Wonder Heroes 4.0

by Ahlquist, Steve

  Jay heard a sickening ‘thwack’ as the staff connected, and the Fornax Dwarf went spinning away end over end, landing with a crunch nearby. Jay’s gauntlet indicated that the Dwarf was badly hurt, but still alive. Jay accessed his gauntlet, searching the medical database. Information about Fornaxian first aid came up on his visor.

  Klotax was behind him. “Stand aside, human!”

  Jay turned and found that he was staring up at the business end of the power staff. “Dude,” he said, controlling his fear, “Klotax. Listen, you don’t want to kill your father. You beat him. It’s done.”

  “I beat him?” said Klotax, not believing his senses, “I defeated the Fornax Dwarf in battle?”

  The crowd began to chant Klotax’s name, over and over. Jay ignored Klotax and the crowd and concentrated on helping the Fornax Dwarf. His gauntlet could produce nanobots tuned to repair Fornaxian physiology, so he administered them through a syringe that extended from his Wonder Gauntlet.

  Suddenly there were flashes of red, yellow, blue and white light around Jay as the Wonder Heroes appeared around him, prepared for battle. They had teleported in from the Ultra Fist, now in orbit around the Fornaxian Mega-Fortress.

  “Jay! Are you all right?” Theodore was covering Klotax, but the Fornaxian was wandering away, receiving the accolades of the appreciative crowds.

  “I’m fine,” said Jay, “but this place is a madhouse.”

  Matt knelt down next to Jay. “That’s the Fornax Dwarf…”

  “I know…” said Jay. The nanobots he had injected into his patient seemed to be working, and the Fornax dwarf let out a small pained groan.

  “He’s the Fornaxian Collective’s greatest warrior,” said Matt.

  “That’s what I hear…” said Jay.

  “Did you beat him?”

  Jay pointed to Klotax. “No, that guy did.”

  As the Wonder Heroes watched and the crowd continued to cheer and chant the name of Klotax Midibarion, beams of white light, pulsing with flashes of green, suddenly shot down from on high, enveloping Klotax and the Fornax Dwarf. Seconds ticked by as the crowd roared with approval and Klotax began to shrink before their eyes. Jay stepped back and watched as the Fornax Dwarf began to enlarge. The former leader of the Fornaxian Collective opened his eyes and focused on his son. Jay could not be sure, but he thought he saw pride reflected in the father’s eyes.

  Then the teleporters on the Ultra Fist activated, and Jay joined the Wonder Heroes in being swept away from the arena.

  The hanger inside Wonder Base was suddenly filled with thunderous sound and kaleidoscopic fury as the Ultra Fist punched its way through the Wonder Vortex and landed, less than twenty minutes having elapsed since the craft departed. Leaving Theodore to admire the Golden Kick, the rest of team took the elevator to the top floor of the Wonder Base. Repairs to the hole in the roof were already well underway courtesy of the Wonder Computer and robotic assemblers. Human janitorial staff were filling large wheeled trashcans with debris.

  General Rumpole and James Parker were observing the repairs in silence.

  “You’re back,” said the General, when he saw the team approaching, “That was fast. Looks like things went well.”

  “Jay negotiated a new peace agreement with the Fornaxians,” said Matt, “No more combats, at least for a while.”

  Jay crossed the debris caked floor to where his father stood. His father looked tired but unhurt save for the bandaid on his forehead.

  “Jay did a great job, General,” said Matt, “He may have prevented a war.”

  Jay’s father looked at his son as if seeing him for the first time. “Hello Jay,” he said, offering his son a returning handshake, “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  Jay smiled. He had seen the same look in another father’s eyes very recently. “Hey, Dad,” he said, ignoring the handshake and pulling his father in for a hug, “I love you, man.”

  Wonder Heroes 4.12

  The next few weeks were a blur for the new Wonder Heroes. Susan, Kalomo, Jay and Theodore spent their days in training. Martial arts masters and gymnastic coaches from around the world were brought to the Wonder Base for the chance to share their combat skills and warrior insights with the protectors of the Earth. It was considered a great honor in martial arts circles to be invited as an instructor, and the best martial artists competed fiercely to do so. Susan had spent many of her teen years learning aikido, a Japanese martial art that emphasized self-defense without undue injury to the attacker. It was primarily a defensive regimen, but now she found herself concentrating on developing deadly strikes and kicks, as she studied taekwondo and jeet kune do along with an extensive weapons training course.

  Kalomo and Theodore were both kick boxers. Kalomo’s reflexes were off the charts, even without the Wonder Gauntlet. His form was sloppy, but he was fast, making it difficult when sparring to connect any punches. In contrast Theodore had fantastic form, but no instinct for the fight. He thought too much, telegraphed his moves, and delayed too long when openings presented themselves.

  “You got to forget everything you learned and trust the training,” said a visiting boxing instructor one day. Cy Brookings was seventy plus years old and had trained six heavyweight champions in his fifty plus years as an instructor and coach.

  “I don’t get how I can use my training and forget it at the same time,” retorted Theodore in frustration.

  Cy sported a wry, toothless smile and said, cryptically, “You’re going to be your training, see?”

  Theodore frowned. “You’d think he wandered out of a Tibetan monastery and not some Chicago boxing gym,” muttered Theodore to Kalomo as they resumed sparring.

  Theodore and Kalomo exchanged some glancing punches and blocks before Kalomo suddenly swerved low and peppered Theodore with a half dozen short, devastating rabbit punches to the ribs. Theodore lost balance and fell.

  “Maybe,” answered Kalomo, offering Theodore a hand up off the mat, “But the old dude knows what he’s talking about.”

  Of the new team, Jay was the best fighter, at least in training. Though he had shown the team little when in the field, in the gym, even when sparring against some of the greatest martial arts masters in the world, Jay was more than able to hold his own. In the gym, he was a great sport, smiling even when it was his turn to hit the mat hard.

  “Great throw, Susan. Never saw it coming. That was the aikido, right?”

  Susan nodded, “Yeah. It was a move like that that got me the silver in Brazil.”

  “I got to admit,” said Jay cheerily, “I never thought aikido was all that powerful, but you’re making me a believer.”

  All four of the newcomers, though, were in awe of Matt. Three plus years of fighting aliens, training, and acclimating himself to the Wonder Gauntlet had made him perhaps the greatest living martial artist on the planet, though he was never one to admit it.

  “These moves we’re learning, from all these martial arts,” Matt began one morning in the gym, “they're all good, and they’ve been developed over the last thousands of years by great warriors and philosophers and thinkers…”

  Matt demonstrated a short, extremely violent series of punches and blocks, ending in a low stance. “...but they’re limited.”

  Matt looked each member of the team in the eyes. He allowed his words to sink in. “They’re limited by the abilities and limitations of the human body.”

  Matt walked over to a small pile of bricks. Earlier in the week the team watched a demonstration in which a karate master smashed the bricks with his open hand. The bricks Matt now approached were twice the thickness, and there were twice as many.

  “These gauntlets let us go past human limitations.”

  Matt raised his bare fist, and as the team watched, he screamed “Hai!”

  Matt brought his bare hand down on the small pile of bricks with such force that the top two were completely pulverized into crumbs and all the bricks were broken into two an
d three pieces.

  Matt looked at his hand, smiled, and showed it to the rest of the team.

  “Oh crap,” said Jay, wincing. The rest of the team did not know what to say. Matt’s hand was a lump of bruised and bloodied flesh and broken bones. It was a hideous injury, but even as they watched, the hand began to heal itself as bones shifted beneath newly forming pink skin.

  “The gauntlet has blocked the pain, and the nanobots in my blood are already repairing the damage.”

  “That still had to hurt,” said Kalomo.

  “It did,” said Matt, “a lot, but the gauntlet cuts off the pain quick, so you can remain battle ready. If I summoned the Wonder Armor my hand would be healed in half the time. As it is….”

  Matt wriggled the fingers on his wounded hand. “I’ll be completely fine inside of ten minutes.”

  Matt took a step back. The team spread out a little bit. “The gauntlet will pull you back from almost any damage. Paul had his leg bitten off by a sluk flower on Wod. It took almost a day, but his Wonder Armor regrew it. Harlan once had his heart ripped from his chest and eaten in front of him, but the Wonder Armor activated before he died, and grew him a new heart.”

  Theodore absently rubbed his chest. Matt grew suddenly quiet. Mentioning his lost teammates had summoned unwelcome memories. “Uh… Well, you get the idea.”

  Along with the training there was a steady barrage of media interviews and news stories that required the participation of the new Wonder Heroes. Reporters and film crews from around the world traveled to the Wonder Base, or the Wonder Heroes would make the trip by way of teleporter to various locations to be interviewed on site. In one week, Susan realized, she had done interviews in Mexico, London, Singapore, South Africa and Venezuela.

  The Wonder Gauntlets provided the translations of the various languages the team met with so seamlessly that Susan sometimes lost track of what country she was in or what language she was speaking. The questions were all the same, variations on a theme. They wanted to know about her life, her values, her teammates, their beliefs, her thoughts on the seemingly never ending alien menace, and if she felt that she was truly up to the task of protecting the planet. General Rumpole had explained that this was the primary question on everyone’s mind: Could the new Wonder Heroes do the job, and would the various alien menaces see the team as a powerful enough deterrent?

  The television broadcasts were thought to be extremely important. It was well known that just beyond the Oort Cloud of our solar system were positioned several alien armadas waiting for some slip in the Earth’s defenses. These aliens monitored the television broadcasts of Earth, searching for weakness, and the only thing that kept the Zaroulis, or the Mathic Intemperment, or the Wacabataille from launching a full scale assault on the Earth and its resources was the presence of the Wonder Heroes.

  It was in India that one of the interviews went oddly askew. The entire team, minus Matt, who was crafty in coming up with reasons not to do public appearances (“I just think they’d rather hear from the new guys, and besides, Cassie asked me to visit…”) teleported onto a soundstage in front of a medium sized studio audience to be interviewed by a popular Indian radio personality, a small, stern woman named Rehab Veneer.

  Veneer asked questions in a very direct, almost confrontational way, and the team found themselves a little put off: they were usually treated with the respect and deference reserved for royalty and movie stars, and had already come to expect such treatment.

  “Jay Parker,” Veneer began in excellent English, with only a trace of her Indian accent beneath her clipped Oxford tones. “There were some early reports that you weren’t quite cutting it, as they say. Your comments?”

  “What?” asked Jay, “Where did you hear that?”

  “So you deny these reports?”

  “I don’t know what reports you’re talking about.”

  Theodore raised a hand. Something about Veneer’s attitude made them all feel on the spot. “Uh, if I might comment. Jay’s been doing stellar work.”

  “That’s right,” chimed in Kalomo, nodding his head.

  Veneer looked at Susan, who nodded in agreement with her teammates. “So this is the party line. No disharmony, you all work together well and there are no problems?”

  The team shot each other looks and exchanged smiles and nods.

  “Yeah,” said Susan, “There may have been some tiny bumps at the start, but we’re a team now. One hundred percent.”

  Veneer looked doubtful, but did not press the point. “Next question. Theodore.”

  Theodore smiled and leaned forward. He decided to embrace the combative air, rather than fight it. Besides, he knew what was coming, some variation on the ‘How do you live down the betrayal of Harlan Flicker?’ question he had already fielded what seemed like a thousand times. “Let me have it,” he said.

  Veneer did not return Theodore’s smile. “Do you know the name Perfect Teddy 23?”

  Theodore’s face dropped. Susan saw him go pale. His mouth opened, but no words formed. “Uh, I…”

  A smile tried unsuccessfully to twitch itself into existence at the edge of Veneer’s lips. “It’s a simple question, isn’t it?”

  “No. I don’t think so,” Theodore shook his head, “Definitely not.”

  Veneer smiled. “Is that a denial, or are you just startled by the question?”

  Theodore shook his head. “Never heard of him.”

  Veneer’s icy stare pinned Theodore to his seat. “Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider?”

  Susan looked at Theodore, and saw real fear in his face. Then suddenly, Theodore relaxed. “Sounds like an Internet handle,” he said, “what of it?”

  “Perfect Teddy is the name of a notorious hacker,” said Veneer, “He’s made some daring raids on government and private servers all over the world.”

  “Well, Teddy is short for Theodore, and I’m pretty near perfect,” retorted the Wonder Hero, “so I can see where someone might get confused.”

  Veneer narrowed her eyes but again did not press the point. The rest of the interview went better, with Kalomo answering questions about his family and his girlfriend, and Susan fielding a question about her estranged father. After it was over and the cameras stopped, the entire team felt properly ambushed.

  Veneer rose from her chair and without a word or a look back simply left the set.

  “I like the Spratsis better than I like her,” said Kalomo.

  “You got off easy, man,” said Jay, “she really had it in for me and Theodore.”

  Theodore said nothing. Kalomo joked, “Maybe she’s an alien and we can beat her up.”

  Susan smiled. “No such luck. I scanned her and she’s human. Barely.”

  Between the training, press conferences, public appearances and defense briefings there was little time to do anything else, but when the odd opportunity presented itself, each of the Wonder Heroes attempted to try to have a life. Susan grabbed some of this precious time to wrap up her college career, which MIT graciously put on hold for her. She had one semester to finish before she could graduate, and she had already received several acceptance letters from graduate schools including Stamford and MIT, but all that would probably never happen now. She was a Wonder Hero. All academic degrees seemed suddenly pointless.

  While on campus, Susan decided to knock on the door of her old dorm room. Lindsey, an Asian girl with long black hair and tired eyes answered the door.

  She brightened considerably when she saw her friend. “Oh my god, Susan!”

  Susan smiled, “Hey Lindsey. You busy?”

  Lindsey opened the door wide and almost dragged Susan inside. The room seemed empty now that Susan’s stuff had all been packed up and sent to the Wonder Base. Lindsey had only just started invading the space Susan had vacated: a small, unopened package from Amazon.com and a coat had been thrown onto Susan’s old mattress.

  “The place looks so different,” said Susan
, looking around.

  “Those military guys took everything, even the posters and stickers you put on the wall,” laughed Lindsey.

  “I know. It was so weird opening a box full of useless paper.”

  “Well,” said Lindsey, “they were thorough.” Lindsey smiled, “I really miss you.”

  “I miss you too, Lin.”

  The two women hugged and sat down on the edge of Susan’s old bed.

  “It was so weird when you left,” said Lindsey, “One minute you were there, the next minute you were like, gone! Rumors were flying, and Steve and Dave were completely useless. They said you were snatched by a U.F.O. Then we heard the news reports. You’re a freaking Wonder Hero!”

  “Yeah,” agreed Susan, “Sometimes I think I must be hallucinating, but there’s no getting around this.” Susan held out her arm so that Lindsey could examine the gauntlet.

  Lindsey looked closely at the point where gauntlet met flesh. “It fits perfectly. The gauntlet has meshed with your skin…”

  “You don’t wear the gauntlet,” said Susan, “It’s more like you merge with it.”

  “That’s so weird. Can I touch it?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “It’s warm, and feels like plastic, or plastic coated metal,” said Lindsey, running her fingers across the surface of the gauntlet. “I’ve never felt anything like it.”

  Susan was instantly feeling at home, engaging in science geek talk with her best friend. “No one knows what the gauntlets are made of. They behave like matter or energy, depending on the test, and the gauntlets seem to spread out beyond three dimensions, fractally.”

  “I can’t even imagine,” said Lindsey, “I don’t have that much math.”

  “No one does,” agreed Susan, “One theory? Each gauntlet is a self contained artificial micro-universe.”

  “Holy crap.”

  Susan laughed, “Yeah, no kidding. The Cassiopeians somehow managed to harness the power of an entire universe, or micro-verse, I guess, into a biological symbiote.”

  Lost in thought, the two friends were silent for a moment. Lindsey began moving her hands in an odd nervous way, hyper-extending her wrists and rotating her forearms. Susan knew the movements as a sign that something was troubling her friend.