THE FAMILY THAT PREYS

Part VII: Difficult Conversations to Have

By Desmond Reddick

Northwest Territories

They hadn’t even set foot upon the snowy ground outside when it happened.

The heat from the blast liquefied any remnant of ice left in the tundra, turning the surrounding area into a field of mud for at least one hundred kilometres in every direction. Now, in the aftermath, the men and women charged with the protection of Canada lay in the mud.

What was once a non-descript barely-elevated mound of earth with a small tunnel leading to the sprawling ancient Citadel beneath, was now a pile of smouldering bedrock. With Romulus and his army crushed underneath for good, James Hudson hoped.

As he lay with his head in the lap of the love of his life, he looked at the smoking heap of earth and thought of his grandfather; a man he never really knew, and would never know; a man who did more for him and to him than any other on earth. Hudson didn’t know if he should scream or cry.

Spurred by his wife’s movement, the first couple of Alpha Flight pushed themselves to their feet. Mac noticed the other Alphans and Omegans doing the same. Besides the teams’ grumblings and mucky noises of the movement, it was quiet.

DOOT

“Comm Link!” Heather shouted as she took off in the direction of the lead Omnijet. All three by this point had begun to sink in the sea of filth. Mac followed slowly behind her.

“What about them?” Puck said, pointing to the members of Omega Flight.

“Let them go,” Diamond Lil replied.

“Yeah,” Madison Jeffries added, “now’s not the time.”

Omega Flight left no time for opinions to change and left without a word.

“Gentry…”Heather called looking at a monitor. The connection was not pristine but the operations manager of Department H could clearly be seen to be shitting a brick.

“Vindicator,” Gentry said leaning forward and squinting into the monitor, “what in blue blazes just happened?”

Mac Hudson sidled up to Heather, put his hand on her shoulder and bent to put his face in camera shot of the communication monitors.

“I think I can best explain that, Gentry,” Hudson’s face was stern. “We have a lot to talk about.”

Gentry was about to respond when James hit the ‘end call’ button.

“Alright Alphans,” Hudson shouted walking down the ramp.

He was about to rally the troops when he stopped. He jerked his head to the left and right, and then twisted his face into a pained grimace.

“Where’s Daken?”

Thunder Bay

The naked moonlight reflected off of the blue and grey fur as Goblyn raced across the open field in front of the ranch that Beta and Gamma Flight now call home. Her hoofed feet barely touch the chilled earth below as her clawed fingers propelled her forward. She took the fence with ease in one measured leap and made no sign of slowing on her race to the barn.

“Stop ‘Lyn!” Laura shouted from the front door of the ranch.

Her feral twin had awoken only seconds ago, growling at some unknown force. Before Laura knew it, she was chasing her down the stairs and out into the yard. Even with the parka and wool pajamas she wore, Laura was cold. Though it was barely the end of summer, there was frost every morning and steam poured from Laura’s mouth as she chased her sister.

Only a moment after Goblyn scrambled through the half-open doors of the barn, Laura heard a shrill, pained howl. Instantaneously, Laura stepped through a portal.

Lights dancing, cool air presses.

She slides down long threads of spiritual energy

Her arms outspread to keep balance,

She closes her eyes and…

…slid out of a portal she opened inside the barn. The high-pitched whines of her twin sister came from the back of the barn.

Laura walked quietly through the stables, following her sister’s voice, and turned the last corner to see Goblyn pinned to the stable wall with a pitchfork. Her heart jumped into her throat for a second before seeing that the pitchfork had not pierced her twin’s flesh; it only pinned her to the wall from either side of her right leg.

Before Laura could scan the rest of the area for company something thin and flat hit her in the head.

tunk!

Shocked for a moment, she looked down to see the sharp gardening tool that had rung her skull. She couldn’t think of the word.

Trowel! That was it!

From out of her peripheral, she could see a woman in the darkened corner of the barn, looking like she was trying to climb the walls to get out. Her dirtied navy blue outfit with red boots betrayed her as a costumed hero or villain of some sort.

Laura saw that there were no more gardening tools being thrown at her, so she turned and pulled hard on the handle of the pitchfork to try and free her sister. Laura shook the handle up and down while she yanked backwards to try and loosen the sharpened tool.

“What’s going on here, Y-O-U 2?” Ouija stood directly in front of Laura.

“It was her!” Laura said turning to point into the darkened corner.

“Her who?” Flex said walking up behind Ouija.

“She was there a minute ago!” Laura began to panic. Her low place on the autism spectrum was amplified by stressful incidents, and there’s nothing more stressful to a teenager than looking crazy to their peers.

“Right,” Flex said, “look we need to get out of here and back to bed before anyone in Beta finds us out here.”

“Worried about you big brother’s wedgie, Adrian?” Ghost Girl taunted.

“No, look…” Adrian Corbo’s face reddened. “Shut up! There’s no one here, let’s go!”

“That doesn’t mean there wasn’t anyone here, Flex. I know that better than anyone.” Ghost Girl, firmly trying to put Laura and Goblyn at ease, said sternly.

Adrian was going to argue until he saw that Ghost Girl was halfway phased through the stable wall beside him.

“Whoever it was, if it even was someone, is clearly gone now. Can we get out of here?” Adrian’s color was returning to a more neutral hue.

“Shouldn’t we I-N-V-E-S-T-I-G—“

“And what, Ouija? Speak and Spell them to death?” Flex said flippantly while walking away. “As team leader, I say it’s time to go back. We’ll be no good in training tomorrow if we haven’t slept.”

“Ja! Mein kapitan!” Ghost Girl said as she phased over top of Goblyn, allowing the feral girl to escape the confines of the pitchfork as if she too had the power to phase through objects.

Goblyn slipped out, dashed quickly into the corner, looked around silently and returned to Laura’s side.

“Thank you, Lilli.” Laura said, her composure returning.

“No prob!” Ghost Girl said dipping to one knee to accept the nuzzle Goblyn was offering her.

As they walked slowly back to the ranch, Laura turned back to look at the corner. The trowel was still on the ground, the pitchfork was still in the wall, and the hay on the floor was disturbed. She was autistic, not crazy; that girl was still there somewhere.

Department H

James MacDonald Hudson strolled towards the elevator through the main hallway of Department H’s head office, a shining beacon of amazing architecture that twisted and rose out of the streets of Toronto, Ontario. But the people in the bustling street below were too wrapped up in their own life dramas to have any idea of what kind of existential crises went on between these immaculate walls.

For Hudson, the first Alphan and the man from whom this whole movement sprung, it seemed as though all he’d had to do lately was face dire circumstances and have conversations that were less than comfortable.

He pined for the days of downtime when the team would be at each others’ throats. The Flight was always a family, and he never tried to discourage that. He wondered lately, if things would ever go back to “normal.” Though, normal was a word that had become less meaningful over the past few decades.

He stepped out of the elevator onto the floor of the Med Lab. It was always nice to see it almost devoid of patients. Whenever one of his team – whether it was an Episilon soldier, an Alphan, or an engineer caught in the crossfire – was in the Med Lab, he made sure to visit. This visit was a little more unorthodox than those.

He made it to the first sealed medical bay and noted that the green light on the control panel outside the sliding doors indicated the patient was in stable condition.

Whoosh

Hudson’s palm opened the door and a rush of sterile air hit him as he entered. Dr. Krypt, the department’s chief physician, tended to the equipment beside the hospital bed. He looked in Hudson’s direction and nodded his approval as the man entered.

The patient on the table was hooked up to more wires than Madison Jeffries on a good day and breathing slowly. The shock of white hair on his head and face betrayed a man in his seventies, but the features beneath gave little doubt that this man was an older version of James Hudson.

Dr. Krypt tapped a few commands into the tablet computer that served as his patient status updater and left the two alone.

“I’m glad to see you’re doing well,” James said.

“Every day looking at daisies instead of pushing them up is a good one, Hudson Prime,” Hudson 5 replied.

The old Hudson cleared his throat and looked back up at his younger self.

“They haven’t told me about what happened to the Hudson,” he said with eyes that indicated he already knew the answer.

“It’s just you and me, old man.”

The two shared the silence for a pregnant moment before James continued.

“Looks like you’re going to keep on ticking for a while.”

“That’s a relief, I suppose.”

“I’d like you to stay on here at Department H. It would be different than it was. You’d have freedom and access afforded only to the highest level engineers on staff. I’d have a mutiny in the Prometheus Division if I put you in charge, but you’ll be a valuable member of the team.”

“I think I’d like that.”

“Good,” James continued, “there’s a lot of work to be done to make the world a better place Hudson 5. I’m glad to have you aboard. And I’m glad you’re going to be okay.”

Hudson nodded to Dr. Krypt as he left the Med Lab.

One down, he thought, two to go.

The elevator took Hudson up to Level 66. He was one of only a select few that had the clearance to even make the elevator go up that high. But then again, Hudson was the man who founded the company. Or so he thought.

His grandfather, Fredrick’s last act as Director of Department H was to bring the power of the Lance of Longinus down upon Romulus and his underground Citadel. Before then, James hadn`t even known he was alive, let alone the man on the top of the totem pole so to speak.

Other than reconciling that, James had to find Daken. He was the only tie to his old friend, Logan. And perhaps James was Daken’s only tie to what was good in the world. It was his duty to find him and to try and help him.

That was, after all, what he did best.

But all that would have to wait. There were more pressing concerns.

When he reached the end of the hallway, Black Epsilon guards standing down as he approached, he walked directly through the open door.

“James! Come in.” Gentry said looking up from a blueprint being held by an in-house architect. “Give us a minute, will you?”

The man left, nodding hello to James as he passed him.

“Making yourself comfortable, Holland?” James asked.

“Well, you know. Your office has to be your office, right?” Gentry replied.

“I wouldn’t worry about that, right now.” James walked directly up to Gentry, who took a half step back into the bookshelf behind him.

“How long did you know?” James leaned forward and asked the question through clenched teeth.

“What are you talking about?! James, I – “

“How long did you know it was my grandfather all along?”

“James, you have to understand. There were extenuating circumstances what with the –

“I asked you how long, Gentry. The next words out of your mouth better be an answer to that question or you’re going to see what sixty-six stories looks like upside down.”

“Just since Clarke was killed, I swear.” The man had the face of remorse.

“You’re fired, Holland. I want you out of here by this afternoon. I’ll inform the Department of National Defense and they can see to your re-assignment. I don’t care where the hell they put you as long as I never have to see you again. Is that understood?”

“Yes, James. I’m sorry. I’m very sorry.”

But before Holland Gentry could finish his sentence, Guardian was gone.

Winnipeg, Manitoba

They had made it all the way to Yellowknife before Witchfire’s magic was needed to get them on a plane to Nemesis’ closest safehouse. Airport security was tight for everyone these days, let alone costumed felons, but nothing a little magic can’t outdo. The people working security even smiled at Nemesis as she passed through the metal detector with her sword on her hip.

The weather in Winnipeg was hardly tropical, but compared to the day spent in the frozen northern wasteland, anything above freezing was considered warm. An empty black van parked on the tarmac at Winnipeg International Airport (also under a glamour spell from Witchfire) was the means of transportation to the West Kildonan suburb of Manitoba’s largest city.

The nondescript two-storey home, from the outside, looked like a typical upper middle class home complete with lights on in the driveway and a well-manicured lawn. From the inside, the walls were bare, and plain grey linoleum lined the floor upstairs and down. It looked much more like a military bunker than a nice suburban home.

Wild Child sniffed the air a few times and emitted a growl before the words were spoken.

“It took you long enough.”

Nemesis flicked the lightswitch on and withdrew her sword at the same time.

The light revealed a brown-haired man in a black suit flanked by two larger men: an Olympian built corn-rowed black man who was also pointing a sword in Nemesis’ direction, and a black haired man in a red vest, his steel-banded arms crossed over his chest.

“Shit,” Tigerstryke muttered under his breath.

The two heavies were easily recognizable to most member of Omega Flight as Kane and Killspree. Most notably Tigerstryke, as the men were his former teammates in Weapon P.R.I.M.E. The two groups of costumed antagonists stood in a frozen stalemate awaiting someone to make the first move.

Wild Child growled, and even as his feral nature began to take hold, he was thinking clearly enough to know that his team would take these three down without a problem.

“Let’s stop waving our dicks around here,” the man in the suit said. “Tigerstryke is coming with us. He’s still contracted to do so. If he doesn’t, he dies. Simple as that.”

“Nothing is ever simple,” Nemesis said, the grip on her sword never wavering.

“Oh, it is. And you, Omega Flight, are welcome to join us if you like. If not, stay out of our way.”

“Who are you, anyway?” Witchfire demanded from the back of the crowd.

“Who I am isn’t important. Just a cog in a machine, really. This is Weapon P.R.I.M.E. And together we’re going to save the world. That’s what you super-types enjoy isn’t it?”

“Does Hudson know about this?” Flashback asked.

Agent Brown bristled at the name.

“Plan B, Flashback,” Brown said. “In order to save the world, James Hudson might have to die.”

NEXT ISSUE: OH, CANADA! I’m not sure how much I should tell you about the upcoming issues of Alpha Flight. But rest assured that some excrement and an industrial strength fan will be involved. Come back next time for a new status quo. And fighting…I can promise you fighting.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

First of all, I would like to mention that I’m a big fan of what Stuart Fairchild was doing with Alpha Flight, and I hope this issue does justice to capping off what was already a great story arc. I also want to stay true to his vision while establishing a new direction for the team. I hope he, and all of you enjoy it. I look forward to your feedback!