Low Budget Productions Proudly Presents,
A Starfall Comics Comic:
Swamp Patrol
#16: Transfigurations Book Four: Judges
cover: In the middle of the cover stand Frank and Donna, both bound in shackles. To their right stand a man and a woman, both sombre and clad in white robes; to their left stand a similar pair. In front of them, also in a white robe, is Brother Theodore. He holds a copy of the Bible in his right hand, and written across the bottom of the cover in red letters is TRANSFIGURATIONS BOOK FOUR: JUDGES
The world around Michael Srinivathan was empty in a way he had never known before. It was pitch black, blacker than any night he had seen in his life -- there were no stars, no sliver of moon reflecting sunlight from the other side of the world. His cell was so perfectly sealed that if there were lights on outside it, there wasn't even a crack through which a single ray could sneak inside. He closed his eyes, opened them, closed them again, and the only way he could tell which was which was by trying to feel his eyelids press together. It was the sort of situation which could drive a man insane.
There were no sounds in the cell -- no footsteps to be heard through the walls, no sound of water running through pipes in the ceiling. All that Michael had heard since he had woken in here were sounds of his own making, and after some time (how long? how could you measure time in a place like this?) he had stopped talking to himself for fear of losing his sanity. Not that he thought he could preserve it; he just wanted to maintain it for as long as possible.
But what really bothered him, what got inside his skull in a way no amount of darkness or silence could have, was that he couldn't feel the fabric of the universe anymore.
His first thought when he had come to in this cell was to reach out and try to weave the fabric into a way out, some sort of doorway or at least a way to weaken the wall and get outside. He had reached for the threads that were always right there... and they weren't. Wherever he was, it was cutting off his ability to sense the patterns that made up the cosmos (the alternative, that he had somehow lost this ability, perhaps from the battle, perhaps from injury, was one he would not allow himself to conceive), and that made him extremely uncomfortable. It left him alone with his thoughts.
He had failed his sister. He had come to Pennsylvania, torn her away from her school and her friends so that he could make money and give her a better life, and he had failed. Now she was in a new city with no friends, no support, and a brother who was going to die on her just like their parents had died on them. Alone in the silent, dark emptiness, there was no doubt in Michael Srinivathan's mind that the end was coming, and that he would let her down.
Dead Man's Swamp is unappealing at the best of times -- in the early hours of the still-dark morning, it can seem positively infernal. But this is where Donna, Frank, and the rest of Ted's friends find themselves, preparing to search for their missing comrade.
"Okay," Frank said, "Donna, Janice and I will be Team Alpha. Brill, Pete, and Shelly, you're Team Beta. We'll use these walkie talkies -- " he held up a handheld machine he had jury rigged together that evening, gestured at the ones held by the others " -- to keep in touch. If anything, *anything*, comes up, you get on the horn and let the rest of us know. Understand?"
Everyone nodded.
"Alright then. Let's go bring my brother home."
He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt.
The hallway was quiet. The few of Redemption's mundane followers allowed access to it were busy elsewhere, as were his metahuman Disciples. It was the perfect time for Carter Stevens to obtain what he needed from Redemption's armoury.
Slowly, with a heightened awareness of his physical presence brought about through an extended period as a disembodied computer, Carter slipped into the room. It was massive, filled with all manner of devices both electronic and otherwise.
Just as I thought... Carter surveyed the collection, looking for one item in particular.
There, on a pedestal about one and a half metres high: a small chrome and plastic device. No bigger than a wristwatch, Carter recognized it from the files he had plundered -- the prototype for a machine that could mimic the powers of a Paragene Active. And it worked... in theory. Nobody had had a chance to test it out before it disappeared from the lab.
He knew all the specs, how to operate it, what its variables were, the theoretical likelihood of it malfunctioning. They'd better have gotten it right he thought to himself as he slipped into his pocket.
If they hadn't, he'd be dead by dawn.
"Janice?"
"Yeah Donna?"
"You see anything?"
"No."
Donna cursed herself. How could she have been so blind? Sure, she had seen that Ted was having problems -- but disappearing like this just didn't seem right... things must have been worse than she'd imagined.
"Donna, Janice, come over here." Frank called them over to a large tree a few metres away. "You see these burn marks here?"
Donna nodded. "What could have made them?"
"Ted's power, I'd guess," Janice said. "At least I hope so."
Frank took a couple of steps to where there was a similar burn on the ground. "He would come out here and vent his frustration sometimes. Just shooting things -- not animals, but leaves, branches, that sort of thing. But I didn't think he had the power to leave marks quite this severe."
Donna crouched beside him. "You sure he did it, then?"
"No," Frank said, shaking his head. "It could be almost anything. I'm just grasping at straws." Frustration started to creep into his voice. "We've been at this for hours, and this is the best we've come up with. Damn it!" He lashed out, thowing a stone at a nearby tree. It bounced off the trunk and fell at Ted's feet.
At least, he used to be Ted.
The figure that stood before them seemed taller, more confident. Despite the basic simplicity of his white robe, or perhaps because of it, he exuded a sense of controlled power he never had before. But there was no denying who he was -- who he had been.
"Ted?" Frank said, stepping forward.
"Silence," he replied.
"It is you!" Janice said, joining Frank. "Ted, what happened?"
"I said silence," the man who had been Ted Stolid said. He raised his arm, and a beam of pure white energy knocked Janice backwards, flying into a tree.
"Janice!" Frank started to run to her limp form, but another bolt landed just in front of him, stopping.
"My name is Brother Theodore. I have come to bring you to your redemption. Come with me peaceably, or meet the fate of your fallen cohort." His eyes blazed white fire. "Decide. Now."
Donna looked at Frank -- the only chance she could see of saving Ted from whatever had happened was to go with him. She hoped Frank saw things the same way. "Let's go," she said. Frank nodded.
The man who was once her friend smiled, a cold, smug smile. "I am glad to see your damnation is not complete. Sister Theresa, if you will?"
A middle-aged woman with mousy hair and coke-bottle glasses materialized beside him, wearing the same white robes but in a much less flatternig way. "Of course, Brother Theodore. Redemption will be pleased."
His smile grew wider. "Yes, he certainly will be."
The world around Donna swirled like colours a painter's palette, and the swamp was replaced by a neutral gray room. Frank was still beside her, and Ted -- Brother Theodore, she corrected herself with a mental growl -- and this Sister Theresa character were there as well. A pair of twins, in plain but normal clothes, came towards them.
"Chain them," Brother Theodore instructed. Chains? "The man has no powers to speak of, but be careful with the girl -- she's a shapechanger."
The twins nodded, and clasped manacles on her hands and feet. Donna immediately noticed a change, as though a background hiss she had never noticed before had suddenly gone away, leaving her to recognize it only by its absence. A quick test ascertained what she had assumed -- her power had been disabled, presumably by the chains.
"Ted," Frank was pleading. "Don't you remember us?"
"Oh, I remember you. That is why Redemption chose me to head this inquisition." He nodded to the twins, who left the room. "Who better to judge you than a former fellow sinner?"
Frank tried to lunge forward, but the chains snapped him back. "What are you talking about? Judge? Sinner? Inquisition?"
"My dear brother -- and I use the term loosely -- we all come to a point in our lives where we can turn from the path of sin and return to the path of righteousness. Some of us are wise enough to take the opportunity, to end our wicked ways. Others, like the two of you, are not so wise. And eventually, even the wicked must be judged."
Through the archway two more men and one more woman, all clad in identical white robes, entered the room. "Brother Theodore," said the shorter man, whose potbelly showed even through the looseness of the robe. "These are the sinners?"
Brother Theodore nodded again. "They are."
The taller man sneered. "Their taint shows even in their unholy appearance." To Sister Theresa he added, "Perhaps there is no hope for them."
"There is always hope for redemption," she replied. "Only when they refuse redemption are they without hope."
"So I am told."
Brother Theodore arched an eyebrow. "Brother Simon," he said. "Do you doubt the cause?"
"Not at all, Brother Theodore. I doubt only the sinners."
The second woman, who had remained silent up until now, cleared her throat. Her voice was powerful and cut through the room like a machete. "May we begin the trial?"
"Yes, of course." Brother Theodore took a bible from Sister Theresa and walked to the centre of the room. "The trial of the sinners begins." He turned to Frank and Donna. "You, Frank Stolid, are charged with consorting with demons, abetting the work of demons, and refusal to accept God's grace. Do you respond?"
"Ted, listen to me! I don't know what this is, but it's not you."
He smiled. "It is not Ted, that is true. But it is me." He turned to Donna and held the bible to her face. "You, shapechanger, are an instrument of the inferno. You are offered a chance to cleanse your tattered soul and reclaim your place in God's plan. Should you refuse, you shall be cast back to perdition, never to return. You have a choice."
Donna closed her eyes. "Ted, please... we're your friends."
"We do not consort with demons," Brother Simon spat. "Brother Theodore, I doubt these sinners will ever repent."
Brother Theodore nodded. "Sadly, Brother Simon, I do believe you are right. Take them away."
"I wish to speak to the prisoner."
The Disciple, a lanky fellow with an air of sullen subservience, eyed him warily. "Redemption has said no one may speak to the prisoner."
"Redemption has sent me with specific instructions to speak to him! Do you wish to provoke his wrath?"
The Disciple shrank a little. "No, of course not. Right this way, Brother Carter." They walked down a hall, stopped at a dead end. "I shall close the portal behind you when you enter, it is too draining for me to leave it open. Call for me when you are done -- I will hear."
With a gesture, the wall wavered, producing a whole that led, seemingly, nowhere. No light, no sound. Nothing.
"Thank you, Brother Roderick. Redemption will be pleased." Carter Stevens stepped into the nothingness, which sealed itself around him, and laughed, a nervous, relieved, adrenaline-soaked laugh.
There had been no instructions from Redemption. Indeed, he hadn't spoken to the self-proclaimed angel since moments after his release from the computer. There had been no need, because Carter Stevens knew what he had to do. Who he had to find.
"Michael Srinivathan?" he called.
Carter could hear stirring elsewhere in this place -- could not see it, of course, Brother Roderick's limbo being utterly bereft of light. But he could hear it. "Michael Srinivathan?"
Finally there was a response. "Are you really here?"
"Yes."
"What are you doing here? Where am I?" There was an impact as Srinivathan stumbled blindly into him, sending them both tumbling to the ground.
"You're in a... well, a pocket universe, I suppose, adjacent to our own. You've been in here long enough to heal your injuries, I would imagine. I've come to talk to you, and to tell you I'm going to get you out."
"How --"
"Not yet, not yet. There are too many people paying too close attention for me to get you out of here yet. But soon there will be some commotion -- I overheard them planning it earlier -- and I will come back here and get you." At least, I hope I will he added to himself. He hoped the device he had appropriated would work the way he thought it would, and let him mimic Roderick's portal-opening ability. He hadn't had a chance to test it, of course, but there was no need to weigh Michael down with that knowledge.
"Thank you! Thank you!" Srinivathan's hands clawed at him slightly as he regained his feet. "But... but why?"
"I'll explain after you're out of here. For now, I must go. But I will be back." Carter brushed himself off, a meaningless gesture in this limbo, and called for Brother Roderick. The portal opened again, and he stepped out into the real world -- such as it was.
"Thank you, Brother Roderick," Carter said. "Redemption will be pleased."
A cold hand fell on his shoulder.
Pleased with what?