Hot Zones

by Phil Hartman

Was it hot ?

#Bloody well can't tell, actually,# Nigel Keane thought as they approached the Sun.

#S-U-N,# the Irish plasma-being thought, looking at the ruined control center of Skywatch as his commanding officer flew the station closer to Sol. Nikolas Kamarov tried to make a course correction, but cursed in Russian at his ruined hands and looked around.

"I need a drink," Hellstrike mumbled.

"And I need a few more digits !" Winter snapped back, tilting his head. "Shit. Nigel, door ..."

Hellstrike lit up, concentrating.

And gasped when red hair and a tattered uniform fell through the creaking hatch.

"LAUREN !?" Nigel gasped, catching Fahrenheit. "Luv -"

"OhthankGODNigelyou'realive - damn, DAMN aliens, things were harder than Victoria, tell me we kept them off Earth !?" Lauren Pennington prayed, sobbing into her lover's shoulder.

"Yes, my friends, we did."

The rest of Stormwatch nodded grimly, seeing Toshiro Misawa's plasma form trying to coalesce.

"Hot air vibrations for sound, ol' sod ? Neat trick," Hellstrike tried to joke as Fuji struggled to stay coherent.

"It is taking much concentration, Hellstrike. I would ask you allow me to do so, in these, our final moments," Fuji requested.

"Coherent - Lauren ! Nigel ! Find as many techs as you can and get back here in five minutes !" Winter ordered. "I have an idea - get everyone not infected or dead up to the Watch Hall, yesterday ! Toshiro, how far apart can you spread your molecules before your consciousness fails?"

Lauren and Nigel traded a look.

"He's not thinkin' what I THINK he's thinkin'," Nigel asked as they raced to find technicians.

"God, I hope so," Lauren said in a voice which made even Hellstrike's energy-based nerves go cold. "After what those bastards DID to us, 'Strike ...

"An erupting Fuji would be the LEAST payback those xenothings deserve."

She took another long drag on her cigarette and stared across the table.

"They were such ... decent goobs," Jack Hawksmoore said, looking into his beer. He ran a hand through short black hair, his eyes flashing red for a moment as the women around him looked at him.

"'Goobs' ? Bluidy hell, Hawksmoore, half the time you and Hellstrike were close to tearing each others' intestines out," Jenny Sparks tried to joke, shaking out her blonde hair. "And Shen -"

"Please, Jenny," Shen Li Min asked, sipping her beer, "let's just focus here, all right ? I've cried enough damn tears ..."

"Right," Jenny replied, sensing Swift's desire to grieve in her own time. "We know why we're here. Stormwatch was -"

She looked down, holding up her fetish, and clicked it. "Who's using this bluidy line ?" the electromorph demanded.

"The man whom you owe a good five pints, Sparks."

Shen spat her beer over a suddenly-ashen Jack.

"What kind of bluidy sick arsehole uses a dead man's voice to play a practical joke ?" Jenny whispered, her eyes crackling.

"Damnit, Jenny, we got damn lucky, and Fuji needs serious help to pull himself back the hell together, so get your asses up here NOW !" Fahrenheit snarled over the comlink. "That WAS Hellstrike, we ARE alive - and getting more and more radioactive by the minute, thank you VERY damn much - and I want to just seriously kick SOMEONE in the head !"

"Three to transfer - bluidy hell, I'm feeling rather happy, and it's only been one beer," Jenny cackled as the transfer field lit up.

"SHEN !" Lauren laughed, hugging the Tibetan woman. "God, I'm glad to see you guys ..."

"Same here, Fahrenheit - damn. 'Strike made it back, hmm ?" Hawksmoore snorted, giving Nigel a rude expression.

"Go play on a skyscraper, ye bloody ballacks," Hellstrike chuckled.

"Jenny, why didn't we hear your fetish beep ?" Jack asked as Jenny started to concentrate.

"I set it to vibrate, of course. Got to have something to get me through those long, boring nights. Now shut up and let me pull poor Toshiro together," Jenny sniffed.

"Yes, Christine," Jackson King said, grinning immensely. "And I'm having the best damn time of my life saying 'I told you so' to those idiots on the Security Council."

"Those idiots still hold our funding, Jackson," Christine Trelane reminded her lover while she accessed a secured com-line. "Synergy to -"

"Yes, it's us," Jenny Sparks replied with what sounded suspiciously like a giggle. "I'm a little busy playing 'Catch the Molecule' with Fuji, here."

"Then you know," Jackson asked, fighting a grin.

"Of COURSE we know ! Jack had to go back down - he went through decontam, of course - but Fuji managed to sterilize the whole ruin of Skywatch," Jenny replied. "The personnel we could save are doing all right, but we need some serious medical and professional rad-decontam people up here. The bluidy thing's probably scrap, but what's another few billion to the Security Council for the heroes of Stormwatch ?"

Christine and Jackson traded a concerned look.

"In fact, Jenny," Christine began, "it could be more than you thought."

"Warm is what surprised me. Jenny's not a bitch, but .... well, you know," Lauren agreed, hanging her head.

"Quite savage words, for someone like you," Swift tried to joke. "Lauren -"

She felt the other woman reach for her and let her cling, listening to Fahrenheit's sobs.

"Th-they - USED people - the xenomorph did - they -"

"Let it out," Shen told her friend, shivering. "Let it out ..."

Apollo tried very hard not to grin at the expression on his partner's face.

"Do I kid ?" the Midnighter asked, moving from shadow to shadow. "Question two: are we ready for this scale ?"

Apollo chuckled.

"Is the world ready for us ?" he retorted.

"Sorry, I can't come to the phone this femtosecond, please leave your name and quantum number and the mad Doctor Spica will get back to you."

"Dr. Spica, this is Christine Trelaine of the United Nations Superhuman Security Division. We believe you may be in possession of potentially deadly technological materials, possibly against your will. Please contact us at 555-1234 if you can. You will hear from us again very soon."

*BEEP*

"GHCAK - 'potentially dangerous,' she says - I'm sucking down nine liters of nanomachines - GCHAFK -"

"If I do this," the red-haired man asked, a pleading tone in his voice, "do I HAVE to look like a Summers ?"

"Jenny, please," Shen pleaded, watching her team leader start to light up outside the General Assembly hall. "We're not going to get anywhere if we make -"

"'Fools' of ourselves, Swift !?" Jenny snarled, pacing. "Hundreds of good people died on Skywatch, even after Fuji irradiated those wanker xenomorph - Fahrenheit's a bloody basketcase, not that anyone can BLAME her, seeing those damn things come out of people's chests - and the U.N. wants to bury it under a nice, tidy little rug with Stormwatch's funding !"

Jack Hawksmoore looked over, waving at Christine and Jackson, as they approached with grim expressions. "Not good ?" the city-symbiont asked his superiors.

"Not at all," Christine Trelane said, looking around. "Surprised you guys came out of hiding ..."

"We tendered our resignations the instant those goat-gouging twits even suggested cutting funding," Jenny groused, shaking out her hair. "Word on the others ?"

"We've got some ... leads," Jackson said, carefully. "Jenny, are you sure about some of these ?"

Jenny lit a cigarette, giving the nearest "No Smoking" sign a very rude gesture, and led the others outside.

"You and Synergy have your hands tied with your new posts, sunbeam," the electromorph said, calming down. "These folks don't."

"Trick is to get them to come along ..."

He looked around, clearly uncomfortable, and squinted in the dim red light coming from outside the ship's huge windows.

"Is there someone here ?" the man - wearing a purple shirt, red sunglasses and casual brown pants - called, running fingers through his unusual red hair.

The lights came up, and the floor ... melted ... to admit a female figure with unusual headgear and silver skin.

"She didn't dislike you, so there must be something good about you," the woman smirked. "Dr. Angela Spica - you can call me Engineer."

"I'd call you a hallucination if I hadn't flushed my last brownies," the man whispered. "Is she -"

*yes doctor she is real*

Angela tilted her head, then smiled and said, "You're the new Doctor ? I 'remember' you from the data the last Engineer sent me ..."

"Why the ancestor-spirits picked me, I don't know. I just had this vision, and they wanted me to come here," the Doctor said, shrugging. He sat carefully in a seat, caressing the control panels, and began to smile.

"She's ... warm," he told Angie.

"Just a big, lonely baby," Angie agreed, caressing another control panel. "She need a purpose - and I think I know a few folks who could use it.

"And us."

"GRMMPH -"

"Bluidy 'ell, d'd ya have t'DO that !?" Hellstrike whisper-yelled as the Midnighter stepped back from where he'd pulled the plasma being into the alley.

"I'm not the polite one of this crew," the Midnighter replied, frowning. "I'm not Miss Mary Sunshine. I am what makes grown men soil themselves at 2 a.m. I am what gives pirahna bad dreams. I am the Midnighter."

"You're soliloquizing again," Apollo teased, landing beside the other men. He gave Midnighter a peck on the cheek and said, "You need work, darling. Now, 'Strike, what's this about going out and kicking some bastard asses ?"

Hellstrike looked from one man to the other and rolled his eyes.

"I'm doin' this for Lauren. I'm doin' this for Lauren ...."

Fahrenheit laughed, trying not to wheeze as Victoria Okedeji hugged her for a split-second.

"Sorry," the Kenyan woman laughed, releasing her former Stormwatch teammate. "Forget my own strength sometimes. Come IN !"

"I missed you too, Vic," Lauren said, entering Flint's apartment. "God, I missed you ..."

Victoria looked at her, then looked away. "I ..." she began.

Lauren hugged her, whispering, "You tried. Believe me, I know you tried. I don't blame you, please don't blame yourself ..."

"How many ?" Victoria whispered back, letting Lauren disengage herself from her. "How many did those damn things KILL ?"

"I don't know," Lauren said, softly. "Too many. Way, way too many. We can do something about it, though - or at least protect the world from things like them. Please, Vicky - we can do this. Together. You and I and Nigel and Nikolas and Toshiro and Jenny, Jack, Shen ... others ... I NEED to do something, to make sure what happened wasn't in vain ..."

She looked out over the Manhattan skyline and said, "I fought. I was lucky. I was able to burn enough of the bastards to pieces, to stay out of the acid spit and blood, to get to Nigel. That was all I could think of ..."

"And now ?" Victoria asked.

Lauren turned, tearfully, and smiled.

"And now, I think of everyone who gave their lives," Lauren said. "They died so we could have a chance, Vicky. If I go and crumple up and cry, or go nuts and hide in some institution, those people will have died for no reason. And I won't dishonor them like that."

Victoria nodded, standing, and smiled back. "Just as long as we don't EVER have some of that damn Kazakhstan beer," she said, "I'm in. What the hell Nikolas was thinking, hauling us to that freakoid bar in Russia ..."

#Jenny, luv, you've got 18 months to change the bloody world,# Sparks told herself, peeling back an eyelid. The whites of her eyes were bloodshot, and she cracked open a beer.

"PFHE - NIKOLAS ! NO BLOODY SCHLITZ !"

The snicker from her bedroom made her toss a lightning bolt into it.

~she waits for you,~ Jack's apartment building told him, as he watched the woman walking in his kitchen from just above the window.

"You're kidding."

~she wants for you to talk to her~

"Sometimes, cities are just too damn smart," Jack chuckled, entering the apartment.

The naked woman standing there turned around, her skin going silver, and grinned.

"Mr. Hawksmoore, I presume ?" she asked.

"I wish."

"Y'know, we could use someone with your powers."

"You're admitting this ?"

"Tell anyone, sunbeam, and I'll fry your last stash."

"Damn. You DO mean business. I'm in."

"Nigel, hush. They're sweet - OK, the Midnighter's creepy, but that his thing - and if they're ... well, that way, that's their business."

"I suppose ... but if the bluidy Midnighter starts wearing a dress -"

"Nigel. Grow it. Now."

"HERE !?"

"I'm damn sick of angsting. I want it. Now."

"Jaysus, woman, you're a godsend ..."

Nigel muttered something about "sentience should be saved for PEOPLE," while Lauren blushed and sat on his lap. Apollo chuckled, looking at where the Midnighter and Jack were examining some of the controls, and waved when Jenny, Shen, Victoria, and the Doctor entered the room.

"Right - Nikolas is sleeping off that crate of Stolichnaya he demanded I drag on board, and if I hear one bloody word about him sharing my bed, I'll let him take one of your fingers to replace his missing ones," Jenny snapped at the others, igniting her cigarette. "Now, where the hell is -"

"HellOOOO, everybody !"

"Oh no," Nigel whispered, watching the far hatch disgorge a green and purple-suited figure.

"Sorry, my friends, but this is the quickest containment suit the Carrier could create," Fuji said, sighing. "I look like Gojira's bastard son ..."

"UGGH - get me the Stolichnaya ! I can't deal with that bloody dinosaur this early !" Jenny ordered.

"While I conjure up some anti-nausea medication, why don't you review what we're doing, Jenny?" the Doctor asked.

"Right - we'll rotate in and out as we need, but I expect you to be around if I call you. Apollo, the Midnighter, Jack, Swift, the Doctor and the Engineer - and Winter, if I decide to forgive his Russian arse for sleeping in - will be the 'on-deck' bunch," Jenny proposed. "You others ... ?"

"I can't see why I wouldn't want to be here," Flint said, looking into the Bleed. "This place is the opportunity of a lifetime."

"Same here, Jen," Nigel grinned, ignoring the flicker of outrage on Sparks' face. "I got no place else to go."

"Except for wherever I am," Lauren said, ticking Nigel's face.

"And I too, wish to help make a better world," Toshiro said, wincing at his reflection.

"Then that's settled," Jenny said, snorting. "We're the bloody Authority, and the beasties and weird arseholes of the world had best be on their best behavior.

"Especially if Nikolas slips me more Stolichnaya."

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