Lou and Leigh were with Randy for the weekend, so Dee came home to an empty house. She poured herself a big glass of wine, intending to marinate while she ruminated. She turned the oven on, threw a sheet of foil on a cookie sheet and prepped a big tray full of supreme pizza rolls. She bought them for the kids, but she tended to help herself whenever she had a bad case of fuck this.
She thumbed through the Internet on her phone while waiting for the oven to reach 475 degrees (Dee Major liked her pizza rolls crispy). Amy was celebrating her soberversary. Good for her. Val had just won a karaoke contest. By the looks of the pictures she posted, it was more stripping than singing. At least her fitness classes were paying off. Dee sincerely intended to see them more, but as soon as her retirement faded, her positive intention morphed into lingering regret and self-resentment.
Archer was tweeting up a storm, for all the good that would do. Dee hoped he’d feel better in the morning, but judging from the rapid deterioration of his spelling, Dee guessed he’d be nursing a well-starched hang over.
The oven beeped that it was preheated. Dee slid the pizza rolls in the oven and wished they also had tater tots. She set a timer and sat back down. Her phone whistled. A secure message from Phil.
Guess who’s going to be blamed for this? https://tinyurl.com/hhr3kan I’m with you. All the way. Whatever you need.
Dee followed the link. The Borer had stood by his name and his grievances. He was calling for a societal reformation around traditional gender roles like subservience. He had, in fact, hacked a local women’s health clinic’s web site and posted his 96 theses on the front page. The hack had not lasted long, but the story was picked up by all the local news feeds. Menhevicks.org had helpfully converted the grievances into four separate listicles to maximize page views. You would not believe grievances numbers six, eight, four and seven.
For her part, Dee believed them all, inasmuch as they were all the same petulant complaints she’d been hearing all her life. Her time at Confederated Justice was coming in handy yet again, this time because it inculcated her against routine sexism and whining about opportunities. The Borer wanted to be cared for like an infant and feted as a man-god: powerful, infallible and virile. He wanted a world where he would be responsible for making all the decisions but wouldn’t be responsible for making dinner. He was happy to pick up a check as long as he never had to pick up his socks. And so long as a happy ending followed the meal.
Dee’s stomach rumbled at the smell of the melting cheese and processed meat flavor. She pulled the crispy pizza rolls from the oven as soon as the timer went off. They were all well-popped, with the tasty innards spilling out onto the foil. She picked bits of pancake batter off an otherwise clean spatula and shuffled a handful of rolls onto a plate.
She sat back down and set her phone to the side. She nibbled delicately at the crispiest bits of the pizza rolls while she waited for the insides to cool.
She knew the storm was coming. The threat could not have been clearer. Metroville had to conform to The Borer’s wishes or incur his wrath. She had created The Borer and she would have to defeat him.
This was probably the last moment of peace she’d have until she clobbered The Borer’s skull so hard he had to buy a whole new menagerie of hats. Captain Major wouldn’t just be fighting for her city, her family or her gender. This time, she’d also be fighting for the haberdashers.
Wednesday, November 24, 2011
The cubes of Fast Airborne VD were nearly as barren as they always were on the day before Thanksgiving, with one exception: Dee Major’s team, except for Paula Dundas, was all-hands on deck. Not because they had work to do — maybe, in fact they did, but not a one of them was paying attention to that. But because they were narrowing in on their final days in the office and it made little sense to any of them to spend a vacation day when that extra day of pay would come in handy with Christmas around the corner. A new supervisor had been assigned, but he had not yet made the time to introduce himself. No one cared, so long as he signed their certificates of good behavior.
They flowed around Dee’s cube, taking turns wasting one another’s time, wondering whether they could each sneak out early to begin preparing for their Thanksgivings, or if this would be the day that Gravy Jones decided to finally check in.
Dee needed to stretch, so she took a turn hanging her arms over Winnie’s cube wall. She was confused for a moment, but didn’t know why. A couple blinks later she sussed it out. Winnie hadn’t brought in her Christmas decorations. Her cube was nearly sterile, with no traces that a human being with likes and interests had ever inhabited it.
Of everyone on the team, Dee judged Winnie’s prospects to be the best. She was young and educated. Most of the others, including herself in this analysis, were dangerously calcified after years of service with a middling employer. Great experience, in its own way, as most employers are middling and most corporate jobs are mix of good people and bad conditions. Just the blush of that exposure immediately made each of them better candidates than first-time job seekers who demanded to be treated with the care of the first snowflake that falls and shivers on a toddler’s mitten at daybreak on a Christmas morn.
In Narnia, no less.
As Dee watched, Winnie scrolled through page after page of dense green text on a black background. So intent was she, she didn’t look up until Dee startled her by asking what she was reading.
After catching her breath from her startled leap straight up out of her office chair, Winnie explained. She was reading the Borer’s Manifesto. It was intended to be a list of demands which the city had to meet. In truth, no one had gotten to the demands part yet, because the web page which housed them required the viewer to read through the list of grievances first.
The Borer needed to be heard, first, and they obeyed. And then probably heard some more. Dee guessed that Confederated Justice had their best heroes working on the project right now. Best, in this and only this case, featured the Completionist. He was a rather standard hero. He could fly and was super strong, but had a fatal weakness in the need to complete every task along the way before battling a super villain. This tended to take forever as he collected all the clues rather than moving ahead to defeat the villain before the city was in grave peril. On the other hand, his trophy chest was second to none.
The Completionist would likely have one lieutenant in this task, the Self Punisher. Self Punisher dressed in all white and carried an arsenal of weapons with her at all times. If the Self Punisher lashed out at criminals in a hail of bullets, it was nothing compared to the punishment she routinely inflicted upon herself. Any stain to her brightly white costume would mean days of scrubbing everything — the costume, her lair and every inch of skin until it was as red as Joseph McCarthy’s worst fever dream and everything else, from her costume to her deep shag carpeting in the rec room, was white as an Oscar nominee for Best Original Screenplay.
Self Punisher also had two poorly trained akitas who had the run of the house whenever she was on duty. Duty led to doodie which led to another cycle of bitterness aimed inward and calls to puppy kindergartens which rightfully refused to admit her giant adult dogs into classes with 12 week old puppies.
Self Punisher would hate the the Borer’s Manifesto almost as much as she hated herself for each mistake she had ever made. She, too, felt a deep compulsion to finish the Manifesto inasmuch as she must have done something to deserve the pain. Another part of her would hope that her arch-nemesis, Self Abuser, would make an appearance in a subway car or movie theater so she’d have anything else to do.
Winnie, bored at work, was actually closer to the end of the Manifesto than anyone else in Metroville. It’s amazing what one can accomplish when one stays busy doing nothing.
“I’m impressed that he was able to put this together so quickly,” Winnie said. “It’s nonsense, but it’s a lot of nonsense. I’m surprised he had time to physically compose this much verbiage. Especially one-handed.”
“I imagine he's had a lo
t of experience using computers one-handed,” Dee noted.
“Probably,” Winnie agreed. “Still, it's a lot to write.”
“Writing is pretty easy,” Dee said. “I think you just keep typing until you get bored enough to convince yourself what you typed is good.”
Dee peeked over Winnie’s shoulder to get a better look at the text. “How much you figure you have left?”
“There’s an implied structure and organization here. Not a strong structure or good organization, but based on conventions, I figure I’ve got to be about halfway through.”
“Good for you,” Dee said. “Is it fair to judge this by conventional standards, though?”
“Oh, god, yes,” Winnie said as she turned in her chair. “No matter what the Borer thinks, there’s nothing new here. He’s just rehashing grievances we’ve all heard.” She dropped her voice conspiratorially, though no one was around who would object to what she wanted to say. “Mostly, he thinks his mom should have tied his shoes for him when he was six and that he deserves a lot more blow jobs now.”
“That does ring familiar,” Dee smiled.
Winnie turned back to her screen. “This is clever, though. All the pages are generated dynamically, so you can’t index them or skip to the end. And when you get to the bottom of a page, there are these CAPTCHA buttons. It’s easy for a human to read which one says ‘Next’, but a screen reader would struggle. The JavaScript behind the buttons just gives a random 32 bit key, so you can’t tell from that, either, which button takes you forward. If you hit the wrong button, you go back to the very first page and have to start all over again.”
“Seems like you’re the clever one, Winnie,” Dee said. “I bet you could find a job where they pay you to figure those things out.”
Winnie looked skeptical. “I like figuring out what I like to figure out, not what someone else tells me to figure out.”
“Well, good luck, Winnie. I hope you find something soon.”
“Me, too,” Winnie said. She turned back to her computer and began skimming through the Manifesto again, occasionally groaning or chuckling to herself. Dee turned back toward her cube and was shocked to see Randy approaching from a distance. She stood still for a long beat, wondering what might happen next. Fearing the worst, she darted into a conference room. Randy followed her in and Dee quickly closed the door behind them.
“I brought you some coffee,” Randy handed over a large cup of coffee, still steaming as Dee took it with a soft thanks.
“How’d you get in?” Dee asked.
“I told security I needed to ask you how to defrost a turkey. I guess that made me seem harmless enough.”
“Why are you defrosting a turkey?” Dee asked.
“I’m not,” Randy said. “I have something to say.” Randy paused and gauged the surroundings. He didn’t quite look at Dee, but around her.
“Go on,” Dee urged.
“Just making sure you’re not getting ready to zap me,” Randy lied. “I’m sorry for some things.”
“Not everything?” Dee asked.
“Fuck no, not everything,” Randy answered. “I’m sorry that the kids are having a hard time because we’re fighting. I’m sorry that I used your identity against your other identity. And I’m sorry for calling you a c-word.”
“When did you call me that?” Dee asked.
“You weren’t there,” Randy shrugged. “But I said it and I meant it at the time. Still, sorry for that. For those three things.”
“And nothing else?”
Randy wouldn’t look up from his own cup of coffee. He twisted the brown lid from side to side.
“Thank you, Randy,” Dee replied. “I’m sorry for some things, too.”
“Like what?” Randy asked.
“I’ll make a list. Get it to you later?”
“I’ll look forward to that,” Randy said. He dropped Dee’s gaze and studied for a moment the awful carpeting in the conference room. “If this matches the drapes,” he joked, “then I sure don’t want to see the drapes.”
“Yeah, I suppose,” Dee agreed.
“I’m going to go. Enjoy your coffee,” Randy said as he abruptly turned to leave. He stopped after he cracked the door open half a foot. “I hope someone teaches the Borer a lesson, Dee. God, what an asshole.”
“I hope so, too,” Dee agreed. She watched Randy leave and sipped her coffee for a moment before heading back to her cubicle.
Winnie was waiting for her with the list of demands the Borer had made. Dee was incredulous. “How’d you get this so fast?” she asked.
“I’m as surprised as you. The whole thing ended really abruptly,” Winnie said.
“You did say he was a conventional guy,” Dee agreed.
“Yep!” Winnie chirped agreement. “I don’t know if he got bored or suddenly worried that the whole thing was too long and no one could actually read it or what, but the last sections were much shorter than anything else. The pace really picked up. No more long-winded asides or misdirection.”
“What a relief,” Dee said.
“I’ll say,” Winnie agreed. “At any rate, those are the demands.”
Dee shuffled through the seven pages of discrete demands for money, property, immunity, obeisance and so on. The Borer clearly had a Fantasy Island scenario in mind, as he was holding the city ransom for everything including a sovereign island but not including the little person as servant and punchline. He probably planned on impressing Randy into that job.
“Do you think anyone will meet those demands?” Winnie asked.
“If I know anything about the Elastic Twins,” Dee, who knew Lycra better than her sister, Adhosvana, said, “some of these demands are bound to go unmet.”
“Then can anyone stop him before he destroys the city? Half the city is without sewer and the other half has brown water. That orphanage on Seventh and Main collapsed in on itself last night because the foundation had been drilled away. How many kids would have been hurt if they hadn’t been at the theater that night?”
“And who knew that kids liked Sweeney Todd?” Dee wondered.
“Is that what they were seeing?” Winnie asked.
“I don’t know, Winnie,” Dee said thoughtfully. “I do not know.”
The Immortal moved some personal appointments around in order to make a rare in person appearance at a Confederated Justice board meeting. As he walked into the well-appointed meeting space he nodded solemnly at the professional servants lining the leather-wrapped walls who had been hand-picked for their present roles due to their inability to register contempt for their fellow human beings. Today, as always, they were in black tie and waited in hyper-vigilant stasis for the board members and hangers-on to arrive. As The Immortal entered the room his feeling of foreboding immediately turned to shame and regret. He took the seat closest to the exit and began to compulsively wipe his hands on the opulently soft, unsustainably warmed towel placed in front of him before politely declining all further offers from Hermes, the attendant to whomever sat in that particular chair.
The Immortal was ready to set the towel down when Staphon Clork oozed in. The man was full of superficial charm, but it didn’t take superhero senses to detect the sleaze churned up in his wake. He smiled broadly and brightly, all the better to show off his freshly bleached and capped teeth. His hair was freshly frosted, too. His jacket was short enough to be mistaken for a cape-let, but the man refused to let any unnecessary fabric cover his chiseled buttocks. The Immortal nearly choked when Clork turned and gave him an eyeful of his padded, push up slingshot briefs. The man’s ass was choked up above his waist, or so nearly so that The Immortal had no idea how he would sit.
As it turned out, there was no need for Clork to sit. He called the meeting to order while walking around the conference table. The Immortal waved away the deluge of cologne that washed over him as Clork passed by. The Immortal wisely surmised two things: Clork had recently watched The Untouchables and he was in full preen for an upcoming press
conference.
Clork was nearing the end of the beginning of the middle section of his introductory remarks for the board when The Immortal interrupted. “Will all due respect, Staphon, I need to get back to my sanctum for a rub down before the Borer demolishes the rest of the city. How about we assign some super supers to finding this guy and get this taken care of before Metroville looks like the Detroit parts post-quake Frisco?”
“Who would you suggest?” asked Dan Herbert Manskirt, one of the newest members of the board. He had not been born with such a ridiculous name. Manskirt was born Daniel Walter Ants. His mother was an itinerant poet and his father was a oboist who named his only son in tribute to the Pink Panther Theme. Manskirt’s mother left his father on the same day his father left his mother. His father left to pursue a career in scoring short films. Ironically, his mother left to pursue a career as a camera operator for the Philippine Basketball Association where she was filming short scores. Manskirt was a ward of the state for barely eight weeks before he was adopted by two other Dans: Dan Herman and Dan Bertskirt. In a loving, if misguided, teenage tribute, Manskirt combined his fathers’ names into new middle and last names. As an adult, he was an earnest kid who reserved a great deal of energy for trying to grow a full beard. To date, he was failing, but The Immortal noted that the density seemed to be improving. Modestly.
“What’s that?” a voice on the phone asked.
“Who’s on the line?” The Immortal asked. He waited, but there was no response, so he continued. “I suggest the Texan for starters. Thematically, it makes a lot of sense. Maybe not so much these days, but there’s a connection between the oil derricks and the Borer’s motif.”
“Sorry, I put myself on mute accidentally. This is Brendan Large.”
“Did you have a question, Brendan?” The Immortal asked.
“I’m having trouble hearing, especially the guy with the squeaky voice.”
The Immortal and Manskirt looked at each other. Manskirt tried to pretend that The Immortal’s voice might be perceived as squeaky, but they both knew better.
“The Immortal suggested the Texan,” Manskirt raised his voice toward the phone.
“I can hear The Immortal, squeaky,” Large whinged.
“Sure, sure,” Manskirt pressed forward. “Texan’s got to have help, though. If you get past the rugged jaw his only powers are rope tricks and being able to wear the hell out of a big hat.”
“That alone might intimidate the Borer,” The Immortal said as he nodded his agreement. “I also think it’s time to give the Badger a shot. She’s good underground and fights with the relative ferocity of a human-sized badger.”
“The Blob-ger?” Clork scoffed. “Not on my watch.”
“She’d be safe,” Large added. “No one would want to ‘drill’ her.”
“Leaving that aside, I think Badger and Tex would make a good team on this one,” The Immortal said. “My computer is finalizing probabilities based on the futures I’ve seen. With the Completionist refusing to take shortcuts and Self Punisher actually re-reading the dullest bits for context, it’s the only chance that we’ll have the Borer’s location before the whole city sinks.”
“It’s not going to happen, Immortal,” Clork leaned over the table to shout in his face. “Not Tex. Certainly not the Blob-ger. Not anyone. You know as well as I do that Captain Major created this villain. He is her responsibility. Fuck her. Let her twist in the wind until she’s ready to come crawling back and beg me for help.”
There was an unsubtle connotation in the way Clork said “beg me” that made The Immortal queasy. It was obvious that Clork had spent too much time thinking about Captain Major begging for help that only Clork could deliver.
“Our priority is the city, Clork. Not your,” The Immortal paused to point his pinkie finger at Clork’s crotch, “damaged pride.”
Clork straightened himself and took a step back from the table. He turned his back on The Immortal and folded his arms. “No part of me is damaged,” Clork began.
“Sorry,” Manskirt interrupted. “I’m not sure the people on the phone are going to be able to hear you if you face away from the table.” Manskirt grabbed one of the speakerphone extensions and dragged it closer to Clork.
“Who is doing that?” Large yelled. “Do you have any idea what that sounds like? It sounds like you’re using the phone to scratch your balls.”
“His balls haven’t even dropped yet,” Clork vaulted over the table and spun Manskirt’s chair so they were facing each other. Clork was standing close enough that Manskirt had to fight the urge to lean back as Clork displayed his pride in Manskirt’s face while shouting at The Immortal. “And if you wanted to have opinions you shouldn’t have left your post. You exist on paper only. You have no voice. Your opinion does not count. I’m more likely to listen to Manskirt here than I am to you.”
“Ignore me at your peril, Clork!” The Immortal warned.
“I’m shaking, Immi. Shaking so hard I might knock Manskirt’s balls loose. So keep making me quake, you’re doing your little boy a big fucking favor.”
“Leave the boy out of this,” The Immortal stood.
“Or what? You’ll do nothing! Know why? I’ve had this entire room lined with quantum temporal disruptors. Your little future sight trick can’t see anything that might happen here. You are powerless, you sad, sandy twat.”
The Immortal slapped Clork hard enough that one of his dental caps popped off. It bounced merrily the length of the table, where a lucky servant swept it up and brought it to the kitchen area for cleaning. The Immortal being his responsibility, Hermes immediately placed a call to the emergency cosmetic dentist.
Clork looked up with a lopsided smile. “Is that the best you’ve got?”
“Not by a long shot,” The Immortal said. “But I know what side I’m on. If you’re not going to save this city, then I will.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Clork said. “And not for the first time today.”
Five finely muscled and impeccably groomed men charged into the room and overwhelmed The Immortal with pressure points, submission holds and greasy pelvic thrusts. “Say ‘Hello’ to my new private security force,” Clork bragged. “They’re called ‘The Groomed Men’.”
“More like the Dick Clork Five,” Manskirt said.
“Good one,” The Immortal managed sweatily from beneath a PVC-clad knee.
“Take him, too,” Clork thumbed toward Manskirt who stood and straightened his jacket before the leader of the Groomed Men grabbed him by the wisps on his chinny chin chin.
“Here’s what’s going to happen gentlemen,” Clork continued. “I’m going outside to meet the press and let them know who created this mess and who needs to be cleaning it up. When Captain Major has learned her lesson, we’ll be ready to save the day.”
“And the city?” the voice on the phone asked.
“If we can,” Clork said. “But sacrifices have to be made. I'm the regional manager. I’m not here to protect Metroville. I’m here to protect the region. After today, I don’t imagine any super will ever see their way to spurning Confederated Justice again.”
Dan Herbert Manskirt’s instructions from The Immortal were simple and infuriating. The Immortal had programmed his super computer to determine the Borer’s location. The Immortal, being temporarily imprisoned in Confederated Justice’s halls of holding, had whispered this to Manskirt during the few moments while they were jointly dragged out of the Confederated Justice board room. Then The Immortal was on his way to a cell and Manskirt was being thrown out the building and onto his ass. The Immortal had also taken the time to mention, as a point of pride, that his state of the art artificial intelligence had no name or personality. Why this mattered wasn’t clear. What was clear was that Manskirt would be on his own to collect the message from the nameless computer, find Captain Major, pass along the details and convince her of the reliability of his information.
Captain Major and Manskirt both being on
something of the outs with Confederated Justice, the meet up was proving to be more difficult than Manskirt had expected. Captain Major was not in the phone book or in any of the public records databases Manskirt could afford to search. She also wasn’t famous enough to be included on any celebrity stalking apps, so Manskirt had to improvise.
In truth, it wasn’t a particularly impressive social hack, but Manskirt was tremendously proud of himself nevertheless. He stayed puffed up for a full week afterwards. (Or, he will have stayed puffed up for a full week, if he and the city survive the impending doom. Shwew. Close one.) He rather purposelessly searched for Captain Major’s name in a news database. As he scanned through the results, he found some coverage of Captain Major’s Hero Con brouhaha which included a candid photo of Captain Major and her handler, identified as one Tamara Ammit. Tamara Ammit had a public identity and a professional profile on the Internet. Manskirt had her work number after two clicks and was speaking to her a few moments later.
Ammit was not inclined to set up any kind of meeting with Captain Major absent some proof of merit from Manskirt. They met at a coffee shop close to Ammit’s office with one of Ammit’s most imposing co-workers loitering around the fancy coffee pick up zone in case of trouble. Manskirt flashed his CFJ keys and credentials, along with his winningest smile. Ammit was satisfied with his provenance and agreed to arrange the meet.
For her part, Ammit had no way of directly contacting Captain Major. She wasn’t a permanent client, but Ammit had a way of anticipating people’s needs. Captain Major had a need to find the Borer and to keep an eye on the ragged remnants of the Menhevick community. Hence, a vaguely threatening anonymous post on the Menhevick website suggesting a dance with danger on a rooftop in the central city seemed like a proper invitation. Manskirt did his part by finding a way to the roof all by himself. He was also very proud of that accomplishment, accomplished, as it was, without setting off a single alarm.
Captain Major knew she was being baited, but desperate times demand calculated risks. As such, she arrived on the roof top of the Good Neighbors building, next door to the Fences building where the challenge was to take place. She stopped playing with her jacks and tucked them into a secret pocket within her costume when she saw Manskirt emerge from the stairwell. She could hear the wheezing as he tried to try to regain his breath from the long flights up. He poked around the roof while his lungs gasped for air, then seemed genuinely surprised that he was alone.
Still, Captain Major waited and watched. Manskirt checked his phone for the time repeatedly. Soon he got bored and found a place to sit facing the door. Minutes passed and he began to play on his phone and forgot to check the door. It was only when he seemed in danger of nodding off that Captain Major danced from one roof to the next to approach him from behind and demand answers.
Manskirt started at the noise behind him and dropped his phone, which went clattering across the roof. Manskirt began to chase after it, but Captain Major’s commanding voice rooted him in place.
“Why did you call me out?” Captain Major demanded.
“Call you out? What? No. I was told to meet you here,” Manskirt said. “To give you...”
“Who told you?” Captain Major asked.
“Tamara.”
“Tamara who?” Captain Major probed.
“Um,” Manskirt bit his tongue as he tried to recall her name. “Oh! God. Ammit! Tamara Ammit. She worked with you at HeroCon.”
“Tamara doesn’t know me,” Captain Major said. She thought hard about what little she knew about Tamara and began to see her designs on the evening. Yet, she wondered, whether Ammit herself could be trusted any more or less than the well-intentioned, slightly buffoonish character before her.
“What do you want to give me?”
“A message,” Manskirt explained. “From The Immortal. Coordinates. Where he expects the Borer to be tomorrow, before his deadline expires and he destroys the city.”
“I can’t trust you,” Captain Major said. “And I can’t fully trust the coordinates, even if they really do come from him.” Captain Major tapped the coordinates into her phone while she waited for a response. She desperately wanted to ask about The Immortal. She needed her friend and her friend needed her. She worried that she would fail her city and her best friend at the same time. Then Captain Major paused and wondered if and when The Immortal had become her best friend. Must have been one of those times when she died. Or the day trip they took to Palookaville for her first corn hole maize. (For details on what a corn hole maize is, visit https://www.jimdscott.com/ungrump/corn-hole-maize/.)
“But you can trust me,” Manskirt offered plaintively.
Captain Major rolled her eyes internally. “Well, that’s certainly good to know,” she said. “Thanks...”
“Daniel Herbert Manskirt,” Manskirt filled the pause.
Captain Major extended her hand to shake, but shimmied her index and middle fingers to the inside of Manskirt’s wrist. She passed a quick, enervating pulse of energy into him. She steadied him as his knees wilted.
“That’s a marker, Manskirt,” Captain Major explained as he examined the red dots burned into his skin. “It’s my fail safe for situations like this. If I’m not around to deactivate the satellite, a homing missile will explode directly above your coordinates in twelve hours. It’s a very good missile, so there’s no sense hiding. Best you can do is be sure you’re not around anyone you care about. If you’re the vindictive sort and the city still stands, invite an enemy to a casino brunch. Be sure to sit close.”
Captain Major gave Manskirt a bear hug that threatened to crack his ribs. She whispered in his ear before departing, not looking back: “Let’s just find out what you are, Manskirt.”
As she leaped from the rooftop down to the adjoining building, Leigh’s voice popped into her ear. “Was any of that real?”
“Coordinates might be,” Captain Major replied.
“The missile?”
“The missile? Absolute nonsense. All of this is nonsense. But if you’re not going to amuse yourself along the way, what’s the point?”
“The Borer’s deadline is in three hours, Captain,” Leigh said.
“Then no more nonsense for us,” Captain Major said. “Tonight, we battle.”
“And tomorrow we cook!” Leigh enthused.
Captain Major harrumphed. “Like you’re going to help.”
“This year for sure!” Leigh said.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Captain Major replied. She checked her bearings and began to race across the city toward destiny and, with any luck, yams.
Captain Major followed the coordinates toward the Green River which dominated the north side of Metroville. The Green River began its southerly course a few miles north of Metroville at Clear Spring Lake. It rambled through farmland and suburbia, picking up unhealthy doses of nitrogen all along the way. The massive algae blooms had helped morph the river’s original name — Greehan River, named for the first European family to permanently settle along that part of the river — into the Green River. Not all the maps had caught up just yet, nor would they as most of the Metroville residents were quickly forgetting that their paper maps still existed in glove boxes and those clever little sleeves on the backs of front seats.
On the other hand, Metroville residents were renowned across the world for their uncanny ability to fold maps back into their original incarnations for storage. Captain Major, of course, was not dwelling on this fact as the sun set behind her and she stared deep into the yawning mouth of the dank cave into which the Borer’s trail undoubtedly led.
The snap of a twig behind her prompted Captain Major to extend her twin falchions of plasmatic justice. She spun into a defensive pose known as the Viper Princess. It made her a small target, crouched over her fully bent left knee, and invited an attack on her fully extended right leg. It was the first position taught in Confederated Justice hand-to-hand combat lessons for none of these reasons. CFJ favored the stan
ce because it looked pretty awesome in photographs and was just suggestive enough to sneak into the subconscious without encountering any cultural or religious resistance along the way.
Winnie jumped back and nearly dropped her tablet when she recognized the response she had prompted. She tried quickly to explain and apologize, but her words got in the way of each other and all she could do was stammer and stumble backwards.
One more thing: despite the danger, the pose, one’s youth and the other’s eternal attractiveness, neither Captain Major nor Winnie was at all sexually aroused by the encounter. Even if either had been, both were fully aware of the seriousness of the moment. Also, too, one of them knew they were both being watched.
Captain Major scanned from side to side for other threats before relaxing into a standing pose. She rested her hands on her hips and softened her countenance just enough to remind Winnie that seriousness of purpose was required, without the steely glint of a deadly gaze.
“He’s near here,” Winnie explained.
“I know,” Captain Major said.
“How do you know?” Winnie asked.
Captain Major started to answer, then regained her guard. “The hero asks the questions in times like these. How do you know he’s near?”
“Well,” Winnie enthused. “I was playing around the website after I finished his ultimatum or whatever, and started looking at the counter on the website that tracked visitors. It’s just some off-the-shelf code. Very standard. But it has this hook where it tracks the real world position of visitors on the web site. That’s just the standard over-intrusion into what we think of as our private digital lives that we’re all accustomed to. What I don’t think the Borer realized is that when he downloaded this code, that website was tracking his position.”
“Go on,” Captain Major said. “I’m following.” This was not true.
“As a feature, the original download site inserted the geopositional coordinates of the downloader, in this case, the Borer or someone working for him, into the JavaScript before it was deployed to the Borer’s site. Looks like it was intended as a feature to track the furthest visitor or some kind of spiral map showing all the visitors using the original coordinates as the map’s center. I wasn’t sure what it was, to be honest, but I thought I’d check it out. So, here I am.”
“Not for long,” Captain Major said. “Leftenant, I need an extract.”
“What’s that?” Winnie asked.
“Also, what’s that?” Leigh asked over comms. “You mean like vanilla?”
“I’m not making cookies,” Captain Major replied. Winnie thought this was a pretty good catchphrase and hoped Captain Major would use it more in the future. Captain Major was on the fence about the quality of the catchphrase as she listened to a rustling on the wind and watched as Leigh Major finished her glide from the Green Bridge. She alit next to Winnie. Winnie started and Leigh tumbled as her feet slipped on the uneven ground. After a moment, Winnie offered Leigh her hand to help her to her feet while Leigh retracted the glide wings in her spanking new costume.
Leigh brushed the sand and fallen leaves from the pebbled black fabric that dominated her suit. Dots of pink added color to the ensemble. The fabric was motion sensitive: the more Leigh moved, the more pink appeared and the brighter it glowed. Leigh’s favorite parts of the costume were the kick-ass knee-high boots which kept her perpetually cold feet reassuringly warm. Her least favorite part of the costume was the half cape hanging from her shoulders. On the one hand, it was a key part of the cool glide mode The Immortal had engineered specially for her. On the other hand, it was childish and sidekickish and broke up her silhouette in an odd way. It was like the cape was always trying to cover the tramp stamp she didn’t have while reminding her of Neal Anderson’s honesty blanket, which she learned about in English literature because Dead Poets Society was literally the only movie with poetry in it that their substitute teacher had ever seen.
The worst part of the cape was that it was a smoky gray. It probably helped her blend in with the clouds on a dark night, but the color really didn’t go with the rest of her costume. Maybe it was a little too brown, which clashed with the perfect ebony that dominated her kit when she wasn’t moving.
She tried not to worry about it, hidden as she was behind a thick black mask which covered her eyes and most of her forehead and cheeks. Leigh thought it looked like a clip art tooth and complained as soon as she saw herself in the mirror. It functioned to cover the scars which were still slightly visible from her encounter with Bo Tannie. A wig of jet black hair fell to the middle of her back. Some of the stands were laced with industrial diamonds which glimmered in bright light and could cut a bitch deep when Leigh whipped her hair around in battle. That was according to the manual, which Leigh had reluctantly read as a precondition for joining her mother this night.
The kit was a good start, but it hadn’t helped Leigh and her mother come to agreement on a name.
“Call me Black Vengeance,” Leigh said as she struck a heroic pose.
“I will not,” Captain Major said. “I don’t know if I can spell ‘vengeance’ and that name suggests all kinds of experience which you don’t have, Leftenant.”
“As if I’m British,” Leigh complained. “Teen Angel! I could have like a 50s theme.”
“You won’t be a teen forever,” Captain Major said. “I hope.”
“The girl dies in that song,” Winnie added.
“That, too,” Captain Major turned to Winnie. “Leftenant will be removing you from danger. Now.”
“I wasn’t actually going to go into the cave,” Winnie said. “I’ve been wandering around listening to all these weird pneumatic noises. I know better than to enter the cave. I’m more than happy to head home now that you’re here.”
“Fine, then you can make sure that the Leftenant stays on the bridge,” Captain Major instructed.
“I should be going with you,” Leigh said.
“But you will not,” Captain Major said. “Maybe this lady can help you think of a name.”
“Oh, god. How rude. What’s your name?” Leigh asked.
“My friends call me Winnie.”
“Can you think of any pink names?” Leigh asked as she started walking toward the bridge.
“We’re walking?” Winnie asked.
“Yeah, I glide, I don’t fly. How about The Pink Glider?”
“That sounds like a lady’s razor.”
“I can cut a bitch,” Leigh enthused. She showed her hair to Winnie as they walked away from Captain Major’s remonstration: “Language!”
Captain Major watched the pair walk away, then turned back toward the cave. She could still hear Leigh’s side of the conversation over comms as they turned a corner and moved out of sight. Drawing her focus to the task at hand, Captain Major walked toward the cave.
As she entered the cave, Captain Major extended again her twin falchions of justice. The flickering, focused beams of energy partially illuminated the cave around her. She trod forward carefully, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dark.
She heard the strange pneumatic noises that Winnie had warned her of earlier. They seemed to be coming from beneath her, from deep within the cave. The noise moved about, sometimes to her left and sometimes to her right, but growing louder. She turned her head, listening carefully to try to understand what she was hearing from where.
Without warning, the floor beneath her gave way. She extended her toes and flexed her knees as she fell, feeling forward for the ground beneath her. As soon as her toes touched the ground she folded her knees and rolled forward. She completed half a roll before her back slammed into a solid dirt wall in front of her. She stood and assayed her surroundings. The hole above her extended further than she could jump and the walls appeared to be nigh unclimbable. She was in something of a dirt hall. The space was no more than ten feet in length and no more than four feet wide. Just a tube of air, eight feet high, in a field of brown, rocky earth.
Cap
tain Major noticed that the radio communications with Leigh were broken and that the hisses from before had been replaced with the clanks and wheezes of heavy machinery working in close proximity. She used her falchions to probe the walls. The dirt was solid everywhere she checked. Looking up the chimney she knew that she could either try to use her falchions to climb out of the tube or find a way to dig down toward the sounds of doom beneath her.
Captain Major, ever the hero, began to probe the dirt floor, looking for a way toward the danger only she could face.
She drove the plasma blade stemming from her right hand as deep as she could into the floor and began to slice through the dirt to make a hole she could peer into.
Before long, her right shoulder was burning with the effort. The heat of the falchion cutting through the dirt warmed the tube. She felt sweat begin to form under her mask. It dripped into her eyes. She had to pause to blink the saltiness away and wonder at the feature The Immortal had left out. Perhaps he had forgotten that a woman could sweat.
The floor rumbled. Dirt shook free from the ceiling and drifted to the floor. Captain Major adopted the Four Vee pose. She looked over her left shoulder, with her left hand protecting her throat and chin. She extended her right hand toward the ground behind her and parallel to the right leg she anchored into the floor. The left hand was her shield, the right was her counterstrike.
The Borer erupted from the floor just in front of her, the widest part of the drill head that was now his left arm chewing into her left foot. Captain Major swung to block the drill even as she toppled to the ground. She rolled into a ready stance just in time to cross her plasma blades above her head to block the drill rushing for her skull. She held the great weight above her, then gathered her strength to stand.
She heard the strange pneumatic clankery clank again just as she threw the Borer’s drill head away from her and prepared to strike him right in his stupid, smiling, over-confident face with his eyes shining with the knowledge of something — and, oh crap! — there it was. A snaky tube shot forth from the Borer’s right hand and plunged into her chest.
A bolus of compressed air shot into her body. She could feel her whole body inflate. A second shot swelled through her body. Every inch of her skin screamed in pain as she was stretched toward bursting in every direction. A third shot hit her and she swore that she was starting to float like a blimp.
Captain Major knew that a fourth blast of air would mean her death, again, and the destruction of the city that, despite everything, she was still more than fond of. Especially since it was still the home for her family and friends. She struggled to overcome the pain and to strike back at the Borer, but she found that her limbs were no more mobile than the limbs on Confederated Justice’s helium balloons as they delighted the tourists on St. Patrick’s Day by parading across the bridge over the River Green.
The Borer leaned further forward, stretching his neck to get as close as he could to Captain Major’s face to taunt her bizarrely inflated body. “I hate to kill you,” he said. “Now that you have perfect tits.”
“You can kill her if you want,” Leigh Major’s voice called from behind the Borer. “But fuck you if you’re going to misquote Captain Major’s favorite movie.”
The Borer turned. Leigh Major threw everything she had into a mighty front kick that caught the Borer in the solar plexus. The wind rushed out of him and he toppled forward to his knees. Leigh spun and chopped through the tube connecting the Borer to Captain Major. A giant rush of air shot from both ends, throwing dirt all around, blinding both Majors. Leigh crawled to her mother’s side to catch her as she deflated while the Borer escaped downward under cover of dust.
“I’ll let that one slide,” Captain Major sighed as she grasped her daughter’s hand and pulled herself up.
“You could be a Sith Kicker,” Captain Major coughed.
“Language!” Leigh scolded.
“It’s a kick ball team that ought to recruit you,” Captain Major dusted herself.
“Kill me,” Leigh replied. “Kick ball is for olds.”
“An activity would be good for you. How ‘bout Quartz?” Captain Major suggested.
“Quartz?” Leigh Major repeated.
“Or Crystal,” Captain Major explained. “Because you’ve got such good timing.”
“What does quartz have to do with timing?” Leigh asked.
“The use it in watches, I think,” Captain Major explained.
“You mean like an NTP server?” Leigh suggested.
“What’s an NTP server?” Captain Major asked.
“Network Time Protocol. That’s a triple fail, Captain Major,” Leigh said. “Quartz, crystal and NTP. How about the Dread Pirate Robin?”
“That’s awful long,” Captain Major said. “And Robin might already be taken.”
With that, Captain Major fused one end of the flexible tube to a boulder, wrapped the other around her wrist and dove head first into the Borer’s escape hole.
Leigh waited for a moment, on the lookout for giant rats or possibly round dragons. Seeing neither, she climbed hand under hand down the tube and into the depths of the Borer’s lair.
When Leigh reached the bottom, she found Captain Major crouched behind a rock. Captain Major gestured for Leigh to be silent, then indicated that she should peek around the boulder toward the far end of the cavern. Leigh looked. She saw a collection of computers and industrial mining equipment at the far end. At the center of what appeared to be the command center she saw Bo Tannie manipulating the controls.
“What’s that dick doing here?” Leigh whispered.
“Duh,” Captain Major said. “He’s your nemesis now.”
“But what’s he doing? His name is Bo Tannie. Bo. Tannie. Botany? There are no plants down here at all. Thematically, it makes no sense.”
“What’s in a name?” Captain Major quoted.
“Ooh. I could be the Rose!” Leigh suggested. “Look how I thorn!”
Captain Major held her finger to her lips again, then waggled her hand to indicate that the name still wasn’t quite right.
Winnie’s voice came over their radios. “You have less than two minutes, Captain Major and friend!” Leigh pointed to the inside of her black leather glove where her spare communicator was missing. Captain Major nodded. “And that’s what she said! Sorry, I was on mute before.” Captain Major and Leigh took the time to mentally review their conversation, then groaned inwardly at each other.
“I don’t see the Borer, but there’s no time. Wait here,” Captain Major grabbed Leigh firmly by the shoulders, sitting her down while she stood herself up. “I’ve got this.”
Captain Major emerged from the shadow of the boulder and began to race toward Bo Tannie and the controls he manipulated. As she ran forward, she heard heavy rumbling above her. Dirt fell from the ceiling again. In the next instant, a series of heavy rocks began tumbling through shafts bored into the ceiling. They fell and crashed around her.
Captain Major dodged around the first few boulders. One split as it fell in front of her. She leaped atop the boulder and launched herself over two more. She was close enough to Bo Tannie to see his face turn green and his pants turn yellow as a final boulder fell on her right leg, pinning her in place.
The Borer dropped from the ceiling and landed hard on the rock and Captain Major’s leg. He brought his drill hand to bear, aiming it directly for Captain Major’s heart. Captain Major threw all her energy into her right arm, doubling the normal size of her plasma falchion. She drove it hard into a crack in the boulder, reaching forward until the blade was fully buried in the stone. With a triumphant cry she sent another surge of energy through the blade, shattering the stone and sending the Borer falling backwards.
Captain Major and the Borer gathered themselves. The Borer strafed to his right, trying to move between Captain Major and Bo Tannie. Captain Major knew that time was running out, but her energy was temporarily depleted. Even the energy stored in her new suit was gone, maki
ng that feature an entirely irrelevant detail in this tale. She gathered what energy she could, but knew that she couldn't gather enough to defeat the Borer in time. She looked up and saw that Bo Tannie had turned his attention to the control panel. The countdown was inching forward. The map above him showed a glowing series of dots marking an impossible number of explosives ready to detonate and bring all of Metroville crumbling to the ground.
Captain Major didn’t have time to wonder whether Lou had gotten to safety. She didn’t have to wonder about Leigh. She felt the rush of energy moving past her on the left. “Overload it!” she called to Leigh as she raced past.
“Nut him!” Leigh replied. Captain Major turned her head to see that Leigh had cut a square piece of structural steel from somewhere and was throwing it to her. The Borer lunged his drill toward Leigh, the greater threat. Captain Major caught the steel bulwark and used the last of her energy to punch a fist-sized hole through the middle, racing to intercept the Borer as she did so. She shoved the steel onto the Borer’s spinning drill head.
The Borer staggered under the weight. The drill head spun forward into the warm hole of the heavy steel nut. The moment of inertia suddenly changed as the drill head fused with the bulkhead. The Borer fell to his face, his outstretched drill arm still in front of him, still spinning. The nut at the end of the drill began gouging deep chunks of dirt from the floor as it circumscribed a circle with the Borer flopping at the center.
Bo Tannie stepped away from the control panel as Leigh reached it. She spread her fingers over the panel and sent every joule of plasmatic energy she had into the equipment. Sparks flew wildly and the monitors exploded, but still the countdown beeped toward zero. Bo knew uninterruptible power supplies.
Bo grabbed a steel folding chair by the legs and slammed it across Leigh’s back. She fell forward with the impact, but her head jerked back as her forehead cracked against the metal lip of the control panel.
The timer was at 3 with Captain Major blocked from the control panel by the herky jerky wind-up toy flailings of the still nutted Borer. The timer was at 2 when Bo Tannie slammed the chair onto Leigh a second time as she struggled to her feet.
The timer was at 1 when Winnie’s faint sob was broadcast over the radio.
The timer was at 0 when Lou finished sprinting another quarter mile and began to walk toward the starting line to start another interval. Randy checked his stop watch and called out Lou’s time. They chose to head for the track rather than for the hills. If Randy had been nice to Dee and listened to her in the same week, she would have died of shock before she had a chance to save her city.
The timer stopped beeping and nothing continued to happen. The Borer’s drill finally exhausted its energy supply. Captain Major stepped on the Borer’s arm and wondered whether it would be a kindness or a cruelty to amputate at the elbow.
Bo looked around, confused that nothing had happened until he saw the bundle of wires melted beyond recognition between the control panel and the communications relay. The timer had expired, but the signal to detonate had not reached the charges.
Leigh stood, her head foggy and her power still drained. She walked to where Bo stood, staring agape at the ruined cabling. She spun him roughly to face her and threw a right cross to his jaw. The crack was satisfying as was the pain in her knuckles. Bo refused to fall, so Leigh drove her knee into his damp groin.
Bo groaned and fell to the floor while Leigh lamented soiling her new costume with Bo’s urine.
The Majors stood over their vanquished foes in triumph. They shared a smile. Captain Major called to Winnie. “We’re ready for the cleaners, Winnie. Threat is neutralized, two turds are ready to be flushed.”
After a long pause, Winnie replied. “Great. But what exactly am I supposed to do about it?”
“Nothing, my dear,” The Immortal replied. Winnie looked above her at the sound of a helicopter descending. “Leave the tidying up to me.”
Saturday, November 27, 2011
The city basked in its safety, for the time being at least, and gave thanks for all the other things they had reason to be thankful for. Dee and Leigh Major stood at the final turn in the Metroville Turkey Run watching the runners race by. Leigh spotted Lou, red-faced and focusing intently on the runner in front of him. His costume’s snood and wattle bounced from side to side with each stride. Yes, snood and wattle. Look it up.
“Keep going, Lou!” Dee cried. “I love you!”
Leigh shook her head at her mother. “Run, Lou, run!” she yelled as the racers moved past and headed for the finish line.
In the last ten yards, Lou pulled even with the young man in a pilgrim hat that he was hunting down. For two strides they were even, then Lou leaned forward where the finish line tape would have been, had they been winning, rather than finishing 31st and 32nd overall.
Lou slowed from his sprint to a jog to a walk, which he continued until he was a safe distance away from the finish line. He leaned forward to rest his hands on his knees and panted. He smiled broadly after a volunteer congratulated him for winning his age group (among costumed runners).
Dee and Leigh walked together toward the finish line. From a distance, they saw the young runner who Lou overtook approach him. They spoke and Lou smiled. Something else was said and Lou’s face changed. He was suddenly angry. The other runner took a step away. Lou stepped after him, reaching a hand out to grab his arm.
Randy appeared, as if from nowhere, calling Lou’s name. Lou heard him and turned to embrace his father.
“Oh, God, you smell like shit,” Randy said as he clapped Lou’s back. “Great race, son. Too bad you can’t outrun that smell.”
“Thanks, dad,” Lou said.
“You do smell awful,” Leigh said as she reached her brother. “But great finish.”
“Ten K is your distance,” Dee said.
“Thanks, guys,” Lou said. “I need a drink.”
“That’s my boy,” Randy said.
“He means a sports drink, dad,” Leigh said as she walked away. “I’ll go find one.”
“I think they’re over there,” Lou pointed in the opposite direction from where Leigh was heading.
“On it!” Randy said. Dee reached out and handed him a note before he trotted off in the direction where Lou pointed. After ten steps, he felt a cramp and slowed to an unsteady walk. He unfolded the note and read it as he walked.
Randy:
I’m sorry I ruined your favorite stein. I thought it was dishwasher safe.
I’m sorry I didn’t get you Resident Evil IV for your birthday. I know that’s what you wanted most of all.
I’m sorry that I wasn’t always honest with you, especially about my feelings.
— Dee
“Anything else you need?” Dee asked Lou when they were alone.
Lou grew suddenly serious. He hugged his mom, but only so that he could whisper in her ear. “The guy I beat knows who I am,” Lou said.
“He does now,” Dee agreed.
“But he knows who you are, too,” Lou added.
Dee held Lou away from her and studied him carefully. Lou nodded slowly, solemnly.
“This is no way to end the day,” Dee said.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Lou replied.
“As soon as we think we’re done with one thing a new thing starts,” Dee mused.
Leigh returned with a drink for Lou. He gulped it eagerly. “I don’t know what you dudes are talking about,” Leigh said. “But believe me: I’m ready to start some shit.”
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