THE GOLDEN AGE

Part I

By Desmond Reddick

Premiani Manor
The next day

Cheryl slammed the tap all the way to the right and the steaming water stopped immediately. Opening the shower door and reaching to the hook, she grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her body. It felt nice. She’d never felt a towel so soft, and it had been days since a proper shower. She took a moment to press the towel to her face and then got to work drying herself off. Finishing moments later, she stood before the steam-covered mirror and wiped her palm in an arc, revealing her obscured reflection.

It was the first time in years she’d been able to look past the scars on her arms and the small love handles that are only barely there but are oh-so visible to her. The hair was enough to make her smile at her reflection. She considered that a break-through.

tok tok

“Who is it?” Cheryl asked.

“It’s just Rita. Is everything okay?”

“Yup, be out in a second.”

Cheryl felt pretty good about herself for the first time in a little while but there was no way she was getting dressed in front of another woman, let alone one as beautiful as Elasti-Girl. She pulled on the plain white underwear and sports bra before stepping into her jeans. They were a little big on her but her hips kept them from falling, so that was a positive. She pulled a plain black tee over her head and pulled it into place over her torso.

“Wow! I love your hair!” Rita squealed as Cheryl exited the bathroom.

Cheryl tousled her hair with one hand as she tilted her head down.

“Y’think?”

“It’s hot!”

“Thanks,” Cheryl said, blushing. “I figured if I was going to embrace ‘Cherry Bomb’ like Dr. Dayton says I should, I might as well look the part.”

“I’m glad Steve is already helping you,” Rita said, placing a hand on Cheryl’s shoulder.

“He really is! He seems like a cool guy.”

Rita blushed and stifled a giggle.

“The best,” she said. “Look, the boys and I have to head out to deal with an emergency, but Chief said for you to feel at home. Take a look at the computer and feel free to introduce yourself to any other members of the family that you meet. Please don’t try to unlock any locked doors, though. We have some people who prefer to – “

“RITA! Let’s go!”

Robotman’s bellow carried through the halls of Premiani Manor. Rita smiled at Cheryl, and then she turned and jogged out of the room.

“We’ll give you the full tour when we get back!” The sentence finished as a shout from down the hall.

And with that, the boredom set in.

Cheryl walked the halls of Premiani Manor for almost forty-five minutes before coming to the observatory. In that time of wandering, she curved through hallways that weirdly seemed as though they would cross each other at points but did not. She even walked by a windowed courtyard that impossibly – because it was located on the third floor – looked out onto a field of tall grass with small trees of the variety that reminded her of the Discovery Channel documentaries. It was there she saw a light-haired gorilla that she waved at, and who waved back at her.

The observatory was another beautiful thing to behold. The huge convex glass window arched out over the foothills from Premiani Manor’s high perch on Drake Mountain. The room looked upon a panoramic view of Midway City. The small city looked even tinier from so high and far away. It was funny because she had always thought of it as the ‘Big City’ from her suburban haunts. Perspective was a funny thing.

The interior of the observatory was just as awe-inspiring as its view. The huge open ceiling extended three storeys up. Suspended from the ceiling were an old twin engine plane, a race car that reminded Cheryl of the Elvis movies her dad used to watch, and a washed-out wooden carved woman. Though weather-worn long ago, Cheryl could see the statue had a blindfold and an extended arm with a missing hand on the wooden bust.

There was a small console shaped into a metallic desk right up against the window. It looked to Cheryl more like a mixing board from a rap video than it did any other computer she had seen before. It was far from the strangest thing in the building, so she shrugged it off and stepped up to it. Scanning its buttons, she didn’t recognize anything except for a QWERTY keyboard set into the center.

“How do you even turn this thing on?” she asked herself.

[designate: Legacy online. Voice activation verified: Tate, Cheryl/codename: Cherry Bomb]

“Uh…what? Where’s the screen?”

[Screen: activated]

The huge window blacked out, and a patch of several view screens displayed world news and surveillance cameras specifically placed throughout Midway City. Cheryl recognized the mall her mom used to take her to before realizing how weird this all was.

“Bingo! Thanks! Uhm…How do I use you?”

[Codename: Cherry Bomb needs only address designate: Legacy]

“Legacy?”

[Affirmative// Awaiting directive]

“Legacy, tell me: who is the Doom Patrol?”

[Collating files…]

A progress bar appeared in front of Cheryl and began to fill quickly with white light. The screen remained the same except for a black patch in the center where several lines of text appeared rapidly line-by-line.

[Search complete: 1172 unencrypted files]

“Legacy, open the first file. The oldest one.”

[Affirmative]

The screen again went dark and opened back up on slideshow of old black and white photos, yellowed with age. It was almost like the beginning of a Ken Burns documentary. Only, the voice that spoke was The Chief’s…

The Journal of Dr. Niles Caulder
March 15, 1915

Though I have made a habit of dabbling in the strange – and have indeed been removed from both Oxford and Cambridge as a result – today has singularly been the most curious, advantageous and exhilarating day of my young life. I fear that I will never find the vagaries of science and advancing technologies of the future as captivating as they were but yesterday. And yet, this does not vex me in the slightest!

I have written for some time of my dealings with a wealthy and enigmatic man whose name is unknown even to me, his beneficiary! The Baron, as he is known, is Germanic by birth and surrounds himself with likewise individuals. This man has supported my radical research into increasing the longevity of life even in the wake of my expulsion from Cambridge.

However, it has been only in the recent weeks and months that his incessant urging for completion of my immortality elixir has become threatening. I have been able to stabilize the formula to add longevity to life in mosquitoes, frogs, and rats. In many cases, I have doubled their lifespan, but my test subjects have all died excruciating deaths. The search for immortality continues.

Nevertheless, my benefactor’s insistences have increased to the point where one of his associates came to my small abode here in Tristan da Cunha by submarine warning that I had a week to have results to show The Baron.

That week is now at an end, and I fear my results are lackluster.

I was stirred from my lab this morning. A great booming reverberated through along the shoreline and up the first rocky embankment that protected me from onlookers. I heard a great uproarious furor down the hill in The Settlement. I knew at this time that The Baron had come for his miraculous Immortality Elixir, and yet it was a miracle that did not exist.

I gathered my notes into my attaché case, clutched my most recent attempt at formulating the elixir in my hand and raced down the hillside in the opposite direction of Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, but not before intentionally knocking over my Bunsen burner. My split second reasoning for this was two-fold: 1) I had hoped to destroy any extraneous records of my process so as to ensure it would not be duplicated, and 2) if thought I perished in the fire, it might have bought me time to secure an escape.

My legs took great leaping strides down the mountainside toward the coast. I feel as though it was only my fear of discovery that kept me from falling and decorating the northwestern coast of Tristan da Cunha with my work, and, indeed, my body. I clutched the vial of elixir to my chest and tumbled to the ground.

I was only barely able to stop rolling before coming to the edge of the island and toppling into the sea. I knew that I was mere kilometre from an embankment that houses a small dock and, with any luck, a fishing boat.

I was but only a few meters from the dock when my heretofore unseen pursuers made themselves known. A great explosion rocked the dock only seconds before I was to step foot on it. A blast of heat washed over me as I was thrown back onto the ground. Slivers and shard of wood, some of it smouldering, rained down upon me.

As luck would have it, the vial was still in my hand, but my attaché case was nowhere to be found.

I turned behind me to find uniformed soldiers, the likes of which would accompany The Baron on his visits. Their men numbered in the dozens, and their rifles and pistols were all trained on me. In the short gulf between us sat my attaché case, black smoke and flames billowing from it.

A man emerged from the throng of The Baron’s soldiers. His height was remarkable, and his monocle, glinting in the light of the rising sun told me that it was Captain Zahl. The man would occasionally accompany The Baron, but often appear as his proxy, threatening worse than death, were I to fail his master.

“Herr Doktor, ve haff come to collect on what is owed our master.”

He spoke with menace. I pleaded for more time.

“More time for you to escape vith all the progress The Baron has kindly provided you compensation for?”

He had me dead to rights, as they say. Had I stayed in my laboratory, I may have been able to plead for my life, but my intention to escape was impossible to hide.

I tell you with no exaggeration that The Baron’s men were cocking their hammers, set to put an end to our agreement.  when the scene exploded in gunfire. Only, I was completely unharmed. In fact, The Baron’s men never got off a shot. I say no less than fifteen of The Baron’s men were cut down in half as many seconds.

Zahl and the remaining men fled in the melee. I did not look behind me until the gunfire ceased. I lay on my stomach with my hands covering my head, the vial of elixir tucked into my chest pocket.

“Dr. Caulder, I presume!”

I rolled over onto my back, and, propped up on my scuffed elbows, I beheld a bizarre sight. Three men stood on a large wooden ship, the kind I read about as a child in pirate stories. They all held firearms and stood in a haze of gun smoke.

In the middle stood a man with a flamboyant red shirt open to the middle of his chest, a captain’s hat and devilish facial hair holding a small musket. To his right, a young man clad only khaki safari attire with an elephant gun. To his left, an immaculately-dressed turbaned Hindu held a small pistol. The man in the middle stepped forward through the dissipating smoke to the bow of his ship.

“My name is Captain Grim, and this is my Doom Patrol! I’m afraid we need your help.”