johnbates

Thu, 29 Jul 2004 01:33:00 GMT

Johnny Bates meets his first (living) Beacon Harbor resident, one Tom Raven.

Chinatown

Northgate Avenue intersects Main Street to the south and cuts north into an area that has become known as Chinatown. Named originally for the Buddhist temple clearly visible on the west side of the street, it eventually attracted all manner of businesses here, not just Chinese, but Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai and others. Now the streets are lined with shops and restaurants, boasting signs in a wide variety of languages and a pleasantly chaotic jumble of architectural styles.

Johnny Bates feels as though he's been running non-stop since he arrived in...wherever this is. Just now, he's stopped to catch his breath, occasionally taking a moment to peer out onto the street from, well, you could hardly even call it an alley. It's just a gap, barely a man's width wide, between two buildings. The streets are relatively deserted, for reasons that are perhaps obvious, though the hordes of the undead that have added to the local color so seem to have picked somewhere else to frequent. For the moment, at least.

Which is perhaps why this street is actually seeing living, breathing traffic...in the form of one additional person. At least...he *seems* to be a living, breathing person, inasmuch as he's walking down the street with his eyes nailed to a device in his hands that bathes his face in a soft glow. Occasionally he stops...pivots this way or that...and keeps on going, never taking a false step or walking into an obstacle. Anyone who knew him might recognize him, if he got close enough, to be Tom Raven, resident computer weenie.

Johnny Bates's eyes widen a bit more (which means they're on the verge of bulging out of his head) as he sees Tom pass near his hiding place. He's clearly terrified. And he might have remained hidden, when suddenly his eyes narrow, and he shakes his head vigorously. "...no..." he hisses beneath his breath. "No, he's not...look, shut up, okay? Just...let me, he is *not* a zombie!" This last is said quite loudly, and Johnny takes in a sharp breath as he realizes just how much attention he's drawn to himself. "Uh...hi?" he says lamely, as he steps out into the open.

Tom seems to note the outburst, and goes quite still, carefully watching the machine. After the newcomer has made sufficiently un-shuffling movement, he allows a small smile and waves a hand in Johnny's direction, still without looking up. "Hey there. Can I help you?"

Johnny Bates looks like he's within seconds of bolting. But he just says, "Help? Yes, oh God, yes, I need help...I need..." He suddenly takes a step away from the man. "Unless...look, don't get too close to me. It isn't safe. It isn't...just answer me one question, okay? Just one question? Please?" He's practically begging the man.

Tom spares Johnny a momentary glance before his eyes go back to the glowing screen. "If I can. What do you mean it's not safe? Are you contagious?"

"Contagious? What?" Johnny's obvious fear gives way to confusion. "No, I don't...look, never mind. It's hard to explain. Just tell me," and here his voice takes on a defiant tone, though the fear's still quite present, "Is this hell? Am I in hell?"

Tom allows a mirthless grin at that. He turns slightly, still watching the screen. "That was one of my first theories, but the prevailing answer seems to be no. People here lean more toward the idea of parallel dimensions. I gather you...Oh." He blinks, and actually looks up. "Of course. The zombies. Yeah, you might get the wrong impression from that..."

Johnny Bates glances just slightly at the object in Tom's hand, but only for a moment. He actually allows himself a tentative smile of his own, at this point, though it's gone almost as soon as it arrives. Then he shakes his head vigorously. "He says you're lying, but I don't really trust him, so...yeah, the zombies didn't really help." He shivers. "Fortunately, I'm pretty fast. And I'm used to hiding. A bit too...never mind. No, it's because...well, I died. I must have died. And then I was here."

That gets Tom's full attention, as he looks at Johnny, then more carefully at the screen, and back at Johnny. He smiles politely, clears his throat, and inquires, "He?"

"He...no!" Johnny exclaims suddenly. "No, he wants me to show you," and he's back to frightened again. "But that really wouldn't be a good idea. Just...just forget it, okay?" A pause. "So, this place...you're quite sure it's not...it's another universe? Is...is that even possible?"

Tom glances around at the largely silent buildings. "It seems to get the 'bees can't fly' vote for empirical data...In other words, we're here and we're not home, so that kinda says it is." He shrugs and turns his attention back to the screen. "Supposedly people here tried to open a sort of controlled interdimensional channel, and screwed up bigtime...They got the interdimensional part, but nowhere near the control. Now people just...drop in from time to time. Shiny blue hole in the sky?"

A lot of this seems to be going straight over Johnny's head. "Blue hole...uh, I guess so," he says. "I wasn't really paying attention. Things were...they were bad, where I was. Really really bad." He shivers a bit. "So...it was some scientist who did this?"

"Group of them," Tom murmurs. "I understand they're all dead now..." He studies the screen thoughtfully, then turns to the right and starts walking. "Follow me."

Johnny Bates mutters something under his breath. It sounds suspiciously like 'good'. But before he can elaborate, he gives Tom a suspicious look. "Follow you? Where?"

Tom quietly says, "Away from the zombies behind me."

Johnny Bates's eyes widen, and he mouths 'Zom-'. He actually takes a step away from Tom, but it's just an instinctive thing. "O-okay. Where?"

Tom distanntly murmurs, "Working on that...Ahead seems to be clear..." He allows a slight smile. "Sorry. This is a proximity monitor I've been working on. Thought I'd test it out tonight. Working great so far, though I should tell you it's not necessarily..."

There's a soft FZZT! and a small trail of smoke arises from the device.

"...Stable." Tom blinks at his (apparently now non-informative) screen, looks up at Cowboy Feng's, and conversationally says, "See that bar over there...?"

Johnny Bates gives a wide-eyed look at the PDA. "That's...more advanced than..." he murmurs. Then, apparently deciding that there's a time and a place, and this isn't it, "Yeah, I see it."

Tom nods, and casually suggests, "Run." He takes off in a beeline toward the bar.

Johnny Bates doesn't need to be told twice. He breaks into a run toward the bar as well. He can be heard to be shouting, as he runs, "No! I won't! Not...I can still outrun them!"

Feng's Bar--Chinatown

A dark little hole in the wall place ringed with paper lanterns. A tiny bar, whose only charm is the small jade accents attached to its carved wood sides, stands crushed against the left wall. The musty, shallow shelves behind the bar are crammed with exotic and ancient looking bottles, all with labels covered in various kanji. Buddhist gratitude cards, yellowed with age, are plastered to the walls by the hundreds, along with charts tracking Chinese astrology and the course of the stars into time unforseen. Chinese dragons, cut out of paper, curl around the slat-covered windows, protecting the bar from evil spirits with their fluttering crepe breath.

The saki here is generally held as the very best in the city, although that fact is not highly publicized. The walls are lined with cramped, two-person booths, the shoulder-high backs of each miniature pair carved with scenes from the oriental countryside. There are no tables here, only booths, stools and standing room around the miniscule bar. In the far back left corner of the room, just beyond the end of the bar, one might notice a good sized trap-door, but if you ask Feng, the owner of the bar, about it, you're likely to just get a dirty look.

Tom charges into the bar, waits for the kid to follow him, and hurriedly shuts the door. He catches his breath, gives the bartender a friendly wave, and sets off for a booth.

Johnny Bates doesn't even stop to look around, following Tom to the booth. "They won't...will they come in here?" he asks, once they're seated.

Tom settles in, slings his backpack off, and starts rummaging inside, extracting a pack of tools and a couple boxes. "From what I've seen, they're not too good at working door latches. 'Sides, most bars around here have shotguns under them. We should be fine. I'll get this thing working again, and I can get you..." He looks up from his digging. "Right...you're new. Got a place to stay yet?"

"I...I haven't even thought about it, yet," Johnny is forced to admit. "I've just been running. Running and hiding. I don't think I've slept since I got here, not for more than a few minutes, at least." And he certainly looks it.

Tom studies the kid for a minute, then sighs softly and roves the bar with his eyes. He doesn't seem to be focusing on anything in the bar, though...After a moment his gaze fixes in a particular direction. "Okay, there's a motel about four blocks from here. I'll have to get back to my place eventually, but I can do it in the morning. Wanna split a room?" His eyes turn back to Johnny now. "I can maybe connect you with some people in the daytime..."

Johnny Bates clearly wants to say yes, desparately wants to. But something's stopping him. All he'll say, and that only after a few moments of agonized silence is, "I...it might not be safe for me to be around other people."

Tom studies the kid, his expression more thoughtful than judgmental -- apparently he has started to acclimatize to an extent -- and quietly says, "There's no full moon tonight..."

"Oh, it's not that...exactly," Johnny almost manages another weak smile. "But...it is, a little bit, I guess. I can't, I can't risk him coming back again. Not after what happened last time. But thank you for your offer. I really do appreciate it."

Tom shrugs, offers a smile and turns to dismantling his hardware. The device is a PDA, with some sort of attachment on the end; the attachment comes off, and, at Tom's tools' touch, comes open. He begins to pick at the circuitry as he speaks. "Hey, we're all in the same boat here. There's shelters around for people who just drop in, and work programs..." He grins at that and looks up. "Personally I prefer to take care of myself, but some people need more of a bootstrap than others. By the way..." He sets down a screwdriver and offers a hand. "...My name's Tom Raven."

Johnny Bates nods, watching Tom work on the PDA for a few moments, waiting until the hand's extended before speaking again. He shakes the other's hand, gingerly, and says, "John Bates. Uh, Johnny. Yes, I'll keep that in mind. If...we'll see, okay?" He pauses. "I haven't ever seen anything quite like that. And I used to, that is, uh, someone I knew used to work for an electronics company."

Tom smiles down at his work, picks up the screwdriver and resumes his probing. "Well, it's a bit more than conventional electronics...It uses a combination of sound and light projection and echo detection to get a topological layout of the surrounding area...I feed that into the main unit's software and extrapolate a scalable image..." He pauses, and chuckles ruefully at himself. "Sorry. How much of that did you catch?"

"Actually, quite a bit," Johnny says, after several moments of looking like he's listening to something else. "It...makes maps, right? Is that all it does?" His fear is forgotten for a moment, replaced with an intrigued expression.

Tom indicates the patient under surgery. "This doesn't even do that, really...It's a sensor unit." He gestures to the PDA. "The 3D-map software on the computer takes care of resolving it."

"I see," Johnny says, watching him work for a few seconds. And then he asks, "Can you get those here or did you...I mean, are you...you said that people seem to find themselves here all of a sudden, right? Did that happen to you, too?"

Tom murmurs, "Well, yes...but my portal had 'Greyhound' written on the side..." He flashes a grin at Johnny and keeps on working. "Sorry. I'm sort of from California. Getting a fresh start out here. Um...gotta ask you, now, because of a friend of mine..." His eyes raise once more and meet the kid's. "What year do you think it is?"

"I...I don't know," Johnny eventually admits. "Everything's so confusing. The last time I remember clearly, it was 198...6? Maybe. That was before, though. But I was actually born around 1940, I think." He seems to be listening to something for a moment, then mutters something under his breath. "Yeah. There were experiments and I was...well, not really frozen, but sort of. For a while. I'm not really clear on it all."

Tom grimaces. "Charming. Does the term 'technocracy' mean anything to you?"

"Techno..." Johnny's clearly confused, yet again. "No, I don't think so. Does something called Project Zarathustra...is that, yes, that was what it was called. Ssh, I'm asking him. Have you ever heard of it?"

Tom shakes his head. "No, but I'll look it up and get back to you." He sighs, lets his eyes wander around the room for a moment, then turns back to his tablemate. "Okay. The year here is 2004. If you worked with electronics in the 80s, then this..." He picks up the PDA. "...is probably up there with the IBM PCs they had then, or would be with some peripherals attached. There's a global network of computers you can connect to called the Internet, which is sort of what CompuServe wanted to grow up into, that you can use to look up lots of information about different things...That might be handy if you're trying to get oriented here. You can go to the local university computer lab and look helpless and someone'll usually help you get started..."

This is a lot of information for Johnny to take in, but he tries to take it in stride. Sort of. "Two thousand...and four?" he asks breathlessly. "Wow. Weren't there supposed to be rocket packs and stuff, though?" he asks, only half-joking. "But...yeah. Thank you for the advice. I appreciate it."

Tom allows a wistful smile at that. "Rocket packs, and flying cars, and personal teleportation, and virtual reality playrooms...Oh, and interplanetary colonization, don't forget that. Yeah, those things were supposed to happen. But..." There is just the slightest hint of tension in his eyes, but his voice stays conversational. "...some people are more hung up on what's not possible than what might be."

Johnny Bates shudders a little bit. "I've seen too much of what's possible," he whispers. "I..." He trails off. "Do you think those zombies are still out there?"

Tom looks back into the guts of his gear. "Be able to tell you in a minute," he murmurs. Without looking up he reaches for a pair of needlenose pliers, pokes in with them, and pulls out a transistor. "Gotcha. Gimme just a minute or two and I'll have this thing running again..." He scrounges in a box, then looks up. "Tell ya what...Let me at least get you to that hotel, and I'll take off for my place. I'll give you a phone number you can call in the morning. How's that sound?"

Johnny Bates considers this for a moment, and nods. "O...okay. I guess that would be all right." It certainly sounds better than another night on the streets.

Tom nods, and with a smile, reapplies himself to his surgery.

How It Began

Thu, 29 Jul 2004 01:21:12 GMT

Johnny Bates had, to all appearances, the ideal childhood. Two loving parents, one bratty (but still ultimately loving) little sister, a pet dog (loving, of course) and, well the family cat really just tolerated him, but you know how cats are. He lived in a spacious house where he had his own room, and there were plenty of places to play nearby, and plenty of neighborhood children with whom to enjoy those places. He went to school, he hiked and fished, he played all manner of games with his friends, and all the other usual childhood things.

But when this idyllic existence was threatened by evil, Johnny Bates proved to be anything but ordinary. He was, unbeknownst to his family and to most of his friends, a superhero. Well, it was really Mike Moran, his best friend in the whole world, who was the superhero. Whenever Mike said his magic word, "Kimota," he would transform into the heroic Miracleman. Miracleman was tall, immensely strong, impervious to harm, able to fly, and no evildoers could stand up to him for very long. How surprised they would have been to learn that the hero who foiled their every nefarious plot was, in truth, nothing more than a little boy.

Mike Moran did not fight the forces of evil alone, of course. There was also Dick Dauntless, a year Mike's junior, who called himself Young Miracleman. And then there was Johnny, who was known as Kid Miracleman. Mike had learned, some time ago, of a way to make a gift of his own power to his two closest friends; the only real difference was that Dick and Johnny used the magic word "Miracleman" to change into their superpowered selves.

Johnny's superheroic form was as boyish as his unpowered self, but he was still every bit as strong, fast, and invulnerable as his two older allies. Mike was their leader, of that there was no question; he was like the oldest brother in the Miracleman family, with Dick as the middle child and Johnny as the youngest. And together, this family fought all manner of diabolical foes, though none were so fiendish as the evil Doctor Gargunza, a mad scientist bent on world domination. But even he could not stand up to the combined might of the Miracleman family, no matter what nefarious schemes he dared employ against them. Miracleman and his two best pals were always victorious in the end.

But one day, the adventure started out a little differently. It was all very confusing, really; Johnny couldn't quite remember how it was that they had learned about the alien threat, the invading spacecraft that they had been dispatched to destroy, lest it imperil the Earth. He couldn't even recall what he'd been doing prior to transforming into Kid Miracleman and setting forth with the other two on their latest mission. None of that was important, of course. He had a job to do, and he knew that it was up to him and his two best friends to save the Earth once more.

He didn't know that it had all been a lie.

John Arthur Bates was born in 1941 to a London family. His parents were both in the military, and there was a war on, so he was primarily raised by his grandmother during his first few years of life. His father, Charles, was a pilot with the R.A.F., and his mother, Doris, was a radio operator. Both lost their lives over the course of the Second World War. Johnny never really knew them, so his grief was not, perhaps, as intense as it might have been.

John's grandmother died when he was five, apparently of natural causes. The British government stepped in and told him that they were placing him with another family, as he had no surviving relatives (aside from extremely distant cousins who he had never met). Johnny really had no choice in the matter, but he seemed to accept this as a necessity, even though he was a little apprehensive as to what form his new family would take. But even in his wildest dreams, he never suspected that the 'family' with whom they would place him would actually be a top secret research project being conducted illicitly by the government.

Project Zarathustra, led by Doctor Emil Gargunza, had been created in the wake of technology recovered from an alien spacecraft which had crashed in Scotland a few years before. The technology, it was hoped, could be utilized to create superhuman beings. The project was dreamed up during the height of the Second World War, but even after the defeat of the Axis, Doctor Gargunza argued vehemently that the research should continue, as the future of the world was still quite uncertain. John Bates was one of the three initial test subjects for this process. The other two were also children whose parents had been killed during the war and who'd subsequently become wards of the government. Their names were Richard Dauntless and Michael Moran.

The aliens appeared to have possessed multiple bodies, each of which was optimized for a specific purpose, and between which they could (it was theorized) project their minds as needed. The knowledge derived from studying the alien bodies and their technology was applied to the three young test subjects. Enhanced cloned bodies were created from each of the childrens' genetic material. These bodies were designed to tap into a nearly infinite supply of energy from hyperspace and to use it for a variety of tasks; they would be incredibly strong, virtually invulnerable, able to outfly the fastest aircraft and might even exhibit other, more subtle capabilities. Their brains were utterly blank slates, making them suitable for direct control by the minds of the children.

The rapid aging process designed to bring the clones to something approaching the childrens' ages went awry for two of the three; Moran's clone actually reached adulthood before its aging could be slowed, and Dauntless's made it to its late teens. Only Bates's clone was kept somewhere near the original's age (he was, by this time, nearly eight years old).

Devices were implanted into each of the childrens' brains which linked their own minds with those of the clones, effectively duplicating their thought patterns (and thus allowing the childrens' minds to control the superhuman bodies). Finally, the clones were rotated into hyperspace; the implants would allow the children to, upon saying a command word, switch places with their superhuman counterparts. Their human bodies would be preserved in a small hyperspace pocket, and to them, it would seem as though they'd transformed into superhuman versions of themselves. For Michael, the command word was 'Kimota', but for the other two, the word would be 'Miracleman', the name that was to be given to Michael's 'superheroic' alter ego, as a means of creating camaraderie among the trio.

The second phase of the project was designed to ensure their loyalty (or at least their ability to be controlled). Utilizing a combination of drugs, hypnosis, and crude virtual-reality technology derived from some of the recovered alien systems, the early childhood memories of the three children were erased, and they were placed in a sort of fantasy world, a world where they were superheroes right out of a comic-book story. Everything about this false life was calculated to put them through their paces, to test their abilities and their responses to various situations. Doctor Gargunza took particular glee in setting himself up as their supervillainous nemesis in the fantasy world, a move which he justified to his superiors because he believed that they would harbor subconscious memories of the 'torments' (surgery and the like) they had suffered at his hands.

The three children spent the next several years in this delusional state; for them, it was a life of bizarre adventure. In fact, it was training, education, and indoctrination. Michael Moran seemed to be the most competent and mature of the three, and his alter ego in the fantasy world quickly became the dominant member of their trio. Johnny Bates, on the other hand, lagged behind. Not much, but just enough that he was forever destined to be the 'sidekick'. At the time, this didn't particularly bother him.

Unfortunately, Doctor Gargunza's superiors in the British government grew to believe that the children were too powerful, that his hold over them was too tenuous, and that the potential for disaster outweighed any possible benefits that the project might have. Not to mention that some of them were socially conscious enough to be aware of just how bad things would be if the nature of the project were somehow revealed to the public. And so, in 1955, Project Zarathustra was officially shut down, and the childrens' destruction was ordered. Gargunza could simply have killed them in their sleep (perhaps; he didn't know for certain that violence against the children would necessarily destroy their superpowered selves, though this did in fact turn out to be the case), but he wanted a more grandiose end for his creations.

And so, the children were awakened and given one final simulated 'mission'; the task of foiling an alien invasion that had begun over the Atlantic. There was, of course, no alien invasion. The 'spacecraft' was actually a hastily-redecorated airplane with an atomic bomb aboard, set to detonate once the children were in close proximity.

Miracleman (Michael Moran) took the lead, as he always had in their virtual adventures, with Young Miracleman (Richard Dauntless) at his side. As always, Kid Miracleman (Johnny Bates) lagged behind just a little bit. The bomb exploded as expected, but Gargunza had miscalculated; the atomic blast proved powerful enough only to kill Young Miracleman. Miracleman took the brunt of the blast, but he somehow survived long enough to reach land. The trauma, however, forced him back into his human form and rendered him amnesiac. Young Miracleman, upon seeing his closest friend fall (he thought) to his death, panicked and did the worst possible thing; he shouted his friend's name. Miracleman. His human body was, of course, vaporized.

Kid Miracleman, however, somehow noticed that something was wrong just in time. His shouted warnings did not reach his friends' ears before the explosion, but he was able to react more quickly to outfly the blast wave. He believed that both his friends were dead, and he quickly concluded that it had been a trap. They'd been set up, quite probably by their arch-nemesis Doctor Gargunza.

He knew that he wasn't strong enough to take on this foe all on his own, but he also knew that returning to his weak non-superpowered self was sure to leave him vulnerable, so he elected to remain as Kid Miracleman (though he did find himself some 'civilian' clothing fairly quickly). It didn't take him long to realize that no one seemed to know anything about him or his friends, that costumed heroes were just the stuff of fiction as far as anyone was concerned. Which just didn't make sense until he realized that this was clearly just another insidious plot of the nefarious Doctor Gargunza. The fiend had somehow managed to erase the memories of the Miracleman family from the entire world!

So. Johnny Bates was fourteen years old, nearly omnipotent, and stuck in a world unlike anything he had ever known. He set out trying to make a life for himself. Oh, he started with the purest of intentions, as befit a (fictional) hero of his caliber. He was simply biding his time until he could locate his foe and strike him down, after all. But he started crossing lines. It began simply enough, with stealing food. After all, he had to eat, didn't he? (In fact, he didn't, but he didn't know that at the time.) And it wasn't like it was *really* wrong, not if the world had been made to forget he was a hero. They likely would have given him whatever he wanted, if they'd only known who he was.

And, of course, once he'd crossed one line, it was a simple enough matter to start crossing more of them. Why shouldn't he just take anything he wanted, whether it was food, or money, or clothes, or music, or the girls he was just starting to notice? He'd been a hero all his life, after all. He deserved some reward. And it wasn't as though he was actually hurting anyone. Not anyone who counted, anyway. Not unless they got in his way, and then it was their own fault, really. He couldn't help it if they were so fragile.

After a few years, he stopped even trying to justify whatever it was he chose to do. It's hard to pin down an exact moment that this shift occurred, though it probably came along the growing realization that it had been his heroic life, not this real world, that had been a lie. Johnny Bates was quite an intelligent young man, after all, and his superhuman self was even more so. As the years passed, and his command of his powers and of his own mind grew, he was eventually able to penetrate the mental blocks that had been put in place in his childhood, to see his 'adventures' for the fictions that they were. After that, it wasn't difficult to fill in the blanks and come up with at least a basic idea of his true history.

Johnny contemplated revenge, of course, upon his childhood tormentor; at this point, he believed that locating Doctor Gargunza would be trivial. But only briefly; he felt that his position as the only living super-being in the world was too valuable to jeopardize for something as shallow as vengeance against someone who was, in the end, only human. Instead, it was time to truly live the way he was meant to. Time to enjoy the gifts he had been given.

He started by forging credentials for himself so that he could live openly in the world, rather than just hiding at its fringes. It was almost laughably easy by his standards to create an identity for himself, particularly with the aid of the rudimentary ability to influence the minds of others that he was beginning to develop. It was sufficient to ensure that no one asked any questions of significance. He created a university degree for himself and channeled that into a position at a small technology firm, Sunburst Electronics. It took him only a few years to take control of the firm, and under his leadership, what had been a small business before was poised to become the heart of a major financial empire.

Years passed, and John Bates's rise to power continued. After all, who could possibly stand in his way? Every obstacle, physical or political or metaphorical tumbled before him. Sunburst Electronics became a world leader in technology. John Bates became a multi-millionaire, and there were rumors that he was considering entering politics (and the general consensus was that he would be welcomed with open arms when he did). And then, one day in 1985, something amazing happened. A miracle, you might say.

He was a reporter everywhere except in his dreams. In his dreams, he could fly, but the dreams always ended the same way; in an atomic explosion. But the waking world was different; no flying. No superpowers. No atomic explosions. The dreams were just dreams. In the waking world, he had his work, his stories. And that would have to do.

On this particular day, the story was about a protest at a nuclear power plant. In truth, he sympathized with the protesters; atomic power had always made him a little nervous, even before the dreams began. But the story took a twist he hadn't expected when the plant was hijacked by terrorists while he was there. He was taken hostage along with the plant personnel and the protestors (who hadn't been directly in league with the terrorists, but whose activities had been used to cover the terrorist plot).

For some reason, he couldn't stop thinking about his dreams during his ordeal, possibly because he was so frightened by the situation he had found himself in. Or possibly not, as he realized when he saw the word 'Atomic' reflected in some glass. He said the word as he saw it, not even realizing why he was doing so. "Kimota," he said. And, for the first time in nearly thirty years, Michael Moran became Miracleman once more.

Even though the events at the nuclear power plant were hushed up (all that was reported was that the terrorists' efforts were foiled), it was not difficult for a man in John Bates's position to learn the truth. That his oldest friend had not died all those years ago the way he had thought. That it had been Miracleman who had defeated the terrorists. That John was no longer the only superman in the world.

John was not pleased by this prospect. No he was not.

He contacted Michael shortly thereafter (after all, he did know his old friend's secret identity), and told him that he, too, had survived the atomic blast, but that it had stripped him of his powers. He invited Michael and his wife Liz to meet him for lunch near his office, and the two graciously accepted. After lunch, John and Michael returned to John's office to talk for a time; Liz had another appointment and had to leave.

He explained to Michael what the latter had already begun to suspect, that their earliest superheroic exploits had been a lie, and that they had gained their powers as a result of governmental experimentation. He also quizzed his old friend as to what his plans were, now that he knew what he was again. Under the guise of an offer to finance his old friend's superheroic career, he sounded out Michael, trying to determine if he was going to be an ally or an obstacle.

When Michael refused all his offers, and seemed (to John, at least) to suggest that John was unworthy of his success, of ever being anything but a sidekick, John grew enraged, and attacked the man who had once been his closest friend. Michael became Miracleman, having half-suspected that his old friend wasn't being entirely honest about having lost his powers, and the battle ensued. John, with his decades of real-world experience with his powers, proved to be the superior combatant, but when victory was in his grasp, he made an almost pathetically simple mistake. He said his enemy's name, without thinking, while gloating just prior to dealing the killing blow. And transformed.

Instead of the adult superpowered John Bates, he was now the fourteen-year-old boy he had been just prior to the atomic explosion, as his human body had been perfectly preserved in hyperspace. He remembered everything "he" had done over the past thirty years, but they felt like the memories of another person. Or, no, not a person. A monster. A demon that had been living his life for entirely too long.

The official story that was circulated was that John Bates had suffered a fatal heart attack. Control of Sunburst Electronics was turned over to a board of directors (who knew the truth, and were frankly relieved to be rid of John). The young Johnny was presented to the world as John Bates II, the son of the original. A trust was established in his name, but in the meantime he was sent to a group home for troubled children. Moran/Miracleman was not entirely comfortable with this arrangement, but there wasn't really a superior alternative that he could think of, short of killing Johnny, and that was a step that Moran was not willing to take.

Johnny lived in the group home for the next few years. His counselors were only told that his father had abused him horrifically, which had a certain element of truth to it. Johnny kept to himself, as best he could; the other residents of the group home terrified him. Most everyone and everything in the world terrified him, truth be told, but he was particularly afraid of himself. Of what he could become with a word.

And then the nightmares started. And the voices urging him to say the word, pleading with him, begging him, berating him. The elder John Bates, though physically dormant in hyperspace, was still mentally quite active, and he seemed to have a direct pipeline into his younger self's brain. Johnny's every waking moment was full of torment, and that was nothing compared to what his dreams were like. And it would all stop if he would just say the name. Just once. Everything would be perfect if he would just. Say. The. Name.

Somehow, Johnny endured it all. The medicines he was given dulled Kid Miracleman's voice a little, or at least made it bearable. The counseling sessions increased his own resolve. And the simple fact that he knew what would happen if he relented and that he, at least, still respected the heroic ideal that his older self had cast aside kept him from giving in. It was a constant struggle, but that was okay, because it was a fight worth having.

But everyone's got their limits. Johnny's fear did not escape some of the group home's older residents, and one day, about two years after Johnny had first arrived, they decided to have a little fun with him. They cornered Johnny, told him they were going to make a man out of him. ("Or a woman," one of them quipped.) Whether they'd actually intended to rape him or not, Johnny certainly believed that they would; this wasn't the first time they'd threatened this sort of thing, but he'd always been able to elude them before, or an authority figure had always come along in just the nick of time.

It was just too much for him. Between the mocking voices outside his head and the screams of "Let me out! I can help you! You can't possibly want to let this happen, do you?!?" within, Johnny just gave up. And said the word.

The time he spent 'locked away' in hyperspace had not done wonders for Kid Miracleman's state of mind. But now he was free again. And, oh look. Playmates. He played with them for a bit, but they were just too fragile to play his sort of games for very long. None of the people he found in the group home were up to it, really, though they did prove a momentary distraction. But there was only one person out there who could really give him the sort of fun he wanted.

And so he started to lay waste to London. Destroying things, killing people, all as a message to Miracleman. A city-sized "Come play with me" message.

It was not long before Miracleman responded to the message. And he brought allies with him. Another, later victim of Project Zarathustra who called herself Miraclewoman came with him, as did Winter, Miracleman's superpowered daughter, and an alien creature known only as a Warpsmith.

Kid Miracleman welcomed them all. They fought. Oh, how they fought. It was so much more intense than the first time the two superbeings had fought each other. And even outnumbered four to one, Kid Miracleman was winning. He was just too powerful, and too skilled in the use of his abilities.

In the end it was the Warpsmith that defeated him, at the cost of its own life. The alien had teleportation abilities, though it took all its strength to bypass Kid Miracleman's protections enough to teleport a brick into the middle of his head. But even that, amazingly, wasn't enough to completely finish Kid Miracleman off. Given time, he could recover even from this. But time, with the new Miracleman family pressing in from all sides, was exactly what he didn't have.

So he said "Miracleman," and went to the one place where they couldn't touch him. He could perhaps be forgiven for not spotting the fatal flaw in this particular plan, what with the brick embedded in his head and all. Johnny Bates, unpowered human teenager, was free once more. And he was absolutely, utterly in shock. He'd seen it all, experienced it all, everything his superpowered self had done while he was helpless only to watch. He broke down sobbing, pleading for his oldest friend, perhaps the *only* friend he'd ever had, to help him.

And after what had just occurred, Miracleman had no qualms about offering John Bates the sort of help he couldn't a few years ago. He moved in close to give the boy a quick and merciful death. Kid Miracleman, who had already drawn upon the energies of hyperspace to heal himself railed against his interdimensional prison, but to no avail; even if Johnny had been willing to say the word that would set him free, his shock was too great to allow him to even form the thought. The end, it seemed, was near and it was inevitable. And if he had to die, it was only right that it should happen this way, at the hands of Miracleman, he reasoned.

But at absolutely the worst (or best, depending on your point of view) possible moment, a dimensional rift opened up. The portal swallowed John Bates and Kid Miracleman alike, and drew them both into a different place. A world not unlike, in some ways, the fantasy that had formed the basis for Johnny's earliest memories. Johnny could only look around himself in wonder. Could this be real? What was this place? Was this another delusion, or had he somehow been given another chance at life?

And Kid Miracleman? Well, he was already scheming, planning the fun he would have as soon as he could coax the weak Johnny Bates to say the word once more. It was only a matter of time.