THE CORPS issue 3: Brother Brit-Man in, "Opening The Doors of Perception" by Stephen Mellor

1976 brought his 24th birthday arrived and with it, a gift from an old friend, who called himself 'Merlin'. A packet of dried mushrooms. Merlin claimed that these were Fly Agaric, the kind of 'shroom used by Druids to send them into a trance so they could communicate with their gods. Andy was a firm believer in this psychedelics and dope. He claimed that it was the only way that he could get through life in this Thatcherite regime that he was forced to live in and that Huxley was right about opening the Doors of Perception. He couldn't write with out it. So, Andy and Merlin spent the afternoon supping Fly Agaric tea, helped along with copious amounts of marijuana, which were also supplied by Merlin. (Who was, during the week, an extremely successful accountant called Geoffrey Browne. He and Andy did not discuss this, as they inevitably ended up arguing about how Merlin had sold out. And, the last time they did, Andy hadn't seen him for a month and had to go without any dope.)

After a while, the tea obviously started to take effect. The first effect that Andy became aware of was a floating feeling. It seemed as if he was seeing everything as a negative version of what was loosely termed 'reality'. The exception to this was Merlin, who sat slumped opposite him in the couch. Merlin started to shimmer, his skin turned translucent, he started to lose weight and his hair started to change from tight, red curls to a long, flowing, white fall of hair that was swept back from his forehead down to the small of his back. He stood up and Andy saw that his scruffy jeans and Grateful Dead t-shirt had somehow transformed into a long deep blue velvet robe, edged with gold and held at the waist with a silver belt.

"I am Merlin," he said.

"Yeah, man. Like, I know. This stuff is freakin' amazin', guy!" Andy replied. Or at least, he thought he did.

Merlin grimaced. "This is all we could get?" He sighed. "Well, we must work with what we can, I suppose. Maybe the next one will be better."

"What are you talkin' about, man?" Andy asked, who was watching his fingers turn into pink tulips and back again.

"Your world needs you. In times to come, it will be threatened by a great many dangers. It needs a man who can be a hero. Behind your facade, I sense a will of steel and the courage to be a great man."

"Yeah. Right. Cool. Merl'... what you talking about it?"

"You will come to understand what is required of you."

Merlin turned away from the stoned hippy and pointed to an up thrust shard of granite. Embedded within it was an enormous sword, hanging from it was a golden amulet.

"Wow. Cool. I like the imagery. I'm totally going to write this as a story when I come down."

Merlin gazed towards the heavens. There comes a time in everybeings life, even potentially immortal, omnipotent god-like beings, when they need to look to something above them for strength. This was one of those times. "Choose, mortal," he said.

"Okey-dokey, dude. Well, like, I am NOT going for the sword, 'cos that's like, totally warlike and I'm a peace-lovin' guy."

Andy paused and grinned stupidly. "I'm just a lovin' guy." He started to croon 'Woman'. A very off-key version that John Lennon would probably have had a lot of difficulty recognising.

"Choose," Merlin snapped.

"Okay! Chill dude. Man. This trip is showin' me a totally different view of your personality, Merl', dude."

Andy swung back to the rock, which appeared to be thrust between his sofa and his ancient reel-to-reel tape player, which he used to record John Peel off the radio.

"Well, if you want me to have one, I guess I'll have this necklace thingy. It's kinda cool, y'know?" He took it from the rock and put over his head.

Everything went black.

"Uh. Merl'? Dude?" Andy said, his voice quavering a little. "What's happening?"

He turned around and, as if looking down a long tunnel, he saw himself, slumped in his chair, a spliff smouldering gently between his fingertips. He felt himself tipping forwards and plunging down towards his body.

With a jerk, Andy awoke. Sunlight was streaming through the window.

"Man. What a weird trip. Merl', what was that stuff?... Merl'?" But Merlin was gone. Andy felt an unfamiliar weight around his neck. Putting his hand up to it, he touched something that was uncomfortably cold to the touch. Staggering to the mirror, he saw several things that he hadn't been expecting.

Firstly, was the gold amulet around his neck. Second was the skin-tight red, white and blue costume that he was wearing, which he really had had no recollection of putting on. Thirdly, he appeared to have lost an awful lot of weight and found some very unfamiliar muscles.

"Man, I'm still tripping. Just wait until I tell Merl' about this..."

Andy Morris, AKA Brother Brit-Man is still waiting to come down.

For more on Stephen Mellor's writing, consult http://www.samarcand.co.uk/fiction/index.html

Kylun looked up from where he was feeding Widget a pile of old mechanical parts. The emergency light was blinking!

He ran over and activated the communicator and the familiar face of Dai Thomas appeared on the screen. "Jinkies! Inspector Thomas ... can we assist you?"

"Yes," Inspector Thomas said. "There are massive power failures all over the British Isles! We need your help!"

Cerise flew in the room, having overheard the conversation. "Well Kylun, this looks too big for us to handle all by ourselves!" She pressed the button which sent out the general alarm. "I guess we have to summon ...

THE EXCALIBUR FRIENDS!"

The greatest heroes of the age!
Captain Krypton!
Black Knight & Squire!
Meggan!
Prince Namor, the Aqua-Man!

in ... "The Master Menace of Mastermind!" by Michael Norwitz

The heroes assembled in the Lighthouse of Justice. "What seems to be the problem, kids?" Captain Krypton asked.

Cerise said, "We got an emergency call about a series of blackouts. It looks like some evil foe is trying to take out the UK's electrical system."

"I have an idea," Black Knight pondered. "Kylun, will you display on the viewing monitor an overview of the affected areas?

Built into the far wall was a large monitor that looks to be at least 30' by 30'. Kylun walked over to the keyboard and punched up the necessary information. As a grid-map of the country's electrical system was displayed, the heroes saw that the power failures trace out the definite pattern of the letter 'M'.

Squire said, "Holy initials, Black Knight!"

"By Cerridwen's cauldron of knowledge!" Meggan said, "Good thinking, Black Knight!"

Kylun asked, "But ... what does it mean?"

"It can only mean one thing," Captain Krypton said, "the return of my arch-enemy, Mastermind!"

Cerise said, "Who?"

"This was long before your time, Kylun and Cerise," Captain Krypton said, "he was last seen in the Excalibur Friend's early years ... back before those Earth teens Kitty and Kurt left the team. As you may know, I was actually born centuries ago, and my father was King Jorel, who ruled England from the Pentagram Table in the legendary castle of Krypton."

"We know that Cap," Kylun said, "but where did Mastermind come in?"

"When King Jorel realised that Krypton was going to fall, he decided he could at least save me. His advisor, the sorcerer Merlin, gifted me with the combined powers of all the knights of the Pentagram Table, and set me to sleep in a magic casket to be awoken when England would have need of me. He set his three super-powered familiars -- the dog Krypto, the cat Streaky, and the mouse Ikky -- to guard me. He also created a sort of mystical computer to watch over us all and determine when the proper time was for me was to be reborn ... that computer was called Mastermind."

Cerise said, "Jinkies!"

"One day in the early years of my career as Captain Krypton, Mastermind came to me, saying that he was unhappy with his intangible existence. I transferred his identity into a solid, holographic body ... but because the technology was so complicated, the resulting body appeared completely hairless. He accused me of making him bald so that he would never be able to fit properly into human society, claiming I was jealous of his genius, and turned against me. He has been a dangerous enemy ever since. And now ... it looks like he's back for revenge yet again."

Namor looked thoughful. "I can ask my underwater friends, Cap, if anything unusual has been spotted."

Black Knight said, "I can investigate Thames Electrical's central computer and see if we can find where it's been hacked into."

"Squire and I can scout out the countryside in my Invisible Plane," Meggan nodded, "he's been after me for pilot practice for a while now, if you don't mind, Black Knight. With all of us working together, we can track down Mastermind in no time!"