Sounds like a crossover! Part 1

Jaclyn Star had an imaginary friend, it didn’t go away as she got older in fact it got a lot louder as time went on. It started off as sounds through cotton, muffled and hard to hear. Coming in the night when her eyes closed shut, the whispers were quiet and scattered in subject and tone. Then they started to make sense, they started to get clearer. A voice crisp and educated and clear spoke to Jacklyn. It asked her if she’d like to stop being imaginary friends and if she wanted to become real friends.

She said yes. Strange science was born from this agreement on two worlds. This is the story of one such world.

Grant Ellis, Punk Rock Vishnu of a world burdened with looking after him, regarded the lumpy couch with something approaching sympathy. He crossed the room without touching the floor, ghastly steps carrying him over the perpetual mess of his Sentinel office. There was no need for noise right away he could be kind before having to be cruel, he waved a hand and the mess tidied itself away. He could do such things as a messy floor was an obstacle to him and to Grant Ellis obstacles were ever invalidated.

At his passing documents filed themselves, papers organised and waste material fizzled out of reality like suds from a draining tub. He floated past the couch, gliding gently passed a little table on which sat a phone torn from the cradle. At his passing a cup of coffee appeared on the table, a scent of hazel and honey wafted from the black liquid within and the blankets on the couch stirred slowly.

“Good night?” Grant asked his voice genteel as he made his way around the room, hand twisting and twitching to clean the mess left behind. The sheets made a quiet sound and then a loud slurp. “Ah,” Grant said, “that good?”

“Ugh,” a blonde head crept free of the sheets, “the world is too loud.” Felicity DeLuca loved her job but she hated what it made her do. “S’Wednesday right?” She asked rolling her shoulders and trying to bleed feeling back into them.” She looked to Grant who, bless him had drawn the curtains closed. He nodded at her once. “Okay that’s...alright.” She pawed at her eyes, coffee being brought to her mouth for loud swallows of the liquid within. “Infinite coffee cup?”

“Yes.”

“I swear Grant if you were close to legal.” Felicity said in her husky just up voice that were Grant not totally baffled by the concept of romance and flirting and deadened to the sensation of love by his powers, he’d likely feel it then.

“Assistants are supposed to assist.” He said simply, the faint heat of a blush swamped by cold efficiency and redirected thought processes. “Speaking of I imagine before I bring up work you want breakfast?”

“Yes. Breakfast then maybe work.” She replied, a sudden smell lingering around the room. She looked down to see plates upon plates of breakfast food. Fried eggs, omelettes, french toast, stacks of pancakes. Grant was a boy that made miracles happen on a regular basis, shame though that his cooking skills leave much to be desired.

Felicity was well aware that having someone around to combat her body's extreme need for food was useful but there was an issue; an issue only she could have had. It all tasted so plain. He made food and sure it did the food thing and filled you up- not her but really it’d do for anyone else- but it all tasted so plain and basic. The boy’s powers let him bypass obstacles, this obstacle was there was no food. So now there was.

But it wasn’t delicious food. That didn’t stop Felicity from throwing the plates into her mouth, chewing them up and swallowing them down though. But really a lack of taste should never get in the way of very necessary indulgence.


“So,” Grant said as she chewed, aware that catching Felicity when she was mid feast was the best way to talk to her. “We’ve got about twenty minutes before the Star Sound conference starts, we’ve to cover that.” He noticed her stop eating for a moment, then start again but more slowly.

“Grant I don’t know if you’re aware,” Felicity said after dropping a stack of pancakes half her height into her mouth and swallowing quickly, “that I am very, viciously, hungover. Covering the people who make sound systems for action movies does not mesh well with that.” She slurped some coffee from the infinite cup. She looked to Grant who, still floating slightly off the ground, steepled his fingers.

“I am well aware. I was also there last night, remember? We were supposed to cover the opening of Mr. Niccals new casino, you drank a lot, ate more and at one point I think you made out with Mr. Niccals.” Grant counted off on his fingers, the images still vivid and pastel in his mind. “I told you we had to do this and you said you’d be up for it.”

“Ugh,” Felicity said inhaling a dozen slices of French toast. “I was probably two sheets to the wind at that point! You can’t trust me when I’m drunk.” She said trying to remember most of last night, it was a mix of cocktail dresses, fancy waiters and the taste of cider purloined from a blonde man’s lips. All in all it was a bit of a mess.

“You were,” Grant agreed, crossing his legs to sit in mid air. “But at the same time it is our job to do this so we have to.” He crooked a finger and a door opened to a closet that went on forever, shirts and pants and shoes shined to mirror perfection. “I took the liberty of bringing your closet from home. Eat that, drink the coffee, I’ve turned the door inside the closet into a power shower. We’ve got twenty minutes then we gotta go boss, sorry.” He smiled gingerly and Felicity debated crushing his skull with her teeth.

She opted instead for just having more of the forever coffee and eating roughly twelve dozen eggs at once. She could always eat Grant later if he got annoying.

---

“You know what the best part of our job is Withnail?” Lydia asked her subordinate as they watched the little figure in the cell hide from the blinding lights under his bed.

“The pursuit of truth, Mam?” Withnail replied, his posture ramrod and his expression flat. Lydia paced past him to look at the figure on the monitor, a slim male figure who’d been kept awake for three days straight by all manner of means.

“Close.” She purred, running a finger around a red rimmed button. It was designed to send an electrical current through the cell’s bed. She’d not used it yet, it was always her favourite. She pressed a button and turned off the lights in the cell, the figure under the bed slowly emerged. His hand touched the frame of the bed, she raised her finger over the button.

“The fact we’re making the streets safe for the people of The Benevolent Empire, Mam?” Withnail said again and Lydia wondered why all the recruits from Withnail’s graduating class resembled robots more than men, honestly no spark.

She pressed the button and the figure in the cell screamed as a jolt slid down it’s arm and cause their whole form to lock up rigid, unable to let go of the bed as the current made their body a playground.

“I love the looks on their faces when they think they’re getting away with it and then they don’t.” She let go of the button and the figure collapsed to the floor, still and panting. “God Bless the Empire and her people.”

“God Bless Mam.” Withnail agreed. “It’s been two days and twenty two hours, we must release the suspect in two hours. I suggest we begin more rigorous interrogation techniques.”

Lydia turned to face the mammoth man, Withnail in his dress whites. Gold buttons polished with a zealot flair, so bright you could see your face in them. She regarded her hair, not a strand out of place. She crossed her hands behind her back and Withnail pulled the door open for her.

“That sounds divine Withnail.” Lydia said as she made her way through the sterile cell block, the filth was saved for the prisoners. There was no need for the jailors to feel uncomfortable, they were afforded maximum luxury as befitting an officer of the Empire. There were two way mirrors in the cells so the convicts could watch them drink and eat tea while the faceless masses of the torture doctors pried teeth from their skulls. It sent a simple message.

We are winning. The war on crime is fought against morale foremost.

The man who was in a cell was now in a room with a chair and a desk, he was bolted to the desk by massive manacles that ran the length of his arm. His vision swam with creepers, little tendrils of black that crept up on him to drag him off to sleep. He couldn’t sleep, they do worse things to you in your sleep.
All he could see in front of him was a room, a dozen or so bored looking officers in their dress whites looking back at him. Each and everyone of them looking at him down their noses, some sneered and gestured at him whispering amidst themselves. The next crop of The Benevolent Empires interrogation forces, the upper crust reared and taught to torture and interrogate those unlucky few the investigators brought to them.

The door to the room opened up and a giant walked in, dress whites so crisp it was a wonder that he’d put a crease in them by wearing the things. He held the door open for a smaller sort, short shining bright hair and a pretty smile.

“Good morning,” she spoke in a loud perfect voice to the people behind the glass. “I am chief Enforcer Lydia, of The Benevolent Empire. Some of you know me, others have heard of me, I am to be your instructor on the subtle arts of interrogation on this fine day.” She smiled out to the people behind the glass a few nodded and one patriotic sort gave a salute.

“Withnail, be a chap and show them the prisoner.” She spoke and the man tied to the desk felt a great hand, palm the size of his whole face crash on the back of his skull. It lifted him up like he was nothing, arms clamped and rattled in the desk jolting them painfully. The man winced at the sensation, he felt slight delicate fingers on his face prying open eyes.

“Interrogation starts long before they enter this room, observe the eyes and pallor of his skin. Very pale and bloodshot, he’s been kept on a strict schedule of ten minutes of sleep a day. His mind is racing, he is unwell and getting worse.”

Why won’t they help him? The prisoner wonders, he is suffering, how can anyone who does this claim to represent good?

“This criminal is one Robert Swyfte. A fine sort by all accounts, big family, well liked by co-workers at his automotive job.” Lydia continued to read his file. “By all appearances a perfect citizen of this Empire. But he’s been sneaking out parts. He was spotted by a much more loyal member of the Empire who informed us as to his activities.” Lydia stalked in front of the man in the chair, watched the way his pupils went thin.

“This is the last chance. This is the last actual opportunity you have to fix this,” she grabs the man’s chin and makes him look her dead in the eyes, “You tell me where to find whoever you’re selling the product to. We can mitigate your claim to civil service. A demonstration or two for students like this.” Lydia explains, her eyes soft and voice low. “Little things. Demonstrations of where to hit a man, demonstrations of the thinking of criminals. It’s better than the jails. It’s better by miles than the jails.”

The man sits for a moment, the look on her face is genuine. Her eyes are soft, gone is that horrid smile for the students. It’s just them in the room now. He nods slowly, it’s a way out. It’s a way out. He leaps, takes the branch.

“Jackie Star, she’s been taking car parts, camera parts. She’s building some kind of box...science stuff.” The man admits, he doesn’t want to sound stupid but that’s what is when it came to Jackie’s weird sound stuff.

“See,” Lydia turns to the audience of students who look almost angry at this. “Never forget the potential of the olive branch. Our young man here has seen the error of his ways and has agreed to benefit his community through educational assistance.” Lydia said sternly, chiding those few on the other side of the window here for a horror show.

Lydia nodded to Withnail who mouthed a stern. “Mam.” He opened the door and Lydia just shook her head at those in the observation theatre as she left. The man at the table saw a sea of disappointed faces and he laughed, once. The door opened again.

“Welcome to the twelve thirty torture class,” Lydia said a hammer in her hand, “rule one. Lie.” The hammer came down on the man’s hand, the class cheered.

---

“Never heard of it,” Felicity said flatly as she regarded the assortment of roadies and roustabouts that trailed lengths of cables and heavy machinery around the currently empty show floor.

“Never heard of Star Sounds?” Grant asked scribbling furiously on a notepad, powers integrated best with the mono-media and automatic note taking was as mono as his powers got. “She’s a big deal, does everything from the speakers in your car- well not your car- to the big wall of amps the Sound Sisters use to fight crime. When it comes to Audio she’s Aphrodite.”

“Crush on her?” Felicity asked over the rim of a cup of coffee,

Grant just snorted. “I’m spoken for.” Grant lowered his glasses some and peek at the strange dome on the stage. “I suppose that’ll be the big thing their unveiling.”

“You’d hope so,” Felicity said skimming the notes she’d been given on this event. Star Sounds was a big deal, blossomed late one Summer after a high school sound project caught the attention of some big wigs. Led their founder to a full ride scholarship to some prestigious hush hush genius academy where she turned her talent with sound into a solid gold investment.

Star Sounds was more than just stuff to blow out Grant’s ear drums though, medical ultrasound tech, heavy duty precision sound mining tools designed to last longer than drills. Interesting stuff, Felicity knew a few heavy duty sound villains and knew the kind of damage the right sounds could inflict on a body. Even one as warped as her own could be vulnerable to weaponized sound.

“So that dome we think that’s the perfect sound?” Felicity said, dumping the dossier into her handbag.

“I assume so.” Grant said taking a quick photograph, his camera triggered to go off by thought. “It’s the biggest thing to hit ultra luxury home entertainment since the massage chair that could do your taxes.” Grant had been reading about this thing for months, aware he’d never be able to afford it until he was at least thirty.

“I don’t buy it.” Felicity said simply, another slurp of coffee. “I mean it doesn’t sound like something that could be replicated, or if it could someone would have already tried it. I mean liveable sound, that sounds mad.” She felt Grant’s eyes on her and looked down at the punk, slurped her coffee. “I realise I say that as a lady with a physique that’s a fun house mirror but come on. Sound you can step into.”

“That’s what we do here at Star Sounds though.” A voice spoke up and Felicity and Grant turned- camera flashed and note pencil scribbled. “We make the new sound.” Said Jaclyn Star, a big grin on her face. Jaclyn looked like she’d heard of casual Friday and married the idea, slacks on and a shirt with a clip on tie hanging from her collar. Her hair a shock of pink and green highlights.

“Pleasure to meet you,” Felicity said slipping into industry professional mode, “Felicity DeLuca, Silent Sentinel entertainment’s section. We’re very thankful for the invite.”

“We invited everyone,” Jaclyn said simply and walked past the reporter, camera flash going off just to her right. “Though you two got here early didn’t you? Wanted to catch the setup of the project?”

“Yeah.” Grant said simply, eyes fixed on the sound machine. Felicity said nothing but narrowed her eyes at her assistant suddenly a lot of things made sense, she could have had more time to sleep and snore but the little nerd wanted to bask in the glow of his sound crush. Ah young love, was there anything more gross?

“So,” Felicity said falling into step behind the shorter woman, “where did the idea come from?”

“A bit of a trite question but I suppose it’s the one you’ve got to ask right?” Jaclyn said in response, looking over her shoulder at the reporter who just nodded. “I suppose it came from two places, I was talking with some people; real tech heads who talk about stuff like ping gap and human bodily functions as measured by data packets.”

“Nerds.” Felicity said simply and Jaclyn laughed once, before catching herself. “I’ve got mad science friends who’ve had similar conversation topics, spinal load is a particular favourite.” Felicity felt something prod into her hip and fund Grant elbowing her once. “Sorry, do go on.” Felicity said simply bumping her side against Grant, the boy almost toppling over.

“One of them said something interesting though, they were talking about outside stimuli and the brain's ability to process it.” She stepped over some cables running into a large white machine being fiddled with by men with clipboards. “Tune it to Sigma Seven Setting, I want the jello shots to never stop wobbling, subliminal sound vibrations to stimulate the brain and keep people buzzed.”

The men with the clipboards resumed work quickly nodding.

“They said that certain songs and sensations; taste and smell and the whole thing. They sometime spark thoughts and memories buried deep, things associated with them. You know you listen to music and it can become associated with images of your past or conjure up scenes from movies. Tastes remind you of home and old meals that kind of thing. It got me thinking.”

Some assortment of headphones were mounted across a wall, price tags applied to a few of them. Once the press filtered out the general public would be allowed access to the show floor, might as well hawk some wears. “I want the new ghetto blaster range in place in ten minutes, we want to push those things out. Headphones are a dime a dozen, exclusive Star Sound Summit ghetto blasters are a one time deal, we want people to see them and weep as they run out.”

Jaclyn turned back to Felicity and Grant who were in part writing down everything she said- auto-dictation courtesy of Grant- and trying to drink in all the tech they could. “Sorry it’s a bit hectic,” Jaclyn said mounting the stage at the front and placing a hand on the fat white dome station there, cables feeding into it from all over. “But what it amounts to was what if we overload the brain with stimuli of such perfect fidelity we trick it?”

She placed a hand on the machine, stroking the smooth exterior. “What if we could trick the brain into thinking it’s in a new place. Imagine it sounds so real and so exact project in 360 degrees, to give you the idea of being there. Imagine being sat inside your favourite movies, imagine militaries using this to train pilots and doctors for all manner of scenarios. set up a receiver in a location and project yourself into board room meetings, poor children could be sent to a classroom from their homes, project yourself into the mariana trench. It’s a perfect simulation machine.”

“That sounds amazing.” Grant breathed.

“If it works.” Felicity apprehended. “The movie part sounds like it could be fun but the whole training thing sounds like it would need more work, training by being told what to do isn’t much use.” She said simply. “I prefer on the job training.”

Jaclyn said nothing at first then just walked away. “Some people don’t have that luxury, if that’s all we’ll need time to set up the equipment.”

“What was the other one?” Grant piped up. “You said the idea came from two places.” He called by Jaclyn didn’t answer. The quote “The voice in my head told me to make” it never sounds good on paper.

“Nice job,” Grant said to his boss, “now she hates us.”

“Oh no. How will we paparazzi live with someone hating us?” Felicity trilled out rubbing the scratchy shaved hair on Grant’s skull. “Come on, don’t sulk. Let’s grab a hot dog and scope out the other stuff.”

“Sure.” Grant said stuff his hands in his pockets and following along. “I’m not buying.”

“Neither am I. I’m sure some charitable soul will get them for us.”

---

“We got trouble Jack.”

The woman looks up from her masterwork, the guts of an empire torn free from oppression and forced to benefit the greater good. She set down the soldering iron, the machine was ready. She checked her watch. Five minutes. Dear god five minutes and she’d win.

“What does it look like, Neal?” Jackie Star inquired as she rose from the machine. “Have they sent many of their horrid drones?”

“Not many, two enforcer teams. Ten soldiers in all but a they’ve brought a chief enforcer with them.” The voice said. Jackie was running all at once, a chief enforcer? Lord she knew she’d taken up too much time, had to raid too many factories. But had she done enough to get a chief enforcer, really those five minutes might as well be a thousand years.

“Which Chief Enforcer?” There were five chief enforcers in all. If it was Spyder or Lydia the plan was beyond impossible. She prayed it was neither Spyder or Lydia, the one with the fire would be better than either of those.

“Chief Enforcer,” pleasepleaseplease, “Lydia.” Fuck the Empire.

“Lydia and nine others?” Jackie replied as she reached the upper floor of her base, dozens of her men scrambled about her assembling weapons and plucking munitions in frenzied motions. This was a fight to the death against one of the biggest guns the enforcers had.

“Afraid so.” Neal said simply, he sat at one of the desks in the abandoned car factory. “It’s going to be a slaughter,” Neal jumped down from the desk and put a hand on Jackie’s face, “I always knew you’d be the death of me Ms Star.”

“Neal there’s still time, the schedule is going well we can make this work.”

“No,” Neal said simply with a small but honest smile, “you can make this work. You’ve got it to work. These people are coming to muck it all up. I’m going to hold them off. You’re going to take The Sound-Boys and go. This has been a lifelong plan to stop them. Now, go.” He kissed her on the forehead and walked to his murder machine.

Lydia fired another blast from her wrist with contempt, another mass of men and women were brought low by the intensity. They didn’t even scream, weren’t given the time. Lydia had not the luxury or the time to make them scream, according to the man she interrogated they had some kind of scheme set to go off momentarily. Normally she liked to drag out gutting a criminal empire, this one was being rushed.

No satisfaction.

“Withnail!” She shouts and dodges a clumsy swing from some idiot with a hammer, doesn’t deserve to see the light. She lunges, blade in hand, and sticks it into his chest, between two or three ribs. Not instant death, he’ll bleed out here alone. He deserves such a thing for interrupting her.

“Here, mam.” Withnail appears, his uniform still immaculate but in one massive hand he holds a wet blade. “We’re routing them, not much longer. They won’t get their plan off.” He notices the man on the floor gasping his last and regards his commander cooly.

“Fantastic a bunch of silly children using a ruined old automotive plant for a base of operations, armed with scraps.” She laughed for a moment and turned to face the factory, a group of rounds cracked out from inside in a disorganised spray. The soldiers of the Empire moved in regiment perfection, firing and covering one another. Four fired while four reloaded, a perfect volley array.

“Quite.” Withnail said placing his foot on the throat of the down man and jerking quickly to one side. The man died without a sound. “It’s a wonder they’ve been able to house some fantastic machine in there.”

“Even idiots have some luck,” Lydia said as the gunfire from the factory stopped. “Surely that’s not all they had?”

A few of the officers press forward, swords drawn, sensing an advantage. It’s too late they see the thing that comes screaming from the factory. It’s old, most of the soldiers have only ever heard stories of things like this. A machine of pure steel screaming noise like some feral hound. A gas powered auto-motive death machine crushes the first three men it meets. Behind the wheel Neal can only laugh. He twists something and the machine around him lurches.

The doors of the car fall off and something horrid pours out of the inside followed by a man. The man has a machine wrapped around him, thick wires and metal, speakers over his hands and eyes.

“Death to oppressors! Death to the Empire,” his jaw clenches and Lydia feels bass run the very length of her spine and rattle her skull from the inside. “Die.” He jerks, there’s nothing there, absolutely nothing flies toward two of Lydia’s men and absolutely nothing shatters their bones inside their skin. So why did they fall over and start screaming as their limbs went limp?

Why is it suddenly impossible to stand and why is the world wobbling. She sees Withnail, tower of a man that he is hit the ground and start shaking. The man, terrorist that he is speaking. Too bloody stupid to know he’s made everyone deaf to his grand proclamation of terror. Lydia hates people who talk too much. She holds a hand out moves it until she can’t see the man for her hand and she kills him faster than he can think.

The Empire blesses the loyal. Some more than others. Lydia was blessed with the cleansing light of justice. In truth she could create hyper focal points for light to refract through a trillion times a second until it became superheated and dense, then she pointed and the sun hit someone point blank.

Neal had a moment to appreciate the blinding light then it went into his ocular nerve, he was blind for a femto second and before he could scream a hand sized hole had shredded through the side of his face and emerged out the other side. His brain boiled in his skull and with a sizzle he collapsed onto the ground.

Lydia dragged herself to her feet. Smoke twisting between her fingers. “No more.” She refracted light, twisted it, wrapped it and aimed it. The men and women in the factory raised their weapons in futility against a force far greater than them. The light of the empire smote them one by one.

Below the light, hiding in the dark Jackie, Treach and two more heard the screams and heard the building melt. Brick and steel warped and twisted as easily as flesh beneath the assault of the chief enforcer Lydia, The Light of The Benevolent Empire.

Jackie looked at a watch on the wall. Five seconds.

“Prepare for breach. Bleed will commence momentarily.” She lowered her glasses over her eyes and held aloft her sound pistol. They were about to break more than the law of the empire.

---

This was a fresh hell, she did deserve it though. Felicity DeLuca was told not to go to a Louis Niccals party. Louis Niccals isn’t human and parties so hard he drinks whole university campuses under the table. Louis Niccals can dance on a bed of nails and not bleed. She thought she could do the same. She was not getting old, the kids were just getting younger.

But here she was; the tinges of acid reflux and a hangover tickling at her mind in a room full of people who made very loud machines for the fun of it. This was the special hell her mother had mentioned she’d go to for sneaking out to party every couple of nights.

Grant was ogling some horrid assortment of speakers and taking photographs as the house lights dimmed. The speakers all pumped out a faint hum of sound that had Felicity’s less than stable form wobble around some. She groaned and tapped Grant’s shoulder.

“Ear plugs.” She said and he passed her a pair. She placed them in with a silent ‘thank you’. She’d been to a school with mad scientists, she knew when one was about to make a speech. She knew all the steps. First you take the stage and thank people, say something witty about your enemies.

Jaclyn took to the stage, people cheered. She held up a hand and the room went quiet. Grant was furiously taking notes while doing nothing at all. He felt the silent bass filter through the room, his teeth were on edge. Something was off, silent strings twisted behind the scenes as the fabric of space frayed.

“Leave.” Grant said to himself, his voice buried under a sound only he could hear, collision. Synchronous. Alignment. There was a hand on the lever behind space and time and it jerked sharply to the left.

Jaclyn was saying something and the pen was writing it down as Grant looked to his boss, she saw the fear in his face at once and opened her mouth to speak. Treacle. None of them would be fast enough.

There was a sound and the great dome on the stage shook once, something leaked out. A song was in the air, no words just sounds like something familiar. A record skipping. The door to the machine opened and Jackie Star emerged with her Sound Boys.

Jackie saw Jaclyn and a wicked, no unhinged, smile dawned across her face. “First reality to reality matter transportation using only sound waves, 100% successful.” She lifted the goggles from her face and nodded to Jaclyn. “Not so imaginary now am I?”

A flash from the crowd disrupted the moment. Grant, held up by a very long in the arms Felicity dangled there with a camera.

“What a scoop.” He said eager.