I am a C&Cing glacier!  Slower than slow, but utterly unstoppable. 
Well, except by global warming...

Elsa Bibat wrote on 11/3/2004, 10:57 AM:

 >
 > Set in the "Pulp Hellsing" timeline _not_ in the "Dances
 > Set To The Music Of Time" timeline.
 >
 > *************************************************
 >
 >             DANCES SET TO THE MUSIC OF TIME
 >                        An Epic History of Humanity
 >                           From The Age of Silver
 >                            To The Age of Crystal
 >                                  And Beyond
 >
 >          http://rakhal.com/florestica/elsa-bibat/index.html
 >
 >                  Other fanfiction by the same author:
 >           http://rakhal.com/florestica/elsa-bibat/index.html
 >
 >                   Kindly archived by Larry F and
 >                    The Lost Library of Florestica:
 >                     http://rakhal.com/florestica/
 > *************************************************
 >
 >     Chapter 5 Diogenes
 >
 >     "Why do I keep on doing this?"
 >
 >     That was the question on Harold Lister's lips as he pushed through
 > into the Diogenes Club's employee section.
 >
 >     "Because no one else would take you?"
 >
 >     Jack Wildman's rejoinder stung since it was rather close to the
 > truth. Lister was not exactly top grade material for a servant. Almost
 > every household he had been in had eventually thrown him out. Only in
 > Diogenes, where eccentricity was the norm, had Harry stayed on for more
 > than six months.
 >
 >     "Sod off, Jack."
 >
 >     Wildman only chuckled.
 >
 >     "What is it this time, Harry? Having difficulty with sign language?"
 >
 >     Harry Lister's primary problem with the Club was that the hundred
 > year rule of silence still held. Club members used a strange form of
 > sign language that was like no other in the world, finger twiddlings
 > mixed with strange positions in the air all with the speed of telegraph
 > operators.

    Ah, Mycroft Holmes's old hangout.

 >     "This particular egg's kind of hard not to talk about. Heard of
 > Cranston?"

    So, it's Cranston in this timeline, and not Allard?  Or are things more 
complicated than that?

 >     Jack blinked.
 >
 >     "Who hasn't? Another reclusive multimillionaire from a line of
 > reclusive multimillionaires. If you ask me there's something in American
 > water that makes all of 'em go bonkers. Pfah, give me good decent
 > English nobility anyday."

    As a Yank, I'm going to... haughtily ignore that comment.

 >     "Well, make three guesses who the bloke off the street was and the
 > first two are wrong."
 >
 >     "You don't mean Cranston was the fellow who requested a second-
 > story?"
 >
 >     "That's what I mean. Couldn't believe it myself, but that's what the
 > card from the Cobalt Club says."
 >
 >     Jack whistled another long low whistle. Harry was always irritated
 > by it, since it had that slight trilling tone that made it sound like
 > Wildman was imitating a bird or something. But he agreed with the
 > sentiment. The Cobalt Club was America's Diogenes, though he had heard
 > it was plenty more relaxed than it was here.

    Well, yeah, it's hard to get Yanks to be as uptight as Brits.  (:)

 >     "So... what's this Cranston bloke look like?" There was a strange
 > glow in Wildman's eyes when he asked the question. Lister could almost
 > see the golden flecks in Jack's eyes dancing around. But, that must have
 > just been a trick of the light.

    ...Wildman?  Gold flecks in his eyes?  What's one of *them* doing in 
the *employee* section of Diogenes?

 >     "If you want to find out, you just look, Wildman. You got leave to
 > go up the second-story, I don't."
 >
 >     "Oh, c'mon, Harry. He's probably in the room already and I can't
 > exactly sneak in."
 >
 >     "Well, you'll see him sooner or later. But trust me, be ready for
 > the fright of your life."
 >
 >     "Why's that?"
 >
 >     Eyes that held a strange lambent glow, like a predator's... a pale
 > thin hawk face like a mask, as if there was another face beneath.

    Ah, our missing-since-Ch1 "Dominus Umbra."

Harry
 > shook himself and looked up at the taller man's gold-flecked eyes.
 >
 >     "Trust me, Jack. Even you'd be frightened."

    Could kind of use somet kind of scene break here.

 >     The Star Chamber of the Diogenes Club was probably the safest place
 > in all of London. It was guarded by the best that money could buy and
 > was protected by several structural safeguards from any natural or
 > unnatural disaster. All of its occupants had weathered many adventures
 > of their own and faced death in various encounters. But when the entity
 > calling itself Kenneth Clarke Cranston entered, all six members of
 > Diogenes' head council felt a tremble of fear.
 >
 >     "I apologize. Forgot about that."
 >
 >     The fear disappeared like it wasn't there. Sir Gerald Tarrant
 > narrowed his eyes. The being before him never forgot. It just wanted to
 > remind them of who had power here.

    This is when the Dalek mercenaries armed with miniguns firing ironwood 
bullets and firehoses spraying holy water would come in handy.

 >     "No worry, old boy. Have a cigar." There was a smile on the lips of
 > the corpulent Duke de Richelieu, it seemed to be traditional for a fat
 > man to be on the council, as he sent a cigar flying towards their guest.
 > Cranston plucked it out of the air with skill.

    Richelieu?  I'd ask what a proper English club is doing letting one of 
*that* family in the door, but I'm sure they have ways of making 
themselves indispensible.

 >     "Ah. Forgot. Here's a lighter." Another flick of the wrist, de
 > Richelieu was deadly in his own manner, and the being before them caught
 > a bright object. The closed hand began to smoke. The duke looked almost
 > apologetic that Tarrant almost bought it himself.

    ITYM "looked so apologetic"

 >     "Sorry about that. I am getting forgetful in my old age."
 >
 >     Cranston arched an eyebrow as he held up his smoking hand and lit
 > the cigar with the offered light. Holding it up, the lighter glistened
 > in the dim light.

    What would be *really* cool would be if his hand caught on fire and he 
lit the cigar with his burning thumb, but that would probably damage his 
suit.

 >     "Silver. Touche, duke." Then flung it back in a slow, languid
 > manner. The duke caught it deftly and Gerald thought for a moment that
 > he would stand up and bow.

    Now that they've got the obligatory pissing match over with.

 >     "Now that we've established pack dominance, shouldn't we be getting
 > to business?" The clear voice of Miranda Mitchison was droll. Being the
 > only woman to have ever succesfully been admitted into the club, she
 > always managed to rebuke her co-members into submission. She was
 > technically MI-5, but the triple-digit division and the letter branches
 > had always answered to Diogenes in the end. She reminded him of a
 > tougher Modesty, another surrogate child that he had outlived.

    It's M!  As played by Julie Dench.  She's cool.

 >     "Oh, hush, Miranda. Can't you see we're just being friendly to the
 > bloke?" That was Howard Blakeney, needling Miranda again. If this were a
 > schoolyard I'd say those two were attracted to each other, Tarrant
 > smugly thought. Blakeney had mastered the art of playing the fop, but
 > those delicate hands of his had killed more men for Queen and Country
 > than other members combined. He was currently answering Miranda's glare
 > with a relaxed, almost sleepy, look.
 >
 >     "Strange name to use, Mr. Allard," John Steed, another former field
 > agent, declared, using the name that he knew the entity before them by,
 > as he looked over the card that the being before them had presented
 > downstairs. "'Kenneth Clarke' indeed. Any idea of where that particular
 > contemporary of yours is?"

    Steed!  Where's Mrs Peel?
    So, it *is* Allard, as Cranston.  And where *is* Doc?

 >     "In the company of another Doctor in a police call-box, I believe."

    ......oooohhhhh, what I wouldn't pay to read *that* story.

 >     Vagueness and obscurity, it seemed, was still the order of the day.
 >
 >     "Ah, yes. The legendary police call-box. If I had a penny for how
 > many times I have to listen to Lethbridge-Stewart..." Brigadier

    "had to listen"  past tense.  Unless L-S is still spinning stories from 
his retirement digs...?

General
 > Liam Hannay just shook his snowy mane. The general looked at Cranston
 > with a jaundiced eye. "So, what brings the world's greatest detective to
 > our humble quarters?"

    Somewhere, Bruce Wayne is scowling.

 >     The hawkish face smiled. In the dim light, the shadows around him
 > seemed to swim and ripple. The hand, girasol ring shifting color from
 > blue to violet to red, ran through black hair, smoothing it back. Red
 > eyes glowed faintly, in rhythm with the crimson tip of the smoking cigar
 > in the mouth. The silence was thick enough to cut with a knife. The
 > council's attention was glued to Cranston as he began.
 >
 >     "I have some things I'd like to tell you about."

    Awww... I wanna know what he said!




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