Doom 2099UG #14

Fog rose like a blanket of smoke over the smooth black waters of the massive inland ocean. Overhead, the sun was a distant, hazy blob of light, dimly reflecting off of tiny wavelets lapping against a slab of crustacean cluttered rock. The small island jutted abruptly out of the oily sea, its rocky silhouette spiked with the occasional skeletal outline of a barren tree or ragged bush. The island was as lonely and desolate as the sea that surrounded it. Only ghosts walked here among ancient ruins long deserted by man. The tomb island of Kurza was the most distant of a narrow archipelago of islands streaming out from the Crimean peninsula, caught between the Black Sea and the shallow Sea of Azov. In the modern world of 2099, it was a forgotten place of ancient history and mythical legends. The denizens of this century were content to leave the island to the bones that lay buried in its hard soil, and to the sickly slime of two hundred years of toxic industrial waste that washed upon her shore. Only ghost white crabs and stunted mussels were hardy enough to live along its cold beaches.

The drifting fog wafted onto the land with sinuous tendrils, slinking over white marble columns streaked with black soot, and slithering over granite headstones obscured by sickly gray moss. Centuries old crypts stood with steel gates rusted open, their contents plundered years earlier by the desperate looters who once dared to cross the sea to battle untold demons for her buried treasures. It was a place that would not welcome the sun in daylight, nor the comfort of the moon at night. Its blackened landscape was better suited to the gray light of the fog and the enveloping dark. Not so much as a sickly flower nor a single touch of green brightened the last resting place of the myriad countless dead, whose vacant eyes were turned toward heaven as they lay rotting in the cold earth. The perpetual silence smothered their graves.

It could very well be his last resting place too, if he would deign to permit it. But, he would not. He was Doom, and surrender was not an option. He had struggled up the rocky slope from his transport site on the beach as far as he could before his wounded body had finally betrayed him. He lay now where he had fallen, his green cloak tumbled over the rocks, his silver and blue armor drab and lifeless in the somber daylight. His concealing mask was turned upward, his eyes searching for his goal even as his body prevented him from reaching it, his mind striving onward through the pain that pierced his gut. His left hand was firmly pressed to his side at the base of the ribs. The silver glove was stained with his blood from where the Argon Shielded Power shiv had penetrated his adamantium lanxide armor {see Last Issue!}. The wound was far worse than he had at first appraised.

Like its poisonous namesake, the ASP wielded by the now dead SACC officer had done more than just pierce his armor and his flesh. The electronic pulse had initiated a degenerative cellular decay, continuing to disrupt his cells and their ability to heal long after the blade had been extracted. Even the nanites, with their programmed healing capabilities, were being kept at bay by agitated electrons, surging like an infection throughout the gaping wound. Doom had used the cooling capabilities of his armor to slow down the rampant tissue destruction, and had succeeded in preventing further expansion of the horrific wound, but he could not replace the blood he had lost nor close the ragged wound without medical assistance. And he was many miles from any doctor. He could feel the smooth roll of the intestine through the hole beneath his hand, held in place only by a thin wall of muscle. The ASP had come dangerously close to piercing his vital organs, if the cellular disruption continued, the resulting peritoneal infection would be deadly. The pain was something he simply put out of his mind, an annoyance that could be dismissed like a petulant child. What he could not ignore was the body's systemic shut down in response to the insult inflicted upon it. So he lay, motionless on the rocky ground, catching his breath in ragged gasps, waiting in the silent fog with the dead as his mind fought off the blackness that threatened to drown him.

He found his thoughts being drawn back to his encounter in Africa, the last one, and the one before that . . . ten years ago. He remembered it more clearly now, what was once a dream had solidified at last in his mind, catalyzed by the discovery of the surreal white skeleton that bore his name, buried for a decade in a pile of boulders. In his memory, he was standing once more in the African sun, naked at the base of a rocky hill, his breath coming rapidly, his fists clenched in agitation. Already the memory of how he had got there and where he had been was fading. But he knew who he was. He was Doom. And so, it seemed, was the armored stranger lying prostrate on the ground before him.

"Imposter!" the creature spat at him with a voice that barely passed through its dying lips. The mask was smooth and silver and strange to Doom, but those eyes behind the red lenses were unmistakable. "How dare you wear my face! Impudent child! You will not live long enough to sully my name!" The creature lifted its gloved hand toward Doom.

Doom reacted instantly, jumping forward to grab the threatening arm. His strong grip felt no resistance within that armored gauntlet, and when he pulled the glove came easily away in his hands. The naked arm of his opponent fell weakly back to the ground. It was a grisly sight, with stinking, rotting flesh hanging loosely upon an emaciated limb. The creature could resist no more. Doom eyed it with curiosity, as he slipped the glove easily over his own hand. It fit perfectly. He clenched his hand into a fist, and smiled at the reflection of his face in the polished silver surface.

"I am Doom," he said softly. He breathed deep the fresh African air, and laughed. "And I am in need of suitable raiments. Yours will fit nicely, it seems." The creature before him could put up only paltry resistance. When he had donned the armor, all that was left was a feeble, gaunt creature on the ground, a virtual skeleton with skin hanging on it in ulcerated folds. The skull like face was scarred by some unknown tragedy, and unrecognizable. But those brown eyes watched him with an undeniably fierce contempt that its diseased body could not answer. The breath of the creature came slowly still, a gurgling within the lungs that would be his death rattle.

"Amazing," Doom said, admiring the weight and features of this blue and silver armor. The red cape was not entirely to his liking, but it exuded a fierceness that could not be denied. The silver vest fit snugly against his broad chest, and he began to access the features available to him from the computerized menu, marveling at the speed and detail that the readouts gave him within the lenses of his mask. "This is a remarkable piece of work," he praised unabashedly. "My compliments to your armorer! I must admit, some of these advances I had never thought of. I look forward to the opportunity to use this suit in battle." He shot off a few rounds from his gauntlets into the sky to test its offensive capability, disrupting a clutch of buzzards that had silently gathered in a nearby tree.

"You . . . won't get . . . the chance . . ." whispered the dying creature on the ground beside him.

"What do you mean?" Doom turned to face him. "Are you threatening me, you miserable bag of bones? I am Doom, and I have plans for this world, now that I have returned from . . . from . . ." He couldn't remember. He frowned. There was a sudden annoying sensation of heat beginning to build up inside the armor.

"You . . . are a pale shadow of he who was Doom," the creature coughed fitfully. "Go back to your evil manipulator, imposter. Take the armor. It will be your . . . casket."

"No one manipulates Doom!" Doom stated brazenly. He knelt down to look the dying thing in the eyes. "What manner of a creature are you to show such arrogant disregard on the doorstep of your demise?"

"I . . . am . . . Doom," the creature hissed up at him.

Doom stood up. "I am Doom! You, are a pathetic liar," he answered with disdain. "This ignoble death, this wasting of the flesh, it demeans my name. I would take my own life before suffering such a fate. Doom was not meant to die this way! You are an abomination." As he spoke, Doom was searching the armor's programs, looking for the malfunction that was turning up the heat inside the armor.

"I have . . . already died," the creature answered enigmatically. "I only wait. You will die this way too . . . Doom . . ." He coughed again, spasms racking his spent body.

"Impossible," Doom answered. But he began to experience a sense of panic. It was getting intolerably hot now, even inside the mask, and he was unable to halt the building heat.

"Margaretta . . . " the corpse whispered insidiously. "Margaretta will save you."

"Margaretta?" Doom echoed quietly. "That name is, familiar. She is my . . . ally? Or my enemy . . . but, I can't . . . remember . . ." The heat was too much for him now, and he stepped back to try to remove the armor, but it would not come off! The emergency escape mechanisms were jammed! His sense of panic was growing.

"She is . . . waiting for you . . ." the creature pointed to a nearby cave opening in the rock wall, and something akin to a laugh escaped his pale lips.

"Argh!" Doom cried out at last. The heat inside the armor was unbearable, as he felt his face burning up inside the mask. Every inch of his skin seemed to be on fire. "Sabotage!" he screamed. "Foul specter!" he cried at the dying man. "You caused this! For that you will pay!" He raised his gauntlets in anger, struggling with a growing curtain of fire that erupted within the armor's internal systems.

The creature coughed, but there was no fear in those eyes. "You can only . . . kill me," he said calmly.

Doom stumbled back, fighting the armor's errant programming, as he fired his weapons. He could barely see through the fire and smoke that now were steaming up into his mask. The lasers missed the prostrate corpse, striking the base of the rocky kopje. The effect was the same, however, as the blast sent a cluster of huge boulders tumbling down onto the motionless form, crushing it completely, and leaving only one leg sticking out of the granite tomb. Doom did not stop to admire his work, but stumbled blindly toward the cave. He had only one chance as he felt his flesh burning, trapped within the armor. He did not remember how he found the transport platform, nor how he managed to activate it. The destination must have already been set in the controls, for could not have programmed it through the fire that was cooking him alive. His only thought was for his salvation, ingrained within a name whispered from a half-forgotten past . . . Margaretta.

"Margaretta!" he screamed as he materialized in a dark, unfamiliar place. "Armor won't respond internal fires escape systems slagged Margaretta!" {see Doom 2099 #25}.

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Mexico.

In the Sonoran mountains east of the shimmering turquoise waters of the Sea of Cortes, a broad flat spread of land was cut into the rocky red earth of the sun baked mountains. High atop this rocky mesa nestled between the mountains and the sea, there stood a strong adobe house, lazily sprawled between wide sheltering oaks and the dusty fields where a few scrawny cattle grazed. It was an unassuming place, isolated and remote. Yet upon closer observation, the house was no shepherd's mountain shelter. It was a magnificent mansion, with a great central courtyard, sparkling fountains and pools, and exquisite hand painted tiles from the craftsmen of Monterrey throughout. Huge wrought iron gates guarded the entrance from intruders, as if any would dare to travel the long dusty road up from the valley to visit this quiet, foreboding place. If anyone ventured this far, they would soon find that they were not welcome.

There was no sign of industry or activity in this remote mountain ranch, except for the guards who circled the perimeter on stealthily silenced sky cycles. A few token cows grazed undisturbed in overgrown fields, or sat out the heat of the day in the shade of a stunted manzanita tree. On the grounds surrounding the house, an occasional gardener might be seen moving slowly among the trees and shrubs, but all other occupants stayed safe within her walls during the harsh light of day. In another time, the locals might have said that the house was the haven of drug lords, whose fortunes were made whisking contraband across the border to sell to the rich and needy Americanos. In this time, however, the mansion's true purpose was unknown. No one who lived in the tiny fishing village at the foot of the mountain had ever seen the mansion's current occupants, and those who had dared ventured near could only report on the desolation and quiet of the place, and a strange, sickening odor which was sometimes carried on the breeze. For that reason, the place had been dubbed, "La Ranchera de la Cabra Muerta."

The truth of it was even more ominous.

On the surface, La Ranchera was a typical Spanish ranch house, but the structure continued many meters below the dusty mesa, a steel cave carved deep into the rocky mountain. Shadowy creatures moved in the darkness below, concealed from prying eyes, and skittering wordlessly about their gruesome business. Inside, the facilities were dark and humid, drawing the heat of the great desert into a fermenting vat of fetid compost that was lovingly tended by faceless drones. At the heart of this dark hive was a single leader, whose domineering vision had drawn them to this safe sanctuary where their dark goals could be plotted undisturbed by the backward and ignorant denizens of this primitive blue planet.

The leader moved his bulky form into an observation deck of sorts, looking out through deeply tinted windows over the bright blue waters of the gulf and the giant mass of the island known as Isla Tiburon, lying like a feasting shark only a few miles offshore. He turned away from the stunning view and moved to a control panel, viewing with concern vid reports from stations around the world. A blinking light on a wall map steadily flashed over a single spot in the Ukraine, a red warning beacon that hovered dangerously over an unmarked island in the Black Sea, half a world away.

In a language never heard in human circles, he growled to a nearby aide, "Get me the Neon Angel."

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Chicago.

She was alive. She was in agony, of that she was certain, and so it must mean that she was alive. She knew nothing of her whereabouts. She had no sight. No sense of place or time. No sense even of her body, if she were up or down, sideways or backwards. Only floating in a nameless void, and pain. And the terrible sound of a hundred screaming voices making music from their pain. She would scream too, but no sound could escape her lips. There was no air to draw into her lungs, only a choking fluid that smothered but did not kill. She was lost to all but the pain that seared through to her mind like a million cockroaches chewing on the rotting flesh of a dead goat, their greasy wings clattering greedily while their delicate legs scraped against her bare skin. If she was not mad already, she soon would be.

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Spain.

"This program is boring, Elemental!" she screamed at the vid screen. "I've played this scene about our manifest purpose once before you little malignancy, and it was boring the first time! Couldn't you think of something a little more lively?!"

"What in the name of the hive mother are you ranting about?" the leader muttered back to her from the holo-screen. His hideous image floated before her, the bright waters of the California Gulf barely visible behind him, translucently interposed upon the bare white walls of her Spanish castle.

"Oh, so I'm just supposed to bow and scrape and make small talk now, is that it?" Margaretta Von Geisterstadt plunked down on her couch and turned away from the hologram that shimmered angrily in her living room. She looked out over the rocky Pyrenees mountains that surrounded her grand prison, and pouted. "If I want to be in a bad mood, I will," she said. "No stupid program is going to fix that. Especially not THAT program."

"I am NOT a program," the hologram answered indignantly.

"Everything is a program, you stupid carapaced jackass," Margaretta leapt out of the couch and marched indignantly about the room. "The vase is a program!" she yelled, smashing a vase against the floor. "The table is a program! The sunset is a program! The tasteless, boring food is a program! The stupid pointless research is a program!" She leapt about the room, smashing things to prove her point. "I am a program trapped in a program playing out a meaningless program of a life while the real me is held in stasis on that table right there in the real world! And I can't get offline because Doom's little toy Elemental locked the exit behind me!" {it happened in Doom 2099 UG #7!}

"Control yourself, Servact," the hologram yelled at her angrily, calling her by her given name. "There is no record of me in your precious data stream. This . . . Elemental thing . . . could not have programmed me! I exist outside of the human's pitiful information network, as you would have too if you had followed my advice! Obviously you're suffering from some sort of cybernetic dementia."

"How . . . how did you know that name?" Margaretta clutched a pillow she had moments before fully intended to rip to shreds. There was a look of utter confusion on her face.

"You are Ne Servact, native intelligence officer and chief geneticist," the hologram answered with impatient disgust. "This information is encrypted, encoded, and not available to any life forms outside of the cabal. I need your complete and undivided attention on this matter, Servact, or Margaretta, if you prefer. Your little toy is out of control again."

Margaretta dropped the pillow and self-consciously straightened her hair, looking about the room nervously as if caught with incriminating evidence and anxiously wondering if anyone noticed. "Yes, Rantul," she stated as she hurried to face him, smoothing her dress. "A thousand pardons, Rantul, I didn't know it was . . . I thought . . ."

"Yes, I gathered what you thought, Servact," the Rantul hissed angrily. "No doubt your mind has been influenced by your insistence on maintaining that hideous form. If we didn't require operatives that could walk unnoticed among the humans I would have insisted you abandon it years ago. As it is, your little toy has broken loose again. You were allowed to create this human diversion of yours only under the conditions that you would keep it completely under your control!"

"Yes, Rantul, I uh . . ." Margaretta accessed an information program at her desk and began running through the files, her fingers nervously tapping on the polished black surface. "His information pipeline was severed, like you ordered, but there must have been something hidden. I haven't been monitoring him since . . . but this one is more unpredictable than the last ones. He is, difficult to restrain . . ."

"He is far too dangerous!" the Rantul shook a clawed appendage at her, rattling the armor on his back. "The human that bested the Beyonder must be eliminated! You were a fool to toy with his genetic material! Now we must act again or risk exposure and a hundred years of planning will be lost!"

"Perhaps this one could be re-programmed, he could still be of use to us . . ."

"Enough!" the Rantul shouted. "This obsession of yours is to end, now! Send him to the Worms of Zyosa," he ordered. "He can join the bones of the other, and that will be the last we need be concerned of Doom. Even if by some miracle he escapes that which no creature has defeated for three hundred centuries, by the time he gets back, the Earth will be under our exclusive command!"

"Y- yes, Rantul," Margaretta answered meekly.

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Kesaall Rantul turned away from the holo projector as he shut it off, and tapped his foreclaw on the monitor in agitation. His bulky outline was darkly silhouetted against the backdrop of the bright waters of the gulf. His red bulbous eyes narrowed in anger. His ally, Margaretta, was a reckless fool, she always had been. He had been unwilling to take her into his team, but had been overruled by high command. Like Avataar, her race was difficult to restrain and not as blindly obedient as those who were born to the hive. But her kind were necessary for this mission, and he had endured her eccentricities with his customary patience. He promised himself that if she compromised their position by error or omission, he would see to it that she too would endure the living hell known as the Worms of Zyosa.

He turned to his aide. "Monitor Ne Servact closely, Bela Goran," he ordered. "She must deal with this Doom swiftly and decisively, before our efforts here are exposed."

"Yes, Rantul," Bela answered obediently, bowing before his leader. "But what have we to fear from one measly human?" he asked. "He has no army, he has no homeland since the Spiders spread our toxins on Latveria. He has no power over the corporations we control. He has no memory of us. He does not know we exist. We are Vessans, we are smarter, stronger, and better equipped at conquest than any bare-skin human that was ever hatched. Why expend such energy on one man?"

"That is why you are Goran and I am Rantul," Kesaall answered slowly, clicking his mandibles for emphasis. "He is Doom, and that is all the reason I need. He is the one man outside of Reed Richards who even the dread Galactus fears. If this planet is to be ours, he must be eliminated. No other threat to our success is this important."

"As you say, Rantul, it will be done," his aide answered, carefully backing away from his superior officer.

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The Island of Kurza.

"I remember my escape to the Pacific Citadel only from having seen it, as I battled Erik Czerny who believed himself to be me, through the fractured circuits of time. I saw myself screaming on the time platform, my skin burned away by the armor my double had sabotaged. That duplicate, dying in the African sun, I know now to have been a clone, a flawed construct of Margaretta Von Geisterstadt, the Neon Angel. And Czerny himself was a man whose mind had been manipulated by the witch with my memory patterns, to take my place by her side. She rescued me from the armor, and placed me in the regeneration fluid, where I would sleep in stasis until she released me upon the world in 2099. I remember nothing of those ten long years of sleep, while the Czerny-Doom bumbled about the world doing Margaretta's evil bidding, and the denizens of the Earth slipped deeper into anarchy and despair. But which am I? If only I could remember where I came from that day on the African plain. Am I another clone? Or am I something else? Try as I might, I cannot penetrate the veil of pain which shrouds my memory."

Doom slowly sat up on the rough stones, still holding onto his side. He looked down at the wound. The bleeding had stopped at last, and his sensors detected little of the residual ASP energy infection. Healing would begin soon enough. He was cold and stiff and tired, but his brief rest was all he had the patience for. He stood up, but as he turned to continue up the path, a strange noise caught his attention. Ready to do battle despite his wound, he whirled back to face the dark sea.

The sound of oars being dipped into the water was unmistakable, slipping out of the smothering fog and carefully approaching the rocky island. It was followed by a distinct creak and scrape as the bow of a small wooden boat came into the shore. There was a faint splashing of the boat being rocked as someone stood up, then stepped lightly into the water before bounding onto the heavy rocks lining the beach. The boat scraped against the rocks again as it pushed off without a word from the oarsman or his passenger. The oars dipped into the oily sea with a gentle splash and the creaking of wood against metal oar locks, then the sound of their steady rhythm retreated serenely into the distance. Silence descended once more onto the island in the fog.

Doom saw the whole thing, and more. Although the fog completely obscured her arrival from normal vision, Doom had used the infrared spectrum of his armor's eyepieces to identify this new visitor to the tomb island. He recognized her immediately, and that alone stayed his hand, for he would tolerate no intruders to his quest. She was a gypsy girl, from the band that had fled the necrotoxification of Latveria, and he had once before saved her life. {See Doom 2099 UG 1 - 3: The Beckoning}

Marissa paused on the beach to gather her courage, then moved steadily forward as her feet found the ancient path leading up the rocky bank. Barely 18, she had learned much and lost far too many friends in recent times for one so young. Still, she had a youthful innocence about her, a calm trust to her large brown eyes, and a fearless strength as well. As did many who had faced the horror of the wave spiders and lived to tell the tale. She wore a long coat over her plain gypsy clothes, and her dark curls cascaded unbound over her slim shoulders. She gathered the coat around her against the cold, and headed bravely up the gravely path. She knew the danger that she would soon face, so she had made this journey secretly and alone, not daring to risk any more lives. Her head was down, carefully negotiating the slippery slope, so she did not notice the armored man in her path until she was nearly upon him.

"Gypsy," he barked at her, startling her quiet progress so that she almost fell back. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh!" Marissa stopped in surprise, feeling the tremor that etched its way through every nerve at the sound of his stern command. Then, remembering her place, she bowed respectfully, hoping he didn't notice her nervous blush. "Lord Doom," she said, trying to sound as calm as she could. "Pray forgive my intrusion, but I've come all this way to find you, to . . . to . . . stop you." "What?" Doom's surprise was genuine, and not without amusement. "What insolence is this? Speak up, girl, or suffer my wrath!"

"My lord, you are about to make a grave error," she said seriously. "Forgive me please, but I have seen it." She clutched a locket that hung from a chain around her neck protectively, and although her face was struck by a deep fear, her eyes were bright with sincere determination. "You must not enter the Tomb of the Silver Warrior!"

"The Tomb? How do you know of this?!" he demanded with barely contained anger. Only his surprise halted him from punishing her for her impiety.

"I have seen it," she explained timidly. "I have . . . the sight."

Doom casually hid his wounded side behind a shiny glove as he examined her through critical eyes. His red lenses flashed in the thick mist. Gypsies had long had the power of predestination, so he did not fully doubt her claim, but this was not the same girl he had seen cowering in the ruins before the attack of the Crow warriors in the Hidden City. She had changed. "Indeed," he answered slowly. His anger seemed to have dissolved, but he was still suspicious. Perhaps though, she could be of some use to him. "Do you also have a needle and thread, gypsy?"

"My name is Marissa," she answered boldly. "And yes, Master, but what would you need . . . oh!"

He removed his hand to show her the wound in his side, not surprised by her startled reaction. "Follow me," he ordered brusquely, and turned away from her to march up the side of the hill toward the cemetery.

Marissa was skilled at closing wounds, thanks to assisting the tribe's doctor, and her work on his side was as good as any field surgeon. Doom sat on the edge of a marble sarcophagus, while she carefully made small stitches in the ragged edges of the deep cut to pull the skin closed around the gaping wound. He didn't wince as the needle dug deep into his flesh and pulled the raw edges together, but Marissa was more than a little unnerved at working on a patient without anaesthesia or drugs to dull the pain. She had to stop frequently to clear her eyes of the nervous sweat that gathered on her brow, despite the cool temperatures. Meanwhile, Doom had removed the section of armor around his torso, and as she worked he nonchalantly repaired the hole in his outer shell with a welding tool in his glove.

"We caught a freighter to Istanbul after escaping the Hidden City," she explained, bending her head down to cut the thread with her teeth. The talking at least helped to keep her mind off of what he must be feeling as she stitched. "That's when I discovered I had the sight. I had seen our campsite in Istanbul, even though I had never been there before. I thought it was a dream, but it was exact in every detail. Then I began having more visions." She touched the locket at her neck for a moment before digging into her bag once more for bandages to cover the wound.

Doom reached forward to grab the locket at her neck. She looked up at him, a moment of fear reflected in her young face, but she had no call for concern. The touch of his armored glove was firm but gentle. She patiently allowed him to examine the locket, knowing as he opened it he would see nothing but the deep blue crystal stone that filled the shallow chamber within. He closed it with a snap, and let it fall back to her chest, where she steadied its swinging with her hand.

"The locket, it belonged to the old puri dai, Larinda," Doom questioned with a muted baritone. "It is the source of your precognitive powers." It wasn't a question.

Marissa shook her head. "Not exactly," she explained. "Before Larinda died, she told me that my purpose in life was already within me, that all I need to do was to find focus. She must have known, when she 'adopted' me, that I had the power. So many of her teachings make sense to me now. So many of my dreams, too. But I didn't have the knowledge to understand what I was seeing. The locket . . ." she opened it and looked into the blue crystal. "The locket merely helps me to find that focus. Like the crystal ball of our ancestors once did."

"And what do you know of the Silver Warrior, and her tomb?" Doom asked cagily, his deep-rooted suspicions never completely at ease.

"I know only a little of the legend," she admitted with candor. She used gauze and tape to cover the stitches in his side as she spoke. "The story goes, like, a sister and a brother find out that they have great powers when they fight an evil king over the fate of the gypsies. The sister is killed, but her body is sealed in a silver armor so that no one may capture her magic. It is said that her tomb is filled with riches, but that no one who has entered it has ever returned . . . alive." {A brief recap of the story told in Doom 2099 UG #9}

"That doesn't concern me," Doom answered, replacing the piece of armor he'd repaired as she finished, concealing his bandaged torso. It clicked efficiently into place, and the nanites within the armor instantly began weaving the pieces together to form an invisible seam.

"It should!" Marissa said with barely contained anger as she stood up, slinging her bag over her back once more. "The fate of the gypsies is in your hands, don't you see that? We have no other defender in this time but you! There are no more great magicians, no noble kings to shelter us. The tribes are scattered. The caravans are broken. Latveria is a wasteland that will no longer protect us. The fates decree that one man will come forward to lead us to a new prosperity, but you cannot be that man if you continue on this insane quest."

"Watch your tongue, girl! I did not ask to be your savior," Doom said cruelly. "My path is my own, alone. I will not stoop to explaining it to every wanton peasant that passes my way. Suffice it to say, that the power I now seek will enrich each and every person on this earth." He stepped down from the nameless sarcophagus, and walked away from her. He set his sights on a distant sepulcher, a grey crypt with stone columns that rose out of the dead earth to shimmer hauntingly in the cold fog. He marched with stone faced resolve up a small rise, leaving her behind with a cold detachment that granted no fond farewell.

Marissa was undeterred, and she followed him doggedly. "I am no common peasant! You don't understand what I've seen," she protested, half running to keep pace with his long strides. "If you enter the tomb, you'll be destroyed, lost to the world forever! The gypsies will fall deeper into despair, and worse. There will be a great plague that destroys half of Eastern Europe, and then the cockroaches will come . . . billions of them . . . Even those in the great cities will fall to this demonic plague. And none of our science or technology will be able to hold them back. The people will be lost, forever, and no one will mourn our passing."

Doom stopped and turned to face her. "Cockroaches?" he said with gruff skepticism.

Marissa blushed. "I didn't say I understood it, that's just the way I saw it," she offered.

Doom turned back around with a barely audible 'humph', and opened the creaking iron gate of the ancient mausoleum. It was an elaborate resting place, with columns of gray marble at the entrance, a low peaked roof, and bas relief carvings of ancient gods about the doorway. Inside, there were three steps down into the dark, windowless cavern. It was large enough to house a small family, but no welcoming light penetrated the murky depths.

"It seems that apocalyptic prophecies are as in vogue in this era as they have been since the time of Nostradamus, no doubt in tune with the coming of a new millennium," he answered her coldly. "But I am well aware of my future and my destiny, I need no novice fortune teller to preach edicts to me. I will face my destiny, not cower from it. Doom does not fear dire omens, he challenges them! You will one day learn that I am a difficult man to kill."

"And what if you're wrong?" Marissa stood at the gate fearlessly.

Doom's anger was checked only by her youthful innocence, so strong yet fragile as he whirled to glower down at her. She did not cringe in his presence anymore. Even as he condemned her for questioning him, he had to grant her a measure of his respect. She had outgrown the starry-eyed juvenile he had seen hovering at the edges of the gypsy counsel in the Hidden City. She was still very young, but the realities of the world had hardened her. That was good, for the world would not coddle her naive sensitivities anymore. Their fight had only just begun.

"Impossible," he finally said with blunt arrogance. "This burial chamber has little to do with the macabre legends of the gypsies. Colorful though they are, they are just stories told to frighten the children and tempt the foolish. The truth of this tomb is imbedded in my past, and encrypted in my future. I cannot go forward in this world until the final mysteries of my past are unraveled, or I do a disservice to all who would follow me. I refuse to be ambushed by an enemy who would use the past to undermine my control of the future. If I have to retrace every footstep of my former self, every turn of the head, every calculation, if it means walking into the depths of Hell itself I will do so willingly. Then the power I seek will be mine to wield with impunity. Only then can I repair this fractured world. Then, perhaps the gypsies will abandon their false prophets and weave new stories about Doom, their rightful king, to be told with glad vigor and proud cheers to the children of the next century." He turned away and marched down into the crypt, quickly disappearing in the deep darkness of the underground chamber.

"Not if there aren't any children left to tell stories to," Marissa mumbled dejectedly. She strained to follow his armored form through the crypt, but he had silently vanished in the cold dark chamber. She hesitated at the threshold, listening to the spooky silence that muffled the island completely as she drew her coat tighter around her body. She waited and wrestled with her conscience for several minutes, not yet ready to abandon her quest, but uncertain as to how far she should go. This business of knowing the future was a puzzling thing. If she did nothing, would the future change for having at least tried? Or was the future she had seen based on some action she had not yet taken? She desperately wished that Larinda was still alive to advise her. She reached into her bag and pulled out a small flashlight, wrapping the band around her wrist as she shined it into the sunken chamber. She wasn't through with Doom yet.

She held her breath as the small light cast its beam over the small square space inside. Old dead leaves covered the floor of the mausoleum, and four square stones covered the places on the back wall where four old coffins lay entombed for eternity. A fifth stone had been broken out, and the bones that lay inside there were naught but dust now. In the far corner of the crypt there was a narrow opening in the stone wall, the only other entrance into the chamber. Doom must have gone that way. Marissa crossed the littered floor cautiously toward it.

She had to stoop to pass through the rough cut doorway that led slightly downward into another chamber. The opening looked as if it had been chiseled out of the stone long after the outer chamber was built, probably by grave robbers years earlier. Her lantern shone through the opening, casting weird and frightening shadows on the walls of the other side. She suddenly wished for a weapon, a shiv, a gun, anything . . . but that was the one thing she hadn't packed in her rucksack. She swallowed her fear, and crouching, she made her way carefully through the long passageway.

She stepped out into another, much larger burial chamber, decorated with dusty statues of men in armor, and broken pottery bowls that perhaps had held offerings to the dead. There were more coffins here too, only these were not imbedded in the walls like the antechamber. Four sarcophagi lay on raised beds along the long wall, and three more sat in the middle of the huge room. Ornate columns descended from the vaulted ceiling, and the faded paintings on the wall told a story of some ancient battle. The carved cap stones on two of the stone coffins had been broken and cast aside. Marissa's light shown over one, and the skull within looked back at her through vacant orbs. She gasped involuntarily. The skeleton wore an ancient metal helmet, and some kind of old leather armor that was dusty but still intact. A small silver knife was strapped in a leather sheath alongside the skeleton's arm, and the weapon caught her eye provocatively. She stopped, and stared despite her fear, then boldly reached out to take it.

"May my ancestors forgive me," she said, "but I think I will need this more than you do."

She pulled the knife from its sheath, and examined the blade carefully. It had a wooden handle wrapped in a tough sinew, and the blade was well made and very sharp. She tucked it back into its sheath and slipped it into the pocket of her coat as she made her way to the second sarcophagus. Her heart was beating furiously as she approached it, fearful of what secret the darkness within held. She lifted her arm to let the light of her lamp wash over whatever dead thing lay there, but the darkness was unrelenting. She stepped closer. A warm breath of air lifted up from the coffin, bringing with it the smell of dust and sulfur. She peered over the edge, and into a deep dark abyss!

The sarcophagus held no skeleton, and never had. It had no bottom, only a steep set of stairs that led down into a dark, unknown expanse beneath the mausoleum. Marissa pointed her lantern down, but the stairs continued beyond the reach of the beam of light. Again, she felt the warm air rising, as if from the fiery pits of Hell, and Doom's words came back to her like a prophecy: "if it means walking into the depths of Hell itself I will do so willingly." She shuddered, and nervously bit her lip.

Then she heard a distant sound rising up from the warm darkness that sent a new chill through her heart. It penetrated the silent crypt in waves of horror like hungry demons unleashed upon an unsuspecting world. It washed over her provoking unwanted memories of young blood spilled needlessly, and innocence crushed under the tide of war. It was the too familiar sound of laser fire, ripping metal, thundering explosions, and above it all, the chilling sound of one man screaming in pain.

To be continued . . .

    "Like pilgrims to th' appointed place we tend;
            The world's an inn, and death the journey's end."
                    John Dryden, from "Palamon and Arcite"

NEXT! Marissa and Doom travel into the mysterious realm of the Tomb of the Silver Warrior! What riches will they find? What horrors will they face? What secret does the Tomb hold that will shock Doom down to his metal size 13's, and force him to face a past that he may wish to forget! And don't forget those nasty stinkin' roaches, neither! And we're not talking 'bout the ones living underneath Jason's old socks! Be here for Part Two of The Beginning of The End! 'Nuff said!



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