Nuklear Age

by Clevinger, Brian

  “Purrrr.” Katkat rubbed his face against Nuklear Man’s tucking arm.

  “But you do make a good case for it.” He pondered some more. “I guess you win. Fly, Katkat, fly!” He gave the cat an underhand chuck into the wild blue yonder. “Kat-a-pult! Hm, that one just sounds stupid.”

  “Mreowr!?!” Katkat hollered as he rocketed across the sky.

  “That’s the spirit!” Nuklear Man cheered. “Er, pull up. Katkat, don’t be like all the others, pull up!”

  A crimson blur rushed past Nuklear Man, spinning him like a top. He stopped himself and had to yank his cape off the top of his head. “Lousy meteors,” he grumbled.

  Atomik Lad raced to the launched Katkat. He gained on the flying feline and reached out to save him from a messy demise. He focused on his hands for an instant and recoiled. He let out a sigh, shut off his chaotic Atomik Field, and safely grappled Katkat.

  “Time to turn on the juice,” he said.

  But it didn’t quite work. Pathetic red sparks fluttered around his body as the pair began to succumb to gravity. Well, this is bad. The ground was getting a little too friendly for Atomik Lad’s comfort. “What a great way to end an otherwise promising career in the Hero business. Fend off an inter-dimensional dragon spirit, thwart countless plots to take over the world, defeat Dr. Menace at every turn, subdue a giant crab, and then get turned to hamburger while trying to save a damn cat.”

  They kept falling. His Field kicked in mere inches from the ground. Atomik Lad bounced across Larson Beach like a skipping stone until he came to a clumsy stop some distance from what was left of Nuklear Man’s birthday party. “Ouch,” he moaned.

  “Mew.”

  Nuklear Man landed knee deep in sand next to them. “Ooh! You saved him!”

  “You’re talking to the cat, aren’t you.”

  “Of course I am. You should know better than to fly at such dangerous speeds.”

  Atomik Lad grumbled.

  “Lucky for you, Katkat was able to catch you and talk some sense into you.”

  “Why did you throw him?”

  “Cats can fly.”

  “Cats can’t fly.

  “Katkat told me so.”

  “No. No, he did not.”

  “It’s the special thing they can all do.”

  “No, they’re supposed to be able to land on all four feet.”

  “Oh. Well, then, no harm done.”

  Atomik Lad stood up, still holding Katkat. “You know, Nuke. Katkat is a really dumb name.”

  “Is not. You’re just not smart enough to understand its intricacies. Like me.”

  “‘Like you’ meaning you can or can’t understand these alleged intricacies?”

  “Um. Nyes.”

  “Let’s just get back to Norman and Rachel, clean up the party, give you your stinking present, and get back to the Silo for some nice sleep. Being with you all day is sending me to an early grave.”

  __________

  An hour later, the sun started to set behind the dunes. Rachel and the Heroes finally disposed of the leftover junk and garbage from Nuklear Man’s prematurely preempted party. Even Mighty Metallic Magno Man was able to help, though he tended to walk in wobbly lines. Katkat slept soundly in the Magnomobile’s driver’s seat.

  The chores were completed and Nuklear Man’s incessant whining had become unbearable. Atomik Lad and Norman hauled the Hero’s present from the Magnomobile’s trunk. The box was taller than Nuklear Man. His eyes widened with childish glee. “Let’s cut ‘er open like a prom date!” he said enthusiastically.

  Everyone else took a step back from Nuklear Man and traded worried glances.

  “Hey, don’t look at me,” Atomik Lad said. “I just work for the guy.”

  Nuklear Man tore into the huge box like a massive jungle cat mauling its prey, but only Katkat knew this for sure. Little foam peanuts poured out of the wounded box until they came up to Nuklear Man’s knees.

  “Ack! It’s got me! Curse you, curse you all for this treachery!” he howled. “May I haunt you from beyond the grave for eternity!”

  “Nuke, it’s just the packing material. It’s there so that what’s inside doesn’t break in shipping,” Atomik Lad said.

  Nuklear Man ceased his throes of death and dove into the package. He pulled out a small box with “A Fubar doll!” in it a few seconds later. He clutched the small box like it was his own long-lost child.

  “You didn’t,” Rachel moaned. “Please tell me you didn’t.”

  “We had to,” Atomik Lad said.

  “Yeah,” Norman said. “It was the only thing we could find. I mean, what do you get the man who doesn’t know anything?” He poked Nuklear Man in the ribs.

  “Get your slimy hands away from it, you, you sneaky sneak! He’s mine!” Nuklear Man stroked the small Fubar toy. It teetered on the border between adorably cute and hideously evil.

  “Okay, Nuke. Whatever.” His Magnowatch beeped. “Oh, geez, I’ve got to get back to the Magnopad. Catch you guys later.” He saluted them. “Great meeting you, Rachel.”

  “I know,” she said with a coy little smile.

  “Don’t let Sparky pull that ‘Out of gas’ shtick on you.”

  She just smiled as the Tungsten Titan set Katkat on the sand and took off in his purply supercool car.

  Atomik Lad watched him pull out onto the wreck-littered highway beyond the dunes. “Isn’t the Magnopad the other way? Eh, he’ll figure it out. Anyway, how’s your present, Nuke?”

  “Don’t touch it, you knave!” he snapped. Atomik Lad was nowhere near it. “I love it to bits! I can’t wait to get back to the Silo to get ‘im going. Katkat and Fubar all in one day. This is perfect!”

  “He seems content,” Rachel said.

  “Maybe I’ll get to drive this time.”

  “Let’s hope.”

  At that moment, a 747 clumsily wound its way through the sky. A long black plume of smoke trailed behind it. Thanks to Nuklear Man’s Nuklear Hearing, he heard a world full of thankful citizens pledging their lives to the eternal reign of the Nuklear World Order because he also happened to have Nuklear Hallucinations.

  “Hey, I think that plane’s on fire!” Atomik Lad said. “We’ve got to do something.”

  Nuklear Man was roused from his fantasy world just long enough to realize what was really going on. “Ladies, please, no shoving. There’s plenty of your Nuklear Love Machine to go around.”

  “What?” Rachel asked.

  Atomik Lad hit his mentor in the back of the head and released Nuklear Man from both his fantasy world and the dream world inside that fantasy world. “Yo,” the Hero reported.

  “Plane. Fire. Crash.” Atomik Lad summarized. He pointed at the plane.

  Nuklear Man’s eyes pulled one of those dramatic squinting close-up shots as he reviewed the situation. With his best tough guy voice, he said, “This looks like a job for—”

  “Please don’t,” Atomik Lad pleaded.

  “—Katkat!”

  “Mew?”

  Nuklear Man snatched the feline from the sand and rocketed after the imperiled plane with a sparkling Plazma comet tail in his wake.

  “I blame myself mostly,” Atomik Lad grumbled.

  “So will the Humane Society when they sue the pants off you,” Rachel said. “Which might not be so bad,” she added with a wink.

  Atomik Lad wobbled, but the severity of the situation forced him to recover. “Okay, I’ve got to make sure nothing happens. Rachel, wait here. I’ll be back.” His Atomik Field crackled around his body and propelled him after the Hero.

  She shaded her eyes from the setting sun as she watched him soar. “This is just weird.”

  __________

  Issue 24 – Hijackery!

  The Metroville Airport Air Traffic Control Tower bustled with activity, which was no surprise considering the amount of Air Traffic that must be Controlled in Metroville’s Airport. Not to mention the unconventional means of air travel that plagued the city in the
form of self-catapulting midgets and caped weirdos.

  The Colonel chewed on his stubby cigar, thus cementing Jerry’s long held suspicion that the Colonel was utterly insane. This belief first developed the moment Jerry met him when the Colonel introduced himself as “the Colonel” and violently insisted everyone refer to him as such despite the fact that he never held any military rank whatsoever in his life. Nevertheless, Jerry, as an Air Traffic Controller, had a job to do. So he did it.

  “Colonel,” Jerry reported. “Flight 1313 reports a complete loss of cabin pressure and power, all four engines are on fire, the landing gear has fallen off, the bathroom has been Occupado for well over an hour, there are only kosher meals left, a gang of terrorists have hijacked it, and both pilots are unconscious!”

  The Colonel chewed a few more chews on his cigar and stared purposefully at Jerry’s radar screen. The cigar slowly emerged from his mouth with all the stealth of a severely obese ninja trying to sneak across a well lit area.

  Jerry hated it when he did that.

  The Colonel spat his soggy cigar onto the floor. He spoke with the slight John Wayne type of drawl that anyone who demands to be referred to as “the Colonel” develops after thousands of hours of practice, “These boys are in trouble, Steve.”

  “Jerry, sir.”

  “Kevin, get me the Flight Information on that bird.”

  “Jerry, sir.” He was never certain how the Colonel was able to make words sound capitalized. It was fascinating and terrifying at the same time, like watching a tsunami as it loomed over you. “Flight 1313 took off from Metroville Airport runway thirteen at 13:13, destined for Burgesville later tonight. Flight 1313 has 130 passengers and is manned by 13 flight attendants, Captain Buck “Blackcat” Openumbrellaindoors, who hasn’t had a single mishap in his career spanning one year, one month, and thirteen days, and copilot Lance “Broken Mirror” Walkingunderladder on this, his thirteenth flight.”

  The Colonel considered the facts with a slow, sorry shake of his weathered head. “What’re the odds, eh, Charlie?”

  “Jerry, sir.”

  “Dozens of planes in the air, and this one has a case of bad luck. What a crazy, unpredictable world with no discernible patterns or allegiances to silly superstitions.”

  “Um, there is more,sir.”

  “Go on, Akbar.”

  “Jerry, sir. After about thirteen minutes of flight, a group of seven terrorists clad in mismatched Hawaiian shirts declared they were hijacking the plane to Metroville.”

  The Colonel’s confident veneer cracked with confusion. “Didn’t the plane take off in Metroville?”

  “Er. Yes. They apologized saying this was their first try. They’ve been circling the Airport trying to figure out what to do next. On their thirteenth lap, all heck broke loose. According to what we were able to piece together before they broke off radio contact, they call themselves the ‘SMOTCAOAN’ and they admit that they aren’t very good at this sort of thing.”

  “So it would seem. But it does beg the question, Suzzie.”

  “What question is that, sir?”

  “How the hell do we get them down safe?”

  __________

  Nuklear Man raced alongside the doomed aircraft. Katkat was tucked against his body like a furry and very cuddly football with big green happy eyes and a silly smiley kind of look when he purrs and rolls onto his back for lots of belly rubbing that hypnotizes him to sleep and then he sort of runs in place when he’s dreaming and it’s so cute when—er.

  Nuklear Man clung to the handle of the wide-open emergency exit door with his free hand and heaved himself inside. He closed the hatch behind and locked it. The deafening roar of wind abated only to be instantly replaced by the deafening screams of terror from the perhaps-not-as-doomed-as-before passengers.

  “What seems to be the trouble?” he asked as though it wasn’t painfully obvious.

  “It’s Nuklear Man!” someone hollered.

  “He’s here to save us!” someone else proclaimed.

  “He’s thirteen seconds late,” someone else noted.

  “I hate you guys,” another voice grumbled.

  The Hero looked down at his feet. The Socially Maladjusted Overvillains Who Can’t Agree On A Name groveled before him.

  “We done a bad thing,” Granite admitted sorrowfully.

  “Aww,” Nuklear Man acquitted them on the spot. “Just get back to your seats and we’ll pretend none of this happened.”

  The seven villains mumbled embarrassed apologies as they seated themselves. Nuklear Man set Katkat down and began thinking about what to do.

  __________

  Meanwhile, just underneath the plane, Atomik Lad pushed his power of flight to its limit. He could barely keep up with the jet and was concentrating so hard on catching the vessel that he hadn’t noticed his Atomik Field streamlining itself into a sheen of crimson covering his body exactly as it had never done before.

  __________

  Nuklear Man consulted the more coherent flight attendants. Apparently, as he could best surmise from the reports given by these trained professionals, the plane was in some kind of danger. He pound his mighty fist into the other hand to punctuate his frustration. “If only we knew what was wrong!”

  “The wings are on fire!” the flight attendants screamed desperately. Again. “We’ll all die!”

  “Speak for yourself, lady. I’m invincible.” He rubbed his chin intellectually. “Wings on fire, eh?” His face took on the features of a criminal genius plotting his next foolproof scheme. “I’ve got it!” Nuklear Man rocketed out the door, tore off the left wing, blasted off the right, and returned through the same door, closing it gingerly behind him.

  Everyone aboard awaited his verdict. He cleared his throat and proudly announced, “I got rid of the wings so now the fires can’t spread to us here in the cabin. We’re perfectly safe now.”

  The screaming began anew.

  “No, no. You don’t have to thank me. It’s all a part of being a Hero.”

  A puffy gray cat tail slipped through the curtain between the Coach and First Class sections.

  __________

  Atomik Lad dodged the errant wings. At least it’s easier to keep up with the plane without those. Without thinking, he bashed his way into the cargo area and hoped he could find a way into the plane proper from there.

  _________

  “Colonel! A signal is coming from Flight 1313!” Jerry reported.

  “Put it on the speaker, Bubbles.”

  “Jerry, sir.” He did as he was ordered.

  Screams muffled by distance and closed doors could be heard from the tiny speaker.

  “Vicki, give me the microphone.”

  “Jerry, sir,” he said and handed over the microphone.

  “This is the Colonel at Metroville Airport’s Control Tower. Do you read me, Flight 1313?”

  There was a pause.

  “Flight 1313, come in!”

  “Meow?”

  __________

  Though Nuklear Man had heard the phrase “Six Degrees of Separation” he’d never considered the possibility of there being a concept of “Two Degrees of Comfort”. Apparently airline seating was based on the latter. He sat, rather uncomfortably, in the Coach section while waiting for the situation to resolve itself. “This is a shocking insult to the entire school of reclining. Feh. I wonder what’s shakin’ up front.” Nuklear Man floated beyond the Class Curtain and into Paradise.

  __________

  Atomik Lad burst from the mini-kitchen floor with a mass of twitching crimson surrounding him. It diffused of its own accord and nearly dropped the sidekick back down the very hole he’d just produced. He caught himself on the edge and grunted as he climbed up. “That moron had better be handling this.”

  __________

  He wasn’t.

  Maidens clad in flowing white robes frolicked about the burbling First Class Fountain. Nuklear Man, at some point, had donned a smoking jacket and was recl
ining—real reclining—in a comfy leather couch while one maiden fed him fresh grapes and another fanned him with an enormous palm frond.

  First Class was an airborne paradise despite the sudden and explosive ends the universe was conspiring to make of it. Yet not one of the First Class patrons worried. How could they? All notions that an outside world ever existed were long gone.

  “Did I ever tell you ladies that I’m Nuklear Man?”

  The maidens cooed.

  “Awww yeah.,”

  “I bet he knows Mighty Metallic Magno Man.”

  “Er, what? No. Nukie here. Not him. Me.”

  “He’s so dreamy,” another maiden said.

  “Stop it. Stop that. He’s nothing. I can do stuff he can’t, like lift tanks. He can’t lift tanks.”

  The maidens snuggled closer to Nuklear Man. “Rrrrrrreally?”

  He thought about it. “Well, unless he used his Magnopowers. He could probably put ‘em in orbit then. I can’t compete with that.”

  “Oh.” They paid him no more attention. It would have taken too much effort from the all-consuming effort of talking amongst themselves about Mighty Metallic Magno Man.

  “Phooey.”

  Atomik Lad ran into First Class, the curtains fluttered in his wake. He skidded to a halt and was instantly dumbfounded by the delights that assaulted his senses like a soft kiss. A smoking jacket was already around his shoulders somehow. A pair of robed maidens led him to a couch directly across from the pouting Nuklear Man.

  “Why don’t you relax, Mr. Atomik?” they said like Sirens.

  “Relax? Wasn’t there something I was supposed to do?”

  “Yes, let us make your trip as pleasant as possible.”

  “Pleasant,” he smiled. Wait. A trip?

  Nuklear Man waved a dopey wave to his sidekick. “Don’t mention Norman.”

  Norman. Beach. Plane. Trouble. Nuke. Katkat. Me. Here. Now. “Ah-ha!” Atomik Lad sprang into action just as the First Class Succubae were making their moves. His patented and volatile Atomik Field tore the smoking jacket to shreds. “Nuke! We have to do something about this plane, it’s going to crash any—” The plane’s momentum went all silly. Metal screeched against stone, loose odds and ends were tossed around, the fountain stopped, the maidens were toppled into a big pile, and Nuklear Man’s top half was sticking out the roof while Atomik Lad remained strangely unaffected by the whole mess. They were motionless now. His Field fizzled away.