Miss Marathon #2: Bay City Defenders

by Joseph Bradshire

  “When will we be back? I don’t want to leave the kids alone for long.”

  “Tonight, I promise.”

  Wraith waived goodbye to the kids and rushed off into the night with Miss Marathon.

  * * *

  37 minutes later Wraith and Maggie walked into the hospital room where Maggie’s brother, Chris Cole, lay in a coma.

  “Wraith, you can heal him right?” Maggie hoped he could. More than anything she hoped so. Her little brother was all the family she had.

  “I’ll see what I can do Maggie. This could take awhile, I need to feel him out.” Wraith put his hands on Chris and closed his eyes, concentrating.

  Maggie looked up as Anne Gable walked in with a doctor. There was no mistaking her huge blonde hair.

  “Oh Maggie. I’m so glad you came. I didn’t know who else to call. Thank you.”

  The girl was visibly traumatized. Red eyed, frazzled, her voice quavering.

  “What happened, a bad bike wreck?” Maggie assumed it was a wreck. She worried about his motorcycle stunts, that they might catch up with him one day like this.

  “No Maggie. Not a wreck. He was attacked by two men. I don’t know who they were, I think he knew them.” Anne started crying. By the looks of it she’d been crying a lot.

  Maggie digested this. Anger bubbled up. She wasn’t much of a crier, breaking down in the doctor’s office the week before had been a rarity. She was more the rage type. Before she could really get to fantasizing about all the terrible things she would do to whoever hurt her baby brother, Wraith interrupted her train of thought.

  “Maggie, I think I have it, some bad head trauma but I’m fixing it now. One second.”

  Maggie watched as Wraith’s hand touched the back of Chris’s head. His hand glowed, soon so did Chris’s head. While doing this Wraith aged. He went from somewhere around 25 years old to maybe 30, his hair gaining a touch of grey at the temples.

  So far silent, the doctor who had arrived with Anne gasped, “What are you doing to him, we’ll have none of this mystical nonsense in here, let him go.”

  The doctor started toward where Wraith was laying hands on Chris, intent on stopping whatever was going on. The doctor was scared for his patient, nothing wrong with that, but Maggie wasn’t going to let him stop whatever Wraith was doing.

  Maggie was about to make a move to stop him when the doctor was snatched up into the air by bunches of yellow tendrils. Yellow tendrils coming out of Anne’s head.

  There was a time when seeing someone make a patient’s head glow in a light show of healing and then watching a man get lifted and restrained by prehensile hair would have shocked Maggie. But that time was long in the past.

  Maggie spoke, loud but calm, “Anne, if you would please deposit the doctor outside for the moment. And doctor, please do not be alarmed. We aren’t hurting your patient. I’m Maggie Cole, Miss Marathon. This is my brother, we are here to help. Please wait outside.”

  The doctor nodded, shocked, but still thinking. He was too slow in exiting the room but Anne helped him along, pushing him with her hands this time instead of her hair.

  She slammed the door with her hair as she turned around, “Wraith, right? Sounds ominous. They call me Blondie. How’s Chris?”

  “He’s healing just fine, I’m about done.” Wraith’s hair had gone even greyer. He looked about 40 years old now.

  “There...” Wraith removed his hands. The glowing ceased.

  Chris’s eyelids fluttered for a moment, then he opened his eyes. “Oh man, I feel like shit.”

  Everyone in the room laughed, Anne started balling all over again as Chris sat up and gave her a hug.

  Chris said, “Hey sis, when did you get here? I must have been really out of it. Those guys really beat my ass.”

  Chris yawned, he was tired, drifting off.

  Maggie shook him, gently, “Chris don’t sleep yet, who were the guys that hurt you?”

  “Oh, just some old biker dick heads. Black Brewskie and a guy named Chopper. No idea what they even wanted.” Chris yawned, “I need to sleep man, rough day. Promise me you won’t go yell at them or anything. They are real rough guys. Hardcore biker types.”

  Before Maggie could respond, Chris was already laying his head on his pillow to sleep. Anne pressed the button to lower Chris’s bed down to a more comfortable sleeping position. Chris was asleep before the bed had stopped moving.

  Maggie was silent for a moment, waiting for her rage to subside. Willing it down, stopping it from bubbling over into rash action.

  Fuck it. “Blondie huh? Nice nickname. While Chris is asleep you wanna go for a ride in a flying submarine and have a little chat with this Brewskie guy?”

  Blondie didn’t answer aloud, but her huge hair pulsed. She grabbed her coat and both ladies walked out the door bent on revenge.

  Wraith jogged after them.

  Chapter Six

  By the time they’d dropped Wraith back home, as promised, Maggie already had a good bead on the location of this Brewskie fellow.

  Maggie had long since made friends with all the various law enforcement computer systems in the Bay City area. She may or may not have convinced one system to forget a few speeding tickets. Perks of being a technopath.

  A quick request using her mind link to the local corrections system and they had the address of Bonner’s Hole. Brewskie’s alleged place of employment and likely hang out.

  Clubhouse of the Pacific Exiles. What a stupid name.

  With the Patton moving at just under the speed of sound they would reach the club right around midnight.

  They had a few minutes before they arrived, time for a little chitchat.

  “So, Anne right? What’s with the hair?” Maggie still couldn’t think of a polite way to approach someone about their powers, especially a weird power like grabby hair.

  “Well, you know I’m with Chris right? Your brother?”

  Maggie nodded.

  “Well he gets in wrecks and stuff, nothing major, but one day I was freaking out after he was trapped under his bike and suddenly my head started to itch. An hour later, I had this.”

  Anne uncurled her hair, fanning it out in all directions. It nearly filled the bridge of the Patton. She seemed embarrassed.

  Patty, listening in, rumbled, “Don’t worry about being judged Anne. We’ve met some other weirdos too. Like talking submarines, flying demons, crazy aliens...big hair is nothing.”

  “Thanks Patty.”

  “You are welcome Anne.” The Patton paused for a moment, “You should really have a superhero name. Everyone does.”

  “It’s Blondie.” Anne sounded sure of herself. Maggie tried not to chuckle. No need to be rude.

  The Patton rumbled a laugh anyway, oblivious to rudeness. Honest to a fault.

  “Well I guess Blondie is better than Big Hair or whatever else. Welcome to the superhero club. I want to call it the Patty Fan Club but Maggie won’t let me.”

  Now it was Blondie’s turn to laugh. The Patton used air vents to blow her hair around the bridge and everyone laughed some more.

  They giggled like a bunch of schoolgirls, whiling away the time while they hurtled toward a confrontation with a known violent criminal.

  * * *

  Brewskie sat in the front seat of Sammy’s truck, bike in the back. They had just pulled in to Bonner’s Hole after pushing hard all night and day.

  So far there had been no police looking for either Chopper or himself. He’d half expected to see cops waiting when he pulled up.

  It looked like they had gotten away with it. Brewskie started to relax. Maybe he’d go find himself that young lady who’d been so nice to him the night he got out of prison.

  Any woman would do at that point though. Brewskie wasn’t picky.

  He was out of the truck and walking across the lot when the sky lit up like the sun. Blinded, he groped back to the truck. He went for his shotgun behind the seat, he didn’t make it. He was hoisted into the air by a bunch
of hair tendrils.

  “You again? Fuck you Blondie!”

  Then everything went dark.

  * * *

  Maggie and Blondie were watching through Patty’s scopes. They saw Brewskie get out of an old beat up pickup, along with another man. A huge man. Blondie recognized them right away.

  “Patty, drop us right on top of them. Then blind them with your spotlight. Blondie don’t look up, keep your eyes down.”

  “Okay Miss Marathon, let’s do this.” Blondie looked ready. Maggie hoped they all were.

  Anne and Maggie dropped directly from the bridge. Besides learning to operate all the systems integrated into her body, Patty had also been working on altering her structure. Nothing big. Add a door here, widen a corridor there.

  She’d recently finished morphing a new bridge drop door and was eager to test it.

  It worked perfectly, the trap door opened and Maggie and Anne jumped through right into Patty’s capture beam.

  As they floated down Brewskie tried to turn and run. The coward.

  Anne stepped toward him, “Allow me.”

  She whipped out with her hair and snatched him up.

  At first Maggie had not much to do but stand clear as Anne pummeled him. Then the big man pulled out an axe from the bed of the truck. It was enormous. A massive medieval monstrosity nearly as long as the man who wielded it.

  A few quick steps toward him and Maggie jump kicked him in the chest. She hit him a little harder than she would have liked, he flew back and fell at a bad angle. Nothing seemed to be broken, but she couldn’t be sure. He didn’t get up right away.

  The woman driving the truck yelled something obscene but Maggie missed the specifics. She was trying to think of something snappy to yell back when Patty grabbed them in her capture beam and brought them, at high speed, back to the bridge door.

  It was too fast. It knocked the wind out of Maggie and did the same to Anne. Anne dropped Brewskie as her breath whooshed out.

  “What the hell Patty?” Maggie gasped, “Go easy.”

  “Sorry Maggie,” the Patton rumbled. “They were grabbing guns.”

  Maggie checked the monitors and could indeed see guns. Lots of them. Firing at the Patton. Good luck with that. They could fire all day and not hurt Patty.

  “You want to try the nose spike?” Maggie asked.

  Patty rumbled a wordless assent and came around. She pointed her nose directly at Brewskie’s truck and poured on the acceleration. The truck tore in half and lit on fire. Then it exploded.

  From the monitors they could see people scattering around the parking lot, still firing. Others were coming out of the club, firing as they came out. A real rough bunch. You’d think a flying submarine and a couple of super humans would scare them all off. Brave men.

  Brave men who needed to be taught a lesson.

  Maggie and Patty were linked. The link was especially strong while Maggie was inside the Patton’s hull. She didn’t have to speak, she barely had to think and Patty knew exactly what to do.

  Charge.

  The spiked nose of the USS Patton was built to allow her to attack alien vessels at close range. It was armored, reinforced and sharp as a knife. It was more than enough to rip the roof off Bonner’s Hole.

  Patty rumbled, “There, now Bonner’s Hole really has a hole in it.”

  Both Anne and Maggie groaned but didn’t stop laughing for the entire flight back to Colorado.

  Chapter Seven

  “She did what?” Former U.S. Senator McMurphy, and current Director of the Earth Defense League, threw his cocktail at the screen. At 100 bucks a bottle, good scotch was too expensive to be throwing around.

  He could afford it though. Since becoming head of the new Earth Defense League he’d been receiving a steady stream of gifts. Expensive liquor showing up prior to important policy decisions was now a regular thing.

  On screen was a news report showing Miss Marathon, darling of the whole damned world, with yet another super human she hadn’t brought in for debrief and report. Once again she had destroyed personal property and made a scene with no one to tell her no.

  She had to be stopped.

  Government, be it the U.S. or the League, had to maintain their aura of control. Not just for the sake of McMurphy’s own vanity and power but for the sake of the public trust. The public morale.

  The next time some two-bit alien set his sights on Earth the people needed to know their soldiers and superheroes were all on the same page. Solidarity was important.

  With the most famous hero in the world off doing her own thing, beating up unknown civilians in the parking lot of a roadside strip club and palling around with who knows how many unregistered super powered people, it was a public relations fiasco. It could unravel in a very bad way if people lost confidence in the government and began turning toward unreliable superheroes to save them.

  If the government couldn’t control the super humans, how do we know they’ll heed the call and help when the next fight comes?

  Hell, McMurphy couldn’t even count on his own elite personnel when it came to Maggie. Cannon was a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. As loyal to his country as they come, and probably the second most powerful super we knew about. McMurphy knew as well as anyone that Cannon, if pushed, would side with Maggie in any real dispute. The Jaunt Troopers would follow Cannon and Maggie as well. That damned sub too.

  “This bitch needs a leash.” McMurphy smiled to himself, got up and poured another drink.

  This new development in the news, this could be used. A perfect excuse. McMurphy drained his glass.

  No more drink throwing tonight.

  * * *

  Back at Patton Base McMurphy sat in his office, calm. He sipped on his ever present cocktail. Irish whiskey this time with a bit of citrus. It was his third of the day. He was starting to drink earlier and earlier, drinking more than he ever had in his life.

  It was the stress of the job. Being a senator was nothing. Being the face of an international military alliance, on the other hand, took real work. Real people lived and died based on his decisions.

  With so much change in the world, so much chaos, it was hard to know which decision was right and which was wrong.

  Like with all these super humans. Super human location, registration and conscription acts had been passed in almost every legislature in every corner of the globe.

  Outside of the Earth Defense League there were reports of Russia and China recruiting at least a dozen super powered individuals. Who knew if the reports were to be believed, but certainly there were quite a few supers in the U.S. that Miss Marathon was actively involved in hiding.

  India, Europe, Japan and Brazil had all recruited a few supers, but they were keeping quiet. So far the U.S. had recruited none. Zero. Besides Miss Marathon and Cannon the U.S. had no superhero assets. This despite reports of at least a half dozen known to exist.

  There was one reason for that failure. Margaret Cole, Miss Marathon.

  It was finally time to bring her down to reality.

  There was a knock on McMurphy’s office door. Right on time.

  “Come in.”

  Margaret Cole entered the room. She wore that forced smile she put on whenever McMurphy was around. He hated it. It screamed insubordination.

  It made McMurphy more sure than ever about his next course of action.

  “Maggie, hello, please sit.”

  She didn’t sit. More insubordination.

  “What do you want McMurphy? The team is all out on maneuvers over the Pacific. I’m missing out for this so called ‘urgent’ meeting.”

  “Yes Miss Marathon, it is urgent, it’s about the matter of your constant insubordination.”

  “My what?”

  “Insubordination. You’ve refused to register and recruit powered individuals on numerous occasions. And now you are taking the USS Patton out on joy rides to strip clubs. That craft is government property.”

  McMurphy paused. The timing
must be right. He was recording, he must elicit a response that would play well in court and in the press.

  “You had no permission to do any of this.”

  “Look McMurphy, I don’t need permission from you or anyone else to take the Patton out. And these powered people don’t want to be in your army. So you can go to hell.”

  Perfect. Dealing with political amateurs was oh so easy. Get them angry, make them say something incriminating, and record it.

  “Well then Margaret Cole, also known as Miss Marathon, for the crime of insubordination and theft of resources, jeopardizing our national security, I order you arrested.”

  With that McMurphy hit a switch under his desk. The military police officers waiting in the next room were there in an instant, tasers pointed at Miss Cole.

  “You can’t do this McMurphy. I’m not military, you have no authority.”

  “The Special Registration and Conscription Act says all supers are under military jurisdiction, and I am your superior officer. Men, take her to interrogation room 3.”

  Margaret tensed as if to fight the police, but there were six of them, all with tasers.

  She went quietly.

  McMurphy was already preparing his press statement as she left the room.

  * * *

  Maggie glanced around at interrogation room 3. It was hardly an interrogation room any more. It was heavily modified to act as a holding cell. A jail cell. A bed and toilet stall had been added. McMurphy must have been preparing for this for quite some time.

  Maggie sat on the bed unsure of what to do next. She could escape but that might go bad for her legally. Plus, there was Patty and Cannon to think about.

  When faced with a large problem, break it down into parts. First things first. Second things second. Third things third.

  First up, call Patty.

  * * *

  Patty moaned in anguish, her entire body, the ship, shook along with her anger. She had just received a message from Maggie through their mental link.

  The Patton’s voice vibrated and echoed through the ship as she relayed the message to Cannon, Cordel and the Jaunt Troopers.

  “She’s been put in jail by McMurphy. She wants us to hold and do nothing for now. She said we’d talk more when we get back to base.”