Lady Liberty

Part II: Quirinus

by Ron-Bucky-Petrocco

Art in this chapter by Shane Luttrell

Into the cathedral-sized office walked Colonel Benedict, haughty as ever, tall and sleek in his black uniform. Waiting for him impatiently in a luxurious chair behind an oaken desk as long as a limousine, dressed in yellow and black camouflage khakis, High General Mike Armstrong, supreme commander of the Armed Forces of the Empire of the Americas, was not impressed.

"Colonel, your one-time paramour is a thorn in my side and I want it extracted," he said without preamble, disdaining even the pleasantry of a greeting. He made no offer of a seat, so the Colonel, upon reaching the desk, remained standing at attention in front of it.

"Begging the High General’s pardon, but scurrilous rumors to the contrary, Virginia Lincoln was never my paramour. Such a state of affairs would have violated the eugenics code, thereby risking a charge of high treason and the inevitable death by firing squad," replied the Colonel, one of the fifty Colonels of Science, powerful in his own right and arrogant because of it. "Her mate was to be selected for his genes from among the top disk hurlers of the Empire, as the High General well knows."

"Yes, the High General well knows, and because he well knows, he wonders why you’re wasting his time by telling him what he already knows! Stop posturing and tell me how you plan to eradicate this nuisance that calls itself Lady Liberty!"

"As you wish, sir," replied the Colonel, striving mightily to feign humility. "The problem, sir, is really a very simple one. Finding her is the only challenge. She’s armed with a piece of metal, for heaven’s sake. She doesn’t begin to have the wherewithal to resist our tender mercies, as it were, once we have her in our sights. So I propose to set a trap, bait it with some tempting morsel she can’t resist, and when she tips her hand, we will shackle her wrists. Simple as that."

"Make it so," replied the High General. "Dismissed."

Out of the office walked Benedict, briskly. Armstrong reclined in his chair and drummed his fingers on the fine oak of his desk, brow furrowed. The ticking clock and his drumming fingers were the only break in the silence, until finally he said to the empty room, "Alas, my dear Colonel, I fear you’re underestimating your opponent. Which means I must take matters into my own hands."

The High General opened one of his myriad desk drawers, and pulled out an ancient, anachronistic wineskin, of such apparent antiquity it might have been employed to quench the thirst of Julius Caesar. He poured from the wineskin into a crystal goblet, equally antique. As soon as the first red drops hit the crystal, the office interior began inexplicably to glow a deep red. Something was about to happen…

***

Down beneath the surface of the city, in the bowels of the sewer system, Virginia Lincoln sat quietly in an old, dilapidated living room chair, dressed in her Lady Liberty costume. Beside her a standing lamp burned brightly, powered by a portable generator humming softly next to it on the earthen floor. In her hands was an old, musty tome, all of its pages handwritten.

The paragraph she was re-reading for the umpteenth time was as follows:

"Cap once told me that if he thought of his shield as merely a weapon, that thought would limit his imagination, and that limit would spell his doom. He was adamant about this. In any reasonably fair contest, said Cap, the combatant with the greater imagination will almost certainly win. And for a warrior with one weapon, imagination meant learning to think not of weaponry but of doubling your forces. Become two soldiers, you and your shield. Become an army of two, with yourself the commanding officer. When your shield is out of your hands, its movements and yours need to be coordinated, striking the enemy from two directions at once, left and right, high and low, back and front. Or think of yourself as infantry and your shield as air support."

Footsteps caught her attention and she quickly slid the book underneath her chair as she grabbed that legendary metal disk, the possession of which made her ipso facto Captain America’s successor in this century. She couldn’t have told you which was more precious, the disk or the book.

From around a nearby twist in the tunnels came walking her friend Becky Barnes, with three other people she didn’t know by face, though she suspected she knew them by reputation, however whispered and hushed those reputations might be.

The four came to a stop in front of where she was seated. She stood and nodded her head, then glanced at Becky as a way of saying, "Introductions, please."

"My friends, as you can see, Virginia Lincoln is truly among us and truly on our side," said Becky to the three she’d brought with her. "I know she needs no introductions, as she is arguably the most famous athlete on the planet."

"Hello," said Virginia with another nod. Her right hand never left the shield.

Becky continued. "Any suspicions you had that our recent television broadcast was a fake, computer generated, can now be set to rest. The events recorded were real. Virginia Lincoln has indeed taken on the identity of Lady Liberty, and is very much at war with the High General and his lackeys, the Armed Forces."

There were four decrepit old recliners arranged with Virginia’s to make a five-seat circle. Virginia gestured with her left hand as if to say, "Be seated." She herself sat down. The others followed suit, including Becky, who went on with her introductions.

Pointing with her eyes and chin at the first of the three, an Hispanic woman in a navy blue police uniform, Becky said to Virginia, "This is Rosalita Valdez, descendant of New York City’s most decorated Commissioner of Police, Carmella Valdez. When the Armed Forces issued their Ultimatum and ascended to power, Carmella Valdez, with thousands of police officers around the country, staged a rebellion! It was brutally crushed. They couldn’t match the high tech weaponry of the military, nor the military’s willingness to slaughter civilians."

Virginia jumped in. "Have we any clues, yet, as to how the High General was able to command such obedience? We need to figure that out. United States soldiers for centuries were not in the habit of staging coups or killing their fellow citizens. What hold did the High General have on them?"

Becky shook her head in the negative. "Still no clue. But Samantha is doing everything she can to research it."

The reference was to Samantha Wilson, descendant of the famous Samuel Wilson, one-time partner of the legendary Captain America. Virginia nodded to Becky to continue with her introductions.

"Carmella Valdez died in the failed rebellion," said Becky, "As did many of her comrades, but not all. Those who survived fled to the shadows and kept fighting, but in small guerrilla campaigns, always running back to the shadows as quickly as possible. Their descendants maintain the struggle to this day, wearing the uniforms of their brave ancestors. They call themselves the Blue Knights, and here in this city they call Rosalita their Commissioner."

Virginia stood and offered her hand. "It’s an honor to meet you, Commissioner Valdez."

The Hispanic woman stood, shook hands, and said, "Call me Rosalita. May I call you Virginia?"

"You may," came the answer. "You all may."

As the two sat down, Becky went on, pointing with her eyes and chin at the strapping young white male seated beside her, dressed like a modern-day cowboy. "This is Willie Waylon Jones. Back when the Armed Forces issued their Ultimatum, the police officers weren’t the only ones who fought back! Especially in the western states, where many citizens owned guns and knew how to use them, volunteer militia rose up, and gradually united into a single band of freedom fighters, naming itself after the Minute Men who fought under George Washington. Like the Blue Knights, these Minute Men keep to the shadows, striking fast and furious when and where they can. Their leader is seated here before you, Willie Waylon Jones, hailing from Texas."

Virginia stood and offered her hand. "It’s an honor, sir."

"Likewise," came the reply as Willie stood to shake her hand.

Becky now pointed with eyes and chin at the East Asian fellow two seats to her right, dressed like a high-powered corporate executive. "And this gentleman’s name is Yoshi-San, descendant of the infamous Yellow Claw."

Virginia looked hard at this man. Could she trust him?

Becky went on. "Mere months before the Ultimatum was issued, the Yellow Claw had managed to consolidate the various crime syndicates in the United States under his own authority. Nobody knows what he planned to do next, because the Ultimatum changed everything. The High General saw organized crime as a threat to his regime, and immediately started exterminating them. Many of us wonder to this day why the Yellow Claw didn’t escape on his own back to Asia. But for reasons we can only guess at, he didn’t."

Yoshi-San spoke up. "The Yellow Claw declared war on the High General! Ten years later, my ancestor was slain in battle, his body retrieved and burned in a public cremation by his enemies. Many of those that had served him had likewise died in brutal slaughter, and their survivors, often family members, fathers and brothers, mothers and sisters—their survivors swore on the graves of the fallen to avenge their deaths. And thus, even without the Yellow Claw to lead them, they continued their fight against the High General."

Virginia continued looking closely at Yoshi-San, sizing him up. Could she trust him?

Yoshi-San continued. "A century and a half has gone by, and still the forces brought together by the Yellow Claw are fighting the High General. Today we call ourselves the Crouching Tiger, and we no longer understand ourselves as criminals, for what is the meaning of such a word when all legal authority has been usurped? Who is the criminal in this scenario? We fight to break the fingers of the iron fist. That is the only identity we know. We rise up against the giant and harass him at his ankles, or when we’re lucky, even at his knees. Leading this uprising is the only destiny I have ever imagined for myself."

Virginia stood. "I don’t know if I can trust you, Yoshi-San, but Becky trusts you, and so I offer you my hand."

He stood and accepted it.

***

In the High General’s office, the uncanny red glow intensified. Every object, even Mike Armstrong himself, seemed covered in a thick layer of blood.

And then, the next instant, all was as it had been. Except the crystal goblet, which had been filled with red wine, was now inexplicably empty. And across the room from Armstrong, in a huge leather chair that moments before had been empty, sat a being whose species no human taxonomist had ever catalogued.

Easily nine feet tall if it had chosen to stand, it had the torso, arms and legs of a man, and the head of a wolf so fearsome it might well have been mistaken for the sun-devourer Fenris, whom even Thor respected and Vikings dreaded. All over its body was the fur of a wolf, but golden as no wolf’s had ever been, shimmering like the wealth of Fort Knox.

"You have summoned Quirinus by the pouring of the wine," said the being. "What could be so important as to require my divine attention?"

"Lord Quirinus, you well know that I can handle any threat of physical force. But today I face an enemy whose greatest strength may reside in the realm of spirit."

"Indeed," said the creature. "I know of this Lady Liberty and what she attempts. You fear the symbolism of her newly acquired weapon. You are wise in this."

"Is your power sufficient to resist her?"

"INSOLENT CUR!!!" roared the being as it bounded from its seat and crossed the office in two strides. Leaning with its hands on the desk top, it brought its snout to the High General’s nose and glared into his eyes. "Rephrase your question or I will make of you my breakfast."

"I meant no offense, Lord Quirinus," said Armstrong hastily. "I merely would know, if you would deign to tell me, what plans you have in her regard, or if even any plans are needed."

"They are needed," said the entity, regaining its calm. It stood tall, no longer leaning on the desk, and thus withdrawing its snout from such close proximity to the High General’s twitching nostrils.

"Once my name was Romulus, brother of Remus, raised by a she-wolf, founder of an empire that came to rule the known world. On my death I was raised unto Olympus and made one with the gods, with Jupiter and Juno, with Mars and Neptune. I took a new name, the one you know me by."

The High General had heard all this before, but he humored his master’s predilection for telling it repeatedly, ad nauseum…

Golden fur shimmering, Quirinus looked into Armstrong’s eyes once more. "Why did Rome fall? Can you answer me this?"

"Yes, milord, I can," replied the High General. "The Romans wearied of conquest. They decided their borders were wide enough apart and they stopped trying to expand them. Like any living organism, when they stopped growing, they began aging instead, the slow but inevitable process of dying."

"You’ve quoted me the symptoms, but not the cause. These things happened because I, Quirinus, was called back to Olympus! And without my influence to fan the flames that already burned in the Roman heart, all that you have said, occurred. How similar your own nation’s history has been! In the nineteenth century you swept across a continent, destroying all who opposed you! But then came the twentieth century, and like the Romans before you, you wearied of conquest, deciding, as they had, that your borders were wide enough apart. Fifty states were sufficient, why look for fifty-one? Inevitably, your aging process began, your slow process of death. But then, behold! I returned from Olympus at last and in my mercy delivered you! Are you not grateful?"

"Indeed, milord, you know that we are. I, especially, your most humble servant, offer you incessantly my heartfelt thanks!"

"And how did I accomplish it? By what mechanism did I bring about your deliverance?"

"Your divine presence was enough, Lord Quirinus. You had merely to walk among us soldiers in disguise, your godly aura soaking our spirits with your will to conquer! Over time we became your disciples, without ever seeing your face or hearing your name!"

The immortal smiled a wide, feral grin. "Indeed. Though my aura merely stokes the fires that burn already within you. Purity of heart can defeat my influence. But oh, how rare is purity of heart!" Suddenly his mood darkened. "Do you presume to think that Olympus is the only heaven?"

Armstrong hesitated, taken aback by his master’s change of mien, then replied, "I don’t know, milord."

"It’s not!" growled Quirinus. "Indeed, it isn’t even the only Olympus! There’s another, where instead of Jupiter they have Zeus, and where one called Hera usurps the place of Juno! But it doesn’t stop there, my servant. There is a realm called Asgard, where one-eyed Odin rules… the heavens are many and varied. What if one of these others grew interested in your Empire of the Americas, and sought to overthrow my influence? Might they not employ some well-known mortal symbol as the focal point of their celestial magics?"

"You fear the shield of Captain America could be used against you," said the High General.

"SACRILEGIOUS WHELP!!!" roared Quirinus, lashing out with his claws to draw blood and rip the shirt from Armstrong’s chest. "Speak to me again of fear and I will teach you the meaning of the word!"

"My apologies, milord," gasped the High General, striving to retain his composure as his life’s blood stained his clothes.

As suddenly as he’d arrived, Quirinus vanished. The office glowed red once again. When normal color returned, the crystal goblet was full of wine. Armstrong lifted it and quaffed it down in a single gulp. His chest healed and his spirit grew more entwined with his master’s!

***

Virginia, still standing after shaking Yoshi-San’s hand, stepped backward to lean against the wall, and folding her arms, she said, "Here’s my dilemma."

Becky and Rosalita, Willie and Yoshi-San, they all waited patiently for her to continue.

She did. "I’m supposed to be carrying on the legacy of Captain America. The whole point of what I’m doing is that I’m trying to stir up wide scale resistance, and not just among civilians, but among those soldiers who still retain some sort of decency."

"Right," said Becky, "So what’s the problem?"

Virginia took a deep breath. Then: "Rosalita. Willie. Yoshi-San. I respect and admire you for what you’re doing. You’re brave and you’re dedicated, there’s no denying that. But I’m afraid my mission conflicts with yours."

"What?" blurted Becky. "What are you talking about?"

"Let the woman talk," said Willie. "I think she’s gonna explain. In fact I think I know what she’s gonna say."

The others remained silent, bewildered.

"I’ve been giving this a lot of thought," Virginia went on, "And I just can’t picture Captain America involved in any effort aimed at killing American soldiers. And that’s what you folks do. I know why you do it. I know you have no choice but to do it. But I can’t do it with you. Nor can I fight alongside you while you do it."

"But…" sputtered Yoshi-San, "These soldiers are agents of tyranny! They oppress an entire nation!"

"I know," Virginia replied. "What I don’t know is how the High General gets them to do it. He has to be manipulating them somehow!"

"He rewards them well," said Rosalita, "With money and with… other things."

"Yes, I know. But that’s not enough. It can’t be! There has to be more to it. These soldiers kill their fellow citizens without mercy! Before the Ultimatum, such atrocities would have been unthinkable! After the Ultimatum, they were commonplace! What changed?"

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely," muttered Becky.

"Maybe yes, maybe no," said Willie Waylon Jones. "I think I know where you’re headed, Miss Lincoln. I been thinkin’ about it myself all these years, and I keep comin’ to the same conclusion as you. Somethin’ funny’s goin’ on."

Virginia nodded. "Until I find out for sure," she continued, "I can’t be a party to killing American soldiers! I just can’t. Captain America wouldn’t and that’s whose legacy I’m supposed to be carrying on."

***

Roughly an hour before Becky showed up with her guests, Samantha Wilson had been sitting in a nearby space in the sewer system underground. She was working at her computer, hacking into various government databases to see what she could learn. Relaxing in cots close by were two people we haven’t met yet: Virginia’s parents!

Lady Liberty’s father, a tall athletic man of pure African blood, was famous in his own right as one of the greatest disk hurlers of his generation. Many were the thousands who had cheered for John Bartholomew Lincoln!

The same could be said for Lady Liberty’s mother, Dakota Lincoln, a tall athletic woman of equally pure African blood.

John was asleep. Dakota wasn’t. And as Samantha typed on her keyboard, oblivious to her surroundings, Dakota made a decision.

She loved her daughter Virginia but she feared with all her heart that this insane act of rebellion would end badly. The Armed Forces would capture her daughter and kill her slowly on public TV, as a cautionary tale for the citizens. How could her husband be so calm? Look at him there, sleeping like a baby! "Maybe our little girl is right," was all he’d said. That, and, "She stole the shield and got away scot-free! I think God’s watching over her."

Men!

Well, somebody had to talk some sense into Virginia and if it wasn’t her father, it would have to be her mother. Standing up from her cot, Dakota glanced at Samantha, and seeing she was engrossed in what she was doing, she left her to it and went looking for her daughter, whom she knew was nearby.

She didn’t count on the complexity of the sewer system. It only took her five minutes to get hopelessly lost. She should have called for help. But she kept thinking the next turn would return her to where she’d started.

After twenty minutes, she panicked and started running and screaming! After ten minutes of that, she blundered upon an exit that led aboveground. Thankful for any escape from the maddening labyrinth, she took the exit.

The first person she met in the daylight was a soldier. "Uh-oh," she muttered.

***

Back to the meeting in the dilapidated chairs!

Rosalita was saying, "…then I suppose we came here for nothing. Good luck in your mission, Miss Lincoln."

Yoshi-San added, "Next time you wish to speak with us, we may not be so easy to find."

The two stood up to leave. Willie, meanwhile, seemed deep in thought, brow furrowed under the brim of his cowboy hat.

"Wait!" blurted Becky. "I have an idea! If Lady Liberty can’t work with you… maybe you can work with Lady Liberty!"

"Ma’am, you took the words right outta my mouth!" said Willie. "Here’s what I was thinkin’: supposin’ we use stun guns! Won’t be no good for our usual missions, but for workin’ with Miss Virginia, they’re just what the doctor ordered!"

Virginia was incredulous. "Stun guns? Where on earth would we get them?"

"Not to worry!" replied Becky. "I can get them."

"You can?" asked Virginia, incredulous for a second time. "Since when? Does it have something to do with the reason you wouldn’t explain, as to why these three will trust you but only you? How do they even know you?"

"I was going to explain after the meeting, but okay, I guess now’s as good a time as any. You see—"

"VIRGINIA! BIG TROUBLE!" shouted a woman running full tilt in their direction. It was Samantha.

***

Colonel Benedict strutted. How delicious! He was holding his triumphant television broadcast from the same sports arena where Virginia had recently broken the disk hurling world record! Savoring the irony, he spoke to the cameras:

"You see here, chained hand and foot to this concrete block, the means by which the Empire will capture and then punish the traitor, Virginia Lincoln, who now calls herself by the ridiculous name, Lady Liberty. I’m certain, dear viewers, that you recognize this woman. Her name is Dakota Lincoln, and back when she was competing, she was one of the most formidable disk hurlers in the nation. For that reason the Colonels of Science selected her for breeding, and she became the mother of a daughter she should now be deeply ashamed of."

The cameras had zoomed in on Dakota, seated on the earthen ground, steel chains clamped to ankles and wrists. The concrete block was ten feet high. Dakota looked utterly terrified.

"We found Mrs. Lincoln near a sewer system exit," continued the Colonel. "Rest assured we are now scouring the sewers in search of her daughter, though I doubt we need to be. I’m sure Lady Liberty will soon be surrendering to us here in this stadium. You see, if she doesn’t do so in the next forty-five minutes, her mother will die."

The cameras converged on Benedict for a close-up as he mockingly cried out, "Come out, come out, wherever you are, Lady Liberty! Ali, ali, oxen free!"

With that, the broadcast ended. It was scheduled to repeat every fifteen minutes for the next forty-five. After the third repeat, a new broadcast would air, either celebrating Lady Liberty’s capture or televising for public edification the execution of her mother.

What the cameras missed was the Colonel’s maniacal laughter! Oh, how he loved it when a plan came together!

***

In an abandoned building across the street from the giant sports arena, Roz Richards looked out the window at the impromptu electric fencing the soldiers had hastily put up around the stadium’s perimeter. She was invisible. "I hope this works," she thought to herself.

She lacked her ancestor’s power of casting force fields, but her invisibility powers were somewhat more robust than the legendary Susan’s had been. She could remove all opaqueness from not one but as many as four separate units at once, while retaining her own complete transparency. And she could even grant one unit (not four but only one) the power to spread its invisibility to whatever it touched!

One other ability she had was to sense (not see but sense) where in space her units of transparency were. She could track them mentally as they moved although she couldn’t tell what they were doing.

She was tracking four units now, in fact. One of them had spread its invisibility to what she knew was a helium balloon, which all four units were hanging onto by hard plastic rings that were attached to it. The whole mess was floating through the air, silent and unseen, over the electric fence.

She waited with abated breath as the balloon began to sink earthward, apparently due to one of the units letting some helium escape. Eventually all four units were on the ground, on the other side of the fence. She knew the balloon, still invisible, would be emptied of gas, folded neatly, and stuck in the backpack of the unit with contagious transparency.

Just as she started to breathe again, all four units began a rapid movement toward the entrance of the stadium. They entered. Then they split up, each taking what she knew was a separate staircase upward.

Three of the units climbed what had to have been at least fifteen flights (they were in good shape!) while the fourth climbed only about five and stopped.

"Good luck!" whispered Roz. Then she made the sign of the cross and said a Hail Mary.

***

Lady Liberty, having climbed five flights of stairs, stood invisible in the sports arena, directly above where her mother sat chained to a concrete block ten feet high. High above, fifteen flights up, her three new allies began firing their stun guns at the soldiers farthest away from her mother.

Virginia wondered for the umpteenth time how Becky had managed to procure those stun guns.

Nevertheless, she was glad to have them, and to have them in the hands of Rosalita, Willie, and Yoshi-San, three brave souls who were risking their lives for Virginia and her mother.

Lady Liberty savored a sweet irony. Colonel Benedict’s cowardly tactic had brought Virginia and her three new allies together as comrades in arms, bonding them at the heart and uniting them for all time in a way no mere contract or handshake could ever have done. "Thanks, Colonel," she whispered with a smirk.

Stun gun blasts are silent and invisible by their very nature. In this they were actually superior to lasers (which could be seen) or bullets (which could be heard). Rosalita, Willie, and Yoshi-San just kept on firing, and soldiers kept on falling, with everyone down in the arena hopelessly bewildered. Chaos ensued! Virginia waited until all eyes seemed to be looking away from her mother. Then she went into action—she leaped into space!

Dropping invisibly from five flights up, she positioned her feet on the straps of the shield and held on with her hands to the shield’s edge. Down she plummeted! Her aim had to be perfect…

Down…

Down…

IMPACT!!! The shield (with Virginia riding it) smashed through Dakota’s chains! Snap went the links! Deep into the dirt sunk the shield! Its vibranium absorbed every iota of the shock, and for that reason alone, Lady Liberty was unharmed!

Quickly she yanked her weapon out of the earth, she and it still transparent, and with one blow of her fist she knocked her mother unconscious! (It would be easier to manage Dakota as an inert lump than as a possibly unruly accomplice.)

At Virginia’s touch her mother went invisible! Lady Liberty, you see, was the one unit that Roz had granted contagious transparency! Up onto her shoulder Virginia hefted Dakota, and away they bolted for the stadium exit!

It took a few seconds before any of the soldiers finally noticed the prisoner had escaped. Reaction was further delayed by the blizzard of stun gun fire that concentrated on anyone who seemed to be noticing!

"Faster!" Virginia admonished herself. "Faster! Faster!" The pumping of her legs was like mighty twin pistons!

Out of the stadium emerged the escapees at a full tilt sprint, though of course nobody noticed. Straight for the electrified fence ran Lady Liberty. Reaching it, she sliced clean through it with her legendary weapon at one point and then at a second point, clearing a section away. Electricity arced dangerously but there was a space of relative safety and she ran right through it to freedom!

Virginia made a beeline for where she knew Roz was hiding. Hot on her heels, she hoped, were her three brave, invisible comrades.

Meanwhile, back in the stadium, Colonel Benedict was dashing about like a headless chicken, and so distraught was he that he almost blurted out the classic dastardly expletive, "CURSES!"

***

Five minutes later:

A big utility van barreled down the highway—but nobody could see it. Becky was driving. Seated beside her up front was Samantha Wilson. In the seats behind were Lady Liberty and her parents, and Roz Richards, who kept everything and everyone invisible as a single unit.

"I’m sorry for all the trouble I caused," said Dakota. "I almost got everyone killed."

"Forget it, Mom," replied Virginia. "You never asked to be a revolutionary. Just try to stay safe from now on."

"I’ll do my best to keep an eye on her!" offered her husband.

"Good, Dad. You do that."

"You mean if he can stay awake!" blurted Dakota.

John Bartholomew Lincoln narrowed his eyes and frowned, which would have amused his wife, had she been able to see it!

Lady Liberty called up to the front, "Hey Becky! You ready to tell us where you’re taking us yet?"

"Nope! Not yet!" came the reply.

Virginia rolled her eyes—and of course nobody saw.

Again she called up to the front. "Hey Samantha! Any word from our three new friends?"

"Yup!" came the reply. "I got three encrypted messages, one from each, saying all is well and they’re on their way home." Rested on Samantha’s knees was a wireless laptop, online for brief flashes, just long enough to retrieve messages, never sending any and leaving no data trail. She couldn’t read the screen (it was invisible) so she listened to a voice transcription via an ear piece.

"Good," said Lady Liberty. "My mother owes them her life. I won’t forget that any time soon."

Time passed. Finally, the van pulled off the highway, onto a secluded road that stopped dead at the sea. Becky brought the van to a halt and put it in park. "We’re here!" she called.

Night had fallen.

"Everybody out!" cried Becky. All obeyed.

"Come on, follow me. To the water’s edge," she ordered. All complied, holding hands, so Roz could work her magic on them as a unit. The van was now a second unit and she kept it under her power.

"This better be good," murmured Virginia.

It was.

Up out of the waves rose the top of a submarine!

"Whoa!" blurted Virginia. "Becky, no more beating around the bush: how on earth do you have submarines at your beck and call?"

"Well, it’s like this," came the answer at last. "I’m the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.!"

***

On the other side of the world, in China’s Forbidden City, a lowly civil servant went about his duties, delivering messages and mundane mail to officers of the military. When they weren’t looking, he smiled, and his teeth were oddly shaped… like a wolf’s. And though the hair on his head was black, the hair on his arms and legs, and chest, was golden.

All was going according to plan. Soon he would reveal himself to China’s great generals, as he had done in the United States. He relished the thought of towering over them in his true height.

And when China began to make war, it would find itself on a collision course with the Empire of the Americas. Soon American soldiers would be dying by the bullets of a foreign power.

The dilemma thus posed would forever compromise the symbolism of a certain legendary disk.

So he intended. So would it be.

- Read Chapter 3 -