basic_powers | (no subject)

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frozen horrors

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As the final bell for school rang out, Tyler made his way out of the school with the rush of other kids. He couldn't stand going to the Bar today, October-weirdness or not, not after not being able to do a goshdarn thing to help Bob.

That didn't stop him from wanting a meal without getting pelted by applesauce, though.

It was only a few blocks to the K-square, he could buy himself some burritos and a slurpee, he told himself as he ran down a back alley without looking around to see what was there. And why should he look? The super-powered students of PS238 patrolled by air regularly as part of their training.

Not like anyone would be so stupid or determined as to try and snatch a kid around here. And even if they did, they'd be in for a surprise.

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Shops like that tend to have security cameras, as they get robbed a lot. John Korpan, the Ministry field operative up on the fire escape, knows roughly how much of a visual field most varieties of security camera in Canada can cover. This is why he waits until Tyler is outside of said visual field by one and a half of his own body's length to set off the minor explosive that he chucked into the storm sewer by the curb while Tyler was in the store.

The bad luck outcome will involve Tyler either darting back to the store or falling over on the spot. The good one will involve Tyler attempting to evade the sudden spew of yuk by ducking into the alley.

"Augh!" Tyler makes a fast sidestep into the alley, dodging the spew of yuk and leaves from the sewer.

His dinner doesn't make it out quite so intact, and gosh darnit he was hungry. Tyler gives the remains of the meal a long look, with his back to the darker portions of the alley.

"That just figures."

If it helps at all, Mr. Korpan feels really bad about having to add to Tyler's bad day. It doesn't stop him from pulling the trigger on the tranquilizer rifle, but he does feel bad about it.

Tyler straightens up when he feels something hit him off balance right in the back. Jumping around to see just what it was that hit him is a mistake as he goes over like a sack of potatoes, thinking 'oh what now...'.

Korpan hops down from the fire escape and takes Tyler's pulse quickly, then pulls out his cellular phone.

"Sir? We're good. I'll be there in a bit."

At least it's going to be a very smooth ride out to the nearest municipal airport. He can't risk calling in a Ministry helicopter at any of the other helipads in the area. Not in a town like this.

Dang superheroes.

Two more kids in capes zip by overhead on routine patrol, completely oblivious to the fact their class president is a pile of unconcious ten-yearold in the backseat of the van.

-------------

When Tyler does come back to the first thing he hears is the sound of engines, regular commercial planes engines, not the rock ones. And the distinct feeling of nausea and his head feeling like one of Bernard's chewtoys.

"Uhhnnnn.."

"Oh, hey, he's coming around... Hey there," says a man's voice. "Sorry about that. Are you okay? I wouldn't sit up too fast if I were you."

"I think I'm gonna throw up..." Tyler manages while trying hard not to. "What happened? ...who are you guys?"

"Unfortunately, that is one of the side effects of the tranquilizer used. I wouldn't suggest trying to use the bathroom any time in the next hour and a half, either," says the voice. "My name is John Korpan. I represent- Hey, Raidha! Are we in our own airspace yet?"

"Five minutes, Mr. Korpan," calls a woman from somewhere out of sight.

"I can tell you who we are in five minutes. It's safer that way. Do you need a bucket?"

Tyler ducks his head between his knees to breath slowly and nods. Yeh, he's going to need that bucket soon, apparently Jacko's burrito and whatever it was they tranqed him with do not mix well.

"...am I being kidnapped?"

The bucket provided is orange and sturdy as all get-out. Smells clean, too.

"Yeah, pretty much," says John. "I'm sorry about that. For the most part this sort of thing probably ought to be handled by on-site interviews and containment, but we haven't got the authority to conduct those on American soil, and the State Department keeps losing our extradition requests."

It won't smell clean for long. The poor kid hugs it to his chest and holds his head over it for a while.

Ugh.

"Why am I being kidnapped? Does have something to do with the field trip to the moon? Cuz I'm sorry about messing up those famous footprints..."

"Nothing to do with that," says John. "This is about your dimension-hopping. Raidha?"

"Sixty seconds to sovereign airspace, Mr. Korpan."

"All right. If you can hang on another minute or so, Tyler, I'll fill you in properly."

Tyler blinks and stares. It seems like a very long minute to wait and find out what's going on. Because there's more than one dimension that he's been to, and at least 3 of those were involuntary visits.

"Kay."

The short fellow in unimpressive clothes- John- nods and looks over to the cockpit. A flashed thumbs-up is all he needs; he turns back to Tyler.

"Like I said before, my name is John Korpan. I'm from a division of the Canadian government called the Ministry of Extraordinary Threats. Despite the name, it has very little to do with supervillains- that's mostly handled out of the Governor-General's office. We're actually significantly older than most of the major manifestations of super-powers. It's just that we're a lot quieter, because the things we deal with aren't the sort of danger that would do the public at large any good at all to hear about. If you've heard of us, I'll be really surprised."

Tyler thinks about that for a moment.

"Like...ghosts, or gods, or demons?" He ventures, "Are those the sorts of things you guys take care of? Because I think I might know some people -like- you guys."

"More like the latter two, but a little bit beyond that," says John, watching Tyler for his response. "We deal mostly with things from... well, from outside space and time as the human race knows them. Things that haven't got any place at all in our everyday reality- even if some of them do carry titles like 'Elder Gods', or 'Great Old Ones'."

Then he pauses, and says curiously, "Anybody you're free to name?"

Outside of time and space. Tyler makes a face and does a remarkable job of trying to turtle his head into his shoulder blades at the thought of that. The fourth dimension was bad enough but things that could -live- there?

"That sounds all kinds of bad."

He pauses recalling that int his world, the ghostbusters are fictional. "Well...they're kind of fictional in this universe."

John winces, running a hand briefly over his face. "That's all right," he says. "We've dealt with that kind of situation before. It just makes the job a little harder, that's all."

"...you've heard of the Ghostbusters, right?"

This could take a while to explain.

John doesn't answer straightaway, instead pulling a small, metallic red PDA out of one pocket and consulting it. "We're aware of several different versions of the group calling themselves that," he says at last. "In several other universes. I take it you're not referring to the ones with the gorilla and the convertible?"

Tyler gives John what be best described as a weirded out look.

"...The version I'm talking about is about a year ahead of us, has four memembers, and faced off against Gozer on top of Central Park West." He replies. "Among a bunch of other things. Including one trip I tagged along to help out with."

"The Gozer incident is a commonality across- oh-" John flicks the thumbwheel on the side of his PDA. "Four universes, possibly five. In one universe, the Shandor Building was dedicated to the Sumerian death goddess Ereshkigal instead." He glances up from the device. "Every other Shandor Building incident that the Ministry is aware of involved one or more of the Great Old Ones. The part where they're a year ahead, though- that helps."

More thumbwheel flicking.

"If only because in nearly every other universe in which the Ghostbusters existed, they've either retired for health reasons or been killed in the line of duty by now."

"Considering they recently had to deal with recovering the Ark of the Covenant, I can believe it." Tyler pauses. "There was something that happened to them called the Foliage Census as well if that helps."

John makes a disgusted noise. "Amateurs," he mutters. "Yes, we're aware of them. All right, I've got a fix on that universe- there's a Ministry in that world's Canadian government as well. Oh, that's the one with the splinter Deep Ones. That should be interesting if Father Dagon ever really exerts himself."

He sets the PDA aside.

"Anyway. You've made contact with that particular universe? Do you mind if I ask how?"

Edited 2007-11-20 22:10 (UTC)

"Through Milliways." Tyler says, since it doesn't look like he's going to get into too much trouble for this. "It's a bar at the end of the multiverse. Ray goes there a lot to get dinner and catch up on sleep since time stops for you usually when you enter it."

"That would explain why we've been having trouble tracking you, then," says John. "Our scanning capacity isn't capable of following a dimensional point-to-point rip that far... Tyler, at this point I think we're probably as close to being on the same page about the situation as we can get right now. My government is currently looking at an extremely unfortunate confluence of circumstances that could have world-wide consequences for our Earth and at least thirteen others besides- possibly even more. Explaining all of it to you in enough detail for you to understand would take longer than I think any of us have. When were you planning on making the dimensional jump next?"

"Not for another two weeks, barring the Landlord of the Bar's whims." Tyler says, looking alarmed. "If you want me to stop going i'll do my best..."

"Two weeks... well, it's cutting it a little close, but that should be all right," says John. "I was going to suggest you ask any of the Ghostbusters there about some of the entities that we're dealing with, as a sort of briefing out of time. Since it doesn't look like that's going to work..."

He turns and rummages through a brown accordion folder before coming up with a sheaf of papers. One of them is a map of the Earth's magnetic fields, with some pronounced spikes in the red areas and a few others in places like western Australia and off the coast of New England. The red spot in the Canadian Arctic archipelago contains the highest spike of all.

"This isn't much more than a skeleton briefing, I'm afraid. I'm going to have to ask you to read over these when you get home. We'll be in contact with you when we can, but if you reach any of the Ghostbusters before a Ministry agent sees you next, talk to them about it. Of all the private agencies still in operation today, they probably know the most about what's going on."

"Uh, okay..." Tyler looks over the sheaf of papers carefully. Great. More homework. The phrase 'when you get home strikes a chord. "Oh crud, did you tell anyone you were taking me?"

John makes a face. "One of my compatriots was going to put up a spotlight tonight. Unless you had a better idea, of course."

Tyler rummaged around in one of the more secluded and concealed pockets of his backpack taking out a bluetooth headset with a handheld video screen. "Yeh, I do. Just hope Jenny and Dillon haven't found out I'm gone yet."

Those two forget the meaning of the words 'Collateral Damage' and why most mere mortals like keeping them to a bare minimum.

"This should work, I mean it transmitted a signal from the moon." Among other places. He pressed the speed dial on the handheld portion and waited for the tone.

-"Mr. Revenant?"-

"Speaking. Tyler, correct me if I'm wrong, but your signal's coming from a fairly unusual location."

-"..Uh...You're not wrong sir."- He tried thinking fast, he couldn't tell his teacher about Milliways, these guys knew about the alternate worlds but somehow it felt...Wrong telling Revenant about the bar. -"I kind of got kidnapped."-

There's an exasperated sigh from the other end. "And they left you with your communicator?" says the Revenant at last. "Are they issuing demands yet?"

-"No, they're not issuing demands. Someone in the government kept 'accidentally' losing their paperwork to set up an interview on American soil."- He looked to John. -"Mr. Korpan says they'll be happy to take me back, soon as the interview is done, but I wanted to call and let you know."-

A long pause.

-"And to make sure that Jenny and Dillon didn't get any ideas about shooting the plane I'm in down."-

"Helicopter," murmurs Korpan, but otherwise he nods.

"I see. In that case, I'll make the appropriate arrangements. But if I were you, I'd ask for a pen and pad now, because I expect a full written report on exactly why they felt this kind of action was necessary."

-"Yessir."- Tyler made a face. -"How many pages do you want me to write?"-

"Use your own judgment. Revenant out."

With the phonecall ended, he tucked the communicator back into it's proper place in his backpack, right next to the slimmed-down Daffy Putty egg. "I think that covers that..."

Then something else comes to mind, something Ray said after their little stint working for the US government. "Can I ask you guys for something?"

"Within reason," says John. "But sure, what?"

"Since getting kidnapped by you guys just tripled my homework load, you think you could help me write that report Mr. Revenant wanted?"

John smiles wryly. "Might as well," he says. "All right, let's get started."

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