Minuteman #1: Clockwork

US Army Command, Dorset, UK. - October 1944

Torrential rain battered on the office window, driven by gale force winds. A tall broad soldier pushes through the door and shakes off the excess rain from his poncho as he removes it.

" Private Weston. Good to meet you. Take a seat. You understand that this briefing is top secret?"

" Yes Sir. Everything I do is top secret, General O'Connor."

" Absolutely, but what you have done before is ... well, a lot less sensitive than the information I am about to tell you. I assume you are aware of The Spear of Destiny?"

" The weapon that pierced the side of Christ. A Christian artifact that Intel says Hitler has in his possession. he is using some ritual to empower the Spear with the power to control those with super-powers if they come within it's sphere of influence. That's the reason Dr. Fate and Green Lantern aren't over here smashing the Nazis."

" Exactly. The very best propaganda the newsreels could pump out for us. The situation is more difficult than that. The Spear of Destiny does not exist. Hitler does not have a ritual to take control of heroes. It is all a smokescreen. The problem is that we believe the Nazi's do have some secret weapons and they certainly have operatives in the U.S. - which means that they almost certainly will have twigged to the weaknesses of our mystery men. We can't just have Green Lantern waltz into the European arena and a load of stormtroopers with arrows and sticks taking him down. The impact at home would be devastating. The propaganda coup for the Germans would severely hamper morale on the front as well."

The General, a rather dour man in an ill-fitting uniform not befitting his rank was wracked by a deep cough and then continued. " Don't get me wrong though, it's not as if we are lying to the people at home. The Germans do have a weapon like the Spear. They have a mystery man of their own, called Parsifal. Intelligence suggests that he has some sort of negation ability. He can snuff out the powers that make these mystery men so potent. And then he kills them."

Jack Weston considers this information for a moment. " General, with all due respect, what does this have to do with me?"

" Well, morale is a funny thing Weston. The people at home are happy to see the mystery men working on the home front, and they are satiated by the stories of the Spear. It's the boys here in Europe that are getting spooked by it. There are rumours going around about Nazi mystery men waiting on the mainland. These are brave men, but they don't want to walk into a jack-booting version of the Justice Battalion. What we need are some mystery men who are willing to come over and fight."

" But their powers...?"

" We need men like you Weston. Men whose only powers are their guts and their determination. We need people who can be sent in under the Star Spangled Banner and prove that the U.S.of A. fears no-one. Our contacts at Whitehall say the Brits are in to provide some of their own as well. I understand you know men and women like this, Private Weston?"

" General ... I ... yes Sir. Permission to speak freely sir?"

" Granted."

" The rumours that the men are hearing Sir. They could well be true, couldn't they?"

" They are true, solider."

" So the mystery men that take on this mission... well, it's a one-way ticket, isn't it."

The General sits quietly staring out of the window. The silence between them says more than any words could. Finally he stands. " You'll meet at 06.00 tomorrow for transport to the arranged rendezvous point. From there you will advise the folks back home of suitable mystery men for the mission. The OSS said you were a good operative Private Weston. Don't let us down on this one."

" No Sir. Of course not Sir! " Weston stood and stiffly saluted.

" Dismissed."

Minuteman Facility, New Jersey: Education Wing

"Agent Weston, designation Minuteman 13. This is your re-orientation program. Do not ask questions. Do not interrupt. These messages will reactivate the information that is encoded into the unused areas of your brain. If you have questions, waiting until the end of the session." The monotone voice ceases and the surround screens blaze brilliant white.

Jeff Weston sits inin aa revolving chair in the centre of the room, electrodes attached to his head. When this had been training - and he had first been exposed to the mind-expanding technology, it had been bad enough. When they blocked off large parts of that training, it was ... unpleasant. This? This was damned painful!

The screen begin a vast downloading of information. Pages and pages of text and pictures and sounds flood through the screens faster than anyone could possibly see them. Jeff sits back hard in the leather seat as the data floods his memory. Over the insane flashing of the screens, the monotone voice resumes.

" The Minuteman Protocols were set up after the Second World War when the United States evaluated the threat to it's security from the rest of the world."

" Whilst the public perception of it's relationship with it's enemies and it's allies was one of cooperation and conflict, the former was far rarer than the latter. Public confidence required that the USA be the centre of a formal and informal global community, when the truth was more that it was under siege."

" There are sixty Minutemen, working across the world and within the United States. They are the first line of defence against all threats to national security. Each Minuteman reports to Grandfather, the Minuteman Co-ordinator. Each Minuteman has a support team of sixty 'seconds'."

" You are Minuteman 13. Your mission criteria lies currently in the European Arena. Good luck"

As the voice stops, the screens fall dead and technicians fall in to remove the electrodes from Jeff's head. He rips them off before they get there and shakes his head, laughing.

" Damn it! I had honestly forgotten how much stuff you paranoid bastards managed to dam up in my head before you let me out into the big wide world! You just don't realise how many DEO seminars I could have saved if you had let me know all of this."

" Do you have any questions, Minuteman 13?"

" Do I have any questions?? Have long have you got?" Jeff rubs his face where the electrode has been attached to his scar tissue. "First off, my name is Jeff Weston. You insisted on keeping it in the family so you might was well let me use my name."

" Minuteman 13, do you have any questions?"

" Who killed my brother? When do I leave for Europe? And ... who are my Seconds?"

The door to the chamber opens and Agent Maxwell enters. " All in good time Jeff, all in good time. Resources next, to fit you out."

" Q-branch?"

" Hardly..."

DEO Regional Office, New York

A thin wisp of cigar smoke drifts from Bones' skeletal mouth to the roof of his private briefing room. His appearance - a living skeleton - would normally be hidden when dealing with those outside the Organisation but for this 'man' he always made an exception. If the pompous old fool insisted on doing the blacked out silhouette routine then the least he could do is let him have a nightmare for his troubles.

" So let me get this straight ... Grandfather. You have persuaded the President to activate another Minuteman and you have decided to take one of my very best field agents, without asking the permission of anyone in the DEO?"

" Who exactly did you expect me to ask? You? Waller? Since when does a direct Presidential Order require the permission of someone so far down the chain of command the White House actually knows who they are?"

" Common courtesy would have been nice. Weston was in the middle of a very delicate case. His work.."

" His work can be finished off by a dozen other lesser agents without anyone noticing. You should be pleased we allowed you to second Weston whilst he was inactive. Minuteman-training makes your DEO induction look like a term at Kindergarten."

" Sticks and stone just won't break Bones, and you should know that. I thank you for your message, but next time, just leave a receipt. It fits better with your manner." The screen flickers and then clears to show the DEO crest. Bones takes the cigar from his jaws and stubs it out on his blotter pad. He prods his intercom with a bony finger. " Hold all my calls and cancel all my appointments for the rest of the day. Get me Agent Chase - I don't care where she is, what she's doing or who she's doing - just get her here!"

Time to fight fire with fire.

Minuteman Facility, New Jersey: Research and Resources

" Minuteman 13, you have undergone your re-orientation program so I will not waste time bringing you up to speed on the latest developments in ultra-espionage technology. You have authorisation to the full arsenal of equipment and my assistant will be more than happy to outfit you." The scientist pushes his round glasses up his nose and gestures to the smartly dressed woman standing behind him.

" She can outfit me any day of the week, Doc. Show me the gadgets. I want a hand-computer with the new uplink comms, a decent handgun that fires real bullets and a company credit card." Jeff Weston spins one of the more futuristic looking handguns around his finger.

" Minuteman 13, you are aware that there are a multitude of other items that are at your disposal - Chameleon Cloth, Tazer rings, micro-devices and an array of more powerful weapons culled from captured Okarran technology after the Invasion." The assistant tries not to look at his face as she lectures him.

" Yes Ma'am, I'm more than aware that this little room here would make James Bond wet his pants in envy but I'm just not interested."

" Minuteman 13, this equipment is beyond state-of-the-art!"

" Exactly! So I go running around with it all over me and I'm a great big flashing sign for anyone with a decent set of sensors that 'something is wrong' - and before you say it I don't care about what wonderful stealth-tech you may have built into them, they'll still show up, trust me."

" And what makes you more accomplished that the Minuteman Tech Division?" The scientist looked bemused by the scarred man's affront.

" Well, believe it or not, you guys are not the be-all-and-end-all of the intelligence community. Over at the DEO we have to deal with some pretty bizarre cases and the people we have to deal with have things up their sleeves you could only dream about. So trust me, I refuse to go undercover carrying the 'funky stuff' portion of the Acme catalogue."

" Jeff, this attitude isn't helping you know?" Agent Maxwell puts a hand on his elbow.

" Hands off Maxwell, unless you want me to break your wrist ten different ways. Let me get this straight, for you, for Grandfather - because I know you're listening - and for Dr. Bunsen Honeydew here. I do not want to be a Minuteman. I'd rather the entire Minuteman organisation disappeared to be honest. I really object to the fact that I have been put through your training regime and then had the entire thing stoppered up because you thought that despite the dozen or so contracts I have signed and oaths I have sworn I was going to pop over the border and fill in the Canadians. So, when you ask me what equipment I want to carry, don't you dare try to persuade me to carry anything I don't want to do."

Maxwell takes his hand off Weston and steps back. " Jack, you have to be aware of the nature of the enemies we are facing?"

Weston strides across the room and slams open the door of the gun cabinet. " Bearing in mind my stipulations on looking like Flash-freakin'-Gordon, this lovely Glock will stop any criminal in it's tracks.."

"..except those that are bulletproof?" The female assistant interrupts.

" AND those that are bulletproof are probably going to be hard enough to resist anything else you have to throw at them."

" So, Mr. Weston, how do you expect to beat them."

Jeff lifts a finger and taps it on the side of his head. " The old fashioned way...."

A rather nervous looking junior dodges through the swinging doors of the laboratory. " Message to Minuteman 13? Your plane is ready for departure sir."

The Montgomery Estate, Kentucky

The blazing sun burns on the back of his neck, even through the loose-fitting cloth attached to his cap, that drapes over the nape. His need to tend to hid garden was paramount, even in this heat. Humans, it would seem, succumbed to it whereas insects did not....

Anyway, there is precious little else for him to do within the compound. Jeffers isn't due to come around for one of their trips into the city for another few days and to be honest, the staff have exhausted whatever conversational potential they had years ago. He is sure that if things had been different he would have had more of an exciting life, but the death of his parents shortly after his birth had put paid to that. A huge inheritance, a line of long-removed relatives all willing to look after him and a massive estate to explore that would be his on his twenty-first birthday. What more could a young lad wish for?

Well, he is eighteen, so some friends that weren't servants would be good, and a chance to get out of this place as well. He should be going to college rather than having tutors brought to him. Jeffers said that the people that killed his parents could be coming to kill him too and that his father's last wish was that he remain here, safe, until he could look after himself.

Well, that's about the size of it, the entire existence of Stephen Windsor consists of an estate in Kentucky and an ongoing battle against bugs.

It could be worse.

Kiev, Ukraine

" Yuri, are you sure this is a good idea? Bringing him here?" The elderly scientist pulls his heavy coat around him and shivers. At his age the cold bites deeper.

" Of course it is Alexi. We need to make sure that his power works. We need to be sure we have perfected the procedure. If the Parsifal clone does indeed inherit the mutation that made his predecessor so valuable to the Nazis then we will have a stable procedure for closing down the entire capitalist metahuman machine. Look at him Alexi? Already the information that we downloaded into his mind has been perfectly assimilated and he is acting like a typical twenty year old Russian."

" His interactions do seem natural. The lifeline designs we perfected have worked really well. When will the incident occur?"

" Soon...very soon..."

As the two old men huddle in a doorway, a small incendiary device explodes under a car in the middle of the street. The explosion rocks the area, sending people running, children screaming. Parsifal stands still, looking around to see what he can do, but the surge of people is against him.

Suddenly, there is a flash in the sky and a red figure descends out of the snow swirls. The Siberian is a metahuman new to Kiev. In the seemingly-fledgling world of non-Soviet representations of power, he is reassuringly dominant. A super-strong flyer with a power over the cold, he was very old-school. The burly figure hovers over the fire and spreads his arms, preparing to focus the snows of winter.

Parsifal looks on, transfixed by his appearance.

The Siberian flatters, his head swimming and then he plummets down into the wreckage of the car, his powers totally lost, and dies screaming as the crowd looks on aghast. To the side, Yuri and Alexi shake hands.

" Yuri, my friend. Soon we will have our revenge..."

Cape Town, South Africa.

" Madame, you table." The waiter guides Justine across the restaurant and to her favourite seat. " Dining alone tonight Madame?"

" No, Mr. Johansen will be joining me in a moment. What's tonight's special? I do so adore the lobster."

" You are in luck! Chef had some brought in this evening for tomorrow's menu. I'm sure I could have a word with him, for guests such as yourself and Mr. Johansen."

" That would be wonderful. Are these flowers for me?"

" I believe they are Madam." The waiter pours her a small amount of wine that she tastes and nods to. " That's wonderful." He backs off and then moves to another couple. Justine adjusts the slit in her long white dress and checks her hair quickly in the mirror. She plucks the card from the huge bouquet of flowers standing beside the table and flicks open the envelope, lifting the message from within. Her eyes drop down to the stiff cream card and her breath catches slightly.

my secrets and mine and mine alone
I will not let them fly
to one so beautiful as you
a slut, a bitch, a spy
Auf Weidersehen.
The Ebon Bard.

She crumples the card in her hand as her heart pounds in her chest. Johansen knew? She...

And then she fell face first onto the table, totally dead.

Minuteman Central, Paris

SECURE LINK ESTABLISHED

Jeff knew he was going to grow to hate those words. He arrival in Paris had been a quiet affair, with an unmarked car picking him up from Charles de Gaule. Minuteman Europe headquarters was in the suburbs of Paris in an unassuming office block. Little did the Parisians, or the French government for that matter, know that some of the most advanced communications and weaponry on the planet was buried seven floors below a rather tacky little bar.

" This is Grandfather. Minuteman 13, your mission is of extreme importance to national security and I will advise you now that your own objectives vis-a-vis the termination of the previous Minuteman 13 must be secondary to your main objective. The previous Minuteman 13 was trailing a Durlan operative whom we have already connected with the death of Minuteman 29. Previously we were unaware who this alien was working for, but we now have it tied down to one of the Benelux nations."

" The US is being stalked by Luxembourg?"

" Exactly Minuteman 13, and the sheer ludicrous nature of that statement merely throws a question-mark over this entire affair. Regardless, someone is harbouring an alien that we have designated a Prime threat to national security and we want him terminated. We also want evidence of what the alien has been working on and for whom. I assume I do not have to explain the seriousness of the Durlan threat."

" No sir, you do not. Just point me in the right direction and he's as good as dead."

" You will travel to Amsterdam and pick up the trail there Good luck"

LINK TERMINATED

Phrases involving needles and haystacks spring to mind.

Next Issue: Minuteman#2 - The gloves are off as Jeff starts the hunt for the killer of his brother - however matters are moving faster than even the Minutemen can handle and his first mission may well be his last! (trademarked by Cliched Hype Inc.)

Sixty Second Sound Off!

And we're off again with the catch-up of this issues DCU references. The Spear of Destiny/Parsifal are both parts of DCs explanation why the superheroes of the Golden Age didn't just go and pound Hitler to a bloody pulp. The Spectre especially, was over-powered at the time and could have probably struck the entire Eighth Army dead with a stroke of his hand. The 'heroes that Weston knows at home' could well be the short-lived Crime Crusaders - Spy Smasher, Bulletman and Bulletgirl - but they won't be. Anyone who needs to know who 'Dr. Bunsen Honeydew' is really needs to watch more TV. Mr. Bones, formerly a member of the villainous Helix family and the heroic Infinity Inc. is the regional director of the Department for Extranormal Operations (the DEO) and Agent Chase is, of course, Cameron Chase, whose comic is another lost gem of DC short-sightedness. As for some of the other references, well, you'll just have to wait and see... prizes for the person that guesses the identity of The Ebon Bard!

Neil