#but also how johnny and rogue are nearly at the same level

[joeku-xiv]

this!!!!! it’s driving me so insane that i can’t stop looking and thinking about the parallelisms between their two worlds and the characters.

how both rogue and myers are two queens with gray morals, which became who they are by getting their hands dirty and solding souls in so big different ways. how myers represents the purity and rightness of the nusa, standing on her big high white throne, but in truth it’s stained with the blood of the faceless people who hold it, the ones who she sold their souls and sacrificed for her interests. while rogue is sit on her black throne in the darkness of the underworld, where she had to sold her own soul to keep surviving unlike all her old companions, and to be able to keep night city a free city and all the powers running it as much stable as she can.

johnny and reed, both at the feet of their queens, of their thrones, of their worlds, the two biggest knights who live too deep inside the half truths of their ideals, who can’t stop their fighting one single second to think or all their world and convinctions will crumble with them. one day i'll make a post rumbling about how they're exactly the same while being the opposite, it's insane that everyone keep comparing v and so mi but never them, it’s sooo intriguing their parallelism.

and in the end here there are v and songbird, excatly where the two worlds collide, the victims of their war but also the best pawns of their game. the two true fighters for freedom that are crushed by them.

wow. i keep staring it and it always looks better

War Queens II

First version here.

Now they have knights and I'm having too much fun.

[fresh-prince-of-denmark]

Cyberpunk 2077 Literary Analysis Pt 7: Leave me Alone, Hemingway, You’re Supposed to be Dead

Surprise bitch I bet you thought you’d seen the last of me.

Cyberpunk spoilers ahead!

Cyberpunk meta literary analysis masterpost here 

Okay, so I thought I would be done with this, but it kinda feels like Hemingway has me by the left asscheek and won’t let me go as of late. So here we are: Cyberpunk literature meta-analysis part 7: For Whom the Bell Tolls

Hemingway comes up a few times in Cyberpunk, too many times to ignore. It’s not surprising, really. We know that Johnny is actually a pretty well-read guy from some of his passing comments, and if I had to guess, he’d probably really connect to Hemingway. In fact, if you play Johnny’s ending with Rogue, the final quest is called “For Whom the Bell Tolls” (which is also cool since it keeps the theme of all the missions being song titles, as this is also a Metallica song). But for once, this analysis isn’t entirely about Johnny or V. Hopefully this rings a bell (pun intended), as we’re very explicitly told who else really connected to Hemingway.  

Jackie Wells.

During the quest Heroes, Mama Wells will ask you to go through Jackie’s garage to find something for the ofrenda. One option is a book, For Whom the Bell Tolls by Earnest Hemingway. Misty will comment that he used to read it before a big job, and that it was important to him. If you choose to bring the book for the ofrenda, V will “read from the book” (I put this in quotes because the passage they read has actually been misattributed, it is a Hemingway quote, but not from FWTBT, rather from another of his works titled “Men at War”):

“When you go to war as a boy, you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed, not you... Then, when you are badly wounded the first time, you lose that illusion, and you know it can happen to you.”

The majority of our main characters start out as The Fool, naive and feeling like they’re on top of the world, the kind of hubris that can only come with youth. Yet, like Hemingway says, it takes a bullet to give one a dose of reality.

For Whom the Bell Tolls is a story of war. Our protagonist, Robert Jordan (I’d be really interested to know if Johnny’s birth name, Robert John Linder, was inspired by this), leaves his cushy job as a college instructor in the United States to join the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. Robert begins the novel fairly bland; he has no real friends, no real family, and he feels completely disconnected from the world. In all honesty, he’s boring. Like, if wet cardboard were a person. He doesn’t really care if he lives or dies, not because he’s a badass, but because he really doesn’t have anything to lose. No passion, no connections, nothing he loves that ties him to this earth despite the fact that he is a man of such strong convictions that he willingly joins this war. Robert is tasked with destroying a bridge, meeting comrades of varying philosophies along the way, who become a kind of found family to him. Despite going out of his way to avoid making connections, he falls in love, not just with the love interest Maria, but with his friends, finally giving him something worth fighting for, something connecting him to this life. The novel concludes as the group finally blow up the bridge (a task done in vain, since the Republican side has ultimately sustained more losses than the Fascists), and Robert is injured. He convinces the others to leave him behind so he can buy them time to escape. The novel ends just as it begins; our protagonist lying in wait in a forest, gun in hand, “heart to the ground,” on a bed of pine needles. (For more on cycles/mirrors/reflections, see here).

While there’s a much larger political message here that could parallel the themes of Cyberpunk, I want to focus more on the philosophical side, as it ties in with my previous analysis much more coherently. The biggest theme of this novel is about how interpersonal relationships are what matter most in this life, which is summarized very nicely by the poem by John Donne which not only lends the novel it’s name, but serves as it’s opening epitaph:

No man is an island,

Entire of itself.

Each is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less.

As well as if a promontory were.

As well as if a manor of thine own

Or of thine friend's were.

Each man's death diminishes me,

For I am involved in mankind.

Therefore, send not to know

For whom the bell tolls,

It tolls for thee.

This poem and the overall meaning of the book work on two levels. The most obvious is that we all die one day, that mortality is fleeting. But on another level, No man is an island. Our identity is tied within our communities, those that love us, and those we live for. “Therefore, send not to know/For whom the bell tolls/It tolls for thee.” Each time a person dies, a piece of all those who loved them dies with them. Funerals are not just for the deceased, but for us, a chance to bury the pieces of ourselves that died with them. “Each is a piece of the continent/Apart of the main/If a clod be washed away by the sea/Europe is the less.”

Johnny is incredibly similar to Robert Jordan. Despite knowing a lot of people and having a lot of connections, Johnny is not particularly loved, and that feeling is mutual. He even tells V that they are the only person who knows him that that doesn’t hate his guts. Both Robert and Johnny are men who base their morals and identity solely on principal and ideals; standing up for what is right, fighting against oppression, rebellion, but that passion is not borne from interpersonal relationships and connections. It is made of hate of the world, not love of their fellow man. This leads to one of Johnny’s fatal flaws; he did not fear death, because he did not feel as if he had anything to lose. He was consumed and driven by hate, not love, leading to all of his failed relationships. Had Johnny something to lose, he may not have taken all of the stupid the risks he did, acting as if he did not care about his own life.

V, in many ways, parallels Maria, Robert’s love interest in the novel. While Robert salvation lies in the love he has for all of his newfound friends, the main focus is on the love interest, Maria. Here’s an interesting bit of dialogue between Maria and Robert:

"Now, feel. I am thee and thou art me and all of one is the other. And I love thee, oh, I love thee so. Are you not truly one? Canst thou not feel it?"

"Yes," he said, "it is true."

"And feel now. Thou hast no heart but mine."

"Nor any other legs, nor feet, nor of the body."

"But we are different," she said. "I would have us exactly the same."

"You do not mean that." (20.66-71)

In this moment, Robert and Maria are talking about how they feel as if they have fused into the same person, as if they share a body. Yet there is a key difference in how they view their relationship: Maria wishes that they were exactly the same, while Robert states that she doesn’t mean that. Similarly, while Johnny seems to enjoy the growth he and V provide one another, his greatest fear is V/himself being changed into something they are not. Hmmmm….

Johnny and V are very different people by the end of Cyberpunk, finding meaning in relationships just as Robert has. For V, this means Judy, River, Panem, Kerry, Misty, Vik, etc. And for Johnny, this means V, and by extension, all of the people who make up V’s identity through their love and friendship. Despite dying and rising again as lines of code, V is able to finally show Johnny what it means to be human. His journey, I believe, can be accurate summed up by this quote from the novel:

“This was the greatest gift that he had, the talent that fitted him for war; that ability not to ignore but to despise whatever bad ending there could be. This quality was destroyed by too much responsibility for others or the necessity of undertaking something ill planned or badly conceived. For in such things the bad ending, failure, could not be ignored. It was not simply a possibility of harm to one's self, which could be ignored. He knew he himself was nothing, and he knew death was nothing. He knew that truly, as truly as he knew anything. In the last few days he had learned that he himself, with another person, could be everything. But inside himself he knew that this was the exception. That we have had, he thought. In that I have been most fortunate. That was given to me, perhaps, because I never asked for it. That cannot be taken away nor lost. But that is over and done with now on this morning and what there is to do now is our work.”

In addition, Robert’s final conversation with Maria as he is convincing the others to leave him behind so he can buy them time to escape is nearly identical to Johnny and V’s final conversation:

"Listen to this well, rabbit," he said. He knew there was a great hurry and he was sweating very much, but this had to be said and understood. "Thou wilt go now, rabbit. But I go with thee. As long as there is one of us there is both of us. Do you understand?" (43.319)

Here, Robert is telling Maria that because they are the same, only one of them needs to survive in order for them both to live. Compare that to what Johnny tells V:

V: For fucks sake, defend yourself! You’re not even trying!

Johnny: Hmm…sounds kind of familiar. We know that attitude. See, V? Stayin’ with you whether you like it or not.”

This scene is further paralleled by the fact that V crosses a bridge to reach Mikoshi, which is set to be destroyed, just as Robert was tasked with destroying the bridge. Furthermore, in the Suicide ending, the overall theme is about how V “never realized just how many friends they had.” Friends who, in all other endings, were willing to die for V, as losing them meant a piece of themselves dying with them. Similarly, Robert considers killing himself as his friends escape, as the pain of his injury becomes too much to bear. However, he is comforted knowing that his sacrifice will mean that they live, telling himself, "I don't mind this at all now they are away.” Despite now having something to live for, like Johnny, they are still able to brave their deaths as now they have been given meaning. And not just any meaning; love. No longer hate, or rage, or blind idealism. Love. 

This is the overall message of Cyberpunk: maybe you won’t change the world. Maybe you won’t win the war. Maybe your sacrifice isn’t going to change history. Maybe, in the grand scheme of the universe, you don’t matter, and you won’t ever be a legend. But you do matter to the people in your life. No man is an island. We were made to be in each other’s lives, to love one another, to change one another for the better. And that’s what life is all about.

[marvelsexiles]

Marvel’s Exiles: Overture, Part 2

Travel through the Darkforce Dimension is infamously cold and, unsurprisingly, dark.  Her teeth gritted against the discomfort, Shard Bishop wondered briefly why she could not recall the journey to the mysterious prairie.  Had it been like this?  Disoriented, featureless and mind-numbingly cold?  With effort, Bishop could turn her head to the side, but she could not see anything in any direction.  It was like falling blindfolded, with the accompanying creepy sense that one might hit the ground at any moment.

The abrupt return of gravity and her consequent indelicate landing on solid ground alerted Bishop that she had arrived in normal space.  At first, it was not so different from the Darkforce: still dark, still bitterly cold.  Her feet and left hand were buried in snow, more than a foot deep.  She stood, rubbing her hands together to rid them of the clinging cold.  Removing her sunglasses, Bishop could make out her surroundings by starlight.  The terrain was rugged, with mountains jutting up into the sky all around.  Snow covered nearly every stretch and side she could see, glittering in the pale light from above.  She could also see her five fellow travellers nearby, retrieving their own bearings.

As Bishop began to contemplate what their next step might be, a sharp howl of wind cut down through their midst, impressing upon her the urgency of finding some protection from the frigid alpine weather.  As if in response to the TVA officer’s thoughts, Doctor Storm called out.

“Everyone over here!  Gather close!”

It took only moments for the others to comply with Storm’s command.  It occurred to Bishop to marvel at the ease with which she assumed a leadership role, and how willing the others-- Bishop included-- were to accept her instructions.  Johnny on the Spot was the last to arrive close, clutching his coat around him as he trudged through the knee-deep snow.  Abruptly, the wind cut to a muffled whine as a bubble of invisible force enclosed the group.

“Is anybody hurt?” asked Storm.  Receiving no replies in the affirmative, she continued. “Can anyone give us some heat?”

“A little,” answered Bishop, quickly.  “The starlight doesn’t give me much, but I should be able to keep us from freezing to death.”

“No sweats, I got it.”  It was the teenaged Madeleine Beaubier-Storm who spoke.  Hovering just above the level of the snow, she opened her hand and produced a foot-high fountain of multicolored flames.  Immediately, the air in the bubble began to warm, and Bishop felt a tingle of life enter her skin.

For a protracted moment, no one spoke, each regarding the others in the flickering light.  With a gloved hand, Johnny reached out into the night, surprised when his fingers stopped at the unseen wall.  The Juggernaut broke the silence.  “Should we be concerned about using up the oxygen in here?”

“I’ve left an aperture at the top of the dome.  It will be adequate for air exchange.” Doctor Storm replied.

“Invisible igloo.  Cool.”  If the teenager’s observation was intended as a pun, neither she nor her companions made any mention of it.  Madeleine gathered her knees close to her chest and hovered in a cannonball pose, keeping the hand with the spouting fireworks extended toward the middle of the group.

Rogue pushed her hood back onto her shoulders and ran a gloved hand through her hair.  “Can we take a few minutes to catch our breath?  I’m still trying to wrap my head around… any of this.”  Her voice was husky but carefully level, betraying little in the way of emotion.

Bishop instinctively looked to Susan Storm, who nodded pensively.  They stood in silence for a minute or more, enjoying the crackling heat of Madeleine’s polychromatic firework display.  Bishop pulled her 7D off of her bandolier and snapped it open.  She permitted herself a small sigh of relief: at least it was working again.  This iteration was not in its database, but that was no surprise.  The information on its small readouts could still prove helpful.

“We’re on Earth,” she announced to no one in particular.  “In the Himalayas, what’s probably China.  2016, by Mu Calendar.”

Doctor Storm stepped in close, craning her neck to look at the compact-sized computer.  “This device tells you that?”

Bishop handed it to her without a second thought.  “My seven-dimensional compass.  TVA standard issue.  Tells you where, when and in what iteration of what dimension you are--at least, the best estimate.”

Susan’s eyes flicked hungrily over the readouts on the small display, “Does it have information on this specific universe?”

“Afraid not.  There are thousands of worlds in our database, but compared to infinity…”

“...that’s essentially nothing.” the physicist concluded.  “Still, a very useful device.”

She handed the silver box back to Bishop, and nodded to the golden Tallus on her wrist.  “Do you have any idea how to use that one?”  Bishop could only shake her head, tight-lipped.  She returned the 7D to its hanger and examined the new ornament more closely.  Apart from glittering in the firelight, it gave away nothing.

Gathering her cloak beneath her, Rogue sat on the snow.  “Anyone else hoping this is just a bad dream?”

“I’ll say,” answered Johnny on the Spot.  He pointed a gloved finger at Bishop.  “Accordin’ to her, I’m about five thousand miles and... a hunnert and thirty years from where I had breakfast this mornin’.  I knew this world was fulla strange things, but this…” he concluded his statement with a low whistle.

“I think we’re all a little out of our element, here… with the possible exception of Officer Bishop,” Doctor Storm reminded them.  “I believe the first question we need to ask ourselves is whether we believe this ‘Timebroker’ at all.”

“It wouldn’t be unfathomable that someone could fake this whole thing,” contributed Stark.  “Mephisto… or Nightmare.”

“Mastermind… Mysterio…” continued Rogue, dully.

“But why strangers from alternate realities?” pressed Susan, undeterred.

“For all I know, you’re all figments in this fantasy, created to confuse me.”  There was an edge of annoyance in the Juggernaut’s voice that raised goosebumps on the back of Bishop’s neck.

“Same to you, big guy,” countered Madeleine with a smirk.

“Thinking solipsistically is unlikely to get us anywhere,” Storm addressed them both, affecting a placatory tone.  “As improbable as it may seem, I believe our best course is to trust the information of our senses and proceed on the assumption that all of this rea…”

The sound of Susan’s words was lost in a crackling hum as Bishop’s senses were commandeered.  Stuttering snippets of words, and flickers of images like changing too fast between telesensor channels washed over her mind.  “Wait… I-- I think the Tallus is trying to tell me something.”  Shard’s own voice seemed distant, but through her physical eyes she could see the others watching her with concern.  Squeezing her eyelids closed, she tried to focus on making sense of the jumbled perceptions.  Gradually, a message began to emerge, like a picture made up of hundreds of smaller pictures, like a conceptual symphony.  When she grasped the chord, with a sharp sense of relief, the images disappeared from Bishop’s senses.

“‘Take the Great Refuge to the moon.’  That’s what it said we have to do.”

“Are you alright?”  The Juggernaut’s millstone voice was soft with genuine concern.

“Yeah, fine, it’s fine now.  I’m sharp.  Rotten way to send a transmission, though.”  Bishop gingerly fingered the Tallus on her wrist.  Now it was as unresponsive and inscrutable as it had ever been.  The others were still watching her.  “Anyone know what it means?”

Susan Storm replied, “The term ‘Great Refuge’ likely refers to Attilan, the secret home of the Inhumans.  The directive to take it to the moon makes sense, as a similar event occurred in my world.”

“We have to take this place-- Attilan-- to the moon?” prodded Bishop.

“That’s kinda otherwise,” opined Madeleine.  She stretched out her legs and traded the job of producing a flame from her left hand to her right.  “In my world, Attilan’s been on the moon since, like, the eighties.”

“In mine the exodus occurred in 2004,” added Doctor Storm, pensively.

Johnny on the Spot swept the hat from his head.  Though the black dot that covered his face revealed no emotion, his voice registered pique.  “Can I just remind everyone that I have no goldurned idea what any of y’all are talking about?  If we’re supposed to be in this together, will y’all quit talking over me and fill me in?”

There was an exchange of abashed looks.  Doctor Storm took the initiative to speak.  “I apologize, Mister Ohnn.  We are in an unusual circumstance and I’m still struggling to make sense of it all myself.”

“There’s a lot we don’t know, Johnny,” joined Rogue, standing up and brushing snow from her legs.  “For instance, before we go rushing off to the moon or whatever, I’d like to know who this team is...what they can do.  The Timebroker’s little newsreel didn’t give us enough to put together any kind of strategy.”  She looked directly at Doctor Storm as she spoke.

Storm rose to the challenge.  “You want to know my powers.  Very well.  I can emit a kind of cosmic energy that bends light, effectively making myself or other people and objects invisible to most forms of visual detection.  I can also generate and manipulate solid shapes composed of force, such as the walls of this ‘invisible igloo.’”

“How long can you keep it up?” Rogue pressed her. “My precise endurance depends upon how much pressure I must exert.  Against a wind like this, a long time.  Perhaps a few hours, if I needed to.  Against the onslaught of a Hulk or a--” She paused, momentarily casting her gaze toward Stark. “--Colossus… Seconds.  A minute at most.  Any other questions?”  After a silence, “Very well, moving on.  Madeleine?”

The teenager rolled her eyes.  “Only my dad calls me that.  Just call me Maddie or Skyrocket.  Anglos never pronounce it right anyway.  Uh… I fly and throw fire.  Clearly.”

Maddie had a direct, unpretentious manner that Bishop liked.  The girl reminded her of her own brother.  And, Bishop thought to herself, the pyrotechnics that the she effortlessly produced from her open hand were beautiful… though Shard Bishop had always been a fan of light shows.  

“I’m a photokinetic,” Bishop offered, not waiting for her invitation.  Taking in, without surprise, the uncomprehending glances that the declaration elicited, she elaborated.  “I absorb energy from light and project it back in other forms.  Heat, sound, concussive force…”

Rogue indicated the silver bandolier across Bishop’s chest.  “Any more handy gizmos we should know about on that utility belt?”

“Besides the 7D?  A voice log recorder, a couple of flashbang grenades, a smoke bomb, and spare parts for my sidearm.  Which is, itself, a useful tool-- it’s specially made for me, and channels my energy output, so it doesn’t need a battery or ammunition.”  Bishop drew the long-barrelled energy pistol and held it flat on her open palm as illustration.

“Nothing that can transport through time or dimensions?”

Bishop sighed.  “No.  We have them at the TVA, but I didn’t have one on me when I got… unhinged.  I guess the Timebroker didn’t want us to have a way off this boat.”

“Figures.”  The mercenary shook her head, sucking silently on her teeth.  “What about you, cowboy?”

“Me?  I can toss out these spots.” He demonstrated by opening four circular portals in the air around the group.  They hung indifferently in midair, each a two-dimensional plane the size of a serving platter at a different angle relative to the ground.  Each was simply black, lacking any trace of color or the stereotypical swirling of an interdimensional portal. “By linin’ ‘em up on the other side, I can make things come out wherever I want.”  This, he illustrated by putting his right arm through the nearest portal, withdrawing it, and then plunging it in again.  Each time he did so, his hand and forearm emerged from a different one of the other portals.

“Neat trick,” mused Stark.  “It must kill at parties.”

Without response, Johnny withdrew his arm and closed the portals.  He faced the others blankly, his right heel digging idly in the snow.

“Can those portals only be used for short-range transportation, or can you go further?  Say, a few miles?”  Susan posed the question with the intense interest of both an experienced academic and an aspiring tactician. “Sure, but if’n I can’t see where I’m going, I’m liable to shoot pretty wide of my mark.”

She nodded, considering.  After a few moments of thoughtful silence, she turned to the Juggernaut.  “Stark?”

“Oh, well, I’m strong and just about invulnerable, and I wish you’d call me Tony.  My gauntlets and boots project repulsor beams which let me fly and can be used as weapons.  Oh, and my powers are enhanced by momentum-- once I get going, on the ground or in the air, next to nothing can stop me.”

Rogue’s eyes flashed and she almost stifled a snort.  “A flying Juggernaut?” “Your Juggernaut can’t fly?”  The industrialist seemed genuinely surprised.

“Nope.  Iron Man can, though.”

“Who?” “I’ll tell you later.”  The former X-Man smiled grimly to herself.  Bishop watched her without amusement. “That just leaves you, Rogue.” Rogue turned to Bishop and answered flatly “When I touch people, I take their powers and memories.  Just for a short time, unless I hold on too long, but that can… it doesn’t end well.”

Bishop pressed her.  “How long can you keep a power you’ve stolen?” “Safely?  Two, two and a half minutes.”

“And what happens to the people you touch?”

“They’re weakened, lose whatever power I take.  Sometimes they pass out for a little while.”  She paused, waiting for the interrogation to continue.  At Bishop’s silence, she added “I also have eidetic reflexes-- meaning that whatever I see someone do, I can do.”

“Stolen from Taskmaster, like the Timebroker said?  How is it you’ve managed to keep that ability so long?”  Had she been asked, Bishop would not have been able to say why she pursued the issue so acidly.  Her own voice reverberating off the invisible walls of the bubble sounded strange.

The mercenary’s steely gaze became molten and she advanced on the TVA officer “I held on too long.  Now his brain’s a cabbage and I’m stuck with his power and his memories for good.  You want to make something of it, Time Cop?”

Somehow her teammate’s sudden advance took Bishop by surprise.  She was certain that a fight had not been what she was looking for.  Susan intervened before the situation could degrade any further, breaking the eyeline between Bishop and Rogue with her own head.

“That’s enough,” she scolded.  “I’m sure we all recognize that we’re overwrought, but we needn’t indulge in the cliche of turning on one another.  Tone aside, Officer Bishop was asking questions that interested all of us.  We can address personal courtesy at another time, but for now are there any other pressing strategic questions?”

Maddie raised her free hand like a grade school student.  “I don’t know if this counts, but I have to go to the bathroom.”

Unclenching her jaw for the first time since Bishop had begun grilling her, Rogue turned away with a dry laugh.  “Can’t get much more pressing than that.” Even Susan allowed herself a tiny quirk of a smile.  “I suggest you find some cover and take care of your needs, Skyrocket.  Does anyone else require a... break before we set off?”

There were no responses to Doctor Storm’s inquiry.  Bishop suddenly felt a cutting wind in her back as the invisible force that had been shielding the group fell.  A small amount of snow that had been blown onto the wall itself scattered into the melting snow at their feet, and Madeleine Beaubier-Storm zipped off into the night like a dragonfly.  When the shield rose up again, Bishop instinctively began producing heat from the photonic energy she had accumulated in the colorful light from the teenager’s hands.  The air inside the bubble quickly began to warm up again.

There was a long silence.  Bishop self-consciously avoided watching Rogue, but found that she had nowhere better to set her eyes in the dim light.  Johnny’s eyes were utterly indiscernible, and Stark’s were scarcely better.  Doctor Storm was looking up at the stars through the invisible shield, to all appearances unconcerned with what her companions were thinking.  The scientist cleared her throat.

“In my world, Attilan was in the Himalayas for a time.  Unless anyone has another idea, I propose that we make our way to the location of my Attilan.  It seems probable that this world’s Attilan would be in the same place.  In any case, it’s as good a place as any to begin searching.  Any objections to that course?”

There was no immediate opposition to the idea.  “Good,” she continued.  “I was able to make out our latitude and longitude on Officer Bishop’s compass, and I remember the coordinates of Attilan from the times that I visited there with the Fantastic Four.  From that, all it takes is simple geometry to know that Attilan-- or at least, the location it occupied on my world-- is approximately five and a half nautical miles east by north… which, based on the location of the pole star, is that way.”

Bishop’s eyes followed Doctor Storm’s outstretched arm into the rugged mountains and the starlit night.  All at once, the thinness of the air at this altitude became oppressive and she sucked in a breath to stave off light-headedness.  She did not relish the idea of slogging six or seven miles through the snowy mountains.

“It seems to me that we’re working on the basis of a lot of assumptions,” Stark mused, “but, like you said, Doc… it’s as good a place as any to start looking.”

A flare of colored light just outside the bubble of invisible force informed the assemblage that Maddie had returned.  Bishop gritted her teeth, and the wind once again bit into her skin.

“Tony--” began Doctor Storm, her voice raised against the rushing wind.

“Yeah?” answered Rogue.  She caught herself just as Susan’s head snapped to face her.  The beginnings of a surprising blush darkened the mercenary’s cheeks.  “I-- never mind.  Go ahead.”

The Juggernaut interjected a placating voice into the momentary awkwardness. “What can I help you with, Doctor?”

“I’ve been thinking about how we can travel most efficiently under these conditions.  Would I be right in assuming that your mystic power protects you from this cold?”

Stark flashed another wide, toothy smile. “You certainly would.”

Scarcely a minute later, five of the conscripted companions were lifted into the night sky in another bubble of invisible force.  The bubble perched on top of the Juggernaut like a howdah, and rocketed with him as he was propelled forward by a burst of crimson fire from the heels of his boots.  Bishop pressed her hands and her forehead against the side of the bubble, and watched the landscape rush past in a dizzying blur.

The invisible wall warmed immediately under her touch, and for a moment she felt herself relax.  From somewhere in the sweeping chaos of her mind, the TVA officer emerged and began to parse the situation.  She was in an unknown iteration, cut off from her fellow officers and most of her tools.  That much, at least, had been covered by her training at the Authority.  The experience of being yoked to five complete strangers and a mission with disturbingly vague parameters was new, as was the curiously compelling agency that assigned the mission, but the essential principles of working in strange worlds and times were unchanged.  Plan ahead.  Practice discretion.  Support your partner… partners.  Complete the mission.  Deep breath, Bishop.  There’s nothing you can’t handle.

As if to give lie to her self-assurance, the landscape shook with a rumbling thrum so loud and deep as to be felt even in an isolated force bubble in mid-air.  Before the astonished eyes of the assembled superhumans, a colossal span of rock and snow rose from some hidden valley out of sight and hovered at the level of the highest mountain peak.  It betrayed no visual sign of the power that lifted it; only the incessant thrumming pressure that shook snow from the mountainsides.  On the upward face of the rock expanse stood a city, small but magnificent.  Its alien architecture had a beauty to rival the techno-skyscrapers Bishop’s own time.  The city hovered four seconds, maybe five, before streaking off toward the eastern sky at an incredible speed.

“Attilan!  Go after it, Juggernaut!  We must overtake it!”  Bishop seriously doubted that Stark could hear Doctor Storm’s shouted words.  She could barely hear them herself over the pounding hum of the city’s engines, and she didn’t have to contend with the wind or a wall of invisible force between them. In any case, he must have had the same idea, because he adjusted his course and, with a flashy burst from the soles of his feet, redoubled his speed.

“Guess I shouldn’t have taken that bathroom break!” Maddie Beaubier-Storm shouted, to no one in particular.  Below them, the rugged terrain passed by in a desperate blur.

Bishop could see the strain that creased Susan Storm’s face as she struggled to maintain their bubble of protection at the incredible speed.  Her dark eyes snapped back and forth between the physicist’s face and the flying city which did not appear to be getting any closer.  “We’ll never catch up to it,” she said out loud, though she did not expect anyone to hear her.

Bishop whirled.  “Johnny, can you get us in front of it?”

To his credit, the bandit was only momentarily surprised.  He tipped his hat back with one thumb and gazed inscrutably ahead.  “I reckon I can,” he called back.

With no further word or gesture from Johnny on the Spot, a circular portal stretched open in front of them, black on the black night.  Without hesitation, the Juggernaut plunged them into it, emerging a millisecond later to a view nearly identical, but notably lacking their vast quarry.  Bishop, Rogue and Skyrocket rushed to the back of the bubble to see the Great Refuge behind them and gaining.  Stark pitched upward and in a moment, the assemblage was over the streets of Attilan.

The Juggernaut landed in the street with sufficient delicacy as to make only a few small cracks in the stone, and the invisible howdah lowered itself to the ground before passing out of existence.  The sound of the engines was somehow less overwhelming in the city itself than it had been before, but the shriek of wind rushing through the buildings was nearly as disruptive.  The streets themselves appeared empty.

Doctor Storm caught Johnny on the Spot by his shoulders and shouted something that the others could not hear.  She pointed to a large, high window set in the largest tower at the center of the city.  Obligingly, a spot tall enough for any of them to walk through appeared over the street, and Susan waved to indicate they should pass through it.  Rogue was the first in, followed by Madeleine.  Bishop hesitated only a moment before following into the space-black portal.

The transition from the dark and roaring night to the comparatively silent tower room was abrupt and left Shard Bishop’s ears ringing.  She stepped away from the Darkforce spot and made an instinctive situation assessment of the room in which she found herself.  Including Skyrocket, Rogue, and herself, there were thirteen in the room.  Four she recognized as the Fantastic Four from her own world’s history:  Reed and Susan Richards, Jonathan Storm and Benjamin Grimm.  The other six, she reasoned, must be the denizens of this city, whom Doctor Storm had called Inhumans.  

They mostly looked human enough, excluding the pug the size of a DOVA shuttle.  Two seemed to be women, one statuesque with an impossible volume of bright red hair, the other young and bright, with blonde, close-cropped hair.  The three men were even more varied: one small and lean, his head shaved; another scaled all over like a reptile.  The final Inhuman was a tall and powerfully muscled man, sheathed head to toe in a shimmering black material.

As the last of her companions hurried through the portal, Bishop stepped forward, her empty hands held out from her sides.  “Everyone try and stay calm,” she said, her dark eyes seeking out contact with as many of the room’s occupants as she could manage, “We’re here to help.”

A few pairs of eyes turned to Bishop at the sound of her voice, but most were focused behind her, at the Juggernaut and, naturally, the second Invisible Woman.  Mister Fantastic’s neck craned forward a meter and he blinked his eyes heavily as if to clear them.  “Susan?  But… how?”

With a supercilious frown, Doctor Storm stepped forward.  “Calm yourself, Richards,” she chided.  “I’m not your Susan.”  She left the words hanging a little longer than a standard dramatic pause.  The walls of the wide room seemed to be made up entirely of windows and large banks of computers.  For this time in Earth’s history, the computers seemed well in advance of human technology and yet somehow terribly archaic, with spinning reels and innumerable blinking lights.  “We’ve come from another reality, and we’re only here to help you get this city to the moon,” Doctor Storm continued at last. “Then we’ll be gone.”

Reed Richards’ elastic eyes remained wide with wonderment, and for a moment the excitement of questions bubbling within his powerful brain was practically palpable.  All at once he caught himself.  “The moon?  We aren’t going to the moon.  Our destination is South America, the Andes mountain range.”

“It seems that someone has another idea.  Medusa, Black Bolt,” Doctor Storm addressed two of the Inhumans, the red-haired woman and the man in black, “we have been sent here to deliver Attilan to a new home on the moon.  I can give a little more explanation, but I suspect our time may be short, so I must ask you now: are you amenable to this?”

The red-haired woman looked to the man, but no words passed between them.  They watched each other carefully for several interminable seconds.  The silent gaze between them was interrupted by a sudden, violent quaking of the whole tower that threw most of them to the floor.  The computers that ringed the walls shrieked and sparked, and sections of lights began to flicker out.  The incessant hum of the engines, already far more muffled than it had been outside, spun down and stopped.  There was, for a time, the sickening sensation of falling.

Then Attilan crashed into the sea. To be continued...