by The Eurostar and Nowhereman
"What are we going to do? Knock on an apartment door asking for Mr. Nowhereman?" Grimm, the skull-faced leader of Vanguard, asked sarcastically.
Edulcore "Eurostar" Cicciotto raised his head to look at his comrade. "I don't know what else we could do. His old address is the only tie we still have to him." And, that said, he lowered his head toward the paper knife Grimm had handed him a few minutes before when they picked him up with the Stormloader in Thunder City. The paper knife had been made with a small piece salvaged from Ladnikia's blade as a memento of the past, a sort of eternal warning. The Stormloader had flown quickly across United States airspace, undetectable thanks to its alien technology. Vanguard had arrived in Chicago in less than thirty minutes.
"Waiting for them on a roof isn't exactly what I had in mind, although it reminds me of the good old days," whispered Drake Marshall.
"It's chilly up here," observed Brianna Fionnghuala, wrapped up in her long, white wings. The other Vanguardians were looking down.
"I don't understand what we're waiting for. You said his lair is the underground garage of this building, so why've we been waiting fifteen minutes here, Ed?" asked Ozzy Baxter.
"This is not our territory, sir. We have to wait for the lords of this place before we could venture in. I wouldn't be happy to be caught in narrow spaces... by them," the Italian hero said cryptically.
"You've changed a great deal, Cicciotto. Those are words of wisdom," said an unexpected voice from the darkness.
The Vanguardians turned in unison to face a pale man coming out from behind a corner. Behind him was a tall man in his early thirties in a black coat and a younger one dark-skinned and with a leather jacket.
"Mr. Walker," greeted Cicciotto, as just the sides of his mouth bent up to make the coldest smile ever.
"Vanguardians," saluted Dr. Charles Walker. "What brings you here to my town? Our pact has been fulfilled. I hope you have no differing pretensions."
"We're just here to meet an old friend of ours," said Grimm, stepping forward. "We mean no harm. We'll be gone in two hours. It's a global security matter, I fear." Adem Different, Ozzy, and Tayden looked puzzled but also somehow fascinated by those men they had never met before. Priest, on the other hand, looked in the opposite direction as if fearing an attack from behind.
Walker stood silent, frowning at the direction of Cicciotto. Then he turned briefly toward the man in the black coat: his lieutenant, Mr. Turner. He unnoticeably nodded, so Turner looked back at Grimm and simply said, "Granted." And the three disappeared altogether.
"Good," whispered Euro, taking the door to the stairs, followed by the others.
The garage, which Nowhereman called his Nowherecave, was dimly lit and stuffed with what appeared to be little more than garbage, an old car, some toys, a few pictures, and posters on the wall. Nothing had changed since Euro visited the place two years earlier. The Vanguardians looked around, more disgusted than surprised.
"It's strange," said Tayden. "It feels like a hypertime nexus point... but seems closed, like there is just a remembrance of the nexus."
"What do you want, Vanguardians?" Out of the shadows Nowhereman appeared.
Most of the Vanguardians looked puzzled at the man they had seen before only in pictures on the wall of the Complex. Out of all of them, none but Euro had met him before.
"Hi, Nowhereman," said Euro, extending his hand to the vigilante.
The man did not extend his own. "Nowhereman is patroling the city. What do you want, Cicciotto?" The voice was quite different from the one Euro remembered.
"Close your fucking mouth, Howdy!" said Nowhereman again, this time with a different tone of voice.
With the former voice, he quickly answered, "You shut up, Nasty!"
Euro was aware of the three split personalities of Nowhereman, who together formed a supposed team called the Insiders. The name was fitting, since each existed inside Nowhereman's mind. "Jack, I need to know if the MBL has been here. The world's existence is at stake," asked Edulcore, softly.
"Don't tell him!
"I'm gonna tell him. It could be my chance to be in Vanguard!
"You fucking moron!
"Close your mouth!
"Eurostar, the MBL came here. They want to find...
"Shaddap!
"Prometheus X! The one called Ritchie Stevens -- in New Jersey! He knows how to bring back the true continuity.
"Bastard! Nowhereman will kill you when he'll return, if I don't kill you first!"
The Vanguardians watched the unbelievable scene with a mixture of amusement and sadness. The monologue soon became indecipherable, and Euro turned toward his colleagues. Shrugging, he said, "I don't think we'll get much more from them... uh... him. Better leave. Hope there is just one Ritchie Stevens in Jersey."
Looking back at the black-dressed man, each Vanguardian left the garage for the roof, where they called back the hovercraft from the sky above the city.
Meanwhile, back in the garage, the man known as Nowhereman looked agitated as his true persona plus one more had resurfaced, and the resulting monologue became more and more incredible. The figure known by some as the Madman was re-enacting a scene that had taken place at the AJR Innovations building nearly two years earlier, a scene that had then been interrupted by a nearly fatal explosion.
"Fuck all this shit -- I'm gonna take the bastard down!"
There was a pause.
"What the fuck did you just do to Jack?
"Do not worry unjustly. I haven't hurt Jack. He is just fulfilling his destiny!
"What the fuck do you mean by that?
"Why do you idiots insist on such crass language?
"Are you taking the fucking piss?
"Shut it! Reiner, what the HELL do you mean by destiny?
"Here -- this should explain a few things!" He held up a book titled The American West, by Dee Brown.
"You want me to read about cowboys and fucking Indians?
"Page sixty-two. Look carefully at the picture.
"Yeah. I see a masked man who is one of my predecessors!
"Look carefully.
"It's Jack! The Nowherekid is Jack!
"As I said, he had a destiny to fulfill, as do you both. Now onto you, Captain Howdy!"
BANG!
The body of Nowhereman, now apparently empty of any identity, fell to the floor. A pool of blood enlarged under the tall, muscular, black-dressed body. It was exactly midnight.
Out of thin air, the massive body of a man in a jumpsuit formed, a smoking gun in his right hand. He shook his head.
"I don't know if you really hold the secrets to changing the course of the time stream, man, but you are too fucked up for me to let you live, if that's even just remotely true."
The man put the gun back in his holster, then vanished again. The agent known as William "Boss" Tweed headed back to EPS Headquarters, his mission completed.