I don't the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Please let me know what you think.
The Real Empire of Invisible Man the First.
Griffin flinched as his naked feet snapped a twig as he entered the clearing where he'd left the Martians. There were three of the multiple tentacled bear-sized molluscs, and they were staring in his general direction… or rather where he was although they would have seen the roll of paper in his hands detailing the plans for attack and defence; he honestly hoped that the aliens didn't have the technology that could pick him out easily or if their tentacles and their eyes had the kind of sensors that could pick him out.
So far the aliens had shown an impressive agreeability to working with him even if he was betraying his own race, but looking to his own personal interests had long since been his way.
"Aheh, you're all here, are you? Good," Griffin said as he walked across the clearing, his invisible eyes darting all around the clearing for any signs of the Martian Tripods; the League had by now found that bitchy whore Murray after he'd attacked her, and she'd had warned them about his new allegiances with the Martians, but Griffin was hoping they had enough understanding to know he could do more for them than to simply discount his invisibility.
It seemed to work. He was bringing them top-secret plans that had been foolishly left behind at the museum, but every time he was with the Martians, Griffin worried that sooner or later they would try to kill him, deeming him useless. There was no doubt in his mind they would likely try to kill him, it was how his mind worked.
Besides, after Thomas Marvel and Kemp's betrayal, Griffin had learnt that the only person whom he could honestly count on was himself. As he laid the plans down on the ground and he began to explain the intricacies of what the British army was planning on doing to stop the Martians, Griffin let his mind wander. Ever since his desperate experiment, made when he had gotten extremely little sleep which had made him desperate enough to test his invisibility process on a cat, of all things before he'd deemed the whole thing safe enough for him to use on himself.
Griffin was many things, suicidal was not one of them. In any case, it had taken a lot of time for the cat to vanish and he'd been worried the invisibility process would not work on it. He didn't know what had happened to the cat; by now it had to have been killed, either because someone tracking it down had accidentally driven it into the path of a horse and cab or something like that, or if it had died of hunger. He didn't care. The cat had served its purpose. But when Griffin had used the process on himself, it hadn't taken him long to see the mistake he had made. When he had discovered it was possible to make something invisible, Griffin had seen hundreds of possibilities and prospects for it.
An invisible person could become a thief, a spy, a saboteur. An invisible spy could sneak into factories, business offices any time they wished while spies could stand in a room for hours and hours and listen and watch while they followed their targets around while they trained themselves to be extremely quiet so their footfalls were not heard, and they kept their breathing so quiet that it wouldn't be heard. An invisible thief wouldn't have to worry about being caught, they couldn't be seen, they would not be seen. An invisible burglar could smash open a window or break through a door, and they could get in and out or they could stay, making the house owners think the burglar had got in and had gotten out, but all the time they would not realise the burglar was still there.
Or what about assassins, murderers?
An invisible man could effortlessly spy on a target, but an assassin would be unseen for a long period of time. Say, a king's bodyguard checked a room thoroughly for any hidden threats to their master, only to find nothing and reassure them of the safety of the room… only for an invisible assassin to kill them in the dead of night. Panic when the death was revealed in the morning. Huge mystery…and all the time the invisible killer would have escaped.
Or what about an army of invisible soldiers?
Granted, his process made it hard for soldiers to really enter a battlefield, but those were trivial difficulties, but Griffin had been so…obsessed with proving himself right that he didn't stop to think. It wasn't until the pain of the transformation had wore off and he was invisible that he had made several thoughtless mistakes. The first was he had not thought about finding a way of turning something invisible caused by his process visible again, and he only discovered that when he experienced for himself the limitations of living as an invisible man in a smoky, polluted city such as London.
Griffin remembered the way the soot and ash had settled on his shoulders, and if that wasn't bad enough he had also gotten dirt on his feet; the only way he could have gone unnoticed with such obvious clues to his presence was to stand still and go unnoticed.
When he ate or drank, it didn't have the decency of not being seen so anyone could see him digest his meal. It was a gruesome and unpleasant discovery, but it was one of many he had mentally documented. After he'd gotten some clothes, Griffin had formed a plan to use his scientific contacts to gather equipment and chemicals and drugs, and he'd sent them to Iping.
A big mistake.
Griffin had never enjoyed socialising, and in his invisible state, he was not interested in someone trying to discover too much about him. And everyone in the village was. The vicar had wanted him to come so he could confide in him, the children had followed him around, the innkeeper and his bitch of a wife had hounded him, the villagers had been gossiping about him, spying on him, attempting to break into the rooms he'd rented while he'd tried to work on his cure. He would have found a cure eventually, he knew he would; physics and optics were his specialities, but Griffin was a trained scientist in many fields, so finding a cure would have been easy. Except it didn't happen. His patience with the villagers had neared the end and even when he had burgled the vicarage and read that article written by Kemp on optical density, Griffin had wanted to kick himself for stupidly going to Iping in the first place.
Griffin was not stupid. While heading to Kent had been a truly good idea because all of the pollutions of London was not present there in the fresh countryside, he had made the mistake of going to a village. He could have rented a cottage or something, supporting himself on theft while he could cure himself with a greater degree of secrecy without needing to worry about someone interfering, but the stress of his unmasking in the village when he had let his temper get the better of him, the mess with the tramp, and finally recovering at Kemp's house and relating to the other man his story before he was betrayed had driven him to the point of madness.
After he had escaped Kemp, Griffin had realised that he was more powerful, hence the birth of Invisible Man the First.
Only he was not powerful enough, and he had only just narrowly escaped a mob after he turned a young man around his own age invisible and set him loose. Griffin was just relieved Kemp and the mob had killed that Albino, and during the distraction, he had gone off on his own. After hiding in several places, committing small crimes to keep himself alive, Griffin finally found a more comfortable place to live.
The Correctional Academy for Wayward Gentlewomen.
Griffin had treated the place as a brothel/restaurant/hotel. The staff couldn't see him, and they like the girls were so sure the spirit (namely himself) who was forcing himself on the girls and knocking them up several of the girls; Griffin had no idea if the process was passed onto children, but he didn't care.
Unfortunately, he hadn't realised he had gotten too big, even when Murray, Quatermain and Nemo had turned up under the pretence of personally checking the school out so they could send in a young girl, but in truth, they were there for him. Griffin hadn't known who they were but he had been more interested in his own pleasures. If he had known the truth then he would have escaped as soon as he could. Unfortunately, they caught him, and he had developed a strong loathing for Murray, who'd splashed him with white paint from the decorators who'd been doing the place up for some time. And he was forced to work for the British government as a result.
The pay was good, as was the promise of a cure, but if they thought he was naive enough to believe they wouldn't want his invisibility technology then they were more stupid than he thought. Griffin didn't really mind, although he didn't like the thought of losing his advantage.
Still, he had done his bit for King and Country.
He had discovered M was truthfully James Moriarty, the killer of Sherlock Holmes.
He had helped the League steal the Cavorite, and helped them stop Moriarty from his insane attack on the city, but when he had seen the start of this mess with the Martians, Griffin had realised humanity didn't have a hope. So why not make a deal with them, his life and some slice of the world for himself while the Martians occupied their part?
It was so simple.
Granted, Griffin was prepared to double-cross them as he had done with the League, but he needed to find a decent way of going about it. He needed time to understand the Martians, their technology, their motives for being here so he could find a weakness he could exploit.
He was Invisible Man, the First. He had to protect his empire.