by C. T. Phipps
“That seems like a lot of work,” Cindy said. “He should stop at the planet or maybe a tiny island nation where you have an unlimited supply of naked people and piña coladas.”
“I support this plan,” Mercury said.
“The Hollow Earth seems to support scantily-dressed native peoples,” Cindy said, looking down at Reyan. “Even the ones who are a trap!”
Reyan looked confused, which was probably for the best.
“The Hollow Earth is the source of all the Earth’s native superpowers,” Leia said, pulling out a device that resembled a PKE meter from Ghostbusters and aiming it at the Sun. “The Inner Sun is pure raw mystical energy and it pours out its energy through ley lines. All magic not filtered through the Primal Orbs or from gods comes from here. Exposure is what causes them to develop the powers here. It’s why the locals are nearly immortal, beautiful, and strong.”
“Sweet!” Cindy said. “Even more reason to build an evil day spa down here.”
“Why does it have to be evil?” Gabrielle asked.
Cindy shook her head. “You just don’t get it, Gabby, and you never will.”
“Is that why Cindy is a werewolf now?” I asked, wondering what other kind of effects this world might be having.
“No,” Reyan said, surprising me. “She has been touched by Fenrir.”
“Sweet!” Cindy said, cheerfully.
“It’s a dreadful curse. Only the most evil and selfish souls are afflicted by his power,” Reyan said. “It’s an ominous sign that we have drawn the Ragnarök Wolf’s attention.”
“Can’t hear you over my new superpowers,” Cindy said, raising one hand and making the “shh” gesture.
“We don’t know what Tom Terror is planning but he’s already figured out how to start draining the power of superhumans into the Inner Sun while leaving his own forces untouched,” Mindy said, disgusted. “Gary, only magic coming from a different source is safe like yours, Reyan’s, or the alternate universe soldiers’.”
“The Ultra-Force is universal but draws on wellsprings like this,” Gabrielle said, as if what she said wasn’t a further layer of nonsense.
“So, Tom is going to turn off all the world’s superpowers and conquer the world,” I said, figuring out his plan. It’s what I would do. “Then he can turn the entirety of the Earth’s people into superhumans and unleash them on the rest of the universe. With no one to stop him, since no superhuman will have any powers but by his leave.”
“I always liked ‘by your leave’,” Cindy said, distracting the conversation. “It sounds so sophisticated.”
“Probably,” Mindy said. “While you were kicking around for a year, doing nothing, we’ve been trying to keep the future from becoming a complete disaster. Whatever happens here is going to have a major effect on the world.”
Cindy raised her hand. “Okay, you’re time travelers. How the hell does it work that Gary spending a year in a funk over his dead wife for the second time in a row—”
“Hey!” I snapped.
“Let me go with this,” Cindy said. “How does that work? Can’t you just return to when he wasn’t in a funk?”
Leia looked at her mother. “Mom, do you have a Doctorate in Quantum Cross-Temporal Mechanics? A subject that didn’t exist until your daughter created it?”
“No,” Cindy said.
“Then shut the hell up,” Leia said, smiling despite her words. “I won’t tell you anything about how to bilk the medical system, or dad how to be John Simms Master, only on the side of the good guys.”
I blinked. “Yeah, that’s fair.”
“Who’s John Simms?” Reyan asked.
I glared at her. “His first televised appearance on Doctor Who happened recently! In…when was that…2007!”
Reyan blinked. “I was four.”
“Ugh,” I said, sighing. “Why can’t life be like Ready Player One and pop culture forever cater to my love of the Eighties?”
“You can do that when you take over the world,” John said.
“Thank you,” I said, nodding. “I’ll do that.”
“Also, if you can swing it, try to provide clean water and food to people. We need that in the future more than pop culture,” John said.
“Do you?” I asked. “Do you really?”
“So, what do you want exactly?” Cindy asked. “I mean, we were already heading down here to Donkey Kong Country to kill the Undermensch. What’s new?”
Mindy and Leia exchanged a look.
“We’ve moved down our younger selves to Nur’Ab’Sal along with the rest of the mansion residents,” Mindy said. “We’d rather avoid a paradox where we’re killed as children.”
“Yeah, that’s an automatic game over in Metal Gear Solid,” I said.
Leia sighed, losing her patience with me as well. “We also think now is the best time for you to seize control over the Ultranian technology here. If you can take it from Tom Terror then the world will fall quickly.”
“Gotcha,” I said, making finger guns. “We’re going easy mode on world domination. Funny, I thought it would be difficult.”
“You seriously want Gary to take over the world?” Gabrielle asked. “A guy who can’t even keep up with how many mistresses he has?”
I looked over at her. “I don’t sleep with that many women other than you.”
Everyone looked over at me.
“Wow, that was a crappy defense. I’ll be quiet now,” I said, making a locking gesture over my mouth before throwing away the key.
“As ironic as it sounds, we’re running out of time,” Mindy said, checking a futuristic wristband. “We’re always just a few steps ahead of President Omega and his minions. He may not be willing to come here around you or even disrupt your timeline too much but that doesn’t mean we’re safe.”
“Good luck,” Gabrielle said, staring at them. “We’ll find some way to resolve this morally.”
Neither of our daughters looked impressed.
“One last question,” Reyan spoke up. “Are the Society of Superheroes and other superheroes still alive? Is Gary’s niece?”
I regretted not asking that myself, but the answer was, well, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.
“They’re alive,” Mindy said as both she and Cindy started to fade. “But if you don’t save them, they’ll all wish they had been killed.”
Then they were gone.
“Well, that was ominous,” Cindy said. “So, who is up for BBQ-ing some dinosaurs? I feel like I need to eat my body weight in meat or you guys are going to start looking delicious. I call it the Big Bad Wolf diet.”
I tried to ignore the implications of that. “Hey, John, do you think these hover pyramids have life boats?”
“Yes, probably,” John said, looking at them. “The Reichmen used one to get down here and attack us. I suspect it probably has at least one more.”
“Then I think we have our ride to the city,” I said, suddenly much more interested in getting there.
“Only one problem with that,” John said.
“Yeah?”
“Do you know how to fly a Nazi super-science bathtub?” John asked.
He had a point there. “No, I don’t.”
“I do,” Gabrielle said.
I looked at her. “What?”
“You don’t think I have other skills than punching people and flying?” Gabrielle asked.
“I just figured your flight skills were restricted to personal,” I said, admittedly not having given it much thought.
Truth be told, there were still plenty of areas where we didn’t know each other very well. Ten years earlier, when I was still her boyfriend in college, the two of us knew every little detail about the other. You know, except for me not knowing she was Ultragoddess but that doesn’t count since that was a big detail. When we had time together, it was mostly spent talking about superhero business. I knew Ultragoddess very well, but I wasn’t sure I knew Gabrielle as well as I used to. Mind you, these d
ays I’m not sure I know Gary Karkofsky that well either.
With that, Ken Masterson got up from the grass beside us and groaned. Immediately, John pulled out his pistol and aimed it at his head.
“Ow,” Ken said, feeling his head. Then he looked at the gun aimed at him. “By the Might of As—”
Reyan grabbed him and cover his mouth with her hand. “Don’t.”
“What’s going on, where am I, and who are these people?” Ken asked, looking around confused. “Wait, is that Red Riding Hood?”
Reyan blinked. “Wait, she’s the one you recognize?”
“She is pretty memorable,” Ken said, looking up with an obvious crush.
Cindy rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t even know where to begin, kid.”
“You’ve been brainwashed by P.H.A.N.T.O.M so that whenever you turn into your god avatar form you become a white blond killing machine for evil,” Mercury explained.
Ken looked horrified. “I become white?”
Gabrielle shook her head. “We’ll figure out a way to cure you of your condition but don’t try to use your powers until we’ve figured out just what they did to you. Until then we’ll have to do without Viking Lad and Valkyrie Girl.”
I stared at them. “Those are your codenames?”
“Wait,” Ken said, pointing at me. “I know you, you’re Cindy’s sidekick! Mercy Man!”
“I can still shoot him if you want,” John said, dryly.
“Don’t tempt me,” I said.
“Move sidekick!” Cindy gestured to the hover tank. “Fetch me my chariot.”
This was going to be a long trip.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ON OUR WAY TO THE EMERALD CITY
The hover pyramid turned out to have two car-sized open-cockpit flying saucers that were its equivalent of lifeboats. I had no idea how to operate the controls, and both had been damaged during the battle. Gabrielle, however, just casually restored the least damaged one with parts from the former. Apparently, being an alien technology mechanic was another of Gabrielle’s abilities I hadn’t been aware of.
“Well if you don’t get your powers back, we can always rename you Wrench Wench,” Cindy said.
“I’m getting my powers back,” Gabrielle said, wiping the sweat off her brow. “I just need to spend a couple of weeks away from the Hollow Earth.”
“A couple of weeks is a long time for the world to be absent Ultragoddess,” I said.
Gabrielle paused as screwed the last of the panels in place on her work. “Honestly, it’s a relief, even if I’m spending it fighting Nazis and dinosaurs. The last time I had a vacation from my responsibility to the world was when Spellbinder removed my powers for a weekend in the Nineties.”
I stared at her.
Gabrielle grimaced, having temporarily forgotten what a sore subject her friend was.
“I remember Spellbinder,” Cindy said, sighing. “I used to love her for introducing Gothic Lolita fashion to white people. I was a teenager when she first did it and just couldn’t get over the combination of dressing like a schoolgirl and adding corsets that emphasized your bust. You know, so you knew any guys you hooked up with weren’t pedophiles.”
“Merciful Moses, Cindy.”
“What? I said used to love her,” Cindy said. “I stopped after she impersonated Mandy and had sex with us both. That was wrong. Hot but wrong.”
“I didn’t know Red Riding Hood was bi,” Ken whispered to his sister, though not softly enough I couldn’t hear it.
Cindy, too. “I’m more heteroflexible, kid. There’s a spectrum of these things. It’s like when Gary confessed his love of Ewan McGregor.”
“You asked me who I wanted my cellmate to be when I was next in prison,” I snapped. “I didn’t get the implications!”
“Sure you didn’t,” Cindy muttered.
“Do you have any idea what they’re talking about?” John looked at Mercury.
“Apparently, people in the past have a lot of free time on their hands,” Mercury said. “In the future, sex is want, take, have. The only rule is no one gets killed. Otherwise, everything is a go.”
“Sounds nice,” I said, nodding. “And by nice, I mean potentially but not definitely horrifying.”
“Sometimes,” Mercury said, her expression even. “It’s more a question of whether or not what you’re sleeping with is human or not.”
“And whether that matters,” John said, gruffly.
“Personally, I’ve always wondered how Gary and Gabrielle can have sex without breaking him. Even my experiments haven’t given me much insight,” Cindy said. “Really, you’d think—”
“Cindy, you do realize I can throw buildings, right?” Gabby interrupted.
“Right, right, I’ll leave off details,” Cindy said. “I’ll cancel all the interviews I had set up.”
“Wait, what!?” Gabby asked, horrified.
Ken looked at Cindy and Gabrielle with a blank expression that clearly indicated the former had broken his brain.
Reyan waved her hand over his face.
No response.
“Is he okay?” I asked, believing it was more than teenage hormones.
I was proven right when he fell to his knees clutching his head. “P.H.A.N.T.O.M is…argh, sending a signal to all of its operatives. I feel compelled to say the magic words and summon Odin’s power.”
“Don’t or we’ll kill you,” John said, dryly. He put his hand down over on his revolver.
Ken looked up, still clutching the sides of his head. “Uh, that’s a big inspiration not to.”
“Look!” Reyan said, pointing to the sky.
I followed where she pointed and saw a deeply disheartening sight. Above our heads were a dozen more hover pyramids. Thankfully, they weren’t flying in our direction and ignored the sight of their downed fellow P.H.A.N.T.O.M vessel. Instead, they were going due west.
Toward Nur’Ab’Sal.
“Ah, crap,” I said, watching them go. “It looks like the Jerries here were the vanguard for an invasion.”
“Who is Jerry?” Reyan asked.
“Everyone hop in!” Gabrielle gestured to the flying saucer’s interior, which only looked as though it could hold eight. “We can catch up with them and maybe help in the city’s defense.”
“Assuming we don’t get shot out of the air for flying around in an enemy UFO,” I said.
“Hey, Gary,” Cindy said, chuckling. “Wanna hear a joke?”
“Not particularly.”
“What do you call a bunch of dead Nazis?” Cindy asked.
“What?” I asked, wondering what was wrong with her.
“A work in progress,” Cindy said, bursting out laughing.
As funny as that was, I was worried. “Are you okay?”
“You mean aside from the hunger for violence and flesh?” Cindy asked.
“…yeah.”
“I dunno,” Cindy said, wiping sweat off her brow. “I feel weird.”
Mercury walked over to her and pulled out a monocle, of all things, to examine her. “The lycanthropy is inducing changes in the rest of her body. This usually takes an entire lunar cycle if it’s anything like our world. It’s accelerated here. If you want to reverse the process, you’ll have to exorcise the wolf spirit soon.”
“Why would I want…” Cindy said, stumbling to her feet. “You know, I just realized I can’t complain when people call me a bitch now. Haha. Because female dogs—”
“Yes, Cindy, we get it,” I said, worried.
Cindy proceeded to collapse on the ground. I rushed over to her side as Mercury took her pulse.
“Is she going to be alright?” I asked.
Mercury stared at me. “You mean, aside from being a hungry monster?”
“Hangry,” Cindy moaned. “Don’t make me hangry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m hangry. Mmm, humans.”
Yeah, that wasn’t a good sign.
“I’m kidding,” Cindy said. “Probably.”
“Load her up,
Gary,” Gabrielle said, Mercury standing beside her in the machine’s circular cockpit.
“She’s not in any shape to fight,” I said, feeling a little betrayed.
“Hopefully that will change,” Gabrielle said. “That city needs us. Remember, our daughters were taken there by…our daughters…for their own safety.”
I couldn’t help but wonder if that was an oh-so-subtle way of my future children manipulating events, so we were guaranteed to defend the city. You wouldn’t think they would put children at risk to do that, but I suppose they might think that was just self-sacrifice on their part. Man, I hated time travel.
“Alright, let’s go,” I said, less than happy about all this. “Hopefully, we can put a dent in their forces.”
“I’m not sure how much help I can be,” Ken said, looking down at his fists. “When I can call upon the power of Sigurd, I’m a demigod, but now they’ve put something in my head. I become someone else when I use the power and—”
“Yeah, yeah we got that from you kicking our asses,” I interrupted him. “Muggles do it better, though. Don’t doubt you can find some way to contribute.”
“We can’t use the term Muggle…” Cindy moaned, looking feverish.
“Do you believe that?” Ken asked.
“Not really,” I said, looking down at him. “But sometimes lies are the only thing that get us through the day. Get a shield belt and a laser gun from the dead fascists on the ground. Let’s hope they work better for you than they did for them.”
Ken nodded and jumped out of the UFO, just as Cindy was loaded in by John.
“Gary, we can’t use a child soldier,” Gabrielle said. “We need to keep him from the front lines.”
“I’ve been fighting since I was eight,” Ken said, simply. “You didn’t know my age when we fought together and were happy to have me punch out bad guys as Viking Lad.”
“Because I didn’t know your age,” Gabrielle explained.
I’d killed my first man at age fourteen and it had resulted in my brain never quite being the same. Killing Shoot-Em-Up in a dirty hotel with shaking hands, a stolen gun, and hate in my heart meant I wasn’t ever going to be someone who could live a normal life. I also understood that we didn’t have time to play the game of when someone was old enough to fight for their life. I’d seen way too many dead gods as a psychopomp working for Death.