Thanks to CSFB! again for letting me play with his toys. And again, a bit of a warning. There is kind of a disturbing scene in here, which is there to highlight how nasty the bad guys are. It kind of creeped me out to write, and hopefully it won’t offend you.
Previously: Mr.Epitome traveled to Dullard’s Corner and met with the amorous advocatrix Lisa Waltz to discuss starting a lawsuit against the racist hate group the Pogroms of Purity. Waltz agreed, after telling Epitome things about himself he’d rather not hear. Things were worse in Seattle, where the racist hate group the Race Warriors kidnapped the former girlfriend of CrazySugarFreakBoy!, Anna Kensington, for reasons not yet known.
The library was in shambles. Walls, floors, and ceilings had been shattered, rendering the entire building structurally unsound. Rescue workers tread carefully throughout, leery of the slightest noise that might herald further collapse.
De Brown Streak ran from room to room, desperately looking for survivors. The body count had been especially high, since the Race Warrior known as Big Mo had used his energy absorbing powers to literally freeze fleeing students in their tracks before using that energy to drop tons of debris on them. Cacophony, too, had her fair share of victims, whose nearly liquefied remains could be found in obscene clusters.
Bitterly, DBS had to acknowledge maybe the humans had reason to fear his kind.
“Hey, super-guy, over here,” a young man in an Emergency Medical Service uniform called him from across the mezzanine. Josh zipped over to see what he wanted.
“There’s somebody under the rubble in this room. I can hear him.”
DBS nodded, and used his increased strength and speed to clear away the crushed brick and mortar. Soon the victim was visible. His eyes were swollen shut, and his torn clothes revealed vicious bruises.
“Anna, the mutates took Anna,” he mumbled.
“You sure about that, kid?” Josh Clement didn’t think Coyote Loki was the type to take hostages.
“Tell Dream, the mutates took her,” Kit Kipling managed to get out before falling unconscious.
“Dream?! Oh, man,” DBS started to get an idea why the Race Warriors were suddenly interested in prisoners.
*****
“They’ve got Anna? For God’s sake, where’s Epitome? He could have stopped this!” CrazySugarFreakBoy! kicked a parking meter outside the library. The lot was filled with police and rescue vehicles, in addition to row after row of sheet-covered casualties.
“There was a message on your machine, Dream,” DBS announced as he sped back from CSFB!’s dorm, “It was him. He said he’s flying back from Parodopolis. I don’t think he knew what happened here.”
“Well, I bet he knows now. He’s got more connections than….” Dream’s heart wasn’t into finishing the analogy.
“Cigarette Smoking Man?” De Brown Streak offered.
“Yeah. Oh, great,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! pointed up, “Look who’s decided to put in an appearance.”
A score of Sentinoids descended from the night sky.
The giant mutate-hunting robots’ arrival drove the gathering crowd into panic. And that was before the machines started giving orders.
“Attention: subjects Joshua Clement and Dreamcatcher Kokopelli Foxglove. You are to be detained by order of the Attorney General of the United States. Do not attempt to flee or resist capture. You have ten seconds to comply,” the Sentinoids were already targeting their wide-dispersal auto-fragmentation cannons on the pair.
“This is the thanks I get for playing Good Samaritan,” DBS muttered, preparing for a fight.
“You have five seconds to comply.”
A grey blur tore into view. Glory stopped before CSFB!, panting wildly.
“Crazy Sugar Freak Boy! Say what I say!” she commanded.
Dream listened to the Mutt of Might’s unique language, and translated to the robots, “Epsilon, Bumblebee, Omega, Downpour.”
The Sentinoids almost seem to shudder at the string of nonsensical words, “Running,” the Command Sentinoid said, and within a moment, “Override code acknowledged. Standard orders countermanded. Awaiting new orders.”
“Kewl,” CSFB! smiled briefly at the twenty monstrosities floating above the crowd, “OK, then, you boys can take five.”
“Searching thesaurus program. Match found. Units shifting to standby mode,” the machines cut back on the thrust from their boot jets and sank to the ground.
“Thank you, Glory. And after I teased you and everything,” Dream scratched the Border collie’s chin.
“I did not mind. I thought it was funny,” the dog barked back.
“Hey, Dream, not that I’m complaining about you turning off the killer robots, but they do have sensors that could have helped us track down the Race Warriors.”
“We don’t need ‘em. Glory, you can track people, right?”
Glory nodded.
CSFB! looked over to De Brown Streak, “Sound the bugle, D. The hunt is on.”
*****
Anna Kensington watched the Sentinoids collapse on a television screen in her cell. Her tormentor was not pleased.
“What the hell was that, beast?” the maroon-swathed woman screamed into her face.
“Shutdown codes. The government must have installed them.”
“The one time we wanted those stupid machines to work, and they failed us.”
Anna was terrified and confused. She remembered being captured by the mutate who looked half blonde, half Indian, and dragged to a car. He had injected her with something. And then she woke in only her bra and panties tied to a hard metal chair in a dimly lit room. The woman had woken her by dousing her with a bucket of ice cold water.
“The Sentinoids were supposed to buy us time. Time to spend on you.”
“What do you want from me?”
A trio of men in medical attire wheeled in a gurney covered with strange technology, “These men are going to torture you to where you are nothing more than a catatonic lump. Then we’ll return you to serve as a message for those who try to profit at the expense of harming the mutate race.”
“I don’t understand,” she looked at the collection of shiny sterile implements being set before her.
The woman slapped her, “Don’t play the fool. We know Hammers of Hephaestus is a major contractor in the Sentinoid program.”
“I’m sorry. We had to. The contract was set before I took over. The government said they would sue us if we tried to get out of it. Please don’t hurt me,” Anna cried.
“Pathetic mewling animal!” she yanked on Anna’s long hair, forcing her too meet her gaze, “How I long for the day to wipe you all from the face of the Earth!” the woman strode out.
Once out of the cell, she activated her phone, “We don’t have much time,” she said.
“I know,” came the reply, “I’m watching the news. But Doctor Gein is very good at what he does. It will work.”
“Yes, of course,” the woman removed the red robes and mask and walked into the command center, “You should have heard her.”
“Did she cry?”
“Oh, yes,” the white haired woman handed her disguise to a jack-booted underling.
“Make sure you record her struggles. I want to see them,” the voice said breathlessly.
A distasteful look crossed the woman’s face as she began assembling her armor, “I will,” Supremacister promised, then hung up.
Miles away, Aryan Ideal did the same.
*****
Greenbriar Brewery was the brainchild of four friends who thought they could make money off the micro-brewery craze of the mid-nineties. The men had bought and outfitted a tiny plant outside of Sausalito, California, and made a go of it. The business failed, as most new businesses do, and the quartet moved on to other projects. The Brewery itself still stands, a supposedly vacant and for sale property.
It was here that the Race Warriors waited. They had completed their mission, bringing Anna Kensington to this place, though two of them weren’t sure why.
“I think this plan is far too complicated, Loki,” Big Mo fretted.
“Not at all. These people are a splinter cell of HERPES,” Coyote Loki peeled an orange while sitting at a dust-caked desk, “Professional brainwashers. They will have the human serve us. Then she can work on destroying the government’s Sentinoid program from within.”
Maurice Leblanc was unconvinced. The entire plot was too subtle for Coyote Loki, “Are you sure HERPES isn’t just using us?”
Coyote Loki sighed. Obviously the towering mutate needed another dose. He rose to his feet, “Attend me, Big Mo.”
The bald giant complied, though with more reluctance than usual. Loki reached out and lay hands upon him. He concentrated, and willed his secondary mutation into action. A mere touch could wreak havoc with a subject’s hypothalamus, bringing about near dementia. It was a pity it took so many treatments to get a truly pliant subject, Loki thought; otherwise he’d have an army of his brethren to do his will.
Big Mo’s brow furrowed, as if he was getting an inkling of what was being done to him. However, in seconds it was too late, and soon the former mercenary was Loki’s zealous pawn.
“Do you doubt my plan?” Coyote Loki asked, now that he knew what answer he’d get.
“No. Never.”
“Good,” the mutate went back to his orange, “I would hate to see you lose your faith.”
*****
Cacophony was Greenbriar Brewery’s newly installed “silent alarm”. The mutate could will herself to become ambient sound over spaces as large as a football stadium. Invisible to the naked eye in this form, Cacophony was a sonic tripwire that would go off if the right stimuli were provided: like the footfalls of an intruder.
When De Brown Streak entered her field Cacophony tried to warn the others as quickly as she could. Unfortunately for her and the Race Warriors the speed of sound was merely first gear for the sepia speedster.
DBS smashed his way through a dilapidated storeroom door and found his targets. He struck at Big Mo first. Thousands of blows buffeted the mutate around the cramped office.
Coyote Loki hissed and assumed a form straight from Lovecraft’s nightmares. Ropy, oozing tentacles lashed out to try and bind Clement. He stepped aside and countered the attack by hurling everything in the room that was not bolted down at Loki.
Cacophony went for DBS next. Invisible and intangible, she bombarded De Brown Streak with sound waves that had enough timbre to smash every glass and bottle in the building. DBS moved closer to Coyote Loki in hopes the mutate wouldn’t dare such an assault so close to her lord. It was a wise strategy, and also gave Josh the chance to hammer away at the villain’s chimerical form. That knocked Loki back through the wall and out onto the distillery’s bottling plant floor. DBS knew that left him open to Cacophony’s attack but this time he was ready. He turned and sprayed at the air with an aerosol can he had concealed in his pocket.
It was the same spray Mr. Epitome had used on him in Sacramento. He had no idea how CSFB! had gotten it, but was glad he did, because the vibratum particles in the mixture would affect Cacophony’s sonic form.
The female mutate screamed in pain as the vibratum tore at her body like acid. She assumed corporal form, clutching her face. DBS relieved Cacophony of her agony with a well placed blow to the neck.
Big Mo was up and making his presence known. He was leeching off of DBS’s speed, healing himself. Then he fired a wave of pure kinetic energy, which sent De Brown Streak out the same hole Coyote Loki had made and slammed him into one of the plant’s rusted brewery vats. The gong echoed throughout the complex.
Coyote Loki returned to his original form and vaulted at DBS. Arms became blades as the metamorph attempted to eviscerate his foe.
“Judas!” Loki screamed, “Judas!”
“Oh, please,” DBS managed to dodge, but he was at a disadvantage. Big Mo was still sapping his speed, and Loki was faster and stronger than he looked. He found a length of chain and snaked it around his foe’s waist. When he tried to throw Loki across the room the terrorist simply altered his structure to let the weapon pass straight through his midsection. Big Mo amplified the amount of force behind DBS’s maneuver, so the combination of reduced resistance and increased torque caused him to lose his balance. He tumbled, and Coyote Loki was on him, slashing away.
Big Mo had jumped down onto the factory floor from the office. He was glowing with power. DBS decided it was time to do something stupid. He concentrated, and began pumping unimaginable levels of speed into Mo. The mutate staggered.
“What’s happening?” he wondered aloud. Coyote Loki turned to look to see what was distressing his disciple so.
“Just filling you to the rim,” De Brown Streak smiled before kicking Loki at Big Mo, “with vim.” [Bonus points to anyone who can remember what coffee company slogan DBS is paraphrasing.]
When the two Race Warriors collided it was more energy for Big Mo to absorb. He overloaded, and released the stored power in a spectacular explosion that reduced every square inch of the brewery to shrapnel. DBS managed to outrun the shockwave, but the last stunt took enough out of him so that he couldn’t avoid crashing into a copse of trees.
“Whoo, it worked,” he said aloud, once his ears stopped ringing, “Just like in the comics.”
A powerful hand grabbed his neck from behind and slammed him into the ground. Aryan Ideal smiled.
“Yes. And just like in the comics, the hero has arrived in the nick of time.”
*****
Doctor Gein and his assistants had just about prepared the subject for the procedure when Glory burrowed her way into the subterranean chamber. She wasted no time in attacking the men. A few vicious strikes and all three men were still.
CrazySugarFreakBoy! rolled down the tunnel Glory had made and ran straight to Anna Kensington.
“Anna? Can you hear me? Are you OK?” the Wired Wonder tore away at the restraints that bound his ex-lover.
Anna nodded, desperately struggling to keep from crying, “Where am I?”
“Some underground base outside of Sausalito. Glory spotted it with her X-ray vision once we tracked you here. The place is crawling with goons, so we need to leave now to get you safe. Can you walk?”
“I…” she began, but CSFB! saw the doubt in her eyes and didn’t give her the chance to finish. He took her up in her arms and headed for the tunnel.
The door to the room burst open and a squad of men with automatic weapons opened fire. Glory leapt and shielded Anna and Dream from the bullets, but that left her open to the firepower of guns with a far more lethal ordinance.
Supremacister’s twin shotgun slugs smashed into Glory, tearing away fur and skin. The Mutt of Might yelped and hit the floor hard.
“The next rounds release armor-piercing flechettes that will cover this room,” Supremacister pointed the guns at the surprised CSFB!, “You might survive, but your schwärze whore will not. Give up or she dies.”
Anna Kensington stared down the barrels of the two weapons. Then she looked back at Dream. His face was inches from hers and she could see a satisfied grin forming on the young man’s face. He didn’t seem the slightest bit concerned that the woman had threatened her with imminent death if he did not surrender. Knowing Dream as well as Anna did the young woman found that very comforting.
Next: The Big Finale. CSFB! learns the plot, DBS gets to kick racist tail, and Mr. Epitome tells a joke that reveals he might be more of a comic book fan than he lets on. And we get to see the price the Exemplary Man has to pay for Lisa Waltz’s assistance. Out hopefully before Thanksgiving.
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