SG: Rad #99 (4/4):

(concluded from part three, preceding...)

***

Rumiko Moroboshi heard her dad call to her as she lifted off.
She saw him further up, above the sphere-ships hovering over the
elevator shaft. He was flying down... only to seemingly stop in mid-
air.
She knew what had happened, having heard the strange and vaguely
vulgar sound of the monkeys' blunderbuss only a few seconds before.
They had shot out something that became a slow-aether bubble, and Rad
had flown right into it. Had circumstances been less strenuous, she
realized she would have found it funny.
The ride up had been fast, and far from gentle. The force of the
acceleration had been enough to push her flat onto her back. She was
fairly certain that it had not been constructed with the comfort of
passengers in mind--at least, passengers without the sense to stay
inside a vehicle such as a bus.
She had lost track of how many minutes had passed, but knew it
was not many before the elevator slowed. The monkeys had been
ignoring everyone save Erasmus Fancy, forming a ring around him and
speaking into buttons on their collars. Fancy had not been idle,
despite having been slowed, and nearly had his mask on when they
reached the surface.
Rumi had sat up and seen nothing but monkeys. Their howls had
been deafening when the ascenders came into their view.
The next thing she knew, Fancy had his mask on. Then he had
leapt clear, as if the slow-aether bubble had gone, and everything
went mad.
There were more than just monkeys about. There were goats with
belts that fired darts. There was Aunt Yury, flying overhead and
firing flaming plasma at the sphere-ships, which in turn spat massive
electrical bolts into the fray. There were bullets, and screams, and
people with jetpacks.
"Whoa!" Lemon Rydell had exclaimed, as he got up. "This is crazy
awesome!"
"Esteban!" Miguel Veracruz had called. "Get Eivandt, Tom, and
Alice to safety!" He paused, considered Lemon, and frowned. "And
him, too."
"Don't bother," said Lemon, wide-eyed and looking all around.
"I'll just come running back."
Esteban had looked as if he wanted to just dive into the fray, or
at least go after Fancy. Something had changed in him as a result of
their conversation behind the grating, Rumi thought. He had let go of
something inside, and the fear in his eyes had been replaced by
determination.
It had not overwhelmed his sense, she saw. Esteban had nodded to
his brother, then had flown to where Tom McCavish-Laffalot was sitting
up. Rumi and Lemon had followed. They had arrived and found that
Cendra Seconds was already there, breaking open the binders that held
Alice Seconds.
"Where's mom?" Rumi had asked, as Esteban and Lemon helped
Eivandt Seconds sit up.
"Glum flew into the fight as soon as we got here," Cendra had
replied. "Her mind's jangling, she's got so much energy in her. It
was hell just keeping her from flying off earlier... Esteban!"
"There he is!" Esteban had shouted, pointing toward the massive
descending figure of Erasmus Fancy. Rumi saw Fancy's mask was now
gone, exposing a ferocious and maddened expression. Esteban had taken
to the air again, ignoring shouts from Cendra and Alice, and the next
thing Rumi knew, she was in the air beside him.
Then she heard her dad shout her name, and there they all were.
Erasmus Fancy had come back from his escape for some reason, and
Esteban was out to take him down. Her father, in pursuit, was stopped
by a random firing of the blunderbuss the monkeys had earlier used to
imprison Fancy and---
She looked down at the space where Fancy and Dana Wader had been.
There was only a small smear of blood where Wader used to be.
"Crap," Rumi said, looking about. Coco had been right about the
bubble being temporary--or perhaps Fancy's escape somehow disrupted
it. Wader was nowhere in sight, but there was The Programmer, on top
of one of the busses. He had gotten free of the cable binding his
wrists, and was shouting something into a metallic instrument in his
hand.
The people dressed as ninjas and zombies were responding,
launching themselves at demon monkeys with abandon. Some shouted
about having skills, others shouted about obtaining brains, but all
were swinging arms and legs at their furry foes. The monkeys seemed
initially baffled by this, then retaliated as against their other
opponents.
Rumi fired a psychokinetic bolt at The Programmer, and was
surprised when he dodged it. Three demon monkeys materialized in
front of her, forcing her down even as they were deflected by her
shields. She landed in the midst of a group of pseudo-zombies and
armed goats, neither group having taken a shine to the other.
"Brains!" one of the pseudo-zombies insisted.
"Aye, it's clear you need some!" the nearest goat answered.
"Have at you, vile ruffian!"
"Wait!" Rumi yelled. "The zombies are being mind-controlled!
They're actually innocent people!"
The four goats, having either not heard or not cared, squarely
faced the would-be zombies. Rumi flinched, sure she would next see
darts and blood on the necks of the targets. Instead, she saw one
goat tip on its side, falling into its fellow. Which fell into its
fellow, and so on, until all were on the ground.
"What?" asked the goat who had spoken earlier, as his legs
flailed. "We had them dead to---"
"She said they're being mind-controlled, dummy!" a young-sounding
voice interrupted. Rumi blinked, and there before her, between the
goats and the zombies, was a sandy-blond-haired boy in a stained red
t-shirt and blue jean shorts.
"They only would have been knocked out," the lead goat replied,
sounding rather huffy. "There was no need for... I say, look out!"
The would-be zombies lunged at the boy, only to stop when he
vanished before their--and Rumi's--eyes. Rumi knocked them on their
backs with a lightly-powered psychokinetic bolt. The zombies stayed
on their backs, not having been given any instructions on what to do
in this eventuality, aside from continuing to assure anyone passing by
that they were, in fact, zombies, and did, in fact, seek to consume
brains. The goats looked at Rumi, who shrugged.
But, back to The Programmer. He was still on the bus, shouting
into his metal thing. Several pseudo-ninjas were on the bus with him,
acting as a sort of guard. She flew toward them, and they threw wood
screws, brackets, and other metal things at her.
"We are ninjas!" they declared. "Your kung fu is weak,
grasshopper! Oy! Taste our ninja st... stee..."
Rumi pulled up and stared as the pseudo-ninjas dropped their
makeshift weapons and started dancing. She became mildly alarmed when
several of them started rubbing against The Programmer--a reaction it
looked like he shared.
"We do a little dance!" they yelled. "We make a little love! We
get down tonight!"
"Ack!" The Programmer exclaimed. "Get off! Get... hey!" The
metal thing in his hand fell, bounced once on the roof of the bus, and
skittered off. Rumi knocked the would-be ninjas off the bus with a
blast as well, causing them to land on top of a group of monkeys.
Then she landed before The Programmer.
"Hi," she said. "Remember when I said I'd refrain from
demonstrating the meaning of the phrase 'psychokinetic wedgie?'"
The Programmer's eyes grew wide. "But I helped you, just like
you wanted!" he protested.
"Surrender now," Rumi said, "and explain what that thing you were
talking into is supposed to do, or I'll just have to break that
particular prom---"
It happened in a moment. A massive figure landed on the roof of
the bus, barreled into The Programmer, then leapt, taking The
Programmer with him. Even as Rumi realized that the figure was
Erasmus Fancy, Esteban flew past, still in pursuit.
Demon monkeys were also in pursuit of Fancy, and some tried to
latch onto Esteban to keep him from getting to their quarry first.
Esteban spun in the air with a speed bordering on the maniacal and a
leg spread bordering on the gymnastic, knocking monkeys away with his
bronze-gold foot. Darts heading for him--probably aimed at demon
monkeys, but homing in on him nonetheless--were deflected when he
flipped upside down so that they struck his armor-protected ass. One
boot was distorting the air with propulsive waves of some kind, while
the other one fired a projectile that sent a cluster of demon monkeys
scrambling for cover, though it merely struck the pavement and
bounced. It was an exhausting display to watch, Rumi thought, made
moreso by the fact that Esteban was trying to be a full armored hero
with only half an armored suit.
"Where'd Fancy go?" Esteban called to her.
She was about to reply when she saw something on the ground that
made her blood run cold. Dana Wader stood over Lemon, a large knife
in her left hand. Lemon looked up at her, trying to inch away even
though she had him dead to rights. Esteban saw where she was looking,
and immediately forgot about Fancy.
"Hey!" he yelled. "Let him go!"
Wader wasted no time with a reply. She reached down, hauled
Lemon up by his bare left arm, then swung him around so that she could
use him as a shield.
"Back off, hot pants!" Wader yelled. "You too, pretty-pretty!"
A laser barrel slid from the right thigh of Los Pantalones,
swiveled, and targeted Wader. She grinned and pressed her knife
against Lemon's throat.
"She'll do it, Esteban!" Rumi called. "Stand down!"
"Ow!" Lemon added. "I was just gonna get your autograph, lady!"
"A likely... what?" Wader asked.
"What?" Rumi and Esteban echoed.
"You're, like, my favorite villain ever!" Lemon said, sounding
for all the world like an enthusiastic fan. "I wrote a supslash fic
with you and Admiral Morgan, where you totally capture these superguys
and you get out these canes and---"
"Wait," said Wader. "You're not 'waderfanhubbahubba,' are
you?"
Lemon blinked. "You know me?"
"You know him?" Rumi and Esteban echoed.
"Um... no!" Wader declared, suddenly seeming embarrassed. "Um...
not at all. And don't come closer! Or skrrrrt!"
Rumi started to reply, but was drowned out by the rush of an
electrical blast overhead.

***

When the bronze-gold flash subsided and the invigorating feeling
of electrocution faded, Rad saw Glum hovering in the air before him.
He grinned and met her in a hug both intimate and nerve-jangling.
"Like, whoa, babe," he said, as they pulled apart. "You're,
like, crackling, like, y'know?"
"I got supercharged on something down in the base," Glum
answered, as sparks popped from her eyes and light flashed across her
skin. "It's dissipating as I use it up, though. You were stuck in
mid-air, did you know that?"
"Like, no."
"Some bubble was around you," Glum went on. "A couple demon
monkeys were swinging this blunderbuss thing around, and firing it
kind of at random, I think. It shoots out these bubbles... I hit the
one you were in with a bioelectric blast, and it dissipated."
"Like, no way!"
"Yes, way!"
Glum made a face, and he grinned. "Never mind that," she said.
"Take a look down there! Your daughter is facing off against Dana
Wader!"
This got Rad's attention. He peered down and saw a cluster of
beings--monkeys, goats, agents, superguys, and concessions vendors--
forming around Rumi Moroboshi, a Hispanic teen boy in oversize bronze-
gold pants, Wader, and a blond teen boy she was holding hostage.
He looked further, to see if his older allies were near. Guido
was closest, but judging from his frozen expression and the way the
large gun he had just fired had sent its projectile all of five feet,
he was trapped in another of the bubbles. HotFlash and MeltDown
soared and swooped between the sphere-ships, with MeltDown taking
Rad's place in blasting holes in the metal softened up by HotFlash's
plasma blasts. There were three sphere-ships in pieces in the parking
lot now, and fewer sphere-ships still flying, and those he saw were
headed over the edge of the stadium wall. Capella, he noted, was no
longer where he had seen her fall, and he suspected she had been
pulled onboard one of the spheres by her monkey troops.
Chalandra, Confusion, Elizabeth Tirkoff, Dr. Gigawatt, and
Criticalman appeared engaged in getting as many pseudo-zombies and
pseudo-ninjas to safety, whether they wanted to go or not. Many did
not, flailing and cursing as they were bodily carried away. Rad
noticed a large, black-furred werewolf who appeared to be aiding them
in this, and that Tom McCavish-Laffalot, Eivandt Seconds, Cendra
Seconds, and Alice Seconds were doing their best to keep his path
clear of demon monkeys. None appeared in imminent danger, but none
appeared to be in a position to help end the hostage situation,
either. Which left him and Glum.
They landed beside Rumi and the boy wearing the armored pants.
Wader noted their arrival and pressed the knife tighter against the
blond boy's throat.
"I'll do it, you tanned freak!" she declared, eyes shifting to
Rad. "I'll cut... um... what's your name, kid? Real name, I mean?"
"Lemon," said the boy.
"Right," Dana replied. "I'll cut Lemon's throat!" She paused.
"What kind of name is that?"
"My mother's eccentric."
"Your mother's a looney." Wader shook her head and bared her
teeth directly at Rad. "I'll do it! Even if I did like that story he
wrote with you and Dar!"
"Like, what?" Rad asked. Rumi, Glum, and the Hispanic boy echoed
the second word.
"That wasn't me!" Lemon protested. "That was 'ieviscarateu!'"
"Really?" Wader asked. "Oh, wait, *I* wrote that one. Don't
mind me, it's been a hell of a day. Where was I?"
"You were going to let me go," Lemon suggested. Rad was
surprised to see Wader actually lessen the pressure of the knife on
the boy's throat. The boy tried twisting away, but too soon; Wader
realized what she was doing and retightened her grip.
"What the hell?" she asked. "You using magic on me, boy?"
Before Lemon could reply, the knife jumped from Wader's hand, as
if it had been knocked by something. It hit the ground, clattered to
a standstill, then vanished. A younger blond boy--whom Rad recognized
as Elizabeth's son Kirby--appeared next to Rad, holding the knife
handle gingerly between two fingertips.
"Can you take this?" Kirby asked. "My mom doesn't like me
playing with knives."
"Hey!" Wader exclaimed. "That's mine!"
Further property claims on her part were forestalled when Lemon
brought his right foot down hard on Dana's foot. Rad heard a snapping
sound, then saw Dana fall over, howling in pain. Lemon ran to the
Hispanic kid, while Rumi went toward Wader.
"Rumi!" Glum called.
Rad was not entirely surprised to see the look of defiance in
Rumi's eyes as she looked back at her mother. It was something he had
sensed building for a long time, ever since the start of their trip
from Planet California to Earth. All the rules they had laid down,
all their plans to shield her from the dangers they knew were part and
parcel of being a superguy on Earth... they had thought they would
have a few weeks, at least, before letting some of them be bent, but
it looked like they were all already on their way to being shattered.
What did surprise him was what Glum said next.
"Watch her left arm," Glum said, moving to stand on Rumi's right
side. "Wader always keeps a hidden weapon tucked in a thigh pocket."
"But she's in too much pain---" started Rumi.
Glum made a face and shook her head. "She has a high tolerance.
As many times as darling and I fought her, we know. She can take a
lot... there!"
Wader had a small pistol in her hand and was raising it when a
blast from Rumi knocked it out of her hand. A bioelectric blast from
Glum caused Dana to slump back to the ground, unconscious.
"Good one, mom!" Rumi exclaimed.
Glum grinned and held out her hand, palm up, facing Rumi. Rumi
looked suddenly uncomfortable, and looked back at Rad, the boys, and
the various others in the crowd.
"Mooom," she said. "My *friends* are watching."
Glum merely cocked her head and waited. Rumi fidgeted some, then
sighed, reached up, and gave her mother a tepid 'high five.' Sparks
flew from their hands when this happened. Glum grinned. Rumi looked
embarrassed.
"Kiiiirrrrbyyyyy!" someone yelled, somehow piercing the general
hubbub of the fighting still going on. Kirby's head snapped up, and
his eyes grew wide. "I am *so* toast," he said, looking in the
direction of the voice--which Rad realized belonged to Elizabeth
Tirkoff. Kirby then disappeared, leaving only the knife, which
clattered to the asphalt.
"I almost got killed by Dana Wader!" Lemon exclaimed. "I am *so*
going to blog this!"
"What about the... what did you call it... 'supslash?'" asked the
Hispanic boy.
"Fooled her, didn't I?" Lemon asked. "She totally thought I was
that 'waderfan.' I mean, sure, I read them, but write them? Come on.
I was just trying to get her off her guard, see, and that story was
the first thing I thought of, and she totally surprised me by knowing
what I was talking about."
"And *you* know what you were talking about because...?"
Lemon shrugged. "I've got a lot of unsupervised free time," he
said, "and the internet is full of wonders." From anyone else, Rad
thought, it would have sounded defensive, but the kid seemed not to
care.
"Rad," China Moroboshi's voice crackled in his head, via his
implanted radio receiver. "Take a look at the stadium. It looks like
our friends from the Hidden Empire are in full retreat."
Indeed, Rad saw, the last of the sphere-ships was moving toward
the stadium. It wobbled somewhat, as if it was overloaded. Part of
its hull was a transparent oval, and Rad thought he saw Capella
looking back at him through it.
"It's her!" he heard Rumi exclaimed. "Capella!"
Rad wondered how *she* had recognized Capella, given how late she
had arrived to the battle. But before he could ask, Rumi took off
after the sphere ship, and the Hispanic boy did the same. Glum looked
at Rad, shrugged, and launched herself in pursuit. Rad quickly caught
up, swerving between Rumi and Glum as they rose over the edge of the
stadium.
The dimensional portal that was the nectarisite lake was nearly
gone. Metal swirled around a center that Rad guessed to be the
pitcher's mound, looking as if it was draining into the ground.
Capella's sphere-ship--its transparent oval window gone--fell rapidly
toward what was left, disappearing through the center with barely a
yard's worth of metal to spare. Less than a minute later, even that
was gone, and the field of Dodger stadium was back.
The grass seemed undisturbed, Rad saw. When he landed on the
pitcher's mound, he found no evidence that a lake of metal had either
risen from or drained back into it.
"Looks like they got away," said Glum, looking at Rumi. "Who's
Capella?"
"Long story," both she and Rad said in unison.
"Is it over?" the Hispanic boy asked.
"Like, think so, dude," said Rad. "Like, what's your name?"
"Esteban Veracruz," said the boy.
"Oh, you're Miguel's brother!" Glum exclaimed. "I never did get
to meet you earlier!"
"Like, I meant your superguy name, dude," Rad corrected. "You,
like, made some totally excellent moves out there, like, y'know?"
"Oh!" Esteban replied, a broad smile breaking over his face.
"I... um... I never really came up with one I liked..."
"What about 'El Guerrero?'" said Rumi. "That is what Erasmus
Fancy called you."
"I don't know why he called me that," Esteban replied. "It means
'warrior' in Spanish, but... hmmm. 'El Guerrero de Los Pantalones.'
It... kind of fits, I think..." He looked up, eyes wide. "Erasmus
Fancy! I totally forgot!"
"Like, hang on, dude," said Rad. "Like, China, you, like, still
there?"
"Right here," China replied in his head. "Sorry, looks like
Erasmus Fancy and The Programmer made good their escape. Confusion
called in that he and Guido have Dana Wader firmly tied up, though."
Rad relayed the news to the others. Esteban looked frustrated,
then nodded. Rumi placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Oh, Rad, could you have Glum fly out to the parking lot?" China
asked. "Dr. Gigawatt says he thinks that the nectarisitic energy she
soaked up might be just the thing to render inert the control chips in
the zombies and ninjas. She does that, then Dr. Tirkoff can heal any
residual damage."
"Like, what about the, y'know, monkeys and stuff?"
"Manny says 'monkeys all gone,'" China replied, after a few
moments. "The ones who didn't get to the sphere-ships just teleported
away. Not surprising, especially if Capella had them working around
here before today. The goats are helping out with the wounded,
though. Looks like the fighting's basically over. Oh, one more
thing?"
"Like, what?"
"The strip mall," said China. "Totally not our fault."
"Like---"
He was interrupted by the sound of a large crash coming from
somewhere to the west.
"We managed to keep the _Subtler Than Light_ from landing in the
ocean," China went on, after the major rumbling ended. "But I think
the Venice Chamber of Commerce is going to want a word with us."
"Like, okay," said Rad. He told Glum, Rumi, and Esteban what he
had just told China. Rumi seemed very startled when he mentioned the
name of Capella's ship, but did not say why.
"At least the stadium itself wasn't damaged," said Esteban, as he
looked around. "Pretty remarkable, considering all the fighting that
was---"
The entirety of the stadium along the first base line abruptly
shattered and collapsed, as Mighty Guy burst through and landed. His
landing took out a good portion of the outfield, as well as the
portion of the stadium at the boundary of left field. Mighty Guy flew
back, causing only moderate damage as he landed close to Rad and the
others.
"It appears that the forces of good have again prevailed!" Mighty
Guy declared, causing more sections of the stadium to teeter and
collapse. "And we have caught Dana Wader, as well! By the name of my
father, Bore-All, truly it is a good day for truth and justice!"
"Like, yah, Mighty Dude," said Rad, who had, in fact, lost his
hearing after the first syllable. "Let's, like, go join the others,
like, y'know?"
After pantomiming the idea to Glum, Rumi, and Esteban, they
lifted into the night sky, flying back to their friends, and the
aftermath of victory. It had been, Rad thought, a very long day.

WILL GLUM BE ABLE TO HELP THE PSEUDO-ZOMBIES AND PSEUDO-NINJAS?
WILL RAD END UP SLEEPING PAST SUNRISE BECAUSE OF THIS?
WILL RUMI TELL HER PARENTS ABOUT HER VISION OF CAPELLA AND THE
_SUBTLER THAN LIGHT_?
WILL ESTEBAN FIND HIS WAY OUT OF THE CLOSET?
WILL MIGUEL FIND OUT ABOUT ESTEBAN AND LEMON?
WILL LEMON GET DANA WADER'S AUTOGRAPH?
WILL ERASMUS FANCY REVEAL WHY HE BOTHERED RESCUING THE PROGRAMMER?
WILL THE PROGRAMMER EVER MAKE IT BACK DOWN TO THE UNDERGROUND HIGHWAY?
WILL CAPELLA RETURN WITH A BETTER SHIP, OR AT LEAST MORE MONKEYS?
WILL ELIZABETH GIVE KIRBY A TIME-OUT?
WILL KIRBY EXPLAIN HOW HE GOT DOWN FROM THE _VANDER HARKNESS_ TO THE
BATTLE, OR IS THAT SELF-EVIDENT?
WILL CENDRA FIGURE OUT WHY SHE'S ABLE TO SHAPESHIFT INTO APPEARING AS
VARIOUS MYTHOLOGICAL CREATURES?
WILL SILAS AND BARNABY GO BACK TO FILMMAKING WITH TEMPLAR?
WILL THE AUTHOR COME UP WITH MORE COMBAT SCENES THAT GIVE HIM AN
EXCUSE TO USE THE WORD 'BLUNDERBUSS'?

I could ask questions all day. Read SUPERGUY.
--
Elizabeth Tirkoff and Kirby Rogers appear with permission of
Eric A. Burns-White.
--
Copyright (c) 2009 by Gary W. Olson. All Rights Reserved.
--
Gary W. Olson
swede at novitious dot com
Superguy LiveJournal: http://community.livejournal.com/superguy_list/
Superguy DreamWidth: http://superguy.dreamwidth.org/
Superguy Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=47273370926

SG: Rad #99 (3/4): is full of

(continued from part two, preceding...)

***

The Programmer opened his eyes, then immediately shut them again.
There were too many monkeys in his line of sight--always a sign, in
his opinion, that he had woken too soon. Unfortunately, his brain
refused to cooperate, and remained stubbornly awake. So he opened his
eyes again.
Still a lot of demon monkeys, he thought. But none seemed
specifically focused on *him.* Good, he decided. He could deal with
that. He tried lifting his arms, and found they were bound behind his
back. Not so good, he decided.
"Still a 'prisoner,' I see," said a voice to his left, managing
to sound both mocking and woozy at the same time. "You might as well
stay seated. They don't seem intent on harming us, so long as we stay
put."
The Programmer lolled his head, bringing Miguel Veracruz into his
field of vision. Miguel was no longer a werewolf, but his lean and
muscular form did not seem that much less imposing. He seemed to be
trying to undo the rope around his wrists--a fact The Programmer found
perplexing, given his statement.
He recognized some of the other tied-up prisoners, including Tom
McCavish-Laffalot, Alice Seconds, and Eivandt Seconds. They looked as
if they had been through the same disorienting teleportation process
he had, and barely took notice of what Miguel said.
The transmitter was still in his right hand, concealed by his
clenched fingers. Though it fit snugly in his palm, The Programmer
knew that the demon monkeys had seen him take it, and that they only
let him keep it because they either believed it was of no use, or that
he could not possibly find a use for it that would affect them.
Of that, he silently vowed, he would see. There was still time
to create a distraction, one that would enable him to make a break for
one of the corridors. He had already re-activated the default
broadcast instructions, and could imagine the consternation this had
caused on the surface. If he could give the chip-controlled people
specific instructions, the demon monkeys on the surface would believe
their fellows below had failed, and would... would... do what? Radio
down to ask what happened? Wander off? Join a volleyball league?
The more The Programmer thought about it, the more he realized it
was one of his less-focused brilliant plans. In response, he
immediately stopped thinking about it, and felt much better. Soon...
soon he would be on the move, with an army of mind-controlled people
at his command, and the world below would tremble---
The air near him shimmered for a moment, and then there stood
Erasmus Fancy, Dana Wader, and a large number of demon monkeys. The
Programmer tried to leap up and run away, but encountered difficulty
with the 'leaping' part, as being seated with his arms tied behind his
back was not a great position for starting such a move. He settled
for falling onto his side and looking up at the newcomers.
Dana Wader was transformed from the cool and ominous secret agent
who had taken him down to the underground. Now her eyes were wide,
her grin was feral, and her face and clothing were bloody. She
clutched a long, red-stained knife, keeping a death-grip on it even as
she staggered and fell to her knees.
"I think," she murmured, almost too low for The Programmer to
hear, "you forgot some of my organs... whoa...."
The Programmer expected her to fall, as had all the others the
demon monkeys had brought in via teleportation. She did not.
Instead, she swayed on her knees, looking about her as if the world
was a nice, soft target she could slice open as soon as it stopped
moving about on her. He edged away, scooting on the metallic floor as
casually as was possible in the given circumstances.
Fancy, meanwhile, showed no sign the teleportation had affected
him at all. The demon monkeys on him teleported away split seconds
before he could swat them, reappearing ten feet away.
"I am not your enemy," said Fancy, addressing them. His voice
was smooth, low, and rich. "The corruption of our world can be
reversed. But if you take me back, all of my progress--"
"*Our* progress, yard ape," Wader slurred up at him.
"--will be lost!" Fancy continued. "And when I return to our
home dimension with the purification matrix, and take my rightful
place in the leadership of our world, I will command for you money far
in excess of what you are now being paid to take me in." He smiled,
an expression on his grizzled face that came perilously close to a
sneer. "What say you?"
The demon monkey closest to Fancy, a three-foot-tall grey-and-
black furred horned howler monkey in a battered and torn little black
uniform, rubbed his chin as if seriously contemplating the offer. He
raised a paw.
In response, two demon monkeys shuffled forward, carrying a
weapon that looked as if it had been made for someone with twice their
size and maybe a fifth of their aesthetic sense. It was a bronze-gold
blunderbuss--four feet long, with a curved handle and a wide-flared
barrel, plus enough rococo waves and curly-cues sticking out from
various places to make identifying critical parts a daunting task.
The monkeys pulled on several wavelike flares on the underside of the
weapon, in an apparent attempt to figure out which one was the
trigger.
Fancy roared, then pulled something out of his belt pouch. The
Programmer recognized it as the mask Fancy had worn when posing as
Wader's M.I.B.-assigned driver. Fancy was pulling it toward his face
when the monkeys found the trigger on their blunderbuss, and the
weapon went off.
At first, it appeared that nothing had happened. No ray or
projectile came out of the weapon, though it did make a sound somewhat
like a man in rubber boots walking through mud. It took a moment for
The Programmer to realize that both Fancy and Wader had stopped
moving.
"What the hell...?" asked Miguel. He was on his feet now,
despite still having his hands bound behind his back. The Programmer
wondered if he had been feigning disorientation before. Miguel
advanced on Fancy, clearly puzzled as to what had stopped the enormous
bonobo from moving.
In mid-step, Miguel froze. He was still three feet from Fancy.
The demon monkeys with the strange blunderbuss nodded to one another,
then with some difficulty carried their weapon away. They were
distracted by the sound of a grating falling to the floor, and then a
cry.
"Miguel!"
The Programmer saw a teenage Hispanic boy leap out of the hole
formerly covered by the grating. The armor-pants he wore looked like
they belonged to someone far larger--in fact, they looked like they
were currently stretched over someone far larger. They also appeared
flight-capable, as the boy used them to swoop down to the ground with
fair speed.
"Hey, Esteban, wait!" another teenage boy called from the hole
in the wall. He leapt from said hole a moment later, and it was only
the intervention of Rumi Moroboshi--the red-haired teen girl who had
earlier saved The Programmer from demon monkeys and compelled his
assistance in finding her mother--who, by flying out and catching him
by the wrist, kept the boy from hitting the ground with force enough
to break something. Rumi carried the blond-haired boy down to land
next to Esteban and Miguel.
"Be careful, Lemon," Rumi said. The boy, Lemon, seemed to be
having too much fun with the flight to care.
The demon monkeys did not seem impressed with this display.
They watched it with caution, but did not intervene. The Programmer
knew that would change if any of them looked like they were trying to
rescue Fancy. He rolled his stolen transmitter over and over in his
palm.
As if these events were not disconcerting enough, The Programmer
was surprised to see a two-foot-tall bronze-gold metallic bonobo
emerge from the right thigh of Esteban's battle pants, as if the
surface was liquid instead of solid. The small monkey landed beside
Miguel, raised a hand of caution toward Esteban, and seemed to
consider the situation.
Finally, the bonobo walked around in front of Miguel and pushed
on his knees. Miguel stumbled back, and seemed to break out of
whatever had kept him in stasis.
"What... what was that?" he asked.
Esteban looked at the golden bonobo, who looked back at him.
Esteban nodded, then turned to Miguel.
"Coco says they're in a slow-aether bubble," he said. "That
weird gun they were using projects those. It's basically a temporary
bubble where, inside, the aetheric physics of the Hidden Empire's home
dimension rule."
"But why are they slow?" Rumi asked.
Esteban and Rumi now both looked at Coco, who looked back at
them.
"Oh," said Rumi, nodding. "That makes sense... sort of."
Some kind of telepathic communication was going on, The
Programmer realized, but only between Coco, Esteban, and Rumi. Why
this was, he had no idea.
"What'd he say?" asked Lemon. The Programmer noticed that Miguel
regarded the boy with some considerable suspicion--suspicion of what,
The Programmer again had no idea--but was keeping that reaction in
check.
"It's been adjusted," said Esteban, "so that the temporological
aspect of the aether is extremely thin. In aetheric terms,
there's..." The boy paused, looked at Coco, then spoke again.
"...not enough aether for time within the bubble to move at regular
speed."
"So why did he freeze, then?" Lemon asked.
"The field can expand to envelop any lifeform that comes into
contact with it," Esteban explained. "It has to, otherwise you get
situations where you're half in and half out, and half of your
bloodstream is moving at regular speed, and half at super-slow speed,
one lung goes at one speed and the other slower, and... well, you
die." He regarded Fancy and Wader, then shook his head. "But that's
not what the monkeys want."
"Why was it so bright?" Miguel asked. "The light grew intense
when I was... I dunno, inside. And why didn't it affect goldenrod
here?"
Coco floated up to Miguel's eye-level and crossed his arms.
"He says the light grew bright because the luminiferous aspect
was not thinned," said Esteban. "So people outside the bubble can
still see those inside. Which is..." Esteban stopped, frowned, and
looked at Coco. "But why isn't the light affected by time as... okay,
okay."
Coco grinned and spun around.
"As for the second question," said Esteban, "he can alter his
interior state to compensate for aetheric variances."
"And he cooks some good omelettes," Lemon noted. Coco gave a
modest shrug.
"Hey, he's still moving!" Miguel exclaimed.
"Lemon, back up," said Rumi. "Stay away from the edge."
The Programmer wondered if Rumi could see the edge of the bubble.
She was half-alien, he remembered, so he guessed it was possible. She
restrained Lemon from moving any closer, and peered at Fancy. The
Programmer saw that Fancy had indeed moved, his mask a few inches
farther up than it had been a few minutes ago.
"Not frozen," Miguel observed. "Just---"
Another crash interrupted Miguel's observation. The Programmer
looked up the wall, on the opposite side from where the three teens
had come, and saw another hole where a grating had once been. Two
women emerged, both of whom The Programmer recognized from having
encountered them earlier--Cendra Seconds and Glum.
"Mom!" Rumi exclaimed.
"Cendra!" Miguel yelled. Glum, who was only slightly less
supercharged-looking than she had been when The Programmer had last
run away from her, swooped in and set Cendra down in front of Miguel.
The Programmer observed that Cendra's eyes were wide, and that she was
slightly trembling. When Miguel attempted to embrace her, The
Programmer heard a loud snap, and both Miguel and Cendra jumped back.
"Ouch," said Cendra. "Sorry about that!" She grinned. "Glum's
been carrying me around. I feel like I've been drinking extra-
caffeinated coffee since, I don't know, forever."
"I've lost some of the charge I got from the nectarisite pile,"
Glum said, as she gave Rumi a brief hug, "but I've still got a lot in
me." She looked over at the horde of demon monkeys, who were
regarding the new arrivals with suspicion, though they did not seem
about to attack. "I like what they've done with these two," she said,
indicating Fancy and Wader.
"Esteban was saying..." Miguel started, but again he was
interrupted. The square-forming line on the floor of the hub lit up,
and a rumbling noise filled the air. The Programmer noticed for the
first time that all the vehicles and all the prisoners were inside
this square, and that the demon monkeys were hurriedly getting inside
it as well.
"Looks like we're about to go up," Cendra observed. "Okay,
everybody, hang on. I'm not sure we're even supposed to be doing this
without a vehicle. If it goes up at the same speed it came down---"
The square rose from the floor of the hub, toward an opening in
the ceiling. It moved briskly but not super-fast, giving anyone not
quite ready time to pull in any loose appendages.
"Hey," said Lemon, looking around as if he had just gotten onto a
disappointing carnival ride. "This isn't even sca... ry?"
The Programmer noticed the change the same time the boy did. A
feeling of hesitation in the platform. Then it accelerated, as if
rockets attached to its underside had suddenly gone off. Everyone
standing on the platform outside the busses immediately fell to the
ground. The Programmer fell back, the blow of the deck against his
back knocking the wind out of him.
He kept his grip on his stolen transmitter, and vowed that he
would someday return.

***

"You!" Capella exclaimed, as she fired another bolt of
nectarisitic energy at Rad. Rad dodged this time, fighting past the
pain of her earlier strike to concentrate his aim. His psychokinetic
bolts struck her abdomen and shoulder, sending her hurtling toward
pavement.
She recovered in time to turn a hard landing into a rolling one,
and was back in the air in the blink of an eye. Rad took the
opportunity to reinforce his psychokinetic shielding. Though it had
proved of limited use against the energies Capella projected, that
'use' had thus far turned killer strikes into injuring ones. He flew
up farther into the night sky, above where the sphere-ships clustered.
"You could have let us have him!" Capella yelled, as she flew up
toward him. "We would have gone, and you never would have seen us
again!"
Rad strafed psychokinetic blasts at her. The first one struck
her leg, but she managed to avoid the rest. Capella returned with a
single nectarisitic laser blast that missed him, though it came close
enough to scorch the skin of his lower arm. She was wobbling a bit as
she flew, and Rad sensed another bolt might finish her off.
"Like, surrender, heinous noble babe!" he declared. "Or, like,
I'll have to, like, take you down, y'kno---"
Rad was cut off as four demon monkeys appeared above him and
dropped down, screeching and clawing. As before, their claws found no
purchase against his psychokinetically shielded skin, and they bounced
or slid off. They disappeared as soon as this happened.
He looked up in time to receive a nectarisite blast to the chest.
This one felt like being hit by a truck, and sent him end-over-end
down toward the sphere-ships. He fought to regain control.
Capella was there in an instant, her hand against his throat.
Rad realized he had dropped his psychokinetic shields in order to
focus on staying aloft and that she could kill him before he brought
them back up.
"If it is war you wish with us," she said, ending the last word
with a hiss. "Then it is war you shall ha---"
Black boots struck Capella's back, slamming her down from where
she and Rad hovered. Rad blinked, looked down, and saw Capella and a
dark figure falling fast. Capella seemed stunned. The dark figure
seemed determined to drive her into the broken asphalt of the Dodgers
Stadium parking lot. Rad dove down, wondering if he would have time
to intervene.
The dark figure relented, reaching down and pulling Capella up
into its arms. It landed two seconds later, its impact accompanied
by a sharp crashing sound and an additional wave of spiderweb cracks
in the concrete. The figure remained upright, having landed with
knees bent and Capella in its arms. Rad landed, and immediately
recognized the figure.
"Like, whoa, Chalandra," he said. "That was some, like, most
excellent saving, like, y'know?"
Chalandra Harkness grinned at him, revealing her fangs. She had
changed into a black leather outfit, the kind he remembered her
wearing for motorcycling. Her dirtwater-blonde hair was tied behind
her head, making her look even younger than the perpetual twenty-three
she had been for five centuries. She regarded Capella with disdain as
she laid the unconscious woman down on some relatively unbroken
asphalt.
"China told you reinforcements were on the way, right?" Chalandra
asked.
"Like, yah," said Rad. "Like, nice move, y'know? It was very,
like, y'know... 'Underworld.'"
"I get that a lot," Chalandra wryly replied. "Where's Manny?"
"He's, like, over... like, look out!"
Capella--not so unconscious as previously believed--had risen
from where Chalandra had placed her and was aiming her right arm at
Chalandra. Before she could fire, Chalandra spun and headbutted
her. Capella collapsed, and did not move further.
"I swear, it's like a board meeting, some days," Chalandra
commented. Rad decided not to ask for an elaboration. "Wh... oh,
there he is. Come on, let's get to him."
Rad saw Confusion, Criticalman, Guido, and the pseudo-ninjas and
pseudo-zombies they were restraining from rejoining the battle.
Nearby, a black-and-gold Harxxon helicopter--from which Chalandra had
presumably leapt--had just set down. Rad could see Elizabeth Tirkoff,
Dr. Gigawatt, and two Harxxon employees climbing out. He took to the
air, following Chalandra as she ran toward them with more-than-human
speed past dueling demon monkeys and armed goats.
Halfway there, the air was split with a massive cacophony of
monkey screeches and howls. Rad looked toward the underground
elevator shaft, obscured though it was by the main body of the demon
monkey horde. They were wildly excited about something or other, he
could tell.
A second later, the howls of excitement turned to rage, as a
massive form in a torn black limo driver's uniform leapt high into the
air. Rad estimated the leaper made it twenty feet up before gravity
had its way and brought him down. The massive figure wore a mask that
disguised his facial features, and had black fur where parts of his
outfit had been torn away. He landed on his feet, between the demon
monkeys and a group of six goats.
"Fancy!" one of the goats yelled. "It's Fancy!"
"Grab him, by Jove!" another declared.
Darts flashed from the muzzles of the goats' gunbelts. Three
struck the figure, who Rad realized was the elusive Erasmus Fancy that
Capella sought. Fancy snarled and leapt again, unfazed by the darts.
This time, it was the demon monkeys who intervened, appearing on
him in great numbers. Too great, it turned out, as they got in one
another's way as they all attempted to latch onto him. Fancy shook
two off and landed on the other side of the goats.
Though Rad was unsure as to how much of what Capella had told him
about Fancy was true, he remembered that Bhossi and Cla'rabhelle had
earlier labeled him a 'criminal mastermind,' and decided that it would
be a bad idea to just let him scamper away. He flew after the
gorilla--no, bonobo, he corrected himself--and landed before him.
Erasmus Fancy did not slow, roaring as he charged. Rad braced
himself and strengthened his psychokinetic shields. Fancy struck him
hard, and Rad staggered, having slightly underestimated the opposing
force he needed to generate, or perhaps how much his fight with
Capella had depleted his strength. But it was Fancy who fell to the
ground.
Before the bonobo could get up, Rad snatched away his mask. The
face revealed was very angry. Rad recognized it from the description
he had been earlier given, right down to the missing left eye and the
scar that ran through the socket. All that was different was that the
eye-socket had been filled by a bronze-gold metallic ball.
The mask was now inside out, and Rad saw that one side of it had
a flexible, foil-like panel. The foil was bronze-gold, and Rad
realized it must be nectarisite. He was unsure of its purpose, but
given that the mask had no eyeholes, he guessed it at minimum allowed
Fancy to see---
"Asylum!" Fancy declared, drawing Rad's attention. "I demand
asylum! Do not hand me over to Capella!"
Before Rad could reply, the air was filled with demon monkeys.
Whatever discipline they had earlier demonstrated seemed abandoned in
their fervor to get to Fancy, and both he and Rad were buffeted by
them as they leapt and teleported in. Rad heard the whine of multiple
darts fired by the goats, but the monkeys kept coming.
Only Fancy was no longer there. Rad saw him leap, back in the
direction of the elevator shaft and the hovering sphere-ships. The
move took the monkeys and the goats by surprise, and they watched with
him, dumbfounded.
Rad was about to pursue when his implanted radio receiver came to
life.
"Rad, Rad, you there?" he heard Confusion ask. "China said she'd
patch me through---"
"Like, yah," said Rad. "Like, what---"
"The zombies and ninjas are revolting!" Confusion exclaimed.
"Also, we've lost containment! Someone's giving them active direction
again!"
"Like, on my way, dude," Rad replied. The monkeys and goats were
already pursuing Fancy. Rad looked at Fancy's mask, stuffed it into
the pocket of his blue jean cutoffs, then took to the sky once more.
Whatever strategies the various sides in the conflict had
attempted had, by this time, degenerated into a melee. Demon monkeys,
goats, superguys, jetpack-wearing agents, pseudo-zombies, and pseudo-
ninjas were all fighting one another beneath the lights of the stadium
parking lot and the hovering sphere-ships. The concessions vendors on
the edge of the fray had moved their supplies back inside their
vehicles, though they continued to be ready to sell beer, soda,
snacks, and bananas to people, monkeys, and goats. Finding Fancy in
all this would be---
"Like, wait," said Rad. "There he is, narrator dude."
Oh, fine, he's over there. Leaping, if you must know.
"Like, right," Rad said. "Like, where's he, y'know, think he's
going?"
Not waiting for an answer, Rad flew into the fray. He arced
between monkeys and goats, deflecting darts and personal space
invasions alike. Bolts of electrical power projected by the sphere-
ships ripped the asphalt around him, forcing him to soar higher.
Fancy was on the ground, fighting off a swarm of monkeys. Rad
was unsure of what he was trying to get to. Possibly the elevator
shaft, but he was facing the wrong way for... no, there. Standing on
top of one of the busses, shouting something into a thing in his right
hand.
The Programmer. The guy he and Manny had been told to find.
As he swooped down, Rad saw a boy in a far-too-large pair of
bronze-gold metallic pants lift into the air, also heading towards
Fancy. Lifting off with him was a teenage girl in an orange t-shirt
and---
"Like, Rumi!" he exclaimed, recognizing his daughter. He started
to say more...
...then everything around him started moving at super-speed, and
grew overwhelmingly bright.
"Hmmm," said Rad. "That shouldn't be."

(concluded in part four, following...)
--
Elizabeth Tirkoff appears with permission of Eric A. Burns-White.
--
Copyright (c) 2009 by Gary W. Olson. All Rights Reserved.
--
Gary W. Olson
swede at novitious dot com
Superguy LiveJournal: http://community.livejournal.com/superguy_list/
Superguy DreamWidth: http://superguy.dreamwidth.org/
Superguy Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=47273370926

SG: Rad #99 (2/4): Internet

(continued from part one, preceding...)

***

The howls and cries of the demon monkeys had not faded enough for
The Programmer's liking, but he felt he could stay where he was no
longer. The underground base once controlled by the Mega-Intelligence
Bureau was now empty, all humans and humanish beings within having
been taken or chased by the monkeys to the hub area at the base's
center--all save him. Logic suggested that he would be prudent to
wait for the monkeys to finish their task--which was evidently to get
everyone out of the base and back to the surface--so that he could
make his way to the underground highway by which he had come to the
base. But there was a chance that the monkeys would seal off the path
to the highway as well as the path to the surface, which would trap
him in the base forever if he waited too long.
Besides, logic and he had not been on good speaking terms ever
since the never-detailed accident that made him into a computer-
motifed criminal mastermind over fifteen years ago. Plus, lurking in
the shadows was kind of boring.
The idea of whole civilizations lurking below the Earth's
surface, not just in isolated patches but all over--or under--every
inhabited continent enthralled him as few things not involving
programming or nubile cheerleaders ever had before. They had been
below all this time, serenely uncaring as the world writhed through
two world wars and a large number of local ones. Whole swaths of
people there were innocent of the upheavals on the surface in the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries, knowing nothing of superguys,
super-powered villains, or their struggles. (Almost nothing--he was
sure that the nuclear consequences of Dangerousman's visit to the
center of the Earth in the late eighties had not gone unnoticed.)
People to whom horrors such as the Industrial Revolution, the
Genocidal War, and 'baconnaise' meant nothing.
People with no idea how to defend themselves or their underground
territories against crafty villains such as he.
This time, The Programmer caught himself before his maniacal
cackle got too loud. He kept his hands firmly clamped over his mouth
until the last chortle passed.
The corridor he was in was the ring outermost from the hub, on
the upper level of the three-level base. The rooms in this place held
the equipment used to broadcast to Wader's and Fancy's radio-chip-
controlled ninjas and zombies on the surface. It was far from the
entrance to the underground highway that he most desired, but it
held the means by which he might overcome the obstacles between him
and said highway.
He found the door he wanted, placed his hand over the keypad,
closed his eyes, and focused. He could feel the pathways in the
keyboard circuits, and knew the sequence it expected and the alarms it
would trigger if numbers were punched incorrectly. With a thought, he
pushed the recognition circuit into the 'correct entry' pathway, and
the door unlocked.
The Programmer let out the breath he had not realized he was
holding. Ever since he had interfaced with the nectarisite-based
circuitry installed by Erasmus Fancy and Dana Wader, he had been able
to accomplish such feats, though he had no idea how. Long ago, he had
created a circuitry-laden shirt that allowed him such direct mind-to-
computer access, but that had been destroyed years ago. Something had
changed him while he had mentally been in the nectarisite network's
'C-Space,' something even more wanting of explanation than the accident
that had originally made him a villain. It had, so far, only proved
useful for unlocking electronically-locked doors, but he was about to
put it to a bigger test.
The room consisted of eight booths, each with a microphone, a
control board, and a laptop computer. The booths were barely larger
than the cubicles in The Programmer's former place of employment. The
one time he had been here before, The Programmer remembered, all eight
booths had been occupied, with young-looking M.I.B. agents speaking
orders or lines to the chip-implanted people they were controlling.
None of the booths were occupied now, and all the systems were off.
"I just need one," The Programmer muttered to himself. He sat
down in the armless office chair closest to him and switched on the
CPU with a glance. He was dismayed, though not surprised, when the
monitor informed him that the operating system was Vista. With the
former Most Totally Evil Woman in the Galaxy calling the shots, he had
expected as much.
Even with his enhanced ability to interface directly with the
computer, The Programmer had a difficult time getting through the
thicket of suck that was Vista. He wondered, idly, if Hell was using
Microsoft as a front again, as they had once in the early nineties,
but decided they were probably just Microsoft's biggest customer.
Finally, he found what he wanted. The master systems that
controlled the broadcast to the chip-controlled people on the surface.
It was not his work--his had been with the nectarisite chips that
received the radio signals--but it was adequate for his purposes. He
saw the changes required, and made them with ease.
He withdrew his mind from the system. Now, all he needed was a
palm-held transmitter. There had been one in the equipment closet on
the far side of the room, he remembered. If it was still there, he
knew, the system would be his.
Six demon monkeys appeared in the room, three on his left, three
on his right. The Programmer stopped laughing, and realized he had
forgotten to cover his mouth this time.
The demon monkeys latched onto him. He dodged and spun, his
awkward flail proving surprisingly effective against an enemy whose
training had not covered 'spaz attacks.' Three monkeys got tangled up
in one another's limbs, while the other three held on to his limbs and
screeched.
A further flail dislodged two, and The Programmer dashed for the
door to the equipment closet. He mentally reached out and tried to
access its keypad code-entry circuit with his mind, but failed. Did
he have to be closer, or...?
The door turned out not to be secured with a keypad. It was, in
fact, not secured at all, and flew open as soon as The Programmer
grabbed the handle and yanked.
"Ha ha!" The Programmer exclaimed. "Na--whoah!"
A demon monkey was now beneath his shirt, sliding around on his
back. Sharp claws dug into his skin. The Programmer had no idea how
the demon monkey could contrive to teleport in this way, pushing out
his shirt as it appeared, but did not think this the time to ask. He
stumbled, smacked the door frame with his back, and heard the monkey
yowl.
"Now you see," The Programmer jeered, "that there is no--hey! No
reaching around! Don't twis...yeeeeowwww!"
He crashed and flailed around the equipment closet. More demon
monkeys appeared as he fell to his knees. As tears stung his eyes,
he saw what he sought.
"Gotcha," said The Programmer, grabbing the small transmitter a
second before the demon monkeys teleported out of the room.

***

"It looks... busy," said Esteban Veracruz, as he peered through
the grating. Lemon Rydell, on Esteban's right, let out a low whistle
of agreement. Rumi Moroboshi, on Esteban's left, narrowed her eyes
and said nothing.
The grate they were looking through was on the wall above one of
the entrances into the underground base's hub area. The hub was a
wide circular room, two hundred feet in diameter, with a one-hundred-
foot-by-one-hundred-foot square drawn around its center. The square
was currently packed with two busses, a limousine, about fifty or so
M.I.B. personnel, and about as many demon monkeys. Many of the M.I.B.
guards, agents, and technicians were on the busses, bound to their
seats with rope, cable, or whatever else the monkeys had found.
Eivandt Seconds, Alice Seconds, Tom McCavish-Laffalot, and Miguel
Veracruz were on the floor next to the farther of the busses, along
with a few M.I.B. guards and a couple technicians--those among the
last to be captured, Rumi surmised. As far as she could tell, they
were unharmed. The monkeys had relieved them of their guns, and had
also relieved Eivandt of his busted banjo. Miguel had reverted back
from his werewolf form to human, and seemed unconscious. Rumi
remembered that she had seen him teleported away by a large number of
demon monkeys, and guessed that the resulting disorientation he had
experienced had been more severe than what a similar teleportation had
caused her.
This notion was soon confirmed, as The Programmer and six demon
monkeys appeared in a circle that had apparently been kept empty for
such a purpose. The monkeys teleported off of The Programmer to the
ground, and watched as he staggered out of the circle. He collapsed,
at which point a monkey bound his hands behind his back with a length
of bright orange extension cord. They then left him where he had
fallen.
Her mother, Glum, was not in sight, nor was Cendra Seconds. Both
had still been fighting demon monkeys when Rumi had been teleported
away, and Rumi hoped their lack of presence now meant they had
successfully fended off their attackers. Similarly absent were Dana
Wader and Erasmus Fancy, though Rumi doubted they would stay away.
That would be too convenient.
"Oh, Este, before I forget," said Lemon, reaching into his back
pocket. "The reason I screwed things up with Shadebeam's
translocation spell--not intentionally, I just... well, you know. I
remembered I had this for you."
He handed a thin book with a yellowing cover and red-edged pages
to Esteban. Rumi peered at the cover. It was an issue of 'Arousing
Adventure Tales,' its cover showing a large gorilla lunging at a dark-
dressed man, while another man wearing a cloak seemed about to pull a
lever intended to cause a wicked-looking machine do something
diabolical and scientific to a curvaceous blonde woman strapped to a
table. Words near the bottom of the cover breathlessly described the
illustrated scene: 'Dick Carter fights the Gothopolis Gorilla to Save
the Lady Carmilla!'
"Dude!" Esteban exclaimed. "You found it!"
"I traded for it," Lemon replied. "You've got all of 'em now,
right?"
"I think so," Esteban said. "Unless it turns out that 'Dick
Carter Versus the Spy Ring of Death' actually was written by him. I
still don't think it was."
"'Him' who?" Rumi asked.
"My great-grandfather," said Esteban. He held up the book.
"James Cartier. He wrote the early Dick Carter dime novels, based on
the cases of his real uncle, Richard Cartier. Only he made 'Dick
Carter' a two-fisted detective and master of disguise, and not an
occult detective like Richard was. My brother and I inherited some of
his stuff, and I've been trying to get the rest... but only the stuff
my great-grandfather really wrote. Anything anyone else wrote under
the 'Herbert Yale' pseudonym is completely made up."
Esteban looked at the book again, grinned, then slid it into his
backpack. He looked at Lemon, and Rumi sensed he wanted to say
something else. Or, perhaps, do something else. But he glanced at
Rumi, and then away, and then said and did nothing else.
"So what do we do?" Lemon asked, gesturing at the grate that
separated them from their friends and family. "Fly in, bust some
monkey heads, that sort of thing?"
"There's too many of them," said Rumi. "And we might not need to
do anything. The Programmer told me that the central hub has a built-
in elevator--that big square they're piling everyone onto--and that
the monkeys are just trying to force everyone out of the base en
masse."
"Why?" Esteban asked.
Rumi shrugged. "He didn't say. Probably didn't know. So, since
the monkeys aren't trying to hurt anyone, except to subdue them, and
since what they want and what we want is about the same..." She shook
her head. "No. I can't go down there while my mom and Cendra are
still unaccounted for."
"It's okay," said Lemon, placing a hand on her shoulder. "We'll
find them again. Right, Este?"
"Yeah," said Esteban. He said it, Rumi noticed, without sounding
as if he had heard what Lemon had said. He was looking down at his
brother, a distant look in his eyes. Rumi thought back to what she
had seen just before Erasmus Fancy and Dana Wader attacked her.
"Hey," she said, "are you two together?"
Esteban's reaction was not what she expected. His head snapped
up, alarm in his eyes. He looked like he was having trouble breathing
for a moment, but managed to get out a "What?"
"I just thought I should ask," said Rumi, forcing her voice to
stay calm. "I heard you two talking as I was trying to find you, and
I saw you... well, it was dark, but it looked like..."
Now Esteban looked like he would be sick. Rumi felt like she was
ready to panic herself, not knowing what she had said wrong, but
knowing it was something irreversible. She could not bring herself to
finish her sentence... but found she did not need to.
"Kissing," said Lemon. He did not seem alarmed in the least,
either by what Rumi had said or by Esteban's reaction. "You got good
nightsight. Natural or enhanced?"
"Um... natural," said Rumi. "So... um..."
"We're 'sort of' together," said Lemon, giving Esteban a sideways
glance. "Not officially, though."
"Oh," said Rumi, realizing what he meant. "So he's got another
boyfriend... or girlfriend, but doesn't want them to know he's also
got you."
"Mmmm, no," said Lemon. "And it would be just 'boy' for him, if
there was, right, Este?"
"Lem," Esteban said. "Don't---"
"She saw," Lemon interrupted. His tone was now the same she had
heard before, in Malaga, when he had calmed Esteban's panic attack
over being ready to be a superguy. Smooth, low, not a whisper yet
barely audible. "It's okay. You can trust her. Remember what the
Green Lady said?"
Esteban looked like he wanted to say something else, but just
nodded. He seemed, however, far from convinced.
"What about you?" Rumi asked, looking at Lemon. She thought of
how he had flirted with her in Malaga, and hoped he had not been
acting. She had also not meant to ask while Esteban was right
there... but the words were out.
"I'm more flexible," Lemon replied, giving her the same
insouciant grin she remembered from that time. This drew a sharp look
from Esteban.
But if there was no one else... why was he so scared?
"I don't get it," she said. "Esteban, I'm really trying not to
scare you, but I don't know why you're reacting like this. Is it
something I---"
"No," Esteban gasped. "No." He took two deep breaths, and
something in him seemed to settle. "It's okay. I... I'm in the
closet. Except for Lemon, Cendra, the Green Lady, and now you...
nobody knows." One more deep breath. He met her eyes, trying to see
if she understood. "You can't tell anyone."
Rumi did not answer, as she was trying to remember if 'in the
closet' had been covered in any of the reports she had studied during
the trip from Planet California to Earth. If her link to her house's
Expert System had been up, she could have asked, but it was not. As
near as she could remember, it meant 'a stupid place to hide from the
killer if you're in a horror movie.' But somehow that did not seem to
quite be what Esteban was....
No, wait. There was mention of a closet of some kind in the
report that Ottsamaddawiduan anthropologists had written on the mating
customs of Earth humans. It had been mentioned in the context of a
condescending--and irritation-laden--explanation of why humans mating
habits were rife with ritual, taboo, superstition, and overly-
complicated uses for rope. The anthropologists, while they had been
keen enough at the start of their studies, had apparently grown
frustrated with the task of trying to make sense of why humans were so
wound up about something so basic. Eventually, they decided that even
'the crack'--the taking of which was their explanation for the bizarre
behaviors that passed for politics on Earth--could not explain why
Earth humans were, on average, such raving, neurotic, and/or bigoted
loons, and switched to studying Earth alcohol until their grant money
was used up.
Lemon sighed. "Look. You, Rumi, grew up in a society where, if
you're not sure if someone you're talking to likes guys, girls,
squidlets, or what-have-you, you ask. Saves a lot of wacky confusion
later on, right?"
"Well, yeah," said Rumi, wondering why Lemon was stating the
obvious. "But I don't understand..."
"And if your subject seems reluctant to answer," Lemon went on,
"you figure it's because there's someone else in the picture that he
doesn't want finding out. Not that he doesn't want *anyone* finding
out because then they'll look at him in disgust."
Rumi vaguely remembered the report saying something about this,
and thinking it a clear exaggeration--or even a misunderstanding of
some sort, like the ludicrous passage that suggested that some humans
advocated teaching their offspring nothing about sex or its
consequences with the idea that somehow this would keep them from
going at it anyway.
"Don't mind him," said Esteban. He was looking down, not meeting
her eyes. "He... I know I shouldn't be afraid. And... mostly, I'm
not. Except... except about Miguel."
Rumi could hear it in his words, how the small exception was
everything to him. It was not that 'anyone' finding out was bad... or
more bad than he could take. It was that the more who knew, the more
who could let slip the secret to his older brother, who would... do
what? Say what?
"Now, I don't care who knows about me," said Lemon. "But Este
does care who knows about him... so I play it cool with him in
public."
Esteban said nothing. Rumi felt so awkward, she could not find a
word, let alone a sentence, to convey it. And Lemon, somehow, knew
exactly where her head was at.
"I meet kids from the Confederation," he said. "They come with
their parents for Burning M00se. They read the same stuff you did, I
bet. I mean, they're open-minded and all that--you gotta be if you're
coming to the carnival, no matter what planet you're from--but they
don't *get* how we got how we are. They're just here to party with
the exotic primitives, then zip back to the familiar. And then they
talk about how we're so screwy and weird, but maybe someday we'll
become civilized like them and... well, hey, let me ask this. What do
you think about alties?"
"What?" asked Rumi. She knew what an 'altie' was, of course, but
was startled that Lemon did. "What does that have to do with---"
"Look," Lemon went on, "you generally produce DC current, right?
Like an electric eel?"
"Not me, specifically," Rumi replied. "My ability to use
psychokinetic energies blocks the bioelectric projection ability I'd
otherwise have inherited from my mom."
"Well, you know what I mean," Lemon went on, undeterred. "DC is
what Hottentottians generally use. But... but!" He waved his finger
to block an objection she had not raised. "Some will deliberately
alternate their currents, right? Particularly when they're getting it
on with someone? It's supposedly unnatural, but not one Hottentottian
I've met can explain why. Not so I can understand, anyway."
"And he asks," said Esteban, now sounding faintly embarrassed.
"And asks." Rumi got the feeling this was not the first time Esteban
had heard a variant on this argument.
"My point is," Lemon said, "that you can't just judge us without
knowing us, like those dudes who wrote those reports you all read.
You won't understand why he's afraid of being outed, anymore than I'd
understand why AC is some kind of taboo. Am I making sense?"
Rumi considered her answer. Though she had never been able to
project any current, direct or otherwise, all her playmates growing up
could. And they talked about those they thought were 'alties.' She
had never experienced it, and never had someone offered to give her
the experience... yet she thought she knew what it would be like, and
felt a small shiver of revulsion on contemplating it. And she
realized that she, like the others, could not explain why.
"Yeah," she said. "I think so."
"You won't tell, right?" Esteban asked. His voice was faint,
nearly a whisper, but insistent.
"I won't tell," Rumi said. The relief in his answering smile was
palpable. She turned back to the grate, to see if her mother and
Cendra, or anyone else, had arrived while she and her companions were
hashing things out. As she did, she reflected on why this--more than
teleporting demon monkeys, more than people being mind-controlled to
pretend they were zombies, more than anything else--was the strangest
thing she had so far encountered about life on Earth... and the thing
she most wished she understood.

***

Rad flew low and surveyed the scene. Perhaps fifteen armed goats
were in the parking lot, forming a rough semi-circle facing roughly
twice as many armed demon monkeys. Three goats were on their sides,
not far away from their fellows. If any monkeys were out of the
action, their comrades had pulled them behind the defensive line they
formed around the elevator shaft leading to Erasmus Fancy's
underground base. Rad had expected more action, but figured that the
floating nectarisite sphere-ships hovering overhead--piloted by yet
more demon monkeys--had given the goats cause to regroup and reassess.
There was no sign yet that the elevator that the monkeys were
waiting for was on its way. Rad set Silas down close to the semi-
circle, then took off again, looking for his friends. They were not
far away... and appeared to be having problems of their own.
"Brains," said several of the people who Rad thought of as
pseudo-zombies, owing to how they had been commanded to dress once
they had received their nectarisite-chip implants. "Brains! We are
zombies. OoooOOOOooo! We want brains! We attack! Grrr!"
The ones who were being made to think they were ninjas were
faring no better. "Hai kiba!" they declared. "We are ninjas! We
stay in shadows, strike like death and stuff! Talk to the katana!"
Despite these belligerent assertions, they had not made much
headway in breaking through the loops of celluloid that Criticalman
had spun around them. But as the existence of the celluloid was of
limited duration, Criticalman was having to continually regenerate it,
and the effort was taxing. At the height of his powers, Rad knew,
Templar could have handled it. But he had been on the downslope from
that peak for some time.
"Rad!" Confusion exclaimed. "You're all right!"
"Hey, dude," said Rad, as he landed next to his former sidekick.
"Like, what's going on, like, y'know? I thought these, like, zombie
and ninja dudes were, like, totally not receiving their signals
anymore."
"So did we," Confusion answered. Manny looked worn out to Rad--
not surprising, given that he, also, had been out of the superguying
business for quite a while. There were sweat stains on his beer-
bottle-pattern shirt, and a cut on his cheek that had already dried.
"Someone flipped them back on, it looks like... but if we let them go,
they'll get slaughtered."
"What happened to their big ship?" asked Guido, the
anthropomorphic donkey and former mercenary once-but-no-longer known
as Badass. If the stress of being in battle after a long standdown
affected him, he did not show it. "Looked like Mighty Guy nailed it a
couple times, but it's still not down."
"It's, like, been abandoned, dude," Rad replied. "They, like,
came down here in, like, those sphere-ships, y'know? I, like, heard
from China, like, that the _Vander Harkness,_ like, is gonna try to,
like, steer it into a soft landing, like, and stuff."
Confusion looked like he was about to say more, but was
interrupted when lighting erupted from several of the sphere-ships.
Asphalt sprayed into the air, and goats scrambled out of the way of
the strafing beams. At the same time, at least half of the massed
demon monkeys teleported to the other side of the goats' line and
charged at them.
"Whoa, dude," said Rad. "Those are, like, some shocking balls,
like, y'know?"
"They're hanging way too low for my comfort," said Confusion,
sounding as if he had been saving that comment for a while. "Are the
goats our allies now? I saw you dropping one of 'em off."
"Like, yah," said Rad. "Goat dudes are, like, from the Hidden
Empire, out to arrest that heinous babe Capella, like, who is totally
not, like, on official Hidden Empire business."
"Damn," Confusion replied. "And here I was, so looking forward
to hearing ninjas and zombies again declare their need to get low,
low, low, low, low, low, low."
"Like, what?" Rad asked.
"Radio interference with their chips," Confusion replied. "Never
mind. You ready to go back and help the goats out?" Rad nodded,
peering in the direction where he had left Silas. The goats were in
the thick of combat with the monkeys, and appeared to be having a
rough time of it. "Guido! Give Rad some cover!"
Without waiting for a reply, Rad took off toward the battle.
Confusion did not follow, nor did he need to. As Rad flew, he
observed demon monkeys appearing, post-teleport, in random positions,
orientations, and velocities. Some struck goats, some struck sphere-
ships, some struck pavement, but none seemed to know what the hell was
happening to them. Rad felt briefly bewildered as he swooped in to
pluck a couple monkeys off of Barnaby's back, though it soon faded as
Confusion shut down the disorientation field he had projected.
"Thank you!" Barnaby declared. "I thought I--look out!"
A group of demon monkeys appeared in a pack above them and
dropped down. Rad blasted three away, and darts from Barnaby's
gunbelt knocked out two more. Guido's gunfire strafed the rubble,
causing a number of the closer monkeys to teleport away.
"Just want to let you know, Rad," said China via the radio link,
"reinforcements are on their way. We're also reading a power surge
from the elevator shaft--looks like their getting ready to send it up.
If Erasmus Fancy's on there, the monkeys won't be holding back."
"Like, gotcha," Rad replied. He looked overhead at the closest
sphere-ship, just as a rush of white-hot burning plasma struck it.
The metallic nectarisite that made up the hull went bright red for a
few seconds before returning to bronze-gold. HotFlash, the source of
the plasma, flew up to it a second later and kicked the side.
"No fair!" she exclaimed. "You're supposed to go all melty!"
The roar of flames rising from her leather-bodysuit-clad form made it
difficult to make out her expression, but Rad guessed annoyance and
frustration were major components. He lifted off to join her.
"Like, hey, Yury," said Rad. "I think, like, I can help. Like,
try that again, y'know?"
HotFlash grinned at him, then at the sphere-ship. Her burning
plasma washed over its spherical form. Rad hit the bright red glowing
area with full force psychokinetic blasts that tore holes in the
softened nectarisite. As the sphere-ship fell, its demon monkey crew
teleported away, screeching monkey vengeance as they did.
"Not bad," said HotFlash. "You think we can take the rest---"
Huge electrical blasts from three of the closer sphere-ships
struck her, sending her hurtling over a group of damaged Harxxon
choppers. Similar blasts struck Rad a second later, but failed to
punch through his psychokinetic shields. He could not resist being
knocked back, however, and bounced off the hull of one of the sphere-
ships with a resounding 'klang!' He recovered in time to stop his
fall, ending up in a hover six feet above the ground.
"There you are, lad, steady on!" a familiar voice shouted as Rad
regained his bearings. "That oddly shaped helmet you're wearing seems
to have protected your head from unnecessary trauma!"
"Like, Silas dude," Rad replied, "it's, like, not a helmet.
It's, like, my hair, like, y'know?"
"Indeed?" Silas asked. "But it seems completely immobile, even
in the wind!"
Rad, who knew that his many decades of use of high-quality hair-
styling products were responsible for the inpenetrability of his thick
mane of eighties-style surfer-dude hair, decided that now was not the
time to discuss said hair with a goat. Rad flew higher, and surveyed
the area that the demon monkeys were protecting.
It seemed impossible to Rad that the sheer numbers of demon
monkeys he was seeing could all have come from the _Subtler Than
Light._ They well outnumbered Silas's crew and Rad's crew combined,
and had proven their tenacity and toughness in battle. And they were
*packed* around the edges of the shaft---
The bronze-gold light erupted across his chest. Again, his
shields protected him from the worst of it, but he felt pain from the
heat of the blast. As he fell, fighting to stay conscious, he saw
Capella flying down at him. Murder in her eyes.

(continued in part three, following...)
--
Copyright (c) 2009 by Gary W. Olson. All Rights Reserved.
--
Gary W. Olson
swede at novitious dot com
Superguy LiveJournal: http://community.livejournal.com/superguy_list/
Superguy DreamWidth: http://superguy.dreamwidth.org/
Superguy Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=47273370926

SG: Rad #99: The

RAD
Episode 99
[ Rad Returns, Part Nine of Ten ]
"The Internet is Full of Wonders"
by
Gary W. Olson

***

The world around Rumiko Moroboshi felt frozen. Before her was a
gorilla-sized bonobo in a badly-scuffed black limousine driver's
outfit, an expression of cold consideration on his scarred face. The
consideration was not for her, however; it was for the two teenage
boys behind her. He did not completely disregard her, though--the
large and intimidating laser rifle he had aimed at her was proof of
that. Though his attention seemed fixed on the boys, she sensed that
he would react in time to shoot her if she--or they--moved.
His name was Erasmus Fancy, and he was dangerous. So Akane
Moroboshi had claimed when identifying Fancy as one of the occupants
of a flying metallic sphere in the vision Rumiko had experienced
earlier in the day. In the vision, he had been wearing a white lab
coat, and had been in the company of a Reptiloid, a Burrolan, and two
demon monkeys. He had a massive scar on his cheek that ran through
the empty socket that had been his left eye. Now, the coat was gone,
the scar was still there, and the missing eye had been filled in with
a bronze-gold orb that gleamed in the meager corridor light.
Beside Fancy was Dana Wader, outfitted--as Rumi had seen some of
the agents in this underground base--in a black business suit with
white dress shirt and black tie. Her bottle-blonde hair was
disheveled and blood-spattered, and there was a malevolent gleam in
her eye that was at odds with the calm control that Rumi thought one
wearing such a staid outfit ought possess. Wader had no particular
regard for the boys, and looked further up the corridor, as if
expecting attack. When not peering into the darkness, her attention
lingered on Rumi, in a way that made Rumi's flesh crawl. Her parents
had told her of Dana's past as an Empress of a conspicuously evil
empire, and of some of the things she had done. Rumi was not eager to
learn if she could live up to her reputation.
The boys behind her were Esteban Veracruz and Lemon Rydell.
Esteban was in Los Pantalones, the oversized, rococo-trimmed battle
pants that he had been working on when she first met him. He had come
to help rescue his captive brother. Lemon was in black cargo shorts
and a 'Wile E. Coyote' t-shirt--said t-shirt currently wrapped around
his upper left arm, which had been wounded in a battle she had not
been around to see. He was here because he had barged into the wrong
magic circle at the wrong time and had been translocated here in place
of Shadebeam Moroboshi, the spell caster.
Rumi had happened upon Esteban and Lemon by chance, during her
escape from a group of demon monkeys. The boys had been talking.
They had also been... but the light had been very low. Had they
been...? Well, they either had been or had not been, and she had seen
or had not seen and then Fancy had shot at her and she had fallen into
the corridor and here they all were. There would be time later--she
hoped--to sort through implications and meanings. Besides, there was
this distracting ray gun pointed at her.
"You know who this is?" Wader asked, gesturing at Rumi. "It's
one of Glum's brats. No doubt on a rescue mission." Her grin grew
feral as she reached toward Rumi, and Rumi took a step back.
"Hostages keep falling into our laps, don't they, pretty-pretty?"
"Don't touch her!" Esteban exclaimed. Rumi saw he was now
hovering a couple inches off the ground, and had likely trained
whatever on Los Pantalones passed for weaponry on Fancy. She would
have replied, but the sight of the laser gun barrel compelled her to
be quiet.
"Power down, El Guerrero," Fancy instructed, his voice low,
unstressed, and authoritative. "Wader will not harm this one--"
"Rumiko Moroboshi," Wader said.
"--this Rumiko Moroboshi, if you obey. Nor shall I. She was not
the bargaining chip I had in mind to obtain Los Pantalones from you,
but as she is here, and you clearly care for her... well. Power down.
Now."
"Este," said Lemon. "He's not bluffing."
"But---"
Lemon did not interrupt again. Esteban's face shifted from
determination to frustration to resignation. Then Los Pantalones
settled to the corridor floor, him with it.
Wader touched Rumi's cheek with her nails, causing Rumi to
cringe. Fancy kept the gun on Rumi's ear.
"I've thought about many things since being stranded on Earth,"
said Wader. "Your father and mother amongst them. If they had been
on Earth, I'm sure I would have paid them a visit. As they weren't, I
had plans to drop in on their friends... to find some way to pass the
time. To soothe the memory of the Empire that they stole from me, a
whole pocket dimension reduced to an unbreakable pearl and locked far
away. Then the Director contacted me and... we arrived at an
understanding."
"Secret Secret Agent Wader," said Fancy. Wader stiffened upon
hearing this. "You have often said your Director is the one who gave
to you your sense of discipline, which you have not always possessed.
Now would be a good time to exercise it."
Rumi felt Wader's fingernails move to her throat. There they
paused, for a long moment, before Wader pulled them away.
"Right," said Wader, voice calm and even. "We've got leverage,
now, but no one to use it against."
"So we go to the hub," Fancy replied, "as we were before fortune
so kindly smiled upon us. El Guerrero... get out of Los Pantalones.
Now."
Esteban grimaced, but made no attempt to leave his armor. Fancy
pushed the barrel of his weapon hard against Rumi's forehead. Rumi
concentrated her psychokinetics, readying a pulse to knock said weapon
away. She did not like the angles she had to work with, and was
concerned that any push would cause his trigger finger to tighten.
Moreover, she recalled her father's warning that psychokinetics did
not fare so well against ray-based attacks.
"Okay," said Esteban. He placed his hands on the waist edges of
Los Pantalones, and pushed. His legs emerged from the liquid-looking
metal in the center.
"Um, guys," Lemon interrupted. "Not to spook anyone,
particularly anyone carrying large guns with itchy trigger fingers,
but... the demon monkeys are back."
Wader sneered. "That, boy, is amateur at best. I was ignoring
ploys like that when you were still squirming in... what?" She gave
an annoyed look to Fancy, who had been tapping her shoulder. Fancy
jerked a thumb in the direction Lemon was looking. Wader looked.
Rumi did as well.
The darkened corridor held a startling number of glowing red
eyes. Granted, glowing red eyes in a darkened corridor are startling
enough, regardless of number, but this was a number that added further
start to the startle.
Then, the owners of the eyes swarmed. Rumi felt the barrel of
Fancy's gun get knocked away, as well as the hair-singing heat from
the beam as the gun went off. She blasted it out of Fancy's hand with
a psychokinetic pulse that sent it skittering into the darkness.
Moments later, incoming demon monkeys sent Wader's gun flying as well.
Three demon monkeys teleported onto her--one on her left arm, one
on her right leg, and one on her belly. As she had been maintaining
her psychokinetic shields for a possible last-ditch gun-deflection
attempt, they proved unable to get a good hold, and a psychokinetic
pulse knocked them away.
Erasmus Fancy roared, swatting at the monkeys as they swarmed
over him. Rumi flew back, barely missing the wide-arcing knife swung
by Dana Wader. At first, Rumi thought the blade had been directed at
her. But two monkeys fell to the ground, clutching wounds and
screaming. More monkeys appeared around Wader, only to immediately
teleport away before she could cut them. Wader grinned through the
new spatter of blood on her lips.
Rumi turned to see how Lemon and Esteban were faring. Lemon was
on the floor, pounding away at a writhing, monkey-shaped lump beneath
his cargo shorts. Esteban was upside down in Los Pantalones, his
Gorillaz shirt now in shreds thanks to repeated attacks from three
demon monkeys. She hit one with a psychokinetic blast, startling the
other two enough that Esteban could knock them away.
"Stop that!" Lemon exclaimed, as he rolled on the floor. "I...
aah! That's cold!"
A panel opened up on the side of right thigh of Los Pantalones,
and a half-inch-diameter tube slid three inches out. It swiveled on a
bearing, aiming one end at Lemon.
"Hold still!" Esteban exclaimed. "I think I can get it!"
"Wait!" Lemon replied. "Let me... hey! Leave that
aloooiiiieeee!"
A beam of bronze-gold light sizzled from the tube and hit the
monkey-sized lump. Rumi heard a demon monkey screech before it
vanished. The beam vanished at the same time.
"Lemon," said Esteban, his voice rising. "You okay?"
"I think so," Lemon said, through deep, fast breaths. "That
was... a fresh sensation."
"Can you move?" Rumi asked. She risked a look back at Fancy and
Wader, on whom most of the monkeys were concentrating their efforts.
"I think... look out!" Lemon yelled.
A demon monkey appeared an inch from Rumi's face, screaming at
the top of its lungs. It clawed at her psychokinetically-shielded
face for a couple seconds before Rumi pulsed it away.
Three more monkeys were on Esteban's upper torso, avoiding his
arms. Lemon leapt up and grabbed one away, though it disappeared from
his hands. Rumi readied a shot for the other two.
Before she could take fire, Coco emerged from the left thigh of
Los Pantalones. The bronze-gold metallic bonobo was a bit smaller
than the attacking demon monkeys, but he did not seem to care as he
flew up and knocked them away. The monkeys fell to the ground, looked
up, and blinked.
Rumi expected them to renew their assault, but they did not.
Instead, they simply stared at Coco, who was hovering in mid-air,
waving his arms in some kind of aerial-judo-like way that seemed
inauthentic at best.
*Leave us,* Coco telepathically ordered, *before you get some of
this up in your business!*
Perhaps it was the actual order, or the spaced-out boyishness of
Coco's voice, but it failed to compel the demon monkeys to leave.
However, it did incapacitate them, as they clutched their sides and
emitted a screeching kind of laughter.
Coco gave the demon monkeys a look of consternation, then
shrugged and flew back into the left thigh of Los Pantalones, which
rippled once as he melted in.
"What just happened?" asked Lemon, who had gotten back to his
feet. Rumi remembered that he was not part of the telepathic network
between Esteban and Coco, a network she had inadvertently joined
earlier that day when Los Pantalones took a good quantity of her
bioelectricity to recharge. A network that now, apparently, included
demon monkeys.
"Coco... bought us some time," said Esteban, as diplomatically as
he could manage.
*They fear the golden bonobo way!* Coco added.
"Right," said Rumi, taking another look behind her. Fancy and
Wader were still occupied with demon monkeys, though fewer were
swarming them than before. "Then I suggest we get out of here."
"I don't think I can run..." Lemon started.
"Who said anything about running?" Esteban asked. He swooped in,
picked up Lemon, and flew down the corridor. Rumi followed, listening
to the sounds of combat fade into the distance.

***

"How can this be?" asked Capella. It was, Rad considered, a
pertinent question. He and she were on the deck of the _Subtler Than
Light,_ a two-hundred-yard-long bronze-gold metallic airship somewhat
resembling a 19th-century ironclad with wings. That the ship was
crewed by demon monkeys--many now surrounding them--was a fact less
alarming to Capella than to him, as she was their commander. Rad had
been about to be taken back into the ship when a force of eight
flight-capable goats landed on the deck and claimed that Capella and
her crew were under arrest. 'How can this be' was a question that
could cover a lot of historical, technical, biological, and
philosophical grounds.
Captain Silas, the black-furred lead goat of the invaders, took
what Rad thought was a narrow tack on the question, deciding it was a
direct question to his previous declaration that Capella--or the 'Lady
Capella Sandoval Ookanaptra,' as he had formally addressed her--and
her crew were under arrest. "You have already falsely claimed that
you represent the Hidden Empire in its quest to bring Erasmus Fancy
back to our dimension," Silas answered. "Do not deny it! We listened
in on your conversations with the humans' battle fortress... um...
thing." Silas looked up at Rad. "What's it called again?"
"The _Vander Harkness,_" said Rad. "'Fortress thing' sounds
about right to me, too." Again, he winced at the lack of 'likes' and
'dudes' and 'y'knows' in his speech, and hoped the goat could
comprehend what he was saying. He knew that the lack of those words
in his speech meant that the _Subtler Than Light's_ aether field--the
bubble it projected so that the ship could operate in the aetheric
environment it was made to use--was functioning. But the _Vander
Harkness_ had a means of nullifying that field, and Rad hoped they
could find a way to reapply it soon.
"I am on a top secret mission given to me by the Emperors
themselves," Capella replied. She kept most of the anger Rad could
sense out of her voice. "Sector Nine High Command has no
authority---"
"It was the Emperors who ordered your arrest," Silas cut in.
"All seven signed the warrant."
"But I almost have him!" Capella exclaimed. "Fancy is below, and
my advance troops are flushing him out. He took over one of the old
bases of the Pneumaphilic Convergence, did you know that? If they
ever found out---"
"I can only imagine," said Silas, his voice sardonic. "They
would expressing their rage by sending angry letters zipping around in
those tubes of theirs, would they not?"
Rad looked away, trying to find where the _Vander Harkness_ was.
It was about three thousand feet directly in front of the bow of the
_Subtler Than Light,_ still unable to avoid being in the line of fire
of the electro-vortex cannon mounted there. A blurred movement caught
his eye. Purple, orange, midnight blue...
"Like, um, dudes?" he said. "We might, like, want to, y'know,
brace for impact, and, like... hey! I'm, like, speaking right again,
like, y'know?"
"What?" both Capella and Silas asked.
Rad never got a chance to answer. The blur struck the side of
the _Subtler Than Light,_ ripping through the back end. Everyone on
the bridge was jolted, though most, including Rad, managed to stay
upright. Rad, who knew the blur to be Mighty Guy, watched as he shot
out from the _Subtler Than Light_ and plowed into a distant
mountainside. The thunder of the impact reached them a second later.
"What the hell was that?" Silas asked, eyes wide.
"That," said a voice familiar to Rad, "was my husband." Key
Clark, aka MeltDown, landed on the deck of the _Subtler Than Light._
The silver french-cut bikini that served as her costume--though what
it was supposed to disguise Rad had never figured out--seemed bronze-
gold in the light reflecting from the deck and the turrets. "You got
your powers back, Rad? Gigawatt doesn't know how long they can
suppress the aether this time."
"I think, like, I'm functioning again, like, y'know?" said Rad.
He tested this by using his psychokinetic abilities to lift into the
air. "Like, yup, check on that. But, like, I don't think, like, that
the ship is, y'know, doing so well."
The _Subtler Than Light_ was listing to the port side. Rad could
now see the nectarisite lake that filled the playing field of Dodger
Stadium, glowing in the stadium lights. The ship, Rad realized, was
also spinning, though far too slowly to have been the direct result of
Mighty Guy's strike.
"He must have hit one of the magnagravitic-vortex engines!"
Capella exclaimed. The icy-blonde commander of the _Subtler Than
Light_ looked around the deck, as if inspecting something Rad could
not see. "Damn it all! I have not come this far to fail!"
"Indeed you have!" Silas roared. "You are under---"
Capella gestured at the goat, and a beam of bronze-gold light
shot from her hand. It struck the gunbelt around Silas's midsection,
causing one of the fake-looking tubes attached to it to spark and
hiss. Several other tubes spat darts that took down demon monkeys on
either side of Capella.
"Abandon ship!" Capella exclaimed. "To the pods. Extraction
plan B!"
"Like, what's extraction plan B, goat dude?" Rad asked.
Silas looked him over, as if evaluating how much to tell him.
"What a cute billy goat!" MeltDown exclaimed, as she reached down
to scratch under Silas's chin.
"I am a Captain of Sector Nine High Command, madam!" Silas
declared, dignified offense giving his words added gravity. "I am on
a mission to catch a criminal wanted by the Hidden Empire for many
heinous crimes and---"
"Hey," said the white-and-grey furred goat next to Silas. "I'll
take some of that if the Cap's too good for it."
"What?" Silas roared. "I never said---"
"What's your name?" Key asked, as she scratched the white-and-
grey goat's chin-fur.
"Barnaby, ma'am," the goat replied. "And you...?"
"Like, this is Key, y'know?" Rad said. "And, like, it looks like
Capella's, like, totally getting away!"
"After her!" Silas declared. Barnaby rolled his eyes and gave a
wink to Key before he joined his fellow force of armed goats in moving
towards Capella, who had made it as far as the edge of the _Subtler
Than Light's_ deck. Capella made a screeching noise, and six demon
monkeys teleported to her. A second later, they teleported her away.
"She's makin' a break for it, lads!" Silas yelled. "Over the
sides!"
Rad and MeltDown looked over the port-side railing and saw
numerous bronze-gold spheres--each about twenty meters in diameter--
shooting out from the hull. As they watched, Silas's goats galloped
for the railing. They leapt, and the back ends of the tubes on their
gunbelts lit up a bright blue, sending them rocketing into the night
sky...
...except for Silas.
"Blast!" he exclaimed as he dropped, his tubes sputtering.
Rad took off, arcing over the railing and flying down to the
flailing goat captain. He caught Silas by his gunbelt and arrested
his descent.
"Aha!" Silas replied. "Capital, capital! Now, I say, could you
turn me so the ground is not my sky? There's a good lad!"
Rad flipped Silas over, then looked up at the _Subtler Than
Light._ It appeared to be done with ejecting escape spheres, and now
had a strange, pockmarked look. A large part of its rear section was
in tatters, and its tilt was more pronounced.
"Like, why isn't it crashing, goat dude?" Rad asked.
"That ship uses two magnagravitic-vortex engines, lad," Silas
replied. "One was 'taken out,' as Capella said, and it looks like she
was more literal than she could know. As for the other, it seems to
be more-or-less functional, though it may too have taken some damage.
Amazing that it functions without the aetheric field--though I suppose
it's possible it was designed that way, eh?"
"Rad!" Rad looked around for the source of the familiar voice,
before remembering that he had left the implanted receiver in his head
tuned to a preset radio frequency. He identified the voice as
belonging to China Kyoko Moroboshi, calling from on board the _Vander
Harkness._
"Like, yah?" Rad said.
"Oh, yes," said Silas.
"Not you, dude," said Rad. "The voice, like, in my head,
y'know?"
Silas absorbed this, remaining silent for a long moment.
"As you say, lad," he replied. "Would you terribly mind setting
me down?"
"Rad," said China, "don't worry about the _Subtler Than Light._
Bhossi and Cla'rabhelle are using the scalar vibrational generators in
the _Vander Harkness's_ engines as a kind of tractor beam. We don't
have enough power to tow a ship that size very far, but we should be
able to set her down somewhere unoccupied."
"Like, affirmative, y'know?" Rad replied.
"Oh, good, good," said Silas. "If you could, the parking lot of
that stadium, where all the fighting is going on. Good lad, steady
on!"
"Who is that with you?" China asked.
"Like, Silas," Rad replied.
"Yes?" Silas asked.
"Not you, dude," said Rad.
"Of course, of course," Silas said, his goat-grin looking a bit
strained. "Voice in your head again, yes?"
"Silas is this goat-dude who, like, led those other goat dudes
in, like, attacking Capella's ship, y'know?" said Rad. "He was, like,
undercover, like, working for Templar in, like, his new movie, I
think, like, and---"
"And it would have been my big break, too!" Silas roared. "Even
better than the bit part Barnaby got in that Sam Raimi movie! Blast
it all, why did Capella have to make her move today?"
"You know what?" China said, after a few moments of pondering
this outburst. "I'm just going to put this in the 'maybe it will make
sense later' file and move on... hey, check out the lot."
Rad checked out the lot. The light from the nectarisite-filled
stadium dominated the surrounding area, giving buildings and roads a
bronze-gold sheen. In the stadium's parking lot, a great deal of
fighting was taking place between a small group of armed goats and a
large group of teleporting demon monkeys. Closer to the stadium
entrance, he saw his ex-CalForce friends standing between forty or
fifty pseudo-zombies/ninjas and the fighting. Though the demon
monkeys seemed more interested in protecting their hold on a one-
hundred-by-one-hundred-foot open shaft in the lot--one that led down
to a secret underground base of some kind, eight-and-a-half miles
below--the chaos of the battle was such that they had to stay back to
protect both the civilians who had been unwitting participants in
Erasmus Fancy's mind control scheme and the civilians who had showed
their free market sense--and very little common sense--in coming in
to sell concessions to the combatants.
Descending toward the lot were a dozen or so of the bronze-gold
globes that had ejected from the _Subtler Than Light._ The remaining
spheres headed over the stadium wall and down toward the lake. The
spheres struck the lake and quickly disappeared beneath its surface.
Rad, remembering that the lake was actually a portal to the aetheric
dimension of the Hidden Empire, knew they were now beyond his reach.
He returned his attention to the parking lot.
"We'd, like, better get down there, goat dude," Rad said. "I,
like, don't know what, like, is going on, but, like, it seems most
totally heinous, like, y'know?"
"If you're talking about entering the fray, old boy," said
Silas, "I've been trying to get you to do that. Let's have at
them!"
Rad flew down into the fray, carrying Silas by his gunbelt.

(continued in part two, following...)
--
Copyright (c) 2009 by Gary W. Olson. All Rights Reserved.
--
Gary W. Olson
swede at novitious dot com
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