by James Maxey
Technosaur resorted to the tried and true supervillain tactic of pulling a smoke bomb from her belt and throwing it at her feet. In the cloud of darkness, a few of the crime babies managed to get their claws into me. Fortunately, their stubby little fingers couldn’t dig deep enough into my hide to reach any major arteries, so I grabbed two of them and tore them loose, holding them by the backs of their necks. They cried as they kicked to free themselves. To shut them up, I smashed their faces together repeatedly until they went silent. I dropped them and grabbed two more. It was disturbingly satisfying when the smoke cleared and I found myself surrounded by a ring of broken babies.
A few feet away, I heard coughing coming from thin air.
“Elsa?” I asked.
“Make your move,” Elsa Where said, as across the room I saw her image raise her arms into a judo stance. Smash Lass couldn’t be seen, completely hidden by a swarm of babies. Unfortunately, Technosaur was also nowhere in sight.
“Man, I hate smoke bombs,” I grumbled. “How does every bad guy get their hands on them? Can you buy them off Amazon or something?”
“What’s the matter?” Elsa asked. “A falling out with your cronies?”
“Technosaur wasn’t my crony,” I said. “I don’t have cronies! Honest to God, I’m still one of the good guys. I mean, we tied you up instead of killing you, right? Doesn’t that count for something?”
“Maybe you’re not very good at your job,” she said.
“How’d you get free, anyway? I thought that Smash Lass’s belt was unbreakable.”
“It was. But the zip ties holding me weren’t. I wriggled next to her and she freed me, then I untied her.”
“Oh,” I said. “Wow. We really do kind of suck at being bad guys. But, seriously, it’s because we’re good guys, no matter how bad things look right now.”
“If you’re one of the good guys, you know we have to capture Technosaur,” said Elsa Where.
I dropped to my hands and knees, lowering my face to the spot where Technosaur had last stood. I took a long sniff.
“What are you doing?” asked Elsa Where.
“Playing bloodhound,” I said. “Chimps have an excellent sense of smell.” I looked up, and discovered that my excellent sense of smell wasn’t actually needed, since I spotted Technosaur crawling into a hatch just under the Doom Raptor’s tail.
“How did she get up there?” asked Elsa Where, eyeing the mirror smooth metallic surface of the Doom Raptor.
“Maybe a crime baby flew her up,” I said.
“Smash Lass could jump after her, but her hands are kind of full,” said Elsa Where, looking back at the other side of the room where Smash Lass stood atop a mountain of mangled babies, with at least a hundred still swooping and swarming around her.
Stopping Technosaur was up to me. I’d never tried to climb a giant robot before and it didn’t turn out to be easy. The metal scales were slick as glass. I had to spread my arms as wide as I could over the curved surface to shimmy up, a slow and precarious process. I was almost halfway up the thigh when I felt a shudder run through the Doom Raptor. From deep inside came a loud rumbling.
“Uh oh,” I said.
“It’s moving!” cried Elsa Where.
I hung on for dear life as the Doom Raptor lifted the leg I clung to and lumbered forward, trampling a battle tank into rubble. In a few steps, it reached the mammoth stone doors Golden Victory had installed to give access to the vault.
A high pitched whine pierced the air. Twin beams of blinding light shot from the Doom Raptor’s eyes and blasted the doors. The heat from the blast singed my fur and I pressed my face against the Doom Raptor’s leg to protect it.
The Doom Raptor lurched forward again, entering the massive airlock, where a second set of doors kept the ocean from flooding the place. There was another loud whine. I jumped free in the seconds that the doors held. Elsa Where knew what was happening, but Jenny and the reverend were still unconscious. I scooped up Jenny as I passed her and raced toward where the reverend had been, only to find he wasn’t there anymore.
The floor trembled as an impossibly loud rumble came from behind me. A cold, damp wind blasted me. I took a deep breath.
Chapter Twelve
Romantic Banter
I HELD ONTO JENNY’S limp body with all my strength as the rushing water swept us into a chaos of swirling robots and heavy machinery. Right before the water shorted out the lights, I saw a chrome-plated tiger drift past. Everything went dark as a cave. Jenny struggled in my arms as the cold water woke her. I felt air bubbles rise along my chest hairs as she instinctively screamed. She’d drown if I didn’t reach air fast.
While it wasn’t much to go on, the sensation of the air bubbles rolling along my skin gave me some idea which way was up. I kicked hard, my toes hitting something that felt like a drifting baby, and kept kicking. A few seconds later, my head was above water. I pulled Jenny up. She was still panicked, her limbs flailing. I crushed her against my chest, trying not to seriously injure her, then drifted to my back so that my body formed a raft to hold her head above water. I was rewarded with the sweet, beautiful sound of her coughing.
“Harry?” she said, digging her fingers into my fur as her awareness returned.
“I’m here,” I said, loosening my grip on her. “You’re okay.”
“This doesn’t feel like okay,” she said.
“Okay is probably overselling the situation. Technosaur just stole the Doom Raptor and flooded the whole vault. I’ve no idea how big this air pocket is.”
I reached up into the darkness and my hand hit something hard barely a foot overhead. “Not very big,” I reported.
“What was Technosaur doing here?” asked Jenny.
“Pretending to be Kracker,” I said. “She played us. Used us to break into the vault so she could steal the Doom Raptor back.”
Just then I saw a light moving through the water. It emerged from the surface several yards away. The beam of a flashlight blinded me as it focused on our faces.
“Harry? Jenny?” It sounded like Smash Lass.
“Mica?” I said. “That you?”
“I’ve got Elsa to safety,” she said.
“Any sign of Reverend Rifle?” I asked.
“The guy who shot me in the face?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Didn’t see him. Probably drowned if he’s not up here.” She didn’t sound particularly heartbroken by this possibility.
“Where’s safety?” asked Jenny. “I’d really like to go there.”
“You two are in big trouble,” said Smash Lass.
“I’d prefer to go there without a lecture,” said Jenny.
“What were you thinking? Teaming up with Technosaur?”
“We had no idea she was along for the ride,” I said. “Look, I’m not going to pretend it was a string of great choices that led me to this particular moment in time. I never intended to turn loose a three hundred foot tall murder robot on the edge of New York. This would be a good time to put aside our differences and stop this thing.”
Smash Lass sighed. “I supposed it wouldn’t be very heroic to let you drown. And if I leave you behind while I go after Technosaur, you’d probably just escape. You swear you’re not working with her?”
“I swear,” I said.
“Fine. Follow me toward that wall over there.” She aimed the beam of the flashlight toward our destination. “The door back to the Hall of Ray Guns is straight down. It’s a sealed compartment with its own pumps. We get inside and we’ll be okay.”
“It’s pretty far down. Do we need to worry about the bends?” I asked.
In the dim light I saw Smash Lass shake her head. “If we don’t make it back to air before you need to breathe again, you’ll drown long before the nitrogen in your blood becomes pressurized.”
“I don’t think I can dive that deep,” said Jenny. “I feel like I’ve still got water in my lungs from waking up underwater.”
“I’ll do all the swimming. I won’t let you drown,” I said.
“If you do,” she said, “I’m breaking up with you.”
We followed Smash Lass to the wall. “Ready?” she said.
“Let’s do it,” I said. “Don’t even try to swim,” I said to Jenny. “Save your strength and hold on.”
She nodded and took a deep breath. I knew if I took a deep breath I’d be too buoyant to get all the way down to the door, so I exhaled then dove. As I went down, I reached out with my feet and wrapped my toes around Jenny’s wrist. I could see Mica’s flashlight a few yards below. Smash Lass’s lithe, muscular form sliced through the water. Since the wall here was unpolished, still bearing the craters gouged by Golden Victory’s fists, I climbed down the wall head first rather than trying to swim. I had no problem finding handholds and managed to keep up with Smash Lass. She spun upright in front of one of the submarine hatch doors. It opened into the room we were in and the water pressure holding it shut was immense, but Smash Lass was more than strong enough to pull it open. Instantly, the water rushed through. I felt like I was at the bottom of a toilet, flushed through the hole with such force that I easily flew ten yards into the adjoining room. I held Jenny tightly as I tumbled. I finally came to a rest on my back with her astride me, both of us gasping for air.
I heard a clang and looked back to see that Smash Lass had closed the door once more. Powerful pumps rumbled below, sucking water down unseen drains.
“Thank you for not letting me drown,” Jenny said, looking into my eyes.
“Thank you for not breaking up with me.”
“I hope this isn’t what passes for romantic banter between you two,” said Elsa Where, suddenly standing before us with her arms crossed.
“Harry can be a poet when the moment’s right,” said Jenny, standing up.
“Right,” I said, though for the life of me I couldn’t think of anything even remotely poetic I’d ever said to her.
“We can discuss love lives later,” said Smash Lass, splashing through the draining water to the far door. “Right now, we need to get to the surface to stop the Doom Raptor.”
“Uh, not to be a broken record, but what about the bends?” I asked. “The base is pressurized. Won’t racing back to the surface be dangerous?”
“Not for Mica,” said Elsa Where. “As for us, I’ve got these pills.” She took a small bottle out of a pouch on her belt and shook a couple of small yellow pills into her hand. She tossed one to Jenny, who caught it. “I assume neither of you have heart problems.”
“Not that I’m aware of,” said Jenny.
“Good. These mess with your blood pressure. Essentially, it creates enough tension in your blood vessels to prevent the nitrogen in your blood from forming bubbles. By the time it wears off, you’ll have acclimated.”
“Also, about one person in five hundred goes blind when they use them,” said a familiar voice from the shadows behind the trophy case.
“Reverend!” I said, as he stepped into the light.
“Kracker got some of those pills for me before the mission, but he was kind enough to warn me about the risks,” said Reverend Rifle.
“I don’t think Kracker was motivated by kindness,” I said. “Nor was he really Kracker.”
“I know,” said Reverend Rifle. “As I came too, I heard Technosaur confess everything. I don’t like being played for fool.”
“And I don’t like getting shot in the face,” said Smash Lass, cracking her knuckles. “What were you doing behind those trophy cases?”
“Borrowing this,” said Reverend Rifle, holding up the sex-toy shaped shrink ray we’d stopped to admire earlier. “Looking for the batteries that go with it.”
“It doesn’t use batteries,” said Elsa Where. “The Micro-Bandit had a plutonium powered generator he wore on his back. He died of cancer before he ever faced trial.”
“We’ll hardwire it into the power grid on the surface,” said Reverend Rifle. “I read everything I can about these sci-fi guns when they pop up in the news. This thing creates a scalar field where big things get little. It’s how Micro-Bandit walked away with high dollar sports cars stuffed into his pants pockets.”
“Further proof he was compensating for something,” said Jenny.
“The main takeaway here,” said the reverend, “is that the Doom Raptor won’t be much of a threat once it’s the size of a kitten.”
“You know how to operate it?” asked Smash Lass.
“It has a trigger,” said Reverend Rifle. “And I retrofitted my missile silo for solar power, so I’m not a bad electrician. I’ve got tools in my belt to let me wire this into a powerline.”
“Okay,” said Smash Lass. “You’re still under arrest, but help take down the Doom Raptor and I’ll testify on your behalf.”
“Mighty obliged to you,” said the reverend.
“You can’t trust him with that,” said Elsa Where. “What if he makes himself small and escapes?”
“We’ll take that chance,” said Smash Lass. “It’s good to have a backup plan to deal with the Doom Raptor in case my plan doesn’t work out.”
“What’s your plan?” I asked.
“Smashing it, duh,” she said, holding up clenched fists.
“Aren’t you worried about the lasers?” asked Jenny. “I heard that energy attacks can take you out.”
“I’ll hit it from behind,” said Smash Lass. “My biggest worry is about where it will fall. It’s going to be like knocking down a skyscraper. If we can shrink it, we can avoid a lot of collateral damage.”
“Awesome plan,” I said.
“I’m going on record as saying that trusting these traitors is a terrible idea,” said Elsa Where.
“Noted,” said Smash Lass. “I take full responsibility.” She gave me a stern look. “Don’t let me down, Harry.” Turning toward the door on the far side of the room, she said, “Follow me.”
Chapter Thirteen
Giant Robot on the Rampage
WHEN WE REACHED the submarine bay I noticed the sub had been upgraded since I’d last been at the vault. The old sub looked like navy surplus from World War II, but the new sub looked like something out of a 1960s Marvel comic. It had a retro-futuristic aesthetic, with muscular curves, chrome accents, and bright red tail fins to compliment a hull painted American flag blue.
“Let me guess,” I said as I squeezed through the hatch. “The Blue Bee had a hand in the design.”
“What gave it away?” said Smash Lass, with a chuckle.
“He’s still alive?” asked Reverend Rifle. “He was a vigilante when I was still in diapers.”
“Ninety-five years old,” said Smash Lass. “A real charmer. He’s wheelchair bound but his mind’s sharp. He still has crime-fighting in his blood.”
“He used to have the best gadgets,” said Reverend Rifle. “Half the tools in my utility belt are gadgets he invented. The police got their hands on one of his belts back in the seventies when they were still treating him like a menace. All his gear got photographed. It’s all public record now.”
“Lucky for the Legion he still likes designing gear,” said Smash Lass.
“I never liked the guy,” Elsa Where grumbled.
“How can anyone not like the Blue Bee?” I asked.
“Because he’s so obviously gay,” said Elsa.
I was totally confused. “So are you.”
“I don’t hate that he’s gay,” she said. “I hate that he won’t admit it. He’s never come out.”
“That’s kind of his business, isn’t it?” asked Jenny.
“No,” said Elsa Where. “It’s my business. If the Blue Bee and Stinger had come out as gay in the seventies, it would have had a real impact on the world. Two big, muscular superheroes showing the world you can be gay and strong and tough. Acceptance of the LGBT community could have come around decades earlier.”
“On a side note,” I said, “I’ve always thought LGBT sounds like a sandwich with guacamole.”<
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Elsa Where didn’t look amused but Smash Lass grinned as she guided the sub forward through a large steel iris that spun open before us. Twin headlights pierced the watery gloom, startling large, stupid-eyed fish.
“It was a different time, Elsa,” said Smash Lass. “It’s easy to look back and say what should have been done. Maybe if the Blue Bee had come out it would have made things worse. The Blue Bee and Stinger were running around in skintight costumes doing acrobatics. They might have confirmed more stereotypes than they would have broken.”
“I still think if you’re brave enough to go out and fight crime you should be brave enough to tell the truth about who you are.”
“Even though he had a secret identity?” said Smash Lass. “If he’d taken off his mask, he’d have been thrown in prison.”
Elsa Where frowned. I suspected Smash Lass was in for a bout of serious sulking. I’d seen them get into this pattern before in the Teen Brigade. Elsa Where would get all pouty and eventually Smash Lass would agree with whatever it was she was supposed to agree with.
But either Smash Lass didn’t sense the early stages of the sulk, or she’d started standing up for herself. Elsa Where was two years older and for a long time seemed to be the dominant member in their relationship, which was weird since Smash Lass projected such a strong, confident personality in everything else she did. She sounded confident now as she said, “Instead of getting upset about what the Blue Bee should have done fifty years ago, try to think about how our actions are going to affect the lives of people fifty years in the future.”
Elsa Where shook her head. “What if things are moving backward? I mean, I know you don’t look at Twitter, but I do. The hateful, bigoted comments thrown at me every day leaves me wondering what the hell I’m risking my life for.”
