by Adam Graham
“Trade secret.” Naomi spun to the victim. “May I get your name and your phone number?”
He handed her a business card. “Here. Can I have yours?”
“Sir, that’s for the police. They’ll be in touch about prosecuting her.”
The thin man crisscrossed his hands. “Forget it, lady. I don’t get involved with the cops.”
Then he’d thought they were trading info for an insurance claim or a lawsuit. Naomi snarled. “I saved your life! You’re going to cooperate with the police, or I’ll give her back her knife and wish her a good day.”
“Don’t.” The thin man slumped. “I’ll cooperate.” He tried to grab his business card back. Naomi stuffed it into her pouch as he ran away, shouting a sexist slur that ended with, “ . . . will hear from my lawyer!”
Naomi lifted the mugger on to her horse.
This isn’t this guy’s last mugging. She shook her head. “Move along.” She led her horse by the hand. “Now to get you to the police.”
The mugger kicked the horse. Cyrus charged past Justice Woman.
Justice Woman called, “Whoa, boy!”
Cyrus came to an abrupt stop. The mugger fell off the horse and into the path of an oncoming car. Naomi dashed towards the falling woman.
The driver screeched to a halt.
Naomi scooped up the mugger and dodged three cars, running across the street. She stared at the woman. “Are you crazy?”
“I’m not the one riding a horse through Seattle. I’d have to be crazy to want caught.”
A squad car pulled up. A male officer got out. “Seems to have been a bit of a traffic problem here. What happened?”
“I’m Justice Woman. I was trying to bring her in.”
The police officer blinked. “You’re supposed to call us to pick her up. I thought the Powerhouse Squad was training you guys better than this.”
“I’m not with the Powerhouse Squad.”
“You shouldn’t do this unless you go through their program. They’ll give you training so you don’t get people hurt, and you’ll get help from us rather than a hard time.”
Naomi frowned. She couldn’t do that without letting Melvin Stankewicz know her secret identity. “Thanks for the advice. Here, she’s a mugger.” She reached in her pouch. “Here’s the business card of her victim.” She handed the card to the cop, smiling. “Is that all?”
“Call dispatch next time.” The cop handed her his business card.
“Thanks, officer.” She mounted Cyrus. “Let’s get back to patrol.”
Naomi rode ahead in the right lane.
Cyrus pranced. “Let’s race one of these big metal cows! I can beat it.”
“Sorry.” Naomi bit her lip. Maybe she needed to revisit the whole riding horseback thing on patrol. A horse like Cyrus would hate this, and she needed something to transport prisoners.
Ahead of her, a car drifted towards the median.
Naomi jumped off Cyrus and pointed to the sidewalk. “Over there.”
She sped away towards the front of the car. She glanced in the cabin. The teenage driver was texting as the car hit the median.
An approaching semi-truck honked its horn.
Naomi grabbed the undercarriage and lifted the car up into the air. She zoomed to a grocery store’s parking lot. The vehicle’s wheels were spinning.
Naomi shouted, “Turn the ignition off!”
The boy’s voice said distractedly, “Just a second. Got to let my girlfriend know I’m okay.”
Naomi grunted. “Now!”
The wheels stopped spinning.
She lowered the car, stormed to the window, and placed her hand on her hips. “What in God’s name were you doing? You nearly got yourself killed. Do not text and drive. Do you understand me?”
The guy cursed at her, adding, “You’re not my mom!”
She seethed. The next sexist ingrate who called her that word was getting slapped. “I am someone who saved your life, and I’ll call your mother because I’ll have your plates traced.”
“Ooh, my mommy. I’m so scared.”
Naomi glided to the back of the car and wrote down the license plate number. She called the number on the card the officer gave her.
A woman answered. “Seattle dispatch.”
“This is Justice Woman. I have a license plate number I’d like you to check. Someone needs to call this boy’s mother. He’s texting and driving, and he’s got a bad attitude.”
“Let me take the number.”
Naomi gave it and provided her cell phone number before hanging up and returning to Cyrus. “I have to get you home.”
And come up with a more practical mode of transport.
She strolled down the street, leading Cyrus. Maybe she should walk. She could move fast enough. She found an opening in traffic, mounted her horse, and rode towards where she’d parked the trailer. “I stink at fighting crime.”
Cyrus snorted. “Eat hay and run around in a meadow.”
Naomi sighed. It was pointless to seek words of encouragement from a horse. “Thanks, that’s a big help.”
“Glad to help. You’re a good mistress.”
Horses also didn’t get sarcasm. What was she going to do now?
She arrived at the horse trailer and loaded him inside. Crowds shuffled by on the sidewalk.
A little girl’s voice said, “Hey, are you a superhero?”
“Yes?” Naomi asked as she spun, chilled. She’d forgotten to change her appearance, and had hitched Dave’s truck to her rental horse trailer.
A five-year-old in Osh Kosh overalls stared up at Naomi, open-mouthed and pointing. “You’re the prettiest one I’ve seen. Could you find my kitty?”
Naomi smiled. “I’ll see what I can do, honey. Do you have a picture?”
The girl nodded and handed her a snapshot. “Here.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Besides show it to cats. They’d need a personal item that smelled like the lost cat. “When was she lost?”
“Mommy says it’s already been this many days.” The little girl held up three fingers.
“Sweetheart, I’ll see what I can do.”
“Lucy!” shouted a woman with short blonde hair as she ran out of the crowd. “I was in the store. Where did you go?”
Lucy pointed at Naomi. “She said she’d helped find Muffin.”
The mother narrowed her eyes at Naomi as she drew her daughter away by the hand. “It’s hard to find a cat, honey. It’s a big city.”
“What’s your name?” Lucy asked as she stared up at Naomi.
“I’m Justice Woman. It’s was nice meeting you, Lucy. I’ll see if I can find your cat.” Naomi sighed. Searching for a cat. Well, Dave got his start by laying down the law on jaywalkers in Bryerton.
Pharaoh stared across his desk at Varlock in his underground lair. “Why haven’t you gone back to your own dimension? Powerhouse is gone.”
“I’d like to torture him myself, but instead the Powerhouse Squad’s ranks have swelled. You have people acting just as perverse as Powerhouse was.”
“That’s your fault.” Pharaoh snorted. “He hasn’t even been gone a week. Give people time. People will forget.”
Varlock waved his tongue. “Unacceptable. We must squash the resistance at once. I propose to break out every incarcerated master criminal.”
Pharaoh laughed. “That’s arrogant. If you keep doing these mass prison breaks, someone’s going to trace it.”
“We can’t let the evil of the Powerhouse Squad continue unchecked.”
Farrow leaned back. The sooner the invasion happened, the sooner his daughter was out of harm’s way forever. “No one on the Powerhouse Squad has superpowers. With the Big Gray gone into space, you should only need to break out one particular incarcerated master criminal to get the job done.”
“I know which one.” Varlock snickered. “It shall be done.”
Farrow glowered. For someone who was supposed to bring good to the planet, Bel sure had
employed a real psycho with Varlock.
Ick. Powerhouse finished his last bland bit of stale bread and washed it down with the last little bit of water.
Shorty led him to the ground and reclined on the ground like it was a comfy couch. “This is the best evening period of our cycle.”
“That wouldn’t be hard, between watching two guys kill each other two nights ago, and working an extra three hours in the mine last night.”
“Tonight, we go off to happy land.” Shorty held up a pill. “This is what takes us.”
Powerhouse gasped. “I won’t take drugs.”
Overseer stomped over and slapped into his hands two pills and a gray cup of water. “Swallow these or I will inject a far less pleasant narcotic.”
Powerhouse hid the pills in his cheek as he swallowed the water. Who knew this old childish trick would ever serve a good purpose?
The other members of the team were mumbling. Powerhouse glanced over at his ally. Shorty’s eyes were open but glazed over like hundreds of the drug addicts he’d seen in Seattle. He turned his head and pushed the pills out of his mouth and onto the ground and crushed with his gloved hand.
Overseer glowered down at him. “Did you take the pills?”
Powerhouse made a peace sign and slurred his words. “Yeah, man. They were groovy. Go puff the magic dragon and make love, not war! Lucy’s in the sky with diamonds. Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play your song for me.”
Overseer rubbed his eyes. “I will lower your dosage. Now, for mine.”
He headed for his platform and took two pills.
Better imitate the rest of them. He followed along with his teammates as they squirmed and mumbled and closed their eyes.
A bright line shone through the cave. Powerhouse opened his eyes. The cave was flooded with a rainbow of soft colors. Blue, green, and purple lights hit the walls and ceiling. It covered his hands as mist flowed in.
“Whoa, this is so cool! Shorty?” He glanced around.
Everyone else was missing the light show.
He strolled out to the cave entrance. The lights didn’t look artificial. He touched the light on the wall. “This is awesome. Too bad the guys all took the drugs the Overseer gave them, or they’d be getting to see this, too.”
Powerhouse grimaced. Maybe, that had been the point of the drugs.
Naomi strolled through a neighborhood in her guise of Justice Woman.
A brown collie ran up to her and jumped up at her, wagging his tail. “Hi, play with me! I’m glad to see you.”
“Hi, boy.” Naomi pulled out the missing cat’s picture. “You might not happen to have seen this cat?”
“You want to play?”
“Maybe later, but have you seen the cat?”
“A mean man carries lots of cats into a house three doors down.”
“Good boy.” She petted him. “Let me get you a tennis ball.” She pulled it from her utility pouch, and played fetch with the dog until he ran off with the ball rather than bringing it back.
Oh well. She had work to do anyway. Naomi tiptoed three doors down to a gray two-story house with black tape all over the windows. Couldn’t be a good reason for that.
Naomi x-rayed the tape over a storm window. Cats were in portable kennels all across the room on top of three sturdy oak tables.
Why was someone stealing cats? “Window, open. Plastic, give way.”
She slid in the window and landed in the middle of the cages. She looked around at the cats in cages that were stacked in a rectangular formation.
The little girl’s gray tabby was near the window.
Naomi squatted by it. “You okay, honey?”
The kitty mewed weakly, “Hungry.”
Poor thing. Naomi glanced around. Most of the cats looked half-starved, and many were hissing at her. Footsteps trod across a creaky floor. Naomi hid under the tables.
The door burst open, and a short man lead in two Persian cats the size of tigers. “How are my pretties today?” He waved at the two large cats. “This is your future. Once you’re fully conditioned, my feline army of terror will rend Seattle apart to make me its ruler. Then it will be glorious. Science will become the power of this world only when science is freed from the constraints placed on it by business, religion, ethics, and politicians, and you will be the key to my cataclysmic catastrophe.”
Naomi clinched her fist. This jerk was mistreating poor cats to further some crazy scheme. The guy must be insane. Why else would he monologue to himself like he was in one of Dave’s comic books?
“Come on out from under the table, you. I see you.”
Naomi crawled out from under the table.
The mad scientist pointed at Naomi. “Kill her!”
The Persians lunged at her with the look of wild animals in their eyes and their teeth bared.
Naomi dodged by jumping to the other side of the room. She turned on her hover boots and rose to the ceiling. She reached into her pouch. “Luckily, in my pouch, I happen to have lion-sized manacles that will lock themselves around the cats’ legs and chain them to the wall.”
The manacles flew out of her pouch and wrapped themselves around the cat’s legs and flew themselves to the wall.
The mad scientist screamed, “How did those fit in your belt pouch?”
“Shut up, monster!” Naomi jumped down and punched the jerk in the face. “You took those poor innocent cats, starved them half to death, then mutated them. You’ve probably killed some in the process.”
“Progress requires sacrifices be made.”
“Then find a new god.” Naomi kneed the monster in the stomach. “It’ll take months for professionals to heal what you’ve done to some of these poor creatures.” She kept hitting him. “Some of them will never be the same and will have to be put down!”
He raised his hand. “Stop, there’s an antidote! It’s in my lab.”
“Why should I stop? You didn’t listen to the cats as they begged you to stop.” She kicked him again and again.
“Please don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me!” He stared at him, his eyes wide, and his lip cut open and, bleeding. He trembled like she was a monster.
She’d lost control again. What was wrong with her? She pulled a rope out of her belt. “I’m going to call Animal Control and let them know about your antidote, and you’re going to confess to everything. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She called animal control, then scooped up Lucy’s cat in her kennel. She ran three quarters of a mile to Lucy’s house, placed the kennel on the fronts step, rang the doorbell and ran as fast as she could to Bryerton.
I’m done with the superheroine thing. I have to hide from the monster I’ve become.
Chapter 22
Justice Woman Meets the Sheriff of Atlantis
Naomi wrapped a bathrobe around herself and plodded to the front door. She opened it and picked up her copy of the Seattle Guardian.
She plopped on the couch and opened the paper. The headline on page two read, “Local Man Arrested in Shocking Animal Abuse Case.”
The name of the monster was James Redding. In the sixth paragraph it said, “Redding described his assailant as a ‘black-clad she-devil.’ Local animal rights activists are praising the unknown vigilante.”
Naomi closed the paper. That description wouldn’t lead the police to her doorstep, so Justice Woman could simply hang up her costume and nobody would ever know. Now to binge watch Star Trek: The Next Generation to keep her mind off the fact her husband was gone and it was all her fault and she couldn’t even get honoring his memory right. She mentally reviewed the items in her fridge and cupboards. “Come here, vanilla ice cream sundae in a blue ceramic bowl with chocolate syrup, cherries, and walnuts on top.”
The ingredients floated out from the kitchen and prepared themselves on the end table.
Naomi turned on the television.
A newswoman was on the screen. “To repeat our breaking news story at this hour. Ge
orge Geller, the master criminal known as Dr. Stero, has escaped from the King County lock up. He nearly defeated Powerhouse a few weeks ago. An hour ago, he brutally attacked a Powerhouse Squad member, Dayman, who is listed in serious condition at this hour.”
Naomi gasped. That brute could do serious harm to the Powerhouse Squad. Could she call Captain France or Miss Invisible? No, Dave had trouble getting a hold of them, plus they weren’t as strong as Justice Woman was.
She’d never forgive herself if a Powerhouse Squad member died because she was sitting at home pouting when she could be stopping the strongest menace to the City of Seattle since Mister Manners.
“Clothes, change to gray t-shirt and gym shorts.” She ran outside and down the street until she reached an area with no one around.
“Change to Justice Woman.” In her costume, she raced to Seattle at top speed. She slowed at downtown and sprinted through the city. Stero had to be around there somewhere.
A young man cursed. “Let go!”
Naomi ran towards the voice.
A sheriff wore a fancy gold belt and winged Atlantean sandals as he held a thirteen-year-old in the air. “Now, son, we both know that ain’t your car.”
The boy cursed.
The Sheriff of Atlantis tsked. “Such language, from a boy your age! What does your pa think?”
“What’s a pa?” The boy snorted. “I ain’t done nothin’”
“I saw you hotwire this here car. Why’d you do a thing like that?”
“None of your business.”
“Well, now you ever thought that somebody might miss that car? They worked awful hard to buy something like this.”
The kid blinked. “Are you some kind of nut?”
“Boy, I’m tryin’ to teach you a valuable life lesson. Stealing is wrong. You ought to work hard and love your neighbor as yourself.”
The brat cursed at the kindly sheriff.
A police car rolled by. A female officer sauntered out. “What seems to be the trouble?”
“I didn’t steal it!” The kid cursed. “He framed me.”
The officer rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’ve seen you before. I’ll take charge.”