The highway was a simple ribbon of concrete slicing through the flat, monotone landscape. Trucks, cars, and motorcycles flew back and forth along its length, going to and from destinations both glorious and forgettable, tragic and epic. For the United States, the highway was an open-ended ticket to adventure, to somewhere else, anywhere else; a mythic passage to a legendary 'better place'. The people who drove the highways for any real length of time eventually learned the truth of the matter though. The highway was a ribbon of concrete that took a person from one place to another, unless that person didn't know where another place was. Then that person just might end up stranded with his motorcycle in the parking lot of a roadside diner, and that person might be bitterly chewing at some lunch while mulling options in his head.
Oliver Queen stared out of the window at his baby. He sighed and leaned into his chair, and drummed his fingers over the table top.
Yeah, why not? Why don't you let me down too? Now what? Call for help? Who? Face it, hero, you're stuck out here because you cut off each of your lifelines one by one. Good job. They might let you down, but you're the one that shoved them off. He let out another heavy sigh and picked up his coffee cup, swirled the dark liquid around and dropped it back down.
“Well if you don't look lower than snake with a broken rattler,” Greg Saunders said as he walked up to the booth and settled into the opposite seat. “Hey there, son.”
Ollie looked up at the newcomer, and blinked several times as he tried to register the sudden presence filling his vision. Connor or Mia, almost a certainty; Babs, possibly if she didn't have to run herd over a group of super-malcontents; Dinah, a slim, but hoped for, chance. The Prairie Singer, the original Vigilante, that wasn't even on the list.
“Good ta see you too, Ollie. I'm doing fine, thanks fer askin'. Yup, ranch is good, restaurant's a hit. Yolanda, you ask? She's dandy, I'll let her know you were inquirin'.” Greg gave a playful wink as he watched Ollie slowly close his jaw back up.
“Greg?”
“And here I've been hearin' how you ain't the most observant super-hero in the clubhouse,” Greg continued to tease his friend. “Miss?” he called to the waitress, and flashed an easy smile. “Cup o' Joe, and maybe a slice of that tasty sweet potato pie I'm smellin'? Thanks, darlin'.”
“What are you doing here?” Ollie leaned forward and narrowed his eyes, his forehead wrinkled up in a frown.
“Be careful of that, son. You'll end up lookin' like this in another ten years,” Greg said with a hearty laugh that revealed the heavily lined face. “Hear you've been havin' a peck o’ trouble.”
“A peck? That a technical term?” Ollie struggled to return to form and drained his own cup as the waitress placed Greg's order on the table. “Some more coffee, Sooze, hun?” he asked as he glanced at the waitress's name tag.
“And a piece of pie for him too,” Greg added.
“I don't really--”
“A piece of pie for him too. He needs it, trust me.” Suzie nodded and headed off to get the new order. “Pie is a pick-me-up, Ollie. And you need that.”
“I need to find myself, is what I need,” Oliver groused as he watched Greg dig into the large triangle of pie. “If I can just get that hunk of junk working again.” He jerked his thumb at the window and out to the motorcycle, now joined by a pick-up truck.
“See, now there's yer trouble, son. You think one thing, and you say somethin'...stupid,” Greg pointed out as he stared at Ollie. “You love that bike. You have to, ya rode it cross-country, round trip and then, not even days later, yer on it again and boundin' 'cross the States. Just look at those moon eyes. But all ya can do is take a shot at it when it should hear the nice things ya got to say about it.”
“Excuse me?” Ollie glared at Greg and ignored the pie in front of him as he drummed his fingers on the tabletop.
“Ya heard me. And that's just a bike. I can just imagine what you've said to all those good folk back at home,” Greg continued as he ignored the dirty looks from Ollie. “I heard a lot. That Batwoman gal, she's a smart cookie. She notices things. She hears things. She told me about yer walkin' out on them Outsiders, and she told me about your League buddies you shooed off.”
“She should mind her own business, then,” he grumbled as he stabbed his own pie. “What's she know except their side of the story, huh?”
“What she knows is just one thing. I had you watched too. Private dick been watchin' you go all mad bull out in D.C., and more,” Greg said in a more subdued tone of voice. “Don't need ta be no head-shrinker to see where yer headed, son. Lots of people close to ya feelin' the same way.”
“Then you should know that I just need to figure this stuff out, on my own, without anyone telling me what a screw-up I am!” Ollie snapped back as he slammed his fist on the table, fork clattering from the impact.
“Hard-headed macho man who can't share his problems with the people who are closest to him, like family to him, and gotta strike out on his own all muddled and not sure what he's lashing out to find? Who just happens to be a bow-slinger?” Greg leaned forward, much more serious, eyes earnest and staring deep into Ollie's soul. “Sound familiar at all, Oliver?”
Ollie stared back, long and hard, but the words sank in, and his road-weary body slowly started to wither under the memories of when he and Greg first met. Spider's body impaled by his own weapons, friendless, alone, nearly forgotten...all from his own actions. “Tom,” Ollie whispered hoarsely.
“Tom Hallaway. Spider, archer, Soldier. Dead.* I ain't losin' no more family, and I ain't letting anyone else destroy themselves by stewin' in their own juices, and maybe even hurtin' their son while doin' it.” Greg leaned back now and finished his coffee. “You had your world torn out from under ya. I understand. I do. I'm the only one that does, out of yer pals. It's why you don't listen to 'em. How can you? Yer older then most of 'em, or the same age, and if any of them are goin' through something similar, well...they ain't got answers fer ya yet. Me, I been yanked around this world in ways you can't picture. I've had to rebuild my life twice now, son. I've seen my country in its best and worst days, and come to the present to find out that its best and worst...were the same days. But one thing doesn't change, and that's this: ya pull yerself up by yer bootstraps, ya dust yerself off, and you git back on yer iron horse. So things ain't what ya want them ta be right now? Too damned bad. Ya want ta find yerself? Then here's what we're gonna do.”
*see Green Arrow #20 for all the details“'
We're gonna do', Greg?” Ollie chuckled now as he ate some of the pie.
“We're gonna put that bike on the back of my truck, drive back to the ranch in Dos Rios, and yer gonna put that strong back o' yers to work. Good solid work. And we'll get that motorized horse o' yers back on its feet. And maybe you'll do a little of that arching of yers for the Soldiers. And find yerself, with the help of good friends, so we can send ya back home whole and hearty and safe. Got it?”
Ollie weighed his options, thought about the open air of Texas, a chance to hide from the world, but he had to admit that it was nice to think he might have someone who understood to hide with. He swallowed a mouthful of sweet potato and shrugged. “Well, you were right about the pie. Guess you could be right about other things too. Let's give it a shot.”
“Glad ta hear it, son.” Greg smiled in relief and summoned Suzie for the bill.
White Sands, New Mexico“Okay, kid, c'mon, let us take care of him,” the Army medic said to Miguel Devante. The teen-ager was slowly helped away from Julian Devante, and watched as they lifted the burned, scarred man he called dad up onto the gurney. The medics worked fast as they applied instruments and odd-looking salves to his body as another pair of soldiers with protective gloves gathered the flakes that were once Vulcan's armor.
“I'm called Firebrand, but you can call me Danette,” said the fiery redheaded woman as she stepped up to the teen-ager. “What's your name?”
“Miguel,” he said in a low voice as he looked up at the woman, then noticed as the other Soldiers approached. “Dad calls me Mikey.”
“Well, Mikey, why don't we go and keep an eye on your father, and you can tell me why his powers didn't hurt you,” Danette said as she laid a hand on his shoulder and gently guided him to a waiting jeep.
“Please, Ms. Martin, we just want to bring you in for observation,” said another medic as they tried to guide Brenda to a second ambulance. “You look like you're in shock, and we want to check you out.”
The woman stared at the two soldiers, her hands wrapped tight around the hilt to the sword that felt so right in her grip. “I...guess...” She glanced over to Firebrand, and the young man she'd arrived with; thought back to how she stumbled across Miguel as he tried to pursue the man called Vulcan, the rampaging monster who'd also killed her rescue crew.
“Don't worry about it, I'll go with you,” La Garra said as she led Brenda into the ambulance. “I'm sure these good-looking men won't mind a second beautiful woman with them, and we can chat up what happened there. Okay?”
“Sure. That makes sense,” Brenda replied as the two settled into the vehicle and it started off.
Skyman, Stripe and Gimmick piled into the back of another jeep and headed back to the military post, as the dark-haired, red-white-and-blue clad Sylvester fretted over some of the damaged components to his powersuit. “I'm going to need to replace this whole section,” he sighed as he disconnected leads and peeled away torn nodules.
“I'll add it to the list,” Hayley Pemberton muttered as her brain worked on the multiple questions before them. “Here, this can help,” she added as she handed him a small pouch of tools from her belt. “Where did Vulcan come from? What was he trying to accomplish? Where did the scary sword lady come from? And the kid...” she rattled off and then tugged her goggles off and stared into them as if staring into another person's eyes. “Man, the look on his face.”
“It's okay, Hayley, you did right,” Patrick Dugan said as he wrapped a big arm around her slim shoulders. “You did the best you could, and you stopped a lot more people from getting hurt.”
“Pat's right, Gimmick,” Syl chimed in from behind them. “And the docs here are going to get him back on his feet, quick as a wink. You'll see.”
Hayley sniffed and nodded. “I guess. I wonder what made the sail materials turn into that armor. None of this makes sense. And the woman with Justin's sword, what was all that about? You think maybe they'll let us examine the fragments? I'm not so good with medical reports, but maybe someone can help me understand them and I can figure out what's going on with Vulcan, if his son doesn't mind, and I hope I can get him to forgive me for hurting his dad, and speaking of that, we need to make sure you get your injuries looked at, Pat, because they were--”
Pat pressed a finger to her mouth and chuckled. “Multi-track brain is great, but let's try and rein it in a bit, okay?” She nodded against his finger.
“Can I see that radio, Sergeant?” Syl asked one of the soldiers up in the front, who handed it back. “Let's see how the others are.”
“I don't understand what happened,” Mikey said to Danette as their jeep cruised over the roads. “Dad showed up at the house and he touched me, and I felt weird, but then he stormed off. I tried to follow after him, hot-wired my housekeeper's car and drove after him. I saw that other lady, Brenda, she was after him too, and...I just don't understand any of it.”
“Can I try something, Mikey?”
He shrugged and looked up at her, looking lost. “Sure, I guess.”
She held her hand up and let orange flames flicker and dance across her fingertips. Very slowly, she brought her hand closer and closer to Mikey, waiting for the first sign of a reaction to tug her hand away, but he just looked into her face and bit his lip. Finally, one fiery fingertip touched his cheek and nothing happened.
“Radio for you, ma'am,” a corporal said as he passed it back to Danette.
“Hey there, Skyman,” she said as she stared at the unblemished spot on Miguel's cheek. “I'll say I have something to report.”
“I'm fine. I am, stop fussing,” Brenda snapped now as she sat up on her gurney and looked at the paramedics. “I just needed a moment. This hasn't been a normal night for me, after all.”
“You're better than fine, from what I can tell, and that's just not right,” said one of the soldiers, glancing between the two young women. “There's no indication of burn damage, smoke inhalation, physical trauma of any sort. Your vitals are spot on. It's like you're having a normal day at the office.”
“The transformation, I'd be guessing,” Yolanda Montez said as she curled her sleek legs up beneath her. “Welcome to the metahuman club. Hope you go with the white hat side, because you swing a mean sword.”
“This is all so strange,” Brenda Martin muttered as she lay the sword over her lap now, and let her fingertips gingerly stroke the blade. “Bradamante. That's the name I think of when I'm like that. And it's not the first time...for her.” She looked back at Yolanda with a helpless look. “This transformation has happened before.”
“I've heard that name before, but I was never much of a reader,” La Garra said with a casual toss of her hair. “I bet the eggheads will know more. Don't worry though. Much as I hate to admit it, and you can't say a thing to the others, but these people, they're as square as a bingo board, but they're good people.”
“I believe you. I think that's why it happened today. I think.” She looked back down at the sword, the pads of her fingers now caressing the smooth worn leather of the hilt. “If that makes any sense.”
“Much as anything else that's gone on. Don't worry, chica, this is just the first day of the rest of a weird, weird life.” Yolanda laughed and looked over at the ranking medic. “You know, I was in the fight too. Maybe you'd better give me some...careful examination?” She winked and the two women laughed when they saw the soldier cough and choke before reaching for his blood pressure gauge.
Elsewhere at the missile base...Plastique grumbled as she slipped through the thinned sentry posts of the complex. This was not part of her original contract with Strike Force, but the bonus Number One offered her was too good to pass up.
The terrorist-for-hire (how she hated that last part; she'd had a cause once, but now, she was reduced to causes that could shell out her price) dashed quickly away from the perimeter. At least this part had become much easier, thanks to the emergency at the main entrance. She hoped everyone stayed busy, as she wasn't interested in any combat. Especially not if the reports were true and there were 'caped crusaders' crawling all over the place.
Stay focused, Bette, and forget about them. They're nobodies anyway. Never heard of any of them, how good could they be? she groused inwardly as she paused to check her wrist-band. It was mounted with a special GPS, encrypted and enabling her to find her way into the vast barren stretches of desert that gave the testing range its name.
Okay, closer...closer...nearly there..She reached a low rise and saw a bowl-shaped depression stretch out before her. She crouched low, heart pounding as she prepared to slip down into the depression, her bruise-purple bodysuit good cover against the night sky, but not such good cover against the bone-white ground. She needed to move quickly, and started a slow, but necessary, controlled slide to her destination.
Paranoid freak, Number One, she mused to keep her mind from running over the dozens of possible ways entering the United States' premiere testing range could go wrong for her.
Bringing me in for back-up, just in case. What I heard over the news, that Vulcan guy was a brute. How'd Strike Force think he'd get stopped, need a back-up? She came to a stop and stood tall, dusting her full hips and strong limbs off. She glanced around, and glanced over her wrist-band.
Why waste all that effort on a guy like Vulcan if you think he's going to get taken down so quick? Why do I like this whole bonus job less and less, all of a sudden? A cold shiver ran down her spine, but she shook it off and then lifted her other hand, clenched into a tight fist beneath the silver-blue glove, and aimed at the very nadir of the depression. “Well, too late now. Here goes nothing.”
Gateway CityCool ocean breezes swept in off the coast and over the low hills as the night grew later and reached its darkest hours. The residential street that snaked across the hillside was dark save for the street posts, and a lone light burning in the back of a simple white ranch house. Within this room were three men with very cruel faces, and the husband and wife owners of the house, with haunted, frightened looks.
“Please! Please, Denis, I can...I can work this out with you,” the woman pleaded, then threw herself to her knees before the short, scrawny man with scraggly beard and thinning black hair.
Denis Kosloff, for his part, looked down on Lynn Trahn as if she were garbage, and his men snickered at her offer, quite familiar with it. “Offer whatever you want, it doesn't matter. It's all been sampled before anyway, and we're done. We're tying up loose ends, and moving to fresh pickings. But, please, go ahead and beg. I like that in my women.”
Denis's two guards laughed at their boss as one stepped up to Park Trahn, bound to a kitchen chair. The left side of his face was a puffy, ugly bruise, and his lips and nose bled copiously, but that didn't sway the guard away from backhanding him with his gunhand. A tooth skittered across the floor, and made Lynn cringe.
“Park made you good money, you can't do this! You said if he got a quarter million from the company,” Lynn tried to bargain, as she looked up at Denis, the gaunt face staring back down without emotion. “You said if I...if...you said you'd keep him around if I...” She couldn't bring herself to actually say what she'd done to keep her husband safe from the gangsters in her house while they used him to loot his company. Park groaned in pain and in grief, and it made Lynn cringe again.
“Are you set up over there?” Denis asked as he glanced back to his other lackey now, who finished up his own work.
“Is good, boss,” he said in a thick Russian accent. “Poor couple slept through smell of gas, never woke up before house exploded.”
“No!” Lynn cried out and grabbed Denis's leg. “No, please, do--”
Denis viciously struck her in the head now with the grip of his own revolver and shook his head. “Good. We're done here. Let's get going.” The trio marched out of the house, and the second thug pressed a button on a disposable cell phone before tossing it back through the kitchen window.
A ball of light and sphere of heat and flame swept out from the pantry as the explosive was triggered, the three Mafiya driving off down the road. Within the kitchen, the fire spread, gas feeding it furiously. Lynn shook her head, sobbing as she did, and glanced back to her husband. The initial fire had caught him first, and she could only stare for precious seconds as Park burned to death before her eyes. Those precious seconds allowed the fire to cut off the door, and seal her into the fiery tomb that was her house. She staggered away, into the living room; she coughed, choked and staggered, lost and dazed as the back of her head bled down her neck. She tripped and landed on her knees, only to have her tear-stricken, smoke-stung eyes see two guns appear before her. A voice in her head offered her a chance for justice, and her hands desperately gripped them as it offered her a chance for vengeance. Crimson smoke wafted from the fire and settled over her shoulders like a shroud as she looked up with renewed strength and vigor. Then with a primal scream of fury, she fired at the front windows and tore from the flaming house, and into the night.
White Sands Missile Range“Hiya, honey, how are you doing?” Danette asked over the cell phone as she watched Pat talk to Brenda Martin in the examination room. The doctor had left only a few minutes ago after confirming the paramedics and declaring the rescue worker one hundred percent fit...possibly 110% fit, which seemed to bother the doctor, and Brenda. “I'm doing fine. I called to ask about the sword.” She paused to listen to her husband respond. “Yeah, it was a good idea to send it along, but I'm hoping you can explain something to me.”
“So this is
the sword used by the Shining Knight?” Brenda asked as she picked the weapon back up after she had jumped off the exam table. “From Camelot and all that?”
“Pretty much, yeah,” Pat answered with a smirk. “You always had this warrior woman transformation in you?”
“Not really,” Brenda answered as she slowly, cautiously swung the sword around in circles, testing and getting a feel for it. “I mean, I grew up with a sense of adventure, and a desire to help people, but I figured that was typical, or you'd never get firefighters and cops and the like. I thought everyone had dreams like I had.”
“Maybe they did. What did you dream about?”
“Heroic stuff, though I guess a few of them had me in the role of a knight. Never did go in for the damsel part,” Brenda admitted with a laugh. “Had more than a few friends growing up that called me tomboy and worse. A couple who thought I had to be a lesbian.” She saw the blush on Pat's cheeks and chuckled again. “Actually, not the nice word for it, either. But the dam version.”
“Damn version?” Pat frowned and thought about it. “Dam as in water. As in...oh...so...this nothing about Bradamante?” He quickly changed the topic.
“Not really. I think I remember something about that name back in college, but I didn't pay a lot of attention in my English classes, I have to admit.”
“Well, according to Justin,” Firebrand said as she closed the phone back up and handed it back to Brenda, “this wasn't totally unexpected. He's heard of other women that have been the host for a spirit of justice and chivalry throughout the ages. Guinevere was believed to be such a host, actually, until she lost the right.”
“Really?” both Pat and Brenda asked at the same time, with the same doubt.
“According to Justin, the Queen got a bad rap in some cases, and her role in Camelot was seriously messed up by the various interpreters over the centuries, and she was a quite the...warrior princess, I guess you could say. She lost the right to play spiritual host over her liaisons with Lancelot however. That part they got right.”
“So what now?” Brenda asked. “I mean, how do I change? What can I do? How do I do it?”
“According to Justin, there's someone he met back in the early Forties that he's pretty sure is still around today, someone who knew a former host,” Firebrand continued. “He's going to try and reach this Bennett guy and learn what he can. In the meantime...”
“In the meantime, you hang out with us Soldiers, and fill in for Justin while his leg's on the mend and we'll answer some of those questions of yours, how's that grab ya?” Pat finished Danette's suggestion with a big grin and a clap of his ham-hand on her shoulder.
“Really? You mean that?”
“No reason why we wouldn't mean that. It's not like we're a formal organization, like the JSA, or the Justice League. No dues, no monitor duty, no regular meetings. Just getting together to help each other out and enjoy each other's company,” Firebrand explained. “And from what you said of how you got to this point tonight, sounds like you could use some.”
Brenda glanced at the two heroes, and settled back down on the table. Her shoulders sagged and she blinked back tears as she recalled the events that Firebrand hinted at. She cynically thought back to her youth, the adventure books she read, how false they sometimes seemed written in their time; the way good guys just came along and accepted other people in distress, or people with good intentions at face value. That didn't happen in the real world, she recalled thinking as she tossed aside such silly series as teen detectives and space explorers. She wiped at her cheek and smiled at the two of them, as she realized that the books weren't silly: they were just a different time.
“Sounds good to me,” she said softly and stood up straight as her determination set in. “It really does. Besides, this way, I get to thank Sir Justin personally, and I have to do that, because I've never felt this close to complete before tonight.”
Meanwhile......Hayley stood next to Miguel as the two teen-agers stared through the plate-glass window into the containment room where Julian Devante lay unconscious. The monitor beeped at regular times, and a doctor and nurse set up the special oxygen tent over his burn-ravaged body.
“I'm--”
“Sorry, I know. It's okay, it is. Really. I don't blame you. I blame someone, but not you,” Mikey interrupted Hayley as he pressed his hands and forehead to the glass.
“We're going to find out who to blame too, don't you worry about that,” Hayley assured him. She reached a hand out to pat his back, and it paused several inches away, then she pulled it back. “If I know Syl...Skyman, if I know Skyman, he's going to have some answers for us by the time I finish telling you this.”
The two of them paused, and let silence reign in the observation room, then they both laughed; a nervous laugh, and a bonding laugh. “Okay, maybe this isn't the comics. I'm getting a real handle on that fact, that's for sure,” Hayley said.
“It's okay. I figure I'm going to be getting prodded and poked myself pretty bad, soon. Firebrand couldn't hurt me with her powers. I picked up Dad's fire ax, and used it. Something funky is up, that's for sure,” he said to her, and sunk into a chair.
“Well, let's check that out,” Hayley said as she lifted her goggles up to her eyes, and twisted at the lenses. “You're hot, that's for sure.”
“I don't feel all that...” He paused and gulped a bit. “You mean temperature, right?”
Hayley giggled and responded with a mischievous smile. “I see some kind of energy reading a little like your Dad's in that armor,” she finally said. “Can you...think up an ax maybe?”
“I could always try,” Mikey said and jumped back up onto his feet. He held his hand out and stared at it. Then he scrunched up the bridge of his nose, and furrowed his forehead and narrowed his eyes. This was followed by a stifled grunt as he stared at his hand.
“You
are trying to make a fiery ax, right? Not, you know...be regular or something, right?” Hayley hinted with a nod of her head toward the restrooms just outside the room and down the hall.
“Hey! This ain't easy, you know. I'm trying here,” Mikey shot back with an embarrassed look. His hand curled into a fist and with a
fwoosh! a small version of the double-headed ax Vulcan had wielded appeared. “Whoo-hoo! Look at that!” He lifted it up to show Gimmick with pride.
Just then, sirens sounded and the sprinklers shot to life, dousing the room in water and foam as soldiers quickly responded.
“Oh God, I hope that siren isn't the kids,” Sylvester Pemberton muttered as he looked up from the microscope. He looked out into the hall, watched soldiers run past, and waited several crucial moments. “Sounds like they have it covered.”
Skyman turned back to his work and made several notes about the burned metallic flakes. He rolled his stool over to a different counter and made some adjustments at the controls of the gas chromatograph and looked over the results.
“I have some initial results from the RNA structure probe, and got the ionic dilution set up and started,” Dr. Alex Carver said as he entered the lab area. “How are you doing, Skyman?”
“Confused. The results for the GC and other initial chemical tests are scattered,” Syl replied as he turned to face the scientist he'd been working with. He looked over the papers Alex had brought in, and then looked up at the older man. “The only conclusion that I can draw right now, is that this solar sail material was designed to do just exactly what it did.”
“Use the solar radiation, combine it with the friction of sub-orbital fall, to generate a mutational effect in a human, while activating a preprogrammed flux shift in its own cellular structure,” Alex said in a voice that showed even he had trouble accepting this result. “Then you won't like what Kelly found in the samples she examined under the electron microscope.” He thrust a printout at the young man.
“Signal receptors,” Syl sighed and leaned back against the bench. “He wasn't crazy. Well, not totally. Someone was speaking to him during his rampage, driving him here. What the hell is here that someone would want destroyed?”
“No idea, considering the manufacturer in question,” Alex answered. “DAP is a well-respected, well-regarded company, that's been helping the military develop space age materials for decades now.”
“DAP?”
“Dutton Advanced Polymers,” Alex explained quickly as he glanced at the various notes and papers, his back to Sylvester, who started to look alarmed now. “At least, that's what it used to be. Then it was Dutton Design Group, but they went back to the older name, and shrunk it up. Modern marketing and all that. DAP, Inc.”
“Dutton,” Skyman mumbled. “Dutton Chemicals.”
“Hm? What? Yeah, I think they might have been. Way back in the...God, what? Thirties? Is that even the same company though? They got bought out by...”
“Pemberton. Turned into Pemberton Plastics,” Skyman muttered.
“You okay there, Skyman? You look like you've seen a ghost.” Alex brought over a cup of water to the hero, who now leaned against the counter in shock.
“Ghost, yeah. Definitely.”
While in the records room......La Garra grumbled to herself as she slunk among the cabinets and files, and picked through the piles of folders and papers.
You did this to yourself, chica, so behave. You went and shmoozed that soldier on the way over, and find out what sort of stuff they stuck in here that someone would sic Vulcan on, and then came here to look up this supposed 'black room' that the soldiers think is buried somewhere on site, so who do you have to blame but yourself for being down here?She sighed and looked around at the dimly-lit room and its rows of storage cabinets and tables. She rested her hands on her hips and let out a longer sigh. “Yeah, you did this to yourself, but that didn't mean you couldn't ask for help now, did it?” she chided herself in the gloom.
She rolled her head on her shoulders, soft crackling sounds echoed from her neck, and then she set back to her task, and ignored the way her burnt-orange costume started to pick up a coat of grime.
“Sirens?” she muttered as she glanced up at the distant sound. “What sort of trouble have they gotten into without me?” She waited for a few minutes but heard nothing that made her think it was an emergency and returned to her rummaging.
“What's this?” she muttered softly as she found an old oak filing cabinet, solidly locked, and secured with a relatively new metal bar across its draws. She chuckled as she extended a claw and then picked the locks. She fingered through the files and then pulled out one circled by a paper seal branded with a five-pointed star.
If that's not an open invitation for a snooper like me, Yolanda chuckled and swiped at the band. She laid the contents out on the table and started to look them over intently, and her eyes widened as she absorbed the information.
Forties solar scientist William Mowse...solar forge accident...Black Star rampage... “...Seven Soldiers defeated Black Star; military sealed him and secured him under what would become White Sands Proving Ground...”
Then the ground trembled and Yolanda looked up from her papers. This time, instincts warned her that there would be an emergency to respond to, and she dashed off with all her speed.
Dos RiosHarry Mangold yawned as he leaned against the door jamb to his house and shuffled with his keys. He pressed the house key toward the lock, only to see the door swing open at the slightest touch. Instantly, he stood straight, an icy chill crossed the back of his neck and he took a step away from the dark maw of the interior.
“It's okay, go on in,” said a mean-sounding voice from behind him. A younger man, wiry and scarred, bald and black-eyed, stepped up quick from the shadow of a hedge, and pointed a stiletto blade toward Mangold. “You gots a bizness meetin'. So go on in.”
Harry's heart froze now, and he had trouble catching his breath. He reached for his pill case and popped the nitroglycerin. He swallowed hard, the pill catching in his dry throat as the young punk shoved him into the house and shut the door behind them with a kick of his booted foot.
A light came on now, another of the young gang members appearing next to Harry to manipulate the switch. “Go on, git in there. Boss is a busy man, and he's had to come out of his way.”
Harry stumbled into the living room and stared at the figure seated in his overstuffed easy chair. The Mexican looked up at Mangold with cold black eyes, and measured the older man carefully. The man wore an elegant Egyptian cotton shirt in Lincoln green, and pants of darkest blue-black color; the expensive materials and tailoring were instantly noticeable. He pulled out a carton of cigarettes and lit one for himself. “Smoke, Senor Mangold?” the man offered.
“No...thank you...” Harry croaked. “I...don't have a lot of money but...whatever you want...just don't hurt me...” He glanced around and then to the stairs that led to his second floor. “Or...”
“This is a business meeting, Senor,” the man said and pointed to the couch. “Let us discuss as caballeros, and do not worry about your family. They are fine...for this first meeting.”
Harry sank into the couch, and tugged on his fingers. “Wh...what do you want?”
“I have many enterprises up here that makes me mucho dinero,” the man started to explain as he leaned back and relaxed. He seemed tall, thin, maybe even gangly, but there was a hardness to the leathery skin and weathered face that indicated danger to Harry. “Profits have been good, until lately. I have gained a strong foothold up here ahead of my...southern competitors, and it has been good. Then, I run into troubles. These troubles, they bring me up here. Make me go out onto the dangerous streets of my home, and come up here where I do not feel secure in my safety, and deal with you.”
“S-sorry, Mister...” Harry coughed and fell silent again.
“El Papagayo,” the man said in response and barked a mean laugh when he watched Harry shake in response. “The name means something to you, this is good. Makes you understand I am a man of business. I mean what I offer, and I do what I say.”
“Y-yes, yes, sir,” Harry stammered. “Wh-what...what business...?”
“Your radio station,” El Papagayo stated in that curt manner of his. “This vigilante, this puta, La Garra, she irritates me, costs me money, makes me look weak. I will start with your KRZI, and use it to make her look weak, look...loco. You will sell me your radio station, Senor Mangold. And your wife and your son, they never have to know I was even here. I will even pay you a fair price. Just name it.”
Harry Mangold coughed again, and dabbed a handkerchief over his sweating forehead. He'd fought for a decade to make his radio station a success, to bring it to a level of popularity and credibility. It had been his life's work, as much his child as his son Danny.
“I...think we...know, I mean, know we...can reach terms...sir,” Harry said at long last and watched as El Papagayo smiled, a sinful scar of a smile, and felt that chill one more time.
