Habib the Djinni looked nothing like Barbara Eden...yet...

 
Simon felt better after throwing up and washing his face. Gray eyes below the receding light brown hair looked back. His 51 years showed in the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. He decided that he needed to shave but put it off for the moment.

The ring on his left pinkie caught his eye and he examined it for a moment without taking it off. He felt reluctant to remove the item. A little doubt about the reality of his owning a djinn ring remained but he was nearly convinced.

When he turned to leave the bathroom, there stood Habib, holding a glass of water.

“Drink this,” said the djinni. The little man had evidently changed his outfit; now he wore a pair of blue jeans, chukka boots and a gray hoodie sweatshirt with the hood back. It looked a lot like an outfit Simon had in his closet except sized to fit Habib. Without the turban, Habib’s hair proved to be the same dark brown as his beard and just as curly and neatly trimmed. A prominent widow’s peak left a single Superman-curl hanging on his forehead.

Simon smiled and drank the water down, it tasted delicious and seemed to be the last element of Habib’s cure. “Thank you,” he said, handing the glass back. The djinni’s new appearance tickled him for some reason.

“You might want to take a bath, too. You still smell like a hangover,” suggested Habib. “I can make breakfast, do you want eggs?”

“That would be nice, I bought rye bread for toast, yesterday, uh, day before yesterday,” said Simon. He tried to sniff his armpit.

“Very good, master,” said Habib, smiling. “Am I correct that you do not have work to go to, this morning?”

“That’s right,” said Simon, starting water running. “I worked yesterday on Sunday, so I have today off.” He closed the door and got undressed. “If you’re still talking, I can’t hear you,” he shouted. Not hearing a reply, he proceeded with his bath, and shaved with his wet-dry electric razor

He didn’t notice if Habib actually came into the bathroom but when he turned off the shower and stepped out, a clean set of clothes hung on the back of the door. He used one of the fluffy hotel towels to dry off and got dressed, smiling the whole time.

Just as he stepped into the little dining alcove, Habib placed two plates of scrambled eggs, buttered toast points and orange slices next to two steaming cups of hot coffee.

“This is nice,” said Simon. “I... will you do this every morning?” He took a seat and the djinni sat down opposite him.

“If that is your wish,” said Habib. “It is my task to serve you, master.”

Simon sipped his own coffee black and watched as the little man put four heaping teaspoons of sugar into his cup. They ate. The eggs were fluffy with bits of cheese and garlic in them. Simon got up to find the marmalade for his toast. Habib shuddered as he watched his human master spread sweetness on rye bread.

“I don’t usually butter my toast,” said Simon.

“I’ll remember that,” promised Habib. He got up to pour more coffee and repeated his performance with the sugar while Simon stole one of the last orange slices off his plate.

Habib smiled and Simon grinned while they sipped their second cups.

“These wishes...” Simon began to ask. “Oh, thank you for breakfast.” He gestured, waving the piece of orange before taking a juicy bite.

“You’re very welcome,” said Habib. His nod conveyed the impression of a cultured bow.

“These wishes,” Simon repeated. “Do I get a set number of them? Or...? Just how does this work?” He realized that he no longer had any doubts that Habib was indeed a djinni, even if the little man did not act precisely like the mystic servants portrayed in movies and on television.

“I am here to serve your needs and desires, master,” said Habib. “There are limitations on what I can do but not on the number of requests you can make of me.”

“Huh,” said Simon. “What kind of limitations?”

“I can’t grant a wish to cause bodily harm to another being directly by magic....”

“I wouldn’t wish that!” protested Simon.

“You might in some circumstances, and indeed I can do so if it is necessary to save your life.”

Simon nodded, thinking about First Law versus Second Law, sort of, but he didn’t say that aloud.

“I can make you wealthy, if you desire, but I can’t conjure more than a pound of gold in a week, or the equivalent in gems, jewelry or other metals or goods or items of value. I can advise you however on investments.”

Simon blinked. A pound of gold had to be worth something like twenty thousand dollars, even if it was in those funny pounds used for precious metals. Twenty thousand dollars a week? Simon was good with numbers, that amounted to about one million a year. He swallowed hard. Would he need to pay taxes on money he wished for?

Habib continued. “I can use magic to ensure that you enjoy a long and healthy life but no one lives forever, not even the djinn, and I can’t save you from your own folly if you insist on....” He frowned. “My last master liked to drive too fast.”

“Huh,” said Simon. “That wreck...?”

Habib nodded. “I’d rather not speak of him. He died because he ordered me not to protect him from doing what he wanted to do. I chose you to find the ring and become my new master.”

“You did?” Simon looked, and felt, pleased. He wondered if any particular virtue of his had attracted the djinni’s attention or if it had just been the luck of place and circumstance. He didn’t know how to ask that so he took another sip of excellent coffee.

They both sipped coffee.

After a bit of staring at his reflection in the window, Simon asked, “What do you get out of it? You seem like a very powerful being, why do you serve someone like me? I’m just an ordinary guy....”

Simon wasn’t sure just what Habib’s expression meant but the djinni looked solemn.

“Three thousand years ago, thereabout, my people were enslaved by a powerful human sorceror and his allies. The sorceror bound the djinn with oaths to serve him and his allies. All of those humans are long dead but we are still bound to serve those who hold the talismans they created. In my case, it is the ring.” Habib gestured toward the piece of jewelry on Simon’s hand.

Simon stared at the ring for a moment. “That sounds horrible!” he exclaimed. “You’re a slave to the ring!”

“It is so,” Habib agreed. “Do not feel too sorry for us master. We were not blameless, being wild spirits of magic with no discipline and no authority over us. Those djinn who could be trusted were allowed to return to our own world but we miscreants who had proven to be dangerous were bound by Suleyman’s magic.”

Something clicked for Simon. “Suleyman? King Solomon?”

“That is a belief so common as to become legend but no, a different man of nearly the same name living about the same time. Suleyman the Sorceror was a Phoenician wizard living in Persia, Solomon was King of Israel living in Jerusalem. They both lived a very long time but Suleyman died while Solomon was only a boy.” Habib shook his head. “A later man, an Arab sorceror and owner of one of the talismans, was also called Suleiman and that didn’t help the confusion.”

“It’s like something by Shakespeare,” said Simon, making a weak joke of it. “Uh, were you there for all that time?”

“It is so,” said Habib. “The original Suleyman, in Persia, cast us down and bound our spirits to objects of this earth. We had been like gods to the humans and did as we willed. Suleyman showed us that our ways were evil.”

Simon swallowed hard. He wanted to know more and he wanted to change the subject at the same time. Habib seemed to have stopped talking for the moment, staring at his cup of coffee.

The little man looked up, “Did you want more coffee, master?”

“No,” said Simon. “Uh, if you must know, I kind of wish you would not call me ‘master’.”

Habib smiled. “You Americans are so emotional about servitude. Since it is your wish, of course, it is my fulfillment to obey. If I call you something else, it will not change the situation, you will still be my master. But what would you like me to call you... sir?”

Simon winced. “Oh, just call me by my name, I suppose.”

“Very good, Simon,” said Habib. He stood up, still smiling. “Shall I clear away and wash the dishes?”

“I...” Simon began but he had no idea what he intended to say. Offering to help with the clean-up just seemed wrong. “Uh, can’t you do that kind of thing with magic?”

“Certainly,” said Habib. “And sometimes I will do so. But really, there is nothing free in the universe, it all has to be paid for someway. And using magic when I don’t really need to might mean that I might not have enough magic when I did need it.”

Simon watched as the little man cleared away the dishes and ran hot water in the sink. “Remember, Simon, I told you there are limits as to what I can do with my magic? There are three kinds of limits. The first, I suppose, is the limit imposed on me by the Seal of Suleyman; the contract of servitude I acquiesced to thousands of years ago. The second limit is the fact that while I am very powerful, I too am really a mortal and do not have a god’s power to do infinite magic--if even the gods have such power!”

He smiled over his shoulder at Simon. “But there is a deeper sort of limit to magic, the very structure of magic itself. Do you know how magic works, Simon?”

“No. In fact, until this morning, if you had asked me, I would have said I didn’t believe in magic.”

Habib laughed. “Modern people often don’t. There is less magic in the world today than there once was and what magic there is, is often hidden. But you see, magic is the control of energies and substances flowing between universes.”

“Huh,” said Simon. “How do you mean?”

“Well, for instance,” said Habib, rinsing the last of the dishes and putting them into the drainer. “If I magicked up a cup of coffee for you, what I would be doing is reaching into another universe and finding the cup of coffee you would be having if you were there.”

“Uhh?” said Simon. “Does that mean that some other me doesn’t get his cup of coffee.”

Habib almost grinned. “Theoretically. But that other you is only a possible you, not a real you. It’s like Heisenberg’s cat. I reach into a space where a coffee cup may or may not exist and I make the choice that it does exist.”

“The only thing I can think of is Bullwinkle reaching into the wrong hat,” said Simon.

Habib chuckled which caused Simon to grin widely.

“Some theorists maintain a magical Law of Compensation exists,” Habib continued on the same topic, “such that somewhere in this universe a cup of coffee disappears in order to balance the equation. Generally, the nearest similar cup and a quantity of coffee from nearby to fill it. It might be your own cup and some of the contents of your own coffeepot -- but that doesn’t seem to always happen and sometimes it is not even possible.”

Simon nodded and frowned. “Huh?” he said. “I mean, I don’t mean to sound stupid, I think I get that but... can you give me an example.”

“Certainly,” said Habib. “Let’s say you requested from me a four-foot-tall terracotta statue of Lindsay Lohan playing a ukelele and wearing a grass skirt. Do you think such an item actually exists in this world? Most probably not. And yet, there certainly could be a universe in which such a thing did exist and I could reach into that world and conjure it into this one. If I did so... what would disappear from our universe in compensation?”

Simon laughed out loud and Habib chuckled again. “Not Lindsay Lohan herself, surely!” Simon choked out and they laughed again.

Habib wiped his eyes. “It’s been a long time since I actually laughed at something one of my masters said. Thank you, Simon.”

“You’re welcome,” said Simon, still grinning. He stopped to think a moment. “So the answer to my original question....”

“Is yes, I will make breakfast for you every morning if that pleases you,” said Habib with a twinkle in his eye.

“Well, after that one then, how many wishes do I get? And, there’s no limit on how many but there are some limits on what you can do?”

“It is so,” said Habib with a nod.

“Uhh....” Simon stammered a moment. “Well, there’s one wish I’ve had since I was a little kid and I don’t know if you can do this or not....” He trailed off.

“Ask,” said Habib.

If wishes were bicycles...

Simon stammered a bit before he managed to say, “I-I’ve always wished I had superpowers.”

Habib squinted at him. “You mean superhuman abilities?”

Simon nodded, swallowing hard, his face red. He looked as if admitting what he wanted had embarrassed him.

Habib gestured at himself. “Wish granted, you command a djinni.”

Simon frowned. “That’s kind of like being Johnny Thunder.”

“Who?” said Habib.

“He was a character in a comic seventy years ago, he commanded a living thunderbolt. But the hexbolt did everything, Johnny just stood around and told him what to do.”

Habib pulled an iPad out of somewhere or nowhere and tapped at the screen a moment then examined the result. Simon craned his head trying to get a look.

“Ah!” Habib exclaimed, turning the iPad around to show Simon the Wikipedia page he had found. Leaning close, they both read quickly.

Simon shook his head and Habib nodded. “No,” said Habib. “I can see why you wouldn’t want to be anything like that fellow, or fellows. There seem to have been more than one of him, and one of them was a her.”

“Well, he’s fictional,” said Simon.

“Hm, mm,” said Habib, putting the iPad back wherever he had gotten it. “What about real superheroes?”

“Uh, there don’t seem to be any,” said Simon, looking disappointed. “A few nuts running around in costumes but no one who has real powers like in the comic books I read as a kid.”

“I’ve read a few of those and seen some of the movies,” said Habib. He wrinkled his brow, pulled on his beard and chewed on his lip. Simon watched the djinni for a bit.

“Can you give me superpowers?” Simon finally asked.

Habib looked up. “Maybe,” he said. “But there is the magical Law of Obscurity, I can’t do anything to attract the attention of the masses. Nothing that looks like I’m working miracles without some available explanation. I’m not the only djinni in the world and if all of us did magic in the marketplace, there would be chaos. There are powers in the world that even a djinni must fear.”

“Really?” Simon’s voice almost squeaked. “What are they? Gods? Demons?”

“It doesn’t matter what you call them, they exist and they enforce their rules,” said Habib.

“Oh,” said Simon.

“I can do a lot for you,” said Habib. “I can make you healthy, strong, quick, sharpen your senses. But superpowers,” he shook his head. “I just don’t know if I can do that.”

“Could-- could you try?” asked Simon.

Habib smiled. “I can try,” he nodded. “But the sort of flashy powers you probably want would almost certainly look like miracles.”

“But,” said Simon, “that’s allowed as long as we don’t get caught at it.”

“Something like that,” agreed Habib. “I can conjure things for you in private, even where a few others can see but not where it would attract a lot of attention.”

“So maybe... someone like the Dark Knight. Moving in shadows, using gadgets that could explain some things. And, and, you say you can make me strong and fast and healthy? Like maybe just a little bit better that anyone else? Not enough so it looks miraculous but is just believable?”

Habib smiled. “It may be so,” he said.

“Wow!” said Simon. “This is going to be so cool!”

“Let me consult with some of my peers,” said Habib. “Is there anything you need before I depart for a short while?”

“Uh, how long are you going to be gone?”

“Not long, no more than a couple of hours, maybe much less.”

“Oh, I guess, I’m fine,” said Simon.

Habib smiled. “You are the most agreeable of masters, Simon. And the least predictable. Most men in your situation waste little time in wishing for at least one houri.”

Simon blinked. Habib blinked out of existence.

“What’s a houri?” Simon asked the empty air. He booted up his home computer and wasted a little time wandering around Wikipedia. Then a little more time on on Toonopedia and finally fiddling for a bit with one of his personal software projects, a database to keep track of databases available on the internet.

An hour seemed to pass with grinding slowness. Normally, Simon could waste time on the internet with the nonchalance of a skateboarder in an empty parking garage. But waiting for Habib to return sucked all the savor out of cute cats and wikiwalks. To waste more time, he dug his laptop out of his backpack and set it up to sync all files with his desktop machine while charging the portable’s battery.

Then he wandered through the tiny kitchenette he shared with the other room on the basement level of the hotel and down the hall to the full bath. His own 3/4-bath did not have a full-length mirror and he wanted to look at himself.

At fifty-one years of age, Simon Paul had maintained himself in tolerably good physical condition. Biking six miles each way in all kinds of weather to his job at the university library did a lot to keep him in shape. The hotel weight room next door to the basement full bath helped to, when he used it which was probably not often enough.

“Nader,” he said to the other resident of the basement rooms coming down the stairs from the dining room on the lobby floor.

“Simon,” said Nader. Seeing Simon walking into the full bath, he asked. “You going to be in there long?”

“Not long,” said Simon. He didn’t explain. Nader got a little proprietary about the big bath since his room did not have one. Once in, with the lights on and the fan running, Simon locked the door and stood back from the mirror at a comfortable distance.

He still had a full head of rusty brown hair cut unfashionably short, though his widow’s peak got more pronounced every year. His brown eyes looked out from under a distinct but not Neanderthal, somewhat furry, brow ridge. His nose achieved beakiness without being Durante-esque. He had a chin and only one. He had tried to grow mustaches and beards at various times but they always came in a dirty blond color which he thought looked stupid with his brown hair.

He stood a hair under six-three and weighed about 190, lean but not skinny. Most of his muscular development was in his legs and back; he did not have an extreme triangular shape like a boxer or weightlifter but a lean, long one like a swimmer or bicyclist, which he was. Despite the fact that he looked like what his lifestyle had molded him to be, he longed for the wide shoulders and beefy arms of the men who played Thor and Captain America in the movies.

Self-consciously, he struck a few heroic poses, laughed then reached over to flush the toilet before opening the door. Just as he had expected, Nader Farhadi came hurrying down the hallway toward him, carrying towels and a clean change of clothes. Nader smiled as he squeezed past Simon to claim the room with the only tub on the basement level.

“I’m glad you weren’t using the room long,” said Nader.

“Sure,” said Simon. He wandered back through the kitchenette to his own room, shaking his head at Nader’s predictability. The man was the same way about his side of the refrigerator and his shelves in the cabinets of the tiny cooking space.

Just as he walked back into his room, Simon recalled that Nader was also Persian, or really, Iranian since Persian was no longer a nationality. “I wonder if he knows anything about the djinn?” Simon asked himself aloud but decided not to ask. Nader was a political science major, not at the same university where Simon worked, and he interned with a city councilman’s office. He did not strike Simon as the sort of person who would answer as random a question as the ones Simon wanted to ask.

He checked the time but realized he had no idea when Habib had disappeared. It must have been at least an hour before but surely less than three. It wasn’t yet noon and Simon still felt satisfied from breakfast, he didn’t feel like making anything for lunch yet.

Desperate for distraction, he pulled a couple of long boxes out from under his bed. In the white pasteboard containers he kept a few hundred of his favorite comics. Thousands more were stored in the crawlspace under the front of the hotel in the small corner allotted to him as a longtime resident and he paid a small monthly extra for twice as much space as most of the hotel tenants had.

He pulled out a recent run of Daredevil and browsed through the covers, remembering the stories as he did so. He didn’t need to re-read them; he exercised the one ability he already had that almost passed for a superpower--a near perfect memory for anything he had ever read. Daredevil’s super-abilities were mostly sensory, to make up for his blindness but ol’ Hornhead also had unbelievable agility and the same kind of uneven weird luck a lot of superheroes shared.

He put the Daredevils back in their box, much as he liked to read the adventures of the blind lawyer, he had no real desire to be him. From the other box, he took a few of his prizes--mostly silver-age issues of Action, Superman, Superboy and other titles featuring the strange visitor from another planet. Some of the books were older than he was and all of them were acquired by painstaking bargain hunting at comic conventions as far away as Atlanta.

And all of them featured someone else gaining Superman’s powers. If you’re going to collect forty-year-old comics and don’t have a fortune, you have to specialize and Simon had picked his theme. It occurred to Simon that now that he had an income of a pound of gold a week, he could afford to expand his collection to some of the rarer issues from the 1940s and early 50s.

Or even star in a few comics about himself. That thought made him smile.

He had issues where Batman, or Jimmy Olsen, or Lois Lane, or Lana Lang gained superpowers; another with an Army private and one with just some guy walking along a beach; even three with a super Perry White. He loved them all.

His memory for artwork was not as acute as it was for text and he loved to look at great comic book art. But he didn’t take his treasures out of their plastic vaults this time, carefully restoring them to their boxes and placing them back beneath his bed, instead.

Restlessly, he wandered through his tiny apartment, eventually ending up in his garden. A light rain fell as it often did in coastal Washington State but sunshine broke through now and then and the waterdrops on Mrs. Dumfries’ flowers gleamed like jewelry.

Standing under the portico, out of the rain, he reached to touch one of the delicately pink roses and captured a drop of water on his finger tip. The beauty of the flower in the rain and sunshine made him think of Habib’s comment about wishing for a houri.

At fifty-one, he didn’t feel old but he knew that probably thirty years before it would have been his first wish. He smiled. He’d had girlfriends, even been engaged to marry twice. But nothing had worked out between he and his lovers. Something about his private intensity made the women in his life feel overlooked. He sighed.

A magical companion who couldn’t leave him for someone else might be just his speed.

The thought deflated him a bit and he moved across the tiny paved area beneath the awning to examine his bike. What rain blew in under the covering had done a fair job of cleaning off any mud from yesterday’s adventure, he decided. But it must be about time to oil the moving parts and rub some leather conditioner on the seat. He wondered if Habib would do that for him.

Then he wondered if he would even be keeping the bicycle. It would seem odd to have superpowers and a djinni to command and still ride around town on a bicycle. Would he move somewhere more elegant? He would be able to afford to. Heck, maybe he could buy the hotel.

With that thought, he went back inside, smiling, just as Habib reappeared in his little sitting room.

The djinni smiled back. “Let us do this thing, Simon. I believe I have fashioned a way to grant your wish.”

Ten Thousand Wishes?

“Superhuman abilities are beyond human, more than human,” said Habib after he had made more coffee for both of them. They were sitting at the little white-enameled iron table on Simon’s tiny patio outside his bedroom window. Habib had already put four sugars into his coffee and sipped at the resulting oversweet liquid with satisfaction.

Simon drank his black, as always. “Well, yeah. How does that help?” he asked.

“What else in this world is beyond human, more than human?” Habib responded. He gestured at himself. “Djinn and other beings from non-terrestrial planes. You humans are folk of earth, we djinn are folk of fire, houris are of heaven, et cetera.”

“Et cetera?” Simon repeated.

“Hm, mm,” said Habib, taking another sip. “I consulted with some of my fellow djinn and a few other personages it is better not to name. I believe I can reach into another universe -- that may or may not really exist -- and pull out for you a different sort of essence. Such as your much-favored Superman. He is after all, not a man of Earth but of Krypton. And what does Krypton mean? That which is hidden.” Habib nodded exactly as if what he had said actually made sense.

“Those are just words,” said Simon weakly.

“And words are a kind of magic, too,” said Habib. “So let us consider what sort of superpowers you would like to have.”

“Well, Superman’s powers....” Simon trailed off. The whole discussion had turned unreal and seemingly childish. He felt like a nine-year-old suddenly, remembering when he had discussed the superpowers of imaginary characters with his friends during elementary school recess. Could Superman do this? Could he pick up Thor’s hammer? Could Spiderman beat Batman? Did Catwoman really run across rooftops in high heels?

Habib held up a forefinger. “And what is Superman’s most important superpower, the one without which he is not really Superman?”

“Huh,” said Simon. “Well, his strength -- no, it’s his invulnerability.” He did know his comic book characters, lots of others were strong or could fly but only someone like Superman could take a bath in the Sun..

“Yes, he is the paragon of invulnerability, almost nothing can harm him. It defines him, he is the ultimate outsider, outside even the pain and fear of death that everyone else faces.” He took another sip of coffee. “It must give the writers of his adventures fits trying to think up challenges for him.”

“Which is why a lot of stories focus on his emotional crises,” said Simon. “Batman is the physical one in stories because his defining characteristic is psychological, the vengeance he pursues.”

Habib looked at him. “You don’t want to be Batman?”

Simon shook his head. “Not really. I don’t think I have that kind of intensity. Blue Beetle, the Ted Kord Blue Beetle, or his clone Nite-Owl from the Watchmen, would be more my speed.” He grinned. “Those gadgets would be lots of fun.”

“Fun,” said Habib with no inflection or apparent judgement. “That is your objective?”

Simon didn’t say anything for a moment. “I suppose it is,” he finally admitted. “I mean, doing good and helping people would be nice, catching bad guys. But if it weren’t fun, why do it?”

“Why indeed?” said Habib.

They both looked around at the wide, beautiful world around them. The pleasure of a late morning in early April surrounded them. Birds twittered in the trees, bees hummed about the flowers. The sun had come out and the greenery gleamed with a green grandiosity, as if the color had just been invented for that particular moment.

Down the hill on the shore of the little lake behind Mrs. Dumphries’s property sat the Indian Summer Folly, a gazebo-like structure with covered patios on all sides and a small enclosed room made mostly of windows. A terracotta brick walkway lined with roses led down from the back of the hotel. It mostly got used for parties, barbecues and such in the fall when the weather turned warm, pleasant and dry, hence the name.

Simon found himself smiling and noticed that Habib was smiling, too. “What do you like to do, Habib?” he asked suddenly.

The expression that crossed the djinni’s face couldn’t be matched in Simon’s memory with any face he had ever seen before. A surprised longing, like a glimpse of bright hope in a night of despair--Simon did not know how to characterize what Habib had revealed.

“What do I like to do?” asked Habib. “I’m not sure I have an answer to that question. You are unlike any master I have ever served, do you know that, Simon? No one, not one in three millennia, has asked me so many startling questions.”

Simon grinned, embarrassed though he could not have said why. “What does that make? Two of them?”

“Even so,” said Habib. “You are one in ten thousand, Simon, one in a multitude.” He lifted his coffee cup as if to make a toast.

Simon kept grinning, he didn’t know what else to do. He lifted his cup and gestured with it. “Habib, I don’t know many djinn,” his grin got wider, “you’re the only one, but I am sure that you are remarkable among your people for wisdom, patience and humility.”

They sipped coffee. “See, that is what I mean, Simon. I’ve never heard of another master since Suleyman the Great who treated a djinni with such respect and courtesy as you show to me.” Habib shook his head as if in wonder.

“Isn’t he the one who enslaved all of you?”

“Yes, but he respected us. He let us write our own terms of servitude which we did willingly since our other choice was destruction.”

“Seems an odd sort of respect,” said Simon.

“Oh, but he knew that to destroy us, he would have been destroyed himself and also much of civilization at the time. We would have wrecked what we could and slain tens of thousands of tens of thousands.”

Simon swallowed too much coffee at once and coughed to clear his airway. It wasn’t so much what Habib had said but the calm emphasis he had given the numbers; it spoke of a calculated savagery that Simon had a hard time matching to the urbane appearance of his magical servant. Besides, Simon was good with numbers, he’d instantly multiplied and got hundreds of millions. How many people had been on the Earth three thousand years ago?

Habib finished his coffee and asked, “Do you want a noon meal? Or more coffee?”

Simon shook his head and held out his cup as Habib collected cups, saucers, spoons and sugar bowls on a gleaming lacquered tray Simon did not remember owning.

“There is a world somewhere in Chance that is very like this world, broadly. Except it has another star in its sky -- a dwarf companion of Kurash the Lifegiver, the Sun. They have named it variously but most commonly it is called Prometheus after the Greek Titan who is said to have given fire to humanity.” Habib carried his tray into the apartment and on into the little kitchenette and Simon followed.

Putting the used dishes in the sink, Habib continued. “The Promethean orbit is highly elliptical and at an angle to the plane of the Zodiac so that when it is at its nearest to the Sun, it is far enough from any of the planets not to present ordinary dangers of heat or radiation.” Habib ran hot water, of which there was always plenty in the hotel, squirted a little soap and quickly scrubbed, rinsed and put the dishes in the drainer.

Simon glanced around, Nader had emerged from his room.

Smiling, Habib greeted the other tenant in what Simon had to assume was Farsi since he understood not a syllable of it. Scowling, Nader replied in the same language then hurried past the little kitchenette alcove, down the hall toward the stairs up to the dining room above.

“What did you say to him?” asked Simon.

“That he would be late to pick up his girlfriend because he spent too much time in front of the mirror convincing himself that he was a handsome fellow,” said Habib.

“Ouch,” said Simon. “He does seem fond of himself, doesn’t he?”

“It is a vice of the overly good-looking that they are pleased to look at their own image. In my youth, I suffered from the same malady.” Habib spoke with a perfectly straight face.

“Not me,” said Simon. “I figure I’m lucky that mirrors survive me looking into them.”

Habib snorted. “You are neither handsome nor ugly, Simon. Your height and smiling eyes save you from being overly average in appearance.”

“Thanks, I guess,” said Simon, still smiling.

“We were talking about powers,” said Habib. “Superman has speed, strength, flight and invulnerability but the early character had much less of each.”

“Uh-huh,” said Simon. “The old mantra used to be, ‘faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings at a single bound and nothing less than a bursting shell can penetrate his skin.’ They left that last one out of the TV show.”

“Even that is a tall order,” said Habib. “How about ‘faster than a cheetah, more powerful than an elephant, able to leap over houses and nothing less than a powerful rifle can do more than scratch his skin?’”

“My skin? Wow!” Simon wanted to laugh out loud.

“Add some vision and hearing abilities and you could be mistaken for Superman on a dark night and a galloping horse.” Habib’s eyes twinkled; Simon didn’t get the joke but he did laugh.

“Are those the powers you’re going to give me?” asked Simon.

“That’s what I’m aiming for, but this is not rocket science,” said Habib.

Simon looked puzzled.

“In rocket science, the equations work out the same way every time, so you can hit what you aim at. This is magic, the equations have only three answers; ‘can’, ‘cannot’ and ‘oops!’.”
Simon slowly grinned. “I know what I mean when I say ‘oops’, what do you mean when you say ‘oops’?” he quoted from a classic Bill Cosby routine.

“Exactly,” said Habib. “Getting back to what I was saying before Nader walked through, the other Earth, the one with two suns, the smaller sun makes magic possible on that world. Magic for ordinary people, unpredictable magic in that it grants what you would call superpowers to random people on that world when its eccentric orbit brings it near the Earth.”

“Huh,” said Simon.

“But that’s not important right now,” said Habib.

“And don’t call me Shirley,” said Simon, grinning again.

Habib frowned at him then apparently got the joke and shook his head. “The important thing is that I can get superpowers for you in this world, by reaching into that one with my own magic. But since part of the process is random, we can’t know for sure exactly what powers you will get.”

“Oh,” said Simon.

Habib stood. “Let us go down to the Folly by the lake before I work my magic. Because if you think about it, the powers you want are a pretty fair description of the Hulk, too.”

“Huh,” said Simon. He stood. “It’s going to be cold and damp down there this time of year. And it may rain on us.”

“The djinn never get rained on unless they permit it,” said Habib. “Wear a jacket.”

Simon took time to put on a rainproof windbreaker and followed Habib down the path toward the Folly. The rain didn’t seem to be able to make up its mind where it had returned or finished for the day. Heavy clouds crowded the mountains to the east but blue sky poked holes in the overcast over the ocean to the west. A few drops stained the maroon of the jacket dark purple where they landed.

With hardly any wind, the chill coming off the lake felt like wading through a waist-high refrigerator but Simon rode bicycles in winter gales, he hardly noticed. True to the fiery nature of djinn, Habib seemed to ignore the cold completely.

The cabin of the Folly was locked and the benches under the wooden patio covers were wet and covered in debris that had accumulated since their last cleaning months ago. Simon and Habib stood in the lee of the little building, looking through the layers of windows at the little lake. Partly man-made, the lake covered about seventy acres and at its lower end merged into a slough that emptied into the White River which emptied into the Puyallup that flowed near the University and into Commencement Bay.

Out of the wind, out of the rain, it was almost warm and Simon took his hands out of his pockets. He stood almost a head taller than Habib but he did not loom over the djinni. Habib’s dignified attitude protected him from being cast into shadow by anyone merely human. Many things amused Simon and he smiled at this, too.

“Just another day in Paradise,” he said, gesturing at the rainscape.

“Indeed,” said Habib, nodding without visible irony.

“Speaking of which,” said Simon, “I read up on those houris you mentioned.”

Habib frowned. “I guess you are human after all. But we can think about that later, I am ready to do this thing now.”

“Here?” said Simon. He wiped a finger across one of the bolted down steel-and-timber trestle tables, it came away grimy. “The place is a mess.”

“I could conjure chairs for us,” Habib offered. “Clean, dry ones.”

“I can stand,” said Simon. “But we’re visible here from the hotel.”

Habib shook his head. “Not if I don’t wish us to be.”

A sheet of rain blew between them and the larger building and Simon turned around at the noise. He couldn’t see the hotel and of course, no one there could see anyone in the Folly.

“But I am willing and able to stand, as well, Simon.” He rubbed his palms together thoughtfully, staring at the window. “I shall do this thing,” he said.

The hair on Simon’s neck and arms stood up and he turned again to face Habib. The smaller man’s face seemed lit by some inner light and his green eyes had darkened almost to black.

Habib’s voice seemed deeper, more resonant as he spoke, like a special effect in a movie. “I reach through the worlds by my magic,” he said. “I claim for my master a piece of the Star of Power.” He made a sudden gesture and pulled back his closed fist then opened it, showing his palm and a glistening, pulsing, dark glow there.

Simon gasped and almost took a step back. Things poofing in and out were one kind of magic, this was something different.

“Only touch it, Simon,” said Habib, “and you will have your wish.”

Got Wishes?

Simon hesitated.

Habib asked. “Is it that you worry that this is not what you really want?”

“No,” said Simon, after a moment of thought. “I know I want this but I’m--I’m feeling guilty. I mean, why me? Why am I the lucky one?”

“Because you were there to find the ring when I needed a new master?” suggested Habib.

“That’s what I mean, it’s just luck. Gaining powers like this ought to have an element of Destiny, or at least karma.”

“Kismet is the Persian word,” said Habib. He lowered his arm, no longer holding the piece of Starstuff out to Simon. “There is no answer to that question. Do you think that you would know Destiny if it were a dog that had mistaken you for a tree?”

Simon smiled. “We would say fire hydrant, these days.”

“Excuse me,” said Habib. “Fire hydrant, then. Destiny does not come with bands playing and fireworks going off, Destiny is the glance of a maiden, the smile on the face of the executioner, the wind from a another direction. Kismet is a bird that poops on your head, Simon.”

“If the Foo shits,” Simon muttered.

“Exactly,” said Habib. “Here is Destiny in my hand but you have already had Destiny in yours.”

“Huh?” said Simon.

“The ring, Simon,” said the djinni. “You have the ring -- that is Kismet, Destiny on Horseback, Fate and a Favorable Wind. It’s all you need.”

Simon smiled. “I always worry about things, I have a compulsive need to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. For instance, I can’t help worrying about the gold.”

“Gold?” said Habib.

“You said you could summon for me a pound of gold a week, and being the sort of person I am, I can’t help wondering when the weeks start being counted.”

Habib laughed and shook his head, being careful not to drop the glowing object he still held in his hand. “The weeks get counted from the time you picked up the ring, Simon,” he said. “And if you’re going to worry about the gold, let me summon it now into a safe place in the apartment.”

“A-all right,” Simon stuttered. He blinked several times. “The other thing I keep thinking about is the houri.” With the overcast and rain, it was too dark under the Folly for anyone to see him blush but he could feel the heat in his face.

Habib looked blank for a moment and Simon realized that he needed to shout. “The houri, the houri!” Neither Simon nor Habib had noticed that the storm had grown somewhat. A wind had come up and occasional sprays of fine raindrops reached them under the canopy. It was actually getting uncomfortable for Simon although true to his djinn nature, none of the water managed to touch Habib.

That worthy put his free hand to his mouth, as if to hide a smile. “Really, Simon, we can worry about her later. At the moment, she’s purely hypothetical.” He thrust the piece of Fallen Star toward Simon. “We have one wish already in progress. Just touch the stone and think of the sort of abilities you would like to have.”

Simon still hesitated. Then he took a deep breath and stretched out his hand to touch the stone.

* * *

Any building near a lake needs a lightning rod; a working lightning rod. Unfortunately, the Indian Summer Folly behind the April Morning Hotel had been neglected over the winter and a previous storm had damaged two of the three redundant connections between the lightning conductor on the roof and the grounding wires. A wind had pushed the assembly out of alignment with the steel structure supporting it, the skeleton of the building’s core utilities. Another cable had attached the lightning rod to the plumbing in the building and that now made only intermittent and less-than-ideal connection.

The third wire had been outside the building, connected to the steel posts holding up the patio covers. This wire was simply missing, perhaps removed by a thrifty, if larcenous, squirrel who may have pawned it for its copper content. At any rate, the building had no functional lightning rod.

Non-functional lightning rods are better called lightning attractors.

In the midst of the downpour Habib had summoned to conceal their presence in the Folly, just as Simon touched the piece of Fallen Star snatched from another universe, the inevitable but highly coincidental happened. Twenty thousand amperes plus of current surged through the building, the decayed lightning protection system serving to divert only a portion of it. Water-soaked wood is a good conductor but the water turns to steam when the current is high enough. When that did happen, the Folly, quite literally, exploded.

* * *

When the lightning hit, Simon leaped forward, instinctively grabbing Habib as he dove for cover, rolling under one of the concrete benches. The explosion of the Folly rained broken glass and burning wood down on everything for fifty feet around.

Habib first gasped from the multiple impacts of being hit by Simon, then landing on the floor and rolling up against the solid bench then said, “What the devil?” in Ancient Persian, or words to that effect.

Simon pushed himself away and looked down at the slender, naked, dark-haired woman he had landed on. “What the hell?” he said in Modern English.

“What happened?” the woman asked.

“Who are you?” Simon countered.

The woman said something about camel dung that Simon did not understand.

* * *

When the lightning hit, Simon leaped away from the center of the Folly, down the aisle between the concrete tables. The explosion of the Folly hurled her completely out from under the patio cover and into the rose bushes along the terracotta pathway. She may have said something about Mrs. Dumphries’ habit of using organic fertilizer. It wouldn't have been so bad but her clothes had disappeared to. Not that they would have fit.

* * *

When the lightning hit, Habib vanished himself into that pocket dimension where the Djinn resided after Suleyman the Great had denied them the ability to go back to their own world without his permission. It was some time before he could reopen the path to return to the human Earth.

* * *

When the lightning hit, Simon had his hand on the Fallen Star, trying to think about the sort of powers he wanted and all the comic books he had read and about wishes and houris and how even with magic you couldn’t really have it all....

That’s probably what caused all the trouble.

Raindrops keep falling...

It wasn’t that Simon had never held a woman in his arms. But he had never held a beautiful, naked woman in them. And whoever she was, she was quite beautiful. He had picked her up to carry her out of the burning folly but now he just stood there, staring at her. She had long black hair, bright green eyes, smooth skin, and a long, slender, but well-padded body.

“It’s me, Habib,” she said.

“I’m not Habib,” said Simon.

“No, I am,” she said.

“Who?” said Simon. He smiled down at her, she had the most delightful voice.

“I am Habib,” she said, trying to make things clear. “I’ve been turned into a woman. The stone, the wish, the lightning--something went wrong.” A tiny wrinkle formed between those beautiful eyes.

Simon sighed to see the slightest evidence of pain or displeasure on the face that went with his lovely armful. He lifted her up a big higher, holding her closer.

She lifted her arms and put them around his neck, it seemed the most natural thing in the world. And the most natural consequence for Simon seemed to be to fall in love with the beautiful woman he was holding in his arms. He did it without thought, without effort; much the way he had ended up carrying her when the Folly exploded.

He smiled down at her. “Huh?” he said.

“Are you listening, Simon? Simon?” He loved the sound of his name when she said it. He could listen to her talk all afternoon, ignoring the sound of the rain falling and the fire still burning behind them.

“The fire...” said Simon, half turning to look back. “We’ve got to get back to the hotel.” He glanced up at the roof of the Folly then strode out from under. The rain seemed to be doing a job on putting the fire out but he still wanted to get the beautiful woman in his arms to safety. And to his room in the hotel, the thought of which almost made him quiver like a tuning fork.

Habib kicked her legs and frowned but neither disturbed Simon’s hold on her. He moved quickly, out from under the burning roof and straight toward his own patio, ignoring the paved pathway that wound between rose bushes. In fact, he leapt over the line of greenery marking the edge of the picnic grounds around the folly. He leapt without thought or effort and continued on, smiling to himself because--because he had superpowers--and a beautiful woman in his arms as well.

* * *

The second Simon -- the one who had landed in the rose bushes when she had leapt away from the fire and the force of the exploding Folly had hurled her further than she had intended -- the other Simon, the female one, pushed mounds of soggy hair out of her face with one hand and felt of one of her breasts with the other.

“What the heck?” she said.

She felt of the other breast, just to be sure. They both seemed enormous and when she looked down, all she saw was pillowy boobies.

“Oh, crap!” she said. “I wished myself into being Power Girl!”

Something swooshed overhead while she was looking down. She looked up quickly but she didn’t turn around because the burning Folly caught her eye. Flames from the explosion of the central room had spread to the timbers holding up the patio roof. With the rain still coming down, it didn’t really look like the fire would get anywhere but something occurred to her; wasn’t she now a superhero?

“Hey! Maybe I should try to put that out!” She quickly stood up, the stinky mud of the rosebed clinging to her curves. The rain immediately began washing the filth away.

The rain seemed to be doing the job on the fire, too, but Simon stood in the middle of the rose bushes and huffed and puffed anyway, trying to produce super-breath to blow out the flames.

Nothing happened except she got a little dizzy from hyperventilating.

“Crap, crap, crap,” she muttered, glaring at the fire. The rain was really doing a good job of stopping the flames so super-breath was hardly necessary.

“Do I even have super-powers?” She looked down at herself again. “Besides the boobies.”

She pondered a moment. “I got blown out of a building by an explosion, naked, and I landed in some rose bushes. It’s raining in April in Tacoma. I’m not cold and I don’t think I have a scratch on me.” She beamed, running her hands down her side, slick with rain. She found no scratches or tender spots.

She stopped when she reached her ass. “I’ve got.... Boy, I’ve got a big.... Is all of that me?” She tried to turn around to look but, of course, she didn’t have that kind of super-power.

* * *

The Little World, as the Djinn called their pocket dimension between Earth and the original version of the Djinn realms, had mountains and lakes, forests and rivers. That it was not a whole planet was not readily apparent and each Djinni had a dwelling, modest or imposing as befitted his rank among the Djinn.

The Djinn are ruled by judges among themselves, not kings or nobles but leaders respected for their experience, wisdom and skills. The title of respect for such djinni is Hakeem and large important families may have one, each clan selects an elder to the post and the gatherings of clans select a tribal judge. All of the hakeems together select one of their member to be The Hakeem who serves in that post for as much as a thousand years.

“You knew the rules, Baghadu’ur. Changing someone’s sex, even by accident, even your own, is a forty year sentence of sanctioned powers,” The Hakeem of the Djinn said on the portico of his magnificent dwelling.

“But I didn’t!” protested the djinni who had told Simon to call him Habib but whose real Djinn name was Baghadu’ur. “Look, I’m still male!” He gestured at himself, his real self. Not the slender middle-aged accountant-type body he had showed Simon but his own djinni self; large, muscular, imposing and aggressively masculine.

The Hakeem quirked an eyebrow. “And your client?” With a gesture, the official judge summoned an image of Simon, the female Simon, standing in a rose garden in the rain, feeling her butt with both hands and looking mystified.

“That’s Simon?” asked Habib/Baghadu’ur. “Oh, dear. The wish turned him into...that? He looks like, uh, she looks like Power Girl with Barbara Eden’s face--only more so.”

The portico had a marble floor and colonnades that set off the view of the mountains across The Hakeem’s lands, farmed or him by lesser djinn. A lovely houri made sure that their silver-trimmed crystal goblets were kept filled with the mixture of peach brandy, citron zest and spring water that The Hakeem favored. The houri, young and beautiful as all houris appear, reminded Baghadu’ur/Habib of his client’s altered appearance and he turned back to the view of Earth conjured by The Hakeem.

The two very male Djinn contemplated the image for a moment. “Nice work, in a way,” said The Hakeem. “But this rule is for your protection. If your clients know that you will not be able to grant all their wishes for forty years, they will not be asking you to change your sex or theirs either. So many of them are filthy perverts anyway.”

“But... but...” Habib/Baghadu’ur protested. “My master, er, mistress, is going to need me now.”

“But!” said the Hakim. “But one of the sanctions is that you must stay here an entire Shabat before returning. So you cannot go back until sunset on Saturday.”

“It’s still Monday, isn’t it?”

The Hakim nodded. “And even when you go back, the other sanctions will be in effect.”

“I’ve never crossed this rule before, what are the other sanctions?”

The Hakim detailed the sanctions, it took some time but Baghadu’ur/Habib had almost a whole week to listen. They sipped peach brandy cocktails and ate spicy peafowl breast and other delicacies served by the beautiful houri while they talked.

* * *

Simon, the tall one with muscles, carried the woman who had identified herself as Habib toward the lower back entrance of the hotel, his private entrance into his little two room apartment with the shared kitchenette. Up the slope to the left, the second rear entrance of the hotel led into the two-story utility room attached to the kitchen on the main floor. Directly above Simon’s rooms lay the main dining room with it’s own outside deck, the floor of which was the roof of Simon’s patio.

Since it was raining in the middle of Monday afternoon, no one had been eating on the deck but two people had been munching snacks and enjoying the free coffee in the dining room. The big windows provided them with a view of the burning Folly but the heavy rain kept them from noticing too many details.

One brave soul with an umbrella ventured out onto the deck to get a better look. Lt. Colonel Edgar “Edge” Wyes, US Army, retired, had spent most of his career pushing papers in top secret think tanks in and around Washington DC, Brussels, Tokyo and Moscow but he had military training and felt that he needed to respond to what looked like an emergency. In his late forties, he had retired after twenty four years when he was passed over for promotion to full colonel due to budgetary cuts related to the winding down of military commitments.

Keeping himself fit for two decades in a desk job had become a way of life for the colonel, he ran two miles every morning and sometimes entered long distance races. Which explained the unnaturally bright orange tape on the sleeves and back of his windbreaker as he ventured out onto the rainswept deck.

Edge had a cellphone in his hand and had already dialed 911 to report the fire. Still talking to the dispatcher, he gave details on what he saw. “No, I don’t think anyone was in it,” he said. “This time of year, it’s pretty deserted. Wait, wait, somethings moving around down there....” He held the phone against his chest while he peered into the downpour. He could see movement but not identity and whoever or whatever it had been, disappeared almost as soon as he noticed.

“Maybe it was a deer,” he said into the phone. “We get a lot of them around here.” Then he stopped talking for a moment as he saw something else.

A break in the steady rain showed him someone standing in the rose garden, a person this time, he felt sure. Even on a dark and dreary afternoon with the lights from the hotel masked by the rain he saw something, someone... a girl? An even larger gap in the rain gave him a better look. A naked girl? A naked girl standing in the rose garden, her hands on her shapely ass, her back arched, her magnificent breasts clearly revealed -- and then the rain came down in sheets again and she was gone.

Colonel Edge blinked.

The phone was saying something to him, asking him something. “No,” he told it. “No, I don’t think I saw anything after all, just a trick of the light in all this rain.”

He listened a moment. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll stay on until the firemen get here.”

Behind him, Mrs. Dumfries herself, the owner of the hotel, emerged from the dining room wrapped in a black nylon rain suit and carrying an umbrella with hand painted Japanese flower designs all over it. Her gray hair showed in a curly aura peeking out from under the hoodie of the rain suit and she had a phone in her hand, too. She had called the fire department directly, not reckoning a fire in an outbuilding on a rainy day counted as a real emergency.

She stepped up beside Colonel Edge, as near to the railing of the deck as either of them could get without touching the rain-soaked barrier. “There wasn’t anyone out there, was there?” she asked.

“I don’t believe so,” Edge lied. He knew what he had seen and he knew how to keep secrets.

The Starchild by Erin Halfelven   Chapter 7 Get Around

Simon managed to open the door to his apartment without putting the woman in his arms down; hugging her close to him was no hardship and the rainy patio was no place for someone who was barefoot.

“Here we go,” he said as he eased her down onto his sitting room carpet.

“Thank you, Simon,” she said. She smiled up at him, though the expression seemed a bit strained. “You are still the best master ever.”

“Huh,” said Simon, not sure how to respond. “Habib!” he called out. “Habib? Are you in here?”

“I’m Habib,” said the beautiful naked woman still standing oh-so-very-close to Simon.

* * *

After spinning once like a dog chasing her tail, the girl who thought of herself as Simon realized how ridiculous she must look and contented herself with feeling of all her appendages and accessories. “Jimmies! I’m built like Coco Austin with bigger boobs,” she complained.

She shook her head, flinging water from her hair, her chin and other pointy parts of her anatomy. “Ooo, that was weird,” she said. She looked around to see if anyone had seen her but the rain had began falling harder and she could hardly even see the hotel. Downslope, the Folly continued burning but probably not for much longer. In the distance, she heard the sound of a siren and realized someone must have called the fire department.

“Sugar Pops!!” she said, “I’d better get inside before someone sees me.” She started to trot toward the door to Simon’s apartment but stopped suddenly; the bouncing felt just too weird. “First thing to do is to get Habib to change me back into a guy!” She walked the rest of the way to the door, looking around and calling for Habib several times.

* * *

Up on the deck above the lower entrance to the hotel, Colonel Edge watched the girl he had seen in the rain walk toward him. Mrs. Dumfries had gone out through the front of the hotel to intercept the firetruck and direct it around the building to the narrow track leading to the Folly. Or what was left of that unfortunate building. Edge was alone on the deck outside the dining room.

Alone with a vision of beauty that left him almost breathless. The girl had a shape like an hour-and-a-half glass. Generous, top and bottom, but wasp-waisted almost to an extreme. Long hair that was probably blonde when dry reached to her waist.

She walked toward him through the rain and mist with a background of fire. She did not look up so she didn’t see him on the deck above her. He hung back a little though he could not have said why but he moved forward as it became obvious that she intended to use the lower entrance to the hotel. He kept her in sight until she disappeared almost directly beneath him.

Edge thought there might be a room down there in what he thought of as the basement. He searched his memory to see if he knew who might live down there. He thought he remembered someone complaining that the hotel dining room was directly over his bedroom -- thin, dark fellow, looked like a Mediterranean version of Elvis -- Nader Something?

He debated with himself about going downstairs and trying to find the girl but what would he say to her? I saw you naked on the back lawn looking magnificent in the rain and I wanted to get a better look? He smiled, a little lopsidedly. He didn’t think so, it wasn’t his style. He’d find out who she was before he introduced himself.

* * *

“Crap, crap, crap again,” the girl who thought of herself as Simon muttered as she reached the the patio. She had her arms wrapped around herself under her breasts in an attempt to minimize the distracting motions. “Bounce, bounce, bouncey! Habib! This is not amusing.”

She turned to look back toward the burning hulk of the Folly. “Where is Habib?” she asked aloud. “Habib, if this is your idea of being funny...” She turned back toward the door of Simon’s apartment. Despite it being only about two in the afternoon, gloom filled the space under the first floor deck and two yellowish patio lights did little to make it less foreboding. It was a perfect place to feel a chill run down the middle of your back.

Simon felt a nasty one as she reached for the door handle and heard voices from inside her apartment. One of the voices sounded familiar, kind of like her father who had been dead for almost ten years.

* * *

Across the city, in off-campus housing for the University of Puget Sound, two young second year students woke up bright and early Monday afternoon from their usual weekend drinking binge. Neither of them were far from being expelled for grades and non-attendance and, even with the intervention of wealthy relatives, seemed unlikely to get degrees at this particular institute of higher learning.

Howard Dudat, known variously as Howie (from his first name), Dude (from his last), Bluto (from a supposed resemblance to John Belushi), and Jackass (from his personality), rolled over and groaned. “Am I sleeping on the floor?” he asked no one.

Regardless, he got an answer from his roommate. “Keep it down, Dude,” said Peter Henry Piet from somewhere behind and above Howie. “You ain’t sleeping if you’re talking unless you’re talking in your sleep and if you start doing that, besides the snoring, we are going to be ex-roommates fast.” Pete had several nicknames, too, but usually went by Pete or Piet--who could tell?

Together the friends were known as The Booze Brothers and if someone squinted just right and imagined them in blue business suits with sunglasses and fedoras, they did resemble Jake and Elwood. Either that or a clean-shaven Mutt-and-Jeff.

“Shaddup,” said Howie, with his customary morning charm. He levered his rotund body to a sitting position and looked around the ruins of their apartment. “Dafuck? Who painted shit on the wall?” It did look like shit but was really brownish plum sauce from a local Chinese delivery joint.

Pete, who had been lucky enough to drape his length over the davenport, grunted. “Probably the same chickie who threw up in both of our beds.”

“Both of our beds?” protested Howie. “Now we got to fuckin’ move--again?”

“That or do laundry,” agreed Pete.

With various noises worthy of a logging camp donkey engine, Howie struggled to his feet. “It’s fuckin’ cold in here, too.” Goosebumps covered his exposed flabby flesh and a lot of it was visible since he wore nothing but a stained pair of boxers and a torn Nirvana t-shirt.

Pete hadn’t moved except to put his arm across his eyes. “You know the upchucking chick? Her boyfriend broke the windows in our rooms.”

“Both our rooms? Christ, what an asshole. What dafuck did we invite him for?”

“I don’t think we did. At least, I didn’t,” said Pete. “You, on the other hand, are enough of a dickwad to do something like that.”

“Shaddup,” said Howie, stumbling toward the bathroom. “Didn’t anyone think to close the doors to the bedrooms?”

“Apparently not,” said Pete. “What a good idea. You gonna do it?”

“Shaddup,” said Howie, making tinkling noises into the toilet bowl.

“Apparently not,” Pete repeated.

Howie flushed then brushed his teeth and gargled before saying anything else. “Where dafuck is the Tylenol?”

“We’re out. Take some aspirin,” said Pete. “It’ll work better anyway.”

“You tryna kill me? You fuckin’ know I’m allergic to aspirin.”

“Oh, yeah.” Pete snickered, still on the davenport.

“Smartass,” said Howie, stumbling through the refuse toward the kitchen. He thought he remembered part of a bottle of Tylenol in the spice rack. Tylenol was sort of a spice, wasn’t it? What the hell else would you keep there if you didn’t actually do any cooking?

At the kitchen table sat Pete, buttering saltine crackers and popping them in his mouth between sips from a can of Canada Dry Diet Ginger Ale.

“How can you drink that fuckin’ stuff?” asked Howie.

Pete sprayed cracker crumbs answering. “Mmeef, mpf dmf mf n-nf br-pf,” he said.

“Whadda ya mean, we don’t have any beer?” Howie checked the refrigerator. “Muthafuck! We don’t have any beer!”

“Pt-lmf mu tpf,” said Pete.

“Yeah, yeah, give yourself a fucking no-prize.” Howie shrugged and took a can of diet ginger ale himself and popped it. He took a sip. “Nasty!” he said and took another. He gestured at the spice cabinet but it was out of reach above the stove. The door of the little box glued to the wall flew open anyway and a tiny travel-size Tylenol floated out all by itself.

Pete watched, his mouth full of cracker crumbs. “Mow few noo nadh, Noonadh?” he asked.

“How’d I do what?” asked Howie as the pill bottle orbited his head. He didn’t seem to notice and took another sip of ersatz ginger ale, his eyes slightly glazed.

“Dat,” said Pete, pointing at the Tylenol container.

Howie glanced up then snatched the bottle out of the air. “Muthafuck! Don’t throw stuff at me while I’m hungover!”

Pete laughed damp cracker crumbs all over the kitchen table then took several sips of his beverage to clear his mouth. “It’s not your hangover, it’s your overhang,” he said, pointing at Howie’s belly.

“Shaddup,” said Howie. He wandered back toward the living room, extracting a couple of pills and washing them down with soda.

Still draped across the couch, Pete lifted his arm and squinted at him. “Hey, Dude. Maybe I swapped those Tylenol for aspirin?” he suggested.

“What -- the fuck?” Howie spun around and looked back into the kitchen where another Pete was again buttering saltines and laying them in neat rows. “The fuck?” Howie repeated, spinning back.

Now there were two Petes sitting on the couch, yawning identically. “This is such a crazy day,” they both said. “I think I’m beside myself.”

Howie spun around twice more, spilling diet ginger ale into the detritus of their weekend before fainting dead away.

A fourth Pete emerged from the bathroom and knelt to check Howie’s pulse. “He’s alive,” the triply redundant Pete announced. The two Petes on the couch looked around the room and added, in unison, “If you call this living.”

* * *

Simon, the male one, stared at the slender dark-haired woman. “You mean you really are Habib?” he asked. He sounded distressed by the idea.

Habib, the female one, nodded. “When I made your wish come true, something went wrong, and....” She trailed off looking down at herself, now wearing one of Simon’s white dress shirts with the sleeves rolled up above her elbows.

“Wow,” said Simon. “That’s... something.”

Habib frowned. “It’s perverse, is what it is. Djinn rules are very strict on changing someone’s sex. I think I’ve triggered some sort of.... I cannot....” She frowned. “I think I’m being punished.”

Simon looked wounded. “Does...? Does it hurt?”

Habib shook her head, distracting herself for a moment with the movement on her back of the mass of hair falling down almost to her waist. She reached up with both hands and gathered it off her neck.

Simon took a deep breath.

“No, it doesn’t hurt, but I cannot reach into other worlds, only this one. I cannot make contact with other djinn.” She sighed. “The standard punishment for perversity is forty years of restricted use of djinn resources and abilities.” Her frown came close to turning into a pout. “But I would have thought I would get a chance to explain! I didn’t do this on purpose and neither did you.”

Simon shook his head. He intended never to admit it but the thought had occurred to him to have Habib turn into a Barbara Eden-style genie. And it had sounded perverse to him, too, which is why he would never say anything about it.

“Forty years is not so long,” said Habib. “I once spent half that long as a horse.”

“A horse?” Simon said, startled.

“Yes, not all masters are as reasonable or accountable as you are, Simon. I think I can do this, half the human race manages to be women without to much effort. Eh?” The corners of her mouth turned up.

Simon smiled to see her smile.

She pulled her hair up above her head. “What am I going to do with this? I have no idea how to take care of all this hair. It’s an obscene lot of bother, don’t you think?”

Simon grunted. ”Don’t cut it,” he said in a strangled voice.

She looked at him. “I had thought to, but now I can’t.” She frowned again.

Neither of them moved for a long moment as the realization sank in on both of them that Habib was still bound to Simon’s will by three thousand year old magical agreements.

* * *

On the Little World of the Djinn, Baghadu’ur, the other Habib, the male one, continued to enjoy his luncheon with the Hakeem. The day was bright and peaceful, the land, the food and the houris all beautiful and appropriate. Baghadu’ur felt almost content, though a thought for his master back on earth nagged at him occasionally.

The terms of the djinn sanctions against perversity meant that nothing could be done to change a female Simon back into a male one for another forty years. Habib shrugged, half the human race managed to be women on a daily basis, surely Simon could adjust. And he, or rather she, would have superpowers just as had been wished.

“What in Seven Worlds?” he heard the Hakeem ask and looked up to see where the Judge of the Green Djinn’s gaze was fixed. A very long-eyed race in themselves, Djinn could also magically enhance their vision and Baghadu’ur clearly saw what Hakeem must be looking at.

Miles away, out at the edge of the land around the Judge’s estate they saw a rider moving quickly toward them, driving his horse with almost cruel urgency.

Simon, the female one, realized that she had to reach up to the handle of the sliding glass door that opened from the patio into her apartment. “The heck is this? Habib, you not only turned me into a girl, you made me short!”

She measured herself against the frame and estimated her height. “Being only five feet tall is not a superpower, Habib!” she fumed, reaching again for the door handle.

* * *

Inside, the other Simon was asking, “What’s the word for a female djinn?”

Habib, the female one, said, “Djirini. Someone is outside calling my name.”

“Your name? Who knows your name?” Simon turned and looked but he had automatically closed the drape when he carried Habib inside; something about having a naked woman in his apartment made him cautious about privacy, perhaps. Well, she had one of his shirts on, now, so....

He moved to open the door, saying at the same time. “I can’t keep calling you Habib, isn’t that a guy’s name? What’s the Persian female version? Habibeh?”

“Please don’t call me that!” Habib protested. “Habib means friend, Habibeh means fiancée!”

Simon paused for a moment, started to turn back but a noise came from the door, so he pulled back the drape and slid the door open at the same time, just as the female Simon outside the door tried to do the same.

They stood there looking at each other in astonishment for a moment; one -- very tall, male, and wearing clothes that seemed a bit small for him; the other -- little, female, stacked and naked.

“Dad?” said the shorter of the two Simons. “You look like my dad....”

* * *

Wilson Courage had never expected to end up a member of the police department of Tacoma. His college major had been in Art with a minor in Business Administration, strictly as a fallback. But he’d been recruited as a staff artist for the department and had gone back to school to get a credential in Law Enforcement.

Then he’d found out that no one got promoted above Officer First without time on the streets, so he’d spent six months as a beat patrolman then two years in a squad car, taken the sergeant’s exam and passed with a nearly embarrassing 100%. He still did I.D. art when the department needed it and had a desk in the Detective’s Office downtown, complete with computer and all the drawing software he needed.

That’s where he found out that no one made Lieutenant without time in the detective squad. He’d put in for a transfer to the detective squad last December and it had finally come through, along with a promotion to Detective Sergeant Third. His art desk became his permanent desk in the detective office, with a smaller desk alongside for a phone and a computer.

Tacoma wasn’t a big city, just a middling large one, so they only had one detective squad, commanded by Captain Vance Andrews and Lieutenant Marjorie Ullersen. Both of them were standing near his desk when he arrived that April morning. Andrews was OIC of Downtown Division on weekends and Ullersen was CO of the Detective Squad and Wilson’s new boss.

“Seems funny to say welcome when you’ve been hanging out here for almost a year,” said the Loot. “But I guess I can say, ‘Welcome, Sergeant Courage!’ at least.”

Wilson grinned. He’d sewn the sergeant stripes onto his uniform only that morning. Not that he was wearing his police uniform today, as a detective he would normally be in plainclothes now.

Captain Andrews laughed. “Our new sergeant is an ambitious lad, Marje. Have you seen the webcomic he works on when he thinks no one is looking?” Andrews was a large man, nearing forty, with big hands, dark skin and a receding hairline in front of his mini-Afro.

Marje nodded. “It’s called ‘Captain Courage,’ right? But maybe you’re bucking for my job since I think the character is a policewoman?” She grinned. A tall blond woman with piercing blue eyes that still had a twinkle after ten years of police work, Lt. Ullersen reminded Wilson of a Valkyrie from Norse Legend. Department legend was that she had been a part-time member of GLoW, Glamours Ladies of Wrestling, in her college days.

“Ah, yes, ma’am,” he said. He didn’t want to admit it, but he had modeled his webcomic character after the lieutenant, disguising her with red hair instead of blond. He tried to change the subject quickly, afraid that one of the two would ask to see some of his artwork. “Have you got an assignment for me, today?”

“What do you think, Skip?” Ullersen asked Andrews. “Break the new guy in easy?”

The captain grinned as if what Ullersen had said was funny. “Sure, sure,” he agreed.

Marje nodded. “You’re on ride-around with Sergeant Murrows, all this week, Courage.”

Wilson winced and his two superiors chuckled. Abel Murrows was senior sergeant on the Detective Squad and a bit of a grump. But at least it gave him an excuse to get moving and avoid any further interrogation.

He’d just got down to the parking garage and turned up his raincoat’s hoodie against the drizzle when he saw Sergeant Murrows talking on the phone in a plainwrap cruiser. He hurried toward the car wondering what his first detective assignment would be like.

* * *

“You look like my dad, but you’re not, are you?” the naked girl at the door said to Simon.

“Uh, no, miss, I don’t think I am...” he trailed off. Talking to two naked women in one day made it a very unusual day. This one looked young enough to be a daughter of his, if he had ever had a daughter but as far as he knew, he had not. She even has a vague sort of family look, except that she was so short.

“You’re Simon Paul, aren’t you?” asked the girl, pushing wet strands of hair out of her face. Moving her arms up to do that sort of pushed her rather large chest into more prominent display.

Simon glanced away, his face turning red, just as Habib came up beside him. “Uh, yes, yes, I am, Simon Paul, and uh, this is my apartment. Um, do you need to come in and… and call someone? I think I can find something for you to wear.” He stepped aside.

Blinking, the girl stepped inside, dripping a bit on the doormat. She stared at Habib wearing an oversize dress shirt. “If you’re Simon, who’s this baked goods?”

“Pardon me?” Simon yelped, surprised at the girl’s rudeness. Despite it being mid-afternoon, the overcast day and the roof of the patio had made it rather dark outside. Seen in the interior light, she had a truly astonishing figure and Simon looked away again, swallowing hard. “Th-that’s not a very nice thing to say!” Baked goods? Had she said baked goods?

“It’s all right,” said Habib. “You can call me... Roxanna, I guess. Which....” She trailed off, staring at the girl.

“Huh,” said the tall man and the short girl at the same time.

Simon shook his head, startled into looking at her again. “Let me... look for something for you to wear,” He stammered and headed for the closet.

Roxanna, or Habib, headed for the bathroom. “You’ll need something to wrap up all that hair,” she said. “I’ll find you a towel.”

“I suppose,” said the girl. She looked very downhearted and sank slowly until she sat on the rug in front of the door. She glanced down at herself and frowned, sort of swatting with one hand at her breasts and feeling behind her with the other one. “It’s like a... fahrfegnugen pillow back there,” she muttered.

“You didn’t tell us your name,” said Roxanna, returning more quickly. She knelt beside the girl and offered the big, fluffy green bath towel.

“If he’s Simon,” she muttered, “...I guess... I guess, I don’t know who the jam I am.”

Roxanna leaned in close and whispered. “I think I know who you are.... Simone?”

The girl looked up startled, her blue eyes wide.

Roxanna pointed at herself. “I’m Habib,” she said.

Simon came back into the room carrying a light blue t-shirt with a Superman logo on it. “Uh, this is a bit small on me, maybe you can wear it as a dress?”

The girl’s gaze snapped to him. “A candy-striped dress?” she yelped.

“Well, uh, no,” said Simon. “That’s a Superman logo....” He trailed off, confused.

Habib, or Roxanna, dropped the big green towel over the girl’s head. She held a hand out for the t-shirt and motioned that Simon should leave the room

With some relief, he did, even closing the door behind him.

“What’s the big fudge delight?” asked the girl under the towel.

* * *

Three amateur astronomers in different places all spotted Earth’s new companion about the same time. Later, they would all three be asked to suggest a name to be bestowed by the proper astronomical authorities. The Persian offered Mehrzad, meaning child of the sun because of the object’s brilliance. The Scot suggested Emeraldine because of it’s gorgeous green color.

And the American wanted it named Krypton, meaning hidden, because where had it been all this time that no one had ever seen it before?

Image credit: mariyaermolaeva / 123RF Stock Photo

 

by Erin Halfelven
 

1.2 "With This Ring..."

"Uncle Steve?" I yelped. How a big guy could move so silently kind of scared me; we hadn't heard him before he said something.

Kevin took it more calmly. "Is this your car, Unk?" he asked, putting a hand on the hood of the big blue sedan.

"Uh huh," said Steve. "Figured you boys would find it sooner or later. Never seen two teenagers so willing to sit on their fat asses and watch the boob tube as you two." He scowled at us. "Took you two days to look inside an unlocked door."

"But you have the pick-up truck parked out front," I said."You keep this one for special occasions?"

"Yup," said Steve. "Very special. This was my Skarabmobile, back in the forties and fifties."

"Wow, it's that old?" I said.

"Skarabmobile?" asked Kevin.

"Uh huh," said Steve. "As in The Mighty Skarab." Then he added in a softer voice, "And Damselfly."

"Who?" I said.

"Thought you kids read up on all the old-timey mystery men and crimefighters? Damsel and I fought street gangs and crimelords like the Scorpion Mob and Ruth Lester. We beat the crap out of them with our fists and feet at first, but later the Insect Lords gave us superpowers."

We stared at him. Uncle Steve was a super?

"Yeah, the Insect Lords," he said as if we had asked him. "They live in another dimension that can be reached sometimes when they need you. Needed me. Us." He looked glum.

"Do you still have your powers?" I asked.

"Insect Lords?" muttered Kevin. "What? Cockroaches?"

Steve glared at Kevin but nodded at me. "I'm old but I just keep getting stronger. I don't even need to wear the ring anymore."

"What can you do?" I asked. "How come I've never heard of The Scarab?"

"Skarab with a 'k'," he said. "When I first picked the name, the newspapers didn't know how to spell it." He smiled. "Josie used to tease me about it."

"Josie?" I said.

"Ring?" Kevin said.

The old man reached into a pocket of his coveralls and came out with a soft-looking leather bag. "Rings," he said. "We each had one." He shook them out onto his palm as we gathered around him. The old man's hands were so large, the rings looked like the toys for little kids that they give away with fast food.

Except they weren't. The bigger ring had a rectangular blue stone set in bright yellow metal. It had a design etched into it, a sort of beetle shape. The smaller ring, also bright gold, had an oval green stone with a narrower, winged insect.

"Cool," Kevin and I said at the same time.

"The Insect Lords say you two are to have these rings," said Steve. He handed the blue-stone ring to Kevin and gave me the one with the green stone. He looked sad when he let go of it.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"That was Josie's ring," he said. "She doesn't need it any more either."

"These will give us superpowers?" Kevin asked. "You're kidding us, right?"

Steve shook his head. "No, these rings are magic or what passes for magic in this world. They'll give you superpowers like Josie and I had back when we were Mighty Skarab and Damselfly."

Kevin looked at me. "What do you think, Darryl?"

"He's your uncle," I said. "And obviously, insanity runs in your family." Superpowers? Well, who wouldn't want to have superpowers, but magic rings?

"Ho, ho," said Kevin.

"Take the rings, kids," said Steve. "Yes, I'm a crazy old man, humor me." He scowled, a truly frightening thing to see and ice touched my gizzard, or whatever, for a moment.

Kevin took the ring with the square blue stone set in bright yellow metal. "Is this sapphire?" he asked.

Steve shook his head. "They're both beryl, it comes in lots of colors."

The second ring had an oval green stone in the golden setting. "Emerald is a kind of green beryl," I said, taking it. Why I had a memory for such trivia, I didn’t know.

"Wrong kind of green, see this is yellow-green? Emeralds are true green or blue-green." The old man knew something, too.

Kevin slipped his onto the ring finger of his right hand. Amazingly, it fit. "Huh," said Kevin. "Did you have these altered for us?"

The old man sighed. "They're magic rings. They fit whoever wears them." He shook his head like he thought we were too dumb to live. Okay, we were teenagers; it might have been true.

"You feel anything?" I asked Kevin since he had his ring on.

He shook his head. "Should I?" he asked his uncle.

Steve scowled again. He probably practiced looks like that in front of a mirror, in case he needed to scare a supervillain. "Maybe," he said. He looked at me.

Sighing, I slipped the ring onto my own finger. It fit perfectly but I didn't feel any sort of tingle or anything. "It's just a ring," I said.

"It's just a ring," Steve mocked me in a falsetto. "Reach with your other hand and turn it around counterclockwise, 360 degrees. Full circle."

While I hesitated, Kevin did so right away.

The transformation happened immediately. He grew about six inches, put on sixty pounds of muscle and was suddenly wearing a costume — dark blue with freaky magical designs in gold on his arms and legs and across his back and chest. Most of his face was covered, too, and he had two small antenna on his forehead.

The antenna looked stupid, actually.

"Whoa!" said Kevin.

I just stood there goggling at him.

Up until then, we had only sort of believed Uncle Steve that he used to be a superhero named Mighty Skarab. The man was older than some geological formations and smelled like stale wine. Yeah, he was big but kind of fat and his face had creases in it deep enough to lose the TV remote in. Of course, there were those scowls….

"This is bitchin'," said Kevin. Even his voice had changed, a deep, baritone, growly sort of sound. He stared at his arms and hands, flexing them and looking like a dork on steroids. "Is there a mirror where I can see what I look like?"

"Bathroom," said Steve, pointing at a door beside the big map wall.

Kevin lumbered off in that direction. "Holy crap," he said. "I feel like I could wrestle bears or crocodiles."

I couldn't stop staring at him. This was real, these were real magic rings.

"You gonna try your ring?" Steve asked me. "Just turn it around to activate the magic."

I looked at Steve, since Kevin had gone down the hall and I couldn't see him anymore. Something else occurred to me. "He looks just like that Saturday morning cartoon character, The Tick."

"Uh-uh," Steve disagreed. "Wrong way around. The Tick looks like me, Mighty Skarab. My costume had a red belt, though, not the gold doodads."

"You mean Kevin's costume has gold patterns on it. Huh. I'm not going to end up looking like Arthur am I?" I asked, thinking of the Tick's sidekick, a guy in a moth suit.

"Don't think so," said Steve. He didn't sound that sure of it.

Kevin came back. "Hey! I look like The Tick!"

"We were just saying," I commented.

"The Tick is a satire, based on me and a couple of other old guys from the 30s to the 60s," said Steve. "He can't sue you for looking like him. Besides, you've got those yellow patterns all over you. Trademark." He stared off into space for a moment. "Everyone who wears one of the rings has a different costume." He seemed to be remembering.

"Yeah, well. The Tick is sort of stupid," said Kevin, not quite complaining. He reached up and touched one of the antenna on his forehead. "I almost freaked when I saw these. What the hell are the dealie-bobbers for, anyway?"

"Your super-senses, you can hear and see and smell things humans can't," said Steve.

"But they look stupid," Kevin complained.

"Anybody laughs, bust them in the chops," said Steve. "You're super-strong, hard to hurt and faster than any human athlete. I think, if you've got similar powers to the ones I had."

"Oh, no," I said. "Hard to hurt? You mean he's nigh-invulnerable?" I snickered.

"Something like that," agreed Steve. "Like I said, The Tick is based on me. They had a superbook about me in the forties, called me the Blue Beetle." He shrugged. "Same kind of thing. I used to get royalties off it but back in the fifties some lawyers took that away from us costumers, part of the crap went on about the Overman Act."

“The fifties sucked, they taught us that in school,” said Kevin.

The Blue Beetle? I wondered. I knew I'd seen a picture of what the superbooks called the "Golden Age" Blue Beetle. Blue tights and tunic, red belt, boots and visor, I thought I remembered.

Kevin frowned at me, what I could see of his face not covered by the mask. "Let's see your costume," he said. "Twist your ring around."

I must have had a premonition; I didn’t really want to find out what my costume looked like. But I couldn't be afraid of something Kevin had already tried, so I twisted the ring around

I felt something kind of like what a movie ripple effect might feel like, a sort of swirling electric sensation all over. It didn’t hurt, in fact, it left me grinning because it felt kind of good. I shook my head when it stopped and said, “Wow, better than the roller coaster.”

I looked down at my hands, covered in green-and-yellow gloves. Where Kevin's yellow pattern zigged and zagged, mine seemed to just circle my hands and wrists and up my arms. I looked down to see the rest of me and almost screamed. "Oh, crap!" Okay, I did scream.

"Damselfly!" said Kevin, staring at me.

I turned and dashed for the bathroom, feeling my chest and even my butt jiggling as I ran.

 

by Erin Halfelven
 

1.3 "Costume...?"

 
I stared into the mirror. A green mask covered most of my face but it wasn't quite my face, was it? Blonde hair came out of the top of the mask, only a bit more than I had before but enough to fall nearly to my shoulders.

The stupid-looking, foot-long, green antenna on my forehead had purple tips to them. I bent one down to look and I felt that!

But they were attached to my mask, not my head, weren't they? I tried to check by putting my hands inside the mask and feeling of my forehead but there didn't seem to be an edge to get my fingers under. It didn't feel like a mask at all, it felt like my own skin.

The rest of my costume felt the same, like skin all over. I had on gloves with yellow rings encircling them and my boots had sort of purple circles around my ankles. I could feel through the gloves like bare skin, and even though I could see I was wearing boots, I couldn't feel them at all.

A green all-in-one covered me from mask to boots, tighter than any spandex. I ran my hands down my sides. My waist felt smaller, hips wider. Strategic holes in the fabric showed pink skin at upper arms, shoulders, hips, thighs, belly, midriff and um, cleavage. It wasn't a lot of cleavage, but I'm a boy, I'm not supposed to have tits.

I said it aloud. "I'm not supposed to have tits!" That came out louder than I meant it to, and I put both hands over my mouth.

I decided to try to cool it. Either that or I would just go nuts and start banging into walls and making loonie noises. The blasted ring had turned me into a girl. I checked the mirror again. I looked effably cute, as in the ef-word.

I checked my crotch. “Oh, crap!” I said. The transformation seemed complete; my groin was flat. I wanted to fall through the floor and disappear.

But Kevin appeared in the hallway outside the bathroom, instead. Or rather, Mighty Skarab Junior, I guess. "Wow!" he said. The dealie-bobbers on his head quivered.

I looked at him. It didn't take a genius to read his expression. "Oh, shut up!" I said. He looked even bigger than before and I realized that I must have shrunk. His muscles had muscles and his costume was just as tight as mine. I couldn't help it; I glanced down at his crotch and wished I hadn't.

I quickly looked back up at his face, located several inches higher than mine now. Before we put on the rings, Kevin and I had both been about five-seven, though he had probably outweighed me by ten pounds or more. Now he topped six feet by a couple of inches, judging from the doorframe, and I had lost an inch or so. Even more than I first thought; I looked down again and noticed that my costume boots had two-inch heels on them.

Kevin still stood there staring at me, his mouth hanging open, his dealie-bobbers stiff and still quivering.

“Shut up!” I said again. His staring made me fell odd, tingly in places I had never noticed having places before.

"I didn't say anything," Kevin protested in his rumbly new voice.

I wondered what I sounded like; my voice didn't seem to have changed, to me, but would I be able to tell? "That look was enough," I said. "Dweeb."

He grinned. "Lambchop," he said. "You're one hot chick, you know? And that costume is like painted on." His obscene antenna moved like they were trying to get a better look, too.

"I didn't...." I started to say but had no way to finish the thought, let alone the sentence. My mind was stuck in neutral. A glance at the mirror showed my own antenna quivering, too. I couldn’t seem to wrap my head around it. Magic rings weren’t supposed to… to… do what this one had done… were they?

And Kevin… Kevin wasn't supposed to look so good I had trouble not staring at him.

"Tell her to come back out here," Uncle Steve said from out in the big room with the car in it.

His calling me 'her' got my mind moving again.

"You crazy old man!" I yelled. I started out there, all right, and ran smack into Kevin who felt solid as a wall. “Get away from me, pervo!” I tried to shove him out of the way but he didn’t move. Instead, he sort of leaned forward and I realized he was going to look down the front of my costume.

I put one hand over the boob window and tried to bust him in the face with the other, but he caught my hand without even looking. “Wow,” he said. He looked me up and down as I struggled with one hand caught in his grip. "You've got legs, too!" he commented.

"I'm going to put foot where it will do the most good if you don't let go of me!" I told him, not wanting to think about how his looking at me made me feel. I pulled and twisted and when I stepped back a step, he let go of me and just stood there grinning like a sitcom character.

I could see Uncle Steve past him, and that distracted me from trying to fight the guy who used to be my best friend. "That blasted magic ring turned me into a girl!" I shouted at the old man.

Uncle Steve said the worst thing possible. "I kind of expected that." He walked up to stand behind Kevin. His wide face with its grizzled jowls might have been wrinkled up in a smile.

"You what?" I yelped. My mouth ended up hanging wide open. The two idiots glanced at each other then both grinned at me. I wanted to smack them with something heavy and maybe radioactive.

"Oh, man, that's cold, Unk," said Kevin. “You knew it would grow tits on Darryl?”

I managed to get past Kevin and stormed into the big room to confront the old man in front of that huge old car. "You better explain that right now!" I demanded. "What do you mean, you expected it to turn me into a girl?"

"It's done that before," he said. His eyes twinkled in their wrinkly old pits.

"What do you mean, it's done that before?" I shrieked. Nothing made any sense, everything he said seemed like something he thought of just to make me crazier. And he was staring at the hole in my costume, too! I crossed my arms on my chest to hide the cleavage.

He looked down at my legs then up and shrugged. "Three or four times." He seemed to think about it. "Every time a boy put on the green ring, except maybe twice." He looked at me. "There was a chance it wouldn't."

"So you decided not to tell me? Just because, it might not make my balls and dick disappear and give me a set of tits!" I knew I was waving my arms around like a lunatic. I wanted to stomp and scream and cry but I managed not to do that.

He shrugged again, and the corner of his mouth quirked up a little. He didn't look like he felt guilty about it at all, but maybe just a little sad.

Kevin seemed to be stifling a laugh. I glanced at him and he shrugged, too, but he didn't say anything. His mouth kind of stretched over a grin; he tried to look away.

Okay, I lost it. "You guys are laughing at me! This is not funny!" I turned around to face Kevin, a quicker movement than any I think I had ever made in my life, and that made me feel my butt jiggle. I uncrossed my arms and grabbed my ass with both hands.

That broke the dam; Kevin guffawed and chortled and snorted through his nose and it was so gawdam funny that Uncle Steve winked at me!

It knew it would probably take a really big gun to hurt that old man, but if I’d had one just then, I would have shot him right between the eyes. I think I called both of them several words I had never said before and they just stood there, the old man smiling and my best friend laughing his head off.

And in the worst of my own yelling, I knew I sounded like my sister when things hadn't been going her way like me hogging the bathroom on one of her date nights. That just made me madder; Tanya can be such a bitch. My voice was higher; I probably sounded just like her.

When I started to repeat myself it occurred to me to try to take the ring off. I pulled and twisted and yanked and cried with frustration. It wouldn't come off, but the jiggling I did while trying entertained Kevin entirely too much.

"You wouldn't want to lose the ring," said Steve, in what he probably thought of as a reasonable voice. "It won't come off while you're in costume."

"How do I get the costume off?" I wailed. I pulled at the edges but it really seemed to be painted on like Kevin had said.

"Twist the ring around again," Kevin suggested.

It seemed logical; I grabbed the ring on my right hand with my left and twisted it again.

"That's right," Steve said but I didn't stop to hear the end of it. "Back the other way," he finished.

The other way? Which was the other way? Too late, I'd already twisted the ring. Something happened; I could tell right away since Kevin's eyes got as big around as saucers and his dealie-bobbers stood up stiff and straight, pointing at the ceiling.

I didn’t feel that ripple effect again, like when the costume replaced my clothes; instead, I felt a draft, even more of a draft than I'd felt before.

I glanced down, fearing the worst.

 

by Erin Halfelven
 

1.4 Who's Darla?

My costume had disappeared leaving me standing in front of Kevin completely naked. I think I got a little hysterical then–okay, a little more hysterical. I dodged past him and back into the bathroom with him turning to follow. "Get out of here!" I screamed.

"Okay, okay," he said, backing out of the doorway, running into Steve standing behind him.

I slammed the door and wrapped my arms around my chest to keep my tits from doing things. "Uncle Steve!" I yelled.

"Whoo! Smokin'!" I heard Kevin say on the other side of the door.

"You twisted the ring again?" Steve asked. He didn't sound upset, but maybe a little concerned.

I looked in the mirror. "I'm a naked girl!" Costume, boots and antenna had all disappeared.

"Uh-huh. Just stay calm. You simply turned the ring the wrong way. It's a safety measure."

"What the junk kind of safety measure leaves me standing naked and still a girl? How safe is a naked girl?" I screeched.

"Whoo!" Kevin said again. "I'll protect you, Darla."

"Who the junk is Darla? Don't call me that, you clown-headed pile of monkey poop!"

"I think she's still upset," Kevin said in a deadpan, narrator sort of voice.

Uncle Steve sounded amused. "You should have — never mind."

I noticed something else. "And the ring is gone! Am I stuck like this? Don't tell me I'm stuck like this! How am I going to change back without the ring? I'm a naked pair of tits in here, and just you shut up the snickering, Kevin!"

I could still hear everything. I had barely noticed it before but I had super-hearing apparently. Just from the sounds I could tell where the two of them were standing on the other side of a closed door, the costume disappearing didn't seem to have affected that.

"Calm down," Uncle Steve said from about six feet away from the door. "Sometimes you wouldn't want someone to find out you were wearing the ring, so it disappears, too. For an hour or so. Depends on the situation."

"Huh?" I said. Somehow, I felt as if I had lost a lot of edge in the conversation. It's hard to aggressively yell at someone while you're standing naked in a bathroom holding the tits you shouldn’t have so they don’t make you crazy jiggling. "So I can change back?"

"Should be able to. When the ring appears again, just twist it clockwise, twice, all the way around. That's the real you setting. And any clothes you put on now, you'll be wearing the next time you use the safety position."

"Assume the safety position," Kevin said in a school-loudspeaker voice. "Like if you needed to use the bathroom, I don't think that costume comes off."

"Oh, shut up," I said through the door. "Go get some of my clothes from the house," I told him.

"Uh, Darla," Kevin said. "They're not going to fit you. You're like five-foot nothing and maybe ninety pounds."

If I were that short, I'd be smaller than Tanya. And wouldn't my sister get a laugh to hear me called 'Darla,' a name she had sometimes used when she really wanted to annoy me.

"Don't call me that! That stuff will fit well enough! I can't stay in here naked for however long it takes for this stupid magic ring to decide to re-appear! Get me some clothes to wear!"

"You heard the lady," said Kevin.

"There is a closet in the bathroom," said Steve. "Whatever you do, don't put on any of the clothes in there."

"Huh?" I said. I looked around and spotted the cabinet doors, like old-fashioned closets that had an upper part for shirts and things and drawers beneath for socks and underwear.

"Those clothes are very old," said Steve. "Completely out of style. You would be a fashion disaster looking for a place to happen."

“Har, har,” I said. I opened the cabinet door and looked in. I needed a step stool or something to reach anything.

"I'm telling you, don't wear those clothes," said Steve. His voice still had the flat intonation of a cartoon character trying to trick someone.

I could hear Kevin snorting and snuffling, making sure not to laugh. It sounded like he had a hand over his own mouth.

"Don't think I don't know what you're doing, Uncle Steve," I said. There actually was a step stool in the bathroom, under the sink. I pulled it out and put it in front of the cabinet door, avoiding looking in the mirror at my nakedness.

"There's a little black dress in there that would fit you perfectly," said Uncle Steve. "It's made of silk and feels like a million dollars, I'm told. It won't fit me so I'll never know."

"Jebus!" I sort of swore. "Reverse psychology won't work if I know about it!" I climbed up the two little steps and peered in. One side of the closet held huge, oversize shirts and pants folded across hangers. The other side, the larger half of the closet had colorful slacks, tops and yes, a little black dress. "Silk, huh?" I said.

What would it feel like to wear a dress? I knew I wasn't going to wear it – not ever! – but I did wonder for a moment.

Kevin had to put his two cents in. "Don't do it, Darla! Don't go over to the Dark Side of the closet!"

"Screw you, two-all-beef-patties-between-the-ears!" I said. I pulled out a pair of slacks, green, and the plainest top I could find there, an unfortunate shade of pink, but the colors seemed to go together. The other choices were frilly, or lacy, or both, or the gawdam dress.

Actually, there were two other dresses in the closet, too, one in green and one in a sort of hot pink. There were skirts, too, but I had settled on the slacks. I knew I would feel less like a perv wearing slacks.

My choices didn't seem particularly old or out of style, but I didn't know a lot about girl's fashion. How much style do simple pants and a t-shirt have, anyway?

Once I got them out of the closet, though, I realized they weren't as plain as I had thought. The slacks were medium green but the stitches were dark purple and the waist-band and cuffs had purple lace. The t-shirt was a pink color like a lighter version of the purple, and the shirt cuffs had little green and yellow bows. But… if I wore something, anything, at least I wouldn't be naked.

"There's underwear in the second drawer," said Uncle Steve.

"Thank you, Dr. Fraud." I gave it my best Tanya-style vocal sneer.

I climbed off the step stool, pulled the drawer open and found panties and bras. Bras. I probably needed a bra to stop the juggling act on my chest but dog-fetch-a-frisbee if I was going to wear one. The panties came in colors and some had lace and some didn't. I couldn’t go without underwear – I just couldn't! – but the idea of wearing girl’s panties really made me feel… creepy, I guess is the word.

I stopped for a moment to try to think about what I was doing. “I’m going to put these clothes on so I can go inside the house and get some of my own clothes to wear,” I thought.

It sounded good, and it was either that or break the mirror and try to slit my wrists. Not seriously, I wasn't despondent, thinking of suicide was just hyperbole, but I was mightily annoyed, put out, stressed, stretched and generally pissed off. I would have been angrier still, but I had somehow got the idea that anything I needed to do, I could do. Maybe the invisible ring gave confidence, too.

I tossed my head, annoyed, and pushed my longer hair behind my ears, gestures I had seen Tanya do a thousand times. "Get on with it, Darryl," I said aloud.

I got on with it. Picking a non-lacy pair of panties in pale green from the drawer made me cringe. “Crap!” I said. Maybe I would go without underwear. I looked at the slacks; they weren’t that girlie, other than not having pockets or belt loops or anything and the lace and… jeebus!

I guess I’m just too conventional, though, I couldn’t go without underwear. I pulled the green panties out and put them on, trying not to think about how they felt, sliding up my legs, cool and soft and smooth. The dang things fit, more or less, and that was a terrible, terrible thought.

Standing there, naked except for the panties for a minute or two, I half expected some god of masculinity to strike me dead for what I was doing. It didn’t happen, and I wasn’t sure if I felt relieved or disappointed.

I couldn’t hear Steve and Kevin outside the bathroom door anymore; they seemed to have moved away where they could discuss something without me hearing them. Maybe if I still had my antenna I could hear them, greater super-senses or whatever, but I didn't even try. Probably plotting how to get me to wear make-up, the jerks.

I put the slacks on; they barely reached below my knees. Not slacks then, some kind of capris or pushovers or whatever the heck they were called. The top I pulled over my head; it was basically a t-shirt but had puffy, short sleeves cut on an angle and little ribbons tied in bows on the shoulder seams and right in front of the neck. It also ended an inch above my navel, with a bit of lace that matched the top of the slacks.

And this was the plainest, least over-the-top-feminine shirt in the closet. I closed my eyes and tried to make the girliness go away, but it wouldn’t. At least it didn’t have a hole designed to show off my chest.

Facing a wall for a few minutes, trying to breathe normal and stop grinding my teeth, I knew if I didn’t move much the way my body felt didn’t make me nuts. Finally, I thought I could stand it for an hour or so, if Unk was telling the truth about the ring letting me change back.

I looked in the mirror over the sink. Someone who looked a lot like my sister had five or six years ago looked back at me.

 

by Erin Halfelven
 

1.5 Family Business

"This sucks so bad," I said out loud. I ran fingers through my hair to keep it away from my face and turned to open the bathroom door. "Shoes," I said suddenly, before I touched the door. The walk to the house was partly on gravel and partly across a yard that must have once been home-on-the-range to a herd of incontinent chickens.

I turned back to the closet and found two pairs of shoes that might fit me under the hanging clothes. One pair was high-heeled boots so forget them.

The other pair I didn't even recognize as shoes at first, they were some sort of ballet slippers or something, kind of rolled up like socks. I unrolled them and pulled them on. They fit well enough, too, and were some dark green color and not pink or purple. I felt grateful for that small thing.

I paused again to check the mirror. I looked sort of like Tanya and sort of like me and mostly like my mom, I decided. I kept my cool by rolling my eyes at my reflection and then went to open the door again, expecting the guys to be standing there waiting for me to come out.

But no, they had the hood up on that old car and were talking about cubic replacement and compressed rations or some such. "Hey!" I said.

Kevin looked up, "Oh, hey," he said. "You look nice."

I think I blushed. I know I scowled at him; he’d probably said that deliberately.

"Or not, if you prefer. Whatever makes you happy, Darla." He shrugged. So maybe he was just being clueless. I could have believed that except for him calling me 'Darla.'

I got around to noticing then that Kevin had changed back, wearing his jeans and polo shirt again instead of the blue-and-yellow spandex he'd had on as Skarab 2.0. He didn't have the muscles or height anymore, either. Good, I decided. Then I thought that he must have turned the ring back around the right way and I frowned again.

"This thing has an x-mounted twelve-cylinder airplane engine in it!" Kevin said, gesturing toward the machinery. "It's based on a '46 Packard that came with one of those old-style straight eights in it, so there's plenty of room under the hood for a modern, bigger engine!"

"What-ever." I didn't know how to act. Ordinarily, I'd be over peering into the engine compartment, too. Not that I knew or cared anything about mechanics, Kevin was always the gearhead but it would be a guy thing. It just didn't feel right for me to be doing what they were doing, though. And I might get grease on me or something.

"Crap," I said aloud, wondering if the ring had messed with my head as well as my body. I unclenched my jaw carefully so I could stop grinding my teeth. I never had liked getting greasy, but still….

Uncle Steve glanced up and caught my eye with another Sunderman shrug, reminding me that he and Kevin really were related. "Told you not to wear those clothes," he said. He started closing the hood while he spoke.

"Why? What's going to happen if I wear these clothes? You guys were right, my old ones won't fit me now." I waved a hand above my head, "Look at me, I'm flippin' Shrimpy McBarbie.” I tried to lay the sarcasm on but it almost sounded ditzy or something. “These fit and they're not too girly," I ended up saying; something I kept trying to tell myself.

Kevin snickered, the rat.

"Well, you're likely to start getting comfortable dressing as a girl and want to keep doing it when you change back," said Uncle Steve with a completely straight face.

"Oh, bull puckey," I said. The old man was teasing me, and I didn’t know how to take it. I didn’t like it at all but what was I supposed to do? Run at him screaming like a kamikaze cheerleader? The man was mountainous. I looked away.

Kevin was grinning like a trained monkey running for county supervisor, probably imagining how ridiculous the male me would look in the outfit I had on. I checked the lace edge of the top, to be sure it hadn't rode up or something. Kevin's eyes followed my hands and I quickly put them behind me.

He lifted his gaze a bit and commented, "No bra, huh?" I almost went back into the bathroom to put one on because I knew he could see the little bumps in the front of my shirt. That hadn't occurred to me before.

"This what you guys were doing while I was in there? Looking at the car?" Well, obviously, I don't even know why I asked except to distract Kevin from looking at my chest.

"Yeah," he said, drawling it out. "We didn't know how long it would take you to get dressed, being a girl now and all."

"Oh, truck you over a boulder, Kevin," I said.

"Girls pretending to talk dirty always makes me hot," said Kevin. "How about you, Unk?"

I swear the old man nodded. I decided I'd have to watch the language because I knew Kevin wasn't kidding; he'd said that before, it just didn't apply to me back then. I opened my mouth and my jaw popped because I had been grinding my teeth again.

"Uncle Steve says we can take the car out for a drive later. It can really move, but it needs a big engine 'cause it's armored." Kevin grinned at me, all kid-with-a-new-toy.

"Well, I'm not leaving here until I'm back to being me," I said. "And when I can change back, I'm taking that ring off and you can just find another dimwit to wear it."

Steve shook his head. "You shouldn't say that."

"What? Why not?"

"The ring won't like it."

"You...? What? It's listening?" I looked down at the hand where the invisible ring might be.

He nodded. "It's magic. And part of its magic is finding someone to wear it and do the job it was made for."

"Huh? What—what job is that?" I didn't like this at all.

"Protecting people, fighting evil, making the world safe for innocence and babies and all that."

"You've got to be kidding me!" I felt my voice climb into the squeaky range Tanya used when she had to do something she didn't want to do. I tried to get it back under control. "You... that... that sounds like a curse."

He shrugged and Kevin shrugged at the same time. "Somebody's got to do it," said my ex-buddy.

"It's not fair," I said. "You get all big and buff and I turn into a girl? That's just not fair!" Stupid, but I was crying again.

Kevin looked at me. "If I come over and pat you on the back and tell you it's going to be fine, you'll slug me, won't you?"

I nodded. "Bet on it, Jack," I said. I ran back into the bathroom for some tissue. After blowing my nose and wiping my eyes, I checked the mirror again. Oh, crap, I was pouting. I hated when Tanya did that.

After I got my crying back under control, I went out to the big room again, anything instead of facing that mirror. My skin looked all blotchy and I hated that, too, but I couldn't do anything about it.

This time the boys were looking at that old map, plotting out a late afternoon drive apparently. Obviously, neither of them cared at all that I had gotten the short end of the stick. They still had their equipment and they were happy about that.

I walked over and stood beside them while they talked about switchbacks in the mountains and turnouts on the cliffs above the town. They didn't do much more than glance at me, not even asking me what I thought about their plans. I caught Kevin looking at my chest and considered slugging him again now that he wasn’t Mr. Beetle.

He just grinned.

Uncle Steve finally turned to me and asked, "You still planning on defying the destiny the ring chose for you and not being Damselfly when Skarab needs you?"

I frowned, biting my lip to keep from pouting. Like I would go through this again, voluntarily?

"How often would she have to show up?" Kevin asked.

Unk shrugged. "Depends. Most of the other Damselflys did it nearly every night, at least until they got pregnant."

"Pregnant?" I sputtered the word. "Who's talking about getting pregnant, just what do you think is going to be going on at night?"

"Fighting crime," said Kevin. "At least, that's what I thought. Are we expected to do any extra-curricular hanky-panky, Unk?"

The old man shrugged. "Up to you two. 'Course, you're awfully young to be starting a family."

"I don't believe this conversation! There's going to be no hanky in this panky, buster!" I glared at Kevin.

"I think Unk is just winding us up, Darla," he said. "Look, I know who you really are, and you're cute now and all, but I've seen you play the armpit polka and that just isn't the sort of talent I look for in a date."

I snorted. The old man's eyes sort of twinkled under his brows; they were bushy enough to make me think of taking a weed whacker to him and not just because that sounded like a good idea on general principles.

Kevin laughed. If it wasn't so serious and so me, yeah, it was kind of funny but I didn’t feel like laughing.

Steve looked right at me, and I could tell he wasn't teasing now. "Skarab needs his Damselfly."

"But why me?" I whimpered.

"Where do you think those clothes came from?" he asked. "They belonged to the last Damselfly; that's why I knew they would fit well enough."

"What happened to her? Who was she?"

"Your grandmother, Katrinka; she's gone. I'll tell you sometime how it happened." He looked sad. "It's a family business, kids. So it's got to be you two. And Darryl, your mom and your sister already turned it down; Damselfly has to be you."

 

by Erin Halfelven
 

1.6 When Is a Damsel...?

"They turned it down?" I yelped. "Why did they get to refuse and I don't?"

Steve looked uncomfortable.

"Doesn't seem fair, Unk," put in Kevin. "It really doesn't."

"Well, it isn't fair," Steve admitted. "I guess I should have said, not that they turned it down but that they washed out. Couldn't deal with the training, couldn't stand the idea of hurting people…."

I stared at him. "I don't want to hurt anyone either, not anybody. Except you."

Steve and Kevin both grinned at me, I don't know why. So I stepped up to the big guy and slapped him in the face. As hard as I could. He didn't wince or flinch or even dodge. I tried punching him in the gut, but it was like hitting one of the padded practice boards in karate class.

When I moved to put a knee in his crotch, he stepped back and held up a hand to keep me at a distance. "That's enough," he said.

"Oh, sure," I said, holding back tears. "You can dish it out but you can't take it, old man." I don't think I had ever been so angry in my life. And being that angry hurt.

"I'm sorry, Darryl," he said. "I should have explained it all to begin with. But I was afraid you would not even try if I hit you with too much at once. And I really didn't expect the ring to trap you."

I didn't want to let him off that easy but I wasn't sure what to say. We just stared at each other for half a minute or so. "You said this had happened before?" I finally asked him. "I want to know more about what's going on. You said this was family business earlier and… and that I'm related to the other Damselflys. I want to know how. And I want to know now, at least some of it."

I crossed my arms which meant that I was more aware of my chest than usual but I ignored that, trying to look firm. Kevin winked at me and I felt my heart sink a bit. It's hard to be firm when you know how cute you look.

He nodded. "Maybe the first thing I ought to do is tell you who we are…."

I frowned at him. "Who we are? I'm Darryl William Breslaw, or I was until a few minutes ago."

Kevin piped in, "And I'm Kevin Sunderman Lockyear, and you're my mom's uncle, Steve Sunderman."

"Steven Cyrus Sunderman," said the old man. "Though some of my old records have my middle name as Cyril."

"Fascinating," I said.

"You know that I'm not actually Kevin's uncle? I'm Kevin's mother's great-uncle. My younger brother, David, was Marlette's grandfather. David Sunderman. Originally, Xanderov when our father came over in the 1890s; Kiril Xanderov, from Bulgarian Macedonia but was part of Turkey then. He changed it to Sunderman and gave us English names to fit in better."" he went on. "So, I'm your great-great-uncle."

"Like I said," I noted again. "But you're not my uncle."

"No," he agreed. He looked off in the distance for a moment. "I visited my dad's old village thirty or forty years ago. Dirt poor farmers and miners the people were when Dad left, and when I went there and they probably still are."

Kevin and I kept quiet for a moment while he stared at the floor. I tried not to feel bad for having slapped him; it seemed stupid now.

He started talking again. "I…. Do you remember your grandmother Katrinka, Darryl?"

I shook my head. "Not really," I said. "She went away before I started school."

"She was my grand-daughter," he said. "Her mother was Laura, Josie's daughter."

I stared at him. "I remember you now," I said in a small voice. "You… you visited us once…. Mom and Tanya called you Gumpy."

He laughed with genuine enjoyment. "Easier to say than great-grampa or even great-great-grampa." Still smiling, he said, "You can call me that, too, if you want."

"Then I guess I should call you 'Gunky,'," said Kevin, grinning. "How about that, we're cousins, Darla."

"Don't call me that! And we're just barely related, third cousins or something. Who's Josie?"

He looked sad. "The first Damselfly. My partner and my wife…. She died. Laura was our daughter; she married a Russian named Anton Breslaw. Katrinka was their daughter, she was Damselfly, too."

"Crap," I said. I knew my mom and her mom had kept the Breslaw name, but no one had told me about Damselfly. Mom and Aunt Marlette, Kevin's mom – not really my aunt but I guess my cousin, too – had gone off somewhere leaving Kevin and me with Uncle Steve for spring vacation.

Knowing the family story, why had they done that, leaving us with this crazy old man? Did they know what would happen? They must have had some idea. My sister, Tanya, had married Kevin's brother Mike, and they had moved up to somewhere near San Francisco. They must have known all this too, but nobody told me anything.

I glared at Gumpy again.

The crazy old man looked very bleak. "Laura and Katrinka are gone; I don't think they're dead, but it's complicated. David and Anton both wore my Skarab ring for a while each; they're both dead. Besides family, there's been at least one other Skarab and one other Damselfly that I know of, and both of them died."

I had a sinking feeling and I guess it showed on my face.

"That's… a lot of dead people," said Kevin, looking at me with probably the same expression.

Steve, my Gumpy, nodded. "It's been a long time; I was born in 1916."

"Holy crap," said Kevin. "You're almost a hundred years old." That thought shut him up, and Steve and I stayed silent, too, for a bit.

We had sort of wandered out of the door of the garage/barn thing where the old car sat. Kevin looked at the hills surrounding the old farm while Gumpy just stood there, like the ruined statue of some old time warrior. Pigeon shit would have completed the picture, and I turned away so as not to look at him.

I didn't want anyone to see me, dressed like I was, but there was no chance anyone would, I realized. The nearest neighbor must have been half a mile away on the other side of a ridge, and the house blocked the view from the road. I folded my arms under my boobs again and practiced a good Tanya-style pout. I wanted to stay mad but I knew I was losing my edge.

Kevin picked up a rock and threw it at some trees down beyond a sort of gully. It made a noise like a bullet ricocheting before disappearing high in the sky. He and I just looked at each other for a moment, and he said the F-word, silently.

I shook my head and glared at 'Gumpy.' "What's all that stuff you've been talking about got to do with this?" I gestured at my body and what I was wearing.

"My wife, Josie…." Steve began. "Josie was born Joseph Willough."

I boggled.

He had a tear in his eye. "She… he discovered that I was the Skarab, and I gave him the green ring. The first few times he used it… it, uh, he became a sort of junior version of me."

"Oh, please, a boy sidekick? This was in the forties, right?" I said. Being a boy sidekick had once seemed like a pretty cool thing to me, and I would certainly settle for that as opposed to what had actually happened. And it had apparently happened to… to my great, great grandmother, too?

"What did you call him?" asked Kevin. A pretty inane question, I thought.

"Well, in costume, I called him Jack but the dimes and superbooks called him Beetleboy," said Steve with a fond look.

Kevin snorted then looked a bit concerned. He glanced at the hand where he wore the blue ring, and I smirked at him. Let him worry about turning into a girl for a bit.

Gumpy went on. "And we both developed some new powers, two rings working together are more powerful than one."

"Where did the rings come from in the first place?" I asked.

"I found the blue one, in Egypt, when I was in college on a field trip. I should have reported finding it; we were on an archaeological… 'dig' they call them now. We said 'excavation' back then. Digs were for dinosaurs…." He seemed prepared to go off on a tangent.

"But you didn't report it?" I asked.

"'My precious!'" Kevin quoted, hunching over and rubbing the ring.

"Shut up!" I told him.

"I didn't," said Steve. "I couldn't tell anyone about it. I tried – several times." He shook his head. "Things happened. We ended up back in the States, and I still had the ring. By this time, I had figured out that wearing it made me stronger. Mystery Men were a thing then…."

He looked up at us. "The newspapers were full of their stories. Crimefighters, adventurers, some of them villains and some might as well have been. Challenger was one of the first, back before World War I but others began to appear later, after the war. By the thirties, they were all over the place: Minuteman in Boston, Spectral in New York, Hoodwink, there, too. Stuntman in Los Angeles, Bellringer in Philadelphia."

He sighed. "I was going to college in Chicago; it was the Depression, lots of crime; booze had been made legal again, and the gangs were looking for new ways to make money. I had the ring; it made me strong and quick and I healed fast when I got hurt…."

He trailed off for a moment and waved a hand. "Not important right now. I started running around town in a blue suit with a snappy fedora and calling myself Skarab. The superbooks spelled it with a 'k' and I kind of liked that so I've always kept it that way." He smiles a very small smile. "I busted some heads of some gangs who had tried to claim the college as part of their territory and I felt pretty good. It was fun."

He glanced at the sky."This was about the time the Comet Prometheus appeared. The world was about to get even stranger."

"We studied the comet in school," said Kevin. "It's actually a gray dwarf star."

"Which is another way of saying no one knows what it is," I said. "Lots of people think it gives off radiations that cause supers and metanormal phenomenon." I did know something about this, and it fascinated me but I kept my attention on what Gumpy was talking about.

Steve nodded. "Makes physicists and astronomers crazy, it's like quantum macro-reality one of them said, whatever that means."

He went back to his story, "The Spanish Civil War started. In 1938, stories came out about a Red Cross ambulance driver who used blue light to stop bullets and bombs."

"The Protector," said Kevin. "The first documented metahuman."

"At least, the first one to get big press," I said.

"That's right," said Gumpy. "Shortly after that, I went back to Egypt with my archaeology professor as a grad student. The war began, and I went to the US consulate in Egypt and enlisted in the Army – even though we Americans weren't in the fight yet."

"Why did you do that?" I asked.

"Seemed like the right thing to do. And I was feeling guilty," he said. "I'd stolen something before… and I stole something again. A green ring I found in a box being sent to the British museum. It seemed like a match for the blue one I had been wearing for years. I wanted to get away from my professors before they figured out what I had done."

"Wow," I said. "You stole it, too?" I looked down at my hand that supposedly still wore the now invisible ring.

He nodded. "It seemed like the right thing to do at the time," he repeated.

 

by Erin Halfelven
 

1.7 War Stories

We were back in the garage, standing near the big old car with the airplane motor under the hood that Kevin had just closed carefully as if it were a museum case. We decided to head back to the house, but before that happened we had an argument.

It started out with me asking, "What happened to Joe, Jack, Beetle Boy? How…?"

Steve polished an imaginary speck off the fender of the car, looked at me and sighed. "How did he become your great-great-grandmother?"

I swallowed and it was hard to speak, so I just nodded.

"At first it was kind of slow, I guess," he said. "I didn't notice but…. Josie, Joe, wanted it to happen, wanted to be…. A girl, not a boy. And she, he, had a magic ring, so…. Well, she later told me that every night she made a wish on the ring, she wished she could be a girl."

"Well, okay for her!" I said. "But I didn't make any such wish!"

Gumpy just nodded, looking sympathetic, or trying to. "Josie got her wish but like I said, it happened slowly…." He trailed off looking off down into some lonesome personal memories from his expression.

I didn't want him to not tell the whole story. "Who was she, he? How did you guys meet?" I asked.

He told a little more. "When Joe and I met, in Egypt, his parents had been killed. English mother, American father, diplomatic corps with a side of espionage. This was just after I volunteered at the embassy and got signed up with Military Intelligence."

I nodded; he'd mentioned that before.

"Joe needed someone to look after him; he was just a little guy, thirteen years old and not five-foot-tall. I ended up being volunteered for the job by my commander. Uh, I had told them what I could do but not how I did it. They wanted me for counter-espionage stateside, so accompanying an American national minor looked like a good cover."

Kevin and I exchanged glances. This was a complicated story, and Steve wasn't telling everything, but I kept quiet because he was still talking at least.

"While we were in England, there was some trouble and I ended up using the Skarab identity to clear it up but Joe figured out who I was and how I did it." Steve grinned ruefully. "Clever little snot. It didn't go over well with the brass that suddenly Joe knew about our operations but there didn't seem to be much they could do about it. So we went ahead with the plan…."

"Plan?" I said to prompt him.

"To take Joe home to the States and for me to work counter-intelligence. We got stateside, and it turns out Joe's US relations were shitheads, and I wouldn't leave him with them. Drunks, con-artists, some of them in jail and none of them with what you could call a home."

Steve smiled sadly. "I just decided that I would keep him with me or with my own folks. And the brass let it happen because they couldn't think of a solution except some foster family. They tried that but Joe ran away and found me again."

He grinned. "And Joe knew too much to be forced into that when he wasn't willing. I had not quite seven years on him. David was five years younger than me so I thought of Joe as another little brother. For a long time, at least. He stayed with my parents and David for awhile but when I moved to Milwaukee on orders, he came with me."

He looked around at us as if surprised we were still there. "He insisted on it. I didn't know it but Joe had a crush on me. "

"We figured that out," said Kevin, and I nodded.

"Yeah, well. Joe sort of blackmailed me into giving him the green ring and we partnered up in the style of those times. Lots of adventurers and mystery men had teenage partners. I thought I knew what was going on until people started asking me, when Joe and I were out around town as Steve and Joe; people would ask me, 'Why does your niece dress like a boy?'"

Kevin laughed, and I glared at him. Then I glared at Gumpy on general principles.

"We battled mostly ordinary crime but sometimes the M.I. types had counter-espionage work for us to do. Usually sad little wannabe Nazis or other homegrown fascists. We got kind of famous, locally, because Milwaukee didn't have any other Mystery Men. At least, not ones that were on the side of the cops." He grinned and so did Kevin.

"When the war started in '42, I tried to get activated to go overseas but the War Department didn't want me clogging up their operations. They were already having trouble with maverick supers who wouldn't follow orders. We kept doing what we had been doing and got involved in fighting the Ruth Lester crime syndicate all over the Midwest."

"Joe to Josie?" I prompted. Ruth's daughter, Carol, still controlled a lot of crime in Illinois and Wisconsin, I knew from reading the superslicks; a tangent about her operations could last hours.

"One night…. Early 1943, we had figured out how to… to… use the extra dimensions in the rings to store costume changes. And one night, when Joe twisted the ring, he didn't become Beetle Boy. He… she… She was obviously a girl wearing a girl's costume."

"She tricked you," I said.

"Doofus," agreed Kevin.

Gumpy nodded, smiling a little still. "She was a minx. She had it all figured out. Army Intelligence would give her a new identity and when she turned seventeen, we would get married. Pretty much worked out that way, too."

Once again, I had the impression that Steve was leaving a lot out. "You said something earlier about three or four other boys who got turned into girls by wearing the ring. Who were they?"

"I did?" He looked blank then glanced at Kevin. "David wore the green ring a couple of times, no problem. And Mike wore the green ring once, became Beetle Boy but then he gave it to Tanya, and I gave him the blue one. The green one didn't change him, obviously, but that whole thing didn't work out…." He trailed off, thinking about something.

"Quit stalling!" I insisted.

He sighed. "Some memories are painful, honey." He stared at me. "You look so much like her…."

My turn to look uncomfortable. "This has something to do with how she died?"

He nodded.

Kevin piped up. "You don't have to tell us right now, Unk…"

I interrupted, "But I want to know!"

Steve grinned a little ruefully. "You're like her in more than looks. Okay. But let's go up to the house first. And you'd better bring those clothes from the bathroom with you, so you'll have something to wear later."

That's when it turned into an argument. I couldn't tell if he was serious about it. "I'm just wearing these while I'm a girl, when I change back, I won't need them," I said.

"But you don't know how long it's going to take before the ring will let you change back."

"What? A few hours? Isn't that what you said?" I protested. I didn't like the implication.

Steve sighed. "Honey, it might be days or even longer. As long as you're being stubborn about not wanting to be Damselfly.… This is a magical protective entity you're dealing with; it doesn't operate by logic or reasonableness. It's going to get your co-operation one way or another. It's forced mine, more than once."

I looked down at myself, at the bulges in the pink top I was wearing. I sighed. "I don't want to take the clothes," I said. "I don't want to wear girl clothes, as soon as I get to the house, I'm going to put on some of my own stuff."

"It's not going to fit very well," Kevin pointed out. "You're kind of teensy now."

He would have to point that out. "I don't care. I don't like wearing this stuff, it makes me feel creepy." Actually, it had stopped feeling creepy almost immediately–and that creeped me out in an entirely other way.

"There may be times you'll need female clothes. Being Damselfly may not always involve being in costume," Uncle Steve said. "Bring the clothes."

I made a face and Kevin snickered. "I'll get them for you, Darla," he offered. "That way you won't have to admit you're giving in."

"Oh, fine then," I said, not happy about it. And him calling me Darla was just dog-do on my cupcake. I suspected that I might be pouting, but I tried hard not to think of it that way.

Steve and Kevin looked at one another, nodded, then shrugged, and Kevin went to the bathroom in the barn to get the clothes. "There are paper grocery sacks in the bottom drawer, use a couple of those to bring her underwear and shoes along, too," Steve told him.

"They're not mine," I muttered but they pretended to ignore me.

"Ooo," said Kevin, apparently already looking in the top drawer at the bras and panties. "Lingerie. Are you wearing a cute pair of panties, Darla?"

I was; a person has to wear underwear, but now I pretended to ignore him. "I thought you said that if I agreed to be Damselfly when needed that the ring would let me change back," I asked Steve.

The old man nodded. "Sure, when it's convinced that you are going to keep that promise. Tell the truth now, if everything went back to where it was, would you even think about putting the ring back on?"

He had me there. I sighed. "But Gumpy, it turned me into a girl. I don't want to be a girl."

"You sure sound like a girl," Kevin commented from the bathroom. “I'm just saying.”

"I do not sound like a girl," I said. I had been trying hard not to. "Do I?"

I could tell Uncle Steve was having a hard time not smiling. "Um, well, yes, you do. The pitch of your voice went up a bit.... But it's not just that, I think the ring is nudging your emotions, just enough that you're reacting... differently than the boy you used to be would have."

"This is just so not fair," I said. I knew I wanted to cry, but that would be just too girly, so I tried to get mad instead. "This is all your fault, Gumpy. What did you give us those rings for if you knew mine would probably turn me into a girl?"

"The world needs Skarab and Skarab needs Damselfly," he said.

"Oh, like there aren't enough supers around? L.A. is crawling with mutants and cyborgs, aliens and overmen and yes, a few magical crusaders already. They've got a fifty-story tower full of Protectors in Hollywood. Why does the world need me to give up being a guy?"

He shrugged. I was beginning to hate seeing him do that. "I don't know, but I know that it does." He made it sound final in his deep rumbly bass. I turned my face turned away so he wouldn't see me cry.

 

by Erin Halfelven
 

Part 2. Training

2.1 Bravely, Bravely

Kevin Lockyear and I were standing outside the barn that held the huge old car we found. And that had led to us discovering that Kevin's Uncle Steve Sunderman was the old-time super known as The Mighty Skarab – and my great-great-grandfather that my mom had called Gumpy.

We stood there not saying anything to each other for the moment. I was mad at him for tricking me into putting on the ring that had belonged to his old partner, Damselfly, who also happened to have been my great-great-grandmother. Okay, we weren't talking because I was standing there with my back to Gumpy leaking tears and feeling sorry for myself.

Kevin had gone inside to retrieve some clothing that would fit my new female shape. I just felt too embarrassed and upset at being turned into a girl that I couldn't deal with it. I didn't want to be a whiner, constantly complaining about what had happened to me, but it was so incredibly unfair.

Why did I have to be Damselfly and Kevin got to become the new Skarab? He got to wear blue with gold lightning bolts and muscles on his muscles while I would be wearing green and pink, with boobies, and showing too much skin. We had transformed back to civilian selves, but I was still a girl….

I wasn't in costume at the moment, but I stood there in my green slacks and lace trimmed pink top, hating on everything and wishing I had never gotten out of bed that morning. It wasn't even noon yet, and my life had been ruined, I thought.

Okay, that might be a little over-dramatic, I decided. Just thinking of it reminded me of how hugely important my sister Tanya made everything out to be. Whenever she felt life had handed her lemons when what she wanted was an avocado-bacon-and-turkey sandwich on organic multi-grain bread and a raspberry-guava smoothie, thank-you-very-much-you-peon.

Mom had tried to explain to me that teenage girls came supplied with huge reserves of angst via an overload of hormones causing their bodies to morph into women. Uh-huh. Try having your body changed in a totally unexpected way a split second after you twisted a magic ring the wrong way; there's angst for you, a crash course with a side of oh-my-god.

I wiped my eyes and tried to think of something to make me smile. Moping and pouting wasn't going to do my any good and I would probably get wrinkles from it. Okay, that did make me smile a bit because that was one of the things I had found out would get Tanya to take less interest in doing something–telling her it caused wrinkles.

I looked around at what was really a typically beautiful Southern California spring day. The morning fog had burned away, and the hills looked green and glorious on three sides of Steve's little valley. To the west, the cities of Orange County sent up their thin contribution to the area smog. It would be twelve in less than two hours and an early onshore flow from the southwest brought a hint of the beaches. I could smell surf and I imagined I could even smell suntan oil.

I had a sudden vision of myself, lying on the beach. The only problem being that in my imagination, I had on a green bikini with little pink string ribbons tied at my hips. "Gah!" I said aloud. I shook my head, trying to re-imagine the Darryl Breslaw I had been only an hour or so ago. It wasn't happening. In my mind's eye, I looked just like Tanya but cuter and without the attitude.

My mind had turned against me just like my body, my relatives and my best friend.

Speaking of –former– best friends, I could still hear Kevin inside the garage, putting my new girly clothes in paper bags. I stopped myself from calling out a warning to him to be careful not to wrinkle anything. Why should I care, I thought. Maybe Tanya didn't have a corner on the market for attitude, I could use a metric ass-load of don't-give-a-crap.

Gumpy Steve stepped up beside me, giving me a curious look but not saying anything. If he weren't roughly the size of Dwayne Johnson big brother and me a skinny shrimp, I might have thought I had put the quietus on him with a glare.

We stood there, Gumpy facing the farmhouse and me about six feet away, looking out over the raw dirt that used to be a farm toward the little stand of gnarly old fruit trees that used to be an orchard. A narrow canyon emptied a small creek into a larger one at the head of the private valley, and hundred or so neglected trees tangled their limbs together, masking the neat rows they had once been planted in.

Springtime started early in Southern California, and these trees already had plenty of green leaves and flowers on them and maybe some small green fruit. Not oranges, we were too high up on the side of the mountains for oranges, and they don't lose their leaves in the winter. These were peaches or cherries or maybe apples, I didn't know the difference from this far away.

"Does anybody pick the fruit from those trees?" I asked, just for something to say. "Or do the birds get all of them?"

I didn't hear Steve answer so maybe he just nodded. I didn't turn around to look until I heard Kevin coming out of the barn.

"Hey-ho, Darla, I've got all your pretties," he called out.

"You just shut up, Mr. Dung Beetle Junior," I said, glaring at him. He had the girl clothes from the closet over his shoulder, but he seemed to have more bags than necessary, one for undies, another for shoes and another one. "What's in the third bag, doofus?"

He grinned at me. "Makeup. That's what was in the top drawer."

I rolled my eyes but turned my face away.

Steve went back to the barn and locked the door with a big padlock. Kevin trudged on toward the house but he stopped and looked back at me, I hadn't moved to follow either of them.

"Hey," Kevin called, "Which bedroom you want? We can't room together anymore."

I hadn't thought of that. I looked at Steve. "I'll be able to change back before tonight, won't I?" I asked.

"Can't promise that, honey," he said. "Besides..." he began but he didn't finish.

I winced. I didn't like him calling me 'honey' but he wasn't doing it just to be annoying like Kevin calling me 'Darla.' It was probably automatic, guys his age called most females, ‘Honey.’ If there were any guys his age; from his stories and the family history he told, he had to be nearly a hundred.

But the implication that I shouldn't share a bedroom with Kevin even if I became only a part-time girl hung there without being said.

"I may be stuck like this for a long time, that's what you're telling me," I said.

"Until the Insect Fairies decide you're going to be a good girl," said Kevin. "P.E. come next Monday may be interesting."

"Shut up," I said. Kevin was being a jerk. I sort of expected it of him, joking and making snide comments is how he dealt with everything but it was beginning to be more than annoying. I wondered if I would even have a best friend when this was all over.

We wandered on toward the house, Kevin in the lead and me trailing about thirty feet back of Steve. Something he had said earlier occurred to me and I caught up with him at the back porch steps. "You said my mom and sister already turned down being Damselfly?" I asked.

He nodded. "They each took a turn at it, when they were about your age."

"Really?" I said. Four years ago, Tanya had run away from home and stayed gone most of the summer. She'd been sixteen, almost two years older than I was when I put on the ring.
Michael, Kevin's older brother, had found her in L.A. and brought her back. Had they been having adventures as Skarab and Damselfly? I hadn't seen anything about it in the slicks or papers.

I didn't ask that aloud but Gumpy nodded. "Tanya doesn't have the grit for it. She almost had a nervous breakdown. Besides, she's…." He broke off. "Mike gave me the Skarab ring back since Tanya wouldn't be his Damsel."

I started to remember how annoyed I'd been with her and how that had continued when she came back until she left home for good last summer. Tanya had always been spoiled and had usually gotten her way when we were growing up, and I'd always resented that. When I was small, she had treated me good but after I started school it was clear we were rivals.

And now this. Her being mentally too delicate to be a damsel had trapped me into taking her place. I wanted to bite her and pull her hair out; if I had to be a girl I had the right to fight like one, didn't I? I squealed in frustration and Gumpy looked at me in surprise.

"So it's me and Kevin now?" I said. I felt such betrayal and indignation that my voice went up to nearly supersonic. "I have to be Damselfly 'cause Tanya is chicken?"

"And the new Skarab is going to need you," said Steve. Not helping.

"Ngghhh!" I gritted my teeth on a scream so hard that I swear I saw little puffs of dirt pop up from cracks in the ground around me, like in a cartoon.

Kevin came back out of the farmhouse just then; always the master of bad timing."I dumped your things on the bed in the big extra bedroom we were using; I'll take the smaller one since you'll need the bigger closet with more room for your stuff," he said.

I turned on him. "You --!" I shouted. It was too considerate.… Or something. Whatever it was, it was the last straw and I just couldn't take it anymore. I turned and ran as fast as I could toward the fruit trees under the mountain because I couldn't let them see me cry again.

I thought I heard Gumpy call after me, "Josie!" but that wasn't my name and I kept running.

 

by Erin Halfelven
 

2.2 Picnic

I had made a few discoveries alone in the orchard. First, when I ran as fast as I could getting there, it was faster than I'd ever run before in my life. And I felt like I could have kept running for a long time, too. I ran about a quarter mile; that’s not far, but I didn’t feel even the slightest need to breathe deeper than usual, even while running.

And running was something I knew a bit about. Last fall, when Kevin went out for freshman football, I had chosen cross-country. So I knew I how to run, not that I was a star or anything but being skinny is a bit of an advantage in some sports. So while Kevin was getting a lot of bench time on the football squad, I got a lot of running done. And no heavy helmet or pads or anyone trying to kill me.

But this running was different. My chest bounced a bit, and that was distracting more than painful, but I seemed to glide over the ground without making that much effort. Fast too. I wondered if I could beat my old times in something like a 5000? My last race, I had broken the 20 minute mark, not bad for my first year in running, but I felt lighter and faster now. The school record for seniors was something over 17 minutes and right then I felt that I might even beat that.

Just for a second, it occurred to me to wonder what the girls' record was in the 4800 which was the distance they ran at my school. Annoyed, I shook that thought off and just tried to run as fast as I could.

The ground didn't seem to hit my feet that hard either, even though it was hard, stony stuff with pebbles the size of walnuts. My little thin shoes did not fare so well though, and when I got to the picnic table beside the creek, I stopped and took them off.

I kind of regretted that I hadn't gone out for track and field in the spring, running was something I enjoyed. But Kevin and I had both played baseball in the spring and summer ever since Little League and that was fun too, so we had gone out for the team and were solid there. Kevin played left or third and I was utility, anyplace but catcher; I even pitched a few innings. In fact, we had a game to go to on Saturday, our team in Buena Park against one from Orange.

What the heck was I going to do about that if I were still stuck as a girl? We had practice coming on Friday, too. It wasn't just that I was a girl now; I was several inches shorter and lighter with a different face. I pushed that worry away; it was Tuesday, and I had at least three days to convince the ring to let me be me again.

With my shoes off, I had a thought to climb some of the trees, but they were such a tangle up high that I didn't right away.

I tried picking up things. Rocks, boulders, tree trunks, a piece of concrete with a fence post sticking up out of it; a lot of those things I didn't think I could have picked up before. It seemed like I had some superjuice from the ring, even if it wasn't visible. That concrete thing must have weighed a hundred pounds or more, and the only trouble I had with picking it up and swinging it around was keeping my balance. When I let it go, it flew about ten feet and made a horrible crashing noise landing in a pile of broken branches.

I felt peculiarly satisfied by the noise, so I tried throwing other things. I had played on the Babe Ruth League All Valley All-Stars three years before, not first string, but I was on the team, and I could throw pretty hard. Well, I could throw even harder now. When I broke a limb off one of the trees with a thrown rock about the size of my hand, I stopped doing that.

I might be a girl, but I didn't have to throw like one, apparently. It wasn't a big limb or anything, but I felt pretty sure I couldn't have done that before. I seemed to be hitting what I aimed at, too.

After half an hour or so among the peaches—I guess they were peaches, or maybe plums, they weren't apples—I started getting hungry. The fruit was at least weeks away from being ripe enough to eat, and I had just about decided that I would have to head back to the farmhouse to get lunch when I saw Kevin coming across the field with a basket.

"Oh, crap," I said. "We're going to have a picnic, how romantic." Yeah, I can be sarcastic even when no one is around to hear it.

"Hey, Boo-Boo," called Kevin in a fakey cartoon voice. "I got us a pick-a-nick basket. A-aiiiee-ee!" I kept on ignoring him, going back to cataloging my new abilities.

I could climb like a monkey and jump like an antelope. When I'd spotted him coming, I leaped into one of the bushy trees and climbed up as far as I could without breaking a limb something. I didn't think Kevin could see me, but I didn't have any sort of plan of what to do. Maybe I would just hide until he left.

"Superpowers," I said to myself as I snugged up against a tree trunk. "I really do have superpowers." As a consolation prize, it was better than some things, sort of like getting a B in geography instead of a date to the Sweetheart Dance. Was it enough to make up for being turned into a girl? I didn't think so.

Worse, now that I thought of it; I doubted I'd have any problem getting a date, looking like I did. And that didn't even things out by a long shot.

Especially when someone else had gotten a lot better deal. Because Kevin found me easily; if I had superhearing, he probably did, too. He might have tracked my breathing or even my heartbeat. He stopped under my tree and looked up, holding the basket high.

You sometimes find hornet nests in fruit trees. I looked around for one I could drop on his head but no such luck. He knew exactly where I was, looking right at me even though I was pretty well concealed in the greenery.

"Unk packed us some goodies, a couple microwaved meatball subs he had in the freezer, some chips and sodas and a slice of chocolate cake, each," Kevin said loudly enough for me to hear him anywhere in the little leftover orchard. He turned back toward the table, an honest-to-gosh picnic table, right in the middle of the place, with one of the massive concrete benches broken in half. He started unpacking the goods, spreading out carefully wrapped sandwiches, plastic bottles of soda and the rest of the goodies.

I watched him without climbing down. He looked like the same old Kevin, but he handled that basket with more than a gallon of soda in it and other stuff as if it were just an empty happy meal box. Yes, like me, he had some power from the ring, even in his own Kevin-shape.

And that was another thing, Kevin looked like Kevin when he wasn't in the ring-supplied costume. Just ordinary Kevin that I had known almost my whole life – while I looked like my sister, so annoying.

I glared at the ring on his right hand, squarish blue gem in a golden setting, the blue-black scarab beetle insignia under the stone. I wondered if I could knock him out, take the ring and become the Skarab myself instead of Damselfly. It probably wouldn't work for one reason or another, but I wouldn't know if I didn't try.

It turns out that moving through the tops of trees without making noise is really hard to do. I gave up on an ambush and just dropped out of the tree near the picnic table, landing on my feet in true supers fashion. It didn't hurt my bare feet at all, and I took all the shock easily just by bending my knees a bit. Truth, I stuck the landing, better than a top-ranked gymnast. I wanted to take a bow but I just pushed my hair back behind my ears again.

"Great landing, Olympic quality." Kevin clapped ironically and laughed. "You're such a tomboy, Darla," he said. "Climbing trees, throwing rocks, and I bet you've never worn a dress in your life."

"You'd lose that bet, actually," I said. "Tanya used to dress me in her old clothes when I was three or four." I'd never told anyone that before, but it hardly seemed embarrassing anymore. I walked toward the table to look over what he had laid out.

"She got pictures?" He'd put down a sort of tablecloth made of butcher paper or something and weighted it down with six-packs of soda.

"Pictures wouldn't do you much good," I said. "At that age, photos of Tanya and me can't be told apart anyway except she had longer hair. Besides, if you could prove it was me, I'd have to kill you." I stepped in close and sucker punched him right in the gut.

"Oof," he said and backed up about three feet. I'd put everything I could summon in a moment into that punch, and it made a sound like a watermelon dropped from an overpass. But all he did was back up one long step.

I tried to punch him in the face. He blocked me so I kicked up like we'd been taught in a tai kwon do class we'd taken when we were about ten. Unfortunately, he'd taken the class, too, so he blocked my kick with his leg and grabbed my ankle with one hand and my wrist with the other. I didn't expect him to be so quick; if my timing had been better, he would never have been able to grab me.

"You know I'm not going to hit you," he said, "but what the heck are you trying to do?"

He pulled and pushed at my arm and leg and made me hop around on one foot, waving my free hand for balance. He was not just taller and heavier than me but much, much stronger, even with neither of us in costume.

I gave up trying to get away and just stood there, him holding me by one ankle and one wrist. "Why won't you hit me?" I asked, knowing the reason and hating it.

"'Cause you're a girl–at the moment," he said grinning. "But if it makes you feel better, I'll wait till you're a boy again and try to kick you in the nuts, too."

If he thought I would be a boy again, I guessed I could leave off fighting – for the moment. I rolled my eyes at him. "Let me go," I said.

He squeezed both grips for a moment before pushing me so that I had to sit down on the unbroken side bench of the table, sit down or fall down, and then he let me go. I knew I hadn't had a hope of breaking loose, and that had taken the fight out of me. Up until that morning, Kevin and I had been pretty evenly matched in our sometimes-aggressive horsing around but it was obvious that since my transformation, he was bigger and stronger, even without the extra inches and pounds of the full Skarab change.

I didn't look at him, rubbing my wrist where he had squeezed it. The very slight ache went away quickly. Nice to know that. But I might be stronger and faster than any ordinary human up to twice my size and weight, still Kevin just had more mojo than I did.

For some reason, that thought annoyed me in a whole new way. It wasn't just the unfair difference in what had happened to us; it was also the feeling of being second-class. I got over getting over being annoyed at him real quick. I felt another pout coming on and that didn't help at all.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked. I knew from the sound of his voice that he really meant his concern and wasn't just being a dick about it. Him being gentlemanly was pouring salt on my tail – or whatever that old saying is.

I shook my head, still not looking at him. It had hurt, but I wouldn't tell him that; besides, the pain faded so quick I wasn't sure how bad it had been.

"You were trying to get the ring weren't you?" he asked.

I had to push my hair back again to look at him. "Wouldn't you? If things had gone the other way?"

He grinned. "Bet your boobies I would." Then he shrugged. "Wouldn't do you any good, though."

"Why not?" I said. "If I'd got the blue ring first, I'd be Skarab and you'd have boobies to bet with."

Still grinning, he reached up and pulled his own ring off and handed it to me.

 

by Erin Halfelven
 

2.3 Sandwich

I stared for only a second then snatched it out of his hand and tried to put it on while I got up and out of his reach. Somehow, I could not get it to fit any finger of my right hand, where I had on the invisible green ring, so I tried it on the left. It fit the ring finger there, and I clenched my fist to look at it.

But the stone had turned green instead of blue.

"Unk told me that would happen," Kevin said.

I glared at him.

"It's not which ring we got to put on; it's who we are. You're the... child and grandchild of women who've worn the green ring, and guys in my side of the family have worn the blue one."

"Crap," I said.

"Fate, karma, whatever," said Kevin. "Whichever ring I chose to pick up from Unk's hand would have been the blue one and you would get the green one."

"Double square crap with cubical corners," I said. "What happens if I twist this ring around?"

"Go ahead and try it," he said. "Unk thinks maybe you can change back to your boy-self with it."

I felt hopeful. "Clockwise or counter-clockwise?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said, shrugging again. "One way probably makes your tits bigger though." He grinned.

I glared at him, knowing his bullpucky when I heard it. I gave him a raspberry.

He laughed. "Took Unk a while to think of doing this and I wasn't so sure... well, anyway. Try it. It's one reason I came out here."

I twisted the ring completely around, clockwise. I looked down and still saw tits but in the Damselfly costume instead of the borrowed top and slacks. Except the colors were different, hot pink with green trim instead of green with yellow. The stone I saw had changed to red, too. "This is actually worser," I complained.

"Wow," said Kevin. "That's the Maidenfly costume instead of Damselfly."

"Still sucks," I said. "Who's Maidenfly?"

"When there have been two women using the rings at the same time, one of them had on the Maidenfly version. Unk showed me pictures. According to him, one was of your grandmother and mother in the costumes."

"Mom?" I still found that hard to believe, my mom wearing a costume like I had on just then, but didn't dispute it. "Who comes up with these insect names?"

He shrugged. "I think both of those are better than the name used when a boy wears the green ring and stays a boy in costume. You could be known as Beetle-Boy."

I remembered Gumpy saying something about that. Shit, I'd almost rather be Damselfly than let myself be called Beetle-Boy. Almost. On second thought, bring on your Beetle-Boys.

Something else occurred to me though. "So the green ring is always a sidekick ring?"

He grinned. "You said it, not me."

I sniffed at him. It wasn't funny to me, but it seemed to amuse him. I looked at the ring again, heavy and gold in my hand.

"Try something," he suggested. "If it makes your tits bigger, I'm sure I can adjust to that."

"Moron," I said.

I experimented. It didn't matter how many times I turned the ring or which direction, it had only two settings, my 'Darla'-shape and the Maidenfly costume. I even took it off and reversed it that way, too, but no joy. It made me want to cuss but somehow, I just couldn't say the words.

I couldn't get the ring off in costume so I changed back to the pink top and green slacks and then it came off easily. "Here's your ring," I said. "Thanks for trying but the magic is... not done... messing with me." I bit my lip to keep from crying again.

Kevin took the ring and slipped it on. As soon as he touched it, the stone changed back to blue. "One more thing to try," he said. He held out the hand not wearing the ring. "Take my hand in yours then reach over and turn the ring on my other hand."

I blinked, but it was worth an effort. Maybe it would turn him into a girl, too.

It didn't but it worked, sort of. Using that method, I could change between 'Darla' and 'Damselfly" at the same time that Kevin switched between himself and the Skarab costume.

I turned it twice, counter-clockwise, and we both stood there naked for a moment. He let go of my hand and turned it back quickly.

That restored our clothes, even though we weren't touching anymore. "Sorry about that," he said, grinning. "Unk told me that if you are quick with the turning, you can go back to a clothed setting before the ring goes into safety and disappears. But you can use the… the naked settings to set up new sets of clothes. Quick changes."

He peered sideways at me, I guess to see if I was pissed off about being naked for a moment. It had been my own fault, of course, so I tried not to blame him.

"Your tits are still the same size," he observed, waggling his eyebrows.

"Shut up," I said. I couldn't help it; he was so absurd that I smiled and blushed. "That's sexual harassment, you know."

"Okay, then; we have a budding feminist." He grinned.

"Let's try something else," I said. "Let's not turn the ring twice the same direction, we know what that does."

"Boy, howdy," he said.

Somehow, instead of me holding his hand, it had ended up that he was holding mine. But no matter how we turned the rings, I didn't change back to Darryl.

Hope had faded so gradually that I almost hadn't noticed but when we gave up, it all hit me at once.
"It's no use! I'm stuck, I'm stuck, I'm stuck!" I said, bursting into sobs, to my complete surprise.

Wasn't I cried out by now? But this was different. Before I had just leaked tears or squeezed them out when I was angry, but this was gasping, wrenching, weeping like something terrible had happened to Mom or Tanya.

Kevin moved randomly around me while I wept, I knew he wanted to put an arm around me or something and I couldn't stand that so I backed away, turning to run again, maybe up in the hills where I could live off of acorns and cowberries or something.

"Darryl!" said Kevin, startling me. "Stop crying."

"You called me Darryl," I said, staring at him.

"Yeah, well, you stopped crying, didn't you?" He grinned at me. "I knew if I hugged you, you'd probably try to kick me in the balls again."

I snorted. Well, I intended to snort but it came out sounding more like a sniff. He handed me a napkin, and I turned away to wipe my eyes and blow my nose. "I'm not ever going to change back, am I?" I said.

"Hey, half the human race is female, most of them seem okay with that," he said. "Maybe you'll get used to it."

I made a face. "The idea of getting used to it somehow makes it worse."

"Oog, sorry. I've been... I haven't been making this easy on you, I'm not sure why. Joking around, trying to embarrass you…."

"Is that an apology for having been a jerk?"

He shrugged. "Yeah. That's probably what it is. You know I ain't any good at saying I'm sorry. Frankly, what happened to you scared me, and made me feel like the luckiest guy in the world and a little bit guilty for feeling that way."

I thought about it. “Like that, huh?” I said. It did explain a little his attitude and why he kept up the aggravating comments.

“Yeah, like that. Sorry,” he said it again.

The smell from the meatball subs, partly unwrapped on the picnic table hit me just then, and suddenly I remembered being hungry. My stomach growled, loudly, like a pit bull sensing a wounded postman.

Kevin laughed. "How delicate, how ladylike, how lovely," he said.

"Shut up," I said. "You're still a jerk. But I guess we can eat, huh?"

"I guess so," he agreed. He smiled at me and held a hand out, I suppose to help me sit down at the awkward bench around the picnic table. I ignored the hand and he snatched it back.

We both sat, on the same side of the table since the other bench was broken. I picked one of the sandwiches up, being careful. Sliced meatballs, spaghetti sauce, mozzarella, and green pepper rings on an Italian roll. "Messy," I commented.

He shrugged. "I brought a whole roll of paper towels."

"Good thing," I said, opening a soda.

"I would have brought you some diet soda, too, but Unk doesn't have any," he said.

I looked at him carefully to see if he was kidding and caught the hidden grin around his eyes. "Still trying to goof on me," I complained.

He laughed and unwrapped the other sandwich. "Almost forgot," he added before taking a huge bite, "Unk says he'll do some training with us, show us what we can do with our powers. After we eat."

I thought about it while we ate. I had superpowers now, along with the girly parts. Hadn't I always wanted to have superpowers? What kid living in the Promethean Age didn't?

Almost as if he'd been reading my mind, Kevin suddenly asked, "If you'd been offered this deal yesterday, superpowers but you have to be a girl, would you have taken it?"

I thought about it a moment. A few years before, I might have made a wish for powers without conditions. Being super was, well, it was pretty damn neat. I glanced down as I moved quickly out of the way of dripping spaghetti sauce. Very, very quickly, one evidence of my powers….

So I had tits now, it didn't have to be permanent, maybe only a few nights a week?

Could I live with that? Would I have taken that deal yesterday if it had been offered in those terms? I would never know because no one had offered.

"Chips?" offered Kevin, holding out a bag each of Doritos and Ruffles. "Your choice?"

"Eat your sandwich and shut up," I said.

 

by Erin Halfelven
 

2.5 Back Nine

Looking like a coach carrying a couple of school equipment bags, Steve Sunderman, the original Mighty Skarab, trotted through the sticker patches and wild mustard growing in the shallow wash between his house and the ruined peach orchard where Kevin and I sat at a broken picnic table, sucking down the dregs of our Cokes and Mountain Dews. The screen of trees between us did not conceal our presence or his approach, besides, Kevin was already waving. "Back here, Unk," he called.

My wannabe-partner in future superheroics had just informed me that our ancient relative was one of the so-called 300; the most powerful metahumans on Planet Earth. "Gumpy?" I said, using my mom's nickname for him since he was two generations further back from being just my grandfather.

He trotted up the last little way just then. "You kids enjoy your lunch?" he asked, putting the equipment bags down against the picnic table.

"Yeah," said Kevin. "Thanks, Unk."

"It was good," I agreed. "But I wouldn't say I enjoyed it. Still, thanks and all."

"She's still grumpy about having boobs," said Kevin.

I threw a wadded-up empty Doritos bag at him and it bounced off somewhere. Steve and Kevin both laughed which did nothing to make me feel better about myself.

"What is it with you two?" I said, trying not to sound whiney. "Why are you being so insensitive? I'm…." I had to swallow to be able to keep talking. "I'm mad, upset and angry about what the ring did to me and you guys keep laughing!"

Kevin shrugged. "We're guys," he said.

"Ouch," said Gumpy. "You're not helping." But he couldn't hide his big Sunderman grin.

"MHP," said Kevin, swatting at the aluminum can I threw at his head. He sent it arcing into the nearest peach tree.

Steve looked from one of us to the other.

"Maximum Humor Potential," I told him. "Kevin's mantra, he always tries to say the funniest thing he can think of. It's part of his course in First Year Assholery. Especially if it is inappropriate and especially if its to me."

"Hey," said Kevin. "I apologized earlier and besides, you told me you didn't want me to treat you any different now."

"That's why I'm throwing soda cans instead of chunks of concrete," I said.

He laughed. I threw another can. He swatted it back at me, and I swatted it to him again. Little droplets of Mountain Dew flew from the can as we batted it back and forth, fifteen or twenty times, faster and faster, higher and wider until we both had to lean this way or that, then even run a bit to make the next hit. It didn't seem to be difficult for either of us to keep the rally going until Gumpy ended the game by grabbing the can out of midair and crushing it more than it was.

He grinned at both of us. "You're already finding out what you can do; your reflexes are three times as fast as normal people."

And neither Kevin nor I had even started breathing hard.

My hands felt sticky and I wanted to wipe them on something. When I glanced at them, I saw it wasn't just soda but little drops of blood, too. The can, battered again and again, had started coming apart into sharp edges and neither of us noticed we were being cut. I opened my mouth to say something but before I could speak, the little nicks and gouges on my hands sealed up and disappeared.

"Rapid healing, too," said Gumpy. "Healing factor is the third commonest meta-talent, but you two have the fast version."

"Jeebus, Unk," said Kevin staring at his own hands.

"It's more than just a nice thing to be able to do, like playing ping-pong with a tin can. Healing factor is what makes being a super possible." He glanced at me as if he meant to add more, but he paused while I looked really closely at my hand.

"Huh," I said. I couldn't find a mark on it. I flexed my fingers and made a fist. It didn't hurt at all, either.

"Not that you can keep doing that forever, you've got so much energy and when you start running low, you start getting hurt, harder and for longer." Gumpy went on. "And something that hurts you a lot all at once, like getting hit with a car or a bullet, that takes a lot of energy out of you all at once."

"Bullets?" I said, frowning at him.

"Cool!" said Kevin, looking eager.

"Moron!" I said. "He means people will be shooting at us!"

"And we're okay with that," said Kevin. "If we can't dodge the bullets, we can heal even if we do get hit."

I rolled my eyes but lost the force of my exasperation when I realized I was standing there in a Tanya pose, hands on my hips and leaning a bit forward, the stance she took when she wanted to warn someone she had better get her own way. I did not want to turn into my sister but when I crossed my arms under my boobs as an alternative, that felt worse and made an even worser mental image. Gah!

"The best idea is not to get hit," said Gumpy. "Even a ricochet that bounces off is going to hurt. And if someone hits you in the head, you're going down. And you better hope you can get back up…."

No one said anything for a moment. Could an insect-powered overman regrow an eye or a brain? It didn't seem likely. It sure took my mind off how much I probably looked like Tanya.

"Anybody ever get killed doing this, Unk?" Kevin finally asked.

Steve nodded slowly. "I'll tell you later. But kids, you don't want to be afraid of dying. It doesn't hurt as much as failing your partner does."

"You would know?" I asked.

He smiled like an old, old man. "Vincent Rochambeaux isn't the only meta who has had to bury a partner or spend time in Hades' Court."

Kevin had told me that Gumpy had come back from the dead more than once but hearing the old man say it was… impressive? I'm not sure why but all I could do was stare at him for a moment. And the bit about burying a partner; I knew he probably meant the first Damselfly, my great-great-grandmother Josephine, who like me, first put the ring on as a boy.

Gumpy shook the mood off and said, "I'll tell you later, there's lots to tell. But right now, the important thing is to get started on your training. I've planned things to make it more fun."

"I'm not ready to have fun," I said.

For some reason, that amused the two morons as much as anything I had ever said. They laughed like jackasses and I stood there trying to resist putting my hands on my hips again. I didn't say anything; everything I wanted to say sounded too much like my sister throwing a snit fit.

"C'mon, kids," said Gumpy after wiping his eyes and shouldering one of the equipment bags again. "Let's get on to the back nine and do some training."

Kevin grabbed the other bag without even being told; Aunt Marlette would not have believed it. He and the old man trotted through the screen of peach trees to reveal a little pasture as big as three city blocks or so, set off by a sandy berm on two sides, the orchard on one and the creek bed on the other.

I followed them down the little embankment to floor of the canyon. I'm still not sure why I went along even that much, but I began to wish I had on sturdier shoes than the little folding slipper-things I had found in the garage closet. Not that my feet hurt, but I could see stones and thorns and who knew, there might be nails or broken glass hidden in the pasture. Then again, I had healing factor, didn't I?

Gumpy dropped his bag and looked at Kevin and I, "You two want to get into uniform?"

I shook my head, but Kevin said, "Sure!" He dropped his bag beside the other and grabbed my right with his left then held out his other hand for me to twist the jewel on the ring.

"Let me wear the ring and you twist it," I suggested. I didn't want to co-operate in wearing that stupid costume any more than I had to.

Kevin looked doubtful.

"We'll take turns," I suggested, easing up a little.

Kevin grinned. "Ladies first?" he said, taking the ring off. "But before I give this to you, another agreement."

"What?" I said, grabbing for the ring.

He held it out of reach, reminding me that the doofus was several inches taller than me now. "That I get to call you 'Darla' when you're a girl and not in costume, and you won't get mad."

I scowled. "Why can't you just call me 'Darryl'? It's my name."

"Doesn't feel right, you don't look like a Darryl."

I didn't even want to mention Daryl Hannah, the actress, who spelled her name with only one 'r,' she was tall and beautiful and I was short and.... I didn't want to think about the word cute. "Gumpy!" I protested to Steve.

The old man just stood there like he'd been carved from stone mined in his father's little village back in Elbonia. He had a faraway look in his eye even though he must have seen us standing there arguing.

"Look," said Kevin. "How you gonna convince the ring spirit to let you turn into a boy unless you go along with being a girl when it's necessary?"

"That doesn't make any sense!" I yelped.

Steve finally spoke. "Kevin, give me the ring."

Must have been something in the way he said it, Kevin instantly gave him the ring. Steve slipped it onto his own sausage-size finger which it magically fit, and then he held out a hand to each of us. "Darryl, grab my hand and Kevin, grab hers then reach and twist the ring."

We grabbed his hand; it didn't seem wise not to do what he said. I didn't even protest him calling me 'her.'

Kevin reached up and twisted the ring. I felt the ripple go through me, not as strong as when it first happened, but it didn't have to turn me into a girl this time. I looked down at myself—green and yellow skintight costume with the oval cutouts showing cleavage and thigh. Something added different though, the circles around my boots were magenta, and I had on a yellow belt showing a green stone in the buckle.

Steve, right in front of me had on a blue-black costume now with red boots, gloves and blue-jeweled belt and a bluer outline of a scarab beetle on his chest.

I heard a "Yipe!" to my left and turned to look. A girl stood there in the Maidenfly costume, magenta with green on the boots and yellow on the gloves but no belt or jewel. Kevin had been turned into Maidenfly!

"Now," said Steve to me. "I'm sure you'll let Karen call you Darla, won't you?"

 

 

by Erin Halfelven
 

2.6 Getting Jiggly

The girl dressed in the Maidenfly costume had to be my cousin, Kevin Lockyear – transformed just as I had been by the power of the magic rings given to us by my great-great-grandfather and Kevin's great-great-uncle, Steve Sunderman. Gumpy, as I called him, stood there in the midnight and scarlet uniform of The Mighty Skarab, nearly seven-feet tall with bulges on his bulges.

"You will let Karen call you Darla, won't you?" He asked me again.

I was in uniform as Damselfly and we all had the stupid antenna, too. I looked at 'Karen' and grinned, seeing her dealie-bobbers waving around like she was confused. "I guess she can call me Darla," I said.

"Very funny, Unk," said Karen. "I hope you can change us back?" She moved her shoulders experimentally while looking down her own cleavage. Other than the color of our uniforms, we probably looked almost like twins, I knew just what she must be seeing.

"I think so," Steve said, not smiling. "But maybe you needed to wear the high-heel boots for a while." He sighed and stretched. His body rippled with muscles and power, straight and if not slim, at least trim. He hadn't actually changed that much, but the skin-tight costume made him look even bigger and more impressive.

Skarab seemed almost out of place in the daylight; the warm afternoon sun glistened on the silky surface of his uniform. What were the costumes made of, anyway? They might very well be silk, since that would fit with the existence of the otherworld beings Steve called the Insect Lords – who had given us our powers and cursed me, and now Kevin, with being girls. For the moment.

Behind Steve, the bulk of one of the coastal California mountains rose, green all the way up as far as we could see. Around us, the hidden pasture Gumpy had called the back nine waved with nearly knee-high grasses and scattered shrubs and weeds. It seemed an odd setting for a legend come to life, but that was what The Mighty Skarab was.

According to him, Gumpy had come back from the dead more than once and was nearly a hundred years old. Only the lines around his mouth showed any age, though, because a mask covered his face from nose to hairline. And his full head of hair was faded ash-blond, not the gray or white one might have expected.

He grinned at us, closed his massive fists and flexed like a Muscle Beach pin-up.

I think 'Karen' and I both felt the strength radiating off the old man because we both gasped at the same time. We stood there with our mouths open for half a minute or so while he did warm-up jumping jacks and push-ups, hurling himself upright with just the strength in his arms. Then he started doing spread-eagle hops before falling back into push-up position to repeat it. He did that sequence about twenty times without popping a gallus or a blood vessel.

Awestruck, that's the word; we were awestruck. All of a sudden we understood that this guy was more than human, someone who could do battle with monsters and supervillains and beat the crap out of almost any number of ordinary thugs or soldiers. And had.

"What are you girls staring at?" he asked. "Do some exercises, get a feel for what you can do. Run, jump, throw things, wrestle with each other. I brought baseball and field hockey equipment. Loosen up." He smiled slowly when he said that last part. "I'll watch for a while."

"Girls," said Karen, sounding disgusted, looking down at herself.

I couldn't help it; I laughed.

Karen shrugged and giggled. I hoped I didn't sound like that. "It is funny when it happens to someone else, isn't it?" she said.

"I guess so. But if he can change you back, I don't see why he can't do both of us." I looked at Uncle Steve hopefully.

"Less talk, more practice. I may keep you both like this and go back to being Skarab full time myself if you don't get to work."

"He's kidding," said Karen. "I hope he's kidding."

"I wouldn't count on it, we better do what he says. But if he thinks we're going to wrestle while he watches—well, it just ain't going to happen."

Karen giggled again. "Might be fun?" she said, pretending to look me over.

I rolled my eyes. I could tell she was pretending, looking at her did nothing for me, and I knew that my looks didn't affect her that way, either. We might as well have been sisters, even though intellectually, I knew we were both cute and embarrassingly curvy.

"C'mon," said the old man. "What do the kids today say? Get jiggly with it!"

"That's 'get jiggy,' Unk, and you know it!" said Karen after a glance down at her chest and an experimental bounce on her heels. "Besides…." She trailed off after a glance at me. I shrugged.

"Depends on what I'm talking about, doesn't it?" he said.

Karen and I both snorted and gave him a dirty look. He just smiled, all relaxed looking. "Race to the rock over there." He pointed. "First one back doesn't have to do dishes tonight."

I took off running.

"Hey!" yelped Karen. She didn't waste any more breath though and started running, too. The jump I got made a difference; I reached the rock first, but somehow she made the turn faster and we headed back, neck and neck.

Neither of us said anything, winning the race had become very important, more important than a couple of sinks full of dishes. For lack of a finish line, we just plowed right into Steve.

And bounced off. The old man felt like upholstered granite; we both landed on our butts in the dirt in front of him.

"I won!" shouted Karen.

"No, you didn't, blondie!" I shouted.

We glared at each other. Where had such ferocity come from all of a sudden, some part of me wondered?

"Too close to call," said Gumpy. "I'll do the dishes."

We stared at him. He shrugged. "It was a photo finish. And I'm not doing this to be mean, you kids really need training."

"Do I need training like this?" Karen gestured at herself.

I frowned.

"You need a lesson, and a lesson is kind of like training," said Gumpy. "What happened to Darryl shouldn't be a reason for you to mistreat your partner. You two may get into situations where you'll be depending on each other."

We made faces at each other.

He stopped to consider for a moment. "And if you last with this long enough, you will certainly depend on each other for your lives."

Karen thought about this for a moment. I did, too, but mostly I thought about how Karen would have to be a girl only for this training but I might be stuck forever. I stared at the ground and concentrated on not getting angry, or worse, crying.

Then he clapped his hands and said, "Let's do some training, kids." He pulled a baseball bat out of one of the duffels and a net bag of balls. "Shag some flies for me," he said.

While Karen snickered for some reason, I went out for the long fly Gumpy hit toward the mountains, marveling at my own speed and my awareness of where the ball would come down. And there I was to catch it, barehanded, no problem.

Karen went for the next one; a deep drive to left that would have cleared any fence in the majors except maybe the Green Monster because it was still going up at about 250 feet. Another bit of evidence why metas were not allowed to play most professional sports except wrestling and dangerball.

We caught flies and chased line drives and wicked grounders over the rougher parts of the field, but we seldom missed a catch and it actually got almost boring. As a utility player on the school team, I knew the skills and difficulties involved, and my confidence in my abilities grew.

When I threw a caught fly back, it went right where I intended, fast as thunder, like a strike thrown from mid-centerfield. If I were allowed to play pro-ball, I would be a star like no one had ever seen before. The thought annoyed me on several levels; not least of which was that even if I weren't a meta now – girls don't play in the major leagues.

While I worked that out, I noticed Karen had begun stockpiling her catches in a pile rather than throwing them back immediately. She looked at me and winked. I immediately knew what she had planned and began building my own stockpile.

Gumpy kept hitting them; we kept catching them and throwing them into heaps. The old man pulled the last baseball from the net bag at his feet and hit a smoking line drive directly at Karen. She caught it bare-handed; we had made all our catches without gloves. We knew it was his last ball.

She glanced over and grinned at me and quick as a flash; we were throwing baseballs back, and every one of them aimed at his head. In less than a minute, we had thrown about fifty baseballs at that old man.

And not one of them hit him.

He batted some of them away, and we caught those and threw them back, too. The rest he just dodged, somehow. It was the most amazing thing to see. Gumpy is about six-foot-eight, he must weigh over 300 pounds, and he ducked and weaved, and jumped when necessary and not a single thrown ball hit him.

And he laughed the whole time.

We were laughing too. I'm not sure why. We were both girls, and we were mad at him. Honestly, we intended to hurt that old fool, legend or not. And we couldn't hit him. It was just so ridiculous.

We ran out of baseballs, in about twenty seconds we threw all forty or fifty of them, some of them twice. Without signaling each other, Karen and I ran toward Gumpy.

The old man was pulling sticks out of the other equipment bag. "Got some kind of aggression going, girls?" he asked. He handed each of us a stick. "How about a little one-on-one field hockey?"

He pointed left. "Karen, your goal is that patch of mustard weed over there." He pointed right. "Darla, yours is between those two red boulders." He threw a shiny black ball down between us. "First one to score a goal, I'll buy you a car."

Kevin had just had a birthday, but mine wasn't until June; then we'd both be fifteen. "We're too young to get licenses, Bugbrain!" I said.

He grinned at me. "You're supers now, in costume you can drive whatever you want as long as you don't run over anyone who didn't deserve it."

The Overman Act. Committing a crime with superpowers was a federal offense. Did that mean that local cops couldn't give even traffic tickets to a meta? I'd read about this. It wasn't that they couldn't, but they wouldn't because of all the paperwork involved.

When we didn't move right away, Gumpy said, "Change of rules, you both get cars. Win, and you get any color you want; loser gets a pink one."

Karen moved her stick toward the ball….

by Erin Halfelven

2.7 Field Training

Have you ever tried to play a game like field hockey against someone who knew exactly what you were going to do and when? I couldn't read Karen's mind; it was more like just knowing what she intended to do. Maybe the antenna on our heads had something to do with it.

And of course, she had the same knowledge of what I intended. It took a lot of false starts, immediately countered by the other person, before the two of us discovered how to act without thinking about it.

Acting from reflex and knowledge rather than intent wasn't entirely novel; you don't do much thinking about walking, talking or typing, for instance. But putting complex motions together in novel ways without consciously making decisions about what you were doing took a bit of discovery and practice. And yet, it felt entirely natural to be able to do that.

Before Karen could think of moving, I had already moved, and vice versa. The fact that we seemed to connect, mentally, on some level, didn't mean as much since we weren't doing a lot of thinking about what we were doing.

And then the game got tough. She was fast; I might have been just a hair faster, but she was stronger and seemed always to be better prepared to use leverage against me. But I had another advantage, I had actually played on a field hockey team, I had learned and practiced moves she had not. Karen, or Kevin, had only ever played roller hockey which is similar but not the same thing. She kept trying to scoot her feet, something that would not work in the tall grass of the Back Nine.

Neither of us could move the ball more than a few feet without the other countering. Now and then the ball would shoot out from between us, sideways, usually, then we would both scramble to get into position, shoulder to shoulder, stick to stick, knee to knee. Our ankles and shins were taking a beating, but we really didn't notice.

It was during one of our scrums that we accidentally jammed the black ball between our sticks and it leaped upward. I caught it automatically, a clear rule violation, and that turned into the wrestling match Kevin had joked about when Karen threw her stick down and tackled me because I had the ball.

"Give it! Give it!" she shrieked into my ear after knocking me into a patch of blackberry vines.

"Ouch!" I yelped when the thorns scratched the bare places on my arms. They didn't even leave a mark but they did hurt. "You want it, you're gonna get it!" I threw the ball in her face and grabbed her around the waist when she caught it.

Over and over we went, not noticing where we were going, each determined to possess that silly ball. It seemed so bloody important at the time. We didn't even notice when we rolled down the little incline and into the muddy ground where a trickle of water came off the mountain.

Kicking, punching and snarling, we rolled over and over in the little patch of mud, into and out of sticker bushes, cactus, and rocks. We screamed names at each other, each trying to outdo the other. "Twitch!" was probably the nicest thing I called her.

We put our healing factors to a real test because without that bit of insect magic, we would have been bloody messes in just a few moments. I don't think either of us bit the other but I know I came close.

What finally brought us out of our frenzy was a sound like knuckle-sized gravel being shook around inside a giant bass drum. We both heard it and looked up at the same time.

Gumpy Steve was laughing at us! Great whooping belly laughs that echoed off the mountainside, scaring jays and chipmunks out of generations of growth, a monstrous, legendary guffaw at our expense.

I had my fist cocked to scramble Karen's brains, but she had me down, sitting on my stomach trying to get her forearm under my chin so she could choke me. We scrambled to our feet and looked at each other, eye to eye.

"Let's get him," I said.

"Let's," agreed Karen, spitting a muddy strand of hair out of her mouth.

So we charged the evil old man. Angry as we were we developed an instant plan without saying another word; Karen would hit him high, going for his face, and I would hit him low, aiming for his nuts. I don't know for sure how we each knew what the other would do, but our dealie-bobbers probably had something to do with it.

He stood there in his midnight-and-crimson-and-gold costume, nearly seven feet tall, looking like something out of a history book or a retro-superzine. And he was laughing at us. We were both so charged up on adrenaline and being super and honked off about being turned into girls that we convinced ourselves we could take him.

He put a hand out to stop Karen in mid-leap and turned his hip to deflect my kick, so I sort of flew past him. We recovered and attacked again, just climbing him.

He shrugged us off like… like insects. I landed in another sticker bush and Karen ended up hanging from a tree limb.

Still laughing he yanked his mask hood off and tied it around his face like a blindfold. "Okay, girls," he said. "Come and get me! If you can make me touch a knee to the ground, I'll go ahead and buy each of you a new car, even though neither of you won the hockey game!" Then he put both hands behind his back!

"Has he got that kind of money?" I asked Karen.

"Who gives a poop!" she said. "You're going down, old man!" She swung from the tree, using the springy branch to launch herself at his head again. I scrambled out of the stickers and went for his ankles.

We didn't need the incentive of him buying us cars, but it didn't really help anyway. Blindfolded and without using his hands or arms, that old man beat us ragged. We threw everything we had at him, including rocks. He let them hit him unless they were aimed at his face and then he ducked.

"How can you see them coming?" Karen squealed.

"The feelers aren't just for show, Babycakes," he said. He wiggled the antenna on his forehead like some sort of hentai monster, both together, then one at a time, then one clockwise and one counterclockwise.

"I don't want to know how he does that," I said. I don't think Karen heard me; she was too mad.

"Don't call me 'Babycakes'!" she screeched.

"Sorry, Darla," said Gumpy.

"I'm not Darla!"

"Oh," he said. "I thought Karen was the one with a sense of humor. But I can't tell you apart with the blindfold on." He smirked.

"Zing!" I said. I seriously thought she might try to bite him then. She didn't just, too mad to think of it, I guess. Instead, she did a handstand and tried to put the heels of her costume boots through his nose. He ducked and sort of wobbled and somehow threw her ten or fifteen feet, still with his hands behind his back.

It left him with his weight on one leg, a little off balance so I threw myself at the back of his knee. He did a little hop and once more I flew past without more than barely touching him.

We did everything we could think of to that old man. We even got into the gym bag and broke a few hockey sticks and baseball bats on him. He didn't even dodge most of what we did, but taunted us when we slacked off even a little.

"Is that as hard as you can hit, girls?" he asked. We didn't just want to get him; we had blood in our eyes, and we wanted to hurt the big, ancient, mystery man. We tried… but we really couldn't do it.

I don't know how long it took till we ended up panting and staggering around with him still on his feet. We had used up nearly all our meta-energy and the scratches and bruises were starting to show instead of healing almost instantly. Sweat ran into the little cuts and marks, making them itch and burn.

I'd gotten one good kick into his crotch that had nearly doubled him over, and Karen actually had bitten him on the ear. But he was still standing, and we were leaning on each other to stay upright.

He pulled the blindfold off, chuckling. "Had enough?" he asked. No doubt about it, older than television he might be but he was still The Mighty Skarab. And my Gumpy Steve. Mad as I was, I felt absurdly awed by the old fart.

We didn't want to give in, but the extra vitality of being super had finally run out. "You win, old man," said Karen. She was standing, bent over with her hands on her knees, and I was leaning on her.

I'd never been so tired, not even after running two 10Ks back to back. I didn't feel I could spare enough energy to glare at him.

"C'mere," Steve ordered after putting his mask back on the right way. I wondered vaguely if I could pull my mask, even my whole costume off and put on something a little more decent. The holes that made the costume stylish among the spandex crowd bugged me.

He held out his hands as we stumbled toward him, and we each took one, as much for support as anything. He gave us each a little squeeze and smiled a big old gator-grin.

"Darla," he said. "Twist the ring." Sure enough, I was grasping the hand with the ring. The dark beetle shape inside the blue seemed to have grown two red eyes. I put my hand on it to keep them from staring at me.

I turned the ring on his hand and passed out. I barely had time to see that Karen/Maiden Fly was back to being plain old Kevin. I didn't get a chance to look down at myself before a darkness came up like Jaws and swallowed me.

by Erin Halfelven

2.8 Interlude with Joocers

 
"Did you get the jooce?" Patty Gomez asked, pushing her curly black hair behind her ears after she opened the door. She looked surprised to see her roommate in the middle of the afternoon.

"Sure I got it? Whadja think?" Leon Pasco tried to look cool, like someone who had just made a major drug score. He eeled his way past the girl into the room they rented together from his step-sister. It had once been a one-car garage, sitting by itself on the alley behind Rhonda's aging bungalow in south Santa Ana. Now furnished with a cast-off sofa bed, an ancient analog TV, a couple of kitchen chairs and a dinette table it barely made it out of the dump category. Suburban hovel would make a good description.

Patty had been sitting in the dark again, shades pulled, lights off. The little brunette was not impressed with Leon's act. "How much did you get?" she demanded.

Jooce, also known as hype, was sold by the "mil," a unit derived from the scientific measurement, milliliter: one thousand to the liter, or about 950 to a quart. Five mils made a "street dose" or one hundred drops, using a standard pharmacy eye dropper. A single drop would be enough to get a noob high for hours, but frequent joocers needed more. Patty and Leon had been joocing for only a few weeks, since late January, and they could still cop a nice clean six-hour buzz from as little as four drops.

Leon held out his hand and Patty's eyes bugged out. The little two ounce bottle would hold 60 mils, 1200 drops, 300 hits at the current level of Patty's and Leon's addiction. Leon reached into a pocket of his windbreaker and pulled out two more little bottles. He couldn't stop grinning now.

"Holy shit," said Patty. "You didn't have anything like that kind of money." Street price for a mil was about $200. Leon had more than $30,000 worth of jooce in three little bottles, even if one of them was not quite full.

"Luck, mostly," Leon admitted. "I was coming up on Too Rivers with our cash, hoping I could talk him into taking a little less than the thousand he was asking for a file." A 'file' or 'phial' was five mils in a tiny plastic bottle, also called a 'spoon.'

"Uh, huh," said Patty, licking her lips. She turned suddenly and headed to the little kitchenette in the corner of the one room flat. Leon looked at the clock on the microwave; he knew Patty had a shift at the local McTalley's in less than two hours. They usually tried to eat something before she went to work; otherwise the smell of fast food cooking tended to nauseate her on an empty stomach.

"Do we want to eat before we drop?" she asked, echoing his thinking.

"Do you want to drop before your shift?" he returned.

"Please, one drop at least, that way I can get through the shift without wanting to go crazy. You were telling me how you ended up with three half-gills?"

"Oh yeah," said Leon. He resumed his story. "Too Rivers got busted before I got to him. I saw the whole thing. Cops came out of nowhere and they had a Blue Star with them." A Federal Office of Meta-Crime agent. "Not a trooper in power armor, just a foom in the white jacket with the blue stars on his shoulders."

"Huh," said Patty. "Is Too Rivers a meta? How about I make mac and cheese, then we can hype afterward. Buzz will last longer that way."

Leon didn't say anything for a moment. Patty stopped to look at him. He stared back then nodded, looking away. "Mac and cheese," he said.

 
Patty put the water on to boil, with a pinch of salt in it. She got the box of noodles and cheese sauce down from the cabinet, took out the milk and butter from the door of the little refrigerator, and got out a bunch of green onions to clean. Her mother had always said, "If you eat cheese or meat, always eat something green at the same meal." She tried to eat right, and make sure that Leon did, too, but with her jooce habit she got hungry at odd times and sometimes for odd things. She'd made a meal of bok choy fried in a little peanut oil once; at least it was green. Leon had been known to snack on Oreos dipped in Sriracha sauce.

 
He watched her work at the little kitchen cabinet, hardly three feet long between sink and refrigerator. He wished he'd been able to find steady work. The day labor market in Santa Ana was hard for an Italian-American of Jewish descent, even if he did look Mexican and speak the lingo after a fashion. Better than Patty did, honestly; she'd grown up in Portland, ferstarsake.

He wondered again if they could go into the business of selling jooce, now that they had more than they needed themselves for the near future.

Patty finished the story of how he had acquired the bottles by guessing. "So you saw where he ditched the stuff and kyped them after he got arrested?"

"Uh huh," said Leon. "He stuck them up inside one of those pooper-scooper bag dispensers on Broadway near the park."

Patty laughed and he grinned at her.

"The cops didn't look there so when they hauled his ass away; I just nipped out and fetched a bag from the roll and put the bottles in it." He held up the little black plastic bag with the smiling doggy on it to show her, and they both laughed again.

"Neat!" she said. She wiggled a bit to show her excitement and looked at him under her bangs. Maybe after they dropped…. He felt pretty sure of that, dropping seemed to do something to libidos.

He watched her measure milk and cut up butter. The cleaned green onions went on the table in a nest of paper towels. She drained the noodles, added the milk and butter and the packet of powdered cheese. Some black and red pepper, too. His mouth watered, it might be simple and cheap but mac and cheese was one of his favorite meals and had been for almost his whole life.

They sat down to eat; glasses of cold water flavored with a slice of tangerine to drink. It tasted good, and they ate it all, crunching on the green onions. They shared a bag of apple slices that Patty had stolen from McTalleys for dessert.

They looked at one another. Patty got up to get a slice of bread and a knife, and Leon took out the already opened bottle of jooce and an eyedropper. She cut the bread into four squares, and he put two drops from the eyedropper on each little square. Patty put one corner into each of two baggies then they solemnly ate one bit of dropped bread apiece.

"Here's looking at you, Toots," said Leon, thinking he was quoting some old movie.

Patty smiled, her mouth closed. He knew she liked to let the bread melt on her tongue and feel the tingle in her mouth as the jooce began to work.

It would take less than two minutes to reach full effect, and they would have the other piece of dropped bread to take later to extend the buzz. If they didn't wait too long; jooce lost potency if too much air got to it before you took your drop. It had to be kept liquid, or it went off quickly and bad jooce gave you symptoms a lot like the flu.

Leon was wondering vaguely if he should get the key and go up to the front house to use the bathroom when Patty suddenly giggled. He looked at her, feeling a grin spread across his own face.

"Why is he called 'Too Rivers'?" she asked suddenly. "And I know it's t-o-o, not t-w-o."

Leon shrugged. "He used to be a DJ, they called him 'Too Much' then; it got shortened to just 'Too'."

"A rapper?" she said. "Hoodathunkit?" She laughed out loud, rubbing her arms. "Goosebumps," she said, pleased.

"You always get those. Me, I just get a raging hard-on." He raised an eyebrow.

She nodded, smiling. "Let's take the key and go up to Rhonda's and do it on the big bed." She stood and held her hand out to his as he got to his feet, too. "Besides," she added, "I need to pee first."

Afterwards, they lay across the bed in the front house master bedroom. Rhonda wouldn't be home for hours, and Patty didn't have to leave for work for almost forty minutes. For modesty, Leon had pulled the sheet back up over them. He had funny ideas like that, thought Patty, and she loved him for them.

"It's always good but it's better with the jooce," she murmured into his shoulder.

Leon snorted. "For guys, it's always good says it all."

She giggled. She wanted to lie there and enjoy the good feeling. Everything always seemed more real, and at the same time, more fantastical on jooce. Even the cobwebs in the upper corners of the room glistened with magic in the afternoon light dimmed by coming through the curtains.

"Too Rivers isn't a meta," said Leon suddenly, as if the earlier conversation were still fresh in his mind.

"No, huh?" said Patty. "Then why was a Blue Star involved in arresting him? They only get involved in meta-crime." Under the sheet, she dragged the nails of one foot lightly up his leg.

"It's the hype. The jooce," he said. "You know the legend? Why five mils is called a 'dose'?"

"Huh. Yeah, taking that much at once, a hunnert drops, is supposed to be enough to make you go meta. But so's getting hit by lightning or freezing to death or anything else that nearly kills you."

"I think it's true," said Leon. "I think that's part of why Blue Stars sometimes get involved in arresting jooce dealers. And the other part…."

Patty hiked herself up further onto the pillow, wrapping her arms around Leon's head and neck and putting her lips, and teeth, against the soft skin of his neck.

"Uh."

"What other part?" she asked between nibbles. It always amazed her how she could think of one thing and do something entirely different with equal concentration when dropping.

"The other part," Leon gasped. "They just found out…jooce is made from metas."

by Erin Halfelven

3.1 Princess?

I had dreams.

In one of them, I wandered long twisting hallways in a building half made of some translucent substance that gave a coral light to the interior. In the dream, I was Damselfly, without the costume. I wore a sort of long flowing shirt or short silky gown that came only to mid-thigh, but covered me up to my chin in soft, green, glowing folds and drapes.

I didn't even feel odd about being female or dressed in something that might be a dress. In the dream, wearing this did not disturb me nor did the fact that I knew I still had my antenna.

I knew I had them because I could sense the whole of the building, or complex of buildings, around me… and all the people inside.

I could see and hear them, too. People like me.

The women dressed like me, slender or voluptuous, a few of them obviously pregnant, but each of them near a man who reminded me of the Skarab, either Kevin or Steve. Massive men with something about them that told of warrior skills, not every one as tall as my Gumpy, but each of them lean and hard-muscled for all of their bulk. And none of them wearing more than a blue loincloth.

Everyone had antennas, too, and high cheekbones, blue or green eyes, blond or black hair. All the women had wings, or at least most of them did. I knew I had wings, too. But the men had spiky, blue-black horns growing from their shoulders. And even this did not seem that odd in the dream.

It looked like a colony of cousins, of different versions of Skarab and Damselfly; all of them murmuring as I walked among them, myself and everyone else barefoot on a polished glass-like floor.

"Princess Tharryla has returned," they said in voices like the stirring of bees.

And I knew they meant me.

* * *

The dreams faded as I woke up in the bedroom I had been sharing with Kevin. The translucent walls became off-white painted plasterboard; the vaulted ceilings lowered to housing industry standard eight feet. Light filtered in from an afternoon sky through north and east-facing windows. I lay on a quilted counterpane on the same twin bed I'd slept on since the weekend.

I felt dislocated. I suppose I expected to wake up at home in Orange. My own room was narrower with only one window but with blue walls decorated with posters. Nothing at Gumpy's looked familiar, and when it started to sink in, nothing felt familiar either.

I rolled over on my back and felt my chest jiggle. I bit back a whimper. "I'm still Darla," I grumbled. I pushed hair out of my face and sat up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. They didn't quite reach the floor of the tall country-style bed. Darryl's legs had.

"Why do I have to be so short, too?" I complained. I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror over the dresser and saw that I was pouting like Tanya with a run in her pantyhose. But on me, it looked cute.

I tried looking madder, meaner, but even a snarl looked cute. "I'm doomed," I whimpered. Tanya had been cute, was still cute, but she had known how to use it as a weapon. I didn't want to have to learn such a skill.

What if I never changed back? What if I was just stuck like this? Forever.... I closed my eyes and tried not to think about that.

But with my eyes closed, I realized something else. I could hear everything in the house, and I knew right where things were. Kevin and Steve were in the kitchen leaning over the table, and Gumpy Steve was saying something.

"Josie was the original Damselfly," he said. "But she started out as Joe. Just like Darla was Darryl before, Joe became Josie. The government gave her new I.D., and all because we were in the counterspy business by then."

"Darla's great-great-grandma started out as a boy, too?" Kevin asked.

Steve must have nodded.

In my bedroom, I bit my lip and frowned. We'd heard this before, and Gumpy was sticking to the story.

"Maybe it just runs in the family," said Kevin. "Did she ever change back?"

"She never wanted to," said Gumpy. "She was in love with me and being Josie sure made that easier."

"Wow," said Kevin. "What if Darla doesn't want to change back because she falls in love with me?"

"As if!" I screamed, even though I wasn't in the same room. It didn't make me feel better to hear them laugh at my outburst.

"She can hear us," I heard Gumpy say. "When you have the ring on, even invisible, you can hear anything anyone says for quite a ways around you."

"Right through walls and stuff?" asked Kevin.

"Yup," said Steve.

"Cool." Kevin sounded like himself, not quite exactly, but I couldn't figure out what might be the difference.

"You awake enough now to go for a ride?" Gumpy called out.

"I suppose," I muttered, assuming they could hear me as well as I heard them. I looked around for the soft shoes I had worn earlier and found them under the edge of the bed. They were a lot the worse for the wear I had put them through running down to the orchard, but it was either them or the high heel boots I could see sitting beside the closet door. I put the ragged slippers on then took a moment to look at myself in the mirror again.

I needed a brush or a comb, but I settled for raking my fingers through my mop. "Girls always look in the mirror before they leave their bedroom," I muttered, not caring if the guys heard me. I made a face and left the room, going down the hallway.

I had to make a stop in the bathroom and the less said about that, the better. Especially when it occurred to me that the guys could hear everything I did in there. I got out as quickly as I could.

"I wanna show you kids what the car can do," Uncle Steve said as I joined them in the kitchen.

"Look who woke up grumpy," said Kevin grinning at me. He was out of his uniform, too, back to being dressed like a high school kid on spring vacation in jeans, t-shirt and sneaks. I liked him better as Karen in the Maidenfly costume, I decided.

"Look who woke up Dopey," I said. "Why did I never notice before what an annoying jerk you can be?" I looked away but had to look back again, something about him did seem different. I couldn't figure out what it might be and staring at him didn't seem rewarding so I looked away.

I could still see him though; he grinned wider, and Steve just snorted. Them being in such a good humor annoyed me even more. I sort of flounced over to a chair and sat down. They watched without saying anything. Why? "Am I so fascinating?" I asked.

"Fishing for compliments, Darla?" Kevin asked.

I didn't tell him not to call me that, he'd accepted being called Karen without complaining; I could do as much. I just looked at him, trying for one of Tanya's withering glances. I must have missed because he just grinned. "I don't need any compliments from you," I said.

"Ouch?" he said, still grinning.

I turned to look at Steve."Why did I pass out? Did doofus here flake out too?" I asked, pointing a thumb at Kevin to indicate which doofus I meant.

Steve shook his head. "You put out a lot of energy; after switching back, you needed a nap," he said. "Kevin had some left over after the switch, so he just took it easy for a bit."

My mouth fell open. It just kept getting worse. "Being a girl sucks," I said.

They didn't deny it.

"You say the Skarab needs his Damselfly, but what the heck good am I if a few minutes of fighting tires me out?" I demanded.

"Damselfly has other powers," said Steve.

"Yeah? Like what? Can I fly or am I just a damsel?"

Steve nodded slowly. "You'll be able to fly, not right at first…. You have to learn how to handle yourself, but later, when you use the ring, you'll have wings."

"Wings? Not just fly like Celebrant? Actual wings?"

"Like Mandragonne," suggested Kevin.

I pictured the big leathery bat-type wings of the leader of the Protectors in his dragon form and shook my head. Suddenly, I remembered having wings in the dream I'd had.

"No, more like insect wings," said Steve. "They're really force fields but they look like wings. You both have force fields when you learn how to use them."

That fit with what I remembered, glittery, almost insubstantial wings like some insects had. Like dragonfly wings but more up and back instead of to the side.

"Cool," said Kevin. "Can I fly, too?" I wondered, too. In my dream, the skarabs had horns on their backs instead of wings. Did the dream mean anything or was it just my brain playing with ideas?

Steve sighed. "There are lots of things you can do, both of you. But it takes time to master your powers."

"Is that a yes? I can fly?" Kevin demanded.

"It's not that simple. I don't want you wasting all your training time trying to learn to fly," said Steve. "It's going to be a lot more important for you to learn to be bulletproof, for instance."

"Whoa!"

"Wait, wait!" I interrupted. "People are going to be shooting at us?"

Steve frowned. "It happens. But don't worry, both of you are smart and strong-willed, I don't think you'll have much trouble learning to deal with things like small arms fire."

"What about large arms?" I asked.

Kevin laughed and flexed his biceps, not so large right at the moment since he wasn't ringed up as Skarb, Jr. He made a goofy face when I glanced at him, and a laugh came out of me, too. Surprised, I tried to frown at him but he crossed his eyes and made me laugh again.

Despite everything, I felt better, I realized. The training time had done worlds of good for my self-confidence, and I really had needed a nap. And that dream….

Had that been a vision sent by the Insect Lords? If it had, what was it supposed to mean?

And…. Princess?

by Erin Halfelven

3.2 The Hero Biz

I had to get up and walk around the room. The idea of being shot at did not appeal to me. And yet, after our training this afternoon, I felt confident that I could avoid being hit by anyone using merely human reflexes to aim. I wouldn't be there when the bullet arrived; it was a skill I knew I could learn.

And I had a very odd reaction to this; I almost felt I couldn't wait to get out there and go up against some bad guy with a gun. Normally, I'm not that crazy. I walked to the window and looked out on the Santa Ana mountains. We were so close to them here that the two highest peaks did not have their characteristic Saddleback shape. The world looks different when you change perspective, I thought.

"Somebody could get lucky," Kevin was saying. "A lucky shot, a bad ricochet."

"It happens," said Gumpy Steve. "That's what healing factor is for. And it won't even leave a scar."

Kevin laughed. We exchanged looks, knowing it wouldn't be as easy as Steve made it sound, but feeling more than a bit of excitement. Supermovies had recently become all the rage after decades of cheesy scripts and worse special effects. Big money features like The First Protector and Spider-Man, featuring both real and imaginary metas, filled the theaters and home video screens. And the minds of kids and teen-agers who could hope to discover that they, too, were super.

And Kevin and I were. What's more, we were part of one of the first families of old-time Mystery Men. We were born to be metahuman. It had to be exhilarating and it was.

I glanced down at my chest and sighed. I seemed to be paying a higher price than Kevin but how many guys my age might have said at some time, "I'd give my left nut to have super-powers." I had to smile at that. I'd given both of them, and not willingly either. But it might, it just might be only temporary. And I really did have superpowers. I smiled at my own reaction.

I took a seat at the table again and Kevin passed me a fruit juice. We were talking shop, the family business, being super. What a concept, as some comic used to say.

Still smiling, I waved at Gumpy. "You talked about weapons like pistols and rifles, maybe grenades. What if someone uses artillery, or a bomb or something?"

The old man shrugged. "I've survived worse. Thermite. Lava. Liquid nitrogen. Mustard gas. I got caught on the edge of a nuclear explosion once. Wouldn't recommend it." He grinned slowly.

"We're like cockroaches, you're saying?" I suggested.

Kevin snorted, and we all grinned. Welcome to the family, Señor Cucaracha.

"Not as good an image for P.R. But we are hard to kill," said Steve, still grinning but shaking his head, too. "And here's the thing, when it's the two of you together, you are harder to hurt, harder to kill. You heal faster, recover faster, move faster. You're stronger and you can borrow from each other. You have more energy; you're like a battery."

Kevin grinned again. "I must be the positive end because Darla is sure negative."

"Yuk, yuk," I said. I put my hand on my currently flat forehead. "It's like the feelers, the dealie-bobbers, we can each know what the other is doing and about to do. We'll know when the other needs help?"

Steve nodded. "I wanted you to learn that in the training today. And I wanted the… the playing field level for the two of you, so you had to co-operate more to go up against me. In a regular fight, against someone else, Kevin would be stronger and would naturally be the point man, carrying the fight to the enemy." He gestured at Kevin.

He turned to me. "Where you would be holding back, most of the time. Looking for openings to exploit, watching Kevin's back, making an aerial attack when you learn to fly, supplying healing energy to Kevin so he can take more punishment."

"But…." The damned thing was, that was how Kevin and I had behaved in fights in school, for years, leaving out the super-powers. In fact, that's how we had fought Gumpy, earlier. Karen went for the head and face, frontal assault, while I had tried to trip the old giant and hit him in vulnerable spots he couldn't cover while fighting Karen off. I sipped my juice. "But why do I have to be a girl to do this battery thing?" I asked.

Steve shrugged. "I really don't know. You'd have to ask the Lords of the Rings."

Kevin snorted then opened his mouth.

"Stop," I interrupted. "You don't want to make a hobbit of that kind of joke."

"You mean, you're Sauron those literary references?" he got out quickly.

"Ow," said Gumpy. "Did I ever tell you about meeting the Professor himself?" he added quickly, probably to short-circuit our wordplay.

"What?" Kevin and I said at the same time. "Professor Tolkien?" I asked.

He nodded. "It was during that trip I made to London just before the war; we had some documents we needed translated. Turned out they were in some Turkmen dialect, written in Cyrillic script. Tolkien was part of the Linguistic and Cryptographic Support for M.I.6. Worked with a crew of Oxford and Cambridge big forehead guys. Seemed like a nice fellow but he wasn't at all famous back then."

Kevin and I exchanged looks again. "I guess you've met a lot of famous people, Unk?" Kevin asked.

Steve snorted. "Sure. Joe Stalin for one; a right bastard as Winston Churchill called him to me once. Winnie was a vulgar fellow when he was in the mood. Shared a shuttle flight with Eleanor Roosevelt after FDR croaked it." He frowned. "I even shook hands with Senator Aidan Overman and his sidekick Joe McCarthy, another pair of bastards."

He waved a hand. "But those are just politicians. I was in Company O with The Volunteer and all that lot, Judge Hammer, The Selkie, El Faro, Proteus. Good guys, I guess you could call them. I fought Dyna-Mann when he was Hitler's fair-haired boy before he switched sides. Damian the Lemurian is the bastard who left me on that atoll with a French atomic bomb test. Leadbone, Nemo, Dr. Styxx. My old gal pal, Ruth Lester, what a twist she was."

Sometimes Gumpy used words in ways no one did anymore, but I got the drift, as he might have said himself.

"It's not like it used to be," he said, a bit sadly. "In the 30s the gangs tried to take over the country. Prohibition had been good to them and they got strong. Then the Depression came along, and government got weak. The gangs had money and manpower and… well, they nearly took over the country. You could feel good about fighting the gangs." He shook his head and looked into his coffee cup.

"Then the war came along and there was always someone to fight all through the 40s. All the time, the plain old mystery men like I used to be got scarcer and the true metahumans started showing up. Guys who could fly, or run faster than automobiles, bounce off bullets with glowing forcefields or shoot lightning bolts out of their eyes. The Golden Passage happened in 1938," the first near approach to Earth of Prometheus in modern times, "and we kept feeling it for another six or eight years. Metahumans popping out of the woodwork." He sighed.

"When the war ended, and everyone was more or less on the same side again for awhile…. 'Cept the Russians were Communist and the Chinese went that way but there was no trouble with them until later. But what we found out was that while we was busy making war on one another, the metarays from Prometheus had affected animals, plants, too; hell, even some rocks. Not to mention people in places no one ever heard of."

We didn't say anything. This guy had lived through things we had only read about.

"Prometheus was out beyond Jupiter but stuff kept happening on Earth. Nowadays, they call it the First Dark Passage. It's like the metarays get focussed by Jupiter's gravity or something. And what happened here was monsters. The thing they called the Vor fell on Yokohama from out of space somewhere. Grizzly bears the size of locomotives in Canada. Giant snakes in Africa and South America. Ants as big as cars in Australia." He smiled. "No relation."

We laughed.

"And we had the first real metacriminals. Terrorists like Damian setting up his own country in the South Pacific. Lemuria, he got that out of a book somewhere. He'd fought the Japanese with us in WWII but afterwards…. And the… the three-wheeled son-of-a-biscuit is still alive!" He paused and sipped more coffee. "Well, so am I. With less to show for it. Just you two and your families left where he has a whole country full of mermaids and mermen and a seat in the UN."

He looked at us. "Where was I?"

"Metacriminals," I said.

He nodded. "Guys like Dr. Styxx bringing people back to life to make an army for him. Leadbone trying to transmute people's skeletons to gold. The Twelve Sinners. Starcatcher. The Dangermen. Madame Fatale. Shadojak. Things got messed up. Then Senator Overman and his pals made it a federal offense to use metapowers in committing crimes." He shook his head again. "Bastard meant well but that didn't work out the way he wanted it to."

He waved a hand, "Then here comes Prometheus back in 1955, the Silver Passage. The supergroups start getting organized 'cause governments want to have a handle on us. The Protectors in LA. The Olympians in Seattle. The Volunteers in Memphis. The Allies in Chicago. The Blue Stars in D.C. More supergroups in New York than you can count. And new baddies like that psychopath Dr. Bellerophon, the Othermen, aliens, mutants, cyborgs, ghosts, people claiming to be gods."

He stared at the wall for a minute. "I had a point I was trying to make…."

"It's different now," said Kevin.

"Mm-hm," said Gumpy. "You bet it is. Little jackscratch wars all over the place. The Russians are our friends except when they aren't. The Chinese are selling us everything from telephones to toilet seats. Government supergroups like the Blue Stars all over the country. Stainless Ed running for Congress." He grinned at that thought. "Good ol' Ed, hard-headed sonoffa, all he wanted was to be a Sheriff's Deputy. They should never have fired him."

I waved that away. Ed Simms was one of the Steelmen, a group of metas with bodies of living steel. For years, he led the LA Super Squad until he got fired in a political scandal. The story was in all the superzines, not to mention most of the mundane press, too. "How are things different, Gumpy? How is this going to affect us?"

"In my day, well, at the beginning, you worked with or around the authorities. Half the people didn't even believe in your existence which left you free to do a lot of stuff you probably couldn't get away with today. What I'm saying is that sooner or later, we've got to get you recognized with one of the supergroups." He sighed.

"Which group, Unk? The Protectors?" Kevin couldn't hide his excitement.

I rolled my eyes. "You just want to go to Hollywood and see that fifty-foot phallus from the inside."

"It's a… a what?" Gumpy stared at me. "What did you call it?" He laughed. "We used to be a lot ruder about it, we called it the Big Blue Dick." We all laughed but I could feel my face turning red.

"She's studying to be a feminist," said Kevin, metaphorically poking me in the tenderest spot he could find.

I just glared at him.

"No, I thought the Protectors might be a bit overwhelming for a couple of newbies. They've got more than a hundred members and half of them live in the tower, at least part-time. No, there's a supergroup right here in Orange County, the Cometeers."

Kevin jumped in, "Aren't they the guys who got turned into mermaids by Damian during the Fimbulwetter War?" He looked at me slyly."You'll have something in common with them, Darla."

by Erin Halfelven

3.3 Behemoth

"He's being unpleasant again, isn't he?" said Gumpy Steve, looking at Kevin.

"He's always like that," I said. "I've gotten used to it, but when he isn't looking, I give him a shot to the back of the head."

Gumpy laughed.

Kevin grinned. "She's not kidding, Unk. I've got the knots to prove it. You know I love you, Darryl, 'cause you put up with my shit and you always know when I'm serious or not."

"Not always," I said. "Hence the occasional shot to the back of the head when you're not looking."

He laughed and put out a fist and I bumped it with mine.

The old man shook his head. "You two are like siblings, always quarrelling. Don't let it affect you when you're out in the field, okay?"

We both nodded. I said, "We'll keep it down to the occasional 'You suck!'"

Kevin laughed. "Are we really going to be meeting the Cometeers? The mermaid thing wore off," he added to me.

"I know," I said. "We saw them at the Newport Christmas Boat Show," I reminded him.

"Oh, yeah," he agreed. "Phantom Angel is too hot to be a mermaid, anyway; she'd make the water boil." He waved his hand as if he had burned it. "Whoo!"

I rolled my eyes. The leader of the Cometeers was a statuesque blonde with wings when she wasn't being invisible. "Am I supposed to say something about Dreadnaught and Doc Spectrum being hunky?"

"More like chunky in Dreadnaught's case," said Kevin. "And Spectrum is a super-nerd. Don't know why she hangs out with them."

"We'll get around to seeing them when you two are more practiced. They have an association of otherwise unaffiliated metas they run as kind of a mutual aid society."

I nodded. "The Good Guy Group, they call it."

"Dumb name," said Kevin. "One of their members is called Widgetman, even dumber name."

"Still," said Gumpy, not disagreeing, "it's a smart thing to have back-up you can call. And registering with even an informal group will keep you out of major trouble with the feds."

"Aren't you a member of a group, Unk?" asked Kevin.

"Sure, several, but I'm supposed to be dead, remember? Let's keep it that way for a while longer." He looked at us sharply, and we both nodded, even though we didn't quite understand why he wanted everyone to think he was dead.

After a bit more talk, Gumpy pulled some microwave burritos out of the freezer and we had a quick snack. "Gotta keep the engine stoked," he said which went a ways to explaining why his kitchen was full of snack food. "Being meta burns lots of calories."

After we finished the burritos, chips, salsa and sodas, we trooped outside to look at the big vehicle he called the Skarabkar and I had dubbed the Behemoth. It looked even bigger on the inside with full-width bench seats front and rear and jump seats that folded down in back from the front bench.

The dash was full of scanners, radios, and computers, with three video screens, one of which was a GPS. With the jump seats folded up, the back could be turned into a miniature jail cell by pulling up a chain partition hidden in the floor. The body was armored and all the glass was "bulletproof." Gumpy described it that way, making air quotes with his fingers. "It'll stop anything up to a military .50 cal.," he said. "But an elephant gun will blow the glass away on a square hit."

"Who builds cars like this?" Kevin asked.

"Guy right here in O.C., down in Costa Mesa. Meta-Limo-ACG.," said the old man. "One million, four hundred thousand, right about, for this one."

Kevin and I looked at one another, speechless. "I guess he can afford to buy cars for us," Kevin finally said.

I nodded, blinking a little, but Gumpy shook his head. "I didn't pay for it. Kosher bought it to replace the one destroyed down in Costa Rica when I was on a mission for them."

"Kosher" was the nickname of the Combined Office of Super-Human Resources, a government agency that recruited metas for special assignments with various government departments. They handled both covert and public jobs, starting in the seventies trying to rehabilitate metas who had gotten in trouble with the law. People like Blacksmith, Cossack, Varmint, Soul Sister and Greyfog.

"I had them duplicate the look my old ride had back in the forties," said Steve, patting the Behemoth affectionately. "Let's go for a spin."

"Shotgun!" Kevin yelled.

"I'm not sitting in the back!" I protested.

"Get up front, between us," said Gumpy. "You can operate the computer and radios."

"Do we have to be in costume for this?" I asked. I didn't really want to sit in the middle seat either, but it was better than being in the back with the chain partition and the disappearing door handles.

"Not really, no one can see us inside," he said. "But if and when I let either of you drive, you will have to be in your uniforms."

I slid across the leather from the driver's side and settled into the bucket-seat-like middle indent while Kevin got in from the passenger side. Gumpy showed us how to bring up the crash harnesses from the seat backs but for this drive we just used the three-point seat belt arrangement.

Steve called up traffic radar on his GPS, and when the screens showed the road to be clear for a quarter mile each way, we pulled out onto the highway in front of Casa Sunderman. "The car can drive itself, actually," he said. "Voice commands, pre-programmed routes, all that. We're hooked in with Skytower One for the best GPS on the planet, too."

Even as just Steve Sunderman, Gumpy is a big guy, but I still had plenty of elbow room in the middle seat. Two keyboards on swivels came out of the dash in front of me, one alphabetic and one numeric. The GPS screen faced the driver at an angle, but the other screens could be swiveled to be used from any of the front seats. A touchpad came out from a slot under the screen with an attached stylus that could also be used on either screen. The multi-band radio could get anything from commercial digital television to police and military secure single sideband.

"Tap in this command, sweetie," said Gumpy to me. "Act Bug One Colon Zee Cue Arr Bee."

Kevin almost choked laughing while I glared at Gumpy. "Don't call me that!" I said.

The old man looked blank. "Wha'd I say?"

"Don't call me 'sweetie,'" I said, trying not to make a face.

"Oh, sorry," he managed not to smile. "Eighty-year-old social reflexes, I guess. You remember the command I gave, uh, Darryl?"

I nodded and poked in, "Act Bug 1:ZQRB" on the keyboard.

"Enter," said Gumpy.

I did. The hood of the Behemoth turned dark silver and the bug-shaped hood ornament folded down into some recess.

"Magnetic color control. The blue insignia on the doors have also disappeared," noted Gumpy. "Less conspicuous for cruising. Lots of old classic cars in this area, no one's going to notice that this thing is a foot longer than a real 1942 Packard."

Sudden acceleration pushed me back into the seat. I watched the speedometer climb toward eighty as the car leaned in and out of the switchbacks coming off the mountain.

"Active suspension," said Gumpy.

"Nice," said Kevin.

We reached the highway and joined the freeway shortly after, headed toward Laguna Beach. The speedometer continued to climb until Gumpy finally eased off at around 110. The Tuesday afternoon traffic would be light for another hour or so, but the big car wove in and out of the pack so smoothly that we reached the edge of Laguna before we had to slow down.

We turned right at PCH and cruised the beach road in our million dollar wheels, watching the crowds on the chilly spring sands. Some meta with a fire trick was juggling flames on the beach, attracting attention.

"Why do some people waste their abilities?" Kevin asked. "If he can throw fire like that, couldn't he do something better with his life than busking?"

Gumpy snorted. "That may be all he can do; not everyone with superpowers is a world beater."

"Spot-on-the-wall," I said, using George R.R. Martin's phrase.

"Yah," agreed Gumpy.

"Still a waste," said Kevin.

The old man chuckled. "You think everyone meta should have some high purpose? Not all of us were chosen or selected to be who or what we are. A lot of people just wake up one morning or recover from some trauma and discover they've been touched by the Dark Star."

Or by the god of the Dark Star, if you're one of the cultists who believe that kind of stuff. I wondered how the Insect Lords as Gumpy had called them once fit into any sort of reasonable theology.

We were passing the scrubland around the new houses on Newport Coast to our right, even scrubbier brush to our left going down through Crystal Cove State Park to the sand cliffs above Pelican Point. I thought about visiting the rocky beach down there with my mom and sister years ago, when we first moved to Orange County. I'd had no idea what kind of family I had been born into.

"If we get our powers from the rings, are we really metas?" I asked.

"The big wigs say so," said Gumpy. "Can't manipulate the mega-quantum forces unless you are."

"Meta-quantum?" Kevin asked.

Gumpy shook his head. "Mega-quanta are the packets of other worldly energies given off by Prometheus; meta-rays, sometimes called."

"Huh," said Kevin. None of us were actually that interested in the technical details of how meta-reality worked so that conversation died.

Especially when we all suddenly noticed a white SUV coming toward us on the other side of the road. We couldn't see anything notable about it, but it held our interest until it was past. Inside, we could see a male driver, a woman in the passenger seat and two or three children in the back. None of us said anything until it had disappeared well behind us.

"What was that?" Kevin asked. "It was like that old TV show; my Skarab senses were tingling."

I agreed. "It was like an itch in the dealie-bobbers we're not wearing at the moment."

Gumpy shook his head. "One of the mysteries we have to live with. Someone or something in that car was meta, probably in a bad way. We can't really do anything about it unless we see something or know what's wrong some other way."

Kevin and I were silent for a moment then looked at one another.

"Sucks," said Kevin and I nodded.

"Got that right," said Gumpy in a tired voice.

by Erin Halfelven

3.5 Shoes

With Adele's help, I found a pair of camouflage cargo pants I liked a lot. They had a green and gold and maroon pattern that resonated with my sense of color—and they had a ton of pockets. It kind of went against my shopping instincts to buy something at my first stop, but I really did need the pockets.

"Take them in and try them on," she said pressing a stack of clothes on me. "There's the green in small and extra-small and I included both in the other colors you were looking at, too."

I'd made the mistake of checking out a pair in fake camouflage colors of lavender, magenta and navy, thinking of my "sister," Karen, aka Maiden Fly. Adele assumed that I would want them, too. I didn't argue but headed toward the dressing room. The girls' dressing room, of course, but I didn't even waste mental effort on resenting that.

I hadn't seen myself in big mirrors before, and the ones in the dressing room wrapped around and gave me a 360 view. I looked so much like my sister Tanya that I almost wanted to puke but frowning or pouting just increased the resemblance. I tried a big goofy fake smile and almost made myself laugh: Tanya when she was really trying to be human had a grin like that.

Sigh.

I still had Gumpy's $300 clutched in my hand. I carefully put that down on the bench, kicked off the slippers I had ruined and pulled down the green slacks I had been wearing since the garage. My legs looked fine, I decided, but I didn't want to be showing them off to anyone, so I hurried to try on my possible purchases.

Unfortunately, the cargo pants in extra small fit me like they were tailored to my new shape. The small felt about two sizes too big. I almost resented being tiny more than being a girl. I even tried on the pinkish ones to be sure that they would fit Karen, if ever needed. The bright colors went with my complexion better than the drabber ones, but that wasn't what I was buying them for.

I put the extra-small green pair back on. I would wear these out of the store, I decided. I turned a few times in front of the mirrors, just checking out the fit and suddenly stopped, staring back over my shoulder at the rounded, upside-down heart-shape my ass made in the new pants.

"Crud," I said out loud.

Nothing for it, though, any clothes I wore that fit halfway decently would likely make my new sex obvious. I gave myself an over-the-shoulder Tanya-look and stuffed the money into my new pockets. I snagged everything else, including the shoes and pants I had worn to the mall, before leaving the dressing room to pay for things.

* * *

Adele had been helpful, but I wanted to buy shoes from a shoe place, and there were several outlets in the mall. Two pair of cargo pants had cost less than eighty dollars so I still had plenty of money and a bag holding my old green slacks and the pink pair of cargos I had gotten for Karen. I buttoned my money into one of my new pockets and headed on down the mall.

What kind of shoes did I want? Cross-trainers sounded like a good idea or perhaps running shoes, maybe a pair of each. I stopped and looked in the windows at a couple of places. Nothing caught my eye until I lingered in front of one of the major brand outlet stores and saw a pair of black and orange trainers with neon green stitching. Women's sizing but not especially feminine looking, I figured they might work well with my new cargo pants.

I looked up and realized that two of the shoe guys in the store were looking back at me. I smiled by reflex and, I swear, they both got big grins of the kind Gumpy would probably call 'shit-eating'. They must really need a sale, I thought. The shoes had a price beside them of $58 marked down from $109. I could afford that and have enough left for some real running shoes, maybe.

The guys inside looked at each other and something went on between them, the taller one headed toward me, and the other turned away looking disgusted. What was that about, I wondered?

The shoe guy walked up to me, and I realized he was probably only nineteen or twenty, maybe younger. A good-looking sort with that self-satisfied smirk of a jock in one of the mainstream sports. He didn't look tall enough for basketball or bulky enough for football so I would guess baseball, the season just beginning.

"Can I help you find anything, miss?" he asked politely, though he stood a bit closer to me than I really liked.

Backing up half a step, I pointed at the trainers. "I'd like to try those on," I said, not looking at him because I would have had to look up.

"Sure," he said, taking note of the style number. "What's your size?"

I knew I had tiny feet, so I guessed; "Six in most sneakers," I said.

"Noobs run small," he said, "I'll bring them in six and six-and-a-half. You wanna see any other colors? They also come in blue and gray."

I shook my head. He had moved up close to me again, and I felt a bit of something. Not exactly unpleasant but nothing I was used to feeling. Damned antenna, I thought.

He disappeared into the back, and I took a seat in one of the chairs. I took off my battered slippers and put on a pair of footies offered by the other shoe guy who lingered nearby, not quite staring at me. I thought about glaring at him to discourage whatever he might be thinking, but I guess I am just too polite.

The first guy returned with four boxes in one hand and two in the other and pulled up one of those trapezoidal shoe-salesmen stools in front of me. "I brought the other colors, anyway," he said. "Maybe if you really like them, you'll buy more than one pair."

I had to grin at that, he was a salesman after all but when he flashed a brilliant smile back at me, I felt like I had swallowed an ice cube. Unable to tell him not to for a moment, I let him try the first pair of black and orange shoes on my feet. They seemed to fit perfectly, though I felt a little short of breath when he touched my instep.

He slid his stool back and stood, offering me a hand. "Wanna walk around in them?"

I stood up without his help and strode around the store a bit, even doing a ten-yard dash down one aisle, which made him laugh. "Oh," he said. "You're a runner!"

"You can tell?" I asked. "Just from that?" I was pleased though.

"Sure," he said. "You've got the moves. Track and field or cross country?"

"Uh, cross," I said.

"Me, too," he said. "I play baseball in the spring."

I blinked. "Me, too," I said.

"You mean softball," he suggested. "Infield?"

"Utility," I said. "You're a pitcher?" I asked, considering his height and lean build.

He nodded, looking pleased. "How'd you guess that?"

"Probably the swagger," I said. Nobody can pitch without enough ego to stand in front of someone trying to hit a 90 MPH ball back at them.

He grinned and nodded with a self-deprecating smirk, and I had to laugh. His eyes twinkled as he laughed, too. I looked away, surprised because... I wasn't sure why I was surprised.

"Wanna see the other colors?" he offered.

I nodded. The gray pair had purple accents and magenta laces, and I surprised myself again by wanting them. "I'll take those, too, and the ones I'm wearing," I said. Maybe Karen could wear them.

"You wanna try on the bigger size?"

I shook my head. "These fit perfect." I dug into my pocket for my money.

He put my old slippers into the box the trainers came in, and we moved toward the register. I added the bag he handed me to the one holding the extra pair of pants I had bought. The total came to about $126, and I still had almost $100 left of the money Gumpy gave me.

"Jimmy," he said as he handed me my change. "I'm Jimmy."

"D-Darla," I said. When our hands touched, I felt an electric current run up my arm. I felt sure it had turned my ears red when it reached them.

"You're in high school? Where at?"

"Rancho Palos Verdes," I lied, naming a school up in L.A. County.

"Slumming down here in the Orange?" he asked grinning.

"Something," I said. I had to get out of there. I had to get away. I knew I might give him my phone number if he asked for it. I turned toward the mall, trying to get moving without saying anything else.

"Bye, darlin'," he said. Not Darla, which was bad enough; I felt sure he had said, "darlin'."

I didn't quite hurry getting out of there but when I reached the next corner of the mall corridor and looked back, Jimmy and his partner in shoes were still watching me. They waved.

I waved back. I don't know why I did that.

by Erin Halfelven

3.6 Action!

I stepped out into the mall, a little more aware of how I looked after spending time in the dressing room and watching how guys reacted to me. I didn't really see it, myself – for gosh-sakes I looked like my sister –but apparently…. Well, apparently…. I decided I just didn't want to think about that.

I looked around the mall. I still had money left, but I had accomplished what I intended to do, new shoes, new pants. I could go meet the guys at Dave and Buster's…. Did I just think of Gumpy and Kevin as "the guys"?

Okay, anything but that, at least, not right away. I decided I could use a new shirt, too; something a little less pink than what I was wearing. I could buy three or four shirts, at least, and still have money left over. But how many shirts did I need? As long as I was stuck as Darla, I might need a few but….

At that point, I naturally glanced down at my right hand where the invisible ring had been. Only, now it was visible.

I almost dropped the bags I was carrying. I could…could I?…change back? My brain spun with the idea of me being me again.

I leaned against one of the pillars between shops to think. I stared at the ring, clearly visible but without the green stone. Instead, it had a small pattern, sort of like a Celtic knot, etched right into the golden metal. But, it was THE ring, my ring; I knew that the way I knew that the finger it was on was my finger.

My ring. Not anyone else's. I felt that, too. I clenched my fist; the ring had surrendered to me, put me in charge. I could be whoever I wanted to be.

I could go back to being Darryl.

I felt dizzy with the possibility. Why was I even stopping to think about it? Find a private spot, maybe the corridor leading to the bathrooms? Twist the ring and go back to being me!

I wanted to, but on another level, I had been enjoying myself, really, for the first time since this all began. If I could be Darryl anytime I wanted, I didn't have to stop being Darla just because I could…did I?

But before I could make any decisions I felt a tingle in my forehead, where my antenna would be if I were wearing them. A moment later, an alarm started to ring.

Without thinking about how I knew where to look, I saw that four shops down on the other side of the hallway, someone was robbing a jewelry store. My next reaction surprised me even more. I tucked my shopping bags under my arms and reached for the ring on my right hand, automatically, as if I had been doing this for years.

I hesitated only a moment, worried that someone would see me change, but no one was looking directly at me. Inside the shop, I could see a burly man wearing a sweatshirt on the customer side of the counter and two well-dressed shop people on the other side. Schoesten and Hodge, the sign read, Discount Jewelers.

I took a breath and twisted the ring. The change rippled through me; I felt taller, stronger, faster, more aware of my surroundings. My dealie-boppers sprouted on my forehead, quivering with information. The bags I had been carrying disappeared with my clothes into whatever dimension stored things I wasn't wearing.

The green, yellow and magenta Damselfly costume covered me from antenna to heels, and I hurried toward the jewelry store opening, not running exactly but moving fast. Other people in the mall were headed away from the alarm, some of them saw me and some reacted.

A small boy pointed. "Look, Mommy!" he said, "It's Grasshopper Girl!" I rolled my eyes; there was no such person as Grasshopper Girl, I hoped, and I sure didn't want to get tagged with that name.

"I'm Damselfly!" I said. "Call the police!"

An Hispanic teen-age boy boggled at me as I brushed past him. "Ay! Una trajulera hermosa!" he said, looking me up and down.

I blushed. My Spanish wasn't that good, but I knew 'trajulera' was slang for a girl in a tight costume. It sounded better than the English equivalent 'spandexette', at least.

Two girls about my age urged me on. "Go-go girl, go!" they cheered.

No one in the jewelry store seemed to be reacting to the alarm, but chaos filled the space, so no wonder. I paused at the doorway. Nearly every display case in the store had shattered – that had probably set off the alarm.

The burly man stood in the middle of the room, his legs wide apart, his hands open, his shoulders moving in a shrug. "I ain't doing nothing," he said, then turned because the clerks were looking past him at me. "Hey! Maybe she's doing it! She's the one wearing a costume!" He pointed at me, grinning.

Rings and bracelets, necklaces and brooches, and a few larger items flew around the room, swooping and diving at everyone's faces now and then. The older man behind the counter, Mr. Schoesten perhaps, looked at me narrowly and almost got kranged by a jewel decorated teapot. "Who are you?" he demanded.

"I'm… Damselfly," I said, again, almost without hesitation. "My partners will be here in a moment." I could already feel Gumpy and Kevin through my antenna. They were moving toward me but were most of a block away at the end of the mall in the big arcade. "What's going on?"

"Perhaps we are being robbed?" said Mr. Schoesten. He pointed at the man in the sweatsuit.

"Not by me," said the burly man, still grinning like someone telling a lie he knows will not be believed. Up close, he looked more pudgy than burly, with lank dark hair receding from a round face. An almost familiar face, had I seen him somewhere? Maybe on a wanted poster?

Suddenly the jewelry in the store changed course, every bit of it headed right at me. Okay, I squealed in surprise; I did not scream. I had already knocked several pieces away from my face when a heavy tiara orbited around and struck me in the temple. That hurt and I tried to reach up to seize it before it could strike me again.

Ropes of pearls and semi-precious stones looped around my neck and chains of gold and silver twined around my wrists and ankles. This was not something I had expected to have to fight. I staggered backward, barely keeping my balance and feeling very foolish.

"She's getting away with the loot!" the pudgy guy exclaimed. He charged out of the store, heading for me, his expression one of greedy delight. I noticed that his sweatsuit had a college logo on it; CalState Long Beach 49ers Volleyball – as if his short pudginess ever played any sport.

But he didn't need to be a sportsman. I had little doubt that he was moving the jewelry with some metahuman power but when I started to say something to that effect, the flying jewels filled my mouth with earrings and smaller baubles. Almost choking, I lost my footing and fell flat on my ass in the middle of the mall.

Trying not to swallow any merchandise or do any damage I didn't have to do, I sort of scooted on my butt across the smooth tile, staying out of reach of the pudgy meta who kept reaching for me. I was too mad to feel embarrassed, but the asshat was laughing at me and that had to stop.

"Come back with my bling!" he said, grinning and finally admitting that he was trying to steal the stuff. I scooted away again, trying to get him into position. With my arms and legs restricted by jewelry chains I did not want to break, I had limited mobility but enough strength to move myself with neck, shoulders and heels against the floor.

When I felt I had maneuvered him near enough, and a bit off balance, I swung my legs sideways into his knees and down he went. Right on top of me, but I flexed my back and legs, arching up on shoulders and heels to throw him off, timing it to get maximum arc.

He should have landed face first on the tile beside me but instead he continued upward, stopping about six feet up and hovering like a sleazy balloonimal.

"Too swift for you, Ladybug!" he snarled.

The bastard could fly!

The necklaces tightened their grip on my throat. Pins tried to pierce my skin and clasps tried to pinch me while he turned in midair, gained more altitude and came straight down at me, heels aimed right at my middle.

"Know what I do with bugs? Stomp on them!" he said.

I tried to roll out of the way, but some invisible force held me where I was. The renegade tiara poked at my eyes as the fat little douche landed on me with more than his own weight driven by his telekinesis or whatever it was.

I oofed and spewed beads and baubles out of my mouth. I'm sure he expected to at least knock the wind out of me. But insect powers are worth something – I'd been breathing through my skin, storing up oxygen in my tissues since he'd first tried to block my air.

To heck with worrying about breaking a few pieces of jewelry, I needed to show this clown what I could really do. Silver and gold are flimsy; I flexed my skinny, girly, META, arms and snapped half a dozen chains wrapped around me. I lunged for his ankles as he flew up to try another piledriver.

About that time, both of our partners arrived.

by Erin Halfelven

3.7 Patrol

I sensed Kevin, or Skarab, arriving before he took out the hovering fat dude with a long, low leap. The meaty impact sounded like it hurt the would-be jewel thief. Good, I thought.

"Not nice to stomp on people, jerkface," Kevin bantered as they careened down the hallway. Kevin kept the bad guy under him while they bounced a few times.

I rolled over and jumped to my feet, noticing as I did so that I actually was sore where the bozo had landed on me. I hadn't felt it in the middle of the fight.

My dealie-bobbers warned me just before Blutarsky's (he really did look a bit like John Belushi) partner attacked. Or partners.

There were four of them, lean and tall where Bluto was pudgy and short. They surrounded me, punching and kicking with meta-swiftness and power. They looked alike, but I didn't notice that immediately. What I mostly noticed was that about half of their blows were landing, and they did hurt. One caught me on the jaw, and I really did see stars for a moment.

I jumped out of the middle of the fight; they might be quick and strong, but they couldn't jump like I could. I took a moment to kick one of them in the head as I leaped past. Another of them yelled something. "Howie! Get us out of here!"

I'd hardly landed before they surrounded me again. I glanced over at where Kevin-Skarab was trying to shove the fatter guy into a recycling bin. "No hitting my sister!" Kevin was saying. "You're a bad sleazoid! Bad thug! No cookies!" He delivered a kick to the ass and seemed to be enjoying himself.

Sister? We would have to have a talk about that, but I had my hands full. Four guys, each of whom seemed to be about four times as strong as any normal person, were all trying to punch out my lights simultaneously. Of course, according to Gumpy, I was maybe ten times as strong as I looked which should give me an edge against any one of these guys but four of them did make it a contest.

And where was Gumpy? Wasn't he going to join this fight? I didn't have time to look for him and scarcely time to think about it. The four guys co-ordinated their attacks like they were thinking with one brain and that gave them another edge. It was like fighting a double octopus.

I shook off another thump to the side of my head and flung one of my attackers out of action, up against a wall. The sight of his legs upside down and akimbo caused me to twig to something. These guys were NOT all alike; they had on different colored socks. Did that mean anything?

"What the heck?" I heard Kevin say. "Where did he go?" I glanced over that way, Bluto, or Howie, or whatever his name was, had disappeared from his semi-immersion in the recycling container. I glanced up and saw him near the thirty-foot high ceiling, coming down feet-first at Kevin's head.

"Skarab!" I shouted and Kevin dodged sideways, towards me, warned by my shout and the feeling I sent through our antennae. I leaped out of the circle of my attackers again, aiming up at the human missile plummeting down at Kevin.

Just like that, we swapped foes. Bluto couldn't change his attack quickly enough to account for me hitting him in the side, and Kevin went into the group of identicals like a blue-and-gold bowling ball picking up a six-seven-nine-ten split. Six flew into seven, tangling them up, and Kevin's charge carried himself and the nine-ten pair out the window of the mall onto the grassy verge around the parking lot.

More collateral damage, I thought, but I couldn't worry about that at the moment. Slugging Fatboy didn't seem to do much; he had something like telekinetic armor, deflecting my punches. And he could add his TK to his own punches, giving me a pretty good pounding.

"Pete!" he shouted. "Pick-a-back!"

One of the multiple guys made a noise like a dog growling, then turned and ran down the middle of the corridor. "11-28 Check Red!" he yelled as he dodged through bystanders scrambling to get out of his way. One guy didn't dodge. Unfortunately for "Pete", that guy was Gumpy.

Still in civilian clothes, Gumpy didn't move when Pete ran full-tilt right into him. A hand the size of a first basemen's mitt came up and grabbed Pete by the neck.

My dance partner had pulled his disappearing act again and I looked around wildly, trying to spot him. There he was, coming down from the ceiling, aiming at Gumpy this time.

I felt my wings unfurl as I leaped into the air, and I flew like an arrow toward Bluto-Howie; fists clenched in front of me to make a spear point. I didn't even think about it; I just flew. The wings made a whirring noise, like a scale model helicopter—or a giant bug. I concentrated on flying straight at Bluto and trying not to laugh because—I was flying!

Gumpy saw that he was Howie's chosen target, so he picked up Pete by the neck and used him as a shield. Pete made strangling noises, but there wasn't much he could do about it. He might be four times as strong as a normal person but even in mufti, my Gumpy probably rated up around 20 times manstrong. Pete was helpless and I was impressed.

I should say, a Pete, as the other three multiples broke toward Gumpy with Kevin in hot pursuit.

I speared Howie in the side with my fists, and he said, "Oof!" like how much it hurt surprised him. He also swerved sideways, landing on his feet behind Gumpy.

I gained some altitude, intending to kick Howie as I flew past. Gumpy spun around, still holding his Pete like a shield while the lanky bast-, uh bad guy, braced himself with his feet against Gumpy's chest. Kevin overtook the trailing extra Petes and slammed one into the tiles with an elbow smash.

Howie and Gumpy's captive Pete clasped hands; Howie muttered something that sounded like, "Rope-a-dope!" and they both disappeared, followed almost immediately by the disappearance of the extra multiples.

While Kevin and I were staring around, expecting another attack from somewhere, Gumpy pulled his own disappearing act, melting into the crowd–pretty remarkable for a white-haired giant.

I landed beside Kevin-Skarab, and grinned at him. He grinned back. I said, "I can fly!" just as he said, "You can fly!"

I looked around to see about fifty phone lenses pointed at us. I waved and kept grinning. The noise of the crowd resolved into a few discernible voices. The prevalent question seemed to be, "Who are you guys?" though there were murmurs of – "Wow!" – "New metas!" – "She's hot! – "He's hot!" and a few "F—ing comet trash!"

Yes, folks, just like in that series of movies with Patrick Stewart, there are people who hate all metas.

Pressure from the back of the crowd was pushing the forward members closer to us. Someone reached for one of my wings. "Let's get out of here," I said to Kevin.

"Out the broken window," he agreed. I flew ahead and he followed me. We went out across the south parking lot toward the medical buildings there and beyond them to the trees concealing the entrance to Dreadnaught's underground turnpike; Kevin hopping like some gigantic blue-and-gold flea all the way.

I laughed. I had to laugh. I swooped, I dove, I climbed high and did an Immelman like I had seen in some old movie. "I can fly! I can fly! I can fly!" I squealed. I could hear Kevin laughing as he bounced over parked cars and 40-foot tall palm trees.

The Behemoth came roaring out of hiding and screeched to a halt near the exit to the parking lot. Kevin and I changed our courses to intercept it, and Gumpy came barreling out of somewhere to reach the car before we did. The front doors opened for us, and we got inside quickly, my wings folding up and disappearing as I landed.

Gumpy slid behind the wheel, and the doors closed as Kevin settled beside me. "You can summon this thing? How'd you do that, Unk?"

"Yes. No," said Gumpy. "Howie Dudat and Pete Henri Peet, the Bruise Brothers."

"Is that who those guys were?" I asked.

Behemoth accelerated to cruising speed, we took the underpass, hooked the offramp and merged into traffic on the 22, heading east. Gumpy still hadn't touched the wheel.

"They usually operate out of Seattle, mercenary bad guys," said Gumpy. "Smash-and-grab robberies they do just for fun and beer money."

"I had fun," said Kevin. "But they got away."

"Howie can teleport short distances," said Gumpy. "Their usual M.O. is to go up to the roof and then 'port somewhere nearby where they can hide."

"We should look for them!" said Kevin, excited by the idea of continuing the fight.

Gumpy shook his head. "Let the cops or some other supers take them on. You guys are still not registered, and you could get in trouble." He winced. "For one thing, you don't have meta-insurance for any damage you cause."

"Is that why you didn't suit up?" Kevin asked.

"No, I just…." He stopped talking for a moment. Behemoth, still in self-drive, took the ramp onto I5. "Let's keep it to only one Skarab on scene for now, okay?" said Gumpy.

Kevin nodded and so did I, as if I had any say in it.

But Gumpy was grinning at me. "You flew! On your first patrol, you flew. Good job." He widened the grin to include Kevin. "You both did good; those guys are a bit out of your league but you made them retreat."

Kevin laughed out loud. "How about that, sis? We did good!"

I laughed too, but I asked. "What's this sister stuff? You called me your sister to that Howie muffin-top, too."

"Well, you didn't want me to claim you were my girlfriend, did you?" he asked.

I slugged him. Not hard, sitting in the center seat, I didn't have the leverage to hit very hard, so I struck with my other hand for his ribs and tickled him, too. He laughed like a loon and tried to capture both of my hands in one of his. "Stop! Don't! Unk, help! She's tickling me!" he complained, still laughing.

I realized something. Kevin was not going to hit back while I was Darla, or rather, Damselfly. I kept tickling him. I said, "This is what sisters do!" I knew because Tanya used to do it to me.

by Erin Halfelven

3.8 Parsifal

The Garden Grove police lieutenant in charge of investigating meta-crime had taken the call from the outlet mall security officer, got the details and put them on the computer for access by patrol officers on their in-car computers. Lt. Bryce Handford's main job was coordination with the Federal Office of Meta-Crime, but he also supervised most local investigations that the Foamies didn't care to bother with.

The Overman Act made it a federal crime to use meta-powers to break the law, whether the law broken was federal or not, but that didn't mean the Feds wanted every single case. Still, they usually wanted to see the paperwork on any such investigation. Sometimes it was like taking your dad along on a date, the sense of someone very critical looking over your shoulder.

An inch or so over six feet, a pound or two over two hundred pounds, a year and a month past forty, a shade darker than milk chocolate, with thinning brown hair and tired hazel eyes, Bryce might have made captain of detectives in a different police force — or maybe not. His superiors had him pegged as having an attitude problem, but Bryce had the job he wanted to have. A small group of rotating detectives under him, some authority over the uniforms and an unclear chain of command above him. He did pretty much what he wanted to do with his time, protected people working for him from shit coming down from above, and kept the federal forces as happy as they were likely to be.

Bryce's job involved a lot of paperwork, and he normally had to CC the local agent of the FOMC on every single piece. He'd been familiar with all of the men and meta-humans who had held the office over the years and was aware that there was a new marshall in town and who had been assigned to the Orange County Bureau as Special Agent in Charge. So he wasn't surprised to see a tall guy in spandex and a short white cape standing by his desk when he got back from a trip to the copier.

"Lieutenant Handford?" asked the man, smiling and holding out his hand.

"Call me Bryce," said the plainclothes policeman, taking the offered handshake carefully. Some of these super-mooks literally did not know their own strength. "Parsifal, right?"

"My friends call me Perry," the federal agent said as they moved toward the seats around Handford's desk. Two of the police office staff and one plainclothes detective, all three of them female, tried not to be obvious about staring at Parsifal in his tighty-whites.

Bryce looked him over without saying anything. Parsifal stood about six-five with a lean muscular build revealed in the traditional skin-tight costume of a superhero. In his case, all-white one-piece tunic-and-tights with no belt. Not even a panty line; and his boots were white, too. The only bits of color in his uniform were the gold clasp at the neck to hold on his cape, the gold edging of said cape, and the blue star high on the left side of his chest. He wore no gloves; his hands were large but looked narrow, his fingers long and his nails neat and clean. He had dark red hair, an improbable shade of true red due to his otherworldly origins, and bright blue eyes in a tanned and very handsome face.

Bryce's eyes avoided lingering on one of the more legendary aspects of Parsifal's anatomy and felt relieved when the prominent bulge was out of sight after they sat down. He smiled at the meta-human. "You were in the Cavaliers, right?" he said, making conversation. The metas liked to think that everyone knew every detail of their public lives, even when those details might be a bit unsavory.

Parsifal winced. "Galahad is dead and Lancelot is in Flatiron," he said naming two of his old partners. Flatiron was the nickname of the Federal Correctional Institute for Meta-Offenders at Apache Mountain in Arizona.

"Uh, right…." Bryce feigned embarrassed. He'd known the pressure points of Parsifal's history. "Met your dad once," he said, trying an icebreaking comment to relieve the tension he had deliberately created.

"Was he sober?" asked Parsifal with no expression at all.

"Oh, c'mon!" said Bryce and Parsifal flashed a grin.

Bryce grinned, too. A federal agent with a sense of humor would make his job a bit easier. Parsifal's father was one of the old time supers, Dyna-Mann, who had once got drunk on cranberry juice cordials and nearly wrecked Los Angeles during the Fimbulwetter War. It was legendary but not at all typical of the German super's history.

"So how did you screw up to get assigned as SAIC in Orange County, CA?" Bryce asked.

Parsifal laughed out loud. In fact, OC was considered a plum assignment in all federal agencies.

After a few more jokes, they finally got down to business. "I understand you've had a bit of a jooce problem?"

Bryce stopped smiling. He nodded. "Two kids went hyper earlier today. Busted up some shops in Santa Ana then ended up in a face off with a patrol unit where Garden Grove and Orange come together. The boy picked up a patrol car and tossed it into the path of a bus. The girl set fire to herself and about fifty parked cars. They were overhyped and went into burndown. We got them in the intensive care meta-unit at UCLA's OC clinic."

"Went there first," said Parsifal seriously. "The docs won't tell me anything except that they don't know if the kids are going to make it."

Bryce shrugged. You jooced, you took chances. He had callouses on his soul from where he used to care too much.

"How'd they get enough pure stuff to go major?" asked the ex-Cavalier.

"Santa Ana cops screwed up," said the lieutenant. "Busted a dealer but failed to find his stash. The kids found it; they were already joocers but only for the high and the rush. But they ended up having access to something like 4000 street doses. It's a wonder they didn't blow themselves to Antartica."

Parsifal made a clucking noise and stared at the blotter on Bryce's desk. He finally said, "They go permanent meta, it's going to be some messed up."

"Too early to tell. Stupid kids." Bryce sighed. They might die; they might recover completely, they might go permanent meta with powers… they might wake up as monsters.

Bryce moved some papers around on his desk. "Had another joocer episode today, too. Over at the outlet mall. Two old hands, The Bruise Brothers, just causing a racket and making trouble. A couple of kids dressed like Skarab and Damselfly, evidently unregistered metas, nearly took them down, but Howie and Pete escaped."

"New generation? What will this be? The fifth Skarab and the fourth Damselfly?"

"Depends on how you count, I guess," said Bryce. "First Skarab sighting was 1934…." They both paused a moment and exchanged significant looks. No one knew about metas in 1934, but that was the year of the second sighting of the Comet Prometheus; an event that allowed astronomers to calculate the near-Earth orbital path of the Golden Passage. A lot of old time Mystery Men who first appeared in the years around that time later turned out to be early metas.

Parsifal looked interested. "The old man is supposed to be dead but no one believes it. Rumor, in fact, had him living here in OC."

"The old man?" asked Bryce. "You mean the original Skarab? He'd be like a hundred now?"

"Not quite but close," agreed Parsifal. Bryce shook his head but Parsifal pointed out, "He once survived being in the blast radius of a nuclear bomb test."

"Fifty years ago. Before either of us were born. How old is your dad?" He shuffled papers on his desk, then started something to the printer that served his computer.

Parsifal shrugged. "No one knows; he wasn't born in this timeline. But when he was in the Hitler Youth pre-WWII, he looked about thirteen. A very big thirteen. His foster parents claimed to have found him wandering naked in the Bavarian mountains in 1931, looking maybe six or so."

"Fuck it," said Bryce. He pulled a grainy picture out of the printer tray and pushed it over toward Parsifal who leaned forward to look at it.

It was a print from a frame of a security camera in the outlet mall. It showed a bulky older man, square-jawed, beetle-browed and with blue eyes almost as bright as Parsifal's.

"He's still alive, isn't he?" said the federal agent.

"Looks fairly alive," said Bryce. "Not pushing up daisies or singing in the choir eternal. He'd just rolled his ninth perfect game on the skeeball court at Dave and Busters."

"There are people in Washington who will be pleased to hear that."

Bryce nodded. "Pretty impressive scoring," he said with a straight face.

Parsifal grinned. "Wonder if Skarab's Insect Lords are any kin to my dad's Martians?" he mused, looking the picture over carefully. "I guess those were his kids…."

"Grandkids, stuttering-g-great-grandkids, whatever," agreed Bryce. He pushed over some pictures of the new Skarab and Damselfly.

"Look pretty young," said the ex-Cavalier who could have passed for a teenager himself, despite being four years older than Bryce. He smiled. "The girl is fly."

Bryce winced. "You are entirely too white to make that joke, Percy."

"Perry," said the federal agent, acknowledging the zing with a shrug. "I'm not white, I'm meta."

"Huh," said Bryce. He pulled the photos back and looked at them again. He genuinely liked most of the overfolk he knew, and Parsifal seemed a good sort, despite what had happened to his old partners. The two kids in the pictures looked like they were having fun. He hoped vaguely that nothing bad would happen to them, knowing as much of the history of the Skarab clan as almost anyone without a secret clearance was likely to.

"Meta-girls always seem too good looking to be believed," commented Parsifal, watching Bryce stare at the images.

"Got that right," said Bryce. "Your mother was Babe Hanrah? The Olympic swimmer who had her medals taken away when they found out she was meta?"

Parsifal nodded. "Naomi Hanrah, that's right."

Bryce smiled. "Now she was superfly," he said.

"Yo' mama," said Parsifal.

 
The man who had called himself The Urban Commando for nearly twenty years looked into the woman's eyes. She repeated herself. "You're dying."

"I heard you," he said.

The explosion had nearly ripped him in two, if not for his armor he would already be dead. "Got those people out?" he asked again.

She nodded. "Most of them."

Which meant not all. So Baron Stryker had won, innocents had died and Urban had failed. He already knew that Stryker had escaped, riding that doomsday device he had stolen from Hermetic Labs.

"'S'funny," he whispered. "All I wanted to do was stop the street crime, people getting shot. Who knew I'd end up fighting a fricking mad scientist for half my life?"

She didn't laugh, pushing her silvery hair away where it almost fell into his face. "I can save you," she said.

"Do it, Lady K," he said. "I still have to get that bastard Stryker."

She nodded. "You know you will die as Urban Commando? But you'll live on as someone else, someone who would have died without your life force?"

"Got it," he said. "Be quick."

Lady Karma put her hands on his face and everything went dark.

* * *

"She's a fighter," someone said.

Tessie heard them talking about her.

"Broken ribs, concussion, pneumonia, she could have died in the plane crash, let alone walking out of the Cascades with her injuries in the winter."

They probably didn't know she could hear them.

"Pretty remarkable for a little girl," one of the voices commented.

"I'm only eight now," thought Tessie. "I could use a long vacation but you've got less than a decade, Stryker. Then I'm coming for you." She snuggled with the enormous Raggedy Anne her new parents had bought for her and went back to sleep.

Don't blame me, someone asked if I could continue this...

 
As soon as she knew she would be alone for a reasonable length of time, Tessie dialed the seventeen digit number that would connect her directly to Centurion headquarters. It took awhile to set this up because who leaves a wounded eight-year-old alone for very long?

But her new parents were sound asleep after a couple of drinks at dinner and what had sounded like marathon sex. And her new older brother slept like a lump of basalt at the bottom of the Atlantic trench. She ought to be safe from being interrupted for a while.

She spent only a moment wondering why Kenny took so much delight in annoying her. Maybe it was just what older brothers did. Silently she mouthed apologies to the younger sisters of Hank Herbert who was no more.

She negotiated Daedalos's security gadgets with passwords, a triple layer that depended on timing as well as exact words because her voice print wasn't on file. She tugged on her braids when the phone finally began to ring.

"Hello?" someone answered cautiously. Tessie could understand that, she'd used Urban Commando's private codes and that would show on the phone screen.

"It'th me," she said.

"Who'th me?" the voice on the other end lisped back.

She recognized the voice; Blueblazes must surely be someone's older brother. She sighed. "Jutht put one of the grownupth on will you, Billy?"

"Urban? Is that really you?"

"It'th Tethie now. Tess-ie," she said carefully. "I need to talk to Kay."

"It's three in the morning, honeybun. I'm on mids so...wait? Guess who just came in?"

"Oh, hurry, Billy! Put her on the phone," Tessie urged.

"What's the rush? Sounds like you've got some growing up to do. Tessie, did you say? Are you a girl now? A little girl?" Billy Blueblazes snickered.

Tessie danced with a new urgency. "Yeth! Okay? Now put the Lady on 'cauthe I've got a little girl bladder now, too, and I don't want to leave a puddle in the living room!"

Over Billy's laughter, Lady Karma's voice said, "I knew you might call tonight, Urban." The advantages of dealing with a psionic sorceress, Tessie reflected momentarily.

"Oh, Kay!" Tessie whimpered, looking around to see that she wasn't being watched or overheard. "I think my new daddy is a thupervillain!"

"F-for heaven's sake, honey! Who do you think he is?" Even Lady Karma could be surprised.

Tessie enunciated carefully. "Death Masque," she whispered.

I'm writing these as I post them, so don't expect too much. :)

 
"Why do you think your Daddy is Death Masque, sugar?" asked Lady Karma. She waved at Billy Blueblazes to stop laughing.

Tessie sighed. "Am I on thpeaker phone?" Her eight-year-old tongue persisted in giving her trouble with sibilants.

"Um, yes."

"Listen up, Billy, and quit laughing like a cartoon," said Tessie.

"Hey!" said Billy. But he sat down and started clicking at the keyboard of his terminal, pulling up a dossier.

Lady K smiled. "Go ahead, Tessie, we're both listening and I'm recording."

"Three things," said the child who had once been the Urban Commando. "One, I recognized him, we fought back in the seventies before Last Centurion formed our group. Remember, Masquerade was a bad guy group. Miss Glamour, Dr. Domino, Z9, that bunch."

"Losers," commented Billy. "Didn't he wear a mask?"

"Pretty much," Tessie agreed. "But just one of those Spirit-type masks. Not very good."

"That was before your time, Billy," said Lady K. Still in his early twenties, Billy Blueblazes ranked as the youngest of the active Centurions, not counting Tessie.

"And there's the other two thingth - things," Tessie paused. "Yesterday, when we were out on the deck, for jutht a second I could see the sun shining through him."

"What the heck does that mean?"

"It's in the dossier," said Lady K. "Death Masque absorbs the powers of anyone he kills. He killed all his partners in Maquerade; so he should have Miss Glamour's invisibility, which had the disadvantage that in a strong light you could sometimes see through her."

"I had a girlfriend like that," commented Billy.

"You had a girlfriend?" Tessie and Lady K said simultaneously. Tessie giggled but Kay only smiled.

"Hey!" said Billy. "So what's the third thing?"

* * *

After her report to Centurion HQ, and a quick trip to the bathroom, Tessie yawned like only a sleepy child can because an adult would dislocate something.

She tiptoed down the hall, to her own room, after glancing at her new parents' bedroom door. She left her own door open and crawled into bed, pulling her colorful dolly into a tight embrace. "Don't be afraid, Annie," she whispered. "I'll protect you."

Feeling only a little silly, she kissed the doll and went back to sleep.

 
Billy Blueblazes closed the file on the supervillain group once known as Masquerade. Most of the members of that ill-fated group had died in the late seventies but one member, at least, had never been convincingly buried. "Do you think Urban, uh, Tessie, is right about her new daddy being Death Masque," Billy asked Lady Karma.

Kay pushed silver hair away from her face and looked thoughtful. "It's worth checking out."

"Yeah, but," Billy said, "Tessie's just eight years old now, maybe she imagined it."

"It's possible, but Urban fought crime and supervillains for twenty years; we've got to trust that his judgement is still worth something."

"Umph. How does that work, anyway? The kid is still the kid but she's also Urban? I couldn't believe it when she made the joke about my girlfriend, I don't remember Urban even having a sense of humor," said Billy.

"Tessie would have died after the kidnapper's plane crashed, Urban's lifeforce joined with hers enabled her to walk out of the mountains to where the Rangers could find her. She became, um, sort of a sideways reincarnation of our friend Hank Herbert, the Urban Commando, with her own and Hank's memories, sensibilities and personality. It'll be awhile before they completely meld into one person."

"Sounds uncomfortable," said Billy. "And unreliable. Middle-aged black crimefighter becomes cute little blond girl."

"If I ever have to reincarnate you, Billy, I'll try to arrange something more your speed, like a Labradoodle, a neutered Labradoodle," said Lady K.

"Oh, give me a break. Speed is my middle name, Kay."

"I thought 'Blue' was your middle name. Hey, Billy?" She pointed. "Your hair is on fire."

"What, like I haven't heard that one before?" He passed his hand through the cobalt flames that covered his shaved head, grinning at her.

"No, really," said Kay, sounding entirely serious.

* * *

Todd Munson eased down the hall in the early morning light with long practiced quiet. He checked first on his daughter, brave little Tessie, still recovering from her wounds, snuggled with her dolly. Those kidnappers were lucky they had died in the crash; if Todd had ever caught them.... Still invisible, he checked on Kenny, too. Both kids slept soundly, safe for now.

Candace joined him in the hall; groping a bit to find him, she slipped her hand through the crook of his elbow and pressed herself against him. Visible again, he looked down into her face. "Any ideas yet?" she asked.

He shook his head. "As long as we don't know who called for the snatch, it could happen again."

They squeezed each other. "Do you think it's because someone knows who you are?" she asked.

"Must be," he said glumly. "We don't live rich enough to attract kidnappers otherwise. I need more information but I don't see how I dare leave you to go look for it. I'm going to call someone who might be willing to help."

Candace kissed him. "Do whatever you think is right, Todd. I'm on your side."

Todd sighed. "I've been straight so long, I'm not even sure I know how to go on the crook anymore. But considering everything, I sure can't go to the authorities. Blue Galaxy, the Protectors, the Centurions -- you know they'd all like to toss me in Tartaros."

Candace smiled up at him. "My hubbers, the big bad supervillain. You know it's Tuesday, did you put the cans on the curb last night?"

They both laughed softly, careful not to wake the kids.

 
Daedalos listened to the log tape again. Lady K's magic had worked, Urban Commando had survived and now lived as the daughter of a man who might be a fugitive supervillain. Interesting. But there was something else on the tape that was even more intriguing. As Security Officer and Gadgetmaster of the Centurions, he'd have to bring this to the attention of the group. Carefully. Sooner or later.

And how would this little sidelight influence his own special plans for the future?

* * *

"You got any idea what time it is?" the voice on the phone growled.

"Three hours later than it is here, Pierce," said Todd Munson calmly. "I'm in a jam, I'm calling in a favor."

"All for the glory of Cell Block B, huh?" Pierce growled.

"Something like that."

"I thought you went legit?" Pierce asked.

"And you got a pardon from the president. Better off than I am. Blue Stars catch up with me and I'm for that little old retirement home down in the Superstitions." Todd meant the Federal Bureau of Corrections Apache Caverns Installation under Flatiron Mountain in Arizona, commonly called Tartaros, where federal prisoners considered too dangerous for ordinary lockups were kept. State prisoners could also be transferred there under the Overman Act.

"You still hiding out?"

"Uh huh? You available for some security work?"

"You paying? I've got a steady gig here in New York. Bodyguard for a supermodel, no less."

"You dog," said Todd, grinning. "I'm sorry -- you old tomcat."

"It's a living," said Pierce with a laugh.

"Yeah, I'm paying. $500 a day plus expenses. Be here soonest?"

"Okay, where's here?"

"I'll pick you up at Sea-Tac, call me back with your flight number."

"Yeah, oh, I'm using the name Leonard Paine these days."

"I'm Todd Munson," said Tessie's new father. "Leo, Todd, Todd, Leo." After he hungup he sat staring at the phone for a bit. The man he'd known as Tom Pierce would make a formidable bodyguard for his children while he tracked down the would-be kidnappers' boss. Pierce, or Paine as he called himself now, wouldn't hesitate to kill in defense of a client and that's exactly what Todd wanted.

He stood and went looking for his wife. "Candace, honey? I got us a babysitter."

* * *

Out over the Indian Ocean, a man in an enormous plane that never landed in daylight received a bit of intelligence from one of his agents. He didn't show much emotion as he read it on the screen built into his laptable but his grip tightened on the wrist of the boy sitting in the well-upholstered chair next to him. The boy moaned softly, and the man looked at him, his colorless eyes invisible behind mirror shades. "I'm sorry," he said, "did I hurt you?" He released the boy and patted him on the knee. "We'll be in Dubai soon, we can get out there and stretch our legs. Would you like that?"

The boy nodded.

"Maybe we'll see some camels," said the man, smiling. "That might be fun."

The boy nodded again.

"Go up forward, Johnny, and tell Captain Spartako that I'd like to speak with him. You can stay up front for a while, too. Use the computers if you like."

"Thank you, sir," said the boy before dashing off to the forward cabin of the plane.

* * *

Back in the Seattle suburb where she now lived, Tessie got up when her mother called her. She did her morning business then went out to the bright airy kitchen. Her broken ribs had hardly even twinged when she pulled on a fresh t-shirt, one decorated with sad-but-cute blue bunnies.

"Muffin or cereal?" Candace asked her.

"Muffin," said Tessie, sitting at the smaller white table under the window where her brother Kenny was already pushing Froot Loops into his face.

"Morning, Snotnose," said Kenny.

"Morning, Booger-breath," she replied.

"Knock it off," said Candace. "I'm making scrambled eggs for both of you, too, so no disgusting talk at the table. Sheesh!" She poured juice from a large decanter for them and set a blueberry muffin down in front of Tessie.

"He started it," said Tessie.

"Doesn't matter. Your dad's gone to the airport to pick up a friend and I don't want to have to get out the lion tamer chair to separate you." Candace sipped her coffee, wondering if she could talk Todd into letting her call her sister to take her place so she could join him in his -- hunt. Probably not. This Paine fellow sounded like someone who might eat Krystal up. Or vice versa, she reflected, knowing her sister's taste for dangerous men matched her own.

Kenny put Froot Loops into his nose, while Candace wasn't watching, in an effort to gross out his little sister.

Tessie giggled. "Now eat them," she told him.

 
Oakland, California. The city across the bay from San Francisco, better weather, better food, better living to hear the locals tell it -- but a little more well-known for the higher crime rate, especially violent crimes. A working city where the ships dock and the trains stop. A city that always needed its heroes. Near the east edge of town, in a cemetery spread across the hills several people gathered to say goodbye to a friend.

The services for Henry J. Herbert's family had been earlier in the morning but near noon, some of the current and past members of the Centurions came to pay respects.

Kendra Worth followed the motorized wheelchair of Nathan Ryder through the paths between live oaks and hedges of huckleberry vines. Two towering sequoias marked the upper corners of Veterans Field near the middle of which Specialist Herbert's body lay under a fresh layer of green sod. Len Salvatore stood already by the grave and they were soon joined by Gilbert Bellows, Sylvia Glass, Ted Andropoulos, and Penelope Haeckel Ryder.

No one said anything for several moments then Len asked. "His family don't know, do they?"

Kendra shook her head, her silvery hair concealed beneath a lacy black cloche hat. "Only his sister Danetta. She's the only one that knew -- who he was."

"Hank's the lucky one," said Nate. "A hero's death and yet he lives on." He thumped the arm of his chair and looked across the grave toward his ex-wife. Penelope did not look up but she nodded, silently.

Gil rubbed his shaved head and said, "It's not the same. Urban is gone, unless someone wants to take up the identity?"

Len shook his head. "I'll wear his uniform for a few appearances, just to confuse things. And make Stryker worry. We going to go after that sumbitch?"

Everyone except Kendra nodded. "I'm going to go up to the Seattle area first, check on Tessie. See if she's right about her daddy."

Ted cleared his throat. Besides security and gadgets, he was the group's liaison with the Blue Galaxy, the federal super-troopers. "We might be able to wrangle a pardon, if this Death Masque hasn't committed any serious crimes since the seventies."

Kendra shrugged. "I'm not sure I'll get close enough to ask that sort of thing."

Sylvia squatted beside the grave, dropping a yellow rose onto the fresh turf. "Goodbye, my brother," she said. Len stepped close and offered her an arm; she accepted the half hug but stepped away to wipe her eyes. "We keep losing good ones," she murmured, remembering other deaths, other cities. She'd buried almost a whole team once, including her own twin sister. She added Hank's name to the roll call in her head.

"He's not exactly dead-dead," Gil pointed out to no one. Penelope bent over Nate's chair to kiss his cheek and then everyone left.

* * *

In the concourse at Sea-Tac, one tall man shook hands with an even taller one. "Leo," he said, "I'm Todd."

"You recognized me?" asked Leo. "I thought the dye job on my hair was pretty good."

"I can see about twice as many colors as most people," said Todd. "And I can smell you."

Leo nodded and they walked through the crowds toward the carpark. Outside, the famous Seattle rain fell on the righteous and the wicked, alike.

"Keep forgetting how wet this fricken city is," Leo muttered as they got into Todd's SUV.

"We'll have you home and dry soon enough, Catclaw," said Todd. "You can meet the family."

Leo grinned. "They all wear shrouds and carry scythes, Reaperman?"

"Not hardly," said Todd. "Let me tell you what's been going on."

* * *

Tessie shivered for no apparent reason. Hank Herbert's grandma, when she saw someone shiver like that, always said, "Someone's walking on your grave, child." Tessie suspected that in this case, Grandma would have been right.

 
Tessie stared up and up at Mr. Paine. "You sure don't look much like a babysitter," she said.

Leo smiled and crouched down, though this still put his head nearly a foot above Tessie's. "Well, I'm a special sort of babysitter's assistant. Your aunt is coming over to do the babysitting and I'm here just to chase monsters away."

Tessie nodded thoughtfully. "Do I know you?"

He shook his head, "I don't think so, little lady. I'm sure I'd remember someone as cute as you." He winked.

Tessie blushed. Her brother Kenny crowed with laughter.

* * *

"I couldn't believe it when you said okay to me coming along," Candace told Todd. They were in the big SUV, headed up into the mountains where the kidnappers' plane had crashed.

Todd sighed. "I think the kids will be safe. Krystal is pretty level-headed and Paine is one deadly, fricken.... He's good."

"He's scary. Where do you know him from?"

"We used to be on the crook together.... Bad old days. Him, M'Caliber, Blooddraught, and me. Before Masquerade, they called me Reaperman. None of us had powers then...long story." He didn't say anymore for a bit and she stopped herself from asking for details.

They got off the Interstate and started up the narrower roads, heading high into the Cascades. Green trees, gray rocks, blue sky.

Finally he spoke. "Your job is going to be to keep me sane. Who else could I get to do that?"

* * *

Kendra took a cab from the airport. "Marshalldale? Lady, that's sixty miles away, you sure you want a cab? I'll have to charge you both ways, you could rent a car a whole heckuva lot cheaper."

"I don't drive," said Kendra. She didn't tell him that complicated machinery involving moving pieces of iron or steel tended to have some rather severe failure modes when under the control of a practitioner of psionic sorcery.

"You got an address?" he asked.

* * *

The jet carrying the world famous surgeon, philanthropist and composer, Dr. Hyman Meridien left Dubai airport two hours ahead of the sunrise, heading in a pole-crossing path directly for the same airport Lady Karma had just left.

It might have been fate but it wasn't.

In the "clinic" in the back of the plane, Spartako began the chemical and psychological process necessary for his new mission. It wasn't something he wanted to do but it felt like part of him, part of his destiny. But it wasn't.

In the wide, friendly lounge in the middle of the plane, the philanthropic doctor removed his mirror shades and looked deeply into the eyes of the boy, Johnny. Fascinated, Johnny couldn't look away. Dr. Meridien smiled.

Six miles below them lay the land where fortunate happenstance was called kismet. Dr. Meridien didn't believe in kismet, destiny, fate, fortune, luck or accident. Everything that happened in the world must have a purpose -- preferably Dr. Meridien's purpose.

 
"We called ourselves The Carrion Crew, and our big idea was to take scores away from other crooks. Sort of a Robin Hood thing, except we kept the swag instead of giving it away."

Candace smiled. The SUV bucketed over the washboard of a fire trail, the crash site couldn't be much further, she hoped. Her backside, however well-padded, had taken a beating.

Todd's grin looked off-center. "M'Caliber was a genius with any kind of long range weapon and pretty good at figuring tactics and operational needs. A bit of a coward in a stand-up fight though, but Catclaw, Leo as he calls himself now, more than made-up for that. Anyone more ferocious in hand-to-hand wouldn't be human. Literally."

After a moment, he repeated it, "Wouldn't be human."

* * *

Krystal lay down her cards. "Knock," she said. Tessie and Leo moaned and began to count their penalties.

"You keep feeding her," Tessie complained. "Let's switch chairs."

Krystal ran the totals quickly. "I'm out, 300. We could play something else?" she suggested, glancing over at Kenny, still lying in the floor and watching The Incredible Hour on television.

"Nah," said Leo. "Cutthroat is my second favorite game." He gathered the cards in his big, scarred hands. "We'll just deal the other direction this game. That way I can feed you for awhile," he said to Tessie who promptly blushed.

"What's your favorite game?" she asked to cover her embarrassment.

Leo and Krystal exchanged glances.

"Oh," said Tessie. "Gross." Leo winked at her and she blushed again.

* * *

"Blooddraught was our intelligence, finding jobs and getting details. A punker chick who went deeply goth before goth was cool. She liked to think of herself as Mata Hari or something and almost no one caught wise that their new girlfriend had set them up."

"Men are stupid that way," agreed Candace, causing Todd to snort.

A pair of boulders, and the surrounding trees, effectively blocked the progress of the car so they got out. Rain hats and slickers kept off the worst of the high altitude drizzle, the day like so many on this side of the mountains had gone all gray and damp.

"Take this," said Todd.

Candace belted the holster on then checked the load and safety, using the open rear hatch for shelter. A simple 9mm holding 13 rounds, a lot like what most cops carried these days, she knew. Todd had two guns; another nine and a ten, a fully automatic machine pistol.

"What was your job in the group?" she asked.

Todd checked his load and safeties and passed her another gun, a one-shot flare she could clip to her belt.

"I had to convince people we would kill them if they didn't give it up," he said. He closed the hatch and they started up the hill.

* * *

The cabbie asked, "You sure this is the place."

"I'm certain," said Kendra, "but can you wait? I may not be here long."

"Sure, the meter's running, though, lady. And I need another hunnert before you get out of the cab."

She gave him the money and stepped out on the curb next to the Munson mailbox.

* * *

The family mutt had taken one look at Leo and hid himself in the back of Kenny's closet behind the toybox. Now he emerged and made his way to the family room. Whining, he placed his head in the boy's lap and cut his eyes toward the front rooms.

Kenny looked up and frowned. "Mr. Paine?" he called out. "Someone's outside, Beefus always knows."

Leo grunted, glaring at his hand. "He and I both knew that ten minutes ago, he's just getting around to telling you." He looked across at Krystal and Tessie. "Got any fours?" he asked.

 
"Do you think we're going to find anyone up here?" Candace asked.

"Yes," said Todd, pulling a black and red ski mask over his face.

When she had her solid red mask in place, Candace asked, "Why?"

"Because the rangers told me on the phone that the police haven't gone over the site with their usual thoroughness. The kidnapping took place in Marshalldale, so yeah, maybe the suburban PD doesn't have the resources. But the Washington State Patrol could be called in and for a kidnap case, the FBI has jurisdiction.

"No cops means someone is blocking the investigation, which means there may be something at the site worth seeing. Someone may be coming back to destroy evidence because no amount of pressure can keep the cops off of working a homicide for long."

"Homicide?" said Candace.

"The kidnappers died, Tessie killed them."

"How? Didn't the plane just crash?"

"No, Tessie made it crash."

"How do you know that?" asked Candace, whispering.

"She told me."

* * *

When Kendra knocked on the door, a dog somewhere inside barked once. Less than a minute later, a very tall, lean man opened the door. "Well, hello," he said, leaning on the jamb and looking her over.

"You aren't Todd Munson," she said.

"Nope," he agreed. "I'm Leo. The Munsons aren't in. Can I help you?"

Kendra considered. The man did not act like an intruder but as if he had a perfect right to be there. "Actually, I'm here to see their daughter, Tessie?" She leaned closer to the tall man. "There are men sitting in a parked car down the street and more men hiding in the neighbors bushes."

Leo grinned. "I know. But I don't know if they're good guys or bad guys. Which are you?"

She smiled. "I was going to ask you the same thing."

He laughed and stood out of the way. "Come on in. Tessie's whomping my ass at cards, I could use a break." After Kendra passed him and said hello to Crystal inside, Leo stepped out on the lawn and waved at both sets of hidden watchers. "That oughtta put a knot in their knickers," he muttered before going over to tell the cabdriver to get lost.

* * *

Hyper-acute senses inherited from Dr. Domino warned Todd that, yes, someone smoking a cigarette and using a battery-powered drill was working at the crash site. Multiple someones.

He waved Candace to wait for him behind a screen of trees then used Miss Glamour's power to become invisible. He approached the scene slowly, stepping on needles to avoid footprints mysteriously appearing.

Three mountaineer motorbikes sat parked on a trail. One man stood guard with a peculiar-looking weapon while two worked with tools on the plane wreckage, apparently removing identifying marks.

Todd positioned himself carefully and fired three shots from the 9mm in his right hand. Z9 hadn't had M'Caliber's incredible long range accuracy but he could never miss such easy targets with his favorite gun.

 
The motorcycles exploded in one very satisfying fireball; Dr. Domino's talent for biggest result with least effort had certainly helped that along. The guard with the strange looking weapon started toward the blast but stopped suddenly as Todd stepped out of concealment. The other two agents scrambled for their own weapons, more ordinary pistols, while at the same time taking cover inside the wreckage of the plane.

Still partly invisible, and apparently about four feet left of where he actually stood, Todd spoke in a huge voice that seemed to come from the sky.

"I am Death Masque, the Eater of Souls! Give up your secrets and live or I will drink them from your dead skulls!"

The guard brought the bell of his odd gun around and fired at the place where he saw Todd's simulacrum. The gun fired a sabot that disintegrated into hundreds of armor-piercing needles and dozens of scalloped, razor-edged darts -- specially designed to penetrate the armor of Star Troopers and butcher the man inside. In this case, however, the needles and darts destroyed only some bushes, the ten-foot wide steel cloud not quite wide enough to touch the real Todd.

A four-round burst from the 10mm full-auto in Todd's left hand nearly cut the guard in two. Not a technological marvel like the buzz gun but lethal nontheless.

The painful psychic impact of the guard's death hit Todd's mind and he screamed like Lucifer falling from Heaven.

* * *

Leo paused on the lawn after dismissing the cab Kendra had used. Grinning, he mimed the two groups of hidden watchers coming out of concealment and performing lewd acts on each other.

Inside the house, Tessie launched herself at the civilian-clad Lady Karma with a shout of "Auntie Kendra! You came!"

"You don't have an Aunt Kendra!" protested Krystal.

Tessie hugged Lady K with eight-year-old ferocity. "You wouldn't know her, Aunt Krystal. She's actually Daddy's aunt. And Kenny's named after her, so there!"

"Huh?" said Kenny.

Kay rolled her eyes, Tessie winked at her, and Leo came back in, just then, still grinning. "I think the guys in the car are state cops but the ones in the bushes may just be local perverts," he said. He looked at Kendra, "Now who in the name of Sam Spade are you?"

"She's my Auntie Kendra," announced Tessie, giving Kay another hug.

"Wait a minute!" Krystal began. A scream from outside interrupted her.

* * *

While Dr. Meridien and the boy, Johnny, enjoyed the hospitality of one of the local plutocrats, Spartako rode out to an auxiliary airport in the desert. The cis-orbital craft called the Screamer took a lot of room to land.

Spartako looked forward to piloting the hypersonic scramjet again. He'd be leaving Dubai in less than an hour and arriving in eastern Washington mid-afternoon, Pacific time. Then a more conventional two hour flight to some little town called Marshalldale.

Spartako buckled his monomer gloves on and snuggled down his annealed rare earth glass helmet. He really looked forward to piloting the Screamer again. Marshalldale just sounded like more boring work.

* * *

Todd's scream had words in it. Down the hill, a quarter mile away, Candace heard them clearly.

"Blood Masque! Second guard in the trees. Kill first, question later."

She cursed under her breath, muttering, "I think I'm supposed to be Blood Masque!"

 
"Candace?" Todd called.

"Up here," she said.

He looked up. Candace crouched about fifteen feet up on the limb of an evergreen, she had the flare pistol in one hand with the other bracing her against the trunk. "What are you doing in a tree? I didn't know you could climb trees." He pulled his mask off and smoothed down his hair, grinning up at her.

"You said.... Where's the guard you warned me about?" She pulled off her own mask to look down at him.

"Still running, with the other two, I think. I had to kill one of them.... But I got the information I wanted, I know who hired them. I just don't know why."

He stepped forward to catch her as she dropped the last few feet and they hugged each other with relief. "I'm sorry you had to..." she murmured in his ear.

"Me, too." He kissed her. "You've got mask hair," he said.

"Oh!" She ran her fingers through her tangles for want of a comb. "Oh, that voice! How did you do that? Whose power was that?"

"That's actually my original power. Or non-power. Remember I said my job was to convince people?" He showed her the microphone in his mask and the tiny bud-like speaker cones he could scatter around an area while they walked back to the SUV. "It helped that in high school when everyone else wanted to play guitar in a rock band, I was building my own speakers and wiring sound boards. Actually worked as a roadie for a couple of groups."

Later, on the way back down the mountain, he told her, "His name was Paul. Paul Doncaster, they called him Donk." She understood him to mean the man he had killed. "And the guy that hired Donk was a crooked State Patrol lieutenant named Frank LeJeune."

She looked at him. They'd been married fourteen years, she knew he didn't want to tell her the rest. But he would.

Todd set his teeth in a grimace. "From the Marshalldale office. We'll call Leo as soon as we get down to where cell phones work again."

* * *

The screaming outside turned out to be from the state cops out of the parked car down the street trying to arrest the two FBI agents who had been hiding in the bushes. One of the federal agents was a small brunette woman with a penetrating howl.

Leo stood around enjoying kibitzing while the four law officers tried to settle their jurisdictional dispute before calling in any superiors.

Krystal, Kendra, Tessie and Kenny watched through the windows for a bit then Tessie drew Lady K away for a private talk in the kitchen.

"Urban?" said Kay. "Is that really you?" It seemed unlikely that the grizzled old street warrior had become this little pig-tailed blonde pixie.

Tessie wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, it's me. But I'm Tessie too. Do you really think you can help my daddy?"

Kendra nodded. "Yes," she said. "I really think I can."

Outside on the lawn, Leo made a suggestion. "Why don't you guys shoot each other? That would solve the whole thing."

Three of the law officers snapped at him, "Shut up!"

The fourth put one hand on one ear and held his cell phone to the other. "Yes, sir," he mumbled then closed the phone up, looking satisfied. "That was Lieutenant LeJeune, he's got a meeting at the airport then he's gonna come over here and sort out Fred and Wilma."

Meaning the FBI agents, all pairs of which were called Fred and Wilma, or Fred and Barney if more appropriate, or very occasionally, Wilma and Betty, by local cops all over the country. Any third agent was automatically Dino. Generally speaking, the Feds hated the nicknames.

 
Billy Blueblazes liked to say that while he wasn't the fastest man on the planet, he was certainly the fastest man on Earth. Doc Spectral could fly at the speed of light, line of sight or fly by wire, and Dynamann could fly in space at tens of thousands of kilometers per hour using the solar wind like a one man space-going clipper ship. Billy's teammate, the Nuclear Knight, in a cis-orbital trajectory could peak at about Mach 9 but Nukes wasn't human.

Nobody could run faster than Billy.

And surrounded by his protective cold blue flames, Billy could run so fast that he could almost break the sound barrier. Almost. Every time he had gotten that close, he'd lost control -- crashed -- twice he'd almost died. Daedalos's new boron-nitride-fiber armor with the teflon and single molecule iridium layers might just keep him alive -- if he crashed again.

Because he just had to get to the Marshalldale airport in less than an hour, a distance of 737 miles. Just a hair faster than the speed of sound, maybe only a molecule faster but Billy couldn't even try to break the sound barrier near a city, that would be too dangerous. So he'd have to try to make up a bit of time on the long empty straightaways on the interstates.

And there were mountains to climb. And when he got close to Portland, he'd have to try to decide whether to try to reach Marshalldale through Yakima or Tacoma. Either way, the last thirty miles would be on narrow, twisting mountain roads where a trip or stumble could be disaster.

Because if Billy didn't make it, somebody might die. Somebody besides Billy. He just couldn't allow that. Not and keep calling himself a hero.

* * *

Spartako liked flying the jet-assist copter almost as much as the Screamer cis-orbital. Not nearly as fast as the big scramjet but you flew close enough to the ground to see the country. Well, what you could see traveling at nearly half the speed of sound. It wouldn't be a long trip, though. Less than an hour to Marshalldale, now.

Being a cyborg wasn't all bad when you had so many neat machines to plug into, thought Spartako. He tried not to think about what he had to do when he reached

* * *

"You're kidding?" said Leo. He'd stepped away from the squabbling state and federal agents to take the portable phone handed to him by Krystal.

"Donk remembered this guy LeJeune hiring him. A crooked state cop and he's right there in Marshalldale," Candace told him, repeating the story Todd had gotten from the memories of the dead thug. "We're just turning onto I-90 now, we're about an hour away. Reception has been crap." Cellphone frequencies don't like rain and the slopes of Mt. Rainier have plenty of it.

"Yeah, but -- LeJeune is the boss of these two state goons on your lawn. They say he's got an errand at the airport then he's coming here," said Leo. Before he said anything else, Leo turned around and saw Kenny, Tessie's brother, standing behind Krystal. "I'll take care of it," he said into the phone. "Call me back in a bit," and he hung up.

"Who's watching your sister," he asked Kenny who seemed fascinated by the argument between the plainclothes police officers.

"Aunt Kendra," said Kenny.

Leo rolled his eyes, already starting for the house while considering just what to do about a crooked and possibly homocidal cop.

In the house, Kay stared at little Tessie where she crouched halfway up the wall of the cathedral-ceilinged living room. "How are you doing that?" she asked.

"Friction, I think," said the pig-tailed little blonde who used to be Urban Commando. "I can increase it or make it almost disappear. It's how I made the kidnapper's plane crash." She scooched around on the wall so she could look at Kendra without craning her neck. "At first I was too scared to try it but I'm not really scared of anything much now."

 
Kendra caught Tessie as she released her friction grip on the wall just as Leo came back into the house followed by Krystal and Kenny.

"Okay," said Leo. "Who are you?"

Kendra glanced at the civilians then at the front door.

"Krystal," said Leo. "Get us some sodas and snacks, Kenny help her." He pushed them toward the kitchen.

"What about Tessie?" asked Kenny.

Kendra balanced the eight-year-old on her hip and Tessie smiled at her brother. "I'm staying," she said.

* * *

"It's funny," said Todd. They were heading up I-90 toward the main pass into the inner valleys.

"Yeah?" said Candace. "I ain't laughing?" But she smiled.

"Donk," said Todd. Paul Doncaster, the man he'd killed to find out who had wanted to cover up evidence about the kidnappers. "He's a funny guy. A mercenary SOB who would just as soon shoot you if you might cause trouble -- but he must have known several thousand dirty jokes." The big SUV could easily pull 75 on the steep grade and Todd steered around the slower traffic. He didn't want to worry about what might be happening in Marshalldale, trying to pretend that Leo --Catclaw, another mercenary SOB-- had everything under control.

"What kind of dirty jokes?" asked Candace. She turned in her seat to face him better.

Anything for a distraction. "Some of them are really filthy," Todd warned.

"So tell one, see if I haven't heard it."

"Okay. Let me think of one that is just dirty enough to tell to my wife," said Todd. "Guy picks up a hooker down on Aurora..."

"Thbbbt!" said Candace. "I've heard it."

* * *

Ted Andropoulos, Daedalos, followed Billy Blueblazes progress on the monitors, the boy hadn't realized that GPS sensors had been installed in his new armor. Ted could even get direct readouts of his speed. But where was he going? Through the city traffic, he'd barely been able to hit bursts of 300 mph or so, it just wasn't possible to safely dodge heavy afternoon traffic while going much faster than 150 or so.

Ted followed Billy's trace north then east on the 80, then a burst of speed as Billy turned north on the 505. North? Was Billy heading toward Portland, Seattle, or maybe Marshalldale where Kendra said Urban had merged with some suburban cutie who was all of eight?

Why?

And how had Billie known the little girl's hair color before Lady Karma had found out her name when the child called Centurion HQ? Ted had checked some databases, school photos weren't great source material but little Tessie Munson was definitely blond.

And now Billy had run off without telling anyone where or why. Had he talked to someone else? Who?

* * *

They were back on the plane, leaving Dubai airport in the early morning before dawn, Johnny and the strange man called Dr. Meridien, who made Johnny feel weak and confused whenever they touched. They were going somewhere called Halifax this time. But Captain Spartako hadn't got on the plane with them.

Johnny had heard him say where he was going and the boy had had a very short time alone in the little lounge in Dubai. He'd dialed the 17-digit special number his big brother had given him. He'd had to tell someone, Captain Spartako was scary because he wasn't really human anymore, he was part machine. Or something?

Dr. Meridien had done things to Spartako, Johnny knew that. Dr. Meridien did things to people. He'd done something to Johnny's big brother a long time ago. Johnny was afraid that Dr. Meridien would do something to him soon.

Maybe Billy could save them both, save all of them. He was a superhero now, wasn't that what they did? Save people?

Johnny sure hoped so.

 
"I can't believe he's that bad at telling dirty jokes," Donk complained.

"Well, he is trying to tell them to his wife, can't be easy," said Z9.

"Not that you were ever married," said Miss Glamour.

"How do you know I've never been married?" asked Z9.

"Oh, please," Miss Glamour said. She would have rolled her eyes for emphasis but none of them had bodies any more. "One, a girl can tell and two, we've all got access to each other's memories in here."

"Damnit! He blew the punchline on that one, too!" Donk snarled. "It's not about the potato, it's about where you're putting it!"

"Shows how much attention you were paying. I married Lady Kremlin back in 1986."

"Uh huh, and a couple of renegade Polish double agents offed her on your honeymoon. Doesn't count, a honeymoon is nothing like being married."

"We're missing something," said Dr. Domino.

"He better let me tell the next joke or -- is there anything we can do to him in here?"

"What do you mean a honeymoon is not like being married? That doesn't even make sense."

"Not much. A few itches, a headache maybe," said Glamour.

"I spent a whole day once, mentally undressing every woman he met. He had a job interview to go to, made him sweat a bit." Z9 conveyed the essence of grinning to the others without access to any of the equipment.

"There's some fact we don't know, some trivial piece of information that's keeping us from understanding what is going on," said Domino. "Why did anyone want to kidnap Tessie? Maybe if we knew that...."

"No, you idiot! You have to growl that line, 'cause it's the bear that says it!" Donk demonstrated. "You don't come here for the hunting, do you?"

"I don't get that one," said Glamour.

"You wouldn't," said Z9.

"Are you implying I don't have a sense of humor?"

"It's mostly a guy thing," said Z9.

"It's mostly a prison thing," said Donk.

"Shut up!" said Domino. "I'm trying to help him think about this."

"So it's true, Tessie somehow wrecked the plane and made it crash?" asked Z9.

"It was like all the oil in the engine turned to sand," said Donk. "That's what the other guys told me."

"There's someone big behind all this. Some invisible mastermind co-ordinating everything. A global manipulator with a secret plan...."

"Is that a chicken joke? There are dirty chicken jokes? Oh, that's disgusting!"

"His wife doesn't think it's funny either."

"Women never laugh at that one," commented Donk.

"Because it isn't funny!"

"It's all in how you tell it, he doesn't tell it funny."

"So if you're so good, how come he doesn't have your ability to tell jokes?"

"He's got it, he just ain't using it. He's telling them bad on purpose. Hey, Munson! You stink!"

"He can't hear you unless he wants to."

"He's telling them badly because he's trying to make his wife laugh at how bad he is at telling dirty jokes," said Glamour.

"Yeah?" Donk sounded doubtful. "It ain't working. She ain't laughing, she's getting this look in her eye like she wants to jump his bones."

They all stayed quiet for a moment.

"Son of a gun," said Z9, "he's using my abilities to seduce his own wife."

Domino snorted. "Not your non-existent charms, you would be Lothario. He's using my ability to play to her weakness, endearing himself with a display of husbandly ineptitude at being disgusting."

"You know, that would probably work," agreed Glamour.

"Hey," said Donk. "If they pull off and do it in the back of the truck, do we get to watch?"

Urban Renewal - 15 -   by Erin Halfelven

 
"No one knows exactly where he's heading but Bully Blueblazes is on the run!" The announcer on the local UHF-TV station in Bend, Oregon gave everything that little extra touch of excitement. Which meant that after listening to him for a while, everything sounded dull as ditch digging.

"The youngest member of the Oakland, California-based supergroup, The Ultimate Centurions, is racing up Interstate-5 going no one knows where because he isn't stopping to talk!" The newshead blinked his pretty blue eyes in bafflement.

"Blueblazes will be passing Bend in just a few minutes! Members of the Ultimate Centurions could not be reached for comment."

* * *

"I can't do it!" thought Billy, "I can't break the sound barrier. Every time I get close I feel my control going; I'll crash if I try!"

Still he ran.

"I don't know why I can't do it! When I bring a foot or hand forward to run, they've got to be moving at least twice the speed of sound. But they're inside my flames, so somehow, that doesn't count."

He ran on.

"Portland ten minutes away, one thing left to try, or I'll be too late," he decided. "That bastard Spartako is nothing but a hitman, he's going to kill someone in Marshalldale. I've got to stop him!"

And he kept running.

* * *

"Cellphone's out again," said Candace.

"They're no good in mountains."

"What are you going to do when you find this LeJeune?" she asked.

Todd didn't answer immediately. "I don't know. Depends on him, I guess." The rain in the pass seemed more like a geographical feature than an event. He couldn't remember ever driving I-90 along here without getting rained on.

"You...." Candace paused. "You going to kill him to find out what he knows?"

Todd took even longer to answer this time. "I don't know. Depends on him."

Candace looked at him. He shrugged, keeping his eyes on the road. They were more than an hour from Marshalldale now, traffic and weather slowing them down.

"If he won't talk?" she asked.

"I can be pretty convincing," he said.

* * *

Kendra's cellphone chirped Len Salvatore's identifier. Not Last Centurion's but the one for Len's civilian ID, probably to let her know that he knew he was calling Kendra and not Lady Karma. She answered, "Hey," meaning she wasn't alone. "Hi," would have meant no one but teammates around and "Lo," would have signaled that she had trouble.

"Billy is heading your way, do you have any idea why?" Len asked.

Tessie, Leo, Krystal and Kenny waited for Kay to get off the phone so they could determine who would stay behind while Leo went to the airport for whatever reason he wasn't saying.

Lady Karma thought about Billy. "Wasn't he kidnapped once when he was just a child?" she asked Len.

"Yeah, but he's always claimed he doesn't remember anything about it," said Len.

"Maybe he remembered something," she said. Or maybe he's been lying, she didn't say.

"Penny's going to launch the Knight," said Len. "Estimated transit time less than 45 minutes. Nate's already remote in Satellite 12; he says sensors recorded a cis-orbital lander near Spokane."

"Something wicked this way comes," said Kay.

"Wish I could get there more quickly, at least three hours for me. How's Urban?"

Kay glanced at Tessie who glared up at Leo.

"Cute, very cute," said Kay.

"I'm going," said Tessie.

"No, you're not," said Leo.

"And stubborn, very stubborn," Kay added.

Len chuckled. "Same old Urban."

{{Thanks to Heather Rose Brown for the lovely Tessie drawing! :) }}

* * *

Billy reached Portland and turned right on I-84, then veered off the Interstate toward the river. "Daedalos told me sound travels faster in humid air," Billy reminded himself. "I can run on water, like the kid in that movie. At the speeds I move, water is like concrete. Take roads to cut some of the kinks out of the river, it'll be shorter -- but those dams on the upper Columbia are going to be murder."

He ran.

"Maybe I can push the barrier instead of breaking it," he thought.

And he ran.

Urban Renewal - 16 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
"It's always midnight," thought Johnny. He doodled with his finger on the glass of the jet window six miles above France. He hadn't seen the sun since Dr. Meridien had taken him captive two years before. "What would it be like to be the night?" he wondered. "Covering the Earth from horizon to horizon, seeing what everyone does when they think no one is watching."

He leaned his forehead against the glass so he could catch a glimpse of the land below. "Crazy idea," he thought.

Johnny sat in the smaller forward lounge of the plane, Dr. Meridien being busy with business in the larger "office" further back. With Spartako gone on a mission, the colorless man called Joshua None took over watching him when the famous doctor had other things to do. Spartako scared Johnny but the cyborg warrior told stories, laughed at silly stuff and seemed much more alive than his replacement, despite being only half-human.

As if cued by Johnny's thoughts, Joshua got up, opened a cabinet and brought the boy a small case. "Your flute," he said. "You looked bored."

Surprised, Johnny assembled the instrument, a pure silver gift from Dr. Meridien. "Do you like music?" he asked.

Joshua nodded, sitting back down by the door to the back of the plane.

"Do you play?"

Joshua nodded then shrugged. "Cello, violin," he said before Johnny could ask. "Anything with strings."

Johnny considered. "What do you want to hear?"

* * *

Leo strapped his fighting claws onto his wrists and ankles while Kendra tried to reason with Tessie. "We're doing all this to protect you. Someone tried to kidnap you, y'know."

"Yeah," said Tessie. "And I saved myself, didn't I?" She looked adorably smug.

Leo turned around to admire the little girl's spunk. "She's got you there." He grinned at them, liking Tessie at that moment more than he had ever liked anyone else's kid.

Kay frowned at Tessie. "You did have help."

"Just to get away; I took care of the kidnappers all by myself. Um," she looked momentarily confused. Referring to herself before Urban and after Urban in the same sentence rather shook the integration of her two personalities. "And--and now, I'm just me and twice as dangerouth. Dangerous." She used her tongue to feel the place where her new front tooth was coming in.

Leo didn't help Kay's attempts at persuasion much by laughing his ass off just then.

* * *

Yup, thought Billy. At better than 700 mph, water was just like concrete. Very, very slick concrete. Or better, ice. If he fell, he'd probably slide right into one of these damn flood control weirs still going about 400.

He ran up another of the convenient salmon ladders to get around a dam and back onto the river. The confluence with the Wenatchee couldn't be more than fifteen minutes away and the Marshalldale airport was just a mile or two this side of the branch.

He couldn't spare the attention to look at the sky to see if he could see Spartako's jetcopter. He probably couldn't anyway, not yet, and it took all his concentration to run at this speed without hitting anything. His flames took care of small objects like bugs but even something only as large as a remote-control airplane or an inconvenient mudhen could be a disaster.

He shortened one stride slightly to avoid tripping on the head of some swimming rodent; a beaver he supposed though it was actually a nutria. He hoped he'd jumped enough to not scorch the poor animal's ears. Oops, another bad landing like that and he might end up part of one of these damn dams or weird weirs.

He smiled. Stars and comets, he loved to run. The map in his head showed one long straightaway remaining, the top of a lake behind one of the dams. Maybe he'd try to break the sound barrier again, this time on the "ice" where conditions might be more favorable.

Urban Renewal - 17 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
Penny, her body lying comfortably on the lounger in her garage, guided the Knight's cis-orbital flight with her mind. She planned to land on a rocky hillock just east of Wenatchee; a safety margin for anyone under her flight path to allow her plenty of time to change her jets from atomic to conventional. Or self-destruct if things went seriously bottle-shaped.

Nate, her ex-husband and the former mind-pilot of the Nuclear Knight, kept watch on the skies above central Washington by mind-control of Skytower, the robot orbital station built from pieces of old wrecked Knight bodies.

"Copter, jet-assisted, approaching Marshalldale airport from the east. Tapes show it came from near the landing spot of a cis-orbital packet originating in the Middle East. Interceptors scrambled from three air bases have been called back, no info on why or how. Be careful, Penny!" Nate's voice sounded in her mind.

"You know I'm fine, as long as the Outsider doesn't try to interfere with our control," Penny told him.

"No sign of that alien creep," said Nate. His injuries had been caused by neurological feedback from crashing a previous Knight to prevent an Outsider takeover of the robot. "Billy's on the river, running north. Karma and Catclaw are heading to the airport in a car and Munson and his wife are somewhere in the mountains west of town."

"Are we about to have an old home week?" Penny asked.

"Looks like it. Four arrivals within minutes of each other."

"Order?"

"Jetcopter, Billy, you, Kay and company then the Munsons sometime later and Centurion probably after that."

"Billy still not answering calls?"

"Nope. At speed his flames make radio reception difficult, you know that."

"That boy was born difficult."

Nate chuckled.

* * *

Spartako's sensor arrays kept him aware of aerial threats; he'd spotted the incoming Nuclear Knight before apogee. He knew he'd be at his destination with enough time to complete his mission before the big robot could safely land. The trick would be getting away after incinerating LeJeune.

* * *

On the lake bed, Billy tried something new -- concentrating on expanding his flames to their maximum before attempting to break the sound barrier. The energy cost might not leave him enough oomph to accelerate through the barrier and a fall in the trans-sonic turbulence might rip him apart.

"Tell me again how much I get paid for doing this?" he muttered.

But he'd heard Skytower's arrival predictions and knew he'd never beat Spartako to his target without a last minute boost. "Johnny," he whispered.

His flames grew as bright as they had ever been, extending around him for almost a yard. He kicked like a sprinter and the transonic forces reached through his fiery shield and plucked at his armor.

But he knew he'd broken the barrier. Accelerating up to Mach 2 with new energy he ran on, saving a celebration for later.

Urban Renewal - 18 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
Lt. Frank LeJeune paced nervously beside his patrol car. When he'd first taken money from the mysterious man he knew as MacAllen, it had been for little things like unlicensed landings at the Marshalldale airport. Later, he'd bought into the redistribution of a plane load of hypradine. After that, MacAllen had owned him, of course.

Hypradine, known as Hype, Thug, Killer, Dyne or Jooce sold for as much as $10,000 a dose on the street; so a plastic bottle of it holding a mere 200 five milliliter doses wholesaled at point of entry for an incredible $100,000. A case of twelve bottles went for a cool million. Six months before, LeJeune had helped unload 44 cases of the stuff at the same Marshalldale airport where he waited, less than patiently, for a courier from MacAllen.

LeJeune suspected that the courier wanted to talk about what had gone wrong with the snatch of the little Munson girl last week. LeJeune had had minimal involvement with that and considered it none of his business why MacAllan wanted an eight-year-old spirited outof the country. Sure, through his connections with the West Coast gangs that distributed the Hype, he'd sent a cover-up gang to destroy any evidence remaining after the clumsy kidnappers had crashed their plane on the Olympic Peninsula.

But he wasn't really a kidnapper himself. Whatever kink MacAllen had was nothing to him. In fact, he'd leave the country, stopping only long enough to pick up the money he'd been depositing by wire transfer in the Banque du Miquelon et Saint Pierre before heading to Brazil or Lemuria, maybe.

From the upper end of the parking lot around the airport, LeJeune could see the panorama of the Marshalldale Valley stretching out. From the eastern edge, a cloud like the one that might be raised by a dust devil or low-flying helicopter approached. Above that and a little to the left, a second small sun seemed to be setting on the eastern ridge. And to his right, south of the city -- had the river caught fire?

Urban Renewal - 19 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

Spartako came in low and fast, not so much riding the jetcopter as wearing it. His targeting software picked out the patrol car parked on the verge of the airport runway. The man standing beside the patrol car fit the profile for Frank LeJeune and wore Frank LeJeune's cellphone, which Spartako confirmed by ringing the cell. Still a half-mile away, the cyborg assassin twisted the tails of two incendiary rockets and sent them on their way.

Billy Blueblazes left the edge of the river just at that moment, racing up the sandy wall of the riverbed and the low hill between the water and the streets around the airport. Not even a mile away and slowing now from nearly fifteen hundred mph to about one thousand. The shockwave around him had some peculiar properties due to his flaming forcefield but there would be lots of broken windows in Marshalldale and Wenatchee today.

Spartako dived lower, under the curve of the hill, and changed heading to intercept just where Billy would reach the street. He armed his transonic missiles and prepped their target computers; for a cyborg, a matter of attention and thought. When Billy topped the rise, Spartako would release the transonic hunter-killer missiles.

East of the city and above it, Penny directed the Knight to switch from atomic jets to chemical, using the residual heat from the atomic fire to super-charge her directed flames. The golden alloys of the sixteen-foot tall Knight-body glowed with re-entry as well and internal heat pumps shed that energy into the jets, too. Lasers and masers from the robot's head beamed at the jetcopter, hoping to scramble the control signals from the cyborg to its missiles.

LeJeune dived behind his car and rolled under it, intending to come up behind the fire and rescue truck beside it.

In the Munson sedan, Tessie screeched at Leo from the backseat, "Turn here!" Leo cut the corner, almost hitting the curb, but controlling the turn onto a service road at the opposite end of the airport from everyone else.

On the runway to their left, a puddle-jumper commuter aircraft taxied toward the terminal building. Down at the end of the service road, two missiles arced out of nowhere at a parked fire truck.

Urban Renewal - 20 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
LeJeune's natural suspicions, cop reflexes and drug dealer paranoia kept him alive a little longer. He rolled out from under the fire truck and under another vehicle just as the first rocket exploded. The second, for some reason, turned upward and zoomed high above the airfield before bursting like a fireworks star shell. LeJeune climbed out from under the sedan and into an airport service vehicle that had keys conveniently dangling from the switch.

Billy followed the hill, curving west of the airport instead of topping the rise directly between him and Spartako. Two and a half years of tactical training by Last Centurion and Urban Commando had taught him a few things. When he did come over the hill, he immediately went back below the curve after seeing where his enemies' location.

Spartako launched the transonic missiles in Billy's direction then scanned for LeJeune's new location. The renegade cop still had the telltale phone in his pocket and the cyborg quickly located him. Turning to pursue his principal target, Spartako sent a lance of depleted uranium slugs from his electric Gatling guns after the fleeing LeJeune.

Penny changed the Knight's trajectory into a glide toward the airport, swinging north to pinch Spartako and LeJeune between Billy and her robot self. From her own launchers she sent out ECM anti-missile missiles, using data relayed from Skytower along with a message, "Centurion en route with three Blue Star super-troopers," Nate told her. "ETA seventeen minutes."

"Way too slow," Penny sent back. "This may all be over in seventeen seconds!"

"Out!" screamed Leo as he pulled the Munson sedan in front of LeJeune's getaway vehicle. Tessie and Lady Karma went out the right hand doors and Leo went out the left, the little girl still holding her Raggedy Anne dolly.

"Don't be thcared, Annie," Tessie shouted. "I've got you." She rolled across a narrow grass margin onto a sidewalk and Kendra pulled her, and the doll, close.

On the far side of Wenatchee, across two rivers, Donk, Z9 and Dr. Domino all agreed, LeJeune would try to use the city to lose pursuers, assuming he escaped the carnage at the airport. Accordingly, Todd turned south on the Route 285 business loop through the middle of Wenatchee.

"Why are we going this way?" Candace yelped as the big SUV dodged around a beer truck. "The airport is on the other side of the Columbia!"

"Trusting my luck," said Todd. "Put my mask on top of my head and get yours ready, too. We may want to use them."

Urban Renewal - 21 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
LeJeune backed away from the wreckage, pulling his state-issued nine-millimeter from his back holster. In the strange light of sun filtered through smoke, the tall man coming at him seemed to have stripes in his hair. He'd read the State's copy of Jane's Metahumans, Mutants and Overmen. One of the Tigermen? he wondered. The band of mercenaries who had hunted down Tiger-Man had all been tainted by David Hawkes's monster blood. Catclaw, M'Caliber, Ghost Tiger, Merc4Rent or maybe some wannabe? Sure wasn't Cat Ten Hawks, the monster's cousin, she was much more recognizable.

He put a bullet into the advancing figure just to see what would happen. The big man jerked from the impact but didn't slow down. M'Caliber only used long-range weapons; Ghost Tiger didn't like daylight; Merc would have weapons all over him; this one only had knife-like claws strapped to his hands -- Shit! It's Catclaw! How do you stop a guy who regenerates from wounds in just seconds?

LeJeune aimed at Leo's head.

* * *

Billy danced through the hail of spent uranium slugs, swatting them down or aside to plow furrows in pavement or make craters in concrete walls. His blazing forcefield protected and concealed him in the flaming wreckage as he approached the cyborg. He slowed down more, crossing the sound barrier going down, and the turbulence blew a wide hole in the smoke and debris.

The jetcopter hovered thirty feet above him, Billy leapt to the top of the terminal building then ran on the flying pieces of exploded firetruck scattered by his own shockwave. He shouted something no one could hear. "Wyatt! Wyatt Helmstrong! Captain Wyatt, it's me, Billy!"

* * *

The Knight's ECM-missiles buzzed in Spartako's senses, hunting his control frequencies; one otherworldly technology battling another. The cyborg set part of his mind to tracking the missiles and burning them out with phased maser pulses. He couldn't hear Billy's voice but he knew Billy knew him.

The Knight would be here in seconds, Billy and the girl were in the circle of destruction, time to do what he'd come to do.

* * *

"It's a suicide run!" Lady Karma shouted into her communicator. "He's not after LeJeune, he's here to kill Billy and Tess!"

In one of those transmission flukes that happen on the battlefield, Billy's voice came back loud and clear. "I know, but he's got to catch us first!"

And leaping down practically from the wing of the jetcopter, Billy landed beside Tess, snatched up the little girl, dollie and all, and headed east where the Knight could run interference for a precious few seconds.

"Hang on tight," he told Tessie.

"I can do better than that," she said, closing her eyes to concentrate.

Urban Renewal - 22 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

Leo didn't make it easy for the renegade cop by standing still and the first two bullets missed widely. Then Leo's claw flicked the gun from LeJeune's hand against the concrete barrier marking the safe driving lane. A chemical spray hit Leo in the face but he ignored it; uncomfortable, even painful, but it hardly slowed him down. The canister hit the wall of the building and a third blow sent LeJeune's backup gun flying also.

"Next one's your head," said Leo.

* * *

Billy's time distorting force field, his flames, wrapped Tess in the same bubble of experience as the speedster. "Still seems fast," she gasped as the world flashed by.

"Yeah," said Billy. "Otherwise it would take me subjective weeks to run here from Oakland. I can adjust the distortion. What are you doing?" The question came as Billy noticed the change in his force field.

Tessie hadn't been sure she could effect something so insubstantial but the reverse proved true; it took lots less effort to make Billy's flames frictionless or nearly so. They were speeding past the edge of the airfield now, running by the shadow of The Knight flying in to recover their retreat.

Like a buttered knife slicing through hot bread, they slipped through the sound barrier into the transonic with hardly a quiver. The thunder of their passing rattled the vineyards and hop orchards of the east valley.

Billy looked down at the little girl in his arms. "Where you been all my lofe, darling?" he drawled.

Tessie giggled.

* * *

Lady Karma watched the burning line of Billy and Tess disappearing, and the Knight flying in from the little knob of Earth where Penny had landed the big robot. The jetcopter started after Billy, but pulled up, trying to gain altitude for the clash with The Knight.

Kay could sense emotions like other people see colors, smell odors or feel textures; Leo's bright savage pleasure in action, LeJeune's stink of fear, the hard-edge of Billy's determination and the granulated surface of Tessie's concentration. Behind and around her, the crowd made a background of confusion and terror. Mentally, she reached for the jetcopter's cyborg pilot, feeling there the glossy sheen of practiced action, the steel of imposed duty, a kernel of some dull hope and a shroud of despair covering everything else.

She probed, hoping to find some edge of purpose she could bend. Spartako's mind was strong but seemed oddly hollow, as if much of his own desires and emotions had been sucked out of him. A pattern of darkness attracted her and she winced, death and pain formed a cage around a hate so intense she felt almost blistered by it.

One thing seemed clear; Spartako was not a free agent but a mind enslaved to some hated otherness. Willing, even eager, to die to complete his mission, the cyborg had not given up yet.

* * *

"Take us back, Billy," said Tess. "I've got an idea."

Urban Renewal - 23 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
Penny sent the Knight into combat with the jetcopter. When the crash had crippled Nate, and gave her shared mental control of the big alien robots, she hadn't felt certain of her ability to fight. She'd turned out to have a real talent at it; maybe more than Nate had ever had. And just like Nate, when she controlled the Knight, she was the Knight.

Acting quickly as thought, she sent another barrage of "nuisance" ECM missiles -- she only carried so many and she went ahead and used the last of them. She wanted to keep Spartako from tracking Billy. Then she pulled the big atomic jet over her shoulder so it sat on her chest. One short blast would reduce almost anything in front of her to radioactive slag; she just had to stay aware of what was behind her and remember to balance on her boot jets.

As a cannon, the atomic jet made a heck of a good bluff; Nate had never actually used it against a living enemy. So far, neither had Penny. But then, a cyborg wasn't exactly alive.

* * *

Lady Karma sent out a spell to trap the mind of everyone in range who feared for their lives, to get them to evacuate peacefully and without panic. Then she turned to consider Spartako approaching the Knight. Warrior minds resisted being affected in the middle of combat but she might manage a distraction at a critical moment. Or a psychic lance into Spartako's ego center.

Catclaw scooped the semi-conscious LeJeune off the ground and looked around for somewhere to stuff him where he couldn't get away. The crooked cop struggled weakly against Leo's grip.

"Lemme go," LeJeune whimpered.

"Yeah, right," said Leo. "I'm missing the big fight and you ain't going anywhere, mook." He looked at a piece of sheet steel from the fire truck, maybe he could wrap it around LeJeune like a tamale.

"No, no, lemme go! They're giving away those big candy apples at the Wenatchee Farmer's Market!"

"Say what?" Leo shook him.

"Ouch! The green ones with the caramel are my favorites! Please lemme go?"

* * *

"Let's loop around to the north, Billy. We'll come back in by that spur and old Nastyko won't see us until it's too late," said Tessie.

"You got it, insect," said Billy. He'd used the odd endearment with his baby brother, once upon a time.

"Insect?!!"

"Darlin' little bug face?"

Tessie considered. "Better, Mr. Propane-head, but don't push it."

Urban Renewal - 24 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
"What the heck is going on there?" Candace asked.

Todd carefully negotiated through the crowd that had spilled off the sidewalk and onto the street. "It's the Farmer's Market, looks like a riot. Maybe the vineyard owners and the hop growers came to blows?"

Candace laughed. The growth of vineyards east of Marshalldale since the 1970s had been bitterly resented by the local hop farmers. But both groups were still hugely outnumbered by the apple growers in the larger Wenatchee area. A local cartoonist had drawn a prizefight between boxers labeled "beer industry" and "wine industry" while a large audience drank from cups marked "cider".

A block later, Todd suddenly pulled to the curb. "Donk says that's him." He pointed at a man jogging across the street in front of him.

"The guy in the torn clothes who's bleeding from his hair?"

Todd got out, used Z9's covert ops moves to disable LeJeune and tossed him into the back of the SUV all without the surrounding crowd really getting an idea of what had happened. Candace got into the back to tie the crooked cop up while Todd drove on toward the bridge over the Columbia and Marshalldale.

* * *

From the roof of a hangar Catclaw missed a leap for the landing gear of the jetcopter. "Son of a Comet!" he cursed as he fell between a baggage tram and a tow truck. Picking himself up off the pavement and straightening his left wrist, he muttered, "Just because it heals doesn't mean it don't hurt."

Sensing that Leo had survived the forty-foot fall, Lady Karma continued to concentrate on weaving a net of worries and distraction out of the stray thoughts she could capture from Spartako. Little enough and probably useless, this just wasn't her sort of fight.

The cyborg seemed intent on escaping to the east, accelerating now toward the Knight whose voice boomed out. "This cannon can cut the blades off your vehicle in 1/20th of a second. Give up and land that thing."

Spartako replied on several radio frequencies at once. "I have my own thermonuclear device. Back-off, Space Junk!"

Sensing the approaching cusp, Kendra threw her net before the cyborg got out of range.

* * *

"He must be two hunnert feet in the air, Billy," said Tessie. "How close can you get me to him?" In the condensed temporal bubble of Blueblazes force field, they seemed to have plenty of time to discuss it.

Billy considered for some infinitesimal of real time. "At this speed, I can jump pretty high." He hadn't crossed the Mach 2 barrier with Tessie in his arms, fearing even greater turbulence than he'd faced at Mach 1. Mach 2 was the one that had killed a lot of good pilots, but Mach 1.95 was still more than the speed of a rifle bullet on target. "I can get you close enough to touch him, I think. But you're going to have to help me with the landing."

They said nothing about taking the risk. Neither of them had ever planned on dying any other way, and Urban had already died once. Tessie kissed her rag doll and whispered, "Let's do it."

Urban Renewal - 25 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
Todd and Candace bypassed Airport Way, taking the road that led to the East Wenatchee Valley where the cyborg jetcopter and robot Knight faced off over a field of dairy cattle. Their black and red masks perched atop their heads, the Munsons looked very grim. Candace had the buzz gun they had salvaged from the mountain in her lap.

"Donk says just point and shoot?" she asked.

"Yeah. It's like a big shotgun, rocket-propelled sabot full of darts and needles. The sight reads the distance to the target and sets when to burst the shoe for maximum effect."

"Nasty."

"Yeah."

"Probably useless against that thing."

"Yeah."

"We going to be in time to do anything at all?"

Todd didn't answer for a moment. "Domino says that if we're lucky, I'll be there in time to see him die. They're preparing a welcome party."

Candace grinned. "Save some cake for me if I don't make it."

They reached across the seat with their free hands and touched fingers.

"Is Tessie safe?" Candace asked.

"I don't know," said Todd.

* * *

Spartako's targets were approaching again. And he'd maneuvered and managed the situation so that he had no reasonable hope of escape. His programming would now allow him to self-destruct to complete his mission. He'd tried this earlier but Blueblazes and the younger target had escaped. This time he would not fail.

* * *

Lady Karma summoned a wind to keep her close enough to the psychic net she had cast to keep it powered. At worst it might slowdown Spartako's reactions a fraction of a second, at best it might cause him to make the wrong decision at a critical moment.

Catclaw pursued her on foot, limping at first. "I didn't know she could fly!" he grumbled.

* * *

Penny powered up the Knight's atomic cannon. Maybe she really could slice the rotors of the jetcopter and force a crash. Maybe she could do this without having to kill anyone, even a half-mechanical cyborg assassin.

Nate's voice in her mind said, "Star Troopers, ETA twelve minutes, now. Centurion, Sky Bolt and two guys in powered armor."

"Too little, too late. I'm here now." She tightened a mental finger on the virtual trigger of the cannon, the boot jets already programmed to balance the thrust. Nothing behind her to be damaged. Draw down her aim on the point of rotation. Squeeze.

* * *

Candace fired from the window of the SUV, the sabot set for bursting at 330 yards. She aimed for the point behind the first window, where Dr. Domino had told her she would do the most damage.

* * *

Summoning all her remaining will, Kendra sent a psychic lance at the Cyborg. The turbulence of a sonic boom knocked her off the crest of the wind she'd been riding and she fell toward the ground, almost unconscious from her effort.

* * *

A burning lance of nuclear flame sliced the rotors from the jetcopter.

Needles and darts from a bursting sabot ripped a hole in the side of the cyborg vehicle, revealing the tanklike inner-capsule holding what remained of Spartako's body.

Now thought Spartako, sensing the approach of his window of opportunity. Now. Something glitched in his programming....

* * *

Billy and Tessie raced down the river, under the bridge, past the airport in less time than it takes to turn a page. Billy chose his path carefully, picking a ridge to run along to get him closer to Spartako. The jetcopter dropped a bit, it's rotors gone. A hole opened in the fuselage, still a hundred and fifty feet up.

"I'll jump, you do your thing," said Billy.

"Right," said Tess.

Billy leaped from the top of the ridge, a human-sized ballistic missile now. At the top of his arc the falling cyborg aircraft loomed over him. He extended his arms with Tessie between his hands, trying to get her as close to the rip in the plane as possible. Billy's forcefield kept time slowed to geological scale.

Tessie stretched out, her small hand reaching into the hole. She tapped on the metal of the case holding Spartako.

"Jinx!" she said. "You're it!"

Urban Renewal - 26 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
For Spartako, the world seemed to just go away.

Boosted in some mysterious way by Billy's forcefield and reinforced by Kendra's spell in some other way, Tessie's power seemed to extend into the atomic domain, increasing some quantum analog of friction -- entropy perhaps. In the capsule containing the remains of a man once called Wyatt Helmstrong; one arm, part of a spine, a neck and most of a skull containing a heavily wired brain; in that capsule, interactions of moving particles slowed to nothing -- and stopped.

For Spartako, the effect seemed no different than what he expected. Sudden darkness, silence, timelessness and unconsciousness look a lot like a point 0,0,0 nuclear explosion from the inside.

* * *

Billy's arc continued and he pulled Tess close to him as they fell away from the inert jetcopter. Both of their forcefields had been used up, time flowed normally now for them, decelerated only by adrenaline effects. Or for Billy, at least, the effort had left Tess too exhausted, mentally and physically, to do more than whimper.

One hundred fifty feet below them a vineyard waited, basically a rocky field covered at this time of year with sharp sticks pointing upward. Wrapping himself completely around Tess, Billy tried desperately to re-ignite his forcefield. He needed a spark of energy, electricity, flame, ionized plasma, something.

He thought of Hades in the Disney movie, checking to see if his hair had gone out and smiled grimly. Even with his forcefield on they would only make a big splash in the vines. Tess on the other hand....

"Tessie, honey, wake up," he murmured. "Urban? Hank? Therese Marie Munson! Wake up!"

"I'm awake," she whispered. The wind around them, the wind made by their fall, began to grab at their clothing and exposed flesh. "I don't know if I can..."

Still over a hundred feet up, their fall slowed, changed angle. They began to tumble, their clothing tearing.

Billy whispered something in Tess's ear. She nodded, her cheek moving against his chest.

* * *

Staggered by the sonic boom, Catclaw caught Lady Karma before stumbling and falling to his knees on the edge of the asphalt. "Craptastic!" he growled but the blood of monsters in his veins had already regrown the skin he'd just lost. "There's a reason I picked Paine for my new last name," he said.

"I know," said Kendra. He sat her own her feet and she looked up at the drama still unfolding. If the cyborg was already dead she could help him on his way. She opened her senses and reached out.

* * *

Seeing Billy and Tess appear out of the blazing blue arc from nowhere shocked Penny. Automatically, she dived forward to try to catch them before remembering that her descent from orbit and firing the atomic cannon would have heated her armor to red-hot if she'd been constructed of anything so mundane as steel. Even her recuperative magnetic cooling wouldn't lower her outer layers below three or four hundred degrees before she reached the falling heroes--if she could get there in time.

At least their momentum has carried them out from under the aircraft, it won't fall on them, she thought.

Nate's voice reached her from Skytower. "Laser the boy, re-ignite his forcefield."

She did that, aiming for what looked like in her sensors the hottest spot, shining a tiny focussed heat beam on Billy's shoulder armor. Then she redirected all cooling fluids to her arms and shed the outer, hottest layer of her own armor. "Talk about blowing hot and cold," she said to Skytower.

He chuckled. "Don't forget to stow the cannon before you try to catch them."

"Done." The big golden robot arced across the sky, still not certain she would be in time. Bright outer plates flaked off her, shedding heat as quickly as possible.

* * *

Todd turned the engine off and leaped from the still rolling SUV.

"Tess!" screamed Candace. She pulled the red mask from her face and threw down the buzz gun. "Tessie!"

Death Masque reached toward the cyborg with his power. Too far away, he thought. Almost a quarter mile. Oh, Tess, what's it going to be like to have you inside me? If I can reach you....

Urban Renewal - 27 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
"Ignition!" shouted Billy. Blue flames, the visible side-effect of his time-bending forcefield, burst out from his shoulder armor where Tess had concentrated her friction power and Penny had provided a laser spark. Tess switched her waning powers to simply thickening the air around them.

Their fall slowed. Billy had practiced falling from heights many times and with turbulent rapid scissor kicks managed to guide them toward the now-only-toasty warm outstretched palms of the giant robot.

"Got you," said Penny in the bass growl of the Nuclear Knight.

Tess's eight-year-old body, reserves all used-up, collapsed into unconsciousness at the announcement of their safety.

The hulk of the cyborg jetcopter crashed into the vineyard below them, wings tearing off, boom-like tail section breaking in half. The armor glass of the unused cockpit shattered and the heavy plastic fuel bladders in the tanks burst flooding the crash site with jet fuel that quickly caught fire from hot pieces of engine debris.

A column of greasy black smoke rose and was quickly blown into a ring by the first of several vapor explosions. For a moment it looked as if a nuclear explosion had occurred after all.

Penny opened the passenger shelf on the front of the Knight's body, letting Billy slip inside the narrow compartment, still holding Tess, who in turn still clasped her ever-more-raggedy dolly. The big robot then bent its path toward the airport where Lady Karma and other first aid could surely be found.

Smoke and flames rose behind them: Spartako's funeral pyre.

* * *

Seeing that the kids would be safe, Lady Karma reached out for the spirit of death and dying she sensed, a hungry spirit of longing and weariness. "You may go home," she told it. "Ride the wheel again or find your own peace. Goodbye, goodbye, I tell you three times, goodbye to this entangling life, you wounded souls."

Her eyes popped open. Souls?

"Man," said Leo beside her watching the burning wreckage, "What a candle!"

* * *

At the far edge of the airport, past some warehouses and untidy commercial buildings, near an empty SUV with both doors open, Candace Munson knelt on the ground holding her husband's head in her lap. "She's safe, Todd, she's safe! Wake up, honey!" She'd pulled off both their masks when she'd seen him collapse after watching Tess's rescue.

Todd's eyes fluttered, half-open. "They're gone," he whispered.

"No, no," said Candace. "The big mecha saved them! They're okay, Tess and the boy, they're okay."

He tried to sit up and she helped him. "I saw that," he said. "Then I reached for the mind still in the wreckage and something sucked all the others out of me." He looked at her, a small if worried smile playing with his expression. "They're gone, all the ghosts that haunted me are gone."

Urban Renewal - 28 -   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
Z9 lead the way. "The sky is full of stars," he called back to the others.

"That's nuts. It's daylight," said Donk.

"The sky is the world, the stars are souls," said Miss Glamour. She followed Z9 out of the confined space somewhere below Todd Munson's consciousness.

"Our best choice for optimal results is to swim up to the sky and become a star," said Dr. Domino.

"After you, you freakin' poet-pansy," said Donk.

Dr. Domino also left.

"Well, I ain't stayin' here alone, wait up you guys," said Donk and he left, too.

A woman's voice called to them, "Goodbye, goodbye, I tell you three times, God-be-with-you, goodbye."

* * *

Z9 burst out of darkness into a room with maps and charts on the wall and a view out the window that he recognized as Torino, Italia. A handsome middle-aged woman wearing stylish but severe make-up smiled at him. "Zetanove! Alejandro, it's been years. How are you?"

The room looked as it had always looked, though its location had changed from time to time: Bristol, England; Quang-dong, China; Archangel, Russia; Montevideo, Uruguay, Tel Aviv, Israel. The view out the window might change but not the furnishings or the woman.

"I'm dead, I think," said Z9. "And you?"

"Benissimo. Well, your last assignment did not work out so well, did it? I'm sorry."

"No worries, camerata mia. But I hear the Cold War is over."

"Ah, well, yes. But the conflict between good and evil goes on and the world still needs warriors in that gray area between, unflinching humanites like yourself. Are you ready to accept a new assignment?"

"I believe so, though I may be a little rusty with some of my weapons and tactics."

She made a mark on a piece of paper. "Have you ever trained with a pom-pon?"

* * *

Miss Glamour walked until darkness became a corridor and a curtain. She pushed aside the night-colored cloth and found a dressing room. Several girls in different stages of undress busied themselves putting on various costumes.

"Sam!" one of them exclaimed. "Sam Terry, we're on in five minutes and you're dressed like that?"

Someone else threw her a costume and she began to get undressed, musing that it all seemed so strangely familiar, too uniquely mundane, such a common miracle. How odd that her costume appeared to be nudity. Naked as the day she was born, she left the dressing room and entered her new life, stage center.

* * *

Dr. Domino swam upward into the light.

"John," said the light.

"Yes," said John Domingues.

"Have you found out what you wanted to know?"

John thought about it. "Not everything."

The light danced a chuckling dance. "No one knows everything, John. Do you think you know enough?"

"I don't think there can be enough to know to satisfy me," he said.

"And that is the end of knowledge, the beginning of wisdom," said the light. "Come, you are done with learning, now you must teach."

And John Domingues entered into the light.

* * *

The darkness knew his name. "Donk," it said.

"That's me," said Paul Doncaster.

"You have lied, cheated, stolen and killed. What have you done to redeem yourself?" the darkness asked.

"Well, I felt bad about most of that," Donk said.

"That's true and it's worth something, but unshed tears cannot balance blood, deceit, violence and hate."

"Hey! I never hated anyone! Sometimes it was just business and sometimes I was just drunk. But I never hurt no one because of no hate I had on."

"And you never did." The darkness spoke as if it had found a diamond tiara in a sewage tank. "You were kind to the weak, brave when frightened, loyal according to your own codes, generous whether you had much or nothing. Your virtues cancel out your crimes in the eternal scale."

"Huh?"

"You could go either way, Donk." The darkness had become an even gray field under a featureless gray sky. "Into the light or back into the darkness, forever." The voice now came from an enormous silver-black figure standing on the horizon.

Paul would have licked his lips if he'd had any. "I get to choose?"

"No. You are here, in limbo, until someone comes to claim you. The deeds you have done in life will work out to their ends, and one day tip the balance."

"Oh, shit." He couldn't imagine anything he'd started in life having a good ending. "What can I do now?"

"I can spin the wheel for you," offered the Lord of Limbo.

"You do that," said Paul. "Can I double my bet?"

"You wish to learn more virtue through more opportunity to sin?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Very well, double or nothing, Paul-Doncaster-who-was."

The wheel spun, sucking Donk into a new life.

Urban Renewal - 29 - Epilog   by Erin Halfelven Art by Heather Rose Brown

 
The scene at the airport bustled with Centurion's duplicates, Blue Star Troops in armor, and various local, state and national authorities. Sky Bolt wanted to take LeJeune in as material witness in an overcrime case while the FBI and DEA held that they had prior jurisdiction in the venue of corruption, money laundering, kidnapping and drug smuggling.

"What drug?" said Sky Bolt. The fin on his tall blue helmet had seldom looked more shark-like as he grinned toothily down at the other federal agents.

"We haven't made that determination yet," said the DEA man.

"Oh bullshit, you know it was jooce, which makes it overcrime since metahuman blood is the only known source for hypradine."

* * *

The argument continued while The Last Centurion called a meeting of his partners. Nate as Skytower, coordinated the telepresence of absent members while Len made a few proposals.

"You know I've never liked having the group named after me, I'm proposing that we change our official designation to The Urban Commandos or maybe just The Commandos, in honor of Hank," he said.

Daedalos pointed out that "commando" is a collective noun, like battalion, and doesn't really need to be plural but the resolution passed unanimously anyway.

"Next item," said Len, "new members. Kendra has nominated Todd Munson for probationary status and Leonard Paine as associate member. Also, Tess Munson is to be re-enlisted as a reserve member. Any discussion?"

"Codenames?" asked Daedalos, who liked to keep all the records straight.

"Paine is using Catclaw, Munson probably won't want to use Death Masque if the feds let him switch sides and I'm not sure about Tessie," Len admitted.

"I've got an idea for Tessie," said Billy.

* * *

Don Turpen, Senior Star Trooper present, opened his faceplate to get a better look at the information panel the FBI forensic technician held up. "So Spartako isn't dead?" They both glanced at the still steaming hulk of the shattered jetcopter buried in the vineyard.

"Well he's not exactly alive either," Agent June McAtkins said. A lot of FBI agents hated the official federal superteam members but McAtkins thought Turpen more than a little cute -- and she'd seen him out of armor plenty of times.

Don waggled his Groucho-like moustache at her. "An undead cyborg monster assassin? Comets and catfish, but I hate it when one of those shows up."

FBI agents seldom giggle, McAtkins reminded herself.

* * *

Billy's residual blazing forcefield on the top of his head lit the darkened room with an eerie blue glow. Keeping a bit of his flame going made it easier to expand it during an emergency and looking like his hair was on fire had a certain coolness he liked. It beat carrying a Bic lighter in his pocket.

He sat on the edge of the kid-sized deskchair and looked at the sleeping little girl. Exhausted by her adventures, Tessie slept deeply, cuddling her ragged-and-stained dolly in her arms, two fingers of her right hand resting on her lower lip.

He sat quietly for some time just watching her; unusual behavior for the Man in Motion.

He thought about Hank Herbert, whom he'd known for years and whose spirit now inhabited the tiny sleeping warrior in front of him. He thought about Johnny Bellows, the brother he hadn't seen in six years who would now be ten years old -- and still a captive of Dr. Meridien. For Johnny's sake, he hadn't told anyone of the Man Who Would Not See the Sun Again and his strange penchant for kidnapping the children of metahumans--but that would change now.

Besides warning of Spartako's assasination and kidnap attempt, Johnny's brief call from the Dubai airport had included the news that he'd worked out his own escape plan. Win or lose, the boy would soon be free of Dr. Meridien leaving big brother Gilbert, alias Billy Blueblazes, free to pursue the man who would not see the sun.

"Maybe you can meet my brother someday, punkin," Billy whispered. "Good night, Jinx." He kissed a fingertip and placed it gently on the sleeping girl's forehead before leaving the room.