Normalized (The Complete Quartet)

by David Bussell

  Gerry shrugged and went back to mopping. I guess homicide investigation was a bit above his pay grade.

  I cracked open Rune’s file and gave it a comb. His cause of death was listed as ‘bifurcation’ I saw, though the exact cause of injury was uncertain. The forensics report read:

  ‘The cut [is] the cleanest I’ve ever seen. It’s as though one second his upper body was there and the next it was gone. I am at a loss to explain it.’

  Pretty hinkey, but it didn’t help me any. I leafed through the rest of the report for clues. I was only on the second page when I saw something that kicked my dick off. According to microscopic analysis a certain type of soil had been detected in the fibers of Rune’s pants.

  ‘Lunar soil.’

  Are you kidding me? The guy had moon dust in his britches and no one thought to run that information up the ladder? I guess Rex Kettner’s right, standards are slipping around this place!

  Still, Dr Rune doing the Neil Armstrong thing? It didn’t add up. Since he lost his arms he’d been out of the supervillain game, drinking his troubles away in some wizards’ dive bar, not kicking up dust on the moon. Besides, interstellar stuff was for the big leaguers. For Rune to be messing around off-planet he’d have to have partnered with a major player. A major player like—

  —it hit me like a balloon full of Dom Perignon. What if Dr Rune and Professor D’eath were in cahoots? I hurried to the evidence locker and checked the logbook for D’eath’s confiscated exo-suit. Pulling the item, I used my super-sight to check the thing over microscopically. Lo and behold, what did I find but moon dust?[41]

  I was right! The two of them had been scheming on something up there, only the deal had gone sour and Rune wound up in sections. I’m a little fuzzy on how one of those sections wound up in a Bronx back alley, but the rest checked out. For one thing, the Prof being on the Moon would clear up how he’d managed to stay on the down-low this long. Up there he’d be able to stay above my radar but still be close enough to dip in for the odd crime spree. That crafty son of a bitch. He hadn’t gone to ground, he’d done exactly the opposite!

  Through the window blinds I saw the thin crescent of a fingernail moon and sketched out a plan. Go home, catch some Z’s then head up there and pay Professor D’eath a visit at first light. I gave Gerry another pat on the back and thanked him for his insight. Then I did a fist pump and hovered mid-air in freeze frame, because I can do that.[42]

  January 22nd

  Okay, fine. Technically I should have given the office a heads-up before I blasted off into outer space to take on my arch nemesis. Birdy too. I knew he’d be a drag about it though. “Weigh up the situation first,” he’d crow. I didn’t need that. What I needed was a fight scene! Besides, he’d soon forgive me once I brought D’eath home in handcuffs. Better I just get on with it I figured, so I made the call to fly this one solo. It was an executive decision, and like the movie of the same name, it turned out to be terrible.

  I rocked up to the Moon, calculating the trajectory inch-perfectly so I touched down on the exact spot Neil Armstrong had left his tiny, inferior footprints. I scanned the horizon looking for some sign of life but there wasn’t much to look at. Moon, Moon and more Moon, you know how it is. In the end I headed off in a random direction and hoped for the best. I kicked about for a while like that but I couldn’t find a trace of the Professor anywhere. I was starting to wonder if I’d come to the wrong place, but then I found this crater. Size of the Yankee Stadium it was, and inside of it was a base – a brass, dome-topped structure lurking in the shade of the crater wall. Not much curb appeal but some serious square footage.

  The base had the look of a lunar observatory, so you could be forgiven for thinking the thing poking from its lid was a telescope. Closer examination showed it wasn’t that at all though. It was a cannon made of reconstituted tibonium – the same tibonium D’eath had swiped from the Federal Reserve. The weapon was only half-built but it was already the size of a grain silo and targeted directly at Earth. Holy moly. Combine that thing with a stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium and you’d have yourself one serious boom stick.

  I landed outside the base then sent myself into a wicked spin, using my body as a human drill-bit to tunnel under the exterior wall and into the Professor’s inner sanctum. I came up smack in the middle of a large round chamber that looked like the guts of a gigantic carriage clock. In the middle of it all I found Professor D’eath, dressed in a new exo-suit and sat on a throne behind a row of Mandroid protectors.

  “Captain Might,” he said as I shook chunks of space rock out of my hair. “Ever the bore.”

  I had to give it to him, when it came to wordplay the guy was a sharpshooter.

  “Game’s up, Professor,” I said. “Now show me your hands.”

  Of course I was itching for D’eath to put up a fight. What I wouldn’t have done for another lick of the cherry after he rinsed me at the Federal Reserve. I eyed up the Mandroids stood between us.

  “Shoot, why don’t you? I can shake off heavy artillery like I’m walking through a lawn sprinkler. Go ahead, sic ‘em on me, Prof.”

  But instead he said “I surrender completely,” and reached for the sky.

  That I was not expecting. D’eath’s coin-op kill-bots lowered their cannons and wheeled aside to open a path to their master. I unclipped my cuffs and D’eath held out his hands. They were bare, no sign of his Nemesis Gauntlet this time. He presented his wrists and I moved in to make the arrest. I couldn’t believe it, my big bad was going down without so much as a sharp word. What were the chances?

  It’s probably at this point you’re thinking, “Something shady is afoot here, Captain, best tread carefully.” If that’s the case, take a lap and hit the showers, kid, because you couldn’t be more right. Of course I should have smelled malarkey, but instead I went right ahead and let that red flag fly. I was a couple of footsteps short of D’eath when I heard a telltale click and looked up to see I was stood under the wrong end of a giant death ray.

  Now, if you’re in the superhero game for long enough at some point you’re going to get shot at by a death ray. That’s just the cost of doing business. This was different though. For one thing, death rays usually have about as much effect on me as a quick spell under a sun lamp. Not this kiddie though—

  ZZZAP!

  –a bolt of red lightning tore through me with a charge that could have flash-cooked a bison. If I were a cartoon you’d have seen my skeleton sparking through my skin as I herky-jerked around in those scarlet fireworks. I’d say I’ve had worse, but I’d be lying.

  Still, it wouldn’t do to show it, so I picked myself up, dusted down my britches and dug my fists into my hips like I was posing for a government stamp celebrating bravery.

  “You think that’s the first time I’ve been shot at by a death ray?”

  “No,” the Professor replied with a grin, “but it might be your last.”

  The Prof’s Mandroids came at me with their fists wind-milling. Big deal, I figured. Send an army of those claptraps my way and I’d flatten them like old soda cans. Not this time though – this time I was in for the whaling of a lifetime. I didn’t even get to throw a punch before they were on me like a brass tidal wave. Boy, those rust buckets tuned me up but good! It felt like they’d dropped a shopping mall on my head and declared a sale. Can you believe it? Captain Might getting trounced by a bunch of tinpot terminators? I can hardly believe it myself and I have the fist prints on my face to prove it.

  I saw the Professor watching from the other side of the chamber, head tilted to one side – a proud painter admiring his handiwork. I had to get out of there. I never ran away from a ruckus in my life but I was a goner unless I put a maximum vertical distance between D’eath and me. I made to evacuate, fending off the Mandroids and working my way back towards the tunnel I’d come in by.

  “See you around,” D’eath called after me, as I retreated into the shaft.

  I clawed through the rubble and emer
ged on the lunar surface, where I immediately doubled over and threw up. Ugh. Neil Armstrong plants an American flag and I toss my cookies. I hobbled to my feet, raised my fist and went to part with the ground.

  Nothing.

  Just a pull, firm and heavy, as though I was sunk waist-deep in a pool of quicksand. It was gravity – the Moon’s feeble gravity – and it weighed on me like a galleon’s anchor.

  I must losing my mind – that’s what I thought – but I was willing to put my nervous breakdown on the back burner if I could just make it home first. It took every last bit of fight I had, but somehow I managed to snap gravity’s chain and jet off into the black. Well, I say “jet,” compared to my usual pedal-to-the-metal velocity the return journey was a Sunday drive. What the hell was going on? I’m telling you, the Theremin music was really starting to kick in.

  Eventually I arrived at the green/blue marble of planet Earth, but I wasn’t home free yet. Cutting through the atmosphere, my nostrils twitched at a familiar smell; juicy, sizzling hamburger. It really got my appetite going, at least until I realized it was my own meat cooking.

  What the sh*t? I usually breach that bubble without breaking a sweat, but my ass was getting straight up crisped. Any hotter and I’d be arriving home as a rack of barbequed body parts.

  Thankfully I managed to punch through the other side of the atmosphere and a cooling brace of ozone put out the flames.

  HISSSS!

  Sweet relief. As I tunnelled below the cloud line I saw the continents present themselves and took aim for native soil. Something was wrong though. It was like my rudder had come adrift. Suddenly I was in freefall, tail-spinning towards Earth in a tightening spiral. I was going so fast I thought I’d break the air itself, then—

  KABOOM! Black hawk down. The next thing I knew I was at the bottom of a smoking hole with my ass bust in half, spat to the ground like a chewed up wad of bubblegum.

  I crawled out of my crater and went about trying to figure out where I’d set down. I didn’t have GPS, but if my calculations were correct I’d landed in the middle of Buttf*ck, Nowhere. I stood alone on a plot of rolling farmland, hands on my knees, worn to a nub. A couple of turkey vultures circled overhead, wise-assing me. No way I had the steam to get airborne again. Best I could do was limp to the nearest blacktop and follow it to some kind of civilization.

  After a five mile trudge I arrived at a cockroach motel and rented a room off a guy who was less interested in his guests than his copy of Legs Akimbo, Asian Bimbo. My room smells like bad sex and Febreze, but I don’t plan on staying long. A couple of hours of shut-eye and I’ll be turbo charged and ready to get back in the fight. Everything will be fine come morning. Everything will be fine, you’ll see.

  January 23rd

  FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU*CCCCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!![43]

  Soon as I woke up I knew something was off. My body felt like one big bruise – like I’d been packed with a hundred pounds of sh*t and patted down with a shovel. I stepped out of bed and my knees gave way, sending me crashing towards the motel’s cigarette-scarred carpet. I grabbed hold of the nightstand and righted myself. What the hell? My center of gravity was all out of kilter, as though someone had snuck into my gut while I was sleeping and moved it five yards to the right.

  And holysh*t were my dogs barking! I turned my feet over and found so many blisters on the soles it looked like I’d traded in my skin for bubble wrap. Ouch. I guess they never spent this long treading ground before.

  No time for bellyaching though, I had a score to settle. I splashed cold water on my face, tugged on my costume and pushed open the door of my motel room to greet the morning sun. Picking out the faint spectre of the moon in sky, I clenched my teeth and greeted it with a raised fist. Time to ring the bell on round two. Up, up and I’m outta here![44]

  I wasn’t going anywhere though. I tried my damndest to get some lift but it’s like my feet were nailed to the ground. Is this what it’s come to? Captain Might... a pedestrian? What the sh*t did D’eath do to me up there? Ordinarily the laws of physics make an exception for yours truly, but damn it if Newton wasn’t throwing the book at me this time.

  January 24th

  Since my engines were cut I was forced to take the Greyhound back to the City. Thankfully my fellow passengers took the superhero in seat 12b for a Captain Might lookalike and took no notice of me. I appreciate their scepticism. After all, what were the chances of the real Captain Might riding coach and sharing an on-board bathroom that smelled like it needed the urgent attention of a Hazmat team?

  There was one passenger whose interest I piqued though – the sweet old lady sat beside me with blue rinse in her hair and an afghan blanket on her lap.

  “You look just like him, you know,” she said.

  “Yeah, I get that a lot,” I replied, turning away and staring out the window.

  “You even sound like him.”

  “Uh huh. I’m not him though.”

  “Well, thank goodness for that,” she said. “Imagine spending the next fifteen hours sat next to that prick.”

  There were questions waiting for me when I arrived back at the station. A lot of them. The top brass at C.H.A.M.P demanded an urgent debriefing, so I brought them up to speed, playing down a couple of small deets, like my getting bitch-slapped into the middle of nowhere and losing the power to fly. Here’s what I did tell them; that I’d tracked D’eath down to his lunar hideaway and that the pair of us had bumped fists. The Prof had some fancy new gizmo I said, and the fight had ended in a deadlock. I told them I’d headed home to recoup and assured them I’d be back in the fight just as soon as I had my ducks in a row. Attacking by retreating and all that jazz. They bought it, just about, but I got the feeling I shouldn’t hold my breath for a ticker tape parade.

  Birdy was less forgiving. Boy, he totally flipped a sh*t on me. Going missing for two days without so much as a laters, fellaters? Not cool apparently.

  “What were you thinking, heading up to the Moon without telling anyone? Mom was sick about it – for all she knew you were a deadman.”[45]

  I’m not proud of the way things went down, but keeping my family sweet is the least of my worries right now. First the Professor tears a strip off me, then he does a bunk from prison, now he’s borked my superpowers? If anyone gets wind of the fact D’eath screwed me over a third time, forget about it.

  January 25th

  I used to love flying up to C.H.A.M.P’s rooftop to catch some rays and feel the wind whipping through my hair, but not today. Not since the only flights I can make now are flights of stairs. Can you believe I had to climb thirty stories to get to the roof? Thirty stories with my legs! It was agony – absolute murder on my hammies. By the time I cleared those steps and made it to fresh air I was shredded like a Denny’s lettuce.

  So why bother making the trek in the first place I hear you ask?[46] Well, it began when the picture on my office monitor broke up and Professor D’eath’s face emerged out of the static. Somehow he’d managed to remote tap every flat screen, smart phone and boob tube in New York to make a city-wide announcement.

  “Good afternoon, citizens,” he said. “You may be interested to know that your champion, Captain Might, came to visit me recently at my moon base and that I – to use the parlance of the times – ripped him a new sphincter. Let it be known that I very much enjoyed this encounter and that I await a rematch at the Captain’s earliest convenience. Toodle pip.”

  To round off his monologue he pointed through the skylight of his base at the giant cannon trained on planet Earth. Just what I need. Here I am, feeble as sh*t, and now every man Jack in the city knows they have an elite supervillain squatting over their heads ready to curtsey his nutsack on them.

  So that’s why I was up on the roof – to get the hell away from Birdy and the rest while I tried to figure out my next move. Not I that I made much progress in that regard – too much distraction. Thanks to my super hearing even the rush hour traffic couldn’t drown out
the chatter coming from the offices below – the sound of my co-workers gathered around water coolers trading snark on me. Did they forget I can hear a mouse fart in Tennessee? I guess they just stopped giving a crap being as the thrust of the conversation was how I was over the hill now. How I’d lost my edge. Worst part is, they’re not wrong. Right now I’ve got all the edge of a goddamned blimp. It’s not fair, man. You get coaxed under one power-ganking space laser and suddenly your sh*t’s all retarded.

  January 26th

  Before D’eath put my ass in a sling I used to spring out of bed on my heels like a vampire rising from its coffin in an old-timey Dracula flick. Not this morning though. This morning I woke up feeling like someone had attached a million tiny weights to my body, rubbed Vaseline in my eyes and kicked me in the brains until they went numb. I gotta wonder, is this what it’s like being a normal? How do people do this every day? You mean to say you don’t just feel incredible all the time?