“Welcome to the Land of naked women, retards and living embodiments of time periods what won't change.”  Jenny Sparks in Authority #1 by Ed Ainsworth…

They stared at the majesty of Century City….

Gleaming towers of gold and silver rose above crystalline minarets that towered over squat structures of steel and glass, iron and wax, waddle and daub.  There was a mountain spiraling upwards into the heavens next to a straw hut that billowed smoke and from which shrieks of agony emitted regularly, its massive chicken legs curled into a restful pose on either side.  People and other things moved through streets littered with cobbles and gold, jewels and empty plastic water bottles, oblivious of their surroundings, lost in the despair of their day to day lives.  A wicked wind blew in from the north freezing and threatening a blizzard but for the raging star that blazed overhead.

Charis watched helplessly as a woman was torn from the crowd and sodomized by creatures that defied description.  Yards away other women watched with amused interest, smiling and smoking, actually applauding when the ravaged woman was tossed to the gutter and forgotten.  Her hand twisted on the hilt of her blade as Shaft held her back, a metallic hand gripping her forearm.

“What is this foul place?” she asked, watching as the woman reached up, pleading for help to those passing her by without interest.  She was crying, blood flowing from between her legs.  A man in a pristine black suit spat on her and kicked her away as she clutched onto his pant leg.

“Zannah,” Kenesha said staring at the degraded and defiled woman as their group moved on, following Void.

“Welcome to Century City, gits,” Jenny Quantum said, blowing smoke on the scene and making it fade away.  “The real Emerald City.  A horse of a different color on every street corner, a Munchkin in every pot.  The garbage dump of Reality, where The BLEED coagulates.  Here dreams are shattered, and ideals and morals are tossed aside.  Life in the Fast Lane, people…”

Shaft stared at the woman, Jenny Quantum.  He sensed something, something nagging at the back of his mind.  Something not quite right, but he was distracted as Badrock lumbered past, his left arm shattered and smoldering.  The thought flitted away…

“Why can't I touch you, you little shit?” Midnighter threw his fist forwards. He could see the moves before they could manifest. The fight should have ended four blows ago, as he should have punched the little bastard in the throat.

Instead his fist had glanced off the edge of his aura, not even touching his body.

<Forcefield? > he asked anyone who would listen, as he twisted through the air avoiding another karate kick from Morpheus, and letting fly a fist-full of shuriken.

They all heard the voice in their head.

“Frustrated?” his teenage double asked, spitting through the air, and cracking his fists.

“I'm going to piss in your broken eye socket you...” The fist shot past Midnighter's head, and he sighed. Today was a crap day.

<Not a forcefield, Midnighter,> Angie answered…

Savant turned towards Jenny Quantum, the red-haired woman watching the conflict with an amused smirk, sucking on her fag.  “This doesn’t bother you?”

Jenny Quantum glanced at Savant with a sneer of contempt.  She blew smoke, and flicked ash into the cosmos.  “Neither of those two shites is my Daddy Midnighter.  They’re shadow images given flesh here in Century City.  Pale reflections created by The BLEED.  Get that through yer head, Kheribum, an’ you’ll do fine.”

“You heartless – “

There!

Kenesha’s thought went unfinished as the world shifted and shattered…

---

Black in a depth unlike any he’d seen before. Torn and shredded as if it were waiting to be put back together, like a jigsaw puzzle. Both whole and shattered at the same time. The world was a funny place.  Planetary #5 by Michael Franzoni…

“You are Void,” Elijah Snow said as he stared at the fractured, shadowy images that stood before him.  They seemed confused, and he supposed that he could not blame them, Time Flutters that they were.  The woman ensconced in silver seemed in agony though, no doubt because she was dead.

“Who are they?” Jakita asked, brushing her long raven-black locks from her face as she stared at the shimmering travelers passing before her.  They seemed familiar somewhat.  Elijah had named one Void, though the silver-cast woman had not responded.  And she seemed to recognize one as a Wild C.A.T.  The others…

Jakita Wagner shrugged.

“Pilgrims I think,” Snow responded, taking a long drag on his cigarette.  “Travelers lost and seeking redemption.  Pity we don’t have the time to help them.  What tales they could tell.”

“Tales?” Jakita said as she reached up and dug her fingers into the stone of the mountain, drawing herself up.  Snow was talking in riddles again, and quickly losing her attention.

“They’re traveling The BLEED,” he said as though that explained everything.  Jakita knew better than to ask.  “The things they must have seen.  The experiences.  It boggles the mind.  Even mine.”

“Whatever,” Jakita Wagner reached up and dug her fingers into the rock, pulling herself higher…

---

“We go in quiet, kill anything that moves,” Cole ordered… WildC.A.T.S #5 by Chris Munn and Dino Pollard…

Not here…

Void moved as a specter through the ensemble.  The WildC.A.T.s gathered, ready to attack.  They did not know yet.  It was too soon.

“I remember him,” Shaft said as they moved through the shadowy shattered mirror world of The BLEED.  “Grafter…”

“Grifter,” Savant said with a chuckle.  “Cole Cash, the only male Coda warrior, such as he is.

“I remember he was a crack shot.”  Shaft stared at the scene as they passed.  Ghostly images of half-remembered foes wavered in his peripheral vision.  He did not recognize the others, but Cash… Grifter he seemed to hold a bit of respect for.

What is that?

Nemesis brought her sword to bare even as Shaft raised his bow.  One of them was staring at them, watching as they passed.  The blonde man eyed them curiously, a strange glow sparkling in his eyes.

“What?” Grifter snapped, his guns suddenly in hand and up.  “What’s what?  Damn I hate yer all so fuckin’ cryptic!”

“Nothing, Cash,” Wax said, his gaze never wavering as the travelers passed by.  He watched until they shimmered and finally vanished, moving away and beyond.

“Nothing important…”

---

Phoenix, Arizona
2008 A.D.

The air was filled with smoke and dust, the ecological aftermath of the bomb detonated in the heart of the city.  People around the country were scrambling to find answers to what had just happened in America and the other sites around the globe, but none would be forthcoming just yet.  Things still lived within the boundaries of Phoenix, but all of them – human or otherwise – had been changed… Chris Munn/ Worldstorm Zero

“Jesus Fuck!”

Jeff Terrel stared at the devastation that had once been Phoenix, Arizona.  There was nothing left.  A great shining blot on the sand glistened where a city of thousands had once stood.  Heat and radiation radiated skyward as he stared at the total annihilation of a city; melted and blown apart buildings, decimated citizenry, grounds that would never allow life again.  Phoenix was a great flat writhing in atomic flame, but for three figures hovering over what was left…

One seemed a boy, dressed gaudily with his head aflame…
Another was Jenny Quantum…
The third was Void…

Then another appeared, big and bulky dressed in guns and camouflage…

Jennifer Quantum had indeed changed history, but not in the way she had originally intended.  Instead of stopping or killing the four potential Horsemen of the Apocalypse, she had done what had obviously been a last ditch attempt at revision.  She reached out into the ether-realms and grasped on to four unique individuals, bringing them back to life to serve a new purpose on Earth.

“Take my hand,” the gravelly voice said from above Jason, a thick-fingered hand wrapped in leather extended downward.  The African-American boy lifted his head slowly, taking in the large imposing statue of a man standing above him, rifle slung on his shoulder and a bandana tied around his head.  Two red streaks of paint were wiped down his face in a parallel fashion.

Jennifer Quantum had given them protectors.

“My name is Michael Cray,” the soldier said as Jason took his extended hand, “I’m here to save your life…”

And the world slipped away…

“Noooo!” Shaft shouted as they were shunted back into The BLEED.  Golden energy writhed about him- about all of them, swirls of darkness corrupting as they staggered onwards.

“Go back!” he shouted cursing, swinging his broken metal arm.  “Go back, dammit!”

Not here…

“Go back, Void!  Dammit!”

“She won’t,” Charis said, placing a hand on Terrel’s shoulder.  Jeff Terrel stared at the woman called Nemesis, tears in his eyes.  She shook her head.  “She’s moved on already.”

And the world swirled away…

---

An oval-shaped gateway had appeared on a red world. Three men walked out in a straight line, towards a second oval that was ten feet away. Jukko Hämäläinen and Jaeger Weiss were staring ahead very intently, with Jaeger even whispering to himself, “Don’t look back. Don’t look back…”  Stormwatch #1 by Steve Crosby


Bullets ripped through the clearing.  Jaeger was screaming as he held the trigger, emptying the belt of the 12mm slugs into the floor and wall before him.

“Jesus!” Jukko said grabbing the steaming barrel of the gattling gun and shoving it down to point at the floor.  He danced back until Jaeger stopped firing.  “What the fuck, man?”

“Spooks,” Jaeger Weiss said, his voice catching and his eyes wide as he stared at the charred an chipped stone.  Jukko could see that his teammate was frazzled, breathing hard and eyes wild as he scanned the area quickly, looking for his target.

“What spooks?” Jukko said, waving back the rest of the team that looked ready to explode with the tension.  “There’s nothin’!”

“Gone,” Jaeger said wiping sweat from his brow.  “I dunno.  Woman… All silvery an’ shit.  Gave me the creeps.”

“Nothin’ there, man,” Jukko said, his own gun sweeping the area  as he looked for targets.  “Delusions.  Shake it off.”

“Yeah!” Jaeger said, his breathing calming as he stared wildly into the area ahead, gun raised and at the ready.  “Yeah…”

---

Egypt;
The Valley of the Kings
Now…

Jeff Terrel staggered forward through the burning sands, finally collapsing to his knees.  His chest heaved as he gasped for breath in the intense heat.  He stared up the black walls of the canyon, sheer and imposing on every side as he tried to gather his energy, his strength…

His breath.

“Oh, God…” he moaned as the pain wracked his body.  It felt as though someone had jammed an ice pick into his heart and was cranking on it wildly.  He tried to clutch at his chest, but his useless metallic arm just lay there steaming in the sand.  His good left arm felt numb.

“Oh, God…” he whimpered as he pitched forward into the sand.  He sensed Savant skittering past, traipsing through Void’s portal behind him.  “Please…”

“I love it when they beg.”

Shaft looked up and saw Jenny Quantum hovering over him.  She stared down cooly, sucking on a cigarette as he writhed and moaned in the sand at her feet.  He reached up, his left hand flopping, fingers closing about her ankle.

NO!

“Watch it!"

Terrel heard the clang of steel on steel, the shouts of battle somewhere off in the distance.  His friends were fighting.  They needed him.  He tried to rise…

---

Shaft opened his eyes and saw Jenny Quantum still towering over him.  She was fuzzy in his sight, fading and gray at the edges.  She flicked her cigarette away looking off in the distance as someone screamed.  He squeezed her ankle and she looked down at him again.

“Please…”

Jenny whipped out her Zippo, flipped it alight and to the tip of another cigarette perched between her lips in a fluid move practiced over the centuries.  She puffed another cigarette to life, then flipped the Zippo closed with another practiced snap.

“Shaft,” Jenny said as she placed a booted foot on Jeff Terrel’s chest, pressing down as she leaned over and in.  He writhed underfoot as she blew smoke into his face.  He felt his heart pounding out of control... straining...

“Shut yo mouth…”

---

To Be Continued...

Next Issue: Another one bites the dust, maybe.  And just what is up with Jenny Quantum?  Find out next issue as the Void Squad takes on whatever the Coda left of poor Khasan in the Valley of the Kings!


From the Author:  I did not think that I would get an issue out for this update, but oddly inspiration slammed down like a hammer and I got half a day off from work right before the update.  Probably the shortest issue you will ever see from me, it hopefully wets your appetite to see what's happening in the other titles around Wildstorm.  Thanks to all my fellow writers whose work appears here: Ed, Steve, Dino, Chris, Michael, without their permission.  Raymond Burr is spinning in his grave...

Dum da-dum dum

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