‘Oh,’ June said, frowning. ‘Well that makes me feel safer in bed.’
‘You could always move in with me,’ Bobby suggested, his grin broad.
‘Stick to blondes, Bobby,’ Red suggested. ‘The Tonaldos do run pretty much everything in the north. They got kicked out of Uptown and Downtown by an as yet unidentified group, though rumour has it that they’re Russian. Friendship still seems to be disputed, and the Tonaldos don’t seem to be the major drug suppliers.’
‘Soviet?’ Penny asked. ‘Or escapees?’
‘Unclear,’ Bobby replied. ‘It’s possible that the SOP has sent infiltration agents. Possible, but unlikely. They don’t like sending agents out of direct supervision for too long unless they’re heavily indoctrinated, and we would have heard of someone that high ranking.’
‘I think I missed something,’ June said. ‘The SOP?’
‘The Superhuman Orientation Programme,’ Penny supplied, demonstrating her knowledge. ‘We tend to call it the Superhuman Induction Programme. The Russian works either way, apparently. They find Ultras within the Soviet Union, then they, uh, train them.’
‘For train,’ Red said, ‘read brainwash. Though some of them are really that fanatical about serving the cause of global communism. The ones who get away tend to go to Europe, but some come here.’
‘Like Svetilo,’ June said, her voice dreamy.
‘Should I be worried about competition?’ Red asked, one eyebrow rising.
‘No. An Ultra in the bed is worth two in the bush.’
‘Hmm… Svetilo does come to the Den once in a while. I’ll introduce you.’ June’s eyes widened, but Red just kept on going. ‘Whoever these newcomers are, they’re powerful. They have at least some Ultras in their ranks. No one has identified them or linked any specific Ultrahumans to them, but their main target at the moment seems to be the Tonaldos. There have been a number of deaths among the higher-ups in that syndicate.’
‘Briscetto,’ Penny said.
‘Is the latest. David Tonaldo has lost four Enforcers in the last year, one of them his youngest brother.’
‘Word is he’s offering a cool one million for information leading to the demise of his rival,’ Bobby stated.
‘And no one has a clue who this criminal mastermind is?’ Penny asked.
‘Clues, sure, and they’ve all led to people who turned out to be pawns or minor agents. I was looking into one of those leads when I had my little accident. It was a good lead too.’
‘Maybe too good,’ Penny suggested. Red looked at her, an eyebrow raised. ‘Well, you said the others led to people, minor players, but people. Yours didn’t. Maybe you got too close.’
‘Maybe. I think there’s more than one person behind this, and I think they’re Ultras with a lot of power, and a lot of backing. Like I said, you stick to the minor league stuff until you’ve more experience under your belt.’
June giggled. ‘None of my current costume ideas have belts.’
31st August.
‘Are you serious?’ Penny asked. ‘There is no way I am going out in public in that.’
June just grinned at her, still holding up the garment she had designed. ‘Why not? You’ve got the body for it, when you’re in your other body anyway.’
Penny took the one-piece from June and turned it around to look at it. ‘What’s it made of? It’s like… rubber, but not.’
‘It’s a synthetic polymer a bit like latex, but far tougher. It’ll resist flame and it flexes rather than tears. The metal framework is there to keep it rigid, the material sticks to skin so it won’t slip.’
Frowning, Penny pressed a finger against the rubber skin. ‘It’s very thin. It’s not even entirely opaque!’
‘It’s opaque enough, and it’s a little translucent because it’s thin. It’s lightweight and you’ll be able to move as though you weren’t wearing anything.’
‘Yeah…’ The suit was very high-hipped and thong-backed. The white plastic was stretched over three frames of silver metal, and the uppermost would bring it to high points over her breasts and leave a deep V of bare flesh between them. It looked like June had taken inspiration from Red’s old costume. ‘That’s because I won’t be wearing anything. And high-heeled boots?’
The boots were thigh-high, with five-inch heels, and also in white. Despite being new, they looked very flexible, but still… high-heels? June held one up, still grinning. ‘I talked to Bobby and Red about it. You’ve got preternatural balance and flight. When you’re actually on your feet, you’ll be fine in heels. Try it on.’
Dropping the suit onto June’s bed, Penny slipped off her robe and concentrated. She was getting faster with practice, down to about five seconds now. She opened her eyes, found that she could look June straight in the eyes now, grinned, and reached for the suit. It clung a little going up her legs, more over her stomach, but once in place it was not going to go anywhere. The boots slid on easily and zipped up tight; they were not going to slip either.
Penny examined herself in the mirror, checking out the incredibly low front and her hip bones poking out from under the leg line. She did, indeed, look great in it, but… ‘Nowhere to put equipment.’
‘Such as?’
‘Uh, well, Red says I should use zip-ties to secure prisoners…’
‘Check the boots.’
Bending her leg, Penny looked under the leading edge of the right boot, and found a set of thin pockets, each loaded with thin plastic ties. ‘You thought of everything.’
‘I do try. Now all you need is a name.’
Penny smiled. ‘Oh, I’ve got one. I came up with it last night while I was looking at the stars.’
‘Really? So what is it?’
7th September.
The place you went to register as an active Ultra was the headquarters of the New Millennium Police Department, but the people who did the registering were Feds. Specifically, agents of the Ultrahuman Investigation Division, the UID, handled registration and had done since the passing of the Special Policing Act of 1993. So when Penny walked into the lobby, dressed in a long, white leather coat, and asked for registration, she was pointed at a room to the side and told to wait.
The room was pretty bare and larger than she had expected. At one end there was a table with a chair on either side of it. At the other was a white wall with height bars across it and a large camera facing it. Penny sat down, crossed her legs, and waited.
The door opened after about five minutes and a harried-looking man in a dark suit with a red tie walked in. He was kind of good-looking, or he would have been if he was not scowling. His hair was very short and very black; his eyes were blue and annoyed. He dropped a folder onto the table and looked at Penny.
‘I’m Special Agent Dannon,’ he said. ‘I’ll be handling your registration.’
‘Good morning, Special Agent,’ Penny replied, putting a hint of a purr in her voice.
He blinked at her and then frowned as he sat down. This one was distinctly hard to impress. He opened the file and took a pen from his inside breast pocket. ‘I assume you’re not giving full disclosure?’ he asked.
‘That’s right.’
He gave a grunt. ‘In that case… Alias?’
Penny smiled. ‘I’m Cygnus,’ she said. The Ugly Duckling had finally become the Swan.
Part Two: Twilight
New Millennium City, MD, 7th September 2013.
‘Cygnus?’ Dannon said. ‘Like the constellation?’
‘That’s right,’ Penny said, feeling a little deflated. The cop did not seem to be really taking this with the sense of grandeur she felt it needed.
Dannon noted down the name in the little boxes on the form, in block capitals. ‘Primary power?’
‘Uh, I’m strong.’
Dannon looked at her. ‘Really. How strong?’
‘Uh, well I can bench press about sixteen-hundred pounds.’
‘Right…’
‘I’ve never really pushed it.’
> ‘That’s just a bench press.’
‘Uh-huh. I know I can stop a knife too. Maybe more, but again I’ve never pushed it.’
‘I see.’ Dannon frowned and then started making notes.
‘And I can fly. Not, like, supersonic, but at a reasonable speed.’
‘Okay… You’re a little old for a mutant…’
Penny ignored the term; as far as she knew, ‘mutant’ was not the sanctioned term for someone who developed their powers naturally, even if it was the common name. It still had a hint of insult about it; some mutants considered it akin to referring an African-American by ‘the N-word’ and considering that Dannon was an African-American Penny thought he should know better.
‘I was… Well, I think I was hit by a meteorite.’
‘Huh,’ he grunted. She watched as he filled in some boxes next to the word ‘Classification’: A3.
‘Magnitude three?’ Penny asked.
‘Magnitudes are subjective. Sixteen-hundred pounds, plus damage resistance, plus flight… feels like a three to me.’
‘Oh. I always thought it was a bit more… scientific.’
‘They keep trying to come up with some way of instrumenting it, but so far they’ve got nothing that really works. Anything else? For the notes.’
‘I can see in the dark.’
‘Right…’ He noted that down as well.
‘And I seem to heal fast if I do get hurt.’
‘You said you hadn’t pushed that knifeproofing.’
‘No, but I don’t always look like this. I shapeshift.’
Dannon scribbled down notes. Penny saw ‘weaker alternate form with some powers’ going down.
‘Anything else?’ he asked.
‘Uh… Not that I can really think of.’
Sighing, Dannon levered himself up off his seat. ‘All right, we just need some pictures. In costume. You did bring your costume? You’re not going out in a white leather coat?’ He turned his back and began to set the camera.
‘No, I have it on,’ Penny replied. She took a deep breath and stood up, unbuttoning the coat, slipping it from her shoulders, and dropping it onto the chair. Then she walked past him to stand in front of the wall. When she turned around, Dannon was staring at her, a mildly dopy expression on his face. ‘This is okay, right?’
‘Uh… sure. It’s fine. I need front and back shots, and stand up straight… please.’
Penny put her ankles together, pulled herself up straight, and pushed her chest out. ‘Like this?’ she asked.
Dannon swallowed, hard. ‘Uh… Yeah. That’ll do… fine.’
~~~
Penny was acting like a giddy schoolgirl. It was, June thought, incredibly cute in a stunningly beautiful woman dressed in a barely-there superhero costume.
‘I can’t believe I’ve got this,’ Penny gushed, her eyes fixed on the small, plastic card which a machine at the police offices had spat out. It had her picture on it, cropped to head and shoulders, her alias, classification, and her official identification number: MD00055.
‘Well, you have,’ June said, grinning. ‘What now?’
‘Uh… Well, I guess I go out and fight crime.’
‘Don’t you need, like, a patrol area or something?’
Penny frowned. ‘Stop putting practicalities in the way of my enthusiasm. I suppose I should come up with an area to look over. I’ll talk it over with Bobby tonight.’
‘Still seeing him today then?’
‘Uh-huh. We’re celebrating.’
June grinned. ‘He hasn’t seen you in costume yet, has he?’
Penny’s returned grin was positively evil. ‘No, and if the Fed who registered me is anything to go by, Bobby should blow a fuse.’
~~~
‘Mãe de Deus. Eu tenho morrido e ido para o céu.’
Penny had no idea what the Portuguese meant, but the look on Bobby’s face was enough to suggest that it was at least meant to be complimentary.
‘You like?’ she asked, turning on her heels to give him the full effect.
‘I think that the criminals will be lining up to be arrested by you, gatinha.’
Penny giggled and strutted toward him. His throat bobbed and his eyes remained wide. ‘As long as they’re orderly about it,’ she said. ‘But before we get down to… recreation, have you any ideas where I should go to find this queue of bad guys?’
Bobby got up from the sofa he was sitting on and stepped forward to meet her. His arms slid around her waist, hands sliding over the bare skin of her buttocks as he pulled her against him. ‘A patrol area?’ he asked, his voice soft and breathy.
‘Yeah.’ The word came out as more of a moan than she had intended. Maybe the shop talk could be pillow talk…
‘Start with southern Friendship,’ he said. His fingers traced over her skin, sending shivers through her body, and it was hard to concentrate, but she tried. ‘You want to stay away from the Knights’ home turf. Down there you will find muggers, purse snatchers, drug peddlers. Start small, remember.’
‘Uh-huh…’ She was not too sure about remembering her name, but sure.
‘The docks and Churchton will not be so nice, but try there if Friendship is quiet.’ He leaned forward as her head rolled back. His lips touched her throat. She moaned. ‘Those should be good places to start.’ His fingers slid under the thong back of her suit and she gasped. ‘Tell me, how flexible is this?’
‘W-why?’
‘I wonder if we can work around it…’
~~~
David Tonaldo lived in an Art Deco apartment building in Uptown. He owned the building, together with several others in the near area, and he and his family occupied the top three floors. His home was well decorated, richly furnished, and very secure. Tonaldo saw to it that only people he had vetted thoroughly became residents on the lower floors, and you could only get to his three floors via an elevator which required a key.
From the rooftop of the building across from it on Warren Street, you could occasionally see him, or one of his extended family, through the windows. The glass was armoured. It would take explosives, or maybe an M80, to get through them, so Tonaldo did not worry about snipers. Tonight he could be seen entertaining guests: a Congressman, a film starlet. Tonaldo maintained his empire through influence as much as force. When the night was over, Tonaldo would have a political ally, the starlet would have an important friend, and the Congressman would have a night to remember and not tell his wife about.
Twilight lowered her binoculars, a look of disgust on her masked face. She was not entirely sure why she tormented herself like this. Getting to Tonaldo was going to be a long process and she had barely begun. If it was as simple as walking in and killing the man… If David Tonaldo died there would just be another to take his place. The entire organisation had to be dismantled.
When the weather turned cold and dismal, and the night was especially dark, Twilight considered the fact that she was not up to the task. If she was honest with herself, she knew she was not. On those bleak nights she hoped that she had done enough by the time they caught up with her to come to David’s personal attention. He was a vicious, evil, son-of-a-bitch, but he was old school. He would have her shot, quick and clean. Her body would never be found. Twilight had heard stories about some of the things his Enforcers did to troublesome girls…
Shaking away the mild despair that had crept over her, the girl in the black catsuit turned toward the south. There was always someone doing something stupid in Friendship Park. She would go down there and beat up a purse snatcher. That always cheered her up.
8th September.
Friendship Park. Penny tended to avoid it in her normal persona, especially at night. To Cygnus it was a place to start looking for trouble. The crime rate there was lower than popular conception had it, but it was a big, open area with plenty of places people could hide. It made it perfect for muggers and purse snatchers, and that made it a perfect place for Cygnus to put her lessons into practice for the fir
st time.
For Trudy Wallace, twenty-something bank clerk on a weekend break from a small town in Idaho no one would ever think twice about, even when driving through it, Friendship Park was a beauty spot in the midst of the big, bright city. She had heard that it was dangerous after dark, but she was on holiday and… Well, what the Hell? She had a can of pepper spray in her bag. If some mugger decided to attack her he would find out that you didn’t mess with a girl from Hudd Valley!
So when a man wearing a balaclava mask holding a small, silver revolver jumped out in front of her, she was both shocked and at a bit of a loss. She had not expected a gun. Which, if she had thought about it, she should have, given that this was America.
‘Okay, lady, give me the bag and any jewellery, and you get to walk away.’
Trudy was about to say something when another voice cut in. ‘I’m pretty sure that’s illegal, y’know?’ A figure dropped down between, floating lazily to the ground in high-heeled, thigh-high boots and a one-piece suit that Trudy would not have been seen dead in.
The mugger’s reaction was not exactly what Penny had expected. Immediate surrender, a show of force before capitulation, possibly drooling, these had been considered. Instead he said, ‘Fuck, it’s a freak!’ and fired at her. The bullet hit her right bicep and turned into a copper-jacketed pancake.
Penny blinked at him. ‘Was that really necessary?’ she asked.
‘The fuck!’ The mugger pulled frantically on the trigger. Bullets flew through the air, but only one of them actually hit. It slammed into Penny’s stomach, an inch above the pubic bone, flattened, and fell to the ground.
‘That,’ Penny growled, ‘was just, plain, rude.’ She stepped forward, her right arm moving back and then forward again, straight into the mugger’s stomach. He doubled over her arm with a sound like someone had managed to push all of the air out of his lungs, which was more or less what had happened. The gun fell from his hand onto the dirt of the path. Grabbing him by the collar, Penny brought her knee up into his face, and that was all she wrote.
Ultrahuman 01 - Ugly Page 7
