by Pen
“Hey, you’re the Spider Wasp. You got any ideas?”
“Yeah, back out the passage.”
Rachel shook her head. “No, don’t move. We’ve still got a job to do, and I’m betting those eyes are motion detectors. The one thing I can’t hide.”
Too late. The spiders leaped into action, jumping from the wall onto the thin metal girders. They looked far too big for the metal railings, but as they landed they folded their legs underneath them, allowing their metal bodies to effortlessly scurry right toward them. It hit Rachel immediately: they were built to ride the girders.
They moved with robotic precision, charging down the support beam that Ward and Rachel were precariously perched upon.
“Blink out and don’t move. I’ll draw their fire.”
* * *
Rachel disappeared and immediately switched her RDSD to scan the oncoming machines. She had been wrong, she saw—they did not have motion detectors in their optical sensors.
That was a damn good thing.
She carefully swiveled on the thin metal rail so that she was pointed away from them. And holding her hands out for balance, still grasping the RDSD in her right, looking like a woman on a tightrope, she hurried to the other end of the beam as the spiders gained on her from behind.
A whistling sound caught her ear, and she saw Ward whiz by behind her firing his disabling darts. The spiders that had been closest to her fell into the grid and sizzled apart. She breathed a sigh of relief—just before the spiders all turned and shuffled for her beam.
Shit! They’ve realized there is something on this girder!
By shooting at it, Ward had drawn attention to her beam, and the spiders had figured they needed to investigate it. The worm might have been a big dumb cargo hauler, but these guys were smarter. Built to make decisions, assess the odds.
She couldn’t yell to Ward or it might draw their attention directly to her. She could only assume they had some kind of audio detectors. So she sent him a text over the com and just hoped he would see it in time. “Paul I need help,” it read. Spiders were bounding down the girder now, frantically crawling over one another to get to her. She was still sure they could not see her, but they were using machine logic and were probably going to check the entire length of the girder.
Ward doubled back and opened fire on the machines. They stopped in their march down Rachel’s support beam and turned back toward the flying Ward, following him with their many small robotic eyes.
She typed another text. “Shoot some on the other girders so they don’t know where I am,” she sent to him, and he did. Spiders turned back from converging on Rachel’s girder and fanned out toward the others. Ward hit spiders up and down the structure, never giving them a single spot to focus on. All the while, the creepy machines kept their main attention on Ward zipping above them.
There was nothing they could do to him. He picked them off one at a time with ease. Spiders were falling all around, popping and exploding in blue sparks.
This gave Rachel the opening she needed. She aimed the RDSD down at the pool of blue energy, desperate to find some kind of control panel—hoping against hope she would not be taken out by a piece of flying robot spider debris. What a way to go.
There it was.
Inside the grid—floating above the pool on a lone girder that she had not noticed before but now could barely make out over the immensely bright glow of the pool below her. Somehow she’d known she needed to be up here to find the hub. Why would they make it easy, after all?
“I found the control panel!” she yelled out over the com.
And instantly regretted it.
Every spider in the place stopped and turned toward her. It was a frozen moment in time she would have liked to have never left. Because all of them, too many to count, began charging for her the split second after.
Ward was on the other end of the grid. He arced around and headed to save her.
“No!” she yelled. She knew he was coming to fly her to the cavern floor or, worse, back down the tunnel. But they had to stay focused. “Find a way in! It’s all on you to stop this thing!”
“Are you kidding me?” he said incredulously.
“Do it! I’ll distract them. Just be quick about it!”
* * *
Ward curved back and headed toward the narrower end of the grid-cage. He’d noticed it looked different than the side that he and Rachel had nearly crashed into when they’d entered the chamber. If they were different, did that also mean they might contain a way into the pool area?
The answer was yes. As Ward reached the edge of the grid, he dove down along the side, with the floor of the chamber staring him in the face as he flew. Below him and rapidly approaching, he spied a small opening in the side of the grid. The support beam Rachel had seen with the AI hub on it. He flew into the tight opening, managing not to get fried in the process, and spied the lone control panel in the center of the beam. The beam spanned across the entire length of the cage. He imagined those spider things climbing along the girder to service the panel. At least that part made sense. The spiders were both the maintenance team and part of the security detail.
But then he realized there seemed to be no way for the spiders to actually get to the girder. Energized grid blocked their path in every direction. He pondered that as he aimed the disabling beam at the control panel and prepared to fire.
* * *
Up top, Rachel was learning the answer to Ward’s mystery. The spiders were closing in. She had retreated to the edge of the support beam. One inch behind her heel was the bend in the girder at the cage’s edge—and a two hundred-foot fall. She had nowhere else to go. That’s when she remembered her small i-hook. She pulled it out of her utility belt and fired the hook at the first spider, which was now only a foot in front of her.
To the machine, the hook seemed to appear out of nowhere, and it latched onto the spider with a magnetic hold.
Rachel pulled with all her might. It was just enough to yank the spider free of the girder, and it fell into the grid just as Rachel released the hook’s hold.
It was then she realized the error of her strategy—the reason maybe her conscience had not let her think of this approach until she had become completely desperate.
First, she lost her balance. The momentum of pulling the spider and it wrenching free of the girder rippled onto Rachel, and she stumbled.
Second, the spider became a grenade. It exploded right below her.
And then to make matters even worse, all the lights went out as Ward’s dart hit home on the control panel.
She didn’t have to see to know the shrapnel was exploding up toward her or that her feet were slipping off the girder. She did the only thing she could do. She leaped straight up off the support beam and fired the i-hook into the darkness above her, hoping it would make contact with the stone roof of the cavern before her feet made contact with the giant blue bug zapper below her.
It did.
She hung there, still invisible. But also blind.
As her eyes adjusted to the dim light from the embedded lanterns, the ceiling started to move. Spiders had climbed up the walls to the roof of the cavern and were now searching for her.
Some of them were headed toward the hook on the ceiling. Desperately, she scanned into the darkness below her to find Ward, but she could see nothing. Her arms were starting to ache.
The cable on the i-hook began to tremble and shake, and as she glared up to see what was happening, her eyes went wide with horror. A spider had found the cable. One was climbing down toward her and another . . .
Snap!
. . . sliced straight through the cable with razor-sharp pinchers. She and the spider fell at speed. The now de-energized steel cage of the grid rising up below them. It was a fifty-foot fall. She’d either die or be badly hurt.
“Paul, I’m falling!” she screamed as she turned visible again.
“I’ve got you!” he said back, very close, and ins
tantly Ward exploded out of the darkness right in front of her, grabbing her up and dodging the plummeting spider in the process. It smashed into the steel grid below them half a second later, and Rachel let the i-hook gun fall with it.
Using Lantern’s night vision app for his HUD, Ward flew them back into the tunnel, across the underground room, up the vertical shaft, and out into the open sky. “If I had a nickel for every beautiful woman who said they were falling for me . . .”
“You’d have a nickel?”
Ward smiled at her. “I would now.”
Rachel, still facing him, leaned up and kissed his cheek.
Which instantly flushed bright red . . .
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MINOR LEAGUE
Jim Zoetewey
Twenty Minutes from Lansing, Michigan. July, 1989—Larry sat in his mobile home, television on. Out of the window behind the television, corn grew, green stalks obscuring everything else. It was taller than his knee—waist high now, but it was almost three weeks past the fourth of July, so that was to be expected.
On “The Cosby Show,” Cliff Huxtable lectured one of his daughters about something she’d one wrong.
Larry missed exactly what because both of his dogs had come to their feet and run to bark at the front door. Larry followed them. In between barks, he’d heard a roar of a car.
“Sid! Nancy! Over here. Sit.” The Doberman Pinschers sat.
Opening the door, he saw a red corvette come to a stop next to his own white Ford truck. Despite his unpaved driveway, the corvette still looked clean.
David Cohen stepped out. A bit over six feet tall, he had short, dark hair and an alert, tanned face. Between the blue suit and the sunglasses he was putting in his jacket’s front pocket, David looked every inch the stereotype of the lawyer he was training to become.
By contrast, Larry wore stained blue jeans and a white muscle shirt that didn’t hide either his muscles or his belly. The black hair of his mullet reached to his shoulders. Larry stood about six and a half feet tall.
Once David made it up the stairs and reached the porch, he grinned, and Larry pulled him into a hug.
“It’s been a while. When did you come home?” Larry let go, and opened the door, giving a quick nod to indicate that David could go in.
“I got out of the army in August. I started law school in September. I barely feel like I got home.”
As David stepped inside, the dogs started barking, but only for a moment. Almost as quickly as they started, and before Larry said anything, they stopped barking and started sniffing David.
Larry raised an eyebrow. “Did you do mess with their heads?”
David shrugged, “A little. They already remembered me. I drew their attention to it.”
Larry considered complaining, but decided that even if David was too polite to say so, he was a telepath and probably already knew what Larry thought.
Larry took a step toward the kitchen. “You want a beer?”
David grinned, “Yours?”
“If it’s coming from my refrigerator, it’s my beer either way.”
David laughed. “You know what I mean.”
Larry nodded. “Then you know my answer.”
“If you made the beer, I’d love to try it. I heard about it the whole time I was overseas.”
Larry stepped past the dining room table and into the kitchen, pulling a couple brown bottles out of the refrigerator. As he stepped back into the living room, David nodded toward the poster that hung on the wall behind the table. “Good concert?”
Mostly green, the poster showed a man in medieval clothing playing a flute under the words “Jethro Tull.” The bottom of it gave the location and date as “Hardwick Auditorium, July 19.”
Larry handed him a bottle. “Worth every penny. Who told you about the beer?”
They sat down on the couch, ignoring the television. Larry lowered the volume as David replied.
“Everybody. I called my parents and they were all there. They were playing cards and drinking your beer.”
Larry grinned. “Yeah, I gave Joe a gallon of amber ale a few months ago. That was just before you got out of the army.”
David took a drink from his bottle. “I was calling home to let them know when I’d be coming in. It was funny. You remember all the fuss when they retired? People were wondering what the Heroes’ League would do without supervillains to fight? No one ever guessed regular card games.”
David grinned. “And those of us who knew the League couldn’t have guessed anything else. You remember them playing poker? They’d be accusing my dad of cheating about half the time and Reg the other half.”
Larry laughed. “Yeah, but they never meant it. They’ve been making the same jokes since World War 2. Do you miss it?”
David leaned forward and turned to look back at Larry. “Yes and no. You had a choice about being the Rocket’s sidekick. I was the youngest child of the Mentalist, who happened to be a war hero and a superhero, and a popular Rabbi . . . And I was the only child who’d inherited his father’s talent for telepathy and telekinesis. He didn’t try to pressure me, but it was hard not to feel the pressure anyway.
“Do I miss it? I miss hanging around with the rest of the junior League members and the original team in HQ, but I don’t miss the expectations or hiding what I was doing from my friends. I know it was different for you.”
Larry glanced toward the TV. It was now showing “A Different World.” He ought to turn it off. Reaching for the remote, he said, “Yeah, no one had expectations for me. I was always the weird kid who was making stuff. Except then I tried to scavenge a supervillain’s armor and met Joe. It was a relief for everyone, especially my parents who didn’t have any idea what to do with me.”
David grinned. “That doesn’t mean you stopped being the weird kid who made stuff. What are you working on now?”
Larry let go of the remote. “Beer making equipment. I’ve been looking into how big companies make beer, and I can do it better—more efficiently and with better tasting beer. You’ve had Budweiser, Coors, Miller . . . The beer is okay, but it’s bland. It doesn’t have to be—”
The TV started beeping, and the words “NBC NEWS 10 SPECIAL REPORT” appeared in letters that filled almost the entire screen.
Larry stopped talking. David muttered, “Now what?” and sat up straighter in his seat.
The music stopped and the letters disappeared as the camera zoomed on the man at the desk. He wore a blue blazer with the NBC peacock and the words, “News 10” above the pocket. Between the blond hair and square jaw, he appeared to come out of TV anchor Central Casting.
“This is Ted Jansen of NBC News 10. According to reports, many of Grand Lake’s radio and television stations—including News 10—received cassette tapes in the mail today. The tapes claim to be the work of the supervillain Null.”
The screen next to the anchor changed from the NBC News 10 logo to a stocky, muscular man with a shaved head wearing black and gray body armor. A zero with a diagonal slash across it appear in white paint on the center of his chest.
Larry remembered it all too well, clenching his fist, and muttering, “Goddamn.”
David took a deep breath. “That guy.”
“Null,” the anchor continued, “first appeared in the early 80s supervillain group Fire and Ice. Led by Johnny Destruction, they were caught by the Heroes’ League in one of their last major engagements before they retired. Null escaped from prison two years ago, and was last seen as part of the supervillain group The Dregs.”
The screen next to the anchor changed to show a group of men in misshapen, gray armor. Larry couldn’t see a technical reason for it. The dents, twisted smiles, mismatched eyes and limbs were purely aesthetic.
“Null’s known powers are blocking telepathy and telekinesis. The Dregs are best known for robbing banks, armored cars, and acting as mercenaries for supervillains. While it’s not known with certainty that it’s the work of Null, the
tape challenges the now retired Grand Lake Heroes’ League to prevent them from ‘burning this city down’ starting tonight.”
The anchor paused and looked into the camera. “Grand Lake’s police department does not recommend going downtown tonight. They report that the department will be appropriately staffed to protect the city and have contacted state and federal agencies for assistance. When asked if they’d attempted to contact the Heroes’ League, the police department had no comment.”
David stood up, leaving his beer on the end table next to the lamp. “I’d better be getting moving, but I’ve got a question for you. No time to talk about it now, but—”
Larry downed the last half of his beer and stood. “Don’t worry about it. I’m coming with you. We’ll talk afterward. Do you have your costume?”
David caught his eye. “Are you sure?”
“It was a long time ago, and besides, you’re not going to have much to work with outside of clairvoyance and precog, right? You’ll be going up against guys in armor. You’ll need me.”
David nodded. “Can’t argue with you. I’m better than I was before the army. Captain Commando even borrowed me a couple times, so I saw action, but there are a lot of them.”
“All right then,” Larry picked up the remote, pressed one button to turn off the TV, aimed the remote at the floor. A square of carpet moved upward, held in the air by a black metal and glass elevator. It took up half the room.
“Nice,” David said, looking from the elevator to Larry. “I think this must be the only time I’ve ever seen an elevator in a mobile home.”
Larry laughed. “I’ve got a bunker underground. So there’s an elevator in the barn too.”
* * *
David
They took the elevator down, hearing the whoosh of air as it descended. David sensed that Larry had stopped thinking about Null for now. He admired Larry’s ability to let it go. He couldn’t do it quite so easily.
