 Challengers of the Unknown in "Threshold" |
Challengers of the Unknown in "Threshold" |
Volume 3, 3 April 1997 |
In
Dayton, Ohio, a homeless man digs through trash. A stranger with
yellow glowing eyes approaches. "There's something I wanna show
you..."
|
Cops investigate a grisly
discovery. Nearby, the stranger rants lyrics from Blue
Oyster Cult, a rock band. "The workshop of the telescopes!
Seven
screaming diz-busters! A redcap!" |
Kendrick's only advice is, "Get your butt on-line... straight to help@www.unknown.com." (In the DCU, the Challengers own the domain name www.unknown.com.) |
Meanwhile, in California, the Challengers attend a meeting with their benefactor, Mister Sands, at his estate. Sarah Hargate takes minutes and nails down details. Sands orders the Challs to Dayton for a gruesome - "Just a minute, there, Edward." Brenda interrupts. "You may provide funding and support... and we appreciate that... but we're not employees. You provide us with data, and we'll make our own choices about follow-up." Sands graciously acknowledges his "enthusiasm for vicarious adventure" and apologizes. Marlon wanted some time to "spend with my family". Kenn wants to hear the case. Sarah drops the bomb: a body was turned inside-out. OK, they're in. Sarah has already arranged the hotel and jet fueling... |
The Challs fly in their private jet. Marlon, a commerical airline pilot, flies. Clay frets. "Being a passenger makes my teeth itch. And I like to feel the ground under my feet." And, he wonders, doesn't flying bother Marlon since the crash? "Hell, no. Sometimes flying's the only thing that doesn't bother me." |
In the rear, Brenda hates flying inside clouds. "It's... smothering." Kenn likes the mystery of them: water is clear, but clouds opaque. Brenda only likes solving mysteries. Kenn counters, "We're all mysteries now. All four of us. Survivors of something none of us should have lived through. That must really bug you." Nope. Brenda considers them "statistical anomalies. It's what happened afterward I lie awake nights thinking about..." |
In
Dayton, having seen the body in the morgue, Brenda deduces the body was
rotated through the fourth dimension: backwards, upside-down, and along
its own axis. And was charred by tremendous heat. "Probably lit up the whole block. Somebody must've noticed." Well, there's a "street crazy" in a holding tank... After they go, the detective
reflects the Challs are polite. "But something about 'em makes my
short hairs stand up... Maybe if you get too close to weird, it
rubs off on you." |
In their hotel suite, Brenda hacks someone's computer. (Why the need to hack, or who owns it, no clue.) Downtown, in the police station, a
cop delivers the stranger's dinner. His name is Harlan
Clooney. "I got something I wanna show you..." Brenda
reports "inverted bodies" have popped up across the
country, converging here, with the time intervals decreasing geometrically, up to
now. The phone rings. The "head case's" guard just got "a severe case of inside-outness." |
The Challengers tear downtown, Marlon driving in best NASCAR fashion. "What are you trying to do, get us all killed?" Clay stomps the brakes. "I'm no rocket scientist, but my gut feeling is it's just the guy we're looking for. "In other words... it's challenging time!" |
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The creature Threshold glows so bright, "It hurts to look at." "Non-Euclidean geometry," says Brenda. "Our brains aren't wired to process it." |
 |
Threshold is sucking stuff in like
a black hole - including people. Before the Challs can warn
people away, a man is sucked into his gut and shot out his back -
turned inside-out, dying. Brenda fears the process is accelerating, building to a critical mass. "Any bright ideas on how to take him out?" asks Clay. "Now's the time to speak up." Brenda's not sure they should stop
him. Her tricorder-thingy registers electro-magnetics off the
scale, and "sixteen forms of unknown energy. If he has become a
living dimensional gateway... he might be the only thing keeping it
from ripping wide open." |
"Tyranny and mutation!" rants Threshold, glowing brighter. Marlon jumps to save a mother and child, does, and gets sucked in (as shown on the cover). For the first time, Threshold reacts. "Wait. Wrong. How?" Then he screams - SSSHHRAKAKOOMPH! |
- and disappears, along with Marlon. "What happened?" asks Kenn. "I think he imploded," said Brenda. "Sucked back to whatever higher dimension he was interfacing with." And Marlon? "I've never
wanted to be wrong so much in my life... but nobody could survive the
collapse of an interdimensional singularity. He's gone,
Clay. Gone." |
Later, Brenda muses that "quantum mechanics allows for some pretty strange things..." Clay doesn't care about "dimensional gateways and crap." What will he tell his family? "Tell whose family what?" asks a voice. It's Marlon! Alive and well! |
The other Challs are thrilled. Marlon is confused. He just had a dream - about Threshold. But that happened! Theories abound. "Nobody can be in two places at once," contends Clay. Kenn mentions "biolocation, a theory of astral projection." Marlon feels solid. (And how come no one notes Einstein said the 4th Dimension was time? So Marlon could be in two places at once.) Brenda wonders. "It could explain why the vortex collapsed on itself when it consumed Marlon. It if needed solid matter... and what it got was more... ephemeral..." Marlon "feels solid". |
"Oh, stop," says Kenn. "This isn't just about Marlon, and we all know it. It's time we admitted that what happened in the Rockies was only the beginning. "We walked away with more than our lives, more than just a glimpse of something inexplicable. The unknown reached out and touched us. "And made us mysteries even to ourselves." |
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Next: Borrowed Time The letters page promises, "Next Month: The prize for your patience - the Secret Origin of the Challengers of the Unknown!" |
Comments Kind
of a non-issue. The Challengers talk circles around their feelings. A guy gets
afflicted with a transdimensional curse. Why, how, who are never
explained. Did he wander into a lab? Get hit with a
meteor? Why attack people? Why rant lyrics to rock
songs? (And does listening to rock music make you insanely
dangerous?) Then he disappears, no idea where. Marlon
"cures" the problem accidentally, still with no explanation. It's all very well to be
mysterious and hip, but give the reader a break, will you? We
know nothing to start, and nothing after. Illuminate, please. |
