Hub - Issue 32 Read online

  Patrick had left his bedroom door unlocked. A dark rich stink gusted into the hall as Joan Ellen opened the door. It was similar to the must of molded bread, but there was something of the sea in it, a low-tide flavor that made Joan gag.

  Tears stood in her eyes as she looked around the room. Patrick had painted the back wall an odd greenish black and got rid of the window somehow. He’d had a barbecue grill brought upstairs and filled it with an assortment of oddly fuzzy electrical components, then sealed it with a glass or clear plastic lid.

  But that wasn’t paint on the wall. It was an expanse of – Moss? Mold? – sealed behind a great glass pane. That was why Joan couldn’t see the window.

  Aside from the grill, the floor was bare. Where did Patrick sleep in here? Where did – ?

  “I don’t.”

  Joan Ellen’s skin tightened across her shoulders.

  Patrick walked past her into the room, carrying what looked like a bootleg CD.

  “Stop freaking out,” he said.

  “What’s happened to you? What did this?”

  “You did,” Patrick said.

  As Joan stood speechless, he glanced at the barbecue grill, and a snarl of colored waves bloomed into being above it. It looked like a too-solid Aurora Borealis.

  Joan’s mouth fell open.

  “I know,” Patrick said. “It’s beautiful. But do you know what it is?”

  Joan Ellen shook her head.

  “It’s a five-dimensional representation of a song that’s been stuck in my head for as long as I can remember. You put it there. With this.”

  With some effort, Joan Ellen looked away from the hologram to the CD Patrick held up for her to see. She didn’t need to read the package to know exactly what it said:

  Edutainment Enhancement Suite

  “At first – and I know how this sounds – I thought I’d sent it back in time somehow and made sure you played it for me. Once I decoded the snatch of sound I could remember, I knew it must be from Somewhere Else.”

  “Some – ? From space?”

  “Aliens made it, but it’s not from space. That first decoded snatch told me how to upgrade my consciousness. Otherwise, I could never have built this computer – ” He gestured at the far wall. “ – or the transmitter upstairs.”

  Joan Ellen felt cold all over. “You’re trying to bring them here?”

  “I don’t think any of you are ready for that.”

  “Patrick.”

  “I’m telling you all this because I need you to quit freaking out. I need you to quit doing things like leaving me miles from home and making me steal cars. You wanted me to be smarter than everyone else? Well, I am. Now I must know what force helped you make me as I am.”

  “All I wanted was for you to live a good life.”

  Patrick looked away. “I don’t know what that means,” he said. “Do you?”

  Joan Ellen awakened to the noise of Pieter’s alarm.

  Pieter held his breath for a moment, then let it out in an explosive sigh. He reached over and silenced the clock.

  “Don’t,” Joan said.

  “Don’t what? Go to work?”

  “He’s going to do it today. He’s going to turn it on, and I don’t know what will happen.”

  “I have to go,” Pieter said. “He told me to.”

  “If he lets go of you at all today, I want you to come straight home.”

  “...Okay.”

  For a long time, neither of them spoke.

  “I’m still proud of him,” Pieter said, and swung his feet to the floor. “He’s – He’s a genius. More than Hawking, or Einstein, or – ! or anybody.”

  “Mm,” Joan said as she massaged the sleep from her face. “Just come home if you can.”

  Joan sat forward in her chair and gaped at the computer screen. There it was, six black letters on a field of white: THE END. Marcel was dead, Julie had gotten her divorce, and Paul had walked out on his life, leaving his wife, his children, even his lucrative consulting job, behind. Now the title bloomed into Joan’s imagination. T ME. Not “TIME” or “TOME” or “TAME.” It was an expression of pure potential, a broken word left behind by a character that had found its place elsewhere.

  After wheezing a tired little laugh, Joan clicked the SAVE icon and waited for something to happen. Her body felt too light, as if it belonged to someone else who, at this moment, was thinking about it intensely.

  An insectile hum spread through the air, and Joan’s computer screen winked off as the power went out. She stood, crossed to the barred office window, and watched the palm trees shiver along the side of the highway as an alien din shook the city.

  Pieter blinked, confused. “I’m sorry?” he said.

  “We need to get the Minister on board with this,” McNeil said. “Those union disputes aren’t going to arbitrate themselves.”

  “Yes. Right. I’ll tell him. I – There’s a meeting tomorrow morning.”

  “I know that,” McNeil said curtly. “Listen, Soames, are you feeling all right?”

  “Sure,” Pieter said. “I’m going to – I think I’ll pop off home and check on my boy.”

  Pieter rose from his desk. He didn’t stop to grab his jacket from the rack. Instead, he jogged down the staircase and let himself out the back entrance.

  The sky outside was a dirty green color, and something about the clouds seemed wrong. They were too large, too vivid, and they reminded Pieter of circling dogs. If it hadn’t been for the clouds, Pieter would have taken this for tornado weather.

  He checked his watch as he strode into the parking lot. Just as he laid eyes on the Citroën he’d bought when he’d arrived alone at post, a deep twang broke the air. It sounded almost like the compressed peal of an electric guitar chord.

  The ground tilted crazily beneath Pieter’s feet, and he found himself breathing hard, kneeling on the pavement, his skinned palms pressed against the asphalt.

  We’re under attack! Pieter thought. He knew he should run for cover, or at the very least, lie flat against the ground, but his body wouldn’t let him.

  “Open that fucking gate!” he screamed, stabbing a finger toward the guard house beside the parking lot entrance.

  Pieter wasn’t sure how long it had taken him to reach the villa or whether he’d driven there himself. He turned, searching for the car that had brought him here, as he fumbled in his pocket for the keys.

  Something was happening on the roof.

  Something – A tower? – rose from the roof. Who had put that there? When had it been built? It punctured the sky like a pencil through a sheet of construction paper.

  ...come straight home...

  Joanie’s voice. Joan Ellen would know what was happening. At the very least, she –

  Pieter clapped his hands over his ears as another wave of sound swept through the city. His thoughts skittered away from him like roaches across a kitchen floor. He didn’t think to hit the ground before the concussion came, and the next thing he knew, he was lying on his back in the middle of the street, feeling as if his brains were leaking out of his ears.

  Again, his body acted on its own. It carried him through the gate, up the front steps, into the house, up the marble staircase, and into the master bedroom. The French doors stood open and the curtain rods hung askew as if bent by the – What had happened? An explosion?

  Pieter could hardly remember from one moment to the next. His consciousness unraveled again, and he found himself clinging to the iron ladder that led from the broad upstairs balcony to the flat roof of the villa.

  Pieter lifted his gaze to the sky. The tower wasn’t a tower at all – it was another, broader ladder that breathed, shining with its own peculiar light. Blurry-headed men with too many arms crawled up and down it. They looked impossibly small, impossibly far-off, but Pieter saw them clearly.

  Something came loose in Pieter’s head, and he felt his consciousness break into slivers whose edges ground against each other. It was only when he thought to as
k himself where Patrick was that he found himself once more able to move.

  Pieter reached the roof and moved toward the ladder’s base. When he looked up – Was it up? Pieter wasn’t sure of direction anymore. Was this a ladder or was it a bridge? Pieter stood at its bottom – or at its near end, and saw his son as if through the wrong end of a telescope.

  Something was carrying him away.

  Something with – It wasn’t like the other things – the men with too many arms – It was as if a nest of glowing worms had been pressed into a humanoid shape. Patrick rode on its shoulders the way he’d ridden on Pieter’s, as a boy.

  Pieter tried to tell him, No! Pieter tried to yell, Come back! But all he could do was howl.

  Light spread across Pieter’s vision, and unconsciousness drew the curtains down.

  Pieter’s body awakened and started complaining straight away. He groaned and pressed his hands against his face, trying to remember.

  Joanie.

  Pieter ignored the aching of his body and rose to stare around the roof. The twisted antenna had broken in several places and fallen across the concrete. Pieter looked for the ladder to the balcony, hoping it was still intact after – after everything. If not, he’d have to jump down and try to tuck himself into a break-roll.

  Pieter thought to take a look at the lawn and saw Joan Ellen lying still amid the stiff Tunisian grass. He looked at her for a few seconds, not thinking at all, then rushed downstairs and outside to gather her against his body.

  “Joan. Joanie. Wake up. Wake up, Joan,” he said sternly, and then his voice became a coo. “Hey, Joanie. Hey, babe. Hey, it’s me. It’s Piet.”

  He rocked her softly.

  Joan began to stir, and relief made Pieter groan aloud.

  “Joan – ”

  Joan twisted in Pieter’s grasp, clawing at his shirt.

  “Joan, hey. Hey!”

  Joan Ellen opened her mouth and a wave of noise poured forth: like radio static shot through with clicks and squeaks.

  Pieter’s mouth fell open as he recognized the sound. He heard himself talking over Joan’s new language, but was that English he was speaking? Afrikaans?

  “He’s gone,” he said. “He’s gone, and I can already feel myself forgetting him. You were right this entire time. You were right about all of it. You were so – That boy. That – That boy.”

  ReviewS

  Previously reviewed by James Bacon

  Grindhouse reviewed by Alasdair Stuart

  Sapphire and Steel reviewed by Scott Harrison

  Previously

  Comic strips from the drawing board of PJ Holden.

  £3 from www.pauljholden.com

  Paul J. Holden is a comic artist from Belfast and for a while he inhabited that strange underground place that you may sometimes be lucky enough to find as you lurk around comic shops. Mostly it’s all too commercial, pre-packaged and marketed to a fine art, but now and again in the less shiny-fronted shops where the guys at the counter know that Miracleman is really Marvelman, you find some gems. Small press comics on the bottom shelves, for those bottom feeders who know that there is always something sweeter about an organic product.

  Holden has a place in the warren of comics small press, producing his own work and appearing elsewhere. Even when he made the great leap seven years ago and joined 2000AD, drawing Rogue Trooper, Judge Dredd and the 86ers he still kept his hand in with smaller projects.

  Fearless (Image comics), his most recent work, has just hit the comic shelves.

  Paul J. Holden has cleverly produced his own comic, something he has done in the past, but now for a wider audience. In this 32-page comic you will find twelve stories and strips by a mix of authors, including fellow 2000AD stalwart Gordon Rennie. There is a humorous edge to some of these stories: borderline school boy humour and regular characters such as Strontium Dog and Rogue Trooper appear in single page side-splitters, as never seen before.

  Mixed in with this are some nasty and sick ideas. Holden goes through a whole repertoire of genres and styles: some of these stories have never been published, while others have appeared in various places. It’s a rare treat of quality storytelling, from an eclectic bunch of writers.

  Whether it’s a newspaper-style strip, or the longer Broken Claw, the artwork is clean and strong. Holden knows his tough men, but has a real knack for parody and the finer female.

  It’s hard to find fan-produced or small-press comics. Orbital Comics on Charing Cross Rd, London, seem to specialise in in this type of comic, but otherwise acquiring decent underground work is hard. Whether it's right to call this underground is a matter for consideration, but it isn’t mainstream, it’s by a local lad and it's bloody good.

  Grindhouse: The Sleaze-filled Saga of an Exploitation Double Feature

  By Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez

  Published by Titan Books

  £24.99

  You can’t go wrong with a title like that, can you? Unless, that is, you’re Miramax who’ve managed to completely hobble what should have been one of this year’s golden geese. Releasing a period horror double feature on Thanksgiving weekend could be charitably described as an attempt at counter-programming, but trailing that double feature internationally, then releasing the two films separately and then quite clearly favouring one with the majority of the publicity budget smacks of stupidity.

  It’s a real shame too because, as this book amply demonstrates, never have two exploitation movies been made with such loving care and attention. Tarantino and Rodriguez are two of cinema’s most mercurial talents, but when they're on form, they’re some of the strongest directors working today. As this book shows, their love of the form and sheer glee at being able to produce movies which are fun, nothing else, is incredibly strong.

  In the original version, Rodriguez’s Planet Terror opens the double-bill and the first half of the book is devoted to it. Every aspect of the process from scripting to costume design to gore is covered and Rodriguez’s love for his material is palpable. There are some interesting notes, including the conscious decision to have Rose McGowan’s final outfit echo superhero costumes and the exact mechanics of Quentin Tarantino’s melting genitalia. Yes, it’s that sort of film.

  The Planet Terror section is rounded out by the complete script and again, it’s interesting to see how Rodriguez writes, with each action scene mapped out in surprising detail. Packed full of stills from the set and design sketches, the first half of the book is an incredibly handsome and detailed package.

  But of course, it’s only half the story. After a section focussing on the faux trailers between the two films (Edgar Wright’s DON’T! is particularly great), the book switches over to Deathproof. Tarantino’s fifth film is very different from his previous work and the book goes into tremendous detail about the plot and production and the films it echoes. Tarantino is, as anyone who’s seen him speak, an endlessly energetic figure and that comes across on the page. Once again, it’s packed with stills from the set, but there’s a little more commentary here than in the first section. Deathproof, for a film about a serial killer who crashes his car to kill his victims, has some surprisingly complex things to say about gender politics and the collision between old and new Hollywood and that debate is at the very least touched on here. While there’s no script for the second feature, this section remains one of the strongest in the book.

  Grindhouse, ironically, is going to come to life on DVD, with a double disc release already planned. In the meantime, frustrated fans or students of cinema history should beat a path to the door of this book. It’s an astonishingly handsome and consistently entertaining trip through the minds of two fans first, and directors second. A blood-soaked gem.

  Sapphire and Steel – The Complete Series Special Edition

  Directed by Shaun O’Riordan and David Foster

  Starring David McCallum, Joanna Lumley, David Collings

  Network

  £59.99

  It’s hard to be
lieve that since its original transmission between 1979 and 1982 Sapphire and Steel has never been repeated on terrestrial television. It's even more amazing when you consider that it is one of the most important and influential scifi/fantasy series since Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass of the 1950s and the long running Doctor Who serial. A forerunner to shows such as The X-Files and The Omega Factor, Sapphire and Steel began life originally intended for the 5pm children’s teatime slot. Over concern that the show’s content might be too frightening for younger viewers, it was quickly rescheduled for 7pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, prompting writer/creator P.J. Hammond to rewrite the scripts with this new older audience in mind, something he was only too pleased to do.

  Using the rather novel idea of time itself actually doing the ‘travelling’, breaking through into present day in an attempt to alter the fabric of future history and generally causing mayhem, the eponymous ‘heroes’ of the title are elemental Time Agents assigned to identify the cause of each problem and resolve it using any means necessary. Aside from possessing extraordinary powers (telepathy, time manipulation, teleportation) very little is actually revealed about the two main character’s origins or identities throughout its 34 episodes, though other elemental agents are introduced as the series progresses such as David Colling’s wonderfully eccentric Silver and the gentle giant Lead, a man so jolly he’s bordering on insanity!

  Considered by many to be one of the most disturbing television shows of all time, Sapphire and Steel still has the ability to send a shiver down the spine of even the most fearless viewer. In fact, watching Sapphire and Steel again over a quarter of a century after its original transmission, it is remarkable how well it has stood the test of time. Without a doubt the centrepiece of the entire series is the epic eight-part Assignment Two. A firm favourite amongst the fan community Assignment Two is arguably the finest piece of scifi/fantasy ever created for television. Although Hammond has recently gone on record to say that, in hindsight, the story would have been much better as a six-parter, this darkly chilling tale of a malevolent entity of pure darkness feeding off the resentment of the dead soldiers that haunt the platform of a disused railway station remains one of the most tightly scripted and beautifully directed stories of the show's entire four year run. It is a show that has given us so many powerfully iconic images: the ghost of the World War I soldier wandering the dark platform whistling ‘Pack Up Your Troubles’; the Man With No Face emerging from the shadows as he slowly climbs the stairs; Sapphire’s eyelids flying open to reveal totally black eyes as the Darkness invades her mind; Sapphire and Steel standing trapped and helpless behind a window as it hangs in space… the list goes on!