Reyes gave me an odd
look. "You think that I'm attractive?"
Hunh? "You
mean you can look in a mirror and not know that?"
"You really
think that I'm attractive?"
"Dammit, Reyes,
will you stop fishing for compliments? Yes, you are a stone-cold babe! Okay,
you're not in Power Woman's league, but then, neither am _I_, or for that
matter, 90% of the human race! And you're a lot more human and
approachable than Pee-Dubya. You got the look, you got the act, you got the
style! All I'm asking, as someone who's being dragged, kicking and
screaming, onto your playing field, is What Are The Rules?"
Reyes looked at me
flummoxed. "You're serious, aren't you?"
"Why would I
_lie_?"
For the first time
since I've met her, Reyes was completely stopped. "Y'know, I never really
stopped and thought about it. I mean, we're constantly having Pop Stars and Sex
Goddesses and Supermodels shoved in our faces, so it never really occurs to you
that you might already be attractive enough! And as for the 'Rules', I
never really thought it through. I suppose you're right - there are
'Do's and Don'ts', but I don't ever think anyone just came out and spelled them
all out."
"You're Kiddin'!
Reyes, being attractive is a form of power. Otherwise, why would so many
women spend so much time and money trying to look as good as they can? Power always
had some kind of checks and balances going; I mean, there are attractive people
who just never bother thinking about anybody but themselves, but other people
have their ways of grinding their pretty little noses in their dirt. I mean, we
guys heckle prettyboys like Roy McGwuire pretty bad when they get outta line - what
do women do?"
Reyes chewed this
over for a bit. "Y'know, there's more than one thing we're talking about
here - there's the way that women handle power among each other, and there's
the ethics of beauty. While they may look the same to you, and they have a lot
of things in common, they are very much different beasts. I'll have to get back
to you on that, Maxine."
<hssst!>
"Maxham! While we're at work, it's Maxham, remember? Can you at
least give me a tip or two on how to get along with women as a woman? I'm going
to a Pajama Party at AEGIS t'night, and I don't wanna screw it up!"
Reyes suddenly got
very interested when I mentioned the PJ party. I described what I was gonna
wear, and told her that NO, I was not going to take notes! <sheesh!>
I thought we got
that behind us, and I was shouldering the camera, when she looked straight into
the lens and said, "You really think that I'm attractive?"
*****
I think I said
earlier that for every person that gets super-powers and does the superhero
thing, there are four or five people that do the supervillian schtick. Now the
thing is, most of these guys don't put on capes and tights, and go out and hold
up banks and all that comic book shit. No, while there are a bunch who do the
'Dillinger' gig, most find a niche in organized crime, as enforcers or couriers
or whatever. Now, these guys do tend to put together distinctive looks and pick
up kickin' noms de guerre, but no more so than any other well-connected
slimebucket.
There are many myths
about Organized Crime; one of the biggies is that nobody talks to the Cops or
the Press. Bullshit. Just remember, if somebody else goes
to jail, that means their action is up for grabs. Like so many things, ratting
somebody out is just a matter of not getting caught. Somebody in the rackets
must have been rattling the wrong cages, 'cause somebody else decided that it
was time to drop a dime the size of Nebraska on them. This particular somebody
else decided to drop that dime (or four bits, if you gotta be picky
about it) to Reyes. The substance of this particular phone call was that
'somebody heavy was gonna be doin' a number on Tristate Equity Holdings'
downtown office come Friday afternoon'. The buzz was that Tristate was a front
for one of the local outfits. Like most organized crime fronts, it was eighty
to ninety percent legit, with that ten to twenty percent that was dirty
profitable enough for the outfit to keep it going. When Reyes laid this on me,
my first reaction was, "I'll contact Heszcheck. How are we gonna handle
the camera, if Eli's gonna be laid up for a few more days?"
Reyes shook her head.
"Nope. It's time that we let Roy McGwuire have his 'Lady Lightning'
story. You go ahead and get in touch with Heszcheck. I gotta figure out how to
let ol' Royboy 'steal my notes' without it being too obvious. Hmmm..."
A speculative smirk suggested that McGwuire wasn't gonna get this story cheap,
let alone for free.
You know you're on
the inside track with the Cops when you know a detective's direct extention. At
least that's what I tell myself. I phoned Heszcheck, but got his partner Lydia
Sanchez instead. "Hey, Sanchez! This is Lady Lightning..."
"Yeah, Right
- how did you get this number?"
I bit off a snide
remark, and described in detail what she was wearing during the 'Prince Fear'
incident. When she was taking me seriously, I told her my reason for calling.
"I want a meeting with Heszcheck and somebody from the Organized Crime
Task Force. I got an inside tip, and I want to make sure that I'm not tripping
anybody up."
"How sure are
you of your information? Getting anything going with the Organized Crime boys
is a major pain in the ass. I don't want to call in any favors, just so that
you can pass along old news."
"This is very
time specific - this Friday afternoon. If you have to, point out to them that
since 9/11, it's better to check out a possible threat that turns out to be
bogus, than it is to ignore it and have to explain it to an investigation
committee it fit turns out valid."
"Can you at
least name some names?"
"Nope. It's
second hand news; I think someone's trying to play one or both ends against a
middle. Who and what end, I couldn't say."
Sanchez was able to
arrange a meeting with a couple from OCTF. I've never worked with Organized
Crime specialists before and wanted to seem professional, so I didn't bring any
doughnuts this time. I needn't have bothered. The OCTF spooks were too busy
recycling old Cold War spy comedy routines to be any real help. They said that
their sources were certain the Tristate Equity was largely owned by some local
outfit. But they said that the aforementioned slimeballs weren't using it as a
laundry or a front for anything, so there was no reason for sending anyone to
do anything. So there was no reason to spend precious OCTF funds on a wild
goose chase, and why didn't I go rescue a kitten up a tree?
When the OCTF spooks
slithered out the door, I gave Heszcheck a hard look. "Okay, why did you
have Agents 86 and 99 commit to their position on paper?"
Heszcheck smiled at
me smugly. "Because I must have the same sources that you do. Somebody out
there is building a new Machine, and they're stepping on more than a few toes
doing it. Hitting Tristate Equity would be a classic way of intimidating their
controllers, especially if they use a particularly nasty Super-powered enforcer.
It gets their attention, without causing them so much damage that the
opposition has to retaliate."
"So, why didn't
Frick and Frack listen?"
"What, and
admit that a civilian in tights could provide them with information that they
couldn't get from their own sources? Besides, if a paranormal is involved, then
my office is involved. And the City Council just cut the Department's budget
again-"
"So it comes
down to whose budget gets slashed, right? So, they want you to spend the money
conducting a stakeout, so it looks like you're wasting money if it doesn't pan
out. And if it does?"
"Then they
claim that they were conducting an undercover investigation inside Tristate,
and we blew their case."
"So, what are
you gonna do?"
"Hold the
stakeout and have a whole passel of blank search warrants that will kick in
_if_ something happens. They will let us go through Tristate's documents,
looking for whatever our bunny was trying to get. The beauty of this set-up is
that it's such a tight time frame."
"I wish you
hadn't said that."
"What?"
"Set up. Frame.
Somebody's setting somebody else up. I just wish I could be sure that it isn't us."
"Welcome to
police work, Babe."
*****
Now, the classic
police stakeout is carried out either with two extremely bored cops in an
underheated car passing the time, or by an edgy group of guys in a van
listening intently to a bunch of bugs. Heszcheck just borrowed an office for a
few hours from a company that happened to be across the street from Tristate
and set up shop. I entered the building in my civvies wearing a blonde wig,
rode up a few floors in an elevator and changed in the women's room. Man, did I
get some weird looks when I came out of the stall! "Singing Telegram",
I lied.
I walked down the
staircase to join Heszcheck, Sanchez, and a few other plainclothes in the
office. It had been decided that the watch would last three hours, starting at
Three and ending at Six. Besides this site watching that side of the building,
there were men watching the roof and the three ground exits. So far, so
professional.
Almost two hours
later, the crew watching the front entrance of the building started letting us
know when Tristate executives and employees started leaving. They had pictures,
courtesy of the Tri-State website. As some of them started to leave for an
early weekend, we checked them off a list.
Then Calloway called
in. "I got Mister Eugene Ordmond, Manager of the Records Division coming
out."
"Hold on - that's
impossible! We got Ordmond on camera right now, going through the Hard
Files."
That didn't ring
right with Sanchez. "What's a Division Manager doing, doing filing by
himself? Filing is why God invented secretaries!"
"Detain Ordmond!
It's impossible to tell which one is the Real McCoy from here, but the real
Ordmond probably won't try to resist-"
I was already at the
window. "Nope, an impostor would wait until Ordmond had just left the
office and sneak in just after him." I raised the window.
"Hey! Wait
until he's out the front door - it'll be safer for the civilians, and we'll be
able to cover you!"
"Normally, I'd
agree with you. But this guy must be a quick-change artist as well as an
impostor; there's no way that he'd risk someone seeing two Ordmonds, so
he'd have another disguise for while he was waiting for Ordmond to leave. Then
he'd duck in and say 'Forgot something' to cover himself. By the time he gets
to the front door, there's no guessing what he'll look like!" I
stepped out the window, keeping the faux Ordmond in sight at all times.
"Has Calloway stopped Ordmond?"
Pause. "Yup - Ordmond's
confused, but cooperating."
"Okay, I'd say
that we have Probable Cause now, wouldn't you?" With that, I pushed off
and thundercharged across the street and through the plate glass window. It was
a good thing it was safety glass, even if all of it went inwards with me. By
the way, I checked on that beforehand. Forewarned is forearmed. I assumed my
most intimidating posture, electricity crackling around me, and yelled, "Freeze!"
On my radio, I could hear Sanchez calling Calloway and the others to come in
and give me backup. "You entered this office under false pretenses and are
stealing private documents. Police Officers are coming to take you into custody.
If you attempt to leave, I will stop you by whatever means appropriate!" Hey,
they were taping all of this! Hadda cover all the bases for when it was
used in court.
"What are you
talking about? I'm Eugene Ordmond, I have a perfect right to be here!"
"Imposture to
gain access to confidential information is a crime." I grinned
evilly. "They stopped Ordmond at the front door. He's coming up with them,
to see what all the fuss is about."
The phony 'Ordmond'
just gave me this smug look. "Oh, it doesn't look good for me, now does
it?" he said in this weird hollow voice. The black briefcase that he'd
put the files into melded into his black suit. His face also melded into the
black suit, which 'morphed into a sinister looking, ragged-edged hooded cloak.
"Ah, Lady Lightning, isn't it? I am Nasghul - I'll be the one killing
you today." He held up a hand, and a spike of darkness flowed up into
it to form a long matte-black sword.
<Heh> "Nasghul?
Tell you what, Slim, you put down the pigsticker and surrender without a fight,
and we'll let you change your nom de guerre before you're booked - I
mean, I wouldn't wish the Lawyers from the J.R.R. Tolkien Estate as my worst
enemy!"
'Nasghul' didn't say
anything; he just took a swing at me, cutting a big gouge out of the filing
cabinets. Sheesh! Try and cut a guy a break! (Memo to Self: Make sure
that the lawyers for the J.R.R. Tolkien Estate hear about this.) I sent a
charge with lots of voltage but not much amperage at him. I wanted to stun him,
not kill him. He went flying back into some filing cabinets, but he didn't drop.
He braced himself and came at me with a slow, steady tread. I put another bolt
into him, and he managed to stand firm. I set up a steady barrage, hoping to
put him down. He waded into my blasts as if he were walking through a stiff
current - well, he was, in a way. I shifted to putting out some serious
amperage. I didn't matter - I mean, I could have slagged a Buick with
what I was putting out, but he was just lapping it up. He staggered up to me
and the sword retracted back into his hand.
"Oh Man,
another Dermal Symbiont? I thought they ran out of those things
at the Evil Depot!"
He snatched my
wrists and I felt Cold, Real Cold. 'Mommy, I don't wanna
go out t'day' cold. The kind of cold that just sucks the warmth right out of
your body and reaches down into your bones. I tried to break free, but he
wasn't lettin' go. So, I did the next best thing - I used his own grip on my
wrists to pick him up and slam him into the filing cabinets.
The slam didn't
really phase him, but at least the dermal dastard hadda deal with the laws of
leverage. As he scrambled to his feet, I was giving him all the room I could. Cold
and Darkness - you didn't need an Engineering degree to figure out that he was
an Absorber, a guy who could suck energy out of things and lap it up like a
health drink.
No wonder he wasn't
intimidated - seeing me must have been like having a bloody rare steak drop in
front of a shark. Okay 'Maxine', you've always prided yourself on thinking on
your feet - how do you deal with a guy who takes your worst and says, "Gimme
some more!"?
I magno-lifted a
filing cabinet and slammed it into his back. Well, at least he can't absorb
kinetic impact, which's something. I clustered the filing cabinets around him,
trying to pen him in until my backup could get there and shoot him. I doubt
that bullets would really damage him, but at least they wouldn't be making him stronger.
He retaliated by
grabbing the filing cabinets one at a time and de-magnetizing them. Okay, time
to get nasty. When Nasghul had cleared the filing cabinets and was
coming for me again, I floated out the window.
He came to the edge
of the window, a long matte-black spear forming in his hand. "Running
Away, Lady Lightning? Pity, I was really-" I cut off whatever bit of
snide commentary he was going to provide with a magno-lifted filing cabinet
right in the small of his back. The filing cabinet knocked him clean out of the
window. He dropped a couple of stories, then broke his fall with that raggedy-misty
cloak thing of his. So, I smacked him on the head with that filing cabinet
again, and sent him down to the street. There are some people with whom you
just don't fight fair.
My first instinct
was to power down and make sure he was all right - hey, Dermal Symbiont or no
Dermal Symbiont, Five Stories is a long way to drop. I speak as one who
has kissed more than my fair share of concrete. But I also know how tough those
things are - I doubt he was really hurt, but he'd be stunned long enough for me
to get a more appropriate weapon.
When I did get down
to where he'd landed, Nasghul was peeling himself off the concrete, and looking
a little shaky. I was almost on the ground, when Nasghul reached out for this
woman who had very common-sensibly been crouching down by a car, probably
focusing on keeping a low profile until the smoke cleared. He grabbed her by
the wrists, and she screamed.
"Hey!
Nasty Canasta! I'm not through with you yet!" I sprayed cold CO2
all over him with the fire extinguisher I'd snagged from the office. Nasty
instinctively recoiled, letting go of the woman. She showed her continued Good
Sense by scrambling away from him as quickly as she could. When she was clear,
I gave him another blast of CO2, and hit him upside the head with the
extinguisher. His head dented the extinguisher, so I guess I was right about
not worrying too much about him. Still, he wasn't exactly jumping around like a
frog on a hot griddle, so I must be doing something.
I experimentally
shook the fire extinguisher. I figured that it probably had one good shot left
in it, maybe two if I kept them short. I figured that if ol' Nasty was an
absorber, then the one thing that he couldn't absorb would be cold, which as
any High School Science teacher will tell you, is an absence of normal
levels of heat. Between the drop and the cold sucking the heat right out of
him, Nasghul wasn't doing too well.
But, give the creep
credit, he was still giving it his best shot. He formed another sword out of
his Symbiont, centered himself and made ready to part my hair down to my chin. I
held the extinguisher in both hands and got ready to block it. If I did it
right, he'd slice open the canister, wasting what energy he had left and losing
yet more heat to the CO2. He was rattled and groggy, maybe I could pull it off.
Just as Nasty was
tensing up to strike, there was a blue-and-white streak from off to one side,
knocking him off to the side. Gloom-boy went caroming into side of the
building, leaving a crack in the marble facing. "Lady Lightning! Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm
fine, but Justiciar-" Then Nasghul came springing at my would-be rescuer.
"JUSTICIAR! No! _Don't _Use _Your_-" Justiciar intercepted Nasty's
pounce with an arcing swing of his energy blade. "- _Sword_..."
Nasty Canasta was
back, large and in charge. He rose up, his cloak - or whatever you call
it - billowing and taking up a lot more room, and a long sinister sword growing
out of his hand. Stock Supervillain Laugh #6 (look it up!) echoed out hollowly
from the folds of his cloak - or whatever you call it.
"He's an Energy
Absorber," I explained rather lamely.
"_oh._"
Nasghul lunged at
Justiciar with his sword. Justiciar reflexively parried with his energy buckler.
_Not_ one of his better ideas. The sword bit into the buckler and began
leeching off the energy.
Lacking anything
better to do, I used up the last of the extinguisher charge on Nasghul and
chucked the canister at his head. Nasty broke off from Justiciar and came at me.
That shot of pure whatever-kind-of-energy-it-is-that-Justiciar-uses seemed to
be agreeing with him.
Justiciar and I
spent the next few minutes trying to beat Nasty without feeding him any more
energy. That wasn't working too well. Indeed, if anything, he seemed to be
getting stronger and stronger every time he got his hooks into us. Justiciar
got between Nasty and me, letting me get in a call to AEGIS HQ. "Lady
Lightning to AEGIS- Lady Lightning to AEGIS- come in, anybody!"
"Yo, L.L.! Bernice
here! I got good news! Sapphire and Battalion are on their way! They
should be at your 'twenty' in -"
"NO! Do _not_
let Sapphire get here! Call her back! This guy is an energy absorber, and a
pretty nasty one at that! Sending Sapph in here would be like driving a
full gasoline tanker into a forest fire! As for Battalion - does he have any
cold-based weapons fitted out for that rig of his?"
"Half a tick...
Nope, sorry."
"Call him back,
too. See if you can get either Titan or Iron John on the horn. Bernice, how
physical is Power Woman's strength? I mean, she isn't one of those types who
are energy projectors who just seem to be superstrong, is she?"
"'Fraid, so, L.L."
"Crap. Justiciar
and I will try to keep him here until the big boys show up."
"What about Ms.
Hex? Even if he's an energy absorber, he shouldn't be able to soak up psychic
energy, now should he? A couple of Hex's patented mindscramblers, and he should
be down for the count!"
"Maybe, maybe
not, Bern - I don't wanna take the chance either way. Keep her away. Justiciar
and I will just have to tough it out."
Which was easier
said than done. We were doing some major damage to the sidewalk, all to keep
Nasty from walking off with some documents that we didn't even know what they were.
It was so frustrating! We were throwing everything we could at him, and
he was just soaking it up like a sponge! Dammit, isn't there some
kind of rule, that every superpower is supposed to have a flaw, or
weakness or some way of turning it against its user? How do you use Cold,
which is the very absence..?
Cold. Absence. Absence
of heat. I dropped to the ground next to a fire hydrant. "Justiciar! Hit
him over to right there!" I pointed at a section of the building
wall. Ted obligingly withstood grappling with Nasghul long enough to throw him
right there. The second that Nasty hit the wall, I magnetically manipulated
the valve of the fire hydrant open, hitting him a full blast stream of water. Cold
water.
As I suspected he
would, Nasty reflexively tried to absorb the force of the water. What he
absorbed was what little heat was in the water. It froze up on contact, sealing
him inside a jagged block of ice.
Justiciar smiled and
gave me a 'thumbs up' of victory. I waved it aside. "Wait for it." The
block of ice began to crack, then splinter, and then Nasghul broke his way out
of it. The second that he was free, I hit him with another spray of water,
sealing him up again. Not only was the ice leeching his precious energy out of
his body, not only was he wasting yet more of that energy breaking out of the
ice, but even with his Symbiont, Nasghul wasn't getting any air while he was
sealed up. The first three times, Nasty broke out pretty quickly. The next five
times, he took longer and longer. On the ninth try, the ice began to
crack, but stopped. "Justiciar! Break him out of there, or he'll suffocate!
Don't use your sword, it's too dangerous! Heszcheck, is that containment unit
here yet?"
Heszcheck looked up
from his cell phone. "Not yet - another three or four minutes, maybe."
"Crap! If I put
him on ice again, he might not survive - but if we let him absorb even the heat
in the air, it's only a matter of time before he's up to full strength!" Man,
being the Good Guys can really suck some times!
Ted resolved the
problem by breaking the ice around Nasty's head and chest, giving him a chance
to breathe, but leaving the rest of him trapped in the ice. Ironically, Nasty's
unconscious instinctive attempts to leech off the heat from around him only
made the ice harder and colder.
Then there was a
flash of light at street-level. "Okay, he's down, let's get in for a close-up
shot!" Roy McGwuire, with Arnie Hotchkiss toting his fieldcam for him,
broke through the police cordon and got it close. "Okay, here we have a
close-up of our mystery villain. Arnie, make sure that we get as much before
the cops-"
"McGwuire, you moron!
Get that camera away from him before..."
Too late - Arnie's
camera had been equipped with a powerful clip-on spotlight. A very hot
clip-on spotlight, that beamed all that light and heat right into the area
where ol' Nasty needed it most. Nasty broke one hand out of its ice-shackle (which
had been weakened by the light), and drove it straight into the spotlight. That
broke the spotlight, but Nasghul didn't mind, the electricity that was
maintained by the powercord going back to McGwuire's Newsvan provided just as
much nourishment - if not more - than the spotlight had. And since you can never
have enough energy, Nasty grabbed at Arnie as well.
"McGwuire, you moron!"
I repeated, as I thundercharged to save the aforementioned half-wit. I got
McGwuire well behind the cordon and turned, Justiciar was prying Arnie away
from Nasty, but Nasty was playing both ends against the middle. While Ted was
easily at hand, trying to pry Arnie loose, Nasghul could feed on him, which
only made getting Arnie loose harder and take longer. And Nasty was feeding off
of the newscam at the same time. Still, I wondered by he wasn't taking the
opportunity to just split while Justiciar and I were tired, and the getting was
pretty good. After all, he had the documents tucked up in his Symbiont - what
more did he want?
I found out. Nasghul
shifted his stance and used Arnie to get Justiciar within arm's reach and got a
Half Nelson on him. "Well, Lady Lightning?"
He shouted in that eerie echoing hollow voice of his, with his 'cape' billowing
up behind him dramatically. What, do they have a class in 'Getting Capes To
Billow Dramatically' at Villain School? "Are you going to let your
lover suffer? I would really rather have you, you know."
What? Little Old Me?
"Aaahhh, Nasty? Have you been reading the Tabes while waiting in the
checkout line again? What's this 'Lover' Jazz?"
He belted out with
Stock Supervillain Laugh #3. "Don't try to deny it. Just step forward,
and he lives. Don't think about it, just do it. After all, HOW will you live
with yourself if you let him die?" He finished off with another
round of SSL #3.
Okay, he had a point
there - we Superheroes are supposed to stand for something higher and nobler,
even if it is the Stupid Thing To Do. As I walked past the cordon, Heszcheck
tried to stop me. "Don't worry, I gotta plan," I lied. God, I
wished I did have a plan. Then I spotted the power cord leading up to the
newscam. He was drinking in electricity - he was on MY turf, even if he didn't
know it.
I walked up to
Nasty, and just as he was about to grab me, I popped one of my heel-sheathes
and drove one of my spike heels into his foot. As he yelled with surprise and
pain, Justiciar got loose, and I grabbed the newscam. I reversed the polarity
on the power feed, and began to suck the electricity OUT of him. Nasghul held
onto the camera like a baby trying to hold onto its bottle. I dragged him off
balance by going into the air, allowing him just enough of a grip on the
stupid camera to keep pulling the power out of him. Between his foot, being off
balance and trying to hold onto the camera, he was too busy to figure out that
the last wasn't a very good idea.
But I hadn't gotten
enough juice back to stay aloft for very long, and I was starting to droop. Nasghul
somehow made himself bigger and reached up for me-
-and a big foot came
down and squashed him like a bug.
"TITAN!"
Our huge compadre
grinned down at us. "Sorry I was late, but traffic was a bear."
I couldn't help it. With
a grin, I said, 'Don't pick up your foot just yet, Titan, but I think that you
just stepped in something Nasty."
*****
With Nasghul safely
under Titan's well-insulated foot, we were able to spritz him with CO2 until he
passed out. As well-insulated SWAT officers packed Nasty into a containment
unit, I found a microphone shoved into my face. "Lady Lightning, how do
you respond to Nasghul's claim of a romantic connection between you and
Justiciar?"
"Where did you
get another camera from, McGwuire?"
"You're
avoiding the question. Are you trying to cut Power Woman out of the picture,
and take her place in the leadership of AEGIS?"
"Y'know, you're
reading a lot into a passing comment from somebody whose information - not
to mention sanity - are at best questionable."
"I notice that
you're not denying the allegation."
"What
allegation? Some jumped up hoodlum talks some trash during a fight - that's not
an 'allegation' - that's street noise."
Apparently, if he
couldn't get any killer footage, McGwuire was all too ready to settle for a
little common dirt. With a voluble sigh of disgust, I pointedly dropped the
subject.
Then the real
pisser came - when Nasghul's Symbiont went gooey, we managed to get the files
that he'd put in his 'briefcase'. They were all welded together and intermixed
with the liquid Symbiont runoff. There was no way to tell what was in the files
or what he was after. Heszcheck commented sourly, "Oh well, at least we'll
have an excuse to get a Warrant to look through those files to try and figure
out what he stole. OCTF will be pleased - they can glom onto anything we find
as their jurisdiction, and it all came out of our budget."
After we were
finished making our statements for the police records - yes, I managed to talk
Ted and Diego into actually cooperating with the police! - Justiciar
pulled me off to the side. "Maxine, we've got to talk."
I looked around for
any eavesdroppers. "Sure, Ted - what about?"
"Not here - not
now. What are you doing Tuesday night?"
Well, I was working
with Reyes, but I could get out of it by pleading 'Hero Business'. "Nothing
that I can't get out of."
"Okay, then. Tuesday
- Eight o'clock?" I nodded, more than a trifle bewildered. "Eight,
then. The top of the B____ Building. And Max?" I raised an eyebrow. "Would
you please come in civilian clothes?"
Civvies? Now THAT
had my curiosity piqued!
*****
Reyes showed what a
poor sport she can be, when she peevishly refused to give me any advice about
what to pack for the 'pajama party'. Mom made sure that I had all the right
things packed. As she looked through my overnight bag, she looked like she
wasn't sure whether to be amused or dismayed, and settled for bewildered.
"What are grown women doing, having a slumber party?"
"Ma, I think
it's more of a 'Girls' Night Out' kind of thing, without bar-hopping. Y'know,
do a little 'female bonding', get a little silly, only without the drinking or
getting hit on."
"Hmmph! Well,
if you ask me, this is just further proof that this whole 'superhero' thing is
only a matter of arrested adolescent development."
"You're absolutely
right, Ma - I'll call them and tell 'em that we're gonna do something more mature;
like go and hang out at the Mall."
"Don't give me
that - now go, go hang out with the other girls."
"You would put
it that way."
*****
At AEGIS, I switched
into those elegant draping maroon PeeJays and took a deep breath. Just
remember, you've hung around with these women before, they already think of you
as a woman, anything that you do that's unfeminine they'll just chalk up to
eccentricity. And as for Hex - well, she makes a point of not probing,
so if you don't actually think about it, she won't pick up on anything. Right
- now tell me the one about the Polar Bears.
I stepped into the
matching mules, and joined the other ladies. Other. Ladies. _Oh_ God_.
The whole 'Pajama
Party' idea was Tigress'. Sometimes, I worry about that woman. She had
the Ready Room decked out like a teenage girl's bedroom - by way of the musical
Grease. There were, indeed, more stuffed animals on the bed than you
could shake a stick at. Why you would shake a stick at stuffed
animals, I don't know...
I looked around at
the superheroines lounging around in their bedclothes. Tigress was wearing an
Oakland Raiders' jersey, Twist was in a midriff baring T-shirt and panties,
Sapphire was wearing a long dark blue (what else?) negligee, and Hex was
wearing a sensible flannel nightgown. I looked around - "Where's Power
Woman?"
"Brenda?" Twist
stopped bouncing on the bed long enough to answer. "Oh, she didn't come - her
idea of a hot evening is sitting in front of her mirror, gazing longingly at
the one person she truly adores!"
"Oh, C'mon!
She can't be that bad!"
Tigress shrugged as
she was brushing Sapphire's hair. "Yes'n No... She always did have
a bit of a bug up her ass. But lately, she has gotten more and more remote. Y'can't
help but wonder what's gotten into her."
Twist rolled up into
a ball and aimed that smart alecky smirk that she does so well at me. "I
think _I_ know what's got her panties in a bunch!" Then she waggled her
eyebrows at me suggestively.
"And, pray
tell, what is _that_ supposed to mean?"
"Oh, You'n Ted..."
"Come again?"
"Well, before
you joined up, everybody sort of assumed that Ted an' Brenda would get
together sometime. Y'know, sorta how DC® tries to start up something between
Superman and Wonder Woman, but it never seems to come off? Kinda like that. I
guess Brenda always assumed that Ted would always be there, if she ever decided
that she wanted to do anything about it. And then you came along, and there's
this kinda chemistry between you two..."
"Chemistry?
Me? Ted? I must have missed school the day they covered that in
Chemistry class. I mean... he's a _nice _ guy_, and all-" There was a
general murmuring of 'how true'. "But I never saw myself as being in the
same class as Ted. I mean, he must have a girlfriend or something!"
"Not that _I_
know of."
"No news here."
"If he does, he
keeps her under his hat!"
Hex just shrugged.
"Oh, Come ON!
He's tall, he's broad shouldered, he's good looking, he's got masculine charm
coming out of his ears! He must have to beat them off with a stick!"
The girls looked
around. Hex said wryly, "Y'know what it is? Ted's got that 'He'd make a
terrific boyfriend - for my best friend' thing going for him. He's
everything we think we want in a man, but he's so damn comfortable
to be around, that you forget that he's a guy! You feel safe around him,
but so safe that there's none of that –uhm- Rush, that sense of danger.
You just know that Ted's always gonna do the Right Thing. Even if
he was gonna kiss a woman, you just know that he'd ask permission first."
"Oh? I dunno - he
didn't ask permission-" I realized that I'd said exactly the wrong
thing when every eye was riveted on me. "Hey! It was just a kiss on
the hand, straight out of Prince Valiant!"
"So What?
That's more than I've heard about Ted than I ever heard from Brenda!"
"When was it?"
"When we first
met, right after that fight with Ransack." They let out a collective hoot
of salacious amusement. "Oh, Come On! It was just a kiss on the
hand!"
"Oh, get off of
it, Max! You two dig each other! You're just too chickenshit to do
anything about it!"
"I ignore
you." That only set off another whoop of derisive amusement. Did Ted
really have a thing for me? I mean, when I look in the mirror and try to turn
off my guy-filters, I do see a very attractive woman looking back at me.
But Justiciar? "Weeelll..."
"Weeelll....
What?"
"Well, this
afternoon, after we wrapped up with that new Dermal Symbiont weirdo, Ted asked
if we could get together - in our civvies - and talk about something."
There was no
derisive hooting this time. Instead, the girls looked at each other in mild
shock. "Well, whaddya know?"
"Who'da thunk
he had it in him?"
"I don't know
which surprises me more - that it took him so long, or that he could work up
the nerve at ALL!"
I gave them an
oppressive glare. "What ARE you talking about?"
"Well, isn't it
obvious?" Twist grinned at me. "The big goof intends to
take things to the next level! Oh, don't look so stricken! Knowing Ted,
he'll probably just ask you to do the 'long moonlight walks and holding hands'
thing. That is, if he doesn't ask you to give him a 'favor' to take into battle
with him, or something King Arthur like that!"
Tigress took the
bait for me. "Oh, but I think that's Sweet!"
"You would!"
"What do you
mean by that?" Twist just answered her with a pillow in the
face, and the chase was on again.
Sapphire just looked
after them as Tigress sped down the hall. "Whoops! Outta Cocoa!" She
left for the kitchenette, leaving me there with Ms. Hex.
Amy watched the door
shut, and obviously made a point of waiting a few minutes. Then she looked up
from her cocoa and asked me, "So. What will you do, if Ted does try
to get romantic? Will you tell him that you're a man?"
TO BE CONTINUED . . .
More " Of Masks and Marvels " Coming Soon!
