Search Terms

The Four Heroes, their companions and the Next Four were steadily striking out across the sprawling surface of Nottingham, while Dylan and Phoenix used their scanners and computers from the control room at home to facilitate the search. Neetra meanwhile looked deep in thought as she stood on the roof of Nottingham’s Town Hall and gazed out across the city. Beneath the tempestuous clouds lay a skyline our heroine felt well accustomed to seeing from this lofty vantage point, but at the same time she knew that because of the one she was here to find, she was really looking at new reconstructions of the familiar towers punctuated by gaps in the landscape where building work was still going on. A faraway expression was in Neetra’s large eyes, and her long tresses billowed in the stormy wind. Accompanying her was Degris, who stood close to the great clock-face on the Town Hall’s dome.

“We used to come up here all the time,” Neetra remarked to him. “Never seem to get round to it these days.”

“Well, you did today,” Degris observed. “So what are we doing here, Neet?”

“Trying a long shot,” was the reply. “There are connections between me and Dimension Borg that go way back, from discovering our origins together, and from both of us having been made by the same people in the first place. These aren’t the kind of easy psychic links The Four Heroes have with each other, but they’re there if you seek them out…and I’m betting that with the amount of himself Dimension Borg puts into his creations, they’ll be detectable in the robots too. You are I are a pair of strong psychics, Degris, so there’s just a chance we’ll be able to pin down the head or another live one if I scan for those bonds with my powers boosted by yours. It’s nowhere as reliable or precise a method as Dylan’s technology, but that’s not turning up what we need, so we have to try something else, anything else, that can.”

“Makes sense – what little of it I understood, anyway,” Degris said gamely. “Let’s give it a go!”

Neetra tipped back her head and closed her eyes, while her companion’s single eye came alive with flashes and scintillations of golden light. The psionic abilities of two of the world’s most powerful minds met in the ether somewhere above the Town Hall and quested outward as one, touching streets, shadows and souls far and wide…but of the tiny traces of recognition that were Neetra’s objective, some ghost or murmur of Dimension Borg’s dark and weighty consciousness, nothing was to be found. At length she and Degris wordlessly reached a mutual consent to call off this first search, and came back to themselves atop the mighty edifice.

Neetra sighed. “Sorry, Degris, that was my fault,” she said. “I need to give my all to something as difficult as this, but I just couldn’t focus. I’ve too much to think about as it is.”

“I understand, Neet,” Degris told her. “Not because we merged our thoughts a minute ago. I understood before we came up here.”

Neetra gave him a knowing smile. “Yes, you did,” said she. “You were great in the meeting, Degris, coming to Joe’s rescue like that. I know how much he needed your little bit of male bonding after my sister stuck her foot in it as usual. You’re a good friend to him.”

Degris grinned back. “And Carmilla was right,” he declared. “So are you. Us guys see and feel most of what you girls do, you know – it’s just that where girls talk about it, we prefer to hide and hope it goes away!”

Neetra sat down with her back resting against the dome, and Degris joined her. “I never thought Joe would react that way to any problem,” said the girl, “but it’s true – suddenly it feels like he’s hiding. Since yesterday he’s been talking to me and spending time with me just like he’s always done, but now it’s like he looks at me a whole different way, almost as if there’s something about me he can’t face. You’ve known him longest, Degris. Why has meeting Tidshaw and Autumn affected him like this?”

“Neet, what happened yesterday would have shaken anyone,” Degris said. “You turn around and boom! There are your teenage kids, dropping in to say hello while you’re still a teenager yourself! The whole thing must have been one big wake-up call for Joe, a reminder that not too far down the road there’s going to be some major changes in his responsibilities and his relationship with you. You can’t blame him for having a tough time getting to grips with that.”

“I see that, Degris – it was pretty unexpected for me too,” Neetra went on. “But these changes in what Joe and I have, the ones that’ll bring Autumn and Tidshaw into being…well, surely what that means is we’ll become closer, and find a whole new way of sharing our love? Joe should want that as much as I do…or at least, I thought he would. I just don’t understand why he feels so uncomfortable – afraid, even – about it.”

“That’s not quite so easy to explain,” Degris began, after a short pause. He opened his four hands. “Joe saved your life back when you were a child. Now, you know you weren’t the first girl he met that way.”

Neetra snorted humorlessly. “That’s right, who could forget little Miss Purple-Hair fluttering around in her tiny superhero skirt?” she declared. “Thinking of her makes me feel better already!”

“Stay with me,” Degris said kindly. “Back in the old days, with Suzie – since that’s what she calls herself now – things were less complicated. Heck, looking back there are times it feels like it was all one big game, weird as it is to say that about Pre-Nottingham Earth. Fighting the bad guys, partying, karaoke…I don’t know, maybe it’s because we were so young then, or maybe it’s that Joe’s always been at his best in that kind of straightforward life, where it’s easy to recognise what’s right and wrong. But Joe didn’t love Suzie, Neetra, and that’s my point. Sure, he was glad he’d rescued a girl because that’s what heroes are supposed to do, but there was nothing more to it than that. It was just a good old heroic idea, one that fitted in nicely with the game.”

This time Neetra said nothing, but just listened.

“He loves you,” Degris continued in earnest. “Maybe at first at was like it was with Suzie, but things changed as you grew up together, learned about each other, and discovered how you felt. A part of Joe understands fine that your love means something different to what it once did, now you’re both getting older…but another part of him’s stuck on thinking you’re still a child, and that his only duty’s to protect you. The new’s still struggling to replace the old. You and I both know how bad Joe is at dealing with change.”

Degris took Neetra’s hands in two of his.

“Joe may have founded The Four Heroes and saved the world, but he’s a teenage boy too,” he finished. “There’s nothing unusual in a teenage boy being scared about his first time with someone he loves. Just give him a chance, OK? Joe always comes through for us, no matter what, and this’ll be the same.”

He spoke with the assuredness of a lifelong trust, one that he had never been given reason to doubt. Neetra smiled.

“Thanks, Degris,” she said softly. “I think I’m ready to try again now!”

They stood, linked minds, and cast their thoughts out across the city once more. This time there was a change, felt perceptibly by both, as if they had broken some block with their powers and were now ranging freely through the immaterial realm. It wasn’t long before Neetra gripped Degris by the hand, her face alight, and with a triumphal exclamation of: “I’ve got something! Let’s go!” she teleported in a burst of yellow light, speeding herself and her companion to the very point their senses had triangulated.

They reappeared at a location deep within the unrestored zone, dereliction on every side, and there was no apparent sign of life or movement but for themselves. Both wondered for a second whether Neetra had been in error, but then a tiny clattering noise from the rocks and gravel at their feet told them they were not alone. They looked down, to see a severed robotic arm of the kind used in automotive assembly plants. Tied to its shoulder end was a carrier-bag full of what looked like refrigerator components, and the arm was using its fingertips to pull itself along the rubbly ground inch by painstaking inch, dragging its swag behind it.

“Er, Neetra, exactly how imprecise did you say this method was?” Degris began.

“I know, it doesn’t look much like Dimension Borg,” Neetra said drily. “But he’s there, Degris, somehow, even though I don’t understand how. My powers are still telling me Dimension Borg’s essence is infused into that thing. It has something to do with the head we’re looking for. I’m just not very clear on what.”

The girl stood in thought for a moment, then said telepathically: Dylan?

Go ahead, Neet, came back the psychic reply.

We might be onto something, said Neetra. Change your search terms for a minute, and instead of scanning for the head, live ones or the supervillains, look for mechanical objects acting strangely. Let’s see if there are any more of these!

And quickly, before it gets away, Degris added, as the arm managed to traverse another two inches.

NEXT: 'MARCH OF THE MACHINES'