Nuklear Age

by Clevinger, Brian

  And his Atomik Field.

  He dropped to his knees. Sand was kicked this way and that by the twitching jagged edges of his crimson barrier. “I’m, I’m sorry. This happens sometimes. I can’t help it—well I can, I, I just have to keep it under control. Always.”

  She reached out to him. He jumped back and hovered above the ground. “No! You can’t come near me when I’m like this.”

  “But what about before with that Radar jerk? It protected me.”

  “That was different. You’ll just have to trust me.”

  She nodded.

  __________

  “Angus, you go on ahead and warn the others.”

  “Right-o!” He warmed up for a Dwarf-a-pult.

  “Great Odin’s bear, no! Er, I mean, I could just toss you.”

  “What?” He clobbered Nuklear Man’s skull with tiny, yet furious, Iron: Fists. “Could ye think of a more demeanin’ thing to doo to a man?”

  “Well, I bet I could try.”

  “I suppose ye’d yell ‘Midget-a-toss’ when ye did it, eh?”

  “Um, if you like?”

  Another cranial crush. “Nay, I’m afraid not, ye daft wee-people hater! ‘Ooh, lookit Nuklear Man, he’s just invented a new sport.’ ‘What is it?’ ‘Oh, well, ye take a wee Scotsman and ye toss his wee hide like he was a wet bag o’ haggis!’ Bah! Ah may be short, but Ah do have me dignity. DWARF-A—”

  “Midget-a-toss!” Nuklear Man uttered under his breath and lobbed his cargo.

  The Bagpipe Thrusters burst to life, though most musicians would describe it more as an unlife. “I heard what ye said!” Angus yelled as he faded into the distance, shaking his fists at Nuklear Man.

  Miles behind them, the giant crab lurched forward with increased speed.

  __________

  Dr. Menace’s computer beeped. “Step 2: Lock on to Nuklear Clod. Scanning... Lock Acquired.” A smile that could kill a man at twenty paces crept across Dr. Menace's exquisite face. Slowly, she reached out to the Evil: Button. She held her finger just out of reach, tantalizing herself.

  “It will be soon now. Zo very, very soon. Muwa hahaha!” She pushed The Button.

  __________

  Angus flew over the beach, past the dunes, and into the middle of traffic. Horns blared, people and tires screamed, and in the heart of it all a tiny man cursed with the frenzy of a rabid wolverine in fast forward.

  __________

  Atomik Lad sighed despondently as the dwarfish comet arced through the air. “I’d better see what’s going on,” he told Rachel.

  __________

  The Evil: Satellite charged its Defusionizer Batteries. Dr. Menace had to perform but a few last minute adjustments to compensate for gravitational interference and magnetic anomalies.

  __________

  Nuklear Man landed on the beach huffing and puffing like someone who’d just run a marathon. “Gaaaaasp. Hold it, I flew.” He stopped panting. “Everyone!” he yelled. No one paid attention. “Bunch of ungrateful pagans.” He cleared his throat purposefully. Still no reaction. “Grrr, I’ll show ‘em. PLAZMAAA BEAM!” He launched a column of fusion-ish Plazma into the sky. It poked a small hole through the thin clouds high above.

  __________

  An energy bulge glowed from the Defusionizer’s gun barrel. Suddenly, a golden blast from the surface pierced straight through Menace’s Evil: Satellite mere microseconds before it should’ve fired.

  Dr. Menace’s computer read, “Step 4: Celebrate Death of Nuklear Buffoon with Global Orgy of Destruction and Chaos... Incomplete.”

  The Venomous Villainess leaned her elbows on the computer’s panel, fingers interlocked, thumbs under her chin. Her breathing was steady and calm, a stark contrast to what her eyes told the world. “All right then,” she said with a deliberate effort to keep her voice even. “On to Plan C.”

  __________

  Nuklear Man held the attention of everyone on the beach. “Finally. Sheesh, took so long I almost, er.” He scratched his head. “What’s that word when you can’t remember something?”

  “Forgot?” some random beach-goer offered.

  Nuklear Man flopped his hands with exacerbation. “You too?”

  Another worshiper of Sol pointed to the ocean. Fear, terror, and all those fight-or- flight instincts kicked in. “A giant crab!”

  “That’s right!” Nuklear Man congratulated. “How’d you guess?” The man had already fled.

  The megacrab scuttled sideways from the ocean and stood over Nuklear Man. It basked him in its smelly shadow as it examined the world above the waves. Strange things scattered about. Food, probably. But food was not on this creature’s mind. No, not since the alluring mating call. Two in one day. It had been eons since the last. He had to find the source.

  “Okay everyone,” Nuklear Man said above the clamor and panic that surrounded him. “Let’s just calm down and leave the scene in a nice orderly fashion. No pushing or shoving or screaming, please.” There were lots of each.

  A square foot’s worth of sea glop fell from the giant crab and splortched onto Nuklear Man’s head. “Ah! It’s got me! Run for the hills! Save yourselves! Sidekicks and plot devices first! Think of the Heroes, please won’t somebody think of the Heroes!” The glop slipped off with a wet impact in the sand. “Oh. Er, as I was saying—”

  “The sea gods are angry! We have forsaken them for too long. Their vengeance is upon us!” a scholarly looking man hollered as he ran by without his family.

  “I told you so, Pastor Williams!” Nuklear Man called as the lunatic sprint past him. He scratched his chin while watching the fleeing masses. “Tsk, these mortals are so excitable,” he said. “Back in my day, we didn’t have panic, only apathy.”

  The Crab bellowed. People fell to their knees clutching their crab-call-bloodied ears. The sand leapt, not from the powerful vibrations of the sound waves, but in a massive attempt to get away from the sound entirely.

  Nuklear Man cringed from the crabby thunder and looked up to its source, his mouth slightly agape. “Well what’dya know? A giant crab. With those really disgusting mandible thingies. And green drool. And all kinds of slimy gross germs.” More sea muck splatted onto his face. “Hm,” his voice was muffled by the muck. “Kinda tastes like. Kinda tastes like?! Augh!”

  A golden lightning bolt streaked through the sky screaming, “I got in my mouth, I got it in my mouth, I got it in my mouth!”

  Atomik Lad watched his mentor rocket away. “Great,” he said to himself. He floated over to The Crab and tried to take in the sheer absurdity of what was going on.

  Mighty Metallic Magno Man stood in front of The Crab. He held his arms above him as if to invoke the heavens. His amplified magnetic force wound its way around his body in a sphere of thin blue-white strands of energy. He bobbed in the air, rolled himself into a silvery tungsten ball, accelerated toward the crab, passed it, and with a sound barrier breaking boom, disappeared beyond the horizon.

  Atomik Lad stared after Norman with eyes full of disbelief. He looked back at Rachel. She was under the pier, nearly hugging one of its legs. He envied it.

  “Um,” he told The Crab. “As acting hero on this scene, I, um, oh geez.”

  “Atomik Lad!” He turned to see Dr. Genius near the dunes as she slipped on her lab coat. He caught himself feeling disappointment. “Try to get a sample, I’ll be back at the lab.” She dashed over the dunes and nearly fell over the “Stay Off The Dunes” sign.

  “A sample?” Atomik Lad said. “Sure, how hard can it be to get a sample. All by myself.”

  The Crab knew one thing about food. It definitely floated. A little snack before the love-fest couldn’t hurt.

  Several breaths’ worth of wind were simultaneously knocked out of Atomik Lad as The Crab slapped him out of the air with a blow that would have crushed him had it not been for the very handy existence of his Atomik Field. Gasping for air, he could feel the enormous pincer clutching him and pulling him out of the sand. He tried prying the g
iant claw open and could have sworn The Crab actually smiled with amusement at his fruitless effort.

  “Why can’t I have a normal life?” he grunted.

  His Atomik Field began to flicker impotently as if to say, “Oh yeah? Let’s just see how you like it then.”

  Flicker, flicker. “Oh damn.”

  The Crab’s vice grip tightened around Atomik Lad. He squirmed desperately. “C’mon, you good for nothing red crap, work!” His invulnerable Atomik Field faltered. It sputtered pathetic sparks as he mentally clung to its failing existence like a priest faced with indisputable proof of evolution.

  A silver blur raced over the dunes and obliterated a chunk of them with its velocity. The huge projectile struck The Crab with a thunderous impact. It sounded to Atomik Lad like God snapped his fingers. In the chaos, Atomik Lad felt himself tumble gracefully face first back into the sand. As the impact’s deafening explosion of sound subsided he could hear, “MAGNO-SMASH!!!” echo across the beach.

  Half dazed, he searched the sandy scene for any clue of what just happened. Mighty Metallic Magno Man wobbled toward Atomik Lad. “Man, I gotta work on that attack.” He held his head like he had a hangover. “It’s hard to get the timing down for the battle cry because of the supersonic speed from using the Earth’s diameter as the length of a giant Gauss cannon accelerator. Plus, it makes me really dizzy.”

  The Crab lay prone in the sand. Waves washed against its rear half.

  The Tungsten Titan dust off his metallic hands. “Heh, that was easy. Too bad Nuke missed all the action.”

  Atomik Lad stood and took a deep breath. “Yeah, that was pretty easy. I was expecting a rampage through the city or something, like in the movies.”

  “Kind of disappointing, really.”

  “Well, it is like at least one of those movies then.” Atomik Lad beat some sand off himself. “Anyway, Dr. Genius wanted a sample of it.”

  “Hey, I defeated it. You get the sample.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Atomik Lad said. He walked toward it. Carefully, not like some idiot in a horror flick. He paid special attention to what he assumed were its eyes while taking care to avoid the pincers altogether. He reached out a cautious hand and snapped off a bit of stray carapace. He dashed back to Norman a little faster than he meant to.

  “You shouldn’t worry. I don’t think our friend here is going to wake up for a long time. Eight hundred pound bullets of tungsten hittin’ your ass at a thousand miles an hour isn’t exactly something you just brush off.”

  Atomik Lad observed the rounded dent Norman had bashed into The Crab’s top-front carapace plate. “I think you killed it.”

  He playfully hit Atomik Lad in the shoulder, knocking him back a step. “We’re heroes, John. No one dies.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he said. He noticed movement from the corner of his eye. “Rachel!”

  “Is it safe out there?” she called from under the pier.

  “Is it ever?”

  She rethought her question. “Is it not currently life threatening out there?”

  Atomik Lad looked to Norman. MMMM shrugged. “Close enough!” he answered.

  __________

  Traffic had come to a standstill. It wasn’t rush hour. There wasn’t a wreck. There was, however, a storm. Not one of rain, save for the far-flying spittle winged with rage-spun words. Angus. God of war among men. Several overturned smoking wrecks that had once been cars advertised that someone was a bit vexed.

  The Iron Scotsman waved his Surprisingly Wieldly and Concealable Enemy-B-Crushed Named “Bertha” to invite—nay—beg anyone to make a sound. Angus listened to the post-Magno-Smash silence. “Aye, that’s what Ah thought, ye yuppie bastards drivin’ ye blasted Sport Utility Crap and ye brain dead Minivan drivin’ morons that spend half their damn time yellin’ at their damn brats in the back damn seat screamin’ for Cow Butt Buurger Hutt!” He breathed in. “What was Ah talkin’ about?” he muttered into his saltwater and spit soaked beard.

  Nothing annoyed Angus more than forgetfulness.

  “Except for people who drive minivans. Or SUVs. Or giant sea monsters ruinin’ me fun!” His eyes darted back and forth, searching for more prey. He slowly pivoted to the beach. Either The Crab was narcoleptic or it had been defeated. “Well, good thing Ah was here to manage traffic.”

  It’s too bad that road rage makes people do stupid things. Such as:

  HONK! HONKHONKHONK, “C’mon, you midget freak, get the hell out of the damn road!” HONK HONK HONK!

  Angus’s right eye twitched. “What did ye say?” he asked in a near whisper.

  “I said, get the hell outta the road, you dwarfish mutant!”

  “Ah see.” His fists balled up. “Ah see.”

  “Move it, shorty! Some of us got places to go!”

  “What’s that? Ye want me to move, eh?”

  “Yes!”

  “Have it your way, then.” He turned to the belligerent motorist.

  __________

  Issue 20 – A Worse Case of Crabs

  Atomik Lad, Rachel, and Mighty Metallic Magno Man stood. They did so in that awkward way people do when something really weird and usually socially unacceptable happens and no one knows just how to move the conversation forward. Like a very long ride in an elevator packed with strangers.

  Rachel rocked on the balls of her feet occasionally.

  MMMM glanced at the dent he put into The Crab.

  Atomik Lad scratched his nose. “Well.” His voice cracked slightly, which did nothing to help the moment along. “Now what?”

  The Tungsten Titan reached out for the crab shard. “I can take that over to Überdyne. You two just make sure no one tries to steal the carcass here. I want my picture taken with it, I think I might have set a record.”

  “Sure.” Atomik Lad tossed the bit of carapace to his fellow hero.

  “Well, it was fun, Sparky,” Mighty Metallic Magno Man said with a salute. “We oughta do it again sometime.” Blue threads of energy spun a sphere around him and he flew into the distance toward Metroville’s skyscrapers.

  Rachel ran her fingers through her hair to give it some semblance of order despite the sand, salt, and water that insisted on occupying it in varying degrees. “Does something like this happen every time you guys get together?”

  “Let me put it this way. Yes.”

  __________

  Angus sputtered incoherently, having long passed the stage where his mind was capable of language.

  “What’s the matter, Shorty? Having a ‘little’ spasm?”

  He shook like an earthquake. “Oh, Ah’m gonna love this.”

  A sound somewhat like a blue whale singing exactly what it’s like to die a morbidly slow and agonizing death echoed over what was left of the dunes.

  __________

  Atomik Lad cringed from the sound. “What, now we’ve got beached whales too?”

  The Crab awoke instantly.

  Startled, Atomik Lad grabbed Rachel by the hand and ran with her back to the pier. She didn’t need encouragement to make the move.

  The Crab groaned as it stood up and felt the impact crater on its topside with one monstrous pincer. Little carapace pieces flaked off. It seemed to strain, quivering like it was flexing some internal muscle to pass something that had been painfully clogging up its intestinal tract for several centuries. The dent corrected itself with a deep pop sound. The splintered cracks that ran along the crater’s perimeter disappeared. All signs of Norman’s devastating attack were gone.

  “It can heal itself,” Atomik Lad said.

  The Crab lurched sideways, then headed straight for the pier.

  Atomik Lad instinctively activated his trusty Field. Sparks fluttered uselessly around him. “Oh no.” He hefted Rachel onto one shoulder fireman style.

  “Oof,” she said. “Having trouble?”

  He ran from the pier. “It’s not my fault!” Rachel bounced on his shoulder uncomfortably.

  A giant Crab foot smashed
into the sand in front of them. Atomik Lad pulled a spinning dodge thing to his left that would have impressed any football coach had he not subsequently fallen face first in the sand and dumped his cargo. “This just isn’t my day.”

  __________

  Nuklear Man stood at his Danger: Sink. The floor was littered with empty bottles with labels containing phrases like Keep Out of Reach of Children, Not to be Taken Internally, Do Not Swallow, and Poison. He blindly guzzled the contents of another bottle. A gout of fire erupted from his mouth. He tossed the empty container to the floor. It rolled into the others and added the phrase Keep Away From Open Flames to the growing list of warnings he’d completely ignored.

  Several bottles later, and The Crab Slimy Goo Taste still persisted. He paused and reached into the Danger: Medicine Cabinet. “Hmm. Hydrochloric Acid. Sounds life threatening.” He downed it like a shot glass. He smacked his lips and probed his mouth for any signs of The Taste. His face twisted. “Yeeesh! That stuff burns almost as much as rocket fuel. Bleh.”

  __________

  Sparks winked around Atomik Lad. He was reminded of a car that wouldn’t start.

  “Well?”

  “I think I’m flooded.”

  She gave him The Look.

  “What am I supposed to do without my field?”

  “You’re still a hero. Either you get out there and do something, or I will.”

  They watched the Crab make short work out of the ruins of the boardwalk shops that used to be near the beaches. They didn’t know it, but he believed in being thorough.

  __________

  Nuklear Man sprawled across the Danger: Couch and turned on the Danger: TV with a shot of infrared from his finger. “Mmm. Silly Sam’s Cartoon Marathon-a-thon o’ Fun,” he smiled idiotically.

  “We now interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you this news bulletin.”

  Nuklear Man flared with Angry Plazma. “What.”

  A soulless shell of a man spoke like he had no idea that there was any meaning associated with the sounds he was making. “We now take you to the scene of the carnage, so be certain to look for extreme close-ups of any bodies we happen to capture on tape. Ratings, ratings, ratings!”