eh.  I got over it.  No point in wallowing in self-
pity, after all.  This world's got enough angsters as it is.  If I ever
get a chance to do it again, I probably will, but until then... well,
life goes on."
     He paused, looking around the lab and thinking about the positive
changes that had occurred in his life over the past several months.
     "Y'know, I have the feeling this semester's gonna rock...."
     "But?"
     "I just have to figure out what to do with my free time."

-----*

     Ten months had passed since the former Hero Patrol returned to
000SUPERGUY.  Since then, Rebecca Daylin had begun working full-time at
her father's company, managing to forget the problems and stresses of
the previous few months.  Her father was an environmentalist; as such,
her job was to help produce the various videos the company made.  All
in all, not a bad job, and certainly something she enjoyed.
     She had made one other change to her life shortly after returning
from 000PRECOGS.  Courtney Allbin, otherwise known as Search Lass, was
stuck indefinitely in 000SUPERGUY, and really didn't want to live in
the former Hero Patrol's underground headquarters, so Rebecca offered
her a room in her overly-spacious apartment.  She also offered a room
to Laurie Bennett, the girl who was once known as Hugs (Don't laugh),
and between the three of them, the place had become rather nice and
well-used.
     Slipping her key into the lock, Rebecca walked into said apartment,
and was greeted by the sound of someone channelsurfing with the television
remote, while Jars of Clay could be heard playing in the background.
     "Hey, Laurie."
     "Hey, Rebecca," Laurie said as she shut the TV off.  "How're you
doing?"
     "Pretty good.  Busy day, but at least that big project is over and
done with."
     "That's good," Laurie commented as she stood up and stretched.
"I don't know why I even bothered to turn the TV on -- there wasn't
anything good on."
     Rebecca grinned.  "Why do you think I hardly watch anything?"
     "Or me, for that matter?" Courtney added as she entered the room.
"Face it, Laurie, ninety-nine percent of what's on TV these days sucks."
     "And that other one percent?"
     "Babylon 5."
     "Well, it's better than Star Trick."
     "Yup," Rebecca agreed.  "Say, where're you off to, Courtney?"
     "Off to find Gary," she said as she pulled her jacket on.  "He's
taking the night off whether he likes it or not."
     "Heh.  Good luck."
     "Thanks.  We'll probably be hanging out at the HQ, so don't expect
me back *too* early."
     Rebecca nodded as the other girl headed out the door.  "See you
later."
     "And I ought to go get some homework done," Laurie said as she
headed for her room.  "Rob's taking me to the movies tonight."
     "Cool.  What movie?"
     "No idea.  He said he'd surprise me."
     "The last time he surprised you that way, the show had sold out,"
Rebecca pointed out.
     Laurie smiled and shrugged.  "It was fun, though, even if we did
wind up renting something."
     "Well, have fun tonight," Rebecca said.  "Me, I'm going to curl up
with a good book and get some reading done."
     "What book?"
     "Damned if I know."

-----*

     You have to admire the criminal element of Manchester.  Even with
a superguy team working there, and another team before it, *and* the
odd solo hero or vigilante, the everyday common criminal is still willing
to venture forth and fight for lies, injustice, and the criminal way.
Many a lawbreaker's hearts are heartened by the sight of their fellow
offenders doing their seedy duty.
     Take, for example, four teens who were busy raiding an electronics
store that was supposed to be closed that day.  Little did they know,
though, that this raid wasn't going to be going as smooth as they had
planned...
     "Hurry it up, ya slowpokes!" Mick shouted to his cohorts.  "The
cops'll be here any minute!"
     "We're hurrying as fast as we can!" Rocky replied.  "These TVs are
heavy!"
     "Yeah!" Kenny chimed in.  "Oof!" he added as the TV he and Rocky
were carrying started to slip.
     "<Perhaps you would find it easier to leave them where you found
them.>"
     "Huh?" Mick sputtered.  "Who said that?"
     "<I did,>" the voice continued as a man stepped out from the
shadows.  He was dressed in a green costume, with dark green gloves,
boots, cowl, and cape, and seemed to sound as if he was in an echo
chamber.
     "Oh, hell(tm)," Mick whispered.  "Resonance.  Run for iiiiitttt!"
He was thrown to the floor as his shout was projected back at him at an
intensity a hundred times greater than it had originally been.
     "<Thanks for the sound,>" the man known as Resonance said.  "<Now
if the rest of you would kindly surrender...>"
     Rocky, not smart enough to know when to give up, turned and ran as
fast as his feet would take him out of the store.
     "<I'll take that as a no,>" the superguy said with a thin smile.
Raising his hands, he clapped them together, projecting the intensified
soundwaves in Rocky's direction.  Rocky, predictably, was knocked off of
his feet, and hit the ground with a groan.
     Resonance turned and looked at Kenny.
     "I give up, man!  Really, I do!"
     "<Good.>"
     It took only a few minutes to tie the would-be robbers up, after
which Resonance slipped down an alleyway to return to his patrol of the
streets.  It was as he was doing this that a young woman with light brown
hair passed by him.  Knowing what this meant, he slipped further into the
alleyway, then quickly underwent an impressive costume change.
     A few moments later, Gary Markowan stepped out of the other end of
the alley, where the woman was waiting for him.
     "Hi, Courtney."
     "Hey," she replied.  "How goes the battle?"
     "It never ends.  But somebody's got to do it."
     "I know, but..."  Courtney sighed.  "Gary, you're pushing yourself
too hard.  There's other heroes in Manchester besides you, you know."
     Gary shook his head.  "I wish it was that simple, Courtney.  But
the Hero Patrol -- the current one -- has been seen less and less over
the past few months, and there's no way Magnetic Personality can cover
the entire city."
     "Good point.  But not even the Hero Patrol is out fighting crime
whenever they're awake."
     "Why not?" Gary asked.  "It's their job, isn't it?"
     "This isn't the LNH, Gary," Courtney pointed out.  "The heroes here
have lives outside of being heroes."
     He studied the ground for a long moment before replying.  "Not all
of them do."
     Courtney sighed and put an arm around her boyfriend.  "Oh, Gary...
You still miss home, don't you?"
     "Yeah, I guess I do.  Don't you?"
     "Well, yeah, but we need honest work if we're going to survive here
while waiting for a chance to go home."
     "And heroing isn't honest work?"
     "Are you officially getting paid for it?"
     "Well, no..."
     "See?  It's going to be hard to survive here if we don't have any
money; the friends we have here can't support us forever."
     Gary hesitated, thinking this over.  "You have a point, but...
Something big's going to be happening.  Soon.  I can feel it."
     Courtney looked at him.  "Really?"
     "Really."
     "Is this some new ability you've developed or something?"
     "Actually, it's just a gut feeling."
     "Oh.  That's a bit anticlimatic."
     "Sorry."

-----*

     <[Report.]>
     "Our forces are nearly ready.  We have enough troopers to easily
accomplish the first objective."
     <[And the third objective?]>
     "The necessary equipment is being checked over for the one thousandth,
three hundredth, and twenty-second time.  It will be completely ready for
your use at the time you indicated."
     <[Excellent.  Are our agents in place to deal with any potential
trouble from the local superguys?]>
     "Yes, sir.  Also, we are anticipating the successful completion of
the first objective before any non-local superguys can respond to calls
for assistance."
     <[Perfect.  The final player arrived just a few hours ago, so we
will be able to proceed with the second objective as planned.
     <[And once our objectives have been reached, nothing will stand
in my way.]>

-----*

     Rob crooned out the lyrics to a Talking Heads song as he played his
guitar.  Next to him, Jeff jammed on his bass, and between the two of
them, they actually did a fairly decent job.
     "Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!" Rob exclaimed as an
invisible audience cheered and applauded alongside the real audience in
the room.  This consisted of Rob, Jeff, Rebecca, Laurie, Courtney, Gary,
and Max, though Max was only virtually present, as a hologram.
     Rebecca laughed as Rob bowed.  "Okay, okay!  So you CAN sing."
     "Toldya," Rob grinned as he put the guitar down on its case.
Plopping back down on the couch he had been sitting on, he took a sip
of his Shirley Temple, brows furrowed in thought.  "So, who else is
coming tonight?"
     "Well," Laurie responded.  "Sam wasn't interested, and Marc said
he was busy.  Amy said she might show up, but she wasn't sure, since it's
not really the weekend yet."
     "She works too hard," Rebecca sighed.  "Fifty hours a week, and
sometimes even six days a week."
     "Ugh.  And I thought *I* was a workaholic," Courtney commented.
     "Wasn't that only because the LNH wasn't as hectic as what you
were used to?" Jeff asked.
     Courtney snorted.  "The LNH was a madhouse.  I had to keep busy
just to keep from being driven insane."
     "From what you've told us, it sounds like this LNH was a horrible
team to be in," Laurie said.
     "Not really," Jeff said.  "It was actually pretty good.  And the
sheer number of people in it meant that the amount of work we each had
to do wasn't too terribly much."
     "Though some of us actually searched for things to do," Gary spoke
up.  Jeff just coughed.
     "You must've fought some interesting villains," Laurie commented.
     "Well, not many," Courtney replied.  "Just some giant robots, a
villain who was posing as one of the LNHers, and an army of cyborgs."
At the mention of that last group, Gary grit his teeth slightly,
while Jeff just coughed again.
     "Huh.  We've never fought an army of cyborgs before.  We've fought
androids, but not cyborgs."
     "Actually, we have," Rob said, his brows furrowed in thought.
"Well, we didn't actually fight them, but we were in the middle of a
fight involving them once."
     "We have?"
     "Yup.  Remember that little side trip we took on our way to rescue
Se-- er, Misfit?"
     Rebecca blinked.  "Oh, yeah.  That.  Weirdest thing.  One minute
we're in a bubble in deep space, on our way to the planet Televar.  The
next, we're in a bar..."
     "And in the middle of a battle between a group of heroes and an
army of cyborgs?" Courtney asked.
     "You got it."
     Courtney, Jeff, and Gary looked at each other for a moment, then
groaned.
     "I was wondering who those people Pli had seen were..."
     "What's wrong?" Rebecca asked.
     "I think I know..." Rob muttered.
     "You...um..." Courtney began.
     "That was..." Jeff began.
     "Er...." Gary added.
     "Am I missing something here?"
     "That was the same battle, Rebecca," Rob told her.
     She blinked.  "Really?"
     "Yup," Jeff said.
     "Wow.  That's really weird."

-----*

     He awoke in an alley.
     This, of course, didn't surprise him one bit, as his occupation
tended to involve a lot of alleys.  And rooftops.  And nights.  And
fog.
     Okay, so it wasn't foggy out at the moment.  Nobody's perfect.
     Slowly, he got to his feet and looked around.  From what he could
tell, he was in a medium-sized city in the middle of winter.  Brushing
the snow off of himself, he ventured forth to the mouth of the alley,
and cautiously poked his head out to take a look at what lay beyond.
     At that precise moment, two robbers sped by in a stolen car, the
original Hero Patrol chasing after it.  The man ducked back in the
alley out of pure instinct, and waited until they were several blocks
away before re-emerging.
     "I did it," he said quietly to himself.  "I'm back.  I just hope
I'm not too late..."

----------

NEXT: Just who is that man in the last scene, and how does his return
affect the rest of our cast?  Who's that other guy and are his objectives?
Will Rob regret being bored?  And will Laurie ever find anything good on
TV?  Plus, the return of the current Hero Patrol... and just in time, too!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author's Note:

Ah, it's good to be back.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright (c) 1997 Mike Escutia/Fourth Wall Productions.  All rights
reserved.  Email: mre@hopper.unh.edu.

--
Mike Escutia - mre@hopper.unh.edu - http://www.eyrie.org/~ergh/
"Sidekicks 'R' Us -- You need an assistant, we'll give you a Boy Wonder!"
             -Frank Marzan, "Pliable Lad: Stretching the Truth"