*** So Archie is safe from the DMA.  At least for now.  What is the Aegis Court all about?  What happens now? Thus begins Part One of the Infamous Day. ***

Beth MacTaggart was as good as her word.  Agent Dick and the others were gone.  Must be nice to have that kind of political clout.  It seems as an underage employee of the Aegis Court, though I don’t remember applying for the job, they get to be responsible for my metagene testing until I’m eighteen.

The one thing in my life I wanted to avoid.  Supers.  Now, I’m going to die surrounded by them.  Mom was a super.  Dad was a super.  Hell, even Pap was a super for a while when he was in the Corps. I knew it was going to be like this, but it's different thinking about it, as opposed to living it.

Me?  I’m genetically fubar, to borrow Pap’s favorite term.  I’m no super.  I’m just dying.  Now I’m part of the Aegis Court.  The world’s premier super team.  America’s Guardians.  The team my parents belonged to.  The team my great-grandmother helped found.  The team that took them all away from my family.  My great-grandmother, Pap’s mom, disappeared shortly after he was born.  One of the great mysteries of the 20^th Century.  My parents?  They died for nothing.  So yeah, I’ve got an axe to grind, as Pap would say.

Beth had flown out to meet us in an Dropship.  They loaded up our van, Pap and me, and flew us to Washington.  I think Beth regretted that one, though.  I used every airsick bag they had.  They weren’t enough.

***

I’ve been in Washington for a week.  I haven’t seen much of anything on the outside in all that time.  Even though this was where I grew up for the first eight years of my life, it feels all new.  When I’m not in a medical lab being a good little lab rat, I’m helping out in the hangar.  Back in Indianapolis, Pap and I had a restoration business.  We specialized in mechanical restorations.  Vintage machinery and vehicles.  Mechanical things have always made sense to me.  It’s not some sort of spooky mutant thing, I’m just really mechanically inclined.  The Dropships are amazing.  They’re hypersonic!  Top speed of Mach Six!  That’s almost double the speed of a Blackbird.  Heh.  So Cool!  Yeah, I’m a geek girl. Part of living here is awesome. I still hate it though.

I was in the hangar workshop.  Sitting on a stool at one of the workbenches, helping Chief rebuild a gimbal assembly.  I remembered him from when I was here as a child.  The Chief is in charge of pretty much anything in the base that concerns mechanicals, electronics or gadgets.  He’s not a super either.  Everyone calls him Chief, or The Chief.  He was a Master Chief in the Navy.  When the HALO games first came out, a bunch from the Maintenance Bay modified a set of old Seneschal armor to look like the Master Chief’s from the game.  Even fitted it out with a souped-up Teleforce Rifle.  Chief didn’t think it was that funny.  One of the maintenance crew told me he kept the rifle, though. 

  I was in the middle of telling Chief about my motorbike back home when the air got cold and a shudder went down my spine.  Chief just turned and stared over my shoulder.

If looks could kill, I’m pretty sure whatever Chief was staring at would drop dead.  And I’m thinking the overkill would probably take out a small country to boot.  

“Hello.”  I froze at the sound of that voice.  A voice that was more like three voices speaking in unison.  I’d heard Doctor Zen speak on television, but it just doesn’t do his voice justice.  There’s some component to his voice that doesn’t get picked up by microphones.  All I know is that in person, his voice is like a Goa’uld’s from Stargate.  But a lot more creepy.  Like literally give you goosebumps and make the hair on the back of your neck stand up heebie-jeebies.

I turned, “Umm, hi.”  I wasn’t really sure what to say to a four and half foot tall real Magick magician.  Especially one that gives off a ginormous amount of the creepies.  He’s got brown hair, pale skin and likes to wear Bruce Lee style tracksuits.  I know, it sounds cute.  It’s not.

Doctor Zen never blinks, and oh does that really add to the whole experience.  “Archie.  Your grandfather has told me that you are interested in your great-grandmother’s history.  Is this true?”

“Umm, yeah.”  Speaking of Stargate, the Doc here doesn’t change his expression.  It reminds me of a Many Faces of Teal’c shirt.  I have one of those.  But the Doc here, he’s creepy personified.  His eyes are black.  Like all black.  No whites, no color, just black.  And that not blinking thing?  Combine that with the four and a half feet tall thing, the Bruce Lee pajamas that he always wears…  Yeah.  Shudder.

Chief cleared his throat, getting my attention, “You better go, Kell.”  He nodded towards Doctor Zen.  “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard the midget willing to talk to anyone about Ms. Mystery since your mom.  Don’t worry about the gimbal, I got it.”

“Come.”  Doctor Zen uttered, then turned and walked away from me.  I put my tools down and followed.  I’m fascinated with great-grandma’s story.  How she helped found the Aegis Court, what happened to her after WWII.  I just wish that Doc Creepster wasn’t just so damned… creepy!

We went along the tunnel back under Anderson House.  When the Ambassador’s widow donated their Washington D.C. mansion to the newly formed Aegis Court back in 1937, I doubt she realized that they would turn it and the rest of the block into a fortress.  A twelve-foot privacy fence separates the rest of the block from the citizenry of Washington.  The hangar is underneath the reflecting pool behind Anderson House.  The reflecting pool drains and as part of a hidden door, opens to allow the launching or recovery of dropships, helicopters and mini-Ds.

We got into the elevator to go up to the first floor of the mansion proper.  There’s twelve levels below ground.  Crazy stuff.  Labs, automated mini-factories, bunkers, just all kinds of weird stuff.  Two floors above, and some of it’s open to the public.  We walked up the staircase in the east stair hall and then the Doc stopped at the landing between the floors.  Instead of turning left to continue up the stairs, the small man turned to the right, facing the wall.  There was this huge painting of a lake or bay somewhere out and away in the middle of nowhere.  There was this lovely house on the left hand side.  In the middle there was a boat dock and a beautiful old schooner moored, sails all furled.  And there was a worn stone path that led off to the right, out of the painting’s view.  

“Touch the painting, Archie.”  

“What?”

I felt the stare.  “Touch it.”

“Why?’

“Why are we here?”

“You told me you were going to tell me about my…”

He cut me off, “I asked if you were interested in her history.  Her story.”  He paused.  “Are you?”  Then in my head I heard Rod Serling, “Presented for your consideration, Ms. Archie Kell.  A dying girl trapped in a teenaged boy’s body.  A magic ritual involving this girl, a painting and an immortal dwarf sorcerer will change her life forever.”  (Twilight Zone theme plays)

I swallowed nervously.  “Yes.”

“Touch the painting.”

I did.

For a moment, nothing happened.  Then Doctor Zen stepped forward, put his hand on the painting and touched my elbow at the same time.

Then the world just went away.

***

I woke up in some enormous chair.  It has to be really huge as I’m not touching both sides of the chair.  I’m six foot two and I weigh just over four hundred pounds.

I heard Sean Connery’s voice, “You are safe.  It happens to everyone the first time they go through the portal.”

I opened my eyes.  That wasn’t little Doc Creepy’s voice.  I was sitting in a wonderfully luxurious leather chair.  I was in Gandalf the Grey’s dream library.  The room was at least thirty feet tall with vaulted ceilings.  There were no windows.  The walls were bookshelves, and they were filled with books and volumes of all kinds.  Tables and chairs were laden with stacks and piles of books.  Across from me sat a four and half foot tall creature made of clay.  It had two small lumps of obsidian for eyes, and a crack in the clay itself for a mouth.

“Yes, I am Doctor Zen.”  Again, the voice was unmistakably that of Sean Connery.  “The technical term is homunculus.  I was created by a wizard centuries ago.  I can use Glamour magic to disguise all but one aspect of myself.  In the world, I mask all of me but my senses.  Here, I can have a voice I appreciate.”

“Where is here…”  My question died off as I squirmed in the chair to sit more upright, and realized that moving wasn’t the struggle I expected.  I was slim.  I felt weightless. 

“I see Souls, Archie.  This is much closer to who you really are than what you are back in the world.”

I felt the tears running down my face.  I shut my eyes tight, rubbing them with the heels of my hands.  “How?”  I asked softly.

“Magic.  This is my demesne.  Here, my will is law.  Excepting the limits put on me by my creator.”

I felt a little warm mitten-hand of clay pat my arm.

I opened my eyes and the figure of clay was standing next to me.  For a moment, I forgot this was the same Dr. Creepy who made my hair stand on end, with his lifeless state and inhuman voice.  

I just gathered him into a hug and held him close.  I kept whispering thank you over and over.

“Stand up.  I have one more surprise.”

I let him go and did as he asked.

And just like that, I didn’t hurt.  My back and joints normally ache due to my weight.  I didn’t hurt.  The baseball sized tumor in my head didn’t hurt.  Nothing hurt.  It felt weird.  I felt good.  Good.  For the first time in years, I felt wonderful.

I must have been almost a foot shorter than I was.  And barely a fourth of the weight.  I felt like I could fly.  I ran around the library room, dodging and weaving through the stacks and piles.  I reveled in just moving.  Not lumbering.  I was graceful.  Or at least it felt like it.

And then the dust hit me.  All that motion through the room had stirred up the dust of what was probably decades and then I began sneezing.  That didn’t hurt either.  I felt a touch on my elbow and the world shifted.

We were outside, near the lake.  The boat dock was off to our left and down a path I could see a small cottage.  No dust here.  The air was clear and sweet.  The breeze felt cool.  “So what’s down there, Doc?”  No more Dr. Creepy.  The little guy just made my all time favorite people list.

Sir Sean’s voice came back immediately, “Your great-grandmother’s cottage.  Her retreat.”  It was a very small cottage, close to the lakeshore.  Only maybe a couple of rooms on the inside from the two windows that faced us.  The cottage had originally been painted white, but it was faded.  Worn by the years, I assume.  Oh, that’s even if time actually passes in here?  Does it?  Should I ask?

Nah.  Maybe later.

We walked up the stone path to the door.  It was a dark green, like the trim around the windows.  No knocker, just a brass door knob.

My little clay compadre reached up and opened the door.

It wasn’t what I expected.  Not at all.

There wasn’t any color inside the house.  Everything was black and white.  It was all one room.  In one corner there was a small kitchen, assuming you call a sink, refrigerator (yes, an electric refrigerator) and an electric griddle a kitchen.  A small cupboard next to the sink was open.  It held a dish, a cup and a package of Cheese Ritz crackers.  I didn’t know they had been around that long.

The rest of the large room was empty except for a large pile of pillows on the floor.

“This is it?”  I was surprised.  This isn’t what I expected for the secret retreat of the legendary Ms. Mystery.

“Yes.  Alexandra was always a bit of a puzzle for me.  She would come here, and meditate.  Occasionally she would borrow a book from my library.  Most of the time she played with this bag of toys, when she wasn’t meditating.”

I couldn’t resist, “Don’t you mean she was a mystery?”

The little clay man put his hand on my arm, “Please, Archie.  Never use a quip that bad in my presence again.”  The creepy voice was back.  Doc Zen led me over to the pile of pillows.  He rooted around in them for a few moments, and pulled up a white leather bag.  In addition to being the size of a small grocery bag, it had the constellation of Orion embossed on it in small black squares.  But it was wrong.  It didn’t have the right stars.  There were stars off to the right of the usual ones, laid out a lot like a bow, but no stars for the upraised arm.  I’d never seen that configuration.

“Here.”  He handed me the bag.  “You should have something that belonged to her.”

“Shouldn’t you be giving this to my grandfather?  Shouldn’t you have given him this years ago?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Your grandfather has a great deal of unresolved emotions where his mother is concerned.”  He paused, “You need to know her story to understand, and that is not my story to tell.”

“So… who’s going to tell me that story?”  This made no sense at all.

“She will.”  He saw me start to ask, “Her diary is in the bag.”

I was completely intrigued.  Even though I can’t stand the whole superhuman thing, I’d read everything I could find about Ms. Mystery.  She was family.  There were almost a dozen books about her second disappearance.  When she first disappeared, she came back a year later.  What the public didn’t know is that she came back with a son.  Pap.  I’d always assumed that she just took that time off to have her child.  

Her second disappearance is one of the greatest mysteries of the 20^th Century.

I can’t wait to read her diary.

“Archie.”

I looked into Doc’s black eyes, which weren’t as frightening as they used to be.  

“Do not let your grandfather know about the diary.”

“Why?”

“You will understand once you have read it.”

Then the world shuddered.

*** Author’s Note:  Please feel free to give feedback, even if it’s through a PM.  All of it is wanted, Positive and Negative. ***