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"Hero"
Author Unknown
V Annual 1986 (World International Publishing Ltd.) |
Diana exposes the resistance leaders to a new
virus.
Story Summary
On the mothership, Diana tests a new strain of virus on a rat.
The test is successful in that it causes paralysis in the
rodent, but leaves it safe to be eaten by the Visitors. Diana
launches a plan to test on humans--specifically the local
resistance leaders--next.
Two days later, a new resistance member named Joe Drake sells
out his comrades, and the Visitors attack a secret resistance
meeting place, using the new virus. Donovan, Julie, Elizabeth,
and Kyle are left paralyzed as the squad moves in. But Willie
surprises them and fights them all off. Then he manages to rouse
Elizabeth slightly and she uses her strange mental powers to tap
into the memories of both Diana and an alien orderly in the
hovering mothership. She receives details of an earlier
experiment in which all the human subjects were killed by an
earlier strain of the virus, except for one, a young man named
Ray Peterson, who then escaped. Elizabeth tells Willie to find
this Ray Peterson to use his antibodies to formulate an antidote
to the virus.
Willie runs outside into the L.A. battleground and soon bumps
into a motorcycle gang member called Runt. Runt says he knows
Ray, who is a member of another motorcycle gang in the area.
Hopping on Runt's Harley together, the man takes Willie to a
ranch house in the hills where the Rats gang meets, only to find
it under siege and about to be overrun by a squad of Visitor
troops. Runt and Willie pitch in to drive the Visitors off, then
they meet up with Ray.
That night, Ray gives a blood sample and a resistance doctor
develops an antidote from it. Donovan, Julie, and Elizabeth
are restored to normal health.
THE END
Didja Know?
This story appeared in the British V
Annual 1986, a kids book of short stories, articles and
games all about V.
This story is actually called "The Hero", but , since the TV
series already has an episode by that title, I've chosen to call
this one simply "Hero".
Didja Notice?
Page 14 refers to the transparent cage holding the experimental
rat as being made of plastiflex. This must be a Visitor
material as there does not seem to be a similar Earth material by
that name. In another story in this same volume,
"The Three
Brave Men", the aliens' false human skin is also referred to as
plastiflex...two rather different forms of the plastic, I guess.
In the V novels, the
pseudo-skin is often referred to as dermoplast instead.
Diana's rat is depicted in the illustration as white with red
eyes, indicating it is an albino. Albinism is a congenital
disorder in which a vertebrate has a lack of, or defect in, the
production of the pigment melanin.
Page 14 also makes reference to the current resistance plan to
blow up a power station next to the Visitors' largest chemical
plant. Perhaps the chemical plant mentioned here is the same one
featured in the earlier story in
V Annual 1986,
"The Day That the Rains Didn't Come".
On page 16, Elizabeth seems to connect mentally with individuals
aboard the mothership, tapping into their memories of the virus
to which she and the other humans in her party have succumbed.
Page 17 mentions that Nathan Bates is dead, placing this story
sometime after "The Betrayal".
Page 17 also reveals that the Science Frontiers building is now
wrecked;
"The Poison in the Apple"
reveals that Science Frontiers is defunct since the death of its
CEO, Nathan Bates. While searching for help, Willie seems to think he can
find another resistance member there, but it's not explained why
he would think so.
On page 17, Runt refers to the Visitors as "creepy crocodiles"
and "two-bit dinosaurs".
Runt rides a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
Harley-Davidson is a major motorcycle manufacturer in the
United States.
When Willie races off at Elizabeth's command to find a man named
Ray Peterson who happens to be immune to the new Visitor virus,
he just happens to bump into a man who knows Ray and can take
him to him!
Page 17 reveals that there are two motorcycle gangs in the L.A.
area called the Cougars and the Rats.
Possibly the name of the "Rats" motorcycle gang is an allusion
to Ray having been one of Diana's earlier test subjects, just
like the rat rodent she exposes to the virus at the beginning of
the story.
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