Allison leaped to her feet. She stamped one foot. “Don’t say that! God!”
“I’m just kidding, Ally. What’s wrong?”
“Other than we’re stranded in a post-apocalyptic wasteland?”
“Yeah, other than that. You’ve been acting weird around me lately, like at Starla’s wedding. Why did you grab the bouquet?”
“I thought it’d be funny.”
“You aren’t any better at lying as a little girl than you were as a man.” Sally tried to grab Allison’s hand, but she shook it away. “What’s going on with you?”
“What’s going on with me? What’s going on with you?”
“What’s that supposed to me?”
“You’re always talking about when I turn eighteen and all the things we’ll do. You never stop to think that maybe I won’t want to do those things.”
“What are you saying: you don’t want to be with me anymore?”
Allison kneaded the flannel nightgown in her hands. She had been trying to keep this from Sally for months now. She had hoped Sally might finally take the hint and decide to move on with someone closer to her own age. “I still love you, Sally, but I’m sixteen years old now. I’m not ready to start thinking about spending my whole life with someone.”
“Oh. I see. I suppose I should have seen this coming. A cute girl like you, I’m sure you have boys—and girls—throwing themselves at you. Why tie yourself down to some old hag like me?”
It was Allison’s turn to comfort Sally. She sat back down on the bed and took Sally’s hand. “You’re not an old hag. You’re as beautiful as the day we first met.”
“Not beautiful enough for you.”
“Sally, please, you have to understand. The way things are, I don’t think of you like that anymore.”
“How do you think of me?”
“Well, all this time we’ve spent together I’ve started to think of you as more of an aunt. Not an annoying spinster aunt who pinches my cheek and gives me books for Christmas, but a cool aunt who takes me out shopping and sneaks me into R-rated movies and stuff.”
“At least you still think I’m cool.”
“I didn’t want this to happen, but it’s this body and the hormones and everything. I’m different now.”
“So if we do find a way home, what am I supposed to do: forget about you?”
“No. You just have to move on. There have to be a lot of boys—and girls—out there throwing themselves at you. I’m sure one of them can make you happier than I ever could.”
“I doubt that.”
Allison kneaded the flannel nightgown even harder. While she’d gone this far, she might as well get the rest of it out too. “There’s something you should know: I sort of have a boyfriend.”
“A boyfriend?”
Allison’s face turned volcanic hot. She could barely force the words out to say, “His name is Roland. He’s in my advanced chemistry class. We were assigned as lab partners and one thing led to another—”
“Roland?”
“His parents are from Belgium. He’s really sweet. He carries my books around for me and everything.”
“Sounds like a real catch.”
“I’m sorry, Sally. I didn’t mean for it to happen—”
“No, it’s fine. It’s like you said, you have all those raging hormones. I don’t know why I thought you would be as faithful to me as I’ve been to you. I mean first there was that Raul guy—”
“We never did anything! And I only kissed him because I thought you didn’t want me as a woman.”
“I wish I would have stuck to that.”
“Sally—” Allison started, but Sally was gone in a heartbeat. If she wanted, Allison could go after her and maybe even catch her, but she knew better. Sally needed some time alone to sort things out. She would return later. After all, they were the only two people on Earth.
***
It was a tight fit in the jetcopter for the five of them, especially with the added bulk of Neanderthal and Ion Girl’s equipment. Melanie left Paul to monitor the jetcopter’s autopilot while she ducked into the cargo compartment. Neanderthal—mercifully clad now in a loincloth with another cloth tied over her breasts—was almost crushing the sullen Hitter in the corner.
This was necessary to give Ion Girl the space needed to modify her suit to fit her shorter frame. Chunks of metal lay on the deck as Ion Girl hacked away at the armor. Melanie gently tapped her on the shoulder. When Ion Girl turned, Melanie flashed her a kill signal. She turned off the miniature saw taken from the platform’s tool closet.
“We’re about a half hour out of Focal City,” she said.
“I don’t suppose you have something like a plan?” Hitter growled, sounding like Robin with a British accent. In the black tracksuit she looked a lot like Robin too—whose closet the clothes had come from—except for the lavender kerchief that kept her long hair out of her face.
“I’m still working on it. We’ll know more once we get closer to the area.”
“I can tell you what we’re going to do,” Ion Girl said. “Inertia will be using that little doodad of hers to freeze time in the city. I’ve got a doodad of my own that will let us get past that. Once we get inside, we take her out. The rest of you can probably sit it out if you want.”
“You’re sure you can get us through the dampening field?”
“I should be able to. I built it in the first place.”
Melanie had to admit it was a simple enough plan that it should work—so long as Ion Girl could deliver what she promised. “All right, so when we land, you can go in first and give us an idea what to expect. Hitter and I will go in next and see if we can take her by surprise.”
“What me do?” Neanderthal asked.
“You and Paul can stay with the plane in case we need some backup.”
“Sound boring.”
“Cheer up, chief; there’ll be a lot of stuff for you to smash at the rate the world is going into the crapper,” Ion Girl said.
“Me hope so.”
“I want to stress that we are not here to loot the city or take advantage of any of its residents. We stop Inertia and then we move on to the next target.”
“And what are we supposed to do to Inertia when we find her?” Hitter asked. “I can’t imagine a hero like yourself wants to get her hands dirty killing anyone.”
“We’ll turn her over to the proper authorities—”
“What proper authorities? They’re all cowering in their holes right now, scared shitless.” Hitter got to her feet to stand nose-to-nose with Melanie. Despite the softness and daintiness of the rest of her body, her eyes were still the cold, hard ones of a professional killer. “You going to bring her with us? Add her to your merry band?”
“No, but we can’t kill her. That’s not what the Super Squad does.”
“Just as well for us,” Ion Girl said.
“When the time comes, you stay out of my way,” Hitter said to Melanie. Then she returned to her corner and crossed her arms over her chest. Melanie could already sense how difficult this would be; maybe she and Paul should have tried to go it alone.
She looked away from Hitter, to Ion Girl. “Tell me about this ‘doodad’ of yours.”
***
Melanie took the controls once the jetcopter was within sight of Focal City. Paul slid over to the co-pilot’s seat to watch the sensor information. They couldn’t be exactly sure where the edge of Inertia’s dampening field would be, not until they were closer.
Melanie’s stomach churned the closer they got. A couple years ago she would already have filled up a barf bag or two by now from motion sickness. She and Allison had worked on finding a dosage of Dramamine that would keep her stomach settled without putting her into a coma. This time she supposed most of the butterflies in her stomach came from the uncertainty of the mission.
She had never led an operation like this before. She had always been the sidekick, content to let Robin handle most of the operational p
lanning. Not that they needed much of a plan the last three years. Mostly they had to locate the threat and let Apex Girl deal with it. But no one had seen Apex Girl since her wedding and so Melanie was leading a group of supervillains to capture another supervillain. So far her “team” hadn’t given her any problems, but that might change once they actually got on the ground.
If they got on the ground. She couldn’t be certain Ion Girl would even be able to get them into the city. She might be setting up a trap to kill Melanie and the others; the girl had been a supervillain after all. Melanie knew what Robin would say in this circumstance: there was only one way to find out.
Paul’s consoles started to buzz. “Looks like the field is all the way out to the harbor. Two miles and closing.”
Melanie switched from the jets to the rotor on top of the jetcopter. Then she punched the intercom. “We’re here. Are you ready?”
“Keep your panties on. I got one last adjustment,” Ion Girl called back. A few seconds later, she said, “OK, let’s do it.”
Melanie pushed the control stick forward. She edged forward, still in helicopter mode. That would give them a better chance to pull back if this didn’t work. Paul counted down the distance for her, first from over a mile, finally down to just a few feet.
“We’re in,” he said. Melanie checked her instruments to make sure everything was still working. She could hear the steady whop-whop of the rotor. She pushed the jetcopter forward to get them completely into the field.
It was easy to see from here where the edge of the field was: the water of the harbor was completely frozen, some of the waves still in mid-crest. The flags on the ships were likewise frozen in mid-wave. She brought the jetcopter lower to get a better look at the situation on the ground.
Crowds of people stood as still as statues. Many of them appeared to have been trying to flee when the dampening field caught up to them. Even from a couple hundred feet above, it was pretty easy to see all of these people were female. A lot of them were still wearing oversized clothes from when Dr. Roboto’s weapon had gone off.
She punched the intercom again. “We’re in. Get your seatbelts on. I’m going to bring us down.”
Landing was always the worst part for her stomach. She had practiced enough on the simulator and with Robin in all the vehicles that she should be able to do it easily enough, but that wasn’t much comfort. Not when she knew that the slightest mistake could get them all killed and leave the world in ruins forever.
With these thoughts playing through her mind, she tried to focus on setting the jetcopter down in a park near the center of town. There were plenty of frozen people in the park, many of them crammed near the exits as they tried in vain to escape. Melanie took a deep breath as she guided the jetcopter down towards a grassy spot by a pond. She braced herself for an alarm to go off signaling they were going to crash, but everything remained in the green as the jetcopter came to a stop with a gentle bump.
She hit the intercom. “We’re here. Everyone remember the plan? Ion Girl, go take a look and see if you can find Inertia. But do not engage. Is that clear?”
“Like crystal, boss. I’ll call you in a few.”
Melanie unstrapped and then ducked into the cargo bay. Hitter and Neanderthal looked none the worse for wear, though the assassin’s freckled cheeks had a green tinge to them. Melanie hit the button for the door to let some air in. “Hitter, grab your stuff and let’s start out. Paul can contact us once Ion Girl has a location.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Me go too,” Neanderthal said.
“No, you stay here with Paul like we talked about. We’ll call if we need you.”
“Me go too!” Neanderthal insisted. She grabbed Melanie by the front of her costume. She could snap Melanie like a twig if she had the opportunity. Melanie didn’t give her that opportunity; she pressed a button on her belt that sent a surge of electricity through the cavewoman. Neanderthal screamed and dropped to her knees; she collapsed hard onto the deck.
She turned off the shock. “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Me kill you,” Neanderthal growled.
“Not yet.” Melanie summoned every ounce of courage to turn on her heel and march down the ramp. She stopped at the edge of it and turned around. “Keep in mind Paul has a set of controls for the implant too.”
Neanderthal’s eyes narrowed, but she said nothing. Melanie continued to march down away from the jetcopter, until she reached a pavilion with a bathroom. She darted inside to void the contents of her stomach into the still water of a toilet.
“I suppose you’ll do the same to me if I get out of line, yeah?” Hitter asked from outside the stall.
“Only if you make me.”
“Bit of a hard ass, aren’t you, love?”
“When I need to be,” Melanie said. And right now the world needed her to be. She wiped the puke stain from around her mouth and then stood up. She kept her back ramrod straight as she strode past Hitter. “Let’s move out.”
***
So far Ion Girl’s hastily-modified suit was holding together. The power levels were down forty percent, in large part because she’d had to dump the reserve battery to ease the amount of weight on her back. When she had been a six-three, two hundred pound Adonis it was easy to carry around another hundred fifty pounds on his back, but now as a five-three, one hundred pound pipsqueak that much weight would probably snap her spine like a matchstick.
The problem with losing the battery was if she lost power, she had no backup to rely on. If she were for instance flying hundreds of feet over Focal City, she would end up a splatter mark on the pavement. She didn’t try to think too hard about this as she swept the city for Inertia.
Ion Girl had a fairly good idea where Inertia would be. They had started out as partners fifteen years ago when Ion Man had picked up Yvonne Bartlett in a Focal City nightclub. Yvonne had been a researcher at Grant Laboratories and so to impress her, Ion Man had revealed his combat suit.
After that, Yvonne helped make some tweaks to the systems to get the most out of the armor. They were together for six months, getting it on like rabbits on their honeymoon, to the point where Ion Man began thinking of the ‘M’ word—Marriage. It was the first time he’d even considered it.
Then everything went to hell. To fund their new life together, he decided to rob Focal City National Bank. Yvonne came along to case the joint. She was among the customers when Ion Man broke in, so no one would suspect her involvement later. Just as Ion Man was about to get the money out of the bank, along came the city’s new hero: Velocity Man. In seconds the whole plan fell apart and Ion Man was on his way to jail.
He didn’t give Yvonne up. She visited him in prison for the first year. But every time she came to the prison all she could talk about was the man who’d put him away. She had a whole crazy scrapbook dedicated to Velocity Man’s exploits. She didn’t seem to realize the last thing her sex-deprived boyfriend wanted to hear about was the man she was crushing on.
As with every crazy stalker, eventually Yvonne had to take things too far. She cut the brakes on her own car and went tearing down the highway at a hundred miles per hour, waiting for her hero to show up for her. He didn’t. Turned out he was across the world on a mission for the Super Squad. She was eventually saved by the regular heroes—the police—a slight she never forgave Velocity Man for.
From there she declared war on her former love. She begged Ion Man to find some way to help her destroy Velocity Man once and for all. Like any man who hadn’t gotten laid in eighteen months, he rolled up his sleeves and went to work. First he used some items from the prison machine shop to make a crude explosive device that got him out of the prison, where Yvonne waited for him. After that, he set to work on making the inertial dampening field.
The sex they had the night he finished it was worth all the time and energy he’d expended. He stupidly thought maybe this would fix things with their relationship, though anyone who
’d ever watched an episode of Dr. Phil could have told him it was doomed. A homicidal crusade for vengeance was not exactly the best way for a couple to bond. Of course she continued to obsess more and more about Velocity Man and less and less about Ion Man, until he decided to bail.
During their recent stint at Gitmo together, Inertia had managed some alone time with Ion Man in the prison infirmary. He thought maybe they could reacquaint themselves physically, but all she wanted to talk about was Velocity Gal—the first one—and Velocity Kid. Through their mutual former enemy, Carrie Dalton, Inertia had learned that the first Velocity Gal was the former Dr. Alan Bass, now a high school student named Allison Bass.
“As soon as I get out of here, I’m going to rip that little brat’s heart out,” Inertia had said. The heat in her voice and raw hatred in her eyes had given him his last hard-on. She had outlined her plan to draw Allison Bass to her.
There were two possible scenarios: either she would take some of Allison’s former coworkers from Grant Laboratories hostage or she would go the more direct route and take Allison’s daughter Jenny hostage. By now anyone at Grant Laboratories had probably taken off; that meant she’d go for the little girl.
So it didn’t come as a surprise when she found an active power reading coming from an apartment building uptown. Ion Girl switched to infrared to see into the building. As expected there were two heat sources. It had to be Inertia and Jenny Bass.
She activated her radio. “I’ve found her. She’s at the Bass residence.”
“What?” the merman said. “You mean Sally’s place?”
“Yup. She’s got Sally’s daughter hostage too.”
“Crap. Hold your position. I’ll get the details to Mel.”
“Negatory. I’ve got this.”
“Wait—” Ion Girl deactivated the radio. She wasn’t about to cool her heels while someone else took Inertia down; she could handle it on her own.
With that in mind, she charged towards a window of the apartment. She hoped the armor managed to hold together as she slammed through the glass. The engines on the boots sputtered as she rolled across a tastefully-decorated bedroom, through an open doorway, and then into a hallway.
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