Chapter 1: The Wheel of Fortune
It was a bright, breezy Saturday morning in March when Larry Trask's life as he knew it came to an end.
He woke up early that morning, put on his tracksuit, and left the house for a jog. Summerduck was a small, suburban community in upstate New York that was as quaint as its name. The blue skies, clean streets, and flowers on the trees belonged in a frame on a gallery wall, or so Larry thought as he ran. The neighbors even smiled and said hello when he passed them. It was one of the better communities the Trask family had moved to in the last five years, and Larry would be sad to leave it when it was time for the next inevitable relocation.
It's better than the city, anyway. Christ, you can breathe here, Larry thought to himself. It's peaceful…almost like a dream.
Like a dream.
The uncomfortable pit in Larry's stomach returned; he had woken up with a strange feeling of unease, and now, as he jogged under the cloudless sky and the rustling green trees of Summerduck, New York, Larry Trask remembered his dream.
A giant shadow is cast over the streets. It belongs to a humongous, lumbering machine in the shape of a man, eyes glowing like twin beacons. Its claw-like hand reaches forward, as if it can tear through the fabric of the teenager's dream and take him in its grasp. There are no colors; everything is tinted dark red.
"Dad."
The word escaped Larry's lips, but he didn't know why. What did some half-remembered dream (inspired by some 50's cheapie on the Sci-Fi Channel, no doubt) have to do with his father? Larry furrowed his brow, feeling a headache coming on to join the stomachache.
He retraced his path back to the Trask townhouse, but as he approached the steps he looked across the street, almost expecting a woman in sunglasses to be there, watching him with sightless eyes.
---
Time had not been kind to Bolivar Trask, and as the man grew older and suffered from the death of a spouse his good looks faded, leaving him with a hard, almost jagged appearance. By studying the family photographs on the table in the front hall it was hard to believe his two children were of his blood. Larry was tall and attractive, with dark, perpetually tousled hair. Tanya, four years Larry's junior, was gaining on him in height, and had dyed her hair from brown to blonde. She sat at the kitchen table with her friend Jessica, who had spent Friday night sleeping over at the Trask residence, and both girls lingered over bowls of cereal. Their attention was on the deck of tarot cards spread out on the checkered tablecloth.
"Hey," said Larry breathlessly as he entered the room. Wrapped up in the cards, Tanya ignored him, but Jessica's eyes followed him to the fridge where he got himself a bottle of water. Larry never noticed her.
"Green is a nice color on you," Jessica commented casually, admiring Larry's tracksuit. She wrapped a finger around a curl of her hair.
"Oh. Thanks," replied a distant Larry, his back to the girls. It was fortunate for Tanya he was unable to see the irritated glare she was giving him.
Tanya spoke up. "Jess, I don't see the Prince of Cups anywhere in the deck. Do you think you left it in your bag upstairs?"
"I don't think so…"
"Can you check?"
Jessica stood up, issuing a loud sigh. "Fine, fine."
Only after the girl was up the steps did Tanya say what she had been thinking. "God! I thought I would have to break her off you with a chisel!"
"Hmm?" Larry gave his sister a curious look. He was drinking his water, oblivious to the world around him.
"Good morning, Larry! The earth says hello!" Tanya tilted her chair back and knocked on his head with a knuckle, having long ago mastered the annoyed baby sister voice.
He made a face. "Sorry. I spaced out."
"What's up?"
"Has Dad called at all today?" Not a direct answer, but Tanya picked up on his thoughts immediately.
"Nope. Not a word since Thursday. He didn't return my call. Uncle Robert is stopping by this afternoon though to check up on us and make dinner…he's pretty mad at Dad for all these late nights."
"I think we're going to move again soon." He spoke the words before he realized they were on his tongue, but as soon as they were released he knew in his gut he had touched on some of the unease he was feeling that morning.
Tanya was aghast. She leapt out of her seat and cornered him against the kitchen counter. "What? No way! We just moved—Dad hasn't even unpacked all his boxes yet!"
"I know, I know," Larry replied, raising a hand to calm her down. "Look, I'm sorry I said anything. Dad never talked to me about moving, it's just a feeling I had."
That pacified her for the moment, but she crossed her arms over her chest and scowled as if hoping to drive a confession out of him. "You had a feeling? Larry, are you all right?"
"I'm kinda under the weather, yeah," he answered, waving her off. The knot in his stomach tightened. "Just ignore me."
Jessica's voice came from the top of the staircase: "Hey, Tanya! It's not in my backpack!"
Tanya stomped her foot. "Great! It's bad enough all my friends are drooling over my big brother, it turns out he's a space case too!" She turned around in a huff and stormed up the steps to argue with Jessica. Larry was left alone in the kitchen to fend for himself.
"Just ignore me," Larry repeated.
He glanced at the table. Tanya's way of dealing with being uprooted so often was to latch onto whatever fads or interests the girls at her new school liked in order to secure a quick friend. With Summerduck and Jessica MacNeil came tarot cards. They had interesting names: The Hierophant, The Chariot, Temperance, The Hanged Man…one specifically caught Larry's eye. It was lying upside down, or "reversed" as Tanya would refer to it, and the image was of an ornate silver wheel suspended in the sky, a sphinx at its top and a devil at its bottom, the four corners branded with the symbols for the zodiac signs of Taurus, Scorpio, Leo and Aquarius.
Larry whispered its name. "The Wheel of Fortune."
"Larry!" It was Tanya's scolding voice that surprised him; taking in every detail of the tarot card, he hadn't heard either girl come back down. "Don't mess up our arrangement!"
Jessica put her hands on her hips. "Oh Tanya, he probably didn't mean to…Larry! I'll tell your fortune!" The girl eagerly grabbed his hand, her face lighting up.
Larry slipped his hand out of hers, careful not to brush her off too harshly, and said, "I don't believe in that stuff."
Jessica looked almost hurt. "Well, it could be just for fun…"
His hand touching his temple, Larry closed his eyes and shook his head. "No. But don't let me get in your way. I'm going upstairs and back to bed. Later."
Larry exited the kitchen, forgetting the tarot card he had dropped at his feet.
---
Larry decided to take a shower before hitting his aching head against a pillow. He liked the water hot to the point where it almost scalded, and let the bathroom fill with steam. He even started to hum, certain that his little sister and her friend were far from hearing range. The water drenching the top of his head, Larry closed his eyelids, only to see two red, glowing eyes staring back at him from the darkness--robotic eyes that lacked feeling or compassion.
"What's wrong with me?" Larry murmured aloud. What was it about that dream-- no different from any other dream he'd had since the day he appeared on Earth--that rattled him so? What was this feeling of importance, like it was real—and why did he keep thinking about his faraway father?
The clean, euphoric sensation Larry possessed when he got into the shower disappeared, and he was in the same confused rut as before. After putting on some fresh sweatpants he wiped the steam off the mirror and gazed into the familiar face that greeted him there. Tired eyes stared back at him, offering no new information.
Thoughts drifted back to the last phone conversation he had with his father. A "routine communication" as he would coldly refer to it when angry, it was the usual formalities: "How's school?" "How's work?" "Are you coming home?" And so on. It was a rare moment in time for father and son to share a heart to heart, and it was impossible for Bolivar to open up on a phone. However, last time had been different.
"This is my most important project yet, Lawrence. I won't pretend I don't know how difficult these last few years have been for you and your sister, but soon you will understand everything. I've done everything for you, you know that."
The memory coming back to him, Larry murmured aloud, "Dad…something's happened to Dad."
---
What finally broke Larry's troubled reverie was the sound of something shattering downstairs, like glass. Under normal circumstances he would have thought nothing of it, blaming the girls' clumsiness, but that particular morning he found himself hurrying down to the family room to see what had happened. The television was on, and Larry caught a brief glimpse of the monster movie they were watching—a big blue ape flung a car tire at an unseen foe. His eyes fell upon the broken glass on the floor, and then Tanya, who stood over it, her gaze transfixed on the screen. Both she and Jessica were oddly silent.
"Hey, Tanya--" Larry frowned. She thinks I'm the space case? "You broke a glass! What are you two d--?"
"Shut up!" Tanya hissed, and it was then that Larry saw her face. The color had vanished from her skin, and her eyes were wide with something like fright. Jessica was holding a pillow close to her chest on the couch and biting her lower lip. His sister's head snapped back to watch what was unfolding on the television.
Larry's voice died in his throat as the reality of the situation slowly dawned upon him. It was no monster movie they were watching—he recognized the bug in the lower left corner of the screen advertising Channel 8 News. Urgent words scrolled across the bottom of the television: This is not a hoax. Channel 8 is right here with our viewers witnessing this bizarre event.
Bigfoot's bouncing blue brother was no longer onscreen; instead there was a boy with green-tinted skin and an impossibly long, slimy tongue mugging for the camera. He leapt atop a streetlight with the natural ability of a toad. More words flashed: Live footage from Bayville, New York.
The news camera suspended from an above helicopter jerked to the left in order to capture more of the stunning scene. A black woman rose into the air (Flying! She's flying!), and even from a distance Larry could see her eyes were glowing white. From her fingertips came bright bolts of electricity, and she used her amazing power to blast another flying car into oblivion.
There were more people—super-humans--monsters—running through the city streets of Bayville. Among them was a boy who could make the ground shake with a motion of his hand, a girl who could phase through solid matter like a ghost, and a boy who could only be described as a "living pincushion" given how he unsheathed spikes from his chest and shot them out with great force.
A newscaster's excited voice crackled on the airwaves. "More choppers are arriving on the scene to a get a look—police are nowhere to be found—Ernie, keep the camera steady! The whole world has to see this!"
And then, there it was. The jerky camera pulled back, exposing the enemy the strange, super-powered freaks were fighting. Larry's headache returned in full force, almost knocking him off his feet when he saw it. A towering metal behemoth with glowing eyes advanced through downtown Bayville with slow, deliberate steps. Its chest cavity opened, revealing a launcher for heat-seeking missiles.
The Sentinel was no figment of his imagination. Seeing it on the television right in front of him lifted the fog from Larry's memory, and it all came rushing back.
Sentinel—guardian of the human race—why are you doing this—don't come near me—Tanya—
"Dad!" Larry screamed.
Red eyes—all red—I never asked for this—Fury--tint all your dreams red like—red—red like--BLOOD!
"Larry! Larry! Oh, God!" Tanya shrieked after watching her brother collapse. His head slammed against the floor and she feared the worst. Jessica was on her feet, but could only stare and tremble as the world suddenly became a very different place.
"--Rest assured we're doing everything in our power to get to the bottom of this--"
"What's your take, Senator? Are they men or monsters; and if they are human, can we trust them?"
"--Alien invaders or, or some kind of strange mutations?"
---
Miles away in a dim motel room, Irene Adler felt the familiar sensation of a vision coming to pass. She did not need a television set or a radio to know what was happening in Bayville. A small shudder ran through her body, despite the warmth of her surroundings.
What a very busy day this will be, Irene thought with a grim smile.
And, for Larry Trask, the wheel of fortune began to turn.
To Be Continued…
A/N: Hooray for symbolism! The reversed tarot card did give a hint to Larry's fate, as the future is anything but uncertain in this story. To answer a couple questions:
EmeraldKatsEye: The Acolytes probably won't make personal appearances in this fic, so no Romy. Sorry.
Steven P. P.: Yes, this will be something of an AU fic, but there won't be any serious, life-altering changes to the episodes in Seasons 3 and 4.
me: Nice analysis! You're not far off the mark.
Thanks for reading, everyone! --Sandoz