Tracer's Return

"Whatever happened to Tracer, anyway?"

The Scientist frowned as he pondered Havok's question. "No one really knows," he said. "Some time in the middle of the '80s, the news just . . . stopped talking about him." He shrugged. "I mean, 1985 was a pretty tumultuous year on the super-hero front." He pointed to three of the other members of the League of 250 Point Characters, all seated around the meeting table with him. "Brick One, Mauler, and Blue Shooter — all three of you burst onto the scene then. Practically at the same time."

"Tell me about it," Blue Shooter grumbled. "You'd think taking down the biggest crime syndicate in the country would've been the story of the year, but noooooo, we had to have the Exxmen debacle and freakin' space aliens."

Mauler folded his arms. "Those weren't even the first space aliens. We got that, um, High Mandarin emperor guy fighting Tracer in '81, and then two back-to-back alien invasions in '84 thwarted by Infra Man."

"Against that kind of a backdrop," the Scientist said, "Tracer's exploits wouldn't have really been newsworthy anymore." He put a hand to his chin. "And Tracer always did have an uneasy relationship with the FBI. So if the government was looking to make him quietly disappear, the mid-'80s would've been a perfect time for it."

Blue Shooter eyed him warily. "That's . . . how most harebrained conspiracy rumors tend to start. Wild speculation and zero evidence."

"Still," Brick One interjected, "It might be worth investigating. Government bureaucracies are no different from the private kind I've dealt with over my career. You just have to word your FOIA requests the right way."

The Scientist looked skeptical. "The Freedom of Information Act only covers information that isn't classified. An investigation like this would require pulling a rather broad and selective set of strings."

"The information's gotta be stored somewhere," Keybounce said. He cracked his knuckles. "No computer system has perfect security. I could probably get us into half a dozen of the government's databases by the end of the week."

"Well, it's 1992," the Scientist said. "The better part of a decade since the trail ran cold. Don't be surprised if it takes a year of digging to find out what really happened."

"How's your search for top secret government information going?" the Scientist asked two months later.

Keybounce sighed. "Getting through their security was the easy part. Figuring out how and where they store anything interesting, though — that's taking a lot longer than I thought it would. It's like, even their time-critical databases are wrapped in the same kind of bureaucratic red tape as their public information is."

"Speaking of their public information," Brick One interjected, "It looks like one of my FOIA requests just bore fruit."

"FOIA?" the Scientist puzzled. "That's surprising. I was sure the FBI would have classified everything they knew about Tracer and the 27 Empire aliens."

Other members of the League of 250 Point Characters heard this, and started to gather around.

"That's just it," Brick One replied, "The FBI wasn't the only organization involved with those aliens. Damn near everyone in the world saw the attack on Los Angeles in 1981. When Tracer blew up the 27 Empire's space ship, rescue workers searched through the fallen debris, in case anyone was trapped underneath. And rescue workers have to document their work, just like any government employee does. So I made a request under California's Public Records Act."

He held up a few sheets of photocopier paper, stapled together, and a VHS cassette. "Apparently, those rescue workers found an alien survivor. One of the 27 Empire aliens had survived the breakup of its spaceship, and the fall to the ground. It was in an airtight part of the ship sealed off from the rest. They saw the alien through some kind of window in a larger hatch, probably one that was originally on an interior bulkhead. They got an 8 millimeter movie camera and filmed it through the window, while shining flashlights on it.

"Only problem is," Brick One went on, "They were rescue workers, not scientists. They responded the way any rescue workers would when they found a survivor — they pried open the hatch. They reported a hissing sound when they first got it open, and then the alien stopped moving and slumped to the ground after roughly a minute. It never occurred to them that these aliens might not be able to breathe Earth's atmosphere."

"Hmmm," the Scientist said, "If they don't breathe oxygen, I wonder what gases they do need to breathe."

Havok, who'd been listening in, spoke up. "Maybe the 27 Empire aliens do need to breathe oxygen, but some of the other gases mixed in with our air are poisonous to them."

Keybounce chuckled. "It would be a big irony if something as reactive as oxygen gas was fine for them, but the 79% of Earth's atmosphere that's plain old inert nitrogen made them choke."

"It could be one of the trace compounds," the Scientist suggested. "Like CO₂ or water vapor or even argon. Or maybe they need oxygen plus some other compound that's present in their planet's air but not in ours."

Brick One checked his photocopied written notes. "Oh, here's something. One of the workers reported that when they cracked open the hatch, an acrid smell came out. He said it reeked of rotten eggs."

The Scientist frowned. "Hydrogen sulfide? Some anaerobes here on Earth use it in photosynthesis, but there's no known metabolic use. Maybe . . ." He sighed. "Nah. At this point it's all just speculation in the dark."

"I'd," Mauler spoke up, "I'd like to see that 8 millimeter film they took."

Brick One smiled, holding up the VHS cassette. "I thought you'd never ask."

There wasn't much on the video tape. The alien didn't live long enough to do much. But what was there was revealing enough. The alien had six tentacle-like arms, each tipped with its own set of tentacle-like fingers. It moved with aching, almost sloth-like slowness. It was hard to tell if this was normal, or if it had been slowed — because of its injuries, or because of the unbreatheable air it now found itself in, or simply because it had been trapped in one room for several hours, possibly without food or water or whatever sustenance these aliens needed.

"Well, that tells us more about the alien species that built Tracer's armor generator box," the Scientist said. "But I don't think it brings us any closer to finding out what happened to Tracer himself."

In 1993, they had their answer.

Stuff I intend to have happen in this story:

• In 1993, their search pays off. A brief flash detected by Lick Observatory in 1985 tipped them off. They discover that in 1985, Tracer had gone to check out the rumored Stargate in orbit between Jupiter and Saturn, belonging to the 27 Empire, and had supposedly gone through it. This would have sent him to Alpha Centauri.
• Mauler, being the only super-hero who could fly faster than light, goes out to the classified location. He could get there in a little over an hour at warp 1, but is impatient and decides to go at warp 2 (which takes 7 minutes). Lo and behold, there really is an enormous cylindrical skeleton there, open on one side and blocked off with scaffolding on the other.
• A blue light atop the Stargate blinks 4 times, then suddenly the stargate comes to life. Its interior glows madly. When the light subsides, Tracer emerges.
• There is a jury-rigged radio transceiver on Tracer's back, inside his energy armor. Seeing Mauler, he points to this radio, then holds up fingers to spell out 1, 2, 1, 2, 5. Mauler correctly interprets this as meaning aviation radio frequency 121.25 MHz. He tunes in, and now the two of them can communicate across the vacuum.
• "Get back to Earth and warn them," Tracer says. "The 27 Empire is coming!"
• Tracer hightails it back toward Earth, but Mauler tags along next to him instead of kicking in his warp drive. He's unconvinced. He radios the League and tells them that Tracer alleges "the 27 Empire is 'coming,' whatever that means."
• In their rear, the blue light on the Stargate blinks 10 times, then the Stargate activates again. But this time two space ships emerge. They are imperial assault ships, equal in size to the one that attacked Earth in late 1981. Now Mauler understands the magnitude of the threat.
• As the ships leave the Stargate, Tracer tries to stop one of them the same way he stopped the High Mandarin's ship in 1981. He dodges more carefully this time, since their main batteries are more effective outside an atmosphere, but manages to get in behind the ship and enter one of its three exhaust nozzles . . . and is immediately rebuffed. Word of how the High Mandarin's ship was destroyed had been broadcast just before it exploded, and the ships in Alpha Centauri space had taken precautions. There is now a toggleable force curtain inside each exhaust nozzle, similar to the one Tracer's energy armor is made out of.
• Mauler comes to Tracer's aid, blasting one of the turrets on the back of the ship, but more shots are being fired by the other turrets on the ship — and by the other ship. "We can't win this one," Tracer says, "Not here. Let's regroup on Earth and —" . . . and then the blue light atop the Stargate blinks 10 times and the Stargate activates again. More ships of the 27 Empire are coming.
• "I'll take out the Stargate!" Mauler says, and blasts it right next to the blue light. It's not even scorched. "It's not that simple," Tracer says, "They built these Stargates to withstand nearly anything!" Finally, they head back for Earth.
• On Earth, the 27 Empire fleet is hot on their heels. All the world's militaries and all the world's super-heroes come out to fend them off. Taking out even one ship is a monumental challenge. Reports come in that Pokhara, the second largest city in Nepal, has fallen to the blast of one of the 27 Empire's City Killers, just like Barstow did in 1981.
• More ships keep emerging from the Stargate. The FBI, now desperate, open all their files to The Scientist, in the hope that he can figure out how to stop them. Tracer tells everyone what he learned while in the Alpha Centauri system. The fleet there is enormous. He'd also been privy to signals sent from the Homeworld. Its armored warriors defeated and the 27 Empire knocking at their front door, the Homeworld had done the unthinkable and shut down their system's Stargate. So they know that such a thing is possible.
• Poring over the items decoded from the Last Armored Warrior's log, The Scientist & company discover that there's a special code that can shut down a Stargate. The code for the Sol system's stargate is in there. But the code has to be delivered by a transmitter similar to the one Tracer posesses, and requires rapid back-and-forth handshaking. This means it needs to be done at very close range. There may also be last-minute changes needed to the code that would require a really smart guy like the Scientist to figure out.
• Mauler, Tracer, the Scientist in his hastily-crafted flying space armor, and maybe Moon Man, all fly out to deactivate the Stargate, braving the incoming ships of the 27 Empire's fleet along the way. Mauler's warp drive helps, but they have to stay sublight when deactivating the Stargate. Heroics ensue.
• Our heroes triumph, shutting down the Stargate right as its blue light started blinking again. But many 27 Empire attack ships have already made it through, and our heroes need to get back to help out.
• Back on Earth, the 27 Empire has already laid waste to several cities. The rest of the League of 250 Point Characters, as well as the various 100-point super-heroes still on Earth (Wo-Man, Octoplex, Hay Man, Tree, Water-and-Ice Man, Tsybd, and anyone else I've left out), fight valiantly. They get some surprising help from THEM and MACRON. They even consider letting Projector out of the LAPD's super powered jail to join in the fray. Maybe some of the ships are of a different design which require different tactics to vanquish, like one-man fighters or something.
• One ship, they manage to bring down without destroying it. Translation teams demand the surrender of the crew.
• Tracer, the Scientist, Mauler, and maybe Moon Man arrive back on Earth and join the translation team. The aliens have already realized that since they're trapped here in the Sol system, their best chance for survival is to surrender. Our heroes tell them to convince their comrades to do the same, but they reply that unless their fleet commander surrenders, the rest of the ships will fight on.
• The ship carrying the fleet commander is singled out. Other ships rush to its defense. A focused battle ensues. Heroism happens. Maybe one of the regulars makes the Supreme Sacrifice, I'm not sure yet. But eventually the commander surrenders and the other ships follow suit. The battle is finally over.
• Epilog happens. Loose ends. Mourning of losses. Other stuff. The end.

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