Temporary Superheroine

by Irene Vartanoff

  “This must be the third time I’ve asked you,” I said. “How did you escape those bad guys?”

  “A phone call from the Purple Menace. He was on speakerphone so I heard how ticked he was that they grabbed me and not you. He ordered them to the FC offices to snatch you. They took off in a hurry. After a while, I realized the guy who’d tied me up never finished the job. I easily loosened the ropes.”

  “That was it? You walked away?”

  “Convenient, huh?” He shot me one of his sweet smiles. “Since I knew where to look for you, I got a cab and went straight to the FC offices. Once I was near, I could see the commotion. The people on the street all looked up. Even though they do seem to take superpeople in stride.”

  “I’d noticed. Barb was shockingly casual when she ordered her staff to bring weapons and defend her office.” Reluctantly, I added, “She said the Purple Menace used to work there and has a grudge against her.”

  “No kidding,” Roland crowed. “Now we know his secret identity.”

  “Secret identity?”

  “Now we can stop him.”

  “Who is the Purple Menace?” I asked, pretty sure I wouldn’t like Roland’s answer.

  “Eric Wood.”

  “No way.”

  “He must be. He worked at Fantastic Comics. He can’t be Jovial Jerry or Diabolical Dave because they don’t exist in this world.”

  I didn’t like where Roland’s logic was headed.

  “Who else could it be but Wood? Evil Eric Wood. Sounds right,” Roland said, relishing the comic book style alliteration. “You told me he acted suspicious.”

  “He fished for information,” I admitted.

  “The Purple Menace’s henchmen here are Wood’s assistant editors. I recognized them,” Roland added. “Ominous parallel, wouldn’t you say?”

  “But Eric was in the studio when the Purple Menace appeared and attacked Jerry,” I protested. “Eric leapt on the Purple Menace after you pulled Jerry away.”

  “He put on a good act,” Roland conceded.

  “How could Eric be the Purple Menace and grab himself? It’s impossible.”

  “Wood told us the Purple Menace got away, but maybe Eric helped him escape, because he’s his doppelgänger. His double.”

  “If there are two Erics, why can’t one of them be a good guy?”

  “Wood tried to stop us coming here, remember? Probably because he wanted to protect this world’s Evil Eric,” Roland deduced.

  “Cut that out.”

  “I bet the Eric Wood of this world is the Purple Menace and is conspiring with the Wood of our world.”

  “Too far-fetched,” I said, but my denial rang hollow to me. Eric had talked about this dimension and the amulet in his sleep. Damning evidence against him, but I couldn’t tell Roland without spilling that I’d witnessed Eric sleeping. Awkward.

  I didn’t want Eric to be a villain. I wanted Eric to be a good guy. Even if he wasn’t as noble as Roland. How could any corporate honcho be decent and sweet? Yet despite Eric’s obvious faults, like being way too aggressive, too sure of himself, and too used to being the man in charge, I rooted for him anyway. Even though he had snubbed me the morning after having sex with me. Gee, in this dimension, I couldn’t even call Eric a bad word in my mind. How strange.

  I was winded from hiking fast and talking at the same time. “Can we stop for a minute?” I asked. “I want to catch my breath and argue directly in your face.”

  Roland smiled, as I meant him to.

  “No, I don’t believe it,” I said after a minute. I was mad at Eric and he could use a good swift kick in the ego. Still, I didn’t think my attraction to him had blinded me to his real character.

  “Eric isn’t a villain, even though he may be involved somehow. If you’re going to talk parallels, where’s the Roland Kirby of this world, then?”

  “Back in Chicago, minding his own business.”

  Which shut me up. Roland was game, but I shouldn’t have gotten him involved in this mess. If I hadn’t selfishly let him stay in my life after we had broken up, he wouldn’t be here now. Sometimes being kind is being cruel.

  “Here’s something else to ponder. Why was the Purple Menace looking for you just now, Chloe?” Roland asked.

  “I don’t know. Considering we keep battling in my dreams, maybe he can sense I’m here.”

  We took the stairs up to the street at 36th street so we could walk on the narrow side streets. Roland scanned the faces in the crowds around us and searched the sky.

  “Looking for them?” I asked.

  “Yep.”

  “We only have a couple more blocks to walk.”

  “We need weapons.” Roland seemed to hesitate, then plunged into speech again. “There’s another problem we haven’t discussed.”

  “What? What problem?”

  “Eric is waiting back at Barb’s. He might cause trouble.”

  “No. He wouldn’t.” I automatically defended Eric. Then I wanted to kick myself. I didn’t owe him loyalty.

  “You asked why the Purple Menace was expecting us when we arrived on his world. Maybe because Eric told him.”

  I didn’t want to talk about Eric anymore. “Do you think we can even get back to our world? The amulet is there, not here.”

  “No prob. We’re kinda in a comic book story. What is the key to science in a comic book?”

  “Is this a quiz?” I asked in exasperation as we walked down a side street in the garment district.

  “Remember I told you the science in comic books is junk science?”

  “Sure, sure,” I said. I used to space out when Roland went on and on about his collector’s item superhero comic books. They weren’t the same as my modern webcomics at all. The last two months—and especially, the last few days—reminded me of comic book movies he’d dragged me to. Simplistic explanations for outlandish events. Wild superpowers. Crazy action sequences.

  Roland was right. We were in a comic book story. Diabolical Dave was the puppet master, and the Purple Menace was the arch supervillain. Roland and I were the team of good guys, with Jerry and Barb as occasional mentors. Sort of. Eric, well, Eric was an unknown right now. Maybe he was one of the bad guys, or maybe not.

  “One of the chief principles of junk science is reversibility,” Roland lectured. “Therefore, we’ll reverse our incantation to go home,” he concluded triumphantly.

  I didn’t say anything. I worried about Eric.

  We kept walking. Roland nodded at a small storefront ahead. “Let’s go buy some weapons.”

  “That’s a toy and magic shop,” I objected, but I let him drag me inside.

  Within a few minutes, we’d stocked up on penny toys. Roland was convinced they might give us an advantage if the Purple Menace and his henchmen returned.

  “Cool store,” he said, once we were back outside. He now carried a large paper sack. “So many banned toys. Cap guns. Cherry bombs. Lawn darts. We should come here again.”

  “Right.” I rolled my eyes.

  As we resumed our trek, constantly looking up in case our enemies were after us again, I fretted about another issue.

  “What if I only had those bolts from my fingers as a kind of residue from being near the Purple Menace? What if I only have a temporary power?”

  Roland eyed a narrow alley filled with overflowing trash cans. He gestured at one.

  “Hit the can.”

  “Huh?”

  “C’mon. You let me make a fool of myself trying to fly. Let’s see you duplicate your amazing finger bolts.”

  “Fair enough,” I nodded. I started by positioning my fingers as I’d done in my dreams, middle one down, thumbs out, devil horn fingers up.

  “You’re kidding.” Roland laughed.

  I dropped my hands, exasperated. “What?”

  “You’re replicating the classic finger gesture of Diabolical Dave’s most famous character, Lord Raga.”

  “I only copied what I did in my dreams. I was desper
ate for a weapon.”

  “You did good.”

  Now I felt self-conscious. I positioned my fingers again, and thought unkind thoughts about the trash can. A bolt shot from my fingers and hit the can, knocking it twenty feet down the alley.

  “Yee-hah! It’s superhero time!” Roland crowed.

  I felt weird. Was I supposed to be happy? Should I be proud of a power I had nothing to do with creating? “We have no idea why I can shoot bolts. It could be magic. If I believed in magic, which I do not.”

  Roland nodded agreeably while he excitedly examined the trash can. “No scorch marks. No heat. You’re shooting some version of a laser beam. It’s cold, not hot. Are your fingers hot?”

  “Yes, and they were the other time, too. Yet they aren’t burned or anything.”

  “Oh, man, this is nuts. Superpowers!” He danced around gleefully. “We’ve got to get you a costume. A crime-fighting name, too.”

  “Whoa.” I made the classic T-for-time-out signal with my hands. “We may have compromised time and space by using the Amulet of Life to get to another dimension, and I may be able to shoot bolts out of my fingers, but I am not a superheroine.”

  He had a glazed look in his eyes. Was he listening to me?

  “This isn’t a comic book,” I emphasized. “It’s real. I won’t be patrolling the city streets nightly in a spandex costume fit for a pole dancer.”

  I took a deep breath. “I will try to stop the Purple Menace permanently. Once we get him squared away, I’ll gladly surrender these bolts from my fingers and go back to being a mild-mannered webcomic artist.”

  Roland was silent for a bit. Then he began to clap slowly. “Nice speech. You’re totally in denial.”

  I glared at him.

  “Okay, okay. You’re only a temporary superheroine,” he said. “Happy now?”

  “Yes,” I grumbled.

  By now we had hiked back to the exact street corner where we’d arrived in this world. It was easy to find the slightly singed spot on the sidewalk.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “Let’s hold hands and concentrate,” he suggested, “and we’ll say the incantation backwards.”

  “Letter for letter, or word for word?”

  “Both, if we have to.”

  Of course he could reel it off backwards, while I stumbled slowly through the words.

  “Glass mirror a through if as pass us let spirits great,” we chanted.

  It worked on the first try.

  Chapter 13

  We were back. No smoke or haze. We were in my mother’s house, sitting at the table again. Or had we ever left? Jerry and Barb sat on the couch, talking. The remains of a meal were in front of them on the coffee table. No sign of Eric and his men.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Chloe.” Barb and Jerry turned toward us, surprised. Perhaps even relieved, though Barb always maintained a façade of cool indifference to my welfare.

  “How long were we gone?” I asked.

  “Two hours,” she replied.

  “Were we truly gone, Mrs.—ah, Bodacious Barb?” Roland asked.

  “Yes. When the haze cleared, you had vanished,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “Unless it was some sort of crowd hypnosis thing,” Jerry suggested. It was clear he wasn’t too happy with this situation.

  “Do you like our duds?” Roland asked slyly standing up to show off his new clothes.

  Oh, right. I forgot our little shopping trip. Of course we were wearing our formal clothes, hats, and gloves.

  “Nice fashion statement. I haven’t seen a woman wear gloves in, oh, forty years,” Barb said sarcastically.

  “We wanted futuristic Matrix movie-style dusters, but we had to make do with mid-century modern,” I replied with equal sarcasm.

  Roland’s face registered some shock at our exchange of sneers. Finally, he had a clue about the real reason I never told him about Bodacious Barb. Because to me she had never been Bodacious. Barbed, yes. Often.

  Meanwhile, Jerry wasn’t convinced. “You could have drugged us.”

  I was surprised at his lack of belief. You’d think a man who spent half his life drawing fantasy stories and the other half talking about them would be more ready to believe they could be true.

  “You’re right,” I conceded. “We also could have searched the online auction sites for old clothes labels from Woolworth’s—a company that’s been out of business for decades.” I pulled at the neckline of my dress and showed Jerry the label on the inside. He gasped.

  Barb merely raised an eyebrow.

  “We could have concocted all of it to fool you,” I said.

  “Why would we?” Roland asked, innocently puzzled.

  Having more than proved our honesty, I turned to something more important. “Where’s Eric?”

  “He took the amulet and left.”

  “No.” I’d secretly cherished the hope he was a good guy. Roland shot me an I-told-you-so glance.

  “How could we come back here with the amulet gone?” I wondered out loud.

  “Junk science,” both Roland and Jerry said at exactly the same moment.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Call it comic book logic, then. Feel better?” Barb asked wickedly.

  I have never understood her.

  Jerry agreed with Barb. “The how isn’t important. You’re back home safely.”

  Roland gave me what was for him a very cynical look. “What is Eric planning to do with the amulet? Maybe he is going to visit his other self—the Purple Menace.”

  “I’m telling you, he’s not the Purple Menace,” I said with more vigor than Eric deserved. “You’re fixated on Eric as a villain. That’s unfair.”

  I had been angry at Eric for daring to blow me off like some bimbo—was it only this morning? I’d aged a year since then. Still, I didn’t want him to be a villain. But why did he take the amulet? Did he plan to give it to the Purple Menace the next time he showed up on our world? Why would Eric collude with the Purple Menace?

  In the midst of my confusion and gloom, Jerry dragged me back to the present.

  “Tell us what happened—what you saw,” Jerry said.

  There was no reason to keep it a secret. It took a while, but Roland and I described everything we’d seen and done. We also consumed whatever food Barb had in the house, and I went to my old bedroom and changed into some old clothes. But I kept my pillbox hat. I liked it.

  We were exhausted from traveling between worlds and then hiking all over the other-dimensional midtown Manhattan. Of course there were moments when our story sounded like the most complete garbage.

  “Laser bolts shot from your fingertips? Impossible.” Jerry was incredulous.

  I tested my fingers on a particularly ugly knickknack on the mantel. Nothing happened.

  “She did it in the other dimension. Twice,” Roland insisted.

  Jerry didn’t want to hear about it, I could tell. I shrugged off his disbelief. Convincing him wasn’t urgent. Getting to Diabolical Dave was. Also getting my amulet back from Eric. Meanwhile, Jerry was safe now from the Purple Menace, who was focused on me instead. Crap.

  Oh, wow. I could think bad words again.

  “We must find Diabolical Dave. He wasn’t in that other dimension, so he must be here. Maybe he can plug the portal between these two worlds to keep the Purple Menace out. Or maybe Diabolical Dave has some other genius idea. If so, Eric having the amulet won’t matter.”

  “Or else the Purple Menace will keep returning to our world from the world Diabolical Dave created,” Roland said. His manner was a lot more sober than a minute ago. The Purple Menace as a regular visitor was not a happy prospect.

  “How is Dave the creator of this other dimension?” Barb asked.

  “You told me. The other you told me, I mean,” I said. I had two moms, one of whom wasn’t a mom at all. Confusing. “Anyway, the Purple Menace thinks so. When he threatened to throw me off the roof, he blamed Dave for everything. D
ave is the key.”

  “Does anybody know where he is?” Jerry polled the room hopefully.

  Barb shrugged her shoulders. “He calls me, but he never has given me his number.”

  “Barb—the other Barb—told me he was in Manhattan,” I offered.

  Roland pulled out his phone, which had been useless in a world without cell phone towers and the Internet. In a few seconds, he hit pay dirt. “I’ve got an office address with a suite number for him. No phone listed.” He showed his readout to me.

  “That’s midtown,” I said.

  “Will Diabolical Dave be there? We should go see him,” Roland said.

  “He always had a strong work ethic,” Jerry said. “If he has studio space, he’s probably there all day, every day.”

  “You’ve got one problem, kids,” Barb said.

  “What?”

  “Eric left his two stooges, those assistant editors, here to guard us. Keep us safe, he claimed. I kicked them outside, but they’re still hanging around.”

  I peeked outside. Sure enough, the two men lounged on the lawn in front of Roland’s rental car. Dressed all in casual black, they looked like vultures. They also bore an uncanny resemblance to the Purple Menace’s two henchmen. Roland had been right about them.

  “Would they try to stop us? We could call the police.”

  Barb shook her head. “You bring the police into this, Dave will vanish and you’ll never find him.”

  “He wouldn’t know.”

  “Jerry’s here,” she pointed out. “He’s news.”

  “We’ll take Jerry with us. If you’re willing, sir,” Roland asked.

  Jerry nodded his white-haired head. He’d probably had enough of going down memory lane with Barb.

  “Keeping Jerry’s name out of the spotlight is good, but they could tail us to Diabolical Dave’s office, or they could try to force Barb to tell them what we know,” I pointed out.