by S. J. Delos
I nodded slowly, keeping my eyes on the woman before me. “Uh, Mister Manpower was fighting with the Brickwall Gang yesterday. And I kind of, sort of, lent him a hand. Then he said he thought I should come by.” Her brow remained arched and she pointedly ignored the ringing phone. “Uh … to meet everyone, I think. At two o’clock?” I hadn’t meant for the last bit to sound like a question, but the withering glance from the woman and the virtual crickets of the room behind me rattled my nerves.
The a red light flared into life on the top edge of her eyewear and swept over my face, momentarily filling my vision with little, floating spots. She glanced down at the computer terminal in front of her, neutral expression sliding down into a frown at what she was seeing. Probably my criminal record. Great.
I leaned forward a little more, lowering my voice. “Look, I know that it might look bad. But I promise, Mister Manpow–”
I was interrupted by someone’s hand clamping down on my shoulder in what might have been a painful, rather than just annoying, manner. “I think you might be in the wrong place at the wrong time, Crushette.”
I turned around to face a portly man wearing a suit of dark blue power armor and glaring at me. Mechanix. It would figure that one of the heroes present would have to be someone that I’d fought before. He took a step back and aimed the micro-cannon on one arm at me. Tiny servos whirled and hummed as the lights along the edges of his suit brightened. Behind him, several other wannabes stood up, watching the scene carefully.
I held up my hands slowly, palms out. The last thing I wanted to do was start a rumble here. “Hey, Mechanix. How you been? Is that a new suit of–”
He cut me off by blasting me in the face with the ionic cannon. The focused plasma beam knocked me backwards against the desk. The energy burst tossed my hair around in my face, disintegrated the upper portion of my t-shirt, and stung like a dozen bitch-slaps.
After about three seconds, the energy discharge ended and Mechanix lowered his arm to survey his handiwork. When he did, I pushed off the desk (now sporting a Karen-shaped dent) and punched him in the chest as hard as I could. The osmium steel breastplate crumpled inwards and the lights along the top of his attacking arm flickered and winked out. I guess he was still keeping the main power supply in the torso. Amateur.
The impact made him stumble a couple of clanking steps backwards and he shook off the stun and raised his other arm. But before he could fire again, I stepped forward and lashed out with a foot, kicking him right between his metal-clad legs. He shot up about ten feet into the air, groaning loudly over the sounds of his suit’s gyros trying to keep him upright.
I waited until he was almost back down and then punched him again, this time with both hands. The armor plating across his chest cracked open and this time every light flickered and went dark. Mechanix zoomed in an arc across the lobby, pieces of metal flying off like the tail of a comet, and slammed into the wall next to the front doors. The man-sized crater he made in the concrete held him aloft like a piece of post-modern art.
The rest of the assembled heroes looked from Mechanix to me, as if trying to decide if this was a fight they wanted to get in on. I kept my hands balled into fists and narrowed my eyes at the lot of them. After a few tense seconds of Mexican Standoff, none of them made any move to attack. I turned back to the wide-eyed receptionist whose mouth was hanging open. “Karen. Hashimoto. I have an appointment.”
She nodded and snatched up one of the phones. “Yes, Miss Hashimoto. I’ll let Mister Manpower know that you’re here.”
“Thanks so much.” I smiled pleasantly, as if I hadn’t just punched a superhero across the room like a volleyball.
I walked over to a mostly-deserted spot near the elevators and sat down on the floor. I kept my eyes away from everyone else’s and tried to act as relaxed as I could, despite the stares I could feel and the buzzing whispers I could hear. I refused to give them obvious notice. I’m sure it was a big mystery as to why a criminal such as myself was in attendance.
The ding of the elevator caught my attention and when the doors slid open, Mister Manpower emerged. The Good Guys’ co-leader was wearing a pair of khakis and a polo, making me feel a little better about showing up in casual attire. Of course, the t-shirt was destroyed and only the black sports bra underneath kept me from rampant indecency.
He glanced around and spotted me on the floor. His brow furrowed and he looked me up and down before asking, “Are you all right?”
I quickly smoothed my hair. “I’m fine. Just a little misunderstanding with Mechanix.” I put on my most innocent smile. “Old business. Nothing to worry about.”
His eyes shifted over to the large dent in the far wall–and the unconscious hero on the floor beneath it–and back.
“Well, okay then,” Manpower said and shook his head. “You seem to be hell on your wardrobe, Karen.”
I shrugged and pulled the remaining pieces of my tee off and balled them up in my hand. Thankfully I’d had the foresight to wear a sports bra today. “Wasn’t tight enough.” I glanced over at a nearby hero who was alternating between snickering at my ruined shirt and ogling my near-nakedness. I clenched my jaw and took a step towards the pudgy, green and gold clad fellow, wondering how funny he would find a shattered femur or two.
Manpower, put his hand on my arm, drawing my attention away from wondering if the comedian needed a punch in the nose back to him. “Come on, Karen. Everyone’s waiting upstairs.” He leaned over to the receptionist. “Joelle,” he said in a far less upset voice than I would have expected. “Please cancel Mechanix’s three o’clock.” The hero nodded to the man in the damaged armor across the room. A pair of other heroes were assisting him with standing upright. “I don’t think he’s going to be up for it.”
“Yes, sir,” the six-armed girl said, mouth stretching into a huge smile. “Should I see if he wants to reschedule?”
Manpower shook his head. “I don’t think that will be necessary.”
We stepped into the elevator and when the doors had closed, Manpower turned to me. “Just to prevent any misunderstandings, heroes don’t usually make it a habit to beat on other heroes.”
I held up a hand. “Whoa. Mechanix came after me. I was just checking in with the … Joelle girl. Then he’s all up in my face in full-on ‘Crushette must be stopped’ mode and then he opened fire on me.”
Manpower nodded. “Yes, I saw the security feed. I’m merely suggesting that if you run into any other heroes you might have had previous dealings with, that you inform them that you aren’t a villain anymore.”
“What about when they don’t give me a chance to explain? Mechanix sure didn’t.”
“Then maybe you could dodge or something? Or at least give a little pause before you inflict internal damage.”
I crossed my arms over my chest again and watched the numbers on the panel continue to climb as we slid smoothly upwards. “I’ll think about it.”
“Good.” He smiled and the car stopped and the doors opened, he gestured for me to go first.
The room I stepped into was devoid of features; smooth white walls, floor, and ceiling. The doorway opposite the elevator was easily ten feet across and ringed by metal circles spaced every few inches. I glanced back over my shoulder at him. “Feebs?” I asked, using the nickname for Force Field Beam Emitters
He stepped out and stood next to me. “Fifth Generation. Even Colonel Tank couldn’t get through them.”
I wasn’t really all that impressed. Feebs had been standard issue all over the Max. With a flip of a switch, guards could block off a section as big or as small as they wanted. The beam generators were immune to magnetic and technopathic manipulation and their solid photon emissions were stronger by far than anything that could be cast from metal. The perfect method for containing Enhanced individuals.
“Intruders that come up the elevator can be detained here until dealt with,” he continued. “Every Good Guy has his or her biometrics scanned into the mainframe and any
one trying to get in unaccompanied by one of us will set off the security.”
I laughed and shook my head. “You forgot the walls. If I was trying to get in, I’d just go through the walls.” I reached out and rapped my knuckles on the nearest one. A semi-hollow sound came back to me. “Those wouldn’t even slow me down.”
Manpower returned my smirk. “We’re not idiots, Karen.” He paused for a second and then added, “at least, not all of us.” He looked up at a scanner on the far wall. “Mister Manpower. 1-6-5-4-4. Initiate confinement.”
The beams jumped into life, forming glowing yellow bars that crisscrossed the openings of both the doorway and the elevator. No advance, no retreat. I turned my attention to the wall on which I’d tapped and could see the tell-tale glow behind the panels. Apparently the confinement energy completely surrounded the small room.
“Interesting,” I looked back at Manpower.
“We made the walls semi-translucent so anyone trapped in here would know that the beams were all around. Cuts down on having to constantly repair them.”
“Get lots of unwelcome guests, do you?” I asked.
“It happens on occasion. Mister Manpower. 1-6-5-4-4. Deactivate confinement.” The beams vanished and the hero smiled. “Sorry for showing off. I just want you to get an idea of what you’ll be dealing with here.”
I held up a finger and gave him a sideway look. “I haven’t agreed to join anything.”
“Not yet. But you will. Otherwise, why would you bother coming all the way down here and subjecting yourself to a potential fight?” He turned and headed through the doorway. “Come on, let’s go meet the team.”
After a short walk down a wide hallway, we came to a large living area with a vaulted ceiling. The center of the room was recessed about two feet lower than the rest of the floor and three large sofas were arranged in U-shape along the perimeter. In the center was a stone coffee table surrounded by plush floor cushions, two of which were currently in use.
“Come on, Lexi. That’s cheating,” said the twenty-something man holding a game controller. The gigantic screen in front of him showed a crashed go-cart that smoldered and burned.
“Not my fault you changed lanes when I was trying to pass.” The teenaged girl sitting next to him giggled. The brown ponytail swaying at the back of her head only increased her youthful appearance.
Robbie Rocket and Phantasm.
“Guys, can you pause for a second?” Manpower said, interrupting their game. “I want you to meet my selection to fill Denise’s spot. This is Karen Hashimoto.”
Phantasm put the controller down and stood up, reaching out a hand towards me. “Hi. I’m Alexis, but most people call me Lexi.” Her smile was wide and genuine, full of the boundless energy that comes with innocent youth. She glanced down at the ball of charred cloth in my hand and her eyes widened. “What happened to your shirt?”
“Little misunderstanding downstairs.” I answered as I remembered hearing about the teen’s Activation on the TV in the Max’s common room.
About a year earlier, she’d been home alone when a really nasty villain named Wrecking Ball tore through her building while fleeing from the EAPF. The whole structure had come down around her, creating a pile of rubble where a three-story condominium had previously stood. Alexis had just floated up through the debris like a ghost, completely unharmed and intangible. The panic of having the walls fall in on her had kick-started her particular Enhancement: Molecular Phasing.
What had made the story so newsworthy had been the fact that less than a minute after becoming Active, the young girl had used her new powers to subdue the criminal that had destroyed her home and kept him contained until the EAPF could take him into custody. A week later, she was a member of the Good Guys.
The man behind her stood up, eyes narrowing at me and throwing hard glances at Manpower. “This has to be some kind of joke, Greg,” he asked the older hero. “You brought Crushette up here? She’s one of Doctor Maniac’s crew.”
Manpower looked over at me as if to apologize for his teammate, then he returned the glare coming from Rocket. “I am aware of her past, Robert. However, I believe her future is here with us. As a hero.”
Phantasm’s face shifted from warm and friendly into a mask of guarded concern. She tilted her head to the side, looking at me. “You’re Crushette?”
I shrugged, feeling like I’d just lost a potential friend. “I used to be. Now I’m just plain old Karen.”
Rocket pointed at me, face twisted into a seething mask. The air in the room became stuffy and warm, probably due to the thermal energy leeching out of the pissed-off hero. “Don’t listen to her, Alexis. She is Crushette. She’s one of Doctor Maniacs little flunkies.” He shook his head, never taking his eyes off me for a second. “Aren’t you supposed to be in prison? What did you do? Break out?”
I nearly spat back that I was more than just a flunky to Doctor Maniac, but I doubted that would help my case one bit. The room around us suddenly seemed way too confining and too hot. If this went south, I was going to be at a serious disadvantage. “I’m out on parole, actually,” I tried to keep my voice level and my body poised in a non-threatening manner.
My shrink had noted that I had a tendency to stand as if I were ready to punch someone. Which, in most cases, I was.
I glanced past the Rocket and Phantasm to the window on the other side of the room. Even though it was omni-plex, I could probably bust through it. It was the twenty story drop that gave me hesitation. Turning my gaze towards Manpower, I shrugged. “Told you this was a bad idea.”
Manpower slid in between me and the flyer, facing his teammate. “Stand down, Robert. Karen is here because I asked her to come. I told you that I wanted to see about recruiting the girl who helped me with the Brickwall Gang yesterday.”
“But you conveniently left out the part where it was Crushette that helped you.” He leaned to the side to look at me around Manpower. “What type of misunderstanding did you have downstairs? Someone mistake you for a supervillain? Oh, wait! That’s not a mistake, is it?”
I felt my lips form a snide curl. “Is this about that incident in Matthews a couple of years ago? Are you really still pissed because you were stupid enough to fly into me?”
Phantasm turned to Rocket. “You fought with her?”
I snorted, angry smile taking over my face. “It wasn’t really much of a fight, Alexis. Super Rocket Genius here thought he’d take down the easy girlie target. Of course, if he’d bothered to do his homework, he’d have known that trying that Swooping Tackle move of his would have had more success against a lamp post. Poor wittle Rocket bounced off me and tumbled head over ass on the ground, out cold.” I laughed. “Actually made me feel a little sorry for him.”
“Enough!” Manpower put his hand on Rocket’s chest. “Robert, I’m ordering you to calm down. Whatever went on between you and Karen, it was years ago and needs to be dropped.” He turned his head to look at me. “And would you please stop baiting him? You think I don’t see that you’re actually trying to pick a fight just to reinforce your argument that you don’t belong?”
I looked down at the floor. Not because I was embarrassed that he’d called me out in front of the other two, but because he was right. Part of me did want to sabotage this opportunity. “Okay,” I mumbled.
“Fine.” Rocket grumbled and turned around to stalk out of the room.
“Lexi, do you have a shirt Karen can borrow? I think she’d be more comfortable meeting the others if she was wearing more than a bra.”
The teen looked at me, the friendly expression long since vanished. But at least it hadn’t been replaced with outright hostility, which was a plus. “Yeah, I can do that.” She nodded her head towards the same doorway Rocket had left through. “Come on.”
She headed out of the room and down a wide hallway with me right behind her. She glanced over her shoulder at me as we turned a corner and the walls ahead were punctuated with a series of doors on either side.
The teen stopped at one marked with a large, brass number 6 and pressed her palm on the clear panel next to the frame.
The door slid open silently and revealed a rather spacious bedroom on the other side. Phantasm stood to the side and bid me to enter with a sweep of her arm. “Home sweet home,” she said, giving me the slightest hint of a smile.
Perhaps I wouldn’t be fighting with all of my new teammates after all.
I stepped through the doorway and paused, blinking at the sheer opulence of the quarters. Inside the room (which had to be at least twice the area of my former apartment) was a work area, complete with a desk and state-of-the-art computer, a four-poster bed, and flat-screen television that dominated the far wall. Across from the bed was another door that apparently led to a bathroom. I took in the accommodations and looked at the teen. “This is your room?”
She nodded and crossed over to the dresser next to the bed. Instead of bothering to open the drawer, she just phased her hand through the wood to come out gripping a bright pink baby-doll tee with a scooped neck. “Here,” she said as she handed the re-solidified shirt to me. “Sorry if it’s a little … tight.” Her head nodded at my significantly larger bust.
“Thanks.” I yanked the ruined shirt off my body and struggled into the garment. Thankfully, I’d managed to stay in shape during my incarceration and the only place the shirt seemed to strain was across the chest. I tugged the hem down over the top of my jeans.
“Did you really work for Doctor Maniac?” She asked, leaning against the doorway.
I looked up and into the girl’s eyes, giving her a shrug. “I guess so. I mean, I was a part of his organization. Just never thought of it as ‘working’ for him.” No, the relationship between Martin and I was a bit more than employer/employee in nature.
“Why?” The girl held up her hand. “I mean, you seem like a pretty nice person.”
“I honestly don’t have an answer to that. It just sort of … happened.”
