In answer, Jay merely nodded. Knowing that the teleporter was safe did nothing to alleviate his unease.
In a multicolored flash the Wonder Heroes were gone.
Wonder Heroes 4.20
Ten minutes before the Wonder Heroes were summoned to Canada, General Rumpole escorted Theodore into his office with a hand on the younger man’s shoulder, closed the door, and gestured towards and open chair. To Theodore it felt as if he were being brought into the principal’s office in grade school, and it rankled him, but for now he remained silent.
The General sat down behind his desk, across from the golden Wonder Hero, palming a quarter-sized remote control from his pocket as he did so. “Thank you for meeting with me Theodore.”
“So what’s going on, General?” asked Theodore easily. He did not want to betray his annoyance to the General. Theodore’s attitude did nothing to calm the General’s doubts. He was reminded of Harlan Flicker’s easy lies.
“This isn’t a comfortable subject to broach Theodore, so I’ll just get right to it,” said the General, picking up the file from his desk, the same file Theodore had viewed holographically the night before. “I’ve come into the possession of some documents that indicate that you committed a very serious crime in the hours following Harlan Flicker’s betrayal.”
Despite his cocky outward demeanor, Theodore was shaken. He shifted uneasily in his seat and his voice cracked only a little as he asked, “What kind of crime?”
The General sighed. “Do I really have to explain this, Theodore?”
Theodore said nothing, so the General continued. “You broke into the government’s Wonder Hero mainframe and tampered with the selection process. You added your name to the list of candidates. You should never have been considered for the position of Wonder Hero.”
Theodore said nothing.
The General felt angry. “Are you going to deny it?”
Slowly, Theodore shook his head. There was an awkward silence in the room. Finally Theodore looked up, his eyes red, rimmed with tears. “So?”
“So?” The General looked at Theodore sternly, fighting the urge to yell. “You tampered with the selection process. You put the safety of the entire planet at risk.”
“The gauntlet chose me, General,” said Theodore, “it rejected every one of your other candidates, but chose me.”
“You illegally bypassed the selection process…”
“What selection process?” interrupted Theodore, “The process you and the government made up, and badgered the grieving Matt O’Dette to go along with?”
The General half rose from his chair, his anger evident now. “Easy there, kiddo. Gauntlet or no gauntlet I’ll kick your ass up and down this mesa.”
Despite the gauntlet, and his experience fighting alien monsters, Theodore found himself intimidated by the General, but screwed up his courage. “The original Wonder Heroes were just the first six random people the Cassiopeians found when they came to Earth. They weren’t looking for super people, they were looking for people people.”
“That has nothing to do with you rigging the system…” began the General, but Theodore was not finished.
“All I did was get my name on the list,” said Theodore, “number 96 out of a hundred, and that probably doesn’t count the hundreds of soldiers and scientists who tried the gauntlets before the government went public with their selection process.”
The General shifted gears. “Maybe you don’t get why this is such a big deal, Theodore. The original Wonder Hero Gold, Harlan Flicker, was a liar, a cheat, and a traitor to his friends and the world. Now here you are, following in his footsteps.”
Theodore was speechless, and it was a second before he said, quietly, “I am not Harlan Flicker.”
“But you are a liar and a cheat.”
The Wonder Computer interrupted the silence and cold glares that followed. “There is a situation at the Sylvan Lake Provincial Holding Area. Wonder Hero intervention is requested.”
Theodore began to rise, but the General fixed him with a stare. Theodore stood in place.
“I have to go, General,” said Theodore, “are we through here?”
“We are not through here,” said the General through tight lips.
“Look, the gauntlet chose me…” There was pleading in Theodore’s voice.
“The gauntlet chose Harlan Flicker,” countered the General, “maybe it has bad taste.”
“I am Wonder Hero Gold, until I die.”
“Don’t tempt me, Theodore.”
Matt’s voice broke the tense silence that followed. “Where’s Theodore?”
Theodore stood still, shocked at how guilty he felt. How could he explain this to the General? A voice in his mind told him that there was no way he could ever explain all this away. He would never regain the trust of the General or his teammates when they learned of this.
The General said, “He’s with me Matt. Go deal with the situation in Canada, I’ll send him when I can.”
“It would be better to have the whole team, General…”
“People are dying out there Matthew. Get going. Trust me.”
Theodore sat back down in the seat across from the General.
“What gets me Theodore,” said General Rumpole quietly, “right here and right now, is that you’re showing no remorse for this crime.”
“Remorse?” asked Theodore, surprised, “Why? I’m Wonder Hero Gold. I’ve done good work for the team.”
“Yes, you have,” said the General, and there was another awkward moment of silence.
Quietly Theodore asked, “So now what? Are you going to tell the rest of the team?”
“I have to. They deserve to know,” the General cleared his throat, “and we have to figure out how to get that gauntlet off you.”
Theodore’s head shot up. “What?”
“Theodore… You can’t keep the gauntlet, and you can’t be a Wonder Hero.”
Theodore raised his gauntleted arm defiantly. “The gauntlet chose me!”
The General thumbed the remote control in his hand, keeping it below the desk and out of Theodore’s sight. If he pressed the button, surgical lasers would fire from hidden alcoves built into the walls of General Rumpole’s office, lasers that, if they worked, would slice Theodore’s gauntleted arm off before Theodore could respond by summoning the Wonder Armor. At least, that was the theory. There was no way to test the device.
“The gauntlet was broken,” said the General, “we don’t know that a fully functional gauntlet would make the same choice.”
“The gauntlet can’t be removed unless I’m dead.”
“I’ve been talking to Walter Watanabe,” replied the General, “He’s got some ideas…”
Theodore jumped to his feet, knocking his chair over in the process. “Watanabe? I’m sure he has ideas about the gauntlet…”
The General fingered the button on the remote, but hesitated using it.
“I won’t let you experiment on me,” said Theodore.
In a flash Theodore summoned his Wonder Armor. The time had passed for the remote control in the General’s hand to have any effectiveness. The General stared at the boy who possessed the most powerful weapon on Earth, the boy whose life he had essentially just threatened.
Theodore seethed with power and anger. General Rumple could not see the face behind the mask of the Wonder Helmet, but he could imagine Theodore’s tear stained face, wracked with emotion. At any moment Theodore could channel that emotion into deadly force, and if Theodore decided to vent that emotion through the power of his Wonder Armor, the General would die right here, right now.
Then, all the tension leaked from the room as Theodore suddenly became extremely calm and said, “I’m going to Canada, General.”
As Theodore exited the office to join his teammates in battle, General Rumpole attempted to relax. His heart raced, and his breathing was shallow as he wiped beads of perspiration from h
is head. Suddenly the General felt very old indeed as he looked at the small remote trigger in his hand, and wondered if he should have used it.
The Wonder Computer set Matt, Susan, Kalomo and Jay down between the retreating remnants of the Canadian Army and the two advancing robots, Crush and Kill. Like a pelting of rain, bullets splashed off their Wonder Armor from both directions. With the augmentation her gauntlet provided, Susan could instantly begin to track the bullets coming from the guns of Crush and Kill, and dodge them with ease, but instead she created a crimson energy shield, to prevent stray bullets from hurting any of the soldiers behind her.
Kalomo streaked forward, just under a tracking fire of bullets, and caught the closest robot, Kill, in the mid section with both his hands. Kalomo blasted his gauntleted fist through the duro-quadnium casing that protected the robots internal mechanisms, but before he could do any serious damage the robot activated boot rockets, and blasted its way backwards, leaving a cloud of radioactive steam in it wake. Kalomo was only momentarily distracted, and quickly gave chase.
Wonder Hero Ultra took to the air, and as Crush targeted Wonder Hero Jet, who was still gaining his footing after teleportation, Matt targeted the robot. Matt rocketed into a high arc, somersaulted in the air, and aimed head first at Crush. Blasting his boot jets for a quick burst of speed, Matt somersaulted again, landing feet first on the robot. Crush’s head was crushed.
At the truck, Jaimie Karasik had turned from the steady stream of escaping, teleporting Spratsis towards the melee that ensued following the sudden, yet expected arrival of the Wonder Heroes. She smiled, and punched a button built just inside the truck’s hold.
The top of the truck opened and revealed a small missile array that almost immediately launched five small missiles high into the air that instantly took off in five different directions.
Jay, Wonder Hero Jet, looked to the sky as the five missiles shot away, leaving thick smoke trails in their wake. His combat computer revealed his worst fears. “Mini-nukes!”
Jaimie laughed and called out to the Wonder Heroes, “That’s right, heroes! Five nukes, five major cities, gone!” Jaimie raised her hands as if summoning a mushroom cloud. “Kerplow!”
The four Wonder Heroes took to the air in pursuit of the missiles. On the communicators, Susan said, “There are five missiles, and only four of us.”
“Good time to pull Theodore from the team,” said Kalomo.
Wonder Hero Ultra pushed his boot jets past max velocity, well into the red zone. His armor could only take this much stress for a short time before shutting down for repairs. Matt turned off the danger warnings and the safeties. “We just have to move twice as fast…”
The four Wonder Heroes became multicolored streaks blasting in four different directions as fast as their boot jets would carry them. Jaimie laughed as the escaping alien Spratsis continued to file through her teleporter.
Jay caught his missile just over Calgary. It was as easy as kicking the rocket from behind, giving it just a tiny nudge as he directed his armor to overloaded the missile’s on board guidance system. Confused and unable to get an accurate lock on target, the missile shot harmlessly into the stratosphere and detonated, illuminating the night sky like a second sun for one brief instant.
Kalomo had similar luck with the eastern bound missile. With a blast of razor sharp energy from his gauntlet he shaved the nuke from the missile, allowing the missile to fall harmlessly into one of the Great Lakes far below. He caught the mini-nuke in his hands and tossed it into space, where it detonated, adding its radiation to the cosmic rays beyond Earth. New York City never knew it was in danger.
The target for Susan’s missile was farther away, giving her armor the time it needed to take control of the missile’s computer systems and shut down the detonation sequence. Susan caught the missile, about the size of a microwave oven, under one arm, and shot north after Matt and the two missiles he was tracking, targeting Vancouver and Anchorage.
Matt tracked the Vancouver missile, getting close enough to blast it with enough blue energy to fry its circuitry and prevent its detonation. He did not have time to worry about where it fell, because if he delayed even a second, Anchorage was doomed. The missile would fall into Vancouver, and shatter on impact, spewing deadly plutonium on the unsuspecting population. The event would not be as bad as a nuclear detonation, but hundreds, perhaps thousands of people would be sickened and die.
Matt put thoughts of Vancouver out of his mind as he spotted Anchorage in the distance, and only a little closer, he saw the mini-nuke. He could not blast the missile out of the air; he had diverted all power to his boot jets and had nothing in reserve for an energy blast.
“Computer!” Matt screamed, “On my mark prepare for teleportation!”
The city seemed to expand and grow as Matt angled after the mini-nuke. The missile had calculated the exact point over the city where detonation would provide maximum destruction and bee-lined for that spot. Matt’s onboard computer calculated that spot faster and his armor got him there an instant earlier. Matt grabbed the missile in a flying tackle and screamed, “NOW!”
The Wonder Computer dematerialized Matt and the bomb, and rematerialized him fifty-thousand miles above the earth, almost a fifth of the way to the moon. The missile exploded silently, and Matt’s stressed armor suffered the bleeding edge of the explosion, but he did not die. Instead Matt found himself teleported back to Earth by the Wonder Computer, his compromised armor guiding him to a rough fall in the snow. The sky was lit up high above him for an instant as the missile vented its nuclear fury and then faded. Matt fell onto his back in the snow, staring at the stars as his armor initiated self-repair.
Susan’s voice crackled over the communicator. “Matt? Are you alive? I caught the remnants of the Vancouver missile. No one was hurt.”
Matt smiled. Paul would have been proud of him. “Susan, I’m out of the game for a few minutes. It’s up to you, Kalomo and Jay now.”
“Don’t worry, Matt, I’m on it.”
Matt smiled. He knew she was.
Having dealt with their nuclear missiles faster than Matt and Susan, Jay and Kalomo arrived back at the Sylvan Lake Provincial Holding Area just in time to witness Jaimie Karasik climb into the back of the truck and vanish into the teleporter. A few remaining Spratsis, caught between the opening in the fence and the back of the truck scurried back into the holding area, watching the Wonder Heroes warily.
“Computer, can you track the teleportation?” Kalomo asked as he and Jay landed nearby. Their systems indicated no booby-traps or additional dangers.
“The teleporter’s systems have been scrambled, and the signal cleverly routed,” replied the Wonder Computer, “I am having difficulty narrowing down the teleporter’s target.”
Kalomo thought for a moment, and then slapped Jay in the chest with the back of his hand. “Dude, we should follow them through.”
“What?” said Jay, “Are you crazy? It’s unknown alien technology.”
“Check your readings,” said Kalomo, “standard teleporter tech. It’s safe enough, and we’re wearing Wonder Armor.”
Jay shook his head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“I do,” said Kalomo seriously, “and I need back up. Who knows what’s on the other side?”
The old shock absorbers groaned as Kalomo jumped onto the back of the truck, and approached the teleportation gate there. After another moment’s hesitation Jay joined him.
“I hate this idea,” said Jay.
“We do it together, okay?” said Kalomo, gently patting his friend’s shoulder, “One, two, three!”
Together Wonder Heroes Ghost and Jet jumped through the teleportation gate. Deep within the teleporter’s computer system a sensor tripped and a line of code declared, “Cassiopeian technology detected. Sub routine engaged.”
The teleporter treated the buffered energy forms of Jay and Kalomo as information to be shuffled, deleted an
d broadcast randomly. Ordinary matter undergoing this process would be spewed, like so much ground beef, throughout teleporter’s maximum range as a geyser of indeterminate matter. The Wonder Armor, however, counteracted this effect and protected Jay and Kalomo, using its energies to keep them from being torn apart molecule by molecule.
After a moment of nausea inducing molecular scrambling, Kalomo found himself somewhere over turbulent waters, an ocean he did not have time to identify before he fell in with a splash. With no time to get his bearings Kalomo was teleported again, this time appearing high above the Earth. The Wonder Hero thought he could identify the Eastern coast of Australia before he was teleported again, this time into crushing darkness. He could hear a deep sonorous note, and his visor told him he was only a few meters above the molten core of the Earth, encased in solid bedrock. Despite the strength of his Wonder Armor Kalomo could barely breath, never mind move, and then he was in the ocean again, a different ocean perhaps. His armor informed him he was trapped in a non-repeating teleportation cascade, and he found himself teleported three more times before he was able to understand exactly what that was. Kalomo tried to relax and think of a way out, but between bouts of body wracking nausea and sudden random appearances all over, above and beneath the Earth, terror threatened to overwhelm him. His Wonder Armor could not help him; it was being taxed to the limit just keeping him alive and whole.
It was much worse for Jay. He found that his irrational fear of teleporters might not be irrational after all. After a teleportation far worse than any he had suffered before, Jay found himself separated from Kalomo and tumbling down a snow covered mountain, his armor protecting him from injury, but his mind unable to focus on preventing his fall. Jay was teleported away from the mountain and found himself high above Earth, being buffeted like a rag doll by the jet stream. Jay vomited in his helmet, but the helmet had a system for waste disposal, so the smell passed as Jay vanished from the jet stream and appeared on a quiet beach, buried waste deep in the sand.
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