Wheel! Of! FISH!

ARRRRH!

2004-09-20 - 12:40 a.m.

As Wheel and the Irregulars blazed a strange trail through the burning, zombie-thick streets of the Crescent City, soaked with mad black rain and laughing in the face of the rolling howl of the thunder and the crackling furies of purple lightning ...

As Actionhero put his back to Quentin Holte's and Professor Gryphon's and turned in a tight circle, the Man of Mystery's guns blazing relentlessly and sending men in black, ninjas, and mercenaries of all stripes down in a hail of lead while the Invisible calling himself Archimedes Lochs cut a swath of Zen clarity with his wrist-mounted laser and Hephaestus added his own music to the dark and stormy cacophony of the night ...

As Doctor Oblivion, with a faint smirk, brought his glimmering fey blade down with a sound like a shattering anvil across the haft of Ajax Crowley's battle axe, the big half-ogre mage snorting hot blood as he forced himself to his feet once more ...

As Circe grew furious, her hair coming undone and her skin sheened with sweat as she exhausted spell after spell in the face of the undauntable tide of chaos surrounding her, the bionic 'Pet and the chaotic Kai gathering to her side as the Estrodome was pressed against the smoldering ruins of Dutrey's ...

As the shadowy man called Curare emerged soundlessly from the enfolding night into the havoc of the French Quarter, gathering his Anaconda Guard and his trio of women close around him while he removed an obsidian and gold ritual knife from his glimmering coat and knelt in the mud of New Orleans, his face gazing deep into the storm ...

As Agent Smith sent four of his best ... for lack of a better word, "men" ... to form a perimeter around the madness, each clutching a strangely twinkling crystal embedded with pulsating biocircuits and humming with resonances of drawn mana ...

As Ghede danced a slow, stately waltz in the gathering shade under the Gallows Tree, his feet shuffling slowly while his endless eyes flashed with immortal fury and his brother, gentle Papa Legba, hung still from the dark wood of the Tree, all watched over by the wide eyes of an imp well out of his depth ...

As the Yellow Mountain ninji rallied around the towering forms of TORU 4 and TORU 8, their numbers growing as more ninja arrived, skating the wind, riding the lightning, carried by the thunder ... and were followed by three very calm men in large straw basket hats who surveyed the chaos with smug smiles ...

As the whole of the old city of magic, night and bedazzlement teetered on the edge of unadulterated chaos ...

Cold glass eyes were watching. Thousands of them. From security cameras, pirated feeds, nanoswarms, satellites ... the images poured in, and one entity saw it all and saw all that had come before it and saw all that was to come.

Unfortunately for the New College of the Invisibles, Knock was going through an introspective phase, and didn't feel obligated to share his extrapolated revelations with the fleshy vessels strutting and fretting their hour on the stage.

He did, however, notice a certain correlation with some remarkable events from a prior age, catalogued in his historybanks. For his own amusement, he decided to compare and contrast what had happened then with his irrefutable interpretation of the inevitable conclusion of this current affair.

Far below the streets and tubes and shadowcities of London was a small room that had been refurnished in 1942 but built on the orders of King Henry VIII. The walls were an unpleasant shade of frowning gray-green still favored in Britain today, and the furnishings were sparse, consisting of a battered tea table, an old leatherette rolling chair, and a machine that at first glance appeared to be a simple magnetic reel computer of the sort one sees in old movies featuring aliens who look very much like character actors in silver jumpsuits. However, responding to signals from somewhere deep within the body electric that quivered like fairy lights under the skin of the world, the machine gave a low thrum. The reels began turning and a shuttered lens extruded from one side. The singular machine was a relatively modern reconstruction of a movie camera designed and built over 400 years ago by John Dee, and the only machine in the world capable of playing Dee's remarkable documentaries from the era.

Trumpets blare briefly, and a rich golden-toned film began playing on the blank tile wall of the tiny room miles below Blackfriars.

The plot is not at all difficult to follow, and the pleasantly illuminated subtitles and textual intermissions help immensely.

We see long, descriptive narrative shots of rolling, towering ships of the romantic old four-masted sort, plying the sea towards the ornate bay of a city that apparently lies on an island continent somewhere between what are now Japan and British Columbia.

Captain Badger Wolfhound Gryphon, the Man with a Menagerie for a Name, stands splay-footed at the wheel of his ship, the vast and improbably beautiful galleon Layla, expertly steering out of the icy north against a harsh storm wind. Behind him are arrayed a towering fur-cloaked axe-wielding Northman named Skar, the last of the shamans of the snowy lands; a slim and quiet Chinaman with his arms folded into wide sleeves and a red sash around his waist and a folded crossbow strapped to each wrist who goes by Silent Quint; and Black Pete, the hero of a thousand battles, his long black pea coat billowing while he smokes a cheroot and slides another brace of muskets into the bandolier that wraps his barrel chest.

The low-bellied sloop Draughtsman's Revenge comes from the west, sliding into the rain and insinuating slickly between the waves. The massive bosun, Half-There Ramsey, leans against the railing casually polishing his glass eye, his right hand a split hook, his left leg a peg with a spiked tip, and his whole left arm replaced with a brass-swiveled deck gun. In the crow's nest is Mr. Crow, a cackling swab swathed in black, balancing a black scimitar on one finger. Watching him disapprovingly from below is Portugese Owen Fyre, a sturdy sailor and the only one aboard who had thought to bring any citrus. Sam the Untouchable climbs easily across the rigging, his bandana pulled low over his dark eyes as he clutches a curved knife in his teeth. Steering the ship this way and that with a ringing laugh and a dangerous grin is Bloody Mad Jack Wheeler, the harlequin of the seas, his cat-eared monkey Wobbly perched on his shoulder.

The southern seas bear forth a long, graceful square-sailed serpentine ship, its speed greatly aided by the long row of strapping galley rowers, each burly chest tattooed with a curving snake. Three gorgeous wenches of varying nationalities cluster around the tall, cloaked figure standing steadily at the fanged prow of the ship. Few outside of the steaming jungles of the southlands know his name, and even those that do simply called him the Doctor. Much is on his mind as he plows towards the gleaming towers of the city, crooking his finger to indicate that his guardsmen should row faster. A jaguar covered in blue scales with orange spots rather than the strictly traditional yellow and black fur lolls at his feet.

Swooping out of the east like black death comes a sleek junk, with masked black-pajama-wearing men crawling all over it. Funnily enough, no one appears to be steering the ship despite the preponderance of sailors crawling all about it. Nonetheless, it tacks to catch a freshening dragon wind and roars towards the island. Standing on a small railed outlay at the prow are three women; a tall, strong one with steel gauntlets, a short one with a mad smile clad in a pink Venetian dancer's camisole, and a statuesque beauty in a one-shouldered blue toga. The three women occasionally give orders, but do not seem to be aware that no one aboard hears them, as they are standing where the ship's figurehead is usually placed.

The ships all come to the mouth of the wide glistening blue bay. Thick black clouds roil overhead as the last rays of the setting sun glint off the towering marble and silver spires of the strange island city. Sitting squarely in the center of the bay is a vast barge, worked with baroque silver and hung with ornate and bizarre weaponry. Standing atop the fighting deck with his hand folded neatly across the pommel of a sheathed sword is a man with his eyes hidden behind smoked gray spectacles, his hair in a powdered wig.

"OBLIVIATUS!" shouts Bloody Mad Jack, always eager to get things rolling. "GIVE OVER THE STORM OPALS, YE PUSTULENT WHORE'S WHELP, OR WE'LL HAVE YER LIGHTS FER SUPPER!"

"He's ain't just whistlin' in the wind, Obliviatus," Black Pete said with a faint grin, toying with two long-barreled gold-worked muskets. "Ye don't want this kind o' trouble, cully. Ye've got the whole o' the Fleet o' the Invisible after yeh now."

"Es verdad," whispered the Doctor, his voice slithering over wind and waves. "Y yo. You've gone a step too far for the Kingdom of the Serpents to let you sail away free, cabron."

From the black junk there was only silence, but of the menacing variety.

"Well then, me hearties ... we'll just have to see wha' happens an' who the wind favors, won't we?" Obliviatus in one swift motion pulled his cutlass from the sheath, kicking it away as the sword rang free, glowing like the sun. There was a united "ARRRR!" as the Fleet surged forwards ...

And the film ran out, cricketing to a stop.

Knock experienced something that could almost be described as mild surprise. His records had indicated that the Dee documentary was the most complete record of the era. The entity perused his endless terabytes of memory for a fleeting picosecond. No further footage existed, but evidence seemed to indicate that whatever had transpired had resulted in the dissolution of the Fleet of Invisible Service to the Templari, and the sinking of the island nation of Mu. The storm opals Bloody Mad Jack was referring to showed up again briefly in an 18th-century ship itinerary his Tommyknocker robotic agents had acquired from a warehouse belonging to the House of Zee.

Curious.

Knock began the laborious process of moving his vast electronic assets away from New Orleans, dropping his investments in any companies heavily situated in the Crescent City.

Better safe than sorry.

...

Hope ye had a nice International Talk Like a Pirate Day, me hearties!