Lundunaborg was so vast it had its own top-level internet domain. In ancient Icelandic, its name meant Fort London and it was under this name that the Viking sagas had recorded the ancient Romano-Saxon city-state of London itself.

The modern Lundunaborg lay at coordinates 51°53′40″N, 1°28′57″E, approximately six miles off the coast of Suffolk and spent most of its operational life beneath the icy cold waves of the English Channel, surfacing only when there was significant threat to the sovereignty of the nation to which it belonged.

Like the city from which it gained its name, Lundunaborg had seven distinct gates by which the fortress could be entered and, like the inspirational design of those forgotten London gates, Lundunaborg housed its criminals in the cramped quarters above each arch.

It was the advent of Lundunaborg that had paved the way for the construction of Moonbase Churchill; its towering spires rising up through the waves during the few documented occasions upon which it had surfaced, proving inspirational enough to win public support and government funding for the renewed British space effort.

Following the closure of Screwtape Downs in late 2003, a move that had been expected by many after the escape of the rogue agent, Charles Winters during the previous year, many of the most dangerous prisoners had been moved into accommodation within the gates of Lundunaborg.

It was then, with perhaps a bittersweet note that Lundonaborg’s most significant resident should also have become its most notable prisoner.

Joseph Dodgson had been born in 1949 to Jamaican parents freshly arrived in post-war London upon the Empire Windrush scarcely a year previous. There was a small amount of concern upon his birth and a handful of unfounded recriminations made by his father due to the deathly pallor of his skin.

The alarm had first been raised when, on delivery, the brief assumption was made that the child had died somehow in utero. This was followed by the second assumption that his mother had been pursuing extraneous relationships with gentlemen of a non-Afro-Caribbean background.

Neither theory catered for the fact that the child’s skin was of a pale blue rather than white. His body was like that of a child that had died of frostbite in some arctic wasteland and his natural body temperature seemed more acclimatised for the arctic tundra than it did for King’s College Hospital.

Once the arguments had died down and the results of hastily administered tests had returned, it had been revealed that Dodgson’s frozen complexion was an uncomfortable side effect of his body’s instinctive control over low temperatures. Whilst he could live within a normal climate, he could never be healthy.

It was this sickliness, combined with the pallor of his skin and his lack of body hair that had earned him the mocking nickname of Thin White Duke.

The nickname had preceded him into adult life and it was only in 1972, whilst researching ghost radiation in the Antarctic that he had discovered his mastery of the frozen elements. It was then that his now iconic appearance of wild, arching eyebrows and backcombed hair fashioned from ice crystals had been first established.

And so, upon his return to British shores, the government had begun the construction of Lundunaborg, originally as a multi-purpose research project, later as an academy for potential Science Agents and finally as gaol for the criminally insane and terminally powerful.

Yet throughout the turbulent history of the institution, its most notable inmate had always been the Thin White Duke.

The entire bottom level of the fortress, kept perpetually at Antarctic temperatures, was the only home Dodgson had known where sickness and stigma had not dogged him.

It was of no little significance then that as Lundunaborg turned from research facility to defensive position, so the Thin White Duke became its most famous guardian.

The recognition of such a role had presented Dodgson with a series of significant problems that he had found himself hard pushed to answer.

Five years after the destruction of an Australian city by a sizeable fleet of aggressive alien spacecraft, he thought that, at last, he might have come close to answering those questions.

Sitting with his phone in one hand, the Duke looked momentarily up at his likewise seated guest.

“Are you sure this is such a good idea?” the other - a large black and white tom cat dressed in a minute silver, insulated jacket - questioned.

Dodgson nodded carefully, thumbing the phone screen upwards and swiftly dialling a number on the keypad.

“Now is as good a time as any,” he shrugged in reply.

The cat, named Hoodwink for the distinctive divide of black and white fur on his face that, when seen head on, gave the impression that he was wearing a cowl, narrowed his yellow eyes and looked dissatisfied.

“Kilo-Alpha-India, you are good to G-O,” he said simply and closed the phone, dropping it back into his pocket.

There was a moment’s pause and then, with terrible precision, the three southernmost gates of the facility began to tremble violently.

* * *

The portcullis lifted, klaxons ringing out through the facility and echoing through the watery depths as the airlock chamber opened slowly up to allow the water to come rushing inside and a dark shape darted out into the murky waters.

There was a flash of light amidst the heavy shadows of the English Channel and, for a moment, the craft’s shape was silhouetted against the distant outline of Lundunaborg; seemingly both aquatic and mechanical, a machine crafted in the image of nature.

The surface of the water shattered like glass as it rocketed into the air, lights flaring in the faux-eyes of its delphinidae design.

It hung momentarily above the waves, its tail curving as sunlight and water poured off sleek metal and, then with a flare of engines located in the aft of the machine, it launched forwards, churning the waves beneath and crossing in moments over dry land.

Felixstowe passed beneath it, followed moments later by Ipswich and then, as it turned downwards as per the co-ordinates flashing up on the pilot’s terminal, the former Roman capital of Colchester.

The dolphin machine’s pilot pulled back gently on the twin control sticks, easing the velocity at which it travelled and checking her instruments to make sure she could identify the twin signals of her fellow Science Agents on her radar.

‘Eagle Kaiser to Dolphin Kaiser, report your status,’ a firm, imperious voice called over the cockpit’s intercom.

She sighed and, lazily reaching out with her gloved hand, flicked a switch on the terminal and replied:

“Eagle Kaiser, this is Dolphin Kaiser,” she answered in a voice designed to annoy, “you may consider me present and accounted for.”

A dark shadow loomed above her, the broad wings of Eagle Kaiser darkening the land beneath the two machines.

‘Insolent wretch!’ the voice cried out.

She smirked and leant forwards on the sticks again, accelerating just in time to catch sight of the vast shape of Lion Kaiser below her.

Of the three of them, only Lion Kaiser’s pilot was native to the present day. Eagle Kaiser’s pilot, Flavius Furius Aquila was a former Roman centurion who had been present at York when Constantine had been hailed both Augustus of the West and King of the Britons in AD 306.

She, for her own sins had been born in 1906 in Rouen and raised in Cambridgeshire before returning to France and embarking on a career first as a dancer and then finally as one of the most acclaimed and mysterious actresses of the silent era of the blossoming film industry.

The shape of London loomed on the horizon and she pulled back on the sticks again, moving one hand to hammer out several codes on the left-hand ticker tape machine wired into the redesigned SUNNY Corporation interface terminal.

“I’m beginning landing procedures,” she remarked casually as the machine passed over Chingford.

‘I didn’t give you permission to land!’ Flavius called out over the intercom.

She sighed; slowing as the details of Victoria Park appeared below. The aft engines of the craft dulled and she lowered the dolphin styled machine onto the firm, green grass of the expansive East London park.

The glass canopy of the cockpit hissed open and she released the buckle of her harness and stood up, watching as Kaiser Eagle landed to the right of her and, moments later, Lion Kaiser leapt thundered across the concrete and steel of the city and came to a halt to her right.

The canopy of Flavius’ own machine opened, revealing the furious Centurion, his face flushed and red with anger.

She smiled and casually blew a kiss in his direction causing him to curse loudly and violently in Latin.

The dull sound of her mobile phone - a concept she was still struggling to accept - echoed through the park, underlining the shouts of the other pilot and the disturbed flight of pigeons.

She reached out and unclipped the device from her utility belt, flipping it open and raising the handset to her ear.

“Fait here, go ahead,” she said simply.

‘You might want to try following your field leader’s orders once in a while,’ Dodgson remarked in a bemused voice.

Fait glanced over at the swearing Roman and her smile broadened.

“Things won’t be half as much fun that way,” she beamed, turning away and looking seriously over the trees of the park.

“What have you got for us, chief?” she asked.

The familiar hiss of another canopy punctuated the background noise of Flavius’ insults and she saw the youngest of the three field operatives emerge, black box pleat skirt, fishnet tights, domino masque and a simple top adorned with two thin bands of magenta and yellow at the collar and wrists.

She smiled and waved in a friendly, carefree manner and, not for the first time, the older woman wondered how such a seemingly pleasant person had ended up as in the care of Dodgson and Lundunaborg.

‘Suspect is moving towards you on a north-westerly approach. He’s a big fellow, not that you’ll be able to see much of him due to the distortion field he projects.’

She nodded.

“Flavius, you might want to hear this,” she remarked to the cursing Roman with the prominent nose.

He ceased in his tirade, scowling darkly and then retrieved his own phone, patching into the conversation and lifting it to his ear.

“Hail,” he said shortly.

‘Hail, Centurion. Is Magenta with you?’ Dodgson replied.

“I’m here, chief,” a cheerful voice interjected.

Both Flavius and Fait lifted their heads to see the third pilot waving happily at the phone as she crouched down on the grass before her craft and made clicking noises at cautious pigeons.

‘Good,’ Dodgson remarked simply before continuing with his explanation, ‘our latest info seems to indicate that up to 80% of this guy’s body mass might be made of Millennial Spirit. That means he’s likely to be one serious hard-case.’

“Does this ‘hard-case’, as you call him, warrant a name?” Flavius inquired.

‘No human name, as of yet,’ Dodgson answered, ‘Hoodwink is calling him the Author, on account of the way the distortion field alters reality around him.’

“How do we fight someone who alters reality?” Fait remarked incredulously.

“With nonsense!” Magenta chimed in excitedly, scaring away the few pigeons she had won over.

‘With your best efforts,’ Dodgson answered, ignoring the young girl’s suggestion.

“We’ll do the best we can, sir,” Flavius remarked.

‘I’m counting on it. Good luck, team.’

The line went dead. All three Science Agents folded away their phones and exchanged nervous glances.

Beyond the horizon of preserved forest, a desperate recreation of the fields and forests that had once lain where Brutus of Troy had founded his fair city of Trinovantum, something vast and sinister came hurtling towards them.

Flavius set his jaw in a firm scowl and forced his eyes to look directly toward the sound of the rolling shadows.

“Form up on Fait,” he said firmly, glancing over at her, “we’ll use your power of luck, our own ‘reality warping field’ if you like, to break through his projections. That means you’ll be our first line of attack, Magenta and myself will simply be trying to make sure nothing hits you…or us.”

Fait nodded and stepped forwards, jumping down from the nose of Dolphin Kaiser and landing gracefully on the grass below.

“Don’t be afraid to engage your lorica laminata,” he said firmly.

The former actress looked hesitantly down at her mobile phone and then up again at the blossoming shadow at the far end of the park, her mind now firmly made up.

“Don’t worry,” she said with more courage than she felt, “I won’t forget.”

The trees were torn apart revealing a figure shrouded in dark flames the colour of purpling bruises and crow feathers, a broad shouldered, bald man howling at the nexus of the conflagration and hurtling towards them with uncanny speed.

The gifts of the shadowy elder gods were unmistakable, especially to any who had seen footage of the creature named ShadowWraith eight years ago in the Australian metropolis of Pacific City.

She hesitated, swallowing hard and tightening her fists. No play or drama had prepared her for this violent change in lifestyle. There was no director or producer on hand to explain the premise of the conflict she now entered into and what the final outcome would be.

There was nothing but her, and the innate sense of luck nature had gifted her with.

She dove forwards, feet pushing against the soft grass as she rushed to meet the advancing horror of the approaching creature.

The Author turned slowly to face her and she closed the distance in moments, lashing out with her fists and trusting in her abilities.

The dark flames that surrounded the monster warped as her fist approached, the years peeling back. Glimpses of other universes, other Earths, played at the corner of her vision.

For the briefest of moments, she caught sight of herself, resplendent in the uniform of another world’s empire, her hands held behind her back as she stood, legs apart, upon the bridge of some monstrous spacecraft.

It took all the willpower she possessed to keep her focus and eyes straight ahead on the pale flesh beneath the flames, concentrating only on the target and not on the enticing distractions of possibility.

Her fist slammed hard into his gut and she quickly danced away, stepping sideways into another aspect of the distorted field of reality he project as he stumbled forwards.

She sensed Flavius and Magenta behind her, both dressed in the purple and white uniforms of the New Mages, the world spread out in ruins behind them.

Her body curved, her fist rising in an arc, as she placed her trust once more in the notion of fate from which she had taken her name.

The fist slammed hard into the jutting bone beneath the Author’s chin, lifting his head back up and sending the dark flames spiralling furiously out in new patterns of disjointed reality.

Reality shifted once more and she saw scattered tarot cards on the grass beneath her, an intricate box fashioned from wood and metal strapped to her right wrist.

Without warning, the Author twisted, reality reshaping about his vast shape. The world seemed to blink out for a moment and then his fist collided with her face, smashing into her temple and sending her staggering backwards.

There was another moment, another shift in time and then a second blow caught her face.

Reality twisted and the grass burnt away beneath her feet, barren rock stretching over the surface of a dead world now filling the horizon.

She lifted her head, her eyes darting as reality shifted and he appeared behind her, flames coiling about his arm as his elbow struck her hard in the small of her back.

Her head reeled in pain and horror as, moments too late, she realised the reality distortions that surrounded him were no longer random. Like the profession for which he was named, the Author was somehow cycling through realities and latching solely onto those in which her blows would miss or her defences were inadequate. He was manipulating alternate realities in exactly the same way her own powers shaped the course of her native time-stream!

She twisted, her head spinning and her stomach lurching as she caught a glimpse of yet another reality, the Author’s fist narrowly passing her by.

Her lips twisted in silent curses as she struggled to regain her composure, sliding beneath his arm and into another reality, lashing out once more with the back of her hand and almost making contact with the virulent flames that surrounded his corrupt form.

“Protego!” a voice cried out behind her, the single word imagining a wall of gentle light before the struggling actress.

She smiled and made a mental note to thank Magenta later, watching as the Author’s fist ploughed into the centre of the light and was rebounded.

Artfully, she stepped sideways, the barrier of light moving with her as she crossed the barriers of three separate realities until the dark flames spilt across the contours of the other girl’s shield charm and she was able to close the distance between herself and her opponent.

She struck out with the palm of her hand, slamming it hard and forcefully into his chest and sending him staggering backwards. The mobile phone attached to her utility belt chimed once and a thin smile crossed her lips.

The palm print remained burnt upon the Author’s chest, roiling flames of dark energy unable to entwine together over the place her protego-enforced blow had struck him and leaving a considerable gap in his field of distortion.

She reached down for her mobile phone and flipped it open, dialling in the three-digit access code with her thumb.

“I think it’s time,” she remarked dryly, “that I introduced you to our own form of Millennial Spirit manipulation.”

The spirit gage on the phone’s display blinked ceaselessly, indicating the full charge stored within the technology. The finely tuned structure of the phones allowed them to draw in particles of free Millennial Spirit energy from the surrounding atmosphere, storing them within the battery of the device until, like the golden scarab beetle talisman that had inspired their construction, the owner was able to ascend into a higher form.

She lifted the phone to her ear and spoke three simple words:

“Lorica laminata…engage!”

Particles of energy cauterised in the air about her, rushing to one another to form sheets of divine metal, armour burning its way into existence from the gaps between unseen realities.

She spread her arms wide and the sheets of metal converged upon her; twisting about her limbs and locking into place until her entire body was clad in a featureless suit of perfect, pale blue armour.

Unlike the scarab beetle once held by the original Magenta the Magician, Albert Weisz, and later, his student, Mysteria, the lorica laminata armour was devoid of an individual personality. It was summoned by the same rules as the spirit symbiosis that called across the void to the angel of the scarab, and yet it was, in essence, a human construct.

Behind her she heard Magenta’s unsubtle whoop of delight and sensed Flavius’ silent admiration of the armour she had called forth, whilst before her was the silver of the protego charm…and the Author.

She lunged forwards before he could react, pulling her right arm back as far as it would go and then thrusting forwards, driving the apex of the charm forwards with the force of her momentum until both magic and fist collided with the exposed flesh of the Author’s chest and blew it wide open.

The Author howled in prostrate rage, the flames about his body flickering as flesh and bone began to crumble into ruin.

By the time, she had withdrawn her fist his body had collapsed to the ground, its torso and legs shredded by the malignant energy he had failed to harness. She watched in silence for a moment as the flames faded and his eyes gazed up at her until finally, the wave of corruption overtook even that and there was nothing left of him but a fine layer of black sand upon the dry green grass of Victoria Park.

The armour unfolded about her and disbanded into its unseen particles, as if somehow sensing that its usefulness was at end.

Fait Accompli lifted her head, her face damp with sweat and her dark hair plastered to her forehead, and smiled in the direction of her two colleagues.

Flavius offered her a decidedly un-Roman thumbs-up gesture and smiled with pride.

“Good job, soldier,” he remarked.

Magenta mimicked the action, effortlessly twirling her holly tree wand like a baton with her free hand.

Fait sighed and smiled, running a hand through her damp hair.

“I’d hate to give a bad performance,” she said, carefully moderating the breathlessness of her voice to add a more sophisticated edge.

Magenta giggled.

“And just like your old co-stars, that guy didn’t have much to say either!” she smirked.

Fait scowled.

“That’s not funny,” she said, losing control of her voice’s moderation.

By then Magenta had stopped listening. She simply reached closer, linked arms with her and began to run back towards the machines, dragging the protesting actress behind him.

For a moment, Flavius Furius Aquila looked down at the shifting black sand as the wind scattered it across the park. It had been four years since former criminal and current Master of King’s College, Cambridge, Professor Winters, had released his paper on Millennial Spirit energy and its effect on human evolution.

Winters’ predictions, verified by other senior academics, had charted a slow increase in future children exhibiting signs of solar derived superpowers. A being like the Author, with or without the interference of the elder gods, was unprecedented by those standards.

And if one Author could exist, he reflected grimly, then so could many, many more.

He suppressed a shudder of fear.

If such a scenario were true, then even the borrowed power leant to them by the use of the lorica laminata would be useless against the tide of potential opponents they might have to contend with.

He looked up at the horizon, the grains of sand no longer visible in the tumbling winds of the early January.

Without further pause, he turned and began walking slowly back towards his comrades and the vast shapes of the three distinct Kaiser Machines.

Behind him, the sound of the city drowned out the sound of any possible birth pains the wind might have carried to him.

Artifice Albion tome #1:
“In the Fields and in the Hallows”