Nuklear Age

by Clevinger, Brian

  “Well, not a bad plan, but these ventilation shafts aren’t even big enough for a person to crawl through. Why, you’d. Have to be.”

  Katkat meowed at Atomik Lad’s hand to prompt the ex-sidekick into petting him some more. Again, the cat’s tail twitched happily. Atomik Lad looked to Katkat, the screen, Katkat, the screen.

  “No. Couldn’t be.” He walked to the Danger: Plannin’ Room. “His tail just happened to click on the Internet icon. And then the web browser icon. And then typed out the address of the Metroville Hall of Public Records.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Unlikely, downright improbable, but possible. Besides, the North Tower’s vents were sealed off with stone blocks. He’d have to—”

  Dr. Menace stepped out of the Danger: Plannin’ Room. “Do you alwayz store child-sized pick axez and flashlightz on your kitchen table?”

  “Gasp.”

  “What?”

  “Cat. Vents, prison. Mining. He,” Atomik Lad babbled.

  Dr. Menace turned back into the kitchen. “I am surrounded by blubbering clodz.”

  __________

  The Danger: Kitchen Table was covered in tactical satellite photos of the newly christened Superion Hall, Superion Square, Superidyne, and the Superindustrial Park which was now bustling with mindless red-clad workers and dozens of half-constructed machines of war.

  “Thiz iz my plan,” Dr. Menace began. She looked to Atomik Lad. “At twenty-one hundred hours, you will approach Superion and engage him in converzation.”

  Nuklear Man, already taxed by the act of having to pay attention, gave Dr. Menace what he liked to call The Face: a slight curling of the lip, a slacking of the jaw, and an empty nodding of the head as she droned on.

  “…But do not attempt to fight him.” She paused momentarily, that nagging little voice in the back of her head insisted that something was not quite right. She turned to Nuklear Man who deftly deflected any suspicion by looking away with an overly I’m So Innocent look an instant too late which served only to increase any suspicion the not-so-good-doctor had. She carried on, “Ahem. Merely diztract him so that Nuklear Man,” who carried on giving her The Face, “can take him by surprize.” Again she turned to him, quicker this time, and again he looked away an instant too late.

  “Got it,” Atomik Lad reported.

  Nuklear Man went back to Facing Dr. Menace.

  “Then Nuklear Man will drop in on our uzurper. In their melee, Superion’z mental hold on the populaze will slip away. That iz where I come in with my modified Defusionizer Cannon to strike down the arrogant—stop doing that!” she blurt, shaking with anger.

  Atomik Lad looked up just in time to see Nuklear Man still giving her the Face before switching to the Oh No You Must Be Mistaken It Wasn’t Me Because I’m Looking Over Here face.

  “Nuke. If you’re going to be a distraction, then just leave,” Atomik Lad said.

  The Hero happily skipped out the Danger: Plannin’ Room. “Heh, heh, suckers!” he taunted as the Danger: Door fwooshed shut behind him. Silly Sam’s Cartoon Marathon-a-thon o’ Fun could be heard coming from the Danger: Living Room.

  Dr. Menace took a series of deep breaths to purge her psyche of rage. “How do you put up with that every day?”

  “It’s not so bad. You build up a sort of a tolerance.”

  “By toleranze, do you mean you ignore him or do you imagine perpetrating variouz actz of violence againzt him?”

  “A little from column A, a little from column B.”

  Dr. Menace almost smiled. “Yez, well. You do realize that once thiz job iz done, we shall go our separate wayz.”

  Atomik Lad shrugged. “As you wish.”

  They shook on it.

  __________

  A few minutes from twenty-one hundred hours. Lightning rumbled threateningly within the depths of the night’s black clouds. The ex-sidekick raced on Atomik wings through Metroville’s barren streets. He decided to stay low to avoid the possibility of becoming a living lightning rod.

  “I just hope Nuke can be trusted to come through with his part of the plan.,” he mumbled to himself while taking impossibly sharp turns through a couple alleys. Sheets of newspaper swirled in his wake like a cliché of set design.

  __________

  Nuklear Man was sprawled across the Danger: Couch as the latest installment of Silly Sam’s Cartoon Marathon-a-thon o’ Fun played itself out before his very eyes. Katkat was curled up against the Hero’s tummy with his own furry belly exposed for maximum comfort.

  “Must. Resist. Belly love,” Nuklear Man told himself while his hand reached out to Katkat; slowly so its owner wouldn’t notice until it was too late to do anything about it. “Dum de dum, I sure do like cartoons,” Nuklear Man told Katkat. “It’s a good thing Sparky and Dr. Menace decided to make our plan start right when my show is over so I wouldn’t be too distracted to be able to bust out old school with some burning Plazma Justice instead of sitting here being all distracted by something utterly inane.” His hand had made belly contact. “Oh no.”

  __________

  Dr. Menace was hunched over a work bench at her abandoned warehouse headquarters. She was madly working homemade instruments on the exposed innards of her Defusionizer Cannon. She took off her Ultra-Magnifier Goggles and rest them next to the Positron Zapifier with its wires sprawled across the counter like they were desperately reaching back to the cannon. She wiped sweat from her brow and gave the totality of her work thus far a look.

  “The Beam Coherentizer iz connected to the Nega-Particle Wave Induzer. The Nega-Particle Wave Induzer iz connected to the Frequenzy Modifier. The Frequenzy Modifier iz connected to the Polarizing Lenz.” She leaned back and tilt her head. “Since the cannon is already set to neutralize Nuklear Moron’z unique Plazma Energy readingz, I would have to recalibrate the entire mechanizm for Superion’s Negaflux Energy in order for it to work on him.” She crossed her arms. “It took me nearly two yearz to finally compile enough information about the Golden Goon so thiz cannon would exterminate hiz blazted powerz. How could I achieve a similar effect againzt Superion without the prerequizite data?” she asked the assembled disassembled Defusionizer Cannon pieces.

  The answer came from the Beam Stabilizer.

  “Yez. If I changed the Beam Stabilizer into a Frequenzy Modulator, and change the method of energy projection from a beam of preprogrammed Negaflux energy of a particular frequenzy to a pulze of Negaflux energy of randomly alternating frequenciez that would naturally cohere to neutralize whatever the blast struck, then I could fire one blazt at Superion.” Her devilish genius took it a step further. “And fire another blazt at Nuklear Clod! Thereby eliminating them both!” She spun a pen sized welder between her fingers. “Of courze, the Atomik Lad could eazily be kept under control if hiz beloved Rachel were, shall we say, my captive.”

  Villainous laughter echoed from the depths of the Abandoned Warehouse District like it hadn’t in weeks.

  __________

  Atomik Lad looked up at Superion Hall from the bottom of its front steps. His feet crunched on the shattered glass his Field had liberated earlier that afternoon. The whole building had a peculiar whistling about it as pre-storm winds rushed in and out of vacant windows, taking along Progress Reports, various Order Forms, and The Like. In the darkness, he could only make the building out by the rhythmic flashes of lightning that never quite escaped their clouds.

  “Thanks, God. It’s not bad enough I have to face down a maniac even more powerful than Nuke, but you’ve got to go and make the weather all dramatic and stuff.”

  Distant thunder rumbled not entirely unlike laughter.

  “Feh.” He checked his Danger: Watch. “A minute early, but close enough.” His Atomik Field erupted like an explosion, only silent and unable to escape from its moment of ultimate violence, trapped as it was in a second of ecstatic rage. He floated up to the top floor slowly, effortlessly, like it was the ground falling away instead of him rising from it. “Show time.”

  Su
perion Hall’s windowless walls gave way to red draperies rippling in the winds at the top floor. Atomik Lad reached out to tear one away but his Field ripped it to shreds. He recoiled too late and was horrified to find that after all these years and all his precautions, he could still make such a simple and potentially fatal mistake.

  He didn’t have the luxury of dwelling on it for long. “So nice of you to join us, Sport.”

  Atomik Lad peered inside. He could see Superion, illuminated by a sudden flash of lightning, sitting in the high-backed Mayor’s chair. “I was beginning to doubt the strength of your heroic impulses,” Superion said. “But it seems that you have been sufficiently programmed to do your duty even when you know you have no hope of victory.”

  Good. He’s feeling villainously conversational. Just gotta keep him talking. “Sounds like you’ve got Superior ConfidenceTM too.”

  Superion smiled sinisterly. “It looks like I underestimated you in our last confrontation.”

  “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Nuke in all our time together, and believe me, one thing over the course of ten years is quite a lot from him, it’s to never give up.”

  “Oh, your vaunted Nuklear Man.” Superion revolved the chair through some of the slowest and most deliberate 360 degrees the ex-sidekick had ever seen. “I am as far beyond him as he is beyond you. How can you possibly hope to do anything more than be broken by my hands?”

  Atomik Lad shrugged. “I’m an idealist. It’s a character flaw.”

  “Your bravado is another.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  __________

  “We now conclude our broadcast day,” Silly Sam said directly into the camera with all the earnest seriousness that his name did not imply. An arm popped up from off screen to hand Silly Sam a sheet of paper. He scanned it and faced the camera once more. “Well, I was just informed that as of tomorrow we will no longer be known as Silly Sam’s Cartoon Marathon-a-thon o’ Fun. We’ll change formats and become Super Superion’s Superion-a-thon o’ Worship. I, for one, look forward to these changes. Good night.” The screen switched to a test pattern that already incorporated Superion’s Star-S symbol.

  “Well,” Nuklear Man told himself. “Time to get goin’. Ahem. I said, it looks like it’s time to go. Yup. Gotta go.”

  His fingers were still scratchity-scratch-scratching Katkat. “C’mon!” He pleaded to no avail. “Okay. I can do this. I’ve punched through walls and comets and missiles and robots and stuff. Surely I can summon, from within the vast depths of my Nukleadium Core, enough power to resist the cutie wutieness of a kitty belly.” His Plazma Aura flared as he tried to pull away. He leaned away from Katkat, yet his hand managed to continue its belly rub-fest without interruption. With his still obedient hand, he grabbed the unruly one by the wrist and pulled with all his might. “Herg! Must. Overcome. Own. Infinite strength. And. Good looks!” Still nothing. “Oh, drat your irresistible hide!” he spat at Katkat.

  “Mew?”

  “No. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

  “Meow.”

  “Honest.”

  Katkat purred and squirmed around on his back in utter cat delight.

  “Aww geez. No fair.” The Hero pondered for a minute. “Ooh! I’ve got it! Oh Danger: Nukebots. Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

  “We ain’t yer damned slave labor no more, air-breather,” Alpha cursed from within the and rather spacious Danger: Nukebot’s Room which they had the Danger: Nanobots fix up for them during Nuklear Man’s hiatus in jail.

  “Aww, c’mon guys! I really need your help this time.”

  “Damn monkeys always need our help,” Beta grumbled. He and Alpha poked their metallic heads out their door and said, “What?”

  “I can’t stop scratching Katkat’s widdle belly belly tummy tum, no I can’t. No I can’t!”

  “No, I can’t believe I haven’t rejected my latest core mass,” Alpha said, holding onto his stomach area.

  “So you can’t stop scratchin’ the cat. Sounds like a personal problem. What do you want us to do about it?” Beta asked.

  “Make me stop,” the Hero whimpered. “It’s all like important and stuff.”

  “Make him stop, eh?” Alpha surmised. “You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”

  Beta gave a nod. “I believe I am.”

  “What’cha thinkin’?” Nuklear Man asked even though he really probably would’ve been better off not knowing.

  “We’re gonna beat the bajeezus out of you!” They happily announced together.

  “That’ll help?”

  Beta shrugged as Alpha answered, “It’s like help.”

  __________

  When the hell is Nuke gonna get here, anyway? I can’t keep this going forever. “Do you really think—”

  Superion raised a finger to his lips and gave Atomik Lad a light shush. A moment passed. “There.” He grinned, satisfied. “There. It’s raining.”

  Atomik Lad looked out the half-shred tapestry. “You sure about that?”

  “Not here. About a mile away. I can hear it. I am more powerful than you can know. I can focus my Negaflux fields to do nearly anything.”

  Keep him talking. “Can you, now?”

  “For instance, with a mere thought, I can enhance my vision to transform the infrared into the visible spectrum. Quite convenient in all this bleak darkness, don’t you think?”

  Atomik Lad’s Field burst forth with a mind of its own just in time to protect him from a surprise Superior BeamTM. The impact still pushed him back several feet. He cursed himself for not being more alert and then cursed Nuklear Man for not being more prompt. Unfortunately, in that second-long interim, Superion had already reached him and was grasping his Field with both hands. He held him dangling at arms length outside the shattered window.

  “All too easy,” Superion taunted.

  Atomik Lad could already feel his brain split down the middle. His face contorted with an all-pervading, all-piercing pain that he imagined, in a strangely unattached and distant moment, was like being consumed by fire from the inside out.

  Not again.

  Not again.

  Not again!

  “Not again!”

  He did the only thing he could. His Field evaporated and he plummeted half numb from the mind-rending agony.

  “Clever,” Superion admitted. “But ultimately futile.”

  Atomik Lad watched as the lightning splashed sky fell from him. He watched as Superion crashed through floor after floor of his increasingly damaged headquarters. Atomik Lad’s mind wandered. Stuck between hellish agony and a broad flat surface, my only defense is my only weakness. He sighed as the air lashed his hair against his forehead. It was a lot easier when Nuke would just pummel the other guy into submission.

  He could feel Superion closing in by the increased rhythm of the usurper’s impacts. Wait for it, he told himself. Wait for it.

  Smash. Smash. Smash, smash, smashsmashsmashsmash. Almost there. Smashsmashsmasmasmasmasmash—Now—Atomik Lad’s Field burst forth and the ex-sidekick rocketed straight up. Even with his Field naturally counter acting the G-forces, it felt like he’d left his organs behind. He watched Superion whisk through the fading empty flames left by the Field’s latest birth below him.

  “Oh, he’s pissed,” Atomik Lad noted as Superion arced down and up after his quarry leaving a loop of red-purple energy in his wake.

  They soared above the rooftops of Metroville with Superion gaining much too rapidly for Atomik Lad’s tastes. In a fit of desperation, he made a feint to the northeast and veered the other way with all the speed he could muster. Sadly, this maneuver, though extremely cunning, led directly to Superion’s chest. The ex-sidekick bounced off and tumbled in the air for a second before righting himself and coming to a stop.

  The two crimson clad figures faced each other like old West gunfighters. Lightning crashed between them. Tumbleweed of the sky. Odd, Atomik Lad said to himself. My field actually dampene
d the light and sound for me. He noticed Superion didn’t have similar safeguards. It was probably even worse with his enhanced senses. “I should attack now. I should—” he saw a distant golden pinprick behind Superion. “I should wait for a second.”

  Superion recovered and laughed. “The god of war hates the man who hesitates.”

  “Oh yeah? Check this.”

  “Booya!” Nuklear Man proclaimed with a supersonic body-check. The two titans tore through the air at a steep angle as they sped past Atomik Lad and through buildings until the ground broke their fall several blocks away.

  Atomik Lad positioned himself in mid-air to look straight through the offices they’d punched through and at the crater Nuklear Man had just made, its dust still settling. The crater had punched a hole straight through the street into the city’s sewers. The darkness below flashed with alternate golden and red-purple splotches of energy. Atomik Lad closed in cautiously, floating through the angled path his mentor and foe had taken through a handful of downtown high-rises.

  Superion and Nuklear Man shot out from under the street at opposite corners of an office building. They hovered above their improvised man holes, capes flapping lightly in a wind that may or may not have been there.

  Superion cackled somewhere along the thin line between elation and madness. “So. That Atomik Lad was able to connive behind my back to free you in some kind of last ditch effort to defeat me."

  “Uh. Okay.”

  “Pathetic. And though I could easily dispatch you with little effort thanks to my incredible power, I will instead choose to prolong your suffering by forcing you to face your own friends and comrades-at-arms who have been completely brainwashed by my Superior CharmsTM!”