The Rook Chapter 9 – Belgian Alchemists

In my view, the most important thing we learned in the last chapter was that Gestalt does not like Toblerones, but we also learned that the spy they caught back in chapter 6 yelled about scouting for an invasion. This exclamation prompted an emergency meeting call and some serious research into the enemy they might soon be facing.

As Myfanwy continues her efforts to figure out who erased her memories she now has to deal with these guys and I for one am wondering if she’s ready to handle all these unknowns with no one supporting her other than her previous (basically dead) self.

Inchoate Thoughts

Summing up where things are…we know someone is out to get Myfanwy. Someone erased her memory and the only thing that allowed her to escape was her supernatural ability to take control of the bodily processes of people she touches. Coupled with the foresight of her previous self, Myfanwy has been able to piece together her life and at least has been able to impersonate who she used to be.
As a high ranking member of a governmental organization called the Checquy, Myfanwy is one of the few in England that is tasked with handling extraordinary threats to the country and as such she’s trying to learn all she can about an enemy called The Grafters.

Brotherhood of Alchemists

In a world where a secret government agency exists comprised of people that have supernatural powers, of course there are scientists who successfully experiment on animals and humans to give them abilities beyond those of normal creatures. These scientists began as a “brotherhood of alchemists” and they seem to have congregated in the region that would become Belgium. Beginning in the 15th century these “Grafters” have been working to alter humans and animals to create new “fleshcrafted” variants that they could control and unleash on the world.

The Grafters

So, even though they were able to upgrade people, creating X-Men at will, no one really paid much attention to the Grafters and they worked their fanatical science in secret. I suppose if Magneto showed up in the 1500s and kept quiet while he amassed power and honed his abilities, no one would have opposed him either. But then a member of the Checquy actually witnessed some of the Grafter creations at work and heads started to turn. If these guys could create killing machines at will, they might just start using them in places the rest of the world actually cared about.

1677 and the Isle of Wight

Ok, so the Isle of Wight is not really someplace the rest of the world really cared about but it was a place the Checquy didn’t want to see monsters invading. The Pawns, the Rooks, the Grafters, and the poor peasant folk of the area all faced off and lives were lost all around. It sounds pretty intense but makes sense if you have X-Men facing off against Jedi. In the end though, the Brits held firm and chased off the Grafters and from the looks of things, the Brotherhood of Alchemists were no longer. Too bad no one told Peter Van Syoc. If he was scouting for an invasion, which he certainly claimed, things could get pretty nasty fast.

WWI

Back to the history lesson…after kicking them off their islands, the Checquy oversaw the extermination of the Grafters and it certainly seemed they were gone for good. They made sure the Pawns and Retainers knew the Grafters were gone while certain high ranking members knew better. They’d prepare for a day in the future when the Grafters (or someone worse) might return. So during WWI they kept a vigilant eye towards the East to see if any next-gen Grafters showed up, and while everyone was trying out new chemicals, gasses, and medical procedures, they didn’t see explicit evidence of their sworn enemy until they sent Pawns to the front. I would have figured this was a perfect time for an organization like the Grafters to peddle their goods but they seem to have been pretty discrete. They also seem to have gone underground during the horrors of WWII…perhaps they felt there was already a hideous monster on the loose in the world in the 1930s and 1940s.

Protesters

With the history lesson concluded, Myfanwy got a lesson in sociology from the head of building security and I loved his assessment of the protesters outside the Rookery…

Yup, the louder you shout, the less people actually listen to you…it makes sense that he lets the crazies stick around.

Googling

When he mentioned that someone was Googling her, it makes me wonder if this might be someone involved in Myfanwy’s memory loss. Perhaps someone is looking for information that they might be able to use to assess how well their memory wipe technique worked since for all outward appearances, Thomas has continued doing her job as if nothing more than a mugging happened.

Retrospective

So we now know we have an enemy organization that’s looking to invade England and while they might be behind the attack on Myfanwy, we’re not even sure they know about it. According to Thomas, someone in the Checquy Court is responsible but through 9 chapters we haven’t gotten much closer to figuring out who had anything against our hero.

While we were introduced to the members of the Court in the last chapter, I think it’s in the next installment that we might start being able to piece things together better as we actually get to the emergency meeting Gestalt and Myfanwy called.

Web Chronicle | The Rook Chapter 9 – Belgian Alchemists