Notes taken by Alastair and Samantha Beadle.
By now we have all been in this new world for about half an hour.
In a military base somewhere Henry Smith (Blitz) has been admitted to the command tent, the guards outside having saluted and admitted him.
The first part of the tent is a large command centre. A large table in the middle holds an equally large map of Brittany, in France, annotated with what are clearly markers of the front line, unit positions and dispositions and so on, and with physical markers placed on it. The area of Brittany is highlighted in red. Other maps and information hang from display boards around the edge of the room. From the main map it appears that he is in a military camp in the area of the town of Laval.
One is a larger map of France, also with Brittany marked in red. Blitz instantly notices some additional differences. Where we might expect there to be Belgium and Luxembourg there is a single nation labelled the Netherlands. Britain is labelled England. The English Channel is labelled La Manche. Germany seems to be the Holy Roman Empire here. Italy is a collection of smaller states. Spain and Switzerland seem to present but their borders, and those of the other nations, seem different to what Blitz remembers from home.
The man in the heavily-insignia'd uniform that he saw going into the tent earlier - presumably General Winterton - greets him. "Ah, Smith, good morning."
As with others Blitz has spoken to he speaks with an American-sounding accent, but unlike anything he has ever heard at home. Various other military types stand around the map table talking of military matters. He also notices two priests in the room. They seem to be keeping an eye on everyone there, but in particular on himself and the General. 'Henry' steps forward and looks at the map. The towns seem about the same as what he remembers from home, but new harbours have been added in some places.
General Winterton says they are going over the plan and that they have a mission for him. "As usual an aircraft will drop you over the target zone and you will make his own way from there. This is your target."
The General picks up a manila folder and hands it to Henry. Inside is a sheaf of papers with a black-and-white photograph on showing a large balding man, apparently in his fifties, wearing an ornate and be-decorated uniform that looks to Blitz like something from the nineteenth century.
"This is General von Steiglitz, from the Eighth Army of the King of France, that is currently deployed between Caen and Argenton," says General Winterton. "He is currently in Caen. Kill him in the name of Christ, brother, and make it messy, as an example. And then return."
He pauses, as if remembering something. "Oh, yes," he says. "And goodwife Sarah sends her regards from the Front, along with the message 'Fourteen-thirteen. Your move'. Take whatever equipment you need from the usual place. A car will pick you up in half an hour."
Henry salutes and leaves the comment tent. He returns to his tent and studies the dossier on von Steiglitz. He is apparently a French aristocrat, who has risen through ranks (from Captain) on the strength of his military skills and political acumen. He is quite a serious thorn in the side of the New Commonwealth. The members of his immediate family are also described.
Wanting some equipment, Henry picks up the phone, and when the operator answers gives his name and asks for the same equipment as the last mission to sent to his tent. He hopes the last mission did not involve things like mini-submarines...
That done, he then tries to work out what his superpowers are in this body.
He thickens the air and throws some coins that get stuck in it. This effect also seems to follow him around. He then thins the air; coins seem to slip through this more quickly, and the rug underfoot also seems to become slippery. He really hopes that he is getting a parachute for this mission, if he is being dropped out an aircraft.
He tests his hand over a lamp, to see if he is still immune to temperature extreme. It hurts, so it seems he is not.
After ten minutes, two soldiers arrive dragging a trolley loaded with a large kit-bag of equipment, including clothes, weapons (guns, garrottes, knuckle-dusters, knives and so on), a compass, maps and the like. 'Henry' thanks them and takes the kit-bag into his tent. They depart.
He puts the compass down and uses it and the maps in an attempt to work out where the tugging sensations are coming from. It appears that the strongest one is coming from east-north-east, roughly the direction of Paris. Of the others, the two stronger ones are south-east and north-north-east, while the two weaker ones are both also north-north-east.
As he finished this, a staff car pulls up outside. Damn. He picks up the kit bag and leaves his tent. The driver opens the door of the car, he gets in with his kit, and the driver climbs back in. They drive off.
The car passes through the camp, out through a check point and goes half a mile down the road, to a levelled field where a crude air-strip has been made by, it seems, pounding rubble into the soil. A small single-engined, high-winged Cessna-type plane is waiting there with a pilot wearing a parachute. A dozen or so guards ring the airstrip, seeming to be guarding it from outside. There is no parachute visible for 'Henry'.
The pilot salutes. "Are you ready for the off, sir?" he asks.
Behind him Blitz notices the car turning to leave. "Yes," he tells the pilot.
He climbs into the plane. The controls look nothing like anything he has seen before.
The pilot swings the propeller to start the plane and climbs in. Pulling out a radio microphone, he speaks to someone at the other end. "Flight 6 is off," he tells them.
Then he takes the controls, the aircraft bumps down the crude runway and rises up into the sky, heading north roughly two hundred feet off the ground.
'I am doomed,' Henry thinks optimistically.
In a barracks somewhere else, 'Charity' (Truth) enters the administration part of the only building in the compound, with the other Captain. The other Captain leads her across stone-flagged floor and through a set of double doors on the other side into a large briefing room. Chairs are lined up along both sides facing a lectern at the far end, where there is another door in a side wall. The walls are covered with maps and other papers, which Truth peruses. The other Captain goes and sits down in the front row.
Truth sees that she must be in London - the shape of the river running through the city is correct, some locations, such as Westminster Abbey and Whitehall, match (in name at least) those she is familiar with, though other names and the layout of the smaller streets have changed. Places she does not recognise include Naseby Circus, Westminster Square, Ireton Square, Marston Embankment and Bosworth Square. The overall shape of the city is different, too. It runs along the Thames much as it does in the real world, extending as far as Tilbury and Gravesend in a mass of dock areas, but does not even reach Hampstead, Willsden or Harrow in the north or Stretham or Catford in the south. They are all still separate towns or villages. There seem to be very few railway lines too, just one set leading out of London to the south-east, one to the south, one to the west and one to the north, all from a station labelled 'London Terminus' that seems to be roughly where Buckingham Palace should be. She also notices that this barracks seems to be somewhere in Bethnal Green.
As Truth wanders about, more uniform Police-types enter and sit down until the only chair not filled is one at the front, close to the Captain she arrived with. She sits, and they wait. She is the only female in the room.
After a few minutes the door beside the lectern opens and a higher-ranking Police official (at least, his uniform is more ornate, and he is older) walks in and moves to stand behind the lectern. He looks out at his audience.
"Good morning Brothers, Sister," he begins. "For today you'll be pleased to know that we've got a tip-off that the damned 'Voice of Liberty' is broadcasting from a warehouse down in Whitechapel. Like as not there'll be their usual assortment of associated stuff there too - the printing presses, guns and so on. So we'll do it by the book, as usual. Our book. Lads, you'll surround the place, form a cordon and stop 'em running. Lynch, as usual you'll go in, draw their fire, pacify them, and once you're done we'll come in and clean up."
He pauses. "Oh, yes, and Sister Lynch, I know that, as a member of the weaker sex, you have less control of your emotions than we men, but our superiors would very much like some living prisoners this time. All right?"
He looks around at the room as a whole. "Very well. Let's get going. Pick up what you need from the Armoury and let's be about it."
He turns and leaves the room. There is a general rumble and voices as people stand up and prepare to leave.
Charity follows the crowd out of the briefing room and through another door off the same entrance labelled 'Armoury'. Inside is a stores-type area with a large, hard-looking (if rather fat) man in his fifties handing out weapons on request and noting them down in a large ledger. "Surprise me," she says when he turns to Charity.
He looks at her strangely but goes off and returns with a large revolver, a sawn off shotgun and a case of ammo for each. The weapons feel strangely familiar in her hands.
Now suitably tooled up, she follows the crowd again out of the building into the barracks yard where there are four waiting armoured cars, large armoured black metal vehicles equipped with machine guns, with the white cross painted on their sides. Policemen are climbing into them all, about ten in each. She climbs into the lead car. When everyone is aboard the convoy moves out, across the yard to where the large metal gates of the barracks have been rolled back by the guards and out into the streets beyond.
They move through a very rough-looking slum. All of the buildings look of an old style of Truth's eyes, but all look physically old too, and not at all well-maintained. Some areas are ruined, some look to have been bombed out and not rebuilt. Some have been gutted by fire. The stench makes her quite glad she left her enhanced sense of smell back with her real body. Although Charity knows that she is somewhere in Bethnal Green, the place is totally unrecognisable.
There are plenty of people in the streets, all of them grubby and worn down looking, many with obvious scars, missing teeth or signs of disease, all dressed is clothes that are not much more than rags, scurry away from the armoured cars in fear as they approach, down the narrow side alleys.
As they drive on, the condition of the streets and buildings actually gets worse.
After a while the convoy pulls up. People deploy out of Truth's armoured car while the other three cars move off to other positions. The four armed and armoured squads of Police deploy around a nearby warehouse, one of a number on this street, but seemingly rather more solid and intact than them.
As the Police move off, Charity is ordered to move forwards and "await the signal" before going in.
She loads her weapons, advances on the building, discovering that she seems to be quite stealthy as she does so, finds somewhere to lurk in the shadows of an alley opposite the warehouse in question, and goes 'glassy and faceted'. Then she waits...
Elsewhere, in another military camp, Servo is also entering a General's Tent, that of, presumably, General Bailey.
Inside it is much like that into which Blitz was admitted, with a large map table with the map of France covered in unit position markers, battle lines and so on, with other makes hung in stands around it. A high ranking officer, several lower ranking officers and two priests are in the room. The priests seem to be watching everyone, but 'Marcus' and the General more than anyone else. From a quick glance at the maps, Servo gains the impression that he is in a camp in the area of the town of Chateau-Gontier, north of Angers.
General Bailey welcomes him.
"So, Brother, today's assignment should be much the same as normal. While the daylight lasts you're to use your powers to, where you can, monitor and disrupt enemy communications. Without exposing yourself to them.
"When night falls, you are to do as much damage behind enemy lines as possible before returning. We have received intelligence that two new wings of enemy fighters are deploying into Alencon airfield, and new troops are arriving by train at Le Mans overnight. Do what you can, and make them know what it means to oppose the will of the Lord."
"Is my driver available?" 'Marcus' asks.
Everyone looks at him as if he is strange or has said something odd.
"Not a problem," he says, trying to cover his back.
The priests in particular are now looking at him very strangely.
Led by the priests they all then pray, standing up, for victory.
General Bailey wishes 'Marcus' good luck and dismisses him to be about his business. He leaves.
Returning to his tent he tunes into the airwaves using his powers. He can hear various stations broadcasting n the clear, including the MBC on a powerful signal from the west, as well as other stations further away and generally eastwards, broadcasting in French, German, Dutch, with perhaps some fainter stations also broadcasting in Russian, Spanish and Italian. He can also pick up some encoded signals from the east and south.
After a little while of listening in he works out that some of the transmitters in Brittany are in a code he labels 'code 1' and others are in 'code 2'. From the distribution of the signals he concludes that code 1 belong to the New Commonwealth while code 2 is the other side's.
He picks out one of their signals and tries to jam it. He can feel that he is transmitting something but is unsure whether he is doing anything to the target signal. He tries small sharp signals instead, but also to no effect. He considers this, and thinks he may be too far away.
At this point there is a cough, and a shout of "Mail Call!" from outside.
He goes to the entrance of the tent, and finds a soldier there with a letter for 'him'. He takes it and goes back inside.
Opening the letter it proves to be from a place whose name he does recognise, apparently near Philadelphia in the New Commonwealth, from Marcus' parents. It describes how wonderful things are now that his father has adjusted to the advances in position arising from Marcus' being blessed with his powers. Hmm...
Looking through the chest of belongings he finds a military-style map of Brittany. It has various things marked on it - enemy positions, times and dates and so on - and from this works out that he must have been travelling at high speeds when on those missions. He considers this, then decides that he should be off about 'his mission'.
He packs up some things he thinks he might need, leaves the tent and heads off through the camp, scanning through the tents until he finds the mess tent (distinguishable by its iron cooking equipment) and then heading for it. He goes in and asks for a packed lunch.
The cooks provide him a water canteen and a small clean sack containing bread, cheese and ham (not in sandwich form).
That done, he wanders off towards the front line, and tries to fly.
It takes a while but he eventually figures out how to channel and direct what seems to be radio energy about himself for lift, and begins to rise into the air. He experiments with his powers a bit more, finding that he can project a sheath of radio energy about himself too, then heads off towards one of the code 2 signals, keeping under cover as much as possible.
Elsewhere, in a hotel of some kind, Noesis follows the Scotsman out of his room and down the corridor outside, having changed his face so that he isn't recognised.
The Scotsman goes down the hallway to a large staircase that goes both up and down. He goes up, from what Noesis can hear only one flight. Noesis follows as quietly as he can; he can hear faint noises from above.
Peering around the top of the stairs, he seems to be on the top floor. Half a dozen guards stand in front of a number of doors. The decor on this floor seems to be rather more plush than on the one below.
The Scotsman salutes the guards and is saluted in return. He goes over to one of the doors, knocks, and is admitted.
Noesis decides he can't follow any further and sneaks back downstairs and back to his room.
Once there he gets out a notebook and starts to write as much as he can remember of his medical knowledge, to see how much what he thinks he should know he does actually know. After a little while of this it seems that he remembers everything as before. Phew.
Then he waits, still writing.
After a while there is a knock at the door.
"Come in," he says.
The Scotsman enters. "The Lord Protector's private secretary says you will be required at midday after the rally," he tells 'Dr James'.
Noesis asks him to give him fair warning when it is time to leave as he is having some ideas at present and may be rather distracted, and to leave him now.
The Scotsman nods and departs.
He looks through his stuff again, then tries turning his hand green. This works. Then he tries turning it to steel. It appears to turn into steel, and goes hard. He tries to cut his steel hand with a scalpel. It scores the skin but doesn't cut it. Below the surface his hand appears flash-coloured, as if it has become hard flesh that looks like steel, rather than actually turned to steel. Hmmm.
Turning his hand back into flesh he cuts himself and tries to heal it. This works. He also reabsorbs the blood that has fallen from him.
Getting some soap from the bathroom, he tries to absorb it. He does this too. He is aware of it inside him, but it feels like part of him too.
Then he looks through the doctor's bag more closely than before while sharpening the now-blunt scalpel.
Inside there are a wide selection of normal, if rather primitive, medical instruments, including glass syringes and so on. There are also bottles with various strange names on them. A little investigation allows him to identify some of them as ether, other anaesthetics, some antiseptics and so on. There are some drugs, mainly opiates, but nothing immediately recognisable as antibiotics.
With that done he makes his hand drop off. It does. He has it grow eyes. It does, but he cannot see through them. He also cannot feel with his detached hand, and when it moves it is as if he has control over its shape rather than is moving it via muscular contractions. A little more practise, including the re-absorption of his hand shows that he can grow tendrils with eyes on them and see from then, as long as they remain attached.
He finds he can also change the shape of the desk chair, and animate it. He can do the same with other objects around him.
Wondering how far this ability reaches, he tries altering a weather-cock he can see in the distance out of the window. The distance makes it more difficult, but change its shape he does...
In another military camp, Void enters another General's tent, that of, presumably, General Burgess. As he does so he realises that he has a perfect memory of where he has been, and the directions he was facing at all points since he woke up here. Interesting... Again there is a large map table with military symbols and markers on the map of France on it, officers of various insignia moving about, and two priests watch everyone, particularly him and the General. From looking at the map, Void concludes that this base is somewhere between Caen and Alencon, a little to the west of the line between them.
"Ah, good morning Gordenston," says the General as he comes in.
"Right, listen carefully," he continues. "This morning you will spend, as planned, gating bombs through onto the enemy along the Le Mans-Alencon Line. After lunch we have a reconnaissance plane waiting to fly you along the Loire Front to allow you to survey the enemy positions there and calculate how best to destroy them ready for the Big Push. If you could protect the pilot and the aircraft as you do that, I'm sure they'd both be very happy."
"I wonder if I could speak to you alone?" 'William' asks the General before he goes.
General Burgess looks somewhat dubious about this and glances at the two priests, who look even more sceptical, but he agrees, and leads 'William' through a flap into another part of the tent, one layer of cloth from the command centre.
In 'private' he tells General Burgess that he has concerns as he is unsure of his powers. He tells him that he seems to have lost the positional locks he had before he went to sleep and about his dream - that of being called.
General Burgess looks dubious.
Void tells him that will do this mornings mission, then visit the medics, as he already asked them to examine him.
The General looks a little unsure at this, then agrees that this is probably the best way forward for now. "That's it for now. Good luck," he concludes. "And the best for the mission. However, I am sure I do not need to remind you of the serious consequences for yourself and your family if you are malingering or having doubts rather than actually ... ill."
Hmmm...
Void leaves the command tent and wanders about the camp. He appears to be remembering the true direction and orientation of everywhere he has been as he goes. Following the sounds of engines he quickly reaches the runway, which seems to be something slapped together on a series of fields. The aircraft themselves seem to be being repaired and rearmed under camouflaged canopies to each side of the runway. Their weapons seem to consist of machine guns and fairly small bombs.
'William' makes his presence known to the armourers, who salute him. They lead him off to one side, to a large tent, on its own in an area surrounded by sandbags. Inside is where the bombs are kept. They seem to come in two sizes - the small ones that he has already seen being loaded on aircraft, and a dozen or so much larger non-aerodynamic devices. They all seem to have contact fuses, which seems to Void to be a good idea.
The armourer points out the large bombs as the ones Void is to deliver. "Ready when you are, sir," he says.
Void asks for a map to remind himself of the lie of the land.
The armourer looks slightly confused at this, as if this is the first time he has been asked for such a thing, but does not otherwise comment. He goes off and returns with a scrappy, dog-eared map.
From it, Void tries to work out what is going on, and where he is relative to the enemy lines. Once he is reasonably confident of his bearings, he tries to use his powers, attempting to create two of the red dots, one here and one two miles away. A red dot appears. There is no sign of a second one, but he can feel its position, in the location he desired. He concentrates and the dot grows into a ring, which he looks through. He can see through to the other side as if through normal air, to a place some miles away.
He has the armourer peer through the gate and mark the place on the other end on the map.
The armourer umm and ahs, but does so.
From this he works out where he thinks he needs to go and opens another gate there.
Looking out and down he sees a damaged-looking town with troops encamped in and around it, behind extensive defensive lines. Although they have tanks and so on the troops are dressed in a very nineteenth century style. Void moves his gate over the tanks, seeing various flags flying over the camp as he does so. One seems to be very common - a royal blue field with three golden fleur-de-lis on it, one in each top corner and one in the lower middle of the flag - while the others have the look of unit flags.
He does not let the fact that he knows nothing of what is really going on here stop him from moving the gate over what seems, to him, to be the best location for maximum destruction. When the gate is in position, he has the armourers push the bomb through, moving the position and orientation of this end of the gate to assist them in this. Then he quickly reduces the gate size, to stop too much damage getting through to this side.
The bomb drops from several hundred yards up, and a large (though not as large as Void expected for the quantity of explosives) explosion follows. Very little of the blast makes it up to the gate.
When the smoke clears, below him he sees a scene of devastation, with many dead and wounded Frenchmen.
He moves onto the next target and the next repeating the procedure. Although the French do try and fire up at his gates this has little effect, and hundreds of Frenchmen die before he runs out of the dozen or so large bombs. By the time the last bomb has gone through Void is feeling quite tired from his exertions, and tells the armourers this. He leaves to retire to his tent. "See you same time tomorrow," say the armourers as he goes.
Reaching his tent, Void ignored his tiredness and experiments with his powers some more. After some practise it seems that the maximum range of his gates is a few hundred miles. That is, from here, far enough to get him to England. Hmmm...
Void then concentrates on the 'tugs' he has been feeling since he got here. The strong feeling seems far away, the of the others the two stronger ones seem to be moving, both becoming stronger and moving in angle - coming closer perhaps?
Intending to triangulate he makes a gate for somewhere in line with the stronger of the weaker four tugs and steps through...
Flying at low altitude over Brittany, Blitz uses his map in an attempt to plot where the 'tugs' are coming from, triangulating as he moves north. The landscape below him is a wintry war-ravaged one. Most towns and villages seem to have been destroyed, pounded flat by artillery. Railway lines and bridges have been destroyed, and in some places rebuilt. In a number of places there are signs that major battles have been fought, and in others of major defensive positions, trench systems and the like, some in use, some not. All over the landscape are gibbets, many with bodies hanging from them. Now and again there are refugee camps or groups of refugees moving across the countryside.
His triangulating completed, he experiments to try and find out what his powers are. As the air thins and thickens around him, the pilot looks worried but tries to ignore him.
Having had some time and distance to triangulate over, he finds that the strongest tug is probably coming from somewhere in the Champagne region of France. The weaker two of the other tugs are probably coming from somewhere in London area, while of the others one is close to the south-east of him while the other is close to the north-north-east.
Examining the controls he finds that his hands seems to know what to do even if his mind has never seen anything like this before.
He asks the pilot various questions, subtly feeling out his politics and so on. The pilot's responses imply that he is very devout and entirely supports the New Commonwealth. Blitz decides he doesn't mind killing him if necessary. He stealthily extracts a set of knuckle-dusters from his kit-bag, puts them on, and waits.
As he continues to pay attention to them he feels that two of the tugs are moving getting closer, or at least getting stronger.
He decides the time has come to give up on his mission and instead find out what is going on. He hits the pilot in the head, intending to knock him out. However, he is basing his blow on his normal self rather than his new self, and he hits the pilot far faster and stronger than he intended. And he is wearing knuckle-dusters. The side of the pilot's head caves in and he dies instantly. Oops.
Leaving the pilot's corpse strapped into its seat he turns the plane and heads off towards the nearest tug. The direction and strength of this tug seems to be jumping around somewhat, but he ignores this and heads north towards it anyway.
In London, 'Charity' lurks in an alley close to the suspect warehouse.
After a while, a loud whistle sounds. She takes this to be the signal, and, covered in a facetted force field, leaves cover and approaches the warehouse. As she crosses the street, gun fire sounds from inside. It seems to be aimed at her, but it bounces off her force field. In fact, as the gun fire continues she finds herself almost reflexively reflecting the shots back at the people firing on her. There are screams and shouts from inside.
Making it to the door, she finds it locked and barred.
She fires her sawn-off shotgun at the door, to little effect, so she backs off, reflecting more bullets, and charges the door instead.
Wood shatters under the impact of her charge, and she moves on into the warehouse.
Inside she sees a lot of scared-looking people looking at her, and a warehouse sub-divided by grubby, patched blankets hanging from ropes. Some of the people there have guns, and open fire on her. She reflects their fire back at them, and they fall. "Stop firing!" shouts someone in a rather panicked voice.
The armed people do so, and some run towards with their rifles held as clubs.
She shoots then in the legs, and they fall.
She seems others running out of another door of the warehouse on the other side of the building, but lets them flee. Presumably the security cordon is closed, and that will stop them.
And quite quickly the battle is over. She looks around.
To one side of the warehouse is a large, primitive-looking mass of equipment on a cart, presumably the broadcast facility of the 'Voice of Liberty'. On the other side is an equally primitive-seeming printing press, also on a cart. Stacks of paper surround it. Ragged people, many of them women and children, cower in corners as she prowls about.
In another place is a small kitchen area. In another what looks like some kind of clinic or operating theatre.
A short while after the gunfire in the warehouse stops uniformed Police begin arriving. Truncheons are used to control the prisoners, who are manacled hand and foot before being led out into the street.
The Captain she spoke to before approaches. "Congratulations on a job well done," he says approvingly, looking about. "It was very controlled for you. And we've got more than enough prisoners for our purposes. We'll probably string some of them up right away, as an example. And have our fun with the women, of course, before we do that, and take the rest off to the Islington Detention Centre." He seems very pleased with everything that has happened.
Truth decides that she has had enough of this, and that it is time to leave.
The Security Police seem busy so she sneaks stealthily away, and off into the city towards the strongest of the 'tugs' that she has been feeling, to the west.
As he flies north from the military base at roughly a hundred miles an hour over the same sort of war-ravaged landscape as that seen by Blitz, Servo searches for a radio signal to jam.
He quickly finds one and follows it until he is close enough to see its source. It seems to be a van on the other side of a valley where two armies, one in the black of the New Commonwealth, the other in much more ornate nineteenth-century-style uniforms under the royal blue flag with gold fleur-de-lis Void saw earlier are confronting one another behind a complex system of trenches.
He transmits radio waves at the van, which starts to smoke. People jump out from inside it, and the signal cuts off.
He moves on and finds another couple of such French radio vans, destroying them in the same way.
At the same time he follows the nearest 'tug'. It is getting slowly stronger, as if he is catching up with its source. Another 'tug' is also getting stronger, but is jumping around and so he ignores it for now.
He sends radio signals at the non-jumping 'tug' in an attempt to make contact with it, but gets no response. However, he does seem to be catching up with it.
Elsewhere, Void feels two of the signals getting much stronger. In fact, as he gates from point to point across the war-ravaged landscape, he feels its direction change from in front of him to behind him.
As he goes he practises with his powers, finding that he can control the size, positions and orientations of the gates he creates, so things can, for example fall down into one and back out of the other in an upwards direction. He can make small ones to spy through, too. The largest gate he can make seems to be about four square yards in size.
By now, from his triangulation, Blitz is pretty sure that two of the signals are in London while the other two weaker signals are much closer. He begins trying to track down these two closer signals, and turns the aircraft he is flying towards the one that is not jumping about.
As he flies along, Servo notices that one of the 'tugs' has changed direction and is getting stronger. Looking that way, he sees an aircraft flying low towards him.
He heads directly upwards in front of it.
Blitz notices that his 'target' is rising ahead of him.
Void notices that the two 'targets' he is tracking are close by but also above him. He casts about and see an aircraft with a figure in the air close to it.
He creates a gate from where he is to near to the aircraft and flying figure, looking through it to observe the situation.
Servo, who is now at the same altitude as the aircraft notices this. He moves closer to the aircraft and attempts to make formation with it. Unfortunately, he makes rather a mess of this and rather inelegantly only narrowly avoids the propeller, instead ending up hanging on to the portside wing strut, staring through the window at the clearly dead pilot.
He lets go and manoeuvres around the aircraft to the other side where he looks in at the person flying the aircraft. The person inside stares back out.
They sort of recognise each other as people who look like Blitz and Servo rather who are actually them.
From the ground, Void creates a portal into the back of the aircraft.
Both Servo and Blitz notice a red dot appear and open into a ring with something on the other side, but carry on with what they are doing for now.
Servo goes to open Blitz's door so he can climb in.
However, Blitz leans over the pilot's corpse, opens the other door, and pushes the dead pilot out.
Servo rather dubiously flies over to that side and gets in.
However, seeing a figure falling from the aircraft, Void 'rescues' the pilot via a gate and dumps him back into the aircraft, into the cargo space behind the two seats!
This dangerously overloads and imbalances the aircraft.
Servo leaves!
Blitz regains control, but brings the aircraft down to land in the best of the rather rough fields in the area. He brings it in as best he can, but the field is rough and muddy, and the plane bounces, then flips over onto its back and smashes to the ground.
However, Blitz has 'thickened' the air around him and is protected from any damage, being left hanging upside-down in a crashed aircraft that is rapidly catching fire.
Servo flies down to assist him out of the plane, but he is strong enough to need no help, ripping his way out with ease, and then returning to the plane for his kit-bag before leaving the plane to explode in the field.
At this point Void comes running up.
They all recognise each other and exchange stories and information. They also discuss how we came to be here, how we will get home, and whether the people whose bodies we are now in are equally at large in or bodies back home.
After a little discussion they decide to go to London via Void's gates to investigate the other two weaker 'tugs', which they assume are probably other members of the London Knights, although they are not sure which ones they might be...
Back in the hotel, time passes.
At a little before midday, the Scotsman returns and tells 'Dr James' that he is summoned to the 'rally' to attend to the Lord Protector.
Noesis nods and passes his medical bag to his batman before following him out of the room. They go along the corridor and down the stairs, through the hotel to the ground floor, and out through the lobby. What appears to be the entire staff of the hotel are lined up on both sides of the way from the stairs to the doors, all standing at attention and looking more than a little scared. They cross the lobby after another group who are just exiting through the main doors of the hotel. Several large black cars with white crosses on the doors are waiting outside. The leading group at ushered into the first car. Noesis and his batman are shown into the second, and are in turn followed by more people who get into the third.
The chauffeurs get back in after closing the doors and the convoy, surrounded by a motorcycle escort, drive off from what can now be identified as the New England Hotel.
The journey is short. It appears that the New England Hotel is on the Strand, or something like it. The convoy drives down the Strand and pass through where Trafalgar Square should be. Here it is just buildings. En route they pass a few newspaper boys selling their wares on street corners. Their signboards all seem to be for the Boston Herald; the two headlines seem to be 'Latest From The Front' and 'Lord Protector To Speak On London Visit'.
They drive down Whitehall and past a very plain-looking Westminster Abbey and something like a very plain version of the Houses of Parliament, then around several corners before drawing up outside a building. The chauffeurs open the car doors and the passengers get out and enter the building.
Noesis and the rest of the group walk through the building, which seems to be mainly offices, and to have soldiers stationed at intervals throughout it, and up several flights of stairs before entering a large room at one end of which a set of double doors opens onto a balcony overlooking a large square. Below can be seem the ranked masses of New Commonwealth troops, Westminster Abbey, 'Parliament', various military vehicles, and large statue of someone in Civil War-era clothing, and, as the only spots of colour visible, large posters for the 'Puritan Youth' and the 'League of Maidens'.
There are a number of people on the balcony, including:
The old man looks around as Noesis steps out onto the balcony. He tenses and looks hard at Noesis as he is ushered into position. The old man turns away and says something to the iron man. The pair move across the balcony towards Noesis.
"Doctor, I wonder if we can have a word?" asks the old man.
Noesis attempts to stall them but the old man seems to see right through everything he says, and eventually he has to agree or cause a scene.
The two of them him off the balcony back into the building.
The old man makes a discrete hand signal and the guards around them start to take up defensive positions, as if to defend everyone else against 'Dr James'.
'Dr James' becomes indignant. "What is the meaning of this?!" he demands.
He is ushered into one corner.
"So, who are you?" says the old man. "You are not Dr Raymond James. Who are you? What are you doing here?"
Noesis claims that he is Dr Raymond James but has lost his memory.
The old man is not impressed with this tale, even when Noesis demonstrates his shape shifting powers.
He insists that Noesis explains all now "or later under interrogation".
The iron man starts cracking his knuckle in a rather threatening manner.
Noesis switches to the complete truth instead. Although he does not explain in detail about his real self beyond "I was a doctor in the other world, rather a good one actually, specialising in neurosurgery," he tells the two of them about the strange dream he had, the voice calling him and waking up here in this body. To demonstrate his medical skills he extends some surgical instruments from his fingertips and explains that he is rather excited about the prospects of practising neurosurgery with these new powers.
The old man seems to know that Noesis is not lying this time. He threatens to kill the family of the real Dr James if Noesis does not co-operate.
"Who are you?" Noesis asks the old man.
"People call me the Witchhunter," he replies.
"And you?" Noesis asks after the iron man.
"John Smith," he answers in a very deep, rumbling voice.
The Witchhunter has a large contingent of guards escort Noesis away from the balcony back into the building. As he is led off, he hears shouts of "CROMWELL!" coming from the square behind him.
The guards, who seem more than a little nervous, lead Noesis through the building by another route, down some stairs, sufficiently far as to probably be underground, then down a long corridor and through several sets of guarded doors to what seems to be a cell block.
The cells seem to be small, dirty and do not instil in Noesis a good feeling that this is a place where justice and human rights are respected by all. The guards usher him into a cell that, although dirty, seems to be one of the cleaner ones, and lock the door behind him. Some stay outside while he hears others marching off...
By now Truth has made her way from Whitechapel, following the 'tug' she is feeling. En route she has felt it move several times, but not by much.
She reaches Westminster Square, which is full of soldiers and Police, all in their best uniforms. Her uniform is somewhat dishevelled, but no-one seems to notice, being exited and looking up at a balcony to one side of the square.
As the chimes of mid-day rings across the Square, one of the figures on the balcony steps up to an array of microphones in its centre. "CROMWELL!" roars the crowd.
As the chimes die away, Cromwell begins to rant from the balcony, his words relayed to the crowd at high volume from speakers set all over the square.
"PEOPLE OF THE COMMONWEALTH, AS GOOD SOLDIERS OF CHRIST WE MUST PUT ON THE WHOLE ARMOUR OF GOD. THE HELMET OF SALVATION, THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, THE BELT OF TRUTH, THE BOOTS OF THE GOSPEL, THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT - THE HOLY WORD OF GOD - AND ESPECIALLY THE SHIELD OF FAITH.
"THE SAFETY OF OUR HOMES AND THE FREEDOM OF OUR PEOPLE ALIKE DEPEND UPON THE CONDUCT OF EACH ONE OF US AT THIS CRITICAL MOMENT.
"THE FORCES OF DARKNESS ARE RANKED AGAINST US - THE LEGIONS OF ROMANISM AND SIN! THE VERMINOUS SCUM OF SOCIETY ARE STIRRING IN THEIR STINKING GHETTOS. SATAN HAS GOADED THE ROYALIST RATS AND POPISH HERETICS INTO AN UNHOLY FERVOUR OF INSURRECTION.
"BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN CHRIST, WE FACE AN ONSLAUGHT FROM THESE MAGGOTS INSIDE AND OUT OF THE COMMONWEAL. THE STAB IN THE BACK!
"THEY MURDER AND MAIM OUR CIVILIANS. THEY DAUB THEIR DISGUSTING PROPAGANDA ON OUR PRISTINE BUILDINGS. THEIR OBSCENE DREAMS OF POWER DRIVE THEM TO ACTS OF UNTHINKABLE ATROCITY.
"THEY HAVE FORFEIT THEIR HUMANITY AND SHALL BURN IN THE UNQUENCHABLE FIRES OF HELL. THEY ARE IDEOLOGICALLY, POLITICALLY AND MORALLY BANKRUPT.
"THEY WOULD TAKE THIS GREAT NATION OF OURS AND RULE IN DEPRAVITY, DECADENCE AND POPISH IDOLATRY.
"BUT THAT THEY WILL NEVER ACHIEVE! WE WILL NOT CRINGE FROM THE TERRORIST, FROM ACTS OF DESPERATION BY COWARDS!
"NO, WE WILL NOT YIELD, BROTHERS AND SISTERS. BECAUSE WE ARE STRONG. THE ARMY IS STRONG. WE ARE THE STRONG ARM OF GOD AND HE SHALL SMITE, THROUGH US, THE ENEMY WITHIN! GOD SPEAKS TO YOU NOW. I AM HIS MOUTHPIECE. I AM FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT OF THE LORD. FOLLOW ME AND YOU FOLLOW CHRIST!
"AND I LEAD YOU TO A GOLDEN FUTURE - A COMMONWEALTH PURGED OF FILTH AND DEDICATED TO ENFORCING THE SACRED WILL OF GOD TO THE FARTHEST CORNER OF THIS CONTEMPTIBLE GLOBE. A HOLY EMPIRE UPON WHICH THE SUN SHALL NEVER SET!
"AND NOW IS THE TIME! AYE, BROTHERS AND SISTERS, NOW IS THE TIME OF THE CLEANSING! FOLLOW ME TO GLORY! WE WILL CRUSH THE MAGGOTS! WE SHALL BURN THE SLUMS WHERE THEY BREED IN CORRUPTION AND INCEST IN A CESSPOOL OF THEIR OWN MAKING!
"WE SHALL BE DETERMINED! RESOLUTE! AND INVINCIBLE!
"ONE PEOPLE!
"ONE COMMONWEAL!
"ONE LEADER!!"
Truth watches and listens from the audience, and is not convinced by either his words, or his style, that seems to her to be a cross between Adolph Hitler and Ian Paisley. Unlike the crowd, who appear to lap it up.
"HAIL CROMWELL!!" roar the assembled masses, saluting the balcony. "HAIL CROMWELL!!" Over and over again.
She cannot help but notice that much of the chanting does, however, seem to be initiated by small groups of hard-looking men scattered across the crowds.
Having had enough of this, she slinks off down a nearby side street that proves to be lined with small shops, including pie shops and a coffee house. She goes into this last.
Inside it is quite plush, if plain, and filled with people in uniform, so she fits right in. She buys a coffee and sits down to consider her options.
Back to the London Champions Page.
The pictures of Cromwell and of Westminster Square are by Bryan Talbot, and come from the 'The Adventures of Luther Arkwright' comic book. The speech by Cromwell is also a slightly modified version of his speech from the comic book.
The French flag seen flying over the 'enemy' lines during this session was taken from the Flags of the World web site.
These images are used here without permission but for personal game use only and not for profit or commercial gain.