The Sleep Patrol: A Love Story
Doctor Time was soundly asleep in his bed. His room was an ordinary suburban bedroom – a double-bed in which he slept alone. By the side of the bed was a small table on which were three, large alarm-clocks and an electronic digital radio-alarm. The wallpaper behind the headboard was decorated with clock-faces and there was a copy of Salvador Dali's painting, 'The Persistence of Memory' with its image of melting clocks, on the wall.
Time was under the bed-covers, on his back, mouth agape, snoring noisily. He was alone in his bed until suddenly, out of nowhere, Holly the Sleepwalker appeared straddling Time's comatose body. She was wearing a short, black camisole top and her hair was tied up into two matching top-knots. Time was completely unaware of the young woman sitting on top of him.
"Ooh," she whispered. "You're all alone in your big, old bed. Are you always alone? Are you so freaked out on your clocks that you can't get a bed-buddy?" She reached out and took hold of his chin and shook it gently back and forth. "No you can't, can you? You can't get anybody to share your bed with you, can you? Poor, poor, Doctor Time.
"My, look at this!" She pulled back the bed cover to reveal that Time's pyjamas were decorated with pictures of clocks. Holly sighed. "You poor, poor man! You're never gonna get a woman while you're still wearing this sort of stuff! What is the matter with you?"
She stepped off the bed and began to pace the room. After a moment, she stopped and wagged her finger at the supine Time: "People like you … you … You make me so angry! I was gonna help you, you pathetic little man but now … Now I'm just gonna … You know … Like, mess with you!"
#
Meanwhile, that very same night, two other individuals were having a secret liaison. And it was about to take place in the air above Larry Trainor's apartment block - which was in a less than salubrious part of Manhattan.
While Larry was sleeping soundly and without Larry being aware, the Negative Man rose up out of Trainor's body. The energy being emerged from its human symbiotic partner and headed purposefully and effortlessly through the masonry and roof of the building until it was hovering motionless about thirty feet above the roof. It paused there and seemed to be waiting for something or someone to arrive. The energy-man did not have long to wait for shortly there was a crackling in the air in front of him and from out of the brilliant light, Alice Wired-for-Sound appeared before him. Immediately the two embraced and kissed each other passionately.
#
Shortly after Alice's sudden appearance, two further figures suddenly appeared out of nowhere but these two were on the roof below where the Negative Man and Alice were still in a steamy clinch. One of the newcomers was a man dressed in a strange green and blue costume dominated by images of clock-faces while the other was a young woman dressed in blue-striped pyjamas and wearing large, bunny-rabbit slippers on her feet. They were both looking up at the passionate twosome floating in the air above the roof of the apartment block.
"See! This is what I mean!" the pyjama-clad young woman complained. "It's just not acceptable!"
"And they're both members of the Doom Patrol?" the man in the clock-suit queried.
"Yes! Of course! What are you saying, Clarence? I thought you fought the Doom Patrol? Otherwise, why would I have brought you here?" The Sleepwalker's suspicions were suddenly aroused. "You know, I'm beginning to have my doubts about you! Please remind me, Doctor Time: why did I bring you here?"
The Doctor tried to rescue his inability to remember the two figures he saw floating in the air above him. "I fought them," he confirmed with some surety. "It's just that I don't remember seeing those two before, though the fuzzy man looks familiar … Yes, I'm fairly sure that I've seen him before … but not the fuzzy girl. What are those tentacle things coming from her waist? It looks messy. Not all girls have those, do they? The girl you're gonna fix me up with … Does she have tentacles like that?"
Holly did not reply. She just looked annoyed.
Time realized he was rambling and decided to be more assertive: "What exactly do you want me to do?" he said, steadily.
"Stop them from doing that for a start! It's disgusting! Out here in the open like that." She then turned and shouted at N-Man and Alice: "Get a room, you perverts!"
"What do you want me to do?" Time repeated.
Holly was insistent: "Use one of your time-machines! Stop them!"
Doctor Time smiled. "I can stop them alright. I can freeze them in time," he said. And he reached for a long gun-like contraption that was strapped to the back-pack he was wearing.
As Holly watched, Doctor Time fired the device at N-Man and Alice and they were immediately lit-up by a flash of bright light and then they were gone, disappeared entirely from view.
"Where are they?" Holly demanded. "Did you disintegrate them?" she asked enthusiastically.
"No. They are not disintegrated. They have been frozen in time at the exact moment that the ray struck them. We can no longer see them as they are now stuck forever in a past that is continually further and further away from us, here, where we are, in the present."
"Doctor, you are a genius!"
"Yes. I know," he smiled modestly. "Now, are you gonna fix me up with a woman, as you promised? A proper woman mind, who's gonna like me the way I am and not just because I'm a super-villain." He held the time-ray gun on his hip and leered provocatively at Holly.
"Oh, Clarence, don't be such a prat!" Holly made a face and dismissed Time's threat with a wave of the hand. "I made you a promise and I'll keep it."
"Now?" Doctor Time asked.
"Yes. Now! Are you ready?"
"Yes, yes, I'm ready!"
Holly snapped her fingers and Time disappeared into thin air. "I hope you like her," Holly added. Now, I'll have to get a move on. I have lots more work to do before dawn."
#
It was early morning when Rita rushed into Larry's bedroom. "Is this how you found him?" she asked even before she had removed her raincoat.
"Yes. I haven't moved him," Enid Bassett replied. She stood, looking helpless, at the bottom of Larry's bed. She then added: "Don't you think we should phone for an ambulance?"
"I told you on the phone, Enid. There's no one in a hospital that has sufficient skill to help him," Rita replied.
"What can we do then?"
"I'm thinking." Rita tried to remain upbeat though she was afraid that she had no real idea as to what they could do. "It looks like the Negative Man has left Larry."
"For good? Oh, dear … Will he die?" Enid blubbered.
"Eventually," Rita said pragmatically. "He can survive for much longer than the minute that originally was all that he good endure, but even so, he's in a coma at present and eventually his life systems will shut down and he will die."
"Then there's nothing we can do," Enid added as she began to sob pitifully.
Rita looked at Enid properly for the first time and she was somewhat shocked by what she saw. Enid was wearing a see-through negligée top, tiny black knickers and a pair of fluffy, black mules.
"Have you been making a porno movie?" Rita asked.
"No!" Enid giggled. She seemed amused by Rita's implication. "This is my usual night attire."
"Really?" Rita replied in disbelief. "And this is how you dress when you come to Larry's apartment?"
"Yes! We often have breakfast together," she said smugly.
"I see," Rita commented icily.
"Oh Rita, don't be such a prim, stuck-up …."
Rita interrupted Enid: "You just listen to me now, Miss Bassett: if you want to continue your relationship with the Doom Patrol you had better start toeing-the-line. Do you understand me?"
` And just at that moment, two other people came to the door to Larry's bedroom. One was a neighbour and friend of Enid's, Johnny Drake while the other, was another neighbour, Enid Bassett – this one dressed in a punk t-shirt and distressed/ripped jeans.
"What's happened?" the newly-arrived Enid said.
"Oops!" the other Enid laughed and immediately disappeared.
"Who was that other girl?" Johnny asked. "She looked just like you, Enid!"
"Well put it back in your pants, Tiger!" Enid replied to Johnny. And then turning, with more urgency, to Rita: "What's happened to Larry?"
Rita looked puzzled but swiftly brought the real Enid up-to-date with everything that had happened.
"So who was that other girl? Could it have been Rouge?" Enid asked.
"Possibly, though I haven't seen her teleport away like that before." "Someone new then?"
"Maybe."
"And she's done this to Larry. What are we gonna do, Rita?"
Rita was coming to terms with a possible way forward though she would in all honesty have preferred any other option. "We have to find out what's happened to the Negative Man and hopefully we can bring them back together in enough time to save Larry's life."
"So … How are we gonna do that?"
"I think we may have to get in touch with someone who's already knowledgeable about the Negative Man's unique, electro-magnetic signal."
"And who's that?"
"Niles Caulder."
#
The Sleepwalker appeared in another bedroom. It was mid-morning and the sunlight was streaming into the otherwise dark room through a gap in the curtains. A narrow strip of the brightness fell across the bed showing that it was still occupied. The occupant of the bed was a young woman. All that was visible was her dark hair cut into a short Louise Brooks-type bob. It was Rouge, a member of the Brotherhood - arch-foes of the Doom Patrol.
"Sweet-dreams, lovely Rouge," the Sleepwalker whispered. "I guarantee you'll be surprised when you wake-up!" she added playfully.
#
Niles Caulder looked down on the inert body of Larry Trainor. He continued to study Larry, checking his pupils and vital signs as he spoke:
"You know, Rita, you're very lucky I happened to be in Manhattan when you phoned me. I spend very little time in the States these days. Most of my time I'm in Switzerland at - CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research."
"Can you help Larry?" Rita asked ignoring Caulder's boast – a typical trait of Niles Caulder in Rita's experience.
"I have a house in Geneva," he said breaking from his examination, "… overlooking the lake. You should call in. I'd love to catch up with you, chew the fat, as they say, find out everything that you have been up to."
"What about Larry, Niles? Can you help him?"
Caulder smiled and took hold of Rita's hand. "That depends …" he said.
"Depends on what?" Rita asked.
"It depends on whether we can find the Negative Man."
"He has gone then?"
"Oh, yes. He has gone."
"We worked that out! So, can you find him?" Enid asked annoyed and frustrated.
Caulder smiled at Enid before returning his attention to Rita: "Feisty!" he said indicating Enid with a flick of his head. He then took a small electronic gadget, about the size of a mobile phone out of his pocket.
"You gonna phone a friend?" Enid asked mistaking the gizmo for an actual i-phone.
"This, young lady, is a device I made many years ago for tracking the Negative Man."
Caulder held the device over Larry and studied the readings on the device. "The signal is very faint but it points up," he said.
"Up?" Rita queried.
"Yes straight up through the roof," Caulder replied.
"That's good, isn't it?" Enid added. "That's what you'd expect Negative Man to do!"
Caulder uttered a staccato bellow of laughter: "Quite right!" he said. "Let's get to the roof and see where it goes from there. And um… Rita … I want you to have this." He reached into his pocket and handed Rita a small package about the same size as a packet of cigarettes.
"A present?"
"Sort of. Open it."
Rita lifted off the lid to see a small space suit within. Her puzzlement was etched all over her face. "What exactly is it?"
"You'll need it if you're to follow the Negative Man's trail. But let's get to the roof first."
Caulder, Rita, Enid and Johnny headed as quickly as they could to the roof of the apartment block. Caulder looked at his gadget's readings again. "Most strange," he muttered. "The Negative Man literally disappeared approximately thirty feet above us. The trail leads nowhere… Wait. I spoke too soon. The trail does lead off but it's much, much fainter! I calculate from these readings," he said brandishing the device for all to see, "that the Negative Man is in another dimension, or to be more precise, another time dimension."
Caulder looked at Rita but did not say anything.
Rita maintained Caulder's eye-contact. "Niles, do you want to say something or is this all just another of your games?"
Caulder laughed. "It's not a game, Rita! It was never just a game. This suit will protect you as you follow the negative energy trail to where the Negative Man is currently located. It's a marvel of modern micro-technology. You can even use it to fly. The smaller you are, the better it works!"
Rita turned to Enid: "I'm hoping this isn't a trap," she said.
Enid nodded, recognising Rita's signal and took hold of Caulder's hand: "You will answer my question truthfully," she said. "Is this a trap that you have set?"
"No. It is not a trap," Caulder replied under the influence of Enid's power of persuasion.
"If it turns out to be a trap, Niles, you will walk off the edge of this roof-top, do you understand?"
"Enid! That isn't necessary!" Rita blurted.
"I understand," Caulder replied, meekly to Enid's command.
"I wouldn't really let him walk off the roof," Enid replied playfully.
"No, Enid, coz that would make us accomplices to his murder!" Johnny added.
"That's not going to happen," Enid said light-heartedly, before adding, quietly: "… well, probably not."
#
Rita shrank down in size and put on the special suit. Immediately, a heads-up display in her helmet indicated the direction that the Negative Man had taken and another display started the small yet powerful jet-pack attached to the suit. She zoomed into the air, shrinking as she did so and flying faster and faster until she too followed the trail through the time barrier to its destination.
She emerged from out of the time-stream to a scene both shocking and re-assuring, for in front of her, suspended in the air was the Negative Man and Alice Wired-for-Sound still locked in their passionate embrace. Rita expanded her size so that she was of her usual dimensions and she then hovered in the air close by the embracing couple and reaching out touched them both on their shoulders. Immediately, the two electrically-charged beings broke from their clinch and looked at her. The Negative Man disappeared immediately.
"Alice, are you alright?" Rita asked.
"I'm dreamy to the max!" Alice replied stretching out her arms.
"What happened to you and to the Negative Man?"
"He has gone back to Larry."
"Good, then Larry's life is saved. But what happened to you?"
"Love has conquered my heart. It has conquered both our hearts. Time stopped yet it went on for ever. The loop is now complete and we must start again."
"You were trapped in time."
"Yes. We were in an eternity of loveliness."
"Then this was of your own doing? You weren't attacked by anyone and stranded in that moment of time?"
"A man fired a gun at us, so yes, we were attacked," Alice replied.
"Do you know who attacked you?"
"I do know. I have checked and confirmed his phone-number and his identity."
"Then who was it?"
"Clarence Thyme, also known as Doctor Time. You have met him before, I believe?"
"Yes – a long time ago."
"He was with Holly. She brought him and directed him."
"Holly – do you mean that dream girl?"
"Yes. Holly, the Sleepwalker. I shall have to speak to her."
"Alice, we need to get back to the correct moment in time."
"We are already there," Alice said knowingly. "All time is one time and one moment is every moment."
"I don't understand," Rita said.
Alice took Rita's hand and in a crackle of Alice's electrical energy they both descended through the roof of Larry's apartment block and stopped in Larry's bedroom.
#
Larry was already awake and as he was now united with the Negative Man once more, he was feeling well and sitting up.
"What are you all doing in my bedroom?" he asked. And before anyone could answer he noticed Niles Caulder: "Hello, Niles. I'm guessing something unusual has happened?"
"Hello, Larry. It's good to see you."
"We thought you were a gonna," Johnny said. "But you look alright now."
"I feel alright," Larry confirmed.
It was at that moment that Alice and Rita appeared. Rita explained to all that it had been an attack made by Doctor Time and the Sleepwalker.
"You'll remember her," Rita said to Caulder. "She was an associate of your old friend, Mister Nobody. She's been the source of a lot of trouble for us while you've been swanning around in Europe."
"An unusual ally for Doctor Time," Caulder replied. "But I guessed that something unusual was happening when I noticed that Alice was with the Negative Man."
"How did you know they were together?" Rita asked.
"Why I saw them of course." He held up his gizmo for all to see. "Didn't I mention that my electro-energy scanner could track Alice's unique energy signal as well? It was clear to me that they were together." No-one replied to Caulder's comment so he added: "No? Well, my memory must be getting poorer in my old age!"
"You always had a selective memory! Some things never change," Rita muttered.
"Well, thank you for asking me to come and rescue you, again," Caulder said smugly as he glanced at his wristwatch. "But I really must be going now. I have a dinner engagement with someone high up in LexCorp and I wouldn't want to keep him waiting. He's promised to fund some interesting research that I'm following."
"And who exactly are you meeting? It's not like you to be shy about name-dropping important people," Rita said.
"Actually, it's Lex Luther. Very interesting fellow," Caulder replied.
"Of course," Rita replied.
Caulder smiled, ignoring Rita's snide comment. "We must keep in touch. Larry, Rita: it's been like old times! Alice, you've never looked more radiant!"
"The sunshine is mine, and yours!" Alice called after him.
With Caulder gone the others relaxed somewhat.
"That was strange," Larry said. "I never expected to see him here."
"It was unfortunately essential," Rita replied.
"Come on, Johnny," Enid said. "Let's leave all the love-birds to do whatever they do when we're not around!" Enid then ushered Johnny out of the apartment.
"We're not love-birds!" Rita shouted after Enid.
"Yeah, whatever!" Enid said shutting the door.
"I'm a love-bird!" Alice said dreamily.
Rita smiled: "Yes you are, Alice."
"What have I missed?" Larry asked as he glanced between the two women.
#
Holly, otherwise known as the Sleepwalker, stood in the corner of another dark bedroom. She watched as Monsieur Mallah slept noisily on a huge divan bed in the centre of the room. Quietly, she tip-toed towards the bed and peered at the sleeping gorilla. "Hello, hello," she whispered. "Have I got a job for you?" She nodded and smiled: "Yes, I think I have!"
She was about to climb onto Mallah's bed when there was a crackle of energy announcing that Alice Wired-for-Sound was about to make an entrance.
"Found you!" Alice announced.
The entire room was lit up by Alice's energy tentacles brushing sparks off the ceiling and walls. One of her tentacles snaked around Holly, to be followed by several more until Holly was lifted off the floor.
"Let go of me, you witch!" Holly screamed.
Mallah woke, furious at the sudden noise disturbing his sleep. He immediately lashed out in all directions. Mayhem swiftly followed as Mallah bounced around the room, crashing through furniture while swinging fists at the two immaterial girls.
Alice held on firmly to the Sleepwalker and teleported away leaving Mallah alone in his ruined room.
The door to Mallah's room opened to reveal the Brain.
"Have you lost your senses?" the Brain demanded.
"Sorry," Mallah muttered, now calm. "It must have been a nightmare. I thought two humans were in my room."
The Brain, in his crab-like, robotic exo-skeleton, turned on the spot and without another word, left Mallah to ponder his recent experience.
#
Rouge awoke from her sleep to feel a hand's touch moving down her back. She snapped awake at once and turned to see the gormless smile on a middle-aged man – a stranger in her bedroom. She immediately changed her shape into that of a powerfully-muscled, female minotaur and lashed out with both fists making contact with the interloper. The man crashed to the floor of the room as the Minotaur stepped off the bed and towered threateningly over him.
"This isn't right!" Doctor Time screamed trying to protect himself with his arms. "Not what I wanted! Holly! Holly! ... Holly!"
[END]