by Seth Jacob
“Get down!” I heard Joe Metal shout as I crashed onto the tracks with the phone clutched in my gloved hand. Joe fired a blast of sonic waves from the forearm of his armor and towards us both, specially configured to disrupt The Immaterial Man’s gaseous anatomy. My teeth chattered like a jackhammer and my ear drums popped as Joe doused us in ultra high amplitude waves.
The Immaterial Man let out a piercing screech that rebounded off the walls of the tunnel, and his smokey body pulsed with the vibrations…but he was still standing, and now he was furious. He staggered towards me, like he was wading through thigh high water, and he pointed a smokey finger at me.
“Joe, flank him! Mr. Mercurial, seal the tunnel!” Insight said as she hovered behind The Immaterial Man, but it was too late. The Immaterial Man let loose a stream of foul smelling gas from his finger at me, and it was like he shot me in the face with a fire hose.
I tumbled across the ground and missed landing on the third rail by inches. Thick, suffocating gas shrouded my head, snaked into my nostrils, and forced itself down my throat. I coughed and wretched and my eyes bulged out of my head, and I tasted death filling up my lungs. I convulsed on the tracks, and I could hear him, I could hear The Immaterial Man’s howls of laughter, his shrill cackles ringing off of the narrow walls of the subway tunnel.
“Spectacle!” Insight screamed, and I felt her telekinetic energy manipulating The Immaterial Man’s choking gas back out of my lungs. It felt like someone was wringing out my lungs like dirty wash clothes.
“Spectacle?” The Immaterial Man’s disembodied voice said, and he instantly allowed Insight to mentally squeeze his gaseous reach out of my lungs.
“Punster said you’re off limits. Can’t kill you, sadly…but the rest of you…” The Immaterial Man giggled, and his entire body exploded into a vortex of swirling gas and we were suddenly in the eye of a pale green hurricane. Mr. Mercurial melted into a shiny puddle and formed flowing, silver walls that blocked both ends of the tunnel. He coated all the surfaces of the confined space with his mirror-like liquid form and prevented The Immaterial Man from escaping, but now we were all hermetically sealed in here with this psychotic tempest. Insight burned with purple telekinetic energy as she struggled to stay airborne, but she was like a butterfly trying to fly inside of a tornado. She slammed into the mirrored wall of the tunnel and collapsed to the ground.
Joe Metal had fallen to his armored knees. He could just barely lift his gauntlet to fire an extremely powerful laser beam at the seething storm that was The Immaterial Man. The Immaterial Man laughed uncontrollably as the laser harmlessly sliced the cyclone that he had become, and a surge of smokey green tendrils thrust towards Joe Metal, grasped his exoskeleton like a child gripping an action figure, and the segments of his armor tore off of his body with the sound of sheering metal like fingernails on a chalkboard. Joe screamed in agony. I managed to get to my feet, but what could I do?
The walls started closing in around us, and for a brief moment, I was absolutely certain that I had lost my mind. The vortex that was The Immaterial Man started spinning tighter and faster in the shrinking tunnel, and then it hit me. Mr. Mercurial, that silly son of a bitch, was contracting his entire silver body which coated all the surfaces of the tunnel. He was like a giant, metal bubble shrinking down, and I won’t even pretend to understand the science of it, but The Immaterial Man couldn’t pass through Mr. Mercurial’s liquid metal body. The Immaterial Man’s squealing laughter was replaced by sounds of his frustration as he hurled rivers of gray vapor at the silver orb tightening in around us all.
Now Insight, Joe Metal and I were crowded inside the mirrored ball that was getting smaller by the second. The Immaterial Man solidified into his faceless, foggy humanoid shape. He beat his wispy fists against the chrome walls of Mr. Mercurial’s body as it tightened more and more. The reflective walls rippled with each of The Immaterial Man’s desperate punches. Then Insight, Joe and I slid through the shiny, reflective walls and popped out into the dark subway tunnel.
Mr. Mercurial stood there with a sheepish grin on his glistening face. His whole silver body was bulging like a water balloon that had been filled up with way too much water.
“I’m okay, I got him…but guys. I’ve got crazy bad heart burn right—”
And then Mr. Mercurial exploded. Silver liquid flew everywhere as The Immaterial Man burst out of his body with a deafening pop. There was desperation in The Immaterial Man’s burning red eyes, and then he evaporated into coiling clouds that gushed by us and through the tunnel. He was gone before we could even react, and we were left standing in the dark tunnel, stunned and soaking in silvery liquid.
“Man, this is awesome. This is like going to my own funeral,” Mr. Mercurial said from behind us. The shiny liquid that was his body was flowing down the walls, across the tracks, and off of our bodies to assemble into his sarcastic self behind us where he stood sneering. I’ve never been happier to see that goofy son of a bitch in one piece.
“Well…that could have gone worse,” Insight said. Joe Metal laughed hysterically as he sat in a pile of his torn up, metal armor segments.
“Check it out,” I said. I opened a gloved hand and showed them the smartphone prototype that I had been clutching like my life depended on it throughout that horrifying ordeal. Then I coughed up a copious amount of blood into my other glove.
–
“Be careful with those,” The Specialist said as he watched The Punster’s Goons carry heavy crates filled with machine guns. A few days after The Immaterial Man almost slaughtered us, Insight picked up strong mental vibes that The Specialist was moving millions of dollars worth of machine guns and super-tech down at the docks to be shipped off to god knows where.
“Okay. We gotta do this clean, and quick,” I said to Joe, Insight, and Mr. Mercurial. We were crouched on top of a towering stack of metal shipping containers, and we were looking down at The Specialist and the dozen or so Goons in their white hazmat suits. The Specialist nervously scratched his scraggly goatee and kept checking his vintage Doc Hyper watch. The Goons carried wooden crates over a ramp and onto a small boat. In the dim moonlight, they looked like a colony of industrious albino ants with their black, insect-like gas masks over their faces. Some of them looked like they couldn’t have been a day older than sixteen.
“Bro, this is gonna be nothing compared to The Immaterial Man,” Joe said. He flexed the gauntlet joints of his new, straight out of the box exoskeleton armor, and I could smell a hint of liquor on his breath even though we had all agreed to be sober on these busts.
“Don’t get cocky,” I said, and before I could finish the rest of my thought, Mr. Mercurial jumped off of the top of the shipping crates.
“Don’t mind me kids, this is just your regularly scheduled superhero ass kicking!” Mr. Mercurial shouted as he landed right in the middle of the gang of Goons. He stretched one of his arms and punched a silver fist into the face of the nearest Goon.
“God damn it, Mr. Mercurial,” I said, and we followed him down to the now panicking Goons. A few of them dropped their wooden crates right where they stood. The Specialist took advantage of the commotion to get out of there while he still could. He ran through the aisles of the stacked shipping crates.
“Seriously guys, you’re not even trying. I’m embarrassed for you here,” Mr. Mercurial said as he stretched his whole torso around one of the Goon’s sloppy haymakers. While he was busy not taking this seriously at all, a Goon to his left tripped over a wooden crate and knocked it over. A handful of The Specialist’s weapons grade smoke bombs spilled out of the crate and went off right there on the dock. Blinding black smoke discharged all around us.
“Fuck, Mr. Mercurial! This isn’t a joke man,” I said, and a Goon jumped out of the darkness and tried to tackle me. I stepped out of his way, grabbed him by the metal tank strapped to his back, and tossed him into three other Goons who were trying to flank me.
“Watch out for their tanks of goo, it’s a sedativ
e and it’ll put you to sleep—” I said to Joe Metal as I knocked out a Goon with a single punch before he could open up another of those wooden crates and take out more of The Specialist’s super-weaponry.
“Gotcha,” Joe said. He fired electromagnetic pulses at the Goons and knocked them unconscious, one by one, with little blasts of radiation to their brains. A Goon behind him raised his hose at Joe and sprayed a jet of purple goo at him. Joe saw him, he tried to stumble out of the way, but he was too drunk, and his exposed face was slathered in the purple tranquilizing gunk. He passed out instantly. He was snoring and frozen upright in his exoskeleton armor.
“Spectacle, I’m hearing Specialist’s thoughts loud and clear. He’s making a move for his jet pack,” Insight said as she lifted the arm of a Goon with her mind. She made him point his spray nozzle at the black smoke and fire purple goo at the Goons charging out of the clouds. They stepped in the ankle deep goo and got rooted to the floor of the dock, but she accidentally sprayed Mr. Mercurial too. Mr. Mercurial, who was still focused on trying to be funny, wasn’t paying attention, and he was painted with the purple goo. He slept like a baby.
I jumped on top of a tower of shipping crates. I couldn’t see The Specialist in all the smoke bomb clouds. All I could see was the bright white shapes of the hazmat suited Goons in the black clouds as they circled in on Insight. There were still a dozen of them standing, despite the fact that they were practically children and we were supposed to be experienced, adult crimefighters.
“Insight, blow away this smoke!”
A shockwave of telekinetic energy radiated from Insight’s head and washed away the blackness. I could see The Specialist at the end of an aisle of shipping crates and strapping that dented jet pack to his back as the smoke cleared. I ran across the tops of the shipping crates and towards him. That comic book collecting bastard was messing with buttons on the jet pack and the thrusters started to burn with scarlet energy. I sprinted across the shipping crates as fast as I could, and The Specialist started to lift off. Plumes of scarlet energy shot out of the jet pack’s thrusters. The Specialist winked at me as he took off like a rocket…and then he froze in mid-air like someone had paused the video of his dramatic escape.
“Spectacle, now! Can’t hold him go now jump now!” Insight shouted to me from the ground. Her eyes were lit up like spotlights with telekinetic energy as she mentally suspended The Specialist in the air. Angry scarlet energy spewed out of his jet pack, and The Specialist didn’t look so smug anymore. The Goons rushed Insight, and she was focusing so hard on The Specialist that she was barely able to keep them at bay with blasts of telekinesis.
I dove at The Specialist and knocked him right out of the air. We crashed into the doors of a shipping crate, broke them open, and fell together inside the dark metal container filled with boxes of rotten apples. The crate filled up with scarlet energy while his jet pack belched up the last of its payload.
“Where is The Punster?!” I held The Specialist up by his limited edition, retro-style Superb 6 t-shirt. He wouldn’t even look me in the eye.
“I don’t know!” he said. I slammed him against the wall of the crate and his metal jet pack pounded against it with a sound like wailing on a gong.
“Don’t fucking lie to me, Neil,” I screamed in his scraggly bearded face. He squirmed against the corrugated metal of the crate.
“I’m not lying! Jesus don’t you people learn anything? We went through this the last time you manhandled me, you superheroes are just glorified bullies who—”
“Stop stalling!”
“Look I’m telling you! I don’t know! I just follow orders man, I have no idea where The Punster is holed up…”
I threw him aside and let him land on some soggy boxes filled with rotten apples. I ripped the jet pack off of his back, and I slapped some plastic ties onto his wrists and ankles so he wouldn’t try to run again. He whined about me being a fascist throughout the whole ordeal. Then I walked out of the shipping crate and towards Insight. There were some Goons stuck to the floor of the docks and struggling to pull their feet out of their own purple goo, but most of them were laying unconscious all around her. Mr. Mercurial and Joe Metal were both sleeping the sleep of the unprofessional.
“Should we draw on their faces with sharpies?” Insight asked, looking around her with obvious embarrassment at the evidence of how poorly this was handled.
–
“Guys, I really hope you’re hearing me. We can’t afford to mess around on this one,” I practically begged my teammates to listen to me as we stood on the roof of Dr. Delusion’s upscale apartment building.
A few floors below us, Dr. Delusion was running what was probably the largest and most sophisticated SUHP lab in the world. Working with The Punster provided him with enough money and resources to set up a drug operation that had flooded the streets with cheap, high quality SUHP. SUHP use was way up, particularly in high schools where Dr. Delusion had his henchmen The Figments aggressively move his product.
Every week there was a new story about some poor kid who overdosed on crystal SUHP, or fell out of the sky like a bag of bricks when his high wore off and his drug induced superpowers gave out. Every day there were more dangerous, temporarily superpowered soupheads running rampant all over the city. A tiny percentage of these maniacs would permanently unlock dormant superhuman abilities in their DNA, which meant new supervillains were being born every day. And The Punster was raking in millions of dollars from his cut of Dr. Delusion’s drug trade profits.
“Okay, we get it. We have to take this seriously,” Joe Metal said.
“No, no I don’t think you do. This Dr. Delusion guy looks like a scrawny little kid, but he’s dangerous. We could get killed if we’re as sloppy as we were with The Specialist.”
“Come on, nobody’s gonna get killed. We learned our lesson…let’s try to tone down the melodrama buddy,” Mr. Mercurial said with a silvery smirk.
“Mr. Mercurial, just shut up and listen to him. I’ve got a mental fix on this Dr. Delusion kid, and The Spectacle’s right…he’s young, but you should see the messed up shit rattling around in this kid’s head. He’s a killer for sure,” Insight said.
“Yeah, yeah he is,” I said, remembering when Dr. Delusion almost suffocated me to death with a plastic bag. I walked over to the door to the staircase that would take us down to his floor, and I hesitated before opening it. I looked back to my teammates.
“Guys…just remember: we’re not doing this because of some stupid video we’re gonna put online. We’re not trying to get as many hits and shares as possible. Don’t be a show off in there, okay? I’m looking at you, Mr. Mercurial. And Joe…we’re not trying to squeeze every dollar out of this, and we’re not trying to advance our careers. Just stay focused in there. Remember the plan. Okay…are we ready?”
I took the stairs with Mr. Mercurial down to Dr. Delusion’s floor. Insight and Joe Metal flew outside of the building and hovered outside of the apartment, like we planned, so that we could come at him from every direction and do this thing right. For once.
“Hey man…listen, about that thing with The Specialist…” Mr. Mercurial started to say as we ran down the stairs. I slapped the chrome goofball on the back before he could finish.
“Don’t worry about it…it’s cool, Mr. Mercurial,” I said, and opened the door to Dr. Delusion’s floor. We walked down the decadent hallway lined with apartments that neither of us could even imagine affording.
Then I stood in front of Dr. Delusion’s door. I took a deep breath, and I thought, “It’s on,” to Insight.
I kicked the door right out of the frame. It shot into the apartment and bashed into a Figment, one of Dr. Delusion’s hoodie wearing henchmen, and the drug peddling scumbag yelped an incoherent cry for help. He reached into the back of his jeans for a gun, and Mr. Mercurial stretched out a silver hand, wrapped it around his neck in an elastic sleeper hold, and The Figment was out in five seconds flat.
The door s
kidded across the nice wooden floors and stopped in front of 10 tables set up in a grid in the center of Dr. Delusion’s huge apartment. Young women wearing surgical masks and rubber gloves were chopping up chunks of crystal SUHP and portioning them out into big plastic baggies. They turned and looked at me as I stepped into the room with Mr. Mercurial, and a lot of them just dropped their measuring cups and scattered. Dr. Delusion was sitting on his tacky golden couch and playing video games, and he swiveled his head in his tennis ball green hoodie to look at me. The pimple faced son of a bitch jumped up and reached for a machine gun on his glass coffee table, but Insight was floating outside of his massive glass windows and she telekinetically disassembled the gun. She rearranged all the parts into a nice little black flower and set it down on his coffee table on top of an issue of Spandex Magazine.
Then Joe Metal shattered those huge, floor to ceiling windows with a great view of the park with one swipe of his exoskeleton gauntlet. Insight and Joe Metal flew into the room, and Dr. Delusion’s look of sheer panic as they drifted above his tables covered in hundreds of pounds of crystal SUHP was absolutely priceless.
“Fuck, I give up okay? You win,” Dr. Delusion said, and he raised his hands above his head. I saw the small, black remote in his tattooed hand, the same one that he used to release the vaporized SUHP compound that he dosed me with the last time I was there.
“Watch his hand,” I called to Insight, and Dr. Delusion pushed a button on the remote. I held my breath in anticipation of the release of the modified, highly hallucinogenic SUHP compound through the air conditioning.
“On it,” Insight said, and everything turned purple. She had encased my head, and Joe and Mr. Mercurial’s heads, with bubbles of purple telekinetic energy. Just like we planned, her thought construct was designed to let clean air in but nothing else.
“FUCK! You won’t get away with this!” Dr. Delusion screamed, and he threw the remote at Insight. It broke against the purple bubble of energy around her head.