Showing posts with label Immature Forever. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Immature Forever. Show all posts
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Academy Demolished
The Academy for Difficult Girls has lost its home at Yahoo yet again.
I don't know whether this was the work of that creepy little stalker who has been posting libels against me on various groups, or the mischief of some random clod, or just another meaningless glitch in Yahoo's system.
Don't suppose it matters -- Yahoo explains nothing, apologizes for nothing.
There is a backup group,
http://www.keepitnice.com/kinc/pg/groups/11774/academy-for-difficult-girls/
and when I have the time and energy and am not feeling so kicked in the teeth as I am right now, I will create, I suppose, Academy 5 at Yahoo.
In the meantime, my apologies for the interruption of service.
I don't know whether this was the work of that creepy little stalker who has been posting libels against me on various groups, or the mischief of some random clod, or just another meaningless glitch in Yahoo's system.
Don't suppose it matters -- Yahoo explains nothing, apologizes for nothing.
There is a backup group,
http://www.keepitnice.com/kinc/pg/groups/11774/academy-for-difficult-girls/
and when I have the time and energy and am not feeling so kicked in the teeth as I am right now, I will create, I suppose, Academy 5 at Yahoo.
In the meantime, my apologies for the interruption of service.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Speak Out With Your Geek Out
http://www.speakoutwithyourgeekout.com/
My big geekiness is history, I have recently discovered.
I didn't list "history" among my interests until my wife pointed out to me that I had taught a middle-school class about the Cold War era [primarily by showing them "Dr. Strangelove" ("This is what we feared") and "2001" ("This is what we hoped for")], had written a series of alternate-history stories, was always surprising people with tidbits of historical trivia....
My big geekiness is history, I have recently discovered.
I didn't list "history" among my interests until my wife pointed out to me that I had taught a middle-school class about the Cold War era [primarily by showing them "Dr. Strangelove" ("This is what we feared") and "2001" ("This is what we hoped for")], had written a series of alternate-history stories, was always surprising people with tidbits of historical trivia....
Friday, December 31, 2010
Earth-349: The Last Story, Part 4
By Anton Psychopoulos, Ph.D.
Disclaimer #1: This story is set on a hypothetical world within the pre-Crisis
DC Universe. The DC Universe is owned by DC Comics, Inc. This story also
makes use of characters and concepts owned by other publishers. The use of
these copyrighted elements is done only for the amusement of the author and his
readers, and is not intended to infringe or disparage those copyrights.
Disclaimer #2: This story is not recommended for persons under the age of 18,
or the easily offended, especially for those who are uncomfortable with themes
such as underage pregnancy and pantsing.
Synopsis of Parts 1, 2 and 3: Jonni Thunder commanded her pet Thunderbolt to
summon up the man she would have been if she had been born a boy.
Unfortunately, her male counterpart was a criminal. Also, being just as much a
“Thunder” as Jonni was, Johnny was able to command the mystic Thunderbolt. He
forced the Thunderbolt to use his powers to turn four of his friends into
counterparts of Jonni’s most famous teammates in the Justice Association of
America, and the super-criminals abducted their opposite numbers. With their
most powerful members out of action, the JAA decided to call upon their missing
comrades’ enemies to provide the power they needed, offering pardons and other
inducements. So far, the Atom has been rescued from Cyclotron by Hawkman and
Yellowjacket, Batwoman has been rescued from Nighthawk by *** and Blockbuster
(off camera), the Flash has been rescued from Johnny Quick by Dr. Alchemy and
the Martian Manhunter, and Green Lantern has been rescued from Eclipso by ****
and the Tattooed Lady (also off-camera). Superwoman remains a prisoner of her
own evil counterpart, and the evil Johnny Thunder has not yet been located.
Zatanna and Luthor stood on the roof of the Clinton Building, looking down at
the public square below. The other buildings facing on Weisinger Plaza were
far taller, and most of them didn’t have flat roofs.
Luthor wore a massive suit of powered armor, its body like an elongated egg,
with stumpy legs below and weirdly-proportioned arms that ended in mechanical
hands like those of a metal skeleton. The entire outfit was painted in green
and purple, amusingly reminiscent of the purple business suits and green
neckties he was fond of wearing.
They stood on the rooftop, watching while the red-suited villain gloated over
the captive Superwoman, who hung naked in the middle of a long frame that must
have been magical, since she was unable to tear its straps or break its frame.
They were still there because they knew full well that the pair of them could
never have defeated Superwoman. They were waiting, hoping that more members of
the Justice Association would show up before he tried to kill or rape the Woman
of Steel. Even then, they were not at all sure that the entire JAA would be
able to defeat someone with Superwoman’s powers, especially one who had no
scruples against killing them.
They both knew that what they really needed was another Kryptonian, but so far
as anyone knew, Kara Jor-El was the last child of Krypton.
The plaza was empty, the people having been driven away by Thunder’s arrival,
and the streets blocked off by the Metropolis police soon after.
The man standing over the bound Superwoman was a splendid male specimen, his
flawless muscular body well-displayed in a tight-fitting outfit that looked
like a 19th Century military uniform, executed in red silk with golden boots,
sash, gold-braided sleeves and a waist-length white cape piped in gold. A
broad golden lightning bolt slashed down the front bib of his double-breasted
tunic.
He gesticulated wildly in the air while he ranted at Superwoman, pacing back
and forth. Her red and blue uniform lay crumpled at her feet, and he kicked at
it as he passed by.
“We need to know what he is saying,” Luthor said tersely.
“I can give us both superhuman hearing, but it’s liable to be rather painful.”
“No need. This suit has a shotgun mike.”
He moved his fingers, almost as though he were typing on an invisible keyboard,
and a sneering voice emerged from his chest.
“—soon as my guys get here with their own prisoners, we’re gonna have us a
little press conference, let folks know that from now on America belongs to the
Thunder Squad, an’ the Justice Association is outta business!”
“That’s to our advantage, at least,” Luthor said with a nod. “We have time to
wait for the rest to show up.”
Zatanna grimaced.
“So Superwoman can hang there for as long as it takes for backup to arrive.
Just great.”
“She is not suffering any physical harm, and her dignity can scarcely be
further impaired.” His voice suggested rather strongly that he didn’t at all
mind seeing Superwoman humiliated.
Thunder pointed to the dangling straps to either side of Superwoman.
“And just to make sure everybody knows what that means, you and your pals are
gonna provide sorta a visual aid, on live TV.”
Superwoman said nothing in response. Her mouth was held open by a ring gag,
but she could have used the power commonly called “super-ventriloquism” to
speak clearly anyhow. Clearly she was not speaking so as not to give Thunder
the satisfaction.
“Let her go!” a commanding voice barked out from above the rooftop. Zatanna
and Luthor looked up to see a bare-chested man in star-spangled shorts who
seemed to be standing on empty air. He dove as though toward a swimming pool,
hands before him, slicing through the air faster than it seemed possible he
could fall, yet landed unharmed on his feet before Thunder.
The villain stepped up to the stranger, looking cocky and unafraid, seemingly
prepared to exchange threats and witticisms, then sucker-punched him, hard in
the belly. The stranger doubled over around the fist and then flew backward,
smashing through a shop window. He began to stagger out of the display window,
obviously shaken, and Thunder stood waiting for him, not leaving his captive’s
side. The stranger staggered towards him, saying in an unusual accent, “You
are facing a Myrmidon, Johnny Thunder. I will punish your hubris in usurping
the lightning bolt of Zeus!”
The man’s courage would have been inspiring, if it were not so obvious that he
was impossibly outclassed.
“Luthor, that idiot is going to get himself killed.”
“Let him.”
“No. We’re going to have to move, ready or not.
“Nwod ot eht azalp ylefas,” and a wind lifted them as though they were
weightless and swirled them down to the plaza almost as fast as they could have
fallen, yet set them down unharmed. Finding himself committed against his
will, Luthor raised the right arm of his suit and fired a green ray at
Thunder’s back.
The villain turned away from the bare-chested man, moving so quickly that all
Zatanna could see were the golden flashes of his braided cuffs as he crushed
the shoulder and hip joints of Luthor’s suit and then tore off his helmet – and
nearly his head with it.
“Johnny Thunder, I presume?” Luthor said coolly through bleeding lips.
“Captain Thunder, now,” the blond villain said.
“So, you actually turned yourself into one of your supermen, and the most
powerful. How typical.”
“Of course I made myself into the Superwoman guy. What am I, stupid, I should
trust someone else with this kind of power?”
Luthor tilted his head in a way that suggested he would shrug if he could.
“I am not known as being particularly stupid,” he said mildly, “and I would not
burden myself with that kind of power and be unable to set it aside when I am
done with it.”
“Oh, so you’re sayin’ I am stupid? Let’s see how stupid I look when I –“
Captain Thunder cocked back a fist but never brought it down on Luthor’s bald
skull. Its forward motion was prevented by a much smaller hand that clamped
around his wrist.
The hand belonged to a red-haired boy of about thirteen, who was dressed in a
costume identical to Superwoman’s, except that instead of wearing blue tights
under his red shorts, he was bare-legged.
The boy had planted both red-slippered feet on Captain Thunder’s back to
prevent him from punching through Luthor’s head. The blond villain was about
to swing his left hand to swat the boy away when a blond girl of about ten
grabbed it. She twisted his thumb back until he gasped with pain, allowing the
boy to get him into a full nelson.
The girl was dressed in a long-sleeved white bodysuit that left her legs bare,
along with blue boots, gloves and red cape. She undid Captain Thunder’s sash
and then began rolling down his pants. The indestructible fabric hampered his
efforts to kick at her.
Zatanna gave a sigh of relief, even as she moved in to lend her magic to the
struggle. Superwoman was indeed Krypton’s last child, but it appeared that
there were some grandchildren.
Superwoman, in such a situation, might have used her heat vision or super-
breath to drive off an attacker. Captain Thunder did neither, perhaps because
he hadn’t had much practice, perhaps because he didn’t have those powers. A
nimbus of tiny electric sparks began to form around his head, as he began to
mouth some word, but whatever he was doing was interrupted when a third super-
powerful child appeared, a tiny creature that looked to be about three years
old. Its gender was hard to determine, in a purple bodysuit with green cape
and cowl, a gaudy yellow-and-white sunburst on the chest.
The little one dove between Captain Thunder’s legs from behind, grasped his
dangling testicles and yanked backward, hard. The villain’s eyes crossed and
he slumped as though in a faint.
The older children took advantage of the distraction to truss up the villain
with his costume, and gag him with his sash. Then they went to free Superwoman.
The Woman of Steel quickly restored her costume and then hugged the smallest of
her rescuers to her bosom.
“Thank you, sweetie. Are you all right?”
“Nova, call me da Nova! It my see-kurt in-den-dy.”
Superwoman smiled ironically.
“Oh, yes, we wouldn’t want to spill any secrets, would we?”
She looked pointedly at the older children.
“Hey!” the boy said indignantly, “we just saved your-“
“Yes, that’s true, you saved me from great pain and suffering, possibly even
saved my life, and I’m grateful, and I’m very impressed. But we are going to
talk, later.”
Superwoman stiffened her fingers and sliced through the front of Luthor’s body
armor, then pried it open with her hands until he could climb out, dressed in a
purple coverall and green deck shoes.
The air abruptly began to shimmer above the Plaza, and within seconds a huge
object shaped like a top had materialized above the ground. A blond man in a
red-trimmed green uniform jumped out of it and went up to the group surrounding
Superwoman, hands raised in the hope of not alarming them. A small golden
object rather like a model spaceship circled his head in short, nervous
movements.
“I, uh, come in peace—“
Superwoman cut him off.
“You’re a rip hunter, aren’t you?” she said, pointing at the emblem, a stylized
tear crossed by nine stitches, on the left breast of his uniform. “Come to
stitch up damage to the time stream?”
“Uhhh, yes, Ma’am. Only this time, we’re just here to check out an Indian
Summer – uh, that means an undocumented –“
“An undocumented historical event that can’t be viewed on a chronoscope, yes.”
The young Time Patroller looked around.
“People have been arguing for centuries about what exactly happened on Miracle
Monday. I see the legends were right, at least, that it involved you, and also
the debut of—“
The man’s next words were blotted out by a weird booming noise from the
hovering vehicle, which was also rippling in the air again. Had he said “hung
fence”? “Young vents”? Nobody was sure afterward, and Superwoman declined to
talk about it.
The time traveller started almost guiltily, and began moving around the Plaza,
pointing at people and objects, calling orders to the little machine that
continued to fly about his head.
Zatanna, having finished creating magical restraints to replace the improvised
bonds the children had used, sidled up to Superwoman, looking toward the Woman
of Steel’s three young rescuers.
“Um, Kara, how old are you?”
“Twenty-nine.”
Overhearing this exchange, Luthor sneered, “Who says a teenaged unwed mother
can never amount to anything?”
The boy in the Superwoman costume was suddenly in front of Luthor, grabbing him
by the front of his coverall and shaking him savagely.
“Who the Hell asked you?”
Superwoman grabbed the boy by the cape and yanked him away from Luthor.
“Later,” she hissed.
An amplified voice suddenly boomed out from overhead.
“HEY, FOLKS, HOW ARE YOU DOING DOWN THERE?”
Overhead, another large and odd-looking vehicle hovered, this one looking like
nothing so much as an immense version of an Egyptian scarab brooch. It settled
quickly to the Plaza with a rush of air that didn‘t seem like enough to hold up
a vehicle that size. The side slid open and out came the Flash, the Martian
Manhunter, Hawkman, the Atom, Jonni Thunder (now dressed in a sweater and
skirt, with a green plaid beret) and Blue Beetle. The time traveler ran up to
them, peppering the JAA’ers with questions.
Zatanna and Superwoman bent over the bound Captain Thunder while Jonni
approached them. Zatanna addressed him sternly.
“All right, now, we’re going to take the gag off, and you are going to give
Jonni Thunder her voice back, and that is all you are going to say, got it?”
After a long pause, Captain Thunder slowly nodded. Superwoman removed the gag
and he sighed, “Thunderbolt, give the bitch her pipes back.” As soon as he had
finished, the gag went back in, with some force.
The Thunderbolt appeared instantly and extended a hand towards Jonni. A spark
flew toward her throat, much as though it were a static electricity discharge.
Jonni Thunder winced and cleared her throat. “Thank God,” she said hoarsely,
and gratefully took a cup of coffee from a tray Blue Beetle was carrying around.
Jonni looked down at herself.
“Okay, first, gimme my muscles back!”
Jonni’s body grew thicker and heavier. She flexed her arms, then her legs.
She grinned and smacked her fist into her palm. She looked down at her body
thoughtfully.
“Hmmmm…. Guess I’ll keep the tits.”
The Thunderbolt sighed like a static discharge.
“Thought you might.”
“Okay, now let’s see about erasin’ this jerk and all his works.”
The Thunderbolt raised a hand.
“No, Jonni, you don’t want to do that, either. See, the reason the Thunder
Squad didn’t just kill their counterparts right away is that every time you
change the world the way I did when I created them, it puts a strain on what I
can only call the fabric of reality itself. And in the last 24 hours, that
fabric has suffered some serious strain.”
“So we should, what, wait awhile before deletin’ ‘em?”
“Altering their histories after they’ve had time to firm up could cause even
more damage.
“Look, couldn’t you just put up with the existence of five more antisocial
nitwits with super-powers? Not as though you have never dealt with any of
those before.”
Superwoman put a hand on Jonni’s shoulder. “I think we should take the
Thunderbolt’s advice. He knows more about these things than any of us, and if
he thinks that is the safest way for us to go, we should listen.”
Jonni looked thoughtful, then shrugged. She was about to speak when suddenly
the ripple in the air around the hovering time machine grew much larger and
more violent. The time traveler looked up with alarm. A chocolate-colored
face poked out of the open hatch and called, “Booster! We can’t hold it any
longer!” She looked frightened.
The man on the ground turned, raising his arms, and called out, “Go! Leave me!”
Or was it “Don’t leave me!”? Nobody was sure about that, either, and Booster
declined to talk about it. In any event, the head vanished, the hatch closed,
and the top-shape vanished in a rippling that somehow looked very dangerous and
painful this time.
The Time Patroller stared at the empty air for a moment, then collapsed,
sobbing, his head in his hands.
“Lost!” he wailed. “Lost in an Indian Summer forty years long!”
Blue Beetle put her arms around the man and led him off to a restaurant’s
sidewalk table to sit him down. The little golden flying device continued to
circle them.
The Thunderbolt said sadly, “I was about to add that time travel, and travel
between parallel worlds, will also be very difficult for some time to come.
About forty years, evidently.”
Jonni Thunder cleared her throat.
“Well, if Superwoman and the Thunderbolt both think we should just leave things
be, I guess a dope like me shouldn’t try to be smarter than you.
“Kinda weird, though, to think that these clowns who didn’t even have any super-
powers day before yesterday are gonna be trouble for us just like the Joker and
stuff has always been, and it’ll be like they always were.
“Anyway, yeah…kinda weird.”
A muted rumbling that had been building in the distance for some time grew a
good deal louder. A stubby, round-nosed aircraft appeared just at rooftop
level and settled on five screaming jets next to the Blue Beetle’s vehicle.
Iron Maiden was first out, followed by Captain America and the Human Torch.
Moments later, Batwoman and Batgirl emerged also. They quickly determined that
the confrontation they had expected to join was already over, and that no-one
needed any help, and decided to simply join the crowd.
Batgirl stayed with the Avengers, but Batwoman went directly to Superwoman.
“You’re all right?”
“We all seem to be. Looks as though everyone is here except Green Lantern.”
“She’s a little busy, but I saw her for a moment. She and the baby are doing
fine, and Star Sapphire is with them.”
“So, he really is the father, then?”
“If I hadn’t been sure of it already, I would have been when I saw them
together.”
Jonni Thunder looked around the now-crowded plaza.
“Weird, how much has happened in just a day. This…this isn’t really even
Earth-349 anymore, is it? It’s more like…Earth-349A.”
“Don’t kid yourself,” the Thunderbolt said, shaking his electrical
head-equivalent. “The world changes all the time.”
“Oh, man, I hate it when you say stuff like that! It hurts my head to think
about it!”
“So don’t think about it. Most of the time you don’t need to think about any
of this stuff, like time having three dimensions, or… or a lot of other stuff.”
Jonni Thunder looked thoughtful for a moment, then shrugged and chirped, “Well,
the good guys won and all’s right with the world. How else could things have
ended up?”
The Thunderbolt laughed like crackling static.
[See more Earth-349 stories at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Earth-349]
[Contact the author at dr_psycho1960@hotmail.com]
Disclaimer #1: This story is set on a hypothetical world within the pre-Crisis
DC Universe. The DC Universe is owned by DC Comics, Inc. This story also
makes use of characters and concepts owned by other publishers. The use of
these copyrighted elements is done only for the amusement of the author and his
readers, and is not intended to infringe or disparage those copyrights.
Disclaimer #2: This story is not recommended for persons under the age of 18,
or the easily offended, especially for those who are uncomfortable with themes
such as underage pregnancy and pantsing.
Synopsis of Parts 1, 2 and 3: Jonni Thunder commanded her pet Thunderbolt to
summon up the man she would have been if she had been born a boy.
Unfortunately, her male counterpart was a criminal. Also, being just as much a
“Thunder” as Jonni was, Johnny was able to command the mystic Thunderbolt. He
forced the Thunderbolt to use his powers to turn four of his friends into
counterparts of Jonni’s most famous teammates in the Justice Association of
America, and the super-criminals abducted their opposite numbers. With their
most powerful members out of action, the JAA decided to call upon their missing
comrades’ enemies to provide the power they needed, offering pardons and other
inducements. So far, the Atom has been rescued from Cyclotron by Hawkman and
Yellowjacket, Batwoman has been rescued from Nighthawk by *** and Blockbuster
(off camera), the Flash has been rescued from Johnny Quick by Dr. Alchemy and
the Martian Manhunter, and Green Lantern has been rescued from Eclipso by ****
and the Tattooed Lady (also off-camera). Superwoman remains a prisoner of her
own evil counterpart, and the evil Johnny Thunder has not yet been located.
Zatanna and Luthor stood on the roof of the Clinton Building, looking down at
the public square below. The other buildings facing on Weisinger Plaza were
far taller, and most of them didn’t have flat roofs.
Luthor wore a massive suit of powered armor, its body like an elongated egg,
with stumpy legs below and weirdly-proportioned arms that ended in mechanical
hands like those of a metal skeleton. The entire outfit was painted in green
and purple, amusingly reminiscent of the purple business suits and green
neckties he was fond of wearing.
They stood on the rooftop, watching while the red-suited villain gloated over
the captive Superwoman, who hung naked in the middle of a long frame that must
have been magical, since she was unable to tear its straps or break its frame.
They were still there because they knew full well that the pair of them could
never have defeated Superwoman. They were waiting, hoping that more members of
the Justice Association would show up before he tried to kill or rape the Woman
of Steel. Even then, they were not at all sure that the entire JAA would be
able to defeat someone with Superwoman’s powers, especially one who had no
scruples against killing them.
They both knew that what they really needed was another Kryptonian, but so far
as anyone knew, Kara Jor-El was the last child of Krypton.
The plaza was empty, the people having been driven away by Thunder’s arrival,
and the streets blocked off by the Metropolis police soon after.
The man standing over the bound Superwoman was a splendid male specimen, his
flawless muscular body well-displayed in a tight-fitting outfit that looked
like a 19th Century military uniform, executed in red silk with golden boots,
sash, gold-braided sleeves and a waist-length white cape piped in gold. A
broad golden lightning bolt slashed down the front bib of his double-breasted
tunic.
He gesticulated wildly in the air while he ranted at Superwoman, pacing back
and forth. Her red and blue uniform lay crumpled at her feet, and he kicked at
it as he passed by.
“We need to know what he is saying,” Luthor said tersely.
“I can give us both superhuman hearing, but it’s liable to be rather painful.”
“No need. This suit has a shotgun mike.”
He moved his fingers, almost as though he were typing on an invisible keyboard,
and a sneering voice emerged from his chest.
“—soon as my guys get here with their own prisoners, we’re gonna have us a
little press conference, let folks know that from now on America belongs to the
Thunder Squad, an’ the Justice Association is outta business!”
“That’s to our advantage, at least,” Luthor said with a nod. “We have time to
wait for the rest to show up.”
Zatanna grimaced.
“So Superwoman can hang there for as long as it takes for backup to arrive.
Just great.”
“She is not suffering any physical harm, and her dignity can scarcely be
further impaired.” His voice suggested rather strongly that he didn’t at all
mind seeing Superwoman humiliated.
Thunder pointed to the dangling straps to either side of Superwoman.
“And just to make sure everybody knows what that means, you and your pals are
gonna provide sorta a visual aid, on live TV.”
Superwoman said nothing in response. Her mouth was held open by a ring gag,
but she could have used the power commonly called “super-ventriloquism” to
speak clearly anyhow. Clearly she was not speaking so as not to give Thunder
the satisfaction.
“Let her go!” a commanding voice barked out from above the rooftop. Zatanna
and Luthor looked up to see a bare-chested man in star-spangled shorts who
seemed to be standing on empty air. He dove as though toward a swimming pool,
hands before him, slicing through the air faster than it seemed possible he
could fall, yet landed unharmed on his feet before Thunder.
The villain stepped up to the stranger, looking cocky and unafraid, seemingly
prepared to exchange threats and witticisms, then sucker-punched him, hard in
the belly. The stranger doubled over around the fist and then flew backward,
smashing through a shop window. He began to stagger out of the display window,
obviously shaken, and Thunder stood waiting for him, not leaving his captive’s
side. The stranger staggered towards him, saying in an unusual accent, “You
are facing a Myrmidon, Johnny Thunder. I will punish your hubris in usurping
the lightning bolt of Zeus!”
The man’s courage would have been inspiring, if it were not so obvious that he
was impossibly outclassed.
“Luthor, that idiot is going to get himself killed.”
“Let him.”
“No. We’re going to have to move, ready or not.
“Nwod ot eht azalp ylefas,” and a wind lifted them as though they were
weightless and swirled them down to the plaza almost as fast as they could have
fallen, yet set them down unharmed. Finding himself committed against his
will, Luthor raised the right arm of his suit and fired a green ray at
Thunder’s back.
The villain turned away from the bare-chested man, moving so quickly that all
Zatanna could see were the golden flashes of his braided cuffs as he crushed
the shoulder and hip joints of Luthor’s suit and then tore off his helmet – and
nearly his head with it.
“Johnny Thunder, I presume?” Luthor said coolly through bleeding lips.
“Captain Thunder, now,” the blond villain said.
“So, you actually turned yourself into one of your supermen, and the most
powerful. How typical.”
“Of course I made myself into the Superwoman guy. What am I, stupid, I should
trust someone else with this kind of power?”
Luthor tilted his head in a way that suggested he would shrug if he could.
“I am not known as being particularly stupid,” he said mildly, “and I would not
burden myself with that kind of power and be unable to set it aside when I am
done with it.”
“Oh, so you’re sayin’ I am stupid? Let’s see how stupid I look when I –“
Captain Thunder cocked back a fist but never brought it down on Luthor’s bald
skull. Its forward motion was prevented by a much smaller hand that clamped
around his wrist.
The hand belonged to a red-haired boy of about thirteen, who was dressed in a
costume identical to Superwoman’s, except that instead of wearing blue tights
under his red shorts, he was bare-legged.
The boy had planted both red-slippered feet on Captain Thunder’s back to
prevent him from punching through Luthor’s head. The blond villain was about
to swing his left hand to swat the boy away when a blond girl of about ten
grabbed it. She twisted his thumb back until he gasped with pain, allowing the
boy to get him into a full nelson.
The girl was dressed in a long-sleeved white bodysuit that left her legs bare,
along with blue boots, gloves and red cape. She undid Captain Thunder’s sash
and then began rolling down his pants. The indestructible fabric hampered his
efforts to kick at her.
Zatanna gave a sigh of relief, even as she moved in to lend her magic to the
struggle. Superwoman was indeed Krypton’s last child, but it appeared that
there were some grandchildren.
Superwoman, in such a situation, might have used her heat vision or super-
breath to drive off an attacker. Captain Thunder did neither, perhaps because
he hadn’t had much practice, perhaps because he didn’t have those powers. A
nimbus of tiny electric sparks began to form around his head, as he began to
mouth some word, but whatever he was doing was interrupted when a third super-
powerful child appeared, a tiny creature that looked to be about three years
old. Its gender was hard to determine, in a purple bodysuit with green cape
and cowl, a gaudy yellow-and-white sunburst on the chest.
The little one dove between Captain Thunder’s legs from behind, grasped his
dangling testicles and yanked backward, hard. The villain’s eyes crossed and
he slumped as though in a faint.
The older children took advantage of the distraction to truss up the villain
with his costume, and gag him with his sash. Then they went to free Superwoman.
The Woman of Steel quickly restored her costume and then hugged the smallest of
her rescuers to her bosom.
“Thank you, sweetie. Are you all right?”
“Nova, call me da Nova! It my see-kurt in-den-dy.”
Superwoman smiled ironically.
“Oh, yes, we wouldn’t want to spill any secrets, would we?”
She looked pointedly at the older children.
“Hey!” the boy said indignantly, “we just saved your-“
“Yes, that’s true, you saved me from great pain and suffering, possibly even
saved my life, and I’m grateful, and I’m very impressed. But we are going to
talk, later.”
Superwoman stiffened her fingers and sliced through the front of Luthor’s body
armor, then pried it open with her hands until he could climb out, dressed in a
purple coverall and green deck shoes.
The air abruptly began to shimmer above the Plaza, and within seconds a huge
object shaped like a top had materialized above the ground. A blond man in a
red-trimmed green uniform jumped out of it and went up to the group surrounding
Superwoman, hands raised in the hope of not alarming them. A small golden
object rather like a model spaceship circled his head in short, nervous
movements.
“I, uh, come in peace—“
Superwoman cut him off.
“You’re a rip hunter, aren’t you?” she said, pointing at the emblem, a stylized
tear crossed by nine stitches, on the left breast of his uniform. “Come to
stitch up damage to the time stream?”
“Uhhh, yes, Ma’am. Only this time, we’re just here to check out an Indian
Summer – uh, that means an undocumented –“
“An undocumented historical event that can’t be viewed on a chronoscope, yes.”
The young Time Patroller looked around.
“People have been arguing for centuries about what exactly happened on Miracle
Monday. I see the legends were right, at least, that it involved you, and also
the debut of—“
The man’s next words were blotted out by a weird booming noise from the
hovering vehicle, which was also rippling in the air again. Had he said “hung
fence”? “Young vents”? Nobody was sure afterward, and Superwoman declined to
talk about it.
The time traveller started almost guiltily, and began moving around the Plaza,
pointing at people and objects, calling orders to the little machine that
continued to fly about his head.
Zatanna, having finished creating magical restraints to replace the improvised
bonds the children had used, sidled up to Superwoman, looking toward the Woman
of Steel’s three young rescuers.
“Um, Kara, how old are you?”
“Twenty-nine.”
Overhearing this exchange, Luthor sneered, “Who says a teenaged unwed mother
can never amount to anything?”
The boy in the Superwoman costume was suddenly in front of Luthor, grabbing him
by the front of his coverall and shaking him savagely.
“Who the Hell asked you?”
Superwoman grabbed the boy by the cape and yanked him away from Luthor.
“Later,” she hissed.
An amplified voice suddenly boomed out from overhead.
“HEY, FOLKS, HOW ARE YOU DOING DOWN THERE?”
Overhead, another large and odd-looking vehicle hovered, this one looking like
nothing so much as an immense version of an Egyptian scarab brooch. It settled
quickly to the Plaza with a rush of air that didn‘t seem like enough to hold up
a vehicle that size. The side slid open and out came the Flash, the Martian
Manhunter, Hawkman, the Atom, Jonni Thunder (now dressed in a sweater and
skirt, with a green plaid beret) and Blue Beetle. The time traveler ran up to
them, peppering the JAA’ers with questions.
Zatanna and Superwoman bent over the bound Captain Thunder while Jonni
approached them. Zatanna addressed him sternly.
“All right, now, we’re going to take the gag off, and you are going to give
Jonni Thunder her voice back, and that is all you are going to say, got it?”
After a long pause, Captain Thunder slowly nodded. Superwoman removed the gag
and he sighed, “Thunderbolt, give the bitch her pipes back.” As soon as he had
finished, the gag went back in, with some force.
The Thunderbolt appeared instantly and extended a hand towards Jonni. A spark
flew toward her throat, much as though it were a static electricity discharge.
Jonni Thunder winced and cleared her throat. “Thank God,” she said hoarsely,
and gratefully took a cup of coffee from a tray Blue Beetle was carrying around.
Jonni looked down at herself.
“Okay, first, gimme my muscles back!”
Jonni’s body grew thicker and heavier. She flexed her arms, then her legs.
She grinned and smacked her fist into her palm. She looked down at her body
thoughtfully.
“Hmmmm…. Guess I’ll keep the tits.”
The Thunderbolt sighed like a static discharge.
“Thought you might.”
“Okay, now let’s see about erasin’ this jerk and all his works.”
The Thunderbolt raised a hand.
“No, Jonni, you don’t want to do that, either. See, the reason the Thunder
Squad didn’t just kill their counterparts right away is that every time you
change the world the way I did when I created them, it puts a strain on what I
can only call the fabric of reality itself. And in the last 24 hours, that
fabric has suffered some serious strain.”
“So we should, what, wait awhile before deletin’ ‘em?”
“Altering their histories after they’ve had time to firm up could cause even
more damage.
“Look, couldn’t you just put up with the existence of five more antisocial
nitwits with super-powers? Not as though you have never dealt with any of
those before.”
Superwoman put a hand on Jonni’s shoulder. “I think we should take the
Thunderbolt’s advice. He knows more about these things than any of us, and if
he thinks that is the safest way for us to go, we should listen.”
Jonni looked thoughtful, then shrugged. She was about to speak when suddenly
the ripple in the air around the hovering time machine grew much larger and
more violent. The time traveler looked up with alarm. A chocolate-colored
face poked out of the open hatch and called, “Booster! We can’t hold it any
longer!” She looked frightened.
The man on the ground turned, raising his arms, and called out, “Go! Leave me!”
Or was it “Don’t leave me!”? Nobody was sure about that, either, and Booster
declined to talk about it. In any event, the head vanished, the hatch closed,
and the top-shape vanished in a rippling that somehow looked very dangerous and
painful this time.
The Time Patroller stared at the empty air for a moment, then collapsed,
sobbing, his head in his hands.
“Lost!” he wailed. “Lost in an Indian Summer forty years long!”
Blue Beetle put her arms around the man and led him off to a restaurant’s
sidewalk table to sit him down. The little golden flying device continued to
circle them.
The Thunderbolt said sadly, “I was about to add that time travel, and travel
between parallel worlds, will also be very difficult for some time to come.
About forty years, evidently.”
Jonni Thunder cleared her throat.
“Well, if Superwoman and the Thunderbolt both think we should just leave things
be, I guess a dope like me shouldn’t try to be smarter than you.
“Kinda weird, though, to think that these clowns who didn’t even have any super-
powers day before yesterday are gonna be trouble for us just like the Joker and
stuff has always been, and it’ll be like they always were.
“Anyway, yeah…kinda weird.”
A muted rumbling that had been building in the distance for some time grew a
good deal louder. A stubby, round-nosed aircraft appeared just at rooftop
level and settled on five screaming jets next to the Blue Beetle’s vehicle.
Iron Maiden was first out, followed by Captain America and the Human Torch.
Moments later, Batwoman and Batgirl emerged also. They quickly determined that
the confrontation they had expected to join was already over, and that no-one
needed any help, and decided to simply join the crowd.
Batgirl stayed with the Avengers, but Batwoman went directly to Superwoman.
“You’re all right?”
“We all seem to be. Looks as though everyone is here except Green Lantern.”
“She’s a little busy, but I saw her for a moment. She and the baby are doing
fine, and Star Sapphire is with them.”
“So, he really is the father, then?”
“If I hadn’t been sure of it already, I would have been when I saw them
together.”
Jonni Thunder looked around the now-crowded plaza.
“Weird, how much has happened in just a day. This…this isn’t really even
Earth-349 anymore, is it? It’s more like…Earth-349A.”
“Don’t kid yourself,” the Thunderbolt said, shaking his electrical
head-equivalent. “The world changes all the time.”
“Oh, man, I hate it when you say stuff like that! It hurts my head to think
about it!”
“So don’t think about it. Most of the time you don’t need to think about any
of this stuff, like time having three dimensions, or… or a lot of other stuff.”
Jonni Thunder looked thoughtful for a moment, then shrugged and chirped, “Well,
the good guys won and all’s right with the world. How else could things have
ended up?”
The Thunderbolt laughed like crackling static.
[See more Earth-349 stories at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Earth-349]
[Contact the author at dr_psycho1960@hotmail.com]
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Playing Cat and Mouse (Over and Over In My Head)
For several years I have been haunted1 by "Cat and Mouse"2, an episode of The Twilight Zone3 in which a woman invites a stray cat into her home and learns that he is a man who has lived for centuries cursed to spend every day as a cat.4
They become lovers, which is beneficial to her since she has hitherto been crippled by extreme shyness (she is the "mouse" of the title), and he makes it clear from the beginning that he is interested only in a very casual relationship. Even so, she is crushed when she learns he has had sex with a friend of hers. So much that she decides to drug him, and he wakes up the next day in a cat-carrier at a veterinary clinic, where she is arranging to have him "fixed".
1 No, that is not too strong a term.
2 Which never should have occupied so much space in my head, but there it is.
3 And not even the classic Rod Serling series, but the 1980s color revival.
4 At night, he can change voluntarily between cat and man.
So why does this story keep coming back into my mind? Specifically, why did it climb into my head when I woke up at 3:00 AM and prevent me from getting back to sleep before the alarm went at 4 and I had to get up?
What does it mean to me? Do I feel as though I am in danger of being emasculated -- sexually, or socially, or . . . what? I don't get it.
My sex life is actually pretty good right now, and I seem to have better control over my sexuality than before -- it's been quite awhile since I did anything stupid and destructive on account of listening to my dick.
Not having regular work bothers me a lot. That could be it. It certainly makes me feel weak and helpless and impotent, and it prevents me from "doing my duty" by my wife and to a lesser extent by other people I care about.
Do I feel as though I am, like the cat-man, the victim of some immense, cruel, disproportionate revenge?
Possibly. Several times recently I have felt ill-used by demands and complaints that seem irrational and arbitrary.
I don't know. And I don't know why I have been feeling so irritable all morning when it has actually been a very enjoyable and undemanding day.
I've been feeling very pleased with myself over my increased self-awareness since I went through therapy, but times like this show me that there will always be limits to it. But at least I am noticing that my feelings are irrational, and not trying to blame them on someone or some circumstance around me.
They become lovers, which is beneficial to her since she has hitherto been crippled by extreme shyness (she is the "mouse" of the title), and he makes it clear from the beginning that he is interested only in a very casual relationship. Even so, she is crushed when she learns he has had sex with a friend of hers. So much that she decides to drug him, and he wakes up the next day in a cat-carrier at a veterinary clinic, where she is arranging to have him "fixed".
1 No, that is not too strong a term.
2 Which never should have occupied so much space in my head, but there it is.
3 And not even the classic Rod Serling series, but the 1980s color revival.
4 At night, he can change voluntarily between cat and man.
So why does this story keep coming back into my mind? Specifically, why did it climb into my head when I woke up at 3:00 AM and prevent me from getting back to sleep before the alarm went at 4 and I had to get up?
What does it mean to me? Do I feel as though I am in danger of being emasculated -- sexually, or socially, or . . . what? I don't get it.
My sex life is actually pretty good right now, and I seem to have better control over my sexuality than before -- it's been quite awhile since I did anything stupid and destructive on account of listening to my dick.
Not having regular work bothers me a lot. That could be it. It certainly makes me feel weak and helpless and impotent, and it prevents me from "doing my duty" by my wife and to a lesser extent by other people I care about.
Do I feel as though I am, like the cat-man, the victim of some immense, cruel, disproportionate revenge?
Possibly. Several times recently I have felt ill-used by demands and complaints that seem irrational and arbitrary.
I don't know. And I don't know why I have been feeling so irritable all morning when it has actually been a very enjoyable and undemanding day.
I've been feeling very pleased with myself over my increased self-awareness since I went through therapy, but times like this show me that there will always be limits to it. But at least I am noticing that my feelings are irrational, and not trying to blame them on someone or some circumstance around me.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Earth-349: Green Lantern
Earth-349: Green Lantern
by Anton Psychopoulos, Ph.D.
Disclaimer #1: This story is set on a hypothetical parallel world within the pre-Crisis DC Universe, based on a story in Superman #349, but is not limited by that story or any other.
Disclaimer #2: Some characters appearing in this story are based on copyrighted characters owned by DC Comics, Inc., Marvel Comics and others. Their use here is not intended to infringe or disparage those copyrights.
Disclaimer #3: This story is not recommended for persons under 18 or the easily offended.
"And when the Security guy turned his flashlight inside the car, the first thing he saw was Tom's face, shining like a glazed doughnut and absolutely dripping with juice!"
Carol Ferris laughed at her own story, then laughed harder as she saw how Liz Jordan was blushing.
"Carol, is that for real? That's why they call him 'Pieface'?"
"If I'm lyin' I'm dyin'."
Liz took another sip of her coffee and shook her head. Looking down, she said softly, "I've never. . .you know."
"You've never had a guy do that for you?"
"No, no, I mean I've never been with a guy who wasn't, you know, white."
"That's easy to fix. You can start with Tom, and work your way up to that architect who's designing the new engine plant."
Liz laughed. Tom Kalmaku was an Eskimo, not very tall and more cute than handsome. The architect (she thought his name was Stewart) was a big, broad-shouldered Negro, darker than Carol's mahogany coffee table. Her laughter died with a shudder as she imagined a man so big, so black, touching her. It was almost unthinkable.
Liz was about to change the subject when her right hand suddenly lit up with a bright green glow. No one on Earth besides those two could even see that light,let alone know what it meant.
A spear of green light shot from the ring to the television set.
"Liz?" Carol said anxiously.
"A new trick I'm teaching it. Watch."
The television came on, as though being activated by some kind of remote control device. On the screen appeared a bosomy redhead with a black patch over her right eye. She wore a purple coverall with an hourglass emblem on one breast pocket. A child about three years old sat on her lap, crowded by the woman's visible pregnancy.
"So when we, the four of us, crawled out of the wreck," the woman on the screen was saying, "we knew we were living on borrowed time twice over, and decided we ought to make good use of the time we'd been given, however much it turned out to be. That's why we --"
The redhead's image vanished suddenly, replaced by a card that read "SPECIAL BULLETIN".
"It scans the airwaves for emergencies in progress," Liz explained as she stood up and let the ring's light play upon her, transforming her black capri slacks,sleeveless plaid blouse and rope-soled sandals into the green, black and white uniform of the Green Lantern.
A newscaster appeared now, describing in plain language but with a breathless manner an earthquake that had just struck Cotati, a small town south of Coast City.
"Cotati, got it," Green Lantern said briskly. A luminous green envelope enclosed the Emerald Gladiatrix and she rose silently from the floor, passing harmlessly through the ceiling and into the Pacific Coast sky.
Carol Ferris kept staring at the ceiling for nearly a minute, until the newscaster declared that "the mystery woman called the Green Lantern" had been seen in Cotati. Clearing roads for fire trucks, lifting rubble off trapped citizens, shoring up buildings with strong though temporary girders of green energy, she had already saved hundreds of lives, and was even now dissolving a pile of old tires into a sticky substance to plug dozens of leaks in a natural-gas pipeline.
Carol winced at the thought of her chum dealing with such a dangerous situation. Natural gas was a terribly volatile, explosive substance. All of the fossil fuels were troublesome. She looked forward to the day when such dirty, dangerous energy sources would be replaced by atomic power.
A camera crew made it into Cotati just in time for a few live shots of Green Lantern patching the pipeline. With a sheepish grin and a modest wave, Liz took off at high speed, but not before the camera captured shots that would be on the front pages of every paper on the West Coast.
Once again Carol thought about starting a diary or annotated scrapbook devoted to Green Lantern. But that was a foolish, self-indulgent notion. Someone could find the thing. Carol was quietly proud that Liz Jordan had made her Green Lantern's only confidante; she would do nothing to endanger that trust.
Once upon a time during the Korean War, Lt. Liz Jordan had just delivered a fighter plane to a United Nations airbase and was badly in need of three days' leave. Her choices were to get a jeep from the motor pool and drive into Seoul, or hitch a ride on a MATS flight going to a South Pacific island. She'd never heard of Bahdnesia, but she hoped it would be something like Tahiti.
Bahdnesia turned out to be nothing at all like Tahiti, but it was certainly a eautiful country, and she'd had a very interesting time, though not an especially restful one. Among other things, she'd saved the life of an aged Bahdnesian monk.
Jordan had thought the only legacy of her time in Bahdnesia was her newfound preference for sunbathing topless, but years later a young Bahdnesian woman had sought her out at the Ferris plant and given her a bequest from that old monk: a tiny oil lantern whose lens was the largest emerald Jordan had ever seen, and a ring set with a smaller emerald cut from the same stone. The magic of those linked stones had given Jordan the power she now wielded as the Green Lantern.
The woman had told Jordan that the monk had been guardian of two other magic gems, a star sapphire and a black diamond, and warned her of a prophecy that two of those who inherited the stones would bring good into the world through them, but the third would bring horror and destruction. Though Jordan pressed,the woman insisted that she could not reveal to her the names of the other two heirs.
Green Lantern flew back to the Ferris Aviation complex with almost as much haste as she had left Carol's apartment. If she didn't hustle, Liz Jordan would be late to work.
Landing invisibly behind a fuel truck, Green Lantern transformed her clothing a second time, then scolded herself for resuming the casual clothes she had worn for her lunch with Carol. She raised the now-invisible green ring to her eyes and was about to command it to dress her in her test pilot's flight suit and helmet when a voice from behind froze her in place.
"Miss Jordan?"
Liz turned, wary. Carl Ferris' tone was mild, but she had caught the slight emphasis in the honorific, his way of reminding her she was the only woman testing planes for Ferris.
"Mister Ferris?"
"Is that the outfit you usually wear when testing my aircraft, Miss Jordan?"
"No, Mister Ferris, it isn't. If you'll excuse me, I'll have to go suit up now. In the same uniform as all your other pilots."
Ferris' face began to darken.
"Miss Jordan, if it were up to me, you would not be wearing any Ferris Aviation uniform, except perhaps that of a Ferris Airways stewardess."
Liz could not completely conceal a look of distaste. Carl Ferris had designed the gaudy, short-skirted FA "fly girl" uniform himself, and it showed.
"Thank you, Mister Ferris, but I find the flight suit more comfortable. And if you find the title 'Miss' uncomfortable, you could always call me 'Captain', and in a few months, God and UC at Coast City willing, you can call me 'Doctor'."
"Miss Jordan, you may feel free to climb into one of my flight suits and report for duty, if you can, within the next --" he checked his watch "--seven minutes, or be reprimanded for tardiness."
The temptation was strong to step into the hangar and emerge a heartbeat later, fully kitted, but that would have been absurdly foolish. As it was, Liz did transform her clothing into a flight suit, and only put on her boots, gloves and helmet the old-fashioned way. Even with that help, she made it to the Green Arrow with only seconds to spare.
The big simulator had a mundane alphanumeric designation, but everyone who worked on it had called it the Green Arrow since the first time the carpenters had installed its green-painted delta wings. They were only plywood in the spaceplane's current incarnation, but one day sleek wings of titanium would carry the Green Arrow's grandchild into orbit.
Liz slipped into the pilot's seat, strapped herself in, fitted on the oxygen mask, waited until she smelled the comforting sour tang of pure O2, then slid the canopy down. The simulator's windscreen snapped into place with a satisfyingly realistic sound.
Still fuming over his encounter with Jordan, Carl Ferris settled in behind his desk and began going over a file relating to Ferris' possible acquisition of Nelson Aviation. He quickly became so engrossed in it that it took him awhile to notice the change in the light in the room. At last he looked up to see that one wall of his office had acquired a luminous patch, an amorphous blob of light that grew and brightened as he watched.
Was it that other obnoxious flying female, Green Lantern, come to tax him with some supposed crime committed by a Ferris employee, or some impertinent request for assistance? But no, this light was yellow, not green. And in a moment the light developed a shining human figure, seated in a luminous chair, a creature of light that moved into the room until it floated in the air before Ferris' desk.
good throbbed a voice, speaking inside Ferris' head with unwholesome intimacy.
"What's good about it?" Ferris snapped. "I have nothing to say to you, Hammond."
As I have nothing to say to the authorities about where I got the missile components I used against Green Lantern last year Hector Hammond sent, with an invisible mental sneer.
"Don't try to threaten me with that," Ferris began, the color (never quite faded) rising again in his face.
I have no desire to threaten you, Ferris. Quite the contrary, I want only to offer you something, something I would like very much for you to have.
"That being?"
Green Lantern
Three days later, Liz Jordan was strapping herself into the Green Arrow for another round of simulated flying. Everything went normally until the canopy slid into place with a sharp click Liz hadn't heard from it before. She looked up to see a small, businesslike lock latching the canopy shut. And a net of gold wire extending across the plexiglass, turning the cockpit into a fiendishly effective trap for Green Lantern, whose ring was powerless against anything yellow.
Green Lantern could do nothing against this trap, but Captain Liz Jordan had gotten herself out of a scrape or two long before she'd ever met old Volthoom. She punched the emergency cowling release switch. No response. She unsnapped the latches on the emergency kit and pulled out a ball-peen hammer. Not as heavy as she'd like, but it would have to do.
The plexiglass was crazed and yielding, and she thought there would be room to get the wire cutters into the golden mesh, but then the whole hangar lit up with a golden glow, and that was all Liz Jordan saw for quite some time.
Standing beside his office desk, Carl Ferris admired his latest acquisition.
Liz Jordan now wore a Ferris Airways stewardess uniform, specially tailored for her at Ferris' orders, with an especially short skirt, an especially low neckline, an especially tight jacket, an especially thin and flimsy blouse.
Ferris stepped forward and patted Liz on the cheek. She glowed with pleasure at the attention.
"'Liz' was a perfect name for you before. A sharp, bitchy name. But you're not a bitch any more. You're my good little personal attendant. What shall I call you?"
"You can call me anything you like, Mister Ferris," the transformed Green Lantern chirped, brown eyes wide with admiration for The Boss.
"Hmm. . . . Betty. No, Betsy. That's your name from now on."
"It's a pretty name. Thank you, Mister Ferris."
Ferris grinned ferally, savoring Betsy's fawning tones and sparkling smile.
"I may have sold my soul to the Devil, but by damn I'll get everything I can out of the bargain."
"I'm flying to Las Vegas for the weekend. You'll come with me. On the way, we can join the Mile High Club."
Betsy squealed with delight.
Light flared from the wall of his office. Ferris grimaced with annoyance. What did Hammond want now?
But it wasn't the yellow of Hammond's life-sustaining nimbus, any more than it was Green Lantern's emerald glow. This light was a brilliant, intense violet-blue. The sort of light that shone from the finest of star sapphires.
There was a human figure in the room, a vague silhouette in the midst of that blinding sapphire glare, a four-armed star of white light shining from approximately the middle of its chest.
"Carl Ferris, you have committed an unspeakable crime. You ought to be given an opportunity to repent of it and learn better, but for the sake of Elizabeth Jordan I must deny you that benefit. Instead, you will remember nothing at all of the last two weeks."
The violet-blue light grew brighter, until it became Carl Ferris' entire world, until staring at it was all he could do. He continued to stare, transfixed, for hours after the light had faded from the room.
Star Sapphire turned to Betsy who stood, still smiling vapidly, where Carl Ferris had ordered her to stand.
"Betsy, Mister Ferris wants you to put your right hand close to your mouth."
Betsy obeyed.
"Repeat after me, Betsy: 'restore the mind of Green Lantern'."
"Restore the mind of Green Lantern."
A green glow leapt out from an invisible source near Betsy's finger. The vacuous smile of Carl Ferris' little stewie was replaced by an expression of grim intensity. Seconds later, the ring appeared, and an instant after that, the uniform of the Green Lantern.
The Emerald Warrior looked down at herself, then brought the ring to her face once more.
"Restore the mind of Elizabeth Jordan," she intoned emotionlessly.
After the light had played over her again, she shook herself and said in a more relaxed tone, "That was . . . strange. At first, I had only the mind of Green Lantern. If she hadn't decided she needed Liz Jordan to carry out her mission, I might have spent the rest of my life with one hell of a one-track mind."
She transformed the Green Lantern uniform into a pale blue sundress and indigo huaraches.
"Now you, Star Sapphire."
She gestured for the apparition to drop the sapphire glow.
"Sorry, Captain. Not just yet."
Hours later, after the staring, unresponsive Carl Ferris had been carried away by an ambulance crew, Carol Ferris was seated at her father's desk, bellowing into the telephone at yet another hapless department head. She seemed to be trying to keep Ferris Air Industries in motion by will alone. Liz Jordan didn't put it past her to manage it.
In the locker room of Hangar Eight, Thomas Kalmaku unscrewed the bottom of his Thermos bottle and looked fondly on the object taped inside, a star sapphire the size of the first joint of his thumb, the gift of the Bahdnesian monk Volthoom.
"Not yet, Liz, not yet. After you've gotten to know Tom Kalmaku a little better, that's when you'll meet Star Sapphire face to face."
Somewhere else entirely, a black diamond lay in another hand, pulsing with enormous energies which would soon be deployed for its owner's purposes, whatever those might be.
by Anton Psychopoulos, Ph.D.
Disclaimer #1: This story is set on a hypothetical parallel world within the pre-Crisis DC Universe, based on a story in Superman #349, but is not limited by that story or any other.
Disclaimer #2: Some characters appearing in this story are based on copyrighted characters owned by DC Comics, Inc., Marvel Comics and others. Their use here is not intended to infringe or disparage those copyrights.
Disclaimer #3: This story is not recommended for persons under 18 or the easily offended.
"And when the Security guy turned his flashlight inside the car, the first thing he saw was Tom's face, shining like a glazed doughnut and absolutely dripping with juice!"
Carol Ferris laughed at her own story, then laughed harder as she saw how Liz Jordan was blushing.
"Carol, is that for real? That's why they call him 'Pieface'?"
"If I'm lyin' I'm dyin'."
Liz took another sip of her coffee and shook her head. Looking down, she said softly, "I've never. . .you know."
"You've never had a guy do that for you?"
"No, no, I mean I've never been with a guy who wasn't, you know, white."
"That's easy to fix. You can start with Tom, and work your way up to that architect who's designing the new engine plant."
Liz laughed. Tom Kalmaku was an Eskimo, not very tall and more cute than handsome. The architect (she thought his name was Stewart) was a big, broad-shouldered Negro, darker than Carol's mahogany coffee table. Her laughter died with a shudder as she imagined a man so big, so black, touching her. It was almost unthinkable.
Liz was about to change the subject when her right hand suddenly lit up with a bright green glow. No one on Earth besides those two could even see that light,let alone know what it meant.
A spear of green light shot from the ring to the television set.
"Liz?" Carol said anxiously.
"A new trick I'm teaching it. Watch."
The television came on, as though being activated by some kind of remote control device. On the screen appeared a bosomy redhead with a black patch over her right eye. She wore a purple coverall with an hourglass emblem on one breast pocket. A child about three years old sat on her lap, crowded by the woman's visible pregnancy.
"So when we, the four of us, crawled out of the wreck," the woman on the screen was saying, "we knew we were living on borrowed time twice over, and decided we ought to make good use of the time we'd been given, however much it turned out to be. That's why we --"
The redhead's image vanished suddenly, replaced by a card that read "SPECIAL BULLETIN".
"It scans the airwaves for emergencies in progress," Liz explained as she stood up and let the ring's light play upon her, transforming her black capri slacks,sleeveless plaid blouse and rope-soled sandals into the green, black and white uniform of the Green Lantern.
A newscaster appeared now, describing in plain language but with a breathless manner an earthquake that had just struck Cotati, a small town south of Coast City.
"Cotati, got it," Green Lantern said briskly. A luminous green envelope enclosed the Emerald Gladiatrix and she rose silently from the floor, passing harmlessly through the ceiling and into the Pacific Coast sky.
Carol Ferris kept staring at the ceiling for nearly a minute, until the newscaster declared that "the mystery woman called the Green Lantern" had been seen in Cotati. Clearing roads for fire trucks, lifting rubble off trapped citizens, shoring up buildings with strong though temporary girders of green energy, she had already saved hundreds of lives, and was even now dissolving a pile of old tires into a sticky substance to plug dozens of leaks in a natural-gas pipeline.
Carol winced at the thought of her chum dealing with such a dangerous situation. Natural gas was a terribly volatile, explosive substance. All of the fossil fuels were troublesome. She looked forward to the day when such dirty, dangerous energy sources would be replaced by atomic power.
A camera crew made it into Cotati just in time for a few live shots of Green Lantern patching the pipeline. With a sheepish grin and a modest wave, Liz took off at high speed, but not before the camera captured shots that would be on the front pages of every paper on the West Coast.
Once again Carol thought about starting a diary or annotated scrapbook devoted to Green Lantern. But that was a foolish, self-indulgent notion. Someone could find the thing. Carol was quietly proud that Liz Jordan had made her Green Lantern's only confidante; she would do nothing to endanger that trust.
Once upon a time during the Korean War, Lt. Liz Jordan had just delivered a fighter plane to a United Nations airbase and was badly in need of three days' leave. Her choices were to get a jeep from the motor pool and drive into Seoul, or hitch a ride on a MATS flight going to a South Pacific island. She'd never heard of Bahdnesia, but she hoped it would be something like Tahiti.
Bahdnesia turned out to be nothing at all like Tahiti, but it was certainly a eautiful country, and she'd had a very interesting time, though not an especially restful one. Among other things, she'd saved the life of an aged Bahdnesian monk.
Jordan had thought the only legacy of her time in Bahdnesia was her newfound preference for sunbathing topless, but years later a young Bahdnesian woman had sought her out at the Ferris plant and given her a bequest from that old monk: a tiny oil lantern whose lens was the largest emerald Jordan had ever seen, and a ring set with a smaller emerald cut from the same stone. The magic of those linked stones had given Jordan the power she now wielded as the Green Lantern.
The woman had told Jordan that the monk had been guardian of two other magic gems, a star sapphire and a black diamond, and warned her of a prophecy that two of those who inherited the stones would bring good into the world through them, but the third would bring horror and destruction. Though Jordan pressed,the woman insisted that she could not reveal to her the names of the other two heirs.
Green Lantern flew back to the Ferris Aviation complex with almost as much haste as she had left Carol's apartment. If she didn't hustle, Liz Jordan would be late to work.
Landing invisibly behind a fuel truck, Green Lantern transformed her clothing a second time, then scolded herself for resuming the casual clothes she had worn for her lunch with Carol. She raised the now-invisible green ring to her eyes and was about to command it to dress her in her test pilot's flight suit and helmet when a voice from behind froze her in place.
"Miss Jordan?"
Liz turned, wary. Carl Ferris' tone was mild, but she had caught the slight emphasis in the honorific, his way of reminding her she was the only woman testing planes for Ferris.
"Mister Ferris?"
"Is that the outfit you usually wear when testing my aircraft, Miss Jordan?"
"No, Mister Ferris, it isn't. If you'll excuse me, I'll have to go suit up now. In the same uniform as all your other pilots."
Ferris' face began to darken.
"Miss Jordan, if it were up to me, you would not be wearing any Ferris Aviation uniform, except perhaps that of a Ferris Airways stewardess."
Liz could not completely conceal a look of distaste. Carl Ferris had designed the gaudy, short-skirted FA "fly girl" uniform himself, and it showed.
"Thank you, Mister Ferris, but I find the flight suit more comfortable. And if you find the title 'Miss' uncomfortable, you could always call me 'Captain', and in a few months, God and UC at Coast City willing, you can call me 'Doctor'."
"Miss Jordan, you may feel free to climb into one of my flight suits and report for duty, if you can, within the next --" he checked his watch "--seven minutes, or be reprimanded for tardiness."
The temptation was strong to step into the hangar and emerge a heartbeat later, fully kitted, but that would have been absurdly foolish. As it was, Liz did transform her clothing into a flight suit, and only put on her boots, gloves and helmet the old-fashioned way. Even with that help, she made it to the Green Arrow with only seconds to spare.
The big simulator had a mundane alphanumeric designation, but everyone who worked on it had called it the Green Arrow since the first time the carpenters had installed its green-painted delta wings. They were only plywood in the spaceplane's current incarnation, but one day sleek wings of titanium would carry the Green Arrow's grandchild into orbit.
Liz slipped into the pilot's seat, strapped herself in, fitted on the oxygen mask, waited until she smelled the comforting sour tang of pure O2, then slid the canopy down. The simulator's windscreen snapped into place with a satisfyingly realistic sound.
Still fuming over his encounter with Jordan, Carl Ferris settled in behind his desk and began going over a file relating to Ferris' possible acquisition of Nelson Aviation. He quickly became so engrossed in it that it took him awhile to notice the change in the light in the room. At last he looked up to see that one wall of his office had acquired a luminous patch, an amorphous blob of light that grew and brightened as he watched.
Was it that other obnoxious flying female, Green Lantern, come to tax him with some supposed crime committed by a Ferris employee, or some impertinent request for assistance? But no, this light was yellow, not green. And in a moment the light developed a shining human figure, seated in a luminous chair, a creature of light that moved into the room until it floated in the air before Ferris' desk.
good throbbed a voice, speaking inside Ferris' head with unwholesome intimacy.
"What's good about it?" Ferris snapped. "I have nothing to say to you, Hammond."
As I have nothing to say to the authorities about where I got the missile components I used against Green Lantern last year Hector Hammond sent, with an invisible mental sneer.
"Don't try to threaten me with that," Ferris began, the color (never quite faded) rising again in his face.
I have no desire to threaten you, Ferris. Quite the contrary, I want only to offer you something, something I would like very much for you to have.
"That being?"
Green Lantern
Three days later, Liz Jordan was strapping herself into the Green Arrow for another round of simulated flying. Everything went normally until the canopy slid into place with a sharp click Liz hadn't heard from it before. She looked up to see a small, businesslike lock latching the canopy shut. And a net of gold wire extending across the plexiglass, turning the cockpit into a fiendishly effective trap for Green Lantern, whose ring was powerless against anything yellow.
Green Lantern could do nothing against this trap, but Captain Liz Jordan had gotten herself out of a scrape or two long before she'd ever met old Volthoom. She punched the emergency cowling release switch. No response. She unsnapped the latches on the emergency kit and pulled out a ball-peen hammer. Not as heavy as she'd like, but it would have to do.
The plexiglass was crazed and yielding, and she thought there would be room to get the wire cutters into the golden mesh, but then the whole hangar lit up with a golden glow, and that was all Liz Jordan saw for quite some time.
Standing beside his office desk, Carl Ferris admired his latest acquisition.
Liz Jordan now wore a Ferris Airways stewardess uniform, specially tailored for her at Ferris' orders, with an especially short skirt, an especially low neckline, an especially tight jacket, an especially thin and flimsy blouse.
Ferris stepped forward and patted Liz on the cheek. She glowed with pleasure at the attention.
"'Liz' was a perfect name for you before. A sharp, bitchy name. But you're not a bitch any more. You're my good little personal attendant. What shall I call you?"
"You can call me anything you like, Mister Ferris," the transformed Green Lantern chirped, brown eyes wide with admiration for The Boss.
"Hmm. . . . Betty. No, Betsy. That's your name from now on."
"It's a pretty name. Thank you, Mister Ferris."
Ferris grinned ferally, savoring Betsy's fawning tones and sparkling smile.
"I may have sold my soul to the Devil, but by damn I'll get everything I can out of the bargain."
"I'm flying to Las Vegas for the weekend. You'll come with me. On the way, we can join the Mile High Club."
Betsy squealed with delight.
Light flared from the wall of his office. Ferris grimaced with annoyance. What did Hammond want now?
But it wasn't the yellow of Hammond's life-sustaining nimbus, any more than it was Green Lantern's emerald glow. This light was a brilliant, intense violet-blue. The sort of light that shone from the finest of star sapphires.
There was a human figure in the room, a vague silhouette in the midst of that blinding sapphire glare, a four-armed star of white light shining from approximately the middle of its chest.
"Carl Ferris, you have committed an unspeakable crime. You ought to be given an opportunity to repent of it and learn better, but for the sake of Elizabeth Jordan I must deny you that benefit. Instead, you will remember nothing at all of the last two weeks."
The violet-blue light grew brighter, until it became Carl Ferris' entire world, until staring at it was all he could do. He continued to stare, transfixed, for hours after the light had faded from the room.
Star Sapphire turned to Betsy who stood, still smiling vapidly, where Carl Ferris had ordered her to stand.
"Betsy, Mister Ferris wants you to put your right hand close to your mouth."
Betsy obeyed.
"Repeat after me, Betsy: 'restore the mind of Green Lantern'."
"Restore the mind of Green Lantern."
A green glow leapt out from an invisible source near Betsy's finger. The vacuous smile of Carl Ferris' little stewie was replaced by an expression of grim intensity. Seconds later, the ring appeared, and an instant after that, the uniform of the Green Lantern.
The Emerald Warrior looked down at herself, then brought the ring to her face once more.
"Restore the mind of Elizabeth Jordan," she intoned emotionlessly.
After the light had played over her again, she shook herself and said in a more relaxed tone, "That was . . . strange. At first, I had only the mind of Green Lantern. If she hadn't decided she needed Liz Jordan to carry out her mission, I might have spent the rest of my life with one hell of a one-track mind."
She transformed the Green Lantern uniform into a pale blue sundress and indigo huaraches.
"Now you, Star Sapphire."
She gestured for the apparition to drop the sapphire glow.
"Sorry, Captain. Not just yet."
Hours later, after the staring, unresponsive Carl Ferris had been carried away by an ambulance crew, Carol Ferris was seated at her father's desk, bellowing into the telephone at yet another hapless department head. She seemed to be trying to keep Ferris Air Industries in motion by will alone. Liz Jordan didn't put it past her to manage it.
In the locker room of Hangar Eight, Thomas Kalmaku unscrewed the bottom of his Thermos bottle and looked fondly on the object taped inside, a star sapphire the size of the first joint of his thumb, the gift of the Bahdnesian monk Volthoom.
"Not yet, Liz, not yet. After you've gotten to know Tom Kalmaku a little better, that's when you'll meet Star Sapphire face to face."
Somewhere else entirely, a black diamond lay in another hand, pulsing with enormous energies which would soon be deployed for its owner's purposes, whatever those might be.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Monday, November 30, 2009
Nice Wood
Today, as we have more than once, my wife and I were driving in the hills east of Corvallis, and passed Nicewood Drive, only this time we looked at each other, snickered and exchanged those fateful words:
"Nice wood...."
"Wanna fuck?"
Because you're only young once, but you can be immature your whole life. 8-) :-})
"Nice wood...."
"Wanna fuck?"
Because you're only young once, but you can be immature your whole life. 8-) :-})
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