Friday, May 22, 1981
Police arrive at Dayton Place to arrest Cash Mitchell, but he, Sampson, and Eva-Lynne are not on the premises. Having been pre-warned of the police’s imminent arrival, the trio have already headed to a nearby military base, and begun preparing to once again take Quicksilver to the Moon. They launch that day. (29: Cassutt)

Late May, 1981
Cash, Sampson and Eva-Lynne once again fly to the Moon. While they’re en route, Eva-Lynne mutates into her final joker form and begins slowly dying. Once the trio land, they collect samples of lunar dust, and also take a panel from the communications array they had previously established on the Moon in 1968. (Presumably it’s just a pile of wreckage, since 29: Mohanraj Three confirms the array was destroyed by Aarti almost as soon as it was erected.) Eva-Lynne dies while Sampson and Cash are collecting evidence. As Aarti observes them with both anger and confusion, Cash and Sampson bury Eva-Lynne’s body on the Moon. (29: Cassutt) (Aarti’s observation from 29: Mohanraj Four)

Aarti decides that the next time humans come to the Moon, she will kill them. (29: Mohanraj Four) Sampson and Mitchell return to Earth, to some fanfare and celebration. (29: Cassutt)

June, 1981
Cash has another confrontation with Bertram Neal, during which Cash angrily throws a pile of Moon dust in Neal’s face. (29: Cassutt)

Japanese executive Koyama Eido retires to the island of Shikoku with the ambition to discover a comet. (2: Williams “Comet”)

On a Friday in London’s Jokertown, Allen Crippen, recently infected with the wild card virus, intervenes when a three-armed joker named Jenny Scott is accosted by some delinquents. Allen and Jenny get better acquainted back at her flat, and she promises to introduce him around the community. She invites him to move in with her, and he accepts. After a few days of living together, Allen and Jenny become intimate. Not long after that, Allen learns that the use of his tunneling powers to try and rescue Jenny has brought him to the attention of a joker criminal named McAndrews, aka “Pussyface.” Allen demonstrates his abilities to McAndrews, and is told that he’ll be called upon soon to do a job. (27: Stross)

The Thursday after Jenny first met Allen, she reports in at New Scotland Yard, and tells her superior – Rutherford – about Allen, having pegged him as a potential new police asset. That night, Allen takes Jenny out to dinner. (27: Stross)

The week after first being contacted by McAndrews, Crippen does his first job for him, which is simply the burial of some boxes. Several other jobs follow. Meanwhile, Jenny learns from a background check performed by New Scotland Yard that Allen has a prior criminal record, something he’s never shared with her. (27: Stross)

August, 1981
By now, Allen Crippen has told Jenny Scott that he is working for McAndrews on jobs that are not quite legal. Jenny lets her superiors know about the buried boxes from Allen’s first job. The boxes are dug up, and the police find a body inside one of them. Meanwhile, Allen has been tasked with the job of creating a tunnel underneath a jewelry store so that McAndrews can send men in rob it. It’s a large-scale project, one which will take several days to complete. (27: Stross)

Jenny is kidnapped by thugs working for McAndrews, so that he can punish her for having told her superiors about the buried body. Meanwhile, on a break from the jewelry store dig, Allen calls Jenny both at work and at home, and gets no answer. Worried she might be in danger, he heads back to his house, finding it ransacked. He takes a cab to McAndrews’ house and tunnels into it via the neighboring yard. He and Jenny escape, and McAndrews and his gang are arrested. (27: Stross) (Note: The internal chronology of this story is somewhat contradictory, sometimes being said to take place over “weeks and weeks,” and at other times seemingly contained in a tighter period, maybe only three weeks long, rather than two months.)

The summer after his first year of medical school, centaur joker Bradley Finn is working as an extra for the film Jason and the Argonauts. His father, acclaimed director Benton Finn, is concurrently shooting The French Lieutenant’s Women on the same lot. During a break, Finn meets a quartet of gorgeous female extras from his father’s film. Not long after, Stan Whitehorn-Humphries – the makeup man for The French Lieutenant’s Women star Grace Kelly – goes missing, which causes Kelly to hide out in her trailer. Bradley discerns that Stan has the ace power to make Grace look young, but it’s a temporary effect that has to be redone on a regular basis. Benton doesn’t want to involve the police because it will turn into a media circus, so he asks Bradley to investigate the wild card community for clues as to Stan’s whereabouts. Eventually, it’s discovered that Stan was kidnapped by the four female extras that Bradley met only days ago. Upon finding the house where Stan is being held, Finn is threatened at gunpoint by the girls’ ringleader, Tanya. However, Stan convinces her that – now that the scheme has been uncovered – she should simply come clean and bargain, before any law enforcement becomes involved. She agrees. Sometime after the scandal surrounding the entire affair has died down, Tanya calls up Bradley for a date, and he accepts. (16: Snodgrass)

Late Summer, 1981
Teenaged joker Theodorus Witherspoon enlists the aid of a theatre actor named Trevor Fitzgerald, in an elaborate Cyrano-inspired scheme to woo Amare “Peregrine” Sweet, famous model and winged wild card. The plan goes awry, but Peregrine shows compassion to Theodorus after his and Fitzgerald’s deception is exposed. She tells Theodorus that he is a savant, and that he is going to make the world a better place. (31: Rowe)

Sept. 15, 1981
Aces! Magazine publishes a piece titled “35 Years of Wild Cards: A Retrospective.” (1: Martin “Retrospective”)

Dec. 13, 1981
Nineteen-year-old ace Jennifer Maloy is convinced to go to CBGBs one night with her friend Tricia. At one point in the night, Tricia is carried into a limo by a member of the band The Fads. Jennifer assumes that Tricia is being kidnapped against her will, and tries to get help. She meets Croyd Crenson, who takes her to the loft where the Fads’ after-party is taking place. Tricia is nowhere to be found, but a stranger – fleeing from criminals – ends up running into Jennifer and pressing a key into Jennifer’s hand. The stranger then disappears, and armed thugs show up looking for the key. When one of them sees that Jennifer has it, he starts toward her. Panicked, Jennifer exercises her ace power, passing through the floor of the loft and sinking down to the lower levels of the building. (1: Vaughn) (Year is based on Jennifer’s age in the story, and her birth year (1962) as given in M&M. Exact date is conjecture based on Sonic Youth’s appearance at CBGB’s. According to sonicyouth.com, in real-world history, the only date that Sonic Youth played CBGB’s in 1981 is Dec. 13.)

Croyd finds Jennifer on the lower levels, and the two of them team up to avoid the criminals, and to try to solve the mystery surrounding the key that Jennifer has accidentally acquired. Croyd takes her to Jokertown nightspot Freakers, where a psychometric joker waitress named Sheila is able to divine that the key opens a post office box on the edge of Chinatown. Croyd and Jennifer head to the PO box. As they walk, Croyd tells Jennifer a bit about how she could use her powers to be a thief, if she wanted to. Jennifer absorbs his advice thoughtfully. (1: Vaughn)

At the PO box, they retrieve an envelope containing about $30,000 in cash. Croyd uses his current ace ability – to suspend a person in place for a brief period of time – to freeze Jennifer and leave with half of the money in the envelope. When the effect wears off, Jennifer is bemused to realize that Croyd is both a rat bastard and a gentleman. When the criminals chasing her catch up once again, Jennifer is forced to use her ghosting power to escape. The repeated use of her power starts to make her tired and sick. She takes shelter in the Blythe van Renssaeler Clinic in Jokertown, ghosting through the back wall in order to avoid a nine-foot-tall joker night guard, named Troll. While resting in the clinic, Jennifer briefly meets Dr. Tachyon. (1: Vaughn) (Troll’s name given in later books.)

Dec. 14, 1981
In the early morning, Jennifer finally finds Tricia and learns that she wasn’t kidnapped, but had gone along willingly with the Fads. Later, Jennifer returns to the Jokertown Clinic and puts almost the entirety of the recovered $15,000 in cash in the clinic’s donation box. (1: Vaughn) This is thus the first time that Jennifer has essentially robbed the rich to give to the needy, but it will turn out not to be the last. (Book 3)

Apr. 30, 1982
Naval ship Hermes arrives at the Falkland Islands prepared for war. On board are two aces affiliated with the Order of the Silver Helix: Ranjit Singh, aka “the Lion,” an ace with enhanced strength; and probationary member Rory Campbell, aka “Archimedes,” who can generate directed electro-magnetic pulses. (27: Kloos)

May 3-25, 1982
Thanks partly to the invaluable assistance of the Silver Helix aces Archimedes and the Lion, the British military campaign against Argentina in the Falkland Islands is successful. (27: Kloos)

1982
Theodorus Witherspoon’s parents are killed in a plane crash. The entirety of their fortune is bequeathed to Theodorus. Since he is only seventeen years old, still a minor, his family’s companies are placed in the charge of Witherspoon family attorney Malachi Schwartz, to be handled by Malachi until Theodorus turns twenty-one and can take control of them himself. (29: Rowe Two)

December, 1982
Koyama Eido discovers a comet, but at the same time as does another comet-seeker, Seki, and so Koyama has to share credit, much to his chagrin. (2: Williams “Comet”)

March, 1983
Koyama Eido finally discovers a comet all his own, which is then coded Koyama 1983D. Mr. Koyama enjoys some bit of celebrity due to the comet’s unusual composition and speed. Over the next two and a half years, Koyama will discover four more comets of the same weird nature. These seeming comets are – it will turn out – pieces of the Swarm Mother, slowly approaching Earth for an invasion. (2: Williams “Comet”)

Late July, 1983
During the Black July riots in Sri Lanka, five-year-old Kavitha Kandiah hides with her parents and younger siblings in a neighbor’s house. Kavitha prays for her older brother, Ariyasiri, who is staying with a friend’s family. Later that night, Kavitha and her family learn that Ari and the family he was staying with did not survive the violence. (25: Mohanraj)

Dec. 5, 1983
Jacob “Wide Awake Jake” Riskin – a joker, and the overnight DJ for NYC Jokertown’s radio station, WAJT – is murdered by the station manager, Terry Wilson. Fifth Precinct police officers Leo Storgman and Ralph Pleasant are assigned to the homicide. Storgman, a nat back when the Rathole murders took place in the 1970s, has since contracted the wild card virus. He is now a joker, with pallid skin and ram’s horns on his head. (32: Priest)

Dec. 6, 1983
Running down leads in the Wide Awake Jake homicide, Leo Storgman interviews a joker entrepeneur named Angus Hood, and decides that Hood doesn’t look good for it. Storgman then makes contact with another suspect, Croyd Crenson. Crenson – whose current body is covered in prehensile vines – says that he’s not responsible. He explains that he was friends with the DJ, who would sometimes let him crash in a room at the station. (32: Priest)

Dec. 7, 1983
As part of their investigation into the Wide Awake Jake murder, detectives Storgman and Pleasant interview Father Squid at the Church of Jesus Christ, Joker. Storgman introduces Squid to Pleasant, and the two shake hands. Neither of the two men make any show of having already met and interacted more than once before – back in the 1970s, first when Pleasant interviewed Squid about the latter’s encounter with Monsignor Romulus Contarini, and then later when Squid informed to Pleasant about the whereabouts of Bernard “Deedle” Augustus. (32: Priest)

Storgman has another talk with Croyd, who reveals that he is currently staying in the flat that the late Jake Riskin kept at the WAJT building. (32: Priest)

Dec. 8, 1983
Storgman and Pleasant interview another murder suspect – a religious nut named Lewis Perry – who had threatened Jake Riskin not long before the latter was killed. (32: Priest)

Dec. 9, 1983
Out of guilt over having killed Jake, station manager Terry Wilson attempts suicide by jumping from the top of the WAJT building. Her life is saved by Croyd Crenson, who – from the window of the small apartment he’s staying in – reaches out to grab her with one of his vines. Though he isn’t able to catch her, he does successfully arrest her descent, which results in Wilson being injured rather than killed. While emergency responders tend to Terry, Leo Storgman heads into the building to confront Croyd. (32: Priest)

Storgman finds Croyd in the late Jake Riskin’s small crash-space. Croyd falls asleep, and so Storgman seals him inside the flat to keep him safe. (32: Priest)

Dec. 10, 1983
Storgman interviews Terry Wilson in the hospital, where she officially confesses to the murder of Wide Awake Jake. (32: Preist)

Dec. 24, 1983
Leo Storgman visits the flat in the WAJT building, where he finds it abandoned – Croyd having recently awoken, and moved on. (32: Priest)

October, 1984
While watching Margaret Thatcher on television delivering a speech that he wrote, Roger Barnes is infected with the wild card, transforming from flesh-and-blood to a being made of wood. He is immediately apprehended by Ranjit “The Lion” Singh of the Silver Helix, and taken before Winston Churchill. In a private conversation between the two of them, Churchill asks Roger to join the international joker terrorist organization the Twisted Fists as an undercover operative. Barnes agrees. (27: Peter Newman One) (Exact month conjecture, based on the date of a famous speech given by Margaret Thatcher on Oct. 12, 1984 in real-world history.)

Nov. 28, 1984
Tachyon’s daughter, Gisele Andrieux, is killed in a shootout with the bodyguard of industrialist Simon de Montfort. (4: Snodgrass)

December, 1984
New doctor and Peace Corps volunteer Bradley Finn arrives in Kenya to work with the joker community outside of Nairobi. He meets his new boss, Etienne Faneuil, and Faneuil’s assistant, Margaret “Peggy” Durand. (13: Snodgrass) (Peggy tells Bradley that it is long rain season, but she may be misspeaking, since the end of the story is also said to be during long rain season but it is five months later. I’d suggest Peggy simply exaggerated, and that the earlier scene is set in December, during Kenya’s short rain season. Perhaps on Dec. 13, the day after a particularly heavy rainfall in Kenya, according to online rainfall charts for December of 1984.)

On the Ololkisalie Game Preserve, Bradley Finn meets and befriends Zulu Mosi Jomo, and Australian J.D. Snopes, who guard the preserve from poachers. (13: Snodgrass)

March, 1985
After three months in Kenya treating and vaccinating joker children, Finn suggests to Dr. Faneuil that his wealthy father could hold a benefit, raising money to buy better medical supplies. Etienne agrees to let Bradley and his father make the attempt. (13: Snodgrass)

May, 1985
James Spector, a failed CPA from Teaneck, New Jersey, is infected with the wild card. He is clinically dead upon arrival at the Jokertown Clinic, in New York City. Tachyon revives him with an experimental process. Spector spends the next six months in the clinic’s ICU, screaming uncontrollably. (2: Simons)

In Kenya, Bradley Finn gets a phone call from his father, Benton, and is told that the plane filled with medical supplies will not be coming to Kenya, because of unending government delays. Benton relays his suspicion that someone with a lot of power doesn’t want the plane to fly. Not long after the conversation with his father, Bradley reads an article about the AIDS virus, and realizes the symptoms match the illness that seems to be running rampant among the Kenyan joker community. He runs a test on a sample of fifty jokers, and the results come back that all fifty of them are infected with AIDS. (13: Snodgrass)

Finn takes his results to Etienne Faneuil, who chastises Finn for running the test behind Faneuil’s back. Ultimately however, he apologizes to Finn for having been blind to what was happening. (13: Snodgrass)

May 27, 1985
Sometime later, Finn wonders how the AIDS virus could have moved through the community so quickly and completely. With some horrible suspicions, he breaks into the hospital one night and inspects the sterilized needles. He realizes that one of the cleaning solutions is actually no such thing, but is in fact dilute human serum, deliberately designed to infect. Before Bradley can leave the hospital, he is locked in, and the building is set on fire. Bradley manages to escape with a sample of Faneuil’s serum, but is then chased by killers just as heavy rains start suddenly to fall. Finn eventually retreats into the Ololkisalie Game Preserve. (13: Snodgrass) (Exact date based on the date of a large evening rainstorm in May of 1985, per online weather charts for Kenya’s rainy seasons.)

May 28, 1985
The next morning, the killers chasing Bradley Finn catch up to him in the preserve. His life is saved when the men about to shoot him are instead shot themselves, by Mosi Jomo and J.D. Snopes. Mosi and J.D. help transport Finn safely back to Nairobi, and Finn is able to get the information about Faneuil to the proper authorities. (13: Snodgrass)

Late summer, 1985
In New York, Mai, a wild card with the ability to heal jokers, is kidnapped by an ace criminal called Scar. Her father, Minh, starts tailing Scar for clues as to what has been done with his daughter, and he manages to espy Scar reporting to his boss, Kien Phuc. Recognizing Kien as a criminal from Vietnam, Minh sends a letter to Daniel Brennan, who has a history with both Minh and Kien. Brennan comes to NYC as soon as he can. When Daniel at last arrives at Minh’s Vietnamese restaurant, Minh is in the midst of being tortured and killed by thugs working for Kien. Armed with a bow-and-arrow, Brennan kills the men, but he is too late to save Minh. With his dying breaths, Minh gives Brennan as much information as his strength will allow, including telling Daniel that he should seek information from Chrysalis at the Crystal Palace. Before leaving the restaurant, Daniel leaves an ace of spades at the scene – a symbol of death, and a warning to his nemesis, Kien, who murdered Brennan’s wife years earlier. (1: Miller)

Brennan goes to the Crystal Palace, a bar in Jokertown, where he meets Sascha, a telepathic eyeless bartender, and the bouncer Elmo, a dwarf with enhanced strength. They point him toward the table where the joker Chrysalis sits, in conference with Fortunato. When Daniel joins them, Fortunato attempts to read Brennan telepathically, so the latter uses a Zen exercise to entirely empty his mind of thoughts. Fortunato seems impressed. Chrysalis asks Fortunato to leave her and Brennan alone. (1: Miller)

From Chrysalis, Brennan learns where Scar is keeping Mai Minh. She tells him that in exchange for the information, she wants him to come back to her apartment above the Palace that evening, where he’ll pay off his debt in sexual favors. He agrees, then heads to the property where Mai is being held. He bluffs his way in, and – despite having no wild card powers – Brennan ultimately kills Scar and rescues Mai. He decides that he will remain in New York City until he can bring down Kien’s criminal empire. Daniel’s romantic liaison with Chrysalis that night will turn out to be the first of many. (1: Miller)

Fall, 1985
One night before he goes to sleep, teenager Arnold Fentner’s wild card turns. He will gain the ability to shapeshift into various dinosaur forms. (1: Shiner “Generation” and 2: Zelazny) (Last name from M&M and Vol. 3.) (“Fall, 1985” is conjecture based simply on the story’s placement in Vol 1.)

After four years of working on it, Tom Tudbury completes a new Turtle shell. It is his fifth since he first debuted as the Turtle back in 1963. The new shell has “infrared, zoom lenses, four big monitors and twenty little ones, tape deck, graphic equalizer, fridge, everything on fingertip remote, computerized, state-of-the-art.” (5: Martin One)

And with that, we hit the end of Volume One.

Only 32 more books to go!

Just wanted to say that, though I personally have no more interest in reading about the Wild Cards universe than anything else by George R.R. Martin, your effort to lay the whole thing out like this is impressive. I've always had a soft spot for a good reference book. Which is pretty much what you're creating here.

I'm still enjoying this so much, Doot.

I especially love the stuff with Brennan who is one of my favourite characters (you've got to love the concept of Zen Archery). He's such a great version of the 'normal person with a bow and arrow who somehow manages to keep up with super-powered heroes' character that we all know so well.

I also love the way you've cross referenced things - and the fact that Kid Dinosaur gets his powers at the same time Brennan becomes active as the 'Crossbow Killer' is kind of awesome. I hadn't thought about that before.

Thank you!

Yeah, I like a good reference book too, and I've always wanted something like this for Wild Cards. Finally decided to make it myself.

Thanks! I realize that when it comes to Vietnam vets like Brennan, Father Squid (and the "Joker Brigade"), Maseryk (whom you may remember), and a couple others you won't have seen, like Cody Havero ... I kind of glossed over the Vietnam War and what they were doing. Obviously at some point Kien killed Brennan's wife during the war, for example. Generally speaking in WC, whenever someone talks about something that happened during the war, we don't get dates for those events. So I just kind of ... skipped that stuff.

I apologize for the inconvenience!

Now that we've hit 1985, things get a bit more long-winded as Book Two begins ...

Mid to Late November, 1985
Jokertown newsvendor Jube the Walrus makes his nightly rounds, swapping information with various jokers before finally heading to the Crystal Palace to pass information on to Chrysalis. Amongst the information he shares is that “Gimli is coming home” and that Troll – previously a nighttime guard at Tachyon’s clinic – is being promoted to chief of security. (2: Martin “Jube One”) (Troll’s previous status as a night-shift guard from 1: Vaughn)

James Spector, who now possesses ace talents – a healing ability, and the power to kill just by looking into a person’s eyes – escapes from the Jokertown clinic, killing an orderly in the process. He is recognized by Nurse Gresham, a Freemason spy planted in the Clinic, as potentially useful to the Astronomer. (2: Martin “Jube Two” and 2: Simons)

In orbit around Earth, the Network agent Ekkedme detects the presence of a Swarm Mother approaching Earth. Realizing she has been spotted, the Mother attacks and destroys Ekkedme’s ship with a particle charge. Ekkedme manages to send a brief warning message to Jhubben on Earth. Then he uses his ship’s power-source, the “singularity shifter,” to teleport to Earth himself. Arriving on the planet badly injured, Ekkedme crawls inside a dumpster with the shifter clutched to him. A schizophrenic bag lady named Hildy finds him in the dumpster and wrests the shifter – a small, black sphere – from him. He dies as she wanders away muttering to herself, the shifter now safely stowed inside her bag. (2: Williams “Sixth Generation Prologue”)

After an early Christmas party held amongst the tenants of his building, Jube returns to his apartment and views the video transmission from Ekkedme, during which the Embe screams “The Mother!” before using the singularity shifter to teleport away. Wondering what Ekkedme’s words meant and where he teleported to, Jhubben finds himself suspecting that the attack on the Embe ship might have been the work of Takisians. (2: Martin “Jube Two”)

The next morning, when Tachyon comes to Jube’s newsstand to buy a paper, Jube casually asks him some questions to see if he might know anything about the attack on Ekkedme. It’s clear that Tachyon doesn’t, but he mentions that at the morgue there is a joker corpse currently waiting for him to be inspected, which he is told looks like a fuzzy grasshopper. Jube knows based on that description that it must be Ekkedme’s body. After Tachyon departs, Jube wonders how he might be able to retrieve the body from the morgue before Tachyon can see it. Jube’s own race, the Glabberians, are obscure, but the Embe race is ubiquitous amongst the Network; if Tachyon sees the body, he will know about the Network presence on Earth, which is a secret Jube wants to preserve at all costs. (2: Martin “Jube Two”)

Minutes later, a possible solution presents itself, for Croyd Crenson has woken up in his latest body earlier that same morning. When Croyd walks up to the newsstand to buy one of each paper, Jube decides to hire him to steal Ekkedme’s body out of the morgue, for $50,000. (2: Zelazny) (This story is set explicitly in December, but I am backdating it to accommodate Croyd already awake again with a new form – and already far enough in his waking cycle to need stimulants – by Dec. 17th, per 29: Rowe Three)

Croyd, whose power this time is a form of telepathic hypnosis, goes to the morgue to steal the body, but finds that it was already stolen by an ace rival of his, named Devil John Darlingfoot. The Sleeper seeks out Darlingfoot, who explains that he was hired by a cult of Masons to steal the body for five-thousand dollars. Croyd offers him six-thousand to betray the Masons and let him have the corpse. A series of mishaps leads to the body being somewhat mangled and wrecked, albeit not completely destroyed. Eventually Croyd and Devil John confront a pair of Masonic cult members, one of which is ace Kim Toy, who – using her pheromones – almost convinces them to turn over the body. Fortunately, the smell emanating from the alien corpse overpowers Kim Toy’s scent, and breaks her spell. Croyd counters with the use of his telepathic hypnosis. The Sleeper convinces both Kim Toy and Red – Kim’s red-skinned husband and fellow Mason – that Devil John succeeded in stealing the body, but that the body was then destroyed by dogs. With the Masons thus out of play, Croyd and Devil John are squared. Croyd is able to make delivery of the corpse, or at least what is left of it at that point, to Jube. (2: Zelazny)

December, 1985
Ace inventor Maxim Travnicek creates a formidable super-powered android called “Modular Man,” and sends him out to make a name for himself as a hero. It so happens that on this night, the Great Ape has made its latest escape (its ninth) from Central Park Zoo, and is once again climbing the Empire State Building with a beautiful blonde actress in one hand. Several flying aces including Peregrine have gathered, but are all holding back on using their powers, so as not to endanger the woman. Modular Man activates one of his many talents – the ability to become insubstantial – to slip inside the ape’s fist and rescue the actress. Once she is out of the ape’s clutches, the other aces go on the offensive. Their attack causes the ape to fall to the ground, incapacitated. (2: Williams “Sixth Generation One”)

Later, Modular Man has a date with Cyndi, the woman he rescued, at Aces High. When Hiram Worchester meets Mod Man, he congratulates him on his tactics in dealing with the ape. Hiram mentions that if the ape ever climbs high enough, he will use his own ace power to make the ape weightless, but so far that’s never happened. (2: Williams “Sixth Generation One”) (This is in contradiction to 16: Simons, which sees Hiram doing in summer of 1977 precisely what he says here, in 1985, that he’s never done. But Hiram is a busy man; it may have simply slipped his mind.)

The Swarm Mother unleashes a wave of first-generation swarmlings to attack the Earth. In the Almaz station, cosmonauts Yuri “Flat Man” Serkov, Constantin “Lead Man” Radianskyev, and Anya “Many Toes” Vetsenyenk witness the invasion, but as it happens, the swarmlings’ trajectory doesn’t take them very close to the Almaz orbit. In his energy form, Yuri finds he can attack and destroy swarmlings by passing through them while turning his energy into heat. (2: Williams “Sixth Generation One” and 29: Perrin “Star”)

Several thousand Swarm creatures land in and around Princeton, New Jersey, which is one of four landings that the Swarm make in North America. The other three are in Kentucky, Texas and Manitoba; meanwhile, around the globe, there are swarmling attacks in Africa, South America, Europe and Asia as well, including at least one in China and at least three in the Soviet Union. Modular Man flies to Princeton to assist the military in fighting off the Swarm creatures. Meanwhile, the mayor of NYC has Dr. Tachyon brought to his office to advise as to whether the alien attack is wild card related. Also at the office are gathered a variety of aces – some volunteers, some SCARE operatives. Tachyon notes the presence of Gregg Hartmann, Peregrine, Howler, Pulse, and Arnie “Kid Dinosaur” Fentner. Meanwhile, the Astronomer and his right-hand man, Coleman Hubbard, call a meeting of the Masons. Now that the being known as “Tiamat” has made her presence known, the Astronomer announces that it is time to assemble the Shakti device. (2: Williams “Sixth Generation One”)

Besides Modular Man, several aces are involved in the military’s fight against the Swarm in New Jersey, including Peregrine, Mistral, Turtle, Pulse, Kid Dinosaur and Howler. Meanwhile, Golden Boy helps to fight the Kentucky wave, and Cyclone assists against the Texas wave. (2: Williams “Sixth Generation One”) Since Pulse can travel at the speed of light, he also flies to the Ukraine to battle some of the swarmlings that have invaded there. (29: Perrin “Star”)

With the Swarm invasions creating so much danger all over the country, Malachi Schwartz hires Croyd Crenson to get his daughter, Mathilde, from Georgia Tech back to her home in South Carolina for the holidays. All or part of Croyd and Mathilde’s journey to Charleston takes place on Dec. 17, as noted in Mathilde’s journal. (29: Rowe Three)

Before the Sleeper can head back to New York City, Theodorus Witherspoon and Malachi Schwartz hire Croyd to steal a sample of Swarm biomass from Fort Knox. (29: Rowe Three)

Yuri Serkov goes to Siberia to fight the swarmlings that have landed there, but departs the area just before the Soviets launch a nuclear strike to kill those particular Swarm waves. (2: Williams “Sixth Generation One” and 29: Perrin “Star”)

Serkov then heads to the Ukraine to assist the Soviet military against attacking swarmlings in that region. During a rest in a military tent, he makes the acquaintance of American ace Pulse. When asked his name, Yuri invents the ace moniker “Star Ghost.” The name will catch on, and become his official appellation per the Soviet government. (29: Perrin “Star”)

With the New Jersey Swarm attack defeated, American troops and ace volunteers fly to Africa, Canada and South America to assist in dealing with the Swarm attacks in those areas. (2: Williams “Sixth Generation Two”)

The Masons fail to assemble the Shakti device before the first wave of Swarm creatures have all been defeated. The Astronomer is not pleased, though Coleman Hubbard assuages him by reminding him that the Mother is still out in space, readying another wave. (2: Williams “Sixth Generation Two”)

With the large waves all killed or destroyed, occasional stray swarmlings still turn up in the greater New York Tri-State area, needing to be dealt with. While fighting one in Jokertown, Modular Man espies Hildy, the bag lady who stole Ekkedme’s singularity shifter. He attempts to fly her to safety; angered by his actions, she opens her bag, and the shifter teleports Modular Man to an area about fifty blocks away. When Mod Man tells Travnicek about the incident, he commands the android to seek out Hildy again and retrieve whatever is in her bag. Meanwhile, John F.X. Black, a policeman loyal to the Masons, also learns of the existence of a bag lady who somehow possesses some strange power. He manages to lure her into his vehicle with fast food, and then takes her to Coleman Hubbard’s brownstone. Hubbard lets the woman go to sleep in a corner while he ponders the implications of Hildy’s existence: whatever is in her bag might be able to power the Shakti device, which would make the Astronomer’s ace powers unnecessary. Hubbard considers betraying the Astronomer. (2: Williams “Sixth Generation Two”)

Hubbard meets with two high-ranking cops who are both also Masons – John F.X. Black and ace Harry “Judas” Matthias (the latter possessing the ability to “read” other aces and discern what their powers are). They discuss how to get the bag away from Hildy. Hubbard’s telepathic scans have revealed that the presence in the bag is a broken power-source that has somehow bonded itself to the schizophrenic mind of the bag lady, so they can’t just pull it out of her hands. While they’re discussing what to do, Hildy uses the shifter to teleport out of the brownstone. (2: Williams “Sixth Generation Two”)

Modular Man and Hubbard, Matthias, and Black chase around NYC, in a race to be the first to get to Hildy. At one point, Hubbard attempts to read Modular Man’s mind with his powers, an effort that – because Mod Man’s brain is a computer – causes Hubbard to go incurably insane. Mod Man is the one who finally manages to retrieve the power-source from Hildy. He gives the object to Travnicek, while the Astronomer arranges with F.X. Black to have Hubbard killed. (2: Williams “Sixth Generation Two”)

On New Year’s Eve 1985, Jube decides he has to build a tachyon transmitter to summon the Network, so that they can rescue humanity from the Swarm. He also decides to use his money reserves to buy any information that can lead him to the missing Embe singularity shifter – the only thing on Earth Jube knows of that can power the transmitter. (2: Martin “Jube Three”)

February, 1986
James Spector is recruited into the Masons by the Astronomer, who christens him “Demise.” Demise’s ability to kill with a look proves to be synergistic with the Astronomer’s ace, which is fueled by ritualistic killings. Demise is also tasked with taking the life of an NYC police captain, so that John F.X. Black can be promoted into the vacated position. (2: Simons)

Roughly six weeks after Jube’s New Year’s Eve resolution, Chrysalis summons Jube to the Crystal Palace, in order to chastise him for the sloppiness with which he’s been using uncut gems to pay for information about a “bowling ball” and about whomever it was that hired Devil John Darlington to steal the “fuzzy grasshopper” corpse. Chrysalis offers to act as an intermediary, in order to protect him from potential negative consequences of the inquiries he’s making. He agrees. She tells him that she is going to hire ace private investigator Jay Ackroyd to take up the case. (2: Martin “Jube Four”)

Maxim Travnicek’s moving van is robbed, and a gang member named Ricky thus becomes the new owner of the bowling-ball-shaped singularity shifter. (2: Williams “Sixth Generation Epilogue”)

Saturday, Mar. 8, 1986
On the day of Barbara Casko’s wedding to her old boyfriend (and Tom’s old school bully) Steve Bruder, Tom Tudbury goes out to patrol the streets of NYC in his Turtle shell. He has a conversation with Kid Dinosaur that doesn’t go well, and later he ends up interceding in an incident of gang warfare. With his telekinesis, he manages to wrest away the weapon one of the kids had been employing against rival joker gangs. The object is like a small, black bowling ball, and Tom stows it in his shell to examine another time. (2: Martin “Chill”)

There's no inconvenience in skipping the dates regarding the Vietnam War - this is all great stuff.

The Darlingfoot/Croyd escapade is hilarious, one of my favourite stories in Wild Cards.

It is a classic!

Mid to Late March, 1986 (approximate)
Jube’s Network computer detects the presence of a ship in orbit. When he scans for more details, he learns to his confusion that the ship is Takisian – not a Network vessel as he had hoped. Moments later he receives a call from Chrysalis, who warns him that the Masons are dangerous, a warning he doesn’t understand. Later, he goes to the Palace, where he briefly crosses paths with a masked Daniel Brennan. Jube then speaks to Chrysalis and realizes that she has no memory of the investigations she’s been doing for Jube on his behalf, or of the phone call she made to him earlier. (2: Martin “Jube Five”)

When Jube goes back home, he is confronted by an astral projection of the Astronomer, who has come to kill him for prying into his affairs – having first wiped from the minds of Chrysalis and Jay Ackroyd any Masonic secrets they’d uncovered. Before he delivers a killing blow to Jube, however, the Astronomer catches sight of the unfinished tachyon transmitter that Jube has been working on. Recognizing it as a crude attempt at what he knows as the “Shakti device,” the Astronomer assumes that Jube is a member of an obscure offshoot of the Egyptian Freemasons, which accounts for him having enough knowledge to build such a thing. Bemused, the Astronomer chooses to recruit Jube into his order. (2: Martin “Jube Five”)

Departing the Jokertown Clinic one evening, Tachyon meets Mark Meadows, whose personality has morphed over the years due to excessive derug use – such that he is now a permanent hippie, calling himself “Captain Trips.” Meadows begins to tell Tachyon about the Radical and his other “friends,” when the pair are caught and kidnapped by relatives of Tachyon, who manage to knock them both unconscious. They are taken to Hellcat, a ship commanded by Tachyon’s cousin Zabb. An aged matriarch of Tachyon’s family, Benaf’saj, explains to Tachyon the reason they have come: After Tachyon departed Takis decades ago, their family was attacked by a coalition of other families led by L’gura, the ruler of House Vayawand. The attack was devastating, and Tach’s father Shaklan is now in a coma, the body alive but the brain dead. Zabb wishes to claim the family throne, but can’t as long as Tisianne (i.e., Tachyon) lives, for he is the true heir. Meanwhile, the other reason the Takisians have come is to acquire wild card-infected specimens for study. They have kidnapped Tom Tudbury and Asta Lenser, the latter a famous ace ballerina and also (secretly) a spy working for crimelord Kien Phuc. The Takisians are unaware that Mark Meadows, whom they only took because he happened to be with Tachyon at the moment, is also an ace. (2: Snodgrass) (L’gura’s status as ruler of House Vayawand from 10: Chapter 8)

The Takisians jettison Turtle’s shell from Hellcat, but not before seizing the singularity shifter stowed inside, and placing it on a shelf in the ship’s cargo hold. When Tachyon communicates telepathically with Tom and realizes that there is a shifter aboard, he summons everyone to the cargo hold and announces that he is adopting Tom, Mark and Asta into his family – as stirps, or equerries. Tachyon then challenges Zabb to a duel of honor, in retaliation for Zabb having treated his stirps so shamefully. The two engage in a swordfight, and Zabb quickly gains the advantage. Tom, without the psychological comfort of his shell, finds himself unable to bring the singularity shifter into his hands telekinetically, and it soon looks as if Tach is going to die for nothing, at Zabb’s hands. But Tom feels a surge of anger when he looks at Zabb’s cocky, arrogant expression and it reminds him of his old enemy Steve Bruder. The anger fuels his telekinesis, and he shoves Zabb’s blade at a crucial moment, saving Tachyon’s life. A second later, he seizes the shifter with his mind and brings it directly into his hands. Tachyon wins the duel, thus ensuring Zabb will not take control of his family; he then leaps to Tom’s side and uses his telepathy to activate the shifter. Tachyon, Tom, Mark and Asta teleport off of the ship. In the confusion of the group’s safe arrival back on Earth, Asta is able to make off with the singularity shifter, which she plans to give to her employer and lover, Kien Phuc. (2: Snodgrass)

His fifth shell having been jettisoned into space by the Takisians, Tom goes back to using his fourth shell. (5: Martin One)

Not long after the escape of Tachyon and the others, Hellcat is detected by the Swarm Mother, who attacks the Takisian ship. In order to save his crew, Zabb makes an alliance with the Swarm Mother, proposing joining forces to destroy humanity. Zabb also kills Benaf’saj, knowing she will never agree to such an alliance. Zabb and the Mother make a plan to divert a comet, Tezcatlipoca, just slightly; enough so that it will impact with the Earth and kill humanity. Two Takisians – Rabdan and Durg at’Morakh – are sent to Earth to make sure no one on the planet realizes the danger posed by the comet. Fortunately for Zabb’s plan, the only man who recognizes the threat is NYC-based scientist Warner Fred Warren, who is viewed by the scientific community as an eccentric and a quack. However, when the Swarm Mother realizes that someone on Earth has learned the truth, she assumes he must be silenced, and tasks two humanoid swarmlings to kill him. (2: Milan)

Apr. 5, 1986
Scientist Warner Fred Warren is murdered by swarmlings, a development which threatens Zabb’s entire plan. (2: Milan)

Mid to Late April, 1986
Rabdan finds a joker, Doughboy, who can be framed for the murder of Warner Fred Warren. When Doughboy is arrested, reporter Sara Morgenstern suspects it’s another case of jokers being secretly manipulated by Gregg Hartmann. She comes to Dr. Tachyon and asks him to investigate the affair (though she doesn’t mention Hartmann at all). Tachyon enlists the aid of “Captain Trips,” i.e. Mark Meadows. Between the two of them, Tach and Trips learn the truth, and they confront Rabdan and Durg, who are still stationed on Earth. Mark transforms into one of his five known personae, Moonchild, who then defeats Durg in combat. Tachyon seizes Rabdan’s mind and telepathically learns all of the details of Zabb’s plan. Rabdan doesn’t survive the psychic interrogation. Meanwhile, Durg transfers his loyalty to Moonchild, effectively becoming a servant of Mark Meadows. (2: Milan) (Sara Morgenstern’s Hartmann connection revealed in Book 4.)

Tachyon and Mark fly Baby into space. Mark transforms into another “friend,” Starshine, who uses his energy manipulation powers to alter the course of Tezcatilpoca safely away from Earth. Meanwhile, Tachyon and Baby confront Zabb and Hellcat in combat. Tachyon and Baby are victorious; however, they spare the life of Zabb and his crew in order to rescue Mark Meadows, who can’t remain in the form of any of his alternate personae for longer than a single hour. Left adrift in space, Zabb will eventually be saved by the Network, who will force him to pay for the rescue by signing a lifetime contract with them. (2: Milan) (Zabb’s rescue by the Network, and his agreeing to lifetime servitude, from 10: Chapter 10)

Later, after Doughboy is released by the authorities, Tachyon meets with Sara Morgenstern, and assumes she’ll be happy when he tells her all of what’s happened. Instead, she is devastated to learn that aliens were the true culprits. Ignorant of Sara’s suspicions about Gregg Hartmann, Tachyon is baffled by her reaction. (2: Milan)

A special federal task force is formed to deal with the Swarm menace, headed by a diplomat from the State Department named Lankester. (2: Martin “Jube Six”)