by Matt Cowper
Nightstriker’s eyes widened. The ice-cold, expert-on-everything hero was impressed, and wasn’t bothering to hide his emotions.
“Well done, Buckshot,” Nightstriker said. “I, of course, did not think of that. It’s both elegant and simple, as most good ideas are. So I assume you found some clue.”
“Yessiree,” Buckshot said. “One raccoon had dropped a lot of poop that had a fuckton of crazy stuff in it. Turns out he’d be been scarfing down a lot of YayCakes that he’d stolen from those zealots. You know how unhealthy those things are, and how hard to digest – it was easy to analyze. One of the Giftgiver’s idiots obviously liked to gorge himself on those sugar-filled things – specifically, the Super Tasty African Zebra YayCakes. So, then we – well, I do enjoy talking, but Metal Gal was the one who really handled the next step. Gal?”
“Thanks, Bucky,” Metal Gal said. “So, yeah, we then had to find out who’d bought a bunch of those type of YayCakes. We had to look through a ton of grocery store and convenience store footage, then if we saw someone suspicious, we had to check to see if they fit the profile of a Giftgiver follower – that is, young, unemployed, underemployed, or in what they consider a low-status job, or prone to espousing extremist views on social media. And, of course, they had to be missing, or taking unexpected leaves of absence from work, school, or other commitments.”
“Not an easy task,” Nightstriker said.
“No, but we did it! We finally found our guy. He bought a bunch of YayCakes at 3:17 AM on a Sunday at a grocery store in Bootheel. Strange time, and the guy looked pretty shifty. Turns out he hadn’t showed up to his community college courses for several days, and a quick perusal of his Yaybook profile revealed some interesting statements. Bingo! Now we had to track him. There were other cameras in the area, but we could only trace his movements to a spot a few blocks from that store. But we had his face, his name – Clay Kerensky – so we kept on the lookout. The analysts and I set up a program to sift through every camera feed in Z City. Eventually, he showed up to get more of those YayCakes––”
“––and we, uh, how can you put it?” Slab said. “We brought him up to the Beacon and gave him a lecture on nutrition. Yeah, that’s it.”
“Haw! We sure did!” Buckshot said. “That pudgy kid was undone by sweets! We began interrogating him, but he started blubbering like a baby soon’s I yelled at him. Told us the Giftgiver had set up at that warehouse. We got our fannies down there, and – well, you know the rest.”
“Excellent work, all of you,” Nightstriker said. Did Sam see tears glistening in his eyes? No, that couldn’t be right; was probably just a trick of the lighting. “I should have brought you all to that forest sooner, but, as you are well aware, I was set in my ways. But that’s in the past. We now have eight captives here on the Beacon, and they all have useful information – and we will get it.”
“I wouldn’t want to be on the other side of Nightstriker’s interrogation,” Metal Gal muttered. “Not after what he’s been through.”
“You ain’t kidding,” Buckshot muttered back.
“Actually, we have nine of his followers in custody,” Slab said. “Some superhuman with gas powers tried to suffocate Blaze, but Metal Gal turned her arm into a vacuum and sucked her out. The chick’s name is Anna, and she won’t turn back into her human form – if she even can. We’ve got her contained here, but until we know how her powers work, we can’t do anything to her.”
“Interesting,” Nightstriker said. “You say she’s in a gaseous form, and no one knows what exactly the composition is?”
“Yup,” Buckshot said. “She won’t tell us nothing, of course, though she did tell Blaze her powers weren’t of this world when she was down his gullet – whatever that crap means.”
“What color is she?” Nightstriker asked.
“Well, her form is thick, like smoke, but brownish in color,” Buckshot said. “I can’t make heads or tails of it myself. I always tried to avoid gas supervillains myself. Can’t shoot something that ain’t solid.”
“I have an idea about the origin of her powers,” Nightstriker said, “but I need to consult my files. We will also need to catalog the powers of the other captives. Anything that can help us needs to be utilized.”
“Sure thing, boss,” Metal Gal said. “Now, if you don’t mind, we’ve got some questions for you.”
“Yeah, what’d they do to you?” Buckshot said. “And what’re we gonna do to get some vengeance?”
“As Blaze saw, I was chained in place and tortured.” Nightstriker said this like he was talking about driving to the post office to get the mail. Did none of this affect him? Or did he just shove some metaphorical gauze into his mental wounds and continue with the job? Sam had seen him enraged after he pumped himself full of Overdrive Juice, but he seemed to be angry because the Giftgiver had escaped, not because he’d been tortured.
“At first, they threatened me,” Nightstriker continued, “but I’ve already heard all the threats a villain can use. Then they tried to read my mind, but I led their telepath into one of my mental defenses, neutralizing her. She will not forget that experience. Next, they used a superhuman illusionist to try and frighten me with spiders, snakes, and so forth. It didn’t work; I’ve trained for situations such as that for years. But their next method concerned me: they had several superhumans with resurrection powers, and they were going to disembowel me, then revive me – and do it all over again. Excruciating pain, hour after hour, until I talked.”
“That’s fucking nuts!” Slab said, pounding the table. His punch left a giant dent and shook the entire room. “And they think they’re the good guys?!”
“In the Giftgiver’s mind, the ends justify the means,” Nightstriker said. “Luckily, Blaze burst in just before they were going to start this cycle of pain and resurrection. And I should note that several of the Giftgiver’s followers were reluctant to torture me, and some chafed under his command. If at all possible, we need to take advantage of this friction and drive a wedge between the Giftgiver and his army.”
“Did you, uh, tell him anything?” Metal Gal asked. “I’m not doubting you, but––”
“It’s a valid question,” Nightstriker said. “And no, I told him nothing. He, however, was very talkative. Much of what he said was utopian drivel, but he did make several key statements. One was that he didn’t just capture me to remove me from the board; his superhuman army needs training, and he wanted to either force me to train them or rip the knowledge out of my mind and do it himself.”
“Wow,” Metal Gal said. “He’s giving all these people powers, and he doesn’t know how to train or control them? Some of these folks have abilities that make them walking nuclear weapons!”
“Though he’s a capable speaker, and likely educated, there are indeed a lot of gaps in the Giftgiver’s thinking,” Nightstriker said. “So far, he’s eluded us mainly because of the variety of abilities his followers possess. I was also able to use psychological tricks to confuse him and his followers; a true leader would have countered those before I finished a sentence.”
“A true leader – like you,” Blaze said. It sounded hokey, but after what he’d seen this day, Sam would’ve gladly thrown a parade in Nightstriker’s honor, though the veteran hero would hate it and probably wouldn’t attend. “We’re glad you’re back, Nightstriker.”
“Damn right we are,” Buckshot said, grinning like a horse thief.
“Yeah, man,” Slab said. “I feel like we’re gonna kick a tremendous amount of ass now.”
“It’s super awesome sauce!” Metal Gal said, raising her silvery arms. “The Elites are back in business!”
Nightstriker smiled at his teammates, like a proud father. For a long time he didn’t speak, and again Sam thought that suspicious glinting in his eyes would actually stream down his face as tears.
But he was still Nightstriker. He wiped his eyes with a quick motion, straightened up, and set his jaw like a general about to give a speech.
>
“Thank you all for your concern, and for your enthusiasm for the mission,” he said. “Make no mistake, this isn’t over. Poorly trained or not, the Giftgiver’s army poses a grave threat not only to Z City, but to the entire country. I have fought authoritarians of this sort many times. The damage they inflict on society takes months, or even years, to heal. Consider Professor Perfection and his far-reaching machinations. But no matter how many allies the Giftgiver has at his side, we will prevail – no matter the cost. However…” The fatherly smile reappeared. “…that can wait until the morning. I order you all to get at least eight hours of sleep. And yes, I will be in bed as well. As the Giftgiver pointed out, I probably would not have been captured if I hadn’t been so exhausted. I was pushing myself too hard, and I see you all have pushed yourselves equally hard to find me. But now we need to recuperate. So: eight hours of sleep. No excuses.”
Everyone chuckled, even the analysts, and the Elites gradually drifted towards the exits while making small talk. Nightstriker was the first to leave; Sam hoped he wasn’t fibbing, that he would get a good night’s sleep. Buckshot said he’d see if he could find a softcore porn on the television “to ease him into one of those fine wet dreams.” Slab said he was sore – Sam didn’t know how rocks could get sore – and would soak in a mineral bath for a few minutes before going to sleep.
Then it was only Sam and Metal Gal, walking down the corridor – and, strangely, holding hands. Sam looked down at the cool silver hand wrapped in his.
“Uh, when did this happen?” he asked.
“Oh, holding hands?” Metal Gal replied. “Just now, silly. You must be really tired.”
“Yeah, I can barely keep my eyes open….”
“You don’t mind, do you?”
“No,” Sam said, smiling. “No, I don’t.”
They continued down the corridor, past staff members who didn’t bother to hide their glances. Sam knew the gossip mill would be churning in short order, and once the tabloids got a hold of it, they’d have a field day writing about the “connection” between the fiery kid and the metal girl.
And what would his parents think? They thought they were progressive, but could they handle their son dating a cyborg?
Screw it. Let them gawk if they wanted to. If it became too bothersome, a few fireballs to the britches would teach people some manners.
They were in Sam’s room and sitting on his bed before he knew what had happened. Like he’d done when he noticed he was holding Metal Gal’s hand, he had to blink around in confusion to make sure this was really happening.
“I don’t want to sound too forward,” she said, “but I really do like you, Sam.”
“I…I like you, too.”
“Good!” Her body flashed a shade of red before it returned to its normal gray color. “You probably think I’m weird, and I know I was pretty mean to you when I…asked you to melt me….”
“It’s fine,” Sam said. “I’m just…well, I’ve been around plenty of superhumans, but none quite like you.”
“Yeah.” She pulled her hand away and stared at the floor. Her eyes had changed to a deep blue, like the ocean depths.
“What’s wrong?” Sam asked.
“I’m just thinking…about Keith.” She gave Sam a brittle smile. “You’re right. There aren’t many superhumans like me. There was one…but he’d dead now.”
“This Keith…he sounds important to you.”
“He was. He was my boyfriend and research partner. We met in college. We were both geeks, both eager to change the world – sorta like the Giftgiver, I guess. My specialty was physics, Keith’s was engineering. He was more detail-oriented than me. I’d get the big ideas, then he’d force me to go through every step until it was feasible. But then….”
A long pause. Sam had heard enough of these tales to know what happened next: an experiment gone awry, minds and lives shattered, new superhumans created. He didn’t interrupt, though; he waited patiently as Metal Gal sorted her thoughts.
“We’d come up with this process…a process to transfer human consciousness into anything with enough capacity to hold it,” Metal Gal said. “Of course, many others, both superheroes and supervillains, had developed a similar process, but in our arrogance we thought ours was better. We thought we could bounce our minds between robots, computers, even spaceships as easy as flicking a switch. But it didn’t work out that way.”
“This body,” Sam said. “You…you tried to….”
“Yes.” She looked down at her silvery form like it belonged to a stranger. “We made this. A form that could become as hard as titanium or as soft as butter. Shapeshifting capabilities, so we could impersonate others. An inter-dimensional power core, so we could fly and project energy. And a ton of other stuff, as you know. We’d tested our mental transfer process for months. We knew it would work. And it did. We shot our minds into these bodies – but then we couldn’t get out.”
“What?” Sam said. “But how….?”
“We thought we could handle it. But when we were really in these bodies, and we really had to concentrate to maintain our form – it was too much. We dissolved into puddles. Our data banks and power cores were still functioning properly, but we were helpless.”
“You couldn’t turn back into…uh…a form like you have now?”
“No,” Metal Gal said. “And as puddles, we couldn’t reach the control panel to transfer our minds back to our human bodies. All we had to do was flick a switch, but…it was stupid! Why didn’t we come up with a better failsafe?!”
“But…you’re in control of your form now….”
“Yes, but it took me…took me a long time. Two months, actually.”
“What?!”
“Two months in our lab. We’d leased the place for a year, and no one knew what we were using it for but us. There are about a billion laws preventing people from doing what we were doing. We needed secrecy.”
She sighed. “Two months as a puddle. Two months unable to see, unable to speak, unable to move. I had no idea what had happened to Keith. I had nothing but my own thoughts. And…the mind does crazy things when it has no stimuli for a while….”
“That’s why you’re so…quirky.” Sam cursed under his breath. Why did he say something so insensitive? “I’m sorry. I––”
“You didn’t mean any harm,” Metal Gal said, again putting her hand in his. “Yes, that’s why I’m…quirky. It took a toll on me. I’ve tried therapy, but there isn’t much in the textbooks about people who’ve been stuck as metallic puddles for two months.”
“What about your human body?”
“By the time I could properly morph, we – well, our original bodies – were dead. We’d set up IVs, but we never expected to be trapped so long. Our bodies were rotting…and our eyes…oh, Sam…it was terrible….”
“I’m…I’m sorry,” Sam said. “What about…what about Keith?”
“He was…it affected him more than me.” She altered some of her form so tears ran down her cheeks. “As soon as I could, I morphed his puddle into a form that had human-like senses – but his mind had been crushed by the ordeal. I tried to…to help him, but I was nearly gone myself. I couldn’t concentrate, I wasn’t watching him close enough. As soon as he got some sort of control, he created some coding that erased his data bank…one last gasp of logic before the abyss. He committed suicide, Sam. He’d suffered too much, so…he left.”
Sam wiped away her tears. “So that’s what Nightstriker meant when he mocked you during the training session. Look, Gal, it’s not your fault….”
“I know it isn’t,” she said. “After all, I was trapped too. But then I think…if I’d only been more careful once I morphed him…and then the dark thoughts come….”
Sam wrapped her up in a hug. It was like hugging a refrigerator – but then Metal Gal altered her composition, making her body softer, more flesh-like. It actually felt like hugging a normal human girl, except she was still silver-colored.
&nbs
p; After a few minutes, she gently pushed Sam away. “Thank you, Sam. That felt…nice. Well, as nice as something can feel for me.”
“Yeah. It did.”
“I’m sorry to dump all this on you, but you’re the first person who I’ve really…felt something for since…since all that. And I guess I’m tired, too. Even I need sleep. Or I should say, I need to rest my mind, since I don’t actually sleep.”
“It’s OK,” Sam replied. “I understand what it’s like to lose someone. My mentor….”
Metal Gal waited, and when Sam didn’t continue, she nudged him lightly in the ribs. “You can tell me, Sam.”
“Well…when I first started superheroing, I met a guy named Mad Dog. He had low-level superstrength and durability: a Class C superhuman. But he was wild, fought like a drunk guy in a bar fight – most the time, actually, he was drunk. All the bad guys were terrified of him. I thought he was the coolest person I’d ever met, and when he asked if I wanted to team up, I nearly shit my pants.”
Metal Gal laughed, her eyes sparkling blue.
“Yeah, I was young – still am, of course…anyway, we trashed bad guys nightly. It was great. Those lowlifes even gave us a nickname: the Fire Dogs. I thought we were awesome, and we were, in our own way, but now working with Nightstriker, I realize that we were amateurs. See bad guy, beat up bad guy – that’s what Mad Dog always said. That works against the normal Z City thugs, and even against some supervillains, but it doesn’t work against the real threats.”
