by Nick Svolos
Glorious Leader landed a short distance away. “OK, this should be good. It’ll take the Army a while to get out here.” He walked towards me.
“Suits me,” I said, as I reached down to pick up one of the trees by the trunk and swung it like a baseball bat right into the dictator’s grinning face. His grin disappeared in an explosion of splintered wood, knocking him backwards and bowling over a stand of trees. I launched myself at him before he could recover and caught him with a right to the side of the head.
He flung his arms up to ward off my left. “Hey! What the hell was that for?”
His arms were high, protecting his head, leaving his midsection wide open. I hit him just below the ribs, shouting, “For the reporters you put in your damned little dungeon!” His body bent double around my fist, gasping for air.
I saw my chance to finish this, so I raised my fists to slam them down on the back of his head. When I brought them down, however, he was gone, and all I managed to do was create a fairly impressive crater in the dirt. I looked up to see him flying away.
Oh, hell no.
I took to the air and easily overtook him. As previously mentioned, Ultiman isn’t the fastest flier, but his powers made me faster than this guy. I reached out and grabbed his cape. I crossed my eyes and focused on stopping, and I felt a jerk as both of our forward progress stopped. Twisting, I swung him around a few times and let go. He crashed back into the clearing we’d created in the forest in a cloud of dirt and splintered trees.
And that, my friends, is why almost nobody wears a cape anymore.
I launched myself down towards the epicenter. “That one was for threatening your own people!”
I found him in a wide divot his impact had torn in the earth. I went at him, ready to try for another finishing blow. This one would be for imprisoning my girlfriend, but at the last second I had to stop. I wasn’t ready for what I saw.
He surrendered. He got down on his knees, put his hands behind his head and just stayed there.
“Please. Just stop. I give up,” he called out.
Of all the possible ways I’d envisioned this evening going, I gotta say, this wasn’t one of them. To say I was at a loss for words would be putting it mildly. Like calling the sinking of the Lusitania a minor boating accident.
“Uh, what?” was my incredibly heroic and cool reply.
“I thought you understood. Look man, just chill. Truce, OK? Let me explain?”
Was this some sort of trick? “Alright, spill it,” I suspiciously ordered. “No sudden moves.”
He nodded weakly. “It’s not me. It’s General Ahn. All of it. The journalists, The Angels, the people at the airport. It was him.”
Something clicked in my head. I remembered the look on his face when Ahn sicced his soldiers on me. It was still a bit much for me to get my head around, and I didn’t let down my guard; but I thought I’d better hear him out.
“What? Wait a minute, why are you letting him get away with it? You could just clean his clock.”
“He’s holding my family hostage. One word from him, and they all die.” He gave me a second to process that before continuing, “That’s why I’ve been trying so hard to get you out here. I figured you were my best chance at getting the word out to someone. You’ve got a reputation.”
“Alright, why don’t you just go get your family and get them out? Then you could come back and settle his hash once and for all?”
“The concept of family is different here, Conway. When an American talks about family, you’re talking about parents and siblings. I gotta look out for my cousins and their families, too. We’re talking about sixty or seventy people. They’re too spread out. It’s too much for one guy, even me. I can’t do it on my own.”
“Assuming I believe this, how the hell do you expect me to help? When I go public with this, won’t he just bring the hammer down on your folks?”
He shook his head. “He has a family, too. So do his supporters. They know if he kills my people, there’s nothing holding me in check. We’re in a stalemate. He might make things hard on me, but that’s all he could do. I was hoping The Angels might help once they found out what was going on.” He shrugged, defeated. “Fat chance, now. You’re my last hope, Conway.”
I felt like somebody had just picked up the world like it was a snow globe and given it a good shake. This whole thing could be a lie, but somehow I knew it wasn’t. I plopped down on the ground beside him.
“When you busted out of jail, it was obvious you were a super. Then, when you showed up tonight, I thought you had the whole thing figured out. Figured you wanted to stage a fight to give me cover. Guess I misread that,” he rubbed his jaw. “Man, you’re tough. Why have you been hiding this?”
“I haven’t. Long story. Let’s just say these powers are on loan.” I groaned. “Crap, my first superhero fight and it turns out I’m the villain. Sorry, man.”
He chuckled. “Don’t sweat it. I guess I looked like the bad guy from your perspective. I don’t feel so bad, now. Getting beat down by Ultiman’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Ultiman? Who said anything about him?”
He laughed. “Our containment tech isn't as good as yours. Reverse-engineered crap based on an early Galestorm prototype we ‘acquired’. It inhibits the powers, but not well enough to negate the hunger. Ultiman’s the only one who’s not eating enough to feed a small village. I was wondering what was up with him, and now I know. So, if you didn't come here to help me, why'd you do all this?”
“I need to get The Angels home, and quick. Where are they?”
“They’re in a facility near Chollima. Southwest of Pyongyang. I’ll get you a map. But, look, you gotta be careful. There’s a full battalion there.”
“How many guys is that?”
“About eight hundred.”
“Crap.” I knew they couldn’t hurt me, but I couldn’t say the same for what might happen to them if I had to fight my way through that many soldiers. “Any way to get them away from the prison? If all those guys start shooting at me, people are gonna get hurt.”
“‘Fraid not. They’re all Ahn’s men. But, you’re not thinking like a super. You don’t have to go in through the front door. You can literally break in from above.” He looked me in the eyes. “So, once you get them out, I suppose you’re all leaving?”
“Have to. The guy who framed you, Dr. Schadenfreude, is going to unleash a nanovirus on a global scale. He’s going to test it out on Los Angeles on Saturday. Then, he’ll set it loose on the rest of the planet. It takes away everyone’s superpowers, leading to some really bad things down the road.”
“Wow. How bad are we talking?”
“Bad. End of the world bad.”
“What? How do you know that?”
“Time travel. I’m not supposed to reveal spoilers. ‘Nuff said?”
He shrugged. “Hard to believe, but yeah. ‘Nuff said.”
“Anyhow, I need to stop him, and for that, I need the team.”
“Won’t Schadenfreude just unleash the virus when he sees you guys coming?”
That was a good point. I rubbed my forehead. Man, I was really bad at this superhero stuff. “Yeah, probably. Crap, I haven’t thought that far ahead.” I mulled it over in silence for a minute. I needed an edge. I racked my brain for answers, trying to figure out what Herculene or Ultiman or any one of the other heroes I’d known would have done. For about the hundredth time, I wished Doughboy had just taken the damned Force himself. He had experience with this stuff. Why would he trust a rookie with the fate of the world? What could I do that he couldn’t?
And then, like the sun breaking through storm clouds, I had it. Something so hare-brained that only a guy like me might have a chance at pulling it off. I grinned at the North Korean dictator. “Does Philodox owe you any favors?”
***
I hovered far above the prison facility. Chollima glowed dimly a few miles to my south and I could see the lights of Pyongyang to the northe
ast. This had to be the place. I munched on an energy bar while I checked the map again and tried to orient myself. Glorious Leader had marked the building I wanted while we were in a bunker near where we had our fight. Now, my only problem was in matching the map up with the real thing.
After our fight but before the Army could show up, Glorious Leader had led me to a bunker—he explained it was one of many in the region—was an underground affair that hadn’t seen use in years. Everything was covered in dust and it still had pictures of the Kim family hanging on its walls. The phone still worked, though, which he used to call Philodox. Once I explained Dr. Schadenfreude’s caper, the Russian villain was only too eager to help me toss a monkey wrench into it. Once we had our scheme in place, I assured Glorious Leader I’d get his story out. We’d work out a plan to get his family to safety after the immediate threat was dealt with.
Dealing with the immediate threat wasn’t gonna happen if I busted into the wrong building, though. This had to be done quick, before some enterprising guard could react and machinegun the defenseless Angels in their containment cells. There had been some changes made to the facility since this map was printed up, and it was frustrating trying to figure out which one matched up with the target. I dropped down a thousand feet, dodging the ever-moving spotlights the soldiers were waving around, risking discovery for a closer look.
That did the trick. I tucked the map into the back pocket of my fraying slacks, focused on the building in question and willed myself downward as fast as I could go. It took scant seconds to reach the roof, and just before I hit, I shifted my focus to an imaginary point beneath its surface and threw a driving haymaker into the reinforced concrete. I crashed through into a control room, trailing rebar and cement, and my momentum smashed me through the room’s floor. I recovered quickly, though, and rose back up into the room to see two stunned guards staring at me. Before they could raise an alarm, I put them both to sleep with gentle love-taps.
The room had two steel doors, and I ripped the first one off its hinges. Behind it, I found an orange glow emanating from the end of a corridor. This must be the place. I looked around for a way to shut down the containment field. Naturally, all the labels were in Korean, so I was stumped. Time was a factor; I didn’t know how long it would take before somebody came to investigate the racket I’d created. A less elegant solution was called for. I started smashing stuff, ripping out cables, and generally making a sparking, smoking mess out of the control room until the orange glow went dark.
I trotted down the corridor to find The Angels looking back at me in surprise.
“Hey,” SpeedDamon said. “It’s Reuben Conway!”
“Yeah, I’m here to rescue you.”
“Aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper?” Mentalia observed with a smirk.
“How long ya been waiting to use that line?”
She grinned. “Only about half my life.”
Herculene tore the door to her cell open, ran over and smothered me in a hug, lifting me bodily from the ground. She laughed and kissed me before I could say a word.
I gently pried myself free. “Later, babe. We gotta get out of here.”
The team, freed from the effects of the nullifier beams, made quick work of their prison cells. Moments later, we were walking down the hallway.
A voice called out from behind us, “Are you not forgetting someone?”
“Dios mio,” Suave smacked his forehead. “So sorry, Ultiman.” He went back and blasted his cell door open, freeing the powerless team leader. We’d all forgotten, myself included. This was going to take some getting used to. I hoped it wouldn’t be long before we could find a way to get his powers transferred back.
Once our embarrassed laughter had died down, Mentalia wrapped one of her bubbles around everyone but me and sped them skyward toward the airport. Ultiman asked me to fly cover outside the bubble in case the Army figured out where we were and sent some jets after us. Mentalia could probably fend off anything they could send our way, but we had to worry about a stray missile crashing into Pyongyang. If it came to that, my job would be to play birddog and make sure it didn’t come down in a populated area.
Fortunately, that didn’t happen and the only violence our trip experienced was some ineffective ground fire from the troops surrounding the AngelJet. I contacted Kirk to make sure her people were clear. By now, I expected her and her group to be safely aboard their diplomatic jet and hopefully far away.
The North Koreans had other ideas.
“We’re on the plane,” she explained. “But we have a problem. The Army has a tank parked on the runway. We can’t take off.”
“Hang on a sec. I’ll be right there.”
Ultiman was getting the AngelJet prepared to take off, and I explained the situation to him. “I’m going to go over there and get them off the ground. I’ll catch up, OK?”
“Roger,” he said, fitting a communicator into his ear. “Once they are clear, please fly cover for us until we are out of Korean airspace, Mr. Conway. They may not let us go without a fight.”
“You bet.” I left the cockpit. I was about to give Herculene a quick smooch for luck, but I noticed my fellow journalists anxiously watching the proceedings, so I gave her a wink instead, and left the jet. The Army was getting desperate now, and as I flew to the runway, bullets bounced off me like rain. It’s funny. Even though I knew I was impervious to their weapons, I still found myself flinching. I guess it took more than bullet-proof skin to overcome instinct. Besides, it still hurt like hell.
I found the runway easily. The State Department jet sat with its engines running, staring down the barrel of a DPRK tank. First things first. I bent the barrel of the tank’s main gun, just in case the gunner had an itchy trigger finger. I did the same to the secondary machine guns and knocked on the top hatch, calling out, “Buckle up boys, we’re going for a little ride.” They couldn’t understand me, but how often does a guy like me get to do something like this? A wisecrack seemed appropriate. I went to the front of the war machine to try to figure out how to pick the damned thing up.
Tanks are heavy, but I now had the strength to juggle three of ‘em. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was figuring out how to get one off the ground in the first place. It wasn’t like they built these things with carrying handles. To make matters worse, most of the equipment the DPRK had was crappy, obsolete cast-offs from the old Soviet days. I couldn’t afford to have this thing fall apart on the runway.
I finally managed to work my way under the tank and get a hand-hold on the front axle. It seemed sturdy enough and I gave the massive vehicle a lift over my head. That’s when the Universe decided it was time for another physics lesson. A tank weighs sixty tons or so. When you lift one up, it doesn’t get any lighter. So, all that weight gets transferred to whatever’s holding it up. In this case, it was my size elevens. I could get into a lengthy discussion about the tensile strength of the material used in runway construction, but that takes a lot of math and I’d have to look stuff up, and I think you get the picture. My legs punched through the runway and sank into the earth up to my knees.
I wondered if George Plimpton ever had a day like this.
So, there I was, legs stuck in the ground, holding an ancient Russian tank over my head. I didn’t want to set the tank down. It had taken me long enough to figure out how to get it off the ground in the first place. I couldn’t toss it, the crew could get hurt pretty badly if I did something like that. If I tried walking out of this mess, I’d only tear up the runway even more, and that might make it impossible for the plane to take off, which was the whole point of this little adventure in the first place. The only way out was up. I couldn’t see through the tank, though, and so far, the only way I’d managed flying was by looking where I wanted to go. I closed my eyes, remembering Hawes’ advice that it was really my mind that was doing this, and focused on moving upwards. I felt my feet come off the ground and out of the holes I’d dug. I resisted the urge to chee
r. I didn’t want to spoil my concentration. Soon, I was off to the side of the runway and set the tank down.
Whoever the driver was, he was on the ball, and he threw the tank in gear and tried to drive back to the runway. Well, you can’t fault the guy for staying on-task. I tugged the tank back like a misbehaving dog and ripped off the treads. Kirk’s plane was already racing down the runway and seconds later it was aloft.
“That was amazing, Reuben,” Kirk said over the communicator.
“I’m not gonna lie, it was kinda fun. Say, tell your pilot to link up with the AngelJet. I’ll fly cover until you’re out of Korean airspace.”
“Way ahead of you. Ultiman’s already given us our flight plan.”
“Well, then. Sit back and enjoy the unfriendly skies.”
I didn’t really know how to find the AngelJet, so I followed the State Department plane. I had to work really hard to keep up. I hoped Ultiman was allowing for my much slower speed, otherwise the jets would quickly outpace me and I’d be in for a long, lonely trip home.
You know what the other thing they don’t show you in the movies is? Once you get a few thousand feet off the ground, it’s cold. I mean, really cold. I felt it earlier, when I was flying around the Pyongyang area, but those were pretty short trips. I didn’t suffer from it; somehow my body adjusted and kept my core temperature up. But, I could tell that it was very cold. Like, taking a dip in the ocean on New Year’s day cold. I flew through a cloud and wound up covered in a thin coat of ice crystals.
Hey, I was from Santa Monica. Cold was something we visited on winter weekends, after a long drive to Big Bear. We played around in it, went skiing, threw a couple of snowballs and then drove home for a nice dinner at a restaurant by the beach. We didn’t really do cold. Certainly not cold like this.
After a few minutes, we caught up with the AngelJet, and together we headed east. A little while later, Ultiman alerted me to a pair of “bogeys” inbound. I looked around and spotted their lights behind me, coming up fast. I dropped back to match their speed and trajectory. In the dim starlight, I could see they were both Russian MIGs, armed with guns and nasty-looking missiles. I figured I could stop the missiles, if they were really serious about stopping our escape from their east-Asian worker’s paradise, but if they got close enough to use those guns… well, I figured it would be best if I convinced them not to get that close.
