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an "imaginary tale" of the end of the War of Nerves

by John A. Mariani

For one man, the nightmare was finally over. Like someone who has been lost, stumbling in the dark, enshrouded in fog, but now, at last, in the light. For the rest of us, it was barely beginning.

His last wakeful sight, the first incredible view of an alien miracle, the mind‑boggling reversal of a destruction that he had foolishly wrought; years of decisions based on logic melted away in a miasma of panic in the face of the unknown. No, not merely the unknown; he had faced that before, many times, and virtually laughed in its face; this was alien and the fear in his guts had gnawed throughout the mission and irrevocably bubbled into his mind as he first caught sight of the handiwork of an intelligent alien civilization. The key word of his fear: intelligent.

Martian rock snakes he could face; but not this. And the mistake that he made while in the grip of an evergrowing terror was compounded as the city reformed itself and the hollow tones of revenge filled his head.

The words bored in, an unending onslaught, on his mind. His mind was slipping away, into a limbo of helplessness. Like a long, unending hibernation in a cave carved of pure ebony; but aware, always aware, of time's unending inexorable march.

Glimpses of life passed briefly into his mind; scenes from a nightmare. The face of an Angel contorted by radioactive agony –and it was his fault! The face of a Scarlet friend through a one‑way mirror, trapped into staying by those self‑same hollow tones that imprisoned his mind, with the bomb counting down to destruction.

Other brief moments, sights of himself, as a bringer of death; moments repeating in front of his awakening mind and turning his stomach. Innocents falling in a war of his making.

His eyes focused on a dark ceiling. The cocoon his mind had emerged from seemed physically duplicated. A switched off bare bulb hung from the centre of the roof. He moved his arm in a swift motion to whip the dirty, heavy eiderdown cover off his hot, sweaty body. No wonder! He was fully dressed under the cover. He swung his legs off the edge of the bed, and sat up. His vision grew dark again, except for sharp sparks dancing before his eyes. He lowered himself gently back down, slowly, until the nausea passed.

Too quick! He tried again, slowly, and sharp pains stabbed at his stomach. He was hungry. So hungry, it was physically painful. Never had he felt so hungry. He stood, and moved slowly towards the dim doorway. He found the light switch, and flicked it on. The light tore into his eyes. His brain throbbed, pulsing with his heartbeats. He moved to the full‑length mirror embedded in the wardrobe door.

From head to toe, he was garbed in black. A heavy black leather jacket smothered the upper part of his body. Slowly, he unbuttoned this burden, and took off the jacket. He let it drop to the floor. He suited black, but off duty he preferred lighter colours. But not as bright as this ghastly thick orange jumper. A little faster now, he whipped the jumper off. Then he caught sight of his face.

A gasp escaped his lips. A gaunt visage stared back at him, almost a death's head. His sunken, unshaven cheeks highlighted his deep socketed eyes. He looked like death itself. A slight, bright motion caught his eye. A drip of water. He parted his lips with a dry smack and moved, almost involuntarily, over to the tap. He set it running and put his mouth to the torrent. Minutes later, drying his lips, he put his hand in his pocket and withdrew his CashCard; CONRAD TURNER was emblazoned in gold on a black background.

He moved to the door and made his way out of the shabby building and headed for the nearest MacDonald's in this town's high street. He got quite a few strange looks (which he pointedly ignored) as he made his way to a table.

All his training deserted him as he thrust several hamburgers, portions of chips and many cartons of 7‑up down his throat until he finally felt satiated. He could almost feel his cheeks filling out and vibrancy spread through his body. He let out a large, resonant rift with deep joy.

He returned to the dingy room. No need to stay here any more. He paused only to shave and have a long overdue (and over long) bath; he was rapidly feeling a great deal better. He felt lot more human than he had done for quite a while. As he was drying himself, he could hear commotion on the streets and the sound of a familiar engine. He rushed to the window, and an SPV was doing its best to hurtle through the narrow back street; a surge of excitement ran through his invigorated body. He rushed to the wardrobe and there was his Spectrum outfit. He snatched at the cap, and thrust it on his still damp head.

"Colonel White?", he asked.

Thousands of miles away, a long unused lamp flashed black/white on a circular console. Lieutenant Green jumped from his seat as Colonel White's eyes stared at the black/white lamp in absolute astonishment.

The voice was unmistakable; a voice they had last heard on the MEV flight recorders; before the man who owned it adopted a mockery of a stentorian alien voice. It was him.

A tear seemed to grow, unbidden, in the Colonel's eye.

"Conrad," he began, in a hoarse, tight voice.

"Yes, Colonel!"

"Captain Black?"

"Yes, Sir!"

"Oh, my God."

Down at the SPV, Captains Blue and Grey finished their questioning of the MacDonald's staff. They had no problem in ascertaining the identity of the man who had used Conrad Turner's CashCard. The strange thing was, when they'd shown them the photos of Captain Black, the customers all thought the man they'd seen looked a bit healthier. Grey's eyes had lit up at that piece of information; and Blue, a man who'd seen his own partner return from the Mysterons’ grasp seemed to resonate in sympathy.

It was more than Grey had ever hoped for. Most of the other Captains had resigned themselves to the eventual death of Black; of the removal of Earth's greatest enemy in the only way possible. Some even relished the prospect; to seek the glory of that kill. Grey hadn't liked that attitude one bit! He'd stormed out of the Cloudbase Rec Room on more than one occasion when the conversation got onto those lines.

Grey's epaulets flashed.

"Captain Grey," began White in a shaky, unsteady voice. Grey and Blue exchanged glances. They knew. They knew.

"Rendezvous with Captain Black at the SPV and return to Cloudbase."

A broad grin plastered itself on Grey's face.

The debriefing was no fun. The war of nerves his actions had precipitated made horrific reading. And it was his fault; all his own fault; all his own bloody damn fault. The look of death filled his eyes; not that of the death‑bringer, but the endless desolation of regret. Nothing he could ever do could make amends.

Scarlet lay on his back, staring at the sun, through polarized lens. A holiday, that's what he’d asked for. It was only an excuse to get away from Spectrum, before anyone noticed; before Doctor Fawn got another chance to examine him.

An undercurrent of liquid fear lay in the pit of his stomach like a lump of mercury. Scarlet knew, somewhere in his mind, the truth of what was happening; he didn't want to face it or admit it, but he knew.

"Oh, Christ!" he thought, and the words drew him back to uncomfortable parallels he had drawn in the past. The Son of God. The resurrection; His through divine intervention, and mine due to the science of a long‑dead alien civilization. But like that greatest of Men, each time I died I felt the pain. I was not without fear each time I faced death and the torrents of agony as my body was mutilated.

My body. My body was found a long time ago, near Captain Brown's corpse and a burning Spectrum Saloon Car. This alien construct that contains my memories ... and my soul? I can only prey that my soul lies with the Man. And I? Who am I?

A wave of nausea spread through him. The intermittent signal that meant a Mysteron construct was near. Scarlet didn't bother to sit up and look around. He knew exactly where the construct was. A little bit of his mind faded with the diminishing sickness.

It was getting worst, and more frequent. Soon, there would be nothing left of him. Just enough of him to be useful to the Martian puppeteers.

He'd long since postulated the mechanics of Mysteron control; subjugate most of the replicated memories, leaving only that which the Mysterons required. Somehow ‑ perhaps because he was the first human ever to be mysteronised ‑ the fall from the CarVu restored all his memories. No matter how you looked at it, Paul Metcalfe died a long time ago.

Oh, Shit! I should have told someone ‑ maybe Adam. But he couldn't have taken it. He's already lost me once. I've got to face it now. I've got to.

Scarlet got up, somewhat shakily. He made his way through the forest of barely dressed people; the girls were lovely but, since the accident, he'd never allowed himself to indulge in sex. He couldn't risk it. He was an alien creation.

He got into the elevator and as the silver doors slid shut, he let himself sag against the cool metallic wall. Oh. God. The sweat ran in rivulets down his tanned torso. His fading mind was a turmoil of conflicting emotions as he staggered out into the corridor and along to his room.

His mind felt like a writhing mass of crawling, intertwining worms and the pain in his guts doubled him over. He slithered across to his suitcase and flipped it open. The Electron Gun shone brightly in the Mediterranean sunlight. He pulled it out of the case. It had always been heavy ‑‑ but never heavier than now. He propped it up against the wall, aimed it at himself.

The sweat ran in his eyes and he blinked furiously, summing up what little was left of the replicated Paul Metcalfe and the strength which seemed to be boiling out of him, like spit on a griddle. Jesus! He pulled back his foot, ready to kick the firing button and launch another damn Mysteron into eternity.

His foot shot forward but stopped stone cold dead. Before his eyes, on the wall, two large white circles, growing smaller, growing nearer, entering his eyes, entering his mind. "Adam!" he shrieked. And for the remnants of the human Paul Metcalfe, it was all over. He was finally at rest.

The mouse stared at him. It seemed quite friendly, really! What was it thinking about? Vectors, some people call them. He called this one Mickeytoo.

He straightened up from staring into Mickeytoo's cage, which he then covered with a black box. In turn, he uncovered little Mickey's cage – and opened the little gate. Like a shot, Mickey ran out of the cage and plummeted with no hesitation whatsoever into the complicated maze, which he circumnavigated with speed granted by familiarity and reached the food in little or no time at all.

Almost affectionately, he picked Mickey up and helped him back into the cage. Now, it was Mickeytoo's turn.

He, like Mickey, reached the food.

He, unlike Mickey, had no belly button.

Captains Grey and Blue sat in the coffee room, softly sipping cups of warm, strong java.

"Do you think Conrad can handle this?"

"I don't know, Adam. That is some amount of guilt to bear. The catalyst of the first interplanetary war in human history – and then, as if that wasn't enough, the enemy's prime agent on Earth. But this I will tell you. He'll have a lot of help from me."

"Count me in – ARGH!"

Blue's eyes narrowed in pain and a shudder ran through him. In spasm, he dropped the cup. Hot coffee ran over his thigh.

"Adam!" yelled Grey.

Grey's face had changed to Scarlet's in the utterance of that word. It was the last cry of a damned soul as the Gates of Hell are slammed in its face. Scarlet's visage faded back to Grey's. A pain throbbed in Blue's leg. Doctor Fawn was already by his side, injecting some pain‑killer.

"Oh Lord," whispered Adam. Paul's gone."

Twenty-four hours had passed. The last Mysteron threat had been heard.

"The Ultimate Mysteron walks among you. The Revenge of the Mysterons shall be complete!'

And with that, any radiations previously detectable from the Mysteron's Martian complex simply ceased.

Colonel White stood at the main Cloudbase porthole. It seemed so peaceful, sailing on a sea of clouds. It was all too obvious.

Scarlet – quite unwittingly – had been the best spy the Mysterons could have wished. The ultimate mole; a Trojan horse. How could we resist an 'indestructible agent’! He worked among us, a colleague. His moments of nausea were clearly Mysteron assurances of their continuing control of their super‑spy.

And Black – the "macguffin" – just to keep us all occupied.

And today they decided they knew enough. Scarlet was now the Ultimate Mysteron – whatever that meant. The War of Nerves was over; no clue as to Scarlet's target. The game had ended.

Jim Starlin rested back into the soft, plush leather chair. Playfully, he spun it around. He'd always wanted a swivel chair. As he turned, his eyes took in the blur of technology that lined the walls of the room; technology at the leading edge – technology that had been dragged, kicking and screaming, forward to support Project Magma.

His brain‑child. And now, he sat in Magma's electronic womb; it seemed only fair somehow! Idly, he flicked a switch with his left boot and the silence was broken with the babble of radio chat linking the main Magma ground stations.

"Hey, Fred...?" The deep but gentle Jamaican accent cut through the cacophony Jim was listening to.

'Yeah, Barney..." came the American reply.

Jim leaned forward onto the console. Something in Barney's voice drew him forward. He cut the other exchanges out of the circuit.

"Fred, we've just had a Spectrum agent here – totally unannounced. Just barged in here and demanded a security examination."

"Yeah? Well, that's within their rights, you know."

"I realise that but it was one of their Captains – Captain Scarlet."

"Wow! Must be something serious. Have you let Starlin know?"

"Not yet.."

Jim cut into the circuit.

"Sorry lads, I was just eavesdropping. I’ll get right on it!"

Starlin reactivated the whole monitoring circuit, at a lower background volume, before turning to a personal microphone. The low babble was the life of Magma; he liked hearing it.

"Diana? Get me Colonel White of Spectrum."

"Yes, Mr. Starlin."

The idle tone rang in his headset. Behind it, he could here the on‑going chatter of the ground stations. He heard the word "Scarlet" again.

"Colonel White here, Mr. Starlin."

Jim pulled the headset off in amazement. He isolated the conversation he wanted. Pierre in Paris was saying, "Qui! A Spectrum Captain has just left here: his name – Captain Scarlet."

But that was clearly impossible; wasn't it?

A hush settled over the briefing room. Since the beginning of the War of Nerves, some Captains had died; indeed courageous. And now, in an outrageous twist of fate, two of those Captains had swapped sides. Captain Black – the best agent Spectrum ever had – again sat among them. He seemed a little nervous but the indomitable will of Conrad Turner gave his eyes a determined look. He could never make amends, but he’ll never stop trying.

It seemed strange to see him there, in his Spectrum tunic; a strange, negative version of Colonel White's. While, conspicuous by his absence, the serious mien of Captain Scarlet; who had been thrust into the spotlight by dint of his fantastic powers.

The silence was broken.

"Gentlemen. I have often said the Mysterons have powers we may never understand. That statement has never been so true as today. We have seen evidence of their capability for teleportation; Captain Scarlet's globe‑trotting has shown us this again today. It is also clear by his movements that the Mysterons’ final target is Project Magma. So confident of victory are they, they have released Captain Black but retaken Captain Scarlet; a Mysteron who moved freely and unknowingly about us – the perfect spy. They played out their waiting game with the War of Nerves; allowing Scarlet to unwittingly watch and gather information.

And so, gentlemen, today we face the final challenge. And I pray we can meet it in victory."

"Mr. President, I think it is fairly obvious what the Mysteron's final target will be," began Colonel White. The word "final" echoed in his mind, long after the conversation had ended. It could be final for all of us.

The perpetually young face of the World President – the first target of the War of Nerves – looked solidly at Colonel White. The WP never seemed to lose his nerve. But Colonel White felt like a broken man. He was doing his best to keep a solid front but inside he was dying. Dying was the only way to describe how he felt deep inside. Only his renowned iron discipline kept the mask firmly in place.

"Well, Colonel," replied the well‑named Younger, "What are Spectrum going to do about it?" His question was full of confidence; words he had often spoken in the past, in the face of other Martian threats. Spectrum had its share of failures in the War; but they'd had the lion's share of victories. No reason to doubt them now. Win this one, and it was all over. Lose it – but that was unthinkable. It had to be.

"Mr. President, we have amassed our forces around the six Magma ground stations, concentrating on the main tap. All five Angels are airborne. We have Captains at each site. The World Army is giving us full support."

The words were dry and hollow. White could feel uselessness well up within him. It had all been a game. The War of Nerves, indeed. The Trojan horse had been among them; and they'd been stupid enough to accept it as a gift. Spectrum had never struck back; their victories were as nothing to the Mysterons, he could see that now. Empty victories, in the face of this final threat.

"Very good, Colonel. Keep me informed."

The mask slips.

"Wait, Mr. President. At the start of this War, I warned you about allowing projects such as this to go ahead. Any such obvious target for Mysteron terrorism should never have come into existence. Damn it, we've done their job for them!"

"Colonel White!" The President's voice is sharp; White has never heard this tone before. Younger need say no more; his words have had the desired effect.

"Sorry, Mr. President. Spectrum Is Red."

Twenty days on, and for what seemed to be the thousandth time, he looked into the electronic womb. This womb, unlike nature's (so far, he thought wryly) irreplaceable version, had little port holes on all five visible sides; a womb with a view, as some of his aides had taken to calling it. He noted with sadness that the plasma had remained a shapeless blob at the bottom of the test tube.

He opened the womb up, and washed away the grey, gooey substance. The easiest abortion on record? He hated that word. This couldn't be an abortion. The stuff of life this may be, but life was not present. It had better not be. Life was not there. He couldn't allow himself to think otherwise. He was a religious man, yes, but even if he hadn't been, his regard for life was unsurpassed. He had faith in God; but he also had an irrational faith in what he was doing here.

They would just have to start again; and prey that, when that elusive spark of life appears, the foetus would go to full term.

Destiny Angel is skyborne; born again in the freedom of the sky. She repeatedly flies low as she can over the main Magma CoreTap building. A cluster of Spectrum helicopters maintain a constant vigil.

They can go lower than she and slower and hover, yet it is she who spots him first.

He is approaching on foot. Gone is the scarlet tunic he wore with such honour. In its place a jet black leather bomber jacket. But he is on foot and seemingly unarmed.

Colonel White's order is brief and unhesitant.

"Attack and destroy."

The Angel dives, tears in her eyes. She blinks rapidly to clear her vision as she turns the vast firepower of the jet on a single unarmed man. A jet capable of taking out an MSV. A rapid stream of high power explosive bullets split the air and rush towards the target. Scarlet's body vibrates as the projectiles tear through and burst; and such is the magnitude of the onslaught that his body seems to simply disintegrate.

Seconds pass and as she turns the jet to look at Scarlet's remains she is shocked to see Scarlet continue his walk towards Magma One, seemingly unhurt and unaffected.

"My God. He has retrometabolised, instantaneously."

Colonel White seems unsurprised by this news.

"Bring up the Electron Cannon!'

A Spectrum Helicopter turns towards Scarlet. It hovers above him. He continues to walk, ignoring the powerful down draught beating down from the machine. A long, intricate silver nozzle extends from its underbelly and an incredible two million volts fly directly to earth, through Scarlet

A black shadow of disembodied atoms fall slowly to the ground. Moments later, like a film traveling backwards, they reform into the incessantly walking Scarlet.

“It is as I feared,” whispers Colonel White.

"Sir?" asks Green.

"The Mysteron Complex on Mars has shut down and vested every iota of its power in Scarlet. He truly possesses the power of retrometabolism; complete and absolute!”

Scarlet's figure turns into a shimmer of light.

The Electron Helicopter's pilot is the first to see this; the first human to witness the awesome power of Mysteron teleportation.

"He's gone, Sir! He's completely vanished…”

"But not far, Earthman." The Mysteron voice he'd heard so often before filtered through radio speakers but now clear and direct in his ear. He knows what he'll see when he turns around; he doesn't really want to turn around; but he must look.

Scarlet leans over him. The pilot rams his helmeted head as hard as he can into Scarlet's face. For a moment, Scarlet staggers backward, blood streaming from his mouth and nose.

As rapidly as it started, the blood flow stops, and then vanishes. Scarlet comes on again and his hands snake round the pilot's neck.

The pilot slumps forward. Scarlet's eyes widen and the Mysteron effect beams out of them and onto the pilot.

The pilot turns to the controls with renewed purpose.

"You know what you must do."

Scarlet vanishes in a twinkle of light.

The pilot turns his helicopter round, away from the Ground Station and towards the nearby Army robotic troops and hardware.

Captain Blue is watching from within Magma. Jim Starlin sits at the monitor desk. His face is white. His dream has turned to ashes in his hands.

"Spectrum Helicopter A42. Come in, please –" A pause "– Destiny Angel, Helicopter A42 must now be considered hostile. Attack and destroy."

"SIR."

With practiced precision, the aircraft soars, turns and swoops at the target. The missiles leap from the jet and smash into the helicopter. There is a brief explosion; a smoke cloud fills the air. Seconds later, an unharmed Spectrum Helicopter whips out of the dirty black smoke.

It continues through a barrage of ground‑to‑air weaponry until it hovers, recreating its molecular structure from micro‑second to micro‑second, above the army post. The Electron Cannon discharges itself.

Under the massive onslaught, the electronic troops and equipment are reduced to atomic dust. A black wasteland sits beneath the now unopposed helicopter.

Scarlet warps into the desolate area. His intentions are clear. To recreate the Army as a electronic zombie force to take Magma.

Blue activates his radio.

"It’s time, Paul."

"SIG, Adam," comes a familiar voice.

"Listen,” says Blue, "I hoped it wouldn't come to this."

"I know. So did I. I'll have to face him, though. It’s our only chance."

A Spectrum Helicopter breaks formation and speeds towards the obscene black dust covered area. As it does so, everything else in the area evacuates at high speed. Spectrum have come to the last card in the deck. They cannot hope to win with brute force; this HyperMysteron cannot be destroyed.

Scarlet's body's eyes scan the horizon. He notes with pleasure the fleeing Earth craft, and allows a brief grin to flit across his ashen, unshaven face. He turns to his task when he hears the oncoming Spectrum Helicopter. He ignores it and activates the Mysteron effect.

"Wait!", cries out a voice. The voice is amplified and distorted but still recognizable. The HyperMysteron stops. He turns to watch the Copter sink slowly to the ground.

"Dad?”

"Don't call me Dad; I'm your doctor."

“Doctah?”

“That's right, yes; Doctor.”

“Will this hurt me, Doctah?"

"Probably."

The child begins to weep. "When will I come to think of him as a child?" the Doctor chastises himself; needlessly, he realises, if this works; and all experimental evidence points to success. He quickly gives the boy an injection.

He commences to undress the boy; and pauses for a moment, when he comes to the boy's tiny, little, bright red shoes.

The door swings open, and a Scarlet boot steps out.

"Oh no", thinks the HyperMysteron. “It can't be." An un‑Mysteron feeling – an indescribable, illogical, terrible panic rises within him.

But the figure now approaching him is unmistakable. It is – Captain Scarlet!

"Well, it would seem you Mysterons are not as clever as it appears. You tried to make us think you got it wrong; as the first human Mysteronised, I – or should I say, you – came out of Mysteron control. Did you really think we were so stupid?”

Scarlet takes another step towards the HyperMysteron. The Mysteron steps away, maintaining a constant distance between them.

"But, but," he stammers. He can hardly hear Scarlet's words; the heart he inherited is pounding fit to burst. In a corner of his mind, he can feel Scarlet's body's thoughts screaming their denial of this other Scarlet.

"You made a mistake, alright. I wasn't dead when you copied me."

"Impossible!"

"Impossible, eh? Why am I here, then?"

Scarlet has been walking towards the HyperMysteron during their brief discussion. The Mysteron hasn't noticed; Scarlets body's personality is beating on his mental barriers.

Impossible? I live!"

"No!” screams the Mysteron. He is finding it harder to see, to breath, even to think! What is happening? Desperately, he opens Scarlet's body's mind, seeking an answer. And in that moment, he is lost. The exact duplicates resonate; the very reason Paul Metcalfe has been able to influence and ultimately control the HyperMysteron's bodily functions.

Scarlet's body's mind flees across the closing physical gap; Metcalfe's grin widens. One last instruction and the HyperMysteron's heart ceases to beat. Both Scarlets crumple to the ground.

Scarlet's eyes flutter open. His head is cradled in Captain Blue's lap.

"I'm back, Adam. I'm back at last."

It had been a desperate gamble. Doctor Fawn was the hero of the hour. It had been he who had insisted on retrieving Captain Scarlet's human body from the scene of the Saloon Car crash.

The body had been dead, indeed. The HyperMysteron had been correct; anything that had not been destroyed could not be retrometabolised. Scarlet – Paul Metcalfe – had died in that crash. The Mysterons had not made a mistake.

While the mysteronised Scarlet – possessing the memory and personality of Metcalfe – had operated as a faithful duplicate of Metcalfe, Fawn had organised the placing of Metcalfe's corpse in a cryogenic chamber in utter secrecy. Nobody else on board Cloudbase knew that the corpse had been kept. That secrecy, as we now know, had been essential.

Fawn had been fascinated indeed by the Mysteron's seeming power of life and death; to create an exact likeness of an object or person. He was a medical doctor, but he also possessed a Ph.D obtained from research into cloning.

By repeatedly using the Scarlet Mysteron for observation and experimentation, and pursuing his own promising line of research, he finally succeeded in cloning an animal.

His greatest challenge was Metcalfe; and while the War of Nerves proceeded, every day took Fawn and his colleagues in the ground based Spectrum Research Centre one step nearer his goal. Superficially, the aim was to develop Earth's equivalent of retrometabolism; but, irrationally, Fawn was convinced that the new tellurian Metcalfe could be of vital importance in the War.

Finally, a fully grown Metcalfe – aged through rapid chemical processes – was created and educated. Enough information was given to him, for him to function. His mind was clean; he didn't possess the original Metcalfe's memories.

But Fawn knew where they could be found, whenever they were needed. In his earlier cloning experiments, he had observed the peculiar resonance that had previously been noted between twins. The relationship between clones was far greater than that shared by twins. He had first verified its existence by using a mouse and its clone; one had learned the layout of a maze, the other hadn't. Experimental evidence showed the mouse that had hitherto been unexposed to the maze capable of navigating it successfully. Further work showed both mice shared the same RNA containing this knowledge. Undeniably, Fawn had brought about one of the greatest medical breakthroughs in the history of Man. A breakthrough he was willing to keep secret, because he knew – God damn it, he knew! – the new human Metcalfe could win the War. To that end, Metcalfe had been given the most advanced training in the techniques of biofeedback.

And now, a complete Captain Scarlet rejoins Spectrum. Possessing both the memories of the original human Scarlet and those of the mysteronised Scarlet. A happy man, except, perhaps, for one thing. Where lies his soul?

THE END

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