by James Maxey
“This is it,” Gator announced. “Two hundred feet straight down.”
“Any idea who’s on duty?” Jenny asked.
“Last person I saw go down was Smash Lass about five hours ago,” said Gator.
I groaned.
“Something wrong?” asked Reverend Rifle as he slipped his air tank onto his back.
I took the tank that Jenny handed me.
“Why is everyone I’m fighting these days powerful enough to kick my ass?” I asked. “Atomahawk and McGruber are creampuffs next to Smash Lass.”
“She might be bulletproof but she’s vulnerable to energy attacks,” said Jenny. “My powers will work on her.”
“Sure,” I said. “Which is even more of a problem, since if there’s any member of the Legion I don’t want to put in a burn ward, it’s Smash Lass. We were part of the Legion’s Teen Brigade when I was Sock Monkey. She went out of her way to make me feel like part of the team.”
“A team that’s framed you for murder,” said Kracker.
“It’s not like She-Devil won’t cast a spell to fix her wounds,” said Jenny.
“I guess,” I said, putting on my scuba tank. I still wasn’t happy about the thought that we might have to hurt Smash Lass. I mean, we weren’t close friends, but we got along okay. She’d been in love with another member of the teen brigade, Elsa Where. With the two of them cooing over each other I was always excess baggage when I tried to hang out with them after work. Elsa never liked me. She kind of hated all men. If Elsa was on duty, I’d gladly punch her. But Smash Lass? On that superhero ranking Jenny had mentioned, Smash Lass was probably second on the list after Golden Victory. Her action figure sales were through the roof, and of course she gave every dime to charity. She’d never been to the Butterfly House, joining the team directly due to her celebrity. She was the daughter of Bobbie “Smash” Dyson, the former heavyweight champ. He’d known there was something special about his daughter Mica when she knocked him out while still just a toddler. He’d imagined Mica going on to be the world’s top female boxer, but by the time she was six she could pick up cars, and by the time she was twelve she could drive her fist through plate steel an inch thick. Dyson had personally called Golden Victory after the first Sterngeist invasion and told him his daughter belonged in the Legion. Now sixteen, Mica Dyson was the spitting image of a teenage Laila Ali, beautiful, smart, witty, and adored. If we put her in the hospital, the whole world was going to hate us.
“This changes everything,” I said. “Let’s not go in swinging. Mica’s reasonable. I think I can convince her we’re good guys.”
“Good guys whose ultimate plan is to kill She-Devil,” said Jenny, sounding skeptical.
“Maybe we don’t tell her the whole plan,” I said.
“I don’t like it,” said Kracker. “We’ll lose the element of surprise.”
“Seems like the reverend’s in charge here,” I said. “How about it? What would Jesus do?”
“Don’t pull that on me,” he said. “My faith doesn’t make me simple-minded. Smash Lass is dangerous and our mission is important. Still… if you think you can talk to her, I’ll give you a shot.”
“Awesome,” I said, giving him the thumbs up.
A minute later, we were all in the water. I’m a lousy swimmer, but pretty good at sinking like a rock, so getting down to the vault would be a cinch. Like most of the land surrounding New York, the seafloor beneath Sandy Hook Bay is solid granite once you dig through the silt. After the first Sterngeist invasion, there was way too much alien tech lying around New York. Retaliator had been worried about turning the tech over to the government and convinced Golden Victory it needed to be stashed someplace safe. Golden Victory dug the bunker out of the bay’s bedrock with his bare hands and stowed all the alien gear until the team could come to a consensus about what to do with it. Since then, the bunker’s turned into a storehouse for all kinds of nasty stuff taken away from supervillains. The actual Legion headquarters has been breached a couple of time by high-tech hackers, so the vault is a stupidly low tech affair. Radio waves can’t get through all the water, and there’s no phone or powerlines in or out. The whole place is powered by an engine taken from one of Sterngeist’s asteroid thrusters, completely off the grid.
About ten seconds into the dive, it was too dark to see my hand before my face. Kracker turned on a beacon on his chest that cut through the water like a sunbeam. We followed Gator down to the bottom. He swam with his arms by his side, undulating his body in a way that really did look like an alligator swimming. After another minute of descending through the gloom, a big, dark square could be seen in the seabed. It turned out to be a pit, the walls carved of sheer stone. In places, you could still see fist-shaped craters left from when Golden Victory had dug the place out.
The bottom of the pit was silty. I touched down and sank to my knees before kicking free. The muck I stirred up was full of cans and bottles and scraps of plastic.
About twenty feet from the bottom of the pit was a huge steel handle bolted into the rock. You could see the outlines of the massive stone door, almost ten feet across. And this wasn’t even the big door. Further up, there was one Golden Victory had created in order to stuff the Doom Raptor inside. The Doom Raptor was Technosaur’s crowning achievement, a three hundred foot tall dinomech with laser eyes and a sonic screech that shattered concrete. Smash Lass had knocked it flat with a single punch. I really, really, really didn’t want to fight her.
I grabbed the handle with both hands and set my feet against the wall. Straining with all my might, I got nothing. I tried again, worried my eyeballs might pop out of my skull if I pulled any harder.
Something nudged against my shoulder. One of Kracker’s metal claws clamped onto the handle next to my hand, nearly taking off a pinky. I looked at him and he nodded, indicating he was ready to help. Despite the near certainty I was about to rupture something, I clenched my teeth and pulled, with every muscle in my back and arms tight as steel cables. With a grating, groaning rumble, the door slowly swung wide. As it cleared the lip of the doorway there was a strong current as the inner chamber filled with water. We swam inside and strained to pull the door shut. Now even Gator grabbed hold and put his back to it. I don’t know if he really helped or not, but about two minutes later we had it closed and unseen pumps started draining the water from the airlock. As the water reached my shoulders, I pulled my mask off.
“Christ almighty, let’s hope there’s some kind of teleportation gun stored here because I don’t know if I can get that door open again.”
“Watch your language,” said Reverend Rifle.
“Stop whining,” said Kracker. “I didn’t use full power. We’ll have no problem getting out.”
“Then why didn’t you open the door without Harry’s help?” Jenny asked as the water got low enough for her to pull off her helmet.
“I wanted him to feel useful,” said Kracker.
As the water continued to drain, Gator moved toward the inner door of the chamber. Unlike the massive stone outer door, this one looked like something you’d see on a submarine, a big, bolted oval of iron with a wheel in the middle to open it.
Gator moved his hands toward the wheel, but his hands didn’t even touch when the wheel started turning.
“You’ve been holding out on us, Gator,” I said, watching the wheel spin without him ever making contact. “Is that telekinesis?”
“Um,” he said, “I think that’s someone on the inside opening the door.”
Which turned out to be exactly right. The door swung open so fast it threw Gator across the airlock. The door hit the granite wall with an ear-shattering clang that rang through the confined space.
Standing in the door was the familiar figure of Smash Lass. She had her arms crossed and a pissed off look in her eyes. She fixed her gaze on me and said, “Harry, you’re under arrest.”
“Hi,” I said, with a little wave. “Nice to see you, Mica. You’re probably wondering why I’m
here.”
“We’re pretty sure you’re here to steal something,” said another voice I was familiar with. I looked around despite the futility of the action and spotted Elsa Where standing in the corner behind us. At least, that’s where she looked like she was standing. Like her father, Lt. Laser, she can manipulate light. But while her dad can vaporize steel by pointing at it, all Elsa Where can do is bend the light around her to make her appear to be several yards away from where she’s actually standing. Even when you know this, it’s still hard to take your eyes off her because her costume constantly shimmers through every shade of the rainbow with a cleavage revealing top that’s open down to her navel. It catches your attention.
“Hello to you as well, Elsa,” I said. “Look, we’ve come here to talk.”
“When your girlfriend talks she sets people on fire,” said Elsa Where.
“Hear us out,” said Jenny.
“What can you possibly say?” asked Smash Lass. “You used a manhole cover to beat the brains out of a guy while a hundred people caught it on camera. Then you broke out of jail and beat up Atomahawk!”
“We didn’t beat him up,” I said. “We sedated him with a tranquilizer dart.”
“You stabbed him in the tongue!” said Elsa Where.
I winced at the memory. “I know that sounds bad.”
“Now you turn up here with two illegal vigilantes and a robot?” said Smash Lass. I was confused for half a second until I realized that Kracker wasn’t showing any skin. Hell, for all I knew, maybe this really was a robot and Kracker was still back in Texas, no matter what he said about saltwater blocking his radio signals.
“Mica, you know I’m one of the good guys.” I smiled as best I could without revealing fangs. “I can explain everything.”
“I’ll give you thirty seconds,” said Smash Lass. Elsa Where glowered at her.
“I killed McGruber in self-defense, and wasn’t trying to kill him, just knock him out. I fled custody because I realized they were going to frame me for Cut Up Girl’s murder and… and there’s something here in the vault I need to borrow? To help clear my name?” I didn’t mean to have that come out as a question, but somehow it did.
“Right,” said Smash Lass. “Come on, Harry, at least give me a plausible lie. I don’t want to think you’ve gone to the dark side.”
“I swear to God I haven’t,” I said.
“Please stop taking His name in vain,” said the reverend.
“We knew you’d gone rogue when you sided with Cut Up Girl and her crazy story,” said Elsa Where. “I mean, if anyone in the Legion knows it’s not true that the government kidnaps teenagers and takes them to this so-called Butterfly House, it’s us.”
“Naw,” said Gator. “It’s true. I came out of the Butterfly House and joined the Legion as the Red Shark.”
“You know he’s dead, right?” said Smash Lass. “I went to his funeral.”
“When have you ever known a superhero to stay dead?” said Gator.
“Whatever,” said Elsa Where. “You going to surrender peacefully, or is there going to be violence?”
Before I could answer, the reverend said, “Looks like violence. My apologies.” With that, he raised his rifle and shot Smash Lass in the face.
An ordinary bullet would have bounced off, but this turned out to be some sort of bright pink foam that gooped up her eyes and immediately started expanding. Blinded, she did exactly what I expected her to do, which was to stomp her left foot. The shockwave was worse than any earthquake I’d experienced living in LA, throwing everyone in the room to the floor. Even Elsa Where fell down.
With my superhuman agility, I was the first member of my team back on my feet. I was rewarded for my initiative by taking a punch directly in my jaw as Smash Lass lashed out blindly, knocking me across the room. The only reason the punch didn’t take my head off was that Smash Lass wears smart gloves with internal airbags that cushion her punches based on sensor readings of the surface she’s about to hit. It’s the only way she can punch flesh and blood opponents without killing them. The blow left me blinking away stars. Through the shower of dancing lights, I saw Jenny rise on her hands and knees and cast a withering glare at Smash Lass. She drew a deep breath, then shouted, “You motherfu—”
She was cut off mid-shout by electric sparks erupting along her rib cage. Across the room, I saw the image of Elsa Where also on her knees, stretching out her arm holding the Taser rod she uses to take down opponents. Though her image seemed to be poking empty air, I knew where she had to be and leapt forward, bringing my fists down hard on what looked like bare floor next to Jenny. There was a loud, “Oooph!” as my fists landed hard on the small of an invisible back. Across the room, Elsa Where’s image was slammed to the floor, her nose smacking into the stone, leaving her sprawled out, plainly unconscious.
Jenny rolled to her side, her torso still wracked with spasms. It was going to be a few minutes before she could draw a deep enough breath to use her powers again.
Smash Lass was still blinded by the goop. She was trying to wipe it away, but it turned into long strings of taffy stuck to her gloves. If she couldn’t see me coming, maybe I had a shot at knocking her out. With fists clenched I charged her, swinging hard, landing a punch dead center of her solar plexus with enough force to knock out an elephant.
She didn’t even budge. I would have made more of a dent punching the granite walls. I felt hairline cracks race through my bones all the way into my shoulders. My loud gasp told her exactly where I was at. I tried to duck but failed.
An unknown time later I opened my eyes and found myself staring at the ceiling. My jaw throbbed and my mouth was full of blood. I turned to my side and spit. Two of my teeth bounced across the floor like bloody dice. Too bad I was no longer covered by the Legion’s dental plan.
I heard cursing, but it wasn’t Jenny. I turned to see that Gator had jumped onto Smash Lass’s back, stabbing her repeatedly in the chest with a big ass hunting knife. He might as well have been using a Nerf blade for all the good he was doing. In his frustration, he was spilling out a string of expletives themed around female anatomy that would have made even Jenny blush. Smash Lass responded to this verbal abuse by slamming her back into the wall. Since she didn’t have any airbags there, Gator took the full force of the blow. He fell off with his legs bent in odd directions, his pelvis crushed.
Trembling with rage, Smash Lass took a wide stance in the doorway to make sure no one got past, then literally took the gloves off, revealing her deadly fists. Tossing the goo entangled gloves away pulled enough of the expanding foam that she could finally see. Her bloodshot eyes narrowed into a little slits as she growled, “Who’s next?”
“I’ll take another shot,” said Reverend Rifle, deadpan, as he blasted her in the face again. This time he didn’t aim at her eyes. Instantly, the foam expanded to cover her mouth and nose. Her eyes went wide as she tried to take a breath and couldn’t.
Then her eyes fixed on Reverend Rifle. Without air, she had maybe two minutes before she went down. She looked like she had every intention of murdering us all during those two minutes. Smash Lass, despite her name, didn’t have a particularly violent nature, but when she did lose her temper it was dangerous to even be in the same state with her.
Fortunately, before she could knock the reverend’s block off, Kracker finally decided to do something useful and scrabbled forward in his armor to catch Smash Lass by the wrist as she drew back her arm to punch the reverend. She reacted by grabbing his crab claw with her free hand and crushing it. Sparks flew from the suit joints along that arm. Smash Lass kicked the suit in the center of the chest and sent it flying to the far wall of the room.
Kracker’s armor could probably keep him alive, but if she punched anyone else in her current state it wasn’t going to be pretty. It was time for a change of strategy. Boxing Smash Lass was suicidal but I’m tough to beat as a wrestler. I threw myself at her from behind, aiming low, driving my shoulders into the b
ack of her thighs. I was gratified this worked, knocking her to her hands and knees. Instantly I was on top of her, wrapping my arms beneath hers and getting her in a headlock. She struggled but her strength didn’t mean much without leverage and I had a pretty big advantage. Even more to my advantage, her air was running out. I could feel her chest heaving as she tried to breathe. With my torso pressed against her back, I could feel her heart pounding like a jackhammer as it burned through her oxygen.
Then the jackhammer slowed. She went limp beneath me. I held on another minute, worried she might be playing dead. I got off and rolled her over, pressing my fingers against her jugular.
“She’s going to suffocate,” I said, feeling panicked. “We have to do something.”
“Take off her belt,” said Reverend Rifle, kneeling over her.
“How is undressing her going to help?”
“I read that her costume is woven from the same carbon nanofibers I use in my zip lines,” he said.
I frowned. I supposed he was right, since despite all the punishment she put her costume through I’d never seen it rip. It just seemed completely beside the point given that she was about to die.
The reverend decided not to debate any further and stripped off her belt himself. Then he flipped her over and bound her wrists behind her. “We don’t want her giving us grief when she wakes up,” he said.
“If she wakes up,” I said. “I mean, how can we perform a tracheotomy on someone with skin harder than diamond?”
He pulled out a small spray bottle. “You don’t think I’d have used this glue on her if I didn’t have a counter agent, do you?”
He pumped the bottle several times, drenching the pink goo covering her mouth. It melted like cotton candy in the rain. She gave a whistling, ragged gasp as her airway cleared. Her whole body slackened as she breathed deep, slow breaths. Her eyes didn’t open.
“She could wake up any minute,” said Reverend Rifle. “We should move.”
“Gator’s not going anywhere,” said Jenny. She’d recovered from her Tasing. I saw the still unconscious image of Elsa Where with zip ties around her wrists. After binding Elsa Where, Jenny had moved to help Gator, who was slumped against the wall. All color had drained from his face and for a second I worried he was dead, but he opened his eyes and groaned, “Leave me.”
