|
|
Post by Admin on Nov 27, 2007 14:05:14 GMT -5
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Nov 27, 2007 14:07:34 GMT -5
Firestorm
Issue #2: "For Every Action..." Pt. 2
Written by: Alex Vasquez Romero
Cover by : micron
Edited by: Mark Bowers |
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Nov 27, 2007 14:08:10 GMT -5
Martin Stein sat in an interrogation room, nursing a cup of coffee and a real bad migraine. He ran his fingers through his graying hair, trying to massage the headache from it, but it didn’t work. He had suffered a concussion after being hit in the head and knocked unconscious by an unknown assailant who was working with two other men trying to sabotage the Hudson Nuclear Power Plant. He later learned that it was their intention to destroy the facility. He remembered nothing else of the day’s events, but it was already all over the news. He told the authorities everything he knew when they woke him up at the facility, but he had no idea what had happened to the radioactive material in the reactor and why there was lead in its place.
“Hello, Professor Stein,” a slick-haired corporate lawyer dressed in Armani entered the room. Martin knew the Hudson Power Company was going to send some sort of legal representation for him. “How are you doing?”
“I could be doing better. So what’s going on? I’ve been fully cooperative.”
“I know, Professor, and everyone involved is very grateful for your cooperation,” the lawyer began. “I’m going to shoot straight with you. You’re considered a suspect.”
“Impossible,” Martin shouted in disbelief, though he did have a feeling that the police may suspect that he had something to do with the attack.
“You have to see the way they are looking at it. The N.R.C. announced that they were intending on launching a full-scale investigation. With this attempt to destroy the power plant, it could be viewed as a possible way to destroy any evidence in the dispute between you and your former colleague Danton Black. It would make it a matter of your word against his about who really created the idea for the Nuclear Power Plant.”
“Does the H.P.C. think I’m involved?” Martin asked the lawyer.
“Professor, we don’t know what side we stand on, but due to the nature of this situation and the negative press and animosity that this project seems to be garnering, I’ve been sent here to give you notice of termination of your employment as stated in Section 8, and paragraph b of your contract.” The lawyer handed Stein a folder from his briefcase with the appropriate documentation. “We will box up your belongings and send them to your place of residence. You are banned from the grounds owned or operated by the H.P.C. and from disclosing any classified information you may know.”
“I don’t understand,” the Professor said in shock. “This morning the H.P.C. was willing to stand by me and now they are just going to throw me under the bus?”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Professor,” the lawyer said, closing his briefcase, “except I hope you retain an excellent attorney.”
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Nov 27, 2007 14:08:43 GMT -5
Earlier in the Day…
Danton Black awoke in the Hudson Nuclear Power Plant to the sounds of converging sirens and, after regaining his senses, the memory of what had transpired earlier flooded into his brain. He jumped up and looked himself over and saw there was no damage done to him or the black jogging suit that he wore to the Facility.
He looked at the ground and saw an unconscious Martin Stein sprawled on the floor and moaning, but looked around and did not see that man he saw earlier; the man made of fire and light. Another detail of that evening’s activities came to him and he looked around the room again, but did not see his duplicate anywhere.
He remembered first seeing it after being bathed in a bright energy that emanated from that fire-man. His memory after that was like seeing double-vision as his brain processed the information from not only himself, but his duplicate. Danton looked at his hands as he remembered them pulsating with an orange glow before another explosion knocked him unconscious again until he awoke moments ago. Hearing the sounds of the police entering the building, Danton decided that it would probably be best if he didn’t stick around and made his way out of the power plant before the authorities showed up.
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Nov 27, 2007 14:09:15 GMT -5
Martin Stein lifted his head up from his dining room table as he was woken up by the sound of a bottle of a Jack Daniels falling off the table. His horn-rimmed glasses were crooked on his face and a trail of drool connected his lip to the table. He looked down at the broken bottle on the floor and began to feel bad about the new stain on his carpet, before he began to get dizzy and had to take a deep breath to try and settle his stomach down. He grabbed the small glass on the table, threw his head back and finished off the contents of the drink he had started before he passed out.
Martin thought about the strange dream that he had just had, about a lion-like humanoid that was made of fire. He had a long flowing mane of fire that extended past his shoulders and was dressed in a yellow costume with red sleeves and leggings. A symbol of a red sun with a white corona was placed over the left side of his chest with three white lines emerging from the center to the right side of his chest with three red dots at the ends of those paths. Throughout the dream he’d kept using these matter-altering powers to overthrow another tribe that had ruled over his people. He felt his way around the table searching for his wallet and keys before patting himself down and finding them in his pocket. Stein dismissed the dream as some drunken nonsense and his mind focused on getting to the nearest liquor store.
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Nov 27, 2007 14:09:50 GMT -5
Danton Black entered his dark apartment, making sure all locks were secure before he let out a sigh of relief. That relief was turned into panic as he felt a hand cup his mouth and arms wrap around his torso and legs as he was carried off into the bathroom of his apartment and thrown into the bathtub, which was full of water. The light was turned on and three daunting men dressed in black and wearing ski masks stood over him. Danton did not know it, but these three were the same people that had attempted to sabotage the Hudson Nuclear Power Plant earlier that day.
“Danton Black,” the one in the center began, “for your role in the poisoning of our Earth, for your illimitable greed and selfishness, you have been sentenced to death.”
“What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything,” Danton screamed.
“You created that nuclear power plant that destroyed some of the precious green earth that we had left in the city,” the one in the center said as the one to his left, holding a blue duffle bag, took out a bug zapper and plugged it into a nearby outlet. “Your former associate Martin Stein has already paid his price; now it’s your turn.”
As he threw the bug zapper in, Danton tensed and prepared himself for what he thought would kill him. Am I Dead? he thought to himself as the expected shock did not come. Maybe they had a change of heart or were just trying to scare me. Danton stood up and opened his eyes and the three would-be murderers were still standing in his bathroom, and Danton could see a look of shock and disbelief in their eyes. Danton looked to his left and saw himself look right at him.
“Oh my God, what kind of freak are you?” one of the assailants asked.
“Dammit, Eddie, do something,” the only one who hadn’t yet spoke said. Eddie, the one in the center, did what came naturally to him and pushed Danton back in the tub. The electric current in the tub fed Danton enough to make another duplicate.
“Interesting…” all three duplicates of Danton said in unison as one of them closed the door to the bathroom while the other two descended on Eddie and his gang.
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Nov 27, 2007 14:11:02 GMT -5
“Hello?” Ray Palmer said as he knocked on the door to the brownstone of his former teacher and colleague Professor Stein. Ray and the professor had plans to celebrate the opening of the Hudson Nuclear Power Plant that evening, but since the accident, Ray had not heard from him.
The force of the knock caused the door to become ajar and a wave of concern began to come over Ray. “Professor?” he said as he opened the door and let himself in, plugging his nose due to the rank smells that saturated the place. He made his way past the living room and into the dining room where he saw the Professor passed out face-down on the floor. Ray rushed to his side and began to shake him and turn him over, screaming, “Professor.”
“Whaa…whaaa…” was all the Professor could manage in his stupor.
“At least you’re not dead,” Ray said with a sigh of relief. He also saw a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels on the floor with the professor and shook his head. He grabbed the bottle and went to the kitchen to empty the rest of it out, before returning to the Professor with a glass of water. “Martin, what’s gotten in to you?”
“Rrr…Ray?” the Professor stuttered as he tried to sit up, but had to lie back down after a wave of dizziness. “Ww…what are you doing here?”
“We were supposed to have dinner tonight?” Ray said, shaking his head as he stood over the professor. Ray had always known Martin liked to drink to the point where it would almost become a problem, but Martin had always reassured him, like he did when he last talked to him on the phone a couple of days ago, that he was in firm control of the situation.
“Oh, yeah…” the professor mumbled. “I forgot…”
“Martin, what are you doing to yourself? Things are bad, but not this bad.”
“They’re going to arrest me for something I didn’t do, Ray,” the professor said as he finally was able to sit up and take the glass of water from Ray. His head fell to the side. “Hudson fired me; Clarissa left me and my reputation…” The Professor was interrupted as he began to feel nauseous.
“When did Clarissa leave?” Ray asked. Clarissa Clemens was Martin’s twenty-something year old blonde girlfriend.
“Earlier today; said something about my drinking.” The Professor fell back down on the floor, dropping the glass and spilling the water on the floor.
“Don’t you think she may have been on to something?” Ray asked. He felt some pity for the turmoil that Martin was going through, but he couldn’t help but feel disgusted at an obvious sign of weakness in a man he admired. He bent down and helped the professor get on his feet. “Come on, Martin, let’s at least get you to bed.”
“You know,” the Professor said as he leaned on Ray, who was guiding him to the steps to the second floor, “I’ve been seeing these visions of these strange beings made of fire and light, wearing these strange costumes using some sort of matter-altering powers.”
“Well, you’ve always had a good imagination, Martin,” Ray humored his friend, remembering a time when he and Jean had vacationed with Martin and Clarissa in Mexico. Martin started to have hallucinations after eating the worm from a bottle of tequila and claimed that he could see into other dimensions and worlds, elaborately describing them to whoever would listen.
“I know what you’re thinking, Ray,” Martin said, as Ray guided him into his bedroom, “but I was having these visions at the police station too… and while I was passed out at the power plant.”
Ray helped Martin to his bed. “I’ll stop by in the morning before I head back to Ivy Town.” Martin replied with a murmuring that was muffled by his pillow. Ray shook his head and let himself out of the brownstone as Martin began to snore.
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Nov 27, 2007 14:11:38 GMT -5
“Electricity fuels me, gives me enhanced endurance and strength, and, once I reach a point of saturation, my body splits apart into two equal parts,” Danton Black said out loud as he began soldering wires on a circuit board in the spare bedroom of his apartment, which he had converted into a work area. Being a physicist, he chuckled at the circumstances that had given him his new powers and how it was fitting that in a nuclear power plant he obtained the power of fission over his body. “Once I weave this into some insulated fabric, I should be able to sustain myself and any duplicates with the necessary electricity to sustain my strength and all I would need is to make contact with an outside electrical source to create more duplicates.”
Danton stood up and stretched his arms out and looked down at the 6 identical lime-green pieces of circuitry he had been working on as a duplicate entered the room with a tray of turkey sandwiches. Both of them took a sandwich and began to eat as another duplicate, soaked in blood, walked by, holding a plastic garbage bag so another blood-soaked duplicate could place a blue duffle bag into it. “Once it gets darker, I’ll move the bodies of these terrorists and dispose of the identifiable body parts,” all four Dantons said at the same time. Two more duplicates walked past the room. “While I wait for that, I’ll scour the city for the necessary supplies that I need,” all six said in unison, as the last group of duplicates put on different coats and hats and left on their mission. The two blood-soaked Dantons went into the bathroom to continue their work on the dead terrorists as Danton and his duplicate finished their sandwiches and went back to work on the circuitry.
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Nov 27, 2007 14:12:24 GMT -5
Ronnie didn’t notice two disheveled-looking men walking up behind him. One grabbed him by his shirt collar and dragged him into an alley, throwing him against a dumpster. Both men pulled out guns and pointed them into Ronnie’s face.
“You know,” the taller one, in a tattered trench coat, began. His face was dirty with a beard that looked like he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. “We heard that college students are well off.”
“Yeah,” his partner said, fidgeting a lot and shaking the gun in his hand. He was wearing a ski cap and his face was covered in acne.
“So we figured we’d ask a couple of you to donate to our ‘Help a brother out’ foundation…”
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Nov 27, 2007 14:13:03 GMT -5
Martin Stein lay in his bed sleeping, as an orange cloud began to form around him and in a flash of light he was gone.
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Nov 27, 2007 14:13:50 GMT -5
In a burst of light, Ronnie Raymond no longer stood in front of the two derelict men that had tried to rob him. As their eyes began to refocus, they saw a red and yellow clad figure with fire blazing from his head and white, pupil-less eyes. He looked at the two men, and the fire on top of his head, along with his eyes, began to glow with more intensity.
“Cool,” Ronnie said, clenching his fists, before he felt a wave of nausea overwhelm him. The world began to spin around him before he succumbed and vomited as the two homeless muggers stood in silence and amazement. “Whoa, I’m wasted,” Ronnie said as he fell down and began laughing out loud.
“Ronald?” the voice of Martin Stein echoed in his head, sounding half-asleep and drunk.
“Not so loud, Professor,” Ronnie said as he stood up and braced himself with a wall, feeling a wave of dizziness coming. “I don’t feel so good.”
“Ronald, have you been drinking?” the Professor scolded.
“Only a little. What about you?”
“I’ve been drinking a lot.” Ronnie began to laugh out loud along with the voice of Martin Stein. The two homeless men continued to look on with confusion before they collectively decided it was best for them to leave. “Ronald, your friends are leaving.”
“Hey you two can’t leave yet?” Ronnie said as exhaust fumes began to form at his feet, and he began to fly after them, but his impaired sense of direction caused him to crash into the wall of the alley. “I didn’t know we could fly, Professor,” Ronnie said as he peeled himself off of the wall.
“Neither did I.”
“They got away,” Ronnie said as he lost interest in the two men that had tried to stick him up and looked around the alley. Where he had been previously, he saw a mass of glowing radioactive material. “Did we throw that up?”
“I believe so, Ronald. We should probably do something about it.”
“Gotcha,” Ronnie said as he extended his hand and an orange cloud emerged from it and surrounded the radioactive material and, once it dissipated, the hazardous waste was turned into a toy monkey that hopped up and down and crashed cymbals. Ronnie laughed at it for a moment before he fell to the ground and passed out.
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Nov 27, 2007 14:14:49 GMT -5
Man, my head is killing me… Ronnie thought as he awoke about an hour later, massaging his temples. Once his vision returned to him, he saw that he was still dressed in the same red and yellow costume that he donned when he merged with the professor. He looked up at the dawn sky and saw that it had an orange tint to it. He got to his feet and flew up, with a trail of exhaust following him. He stood, suspended in the air and saw a small apartment building ablaze a couple of blocks away. “Professor, are you still with me?” Ronnie asked as he began to fly towards the apartment building.
“Yes Ronald,” the voice of the professor said in his head. “I’m sorry about earlier. I shouldn’t have drank so much.”
“Well, we all fall off the wagon sometimes,” Ronnie said as they were now above the blazing apartment building. “We have to do something about this?”
“If you take the air around the fire and combine the oxygen and hydrogen with a covalent bond.”
“I got it…” Ronnie said as an orange cloud enveloped the air surrounding the fire and, obeying Ronnie’s command, combined the oxygen and hydrogen through a covalent bond and a torrential downpour limited to only the area around the building materialized, putting out the fire. “I think we could get used to this hero thing.”
“Ronald, I don’t think we’re done,” Professor Stein said as screams could still be heard from the building.
“Right.” Ronnie began to fly full speed at the building.
“Ronald, wait,” the professor screamed. Ronnie stopped his flight and the professor continued, “We can’t just bust through the building - the structural integrity might give.”
“So what do we do?”
“Hover over the building and lower the density of your body. We should be able to become intangible and safely search the building.” Ronnie did as the Professor said and he harmlessly passed through the roof of the building and began to search each floor of the structure, following the screams until they got to an apartment on the third floor that contained a soaked family of four.
“Don’t worry, folks, I’m here to help,” the flame-haired superhero assured them. Ronnie raised his hand, blasting the nearest window out with an energy blast and with his other, turned the debris into Styrofoam so it wouldn’t hurt anyone on the street. He concentrated his matter-altering powers on the nearby street lamp and turned it into a playground slide that connected to the place the window was and corkscrewed down to the street. The father and mother grabbed their son and daughter respectively and slid down the slide to the amusement of their kids.
“Let’s do it again,” they both shouted in unison as they reached the ground. Other newly-homeless kids on the street joined in pestering their parents to let them go on the slide. Ronnie continued to search the building and found no one else in the building.
“It’s amazing that no one was hurt or worse,” the professor said as they levitated through the roof and hovered above the burnt building, seeing the FDNY come to the scene.
“Professor,” Ronnie began as he watched the families that used to live in the building, “is there anything we can do; maybe rebuild this building?”
“Ronald, making that slide was one thing, but I doubt that either one of us has the necessary knowledge of carpentry to safely refurbish that building.”
“I guess you’re right,” Ronnie said regretfully as he flew away, waving at the children on the street below.
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Nov 27, 2007 14:15:26 GMT -5
Ronnie touched down in the alley that he had been in earlier that morning. “So, how do we do this, Professor?”
“I figure, the same way we’ve done everything else.”
“Okay.” Ronnie concentrated and an orange glow surrounded them and, in a flash of light, both Ronnie Raymond and Martin Stein stood in place of their merged form. Ronnie grabbed the professor’s shoulder. “Professor, we did it.”
Martin Stein jumped at the contact from Ronnie and looked back at him with a look of shock in his eyes. “Who are you? What am I doing here? How did I get here?”
“Professor, don’t you remember?”
“No, you idiot, I don’t remember anything,” Martin screamed at the college freshman. Ronnie was taken aback by the Professor’s tone. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. I just don’t know where I am or how I got here.”
“It’s okay,” Ronnie stammered. “I just recognized you from TV and saw you wander in here. You’re right outside of Hudson University; I was just coming from my girlfriend’s…”
“Hudson University?” Martin screamed. “I can’t let anybody see me here like this…”
“Look, I’ll call you a cab. Just stay here…” Ronnie said as he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and called 411 to get the nearest cab company. As he waited for someone to answer, Ronnie couldn’t help but wonder why the professor couldn’t remember anything about them or what they had done. Maybe that’s why no one came for me after the accident, Ronnie thought. He can’t remember what happens when we’re merged… Ronnie made the arrangements for a cab to pick up the Professor and turned to see him sitting on the ground, pulling at his graying hair. “Professor, a cab will be here soon.”
“What’s going on with me? I’m not crazy, am I?” the professor kept repeating to himself over and over.
“Um… I don’t think… ahhh…” Ronnie couldn’t think of anything to say to the Professor and quietly snuck away as the Professor looked at the ground and continued to talk to himself.
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Nov 27, 2007 14:15:58 GMT -5
To Be Continued!
|
|
|
|
Post by mockingbird on Jul 30, 2011 14:50:37 GMT -5
To let us know what you think of this issue, please visit the letters page here!
|
|
