Crossover Earth '98
Lyle sat contemplating his next escapade. The two biggest events of the year were coming up in about a month. New Year’s Day and the Superbowl. He wished he had time to hit them both but wanted to see how one of them worked out before he started planning that far ahead. How could he resist an event like the dropping of the ball? It was quite possibly the brightest object made by man. Millions of eyes focused in on one point at one time. Made to order for a man able to manipulate light and with a message that needed to be heard.
The TV in front of him displayed last year’s dropping of the ball as the man sometimes known as Spectrum made notes. Uneducated but bright, the notes were a grammatical nightmare but showed foresight, if not intelligence, to one who understood their meaning.
Caught deep in thought, Lyle almost jumped as the phone rang. Wondering who it was, he picked up the phone and answered.
"Lyle Bright here."
"Hi, Lyle, this is Nicole. Remember, you met me after the game a couple of weeks ago."
"Nicole, nice to hear from you. What's up?"
"I have here a couple of Superbowl tickets, and I thought you might be interested, if you don't already have other plans?"
Lyle had been planning to buy a couple of box tickets and attend in comfortable fashion, but this seemed much more interesting. Nicole was quite a babe, not too surprising since she was a cheerleader for the Vikings.
"Why, Nicole, I'm extremely flattered. I would love to go with you. I am so glad you called. Could I pick you up?"
"Well, I'll be staying at a friend’s house in San Diego. I'll give you her number and you can contact me before the game."
"Actually I was considering picking you up at home and flying you there myself. Wealth has its privileges, how does a limo and a Lear jet appeal to you? I am a bit old fashioned so be assured that the invitation is completely without 'strings'."
Wealth sure had its bennies. Lyle was not sure he liked all of them. This for example. He was not a very handsome man, unless he enhanced his appearance with his powers. Nor did he consider himself very charismatic. But once he had become rich women started noticing him. On the one hand it was nice, but on the other hand he always looked at dates through a filter of suspicion.
"Really!!" She almost squeaked. "Gosh, in that case my friend is expecting me there Jan 23. I was going to stay a week."
"I'll pick you up that morning around ten o’clock."
She gave her phone number and address and then said good-bye.
His reverie broken, and being in good spirits, he contacted his assistant and made plans for a trip to New York the next day.
Lyle arrived on his jet and took a limo to a room on Times Square. He settled himself in and began work on a new painting. Lyle spent the next day making visits to various shops. His requests were enthusiastically received when the right color of paper was shown. Occasionally having skin the right color helped too, but that was no problem. By the time he retired for the evening, the asbestos boots had been arranged, as had the glut of Spectrum outfits at special discount to New Year revellers, and a sound system that verged on contravening local strategic arms limitation treaties. He hadn't done so much walking in years. Perhaps ever.
It would have been nice to rest for a day but time was running out and Lyle had to move on the critical part of the preparations. Without some juicy scandal he would have nothing to do but pose. Fortunately Bill Clinton was in the White House and that meant that a scandal should be easy to locate. Lyle was not at all confident enough to tackle the main crook quite yet so he decided to give the Justice Department a visit. He was sure Janet Reno and the rest of the Clinton cronies would be hiding something. He spent a whole day lurking around Janet Reno while invisible but found nothing unusual, at least nothing that he could understand. But while following her he overheard a real sleazeball telling a dirty joke and figured that the guy was probably up to nothing good, so he followed him and found himself treated to some pornographic entertainment. Not what he had in mind. It was at times like this that he wished he could close his eyes like normal people. As soon as he was able he slipped out of the room. The next day he had a hidden camera set up to record the next kinky event and went hunting for bigger game.
Unfortunately finding something political was not as easy as he thought it would be and all he had was an hour or so of footage from the sleazeball. He hooked the audio portion up to the spare transmitter scheduled to start playing at about 20 seconds before midnight as the ball started its decent. What a totally filthy way to make a name for himself. He considered backing out as he ran over what he would have to do. Well, at least he could edit it and make it rated R instead of X. The point would still be made and Sleazy would be out of a job. He made unedited copies of the tape and mailed them to various news organizations, both repectable and not-so. All that was left was the big event.
Lyle really loathed being out at night. He even slept with the light on. Besides the purely psychological reasons he had physical reasons too. Darkness had a very unusual affect on him, unusual and very debilitating. This was about the only day of the year he would have been walking around at this time. But Times Square was hardly dark on New Year's Eve. Spectrum made his way near to the ball and nervously waited the few minutes left. So many things could go wrong. He ran over the possibilities in his mind. His greatest worry was the possibility of a meddlesome would-be hero in the crowd. He had no delusions about how some would view his display. God this was scary. He looked around and spotted a few of his look-alikes in the crowd, wished he could test the sound system, and worried some more. Time collapsed in on him as memories flooded his senses, memories that made this event so necessary. The slow death of his family as the idiots in government ignored his family's cries for help yet threw money at the users that lived all around him. What a foul desecration the United States was becoming. But it was not too late. Perhaps the Republican revolution would change things and bring some reason into government. And he could help. He knew he was about to break the law and that what he was about to do was wrong. But the enemy’s allies were the lies and the law. His allies were truth and justice. It was a matter of which was more important, the law or truth and justice. Today there would be... Once again his reverie was broken as he noticed the crowd growing quiet. 5 more seconds. 4. 3. 2. 1. NOW.
The ball descended and lit up. Transferring himself into electromagnetic energy encoded to represent his physical form he arced up to the top of the sphere. The energy he expended lingered as a rainbow streak that marked his passage. He immediately started to absorb the electromagnetic energy produced by the insanely bright ball and converted that energy into a display. What was once a glowing sphere became a window to truth...
Jennifer Conway, who at some times and under some circumstances was known as Sapphire, had really been looking forward to the show. The trip from London had been quick and uneventful, and no more tiring than running up a flight or two of stairs. She’d picked a secluded corner, made the jump, recovered her breath and mingled with the crowd, then spent a couple of minutes waiting in anticipation. New Year’s Eve in Times Square wasn’t something she’d ever considered worth the hassle of a transatlantic flight for; but when you could travel like this, it was worth seeing.
When the blaze of white light dispersed into a pattern of color, it took her a moment to realize what was happening - was it a technical fault? A surprise new element in the planned display? No - that was a human figure up there and the display was...
Oh, Christ on a crutch.; It rapidly dawned on her that some moron of a practical joker was using supernatural powers to put on a display of blue movies, complete with sound effects.
She relaxed, but only for a moment. Trouble was, the crowd didn’t seem to realize it was just a joke in bad taste. People were starting to panic. There were likely to be injuries. Someone needed to do something about that guy... and it looked like that someone was going to have to be her, given the apparent absence of anyone else willing and able. Wonderful. Just what I needed to start 1998 with.
Jenny stepped into the shadow of a doorway. Nobody was paying attention to her. She picked a nearby building with a flat roof and reached out, focusing her mind in the way she’d been practising. Space became as tangible and mutable a thing as water. She altered it like that... and was standing on the roof. Quickly she turned around, dropped to her hands and knees and peered over the edge. There the guy was, with his back to her. She reached out again, focusing in a different way, perceiving the currents of his metabolism, blood flow, nervous activity. If she could knock him out quickly enough... But he had already started speaking. She paused for a moment.
The effects on the crowd had NOT been what Spectrum had hoped. They were starting to panic. And his worst fear was realized as a figure suddenly appeared on a roof behind him. Against Spectrum such a maneuver was less than effective. Damn!! A few lousy seconds was all he had been given. But he had planned for this possibility and channelled his energies into altering his appearance. The holographic display seemed to leave the sphere and enveloped his figure transforming him to a godlike being, and he spoke calmly and reassuringly into the mike. His words, meant as much for the ears of the meddler as for the crowd:
"Hold on, and allow me to speak. No harm will come to anyone, I wish only to give my message."
Jenny paused... and the crowd stilled as the message boomed out of the speakers. She quickly weighed up the options. The danger of panic seemed to have been averted for the moment - but it just might start up again if a fight started, and she didn’t know what that guy was armed with; that, after all, was why she’d picked this place to carry out her disruption from, where there weren’t any innocent bystanders to get hit by crossfire. She waited and listened, shivering slightly in the cold wind.
"Thank you. The display you have just seen shows what kind of people the current administration has put in positions of authority. But we will no longer put up with this kind of filth. The United States is a democracy and YOU... are its leaders."
Spectrum was getting very warm. The lights were quickly turning the area into an oven. Something he had not planned for.
"You have been crippled by the lack of assessiblity to the truth as they hide behind their walls. But they are walls that WILL NO LONGER HIDE THEM!!! I..."
Spectrum was feeling a little dizzy and the air was starting to burn his lungs.
"I am your eyes and ears. And the truth WILL be made known. Know this President Clinton, Janet Reno, and the rest of you crooks. The truth WILL be known. I will be watching!!!"
Quickly, before he passed out, Spectrum transferred himself next to a man wearing a Spectrum costume and concentrated on turning invisible. He struggled to maintain his concentration in the midst of the pain. Ridiculously, he worried that the damage from the heat would be so severe he would have to miss his date with Nicole. This was his most vulnerable moment. If the meddler could somehow sense his location and launch an attack he was helpless. Becoming invisible took most of his concentration and the pain took the rest. But nothing happened and he was able to slip away moments later.
Jenny smiled faintly as she realized the guy had probably been suffering a good deal more from the heat on top of that thing than she was from the cold up here. Who was he, anyway? As if it matters what some stupid politicians do with their sex lives... Hey, that’s really quite clever. The last admission was occasioned by the life pattern of the stranger reconstituting itself in the middle of the crowd, beside someone dressed in one of the costumes she’d seen earlier - a duplicate of the one the stranger had been wearing, minus the flashing lights. In fact, she’d seen quite a few people wearing that particular costume.
I could probably still track him anyway... but there were probably people hurt who’d need her help. Nuts. He’s probably just a harmless crank. Let him go. She pulled back from the edge of the roof and teleported to a quiet corner, confident that nobody was likely to have noticed her, and started looking for anyone who'd been injured in the panic earlier on.
Fortunately, there hadn't been any fatalities. In the guise of carrying out ordinary first aid she surreptitiously healed some internal injuries which could have been serious, leaving cuts and bruises alone. When the police started going around taking statements from witnesses, she figured it was time to go. This time the jump was straight to the bedroom of her flat in London. There'd been plenty of excitement for one year.