Lost Friends, Chapter One

“Here’s the situation,” said Dylan.

Behind him the many viewscreens of the meeting room in The Four Heroes’ house flashed into life, readouts and graphs and schematics blinking into being across their luminous many-coloured surfaces. All those assembled around the long table looked attentively on, as Dylan indicated the main monitor that bore an electronic aerial map of Nottingham. Over a part of it, a red-glowing circle blinked insistently.

“In the small hours of this morning, a rift appeared above the city at these co-ordinates,” Dylan began. “We don’t know what exactly it is, but the high tachyon levels suggest a temporal disturbance of some kind.”

“Oui, I concur,” said Dylan’s girlfriend Phoenix, consulting the figures on the science-screen before her.

“As do I,” continued The Chancellor, who was sitting opposite with the other members of the Next Four. “But it is no ordinary time-portal, and it owes nothing to the time-travel technology I devised. The power-levels I am seeing within it suggest the potential for a highly destructive force.”

“They sure do,” Dylan agreed grimly. “It’s been growing steadily ever since it opened, and projections are it’ll peak later on today. When it does, the whole region of Nottingham beneath it will be totalled.”

“Why then, we shall evacuate the unfortunates that dwell there at once!” said D’Carthage. “It should be poor sport indeed to be underneath the fellow when the sky falls!”

“I don’t think it’s going to be that easy,” Bret declared, looking closely at the main screen. “Dylan, is that rift exactly where I think it is?”

“To the last micron,” his fellow hero confirmed. “It’s right on top of the Ring of Fire.”

As one, the company saw this was to be a far harder task than any mere evacuation. Out in the unrestored zones of Nottingham that had been laid to waste by Dimension Borg’s attack, a neighbourhood of gas refineries ruptured on the day of disaster still burned, enclosing a sector of the ruined city that had come to be known as the Ring of Fire. The savagery of the out-of-control flames had so far prevented anyone from entering the Ring, including even the Four Heroes and the Next Four with all their superhuman powers.

“This can be no coincidence,” stated Joe. “Whoever or whatever means to pass through that rift must have chosen the location because they look for no interference from us!”

“Which implies it is a time-travellair from ze future, not ze past,” Phoenix added. “Someone who knows zat in zis period, ze Ring was ze only area of Nottingham inaccessible to its ’eroes.”

“That’s the logical hypothesis, honey, which means we’ll probably have to deal with whoever’s opening that rift as and when he arrives,” said Dylan. “But what’s not in the realm of hypothesis right now is all the people in the Ring of Fire we have to save. They’ve been trapped there since the invasion, because no rescue crew’s been able to penetrate the blaze – and besides, they’re already working round the clock helping citizens in the other unrestored sectors.”

“Talk about doing a good job under difficult circumstances,” Neetra agreed. “It’s up to us, then. There are so many of our friends who’ve been missing ever since the attack – could it be some of them are inside the Ring?”

“I have had the same thought on many occasions,” said Joe beside her. “It is past time we learned. But how is this to be accomplished?”

Dylan called up another screen of data. “The refineries tapped a seam of natural gas that lies thousands of feet below where their foundations were,” said he. “It will burn itself out in just under two months, and up ’til now our only choice was to wait for that to happen and move in afterwards. That’s no longer an option, because the rift’s going to peak in a matter of hours. However, I’ve been in touch with Mars and I think we may have come up with an alternative. Let’s go to the live link-up now…”

A secondary screen switched on, showing the face of Doctor Mendelssohn in his Martian laboratory. If an uncomfortable mood settled upon some in the room it was not because they were sorry to see him, but rather because they knew why he and not the more likely choice was serving as their off-planet scientific advisor. Phoenix was part of the team on Earth, and ever since the reappearance of James and Iskira Neetkins’s daughter from whom Phoenix had been cloned during a terrible failed experiment, the girl had wanted nothing to do with them. She turned to the Doctor now and coolly adjusted her spectacles, giving no indication she felt her companions’ discomfort. It was real enough to them, however, for it seemed the coming of Phoenix Prime and Phoenix’s reaction to it had put her parents’ marriage under some strain, and though even their friends and family knew only little of this, they nevertheless feared that it too might be one of the reasons James and Iskira felt unable to address the meeting now. For all the awkwardness though, The Four Heroes were glad to see their old ally Doctor Mendelssohn and hopeful his genius had been able to formulate a solution for them.

“There might be a way, if we can call upon your powers, Neetra my dear,” the Doctor’s voice crackled from the speakers. “As you know, the inferno surrounding the Ring reaches sub-stratospheric heights, which has prevented any conventional aircraft flying over it. However, using your Ultimate Cycle and our computers on Mars to co-ordinate your trajectory, there is a chance you may be able to achieve a teleportational ‘jump’ from Earth-orbit that will bring you safely past the flames and into the heart of the Ring. But the procedure has never been tried before, and I must warn you, it is extremely dangerous…”

“Innocent lives are at risk,” Neetra said simply. “There’s no question, I’ll do it.”

Doctor Mendelssohn nodded with satisfaction. “You must understand too that the jump will be impossible to repeat from within the Ring,” he went on. “It can, hopefully, transport you inside, but from then on…”

“We’re on our own,” Bret finished for him. “So once we’ve rounded up the people we have to find a way to put the Ring of Fire out so they can escape before the rift opens, right?”

“Business as usual,” Dylan said cheerfully. “Was there anything else, Doctor?”

“One more matter did arise,” Mendelssohn replied. “I will need that file…where is the file?”

“I have it, learned Doctor!” a loud ringing voice announced, as the huge figure of Bendigo hurtled into the frame. He was carrying a stack of papers which he summarily dropped and then slipped on, bowling himself head-over-heels down the stairs. He landed on a bookcase, demolishing it.

The Four Heroes tried to suppress their grins. “We were all glad to hear about your new lab assistant, Doctor!” said Bret. “How’s his career-change working out?”

The communications link must not have been working perfectly, because Doctor Mendelssohn met this question only with a dignified silence. At his other side appeared 4-H-N, Neetra’s clone, who passed him the file he had been looking for in the first place.

“Thank you, my dear,” he went on, leafing through the pages. “Before Dimension Borg’s attack, Four Heroes, the area that became the Ring of Fire was home to the factory and research lab of Mekanikron Incorporated, a top-secret robotics manufacturer specializing in war machines. These details indicate they were at the time engaged in somewhat dubious experimentation on organic power-sources to drive their new line of battle-robots. What became of this facility after the invasion is, of course, unknown, but it may be an additional factor with which you will have to contend.”

“Don’t worry, Doctor,” Dylan reassured him. “Nothing stands in The Four Heroes’ way when there are people to save!”

“While we’re on that note, may I ask why we’ve been speaking of this as a one-team operation?” Gala then interjected. “I don’t suppose there would be any point in my reminding you yet again that it’s written in the Prophecy we Next Four are here to replace you. Since the time we arrived you’ve insisted on either joint ventures, or solo ones like this. No-one could accuse you Four Heroes of embracing your preordained role!”

Joe put his hand on Neetra’s, stopping her before she could respond to this. “Questions of who is here to replace whom will have to wait, Gala,” he explained. “The citizens we must rescue were trapped in the Ring of Fire before you and your team made your presence known. They have been there ever since that time, lost and afraid, and they need to see the faces of heroes they recognise. As they do not know who the Next Four are, they would have no reason to trust you.”

“Yeah, they might think you’re, say, an evil threat to Nottingham pretending to be on the side of good, or something,” Neetra put in rather pointedly.

“There’ll be a whole load for you do to back here outside of the Ring, Gala,” Bret went on. “Once we get that fire out, a massive flock of refugees is going to be heading your way fast to keep ahead of the rift. The Next Four and all Nottingham’s other heroes will be needed at this end, to make sure they’re looked after and kept safe.”

“We’ll be well up for that, mate,” Steam confirmed. “You lads just make sure you get your bit done on time!”

“It’s a deal,” said Dylan, as the company rose purposefully to their feet. There were three others in the meeting room and now they came shyly forward, a teenage boy and two girls, the smaller of whom had wings. This gang of schoolfriends was a pair short, for one of their number had successfully evacuated with his family during the attack, and the other was the subject they wished to broach with The Four Heroes now.

“We all heard how dangerous this is going to be,” the boy began, “but…but if there’s any chance…I mean, his parents have hardly slept since he went missing, and all of us, and Spencer on Mars, can’t stop wondering about him too, so…”

“Oh, quit being such a big girl, Guy!” his taller classmate, Lisa, interrupted. “What it is, Four Heroes, is we want to come with you and save Jeffrey!”

“You kids always did have guts,” Bret smiled. “But we don’t know what we’re going to face in there, or even if the Ring’s where Jeffrey’s been all this time. You’ll be more help to us out here, working with the Next Four once the survivors – and hopefully Jeffrey with them – are on their way back home.”

“If he’s there, Carrie, we’ll find him, I promise,” Neetra added to the feathered girl, and the two friends hugged. “Phoenix,” she continued to her sister, “we’re going to need you with us on this one, for extra science help with the rift and maybe that Mekanikron place too. I can squeeze you into the teleport because you’re that much skinnier than me these days!”

“It is agreed, ma soeur,” said Phoenix, and took Dylan’s hand. “Let’s do it!”

END OF CHAPTER ONE