“Thinking about how to reveal Ultimate’s identity to the world?” Linda continued. “I think I should get the byline for that one.”
“I think you should too,” he said, and watched her face light up like a Christmas tree. “I couldn’t think of anybody better suited to write that story, sweetheart.”
“It may not be the story of the year, but it will be on the front page, unless the Nazis pick that day to do something especially heinous.” Linda gave him a mischievous look. “I’ll have to try and get a quote from Edgar J. Hoover, now that he’s finally stopped telling everybody that Neolympians are nothing more than tall tales and Nazi and Communist propaganda. And as soon as it’s official, you can hit those clowns at Buck Comics with a lawsuit for back royalties.”
John smiled. Buck Comics had been ‘chronicling’ his exploits – making up most of those exploits and grossly distorting the rest – for over a year. “I’m not in it for the money, my dear. I might ask them to give some of it to charity, though.”
“How about when Hollywood comes knocking? I’ve heard rumors Universal might be interested in doing a feature about you.”
“Maybe I can get them to have Cary Grant play my part.”
“No dice, darling. Cary Grant is with Paramount.”
“Too bad. Hepburn could have played you.”
Linda snorted. “That’d be a hoot. Or maybe Rosalind Russell, except she’s already played a brassy reporter.”
“I still think they based His Girl Friday on you,” John teased. “Maybe you should sue those clowns.”
“I didn’t marry the editor of my paper,” she said. “Can you picture me saying my I-dos to Mr. Wilkins?”
John had to laugh at that. Mr. Wilkins – he could not imagine using his Christian name even at this remove – was a heavyset, profane and bulldog-faced Great War veteran with as much charm as the set of brass knuckles he kept on his desk as a paperweight. If Cary Grant’s role in His Girl Friday had been based on Mr. Wilkins, the writers had taken poetic license to dramatic extremes. He said as much to Linda and got a good laugh in return.
“Well, if I do end up in a serial or, God forbid, a serious movie, I’ll try to see if they can set a little something aside for charity, too.”
“So you won’t take a dime for risking your life to save people?” Linda asked, somewhat incredulously.
“For one, I’m not risking as much as all that,” he said, faintly embarrassed. The first time he had been shot, he had flinched, expecting the worst, and been as shocked as the shooter – a bank robber with a Chicago typewriter and an itchy trigger finger – when they both realized the bullets had bounced clean off his skin. One of the .45 rounds had ricocheted right into the shooter’s shoulder, too, which took care of him until the cops showed up. Since then people had used knives, billy clubs, speeding cars and every type of gun on him, to no visible effect. He wasn’t risking his life, not really.
During the war, the Nazis had tried everything from 88s to an assortment of super-weapons. He'd been hurt a few times, but not very often.
He shook his head again. What Nazis? He hadn't fought any Nazis. The European war was none of his business, or America’s either. More phantom memories of things that hadn’t happened. Or things that hadn’t happened yet? Was he catching glimpses from the future, like that Gypsy fortune teller he’d once met? That was worrisome.
“And for another?” Linda said after several seconds of silence.
“Uh, yes. For another, I wouldn’t feel right taking money for that kind of thing. I try to help people. That’s all.”
“You’re a swell fella, John Clarke,” Linda said drily. “A little too swell, if you ask me. You don’t see Doc Slaughter stinting on himself. He owns an entire building right downtown!”
“Only the eighty-fifth floor,” John corrected. “Okay, and the eighty-third and eighty-fourth, too. But he’s earned his money honestly. The man has patents on half the gizmos of the last decade. The Garand-Slaughter automatic rifle the Army is looking into buying, just to name one.”
“Yeah, a neat invention, except how’s Roosevelt going to pay for all the ammo those guns burn through? Twenty-round magazines – it’s like giving a Thompson to every grunt. Uncle Willis was livid at the very idea, let me tell you.” Linda’s uncle was a retired Marine general, a man not disinclined to voicing his opinions on a plethora of subjects. “Not that the jarheads ever get the latest toys, but for him it’s the principle of the thing. But you digress, mister,” she told John accusingly. “I didn’t think you were in it for the money, either, or the glory. Although you could have fooled me when you started busting heads wearing that circus outfit. Whatever possessed you to do that?”
“I hate to say it, but it first occurred to me watching the Olympics: Hitler’s Knights in their gaudy costumes. They became an inspiration to Nazis everywhere. I thought maybe I should try to create our own symbols. And that’s also why I didn’t wear a mask. I didn’t want to look like I had something to hide.”
“So you ended up wearing a mask – a fake mustache, anyhow – when you were playing at being an average Joe. I don’t know if that’s funny or sad or just a bit bonkers.”
“Well, that’s all over. John Clarke, reporter, is going to be dead and gone as soon as the story goes public.”
“John Clarke, a.k.a. Ultimate the Invincible Man will still be here. Who stuck you with that moniker, by the way? Ultimate? Sounds like a new car model, a Ford Ultimate, or something like that.”
“That was one of the Buck Comics kids, Joe or Jerry, I forget which one. They had a couple of other ideas but they sounded too much like the ubermensch stuff Hitler loves.”
Linda said something in return, but her words were drowned out by strange music blaring throughout the restaurant. John’s enhanced hearing would normally have pinpointed the source instantly, but the sound seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. It lasted for several seconds before stopping, replaced by the ordinary sounds of the diner. For some reason, the music made John think of a telephone, even though it sounded nothing like a telephone’s normal ringing.
“ – at least have them spring for a fancier costume,” Linda finished.
“Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“That music…” John began to say, but realized from Linda’s expression that she hadn’t heard a thing. He was hearing stuff that wasn’t there, having visions of things that hadn’t happened. His mind – or something else – was playing tricks on him.
A man’s voice echoed through the diner, once again drowning out all other sounds. “Yes.” A pause. “It is working. He’s wholly unaware.” Another pause. “Yes, I could do it if necessary.” The voice was familiar somehow, but John couldn’t place it.
“John, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Linda said, a concerned look in her face. “What is wrong?”
“This is wrong,” John heard himself say. “All wrong.”
The overwhelming voice came back. “She’s here? And I should take care of this? How? Oh, you mean use him. Yes, I can keep control for at least several hours. There are risks, however.”
This was all wrong. This wasn’t real.
The omnipresent voice returned. “Go back to sleep, you stupid oaf.”
The world shifted. John’s doubts dissolved away.
Linda touched his hand. He looked at her, and saw her smiling at him, radiant in her wedding dress.
“You may kiss the bride,” the priest said, beaming from ear to ear.
“Not if the bride kisses him first,” Linda said, and did. John found himself standing up in a tuxedo by the altar in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, being kissed by the woman of his dreams. Hadn’t he just been in a diner on his first date with her? Memory could play funny tricks when you were fighting wedding jitters, he told himself, forgetting the weird feelings and giving in to happiness.
Christine Dark
Chicago, Illinois, March 14, 2013
Christin
e stopped running after she had put a handful of blocks between her and that little scene from Sons of Anarchy. She’d heard a police siren out in the distance but she couldn’t tell if it was headed towards her. She hadn’t run so far so fast in her life, and she wasn’t even winded. After a quick look around, she felt confident nobody had followed her. People around here minded their own business, apparently.
And the madness continued, Day Two, or was it Three? One really loses track when living in a roller coaster ride. Funny, she’d been in two firefights in the last hour or so, and she was mostly worried about finding her friends, which would probably lead to Firefight Numero Tres. She’d never even seen or heard a real gun being fired before today, let alone had one shot at her. Stupid guns. They were so frakking loud.
The neighborhood still looked pretty bad. Maybe she should try and get on the El and head uptown, or downtown, or the Loop or whatever, except she didn’t have a dime to her name. Maybe she should have gone through the pockets of the guy she’d punched out, what’s a little mugging after assault and battery? What kind of gamer was she? Always loot the bodies after you take them down! She’d probably missed out on some phat loot.
Brain…
Her train of thought slowed down a bit and she kept walking. It was beginning to get dark. Hopefully she’d be out of the worst part of the neighborhood before night time, when she guessed things got even livelier. They had to have shopping malls in this universe, right? She would find a mall, sit at the food court after ordering some free water, and think things through. There, a sensible plan.
“Excuse me, ma’am!”
The voice was loud, male, very serious and authoritarian, and coming from somewhere up and to her right. Christine looked up and saw a costumed superhero standing on a hovering metal disk and looking down at her.
Oh, no.
People on the street were clearing out in a hurry like this was High Noon in your typical good old Western. Somebody must have snitched on her. Whatever happened to the code of silence? Christine had never been busted for anything before. This was bad, so very bad.
The guy on the flying metal Frisbee was wearing a scarlet and gold costume, complete with a half-mask that covered the upper part of his face, thigh high boots (not butch at all, dude), sculpted abs that she couldn’t tell whether they were real or built into the costume, and a freaking golden bow and quiver of arrows on his back. He wasn’t very tall but had freakily huge biceps.
“Ma’am, please come with me. I am placing you under arrest for assault and unlawful use of parahuman abilities.”
And where were you when those creeps tried to assault me with their human abilities? “Umm, ah, I didn’t do anything?”
“I have video footage of the assault,” Frisbee Man said. “Please come with me peacefully.”
Crappity crap. Face-Off had said they couldn’t go to the authorities or bad things would happen. On the other hand, where else could she go? Maybe this guy could help. Christine shrugged. “Okay, I give up, you son of a Katniss.”
“Son of a what?”
“Sorry, nothing.” This is not a good idea, her brain whispered, and she agreed, but what else could she do? “Listen, some of my friends are in big trouble, and maybe you can help. I didn’t mean to hurt anybody, those guys back there started it, and I’m really worried about my friends.” Maybe Frisbee Robin Hood would help, even if he looked like the king of a Gaudy Pride Parade.
“I’m sure we can help, ma’am. We can sort things out when you are in custody,” Gaudy Man said, sounding very sure and confident. Face-Off hadn’t sounded like that but she trusted him a lot more than this officious guy. Mark, are you okay?
“Thank you, and you look fabulous, by the way, er, what’s your name?”
Frisbee guy looked a bit put out by the question. Christine guessed people who dressed like that wanted to be recognized, promptly and without room for doubt, and she had lost points for not being in shock and awe of him and his Lady Gaga-esque outfit, even if she had complimented him for it. “I’m the Crimson Fletcher, of course.”
“Of course.” All the good names must have been taken, what with superheroes running around for seventy-odd years. She was amazed someone could run around in scarlet thigh-high boots and call himself the Crimson Fletcher with a perfectly straight face, but that wasn’t important now.
“Here,” the Crimson Fletcher said as he tossed something to Christine. She caught it by reflex – by brand-new reflex, since before her rise to superhumandom the only things she caught were colds and pop culture references.
She’d caught a shiny pair of ultra-tech handcuffs with electronic circuitry etched on their surface.
“If you can kindly put them on, hands behind your back, we’ll be on our way,” the Fletch said pleasantly.
Not a good idea at all. “Uh, thanks, but I’ve already been tied up once this week, and that’s like my limit.”
“Please do as instructed, ma’am.”
Getting peeved now. Nobody had called her ‘ma’am’ so many times in a row. She dropped the handcuffs; they clattered on the pavement. “Sorry, but no.”
Frisbee guy didn’t like that. He drew and shot faster than the eye could follow. Well, faster than the normal human eye could follow. Christine followed the move just fine, and she got a shield up in plenty of time to catch the arrow. An arrow with what looked like a trank dart on its tip.
“CF here. Need back-up, pronto,” the Fletch said, clearly not speaking to her. “I gave you a chance to surrender peacefully,” he continued, this time definitely talking to her. He had another arrow on his bow's string, ready to go.
“So many Hunger Games references, so little time,” Christine muttered to herself. Once again, instead of feeling like was about to pee herself she now felt a thrill of excitement. She decided to give peace one more chance. “Hey, I said I’d come along peacefully, just not in handcuffs, okay?” Especially not handcuffs that looked like they did something to cancel out people’s powers.
Frisbee Fletch didn’t bother replying with words. Instead he shot her again, with an arrowhead that exploded into a dozen metal bands clearly intended to wrap her up from shoulder to ankles. This guy really wanted to tie her up. Maybe she should introduce him to Kestrel. She expanded her shield and the metal bands recoiled away in a shower of sparks. Electrical metal bands? They probably would have hurt a lot if they’d wrapped around her. Gaudy Pride Fletch was turning out to be quite a prick, and didn’t she just sound like Face-Off in her head when she thought that? She was beginning to understand why Mark didn’t like costumed heroes.
“Quit shooting arrows at me!”
“Quit resisting arrest,” El Fletcho replied even as he shot yet another arrow at her, this time something that burst onto her shield in a cloud of thick smoke. Or gas; she probably shouldn’t inhale that stuff. She felt her shield thickening somehow, and the gas could not get through. Air-tight shield. Cool. She held her breath anyway and scampered away from the gas cloud.
It kept raining arrows. The Scarlet Prick fired a spread of five blunt arrows that hit way harder than the bullets her shield had deflected earlier that afternoon. He must be using a gazillion-pound draw. “Dammit, Legolas! Stop being such a d-bag!”
From the way Fletch-boy’s lips tightened, he knew who Legolas was, had been called Legolas before, and didn’t like it one bit. He shot her again.
This arrow exploded.
Christine got picked up and smashed into a wall by the shockwave. She felt bricks crumbling under her shield and she found herself lying in the ruins of a building lobby, right next to a row of mailboxes.
“Dude! This is someone’s home you just blew up!”
Frisbee Prick had to come closer to the ground to see her through the hole he’d blasted into the building. Christine didn’t give him a chance to shoot again.
In the marathon practice session at Condor’s lair, she’d practiced shooting different kinds of energy blasts. A narrow one would probably
blow a hole right through El Pricko, so she smacked him with a wide beam instead, more like a slap instead of an icepick stab. It still knocked him clear off his Frisbee and sent him flying in an arc that ended right on top of a parked car. The car crumpled pretty badly under the impact. He wasn’t too badly hurt, though. In fact, he sat up and started reaching for another arrow. Christine visualized a giant fist above his head, and drove it down, smashing Gaudy Prick right through the roof of the car so only his legs were showing. They were twitching a little bit, so she guessed he’d be all right after a while.
Christine started running again. Maybe she should fly away, but she had to really concentrate to fly, and she didn’t know if she’d be able to defend herself. What she needed was a fast-flying gryphon, and nobody was handing those out in this universe. Crap. She stayed on the ground, running away from Hunger Fletch at full speed.
Running at full speed right into a living metal guy.
This guy was shiny and looked like a statue, if you put a statue in a metal crusher and pressed it down until it looked like a fireplug on short legs, about five foot two or so and almost as wide as it was tall, and removed any hint of charm and good looks. Oh, and painted it Day-Glo orange. Metal dude’s face was almost as featureless as Mark’s, with only a hint of nose and mouth, and eyes that glowed like molten iron.
C-Fletch’s back-up had arrived.
A metallic fist the size of a Thanksgiving turkey flashed towards her face. She tried to dodge but didn’t make it in time, and the lights went out for a second. She came to leaning next to the stump of a streetlight pole, about a hundred feet from where she’d been just a second ago. Holy violence against women! Her shield had absorbed most of the impact, but she still felt like someone had punched her in the face. Nobody had ever done that to her, not since she was a child, and she found she didn’t like it any more than she had then.
Day-Glo Man was charging her, bounding thirty or forty feet with each stride.
“You a-Hole!” Even as peeved off – no, pissed off – as she was, she still tried to think things through. Day-Glo Dick’s last jump placed him right over her head: he was clearly planning to stomp her like a cucaracha. Christine let him have a giant-fist style blast straight up. She put more power into it, too.
New Olympus Saga (Book 1): Armageddon Girl Page 28