AUG 2004 - #2

Chaos Theory part two by Toby Kernan

Judging by the large bay doors they had walked through, and the fact that scattered pieces of several jeeps lay about, Nightingale assumed that this area had once been the vehicle storage area. As she looked around now, she wasn't quite sure what it was. A strange purple phosphorescent algae covered the walls, giving the room an eerie violet glow. The ground was squishy, having a consistency similar to gelatin.

Nightingale looked around to see what the other members of her group were doing as they walked through this strange environment. Charles Rowland, the boy ghost, was floating above the ground, exploring a nearby wreckage of a jeep. His sidekick, the super dog Krypto, was standing close-by, sniffing out a chuck of the floor. Brother Power was lazily sauntering along, humming a sixties hippy tune, oblivious to the danger around them. Lastly, Mr. Mind, encased in his large suit of armor, was bent over, seemingly investigating the strange gelatin which constituted the floor they currently walked on.

"Fascinating," she heard Mr. Mind say. "This floor is indeed grape gelatin. Someone, or something, has transformed what was surely once metal into gelatin. I suspect the algae, on the wall, is also some sort of strange transformation. I see now harmful spores being released into the air, so it seems we will not be harmed at the moment by it."

Nightingale frowned. The altering of basic elemental properties was no small feat. She feared that one of two scenarios was taking place-either they were facing someone very powerful, or someone had already opened the vial of chaos and it's effects were already starting to spread. Neither prospect boded well for her team, who were just a rag-tag team of misfits who happened to be drawn into this because they all happen to live on the same location, Danny the Living Street.

Nightingale wondered for a moment how she ever got caught up into this mess. This was suppose to be her day off, a quiet Monday afternoon where she was going to lazily sit around and do some light reading. Then the bottle of Pure Chaos had disappeared from Mr. Mind's store. Then came the revelation that someone had come in and stole the vial, probably for some diabolic purpose. Now she had been forced, due to her overwhelming sense of civic duty and need to watch after her fellow denizens, to join this hastily created union of Danny denizens, to find the vial and return it to safety.

"Blooming daisies," shouted Charles, interrupting her thoughts, "you all betta' come take a looky at this . . . "

Nightingale made her way to where Charles was standing. She saw them. Before her stood two statues. She looked closer, and noticed the amazing detail, then gasped in horror. They were soldiers, complete with their guns and outfits, stopped in the middle of running towards something, and turned into stone.

Mr. Mind gave them a brief glance, then turned to the other members of the group. "We can't help them now. We must remember why we are here. We must get to the vial and try to stop all this madness . . . "

Nightingale scoffed at him, and disagreed. She was a healer, by both profession and power. She had to see, if there was anything she could do to help these poor men. She slowly slid the white glove from her left hand and placed her palm upon the face of one of the stone men. She concentrated hard, feeling her empathic powers reach out and cover the creature in a warm glow. She felt nothing. The life that had once inhabited this body was now gone, nothing remained but an empty stone husk. When she let go, the statue crumbled into nothing more than ashes. She then did the same to other statue. She wanted no remnant left, so their souls were not bound to these stone statuary.

Her task completed, she turned and noticed the rest of the group had started in another direction, following Krypto and his super-powered nostrils. The trip took them outside this large room, into another section of the building.

The group found themselves walking down a long corridor. Nightingale thought it strange, because it was very, very long, yet there were no door. There were only shiny metal walls.

After walking for what seemed like an eternity, the group finally encountered something, only it wasn't a door, it was something else entirely. Krypto began to bark wildly, and the rest of the group followed his barking. Covering the hall, in front of them, was a strange cloud of fog, but it was no ordinary fog. It swirled in a variety of colors, mixing and mingling in an almost hypnotic fashion. Strange little burst of electricity crackled all around it. Most amazingly of all, there was a gigantic pair of glowing red eyes in the middle of it.

"You (here we go,) are not welcome (pompous windbag) here," bellowed the strange fog, "The Brotherhood of Dada (silly name twits) will not tolerate intrusion (you sound silly!) by you. Face the wraith (your silly arch-villain prattle) of the Fog (is too much)!"

The fog moved swiftly towards the group. Brother Power seemed to move forward quicker than the rest, wanting to confront the captivatingly colored creature, which stood before them.

"You are very pretty Mr. Fog," chirped Brother Power, seemingly oblivious towards any danger presented, "you remind of the groovy old days, back in San Francisco. All the trippy lights and swirling colors, man that was the grooviest times . . . "

Krypto and Charles jumped back as the Fog enveloped Brother Power.

"Die you (oh, brother) strange creature!" bellowed the Fog.

At first, Nightingale was scared, afraid that Brother Power was being killed inside the strange Fog creature. Then suddenly, she heard a slurping sound, and the Fog began to condense and retract.

"NNNOOOOOOOOOOO!" the Fog screamed as he became smaller and smaller. He was disappearing . . . into Brother Power's mouth. Soon, there was nothing left of the Fog creature. Brother Power belched loudly. A foul stench saturated the air around them, like mushrooms and sweaty feet.

"I like the colors," said Brother Power, as oblivious as ever, "I think I shall keep them for later. They were groove-a-rific!"

"Fascinating," mumbled Mr. Mind as Krypto and Charles resumed their journey down the hall. Nightingale just closed her eyes, shook her head, then returned to following her collected group of freaks down the hall towards their destination.

Eventually, the group reached the end of the hallway, and found themselves staring at a large closed set of doors. Besides the doors sat a complicated looking control, full of buttons with strange symbols on them. Nightingale recognized them as the Greek alphabet.

"How silly," mumbled Mr. Mind. He extended the arm of the robotic contraption he was housed in, 'Ultimo' as he had named it. As it reached near the control panel, a multitude of wires sprouted from the arm and attached to the panel. In a matter of minutes the doors opened and the five walked inside, finding themselves inside a huge elevator. Once they were all inside, the doors closed, and the elevator began to descend.

Nightingale watched the numbers on the panel inside the elevator. Sub-level 1. Sub-level 2. Sub-level 3. Finally the elevator came to a stop, and the doors opened, and the five walked out.

Nightingale sighed, as she looked around. They were in another long hallway. She was annoyed, all this walking was starting to hurt her poor, blue-skinned feet. She was suddenly longing for a cup of chamomile tea and a soak in her bubbly aquatic foot massager.

Ahead of her, she heard Charles speak; "There are cells here, full of bloody odd things."

Nightingale walked ahead, to see what Charles spoke of. She arrived, and discovered he was correct, this hall was not just a long corridor, like the previous one. It was some sort of observation hallway. On both sides there were rooms, cut off from the hallway by large walls of glass. Each had a bed, a soft chair, a bookshelf, a sink, and a toilet. On the other side of the room a door could be seen. Nightingale suspected these were some sort of cells, where people had been detained, though the ones she was looking at contained nobody.

"There are files here on the wall," said Charles, pointing to a holder next to a nearby room. Nightingale picked the folder from the holder and began to read it. It was detailed information on a mutant, she assumed had been housed in the room. The information was very thorough, including complete history, head-to-toe physical charts, and daily logs as to what the person was observed doing.

Nightingale looked up, and noticed Mr. Mind's Ultimo thumbing through several dossiers also.

"It appears," responded Mr. Mind, "that this is/was some sort of government instillation where people with paranormal powers are/were being catalogued and observed. Possibly more. This one here exhibited time distortion abilities, and another here exhibited the ability to absorb other people's minds and use their thoughts."

"Where are they all now?" asked Charles Rowland. Being a ghost, he was popping himself in and out of the rooms. "some of these appear to have been used recently."

"Indeed," replied Mr. Mind, "the last of these reports all seemed to have ended about two weeks ago. Something must have happened at that time . . . "

"Maybe it has something to do with this . . . " said Brother Power, who was standing about ten cells down the hall.

The others ran to where Brother Power was standing, and looked inside the room he was looking out, only there wasn't a normal room there. Instead there was what appeared to be an impossibly huge landscape. The 'room' was huge, with a sky of gray as far as the eye above could see. There was a ground of red brick. In the center of the room was a building that looked like the Empire State Building, only it was colored lime green, and sitting upside down, upon the spire.

"Fascinating," mumbled Mr. Mind.

Brother Power put his hands upon the 'glass' that protected this room, but found that it wasn't glass at all, but had a water-like consistency. He fell through. Without thinking Charles Rowland and Krypto followed him inside. Ultimo shrugged his robotic shoulders, and leapt through after them. Nightingale sighed and leaped through herself, wondering what could possibly make the whole event any stranger.

Nightingale regretted thinking that last statement. This room was beyond strange, like someone had thrown 'Naked Lunch', a handful of Dali paintings, and Andy Warhol's brain into a reality blender, and poured it out into reality. A crayon with wings floated across the air, drawing pictures in red across the sky. A clock that sat planted in the ground spun wildly. A sea of shining silver liquid could be seen behind the large building.

"Are we still on Earth?" asked Nightingale, curiously.

"Indeed," said Mr. Mind, "we are. My fine machine here would have told me if we had leapt dimensions. We are still on Earth, and this is not some illusion. Someone is manipulating reality . . . "

"well," said Charles, his keen detective mind at work, "that bloody Fog character said he was part of some Brotherhood of Dada, and this certainly is very odd and Dada-ish. This could be their doing . . . "

"Indeed it is my ferocious foes!"

Nightingale turned, and saw what she assumed was the Brotherhood of Dada. If she thought the collection of strange individuals she ran with were an eclectic bunch, than this group was their long-lost brethren. One individual was covered in a large green shower curtain with red question marks all over, and a variety of huge tubes sprouting out all over. Another one looked like a large floating metal ball, a robot or armor with any noticeable appendages. Another was a tall, pale-skinned male, wearing an expensive all white suit, with a blue 'E=MC2' floating above his head. Finally, standing in front of the others was a shadow of a person, a black shadow with two glowing white eyeballs.

"Well," said the shadow, "It appears Fog was unsuccessful in stopping you. Oh, well, welcome anyway, here to the new beginning for Earth, and all reality. I am Mr. Nobody and . . . "

"How have you done this?" asked Mr. Mind, unconcerned with a winded conversation.

Mr. Nobody frowned, Nightingale thought, it was kind of hard to tell. "How rude sure, please do not interrupt. We are the Brotherhood of Dada. I am Mr. Nobody, and these are Quiz, Torso, and Mathemaniac. We have done this by taking a small fraction of the Chaos and releasing it to my dear new friend Mathemaniac here. You see, my chalk-white friend here can turn mathematics equations into reality. Well, I came here, where he was being held captive, and introduced a little chaos into his equations, and BLAMMO, reality goes kooey-kablooey . . . "

"Why?" asked Nightingale, curious as to why anybody would want to do such a strange thing.

"I am glad you asked," replied Mr. Nobody, "my dear. Why not? There might have been a time when I thought like you, when I was plain old Mr. Morden, accountant for the Internal Revenue Service. Then I found it. The White Room. Maybe, I am wrong, maybe it found me, strange fate and all that. Either way, I walked into the white room, and was stuck there, for days or weeks or years whatever. At first I thought I had done mad, but then I realized that it was indeed the world outside that was mad. Not on top, mind you, but underneath. Behind those veils of jobs and mortgages and two point three children and dogs named 'Spot' was the true madness. It was lying just underneath. I then returned to the real world, and dedicated myself to letting the madness out. To bring it from hiding.

"I scoured the country, to find a cadre of worthy individuals to assist me in my dream. Quiz, the compulsive cleanliness obsessed woman who has any power you haven't thought of. Fog, the shimmering sensational master of misty monstrosity. Torso, the quadriplegic genius encased in armor and attached to energized appendages. And the final piece of the puzzle, Mathemaniac, trapped her in this government test facility, crunching numbers furiously for the powers of 'the Man'.

"This was just a test. WHAT DO YOU THINK? I think it is splendid, and soon I will release the rest of the pure chaos, and let Mathemaniac fill the world with absurdity. Let the other humans, walking around sleepishly, see what our world is like!"

"Not if I can help it . . . " replied Mr. Mind.

"I figured as much," bellowed Mr. Nobody. "Brotherhood, attack . . . "

Nightingale sighed in annoyance as she watched the group separate, and pair up in rather drool super-battle style cliché. Torso made his way towards Brother Power, arms and legs of crackling blue electricity suddenly sprouting from his form. Quiz floated her way towards Charles and Krypto. Mr. Mind and Mr. Nobody seemed destine to square off in a meeting of the minds. That left Nightingale with Mathemaniac.

"Wait till my energy arms get a hold of you, doll man," cried Torso, cracking his energy arms like a whip, "I'll fry you limb to limb!"

"Hhhmmm," said Brother power, unflinchingly, "I don't think I would like that. What is your bad trip man . . . I . . . I . . .

"AAACCHHOOOOOOOOO!"

Brother Power sneezed, and suddenly the Fog came shooting out of him, completely enveloping Torso. The little bursts of energy which were part of Fog came into contact with the energy appendages of Torso, and there was a gigantic explosion of multi-colored light. When the flash was over, the Fog was nowhere to been seen, and the metal ball that was Torso fell to the ground with a thud, and roll around as though it were little more than an empty tin can.

"Trippy!" exclaimed Brother Power, as he turned his attention from the battle to catching a flying yellow crayon that was drawing graffiti in the air.

Quiz turned her attention to the boy first. "I'll bet you are a dirty little creature. KEEP AWAY FROM ME. I'll bet if you are turned to glass . . . "

"I already thought of that one," said Charles.

"Then I'll blast you with my heat vision . . . " said Quiz.

"Too late?"

"Crush you with my super-strength . . . "

"Paaaaaa-lease. Give me some credit. I have been around over a hundred years, you know how many comic books I have read? You are gonna have to get a little more creative than that If you want to think of a power I can't think of . . . "

"I'll turn the air around you to poisonous gas . . . "

"HELLO, are you daft? I am a ghost. Geez, where do they find you people . . . "

Some engrossed in Charles, the Quiz didn't notice as Krypto had walked up behind her.

She noticed him though, as he started to relieve himself on the green and red outfit she was wearing.

"OH MY GOD!" she screamed. "That dog just peed on me. OH MY GOD!"

The Quiz ran screaming from Charles and Krypto.

"Silly wanker," said Charles, as Krypto ran up to him, tail wagging.

Nightingale stood there, waiting for Mathemaniac to attack. She wondered what he would do, overwhelm her mind with the power of Pi? She waited, and no attack came, Mathemaniac just stood there staring at her.

"You have very beautiful blue skin," said Mathemaniac, rather calmly.

Nightingale bit her lip and looked at the man. "You really don't want to fight me, do you?"

"No. Not at all," stated Mathemaniac bluntly.

"Why are you helping Mr. Nobody then?" asked Nightingale.

"It was better than being locked up here, probed by government scientists, forced to perform math equation for them like a puppet on a string . . . "

Nightingale thought for a moment. "Well, what if I told you, if you stop this madness, you can leave this place, and get back to a normal life . . . "

Mathemaniac frowned. "I have no home. No place to go . . . "

Nightingale smiled. "You can come and live on Danny with all of us. I am sure he could find you a nice studio apartment . . . "

Mathemaniac's eyes brightened, "My own place, that would be sooooo cool. I am there! Here, you might want this . . . "

Mathemaniac handed Nightingale a vial. A vial filled with pure chaos.

"NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

"So everything ended well?" asked Vilhelm.

"Yes. The five of us and Mathemaniac left the surreal landscape, and Mathemaniac sealed up the room, so the members of the Brotherhood of Dada could not get out. Then we sealed the place up tight, and I made a few calls to some old friends in the government, and they are cleaning up their mess themselves.

"Everybody is happy. Charles and Krypto had a 'smashing' adventure. Brother Power saw a trippy light show. Danny has a happy new denizen living in the apartment next door to me, and Mr. Mind not only got most of his vial of pure chaos back, but brought home a flying crayon to add to his collection."

"And you?" asked Vilhelm.

"Me," said Nightingale, "I am going home for a quiet night, a nice cup of tea, and a bubble bath."