Ion Girl needed a few moments to clear the cobwebs away from the impact. From the displays it seemed the armor had held up through the crash. She would need to take a look at the engines—
“Who are you?” a girl shrieked.
Ion Girl looked up to see Velocity Kid in the hallway. At least it was a girl dressed in the pink-and-white Velocity Kid costume. The hair done up in pigtails was a few shades too dark and there was a bit of a paunch against the midsection of the suit. “Hi, Yvonne.”
“How do you know my name?”
“It’s me, Tommy.” Ion Girl took off the helmet and then shook out her hair. “I’ve made a few changes since we last met.”
“Where is she?”
“Who?”
“Allison. Why isn’t she here?”
“Probably because I killed her.”
“What?”
“I killed her. Both of them. Disintegrated them.” Ion Girl lifted her rifle for emphasis. “Now, why don’t you—”
“You son of a bitch!” Inertia roared. She charged forward.
Ion Girl pulled the trigger—nothing happened. Without the helmet she couldn’t be certain, but from the smoke coming from the right arm’s joints, she was pretty sure a relay had malfunctioned. “Crap,” she managed to get out before Inertia decked her.
***
Thanks to Inertia there was no electricity functioning in Focal City. This meant Melanie and Hitter had to go up twenty stories by foot. This was after a three mile hike across the city. Melanie’s body was toned well enough to handle it, but Hitter’s was not. She had already taken off the kerchief on her head to use it to mop the sweat drenching her face. The way she staggered up the stairs, Melanie expected her to collapse at any moment.
It had been like this for Melanie and Robin when they first were changed into girls. That part of the transformation had been a lot harder on Robin, who had been used to being so strong and powerful. It was an issue Robin still talked with Dr. Hanover about, still not quite feeling she was strong enough.
Melanie passed a canteen back to Hitter. The girl grumbled something, but she took the water. Melanie risked putting a hand on the assassin’s shoulder. “It’s all right if you’re tired. Your muscle tone is gone thanks to the change. It’s not your fault.”
“Who said it was?”
“No one, but I know how it is—”
“Stop acting like we’re the same! We’re not. I’m nothing like you.”
Melanie said nothing. She could have pointed out that right now Hitter looked as if she could be Melanie’s little sister. That’s what anyone conscious in Focal City would have thought of them.
Hitter slammed the canteen into Melanie’s abdomen and then stomped up the stairs with renewed determination. This lasted another five stories, until fatigue caught up again. Melanie came up to a landing to find Hitter pressed into a corner. The assassin stared at the toes of her boots, tears in her eyes.
“You should go on without me,” she said. “I’m no good to you. Not like this.”
“Don’t talk like that. “You can make it—”
“I’m not meant to be a hero. Go save that little girl. That’s what you do, isn’t it?”
“I can’t do it by myself.”
“Then call for that prehistoric monster. She won’t be stopped by any stairs.”
Melanie considered this for a moment. “Actually, that’s a good idea.” She tapped her radio. “Paul, unleash the beast.”
“What?”
“Tell Neanderthal to go out there and do what she does best. Make as much noise as she can. Maybe that will get Inertia’s attention.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?”
“No, but it’s all we got at this point.”
After she signed off, Melanie sat down next to Hitter. “Aren’t you going up there?” Hitter asked.
“Not yet. We have to give Neanderthal some time. In the meantime, we might as well rest.”
“You don’t have to do this on my account.”
“I’m not. I’m doing what gives us the best chance to save Jenny.”
“Thanks,” Hitter mumbled. She began to fumble with the kerchief. Melanie finally took it from her hand to wrap it around the girl’s hair. Hitter swiped at her, but Melanie easily deflected it.
“Let me do it. It’ll be a lot easier.”
Hitter finally gave in. “I ought to find a pair of scissors and chop all this mess off.”
“You shouldn’t. You look pretty.”
“I don’t want to look pretty.”
“Let me give you a piece of advice: don’t fight it. You should embrace your femininity. That’s what my therapist told me when I was going through the change. You can’t fight what you are on the outside, even if you’re something else inside.”
“What do you want, for me to go find some makeup and doll myself up like a whore?”
“Of course not. Start small, with the hair for instance. Once you get used to that, you can try some earrings. Then maybe a little makeup and finally a skirt and heels. You take it a little at a time and it won’t be so bad.”
“In the end I won’t be me anymore, will I?”
“You’ll still be you where it matters.” The landing shook and Melanie heard the sound of glass shattering below them. She took Hitter’s hand to help her to her feet. “Come on, let’s go.”
***
A little blond girl curled up in Ion Girl’s lap. Her pudgy cheeks were red and tears sparkled in her eyes. “Where Mommy?” she asked for about the fifteenth time.
“I don’t know, kid,” Ion Girl said, though she knew where Jenny Bass’s mom was—her atoms were floating free over the South Pacific by now.
“I want Mommy!” the toddler screamed, building up into a full-blown tantrum. Ion Girl might have done something to stop her but with her armor out of power, she was a stationary object, all except for her head.
“Look, kid, if we get out of here we’ll find your mommy.”
“You pwomise?”
“I promise.”
That seemed to ease the little girl’s temper for the moment. “Hey, do you think you can get this stuff off my arm?”
“No.”
“Why not? I thought we were friends.”
“No.”
Ion Girl rolled her eyes. The kid was apparently at that annoying stage of child development. Not like the girl’s tiny muscles would probably have been of much use anyway with the armor plating and metal skeleton that kept Ion Girl pinned in place.
Inertia had left Ion Girl with the little girl in her bedroom while she went to check out an explosion. This might have given Ion Girl a chance to escape, except she was stuck in her own armor. If she’d had the time, she could have come up with a manual release; if she survived she would need to do that.
The door to the bedroom opened. Inertia stomped towards them; Jenny curled up against Ion Girl, as if that would somehow protect her. “What are you doing, Yvonne?”
“I’m getting out of here before that cavewoman tears down the building.”
“You’re going to leave me here?”
“Even if I could carry you, I wouldn’t. This is what you deserve.”
“Come on, Yvonne, what about all the good times we had?”
“Good times? You ruined everything! After all this time we were finally going to be together and you killed her!”
“Look, baby, you have to understand. She never loved you. How many times did she put you in jail for Christ’s sake?”
“I don’t care! We were going to be together and you spoiled it, so go ahead and rot for all I care.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Ion Girl saw a girl in black in the doorway. “That’s far enough, Inertia,” Outcast said. “Let the girl go.”
Inertia slid a knife out of her sleeve to press against little Jenny’s neck. The toddler began to scream at this. “Stay back or I’ll slit her throat.”
“You don’t want to hurt Allison’s daughter.
She’ll never forgive you for that. You’ll never be together then.”
“We can’t be together! She killed her!” Inertia pointed the knife at Ion Girl. There was a sound like a cough and then a hole appeared in Inertia’s forehead. The knife in her hand trembled for a moment. Ion Girl’s eyes widened as she waited for Inertia to stab her as a final act of vengeance. There were two more coughs that created bloody holes in Inertia’s chest.
She finally toppled to the floor, pulling Jenny along with her. The toddler screamed again. She continued to scream even as Outcast picked her up. Outcast’s eyes narrowed behind her mask. She said, “You were only supposed to wound her.”
Ion Girl turned her head to see Hitter at the back of the room. She had slipped in via a makeshift rope made of bedsheets, the kind a girl Hitter’s age made to escape from being grounded, not to murder a supervillain. “I’m being who I am,” Hitter said. This was obviously a callback to some private discussion they’d been having.
They stared at each other. Then Outcast patted the little girl’s head and began to coo softly to her. She hurried out of the room. Hitter watched her go and then tucked her pistol into the waistband of her pants. Ion Girl put on her most ingratiating smile. “So, mate, think you can help me up?”
Chapter 11
Kate looked around the corner to make sure the coast was clear. Then she waddled as fast as she could to the front door. She tapped out the signal, still checking to make sure no one was coming. The door opened, a hand yanking her inside.
“Did you get everything?” a young woman asked.
“I got it,” Kate said.
“Thank you, dear.” The woman took the paper grocery bags from Kate’s hands. Despite that she now looked like Kate’s slightly older, thin sister, Greta Hersch still spoke and dressed like a woman of almost seventy. She even kept her bifocals on a chain around her neck, despite that she no longer needed them.
Greta also walked with what was probably a subconscious limp as she led Kate into St. Jerome’s shelter. From what Starla had said, the shelter was almost always full, but ever since the disaster it had become packed. There was hardly room for Kate to squeeze her wide body through the aisles, back to the kitchen.
A girl as young and fat as Kate began to unload the sacks. She clucked her tongue as she stared at a head of lettuce. “This is the best you could get?”
“I’m sorry. It’s pretty slim pickings out there.”
“Leave her alone, dear. She’s doing her best.” Greta patted Kate’s shoulder. “We would all be starving if not for her.”
“Thanks,” Kate mumbled. She accepted a bottle of water and then followed Greta into her office.
“How bad are things out there?” Greta asked.
“It’s pretty bad. There are patrols everywhere. I’m not sure how much longer we can stay here.”
“As long as we need to.” Greta’s jaw set with defiance. Most everyone seemed to have turned into cowards, but Greta was one of the few who was able to resist. Kate didn’t know why that was; if there were any scientists around maybe they could figure it out.
Things in Atomic City had gone from bad to worse after the disaster when “General” Carnage swept into town with a small army of henchwomen. She overrode the alien weapon’s programming with an injection of Stim, a drug that was a thousand times more powerful than any conventional steroid. She injected it into ex-cons, biker gangs, and other fringe elements predisposed towards violence and crime. They soon became her army to take control of the city. Without much in the way of police or military resistance, General Carnage was soon in charge of everything.
Most everyone in the city was now herded into one of a dozen camps throughout the city. Anyone caught alone on the streets would be taken to a camp. Larry and most of Kate’s coworkers from the Star were already in such camps; Kate had only avoided that fate because she had been out to report on the disaster.
“I’ve been doing some research down by the harbor,” Kate said. She unrolled a map of the city on Greta’s desk. “There are plenty of boats there we could use: freighters, fishing boats, and even a couple cruise ships.”
“Oh my. I don’t think I would know how to drive one of those.”
“It can’t be that hard. Once we get out to sea, we can go up the coast, find somewhere to beach the thing and then get out. The suburbs can’t all be like this.”
“That’s an interesting plan. I’m not sure if we could get a thousand people onto a boat without someone noticing.”
“There have to be a few people here yet with the stomach to fight back. We can arm them to hold off Carnage’s goons.”
“I don’t know—”
“Or we could create a distraction. Set some fires or something.”
“That’s very dangerous.”
“Not much more dangerous than sitting around here, waiting for someone to break down the door.”
“How about we put a pin in that idea for now? If we have to—”
Bertha threw the door open. “You guys got to see this,” she said.
“See what?” Kate asked. Bertha didn’t say anything. She lumbered back into the kitchen, where a little black-and-white TV sat on a table. The networks were mostly showing the emergency broadcast system message these days, but every now and then they would break in with some news—almost always bad news.
On the screen Kate recognized the Outcast, Midnight Spectre’s sidekick for the last few years. The rest of the Super Squad wasn’t there. Instead there was a man in a loincloth, a sullen teenage girl, a scantily-clad woman who towered over everyone, and someone dressed in what looked like a smaller version of Ion Man’s combat armor.
Outcast said, “I’m coming to you live this evening from the former KPKD studio in Focal City to let you know that Inertia is no longer a threat to the good people of this city. I know in the last few days a lot of terrible things have happened. Supervillains have stepped in to fill the leadership vacuum left after the disaster. As of today, that will no longer stand.
“It’s true the rest of the Super Squad is missing in action right now, which is why I’ve recruited a new team. This auxiliary unit of the Super Squad will work just as tirelessly as the main team has to bring peace and justice back to our world.”
The girl straightened, her jaw setting as Greta’s had. “Today we are putting the supervillains of the world on notice. Their days are numbered. We will be coming for them and we will restore the rightful governments of the United States and all other nations. I urge all of you who are able to join us, to fight back against your oppressors. Thank you.”
There were no questions; Kate doubted there were any reporters in the room with this new team. Had she been there, Kate would have plenty of questions for the former sidekick. At the top of the list would be: who were those people on stage with you? She didn’t have any idea, but the tall woman and the girl in the Ion Man suit definitely rang some bells.
Kate hurried back to Greta’s office. She found a pad of paper and a pen. “What are you doing?” Greta asked.
“Someone needs to write this story.”
“After you write this story, what are you going to do? There are no newspapers left.”
“Let me worry about that.”
Greta seized Kate’s hand to stop her in mid-sentence. “I know you think this is your job, dear, but look around you. Things have changed. We need you here. We can’t risk you being captured on a fool’s errand.”
“It’s not a fool’s errand! It’s—” Kate stopped herself as her eyes fell on a framed copy of the article Greta kept in her office, the one written by Stan Shaw’s impostor and featuring a young woman named Star Smith who bore an uncanny likeness to Starla Leyton. This brought back to Kate’s mind her promise to worry more about her friends than the news. Yet here she was again, ready to charge out into danger for a story no one would be able to read.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s all right, dear. I know you want to help. B
ut perhaps now is the time to be patient.”
“What do you mean?”
“If there is a new Super Squad, then perhaps they will come here. When they do, we’ll need to be ready to help them however we can.”
Kate smiled a little at this. Maybe there was still a way for her reporting skills to still be of use. “Right. Let’s just hope they don’t take too long to get here.”
***
Kila stopped in the reception room and faced the silver doors that were twenty stories tall. The Elders conferred behind those doors. She had no idea what they were talking about; no one saw them until they wanted to be seen. They seldom came out from behind those doors; instead they passed messages to their herald, Taub.
Taub was only three feet tall, but twice that in width with wrinkled brown skin and a pronounced overbite that displayed sharp canine teeth. It was a face only a mother could love, which probably explained Taub’s perpetual bad attitude. “What do you want, Lieutenant Kila?”
“I’ve come for the records on the Kor-Gans I was promised. I will need them before my client’s trial.”
“The Elders have not given me permission to turn over any such records to you.”
“Perhaps you could ask them—”
“I do not ask the Elders for anything. They tell me all I need to know.”
“But I need those for my defense.”
“Defense? Ha. You know the Kor-Gan is guilty. The only question is how severely the Elders will punish her.”
“If I am going to convince them of leniency, I need those records.”
“That is not my concern, Lieutenant Kila.”
“Herald Taub, please—”
“That is all, Lieutenant.”
Kila saluted. “Yes, Herald.”
She began to walk back in defeat to her office. She had never approached the Herald like this before. There had never seemed a reason for it before. This time she felt something different. She felt something wrong this time.
Kila decided instead of her office to sit on a bench outside. There she could stare up at the stars in the night sky. She wondered if any of those dots in the darkness might be Earth, Starla’s true home.
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