Aquaman: Land Locked # 2

Issue #2 - Baptism in Greens and Gold

Water. Cold. Harsh. Fills the lungs of a man who could once breathe like a fish and chokes him.

Somewhere above it is beginning to rain.

He kicks. Old legs, tired legs, pumping, each strain propelling the reedy figure down, down and deeper into the darkness. Muscles forced into that familiar pattern, that old stroke that they remember only dimly, as though it were some day dream or wishful thought of old.

He has to make it on the first try. He knows that. To fail means his long-harboured doubts are made absolute.

And he doesn't want that.

Does he?

Another kick. Sinks deeper down. Still too slowly, the kicks and lunges of this old man nowhere near as beautiful, or elegant and mighty as the king of the older times who dressed in rich deep greens and fiery bronzed golds.

He can't see the locker. Can't see the ominous angular corner jutting out from under the swirling, murky mass of debris and filth that it being thrown up from the pool's floor.

There was a time when this would have been easy. Real easy. Back when things were simpler. Back when I - when the world - was young. When it was innocent.

When I was the Aquaman.

And there it is. Suddenly shaking, frail hands are touching steel. Cold. Hard. Uncompromising. Suddenly Arthur Curry meets the Aquaman that was.

He flails for a moment, struggling to get a grip on the thing. Fingers slip.

Not so strong now. Not so nimble. Won't be easy.

There's a beat. He has his arms around the locker. Has managed somehow to drag it from the brown sludge. He has his arms around it and his legs are kicking but nothing is happening and his lungs are burning.

He can hear the rushing water. It's like a raging torrent pounding in his ears. Makes the pop. Makes them bleed, red spirals in the depths.

No powers. Not here, not now. They went when I left the sea. When I turned my back on the waters. No way to know whether they'll come back now I'm trying...no way except taking the plunge and finding out...I'm...drowning...Mera, save me...Mera...

I don't want to drown.

I don't want to drown.

And suddenly there is light, and he is spluttering, coughing up the water, chest heaving like the bellows.

He isn't breathing water. Not yet. But he is breathing.

Lying sprawled on the rough loose bricks amongst the derelict's forgotten rubble. He takes in heavy, desperate gulps of air.

The pool beside him is dark, the sedimentary wastes disturbed. The locker sits beside him. It's steel. Impossibly heavy.

For a moment Arthur Curry does nothing but splutter and wipe the thin, clinging hair from his face. It sticks and slithers like sea-weed.
It should be unpleasant.

But it isn't.

He turns his head. The locker, as if on cue, give a metallic whine and falls open. The lock has been broken. Crushed as though in some titan's grip. Arthur does not look at his hands. They are bleeding. A finger is broken. A violent purple bloom will soon wash over his white knuckles.

But he doesn't see it. Doesn't realise what he has done. Doesn't realise that for a moment Orin II - the king - had been swimming in the depths. Just for a moment. A flash of the fantastic in the darkness.

He doesn't see it. Because his eyes are fixed by the suit.

The suit.

The Aquaman's suit.

I'm not the Aquaman. Not yet.

Arthur Curry grits his teeth and rises, wincing as his back creaks and his hand twinges with newfound pain.

But it's a start.

It's a start.

-

The tall tower complex that stands on the coast in San Diego is new. It gleams, resplendent in shining steel and hard concrete.

It is a triumph of modern architecture, or so the papers say. A monument to an America that has come from the ashes of the Second Great War stronger than ever. A beacon to progress and industry.

To the American dream.

It was funded by a variety of companies. Kord Industries had a hand in the design. Eisenhower himself paid for the foundations to be laid. Wayne Enterprises - run by the one-time playboy (now aged and retired) of Gotham City - took the bill for the vast array of satellite dishes that cover its lofty peak.

Weisinger Tower - so called for its prestigious (and well-paid) architect - is the jewel of San Diego.

The explosion that rocks its base and tears a gaping hole through the lobby wall surprises everyone.

In the dust that fills the faux-marble hall, there is a rattle of gunfire. A tommy-gun cracks and deafens the shrieking receptionists and the assembled clientele.

There was a gala. A celebration of the Tower's opening night.

The best and brightest of the concrete prison that is San Diego are all assembled. The socialites and movers.

The gunfire stops, as suddenly and as abruptly as it began. The dust begins to settle.

The glittering figures in the lobby - the ladies in sequins and the gents in fine sable suits - are squawking, lost in disarray; the rock thrown into the fish-pond scattering the glittering goldfish.

The five figures that emerge from the dust are toting guns. A ribbon of circular eruptions decorates the roof. They wear ragged sack hoods over dusty tailored suits.

The lead steps out first, the figure beneath the sack-covered head absurdly thin, moving with the deliberate grace of some predatory mantis.

There is a whine and a blast of static.

"...-ida underwater, entire seaboard coast being radically transformed as water-levels soar...similar reports in Europe, no word from the Soviets...President Eisenhower to accuse Chairman Krushchev of Soviet involvement in the growing crisis...

The blare stops. The Radio stands silently for a moment. Then he begins to walk forward. Long strides.

His four associates follow in his wake.

The assembled socialites are still, frozen as though in the headlights of some monstrous car, and then scream.

-

No powers. Gotten old. Need an edge.

Arthur Curry is stood in the rain of a dark Wednesday night in downtown San Diego.

The grey sleet courses down his back and makes him shiver. The rain is near apocalyptic. A great deluge to wash away the peoples of the world. To cleanse an ugly, filthy mess. To wipe the slate clean an start again.

Is that it? For a moment Arthur Curry wonders if the sea is truly swelling up, rising to reclaim the land in a storm beyond proportion.

Wonders - briefly, irrationally - if it is because of him. That this is the sea coming to take him back by force. To drown him.

Can't let that happen. Must learn to swim. Must learn to breathe right again. Must go back to the sea. Must do it myself. Before it takes me first.

Arthur Curry looks around, at the slate grey urban blot. The street beneath him is gradually being lost in murky, muddy puddles.
His feet are soaked. Cold water washing through his boot leather and seeping to the bone.

Not ready. Not yet. Need to clean this city myself first. Need to take up the mantle once more. Need to become the Aquaman.

No powers now. Need an edge.

Arthur Curry hurries and pushes into the dark doorway of some cellar apartment, some hovel beneath the streets themselves. Flooding now, no doubt.

He shuts the door behind him just as the Weisinger Tower complex on the coast is rocked by an explosion. Arthur Curry doesn't hear it over the thundering patter of the rainfall.

He descends into the gloom, and hears the rushing of water in his ears. It isn't all rainwater.

He's wearing a long, moth-eaten overcoat. It doesn't hide the triangle of bronzed orange that glares out from his chest.

He's wearing the suit. Wearing the Aquaman's suit underneath that long overcoat.

He's almost ready.

-

The Radio stands as a silent sentinel by the thick oaken door of the Tower's control room. There is a vast ornate conference table that dominates the room, and a tall glass window that looks out from the Tower's tall top.

The city looks almost serene down below, through the blurry lens of the rainfall that lashes against the glass.

Le Chiffre is stood looking out over the city. Over his city. Behind him the Tower's committee of governors sit mute, a greasy chain binding them all in a huddled group.

The Radio is still, but for his hands. They are dancing, tossing a handgun from one to the other with dizzying grace. Each time it is thrown it is caught again, and twirled about the gaunt man's finger.

He is not wearing his sack-cloth hood any more. Le Chiffre has not bothered to disguise himself at all. He wears a smart double-breasted suit and looks like a million dollars. There is no doubting who it is.

But it doesn't matter. None of the committee will testify against him. The mayor - even now drunkenly enjoying the lascivious attentions of the girl Candice, all the while bawling at his chief of police to hold back the troopers another hour, telling him to wait as matters are under control at the Tower - will not say a word. The chief of police wouldn't charge him. Not while he values his family.

Le Chiffre watches over the city with the distant look of a man lost in thought.

The sea-levels are on the rise. San Diego is to be lost to the waves, if the scientists are to be believed. Eisenhower says it's the Reds. Some new weapon from beyond the Soviet curtain has been levelled at God-bless America.

It won't be so long until everything in San Diego is gone. And that means that everything Le Chiffre owns will be gone, too.

One last grand swoop. One last play of the cards. Now Le Chiffre must play for it all, and look for a new table with his winnings.

The Weisinger Tower. The mindless tabloids of the States hail it as a triumph of modern architecture. A beacon to progress. The socialites (the wealthy peacocks who fool themselves into thinking they run this city, who close their eyes to the filth that is pooling even now in the streets...the filth that has been gathering for the past decade or so) call it a remarkable feat and a wonder of the bright new American world as they sip their champagne and graze on their hors d'oeuvres...but none of them know what Weisinger Toweris.

None of them know why Kord Industries or Wayne Enterprises funded its creation. Why the (now deceased) Blue Beetle and the (ever ageing) Batman might place a stake in some great Tower complex in San Diego. Why some unknown benefactor of unreleased cutting-edge technology (Kryptonian, had Le Chiffre known it) had installed a satellite system of capabilities previously unheard of.

The Tower was built to do something. Something big. Something that had taken alot of green and alot of hurt for Le Chiffre to find out.

San Diego stood not so far away from where a great and illustrious city once lay. Where the ruins still lie, scorched and charred from some terrible and brutal war under the seas themselves, between forces that humanity at large knew nothing about.

There had been a civilization beneath the waves. One richer and more wealthy than any Le Chiffre knew of above the waves.

A civilization with more power and wealth and science than America could even hope to achieve.

Something happened. A war, of some kind. Some decision was made, some button was pressed, and one of the sides annihilated the other. Left their golden city - Atlantis - a nuclear waste.

What that decision was, what that war was, doesn't matter. It seems that both of the combatants have gone, now. Lost in the depths.

But something remained. Some remnants of this past Babel. This past Eden of the sea. Something remained, under the waters.

Weisinger Tower was a radar. A massive machine built to scan the ocean floors. To find whatever was left behind, and to bring it up.

Le Chiffre felt cold thinking of the treasures that such a machine could dredge up. Sifting through the ruins of a lost civilization of titans would mean that nearly anything found would instantly make the finder powerful beyond compare.

A weapon from the Atlantean age. A scrap of scientific advancement that makes all the dry land's achievements obsolete and void.

To control the Tower - to find the ocean treasure trove - was to become absolute in power over America. Over the world, Le Chiffre amended. It meant everything.

But now the sea was rising up. The Tower - built by men who knew, somehow, about this ancient city - had been built with devastatingly poor timing.

If the scientists were to be believed, the Tower would be lost within months. Millions of dollars in funding and investment lost with it.

Le Chiffre had to use it. Quickly. Had to sift the ocean floor for himself. Had to be there when those unseen sonic waves rippled and found something of Atlantis.

The explosion had been unnecessary. Too provocative by far.

But it didn't matter. A week at most and San Diego would be evacuated. The city would be surrendered to the sea.

No-one would stop Le Chiffre now. Not while the deluge pounded on their windows, and while he remained Le Chiffre.

He looked out over the city. Speaking up, his voice startled the chained committee men.

"Your Tower will find me Atlantis," he drawled, his eyes illuminated suddenly by the whip-lash of lightning across the sky. "and that city will give me everything."

Thunder rolled.

-

The thing lying amongst the scum and debris of the cellar apartment hovel is breathing, in rasping, robotic whines.

It was once a boy from Baltimore.

Now it is Black Manta. Or what is left of it.

Arthur Curry crouches over the scuffed and tarnished metal dome that is the thing's head. The dimly-lit glow of the thing's artificial eyes gives Arthur's face an unnatural framing, tickling the outlines of his jaw with a washed-out crimson glare.

It makes him look young. Like he once was.

There is nothing left of the Manta's body. Nothing but a head. The hovel is paid for each month in rent by an automated account. There is an agreement.

No-one visits. No-one checks up on the occupant that never leaves.

The metal head watches Arthur Curry, and seems to sigh, slowly and gratingly. The artificial vocal cords are weary now. Near broken entirely.

They scratch out a word, and then subside. The word - the name - makes Athur Curry shiver.

"Aquaman."

He shakes his head. A loose, rain-slicked forelock of hair slithers about his forehead as he does so. The rain is pounding on the streets above.

"You return as the sea returns," the Manta rasps. The light of the eyes flickers. "It is poetic. No?"

Arthur Curry takes hold of the metal head. His reflection looks back at him.

He says nothing.

The Manta sighs again, wearily. He sounds broken.

"You come to taunt your rival? Your nemesis in older times?"

"No," Arthur says. This is definite. "I have not come to taunt you."

"Go-od," the Manta breathes. The pause within the word sounds like a humming from within the dome.

"You have suffered enough," Arthur says. He has not thought of this for some time. Has forced himself not to. "I am sorry that I did this to you. That I made you this way."

"It is my fault," Manta allows. "and I do not bla-me you. Not after so long."

Arthur Curry nods. He is thinking. Thinking hard. Of a decision he made. Of a decision he made that made the Manta into this...empty shell. Of a decision that also burnt his kingdom. That killed his wife.

"Who is the villain now, Aquaman?" Manta asks, straining to sound bemused.

Arthur does not react. There is a silence. The Manta breaks it.

"You have need of me."

"Yes," Arthur says. He is definite once more. Professional. "I have no powers. This city must be cleaned up. America must be cleaned up. Before the sea swallows it all."

"You think this is your doing?" Manta queries, interested.

Arthur is blank for a beat. "Perhaps. I think I know what I must do."

"Take up the mantle. Take up your crown."

"Yes," Arthur nods. There is another silence.

"The Aqua-man must heal the rift between the waters and the land," the Manta muses. "Before it is too late."

"It is already too late," Arthur grunts, darkly. "Atlantis is gone."

"Mera is dead," Manta supplies. "but the Aquaman is not. I no longer hate the oceans as I did once, Aquaman. I no longer hate you as I did once. You are alive. The Aquaman is alive."

Arthur Curry sits back. He is listening. Listening well.

The Manta's voice whines from a moment, scratching and metallic. Then he speaks again.

"The sea is rising. It will not stop. I know this because I have the means. My wealth in technology still grants me some edges over the common faceless of this city. There is something in the waters. Something alien. Something foreign. It is disturbing them. Breaking the balance."

Arthur frowns, puzzled.

"What? What is in the waters?"

The Manta's metal head rolls, just slightly, from side to side in Arthur's hands.

"Something. It is making the waters rise up and it will not stop until this planet is nothing but ocean. You are Orin II. King of Atlantis and the waters beneath. You understand the need for balance of land and sea. More so now that the peoples of the sea are all but gone, and the peoples of the land are decaying in their ways. The Aquaman must heal the rift. Must right the imbalance."

Arthur leans forward, suddenly, pressing his head to the cold steel of the Manta's dome. Close enough that the red eyes should burn.

"How?"

"Become the Aquaman once more. Save this city. Protect the innocent of the land. In doing that, you will find your answer."

Arthur Curry rises. His figure is sharper, somehow. More defined. Stronger.

Muscles that were limp and decrepit are now flexing. Waking up.

He is not the Aquaman. Not just yet.

But he is close. Damn close.

Arthur Curry peels off his overcoat. His suit gleams, still slick with the rain water that seeped through the rough fabric of his human clothes.

He is brilliant and regal, suddenly, the greens of his leggings and gloves so perfectly green, so natural and right, like sea-weed waving on the reef, the orange of his mail-shirt so sublimely fiery, like bronzed gold burning in the darkness of the deep.

This figure, this titan in greens and gold, turns his head. It is old, weathered, but it is strong, too. As though carved from the face of a cliff itself. Defined and noble.

When it speaks, it is with the voice of a king.

"I need an edge."