Crossover Earth '98

by Mike Cocker

Old Glory met with his directors just before their briefing, his whisking emotions concealed beneath his familiar blue mask. By then, the barn they used for a meeting room was packed with lab technicians, doctors, military types, and upper echelon suits muttering among themselves. Somebody had placed a video projector on a rolling table, and a few rows of folding chairs facing a white screen. To him, these people were the secret cliques that formed within even the most tightly knit organizations. He brushed by the throngs and sat front row center, stonily watching the screen, as if it already carried secrets known only to him.

The barn was illuminated by battery-powered floodlights that had been mounted to wooden beams at all four corners. It had the look of a hasty job. Old Glory knew, however, that time was a commodity they had little of.

Just then a whoosh of air filled the room as an indistinct silver streak made its way to a chair beside Old Glory.

"Sorry, I’m late," a man’s voice immediately said.

Old Glory turned to see Zephyr sitting in the chair directly on his left. The speedster’s appearance brought about a hint of relief and cordiality to the American super-soldier.

"Getting slower in your old age?" Old Glory said, with false mockery that did little to lighten his mood.

"Ah, c’mon," Zephyr replied. "I had to stop a robbery in Vegas, then there was a riot at some picket line in Detroit, and I can’t forget the little kitty cat stuck in the tree in Boston. Besides, by the looks of it, I’m not actually late. I’m just almost late. And almost late is just as good as being on time, isn’t it?" He then sported his best smile.

Old Glory started to smile as well. "It’s good to see you again. How long has it been?"

Zephyr shuddered. "Too long. The last time we worked together kids were wearing thin leather ties and big hair."

"Back when Carter was the Commander and Chief of this country."

"Yep."

Old Glory leaned back in his chair and got more relaxed. "The good ol’ days." He then started to laugh. "Say, you remember when we were invited to that senatorial ball?"

Zephyr returned a chuckle. "Which one? The one where you had the gall to ask Feminine Grace to accompany you? My god, what were you thinking, man?"

"Don’t remind me. No, actually I was thinking of the one back in ‘57."

"Ha! Didn’t you catch J. Edgar Hoover in the cloak room trying on some women’s coats?"

"Ah, no." Old Glory paused, then stared at his companion with a hint of sensitivity. "Armature did."

Zephyr was about to say something of reassurance, when Colonel Tanner arrived, entering through the back of the room. He didn’t greet the members of the meeting as he marched up the center aisle, just went straight ahead, with no regard for anything but his destination. Old Glory knew a lot about fronts, understood at once that the sternness was the Army commander’s way of holding tension in check. As a leader, he had no luxury in displaying a sense of doubt.

The colonel stood before the rows of chairs. He was a handsome enough fellow, with short salt-and-pepper hair and a lean face. By far his most striking feature was his eyes, which were a liquid gray and seemed to be enlivened by an inner light. He reached for the remote control on a nearby stand, waiting for everyone to take their seats, then finally said, "The Armature dilemma is ever escalating, and therefore has piqued the concerns of the US military."

Beneath his mask, Old Glory winced.

The overhead lights dimmed. The screen at the front lit up with an image of man ponderously walking along a strip of farmland. He wore a charred gray bodysuit and an off-white cape, both of which were rent and tattered. His hair was long and jet black, but as his image zoomed in, it became clear that his underside had grown silver as did his temples. He had a rugged case of beard stubble and his face was weathered slightly, but not with age. The lines about his face came only from life. Granted, the man was vigorous and strong in a way that no one in the barn had ever experienced. Old Glory envied this man the grace with which he carried his years.

The image blinked and became an aerial photograph of Armature paying visit to a rustic township. He came as sometimes the tornados do, reaching down to rip and rend the landscape, to sweep away in one fleeting instant the toils that have taken several lifetimes to create. But even the most destructive samplings of nature’s fury seemed feeble in comparison to Armature who has rolled across this Kansas landscape, literally turning it upside-down.

Colonel Tanner pointed at a series of homes, cars, and infrastructure, all destroyed nearly beyond recognition, identifying them quickly and without much interest before moving on.

"As you can clearly see, Armature is a derailed freight train. Whatever he hits, he destroys. And there’s no telling what he’ll hit next."

The image blinked again, this time showing Armature making quick work out of the Herculean bounty hunter, Mark Battle. Battle did his best to hold Armature back. He went toe to toe with him, tried to wrestle him down in desperate hope that his impressive physicality was enough to stop the lumbering superhuman. As strong as Battle was, Armature seemed unmindful of his actions. The bounty hunter’s brute strength was clearly no match for the raw, insurmountable power of his oblivious opponent. And then, with one fell uppercut, the contest was over, and Armature left an unconscious Mark Battle in his wake.

The colonel clicked his remote control, and the picture obediently paused on the screen. Armature’s features blurred, flickering in between frames.

"We intercepted this footage during a meta’s recent run-in with Armature," he said. "You can tell. He’s not only virtually unstoppable, he’s mindless. Not enough that he can out-muscle us. Now he seems to have complete apathy of his actions. Which is why it’s vitally important that we do whatever’s within our power to try and stop him."

The floodlights brightened and the video powered off, the screen returning to its blank state. In a deep, carefully modulated voice, Colonel Tanner asked, "Before I continue, are there any questions?"

"Have you been able to reach the director of Quartz?" a Navy captain asked.

Tanner replied crisply, "Mr. Meriwether believes that Quartz shouldn’t take direct action as of yet."

"How about Chariot or the Guardians?" another officer asked.

The colonel nodded. "Chariot still hasn’t fully recovered from his run-in with Skein. We haven’t considered the Guardians an option yet."

"Have you considered Captain Infinity?" inquired a physicist.

"Of course we have, but we have no means of contacting him."

A man in an expensive suit raised his hand. "Why don’t we just bribe a super-powered villain. That way we’re not at risk of losing our much needed heroes. I mean, why not Mastiff?"

"Because Mastiff’s a murderous criminal with no shame or remorse," the colonel replied sarcastically. "Heck, why not the Rhino?" Tanner then paused a moment, blowing air impatiently through his lips. "Like Skein and the Carver, Mastiff’s a raving madman. He probably likes what Armature’s doing. And you just don’t put out a fire with gasoline."

"Why exactly is Armature on this rampage?" another man in a suit asked.

Colonel Tanner was not given to answering queries with uncertainty, but in this instance he simply couldn’t help himself. "I have no idea, Governor..."

Tanner let his words trail off as a psychiatrist spoke up.

"Well," she began, straightening her glasses, "the fact that Armature has been away from Earth for so many years may have attributed to his change in mental state. His seemingly trance-like walks are indicative of someone undergoing a schizoid embolism. I mean, there’s no telling what extended exposure to the extremes of outer space could do to the nervous tissue of his brain. Or he may just very well be suffering from space dementia, and therefore, his acts of violence could be a direct response to the stimuli he has long since disregarded." The psychiatrist rubbed her nose, adding, "That stimuli, of course, being the physical surroundings on Earth."

Colonel Tanner glanced at the members, furrowed his brow, and said, "We don’t have much time as Armature seems to be moving north towards the town of Summerville. So, without further ado, I’ll let Dr. McKinney take the floor."

As Colonel Tanner stepped to one side of the screen, a doctor stood up and made his way to the front. He was a balding, nondescript-looking man in his late fifties, with round bifocals and a crisply starched lab coat he kept fastened up to his neck. He held a briefcase tightly in his hands.

By way of introduction, McKinney said, "Speaking in part for the Department of Defense, the designers and engineers have been working around the clock to devise something to compromise Armature’s power."

He instructed two of his techs to cart in a hulking hexagonal case, which was elongated in height. It resembled a Gothic coffin standing on its end, but it was slightly larger and had the metallic sheen of polished chrome. The techs wheeled the case beside the doctor, who then pressed down on a small button on its side, allowing the case’s face to hiss open. Within the case stood a seven-foot suit of reinforced armor, so bulky that it only resembled the human form slightly. Its arms were huge, outfitted with monstrous hands that were strong enough to rip who-knows-what. It had similarly proportioned legs that flared outwards to accommodate boot thrusters. Its head was domed glass, guarded by a wide metal collar and overhead harness. The suit was evocative of the Quartz battle armor.

"Let me start by saying that this suit is a complicated network of mechanical parts controlled by biological stimuli."

"In other words," a major interrupted, "it’s high grade power-armor."

"Indeed. Through a complex grid of bio-mechanical diodes, it interfaces with its wearer and carries out his actions. The wearer is granted the benefit of substantial resistance to concussion and force as well as amplified strength. A normal man wearing this suit would have no difficulty pressing a full-sized sedan over his head. A meta with superhuman strength, on the other hand, would be geometrically stronger than even that; I hypothesize that someone of Mark Battle’s natural power would be able to pick up a commercial jetplane while wearing this armor.

"And although it looks encumbering, the armor is actual light in weight, constructed from an aluminum alloy. The suit’s upgraded durability is actually the result of a force-field tightened around it. Its wearer’s maneuverability won’t be inhibited, which is especially necessary if close quarter confrontations arise. Keeping that in mind, the armor his also been outfitted with boot jets, allowing its wearer to fly as well as stage aerial assaults."

Dr. McKinney looked at everyone. "All and all, it will undoubtedly prove to be necessary part of an Armature encounter."

"You can’t tell me that a suit of armor is enough to stop Armature," piped up a neuropsychologist. "It was impossible to properly gauge his strength back when he was a hero, and now we have to consider his current state of mind. Just image what kind of adrenal or hormonal surges Armature’s undergoing through his fits of violence. Surely such chemical production has heightened his strength even more than imagined."

McKinney nodded. "Even with so little time to assess Armature and properly prepare for a confrontation, the Department of Defense has tried to consider every variable. And that is why we at DARPA have deigned this." The doctor opened the briefcase, carefully pulling out a stainless steel rod. Atop the rod was a bulbous crystal, making the object look very much like an ornate microphone.

"Looks like something out of Libarace’s recording studio," laughed Zephyr under his breath.

"Clearly Armature’s state of mind deserves consideration," said McKinney. "This strobe-rod will hopefully settle him if he’s indeed aggressive. Just think of this as a hypnotic light put to the next level. When activated, it produces ten thousand brilliant flashes per minute, tiring the target’s eyes. The rod then emits a low frequency hum which, in conjunction with the strobe effects, will pacify Armature. If not, it will at least momentarily slow him down while he adjusts to the multiple hypnotic pulses."

A buzz suddenly grew about the barn, representatives of the military expressing opinions while scientists and doctors reiterated their concerns. The conversations were muddled, sounding more like the grunts and groans of guttural primates.

Old Glory stood up, silencing the crowd, then spoke up. "Isn’t it true that there have been no casualties, let alone any civilian injuries, from Armature’s actions?"

"That is true," Colonel Tanner answered, "but your friend Zephyr can vouch for his hostility and violence. Just because he hasn’t hurt the people at large isn’t enough cause to let him continue his rampage."

"I agree," Old Glory said. "I just want it to be known that Armature isn’t a killer. Clearly there’s something wrong with him, and I, by all means, want to find out what’s troubling him. I also want it to be known that I consider Armature a friend."

"And that’s why the brass at DoD believe that you’re perhaps the best nominated for this mission."

Old Glory came in low over the Heartland, cruising the sprawling quilt of farmers’ fields at less than three hundred feet. It was a cloudy day, damp and gray, and the jet thrusters underneath his oversized boots made him sound like a yowling missile in the wind. Old Glory looked down, and even though he could only see barns and snow-covered furrows through the gloom, he knew exactly what awaited him.

He had been flying for over an hour, searching for Armature, when he saw a flash of light a split second before he heard the thunderclap boom of an explosion. A plume of thick black smoke arose from the horizon. As he descended from the skies over rural Kansas, he saw Armature stride through the burning debris of a farmhouse, apparently sifting through the rubble. A sigh of relief escaped Old Glory as he saw Zephyr zig-zagging through the snow, carrying a farmer clear out of Armature’s path.

Old Glory’s attention returned to Armature. What are you doing, big guy? He could not be certain of his motives, or if he even had any, but he had to stop his friend from ravaging every home he crossed paths with. He landed behind the once renowned hero and watched him scour through the bricks and mortar.

A gust of wind picked up and Zephyr reappeared beside Old Glory. "I’m gonna try and evacuate that town," he said. "Do what you can. I’ll be back in two shakes." And Zephyr was gone in a rush of air.

"How’s it going buddy?" Old Glory asked the former hero, hoping that he might respond to the sound of his voice. Even though he was a head taller than Armature in his armored suit, Old Glory couldn’t help but size his friend’s stature. He was an ox of man, with the rends of his dirty uniform exposing his thick, cabled arms. "Looks like you’ve been keeping in shape. What, you arm curling planetoids now?"

There was no response. Dazed, Armature merely pressed forward.

"Right then...," the patriot continued. "I was hoping that you, Zephyr, and I could reminisce about the good ol’ days."

Still, there was nothing as he got closer to Old Glory.

Man this is lame, he said inwardly as he held up high a small rod, slightly bigger than a pencil, flashing and pulsating in a spectrum of bright light. I hope this gizmo works. Just then, Old Glory pictured Robbie the Robot holding a psychedelic lollipop. If not, maybe my general appearance will make him laugh the spell off.

Armature couldn’t help but fixate on the strobe-rod, his eyelids flickering to the continuous flashes. It’s working. It’s working. The glare on Old Glory’s helmet distorted the slight smile on his face.

Do not let him stop you, ordered the voice in Armature’s head. Disarm him. Now!

Armature’s eyes burned angrily as he swatted the rod out of Old Glory’s hand with blistering quickness.

"No!" Old Glory cried as the blinding, hypnotic pulse vanished. The super-soldier’s hope of bringing his friend back shattered just like the crystalline bulb that crumbled to the ground in powdered fragments. Countless man hours and thousands of dollars in tax payers’ money were long lost in one defensive, fell-swept flail of Armature’s hand.

Suddenly, the bulletproof dome around Old Glory’s head buckled as another backhand sent him skidding the length of a farmer’s field.

God he’s fast! the patriot thought to himself as he quickly recovered. Can’t let myself get hit by too many of those.

The super-soldier charged forward, his boot thrusters whining with power, and he slammed into Armature, driving him back. He lifted Armature off his feet. Old Glory’s massive metal arms were wrapped around his rib cage, trying to shut off his air. Armature furiously pounded on Old Glory’s back, but was helpless to stop the forward motion as they plowed into a small deserted barn. Weathered wood shattered, Old Glory’s huge feet crunching the pieces.

Within seconds Armature had crashed back down to the field.

The patriot came at him again. Armature dug in and, when the super-soldier slammed into him, was driven back about a meter. His boots chewed up the snowy field, and then he slowed and stopped, not budging another step. The two of them struggled, raw power versus an engine of strength, muscle pitted against steeled might, grunting and snarling and angling for leverage.

Armature cocked back his arm and swung Old Glory full with significant force. The super-soldier just barely had time to divert power to his force-field before the blow struck. With a thunderbolt crackle, Armature sent Old Glory hurtling backwards. The deafening sound of wind sluiced off the hero’s armor as he arced into the sky. Even with the cushioning effects of his inner costume’s protective field, Old Glory saw spots.

Damn..., Old Glory thought. Power cells to the boot’s thrusters have been damaged. This is gonna hurt.

Old Glory crashed down on the frozen ground, his armor buckling from the impact. But before he could recover, Armature slammed him into a large sycamore. The tree cracked in half, fell, and the patriot’s force-field flickered out. With one final punch, Old Glory’s old-time friend sent him lopping into a frozen pond.

Old Glory emerged from the icy water like a metallic polar bear, and as he stepped onto the embankment of the pond, a silvery streak wafted towards him.

"Sorry I’m late," Zephyr said, covering an already healing wound that lined his chest. "I had a run-in with some clown. Name was Rapier or Scimitar or something. Anyway, how fares the battle, buddy ol’ pal," He saw Armature uprooting trees in the distance.

At first, Old Glory said nothing. He merely looked down at his own chest, noticing his armor was ruptured, a worm’s nest of coils and sparking wires now exposed. "Not so good, actually. I barely held him for ten seconds."

"Great," smiled Zephyr. "Now let’s get the government to increase our national debt even more and have another suit of armor ready for round two."

The two continued to watch Armature lumber forward. Less than twenty meters from a stable, the former hero stopped and looked up skyward.

Old Glory shook his head. "I just don’t get it. He’s completely..."

The dark clouds began to shudder. Spooked by a slight airy rumbling, a flock of ravens abandoned their perches. A colt stood stock-still, listening for the sound, and then bolted as he realized it was growing louder. Then the clouds broke.

A stupendous aircraft, roughly the size of a township, spanned the sky directly above Armature. A strange light came from the ship, casting down on the former hero.

"...He’s completely spaced out..."

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