(Note: this story was written sometime after 2005, but the timeline has been altered since then. Chronohistorians from the future permitted similar events to happen despite the timeline adjustment. – JB)
LLH 8.1 - Ill Wind
Late August 2005
The last two months had been good for Jane Lane.
After months of chaos, there had been a long period of routine. Stacy Rowe didn't change the routine -- she had been part of it for months, and Jane had always thought of Stacy as a Legionnaire, even though Stacy was with "the other group". Brittany joined right in with the others in training. But Brittany had flunked the intelligence test and joined the Fashion Club in that Class From Hell with Sergeant Nemec that Jane preferred not to think about.
The only time Jane saw Brittany during daylight hours was during the killer physical workouts. Brittany had endurance but had some problems with..."top-heaviness"...that made it a chore for Brittany to do any kind of running. Brittany didn't give up, though, and ran with the rest of them, huffing, puffing, and stumbling until she could catch up with what the rest of the Legion had achieved.
Then Brittany disappeared again. While Jane and Daria worked with the Marine, and the Fashion Club played with their racecars, and Upchuck played pilot, Brittany made the decision to train in Advanced Life Support. She would learn how to start IVs, give injections, and use a wide range of medications to pull someone from the brink of death. She would learn how to intubate someone in case of an emergency. The thought of Jane's life depending on Brittany -- literally -- gave her pause, and Jane prayed that Brittany's instructors would be as tough on her as the Marine was tough on Jane in hand-to-hand combat class.
There was one more cot in the women's tent. The place was getting crowded. Furthermore, Brittany seemed to want to hang out with Jane and Daria and not with the Fashion Club. Jane could sense Daria's annoyance with Brittany reaching red-line levels at times, with Brittany throwing herself with abandon into Jane and Daria's conversations. Brittany seemed clueless, trying to win Daria over with charm.
It was weekends that Jane lived for. No responsibilities, and two dates a weekend. Both with Tom Sloane. Friday and Saturday nights. She had invited Daria the first few times, but Daria was the mongoose to Tom's cobra. Frankly, it was more fun when Daria didn't come.
(* * *)
"Oh, lad-ieeeEEES!" sang Upchuck, as he worked at the computer.
"What is it, Upchuck?" Jane barely looked up from her construction, trying to sew a cloth covering over plastic molds of the bones of the human forearm.
"The Mayor of New Orleans just called for people to get out of New Orleans." Upchuck wore a headphone, listening to Internet radio while he slaved away at his 3-D modeling.
"As it finally dawns on the Mayor that New Orleans sucks," said Daria, immersed in The Mysterious Stranger. "This 'news' has a name. Cover Your Ass. Nothing's going to happen."
"Laugh all you want, my brown-haired ingenue, but I detect a buzz and a hubbub that heretofore has been absent from your typical hurricane warnings. This has not been the best year for hurricanes."
"I thought 1993 was a great year for hurricanes," said Jane. "Such a rich taste. The grapes were really good that year. But it takes a lot of stomping to get thick, creamy, delicious hurricane juice."
"Scoff all you want to, but -- !"
"--you know what I don't miss?" interrupted Daria. "CNN. Fox News. All that garbage that called itself 'television news'. Blogs. Opinionated bloviators. Now put a windsock in it, Upchuck, before I unplug your terminal."
Upchuck put a winsock in it. He knew when he was licked.
(* * *)
That afternoon, Daria and Jane showed up for their combat training. They dreaded it, and they always had dreaded it. Both were thinking about finding something, anything else to learn the next time the opportunity presented itself, anything other than combat. The Marine had made Daria continue to work out, through the broken nose and everything, even when Daria's face looked like a grape and her nostrils were packed with bloody cotton. Jane knew he would have been as 'merciful' if it were her nose that had been broken.
"How do you feel?" asked Jane, making conversation.
"At least I can breathe," said Daria. "No nasal pain. Not for a week. The only good thing that came out of this is that I learned how to breathe." Daria referred to the yogic breathing that the Marine had taught them -- with no nose, so to speak, Daria had the choice to either learn breath control or suffocate.
"So why are you still wearing the face guard?" Jane referred to Daria's plexiglass face protector.
"I like it," said Daria. "Makes me feel like I'm wearing a helmet."
"So where is 'Morpheus', anyway? Shouldn't he be here by now?" said Jane.
"Yeah. My internal clock just went off. He's late."
"So now what?" asked Jane.
"This might be some sort of dumbass test. To see how we can do without him. Combat stretch. Practice our katas. Put the pads on and go full contact."
The Marine never showed up. Jane and Daria worked themselves harder than if he had been there to watch them.
(* * *)
When Daria and Jane arrived with the others at the mess tent, Upchuck was ten minutes late. It became fodder for conversation, as Sandi remarked about how great it was to have a few minutes without "that perv" sitting at the table with them.
Upchuck arrived, hyperactive as a live wire. "Lad-iEEES! You'll never guess what the Chuckmeister has heard!"
"Good," said Daria. "Then I can quit wasting my time."
Upchuck pulled out a piece of paper and began reading it.
"Hurricane Katrina...a most powerful hurricane with unprecedented strength...rivaling the intensity of Hurricane Camille in 1969. Devastating damage expected...most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks. Perhaps longer. At least one half of well-constructed homes will have roof and wall failure. All gabled roofs will fail, leaving those homes severely damaged or destroyed."
"Reading the Exit Mundi website again?" said Daria.
"Muy apocalypto," said Jane.
"Wrong!" said Upchuck. "That warning came from the National Weather Service!"
"Bull," said Daria.
Upchuck had the attention of everyone as he continued to read. The memo from the National Weather Service read like it came from another planet. ALL wood framed apartment buildings would be destroyed. ALL windows would blow out. Power outages. Flying debris that would most likely kill anyone it hit. "Water shortages will make human suffering incredible by modern standards."
As Upchuck read to the assembled, Daria thought that Hurricane Katrina must be something really bad for the National Weather Service author to drop his objectivity. Daria's more frightening conclusion was that the author was objective: New Orleans was in the way of a Category Five hurricane, and it was screwed.
There was a beat of silence, before Brittany interrupted. "Well...shouldn't we do something?"
Sandi scoffed. "Like what, Brittany? How is being invisible going to stop a hurricane?"
In seconds, everyone was talking, all talking over each other.
"--I could provide power if they needed power!"
"--guys, we have a duty! This is what our powers were for!"
"--The government knows whaaaaat to do!"
"--We can save lives! If we can save just one life it will be worth it!"
"--How are we going to get there? We're miles away!"
"--This is nuts."
Jane called "QUIET!!" Everyone went silent. Even the men serving the food in the mess tent listened, waiting for what Jane was going to do next.
Brittany continued. "Jane. We have to go. We don't have any choice. People would die if we don't go!"
Sandi answered. "People will die anyway. We're not powerful enough to stop a hurricane."
Jane looked to Daria. Daria seemed lost in thought. Jane muttered. "Daria. What do you think?"
Daria muttered back. "I don't know. I don't know if we'd be a help or be a liability."
Upchuck stood up. "You can't abandon these people, Jane! You can't do it!"
Everyone started talking over each other again. "Shut up! SHUT UP!" shouted Jane. "All right, all right! Will someone give me a fucking second to think? I don't want to hear anyone talk while I'm thinking!!"
Silence again. Jane took a deep breath. She assumed that whatever thought popped up in her head must be the right one. Lane, always go with your first instinct.
"We're going to have a vote on this. If we vote yes, we go. If we vote no, we stay. But there's one thing you have to promise me. No bitching. If you can't live with the outcome of the vote, then you need to leave the tent. It's a big hurricane. I don't think it's going to get bigger if one of us doesn't go. If there anyone who would leave if we voted 'yes'?"
Sandi crossed her arms but didn't leave.
"Is there anyone who would get pissed off if we voted 'no'."
Upchuck almost said something. Then he said, "I could live with it. I suppose. I guess there would be other chances to help people."
"All right. Official Legion vote. All those in favor of going to New Orleans to help out, raise your hands."
Brittany and Upchuck's hands went right up. Then Quinn's hand went up. Stacy's hand followed Quinn's but Sandi's arms remained crossed. Tiffany's hand didn't go up.
Jane and Daria looked at each other. Then, Jane's hand went up, almost reluctantly. Daria's followed.
"All against going to New Orleans?" Sandi and Tiffany's hands went up.
Jane noted their votes. "Six to two. Legion Road Trip. Full Legion uniforms. We're representing the Legion here. Let's put some awe into the people of New Orleans!" Everyone departed except for Daria.
"You could have voted against this, you know," said Jane.
"Maybe," said Daria, "but who's going to take care of you when you get into trouble? Remind me to pack my faceshield. You never know when you might get hit with a flying cow."
(* * *)
The Legionnaires were dressed in their Legion finery, the individualized colored outfits they saved for public appearances. This was going to be a public appearance on a large scale.
For some of the Legionnaires, dressing was easy. For other members of the Legion, formerly called the Fashion Club, there was make-up. Jane, Daria, Upchuck and Brittany stood around waiting for the others.
"That's it," said Jane. "New Legion law. No more than fifteen minutes to get primped."
"Do you think we should bring some provisions?" said Brittany. "I mean...who knows how long we'll be down there?" She twirled her ponytail as if lost in thought.
"I was thinking of making it up as we go along," said Jane. "But it will be good not to have to hide my powers. I'm going to be moving junk around on a mass scale. Katrina's going to be my bitch."
As the four stood about in their uniforms, the Marine walked towards them in, in a straight line, a purposeful stride without deviation.
The Legionnaires noticed the difference right away, especially Brittany. He was wearing standard Marine fatigues, along with the blackened rank insignia officers in combat wore; he wore the oak clusters of a Major -- well, he might be a Lieutenant Colonel, she thought. He wore the wings of a pilot and an insignia she had never seen before -- a rising eagle over a globe, with a sword in one set of talons and a shepherd's staff in the other, with a double swirl encircling them. He was armed as well -- with a SOCOM-issue .45, instead of the standard-issue nine-millimeter M9 pistol most Marines would carry
The biggest change? His name was visible on his fatigues jacket: Armalin.
"A night on the town?" Armalin asked. He asked as if he already knew the answer.
Jane said, "The Legionnaires have decided to help out with Hurricane Katrina. We're going to -- !"
"--cancel that. I already knew what you had planned. The Legion isn't going anywhere."
Jane's id bubbled a bit. "And who are you to tell us where we can and can't go? I think you forget you're our employee."
"Lane," said Armalin. "I'll forget that for a minute. Are you really ready for any kind of threat?"
"We're ready for the usual ones," said Jane.
"There are no usual ones. I'll tell you what. I'll make you an offer. I'll give you my blessing -- hell, I'll even give you advice -- if you can prove to me that you're ready to go."
"I don't like the sound of this," said Daria.
(* * *)
Days later, looking back, Jane thought it sounded reasonable...at the time.
They gave Armalin an hour of free time, and after that hour, he would present a challenge. It took him no more than forty minutes to return. ("And thirty-five of those minutes were in setting up the field.")
Armalin posed the challenge in a simple way. If the Legion was attacked by a) a policeman, b) a rogue looter if the hurricane devastated New Orleans, or c) a random flying piece of debris, then the Legion needed to show...as a group...that they could work effectively to handle these simple challenges.
At face value, it appeared to be a simple exercise. It would be a game of "capture the flag". One hundred meters of the training ground was marked off. In the center of the field was an ordinary flag on a eight-foot wooden staff, more like a banner than a true flag.
Armalin would race to the center of the field, take the flag, and return to the starting point. It would be the job of the Legion to stop him.
The Legionnaires -- assembled in 'costume', with no time to change -- looked over the barren, clay field and the lone flag standing in the middle of nowhere. After listening to Armalin, Daria said, "That's it?"
"That's it."
"And we can use full powers if we want to stop you?"
"Yes," said Armalin. "If you think that would be wise. I'm giving you a grand total of five minutes to plan an attack. In real life, you'd be lucky to have five seconds. Then I'm coming back...with the flag."
"Sure you are," said Sandi.
"See you in five minutes." Armalin turned his back and walked away.
Out of earshot, Sandi turned to the others. "I don't get it. We beat the crap out of him, take the flag, and go to New Orleans."
"Beat the crap out of him?" said Jane. "Daria and I have actually fought this guy. Full contact. We're allowed to go for the groin, for the neck, for pressure points, and everything. We've worked with him for weeks, and we've never laid a hand on him!"
"Unless he wanted us to," said Daria. "And I don't know how hard I can hit, but it's a lot harder than when we started. He'll let us take him down with a punch...just to illustrate how to plan an attack...but he doesn't even flinch when we hit him."
"Gee," said Brittany, "do you think he could be superhuman...like us?"
It was a thought, oddly enough, that had never come to Daria. Daria merely thought that Armalin was extremely talented. Trust Brittany to come up with the obvious solution. But if Brittany were right, then they'd be in for a fight.
(* * *)
In five minutes, the Legion had been forced to come up with a plan, a plan bastled together out of several different plans. Everyone had an opinion, but it seemed that no one had a good one except for Brittany. Brittany, apparently, had thought of a plan for just such a contingency, but no one wanted to be at the front lines of Brittany's assault wave.
Sandi was drafted, after much protest, to be the guinea pig to see just how tough Armalin was. It was not a prospect she looked forward to. He had real muscles.
Jane levitated into position above the field, at least twenty feet above the action and out of his range. Seven of the others stood around, or at least seven that could be seen with human eyes.
Armalin grabbed a stopwatch. He clicked the button, and in the same breath with which he let the watch fall to the ground, he said, "GO!"
Armalin took off for the flag like a broken field running back for Texas A&M. Sandi ran in the opposite direction, to meet him at the ten yard marker. When Sandi reached him, Daria, standing far back enough to avoid being hurt by Armalin, gave a mental command for his mind.
>-:: Sleep. ::-<
At that moment, Sandi triplicated. Armalin seemed to kick into another gear when Daria's command reached his mind.
Brittany was running behind Sandi in the second wave. Invisible, she hoped that the noise of Sandi's footsteps would obscure her own while Tiffany attacked Armalin from the advantage of intangibility.
What Brittany saw amazed her. Armalin made three attacks at once. The first attack was with his right hand, hitting Sandi1 in the square of her chest with his palm. The second attack was with the forearm of his left arm into the skull of Sandi2.
Then, gaining speed, he kicked Sandi3 right to the ground with his raised left leg. Riding her falling body like a surfboard, he pushed off and kept going.
Brittany attacked. She remained invisible and hoped that Tiffany would restrain him with a solidified pair of hands. She went for a spinning kick that would hopefully catch him right in the kidneys as he passed her. The problem was, her junior high martial arts instructors were not Armalin.
She missed the kick, hitting empty air. As she tumbled over, she would have to climb back up and chase after Armalin or wait until he came back with the flag.
Tiffany grabbed his arm as he ran by, letting only her hands solidify, each hand sinking into Armalin's left forearm.
Armalin tumbled. Then he bit Tiffany's finger, causing a squeeeeeal from Tiffany as she yelped in pain and pulled away.
As he neared Quinn, Armalin was immediately tackled by Stacy at his left side. Upchuck grabbed his right side and morphed into steel wire, spinning around Armalin as he tried to move forward.
For the first time, Armalin slowed down as Stacy used her full strength to try to drag him backwards. The two seemed evenly matched and Armalin was pulling both of them forward, but not with much progress.
Daria tried her commands with more mental oomph. >:--SLEEP, DAMMIT!!!:--:<
Stacy and Upchuck immediately started to sag, as if grasped by some mental malaise. "You heard her! Sleep!" shouted Armalin and Stacy and Upchuck both drifted into unconsciousness, each falling away from him.
Quinn fired beams of electrical energy into the ground, at a radius of fifty feet. She dared any human being, even Armalin, to cross this line of electrical force guaranteed to knock anything into unconsciousness, pain, or worse.
Instead, Armalin took one extra running stride...and flew...or rather, leapt...over Quinn's fence. Quinn was left to think, "how did he do that?" as she turned and watched Armalin take the flag.
Daria now picked up the chase, knowing that her mental commands were not stopping Armalin. She felt she had to do something, and ran at full speed towards him, knowing that she couldn't outrun Armalin and the conclusion was almost foregone.
Quinn turned, ready to blast Armalin with a direct hit. But he broke off the end of the flag, and, like a spinning baton, hurled it right at Quinn.
Quinn used her power to blast the makeshift baton, but it was not like hitting a motionless stuffed animal. The baton exploded into wood shrapnel, and Quinn flung herself to the ground to avoid being hit by the spinning fragments.
This left Brittany and Jane as the only options left to stop him from heading to the finish line unscathed. Armalin grabbed...something...and Jane got to watch as Brittany rematerialized, falling to the ground with her legs knocked out from under her with a leg sweep and Armalin losing only a fraction of a second of momentum.
Jane flew in front of Armalin, and attacked the top of his head with kicks. She knew enough not to try to take him on hand to hand.
Unfortunately, with the remaining six feet of flag, Armalin simply spun the flag, not unlike a flag girl in a drum corps, in such a way that Jane's face was hit with the cloth banner. As the momentary disorientation broke Jane's train of thought, he raced ahead, returned to the finish line, and planted the flag.
Sweating, he picked up the stopwatch. "Forty-two seconds. Great time."
The rest of the Legion was busy picking itself up. Sandi was crying over the fact that Armalin had struck her. Daria was trying to wake up Stacy and Upchuck, Quinn was throwing a fit, claiming that the rules weren't fair. Brittany locked her hands behind her head and walked about as if the Lawndale Lions had lost a game to Oakwood. Tiffany just stood there, staring at Armalin, almost in awe. Jane looked embarrassed and a bit angry.
Armalin walked back onto the field, at a point seemingly in the center of the scattered, crying, hurt, confused, and angry Legionnaires.
"Don't spend too much time bemoaning your fate, or anyone else's fate," said Armalin. "Guess what? There are other folks out there like you who will be going in...covertly. They're better trained, more experienced, have better resources -- yes, even better than yours! And the most important thing about them than makes them better suited than you for this...they're soldiers, and they're heroes. The former because of their training and their dedication, and the latter because they understand what they're going into and how it'll affect them later...and they still want to go."
He continued, almost sarcastically. "People... really. Why do you want to go? With what you know now, with the level of control and training you have now, the level of teamwork and cooperation you have now, the level of respect that you have for one another right now.... what good would you be to any of those people right now? They need help. They don't need what any of you have to offer right now."
With that, Armalin walked away, almost casually.
No one said anything. Finally, Brittany spoke up. "It was my fault! I missed my kick when I -- !"
"--- aaaaRRRRHHHH!" cried Jane in frustration. "Is there any way we can fight somebody -- anybody -- without getting our asses kicked?!" And with those encouraging words, Jane levitated and flew away, abandoning the others.
(* * *)
"...so you strike, Blum-Deckler. Striking blows, quick, in-and-out, not hand grapples! You've been hurt twice that way! If your hand is the only part of you that is solid, don't you think that that's the part that a smart opponent is going to attack? Even if your punches or strikes glance off an opponent, that's better than being at his mercy when he pulls your fingers apart in a grapple."
Tiffany listened, glass eyed. Armalin had reconvened the Legionnaires to meet in the classroom tent. Everyone had gotten a thorough lecture about what went wrong during the "training exercise". Armalin had reconstructed the strategy of the Legionnaires and then walked each of them through it, stating exactly where each of them had gone wrong.
"So it was a disaster. At least, you're alive. That's all that matters." He sighed. "We're not going to train. We're going to do something else instead."
"What?" asked Upchuck, sullen.
"We're going on vacation. No training for a month." Everyone's ears perked up.
Daria asked, "Why? Why are we on vacation? According to you, we need more training anyway."
"Simple. You're no good to anyone right now. You're no good to even yourselves right now. Go somewhere. Be alone...and when I mean alone, I don't mean 'Fashion Club Foursome' alone. I mean separate vacations. For each one of you. That means Jane goes on a vacation without Daria, and vice-versa. That's an order.
"For one month, you're going to get away from it all. Take a vacation anywhere in the world. I don't care where. Stark will undoubtedly pay for it. But you will be separated, and I want you to think long and hard about what you're doing, why you're doing it, and what you need to do to be of use to someone, someday. There will be a lot of hard choices for some of you. Frankly, I don't expect you to make the right ones. You're too young. But one of you might move closer to a bigger truth that will really make you a team.
"I give you a week with your families, if you want it. Then three weeks out of here. I don't want to see you around. Frankly, I'll be too busy to talk.
"And by the way...don't bother trying to sneak into the zone of engagement in New Orleans. You don't know how to use your powers in subtle ways yet. And Ms. Daria Morgendorffer? If you step within twenty miles of New Orleans, you'll learn the hard way what a 'mindburst' is -- and I know that you haven't been trained for that. What you would have experienced in that facility your parents were planning to send you to is nothing compared to tens of thousands of people on the verge of desperation on all levels. You are not ready to deal with the human animal on that level. And if you try...you might end up in that long term facility after all. And what happens to catatonic attractive young women placed in long term facilities? If the term 'receptacle' doesn't mean anything to you...I wouldn't do it."
With that, Armalin left the tent.
(* * *)
"You heard me. You have one week to close up the base temporarily. If the Legion wants to hang around, send them back to their trailers. Close up the mess tents and the infirmary. They need to see the world, and not see each other....how many months? One month? That will be an interesting change of venue. I'll figure out what to do ahead of time."
Armalin put down the phone. Then he became alert to the presence in the tent, almost immediately as it entered without knocking.
"The older of the Morgendorffer sisters," said Armalin. "Are you here to try to win by argument what you couldn't win on the field?"
"You're one of them," said Daria. She did not say it as an insult. She merely said it as a fact.
"Some people would take great offense to you putting it that way. Better to say that you, me and the rest of the Legion are in the same boat. Just paddling different directions."
"And Stark?"
"Stark is steering the boat. He might be wearing a yachting cap, but he's up to his beard in the same kind of water." Armalin sighed. "Really, Daria, you knew all along. Did it have to be that obvious before you woke up to it? Or did you just not want to know the truth because you dreaded the intellectual heavy lifting that would come with it?"
"So there's a giant conspiracy. A conspiracy of some kind."
"You say 'conspiracy' as if it's a bad word. We call it just minding our own business. So nobody else decides to mind our business for us."
Before Daria could speak again, Armalin said, "There's an entire freaking bestiary out there. There are forces out there that you couldn't imagine. Couldn't even conceive of, no matter how many lousy science fiction movies you saw. We keep the weirdness in. And what happened out there today proves that you're just not ready for it."
"So...when will we be ready? I don't like being a pawn on someone else's chessboard."
"Let me give you a bit of advice," said Armalin, closing a suitcase. "Before you start uncovering the world out there, remember what Socrates said: Know thyself. You've not even touched the limits of what you can do. Train yourself to your fullest potential. Then, when you're exposed to the unknown...you'll be ready for it."
And with that, Armalin left to face the unknown of New Orleans. So that the Legion wouldn't have to.