“That’s where we’re going,” Robin said, pointing out the window.
Dr. Hanover looked over her shoulder. She grumbled, “Yuck. Amusement parks are for babies.”
“Here we are, children!” Clownface announced as the bus drove through the front gate. The bus pulled around to the main ticket counter, where it finally came to a stop. The door opened. “Everyone out.”
Robin squeezed in front of Dr. Hanover, who like most of the others shuffled forward like a zombie. It was impossible for Robin to see anything until she bounded down the steps. As soon as she did, she squealed with surprise.
In front of her was a little girl about her age with long black hair and her face smeared with green-and-black camouflage paint. If those clues hadn’t been enough, the girl wore a replica Army uniform festooned with ribbons and medals. The nametag read, “Dalton.”
“Hi Robin,” Carrie Dalton said. “I’ve been waiting for you. I know we’re going to have such a good time.”
“The hell we are.”
She tried to push Dalton away, but she was too small and weak. Instead they wound up grappling with each other. The wrestling match ended when Robin felt a needle prick her right arm. She turned to see something purple draining from the syringe, into her body.
“Oh no,” she whispered. She had seen this substance before, a number of times in her battles with Clownface. It was a cocktail of Clownface’s own design called “clown juice” on the streets. It was a drug more powerful than cocaine, heroin, Ecstasy, or anything else on the market. Its primary effects were that it eliminated inhibitions and caused severe hallucinations. Without intervention, the user almost always wound up dead within a week either from self-inflicted wounds or a brain aneurysm. Robin had inoculated herself in the past, but that wouldn’t be in her system since the alien weapon had been used on her.
“This is going to be so much fun,” Dalton whispered into her ear even as Robin’s head began to swim with colors.
***
The Elders had all the wisdom of the universe at their fingertips, but even they felt the need to maintain a backup in case something happened to them. The Master Archive was something only Peacekeepers knew about; they were sworn to never reveal its location to anyone, even under torture. Kila had only visited it one time in person, back during her orientation.
Despite its impressive-sounding name, the Master Archive didn’t look like much. It was located deep underground, near the planet’s core, where it was believed no enemy could ever find it. As well, the nearness of the core provided more than enough geothermal power to maintain the archive’s computers.
The archivist was supposed to be a position of honor, but in reality it was a death sentence for a career. Since most of the job was sitting at a desk miles underground, it was given to a Peacekeeper near the end of his or her career, someone who could no longer work in the field. After a year or two of it, most archivists would happily retire.
Kila knew the current archivist quite well. Slong had been trained by the previous Peacekeeper from Quanat—Kila’s father. “Uncle Slong” as she’d called him throughout her childhood had been a frequent visitor whenever Father came home for a visit.
Unlike the other archivists, Slong enjoyed being stationed deep underground. His people lived deep in caves on a planet only ten million kilometers from the system’s star. A baby on Slong’s world was little more than a puddle of lava. As it grew, it began to harden. By the time it reached old age—like Slong was now—it was pretty much solid rock. To station Slong down here amongst the heat was probably prolonging his life as the heat softened his exterior.
He stood up from behind his desk at her approach. While he couldn’t smile or make any human-type facial expressions, his voice conveyed plenty of warmth. “Kila! What brings you down here to see this fossil?”
“I have need of information. The Elders promised it to me, but they refuse to release it.”
“And you think I’ll give you access to the archives? If the Elders find out—”
“I know. I would never put you in such a position, but I have a trial in two days and I think my client is innocent.”
“You’re referring to the Kor-Gan?”
“How do you know about that?”
“I still have ears on the surface, young one.”
“I shouldn’t have underestimated you. Will you provide the information for me?”
“You really think the Kor-Gan is innocent? You know the stories of what they’ve done.”
“She’s not one of them. She was raised on Earth. She’s more human than Kor-Gan. It’s not right for her to stand trial for them.”
“You have your father’s spirit. I’m sure he would be proud of how you turned out.”
Kila looked down at her feet. She never liked to talk about her father. She had barely known him, except for the stories she heard of his great deeds. In light of this she hadn’t wanted to take the tests once he died. Her mother had forced her to do it, to “honor” his memory. Kila did everything she could to fail those tests, but in the end she was chosen to fill his shoes.
If the Elders found out what she was doing down here, not only could she be dismissed as a Peacekeeper, her father’s legacy would be forever tarnished. Everyone would sneer about how the great Lorsav’s daughter had been dishonorably discharged, if not imprisoned. Yet from the stories she had heard—many of them from Slong—she knew her father had cared more for justice than reputation. He would certainly want Kila to save Starla Leyton if she could.
“Thank you. If the Elders find out, I will take full responsibility.”
“Bah. All it will do is expedite my retirement.” He put a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Come, young one, let us find your records.”
Slong punched a few buttons on his console. A door opened in the wall to let them into the Master Archive. There Kila hoped she could at last find the truth.
Chapter 14
The bunker hadn’t changed much since Allison had last seen it. There was a bit more dust and a few more cobwebs, but the equipment looked the same. The woman who took off Midnight Spectre’s mask did not. Besides the white hair and stoop, she had webs of deep wrinkles spreading throughout her face and the beginning of saggy turkey jowls.
She eased onto her chair at the computer with an audible sigh. Allison was glad when Robin broke the uncomfortable silence by attacking the obvious first question. “You two have been gone for twenty years,” she announced.
Sally and Allison looked to each other. Twenty years would mean Robin should only be forty-one years old; the woman in front of them appeared almost twice that. Again Robin anticipated the uncomfortable question. “I’m not the real Robin Holloway. I’m the clone.” She chuckled bitterly. “Turns out Stanford forgot to carry a one somewhere along the line. I’ve been aging at about double the normal rate, as you can see.”
“What happened to the real Robin?”
“She’s dead. I killed her. Just like I killed the rest of humanity.”
“What?” Allison and Sally blurted out at the same time.
“Not directly, but I might as well have pulled the trigger on every last woman on this planet. The moment I triggered that alien weapon, I doomed everyone.”
“You mean the alien weapon that turned us into girls?” Allison asked.
“The very same. It was ingenious really. I routed the beam through a bunch of Holloway Corporation satellites already in orbit. The result was a field that enveloped the entire planet. The only ones who were spared were the Pacificans because they were too deep underwater. And me in my submarine. And I suppose you girls because everyone thought you were already dead.”
“Why?” Allison asked. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I was young and stupid. I thought I could make a deal with the devil and get everything I wanted.”
“What thirty pieces of silver did you sell humanity out for?”
“I was supposed to be made into a man again. As
you can see, that didn’t happen. I was betrayed, along with everyone else. If I hadn’t managed to escape the first hunters, I’d have died with the rest.” Robin blew out a weary sigh. “Most days I think that would have been for the best. You’ve never known loneliness until you’re the last human on Earth.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Well now there are three of us. I’m certain of that. The hunters got everyone else.”
Sally asked, “The hunters would be the ones who tried to kill us?”
“That’s right. He left them behind to make sure nothing else reclaimed the planet. There used to be a lot more of them. He took most of them with him when he left. I’ve managed to kill a large percentage of the others, despite that I’m not as spry as I used to be.” She began to cackle like a mad crone, which didn’t seem far off the mark.
“Who’s ‘he?’” Allison asked.
“The devil. Like the devil he has a lot of names, but he called himself Omega.”
“Omega?”
“The final letter in the Greek alphabet,” Allison said.
“Why would this Omega kill everyone?” Sally asked.
“Because he needs living energy. That’s what fuels him. He goes from one planet to another, absorbing its living energy. He’s basically a parasite the size of a moon.”
“And you made a deal with that?”
“I know. It was foolish, but I wasn’t quite as sane as I am now. Twenty years of solitude really gives you a chance to put things in perspective. Lets you see that being a girl isn’t nearly so bad as being completely alone.”
“Why didn’t anyone stop this thing?”
“Those who still could tried. Your friends Melanie and Queen Neptune once she realized Omega wouldn’t stop with the surface life. They roped some of the supervillains into helping them. It wasn’t enough.”
“What about Starla? Didn’t she do something?” Sally asked.
“Oh that’s the best part. I took care of Starla first. Not long after Omega devoured Earth, Starla was executed by the Galactic Peacekeepers.”
“Who?”
“Basically a highway patrol whose jurisdiction is the whole galaxy,” Robin said. “Silly bastards had some warrant out for Starla’s father. Thanks to a loophole, she was allowed to stand trial for him. From the records I’ve seen, the whole thing was a sham. She’d have had a better chance getting a fair trial in North Korea.”
When Robin started to laugh again, Sally lunged at her. Allison managed to grab her before she could break the old woman’s jaw. “You killed our friends! Our daughter! You monster! How can you laugh about it?”
“Oh, you young people, always so dramatic. I laugh because it’s the bitter comedy of life. Or maybe I don’t give a fuck anymore. At least I didn’t until you two showed up.”
“You think we can repopulate the planet? There’s only two of us—”
“Don’t be stupid. We’re going to figure out how to send you back in time. Then you two can stop Omega.”
Allison and Sally looked to each other. The obvious question was how they could possibly hope to stop some kind of killer moon. Robin grinned at them. “Oh don’t worry, I know how to kill that bastard. I’ve had twenty years to think it up in case he came back. With your help, I think we can do more than avenge Earth—we can save it.”
***
Kate ran down the alley, her chest burning with pain. She pumped her fat legs as hard as she could, but she was already slowing down. As a normal-sized woman she might have had a chance, but as a plus-sized teenager she was doomed.
There had to be some way to shake Carnage’s goons from her tail. If not, she was going to end up in a prison camp. That was if they didn’t kill her first either in this alley or during the interrogation.
She looked around her, but there was no way out. The alley was a dead end. There weren’t any doors she could try to duck through. All she saw were a couple of trashcans and fire escapes much too high for her to reach.
With no other options, Kate sagged behind the trashcans. She tried to slow her breathing enough that they might not hear her. She doubted that would matter. They knew she was in the alley and it wouldn’t take long for them to figure out she had no way out of here. It would be simple enough even for these dolts to figure out.
As she crouched behind the cans, Kate couldn’t stop herself from shaking and bawling like the fifteen-year-old she was now. It seemed impossible her life would end like this. There had been plenty of times where she thought it would end: her stint as an embedded correspondent in Iraq, the time those Somali pirates took her captive, not to mention all the times Rad Geiger or various other supervillains nearly killed her. She had survived all of those only to die now as a fat teenager in a dirty alley. Life was a bitch.
Her protection was swept away from her. She looked up at a trio of the muscle-bound goons created thanks to a few doses of Stim. “Please don’t hurt me,” she begged. “I was just getting some medicine for my mom.”
One of the goons seized her by the front of the shirt. “Don’t worry, we can get your mom some medicine. You just tell us where she is.”
“I can’t.”
The goon wrapped one hand around her neck. She began to squeeze. Kate’s breath became sharp wheezes until it stopped entirely. “Now, are you going to be a good little piggy and tell me what I want to know?”
Kate stared into the goon’s eyes. The Stim had turned them an unnatural orange and the whites a dusty brown. These would be the last thing she ever saw unless she gave up Greta and the others. Even if she did give them up, she would likely end up dead anyway.
The choice seemed pretty obvious. Better to die like a hero than go out a traitor. As her vision dimmed, she wondered if she would be reunited with Apex Man in the afterlife. Maybe she could finally get a chance to say all the things she hadn’t before. She hoped in the afterlife she wouldn’t look like this—
Someone coughed above her. A moment later, she found herself looking at the goon’s exposed brain, what was left of it. She managed to maintain her grip on Kate’s throat for a few more seconds, until she finally toppled over.
Kate scuttled out of her grip and then curled up like a turtle in the alley. She heard four more coughs that she assumed must be more silenced shots. She had seen shots like that in Iraq and Somalia, but not that close up.
She screamed when something touched her back. “It’s all right, love,” a girl said in a British accent. “These blokes won’t be hurting you now.”
Kate recognized her savior from the broadcast the day before. She was one of the heroes who had liberated Focal City. “You’re part of that new Super Squad,” she said.
“We call ourselves the Super Squad Auxiliary,” the girl said. She held out a hand that seemed much too dainty to have pulled the trigger to kill three men. “I’m Hitter.”
“Hitter? But you were—”
“A villain, yeah. Not a supervillain, really, truth be told. I was a run-of-the-mill assassin. Well, not so run-of-the-mill if I say so. I was the best. Still am, especially these days when the others are probably skipping rope or some damned thing.”
“Why are you working for the other side?”
Hitter rubbed the back of her neck. “I got some incentive from Miss Outcast. We all did. Except the merman. I’m not sure what his deal is.”
“What are you doing here?”
“We’re going to retake the city. Unlike last time we thought we shouldn’t blunder around, especially when we saw all those camps. I was up there keeping lookout when I heard you and thought I should help out, now that I’m a hero and all.”
“Thank you so much,” Kate said. She couldn’t resist throwing herself at Hitter as she had Apex Man and then Apex Girl numerous times. Unlike those times, she and Hitter wound up tumbling to the ground.
“Get off me, you bloody lummox!”
“Sorry,” Kate said, her face burning with heat. “I forget how big I am sometimes.”
/> “And I forget how little I am sometimes,” Hitter said. She brushed herself off. “Well, no harm done, I suppose. You got somewhere to be?”
“Actually I think I should go with you. If you don’t mind.”
“Don’t make no difference to me. So long as you can make it up the ladder.”
“I’m not that fat,” Kate said.
“We’ll see, won’t we, love?”
“Very funny.” Kate brushed past Hitter, over to the ladder she had pulled down from the fire escape. It was a few inches over her head, which necessitated her jumping up to grab the bottom rung.
To her embarrassment, she couldn’t manage to pull herself up. “A little help?”
“I think that’s a little out of my league,” Hitter said.
“Could I be of assistance?” another girl asked, her voice sounding as if it came through a speaker like at a fast food joint. Kate realized this was the case as the girl floating above her was wearing a suit of combat armor similar to Ion Man’s, except it was more svelte and painted blue-and-silver.
“She’s all yours, mate,” Hitter said.
The girl in the armor descended slowly, the heat from her rocket boots prompting Kate to turn her face away. The girl wrapped an arm around Kate’s waist. She was horrified again when the girl struggled to lift her into the air. “Looks like we need a bit more throttle,” the girl said. There was a rumble as the boots spat a stream of flame to rocket them up the fire escape.
“Here we are. Fourth floor: hardware, plumbing, and ladies undergarments.”
Kate gratefully stepped onto the landing. With how things had gone the last few minutes, she was surprised the whole fire escape didn’t give way. Or that she didn’t get stuck in the window like Winnie-the-Pooh.
She tumbled through the window, into an apartment that had become a command center. Maps of Atomic City were tacked to the walls while another was spread out on an ordinary dining room table. A cavewoman relaxed on a La-Z-Boy recliner, stuffing her face with potato chips, oblivious to the crumbs piling up on her cheetah print sports bra.
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