ic Take Me To TV Land

[trollthumper]

Freedom College, Harbridge Dorm Common Room

Monday, December 1, 2014

3:59 AM

Thanksgiving had come and gone, finals season was on the horizon, and no one was forgiving.

There weren't many finals coming Eliza's way - half her classes were working on the idea of term papers and final presentations. But the other half did have some sort of exam component to the home stretch, and she wanted to be ready. And something about the encounter with the muggers on the night's patrol had left her wired and unable to get to sleep. With little else to do, she decamped to the common room and assembled flash cards from her textbooks, the TV blaring on in front of her.

"Feeling restless?"

Eliza looked up - it was Samantha, one of the RAs. She was clad in a bathrobe and clutching a mug of cocoa. "Your first finals season. It happens to all of us. Don't worry, you'll survive mostly intact."

"Yeah, well," she said, "helps to make sure." Samantha plopped down on the couch behind her as she kept assembling cards on early playwrights and their works. "You usually watch TV when you can't sleep?"

"Helps to lull. Always been hypnotic, since I was young. Never seen this one before, though..."

Temperance looked up at the screen. A cheery yellow font advertised Five by Five!, backed up by a jaunty riff with trumpets. Going by the opening credits, it was a sitcom about a military family of five growing up in somewhat cramped on-base housing. "Maybe it's one of the short-lived ones," she said, as two of the family's kids flinched after a chance encounter with the gunnery sergeant descended into wordless shouting. "Sometimes they do that. Package all the forgotten classics of yesteryear --"

'Yeah, well, it looks interesting," said Samantha. "Looks like it would've been early Eighties, so while 'Nam was still hanging over everyone's head. Trying to normalize and lighten up the military while the shadow of a bloody conflict still hung in the popular consciousness, not unlike that Enlisted show last season - sorry, Media Studies student. This just comes naturally."

Eliza smiled, then turned back to the screen. The credits didn't seem to be ending yet, even though the opening montage had now segued to the father in a live fire exercise. Something seemed to flicker on the screen, a motion out of the corner of the frame. "Wait. Did you see that?"

"See what? I didn't --"

And then, to that same jaunty Eighties soundtrack, the soldier right next to the father went down in a blaze of bullets, blood gushing from the wounds. The father turned in panic, only to take a round right in the temple.

"Oh, Jesus!"

As the music played on, the base was attacked by unseen foes, dressed in regalia Temperance didn't recognize. In that same montage style, the base was sacked, the soldiers and their families taken out one by one... and Eliza swore she could see something flickering through the static, lurking behind the scenery...

"Change the channel!"

Samantha reached for the remote, just as the wife's hand touched the camera, leaving a bloody handprint as she slid out of view. The channel flipped... to an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, already in progress. As if testing the waters, Samantha flipped back to find a rerun of Friends where Five by Five! had been.

"...the **** was that?"

"Probably some sort of prank. Like that creepypasta stuff that goes around the Internet." But Eliza couldn't shake the sensation that she had seen something in the broadcast. Something guiding the imagery...

[Tiffany Korta]

An abandoned warehouse in Greenbank
 
Tucked up comfortable in the cozy womb like, which at one time it literally had been, space of the ship that had bought her to Earth Daphne watching a little more television before entering her sleep cycle. A massive holographic screen displayed her viewing choices with Mother Unit’s help she could watch almost any television channel she wished. Right now she was just flicking through looking for something suitable to wind down after watching all the thanksgiving specials.

Oh look a show from the 80’s that should be perfect. I’ve never heard of this one before can you find an entry for it please Mother Unit?

I prefer the Supercrime! reruns they are at least educational. I find no reference to it being scheduled on this channel. Shall I broadened the search

The two of them watched in wide eyed silence as the rather cheesy eighty credits went all Platoon on them.

I  don’t think you should be watching this at all.

The display unit blinked off causing the cabin to go almost pitch black.

Hold one there is something very weird about that, did you say it wasn’t on the listings?

That is correct. I am already composing a letter to complain about such content being broadcast.

No wait I think something else is going one. Can you run a trace on the signal please?

It looked that she would have to skip her Sleep cycle for now.

[Electra]

Nicholson School Family Village

Port Regal, Freedom City

3:59 am

 

The noise of the garbage truck going past jolted Paige from her concentration for a moment, the muffled clang and thud drawing her attention to the window, and then to the clock. "I'm too old for this stuff," she muttered with a grimace, then turned back to her laptop and notes she was making. Clip shows were great for the budget and allowed for a hiatus in the slow days of winter, but the research for them could be a pain in the ass. They really needed more interns. As she made notes on a possible clip from 2006, she sang under her breath, "New York is cold but I like where I'm living, there's music on Clinton Street all through the evening..." When the garbage truck rolled on down the street, she lifted the remote and restarted the episode she'd been reviewing. She made a few more notes before distracting thoughts of Holly's holiday party at school cropped up. She opened a to-do list in another window, then a shopping list, then her calendar program. 

 

By the time she looked up at the television again, it was to see the last lines of the credits rolling past, and the cheerful chirping of the production company logo. She ought to rewind, but Paige figured she probably hadn't missed anything too terribly vital. And she was probably too tired at this hour to be thinking clearly anyway. She began saving and closing her work, only to be jolted again by the brassy notes of an unfamiliar theme song blaring from the television. She looked up in confusion, then remembered that this was a VHS and not a DVD like their later seasons. Back when SuperCrime! had been a series of specials instead of a series, the only way Paige and Richard had gotten copies was to have friends tape them from TV. But since when had Discovery Channel ever broadcast sitcoms?

 

Head cocked to one side, Paige watched the credits and tried to remember what show would've been following theirs, or anything about this show at all. She could swear she'd never seen it before, though it was very much like dozens of other sitcoms. White-bread family of five including three stair-step children, an open plan living room anchored by an oversized sofa, actors whose names she didn't know but whose faces were vaguely familiar. The music pegged the show as most likely from the late eighties or early nineties, with a female vocalist who sang with a voice both plaintive and optimistic about the challenges of being a family. It was decently shot, Paige decided, even if it ran a little long. The perils of having a large cast, she supposed. 

 

Just when she expected the credits to transition into the first act, however, the vocalist seemed to get a second wind and started in again, as another group of characters made their smiling appearances. The grandparents, Paige cataloged automatically, the blowsy, nosy neighbors from next door, the... the traveling life insurance salesman? she guessed, with his too-wide smile and briefcase full of documents for Grandma. That wasn't exactly a stock main character for a sitcom. An adorable baby, this one apparently belonging to the teenage daughter and her boyfriend, who showed up on cue for his credit with a half-sick smile. Very edgy for the early nineties. Paige tried to open the video timer to see how long these credits were running, but it just showed 00:00. She'd have to show this to Richard next time he made noise about lengthening their opening sequence. 

 

The song looped into yet another verse, and Paige found she couldn't look away. This had to be some sort of parody. More characters who were probably relatives, an ethnically ambiguous second family of five whose connection to the first wasn't clear, the proprietor of the local grocery store. Grandma fainting in line at the store, and the proprietor's comical look of horror. A hospital room with a credited doctor and nurse, a funeral home where the credited priest smiled for his intro and took a pie to the face. Grandpa, alone at home and falling down the stairs, the singer trilling about sometimes knowing loss as the camera panned over his look of agony. The life-insurance salesman again, this time with the family in the open-plan living room, giving them a check and pushing another set of documents to dad. Paige gaped at the screen. She wasn't even surprised this time when the music took on an edgier beat and looped again. 

 

Older daughter at college, apparently, neither baby nor boyfriend in tow. A  perfectly-manicured best friend, a Hollywood-ugly nerd friend, a trio of sporty guys all credited together. A party, a car accident, another funeral, no pie this time. The parents clinging to each other as the hollow-eyed second daughter held the baby and the little boy picked his nose. The life insurance salesman at graveside this time, again pushing his documents. His eyes, Paige thought, were not quite the right size for his face, a little too big, a little too black. The mother ran away weeping. Loop music. 

 

A tight shot of the children walking in the front door, still wearing their black clothes. The ambiguous second family sprawled around the living room, obviously dead and with enough blood that it would never make it past Standards and Practices for any network. The floor littered with documents, laying like snow over the furniture, red where they soaked up blood. The little girl screamed and dropped the baby, who landed with a thud audible over the music. Paige came up half out of her seat, swallowing expletives and bile. Back to the hospital, and now the music had slowed to a dirgelike pace, not as though it had been written that way, but like the sound mixer had turned a dial way too far. The life insurance salesman was there again, but this time he'd traded in his briefcase for a semi-automatic, and his eyes were larger than ever. The camera focused lovingly on him as he stalked the white corridor, potshotting into rooms, but heading straight for the family the camera panned to at the end of the hall-

 

"Mommy?" 

 

Paige jumped and muffled a shriek at Holly's voice, fumbling with the remote till she hit the Stop button and blacked the screen. "What is it, baby?" she asked, trying to keep her voice normal as she turned to her little girl in the doorway. "It's late-late-late and you have school tomorrow."

 

"You gave me a bad dream," Holly told her, accusation in her voice. "You had nasty things in your head." 

 

"I'm sorry, honey," Paige replied automatically, layering another set of shields over her thoughts. "Didn't you put on your bracelet before you went to sleep?"

 

"Yes," Holly pouted. "It didn't help." 

 

"Okay," Paige told her, getting up and turning Holly back towards her bedroom. "We'll talk to Dr. Johannson about getting it adjusted tomorrow. In the meantime, how about I sing you a song to get back to sleep." 

 

"I wanna watch TV," Holly replied, sleepy but still ready to pout. 

 

"That's really not a good idea," Paige said with one glance back at the dark television. She was definitely going to have to talk to Richard about this one. 

[Avenger Assembled]

Seconds later, his head still muzzy from sleep, Richard watched the credits through his wife's eyes, her hands splayed across his temples to ensure an interrupted feed between her mind and his own. "Those damn network suits," he muttered about the time the grandmother clutched her chest, "ruining yet another piece of classic 80s television with their..." He fell silent as the credits, and the horrors, went on. "Jesus freaking Christ..." When the 'show' was done, he leaned back in the old leather accountant's chair that was his favorite seat (when he sat still) in their workroom. His face was pale and his eyes wide, and for a moment or two he was completely at a loss for words. 

 

"Well, damn." He checked the television over at super-speed, zipping around it briefly in a blur. "I don't see any weird cables or wires, and it doesn't smell like any of Fear-Master's old stuff." Cautiously, he pressed PLAY on the rewound tape, and then FAST-FORWARD - there was no need to inflict it on Paige again and he could watch it fine even at super-speed. Even at that speed, Paige could see it was not the same show - though the tape still held steady at 0:00. 

 

"All right, looks like one of those Cosby knockoffs, they're in downtown LA....hey, kind of a Miami Vice thing, and..." Suddenly, Richard's eyes tightened and he hit the STOP button. "You know what, that's one iteration in and the oldest kid just took two rounds in the forehead, and I don't really think I need to see the rest." He sat back. "Jesus Christ. Is the house freaking haunted, or what?"  

[TheAbsurdist]

 

 

It was early.  He probably should be asleep, but that wasn't happening.  Between watching the progress of the EMEA markets, and then the start of the APAC ones, and just everything else, Amir was a media junkie.  Possibly one of the worst.  His attention scattered over half a dozen stories that he managed to keep somehow organized.

 

Still at a certain point the stories were being recycled at this time of day, to make sure that the market early risers caught it.  Or the the go to bed laters, but neither here nor now.  He was already dressed, in both a more normal suit and that containment suit that reined in his power on two fronts.  That or he'd likely be under AEGIS custody, or locked away in a special room.  Not really, but it was a going fear for him.  Helped with his insomnia.

 

By help, it made it worse.

 

He started to flip through the channels, not quite sure where he wanted to end up, possibly on a sports network, to see if any teams' ownerships were looking rocky, but honestly in most cases those were surprisingly fiscally steady.  Still he was making efforts to nab one of the Freedom City...

 

And he blinked, looking quizzically at the large screen in his townhouse, and he stepped from behind the cluttered newpaper and tablet filled mess of a desk, sipping black tea as he tried to figure out what he just saw.  Brows furrowed and his mouth pursed a bit.  A commercial out of time and place.

 

Felt like something from the 80s.  Going back it was nothing, just an informercial that was on at this hour.  Yet...

 

The big hair, the quality.  Why was an infomercial that old playing now?  With those strange silver sweat suits supposed to help you lose wait.  "What the..."  And then the screen shifted wildly, and the banal man addressing the chanting audience had his silly silver suit splattered with blood and... other things.  "I..."

 

Quick cut to a woman in chair, reading as she was being 'helped' by the suit.  Then came the section about how it helped with exercise, and there was a woman jogging, only to look over her shoulder and see something, and then start to flat out run.  Within moments the host was behind, extoling the virtues of the Cutmaster ginsu blade and it's space age materials, with a horrifyingly gleeful express.

 

The mad careening of it, made Amir gasp and drop the remote.

[trollthumper]

In the early hours of the morning, it could be written off as a prank. Social media was taken over by the insomniacs, the early risers, and the late returning party animals, wondering what the hell they had just seen. It didn't take long to compare notes and see that a wide variety of programs had been affected with the same bloody display. If this was a sick prank, then it had to be one of the most well-coordinated ones in recent history.

By the time the sun rose, though, it became clear it was something else. The Channel 4 morning news show had gone from stories on crime scenes and run-off elections into stories about the sun failing to rise and human interest stories on The Church of the Mother of Endless Sorrows. The show had ended with the anchors descending into blasphemous tongues and cannibalizing each other on air while still alive. The feed was cut soon after, with the anchors having to turn to social media to say that no, they had not engaged in slaughter and blasphemous worship of elder things. A.M. Freedom had started bright and cheery, only for Steven Parker to keel over the coffee table of a sudden aneurysm, with his wife Joanne going on to deliver glowing stories of life in Freedom, even as giant spiders burst from her husband's chest and crawled through her hairdo. By this time, one out of ten people in the city had seen the strangeness, and at least four others had heard of it. But that still left half the city ignorant.

By 9:30 AM, the first patients had been rushed to the hospital. Some parents had been too busy to catch the early weirdness, focusing on affairs of the house while their young children watched cartoons, educational or otherwise. As far as anyone could tell, the images hadn't perverted, like they had with the earlier programming. Instead, they'd gotten a little too cheery, a little too overbearing, even as new, strange characters strode on screen. These characters had called the children in close, wanting to tell them a little secret. The broadcast had then descended into a cacophony of flashing lights and terrible sounds, driving some of the children who'd watched into tonic-clonic seizures.

By 10:00 AM, City Hall had issued an announcement - over the radio, of course - encouraging everyone to keep their TVs turned off, and unplugged if necessary. By 10:30 AM, it was found that the effect was not limited to TVs - online streaming services and TV series on DVD were showing the same pattern of corruption. By 11:00 AM, Eliza's class - which had been planning to watch the first half of Roots - had been cancelled because no one was taking any chances. That was why she was sitting in the common room, her ears turned towards her cell phone and her eyes turned towards the TV, in case something decided to force it on from the other side.

"...I'm just asking if it's a theoretical possibility, Dad," she said. "I mean, I've been backstage, but I haven't really been everywhere backstage. There could be pockets of it where stuff like this happens--"

"There's a reason I stick to the watery depths, Eliza. I've got a hard enough time wrapping my head around the conceptuals, half the time. Get into the territory of media spirits... it's not my bailiwick. But is it possible? Yeah, I'd say it is. You planning on diving in?"

"Someone's gonna have to go into the deep end. Figure it's gonna have to be me. Wish I wasn't doing it alone, but..." She leaned in towards the TV, almost by accident - and as she did, her fingers stroked the screen. She'd expected to feel the cold of the cathode ray tube, but instead, she felt... a depth. Like the tube was thin ice over a deep lake. In its depths, she could see things swirling, even though it was dark. There was no clear image - thank God - but there was still the idea of shapes, like looking through an open door into a darkened room.

"Think I found something. Love you, Dad. I'll call you when I'm done with this."

"Long as you don't get eaten by mad sitcom stars, I'm happy. Love you, Eliza."

She hung up, then went through her half-buried contacts. Set was out of town today, and she didn't want to think about what he could do with his face on every television in Freedom at once... but he had run into others who dealt with this kind of weirdness regularly. She dialed one of the "burner" numbers she'd been given when they last met. "Hello, Hologram? This is Temperance. I believe I may have found a possible way to get to the source of this media infection..."

Meanwhile, across Freedom, others who'd seen the earlier broadcasts could see the depth of the television screen if they squinted. Like it was a soap bubble, just waiting to be popped...

[Tiffany Korta]

Daphne Celeste, the World Greatest Detective

Unfortunately despite it being the first thing that Daphne had written, and underlined twice, it hadn’t help her so far workout what had happened. Her classes Burroughs at had been cancelled, especially as she was studying Media, and the class room had been locked to stop any of the students trying to go all Ringu on the whole thing.

This was no problem for someone who could move through wall and Daphne had borrowed the class board to write out everything that she has currently found out in her incredibly fine and neat handwriting. Being such a serious thing she’d avoided putting the little hearts over the i’s. Unfortunately so far she had failed to discover anything new, so far all she had discovered that it didn't seem technology or psychic.

Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

Quoting Sherlock Holmes will not make you a “Great Detectiveâ€.

Actually I was thinking of Spock, but Holmes work to. Maybe I should become the part? What do you think should I be a Rathbone, a Brett or a Cumberbatch. I could even do a Downey Jr or Lee-Miller. Oh or even a Data!

This isn’t really helping, maybe you should leave this to someone else?

Daphne sighed Mother Unit was probably right as much as she wanted to help this was well beyond her ken. Sat at the desk she took one last look around the classroom, feet up on the desk eating the apple she’d bought for her lunch. As she did her eyes spotted something strange about the classrooms television set.

Actually I think that I’ve found something else to investigate.

Jumping up she grabbed her Marvin the Martian backpack where Mother Unit lived during the day and walked over to the television. There was something in the depth of the screen like there was something else there behind the darkened screen.

Well this could go Poltergeist on us right now.

She lifts up her hand going to try and touch the screen.

[Electra]

Paige was a bit at loose ends until the phone rang, to tell the truth. She and Richard had evacuated their office with its dozen screens hours ago, and after phone consultation with LA had decided to stay home from work as well. At this point there was no telling what exactly was happening, except that it seemed to be all over Freedom City which ruled out Richard's haunted house theory. If it were somehow contagious, spreading a television-borne anything to Los Angeles would be disastrous. So instead she'd thrown sheets over the televisions in the living room, kitchen, and master bedroom, and forbidden the kids from touching any of their electronic devices until further notice. Holly had pouted about that and about being kept home from school, until Paige had gotten out both the Playdough Candy Cyclone and the Fun Factory, a significant bribe indeed. 

 

Paige cleaned the kitchen and folded the laundry and made it until nearly 10:30 before just sitting around (not to mention Richard's complete inability to just sit around) drove her up the wall. A quick phone call and Holly was off across the street to play with her best friend Gwen, whose extremely protective father would ensure that nothing scary got near them from the television or anywhere else. After some debate, she decided on the living room television for this, if only because if something broke, she didn't want it to be their expensive work equipment upstairs. Flipping it on, she clicked through channels, carefully avoiding going anywhere near the Discovery neighborhood. Despite a momentary suggestion from Richard earlier in the morning, neither of them wanted to risk seeing what had become of SuperCrime! today. 

 

Apparently the horror in the television had dispensed with its idea of foreplay, since every channel was displaying something profoundly disturbing or downright horrifying. Paige quickly steered away from the news anchors locked in a battle to the death, past the master gardener being strangled by a giant forsythia, paused for a moment's horrified giggling at the Teletubbies ritually sacrificing Po to their smiling baby-god. "This must be what television in Hell is like," she decided. "If they have TV in hell. They probably do, I mean, it's the only explanation for where half the regular programming comes from." 

 

She finally stopped on one of the local Univision channels, who seemed to have pulled the plug on their own broadcasting for the moment. Instead of the normal flat blue screen or old-school static, though, the screen was black and looked almost greasy to the touch. Still better than actually watching the programming, Paige decided. "I don't think I feel so good about being a television personality today," she decided. 

 

Before Richard could respond to that, Paige's other work phone, the local one, rang on the coffee table. She picked it up quickly. "This is Hologram, go ahead." She cocked her head and listened to Temperance's announcement. "Well thank god somebody has. What do you need us to do?" 

[Avenger Assembled]

The loss of electronic devices had been a small price for Richard to pay, given his conscious desire to avoid the dull trappings of the uncool reality of the 2010s. But the loss of the television had hurt - especially with the game on. He'd wound up zipping around the house, running to the store to buy some new books (only to disgustedly have to leave after waiting in line for nearly ten minutes), and generally getting on his wife's nerves in the middle of an already nerve-wracking situation. But he knew how to make himself scarce, too, and so he hadn't earned The Look in a good half-hour.

 

He was rocking out to Flock of Seagulls on his vintage Walkman as his wife flipped through the TV channels, the music helping distract him from his boredom as well as the really horrible-looking stuff on the television. Yeah, it really is for the best we skipped the Discovery Channel he reflected as Paige left the TV idle to get the phone. 

 

"Hey, I remember her!" he exclaimed as Paige picked up the phone. "She's all right!" 

[TheAbsurdist]

 

Amir frowned, and he was out of his expensive suit in a matter of moments.  While still keeping on the more expensive containment suit.  He caught no further sight of what had happened in the wee small hours.  And he thought maybe it was stress or he was overtaxed, but then some news started to trickle out in alternative matters, and he had enough feeds going that it splashed across his desk.

 

 

The reports kept coming.  Even as things normalized (as much as was possible considering Freedom City-ness and everything involved with this particular issue).  So he turned around and called Ana to push out a notice to all employees to cut off all television.  Or media streaming to any of that.  The main building would have that closed in a matter of moments, and he tried to get some push outside of his employees and holdings to get this to stop.  Unfortunately going over the recordings, they were normal if staticy.

 

Approaching one of the massive screens in his home office, he leaned in close, and then pressing a hand to the glass only for it to push through into... the static?  Blinking a bit, he stepped away from it, trying to figure out who to call, before settling on Ana, "Hey, sorry to bother you again... I know something odd is happening with the TVs, and I think... I have to go in after it."

 

"You're mad.  Just mad.  Fine, I'll drop messages to the government agencies as needed."  Came the flat, dry response from Ana van Cleef.

 

"Thank you Ana, I am aware of how crazy all of this is.  Just... stay away from televisions for awhile."

 

"Fine, listen Amir, be careful, you dying would really inconvenience my week."

 

"Your concern is noted Ana."  With that she hung up and he was left to stare at the screen, willing up the courage to dive into... um... his cable service...?

[trollthumper]

"We're likely going to need a large television, some supplies, and possibly some ritual offerings. I have no idea what sort of offerings for something like this - perhaps whatever detergent, clothing, or liquor gets flogged most often on the local advertisements." Eliza felt like she was trying very hard not to sound like a crazy person. Then again, dealing with spirits had a sort of dream logic at the best of times.

"We are likely dealing with something that is spiritual in origin - not ghostly, but in the animistic sense. It may have set up power in the place where spirits dwell, and is using that proximity to the world of the flesh to affect images. And whatever it is, it has a dark sense of aesthetics. So far, it hasn't been able to parlay that power into tangible effects... but I'd like to stop it before we have angry Japanese girls in nightgowns crawling out of TV sets across Freedom. And that's the thing - it feels as if that barrier between the flesh and the spiritual has grown thinner through the television. To defeat this thing - and I know how this sounds - we may need to go into the TV landscape."

---

Meanwhile, Miss Grue and Asad, in their own ways, had begun their explorations of the television. Indeed, to both of them, the screens of their televisions felt thinner than usual. Instead of room temperature plastic, they felt thin, cold, and oily, like a sheet of frozen grease. It felt as if it would take just an ounce of pressure to fracture it --

And before they could withdraw their hands, there was that crack. The screen shattered, as their hands plunged deep into the black waters beneath. Upon contact, the water shifted, rippling into static surf. The substance crept up their arms as the ground began to recede under their feet...

Until finally, they landed with a thud. At first glance, the area appeared to be a living room in a small house. But the air was thick with the scent of blood...

[Electra]

"Okay," Paige said, and from the tone of her voice she didn't think what Eliza was saying sounded crazy at all. That might or might not be a reassuring thing. "We've got a hundred-twenty inch projection screen down the basement in the 'man cave,' I think that's the biggest we're likely to find at short notice that's already hooked to cable. "You get your ritual supplies together, I'll grab everything brand name I can find in the pantry, and Fast-Forward will come collect you as soon as you tell me where he should pick you up. I suspect you're right about time being of the essence, but he moves quickly." Paige paused and thought for a moment. "And we might have a few things around the house that could come in handy. Good?" 

[Avenger Assembled]

Richard zipped around the house during the conversation, following his wife's mental directions, and soon had gathered up an impressive quantity of brand names from their pantry and bathrooms. "That should be enough," he commented, placing the detergent in a white wicker laundry basket. He knew Paige only half-followed his mental conversations at super-speed when she wasn't concentrating, so he spoke mostly to himself as he worked. "Whoops, the other stuff!" He zipped into their editing room, following Paige's train of thought even as she made it, and returned with a cardboard box full of film editing equipment. "Hah! Butt splicer. It even sounds like a melee weapon," he said, holding the old piece of film equipment by its arm so that it looked like a badly-angled club. "Hmm. Better get the video stuff too. Ooh, you know what I bet we need? Is magnets!" 

[trollthumper]

"Yes, that should work," said Eliza, half-believing it herself. "I just need to get my face on. I'm at Harbridge Dorm in Freedom College. I'll be outside in ten minutes, in the alley behind the dorm."

Fortunately, her roommate was out, which made the matter of getting into costume, assembling her mask, and gathering the finest brand of toothpaste from her wash kit child's play. Soon, Temperance was downstairs, trying not to draw too much attention as she waited. She checked the mouth to see if anyone was watching - and was soon beset by a blur, which bled to fill her vision. When reality came back online, she was standing in a basement theater, looking at a gigantic projection screen with the same soap bubble sheen.

Well. That's super-speed for you. She turned to Fast-Forward and Hologram, smiling graciously. "Thank you for taking me into your home," she said. "If we're ready, I think we can proceed to the other side. Just let me test the waters..."

She pressed her hand against the giant screen... and soon, the blackness was disrupted by a sea of static. She turned back, nodding to the others. "The waters may be choppy, but they will get us there." She pressed forward, diving into the electronic abyss...

...and when the static cleared, she was on a military base. Cheery, lit by what looked like the California sun, and beset with artillery craters and dried blood. Guessing the show didn't end when I was done watching, she thought. When Hologram and Fast-Forward came through, she turned to them.

"Welcome to... well, I have no idea what this place is called. Let's settle for... the Distant Sight."

[Avenger Assembled]

"We're heeere," muttered Fast-Forward as he looked around the battered, bloody landscape. "Well, this is a nasty-looking place..." Testing, testing.... He tried his mental link to Hologram and was glad to find it still in place, even under these unusual circumstances. When they were younger, he'd have run off and scouted the fringes of whatever pocket dimension they were in and come back with a full report in the middle of the conversation. But that was when he'd been younger and brasher, and maybe before he'd learned to think a little before he acted. "You picking up anything, babe?" He did zip around as he spoke, staying in sight as he checked the outside of buildings for survivors. His wife's mental reconnaissance was slower than his physical - but less likely to provoke an armed response from whatever horrible thing lived in this place. 

[TheAbsurdist]

"This is so odd..."  Pressing and pulling back against what felt like the surface of a lake, apart from the lack of wetness.  Then on the next push it was like a bubble popping, or whatever was holding the surface tension, before he fell forward, tumbling, he couldn't pull back, even  with every bit of his strength and his power of flight.  He was just drawn deeper and deeper in, before he landed on top of a 'vintage' table.  And he went through the table, as well.

 

"Unf!"  Grunting as he hit the ground, and then found himself kneeling, and looking up, starting to say something, before he smelled blood.  "****,"  And it was bleeped, and his eyes widened a bit, as he stood, rubbing at his head.  Not that he was hurt, but that was...  "Did someone slip me acid?"  Looking around as he took in the distilled '80s around him, and the smell... God the smell...

 

And in response his containment suit light up like it was a Christmas tree, as he looked around for the source of the literal bloody scent.

[Tiffany Korta]

Daphne picked herself off the ground and brushed off hypothetical dust off her arms.

 

Well I always wanted to be on TV.

 

Very drool. I don’t seem to be able to find any technological items.

 

Could be a dreamscape I suppose. It looks like you typical sitcom house, but the blood suggest a more slasher style of show.

 

Well there was only one real way to see if anyone was here.

 

“Hello is anyone there?â€

 

Is that wise considering a slasher might be loose?

 

Do you know how many Superheroes you get in Slasher Movies, they tend to break the plot quite a bit.

 

Cause it was a number slightly higher than none...

[Electra]

Paige looked around the destroyed landscape, her eyes wide, then finally let out a giggle that held only a slight hysterical edge. "Hello out there from TV Land, a beautiful place to be..." she sang softly as she pulled a long pair of scissors from the knapsack on her shoulder. "I can sense the three of us just fine," she reported, "and I think there are some... native, I suppose? Some soldiers from this reality, anyway, about a quarter-mile to the west of us. We don't want to run into them unawares, they are not in a good frame of mind." She shuddered a little bit. "But beyond the edge of the base... a little ground, a little sky, then nothing. It's like all the features of the world just stop. I don't really want to have a closer look out there just yet, not with everything we've seen with just our eyes today." 

 

She turned to her companions. "What do you think, Eliza? We're here, now how do we go about fixing things?" 

[trollthumper]

Temperance looked to that strange horizon Hologram had pointed out. Beyond the checkpoint gates of the base lay a few feet of road - and then the barest indications of reality. A blue cloudless sky with no sun, pressed against a flat, featureless horizon of green grass and soil. "This is new territory for me, as well," she said, "but... I do have some ideas on how to fix it. The fact that we're standing on this stage means that there needs to be a place for the vision to play out. We're not in some great land of fiction, the place where all ideas play out. More of... a space between where the image is made and where it plays, where local spirits can take the place between actor and representation. Something has likely invaded it. It could be a spirit of nightmare, or it could be some other ephemeral being entirely - ghost, demon, god, et cetera."

She paused, as if taking the measure of the air and the spiritual landscape. "There are two options. One - I believe there's something beyond the nothing, if that makes sense. Not everyone watches the same thing at the same time. If we cross the borders, we may find another program, and more information on the source of whatever's corrupting this world. Or - option two - we go find those soldiers and try to get some intelligence out of them. Or perhaps both."

---

Meanwhile, in the suburban home of horrors, Miss Grue could hear something at the edge of her senses. Something like a quick breath, coming from the closet hanging under the stairs...

[TheAbsurdist]

"Yeah..."  He responded to the question, as he moved onto frame... er screen... wait...   He looked at Miss Grue, his hands resting on his hips as he looked around.  Then Asad paused, and lifted a hand to brush it up against hair, to make sure it didn't revert back to 80's style frizziness.  It was not something he was eager to relive, if he could help it.  Maybe later when he had gone full Omar Sharif, but right now it was more than inconvenience.

 

"Hello I am Asad, and you are... Miss Grue?"  Smiling easily, and then cocking his head towards the sound they both undoubtedly heard, a frown on his face then.  "Huh...  So... this is like some Ubu Production meets Friday the Thirteenth, huh?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"You know, I don't know exactly what happened here," said Fast-Forward, holding up his hands. "But I watched enough war movies back in the day that I don't think we need to stay to talk to the locals. And Hologram and I had enough crazy soldiers shooting at us in the real 1980s that I don't need a bunch of spirit cosplayers trying to hunt us down now." When it came to the danger they'd faced from angry mundanes back in the day, Richard was perfectly serious - the constant murder attempts was one thing he hadn't liked about the past. "Let's poke our heads into the next channel," he suggested, "we can always come back here if it turns out that Full Metal Murder here was the key to getting our TVs back." He reached down and took Paige's hand, then offered his other to Temperance. "Time to fast-forward!" And with that, he started running, the two heroines in tow. As they ran, the scenery around them didn't so much slow down as it seemed to go on pause - right down to visible tracking lines hovering in the air as they hit the barrier between places. 

[Electra]

Paige winced as Richard took her hand, accustomed if not resigned to her spouse's bursts of impulsivity. She could only hope that the rules of this dimension were enough like the rules of Prime that he could run safely without crashing them into an invisible barrier or the end of the world or anything truly unpleasant like that. She couldn't have pulled away if she tried, and even if she had, she'd have been placing herself in great danger of falling out of the acclimatization bubble that allowed Richard to run without catching fire, so she figured she might as well make the best of it. Closing her eyes once more, she extended her senses past the barrier, slowly stretching farther and farther away from her body until she reached the limits of her range. 

[Tiffany Korta]

Daphne reached out to shake Asad hand only to be temporarily distracted by the fact that she was now in her Grue form. Was her flesh normally this red?

 

It was a little confusing why however she was in this form right now, with complete control of her body it shouldn’t have happened without her know why. Unless there was something about this place...

 

“Of cause Narrative Causality!â€

 

Narrative Causality! Where did you get that from.

 

I read it in a book. And yes I do read book sometime, for fun and everything.

 

“Sorry Mr Asad I am Miss Grue. I think this place work by certain rule’s that you’d expect from a TV show, like when two superheroes meet they’ll be in there costumed form because that what everyone expects.†she gave a little frown “Cause someone massed all everything together somehow so we can’t know quite what to expect.â€

[trollthumper]

Fast-Forward hit the barrier between realms at high speed, resulting in a shadow of static. Temperance watched the static tear past like beams of light in the hyperspace scenes in Star Wars, shooting past as high speed. By the time the static cleared, the three found themselves standing in a blood-stained, torn-up suburban living room - the same one as Asad and Miss Grue, who were standing right there.

"Looks like we're not the only ones who came through," she said, looking to the other heroes. "I want to say I'm glad others realized how the connection works. But that could mean still others do. Ones who don't have the same advantages we do --"

Temperance was interrupted as the closet fell open. To all the others, there appeared to be a young woman, high school age, extremely photogenic and extremely traumatized. To Temperance's eyes, however, she appeared to be wearing a thin, almost holographic mask over ever-shifting features - though the trauma still came through loud and clear. "Oh, Muses!" she said. "They killed the rest of the cast. Are you... wait, why is she red? What stage is she from?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Ah, jeez!" said Fast-Forward sympathetically, quickly diverted by the new arrival and her obvious trauma. Geez, it's like '88 all over again, he thought Paige's way before he zipped back into the conversation at super-speed. "Hey, listen, kid, we're from another dimension. I'm Fast-Forward, this is Hologram, Temperance, Asad, and...." He fell silent for a moment as he took in the Grue, then went on, "Aaaand Lady Grue?" he hazarded. Ooookay, well, I've met Grue who were technically good guys - I guess I can't really put on airs about bad blood. Before Miss Grue had a chance to correct him, he went on. "We're new here. I am so sorry about what happened. We're here to help you with your problem. What happened here, honey?" he asked, procuring a handkerchief so the kid could at least wipe her eyes.