Ultrahuman 01 - Ugly

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘Maybe if Dom helps me brace it…’ Penny replied.

  Grinning, Svetilo pushed the jack into place in front of Penny, and then reached up to help brace the beam. Penny could see the field of energy the Russian used as protection shimmering as the heat from the charred wood hit it. Penny stepped back a little, and Svetilo nudged the jack forward with one leg until Fire Bug nodded and opened the valve on the attached compressed air cylinder. The jack rose slowly, settled between their hands, and then took the strain allowing the women to let go.

  ‘I’m going to suggest we get the fuck out of here, right now,’ Fire Bug said after locking the jack in place.

  ‘These are wise words,’ Svetilo stated. ‘I believe we should follow them.’

  Penny looked down at her scorched, red palms. ‘No arguments here. This is so going to sting for a while.’

  24th October.

  Penny sat on the back step of an ambulance while a paramedic fussed over her hands and Twilight and Svetilo scowled at the paramedic. The probability was that the burns would be healed before morning, but Penny did not feel like declining the first aid and whatever the young man was putting on her skin was taking the sting out.

  ‘I may have to upgrade your magnitude rating.’ Penny glanced around to see that Dannon had walked over and was actually smiling at her, even if it looked like it was costing him. ‘Magnitude three doesn’t seem to cover holding up an apartment building for ten minutes.’

  ‘It wasn’t the whole building,’ Penny mumbled.

  ‘It was enough of the building,’ Svetilo said.

  Dannon sighed. ‘You did good. Fire Bug said you told him he was to leave if you couldn’t hold it. You saved two people by thinking fast and being prepared to die if you had to, and you got burned doing it.’

  ‘They saved me right back,’ Penny replied.

  ‘Christ, girl,’ Twilight snapped, ‘take the compliment. It’s probably hurting his teeth to give it.’

  Dannon coughed. ‘Yeah, well, you could’ve died in there and you didn’t, and you saved people. Well done.’

  ‘Thank you, Special Agent,’ Penny replied, giving him a grin.

  As Dannon walked away, Penny’s face straightened. He was right: she could have died under a falling, burning building and no one would tell June what had happened, or Bobby. They would hear about it on the news. Nothing but an impersonal report of another hero dying in the line of duty…

  ‘I need to get home,’ she said. ‘Twilight… I need to meet you somewhere tomorrow. I’ll send you a message, okay?’

  ‘Sure,’ Twilight replied, frowning under her mask.

  Nodding, Penny got to her feet and pushed upward, climbing rapidly into the night sky.

  ~~~

  The sting in her palms was worse as Penny than it had been as Cygnus, and she was glad when she got in through the apartment door. She would change back to go to bed or she would never get to sleep.

  June was grabbing her around the waist and hugging her before she could do anything more than drop the bag she carried her costume in, however.

  ‘I saw on the news,’ the brunette said, her tone worried. ‘Are you okay? They said you’d been trapped…’

  ‘I’m fine aside from some tender hands. They hurt less when I’m Cygnus. If you put me down, I’ll change.’

  ‘Oh God, yes, sorry.’ June set her back down and backed away.

  Penny gave her a grin. ‘No need to be sorry. Not like you knew. Are you okay to stay up for another half hour? I want to talk to you about something.’

  ‘Of course,’ June replied as Penny started for her room. ‘That sounds serious.’

  ‘It is, kind of.’

  Back in her alternate form and clothed in her wrap, Penny sat on the sofa beside June and took a deep breath. ‘Okay, I’m not badly hurt… but I could have been. It kind of made it sink in. What I’m doing is dangerous and if anything happens to me, I’d rather you didn’t find out from the TV.’

  ‘Nothing’s going to happen to you,’ June replied automatically.

  ‘It might. So… I’m going to tell Twilight who I am. I’ll tell her to contact you and Bobby if… whatever happens happens.’

  ‘Are you sure? I mean, you hardly know her…’

  ‘I trust her. She trusted me with something important to her and… Well, this is important to me.’

  ‘Okay… It would be better to hear it from someone I know, a little anyway. If you’re absolutely sure…’

  ‘Yeah,’ Penny said, ‘I am.’

  ~~~

  An enormous man with huge, monstrous, bulging muscles and skin which shimmered like glossy metal was lifting crates and carrying them across the laboratory. Kopf watched him carefully.

  ‘Be careful with those, Thog,’ Kopf said, again. ‘Delicate, remember.’

  Thog grunted. ‘Delicate,’ he agreed in a voice full of gravel. He was strong, but not bright.

  ‘Keeping your pet in line, Professor?’ The voice came from nowhere, as usual. Kopf stopped himself looking around for the source and continued to watch Thog.

  ‘He is not a pet. He is my greatest success in the activation of the super gene.’ He knew that it did not impress Ghostfire in the least, but then Ghostfire was a philistine. ‘We have received the report on last night’s fire from our agent.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Both Cygnus and Twilight were there, as well as Fire Bug and Svetilo. As requested, he concentrated primarily on Cygnus. I am still analysing the readings he obtained, but he reports that she will be a challenge. Thermite managed to trap her under a falling ceiling which she held up until it could be braced.’

  ‘Impressive,’ Ghostfire replied sourly.

  ‘Indeed. My early findings on her power readings suggest something strange about her. We may wish to capture rather than kill.’

  ‘Our agent is not going to like that.’ The unspoken statement was that Ghostfire preferred elimination as well.

  ‘I will continue investigating. Intelligence suggests that the Tonaldos have obtained a Night Lance.’

  Ghostfire’s laugh was malicious. ‘You may have to make do with scraping up tissue samples.’

  ~~~

  Twilight slipped through the skylight of the disused warehouse in Deale Harbour, her eyes scanning the space below her which had once been the office. There was a portable camping light set up in the room below giving enough light to create some deep shadows, but she could neither see nor hear anyone. Her hand hovered over the butt of her pistol as she moved into the light.

  ‘Cygnus?’ She did not raise her voice. If the woman was there, she was fairly sure she was not far away, and she was right.

  ‘I’m here.’ The voice came from a shadow in the corner of the room where a desk blocked the light quite effectively. ‘I’m sort of here. There’s something I want to show you. Something I need to trust you with and I don’t want you to freak.’

  ‘Well… You better show me then, because this is freaking me out just a little.’

  ‘Okay…’

  Twilight watched as a short, slightly dumpy woman wearing glasses and a hugely oversized T-shirt walked out of the shadow and into the light. The eyes were the same, and the skin tone. The face was rounder, though the eyebrows arched the same way, but over eyes that were a little too close together. This woman had a broader, flatter nose, practically no muscle definition in the legs, which were proportionally shorter, and then there was the chest, of course. Cygnus had large, firm breasts and this woman… did not.

  ‘I’m Penny,’ Penny said. ‘This is what I look like when I’m not Cygnus. This is… the real me.’

  ‘That’s… a helluva disguise. Why am I seeing this?’

  ‘Because… Because I could have died last night. I realised there are some people I didn’t want finding out about that on ACPN.’ She turned to a bag which was sitting on the desk and pulled out an envelope. ‘There are two addresses in this. If you’re willing, I’d like you to take it and, if I end up on
a slab, you tell the people in here what happened.’

  ‘If I’m willing?’

  ‘It’s a lot to ask. You trusted me with your talent, and I’m trusting you to tell my friends if I die. I’m basically telling you who I am.’ She waved the envelope. ‘They know, and Red does, but no one else.’

  Twilight looked at her. ‘Just… give me a second.’ She turned away, looking down at the dusty floor.

  Twilight had never thought about what would happen if the Tonaldos nailed her rather than the other way around. It was not going to happen. Andrea had always pushed the thought aside and let Twilight’s attitude deal with it. It was easier that way, but now, here, in a dark warehouse where a woman she hardly knew was offering such a huge secret to her for that very reason, it was hard to be Twilight.

  Turning around, Andrea reached up and pulled off her mask, ruffling her mass of black hair out and looking a little sheepishly at Penny. ‘We’ve met,’ she said.

  ‘Andrea,’ Penny said, ‘but you didn’t need to…’

  ‘I’ll get you an envelope too. My parents live in Boston. They don’t know I do this. If I get killed they aren’t even going to hear about it on the news and… Well… Yeah. Uh, what’s with the T-shirt?’

  Penny accepted the change of subject. ‘I thought you might need some convincing.’ She took off her glasses and put them beside her bag with the envelope. Turning back, she closed her eyes and willed the change.

  A few seconds later there was the now familiar buzzing noise and Andrea yelled, ‘Holy shit!’

  Penny opened her eyes and grinned. ‘And now I can see you properly, and fly, and…’

  ‘And you’re naked,’ Andrea pointed out.

  ‘Oh, sorry.’ Grabbing her costume from her bag, Penny started to get dressed. ‘I keep trying to find something that doesn’t get shredded when I shift. I was kind of hoping a big, baggy shirt would work. It must be an energy release rather than just the change in volume.’ With her suit on, she looked around at Andrea. ‘There’s one thing… I saw you going into that building the Tonaldos live in, as Andrea…’

  Andrea grunted and scowled. ‘Yeah… My informant in the family? The one I get my information from? It’s Lena Tonaldo.’

  ‘The daughter?’

  Andrea nodded. ‘You remember you asked what went on in there that they didn’t want people seeing? Well, there is something. Lena’s a lesbian. David doesn’t want anyone knowing his daughter’s into girls, so she isn’t allowed out much and he hires in prostitutes to keep her happy.’

  ‘You moonlight as a lesbian prostitute to get information on them?’ Penny, or Cygnus, or both, looked shocked. ‘You said you weren’t into girls.’

  ‘I’m also a pretty good actress. Besides, it’s not actually that terrible… Some nights I actually enjoy it.’

  Penny wondered who she was trying to convince. ‘Andrea, what did they do that you’re willing to do that to get inside information?’

  Andrea sagged visibly and walked over to the desk, sitting on the edge of it. It creaked alarmingly, but held her weight. ‘My brother was a bit of an idiot, but he was my brother, y’know?’

  Penny gave a little shrug. ‘Only child.’

  ‘Well… He was a few years older than me. When I got bullied at school, he got in trouble defending me. He taught me how to punch someone in the guts when hair-pulling was acceptable behaviour. He was my big brother and I adored him. Then, when he was eighteen, he left and came to New Millennium. He wrote a couple of times. I got the feeling things were going badly. Next thing we get is a visit from the local Sherriff. Andy had been killed attempting to rob a bank in Downtown.’

  ‘Oh.’ Penny reached out a hand, hesitated, and then placed it on Andrea’s shoulder. The memory of her own visit from the police was all too clear in her mind.

  ‘No one wanted me to find out what had happened, but I did. He had got in with the Tonaldos. The bank job was a bunch of minor leaguers trying to show they could do their part. Someone ratted on them and they acted like amateurs when Ultranova showed up to stop them. They shot at him, he fired back. You’ve seen that light blast of his. They didn’t even find Andy’s body, just some ID. I mean, how amateur is that? Taking your wallet with you on a heist. I can’t really blame Ultranova, but I can’t like the guy either. But the Tonaldos? They got my brother killed and I’m going to make damn sure they pay for it.’

  ‘We will,’ Penny told her. ‘I promise. As long as I’m breathing, I’ll help take them down.’

  ‘Thanks. That does actually mean a lot.’ She chuckled. ‘I said I wasn’t up for this girly sharing crap and here I am, spilling my guts.’

  ‘Next we’ll be going to the Den for drinks,’ Penny replied, grinning back.

  ‘After we’ve nailed Thermite. I think that’s worth celebrating.’

  Penny’s grin broadened. ‘You’re on.’

  25th October.

  Someone had not got the memo about muggings in Friendship Park. Either that or the fool had noted that Cygnus was seen in the Huntress’ Den on Friday nights and thought she would be there on this one.

  He had a knife, which placed him into the ‘no threat at all’ category, and suggested that he was definitely not a Tonaldo goon trying to trap her. No, this was a thug with a desire to steal wallets, and he had decided to pick on a middle-aged couple walking along Lake Path. He was not expecting resistance and, when he saw Cygnus drop to the ground a couple of yards from him, his eyes widened and he bolted in the opposite direction.

  Penny sighed and prepared to give chase, but it was really not his night. Svetilo landed in front of him, reached out as he almost ran into her, and just pushed. He was probably lucky that Penny caught him or his landing would have been a lot more painful.

  ‘I hope you do not mind me butting in,’ the tall Russian said as Penny zip-tied the mugger’s wrists behind his back.

  ‘Saved me flying after him,’ Penny replied. ‘Thanks. I didn’t think you did patrols.’

  ‘I do not. I was looking for you.’

  ‘You were?’ The model was dressed in a very short, red dress, cut low at the front, and high-heeled sandals; not exactly hunting clothes, but then she had helped at a fire in similar clothes.

  ‘I wanted to talk. My apartment is not far…’

  Talk… sure. She wanted to talk. Penny considered saying no immediately. Thermite was out there and she needed to find him, but Andrea’s words about Lena were playing through her head: It’s not that terrible. Some nights I even enjoy it…

  ‘Let me drop this guy off at the local precinct,’ Penny said.

  ‘Of course,’ Svetilo replied, her smile broadening.

  ~~~

  Lena let out a gasp and fell back onto the bed, breathing hard. ‘God but I miss this when you can’t visit,’ she gasped out. As her breathing steadied she added, ‘I wish I could have you here all the time.’

  Andrea crawled up to lie beside her, putting an arm out to let the blonde snuggle. ‘You know I have other… friends I have to visit.’

  ‘You mean clients.’ There was a sour note in Lena’s voice.

  ‘All right, clients, but that’s not how I think of you.’ It was not a lie, exactly. There were no others and Lena was less a client and more an informant.

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘No. Sometimes the money is icing. If your father wants to pay me to enjoy myself then who am I to decline? Do you think I’d stay all night if I didn’t enjoy your company?’ Which was, Andrea realised, also not a lie. ‘Anyway, your father would never allow it.’

  Lena gave a grunt of displeasure. ‘He’s getting even more paranoid. I heard he’s bought a fucking missile!’

  ‘You’re kidding!’

  ‘Nope. A missile. Some sort of Ultra-seeking missile. I mean, how insane is that?’

  Pushing aside her disquiet, Andrea diverted the subject. Keeping Lena unaware that she was being quietly pumped for information meant not appearing interested in the information she g
ot. ‘Crazy… You know, the other reason for not moving in is I don’t want you taking me for granted. Familiarity breeds contempt. I want you begging for it.’

  Lena looked up at her, eyes a little wide. ‘I will, you know? Beg. I’ll get down on my knees and beg you to make love to me if you want me to.’

  ‘Maybe next time,’ Andrea whispered.

  ~~~

  Svetilo’s apartment was actually not that close; all the way across Downtown to Grant where some of the highest-priced apartments in the city were located. They landed on the balcony outside and Svetilo pressed her thumb to a panel by the window to unlock it.

  ‘That,’ Penny said, ‘is a clever idea.’

  ‘When people know your identity, some security is in order. Come in, “take the weight off,” as you say. Glass of wine?’

  ‘Sure, why not?’

  Svetilo followed her through and slid the window closed. Penny heard the locks re-engage behind her and decided not to worry about that right now. She was sure she knew where the evening was heading. June would be with Red tonight so she would not miss Penny staying out. One little fling could not hurt…

  ‘I thought Russians drank vodka,’ Penny said as she took a seat. The room was big and open. There were two large, comfortable sofas, one facing a huge wall-mounted screen. Light came from three standard lamps which gave soft, moody lighting. Svetilo was getting the wine from a small kitchen area at the back and there were a couple of doors off the lounge which likely led to bedrooms.

  ‘We do, but I want you to be able to walk and talk.’ Penny giggled as the Russian handed her a glass and then sat down, not too close. ‘I have not asked: your hands are better?’

  Holding up a hand, palm facing Svetilo, Penny said, ‘I heal faster than normal. Maybe two, three times faster.’

  ‘A useful talent in our line of work.’

  ‘Uh-huh, but you didn’t get me up here to drink wine and discuss my healing.’

  ‘No. I have a job coming up. A shoot in Miami. One week in a warmer climate. Bikinis, lingerie, some not-quite-nudes, nothing overly risqué. I am going to invite June to come as we need some more girls and I think it would be a big stepping stone for her.’