by Adam Graham
Naomi glared. “Stand aside.”
“You a French gal, ain’t you?”
“Oui, my people are from France.”
“Well, then you like to drink.”
“Not cheap whiskey, and certainly not with the likes of you.”
“Then you don’t know what a good time is. I’ll show you.” He reached towards her.
Naomi tensed and raised her arms to block his advance.
“Leave the lady be!”
Who said that? Naomi whirled sideways.
A rugged man with strong hands, muscular arms, and a firm jaw stood twenty feet away wearing a flannel shirt and blue jeans. He snarled at Gary.
Gary snarled back. “This isn’t any of your affair, Walker.”
“It is when you already have a girlfriend.”
Gary chuckled. “Your sissy society’s messed up. Real men don’t limit themselves to one woman. Take King Solomon, he had a thousand women. Now that was a man.”
“Perhaps Solomon wasn’t wise enough to treat his first wife with respect, but he was wise enough not to get laid out in the middle of town. You ought to be that wise and head home.”
Gary grunted. “You’re lucky I’m in a generous mood.” He blew a kiss at Naomi. “Until next time, mademoiselle.” He skulked off.
Naomi scowled. Being treated like a helpless damsel in distress was one thing she didn’t have to deal with as plain Naomi rather than the glamorous Marie Dubois. She could throw any attacker clear to the county line—and might still get her chance.
The jerk who’d run off the first sexist jerk sauntered over to her. “You okay, ma’am?”
Naomi forced a smile. “Certainly. Thank you for your help.”
“I’ve seen you around town. My name is Ted Walker.” Walker stepped aside. A nine-year-old girl with long brown hair ran from a nearby jeep, staring at Naomi and . Walker waved at the child. “This is my daughter Julia.”
“I am Marie Dubois,” Naomi said.
The little girl blurted, “You’re beautiful.”
Naomi beamed. “So are you, sweetie.”
The girl blushed. “Thank you, ma’am.”
Walker touched the girl’s back. “Let’s go. Ma’am, if you need anything, let me know.”
“I will, thank you.”
Father and daughter walked away.
Naomi headed for her Mercedes.
Time to fly home and turn back into a pumpkin.
Powerhouse strode through Central Park with John Delaney, CEO of Blue Cat Comics.
Delaney said, “Do you know that the writers like you?”
“They do?” Powerhouse shook his head. “That’s news to me.”
“Figures, you only hear from the obnoxious minority. The silent majority give me great feedback. You know your stuff. My instincts were impeccable in picking you for the job.”
“Well, I was glad to be of service.”
“And the sales are solid. You’re attracting a whole new readership and Blue Cat is profiting. I’d like you to consider working for us permanently.”
“I really can’t.”
Delaney handed him a piece of paper. “Read it.”
Powerhouse touched the document. “Three years at $500,000 per plus a company option for two more years at $750,000 per year.”
“If we exercise that option, you’ll own five percent of the company.”
Powerhouse gaped. Naomi would be so proud of him. He’d be a full-time executive, and he’d own part of a company, if he got the option.
But it was already a struggle to balance being a superhero and being an executive. “That’s very generous. But I don’t know—”
“You don’t have to give me an answer now. I understand you’re going on vacation. Let me know by the end of August.”
“Will do, and thanks for the job. It’s been interesting, and I’m proud of the work we did.”
“Right.” Delaney shook Powerhouse’s hand. “Have a good trip back.”
Powerhouse took off on his jet pack. At around five thousand feet up, he pulled his airship out of his pocket and returned it to full-size and cloaked it. He flew into the ship, walked to the cockpit and sat in the pilot’s chair and set course for home.
The computer pinged and said, “There’s an incoming transmission from the Governor of Texas.”
Powerhouse grinned. Finally, someone had contacted him on the ultra-cool secret frequency Zolgron had set up for him. “On screen, computer.”
A man in a suit appeared wearing a Stetson hat. “Howdy, Powerhouse.”
Powerhouse folded his arms. “Hello, Governor. What can I do for you?”
“I’m here to make you a proposition. We’d like you to come to Texas.”
Powerhouse sighed. “I really want to stay in Seattle until I go to Heaven.”
“Texas is the next best thing to Heaven, and we don’t care how big your coke is. Three major chains of convenience stores have promised to give you a 64 ounce cup you can refill for free any time you want.”
“I cannot be plied with free drinks.” Though free Bismarck donuts were another story.
“In addition, I think I can even get you free donuts.”
Powerhouse swallowed. Must resist. Remember, A-Rod went to Texas, and now everyone in Seattle hates him for it. “You’re not going to get me with mere treats.”
“In Texas, everything is bigger, and you’d have a lot more opportunity to help folks. Plus, Powerhouse, it’s obvious you’re a red guy in a blue state.”
He slammed his fist on the arm of his chair. “I am not a Communist!”
“No, red means conservative. Blue means those commie liberals.”
Powerhouse rolled his eyes inside his helmet. “Stop changing the color coding! How’s a guy supposed to keep up? Besides, I’m not political.”
“But you’re a Christian. Texas is much more friendly. Let me show you this map from Gallup.” He pressed a button and on the screen and a map of the US appeared. “See here, Washington is yellow, and Texas is dark green. That means Texas is far more religious.”
Powerhouse blinked. “First, I should come to Texas because it’s red, now I should because it’s green? Stop messing with the colors. I’m not interested.”
“Well, this might interest you. In Texas we’d make you a fully deputized agent of the law, a special one reporting directly to the Governor.”
Powerhouse frowned. “But then I’d have to fill out paperwork.”
“Couldn’t you use your superimagination to do that?”
“I guess I could at that,” Powerhouse said as he scratched his helmet’s chin guard.
“And the best part is you’d get to work with the world’s greatest heroes.”
“The Fantastic Four?”
“No, the Texas Rangers.”
Powerhouse beamed. “You mean I’d get to work with Chuck Norris!”
The Governor laughed. “Well, no, but I’m sure you could meet him.”
“Oh cool.” Powerhouse. He superimagined “The Eyes of the Ranger” playing from a stereo.
“So you’ll come.”
Powerhouse hesitated. Home versus Chuck Norris, free donuts, and free pop? “Well . . .”
“And think of how proud those boys would be.”
Yeah, their dad, working—wait a second. “What boys?”
“To smart guys like our Rangers, it’s obvious you and a lady friend have two sons. Relax, we have no interest in giving out clues to our good friend’s secret identity, but whoever you share your secret with would be proud. You would be a police force of one, reporting to the Governor of the fast-growing state in America, one that’s bigger than most nations on Earth. And you could settle down in any number of great towns to raise a family in.”
“Wow, let me think about it.”
“Discuss it with your family and have a great day. Texas out.” The screen went blank.
Powerhouse leaned back in his captain’s chair. Am I wrong to want to stay in Seattle wh
ere I’ve always lived and the people like me? Naomi always said I lack ambition. Maybe I should take it. He imagined a giant glass of root beer into existence. I’ll talk to Naomi once we get back from vacation, and let her decide.
Mitch Farrow plodded to the door of Varlock and Sons Export/Import. Thankfully it was normal business hours, and he wouldn’t have to sing. Farrow looked up at the retina eye scanner lock. It said, “Mitch Farrow, Identified.”
Farrow entered the space age office. The circular furniture all hovered three feet in the air including a copper office chair, a shiny glass desk, and a couple steel lounge chairs.
The oversized ceramic eye floated above them. It said, “Greetings Mitch Farrow. The master is in the storage room.”
A three foot portion of wall moved aside. Farrow stepped through it and the door closed behind him. The room was piled full of money. Varlock wore only a pair of swimming trunks while dog paddling through a pile of money.
Why if it isn’t Varlock McAlien. Farrow scowled. “What are you doing?”
Varlock wagged his tongue like a happy dog would his tail. “I am helping make the bounty money not look new so it’s not so obvious to the receiver.”
“Bounty money?
“Yes, I placed a bounty on Powerhouse’s head to make sure we attract the best psychopaths your world has to offer.”
Farrow glanced around. “How much is this?”
“One billion dollars exactly.”
Farrow put up his hand. “Where’d you get that kind of dough?”
“Where else? I had it made.”
Farrow gaped. “You’re going to hire a top assassin and pay him in funny money? You’re on your own, pal.”
Varlock wagged his tongue like a metronome as he swam through the pile. “No, we have a contact at the U.S. Mint. He sent the money and did the appropriate alterations to the books after some argument. The silly boy fretted about the risk of inflation. Compared to the actions of your own government, adding a billion dollars to the money supply is harmless. And he advised to make the money not look like it’d just been printed. Based upon your media, I determined the most logical way to do it was to swim through it.”
That would seem logical to the likes of Varlock. Farrow groaned. “Well, McAlien, that should be a big enough bounty.”
“It had better be. Your media failed to educate people on the hazards of swimming through money. You get paper cuts in most inconvenient places.”
“Only cartoon characters actually do that.”
“Don’t forget the Italian film Diabolique.”
“What?”
Varlock laughed. “When I came, I knew nothing of your pop culture, now my mastery of it exceeds yours! That brings to mind another point. When I get rid of Powerhouse, it’ll be time for us to discontinue our relationship with your associate, Dr. Fournier.”
Farrow swallowed. “I guess we could suggest he find another job.”
“No, I mean to kill him.”
Farrow backed away. “Why?”
“I don’t like him, and he knows too much.”
“He’s a well-respected mad scientist who has been a team player.”
Varlock chortled. “Then he’ll be willing to take one for the team.”
“I can’t agree with that.”
“Then, I will appeal to his Majesty and argue the wisdom of eliminating that bow-tie wearing freak from your gene pool.”
Farrow grimaced. Hopefully, Varlock would fail. Killing Powerhouse was necessary, but not senselessly betraying an ally.
Plus, if Varlock succeeded, his daughter would die.
Chapter 7
Independent of Crime
Powerhouse flew wearing his grand marshal parade banner. He had just enough time to call Naomi. He mentally dialed her on Dave Johnson’s cell phone. “Hi, honey. I had a few moments between events, so I decided to call. How are you today?”
“Good,” his wife’s voice said. “How did the Fourth of July parade go?”
“It was fun. They love me in Bainbridge. I’ve been to two pancake feeds, so I’m not hungry right now. How was your devotional reading this morning?”
“Oh, I forgot that. What about yours?”
That was odd. He’d always been the forgetful one. “My devotion was—”
A mighty wind whooshed by him.
Powerhouse glanced up. High above him, a large passenger jet hurtled towards the ground, engines going full throttle.
“Sorry, emergency, I gotta go.” Powerhouse hung up and flew towards the plane to catch it. He shook his head. What was he thinking? He only had the strength of seventy-five men, and seventy-five men would get squished by a plane. He superimagined the plane’s engines deactivated and the plane itself encased in a force field that held it in mid-air.
Another two jets came whirling down.
Squinting, Powerhouse stopped them in mid-air and created a giant, mid-air landing base hovering at twenty thousand feet up. All three planes docked at the giant base in the sky as it floated freely.
Powerhouse activated the radio built into his suit. “Powerhouse to Air Traffic Control, what’s going on? I’ve had three planes take nosedives.”
“Powerhouse, the pilots have lost control of their planes. Another entity is remotely controlling them. We’ve grounded all planes until further notice.”
“Acknowledged, I’ll find out what’s going on.” Powerhouse soared to one of the airbuses and x-rayed it until he found a square device inside the onboard computer. He imagined into his hand a box that traced the source of the signal.
He followed it down to the back room of a Jonas Office Supply. It was covered in dust, had windows broken in all over, and had pop bottles strewn about. He scanned it with his x-ray vision.
It had a transmitter/receiver and several dozen sticks of dynamite.
He scowled. A trap. Well, from here, he could follow the signal back to its real source. He mentally sent a text message to Lieutenant Gomez of the Bomb Squad. Powerhouse imagined his tracer changing to follow the signal that was being sent to the device in the office supply store.
The signal’s trail led him across town to a branch library. Several more sticks of dynamite were encased in a box atop another transmitter.
“Where does this guy get his dynamite? Costco?” Powerhouse shook his head and traced the next signal to a mobile home in an industrial park.
The building was lined with lead, and it turned out X-rays really couldn’t penetrate lead. He landed and glanced in the widow. Inside stood a man in a green sweater.
He tuned his superhearing to human hearts beating in the vicinity.
One thumped away. Powerhouse started toward the roof.
His stomach churned. He reversed course. Something didn’t feel right.
Powerhouse landed near a rock quarry a couple blocks away. For one thing, why was the guy wearing a sweater in July? Maybe he was one of those dedicated supervillains who wore the same thing regardless of if it made sense, or maybe it was air conditioned like his armor. But there was something odd about the heartbeat.
Powerhouse transformed his uniform into a muddy brown to match the surrounding buildings. He willed an android duplicate of him to soar towards the mobile home. Now to get closer, carefully. He crept along the side of the building and made the android walk in the trailer’s door.
An explosion ripped through the trailer. The boom shoved Powerhouse backwards. The van out front wobbled.
Powerhouse pressed a button to activate his personal force field.
A diminutive man dressed like a ghoul ran into the blast area, laughing maniacally. “I killed Powerhouse!”
Oh yeah? Powerhouse crept up behind the ghoul.
The android’s head rolled out of the rubble and landed at the ghoul’s feet. The ghoul scooped it up and held it in his hand. “Alas, poor Powerhouse, I knew him well.” He scowled. “You’re a robot!”
“Lifelike, ain’t it?” Powerhouse tapped the villain on the shoulder.
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The villain sputtered. “But I saw—”
Powerhouse imagined the villain tied up with extra strength ropes and dialed the number for police dispatch.
The operator said, “Seattle dispatch, please hold.”
“But I’ve got a—”
Over the line, Sonny Bono sang, “So put your little hand in mine . . .”
Ugh. Powerhouse changed the hold music to superhero themes.
“Hey.” The tied up mad scientist squirmed. “I’m the Remote Master. My real name’s Rodney.”
“Rodney what?”
“Save the interrogating for the cops, bro.”
“If I have a brother that I don’t know about running around, I’m sure he’s not a villain.”
“What you do is amazing, but I don’t get you. If I had your powers, I’d rule the world. On second thought, that’s far too much stress, but I’d loot the world, and have a supermodel for every night of the week.”
Powerhouse grunted. “That’s why you don’t have the powers.”
“I’d like to understand you.” Rodney leaned forward. “Maybe I’ll see the error of my ways.”
“Sorry, I’m not the Crusader. He was the Christian superhero who did this to convert crooks. I do it because innocent people need help, and I have the power to help, and with that comes . . .” Powerhouse bit his lip. “My comic book writer keeps nagging me to come up with my own fresh, original motive for suiting up and says it can’t involve admiring Peter Parker.”
“Regardless, people need help. If you showed me the error of my ways, I could help. So what’s the difference?”
“I like helping people. You like blowing them up.”
Rodney glared. “So God chose you to be a good and wonderful Christian superhero, and God predestined me to be an evil atheist villain, and there’s nothing I can do about it, and you think that makes God good and steadfast rather than cruel and whimsical.”
Huh? Powerhouse scratched his helmet. “I’m not an expert on theology, but Captain France is either an atheist or an agnostic, and he’s one of the good guys. I suppose you could change and use your abilities for good.”
Rodney sneered. “So in your pea-sized, holy roller mind, I have free will and can change if I want to change. I don’t want to change, therefore, I can’t.”