I tried again. This time, I made a connection with Eric. He was outside a building nearby. The Purple Menace’s new place? I could only get a sense of where he was, not into his thoughts. Why had he left me in the middle of the night? His latest betrayal ached like a sore tooth.
Third try and I got, of all people, Mutt and Jeff, the Purple Menace’s henchmen. They were unloading machines from a moving truck, and setting them up in a lab in a suburb of Reykjavik.
Because the psychic link supposedly worked both ways, I backed off in a hurry. I’d acquired enough information to find the hideout. Eric was there. No sign of the Purple Menace.
I could have tried to link with him, but I was chicken. His cartoony malevolence didn’t hide his genuine willingness to hurt people. I did not want to be inside his brain for any reason.
I pulled out the drawing pad I’d bought at the drugstore this morning, and a couple of pencils. I drew an “Average Chloe” strip. It helped me coalesce my thoughts from the ride over. What was Average Chloe up to today? Drawn by me, a decidedly above-average Chloe, she was looking for a way to stop the Purple Menace. I wondered why I hadn’t thought of conscious dreaming before. This whole adventure had been about dreams. I should take the lead and lucid dream the proper end to this drama. To do so, I needed time. Meanwhile, the Purple Menace was several destructive steps ahead of me.
I’d only had the one dream of seeing the Purple Menace planting bombs on skyscrapers. Had it happened in reality? Probably. Had he done anything else? Were there scores of bombs now on major landmarks?
I must go on the offensive and put a stop to his threat. Defensive fighting doesn’t win a war. I’d needed a plan, and now I had one. Luckily, everybody involved had to sleep occasionally. I sensed the Purple Menace wasn’t awake and active right now. I had time to set up my plan.
But first I started the car and drove to the Purple Menace’s new hideout, passing it and parking on the next street. I walked back through the mixed-use suburban area. The few commercial buildings were all one story. I found a spot where I could watch the building but was shielded by bushes. Eric stood outside, on the sidewalk, watching the open door. Beyond him was the Purple Menace’s moving truck. What was he doing?
I crept a little closer. Out came my favorite henchmen, Mutt and Jeff. They grunted and groaned as they removed yet another crate from the truck.
The short one said, “All I’ve been doing the last couple of days is hauling. It’s a total drag, man.”
“Yeah.” The taller one never said much.
“Hurry up,” Eric said.
“Sure, boss,” the short one said. I’d named him Jeff. “Only a couple more pieces to go.”
Boss? Was Eric masquerading as the Purple Menace? Couldn’t they tell he was a different Eric? No, why should they?
“You set up everything the way I told you to?” he demanded.
Mutt, the taller one, responded. “We got the phony monitors plugged in, and the special movie reel with the fake scenes from Brooklyn ready to roll.”
“Why do you need so many big heavy machines?” Jeff asked.
Eric gave a snort of impatience. “What are we doing here?” he asked with exaggerated patience.
“We’re fooling anyone looking for your control center,” Jeff said obediently. “We’re supposed to make this look real.”
Eric nodded his head in the usual manner of a boss who is satisfied but not enchanted with his workers.
“I shall inspect your progress,” he said. He projected doubt in their ability to do the job right. Eric sure knew how to play the tough boss.
He went inside. The henchmen seemed completely fooled. They looked at each other, obviously wondering if they should follow him. Finally, the tall one shrugged and said, “Better keep hauling.”
Silence. I had no super hearing, so I kept my fingers crossed. Soon, Eric came back outside.
“Repeat the rest of the plan,” he ordered. “You must follow it to the letter.”
Jeff began, “We finish hauling in all the fake monitors, start the dummy video loop, and then wait for the girl to show up and try to destroy them. We let her, but fight her enough to convince her this is your real control center.”
“She’ll probably tie us up again like she did yesterday,” Mutt said sourly.
“And where am I at the same moment?” Eric prompted them, ignoring Mutt’s complaint.
“You’re in your secret Sky Tower lair, the true command center.”
“You two stay here till she comes.”
“Yessir.”
Eric gave one of the Purple Menace’s patented mad scientist speeches. “My nemesis shall never suspect I am in her world.” He rubbed his hands together gleefully. “Return to work. Finish quickly.”
They bent their backs to move more equipment. As soon as they were inside again, Eric jogged around the bushes past my hiding spot to the next street. I followed him.
I caught him as he was getting into a car.
“Eric.”
“Chloe, what are you doing here?” he asked. He did not look pleased to see me.
“I dunno. I got a feeling I should come here. How about you?”
Eric’s expression closed up. “Checking on something. Where are you off to next?”
Wow. He took it for granted we would go our separate ways in this strange dimension today? Yet last night, he was the one who thought a single hotel room was right. Plus sharing the same bed.
Why couldn’t I curse in this world? I wanted to say many bad words. But I didn’t have time to think about Eric and me right now. I answered him with exaggerated patience, putting space between each word for emphasis. “I’m trying to find the Purple Menace.” My voice started to rise. “To stop him permanently. That’s why I’m in this stinking retro dimension, remember?”
Eric’s expression didn’t give a hint about his thoughts.
“Do you know where he is?” I pressed him.
Eric didn’t answer. He seemed distracted. As if he was listening to someone else in his head. Maybe the Purple Menace?
“You can handle yourself alone, right?” Eric asked, moving to enter his car.
What was he up to? He’d skipped out on me twice, and now he was about to do it again. Plus he hadn’t answered my questions.
Back in our world, he had argued against me acting solo, but now he expected me to go off alone. Why had he changed?
“You can come with me if you want,” I offered. As I expected, he declined.
“I’ve got something to do.”
He responded to my raised eyebrow by continuing, “I don’t know if it’ll succeed. No point in talking about it yet.”
I had a flash of crystal clarity about what a full-on relationship with Eric would be like. I didn’t care for the picture.
“I’m not crazy about your lack of openness,” I said. “It might be a deal killer.”
He winced. But he looked at his car, signaling that I was wasting his precious time. He still hadn’t ducked inside, but he didn’t offer me a seat either.
“Where are you going?” I came right out and asked.
He didn’t answer.
“Fine, Eric. You’re not a team player. I get it.” I laughed, an unhappy sound. “Yet I’m sure you give speeches about the virtue of pulling for the team to those poor saps who slave away at your big comic book company.” I shook my head, disgusted at how much emotion I felt. “Ah, who cares?”
His face almost showed some regret. Almost. He squared his shoulders and visibly shook off any emotion. “Meet me at the top of the Sky Tower, back in Manhattan,” he said.
He got in his car and drove away, leaving me standing in the street.
Chapter 23
I shook myself out of my stunned surprise, raced back to my rental, and headed for the sky highway. I told the toll booth person, a teenage boy, no hat, to send me to Manhattan. Visiting Iceland had been a total waste of time. All it had done was make me doubt Eric more.
&n
bsp; I sensed the Purple Menace was still asleep for now. A relief, considering the mischief he’d gotten up to last night. Now that I finally had a plan, I hoped I had enough time to implement it. I was still baffled about where Eric fit into this entire scenario, but I concentrated on my plan to stop the Purple Menace. Luckily, I had not blurted any part of it to Eric.
As my car traversed the ocean, I pulled out my drawing pad. My plan to vanquish the Purple Menace permanently required overwhelming him at the right moment with the right weapons. I thought I had the combination to succeed although it was risky. It had to happen in my world, where I had no superpowers.
So much in this bizarre adventure had depended on artwork. It was time to bend the storyline with some artwork of my own.
First, I drew Bodacious Barb’s office. I drew Diabolical Dave in it, sitting on a couch next to Barb. I drew them having tea, which should suit his old-fashioned outlook on life.
Dave told Barb about his new company. He intended to hire the world’s brightest minds. He would build a think tank with them. He confided his plans to Barb to explain why he would be very busy in the coming months. He didn’t want her to think he was ignoring her.
I decided to give Barb and Diabolical Dave a stately and restrained romance. I drew a panel with him kissing her hand in a courtly manner. She looked pleased. Then I switched scenes, leaving them their privacy, in case she forgot she was a lady and jumped him.
I drew Diabolical Dave flying. Yes, flying and landing at a new building that was part Empire State Building, part Chrysler Building, and part like the futuristic edifices in this world. The entire structure was some sort of crystal, with solar collectors, and windmills, and mysterious additional machinery at roof levels. The entire roof was a garden, and each terrace had hanging greenery. Diabolical Dave would go green in a big way. He entered the building from a garden courtyard on the fiftieth floor, straight into a magnificent, sunlit drawing studio. There, his assistants waited for him to complete his drawings.
Lower in the building, I drew a beehive of happy workers in equally sun-drenched, plant-filled offices. Men and women sketched plans and brainstormed wonderful ideas to make this dimension the best place in the universe. Dave’s drawings were their prototypes. He sparked their creativity. I drew a combination socialist-capitalist view of an ideal future. Everyone I drew was handsome, strong, and healthy. They all were happy to work. They still had bosses and an ownership hierarchy, and Dave was the leader.
Unlike some utopian visions, Dave’s eager workforce was multicultural and of all ages. Men and women held power equally. They spoke many languages and wore many styles of dress. I drew the United Nations of social planning, with Dave as the prime mover. I hoped he liked my fantasy, because with luck, his future would come true.
For the first time in my life, I hadn’t used a cartoony drawing style. Artistic talent from my father had flowed through my fingertips. I’d composed detailed, realistic scenes.
I was ready for the next step. Could merely drawing the future create the future? Perhaps, if I incorporated the images I’d created into a lucid dream. I put my pencil down. I tuned into my sleepiness, consciously choosing to sleep. The car continued its hyper-science journey between Iceland and New York. In my dream state, I started the next chapter. I put the Purple Menace in a jail cell. I drew a courtroom, and the Purple Menace in the defendant’s chair. A jury pronounced the verdict: “Guilty.” In the next panel, the judge sentenced the Purple Menace to five years of exile in the Arctic.
But I did not draw the end of the story with the Purple Menace breaking icebergs on a prison gang. Instead, I gave him an important, complex job assignment of managing the crews tasked with mapping the newly revealed coastlines caused by global warming. If he completed the hydrographic survey on time and correctly, he’d quickly earn promotion to overseeing the establishment of planned stations along the newly navigable Northwest Passage.
The Purple Menace was no longer costumed as a villain. He wore the garb of a successful manager. He used his flying power to go from job site to job site, inspecting the quality of the plans and the work. He used his power bolts to help install massive new structures, as well as to test the strength of what his crews built.
Diabolical Dave would use his influence to remind Eric what a valued individual he was as part of the whole. In this world, Dave himself wasn’t a trouble-making rebel. He was the establishment. He no longer disliked the people who kept the world together. Instead, he was their benevolent mentor.
I had created a powerful vision. I hoped it could come true, for this world’s sake. A few modifications were needed. Although I believed I could nudge Diabolical Dave and the Purple Menace into their proper roles in a new order in this dimension, I wasn’t so sure about my Eric’s role. We were a million miles apart right now.
My trip was over. My car slowed and the protective coating melted off. In a minute I’d be off the track and at the wheel again. No more time to draw. No more repining about Eric’s refusal to be open with me, either.
I’d let Eric think I’d intended to meet him at the Sky Tower next. That wasn’t my plan. After I returned the rental car, I walked around a corner and ducked in an alley. I started the chant. “Great spirits…”
The Amulet of Life was more elastic than we’d given it credit for initially, so I’d mentally asked it to return me to my hotel room on my world. It got me outside the hotel, on 6th Avenue. I could deal.
I still wore my superheroine costume, but the stares, if any, were discreet. In New York, people let you be as weird as you want.
In my hotel room, I called the Barb of my world, my mother. “Mom, do you want to be in on the end of this?”
“You’ve figured it out?”
“Possibly. Why don’t you hop the next Long Island Railroad train and come to my hotel.” I gave her the address and my room number.
“That old dump? A television show should put you in a nicer place.”
“I’m not the star. It’s got four walls, Mom.” Always the criticism. “See you in a couple of hours?” She assented.
I freshened up, but kept my superheroine costume on. I needed it.
I called Eric’s office and asked to speak to his assistant editors. I still didn’t know their names, but I could describe them clearly after my encounters with their opposite numbers in the other world. Despite the skepticism of the receptionist, I managed to get through to one. Probably the nasty one, considering the hostility in his voice when I identified myself.
“What the hell do you want?” he began.
“I’m not going to waste time sparring with you, asshole,” I cut him off mid-snarl. “Do you want to help Eric during the final confrontation with the Purple Menace, thus earning some brownie points? Or do you want to hear about it in the news later, dickhead?”
I could say bad words again. I was definitely back home.
“Where’s Eric?”
“Yes or no? I’m ending this call in ten seconds and you lose your chance.”
He finally agreed to collect his partner and appear at the address I gave him at the time I’d specified. I hung up. Okay. Now for the hard part.
I called on powers I had never developed on this world. Or any other world. The other dimension’s Barb had a strong psychic link with Dave. Since Barb was my mother on this world, and technically Dave was my father, maybe I had inherited psychic sensitivity that I’d never previously tapped. Or maybe I was full of it.
I sat very still. I didn’t try to assume some special relaxation pose. I’d never bothered to learn any yoga. I closed my eyes. I sent my mind searching for the Purple Menace. I’d been reluctant to do it before I had devised a plan. Now I had one. I sent him an image of me blithely destroying his machines, to enrage him, I hoped. I wanted him to get careless. To return to the Sky Tower.
I knew he had a new plan. Even in his cockeyed retro world, the science at the Purple Menace’s disposal was awesome, because it was influenced by Diabo
lical Dave’s comic book sensibility. My brain now also was filled with bizarre scientific algorithms that made sense only in a comic book world. My lucid dreaming scenario, indeed my entire plan to defeat the Purple Menace, was based on comic book concepts. Giving new meaning to the phrase “Living the dream.”
Last night, I’d watched the Purple Menace be transported to our world unprepared. Whatever his prior game plan had been, he must have improvised those bombs as part of a new plan. I assumed they were bombs. But when I was stuck in the other dimension, they hadn’t gone off. I still had time to foil him.
I knew what he intended. The Purple Menace wanted to display his power by blowing up as many New York City landmarks as possible. It made perfect sense. At least, it made sense if you’re so twisted you have to be the boss of everything to feel good about yourself.
I wondered where my Eric was on that spectrum. Being his own boss as an artist hadn’t been enough for him, so he’d battled his way to being the boss of others. Did he need even more visibility and worldly acclaim than he already had as the head of a major comic book company? Did Eric share the Purple Menace’s corrosively outraged self-esteem problem? Where the hell was Eric, anyhow?
What was he doing right now? He’d asked me to meet him at the Sky Tower. Why? The tower was where I expected to confront the Purple Menace.
I had no more time to worry about Eric at the moment. I needed to catch up with Roland, Jerry, and, oh joy, Diabolical Dave.
I arrived at Jerry’s palatial hotel suite at nearly noon. I’d been to Iceland and back already today, but my pals were still having breakfast. The suite’s living room was bigger than my entire Chicago apartment. Roland sat in a silk-upholstered armchair eating muffins from a plate he balanced on his lap. Jerry stood next to a window with a generous view of the city, sipping coffee. A buffet on a white linen-covered table was set up next to him. I headed straight for it.
“Ah, our superheroine returns,” Jerry said pleasantly. “Have some brunch.”
“Thanks. I will,” I responded, and grabbed a muffin. I was about to wolf it down when the missing person registered. “Where’s Dave?” I could not call him my father.
Temporary Superheroine Page 18