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killer shrike
Sun Dec 04, 2005 at 01:00:52 am EST
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The Adventures of Alcheman #24
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The Adventures of Alcheman #24


“Battle Lines”


Previously: Spurred by the anti-metahuman legislation known as SR 1066, Michael Wooster has taken action against one faction of what he (correctly) perceives as a conspiracy against superheroes: the Committee for the Occulation of Paranormal Experiences. After challenging and assaulting the head of COPE, the Chemical Crimefighter traveled to the headquarters/television set of the Joy Corps, a team of post-modern, media savvy superheroes that offered to capture him.

Alcheman clasped his hands behind his back and considered the Joy Corps, “Please help me understand something.”

The Bendist, after casting a quick glance at the prone (but stirring) form of Munitioneer, the government agent Alcheman had just sucker punched, “What’s that?”

“Why are you after me? When I heard on MNN that you had issued a press release that your team had vowed to bring me to justice, I was left wondering ‘why?’”

The Elemental Adventurer spoke to Varmint, “You had to sue the government for your freedom, after they had turned you into a super-powered assassin. Now you are going to help them?”

The compact killing machine look chastened. Alcheman turned back to the Bendist.

“Bendist: you claim to be a post-modern crime fighter who eschews the traditional values of a superhero. But what can be more traditional than following the directives of the government unquestioningly?”

“And Miss Spheris? You’ve chosen to have a second career as an entertainer for the teen demographic, the very demographic that instinctively rejects any form of authority. How can you reconcile the one profession with the other?”

“Um…” Whitney Spheris, Pop Nebula, was nonplussed.

Alcheman played his last card, “Would it interest you to know that the man I assaulted today, Cyrus Honig, is a consultant for your show? Why would a man whose mission in life is to stop people from becoming superheroes serve as an advisor to a series about them?”

The revelation was like a body blow to Varmint, “Aw, s***, we were set up! The Joy Corps is supposed to be a joke, isn’t it? We are a joke!”

“Speak for yourself, Shorty McNeutered,” Whitney objected, but it was clear she had her own doubts.

“Say that everything you told us is true,” Bendist spoke up, “What does it matter? America is getting ready to outlaw superhumans. If we don’t play with the feds we’re all going to end up in jail, or worse.”

Alcheman told him, “We can resist. Heroes are people of convictions, and one of those convictions is to fight even if the odds are overwhelming. If we believe ourselves to be heroes, then our course is clear. Defy the government. Defy convention. Be superheroes.”

From the ground Colonel Geoffrey Fordham raised his arm and shot Alcheman with the equivalent force of a 40mm howitzer. If Michael hadn’t tapped the elemental symbol for titanium tattooed on his bicep he would have been liquefied. As it was he was blasted through three sets of walls at the SHS studios.

Fordham stood just in time to parry an attack from the snarling Varmint. If Alcheman was Munitioneer’s primary target then the ex-berserker was his second: the people who really ran America needed someone with enhanced regenerative abilities for some exotic surgery. Varmint turning rogue gave the soldier all the excuse he needed to take him out.

Munitioneer blocked Varmint’s claws with arms as durable as armored plate and then exhaled a dose of sarin gas on the altered mutate. Varmint gagged on the fumes, and then dropped unconscious courtesy of a judo chop to his neck.

Whitney attacked next, manipulating the electro-magnetic spectrum to cause every neuron in Munitioneer’s brain to misfire. The strategy failed when Fordham adopted the Electronic Counter Measures of an F-18 Tomcat.

Bendist stretched around Munitioneer, twisting his limbs to swallow him up.

Munitioneer took off. And took Bendist with him.

By simulating the thrust of the F-18’s powerful engines Munitioneer blasted through the eight floors of the SuperHeroStation building and up over the Paradopolis skyline. Taking on the hovering capabilities of an Apache gunship he floated in place as he began pummeling his would-be captor.

“I know you,” Fordham told Bendist in-between punches, “Project: Oddbody. We were wondering where you went.”

Bendist sneered back and scored some hits himself, “I haven’t gone far. In fact, I’ve been using some contacts in the Company for my own ends.”

“Why fight us, then?”

Bendist chose to keep that answer to himself, for now.

Munitioneer’s internal radar detected a rapidly approaching projectile from the roof of SHS. Alcheman had assumed the properties of solid rocket fuel and was flying to join the fray. Fordham concentrated, and launched a barrage of force that was equal to the firepower of a half dozen Hellfire missiles.

A statuesque woman with flowing red hair intercepted the attack, bearing the brunt of the damage with hardly a grimace.

The flying female turned and smiled at Alcheman, “All you all right, dearie?”

Michael took the form of a cloud of neon gas, “Er, yes. Thank you for saving me.”

“No, thank you. If it wasn’t for your speech at your COPE meeting I wouldn’t have had the gumption to do this,” Amelia “Brick” House admitted.

Alcheman, unsure exactly who he was talking to but gratified for the help, nodded.

*****


Brick House hadn’t come alone: a pair of figures outside the SHS studios stared up at the battle above them.

“Is it wrong to think Brick House is hot?” Smooth Operator asked, “I mean, she’s old enough to be my grandmother.”

“Why are you asking me?!” Holothuroidea Lad yelped, “Ever since I got bit by that radioactive sea cucumber my sex drive is totally MIA.”

Operator looked at the lumpy green figure in the ill-fitting coveralls, “That’s probably for the best,” he observed.

“Tell me about it. Look, those must be security guards,” Holothuroidea Lad gestured at the detachment of men charging out of the building towards them.

“They’re carrying some pretty heavy firepower for security,” Smooth Operator touched the Teflon frying pan tied to his belt, and used his ability to transfer the texture of one object to another to make the sidewalk in front of him as slick as ice. Several of the attackers fell. The man in the dull silver costume grabbed the roll of sandpaper he wore on his waist and made their clothes extremely uncomfortable.

Holothuroidea Lad would add to the agents’ distress by using a defense mechanism he inherited from his namesake: he vomited his internal organs on them.

*****


Colonel Fordham felt three of his teeth crack as Brick House hammered him with another uppercut. He struck back with a punch that had the force of an Abrhams Tank behind it, but without much effect.

“Hitting a woman? Didn’t your mother teach you some manners?” she scolded after zooming clear so Alcheman could tackle Munitioneer and adopt the characteristics of liquid nitrogen. The sub-zero temperatures blistered Fordham’s skin.

“I don’t want to do this,” Alcheman said as he splashed over Munitioneer, “But those people you serve have not given me any choice.”

Munitioneer instructed his DNA to simulate the blueprints of the experimental High Energy Radio Frequency weapons used so effectively in the Fertile Crescent. He directed the disorienting sound waves at Alcheman, at Brick House, at the balloon-shaped Bendist. They all struggled against the attack.

That was when Whitney Spheris rose from the roof in a nimbus of energy and used her power over gravity to send Munitioneer plummeting to the Earth with the speed of a meteor. He blasted through the SHS headquarters, through each floor and to the basement and the sewer tunnels below it.

“Let’s go!” the personification of an entire galaxy shouted to the others, pointing to the ground.

*****


It was a credit to his therapy that Varmint didn’t kill the government agents sent to capture him. He had sheathed his (artificial) claws and used his extensive martial training to subdue the wet work operatives. Not that they were in any mood to fight after having intestines puked at them.

“You OK?” Varmint asked the green shape he assumed was a man.

“Oh, yeah. That stuff all grows back in like, seconds,” Holothuroidea Lad waved off Varmint’s concern with one of his stubby limbs.

“Eewww! Like, what is that mess?!” Whitney Spheris tried to avoid the viscera that coated the sidewalk when she landed.

“No time for explanations, babe,” Smooth Operator told the blonde in the red vinyl catsuit, “We got to jet before the cops show.”

“Or the Lair Legion,” Bendist pointed out.

“Those nice people wouldn’t try to arrest us, would they?” Brick House inquired.

“I… don’t know,” Alcheman admitted, “We haven’t given them much choice with our actions.”

“I don’t care! For the first time in a long time, I feel alive! Alive!!” Varmint popped his claws.

Whitney Spheris made a sour face before turning to Alcheman, “So what’s the next move, boss?”

Michael thought for a moment. But only just.

****


“So who are you people again?” Ivan Strode stared at the people who were blocking his view of the TV.

“Guests of Alcheman’s,” Smooth Operator said as he sat down at the end of the couch the skin artist sat on and looked for the remote, “Enough of this CSI crap. I want to see if we made the news.”

“Oh, I’m sure you did,” Myron House held his wife’s hand and stared up at her with lustful eyes, “You were magnificent.”

“Why thank you, Myron,” Brick House bussed her partner for sixty two years on his bald pate.

“OK. I read Mikey’s note that said you all are a gang of misfit heroes on the run from some vast government conspiracy-“

“He better not have called us misfits,” Whitney Spheris objected, “Not with that haircut he’s sporting.”

“-and that you need a place to stay because said conspiracy knows everything about you-“

“We’re not all staying,” Holothuroidea Lad called from the kitchen as he wetted his warty skin with the sink’s spray nozzle, “Bendist has his own accommodations.”

“I don’t trust him,” Varmint warned as he took another drumstick from the bucket of chicken, “Never did.”

“The point is, where does Michael plan on you all sleeping?” Ivan finished. The townhouse had only one furnished bedroom, plus the sofa bed he was currently using.

“He has graciously agreed to let Myron and I use his bed,” Brick House explained, “Such a nice boy. I’m going to have to knit him something when I get the chance.”

“Yes,” Myron breathed, “When you get the chance. After bed.”

“Yuk!” Whitney Spheris shook her head, “I don’t need a bed, just a place where I can assume my default state as a cloud of free-floating ions.”

“I can sleep anywhere. For the first three years of my life I lived in a hollowed out log,” Varmint hinted at his secret origin.

“Well, there isn’t much in the way of logs here,” Strode took a swig of his beer, which Smooth Operator eyed covetously, “But the basement is pretty dark and dank.”

Holothuroidea Lad squished out from the kitchen and plopped down on the sofa, “And I offered to sleep in the tub, but Alcheman pointed out there’s just the one bathroom-“

“What?!?” a chorus of voices lamented incredulously. The man with the proportional strength, speed, and agility of a sea cucumber winced.

“-so he volunteered to set me up with other arrangements.”

*****


Michael Wooster maneuvered himself and the 30 gallon aquarium he carried so he and it could both fit through the door to the street car. With great care he made his way up the steps, and showed his pass to the conductor. The man eyed Michael dubiously, but let him onboard.

It was late, and the car was nearly empty. Just a few service industry workers either going to or coming from their place of employment, and, strangely enough, a woman he recognized.

“Good evening, Miss Shepherdson,” he called to the young woman dressed for a night of clubbing.

Sarah Shepherdson looked up from her copy of the Paradopolis Weekly Reader, “Oh, hello Mr. Wooster,” she stood to help the man guide the fish tank to a safe spot where it wouldn’t shift during travel, “You’re out late.”

“Yes,” he agreed as he took a seat in front of her, “Running errands.”

“Aquarium emergency?”

“Something like that, yes. And how was your evening? Or hasn’t it started yet?”

“No. It’s definitely over. I didn’t really expect to be taking the trolley home, otherwise I would have brought a second pair of shoes,” she showed Michael her stiletto pumps, “Not the best things to have on your feet for a ten block trek. But there was no way I was riding home with Quentin after what he said. Lucky thing, too, since he knocked over those Hell’s Angels’ bikes pulling away from the disco.”

Michael nodded understandingly, though he didn’t have much experience with high heels, discos, or Hell’s Angels.

“Hey,” Sarah said suddenly, “By the way, I just wanted to say sorry for the hard time Kerry gave you yesterday. Vizh told me about it and it sounds like your principal kind of threw you under the bus.”

“It wasn’t as bad as all that. In fact, I suppose I should thank Kerry. Her actions inspired me to make a similar stand on a matter that concerned me.”

“Well, that’s nice to hear. Usually the only thing Kerry inspires people to do is increase their insurance coverage.”

“Heh. No, this involved politics.”

Shep was surprised, “Really? And Kerry motivated you? I would think a civics teacher would be looking to Lincoln, or one of the Founding Fathers, for guidance on that subject.”

“I have been thinking about the Founding Fathers and their actions recently," Michael admitted, " How they weren’t troublemakers, or ideologues. In fact, most of them were respected members of the establishment. Yet when they felt their government was doing something wrong, they rose to oppose it, even though they would be fighting against the most powerful country on Earth, and if their plan failed, they would lose everything.”

“Rrright,” Sarah replied to the suddenly earnest man, “I just wonder what it would be like if they showed up alive now in the Parodyverse.”

“A lot of constitutional scholars wonder the same thing. How would Washington look at our country’s handling of the concept of church-state separation? What would Jefferson think of the role the judiciary plays in 21st century America,” Michael enthused.

“Yes. There’s that. But then there’s the personal stuff too. The stuff that makes history interesting. I mean, wouldn’t you want to spend the day with Ben Franklin just to hear what he thinks of society? His take on reality TV alone would be priceless.”

“Yes, you have a point. They weren’t just creatures of the body politic, but men as well.”

“Exactly,” Sarah said triumphantly, “Think of the fun Ben would be out on the town.”

The two were quiet the rest of the trip. Sarah’s stop was first, and after the trolley clanged to a halt she rose to say her farewells.

“Have a good night. And good luck with the stand you’re taking. Make those Founding Fathers proud.”

Alcheman smiled wanly and bobbed his head, “I will make every effort to do just that.”

Footnotes:

The Founding Fathers: were going to be mentioned in this story even before they became a topic for conversation in a recent chat, but when that happened I had to include Dancer in the story as a homage to the person who brought them up.

Project: Oddbody: was mentioned in an old Mr. Epitome story. It was a program being run out in Area 51 in Nevada where the government was breeding human-Skunk hybrids. Apparantly Bendist is one such hybrid (among other things).

Ivan Strode: is the artist who inked the tattoos on Michael to give him his elemental powers. He is a servant to Atlas and Census Jones, two former servants to one of the former Shaper of Worlds. He is living with Alcheman after his own home was invaded by the minions of Penny Blood, who bears an as yet unexplained grudge against the Joneses. In the movie Strode would be played by Bruce Dern:



Myron and Amelia “Brick” House: were present at the COPE meeting Alcheman busted up back in Issue #22. They are a long married couple whose lives were altered when Amelia was given a mysterious mark by a strange soothsayer on the Greek Isles. This Galatea Spot, when touched, transforms Amelia into a super-powered supermodel with enhanced strength, invulnerability, and flight. I figure Hume Cronym and Jessica Tandy could play the elder Houses, while Elle MacPherson could portray Brick House.







Smooth Operator: Norman Wilberforce gained the ability to transfer the texture of things he is in contact with after an accident involving an experimental after-shave lotion. He was another COPE client inspired to become a superhero by Alcheman’s speech. He wears a silver costume with items of various surfaces pinned to his belt (a Teflon frying pan, sandpaper, flypaper, and a feather duster being four examples). In the movie he could be played by Ryan Reynolds.



Holothuroidea Lad: was bitten by a radioactive sea cucumber and transformed into the shambling, leaky figure he is today. His limbs are short and nearly vestigial, and he needs to be constantly hydrated, but he has amazing regenerative abilities, can swim rapidly by forcing large amounts of water through his GI tract, and can defend himself by vomiting said tract up on his attackers. He would need some serious make up and prosthetics, but I could see Paul Giamatti playing the part.





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