by Baron Sord
“Purr, purr, purr.” Mischief twisted onto her back in Kristy’s lap, paws up like an otter.
“You want tummy fluffs?”
“Purr, purr, purr.”
Kristy obliged, stroking the cat’s chest gently. Said, “Is that a yes or a no about my comic?”
“Purr, purr, purr.”
“Which is it? Eh, it doesn’t matter. Who’s gonna believe a green alien laser gave me and Doug powers for real?”
“Purr, purr, purr.”
“Exactly,” Kristy smiled. “Nobody. I’ll put it in the comic. I wonder if Jeff’ll ever figure out I have actual powers?” She shrugged.
Did it even matter?
Probably not.
She trusted Jeff to keep her secret, if her ever found out.
Kristy looked at the clock.
It was getting late and the sun was heading for the horizon over the ocean. Golden sunbeams were already shining through her open front door, making a rectangle of warm light heating up the apartment, same as it did every afternoon.
Kristy needed to get ready for work.
She still hadn’t decided if that meant going to Flashbacks to flirt for tips, or dressing up as Lady Liberty to handle Disaster Vision TV. Whichever she picked, she had to buy a new phone on her way out. Hers was still ruined from this morning.
With phone prices as crazy as they were these days, maybe she was better off working Flashbacks tonight. It was a Friday, which meant the best tips.
Kristy sighed to herself.
One thing was for sure, if she ever wanted to quit dancing, she needed to finish her comic on time to ship to the printers. They’d already been late on issue #2 because Kristy’d changed all the Borky Pig scenes to Rhinock scenes.
She didn’t plan on being late with issue #3. The deadline to get everything to Jeff so he could proofread it and set it up for prepress was only a few days away. That meant she needed to make a decision about Fireblast pretty much now.
Did he stay in the comic or not?
Yes.
Lynda Lynch had to have a love interest.
But Fireblast could be Lynda’s tragic love interest.
They could be star-crossed lovers.
Everybody knew those were the best love stories of all.
Ask Romeo & Juliet.
You didn’t have to kiss someone for them to be a “the one” love interest.
You just had to love them.
Everybody knew that.
Some kisses didn’t mean anything.
It was the love that counted.
—: Chapter 13 :—
With Stazia gone, the high I’d felt after kissing her did not last long.
She hadn’t been exaggerating about being too busy to text. Over the next several days, she only responded to every third text I sent. Her responses were always short on content and heavy on emojis. She was clearly interested, but also clearly busy.
I didn’t want to scare her away by smothering her. In my experience, smothering women always backfired. So I backed off on texting her to one short text per day.
Fortunately, I had distress calls to keep me from over-texting her at night. During the day at YouDoIt, the only thing I could think about was her. For a few days, anyway. All it took was taking Arnold out on a distress call one night and having a random mugger try to stab him. The knife didn’t even come close to Arnold, but seeing it brought back memories of Arnold’s near-execution at the rock quarry.
Without Stazia to distract me, the guilt over putting Arnold’s life at risk started to eat away at me, getting worse and worse by the day. At night, it gave me horrid nightmares. A week later, and it still felt like the quarry had happened yesterday. Worse, I had almost killed four more people that night. I say almost because I hoped those FwCK jerks had survived. They had all been burned severely, I didn’t know one way or the other. But I knew they’d be scarred for life… if they had survived.
That was on me.
Torch Head in particular.
In my nightmares, I could hear his head crackling as it cooked. And that smell? I didn’t want to think about it. Add him and the other three FwCK thugs I’d cooked at the quarry to the four dead men already haunting my nightmares: Ice Statue Sully, Karambit Kayhill, Sumo Miguel, and his brother Golden Grill Javier.
I’ll admit, none of those men had been paragons of virtue. But it was foolish to think I could go out saving lives night after night without someone innocent getting seriously injured or killed. The odds were stacked against me. Sooner or later, it was going to happen.
What would Stazia think if I ever told her?
I wasn’t in a hurry to find out.
What worried my most was Arnold’s safety. The quarry had proved that no amount of body armor would protect him in every situation. But he had insisted on coming along that night, and insisted on going out on more distress calls since.
For the past week, I had seriously considered giving up this entire savior schtick for his sake.
In the end, I couldn’t stop helping people because their distress calls never stopped. Day and night, I felt their desperation as if it were my own.
I couldn’t let them suffer.
If I was going to do this hero thing right, I needed to get my powers under control. I couldn’t start with punching, because where was I going to find willing volunteers?
Me to a stranger: “Excuse me, do you mind if I punch you in the face? I won’t do it too hard because I don’t want to bash your skull in and kill you like I did the last three guys. Do you mind?”
The stranger blinks in surprise and says seriously, “Are you crazy?”
Yeah, no.
It wasn’t like I could test my punching power like Ivan Drago had in Rocky IV, because it wasn’t about how many pounds per square inch I could deliver to a sensor.
It wasn’t about my punching power at all.
It was about the amount of force a specific skull could withstand from a specific angle, with a specific amount of contact between my fist and their skull. Or any other body part, because the force transfer varied wildly depending on where you hit someone, and depended on what part of your body you hit them with, whether it be your fist, foot, elbow, forehead, hip, knee, etc.
Let’s keep it simple and say you hit with your fist.
Okay, which part of your fist?
Again, keep it simple and focus on the knuckles.
Even that wasn’t simple.
To start with, most people’s knuckles were positioned along a curve, and skulls were round. Meaning, rarely did all 4 knuckles of your fist make contact with a curved skull when you punched it. Generally, between one and three knuckles made solid contact.
Okay, what if you made contact with only one knuckle instead of three?
That meant the same amount of energy transferred across 1/3 the area. That generally meant triple the damage to the impact area.
What about knuckle size? Each one was different. A small knuckle imparting the same force as a large knuckle would again magnify the total energy transferred per square inch, or fraction thereof.
Think about the difference between smashing someone in the head with a baseball bat versus a railroad spike.
Which transferred more energy per square inch?
Obviously, the railroad spike.
Which did more damage?
That depended on the angle of attack and the location of impact. Top of skull? Jaw? Nose? Eyeball? The geometry of weapons striking the human body was infinitely complex. Measuring the energy transfer was equally so.
Then there was the structure itself.
Noses reacted differently to punches than ears or eyes or teeth or foreheads or clavicles or neck vertebrae or livers or testicles, etc.
Let’s keep it simple and look at strikes to the head.
Setting aside the most commonly analyzed head injuries like traumatic brain concussions during car crashes and football games — which had been measured, modeled, and studied in de
tail for decades — how many studies had been done about head trauma from punching?
Outside of repetitive punching injuries in boxing or more recently, MMA fighting, very few studies of single punch damage had ever been done. Why? Because people rarely died after getting punched once, whether in the ring or on the street, so it wasn’t studied as much as repetitive punching, which was inevitable for any career fighter.
In short, with a dearth of research data and measuring instrumentation, my best approach with any kind of striking — whether it be punching, elbowing, kneeing, head-butting, etc. — was to keep pulling them as best I could. Or only strike when absolutely necessary. Or not at all.
Easier said than done in the heat of handling a distress call.
Testing my heat conduction powers would be a much more fruitful place to start. Nobody had to get injured to test that. And, if I could ever master heat extraction and expulsion, I might figure out how to fly.
If I could fly like a fireball, then I would truly earn the title of Wildfire.
Said with an anime wink and thumbs up:
Wildfire!
Thursday morning over breakfast I said to Arnold, “I need a place to practice burning and freezing things.”
A slow grin spread across Arnold’s face, “I know just the place. We’ll go Saturday.”
—: Chapter 14 :—
“Have you heard about this Masked Jumper fella everyone is talking about?” Mrs. Brewer asked as Kristy walked by Mrs. Brewer’s front door on Saturday afternoon.
Mrs. Brewer wore a drab house dress and held a vape pipe. She took a drag and puffed out a cloud.
“I’m glad to see you’re vaping now,” Kristy said. Smoking and lung cancer’d killed her dad years ago.
“This old thing?” Mrs. Brewer chuckled, looking at it. “I’ve had this a whole year. Young thing like you is too busy to notice what an old woman like me does to distract herself in her free time.”
Kristy smiled, “Well, I’m glad you stopped smoking cigarettes.”
Mrs. Brewer waved a hand, “If it isn’t one thing that’ll kill ya, it’s another. Word of advice. Don’t get old!” Mrs. Brewer laughed her hacking smoker’s laugh.
“I’ll try not to,” Kristy said, suddenly wondering if her super healing meant she’d never get old. “What were you saying about a masked ninja?”
“Jumper. Masked Jumper. He’s all the rage on local news. I just saw a thing about him on channel 6.”
“What’s a Masked Jumper?”
She shrugged, “Nobody knows. I think he’s a terrorist.”
“A terrorist? Is that something we should be worried about?”
Mrs. Brewer waved her vape pipe, “He’s down in south county. Don’t think he comes up here much.”
“That’s good. Hey, I don’t mean to be rude, but I have… stuff to do.” She meant her comic. She’d never told Mrs. Brewer about it, or anyone else here at the building. Kristy had to put the finishing touches on everything and send the files to Jeff to-day. Not tomorrow morning. Today. No more delays.
“What’d I tell ya?” Mrs. Brewer said. “Too busy for the old ladies.”
“You’re not that old, Mrs. Brewer,” Kristy grinned.
“Liar,” Mrs. Brewer smiled. “Go do your thing, young lady. I won’t keep ya.”
“See you later, Mrs. B!” Kristy cheered and trotted up the stairs to her apartment.
Inside, she Googled Masked Jumper.
Found a link to a page on the KOSD-6 website. They had several videos. Kristy watched the oldest one first.
The newscasters Tanner Landry and Colette Spears narrated a video of some guy wearing a black ninja mask and jumping over the El Cajon Boulevard sign in Normal Heights.
Kristy laughed.
That had to be Doug.
She stopped the video and suddenly wondered, was there anything about her on the news too?
There had to be, but she’d never checked. She’d been so busy between dancing at Flashbacks, and Disaster Vision, and working on her comic, she had no idea what was going on in the world anymore.
She closed the KOSD-6 webpage and opened a new one to Google Lady Liberty.
The first thing that came up was her comic. That was good. It meant it was selling. Bunches of different comic websites were featuring it.
And then there were the news stories about her.
Not a lot. Some in Los Angeles. Some in Orange Country. And some YouTube videos made by random people who happened to catch her on video when she was out and about. She had been driving all over Southern California for weeks and weeks. It only made sense someone had recorded her doing stuff.
Kristy picked up her week-old phone and called Jeff.
He answered on the second ring, “Yello!”
“Hey, Jeff.”
“Hey, kid! To what do I owe the pleasure? Translation: you got pages for me?” He chuckled.
“Almost… A couple more hours and I’ll have everything ready. Promise.”
“Two hours I can do. Any longer’n that, and I’m drivin to your place and chainin you to your drawin table, kid.”
“You don’t even know where I live,” she laughed.
“I’ll find ya, kid!” he chuckled. “I have my ways!”
“I’m sure you do,” Kristy grinned. “Hey, quick question. Have you seen this Lady Liberty stuff all over the internet?”
“What stuff?” Jeff said cagily.
“Don’t play dumb. You’ve seen it, haven’t you?”
Jeff huffed, “Okay, maybe I might’ve seen a teensy bit of it.”
“Why didn’t you say anything, Jeff?! This is big news!”
“I need pages, kid! I can’t have you distracted with a bunch of headlines that have nothin to do with you!”
“Are you serious?! I’m Lady Liberty!”
“I know, I know! But you’re not her!”
“Yes I am—” Kristy clamped her mouth shut. Of course Jeff didn’t know she was out there fighting crime every night! Nobody did! Why would Jeff think she was?! As far as he knew, she was a dancer and comic book penciller, not a real live superhero! The truth was literally insane!
While she was thinking, he kept talking, “We gotta get your comic to press, kid! Today’s the day! Turn those files over or we pay a big bundle in rush fees on issue #3! That’ll cut into our bottom line again! I can’t have that! Crash Comics runs on a shoestring, you know that!”
“I know, I’m sorry. I’m almost done. I’ll have everything ready tonight. I swear.” The remaining art to do included Lynda Lynch meeting Fireblast at the Megapolis Comic Con when they got their powers, and where the first sparks of their tragic romance flew. “But isn’t there… I don’t know… some way we can take advantage of this? These news headlines are free publicity. We can’t let it go to waste.”
“Free for them,” Jeff snorted.
“Who’s them?”
“Whoever’s rippin you off, kid.”
“Ripping me off? I…” Kristy wasn’t sure what to say.
“Don’t worry, kid. I already called my lawyer. He’s working up a cease a desist letter now. All we gotta do is figure out who’s stealin your name. If it’s some movie studio, we could sue them and make a bundle outta this, kid.”
“Movie studio?”
“Yeah! Who else could afford to pull off all those stunts?”
“What stunts?” Kristy was confused.
“The ones in the news stories!” Jeff laughed. “What else?!”
Oh, right.
Jeff didn’t know Kristy actually had super-powers.
No one did.
Well, no one except Doug. But he didn’t count.
Jeff said, “Listen, kid, I don’t want you worryin about this. I’ll take care of it. You worry about makin Lady Liberty. I’ll worry about suin the pants and shoes off whoever is tryin to rip off your hard work, okay?”
Kristy nodded to the phone, “Yeah. I guess.”
“Other thing we need to do i
s get your name out there. I’m tryin to line up some meetins with the big Hollywood talent agents. That way, we get your face out there, not some imposter’s.”
“Oh, yeah, of course. That makes perfect sense.”
It didn’t make any sense!
This was effing crazy.
The thing was, Jeff’s skepticism was no different than what she’d heard and read on the internet news just now.
But she couldn’t tell Jeff the truth.
He’d never believe it!
Jeff said, “Don’t worry, kid. I’ll make damn sure nobody makes a dime off your name other than you.”
“I like the sound of that,” Kristy smiled.
Even if Jeff didn’t know the entire truth, she knew he was good for his word and he’d do whatever it took to protect the Lady Liberty brand.
He said, “When the big boys come callin to put you in their TV commercials and their runnin shoes and put your face all over billboards eatin breakfast cereal, you’ll be the one gettin paid. Not some two-bit floozy imposter pretendin to be you. On that, you have my word.”
“Thanks, Jeff. I don’t know what to say. I really appreciate it.” Kristy really did. This was all so effing weird. “Well, I better go if I’m gonna get the pages finished and over to you before tonight.”
“You got it. Go getter done and we’ll talk later.”
“Bye, Jeff!”
“Draw them pages, kid!”
“I will! Bye!”
Boop!
Kristy ended the call.
The weird thing was, after everything she’d been through, and Doug’d probably been through too, nobody believed it was real.
Kristy knew better.
If she didn’t stop the daily and nightly troubles in Disaster Vision, people would literally die.
—: o o o :—
Like an inky black cat, Kristy clawed her way up the wooden power pole in the dark night shadows. When she reached the wooden crossarm on top, she reached for a power line. Stopped to remove her Lady Liberty glove. Didn’t wanna singe it. Reached out again.
Hesitated.
You never wanted to grab a power line on purpose, even if you had done it before.