I
ducked into the phone booth, and ripped open my shirt, revealing the blue shirt
and red 'S'; but where did the tits come from? I ignored them, ran the
necessary three steps, and it was Up, Up, and barely avoid copyright
infringement! I scoured the streets of Cosmopolis, searching for my
arch-nemesis. There he was! I landed and struck a pose, let the photogs take a
shot, shift the pose, make love to the camera, give a kiss... Dr. Demoniac
aimed his Doomatronic Doom-ray at me and fired! I easily blocked the ray with
my star-and-striped shield, and turned to my sidekick Bucky Parks, who was
singing "There she is, Captain Ameri-Marvel!", and putting a crown on
my head and sash around my shoulders. Then the Green Giggler appeared out of
the smog-choked skies, which had only moments before been golden with hope,
riding in his laughing gas filled balloon. He kept throwing razor edged
banana-creme pies at me, but I batted them aside with my Estrogenium bracelets.
The Darksider stepped out the gloom and gazed lustful beams of destruction at
me. They hit me square in the chest, shredding my costume, almost completely
baring my breasts, but not quite showing the nipples, which would have been
against the Comics Code. I felt a surge of PMS, and the more bloated I get, the
more powerful I become! I started to bulge with power, but only my tits got
larger and my hair got longer, and greener and more lustrous, with more body
and bounce, which is why I use Flairol hair-conditioner. Kraken ran long,
razor-like fingers through my hair, and told me that I had great hair follicles
before he tried to slit my throat. I ducked out of the salon-chair, before he
could attack again, or even finish rinsing out my hair! She-Devil was holding
my hand, with Arnold Ziffle under her arm, while trying to give me a manicure
with a chainsaw. Then Berserker came crashing through the top-secret salon
glass storefront, with big bouquets of roses soaked in Obsessive-Compulsive,
the new scent from Calvin, Hobbs and Klein. And I simply couldn't decide who to
go to the Maximum Security Prom with, Berserker, Ransack, or Gunhawk, or Archie
who was making eyes at that bitch Marilyn Manson. Then Tigress came along
bouncing on her rubber tail, giggling "hoo-hoo-hoo!"
and gathered them all up like stuffed animals. Justiciar came riding in on the
obligatory white horse- there's always a white horse, have you noticed? - and
swept me up. He said in a voice like Sean Connery- I have always loved Sean
Connery's voice- "I know what you really are!" and brought his
glowing energy phallic surrogate down between by eyes-
-and I woke up, covered in sweat.
*****
Man, I Hate that dream!
*****
I staggered out of bed and managed to
get into the shower. As I washed myself off, I sourly thought that Dream 'A'
was at least more amusing that Dream 'B', where I'm walking down the street in
my jump-suit, but my constantly enlarging tits keep popping out. I'm trying to
keep my Date with Destiny- whoever she is, I bought bon-bons- but I have to
keep tucking in my breasts and keep people from seeing them, but they already
do and they're laughing...
But the one that really sucks is Dream
'C', the one where I'm flying along in my Lady Lightning costume, looking great
and everyone's applauding and waving, and then I notice that I didn't shave off
my mustache, and my dick is hanging out a mile. Tigress swings up on a line-
never mind that there's nothing around for her to swing up on- and pulls my
dick out and begins to put it in her mouth, which is full of long sharp fangs-
Yep, Dream 'C' really bites.
*****
The problem with looking, is that you
get so involved with looking that you stop seeing. Checking my body for further
signs of feminization was becoming part of my morning wake up ritual. Are my
tits an A cup, A- or A+? Is my ass getting wider? Are my eyes going from gray
to blue? Is poor old John Thomas really getting smaller, is he just shy? Its
all so subtle and gradual, that I was driving myself crazy looking for things,
finding them, and then frantically telling myself that they weren't really
there.
But the truth only really hits you
when you aren't looking for it- and by looking for it, blocking it out. I got
out of the shower, dried off, wrapped my around my waist and was surprised by the
cute chick in the terrycloth sarong standing there. Oh, yeah, the mirror.
I walked from the bathroom to my
bedroom that way, A-cup tits swinging in the breeze. I didn't care. It was
Monday, and it was my day off. Mom was at work at the DMV, and Eli's 'weekend'
wouldn't start until Tuesday. Y'see Eli and I work weekends, which can really
suck, but the Union demands that we get two days off a week, just like normal
people. So, I get Mondays and Tuesdays, and Eli gets Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Today, I'm all by myself. I walked into my room, and took another look in the
mirror. The thing that really pisses me off is that I look better than women
who still won't give me the time of day do. But there is no way that I'm
putting on a bra and going over to one of those dyke bars. Talk about
complications when push comes to shove!
I climbed into the coveralls that I am
really starting to hate, and got ready to do my 'weekend' chores. Eli
and I had them divvied up between us- he got the detail work, and I got the heavy
lifting, for obvious reasons. An hour later, I was done. I always do my
'weekend' chores on Monday morning, when nobody's looking. That way I pull my
own weight, in a fraction of the time. I'm not sure what I'm gonna do when
summer vacation rolls around, and there are kids all over the place.
The toting and hauling done, I settled
in to do a lot of relaxing. At least, that was the theory. Instead, I got a
first-rate case of boredom. I mean, I never claimed to be this big Esthete, but
what was on the tube sucked! I
tried tinkering down in the basement for a while, but just couldn't get into
it. So, I went up to the living room, and tried to think about nothing. Not
that my unconscious was having any of it. It kept drifting back to those
dreams. It was saying, Hey! I left you a message on your answering machine,
pick up! Obviously, I wasn't as upset about slowly turning into a woman as I
was about my harumphrodite status- not one thing, nor really another. Hiding
this or that, never being able to stand square on two legs about anything.
I could take the bull by the horns,
buy some dresses and makeup, and start calling myself Danielle. But I don't
really think that would fly either with my family or the neighborhood. Eli is
having enough problems with this- not that he doesn't have enough trouble of
his own, but I gotta come out of a closet that I never went into in the first
place? Mom raised three sons and lost one- I don't think she could handle
losing another son, even if she gained a daughter in the process. And the
neighborhood? Well, the neighborhood has rather strident opinions about
girlie-men. The kind of opinions that got Matthew Shepard strung up on a barbed
wire fence.
I could move and do it, but that would
only remove the problem of the neighbors' harsh opinions. I would still have
those tense, what-am-I-doing?-kind of problems with Mom and Eli. Besides- I
don't make enough money to rent my own place. Have you seen what they're
asking for a run-down little studio apartment? Hey, there are reasons that two grown men are still
living with their mother!
And, who's fooling anyone, I have some
problems with it myself. For all its problems, being a guy is still a pretty
good deal. Nobody looks at you funny if you can fix a car. You're given the
benefit of a doubt that you can tell one electronic component from another. The
salesmen give up trying to sell you bogus software after the first time you
show that you know how to type ENTER. Hey, when you're a tech-geek, these
things matter. And, to be honest, I really don't see myself as being they type
whom can tell Melon Madness nail polish from Caribbean Coral.
After a couple of hours of totally
failing to get into the soaps, the cartoons came on, and my mood lifted a bit.
Though, I noticed that I was steering clear of the superhero cartoons in favor
of the funny animal ones- I guess that since I was on my day off, I didn't want
to deal with work in any form.
The cartoons ran their circuit, and
feeling a little better, I wandered over to the local watering hole for a few
brews and a little camaraderie.
Bad Idea.
I forgot what kinds of guys hang out
in neighborhood bars at 4 in the afternoon.
I went in, plunked down for some
Pilsner, and put a number on the jukebox that was really cutting edge- back in
'84. Annie Lennox started keening that Sweet
Dreams are Made of These, and I was actually starting to feel good for the
first time that day. Which, of course, is like dropping blood into the water;
the sharks immediately started swimming my way.
I was knocking back the last of my
Pilsner, when something jogged my arm, spilling the beer all over me. As I
staggered up, Kurt Baumgartner was they’re making all sorts of soft-voiced
apologies. I immediately stiffened. Kurt Baumgartner never said anything nice about
anybody, unless that guy could hand Kurt his ass in a mason jar. Kurt
Baumgartner being solicitous was either diverting me from one of his buddies
picking my pocket (Nope, still there!), or setting me up for one of the
bullshit bully routines that he learned from his beloved older brother Harold.
Harold was doing 5-to-10 for Armed Robbery. I know that Kurt learned his
routines, 'cause there's no way that he could have figured them out himself.
There seems to be this whole body of bully lore that is passed down orally from
one hardass to another, each adding little touches and nuances of their own.
Really, if it weren't about emotional torture and social sabotage, it would be
touching.
Baumgartner was using the old
innocuous lead-in, which I ignored. I turned to get another beer, when
Baumgartner grabbed me by the shoulder and pretended that he was enraged at my
turning my back on him. Now, a year or so ago, I would have been really scared
by now. Kurt and his brothers have been sending me running home to my mommy
since third grade. But, in the last year, things have changed. Now, I
give nightmares to the guys who give nightmares to the guys who give Kurt and
his buddies nightmares. I am simply not afraid of him, and
unfortunately, I let it show. I mean, Baumgartner couldn't hurt me- not him and
both of his slimepig buddies trying with all their might. Unfortunately, I
couldn't hurt them, either- not without severely injuring them. He screamed an
insult in my face, and I was trying to issue a civilized retort when
Baumgartner's buddy Luke knocked me down from behind with a beer pitcher. It
hurt, but it wasn't nearly as bad as any of the damage I'd taken wearing a
cape. But it did kick in those bad old playground punching bag reflexes; the
ones that say lay down and stay down until the teacher comes. They hit me, and
kicked me, and poured beer on me. I tried to get up, but every time I managed
to get to my feet, they tripped me or broke something else over me. Drolich,
the owner/bartender did nothing- at 4 in the afternoon, this was entertainment
as usual, unless there was a ballgame on.
Finally, I managed to get out the
door, followed only by jeers and catcalls. I staggered home, not noticing
anything that was happening around me. I wasn't hurt- I was enraged. I'm a goddamnedSuperhero, for Christ's
sake! _WHO_do_they_think_they_ARE_,
doing that to me? I could tear them all apart, and burn the whole
stinking bar down, and nobody could stop me! No, not them all- just
Baumgartner. I had to get Baumgartner, and I'd be damned if I'd do a
single minute in jail for it!
I stormed to my house and went in the
basement. We kept the old 'Thunderbolt' costume there, for some reason. I knew
that I would wait until Baumgartner and his slimepig buddies were done for the
night, about 10. Then they'd go to their next stop, another bar about 16 miles
out of town, where they like to hang out with bikers, and pretend to be tough
until closing. I'd knock out their steering with an electric jolt- no, I'd just
knock them off the road with my strength, don't want anything electrical
connected with this. I'd pull Baumgartner out of the piece of shit van, then
take him up a few hundred feet and let him dangle for a while. When he was
finally broken, and sobbing for his pathetic, misbegotten life, I'd let him
drop. I'd just leave him there, and let them wonder how he got there. And
nobody could ever trace it back to me, let alone prove it.
I was in the Thunderbolt outfit, with
the gloves and boots on, and was just zipping up, when it hit me like a brick
wall. I was going to kill a man. For embarrassing me. I was going to commit
cold-blooded murder, because a mean-spirited, pointless little man and his
equally worthless cronies had picked on me.
_Oh_God_!
I'm no better than Berserker, or
Gunhawk, or Ransack, or Baumgartner, even! I'd kill a man, just because
he pissed me off! All my superheroing, all my do-gooding means nothing! When
push comes to shove, I'm just another thug with superpowers!
My rage left me, leaving only ashes.
Ashes of my self-righteousness, of my self-respect, of my self-worth.
I sat down right on the floor, and
started crying. I didn't try to stop, I couldn't stop. And the worst thing was
that that ratsass Baumgartner was going to win again. I couldn't hurt him back.
Even if I used all of Lady Lightning's police contacts, or Reyes' press
connections, they'd all lead back to me, trying to get some payback. Just like
all the other bullies that had made my life hell. Just like that bastard
Roglin, who'd killed Hughie and got off with probation, 'cause he had a good
lawyer. None of them ever got what was coming to them, no matter what I did.
*****
Eli found me a few hours later. I
hadn't moved, not an inch. I didn't want to move again, ever. "Hey, Dan!
Whatcha doin' down here, Bro?"
I told him, in clipped, terse terms
what had happened.
"Why didn't you lay him out? You
coulda broken him in two, him and
his toadies, without raising a sweat!"
"I'da killed them, you know that.
When you have the Power, you can't just let loose, unless the other guy has
powers too." I gave a rueful laugh. "I can't do anything right. I
could've just torn into them, and said that it was adrenaline. Instead, I come
here and plan to murder him. And then I'd have to murder his shitwad pals, Luke
and Steve, 'cause they'd see me. I was going to KILL them, Eli! What AM I? What
have I become?"
Eli grabbed my face and forced me to
look into his. "Dan- You're the guy who could have killed all of them and
gotten away with it, but didn't. You wanted to- So What? If I had a dime
for every time that I wanted to strap Kurt Baumgartner or his little brother
Silas down naked on a red anthill and smear his balls with honey, the house
would be filled with silver! Or whatever they're using to make dimes these days.
Dan, You DIDN'T. Baumgartner would have. For laughs."
Dan, you are, and always have been, my
hero. Forget about tits, you could grow scales, horns, hooves and a forked
tail, and you'd still be the guy who stepped in front of me to take the
thumping that Roy Crider was gonna give me."
"No, it was Hughie. It was always Hughie."
"Dan, Hughie got all the good
genes in the family- he was two inches taller than you at two years younger,
and he loved sports. He could afford to do that kind of stuff. He enjoyed it.
You got stuck with the fat slob genes- and you still stood up for me every time. _Every_ time."
But you're right about one thing- you
can't just tear into them with your powers. And they can't get away with this.
They get away with it all the time, but that was before they picked on Lady
Lightning!" I gave Eli a harsh glare. "Or more to the point, Dan
Maxham!", He covered.
"Eli, I can't just use my powers
on them- even if I didn't kill or maim them, it would completely blow my
cover!"
Eli grinned and his eyes sparkled the
way they did when we came up with the plan that got Principal Caldwell and Mrs.
Kaunert stuck atop the water tower in his Civic. "Ah, but, Brother Daniel,
you have a super-power that will not only put Baumgartner permanently in
his slimy gutter-sucking place, and earn you the respect you so rightly
deserve, but pay for that cataract surgery that Mom's been needing!"
*****
It was 8:45, just before Baumgartner
and his butt-wipes were scheduled to leave for their biker-worship ceremony.
The regular crowd was in, and the rules were a little different. The guys who
work for a living are in the majority, so truly egregious scuzzbucketry is
harder to pull off. Not that Kurt, Luke and Steve wouldn't try.
Eli did the talking. He was better at
that, and he enjoyed it. "HEY, BAUMGARTNER!" he yelled, "Yeah,
You! The scumsucker who bush-whacked
my brother!"
Baumgartner sucked on his cigarette,
and laughed, "Yeah, and what are You
gonna do about it, ya little Weasel?"
"Me? I ain't gonna do a damn thing!
My brother Dan here is gonna reclaim
his own honor!"
"Hey, Maxham! How can you reclaim something that never
existed?" His lickasses laughed at this. But then they laughed if
Baumgartner broke wind after eating beans.
Eli spoke to the crowd. "My
Brother, Daniel Joseph Maxham, here and now, formally challenges the
sewage-sucking lowlife known as Kurt Algernon
Baumgartner to a contest!"
Baumgartner grabbed a pool cue and
said, "And why don't I just ram this stick so far up both your
asses that one can taste the other's shit?"
Five beefy Union guys stood up and
wordlessly let Baumgartner know that that was an extremely poor idea.
Predictably, he backed down.
Eli reached into his pocket and pulled
out a wad of bills. "THIS is Two THOUSAND dollars! We are willing to bet
this, against ANY amount of money that anybody is willing to put up,
that my brother here can drink that sad excuse for a sad excuse over there Under
The Table!" He theatrically slammed the wad down on the bar in front
of Drolich. The wad was the household emergency 'Oh, Shit!' money. Eli looked
Drolich straight in the eye. In a level tone, he said, "Drolich, if this
money somehow takes a walk, this bar, your house, and one of your kidneys will All mysteriously disappear before
the end of the week. You know us, you know we can do it, you know that nobody
will ever prove a thing." Then, again in his fight promoter's voice,
"We will take all bets, and whoever is still standing when the other hits
the floor, wins! IN ADDITION, the loser will pay for the drinks! Well,
Baumgartner, are you MAN enough?"
Baumgartner just sneered and flipped
Eli the bird.
Finally breaking my silence, I said in
a level voice, "Hey, Kurt! It's almost 9 o'clock! About this time, your
big brother is probably flat on his face, going "Oh, Big Daddy, gimme some
more!"
Fire in his eyes, Baumgartner pulled
out his wad and slammed it down on the bar. He sat down with the finality of a
man who's serious about what he's about to do. "Drolich! A bottle of your best Rye whiskey! Since he's gonna be paying
for it, I don't want lardass over there saying that he got short-changed on
cheap booze!"
I sat down across the table from
Baumgartner. I smiled. I have a system that processes alcohol like it was
Kool-Aid. It took enough ethanol to poison a normal man to get me even so much
as merry. Drolich brought the bottle and two shot glasses. He filled them. As
one, Baumgartner and I lifted our glasses and began.
*****
An hour and five bottles later, I
tossed off the shot like it was lemonade. Baumgartner struggled to lift his
hand to pick up the glass. His backers urged him on. He wrapped his hand around
the glass and began to lift it. His partisans gave him gentle words of
encouragement. He looked intently at the shot, and then he looked intently at
the tabletop. He was so entranced with the wood finish that he put his nose
next to it and took a good long look. A small rivulet of drool dripped
from his mouth onto the table. I reached over, took the glass from his hand and
knocked back the shot. Then I chased it with a can of beer. I patted him on the
cheek and said, "When you learn how to drink,
little boy, come and look me up." I placed the shot glass upside-down on
top of his head.
Eli collected our winnings. We didn't
double our money, let alone make enough to pay for Ma's cataract surgery, but
we did haul in enough to pay for the new water heater. Ma was still royally
pissed off at us, and we were grounded all the next day- hey, she can do that,
it's her house! Like we cared. We spent it in the basement, working on one of
Eli's better practical jokes.
*****
Just before going off to work
Wednesday, Eli and I spent an enjoyable few hours driving Baumgartner's van by
remote control- with Baumgartner and his pals inside. We left them hanging from
a magnetic crane in a wrecking yard. I think the wreckers were trying to make
up their minds whether to scrunch Baumgartner's van or not.
*****
"What do you mean, I'm being sued?
By who?"
"By several people,
actually." Reyes pulled out a thick sheaf of official looking documents.
"I picked these up at the bank, while drawing some funds out of the
Valhalla Legal Fund. It seems that the news of the Fund's existence has made
the rounds among the shyster elements of the legal community. Apparently Conrad
Paulsen decided not go quiet into that good night, yada, yada, yada. All these people know that you have money from
the royalties of those posters, and they want a piece of it. We have a suit
here from an old lady who claims that one of your electromagnetic pulses
damaged her pacemaker, and wants you to replace it, plus legal and medical
costs, pain and suffering, etc, etc, etc. Here we have a man who claims that
you assaulted him with your electric bolts, thus causing him to be impotent,
and wants recompensation for pain, suffering, emotional trauma, and the failure
of his marriage, blah blah blee...
OH! This is a good one! This
guy claims that you're his wife, Silvia, who ran out on him and their three
kids, and he's suing you for divorce, alimony, and child support!"
"You're kidding!"
"How much you wanna bet that last
guy is planning to take this to the talk show circuit? 'My Spouse Left Me To
Become a Superhero! Abandoned husbands and wives confront their vigilante
spouses!' Odds are she just left him to become a run of the mill lesbian."
"Or maybe a biker mama.",
Eli chipped in from the driver's seat.
"So, what do we do?"
"What most people do! Send them a
letter telling them to go screw themselves! In the nicest, most polite
of terms, of course. I'm having stationary with a letterhead printed up. The
majority of these are either crackpots, or lawyers' relatives who are hoping
for an out-of-court settlement, or just people desperate for a little
recognition- from a big shot superheroine, from the courts, from a lawyer-
hell, anybody!"
"Maybe the next time I run into a
member of AEGIS, I can ask them how they handle that kind of thing. After all,
they have that headquarters, that voice-mail number, and a web-site. They must
get hundreds of these things ever month!"
"Yeah, actually I'm a little
disappointed- if we had more, then we might be able to justify a segment on
frivolous lawsuits involving high-profile persons like superheroes. But we
don't even have twenty here; we'd need at least fifty to provoke the kind of
indignation to avoid looking like you were whining. Nobody likes a superhero
that whines-"
"Tell that to Spider-man."
Eli chipped in again, "Hey,
Reyes! I thought that Roy McGwuire was handling a story on frivolous lawsuits
against high profile people."
"Yeah, but not against superheroes-"
Eli cut Reyes' justification for
poaching short, "Hold it! There's a really
weird message on the emergency band." He switched it over to the speaker.
"-er Woman, making an emergency call for backup from Lady Lightning. I am
in dire straights, and AEGIS is not responding. I fear the worst. Please help
me. I am at D_____and E_____. Come as quickly as possible. I am recording this,
and it will replay continuously until turned off. This is Power Woman, making
an emergen-" The voice was strained but controlled, and there was
definitely something wrong. I just couldn't put my finger on it.
Reyes said, "I didn't know that
you met Power Woman."
"I haven't."
"Its gotta be either a prank or a
trap."
"OR she's really hard up agin'
it." I looked around. "Well, I admit, it's a real long shot, but it
had to be said! Any way it pans out, we gotta check it out, 'cause it'll only
be worse if we ignore it." I
slapped Eli on the shoulder. "Set course for D_____ and E______, Mister
Maxham, Warp Factor Six!"
"Aye, aye, Captain Janeway!"
Eli responded, trusting to the fact that we were moving and he was driving to
save him from just retribution.
*****
I made my patented Flying Dismount en
route, and approached from the air. It wasn't a complete hoax, because a
Dumpster came flying out of an alley. And not an empty Dumpster, either (*yuck!*). There was a large chunk of
masonry torn out of one of the buildings. Dodging around in the cavity were two
figures, one in red, one in white. The one in white was Power Woman, local
superheroine, founding member of AEGIS, and starring attraction in many
adolescent sexual fantasies. She's tall, somewhere in the 5'11" range, and
sleek yet curvy. Her outfit is white- white high boots, white gauntlet gloves,
white bodice, and long white cape, all with gold trim. She wears gold metal
shin and forearm guards, a gold faux-Greek
breastplate, a wide gold belt with a medusa's head on it, gold cape buckles,
and a gold faux-Greek helmet that
covers half her face. Her face, what you can see of it, is an absolutely
perfect oval, with a cupids bow mouth and a strong chin. When you can see her
eyes through the holes in the helmet, they're an icy blue. long golden hair
falls from under the helmet, down to the small of her back. She's very strong,
very tough, and flies. She's what superhero aficionados call a 'brick'. Why
not? She's built like one! The one in red, or more to the point made out
of red, was my old buddy Berserker. What the hell was HE doing out of the
slammer?
Weird as it seemed, Power Woman's
message must have been on the up and up, 'cause there she was, doing her best
kickass. That didn't bode well, what with AEGIS not taking calls. But first
things first- Power Woman was only just holding her ground with the B-guy.
Power Woman was picking up a piece of
masonry to smash him with, when Red Boy points at her and a spray of something
moist-looking hits her right in the face. She screams, and clutches her face,
dropping the masonry on herself in the process.
Shit! I hate being rushed! I
thunder charged down, hammering him into the asphalt with both feet. Using my
perch and his temporary lower body immobility to my best advantage, I
immediately started pouring my 'foxfire' down his back. Hey, if it worked once-
Out of the unsettling blankness where
his face ought to be, formed an even more unsettling maw, framed by a set of
gigantic fangs. Double Shit! Somebody wised up the chump!
He formed a pair of wicked looking
cleavers at the end of his hands and came damn close to lopping off one of my
legs. I did a periodically interrupted flamenco on his head, dodging his
meat-choppers while driving him further into the street. Then I leaped out of
his reach and over to Power Woman.
"Are you Okay? Can you still
fight?"
She made a rasping sound out of a face
contorted with pain, but nodded.
"Why did you call for me? What
happened to AEGIS? What's going on?"
She tried to speak, but it wasn't
happening. She pulled out a pair of 10-minute rebreathters out of a compartment
on the back of her belt. Nice to know that I'm not the only Batman fan in the
local superhero scene. She stuck one in her mouth and handed me the other. Then
she pointed past Berserker and into the hole in the masonry. There were the
torn remains of what looked to be very high tech equipment, including the
remains of what might be an energy weapon. Another secret base? I gotta find
out how I can invest in covert construction! It has to be a booming
business, what with secret bases being built all over the place!
The simplest story would be that most,
if not all of the other members of AEGIS had been captured somehow, and that
Power Woman was trying to free them. For some reason, superheroes seem to hate
to involve the police in things like this, but feel free to call on other
superheroes. Pointless pride, if you ask me. If the other AEGIS members were in
there, why were the people behind this only sending out Berserker to cover the
place? There should be an army of high-tech henchmen covering the place!
Berserker took a swing at Power Woman,
but she caught the blade and turned his own momentum against him, throwing him
across the alley. Unfortunately, this freed him from the asphalt snare that I'd
had him in. We ran into the rubble. There was the interior of what I think was
a security lock, the high-security version of an air lock, where you walk in,
are scanned to a fare-thee-well, and if you aren't exactly what they
expected, they blow you to bits. I felt around with magnetism and was able to
pull back the restraining bolts. The door slid open and I allowed it to
re-lock. Let Berserker find his own way back in.
"Which way?"
She pointed off to the left, and we
went. Still no sign of the foot troops. Then the poison gas started filtering
down from the ventilation system (Oh, by the way, just by looking I could tell
that the air duct system was too small to crawl into. The guys who built this
place saw the same movies). But, Power Woman had foreseen this, and made sure
that I had a re-breather. She's probably dealt with this bastard before. I'd
really love to know who he is.
we checked back and forth on each side
of the corridor for some clue to the whereabouts of the AEGIS. I tried to use
logic- they would either be in the deepest, most isolated part of the place, or
in a research lab being used for an experiment, or in the heart of the lair,
where Dr. X (for want of a better name) could keep an eye on them, all
depending on the personality of the guy who runs the place. So far, all we were
finding was storerooms of raw materials.
On the other side of the next security
lock, I noticed that the polished concrete had been replaced with bare steel.
Looking up, it noticed the rather prosaic fire sprinklers. Simple, but
effective, I gotta admit. Tapping Power Woman's shoulder, I pointed out the
sprinklers, and then the floor. I bridged a span between the floor and a
suspicious spar jutting down from the ceiling. Sure enough, a powerful current
ran through me. The floor was electrified, wanting only a decent conductor to
make it a death trap. Taking the breather out, I gasped "Fly."
The next segment was dominated by
semi-finished parts lying in orderly piles on pallets. A couple of automated
forklifts were moving things about. Then they carefully put down their pallets
and charged at us like a pair of mechanical bulls. They didn't last long. They
didn't need to. They were only supposed to delay us.
It came clanking out of the next
security lock. It was a cubist sphere (if that means anything) studded with
twelve camera lenses and eight long tentacle like flexible waldoes. Two of the
tentacles whipped out and entangled Power Woman. I created a powerful repulsive
field around myself and got in close. Well, that was the idea. Even if it
couldn't grab me, it could send me careening into the wall- and did. Taking the
breather out again, I shouted, "Back, through the lock!"
Together, we managed to drag the
Octo-bot through the corridor, past the security lock, and onto the electrified
floor. We left it there, the current burning its circuitry into post-modern
art.
The next trap was just plain icky.
Thick nozzles sprayed us with neon blue, green and red liquids that bonded into
a thick gooey gel. We could break out of the gel all right, but then it would
just stick to something else. If it hadn't been so damn disgusting, it would
have been funny. The breather that I'd been using was running low. (Memo to myself: Gotta get one of these for
my utility belt.) I started clambering around, opening small hatches. I was
almost out of air when I found what I was looking for. I took out a bright
yellow canister that looked a lot like a fire extinguisher and sprayed first
her and then myself. It dissolved the gel, but we looked ghastly! I managed to spruce up a bit by burning what was left off,
and Power Woman just shrugged the now non-adhesive stuff off somehow. Maybe
that's part of her power- God knows, I've never seen her looking anything other
than smashing. If my 'feminine' looks really meant that much to me, I'd have
been really intimidated by now.
Past the next security lock, it opened
up into a large semi-circular room, a sixty-degree fan radiating out from what
looked like an elevated control booth at the axle of the angle. It appeared to
be a large assembly or fabrication area, littered with at least twenty complex
material working devices. The place was some kind of factory or workshop. I
gotta admit, I'd love to sit down and talk tech with the guy who put this place
together. There was a nice Bauhaus elegance to the design, without being
constrained to the usual boxy rectilinear limitations that Bauhaus is prone to.
We walked toward the control booth
along an aisle against the far wall of the fan. Power Woman preceded me, and
walked over a segmented plate. A nozzle popped down, sprayed her with a white
foam, and the segmented plate opened up under her. She dropped, and I barely
managed to catch her in time to keep her from falling into whatever was under
it. And I am proud to say that I didn't waste any time drooling over the foam
dripping off that perfect form of hers. Well, at least, not much.
Risking whoever was throwing all this
in our faces using the fabricating machines as weapons, we flew the rest of the
distance, and smashed through the glass of the control booth.
There was nobody there. The damn place
was on automatic!
Looking at the control panel, I found
the main power board and shut the entire place down with a single switch.
It was finally safe to take that
stupid rebreather out of my mouth, I did so. I looked at Power Woman and said,
"So, any ideas of where AEGIS might be being kept?"
Power Woman took her rebreather out,
smiled and said with a fruity Hungarian accent, "Why should I bother?
You're the one whose been having all the ideas so far!"
With that, she 'morphed from 'Power
Woman' into She-Devil's laughing form. She brought up her hands in her brazier
posture. "You were so easy to trick! You think that you are so
clever, with your fancy toys!"
I jumped back, getting my back against
the glass, ready to break through it when she started throwing fireballs. But
Berserker beat me to the punch, pooping up out of nowhere and breaking through
the glass to grab me in a grip of steel. I managed to keep him from crushing me
by devoting most of my power to my force field.
She-Devil sauntered forward, grabbed a
handful of 'hair', and pulled it. If I hadn't been wearing a wig, it probably
would have hurt. She brought her face right up to mine. Oh Gawd, she
started talking again! Again
with the going on and on about how glorious and powerful and unstoppable she
was. Hey, just kill me and get it
over with, but don't torture me!
I looked up at her in pain and said,
"She-Devil?"
"Yeeesssss?"
"In my belt? Second compartment
on the left- there's a roll of breath mints. Take them all, Please!"
She slapped me, and said to Berserker,
"We've wasted enough time- just toss her in the water trap, and be done
with it."
Making a hissing noise that I'm still
not sure was either irritation or amusement, Berserker hauled me over to the
segmented plate and forced it open with his foot. Against my strenuous
objections- accompanied by as powerful electric shocks as I could muster- he
stuffed me down the hatch. I landed in a tank of very cold water. I heard the
clicks and clanks as the hatch was re-secured.
I swam up to the surface. There was
only a foot between the water and the hatch. I felt around my utility belt. I'd
left the rebreather in the control booth. Not that it really mattered- it only
had a few seconds of breathable air left in it.
I groped around the hatch for some
escape mechanism.
Nothing.
I tried to magnetically manipulate the
catches.
Nothing.
I blasted at the hatch.
Nothing.
The bitter cold of the water began to
bite into my skin.
IS THIS THE END OF LADY
LIGHTNING?
WHERE IS THE REAL POWER
WOMAN?
WHAT IS SHE-DEVIL UP TO?
WILL ELI EVER GET A
REAL DATE?
Find out in the next chapter of "Of Masks and
Marvels"! Chapter 8