Notes taken by Alastair and Samantha Beadle.
In the last two weeks, while coming back from deep space, John Doe has learnt how to survive without breathing.
On Ascension Island.
In the John Doe versus Proteus shapeshifting contest both participants are currently in the form of Chronos, Master of Time.
The rest of the Guardians are watching this, clearly waiting for someone sensible to show up. They are:
The shapeshifting contest continues. John Doe turns into a giant pink space octopus, complete with its anti-gravity powers - and wins the contest as a result. Proteus looks slightly miffed. John Doe attempts to demonstrate the anti gravity octopus trick to Proteus by trying to pass on the appropriate genetic code, assuming that Proteus' powers work like his and Proteus will be able to read the genetic code from him. But he finds that Proteus is made of plastic! John Doe admits that he cannot do plastic. So maybe Proteus wins after all; that's what Proteus thinks, anyway. When asked, Proteus says he has always been plastic, and it came as a terrible shock to his poor mother.
"So, you must be the London Knights," says Magus, sarcastically. "I am sure our respective governments would like us to debrief you."
"As long as it is not SI-12," says Truth. "Because they are utter bastards that..." she briefly recants the tale of the London Knights visit to Project Safeguard.
In order to check that none of the Guardians have 'weird magical symbols' John Doe sprouts a mass of eye-tipped tentacles to examine them all in detail and simultaneously. The tentacles will not approach Magus, so John Doe creates some more tentacles to slap those tentacles for being bad. However, he can see that both Amaryllis and Magus (as you might expect) are wearing amulets at their throats that appear to have mystical symbols on them. Tigress hisses at him in an annoyed-cat type manner. Strike appears offended at the thought of John Doe's tentacles going everywhere; he gives the impression that messing with him would be an extremely bad idea, but John Doe does not let this stop him. Strike dodges nimbly in mid-air. However, as far as John Doe can tell none of the others have magical things on them.
"If you are quite finished?" says Magus, still sarcastic.
John Doe shows the Guardians a picture of Ms Sejnowski's magical symbol. "A fairly simple multi-purpose magical sigil," says Magus.
We all go into the terminal building for coffee and a full account of the tale of the London Knights visit to Project Safeguard. John Doe just leaves a mouth and pair of eyes on the table connected to the rest of him by a thin strand of flesh while the rest of him goes off to find something (well, lots of things) to eat. Proteus performs a similar trick and follows John Doe.
Truth tells most of the story, with details added by the rest of us. Magus and Shade ask intelligent questions at appropriate points.
In the kitchen, Cooks look on in horror as John Doe finishes off the edible contents of their kitchen; he is refilling after feeding the occupants of the space octopus for two weeks.
"I suppose you will be wanting to go back to good old Blighty now?" asks Magus. Apparently a British Government flight has been arranged to take us home.
Void is, apparently, of particular interest, as no one has ever heard of him. He insists that he is as much a British Citizen as the rest of us.
Truth berates the Guardians for not knowing about SI-12's operations and for letting them get away with that sort of thing. She considers searching historical records to find out about the prisoners they found on Project Safeguard. This is quickly followed by a plan to return into space (in John Doe in the form of a space octopus) to search for surviving any SI-12 prisoners, such as Adam, in the place where the Acanti was killed. This plan includes John Doe (as the transport), Truth (as a prime advocate of the idea who also does not need air) and Void (as the navigator, astronaut and because he also does not need air).
However, they reluctantly agree to briefly go back to London before setting off for space.
Truth particularly is not interested in going back to London - which she says she hates. She complains that London is full of weirdness and bad things that we have to deal with. Magus points out that this is the life of a superhero in a nutshell. Her not entirely serious idea of our joining the Guardians is not welcomed by Magus and friends.
We say our goodbyes to the Guardians and go out to the tarmac where we board the waiting VC-10. A man in a dark suit comes quickly up the stairs behind us. He introduces himself as Mr Richardson, of SI-12. This proves to be a mistake on his part. Truth has had enough of SI-12 and attacks him with knockout gas (he seems immune to her mind control powers as well as Noesis' telepathy) then kicks him down the stairs (she isn't super-strong, but she is very fast). She really doesn't like SI-12. He lands unconscious on the tarmac.
John Doe pulls Mr Richardson back onto the plane, as a prisoner. He is searched by John Doe who finds a pistol in a shoulder holster, sunglasses, a radio earpiece, a lightweight bulletproof vest, and a collapsible truncheon... All of his equipment is confiscated.
We are delayed further as a RAF officer runs towards the plane to talk to Void. He boards and introduces himself as Dr Christian. "Hello all, my name is Dr Christian of the RAF - not SI-12, not at all," he says. The VC-10's doors are shut and we taxi off. Dr Christian's offer to check over the somewhat crumpled Mr Richardson is rejected by Truth.
Dr Christian and Void go off for a private discussion.
The VC-10 takes off and begins to head north over the Atlantic.
As we fly, John Doe explores the VC-10. He finds nothing out of the ordinary compared to the previous VC-10 we were on.
After a while, Mr Richardson wakes up, with the aid of a little not-so-gentle help from Truth.
"Why did you push me down the stairs?" asks Mr Richardson in an aggrieved kind of way.
"Because you are SI-12!" replies Truth angrily. "You are horrible and mean and corrupt. You lock people up for hundreds of years and..." Truth goes on in this vein for a while, in a long rant about all that she knows about SI-12.
"I see," says Mr Richardson. "I know nothing of these matters."
Truth does not believe that SI-12 were not involved in the Project Safeguard secret cells. The evidence would seem to support this! Whether Mr Richardson knows anything or not remains a more open question, however.
We land back at Brize Norton in the early evening of the 11th September, about three weeks after we left. Servo, Noesis and Void stay behind, partly to sort out papers and so on for Void. Blitz, John Doe and Truth head for Whitehall. Servo in particular has reservations about our intended plan of breaking into government offices.
We take to the air and fly to London. It is fully dark by the time we arrive in Whitehall. We locate the door that Mr Stannard and Miss Jaspers were tracked to when we followed them back before. The nameplate says this is the 'Ministry of Consumer Affairs'. Truth goes invisible and desolid and carries John Doe in. Blitz lurks above the streetlights, in the dark and out of sight.
Inside is a lobby with a security guard behind a reception desk, various armchairs, a coffee machine and two corridors going off, one to the left, one straight ahead.
Truth and John Doe go to the left first. They find a corridor with empty offices and meeting rooms along one side of an internal courtyard. Truth can make out lots of scents, but recognises none of them - certainly not, for example, Mr Stannard or Miss Jaspers. Heading downwards, they find a basement with shelves and shelves full of box files. After a brief check of a random selection, the files do actually appear to relate to consumer affairs. They search further, but no sub-basements are found below this level. Likewise, no other hidden rooms are found.
They return to the lobby area and go straight ahead this time. Similar offices and a big conference room are found along another side of the internal courtyard. The security guard behind the reception desk in the lobby is completely oblivious to them. Going upstairs they find more offices, some of them more plush than the ground floor ones. One of them is the office of the Minister of Consumer Affairs (John Doe recognises the name from a news report). It is also unoccupied
They check to either side of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs. On one side is the Ministry of Education and on the other the Ministry of Transport.
Outside Blitz flies around the building checking for anything suspicious. All seems to be quiet. The building abuts onto St James' Park, and he can see Buckingham Palace off on the other side of the park.
Back inside, Truth and John Doe return to the front door.
They decide to try a different tactic. John Doe turns into Mr Stannard with the assistance of a toilet mirror, then John Doe/Mr Stannard appears out of an office near to the security guard and heads noisily towards him.
"Who are you?" asks the guard. "Show some identification please, Sir."
Truth uses her mind control gas to make the guard tell the truth; silvery vapours fill the air. We find out that he really does not know who Mr Stannard is. John Doe and Truth has a swift mumbled conversation, then John Doe leaves. Truth remains behind as the guard goes to pick up the phone. She mind controls the guard to put down the phone and look away. John Doe turns into Miss Jaspers and comes back. The guard does not recognise her. Then he turns into Mr Richardson and the guard doesn't recognise him, either. They conclude that the guard knows nothing.
Then Truth notices that video security cameras cover the place. She decides to follow the security camera cables back through the walls and see where they go. This turns out to not be an easy job at all, but she somehow manages. After a while, and several buildings later, she finds a security control room with half a dozen security guards in it watching banks of video screens. One of the guards is on the phone. "No sir, we do not know where they have gone," he is saying.
Truth leans down desolid and invisible, through the security man, to listen in on the other side of the phone call.
"Wait - they are in here, look!" says one of the other guards. He points to a screen which shows this room, with a ghostly outline of Truth visible on it. Truth sits down to wait and see what they will do now. The first guard presses a button and all the screens go out. "Yes sir, it is all cut off now," he says into the phone.
Truth sniffs over the first guards keyboard, using her acute sense of smell to determine which keys have been pressed most recently. She tries various combinations of recently pressed keys in an attempt to reactivate the cameras and screen, but nothing happens. Truth phones Blitz and tells him what is up.
All but one of the guards (the one who was on the phone) leave the security room and start making themselves coffees in a small lounge right outside. Truth and John Doe shut the door out of the security room and hold it shut while John Doe scares the living daylights out of him in monster form and questions him, with Truth using mind control to make them tell the truth as they know it.
The guard tells them that this is the Home Office Annex, but he knows nothing about SI-12. He was on the phone to their Chief of Security, who is on the way. He gives them the name of his chief, Mr Davidson, and his location, on the second floor of the Home Office building.
John Doe and Truth leave and meet up with Blitz again.
The three of them head off to the Home Office. En route, among the people going about their early-evening business, several homeless people are spotted - at least two of whom are fungus people!
Upon reaching the Home Office, Truth and John Doe enter the building and go looking for Mr Davidson. His office is empty but Truth finds a recent trail to follow - it goes to the lift, down to the ground floor car park. It leads to an empty car park.
Back in the office, they use the last number redial facility of Mr Davidson's phone to try to find where he has gone.
"Hello, Home Office Ministers Office. Can I help you?" says a voice on the other end of the line. We question them about the whereabouts of Mr Davidson but they refuse to reveal where he might be, and are generally unhelpful, so we ring off.
Truth and John Doe agree that the next step might be to break into Number 10 Downing Street and question Prime Minister Major. Blitz does not object to this plan, so they all head off towards Downing Street.
They all go that way, John Doe carrying Truth in the form of a black stealth dragon, Blitz on his own. Blitz gets to Downing Street first, with Truth and John Doe arriving shortly afterwards.
There are a couple of cars parked in Downing Street, and several policemen about. When John Doe arrives, Truth asks the policeman standing outside the door of Number 10 if they can speak to the PM. The policeman speaks into his radio, saying the London Knights wish to speak to the PM. Truth says it is a matter of national security. The policeman passes this on. While we wait, John Doe does a good dragon impression with fire and clawing at the ground and everything. When he gets bored with this he goes and inspects the cars.
After a short time the policeman gets a message that the PM's private secretary is available. He will be out to talk to us in a few minutes. At this point a small people carrier arrives at the gates of Downing Street and a reporter and cameraman gets out. The reporter starts shouting questions to us through the gate.
When the reporter starts asking questions Truth is, of course, compelled to tell the truth, and does. Truth tells them all about SI-12 and our suspicions about them. Blitz keeps well clear of the reporters. As she speaks other reporters and cameraman arrive and contribute questions of their own. Truth is not actually volunteering information, just responding to questions she is asked. However, she is being asked a lot of questions.
"Who is this SI-12 you speak of?" ask the reporters. Truth describes what we know. She and John Doe also list all the escaped prisoners (The Red Lotus, The Reckoner, Ultraman). Truth is then drawn on some details. John Doe shapeshifts himself to provide descriptions of the giant pink space octopus and the Acanti; the reporters accept these cautiously.
At about this point, Parker Travis, the PMs private secretary, tall, thin and very dapper, arrives. Truth suggests that they will continue with the interview later, reveals the current location of Servo, Noesis and Void, and follows Parker. John Doe and Blitz do likewise.
We are led into Number 10 and along the hall to Parker's office, which is on the ground floor. There is no sign of the Prime Minister. At Parker's invitation we sit. John Doe covertly checks under the carpet for hidden arcane symbols, but doesn't find any.
Parker says he knows that we have been trying to track down SI-12. He understands why we are aggrieved against them, practically admitting that SI-12 have tried to kill us all.
Truth asks how and why SI-12 hid prisoners on board Project Safeguard, and why it seems that the British Government condones this extremely dubious activity. Mr Travis knows (or at least claims to know) nothing about these events. As far as he is concerned SI-12 is a legitimate organisation set up some time ago to counter threats outside the range of the normal, beyond even 'normal' super-villainy. He assures us that a full investigation will probably be set up as soon as he has briefed the PM.
He answers some more of our questions:
Truth goes on to insult the governments knowledge of what is happening in the country, citing Canary Warf as a prime piece of evidence, with their lack of knowledge of the fungus people to support it.
Parker asks us for some time for the government to look into things before we start breaking and entering again. Truth promises to give them a day or two to investigate before 'turning things over'.
Truth then asks when we should come back. We agree to meet at the Home Office at 9AM on Thursday (today being Monday). This gives us a couple of days to sort out the mushroom people and then once we have sorted out SI-12 we (well, some of us) could set off into space to see if there was anyone left there after the death of the Acanti. This, at least, is the plan.
Mr Travis thanks us for coming. We shake hands (John Doe uses this opportunity to confirm that Parker is genetically a normal human) and depart.
Outside, the media descends on us again, and ask what just went on.
Truth lets slip a reference to the fungus people and is questioned at length on the subject. They also ask where Avenger is, and are not entirely content with the answer, "He is frozen, with the aliens."
"Are you all on drugs?" one of the reporters asks (he looks like a tabloid reporter).
"No, of course not! Well, except Noesis..."
"Noesis is on drugs?!" exclaim several reporters. We try to explain about Noesis' requirement for anti-depressants due to his being a brain in a tank, but that part seems to get lost.
When the reporters ask where Chronos is, John Doe tells them he is in rehab for a drug problem. This is a lie, but the reporters lap it up...
Eventually we have had enough of the media. John Doe transforms into stealth dragon form, Truth climbs on board and the three of us fly off in dramatic fashion.
We return, by various sneaky routes, back to the WIlberforce Throckmorton Device II, moored in the dock near Tower Bridge. There is no sign of Servo, Noesis or Void yet, but Sven is asleep in one of the cabins.
We relax some, showing no consideration for Sven's sleeping state. We turn on the TV and discover that we are on the news. Coverage of the 10 Downing Street interviews is shown, mainly the bit about Noesis being on drugs. The bits about SI-12, aliens and so forth seem to be largely unmentioned.
Sven wanders in. We tell him all about what happened (Truth is bored of the story now so it is shorter this time than the last two times she has told it). When asked, Sven says he has spent the time since we last saw him learning about our (Earth's) political and economic systems, and intends to continue doing so for a while at least. Truth also tells him about the fungus people. He declines the invitation to join us on the fungus people investigation.
Blitz phones Noesis to find out where he, Servo and Void are...