by The Time Trust
Spring, 1999:
Nobody knows where they came from, or why they have the abilities they do, but metahumans have been around for many years. There had always been rumors of men and women who possessed strange powers and abilities. Stories of gods, heroes and monsters had circulated in legends throughout the world for as long as mankind has existed. But it was not until the 1930s, when they first became known to the public, that metahumans began to be an everyday reality.
Metaman was the first mystery man (as they were called in the early days) to use his powers in public, beginning in 1938. There had been other mystery men before him, but none of them had the range of powers as Metaman, and none of them had acted openly under the watchful eye of the public. Metaman was unique at the time, but those who came after him owed him a debt, for he had liberated them from the tyranny of secrecy. He had proven that the existence of metahumans (as they began to be called after his first appearance) was not at all devastating to the public, as it soon got used to them, even regarding them as heroes, or metaheroes.
A team of costumed crime-fighters calling themselves the Mystery Men had formed in early 1939, but this group steadfastly refused to work in the open, instead remaining in the shadows. After the outbreak of war in Europe that year, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt foresaw a need for a team of metaheroes to protect the United States. Metaman had been the very first mystery man to begin working alongside the authorities, and, with his help, FDR set up the Mysterymen Board in late 1939, a governmental regulatory board that was run completely by bureaucrats. It was essentially useless for more than a year, until FDR used it to found a team of metaheroes who could be called upon by the government in the nation's hour of need. Thus, in early 1941 the team called the Mystery Men was voluntarily disbanded after its final devastating case to found the Mysterymen Board Society -- or the MBS -- under FDR's direction, its membership made up of the greatest American mystery men of the time. The MBS operated from 1941 until 1951, being most active during World War II.
During that time, FDR formed another team called the All-Adventurers Squadron, which included nearly every willing metahero active at the time, and its missions were much more varied than that of the MBS. Throughout much of the war, for instance, a number of AAS members were used as bodyguards for military figures and even Hollywood celebrities. During the so-called "Pin-Up Girl Crisis" of 1944, for example, AAS members protected such famed celebrities as Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, Myrna Loy, and others from a kidnapping plot by fifth columnists working under the direction of a top-ranking Nazi general. The AAS was active from 1942 until war's end in 1945, when it was no longer needed.
Most of the metahumans during World War II had operated on the side of the Allies, but with the end of the war, more and more metapowered criminals, called metavillains, began to appear. Metahumans who could neither be considered metaheroes nor metavillains also began appearing in larger numbers. The population of metahumans in the world had grown so much over the course of a decade, in fact, that some kind of regulation was needed. A few metahumans, foreseeing that they would soon fall under such regulation whether they wanted it or not, took it upon themselves to set up a self-regulatory board of their own under the auspices of the United Nations. Thus, the United Nations Board of Metahumans (UNBOM) was created in 1951, following the disbanding that year of the MBS and the closure of the Mysterymen Board. The first chairman of UNBOM was the celebrated Metaman, who used the respect he had earned as a hero to gain political respect for metaheroes.
UNBOM, nicknamed the Meta Board, proved to be a very useful non-governmental organization over the next fifty years. It kept governments and lawmakers happy by lending metahero help to deal with metahuman problems, and it provided financing for a number of metahero groups that appeared during that time. The most notable of these groups were the Metamen Five and the Excelsior Seven of the 1960s, the Metahero Pals of the 1970s, and the Metahero League of America of the 1980s and early 1990s. Unfortunately, no team (except for the Forgotten Metaheroes, who operated sporadically from the late 1970s through the early 1990s) was able to last for longer than a few years before breaking up. Each lacked the focus that the war had provided the MBS.
By the late 1990s, most metaheroes acted independently, with a few exceptions such as the low-profile Living Legends Brigade (the LLB), a kind of social club for metahumans who occasionally acted as heroes. The Warriors had operated in Underwood until that city's destruction in 1993. But the most popular, most high-profile team of the day was undoubtedly the Seven Senses. Founded as the Six Senses under great fanfare in 1995 by sixteen-year-old prodigy Doug Silver, each member of the youthful team possessed the ability to alter reality, an ability that was both more powerful and easier to control when they acted together. The founding members of this team were Knight De Facto (the leader), Ace Martian, Caped Cadet, Generator, Brain Tech, and Hooligan. When its youngest member, the eleven-year-old Disco Stave, joined the team the following year in 1996, the team changed its name to the Seven Senses and became more popular than ever before. Even after the tragic death of Brain Tech in 1998 and his immediate replacement by metavillain-turned-metahero Albino Chameleon, a former enemy of the team, the Seven Senses members were on top of the world. Nothing seemed able to stop them.
Today, however, the front pages of every major newspaper in the world carried a variation on the following headline from the Thunder City Gazette:
"THE SEVEN SENSES DISBAND!"
No reasons were given to the public for the disbanding of what had outwardly seemed to be the metahero team with the most promise, but the tabloids had a field day. There had long been rumors of infighting between the members, especially concerning the newest member, Albino Chameleon. A.C., as he was called, was known to have a bad temper, and despite having a villain-to-hero story that had charmed the public, his personal life was in shambles. Insiders said that he was hard to deal with, that he had erratic mood swings that made him unpredictable and caused much tension with his teammates. Some tabloids even claimed that he had been brainwashed by the team into becoming a metahero, and that his recent bad behavior was his real personality breaking through after nearly a year of repression. Some claimed that the Seven Senses had broken up when Brain Tech died a year ago and had only made a few public appearances since then until they were ready to announce it to the world. One even claimed that A.C. had planned the disbanding of the team from the start, even going so far as suggesting -- without saying so -- that he had killed Brain Tech and replaced him on the team in order to accomplish as a team member what he had never been able to do as the team's enemy. Although they disagreed on the details, they all agreed that A.C. was to blame for the breakup.
The disbanding of the Seven Senses was much more than fodder for tabloids and gossip columnists. It had been the only team that worked closely with the Meta Board, and the only one easily called upon when disaster struck. The sheer power that the team wielded when together guaranteed that it was capable of handling almost any major threat that the Earth faced. The existence of extraterrestrials had been known to the public since the 1960s, after the first wave of minor invasions, mostly fought off by heroes such as the Metamen Five and Superfast Man. Although the world had not yet faced a massive, widespread extraterrestrial invasion, it lived in constant fear that such an invasion was inevitable. The disbanding of the Seven Senses was one more reason to fear that the Earth was not ready to face this inevitability.
The metahumans of the world, as powerful as they were, largely acted independently. This was seen as both a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing because, besides the threat of extraterrestrial invasion, the thing people feared most was a revolution of metahumans working together to conquer or destroy the world. It was a curse because all an extraterrestrial force had to do was realize that the metahero protectors of the world were divided, and that the first half of a divide-and-conquer strategy essentially had already been done for them. No single metahero held enough power to stop an entire invasion force, and only as a well-organized team could the metaheroes of the world keep the world safe from such a threat.
All these considerations and more brought the Meta Board's chairman and vice-chairman to UNBOM's newest piece of real estate, a refurbished extraterrestrial starship on the Moon that they had dubbed the Moontower. The chairman was a metahero variously known as Kohoutek, the Golden Comet, and currently Meta 7, since he was the seventh chairman of UNBOM. The Meta Board's vice-chairman was his old friend and his fellow teammate in the Metahero League of America a decade earlier, Damocles.
"Aren't you concerned about this?" Damocles said, slapping his hand over the newspaper headline for emphasis. "Our mobilization ability has just been cut in half."
The man who took his name after the Greek legend of the Sword of Damocles was a tall, imposing figure who wore an electronic mask with sensory equipment built within it and a navy blue and maroon bodysuit. He was not one of the most powerful metahumans, but he possessed limited shapechanging abilities that allowed him to alter his facial features as well as vary his height and body shape to impersonate almost anyone, and he could heal almost any injury he received short of decapitation. Still, he was most well known for his formidable martial arts and hand-to-hand combat abilities, and he preferred these acquired skills, often in concert with his signature metal quarterstaff that fired energy beams from either end, over his metahuman ones.
As his friend fretted over the news, Meta 7 calmly stood watching the Earth from under the massive glass dome above them. He was casually attired in a dark gray business suit made of advanced fabrics as strong and flexible as any other metahero costume. His face was uncovered, but this was an illusion. His real face was disguised using a technique known only to himself, and which only he could afford to maintain. After all, he was one of the wealthiest men in the world.
He was called Meta 7 now, but when he debuted in 1986, he initially called himself the Golden Comet. Strangely, he instead ended up being known by the world under his nickname of Kohoutek, thanks to a clever New York Times columnist. Boosting his profile with his own money, he had made himself very popular at the time, even being touted by Newsweek that year as the hero of the century, but no amount of money could keep his star from falling after he failed to live up to his press. He was soon found to be somewhat of a dud, quickly turning into simply another B-list metahero, one of many. It was to his credit that he took the situation well, formally adopting the nickname Kohoutek as his professional name in honor of both the 1973 comet that had granted him powers as a six-year old child, and the fact that the same comet had also failed to live up to its hype when it appeared. In 1987, Kohoutek helped found the Metahero League of America with other metaheroes of the time, including Damocles, Johnny Morphus, the Scout Marksman, and others. After the MLA disbanded in 1992, he was happy to take up the role of UNBOM chairman and quickly settled into the life of a bureaucrat under the name Meta 7. Still, it had been years since the glory days of the Meta Board under the leadership of Metaman. Ever since that original hero's retirement, the Board had been chaired by nothing but has-been metaheroes. Meta 7 idly wondered if there was any need at all for the Meta Board any longer.
He also began to think about cycles. He had been changed by the comet Kohoutek in 1973, when he was six years old. Thirteen years had passed until his power finally manifested itself in 1986, around the same time that Halley's Comet returned, and he used that power to become a world-famous metahero. It was now 1999, and another thirteen years had now passed, his power visibly waning in that time. He had been hoping that another comet would boost his power again on its own, as it had in 1986, but nothing had as yet happened. If a comet did not come to him, would he have to visit a comet?
"Tek, are you listening to me?" said Damocles, using the nickname Meta 7 had been called by his teammates in the MLA.
"Hmm?" said Meta 7, turning slightly. "Oh, right. The Seven Senses. It really is a shame about their breakup, isn't it?"
"It's more than just a shame, Tek. Unless we can sign a deal with the LLB, we've got no team to work with, and besides the other board members, only a handful of metas even know who we are any more. We're unable to mobilize a team in an emergency. It's only a matter of time before the rest of the world realizes how useless we are and sets up its own regulatory board. You can be sure that none of us will be invited to be a part of that."
"Dam, you worry too much," said Meta 7, chuckling. His longtime friend and ally appeared to the world to have a gruff, forbidding personality, but he knew that Damocles truly cared about the world, possibly more than was healthy. "I've... been working on something of my own as of late."
"You mean the team you put together for the Antarctica case?" laughed Damocles. "Tek, they were good enough to retrieve this starship for you, but from what you've told me, they hardly worked well together as a team. Whatever happened to them, anyway?"
Meta 7 was silent as he thought back to the recent case. He had sent out electronic invitations to meet him in Venice, Italy, to a number of possible candidates, including two Golden Age heroes -- Rhyme Guardian, who could control "rhyme energy," and the Trout, an aquatic hero. He had also invited Exile, a telepath from the FBI's fledgling metahuman agent program, and had spent a modest fortune securing the services of a formidable professional assassin with invisibility powers calling himself the Invisible Man. Rounding out the group were Spark, a metahero with ice powers, and Sente, a half-human, half-robot cyborg from the future who possessed death-vision and had apparently killed another metahero to get a spot at the meeting.
He had sent this motley crew of metahumans on a mission to Antarctica to retrieve an ancient starship buried miles beneath that continent's icy mantle before a Russian-American joint military expedition reached it. He had known there was a chance that the extraterrestrial beings within it, called the Basilisks, had been kept in suspended animation and would revive once the ship was interfered with. He had been correct. It turned out that there was a traitorous plot by a U.S. Army general to use the Seven Senses, who had been called in to protect the expedition, to open up an interdimensional void that would enable a massive extraterrestrial invasion. Instead, his group of metas -- joined by the young Disco Stave after the Invisible Man fled due to a breach of contract -- had been used by the Basilisks to open this void. It was only due to the sacrifice of most of these metas that the entryway to the void was closed, and the invasion was thwarted. Sente was the first to die, followed by the Trout. Exile and Spark, along with two young stowaways from Venice and their dog, were sucked into the void as it closed in order to save Disco Stave's life, and there was almost no chance that they had survived. Only Rhyme Guardian and Disco Stave lived to return from the mission, and by now they had already returned to their old lives.
"Two of them died," Meta 7 said simply, "and the others went missing."
"Ah. Sorry about that, old man. I'd forgotten."
"As has the world," Meta 7 muttered under his breath.
"What was that?" asked Damocles. "I didn't catch that."
"I just said it's not a problem. Anyway, I wasn't referring to that group. Forming such a team was an experiment in mobilization, and it worked, at least for its own purposes. Still, it was only a short-term solution. For the long-term, we need a team willing to stick together and train endlessly to become a well-oiled machine. I've already set a plan in motion to gather such a team."
Beneath his mask, Damocles' right eyebrow rose in puzzlement. "What have you done, Tek?"
"Don't worry," Meta 7 said, laughing at his friend's panicked voice. "I was planning on running it by the board this week."
Damocles had folded his arms together. "Well? Are you going to tell me what's happened, or do I have to guess for myself?"
"I never was able to keep secrets from you for very long," Meta 7 agreed. "No, as much as I like to play my cards close to the chest, I feel that the time is right to be as completely transparent about my plans as possible. Dam, I'm planning a recruitment drive for a new team."
"Are you crazy?" asked Damocles. "There's no way you'll be able to convince a lot of independent-minded metaheroes to join into this 'well-oiled machine' you keep harping on about."
Meta 7 said, "How do you think the MBS was formed?"
"You're not FDR, and this isn't World War II," replied Damocles. "Metaheroes just aren't interested in working together any longer. They've each got their own careers, their own territories, and their own reasons for doing what they do. That's why we need to start looking for another group like the Seven Senses, a group that's like a family, one comprising members who have never worked solo. We could try approaching the LLB again. Or maybe we could try tracking down the members of that team from Underwood. You know, the Warriors? I heard a rumor about Tobias Christopher, the speedster, being active somewhere in California. If we could locate him and the other team members to reunite, we could sponsor them, raise their profile, and make them into another Seven Senses-type team. That's the kind of group that works best in this day and age, not a modern-day MBS."
"I'm sorry, Dam, but you're wrong," said Meta 7.
"And what makes you so sure?" said Damocles.
"I've already got more than sixty interested candidates, several of them A-listers."
Damocles was silent for a moment. Finally, he said, "Go on..."
Meta 7 strolled back to his desk and sat down in his leather chair, resting his feet on the desk's surface. "After the Antarctica case -- in fact, immediately after taking possession of the Moontower -- I sent a question to all the users on the Meta Board's Internet site. You know, the networking site I set up, despite your protests, to allow metaheroes to keep in touch with each other? Well, it seems that the site has turned out to be as hot as any dating site for letting metas hook up with each other, for crime-fighting and... other pursuits." He winked, and Damocles rolled his eyes beneath his mask. "Anyway, I simply asked people which seven heroes they would want to form a 'Meta Board League,' and the response was tremendous. The message had been a throwaway idea, a desperate reach, but it turned out to strike a chord with a lot of metaheroes out there.
"So I hired a research agency to find out answers to a few questions I had. It turns out that metas are now, more than ever, willing to meet and work together. And from the polling data and site stats, I've learned that there are larger numbers of metas working together as unofficial teams than ever before. I think the days of the lone hero are fading away, Dam. And if we don't jump on board at the outset, it's going to pass us by, and then we'll really be as redundant as we already feel."
Damocles had been pacing back and forth, facing the ground, while Meta 7 spoke. "So what do you suggest we do?"
"I'm going to hold a board meeting tomorrow," said Meta 7. "I've got the polling results here, and I expect every board member to review all the prospective candidates for the team. The following week, I want to invite all of those candidates to the Moontower, where we'll hold trials for membership in the new team. That way, we can be sure to procure only the best of the best."
"And how will you invite them here?"
"Through the Meta Board site. I'll set up transporter tubes at key locations to allow easy access here for approved candidates."
Damocles held up his right index finger. "I still have one question, Tek."
"Mm?"
"What makes you sure that only metaheroes are using the site? What if metavillains happen to be logging on under false identities? Won't they know all about your plans?"
"Damocles, my good man," said Meta 7, "I'm counting on that."