Temporary Superheroine

by Irene Vartanoff

  Within minutes, I was seated in her large corner office, having recounted what had happened today.

  “Those nasty henchmen of the Purple Menace aren’t likely to show up here again, are they?” she asked. “I just got my carpet cleaned.”

  How self-absorbed this woman was. I often felt my real mother was callous and unconcerned, but by comparison, she was doting. I let the thought go. This wasn’t the time to decide which Barb I liked best.

  “The Purple Menace’s minions are cooling their heels in Iceland, waiting for me to arrive. Which won’t happen. No need to worry about them,” I said.

  “Uh, Barb,” I could not resist asking. “Could you try the trance thing you did before and find out where Eric is—my Eric from my world?”

  “Oh?” She gave me a speculative look.

  “He said to meet him at the Sky Tower, but he never showed. Only the Purple Menace was there, acting creepy, pretending to be Eric.” I couldn’t help a small shudder, remembering the mixture of sensuality and fear I’d experienced with the wrong Eric Wood.

  “Are you sure you want to know?”

  “I’ve thought about the possibility Eric has been helping the Purple Menace all along, if that’s what you mean.” I couldn’t keep my misery entirely out of my voice.

  “Wait until you complete your task. The mind link can work in two directions. Every minute you’ve spent in this dimension has linked you more strongly to the others,” she warned.

  She didn’t have to say the obvious. If my Eric was on the bad side, linking to him would put me and my grand plan in extreme jeopardy. I nodded.

  “I’ll try the lucid dream first.”

  “Using that?” Barb regarded the laptop computer I’d open as if it was some kind of strange animal that might bite.

  “It’s my medium,” I explained. “The idea is to project the drawings from Dave’s computer into my own brain, and make them come true and influence events on this world and on my own.”

  “You believe this crack-brained idea will work?” She laughed, her disdain obvious. She went back to her desk and sat behind it, automatically taking on her customary mantle of authority. Now she reminded me of my own Barb.

  I could have taken offense, but she had helped me all along. She deserved an explanation.

  “I’ll utilize the three constants of this situation, dreams, drawings, and computers,” I explained. “Plus I’ll access the science of your world.”

  “You think you can exercise influence as Dave does?”

  “Barb, does he phone you? Write you letters he sends by mail?”

  “No,” she said. “He appears in my dreams. But he’s real, and you being here is the proof.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Everyone says his dreams influence your world. I intend to turn my drawings into lucid dreams, specific dreams. With luck my dreams will turn into your world’s new reality.”

  She made an impolite noise.

  “I’ve got Dave’s computer, my drawings, and Dave’s blood in my veins,” I said. “It’s worth a try.”

  “Sheer nonsense.”

  “Comic book science,” I shrugged, “Yet it is the real science of your world.”

  “What if your idea doesn’t work?”

  “I’ll try something else,” I said.

  I quickly reviewed the scenes I’d drawn on my ride back from Iceland, plus a new one Dave had drawn at my request. In it, he arrived in this world with all his most prized possessions. I lay back on the couch and closed my eyes. “Here goes.”

  Did I sleep, or merely go into a trance? Did I daydream, or lucid dream? I concentrated on my vision of Dave in this world, a happy and productive Dave whose life here served to help this world become more ideal. I called up a Purple Menace who paid his debt to society, earning his way back to a happy place in it.

  I don’t know how much time went by. Only a few minutes? More? I noticed background noises, quiet voices, and office machinery humming again. Finally, I knew I had done all I could. I sensed it hadn’t been enough.

  I opened my eyes. Barb was staring straight at me, in a trance. I waited. A minute later, she took a deep breath.

  “Nothing has changed. The Purple Menace has recovered from the bomb blast, managed to escape our police, and is about to cross to your world. You must leave right now, or be trapped again.”

  I sat up anxiously. “What about Eric?”

  “It’s too late. You must save both our worlds.”

  Was he dead? Was that why he never showed at the Sky Tower?

  “Go back to your world. I’ll keep trying to finalize your project,” she gestured at the computer. “I do have some powers.”

  “But Eric?”

  “He’s not in this dimension anymore.” She made a shooing gesture. “Go now.”

  As fast as I could, I said the chant in reverse.

  I landed on the familiar sidewalk in my world, outside Dave’s studio, with nary a hat on a person in sight. Bricks lay scattered on the sidewalk. I stared upward, but couldn’t see from where the bricks had fallen. I had a bad feeling. Coincidence, or big trouble?

  I raced up the seven-and-a-half-flights of stairs to Dave’s studio even faster than I had an hour before.

  The office was in shambles. The window and a large part of the surrounding brick wall was gone. So was Dave. Jerry was leaning out through the gaping hole. He turned around and saw me.

  “The Purple Menace grabbed Dave and flew off with him. It just happened.”

  I’d never seen him this excited. Life had suddenly imitated art. Anybody would get a rush.

  “Where are Dave’s drawings?”

  “There.” He pointed at the floor.

  “Could you finish them?” I asked.

  Jerry shook his head. “Sorry. I don’t tell people, but I have a familial tremor that got worse with age. I haven’t been able to draw for years.”

  “Then we’re screwed.”

  Plus I had to somehow rescue Dave.

  Barb’s phone beeped. “Roland is on the line saying the Purple Menace is approaching the Empire State Building. He’s got Dave. What do you want Roland to do?”

  “Tell him to keep an eye on them.” I snatched up Dave’s rough drawings. I had attempted to substitute for him in the other dimension, but it hadn’t worked. I’d try again here.

  “Call the other spotters in midtown,” I said. “I’ll go to the Empire State Building.”

  Barb shook her head. “In traffic? No way you’ll get there in time.”

  “I have to try.”

  As I ran out the door, Jerry yelled. “Wait. Look who’s here.”

  A transporter bubble pulled up to the gaping hole in the studio wall. Eric piloted it. The real Eric this time. It had to be. He slid the door open.

  “Get in.” he called to me. He was smiling. I started smiling, too, even as I ran for the bubble and awkwardly clambered over the remains of the wall to board.

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes,” I exclaimed. I didn’t resist the urge to fling my arms around Eric’s neck. I grabbed him and hung on.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, releasing me. He pointed at my singed right arm and missing uniform sleeve.

  “Previous encounter. I’ll live.”

  “Right,” he said. “What’s the plan?”

  “The Empire State Building. Step on it.” I answered, grinning.

  We took off in a hurry. Eric sent the bubble downtown with a sure touch.

  “Why didn’t you meet me at the Sky Tower?” I asked.

  “The Purple Menace began to control my thoughts early this morning. That’s why I left, to keep you safe.”

  “What about when I met up with you in Iceland?”

  “He sent me to make that scene and confuse you. He controlled all my actions there.”

  “You mean, you would have explained everything to me if you could?” I threw him a doubtful glance.

  “I would have warned you against him. Instead, I was compelled to invit
e you into his trap.”

  “Why wasn’t Iceland the trap?”

  “Not his style.” Eric shrugged. “That raging egomaniac always chooses something elaborate.”

  Being under the Purple Menace’s influence let Eric off the hook about confiding in me. Sort of. I wasn’t sure. “What happened after Iceland?” I asked.

  We were getting close to 34th street. We had little time for explanations and anyway, Eric was concentrating on piloting the bubble transporter. Still, I had to know.

  “Tell me,” I urged.

  Eric glanced in my direction. “I was forced to go to the Sky Tower. After that, I have the distinct impression the Purple Menace traded bodies with me for a while. I don’t remember exactly. I know I woke up in a closet in the Sky Tower with an aching chest, as if I had suffered a blow.”

  Oh, ack. The Purple Menace was using Eric’s actual body when I almost yielded to the sexual lure? And when I zapped him, the body transference reversed? Could that be?

  “Do you remember trying to have sex with me there?”

  “What?”

  As we arrived on 34th Street west from Fifth Avenue, we rose much higher, until we were on the same level as the tower. “Forget it. I see Roland,” I said.

  Roland stood on the lower observation deck—the open-air one. He was urgently pointing uptown, using his whole arm. My cell rang. It was him.

  “Chloe,” Roland’s voice poured in. “The Purple Menace couldn’t find the bomb. It was already removed. He took off, carrying Dave under his arm, going northeast. Maybe to Grand Central Station?”

  “Thanks.” I waved bye to Roland and relayed the location to Eric. He steered us uptown and east to 42nd Street.

  “He might be heading for the Chrysler Building or the Citigroup Center instead. He had bombs in both buildings.”

  Eric nodded. He must have gotten a quick course in piloting, because he handled the controls smoothly. We barreled along without any of the swaying and bouncing I’d subjected the transporter bubble to only yesterday.

  “What did you do after you woke up in the Sky Tower?” I wanted the whole story.

  “Got the hell out of there.” Eric gave me a wry look. “Once the bomb went off, I was mentally free to act. I left with the other tourists the police were evacuating. Then I went looking in Central Park for this bubble.”

  “How did you—?” I asked, as Eric continued.

  “I climbed a tree. It took a while.”

  “Why?”

  “You have no superpowers in our world, but the Purple Menace does. We needed a leveler.”

  “You got that right.”

  Was it dangerous for Eric to be near the Purple Menace again? Would there be another bizarre mind or body meld? Could I keep my foe too busy to think of that?

  My phone rang. Barb said, “We just got a tweet. He’s closing in on Grand Central Station.”

  “Great. We’re almost there.”

  We arrived at Grand Central from the southwest, along 42nd Street. The Purple Menace flew around the complex to the north entrance. He flew lower to enter. I’m not sure he aimed at a door, though. Maybe the third story windows. He carried Diabolical Dave under one arm, as Roland had said.

  “There they are,” I cried. “Can you activate the grabber?”

  Eric hit the controls and the big hand unfurled.

  “Get Dave. Get him,” I urged.

  “Will do.” Eric smoothly aimed the hand at the Purple Menace, and plucked Dave away from him. The hand zipped back to us, depositing Dave inside the bubble.

  “Dave. Snap out of it. Dad. Dad.”

  He looked dazed. I tried to get him to focus. I shoved the half-done drawing of the Purple Menace at Grand Central into his hands. “You have to finish your drawing. Now.”

  “Uh-oh.” Eric warned.

  I glanced up. The Purple Menace sent bolts at us, each one jarring the transporter bubble madly. Dave’s head hit the side of the bubble and he collapsed.

  “Dad.” I looked at Eric in despair. “He’s unconscious.”

  “It’s your plan. Finish the drawings yourself,” he said. His eyes were on the Purple Menace, who was still shooting bolts. Eric made the bubble dodge them like a pro. Or like someone who’d played a ton of video games.

  “I don’t think it’ll work,” I said. “Oh, what the hell. I’ll try.”

  Before I could grab the pencil, some other hand was changing the drawings before my eyes. The Purple Menace crashed to the sidewalk a split second after the drawing showed it. Then I saw myself flying and shooting bolts at him.

  Suddenly, I was outside the bubble, flying. Shooting bolts. In my own world. Bolts that were orange, a new color. The Purple Menace fled into Grand Central Station. The main train lobby had a high vaulted ceiling. He’d have plenty of room to fly, but so would I. The Purple Menace picked up a hot dog cart and hurled it through the blank glass next to the revolving doors. He made a nasty mess. He flew through the hole, and I flew right after him. We flew through the walkways leading to small shops and other levels, and into the main train station area.

  I was flying.

  “You haven’t got a chance, missy.” he cried, as he searched around the ornate clock. People stopped and stared at both of us. We ignored them.

  As usual, the urge to talk trash had come upon me as soon as I was acting like a superheroine.

  “You’re wasting your time, Mr. Superbaddie. The bomb was removed.”

  “No, it can’t be.”

  “Ha. Now I have the power to destroy you,” I boasted, as I sent a bolt straight at him. He was surprised when he couldn’t conjure up a bolt in return. He studied his hands in shock.

  “Barb’s handiwork, linking to Dave,” I yelled. “Soon she’ll take away your flying powers, too.” I moved in for the kill.

  “What? Never.” The Purple Menace flew to the top of the vaulted terminal.

  I flew up after him. My bolts don’t travel very far. I shot.

  “No, get away, damn you!” He snarled.

  He tried again to send bolts at me. Again he failed.

  “You’ll never get me,” he insisted.

  “You’re done for. Your menacing days are over.”

  I pursued him down to the balcony. The people sitting at the indoor café took off at a run as the Purple Menace crashed into some tables and chairs. He could still outfly me, but I had the sense his ability to fly was leaving him.

  “You’ll hurt yourself if you don’t stop flying,” I warned. In reaction, the Purple Menace dove over the balcony. I went after him.

  I shot another barrage of power bolts from my fingertips. The Purple Menace took the hit. He tried to fly away, as he had in many dreams. He raised his fist and shook it at me. “You haven’t won.”

  “Yes, we have.” I shot more bolts, and watched in astonishment as they turned into a rectangular cage of fire that fell over the Purple Menace and trapped him.

  “No. No. This cannot be. I hold all the power. I will rule this world,” he cried.

  He tried to break free, but the bars held. I still floated many feet in the air. Eric and Dave flew the transporter bubble inside the lobby to join us. It fit now because the Purple Menace had trashed the doors.

  Dave was awake. “Chloe, get inside,” he called to me. “This is Barb’s doing. Now I’ll finish it.”

  I sashayed in, not worrying about covering my back. With some other-dimensional help, I had captured the Purple Menace.

  Dave was drawing the Purple Menace vanishing, completing the drawings with lightning speed. As Dave outlined arms and legs and then erased them, parts of the Purple Menace’s body simply weren’t there any more. Finally, he was entirely gone, and the cage of bolts faded. Dave started to fade, too.

  “You’re going.” I cried. Dave smiled and said, “Thank you, daughter.” Then he was gone.

  The Amulet of Life around my neck began to glow brightly. Then it vanished.

  Eric grabbed my arm and opened the bubble door. �
�Jump.”

  We tumbled out of the bubble as it, too, faded away. Within seconds, there was nothing left in our world from the other dimension.

  “Let’s get out of here before we have to answer questions from the authorities,” Eric said.

  He thought fast. I was still in shock. The Purple Menace was gone. Dave—no, my father—was gone. The bubble was gone. It was over.

  Eric hustled me out the front door to the cab line by the station hotel. We hopped into a cab and sank into the seats as it slowly began the trip to Eric’s co-op.

  At first I was dazed, too limp to say anything as he made phone calls to our co-conspirators. Soon I fell asleep. I dreamed.

  I dreamed the Purple Menace was arrested when he returned to his home dimension, and charged with trying to blow up the Sky Tower. I dreamed of Dave, cold, analytical Dave, and I felt compassion for that dimension’s Eric Wood, the man Dave’s own twisted feelings had brought such trouble. They confronted each other. At first the Purple Menace merely growled at Dave and bared his teeth like an animal. Then he ripped off his mask. “You’re to blame for my actions. I’m a real man, not a comic book distortion. Give me back my conscience.”

  “We’ll make this right,” Dave promised.

  I knew these things would happen because I’d already created the vision of the Purple Menace’s rehabilitation and the influential future awaiting Dave.

  My vision of the other dimension faded. I sensed I might never have any further contact with Dave, with the other Barb, or with the Eric who had been turned into the Purple Menace.

  I woke. The taxi had arrived at Eric’s co-op. He was bending over me. “We’re here.”

  “Which Eric are you?” I said sleepily.

  “The right one,” he said firmly. He kissed me.

  Epilogue

  “We won,” I said.

  Eric, Roland, Jerry, Barb, and I were sitting in Eric’s amazing living room, eating and drinking. Even Eric’s two assistant editors were there, looking awed at the fantastic décor. I’d regaled everyone with the cleaned-up story of my solo adventures in the other world.