Showcase

Times Past, 1949

Lily DeLuna, Investigative Reporter

by Dan Swanson

Prologue

It was the wee hours of the morning in the Opal City business district – and the rest of the city, for that matter! There was a local saying that anyone out and about at that hour was either a doctor or a crook. Well, turns out that isn’t quite true. There may be reporters out then too!

Anyone watching the pocket park near the Capital Building would have been surprised to see two well-dressed gentlemen seated on one of the benches, deep in conversation, just as if it were the middle of the day. Although the watcher would have to peer very hard, as well-trimmed trees and hedges blocked out the light from the nearby street lamps, leaving the bench in a pool of deep darkness.

It wouldn’t be very healthy to be that watcher, though. A half dozen other men, in the employ of one or the other of the figures on the bench, were scattered around the area to make sure there weren’t any watchers. What would happen to anyone they found wouldn’t be pleasant. Probably not fatal, either, but sometimes mistakes happened… These men remained very well hidden and they were quite good at their jobs – and very patient. A homeless drunk had wandered nearby, unknowingly putting himself at risk, but he had never noticed anything, and so had been allowed to stumble away, ignorant of his close brush with terror and pain.

And yet, even with all the precautions used by the sentries, the early morning meeting was under observation. The observer was tall and slender, dressed entirely in midnight blue and black, wearing a black trench coat and a tight fitting black mask, which left no skin exposed. Close examination would have shown that the mask didn’t confine her black hair, which fell below her shoulders, and a US Army night vision snooper scope over her eyes, the power pack carried in a backpack concealed under the trench coat. She was carefully carrying a 5′ quarterstaff, which was colored flat black. In the other hand she had an unlit flashlight and there was a camera slung around her neck. The camera and flashlight had also been colored flat black. She moved carefully and very quietly, clearly aware of the positions of the 6 sentries, and their two principals seated on the bench. So far she had managed to remain hidden from the sentries as she approached, but that was about to change.

If you haven’t yet recognized Lily DeLuna in search of a story, that’s not surprising. She didn’t normally wear a costume when she was working. But wasn’t normally trying to overhear a conversation between a gangster boss and a top city official at 3 am, either! When she had learned of this meeting, she had put together the outfit, hoping she would be able to approach without being seen. She had hoped the two principals would come alone, but they were too paranoid for that! It was kind of exciting to be dressed up as a ‘mystery-woman’ and she had even made up her own code name, ‘Moonflower’. She had to keep reminding herself that this wasn’t a game. It could mean her life if those thugs caught her.

Lily had hoped that she would be able to get close enough to overhear the conversation between the seated men, but she realized that no matter how carefully she moved, this was as close as she was going to get without being caught. She could hear their voices, but was unable to make out what they were saying. She was disappointed but not surprised. She had a backup plan for just this situation. A record of their conversation would be best, but photographs of the two men meeting would be sufficient for the story she was planning to write.

She really didn’t want to have to fight 6 armed men at once! If they hadn’t had guns, she thought her staff might give her a chance. Very few people who weren’t trained in martial arts realized just how dangerous a weapon a quarterstaff really was. Again, she had to remind herself to be careful – she had never actually fought 6 opponents before except in training classes, and those opponents had never been thugs! These guys wouldn’t stop fighting if they hurt her.

Working very carefully and quietly, she pulled a flare from a pocket inside the trench coat. She set up a tripod and mounted the camera, then aimed it at the bench deep in the shadows. She estimated the distance and set the focus. She had practiced taking pictures using the light from flares several times recently, to find the best combination of shutter speed and film speed to get the best possible pictures. She knew that best she could hope for would be high contrast black and white pictures, but the men in the pictures should be readily recognizable, giving her proof that this secret meeting really took place. She set the automatic camera to take 5 pictures as fast as it could, which would take about 7 seconds. She then took a deep breath, and started the timer.

She had 10 seconds to prepare – or back out! She got ready to ignite and throw the flare, and then waited out the longest 10 seconds of her life!

Finally she pulled the cord on the flare and threw it towards the bench. The shutter clicked just before the flare ignited, and all 8 men turned towards the camera. They were looking right at the flare when it ignited, and they were all temporarily blinded.

The first picture was taken in darkness, but the flare provided illumination for the other 4 pictures. She hoped at least 2 of the pictures would show their faces, before they got their arms up to block out the light. She had removed the night vision goggles, turned her back and closed her eyes, and as soon as she saw the flare light through her eyelids she opened them again. As soon as the camera stopped clicking, she picked it up and took off running, directly away from the park. She had scouted this route carefully earlier today, and the flare provided enough light that she could run at top speed.

There was total confusion behind her – all 8 men had been blinded by the flare and were unable to see. And the flare had rolled close enough to one of the seated men to set his pants leg on fire! Several shots were fired, blindly, before the men on the bench screamed at their sentries to stop shooting before they hurt their bosses! One man and his 3 bodyguards groped towards the edge of the park, stumbling towards their car, while the other man rolled on the ground, screaming in pain as he tried to put out the fire eating at his pant leg. One of his bodyguards had apparently partly recovered his sight, because he wrapped his jacket around his boss’s leg and then lay on top of it to smother the flames. The boss screamed at him, and he quickly jumped up.

As she ran on, Lily paused briefly to activate a fire alarm call box, and then continued running. She risked a look back and was well satisfied to see that in some of the buildings around the park lights were starting to come on. A few of the companies in the area maintained night watchmen, and the screaming and shooting had been enough to alert these watchmen, even those who had been asleep. In only a few minutes, the police and fire fighters ought to arrive. She thought the conspirators would probably escape, but that was OK. She hoped she had the photo she needed!

As she had planned, she was well away from the area before the men had recovered their sight well enough to start looking for her, and by that time, all they had in mind was getting away before the police arrived. About a quarter mile away, she stopped, very winded. As if running in a trench coat wasn’t tiring enough, the power pack for the night vision goggles weighed about 30 pounds. Lily had planned her escape carefully, though. From behind a hedge around a restaurant that offered outdoor seating, she pulled a bicycle and quickly rode away. Within 15 minutes of the time she threw the flare, Lily had covered more than 2 miles.

She had changed directions several times, and she was sure nobody was following her. She was thankful that almost nobody in Opal City was out and about at this hour. She knew that in New York or Metropolis, the streets would be far from deserted. She had had to take a chance that somebody might see her riding her bike and wonder what she was doing out at that time in the morning, especially dressed as she was and with a snooper scope. But she had planned the route carefully and encountered no one.

Lily had bought the bike, used, the day before for $2, so it didn’t bother her much to leave it behind. She was near an elementary school, which had a bike rack out back. This must be a safe neighborhood – there were half a dozen bikes left overnight in the rack, and only two of them were locked. She slipped her bike into the rack, hoping that it would eventually end up in the hands of a good kid. She had parked her car a block away. Before she got in, she took off the black trench coat and the blue and black shirt she was wearing and put on a blouse that she often wore to work. It went well with the dark midnight blue of her pants. She packed the coat and shirt into the pack with the snooper scope, and stashed the pack in the trunk.

Lily was worried that somebody might remember her car. She drove a supercharged gold 1936 Cord Sportster Cabriolet, not exactly a common sight. But she even had that covered – she had often driven her car to work when she was on the night shift at the Register, and she always drove down this road. She wasn’t working night shift any longer, but she occasionally stopped in to see her friend Betsy, and that was her alibi tonight.

The man who had escaped being burned was John Ross, chairman of the Opal City City Council. The other man, currently nursing a painfully burned leg, was ‘Boss’ Neuertski, one of the leaders of organized crime in Opal. Neither man looked forward to the reaction that would occur if their meeting was exposed to the public! All Ross could do was pray, but Neuertski had other options. After he and his bodyguards had finally hopped into their car, the Boss exploded!

“Stones, what the hell was that? You guys are supposed to protect me! Did you see who that was?” Jackie “Stones” Stonalli was the most senior of the bodyguard crew. Well, he had been the most senior – he had a good idea that he might be starting another career tonight – like singing to the fishes, up close and personal.

“I’m really sorry, boss! Dat flare blinded me, just like the rest of yas!” Stones wasn’t gonna just give up. He was deliberately reminding the Boss that he wasn’t the only one caught off guard. He didn’t think it would matter – it was _his_ job, nobody else’s, to keep crap like this from happening. “I heard a camera, boss, and then that damned flare went off, and then someone runnin’ away, but I couldn’t seen nuthin’. By da time I could see anything again, the fire siren was blarin’ and Ross and his boys was gone.”

“Mr. Stonalli, you and your boys screwed up big time tonight. If you really heard a camera, and those pictures ever get printed, you’ll end up eating those ‘stones’ you are so proud of, just before ya get two in the hat! Lucky you, you got one chance to redeem yourself. You find me that creep that took those pictures, and bring me da film, and you might live. I’m leavin’ it up to you, Stonalli – get outta here and get goin’!” They had reached Stonalli’s neighborhood. The driver slowed down, but didn’t stop, while the Boss opened the door and shoved Stonalli out. He fell and rolled a couple of times before smashing to a stop against a mailbox. “You probably got till daylight, Stonalli. Better get to work!” The Boss slammed the door and the car drove off.

The Boss turned his attention to one of the other bodyguards, Al (Banana) Lopenda. “Banana, I tink I’ve got you to thank for putting out the fire on my pants?”

“Yeah, boss, that was me!” Banana said proudly. Guys that did thing for the boss usually got a promotion. Banana thought it was about time! He was better than that foul-up Stonalli any day!

“Tanks, Banana, but couldn’t you have been a little… you know… gentler? That was my leg, you moron!” He was ranting again. Banana just had time to realize he was in trouble, when the Boss shot him. “Tommy, get rid of this trash when we get back to the office! No, first roust Sawbones outta bed and tell him to come round to my office, yesterday or sooner! Then take out the trash!”

Tommy realized he was probably going to live, so all he did was nod his head and say “You got it, boss!”

Stones was actually a pretty smart guy – otherwise the Boss would have killed him long ago. He realized he would probably live through this incident regardless of what happened, because the Boss needed him. Everyone else in the organization was a screw-up. Without Stones to tell them what to do, the whole thing would fall apart. But he wasn’t going to take any chances. He would find that creep and once he got the film back, that creep would pay. He quickly interrupted his own pleasant fantasies of torture to organize a search.

He realized that whoever took the pictures must want to use them either for evidence, or blackmail, or just to expose the Boss’s connections with Ross. Wait a minute, Ross might have had them taken for protection! So his suspects were the other organized crime groups in the city, cops and private investigators, the press, and Ross himself. No, wait, it couldn’t be the cops, or they would have captured everyone as soon as they had the pictures. And if it was some of the other crooks, he would hear about it soon enough, when the Boss sent him on a raid. Now that was somethin’ to look forward to! He sort of hoped it was Boss Alidar. He had a grudge with that one!

He sent some goons to Ross’s home. They was to drag Ross back to the Boss’s headquarters and scare him a little, ’till Stones could get there and ask him some questions. The Boss’s organization kept tabs on a couple of crooked private dicks, and he called them to check out the honest ones. He wanted to know where every PI in Opal City was that night, and he wanted to know yesterday! He had a couple of snitches working for the town papers, and when he talked to the one at the Register, he figgered he’d hit the jackpot!

“Last week, that bimbo Lily DeLuna, the one who just moved from the night shift came around and wanted to do an expose on corruption in the City Council. I told her Ordun was already working the story, and assigned her something else. But I noticed she started hanging around with Ordun the next couple of days. She’s sharp enough to figure out he’s not working any stories right now.”

“Why dincha call me ’bout dis last week?” The snitch heard anger in Stonalli’s voice. He suddenly remembered that working for the mob can be a dangerous business.

“Ah, ah…” he thought fast. “I never figured she’d follow it up on her own! I gave her several other assignments to make sure she was too busy!”

“Well, Mac, it looks like you mighta been wrong. Tell ya, if this broad got pictures of the Boss and Ross together, and she comes to you wit dem, you be happy to see ‘em and tell her they’ll go on the front page next day, and to get busy writing the story. And convince her to keep it quiet! Then call me. I’ll take it from there.”

“Whatta ya gonna do, Stones?” Stonalli could tell he was worried; his perfect diction was starting to slip. “I don’t want any shootings in my news room!”

“You shoulda thot about that last week, sucker! But don’t worry, we don’t want no publicity here. You just make sure you call me, and like I says, I’ll handle the rest. It’s been real good talkin’ wit ya, Mac! The Boss will be real happy to hear your news!”

Stones didn’t call off his other boys. There was a good chance that this DeLuna broad wasn’t the sneaky shutterbug. That job tonight had taken brains and guts, and there wasn’t a skirt he knew with that much on the ball. But if he didn’t cover all the angles, he’ be fish food by this time tomorrow.

Maybe he ought to make a personal call on DeLuna? If she was the one he was looking for, he didn’t want to give Mac a chance to screw things up. Hope there ain’t too many DeLuna’s in the phone book – he didn’t want to have to call Mac back and ask for her address, ’cause he knew Mac would give him away somehow.

Stones didn’t spell too well, so he called one of the boys in to look up her name. One of the boys, a new guy at the time, had thought it was funny how he couldn’t read, Well, Stones had thought it was funny, that the new guy couldn’t swim with his feet in a bucket of cement. Nobody ever laughed at him again. The Boss had yelled at him a little for wastin’ new talent, but it had been worth it.

Stones rounded up his three most trusted boys and they piled into the car, headed for Lily’s house.

Chapter 01 The Sting

When Lily used to work the night shift, she had often stopped at the Opal City Diner on her way home. It was well out of her way, but it was the only place open that late. She hadn’t been able to eat all yesterday due to excitement about the upcoming nocturnal expedition, and she was hungry. So she followed the familiar roads, and soon ordered her favorite meal: large salad, cheeseburger (smothered with sautéed mushrooms and onions), large fries, chocolate malted.

During the meal, she reviewed tonight’s action in her mind, analyzing it as she had been taught. She was astounded at how short a time it had actually taken. From the time she left her car, until she got back to her car, it had been less than an hour. She searched her memory for details she might have missed at the time, and was shocked to realize that she had heard, but failed to register at least 3 gunshots.

The flare must have blinded the shooters, but they had shot anyway. What kind of idiots were they? Lily was worried that someone might have been injured because of her actions. She resolved to investigate further the next day. (Her investigation won’t be detailed, but she was relieved to find out that no one had been injured!)

This wasn’t the first time Lily had been shot at by bad guys, and she hadn’t much cared for it last time, either (see Summer of 43). She hadn’t realized how serious this business must be. If these guys thought that keeping their meeting a secret was worth risking a murder rap, there must be more going on than a little influence peddling. She needed to reconsider her precautions, if she wanted to keep investigating – or maybe if she just wanted to keep living.

Lily had long known that being a reporter could be dangerous when the wrong people objected to the stories she wrote. She had learned this lesson as a sophomore reporter for her high schools student newspaper.

She had written an article critical of the 1 and 16 boys’ basketball team. The senior captain and his sidekick tried to register their objections with their fists. That had been Lily’s first real fight, and were those boys ever surprised when Lily fought back! And kicked as well – neither kid had ever seen someone use her feet in a fight, as almost nobody studied martial arts in those days. Lily landed a sidekick to the solar plexus of the sidekick, and his collapse distracted the jock just long enough for a spinning kick between his legs. Lily wasn’t vindictive, so she just walked away and never mentioned the incident to anyone, except to analyze the fight with her sensei – her mom. Those two had never bothered her again! Apparently, though, the jock appreciated something about Lily, because he asked her to Prom that year! Lily thought that was more than a little perverse and had coolly declined.

She shook her head vigorously – now was no time for daydreaming. Once again, she replayed the incident tonight in her mind, this time concentrating on her security precautions. Could someone have recognized her?

The 8 people at the meeting could not. Not only had they been blinded by the flare, she had been wearing a full-face mask.

Well, then, what about other observers? She had to admit that there could have been others, further away. But even they would not have been able to see who she was. And she was sure nobody had followed her.

She had told no one about this little escapade in advance, and they clearly hadn’t been expecting her, or she wouldn’t have gotten away so easily. She ought to be safe. And, when she showed these pictures to her editor, Harold McCallahan, tomorrow, he would have to assign her to the story – finally! She might have to work with Jerry Ordun, who everyone in the office shunned, but over the past few days, she had found she actually liked him – and that he knew a lot more about journalism than most people believed.

She finished dinner and paid her bill, leaving a half-dollar tip. The service here was much better at night than during the day. Surprisingly enough, she thought the food was better late at night as well.

Just as she got into her car, her waitress rushed breathlessly out the door. “Lily! You left a half dollar on the table!”

“That’s your tip, Jill. Thanks for the great meal and the even greater service!”

“Lily, it’s too much. I can’t accept this! A quarter, maybe! Here, let me give you change.” She tried to hand Lily a quarter. Lily was having none of it.

“Jill, you deserve it. You work hard all night long, but you are always cheerful and you provide great service. And, the food is great too! I’ll see you next time!” She started the car and drove off, leaving Jill standing there with a bemused expression.

“What they heck!” she thought to herself. “Maybe I’ll treat myself to a makeover today!” She walked back inside, with a new spring in her step. What a great customer Lily was! Too bad she didn’t come by much any more…

***

Stones had a problem. He didn’t know enough ’bout dis DeLuna broad. She worked at the Register, and she lived in a small apartment building, on Oakland Avenue, right across the street from where he and his boys sat in their parked car. The neighborhood was a mixture of small houses and apartments. Looked pretty dull to Stones.

But they didn’t know what apartment, they didn’t know whether she drove a car or not, Kee-ripes, they didn’t even know what she looked like!

“Dis” he thought “is what ya get when ya rush a mistro” meaning maestro, meaning himself. “Nutin’ but foul ups!” (well, maybe that’s not exactly what he thought, but close enough…) If they saw some frail goin’ inta that building this early in the morning, dat was pro’lly her. But if she’d got here before them, how would they know? He was about to send Eddie out to call Mac for more details on DeLuna, when a car turned onto the street a half a block away.

“Hey, boss, nice car, eh? If it’s dat DeLuna broad what we’s lookin’ for, she must be pretty well heeled! Man, I wish I had me one like dat!” Eddie said, mournfully. Then he cheered up. “Hey, boss, if we waste the broad, can I have the car?”

“Shut up Eddie! We don’t even know if this is her. If she’s got enuff dough for a rod like that, you’d tink she’d find a classier place to live!’ The neighborhood was quiet and safe and a little run down. Stones was right, the gold Cord purring down the street really didn’t seem to belong in this neighborhood.

“OK, youse guys, duck so she won’t see us!” The Cord cruised past, not even slowing down. After it passed by, their heads popped back up, and they watched it continue on. About 4 blocks further on, it turned left and kept on going. “Must not have been her! Anyway, we’re gonna go find out more about this skirt. Eddie, you stay here and keep an eye on this place. If she comes out in the morning, you give me a call at my office!” Stones had changed his plans – why should he sit in the stupid car all night? He kept Eddie around just for boring jobs like this. Eddie knew it too.

“Gee, boss, does it have to be me, again?” Eddie was still disappointed about losing his new car. “Why do I always get the crap jobs?”

“Dat’s the only jobs I’m sure you wont screw up, pinhead!” (or words to that effect…) “Now shaddup and get outta da car!”

Eddie wasn’t satisfied. “But boss, how will I know it’s her? We don’t even know what dis dame looks like.”

“She looks like a reporter, dimwit! Why do I alwus have to do all yer tinkin for you? Get outta da car, or else!” Nobody knew what Stones meant by ‘or else’. A couple years ago, Banana’s older brother Ace had defied an ‘or else’ order and had never been heard from again. So nobody really cared to find out. ‘And while youse wait, see if you can find out her apartment number. Talk to people, make like a gumshoe! Then, gimme a call in a couple hours. No shootin’, no matter what!’

***

Excerpt from Lily’s Journal

I had finally convinced myself that I was being paranoid about this whole thing. There was no way anyone could have connected me with the incident in the park, at least not yet. Once my story was printed, sure, then I might have to worry, but not now.

However, when I turned right on Oakwood, I saw a car in my parking spot and my mental alarms went off all over again! You have to understand, I live in a pretty close neighborhood, and we all have our ‘own’ parking spaces. There is plenty of room for everyone, and none of my neighbors would ever park in my spot – or vice versa.

I was only a half-block away, and I could see there were 4 people in the car. Just how stupid are these guys? They couldn’t have known they were parking in my spot, but anybody ought to know that if it’s dark, and you are trying to be inconspicuous, you shouldn’t be smoking! Shouldn’t be smoking anyway, filthy stinking habit, but hey! it helped me spot them. Do they think nobody’s going to wonder about 4 grown men sitting in a parked car at 3:30 in the morning? How many guys do you know that sit together in a dark car on a dark street?

So, rather than slowing down to park, I sped up a little, like somebody taking a shortcut, in a hurry to get home. Was it the cops, or the mob? They were driving a 1949 Chrysler New Yorker – had to be the mob, the police wouldn’t be using a brand new car for a stakeout. Could they be here looking for somebody else? The coincidence seemed too unlikely. Like I said, we’re a close neighborhood and I didn’t know of anybody else who might draw mob attention. Oh, Mr. Smith likes to play the numbers and bet on horses, and the Armstrong family’s 2 sons have been picked up for drunk and disorderly a couple of times, but I doubt that anyone would send 4 thugs to deal with them.

So I went down a couple more blocks and turned left onto Center, headed back towards downtown. I parked the car a couple of blocks away, and then very carefully made my way through backyards, and let myself into my building through the back door. It was hard to believe no one was watching the back! But I guess the figured I was probably home by then, and they wanted to catch me going out. When I got into my apartment, I didn’t turn any lights on, but moved over to the window so I could watch them. What was I going to do about them? Did I have to do anything? It seemed like it would probably be quiet for a few minutes, at least, so I took the time to try and figure out how they had found out about me.

My earlier reasoning was still sound. Nobody could have recognized me at the park, and nobody followed me. So someone had to have ratted on me. The only person who knew I had any interest in Councilor Ross and Boss Neuertski was Mac. Why, that rat! I started planning a few surprises for him. Just about then, one guy hopped out of the New Yorker and the car pulled away. This guy went over to the bus stop and sat down. What now, Lily?

I might be able to find out something from this guy, but then again, from what I’d seen so far, I guessed he wouldn’t be the smartest thug in the state. Did I really want to take a chance, or should I just get away?

I decided, true to form, that I needed to at least try to learn something from him. This story was getting bigger and bigger by the hour, and when little Lily (snort!) sniffs a story, nobody better stand in her way!

Good, I now had a long-term goal: get the story!. But I still didn’t know what to do right now. Clearly I had to make sure they couldn’t find me. Which meant I would have to hang my hat somewhere else for a while. Lucky for me, the rent was paid through the end of summer.

I tried to pack a suitcase, which was a lot more difficult in the dark than you might think. I changed my clothes, selecting some of my more… revealing… garments. I worried over shoes – for what I had in mind, I should be wearing the highest heels I owned. But I might have to fight or run – and have you ever tried to fight or run in heels? Some of those mystery-women manage it, but I don’t see how! Maybe that’s one of their super powers – fighting effectively in high heels? That would be a fun code name, wouldn’t it? High Heels Girl! Funny how your mind can wander!

I decided to carry the shoes and use that as part of my cover. Lucky I was saving some hose with runs in them – I wouldn’t have to ruin a good pair, running around without shoes on. The tight skirt might interfere a little bit, but it was short enough that I should be ok.

I left my bag outside the back door, then walked through the building, out the front door, and across the street. I turned away from the bus stop and pretended I didn’t see the guy sitting there. I carried my shoes in one hand, and tried to walk as if I was trying to make as little sound as possible. When I reached a lamppost I could lean on, I stopped and started to put the shoes on. As I had hoped, the guy hopped up from the bench and hurried towards me!

“Hey, you, wait up!” he said in an urgent tone of voice. I looked up and pretended to be started and a little scared, dropping my shoes.

“Who are you?” I asked him, trying to sound scared. “What are you doing around here?”

“Listen, sister, I’ll ast the questions!” he said roughly. I almost laughed – he had been watching too many gangster movies!

“Are you a cop?” I asked. Clearly he wasn’t. He did laugh.

“What, do I look like a cop? What’re you doing here? Do you live here?”

Well, he had asked for it. “Do I look like I live here, smart guy?” and then in a lower tone, trying to sound regretful “…although I spend more time here than I do at my own home….” I then looked at him defiantly. “I was visiting my boyfriend. Now, unless you really are a cop, tell me what YOU are doing here, or bug off!”

“I’m lookin’ for a girl. Since you spend so much time here, maybe you know her? Broad named Lily somethin’ or other.”

“Well, sugar…” I answered in as sweet a tone as I could muster “if you’re looking for a girl, what’s wrong with me?” I struck that classic pose, you know, leaning against the lamppost, one arm behind my head, my other hand on my hip, one leg bent at the knee – you know the one I’m talking about!

“You sure your ‘boyfriend’ won’t object? What, he ain’t treating you good enough? HA HA HA!” He really laughed like that! “Maybe he don’t give you enough presents, you know, those pictures of Presidents? HA HA HA HA!

“What he gives me is none a your bizness, bozo. Say, did you know you sound a lot like a jackass when you laugh?” I realized I wasn’t going to learn anything more from Sluggo here and I wanted to end this ‘meeting’ before the cops actually did show up. Sooner or later, Sluggo’s yelling was going to wake someone up, and then someone would call the police. And I really wouldn’t want to be thrown in a jail cell with a bunch of drunks dressed like this!

He stopped laughing real fast, then, and without warning swung his arm in a vicious backhand blow at my head. (Well, he probably thought it was without warning, but I was expecting some kind of attack!) If it had hit me, it might have knocked me down – maybe. But he didn’t even come close. I ducked, and when he didn’t hit anything, he stumbled, off-balance and wide open. If I’d been out to kill him… but I wasn’t. I brought my purse around in a two-handed swing, just like a baseball bat. In fact, the penny rolls I’d dropped into the purse made it weigh just about the same as my favorite bat. I hit him on the side of the jaw, and his head snapped around away from the impact, spinning his body as well, and then he collapsed to the ground. I hear you saying ‘He must have had a glass jaw!’ Glass jaw, hell! That blow would have dropped Joe Louis in his prime!

I let out a sigh of relief when I discovered he was still breathing. After I had deliberately passed up an opening for a fatal attack, I would have felt awful about killing him by accident!

It had been a quick ‘fight’. Hopefully nobody had seen enough to know it was I dressed like this, or they might toss me out of the neighborhood! I had to get off the street soon before the early risers came out. I wasn’t sure what to do about Sluggo out cold on the sidewalk, so I decided to just leave him there. I hadn’t learned much, but I had confirmed that he wasn’t a cop, and they were looking for me. Time for little Lily to get a move on!

I quickly went through his pockets and took his wallet. He had a gun in a shoulder holster, a German Luger. Not something I would carry – I like my Smith and Wesson Police Special.

I broke open the Luger, pulled out the bullets, and left the gun lying on his chest. I couldn’t use the ammo, either, but I couldn’t leave the shells out where someone could find them and get hurt! One of my cousins had lost an eye when he was 12 playing with some 22 bullets some idiot had left out where kids could get at them. I knew better. I dropped them in my purse to worry about later.

I walked around back, put on the jacket and flats I’d left on top the suitcase, and lugged it to the car. I wanted to take my bike as well, but I didn’t have a trailer hitch on the Cord. I’d be back for it later today, though. I knew just where to go.

As I headed out of town I couldn’t help but regret that I hadn’t learned more from Sluggo. Just in case none of my neighbors was awake yet, I stopped at the first phone booth and called the police, telling them that some guy was trying to beat up a woman on the street outside my apartment. They promised to be there within minutes. I was disappointed that I wouldn’t get to see his face when he woke up in a jail cell, but I had other things to do. All in all, a pretty satisfying night, although maybe a little tame…

End Journal Entry

LDIR: Chapter 2

More from the journal of Lily DeLuna

The Getaway

I needed a safe place to doss and I thought I knew just the place. Vic Valor’s TV transmission had been traced to a hidden bunker outside of Opal City. Police Commissioner O’Dare quickly got very tired of dealing with anything related to Vic Valor, so he had slapped a police quarantine on the place, and quashed any further investigations. I had read the police report that gave the location of this place just before O’Dare had sealed the documents.

(Well, OK, it was actually after he had ordered them sealed. You remember that police corporal from the Tombs, when I interviewed Dr. Doog? I ran into him at the Gun Club firing range a few days later, and we’ve become good friends. Boy, can he shoot! Anyway, he got me a look at that report, when I was working on my big Vic Valor story. He didn’t want to, but I talked him into betting on a ‘bulls eye target match’ with pistols.. And I talked him into giving me a 300 point handicap. Well, I needed every point, but he lost the bet and paid up, and he hasn’t bet against me since then! But we’ve both improved our shooting.) On the drive out of town, I had a chance to do more thinking. I realized that last night’s thugs hadn’t known very much about me. They didn’t know what I drove, or they would have followed me when I drove by. And the lookout hadn’t known what I looked like. But Mac (I was assuming it was Mac) would soon fill them in. Lucky for me, Mac didn’t know I had a bike.

A woman with a motorcycle rates pretty low on today’s social scale – probably even below the streetwalker I’d pretended to be an hour ago. So I kept my 1927 Harley-Davidson Peashooter secret from my coworkers at the paper, and I rented a garage in another neighborhood to keep it secret from my neighbors. I couldn’t drive the car for awhile, but as soon as I got the bike I’d have transportation again.

The bike and I were old friends – my dad had bought it in 1927, when I was one, and passed it on to my bother Eddie when he turned 14 in 1932. Eddie had asked me to take care of it when he joined the Navy in 1935. Of course, Mom and Dad wouldn’t let me ride it until I was 14, but I’d kept it in tiptop shape for him. Eddie was the copilot of one of the bombers that was shot down in the bombing raid on the Italian Navy fleet in Taranto harbor 1939. They never found his body, and he wasn’t among the prisoners who escaped or were recovered after the war, so he is listed as ‘Missing in Action – Presumed Dead’. So I got to keep the bike. Probably the worst trade I ever was part of!

Damn, I hate being reminded how much I miss him! 10 years, and I still think about him every day. Damn all wars! I quickly wrenched my thoughts away from Eddie and back to my current problems. It could be dangerous to drive while crying.

I was going to need help. I couldn’t fight Boss Neuertski’s whole gang by myself.

I absolute hate asking for help, it’s something I almost never do. But part of the martial arts training I got from Mom was learning to admit my own limits and ask for help when I needed it. I had never liked depending on someone else, but this time I realized I had no choice.

I had no idea what had stirred up Boss Neuertski so much. I thought about running away, and I thought about giving up on the story, but I quickly gave up those thoughts. The bad guys couldn’t afford to leave me alone at this point. My best defense was to turn over some rocks and report on what crawled out, get the whole story, and then make sure that the police and the public knew everything (whatever ‘everything’ was). Along the way, though, I might need some special protection. I had something in mind. And that’s why I needed some expert assistance.

But not just anyone, I needed help from Starman! Sure, he had publicly retired several years ago, and had only been active once since then, but I thought I had something that would pique his interest. If I could find him, but I was pretty sure I had that locked up. I’d received a package in the mail yesterday that might have the final piece of the Starman puzzle in it. It was in the trunk of the Cord right now.

By now I was into the hills northeast of the city. I smiled as I sighted some Burma Shave signs. This particular series was one of my favorites:

BEN MET ANNA
MADE A HIT
NEGLECTED BEARD
BEN-ANNA SPLIT
BURMA-SHAVE

and they made good landmarks. About a mile and a half past the last sign, I turned right on an old dirt road. There used to be a house at the end of this road, but it had burned down long ago and never been rebuilt. Valor had concealed the entrance to his hideout in the basement of the ruined house.

The old barn was still standing, and the doors were missing, so I parked the Cord inside. I grabbed my pack and my suitcase and headed for my new home away from home. The storm doors had kept debris out of the outside basement stairs, and the police had forced them open, so it was pretty easy to get down into the foundation of this house.

At the bottom of the stairs there was a police sawhorse supporting a big ‘Police Quarantine’ sign. What a waste! Did they seriously think anyone would ever see it, much less pay attention to it? I pushed it out of the way and cautiously explored the debris-filled foundation. At the front of the house, someone had cleared off a trap door set into the floor that looked like it might cover a root cellar. That’s what I wanted! I pulled an electric torch from my pack and went exploring.

My Secret Hideout

In the wall of the root cellar was a door that was secured with a chain and padlock. I cursed the police under my breath as I went back out to the barn to see if anyone had left any tools. I found an old sledgehammer that seemed to be usable. After bashing it against a tree stump a few times to see if the handle was still sound I went back into the basement and used it to batter the lock from the chain. Finally, I walked into Vic Valor’s secret hideout – which was now _my_ secret hideout!.

It was dark. I used my torch to find a light switch on the wall near the door. Never thinking about where the power would come from, I flipped the switch. And nearly jumped out of my skin when a gasoline-powered motor roared to life, and all the lights came on! Scared me so much I almost… well, you don’t need to know!

I later found out that this switch turned on a gasoline-powered electrical generator with an electric starter. The starter ran off a normal car battery, which was still charged, even after having not been used for a month. Lucky for me, otherwise I would have had to yank the battery from the Cord and lug it down here. Valor seemed to have planned on a long stay – there were about a dozen 55 gallon drums filled with gasoline for the generator, which used about a half-gallon an hour. As I had suspected, there was no alien technology here. Come to think of it, if normal lighting blinded Valor, why would he have put lights in here? More verification, if I had needed it, that at least part of his story was phony!

I explored for a few minutes. There are 7 rooms: electronics lab; electronics storeroom; kitchen; pantry; bedroom; sitting room; bathroom. The pantry was fully stocked, the other rooms fully furnished. Everything looked worn and lived in, and nothing matched. It was as if everything had been bought at the Salvation Army. But it was as comfortable as my own apartment, and had much more room. Maybe I’d just let the lease run out on my current place and live here full time. Well, I guess not really. This place is too far from the city to be convenient.

I changed the bed linens, and took a shower. I was tempted to lie down and take a nap, but I really wanted to recover my bike first! I carried my bag down from the car, and changed into something more suitable for riding a motorcycle, and then headed back to town.

It took about 45 minutes to hike out to the main road. Not nearly as long to hitch a ride back to town, as the second car stopped.. There are some advantages to being a woman, and the guy that picked me up didn’t even try to get fresh! Although he did ask me if I wanted to go out for dinner some time. He seemed like a nice guy, but right now didn’t seem like a good time for social activities. I told him I was going to be out of town on business for a month, but I gave him my number if he wanted to call me afterwards. I asked him to drop me off at a store a couple blocks away from my rented garage, and after he left, I hiked over to the garage, picked up the bike and headed back to my new hideout. I assumed my apartment was being watched, so I didn’t even try to go there. I was glad I kept my riding jacket and helmet in the garage, because I really don’t like to ride without them.

On the way back, I stopped at a pay pone and called Mac. I was supposed to be working on a story about the congressman from the Opal City area, so I told him I was headed for DC for a few days for interviews and background at the House of Representatives. Even though he had already approved the trip, I wasn’t surprised when he tried to talk me out of going today and coming in to the office instead. But I told him I only had a minute or so before the bus left, and I’d call in from DC, and then I hung up before he could say anything else.

I waited a few seconds and called back. His phone was busy. I promised myself I would get that rat fink! No doubt he was right this instant telling Boss Neuertski that I was on a bus to Washington. If those thugs didn’t know yet that I knew about them, they might waste some time checking out the bus station. Until they found there weren’t any busses to DC until tomorrow morning. What the heck, a little misdirection couldn’t hurt.

One more thing to do before that nap! I got the package out of the trunk, and settled down in the sitting room. If this package contained what I hoped it did, it was the final clue to finding Starman.

The Power Rod

The night I bought Xenon’s scepter from that kid (see Vic Valor, Invincible! Part 3 ), I tried to figure out how to use it. I wasn’t surprised when I couldn’t get it to work – after all, it had been in the hands of the kid for almost a week, and there had been no buildings destroyed downtown during that time. However, the scepter was comprised of two pieces, a sort of sheath or ‘holder’, and a smaller rod that very much resembled Starman’s Gravity Rod. This was the ‘Power Rod’ that had been built by the (missing, presumed dead) criminal scientist named Xnon back in the early 40s. Xnon must have built at least 2 Power Rods, because he used one to fight the Specter, and was never seen again afterwards. The sheath must have held the ‘improvements’ that Dr. Doog had boasted to me about during my interview with him in prison.

There were no controls on the sheath, but once I figured out how to detach the Power Rod, I discovered some buttons, switches and dials on the Rod itself. I tried pushing one of the buttons, and disintegrated a big hole in one of the walls in my apartment! Lucky for me it wasn’t a load-bearing wall, and I was able to patch it up and then repaint the whole wall the next day. Sometimes the things I learned as a tomboy growing up on a farm really come in handy! Hopefully the landlord would never know…

The second after I blasted the wall, I put the Power Rod back into the sheath, and I hadn’t experimented with it since. As soon as I realized I was going to need expert help to figure this thing out, I had started looking for Starman. I mean, really looking! Fortunately, doing research is one of the things they taught us about back in J-school.

The Search for Starman

I went into the Register’s ‘morgue’ and tried to find everything ever written about him. He had appeared out of nowhere in 1939, gravity rod and all. He was one of the few superheroes who didn’t wear a mask, yet no one had ever identified him. That seemed strange to me. If I figured out who he was, I made a note to ask him about that. He worked closely with an FBI agent named Woodley Allen. He’d often fought crime in New York City, but he spent most of his time in Opal City.

I called a classmate of mine, Jill Bethancourt, who now worked at the New York Times, and asked her to do a search in the Times morgue. She is better at research than I am, and she suggested looking for information on the gravity rod, too. And wouldn’t you know it, she hit a bulls-eye! Back in 1935, the Metropolis Daily Planet had run a story by Lois Lane about a scientist named Abraham Davis, who had announced to the world the development of a wonderful tool he called the ‘gravity rod’! The Times had rerun the story, and Jill was able to send me a copy of the story and a picture taken along with it.

When Davis had announced the Gravity Rod, Lois had asked for a demonstration, and Davis had been forced to admit that he couldn’t demonstrate it. Davis claimed that so far he had not found an energy source powerful enough to activate the Gravity Rod, and he had decided to make his work public to see if he could interest other scientists in helping him try to develop such a power source. The story Lois turned in had ridiculed Davis, and Lois presented as fact her opinion that Davis was a fraud.

It had hurt me just to read that story. But not as badly as the story had hurt Abraham Davis. In fact, I discovered that this particular story by Lois had generated so much public skepticism and scorn that Davis had retreated from the public eye. From that time on, very few of his fellow scientists ever gave serious consideration to anything he said, and no scientific journals would ever again publish any of his work. And, of course, nobody bothered to examine the Gravity Rod to determine the real truth.

I had met Lois once. When I was a senior at J-school, I took an elective course called ‘Women in Journalism’. Our professor set up a round-table discussion and invited several famous female journalists, including Lois and Libby Lawrence to be on the panel.

In our panel discussion, Lois had warned us that young reporters often failed to realize the power that they had, and also often failed to consider the consequences of imbuing their stories with their own opinions. And she told us that we might have conflicts between trying to write a good story and knowing that it might cause pain for someone. She said she had learned this lesson the hard way. At minimum, any story could make someone unhappy, and in the worst case, a story could make you full-time mortal enemies. I wondered if the Abraham Davis story had been part of the lesson she was referring to? And of course, I’ll never forget the cocktail reception that my classmates and I gave for these famous women afterwards! (see Women of Journalism.)

Anyway, the photo accompanying the story was what interested me the most. It showed Davis holding his Gravity Rod (identical, as far as I could tell, to the Gravity Rod later used by Starman), and there was a young man in the picture with him. The caption identified the young man as Ted Knight, a student at New York University, who was working with Davis as his assistant! Ted Knight was the name of a well-known rich socialite in Opal City. I found some pictures of Ted in the Register’s morgue and compared the two – young Ted, from the Daily Plant photo and the somewhat older Ted from the Register photo were almost certainly the same guy. After this discovery, I had stopped researching Starman and started researching Ted Knight, looking for other connections between Knight and Starman. Turned out that after he graduated from New York University, Knight had received a Rhodes scholarship and he had continued his education at Oxford University in England.

When I had been in England in late 1944, on a baseball tour (see LDIR: MVP, sometime in the future), I had been interviewed by a lady reporter named Briana Webster, and we had kept in touch. I asked her if she could find out anything about Ted’s education at Oxford. She had sent me a package, and up until now, I hadn’t had time to open it. Now seemed like as good a time as any.

So open it I did, and it was the jackpot! The original copy of Ted Knight’s Ph.D. thesis!

Ted had been working on his Ph.D. in astronomy at Oxford but he had never received that doctorate. His doctoral thesis had been rejected by his thesis advisor, who apparently had never even read it, because he considered the subject to be ludicrous. Ted’s thesis review committee had never even looked at the documents Ted had written, but the thesis had been retained by one of the Oxford libraries.

And Briana had somehow found it, appropriated it and sent it to me. It was titled ‘Unlimited Free Energy from the Stars, a New Age of Peace and Prosperity for Mankind”! On the front page, someone had stamped in very large red letters ‘Rejected!’, and under that were the handwritten words ‘What rubbish! How did such a charlatan ever get selected for a Rhodes Scholarship?’ I recommend immediate withdrawal of his scholarship and his dismissal from Oxford. Any publicity regarding this ‘thesis’ could seriously damage Oxford University’s reputation as the leading scientific and academic educational institution in the world. Why, we might as well consider perpetual motion.’ and a signature I couldn’t quite make out. What a pompous jackass!

Briana had also included a story from the Oxford University campus paper about Ted’s dismissal. Seems that when Ted had found out that his thesis had been rejected out of hand, he hadn’t given them time to dismiss him. Instead he immediately withdrew from Oxford and paid back the scholarship (with carefully calculated interest, no less!). Must be nice to be rich, eh? The incident had been a ’90 day wonder’ at the time, but the University hushed it up as best they could. Anyway, Ted had never completed his doctorate.

Adding this new information to what I had already gathered seemed conclusive. Ted Knight had built a power source based on his thesis research, combined it with the Gravity Rod of Abraham Davis, and Voila! Starman was born! I considered that Ted might have merely built the G-Rod for someone else, but Woodley Allen, Starman’s FBI contact, was Ted’s wife’s uncle, and Starman had retired just about the same time that Ted and Doris got married. Of course, all I had was circumstantial evidence but it was enough to convince me!

Finally I decided to go to bed. I had been on the go for almost 36 hours, and I conked out right away. I would figure out the best way to approach Mr. Ted (Starman) knight tomorrow.

End Journal Entry

LDIR Chapter 03

Lily got off to a quick start the next morning, as she had things to do. There wasn’t much in the kitchen to eat, so she added shopping to the ‘to do’ list. Canned peaches and Spam wasn’t her favorite breakfast, that’s for sure. A quick examination of the contents of the bunker showed that Vic Valor had not been a photographer. She wanted to develop her film today – add it to the list!

She would risk driving the Cord. She thought she could find everything she needed in the village of Elmville, about a 20-minute drive from here. She had occasionally passed through Elmville on her way to other places, and once she had stopped and purchased the Elmville weekly paper, the Elmville Town Voice, out of professional curiosity. She hoped they had their own darkroom and might let her use it.

It was a beautiful day, and on the ride, Lily tried to figure out how she was going to approach Ted Knight. She didn’t want to cause a scene, and she didn’t want to give away his secret to anyone else. Maybe she could catch him at his observatory? It was worth a try. She avoided thinking about the mystery of the councilman and the gangster. She was hoping she might learn something from the photos, and she didn’t want any preconceived theories to interfere with her thinking.

She arrived in Elmville and asked directions to the office of The Town Voice. She was lucky to have arrived in the morning – the Voice, being a weekly, had a very small office and a very small staff, and the office was only open on weekday mornings. The publisher was out, but there was a secretary at her desk, and their only reporter, who doubled as the photographer, was actually developing his pictures in the darkroom when Lily arrived. She had to wait 20 minutes to talk to him, until he got to a point where he could open the door without wrecking his pictures.

Lily spend the time talking to Pam, the cute blonde secretary/receptionist/administrator/proofreader. Pam was working two part-time jobs and putting herself through night school. Lily wished her luck and told her a couple of her own stories, and then the red light over the darkroom door went out.

Tim was a tall young man with dark hair and glasses. “Ah, so you’re Lily DeLuna? I’m Tim Buchanan, and I’m very pleased to meet you. I read the Register every day, so I’ve read a lot of your stories. Good stories – you are always objective, and you give the whole story. I try to write my stories the same way.”

“Anyway, Pam tells me you would like to use our darkroom? I can’t. Our publisher, Mrs. Spooner, doesn’t like anybody but her employees to touch her stuff. Why does a big city reporter like you need to use our darkroom, anyway? Why can’t you go to the Register?” Lily told them the whole story. When she was finished, Tim spoke up again.

“Say, Miss DeLuna, how about this? I can’t let you use our equipment, but I can develop your pictures for you. You can come in and watch, if you want to be sure I’m doing it right. But I want something out of this, too.”

Lily was suddenly on-guard. A couple of photographers in the past had used lines like that – and the darkroom developments they were interested in were not related to film. Pam was sitting right there with them, and Tim seemed smitten with her, but some guys were always on the prowl and didn’t care who they offended. She was quite pleased when Tim continued “I don’t know how we would arrange it, but I want a by-line!”

Lily laughed. “Hey, why not?! We’ll work something out.” She stuck out her hand and they shook on it.

“Done! I’ve always wanted to see my work in a daily! Let’s get started!” Tim was almost as enthusiastic as Lily by this point.

Tim was all business, and turned out to be a real artist in the darkroom. The contrast in the original prints was even higher than Lily had thought, and the people in the prints were unrecognizable. Tim made several more prints using some techniques to mute the contrast, techniques which Lily had never seen before. Tim hung up the exposures, and Lily treated Tim and Pam to lunch while they waited for the prints to dry.

After lunch, Pam let them back into the paper office and then headed for her other part time job. Lily was about to throw away the original, high contrast prints when Tim excitedly stopped her. “Lily, that’s it – look at this one here!”

The enhanced photo clearly showed the faces of the two men who had called the secret meeting, John Ross, chairman of the Opal City City Council, and ‘Boss’ Neuertski, boss of one of the largest criminal organizations in Opal City. In the original photo, the two men were unrecognizable. So what could Tim be so excited about? He was clearly hoping she would see it herself, so she restrained her questions and looked again, more closely.

Wait… hold on… something, something, her mind was nagging her about something… she couldn’t recognize either man in the high contrast picture, but… but what, Lily? In that picture, they looked a lot alike! That was it! The high contrast enhanced some facial features, blurred some others, and the two men who looked out of the night at her, surprise, anger and the beginning of fear frozen on their faces, were as alike as the faces of a pair of brothers! That had to be what Tim had seen. She turned to him, and he was smiling!

“So, you’ve seen it too? It’s really difficult to see it in normal light, but these guys look a lot alike! They wear their hair differently, and Neuertski’s beard and the big heavy glasses Ross wears make them look different – but once you know what to look for, you can see it in the other pictures too!”

Lily nodded, excitedly. Two of the 3 most powerful men in Opal City were secretly related! The pictures suggested they were probably brothers. How had they kept this a secret? Better question, Why had they kept this a secret? What were they planning?’ She was just the one to find out!

In Lily’s mind, Tim had already earned his byline. She was now anxious to get on with her story, so she gathered up the prints and prepared to leave. “You know, Tim, this could be the biggest story of my career. And you deserve a piece of it. Want to come with me when I interview John Ross?”

Tim quickly shook his head. “I hope you do get your biggest story ever, and I’ll appreciate a little piece of it. But there’s a reason I’m workin’ in a once-a-week paper in a small town, doing everything except going somewhere.” Tim’s voice sounded wistful, and Lily could see longing on his face. He continued.

“Your life is already in danger, and when Ross and Neuertski find out you know their secret, well… you seem to be confident you can handle it, but that’s not the life for me! I like being a one-man band, doing a little bit of a lot of things, and I really like working at the Voice. I just don’t think I ought to go off and rub noses with gang leaders and crooked politicians – at least, not on the big city scale! Far as I can tell, none of the pols here in Elmville are up to anything they’d kill to protect, and that’s how I like it.”

“If I can help you out with more pictures, let me know. And if you don’t want to use my name it’s really OK with me. But, no, I don’t think I’ll be doing any legwork with you.” Lily realized that he was torn between his desire for adventure and his desire for security. She didn’t think it would be fair to try to talk him into something he was so conflicted over, so she let it go.

“Thanks, Tim! You’ll get your byline, and if I need any more pictures developed, you can be sure you’ll see me again!” She dropped the roll of negatives into her purse, left the pictures on the passenger seat in the Cord, and headed to the grocery store. She then stopped at the hardware store, picked up a variety of items, and headed back to her hideout.

When she got back to her bunker, she installed deadbolts on the inside of the trapdoor and the inside door. She really wished she could see outside the bunker, but that would have to wait.

She set up a work area, brought her portable typewriter in from the car, and started writing. She quickly typed up all the facts she knew so far, and realized that she didn’t really know a heck of a lot more than she had before. The new information, that Ross and Neuertski were probably related, maybe even brothers, still didn’t tell her anything about their current relationship. She was theorizing without facts, something a good journalist is supposed to avoid. She needed something to take her mind of this story!

Fortunately, she had another project that needed her attention. Time to head out and see if she could catch Ted Knight at his observatory tonight. The Power Rod was burning a hole in her figurative pocket, and she really wanted to find out how to use it. She hoped she would be able to catch him that night. Of course, she was a little nervous about revealing she knew his secret identity, but he was one of the good guys. And it wasn’t like she planned to let the world know!

She found a spot along the state road that lead past Knight’s observatory where she could pull off the road and be partially hidden by trees and bushes. The river and hills on the other side of the road gave the spot a great view. Multiple fresh tire tracks and crushed weeds indicated that cars parked here fairly often. She surmised, with a laugh, that some kids on dates were probably going to have to find some other place to go parking tonight. Well, hopefully she wouldn’t be here too long.

And in fact, luck was with her that night! Two or three cars drove by, slowed, and sped up when they saw the Cord, but finally she recognized Ted Knight’s car headed for the observatory. She waited another 20 minutes and then followed. She wasn’t sure exactly what happened when someone called a superhero on his secret identity, but it certainly promised to be interesting!

LDIR Chapter 04

For some reason, Doris had been restless all day, and when Ted headed out to the observatory that evening, she came along. She knew how to operate all the equipment, and occasionally enjoyed helping Ted make his observations. As they headed out of town on State Road 33, about a mile from the turn off to the observatory, Ted pointed out a beautiful ’36 Cord parked off the road. They shared a quick grin – it was a popular ‘parking’ spot, and had been so for many years, even before they had started dating. But the Cord was a few cuts above the jalopies that usually used that spot these days.

Shortly after they arrived at the observatory, the road alarm went off. The closed circuit TV monitoring the long driveway showed the same gold Cord.

Valor had installed the alarm and TV for security reasons. Ted had never felt the need, as there was a gravity rod on his desk, disguised as part of an abstract sculpture. He tested it occasionally, but hadn’t used it otherwise for several years. A few of his other g-rods were similarly located in stately Knight Manor and the cars he and Doris used most regularly. He wasn’t a practicing super-hero any more, but there was no reason to just throw away weapons as powerful as the gravity rod!

The Cord’s driver turned out to be a woman, tall, with long black hair, very athletic looking, and stunning! Well, not quite as lovely as Doris, to be honest, but definitely a peach. She was wearing a fedora and a dark brown trench coat and she looked quite mysterious. She was carrying a large athletic bag.

Although she trusted Ted implicitly, Doris was a little suspicious of a woman coming to visit at his observatory at night. The Vic Valor episode had left her disconcerted and worried; how could she ever know if Valor was really gone? She told Ted to sit down while she answered the door. She used ‘that’ tone, and Ted wisely sat down and waited. If their visitor was disconcerted when a woman opened the door to the observatory, she didn’t show it. Instead, she immediately broke out in a large, very infectious smile. “Good evening, Mrs. Knight! I’m Lily DeLuna, from the Opal City Morning Register. I’m working on a story, and I’d like to talk to Mr. Knight for a few minutes. I know it’s a strange time for an interview, but there’s a strange story behind it all.”

Doris recognized her name. This woman had written several stories about Vic Valor. Did she know anything about the relationship between Ted and Valor? It didn’t seem possible, but Doris had seen stranger things…

Lily continued “Maybe you’d have a few minutes to talk to me as well? I’ve been really impressed with the Knight Foundation, and I’ve been thinking of writing a story about your work.”

Maybe it was just flattery, but Doris was warming to this lady. She was certainly well informed, and very poised.

“Of course, I’d love to talk to you about the charitable works of the Knight Foundation.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Knight. I look forward to it.” They shook hands. “Is Mr. Knight here this evening?” Doris led her into Ted’s office, and watched them both closely when she introduced them. She would have bet that Ted had never met Lily before, but from his reaction, she was just as certain that he had somehow recognized her.

“Good evening, Miss DeLuna. I’ve read some of your work. Your series on election fraud in the last mayoral election was a great piece of investigative work, and your explanation of brown dwarf stars in that Vic Valor article was very well written. But Kerry Roundelay doesn’t believe in them, which certainly colored your article.” Ted disapproved of Dr. Roundelay, whose mind was closed to any theory he hadn’t developed himself.

Lily had a serious look on her face. She hated it when her stories weren’t accurate. “I thought that might be the case, but the other astronomers at his institution agreed with him.”

“That’s because disagreeing with him would get the fired! I haven’t actually observed a brown dwarf yet, Miss DeLuna, but the theory is sound. Anyway, I was impressed with how well you explained the theory, especially given your source.” Ted then changed the subject.

“Do you usually drop in on people this late for interviews? Most everyone else in the world is getting ready for bed at this hour!”

So, for the second time that day, Lily told the whole story. Ted paid especial attention to the parts where Lily was using Vic Valor’s bunker as a hide out. It was quite amusing, considering he had built it himself. He had never intended anyone to actually use it!

“That’s a pretty wild story, Miss DeLuna.” from Ted. “But you still haven’t answered the question. I’m guessing you aren’t interested in astronomical theories tonight?”

“Nope, you’re right. In fact, I’m wondering if you can help me learn about this?” She pulled something from the duffel bag and casually tossed it to Ted.

Ted recognized it while it was still in the air and lunged across the desk to catch it before it hit anything! “HEY! If that’s what it looks like, it could be dangerous! Xenon used it to knock down a building!” It actually was Xenon’s scepter! Ted knew quite a bit about it already from the police interview with Woodley the night Xenon was captured, but he had never expected anyone to walk into his office and throw it at him!

Lily shrugged her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I’m pretty sure it’s inert right now. But be careful with it – I accidentally figured out how to turn it on, and it blasted a big hole in my living room wall!”

Dr. Doog had recovered the Power Rod and armor that had been used by a villain named Xnon, who fought the Specter in the early 40s. Xnon had never been seen again. Funny how that happened to so many of the Specter’s foes. Or not so funny, actually – very frightening, in fact.

While Ted and Doris examined the scepter, Lily told them how she had obtained it, and her experiences trying to make it work. While their attention was occupied, Lily wandered about the room, looking at the books, knickknacks and trophies on shelves and tables around the office. When she saw the Ted Williams autographed baseball bat, she startled the Knights by speaking “Mr. Knight, may I?”

Ted nodded. Lily picked up the bat, and dropped into her batting stance. Suddenly, her gray outfit reminded Ted of a baseball uniform, and he realized who she was. “Tedi Villas! I thought you looked familiar! I saw you play a couple of times back in ’45 and ’46.”

She smiled merrily. “Yes, that was me! I was a charter member of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League, and ain’t that a mouthful! Right out of high school, I played four years, from ’43 to ’46. Used a phony identity, of course. But I’ve been ‘retired’ for 3 years now, and almost nobody recognizes me any more.” There was some sadness in her voice. Ted understood that – he had been retired as Starman for about 3 years, also, and sometimes he missed it a lot.

“Say, Mr. Knight, do you really know Ted Williams?” And then a complete nonsequitor. “Boy, this bat is heavy. It’s almost twice as heavy as my regular bat, and I used one of the heavier bats in the league.”

“I met Ted early in the war, in a joint flight training exercise with the Marine Corps.” Ted didn’t tell her that he’d left the Army Air Corps shortly afterwards, when President Roosevelt had released all the members of the All Star Squadron from military service. “I wish he played for the Sky Sox! Say, would you do me a favor and autograph that bat too?”

Lily blushed, a little. “Are you sure, Mr. Knight? I’d feel awkward signing Ted Williams’ bat.”

“It’s not Ted Williams’s bat, it’s my bat! I’d be thrilled to have your signature as well as his. Think of the novelty – lots of people have bats autographed by Ted Williams, but I’m the only one in the world who will have a bat signed by Ted Williams and Tedi Villas!” Lily was embarrassed, but she did sign.

Ted remembered something else. “Weren’t you the Blue Sox team MVP in 1946? And that’s where you got the Cord, too, wasn’t it? I read something about it in some car magazine – your team owner wanted to reward you, but the Blue Sox were short on cash, so he gave you the car. Don’t I remember that it was kind of beat up at the time?”

“You’ve got an impressive memory, Mr. Knight. Mr. Baker bought the car new in ’36 for his sons, and they beat the crap out of that car”. She blushed, but Ted and Doris realized she was still very angry over the way her precious car had been treated. “When the war came around, it was more trouble than it was worth getting gas, so they parked in Mr. Baker’s garage, and never reclaimed it.”

“Mr. Baker knew I liked working on cars, so he thought he could solve a couple of problems – getting rid of that poor wreck, and giving me a bonus that didn’t really cost him anything. I can’t tell you how much fun it was to restore it. And it’s a blast to drive!” Her enthusiasm showed in her voice. Ted knew just how she felt – when he had time, he enjoyed working on cars too.

Now Lily looked a little shy and flustered. She wanted a favor, but didn’t know quite how to ask. She stammered just a little, and then blurted “Do you think you could get Ted Williams’ autograph for me?”

“The next time the Red Sox are in town, why don’t you and a friend join us for the game, followed by dinner with Teddy Ballgame? And so, it was settled. Ted picked up the scepter and asked her “This is a very interesting device, and I’m really looking forward to studying it, buy why me? I’m an astronomer, not an engineer.”

“Well, Dr. Knight, since you’ve figured out my secret, it only seems fair that I know one of yours!”

Ted and Doris both started at Lily’s use of the ‘Doctor’ title, and wondered if she had just misspoken, or if she knew? After all, it is only an honorary title, and Ted never advertised it. After his experiences at Oxford, Ted wasn’t impressed with the letters Ph.D.

“I figured Starman would be the best person to show me how to use it. But, he’s retired. So I did some research, and figured out his secret identity.” Doris gasped. Ted looked interested. Lily pulled a stack of papers out of the bag and dropped it on Ted’s desk. He and Doris stopped examining the scepter, and checked out the papers. Ted was shocked to recognize his Oxford thesis, with a big ‘Rejected’ stamp across the front. And paper-clipped to it was a picture of Professor Davis announcing the Gravity Rod to the world – with Ted standing next to him! She had certainly done her research.

But he wasn’t about to admit defeat quite that easily. “Miss DeLuna, I’m a dilettante at science and an amateur astronomer. You’ve made a thorough investigation and turned up some interesting coincidences, but that’s just what they are. I am not Starman!” Well, not right this minute, anyway, he didn’t say.

“Come off it, Dr. Knight! I also know about the honorary doctorate from Columbia University for your contributions to atomic energy theory. I know that the Knight Foundation makes most of its money licensing your inventions. You were involved in two of the most significant scientific announcements of our time, and both were ridiculed. Starman uses a gravity rod powered by stellar energy. That’s just too many coincidences. There are a few more, such as Starman retiring just around the time you got married.”

Ted’s head was spinning. But even though he was retired, he still didn’t need his secret identity broadcast to the world. There are a lot of crazy people out there. “Miss DeLuna, assuming for the sake of argument that I really am Starman, I would certainly not want my secret identity exposed. It would put Doris and all my friends in danger. And, whether I’m Starman or not, I don’t respond well to blackmail!” Ted let a little of his anger show, just as a warning. “By the way, please don’t call me Dr. Knight. I don’t use the title.”

Lily spoke up hurriedly. “I’m sorry, Mr. Knight!” Ted smiled at how quickly she dropped the title. “I’m supposed to be a professional at using the language, but I haven’t even made myself clear. I’ve no plans to reveal your secret to anyone! All I want is help from an expert in figuring out Xenon’s scepter. You have my word that no one will ever learn your secrets from me. Tell you what, to prove my goodwill, why don’t you keep all this stuff?” She pointed to the thesis, the photo, and the rest of the papers she had brought. “The photo is a copy, of course, but that’s your original thesis, found buried in a dusty box which had not been touched by anyone in years!”

There was probably only the carbon paper copy that the typist had made, then, and Ted already had that copy in his possession. He looked at Doris, standing where Lily couldn’t see her. She had a sort of a half smile on her lips – “sort of like the Mona Lisa” Ted thought, and she shrugged, then nodded. Well, he had never really thought his identity would stay secret this long.

Ted continued to examine the scepter while she talked and figured out how to open it before Lily got a chance to tell him how.. He pressed and twisted, and the power rod slid out of the receptacle in the scepter. Lily looked a little disappointed. Apparently she had hoped that she could impress him by opening it for him.

“Now, Mr. Knight, you need to be very careful. Somehow the body of the scepter prevents the p-rod from working, but it is now ‘armed and dangerous’, as they say.” Lily was very serious.

It looked a lot like a gravity rod. ‘Form follows function’ as they say. There was a handgrip molded in about the middle of the p-rod, and when one held the rod in the right hand using that grip, there were buttons near every fingertip. Near the thumb were two thumb wheels set into the surface. There appeared to be several gauges set into the surface as well. Ted had some ideas, but he wanted to study it more closely.

“May I take this apart, Miss DeLuna?”

Lily looked a little concerned. “Promise me you won’t break it?”

Ted laughed a little. “Sorry, I can’t promise you that. But if I break it, I promise I’ll do my best to fix it for you.”

Lily rubbed her hand across her mouth. She really didn’t know what to do. She knew that when you bring a problem to an expert, you should let the expert do his job, but she clearly didn’t want to lose her new toy, either. Ted thought he knew a way to help her decide.

“Tell you what, Miss DeLuna? I’ll trade you for it!”

Lily was startled. “Why, what do you mean?”

“Right now, before I start, I’ll trade you a gravity rod for this power rod. And I’ll show you how to use it, too. That way, if I bust this thing, you still come out ahead. What do you say?” Doris was standing behind Lily, and she was trying hard to keep from laughing. If that wasn’t just like Ted! In for a penny, in for a pound. And fair and honest as the day is long. And a little devious as well; he wasn’t quite finished. “But if you take the trade, we’ll spend some time tonight showing you how to use the gravity rod.” Doris’s eyes lit up at the ‘we’. She hadn’t used a gravity rod in a while and sometimes, although she never let on, she missed it too. “But I won’t have time to investigate the power rod tonight if we do that.”

Lily was clearly torn, but in the end, her curiosity over the power rod won out. “I’ll keep the power rod, Mr. Knight. You know” and she smiled, her eyes twinkling “that was pretty mean!”

“Watch out for him, dear!” Doris smiled, too. “He pretends to be a boy scout, but he’s really rotten to the core!” She was clearly teasing Ted, and she had clearly decided that she liked Lily.

Ted threw up his hands and covered his face. “Two against one, no fair! Well, you two… I can’t work with a couple of women looking over my shoulder. Give me a couple of hours, and I’ll tell you everything there is to know about this thing. Stick around, and I might learn something in a week or so!”

Doris smiled gaily and led Lily out of the room. “C’mon, Lily, let’s see if we can’t find something interesting to keep us occupied while Mr. Grouchy here does his science!”

LDIR Chapter 05

While Ted worked in his laboratory, Doris showed Lily around the observatory. Ted’s office, the reception room, a small efficiency apartment, Ted’s laboratory, the darkroom, a storage room and the actual telescope room. They didn’t actually go into the lab, as Doris knew Ted would not like being disturbed, and Lily was already familiar with darkrooms. The only really interesting room left was the ‘scope room, which is where they ended up. Lily was fascinated with close-up views of the moon through the big scope. Doris showed her how to set up the automatic aiming mechanism and the automatic camera, and they set up a photographic series of the moon. They talked while they worked, and came up with a surprise for Ted. Doris grinned to herself, as she had a second surprise all her own. They retired to the reception room to talk and wait for Ted.

Ted checked for them in the scope room, and was mildly irritated that they had been using his observational equipment. He looked more closely, and everything was set up correctly, in fact, as meticulously as he would have done it himself, which mollified him. He didn’t really need a photographic series of the moon, but his current work didn’t actually have to be done tonight. He took a look through the targeting scope and realized just how beautiful the moon was tonight. Sometimes when his mind wandered among the distant stars, he forgot just how interesting things closer to Earth could be.

When he walked into the reception room, Doris and Lily stopped talking for an instant. They looked at each other and smiled. Ted knew something was up, but what? He knew Doris would let him know in her own time. So he told them about his investigations. Here’s a summary, details are included at the bottom of the page…

“With the power rod, Lily, you can fly, generate a personal force field, fire energy blasts and release a beam of light. You can change the intensity and focus of the energy blasts and light beams, which will allow you to produce a wider range of effects.

“The minimum intensity, wide focus energy beam feels like a strong wind, while the high intensity narrow focus beam can easily blow holes in a cinderblock wall. The low intensity narrow focus light beam is like a flashlight, the high intensity tightly-focused light beam can cut through 2 inches of steel, and the widest dispersal, highest intensity light beam is like a 5 million candlepower searchlight.

“You can fly in the direction the power rod is pointed, and your horizontal top speed, unassisted by wind or gravity, will be around 200 MPH. None of my tools was able to breach the force shield. It’s sort of like a prototype gravity rod, except that it will work during the day.”

Lily was barely able to keep from jumping up and down with excitement! “Oh, Mr. Knight, that’s so great! I can’t wait to try it! What makes it work?”

“Please call me Ted! Mr. Knight is my dad… it’s magic.” Lily could hardly believe what she was hearing, but Doris knew Ted very well.

“Ted doesn’t mean the same thing by that word that most people do, Lily. Anything he can’t figure out is magic to him.” Ted looked annoyed, but he didn’t correct her. Instead, he continued as if Doris hadn’t interrupted.

“Anyway, before you use the power rod, you ought to get some practice with it.” Lily looked at Doris, who smiled and nodded her head.

“Ted, honey, what would you think about changing to Starman and giving Lily some lessons! We still have a couple hours of night.” Ted looked at Doris, with a stunned expression on his face. He had thought of suggesting that, but he had been sure that Doris would remind him of his promise to retire. Doris laughed at the look on his face.

“Don’t get any wild ideas about coming out of retirement, you! It’s only for tonight! But you can see she’s going to take that power rod and run back into danger, and I would feel terrible if we let her go without the best training possible. And that means you, dear!”

Ted wasn’t about to argue! Earlier that evening, he had realized just how much he missed the adventure of being Starman. He might not be fighting crime tonight, but he missed flying, controlling those awesome powers, and the uniform. “Thanks, dearest one! I’ll be right back!” He headed for the basement stairs before Doris could change her mind.

“Lily, you can’t fly around in that skirt! I’ll loan you a pair of slacks, and you can change in the apartment.”

“Thanks, Doris, but I brought some sweatpants, just in case. See you in a few minutes. Thanks very much, I owe you a big favor!”

“Actually” thought Doris to herself, smirking “I should be thanking you for giving me this chance…” She, too, headed downstairs. She entered the Starwoman room in the Star sanctuary, hidden below the observatory basement. She unlocked her personal locker and pulled out a red and green bundle. As we leave her in privacy, she is singing softly to herself… “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay, my oh my what a wonderful day! Plenty of starlight coming my way, Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay.”

A nifty surprise is in store for Ted next episode!

And if you are interested in the technical details of the power rod, read on!

Ted figured out how to open the power rod. He was quite puzzled at what he found. There was a high capacity rechargeable battery, some circuitry, and a ‘nugget’ of metal. Part of the circuitry was a battery charger, part of it controlled a flow of electrical current from the battery through the nugget, and the rest was similar to the energy control circuitry in the gravity rod. There were controls for 4 functions, and he figured out how to activate and control each one. He then used the controls to run a very tiny current through the nugget and was amazed at what happened.

The tiny current through the nugget caused it to unleash a torrent of energy. Much more energy than the battery was capable of supplying! Ted turned the current down even further, and the energy output fell. Where was this energy coming from? Ted cut the current and studied the nugget closely.

It was pretty interesting visually. It appeared to be a glob of almost pure unknown metal, with pieces of what appeared to be stone and iron imbedded in it. And it had clearly been broken off of a larger mass. He tried to cut off a very small piece of unknown metal, but he had no tools that would cut it. He didn’t want to actually take it out of the power rod, so he realized that, for the time being at least, he would have to be satisfied with knowing only that it was unknown on Earth.

He allowed a tiny current to flow again, and studied the energy output closely. The unknown metal of the nugget was emitting energy from its surface, but not very efficiently. Only smooth surfaces emitted energy, ridges, scratches and the sharp broken edges did not. And, no energy was coming from the impurities.

It puzzled Ted that Xnon had installed a battery and charger into the power rod. This made it dependent on outside sources of electricity, when it would be very simple to replace the battery and charging circuitry with a simple converter that would change a very small fraction of the energy output to electricity. He figured Xnon must not have spent a lot of time on this prototype, so almost without thinking, he replaced the battery and charger with a converter. What he didn’t have any way of knowing without making some very precise observations over time was that as the nugget released energy, it shrank. The energy output was caused by the conversion of the matter in the nugget into energy, through a complex process that wouldn’t be identified until the mid-1970s by Stephen Hawking. Xnon had used a battery to extend the useful life of the nugget. Ted’s alteration to the power rod would lead to the nugget shrinking faster, and it would become useless as a power source in something less than an year, depending on how much Lily used the power rod. Let’s hope she’s not a couple miles in the air when it runs out!

The 4 powers of the power rod were a virtually impenetrable force shield, flight, an energy blast and a light beam. The force shield turned on with the click of a button, and could only be turned off by holding that same button down for 3 seconds.

The flight power was turned on and off in a similar manner by a different button. The power rod carried its bearer in the direction the rod was pointed. and the speed was controlled by a thumbwheel.

The energy blast and light beam were armed by clicking different buttons, then the user set both the power and the focus with thumbwheels, and either clicked the same button again (for an short burst) or held it down (for a longer burst). If the user skipped setting the intensity and focus, the burst was released with the last settings that the user made. When Lily released an energy burst in her apartment, she was lucky that it had been set for nearly minimum energy and nearly maximum dispersion.

If the blast or beam was armed and then not activated for 5 seconds, it was automatically deactivated. While the blast or beam was armed, it was not possible to change the settings for either the force shield or the flight power.

These controls were very primitive compared to the gravity rod. And the maximum power output of the power rod was less than the gravity rod. But the power rod would work during the day, and Ted was sure that a sphere of the power metal, with no impurities, ridges, scratches, etc. would deliver much more power than this irregular contaminated nugget.

If only he could find more of this unknown power metal, or figure out how to make it, what might he be able to do?

LDIR Chapter 06

Neither Doris nor Lily was in Ted’s office when Starman returned. Ted figured that they were chatting while Lily changed. He was totally unprepared when he heard Doris behind him, asking in a very sultry voice “Ted, do you think it would be OK if Starwoman joined you tonight?” He turned to respond to her and was absolutely stunned!

Doris had on a Starwoman costume. Not the costume that she had worn in the past, which was essentially identical to his own. There was no doubt that this costume was designed specifically for Doris, and it left no doubt that she was a woman – and a spectacular woman at that!

“At least” he thought, with his mouth hanging open “she kept the Starman colors!” Ted couldn’t decide where to stare first! Doris was wearing a brick-red skin-tight top, which left her shoulders bare and exposed a magnificent amount of cleavage. Red sleeves, starting below the shoulders, cascaded into green gauntlets. Ted’s eyes were next drawn to the nape of her neck, where she was wearing a ruby pendant adorned with a golden star. Her cape and helmet were unchanged from her earlier costume, but she had added a pair of dark red goggles.

Ted couldn’t keep his gaze from slowly sliding downward, but with an heroic effort, he wrenched his eyes lower – and once again, he liked what he saw. A golden belt, and tiny green shorts (we would call them hot pants). Thigh-high green leather boots, and a knee-red length loincloth draped under the belt, and she was covered almost enough to keep her from causing brain-lock in every male within eyesight. Almost! (Click here to see Doris in her new costume)

Every day, Ted realized how lucky he was to have married Doris. But occasionally he got a special reminder, and right now was one of those. He tried to say something, anything, but he was stunned and speechless.

“What’s the matter, Ted?” she asked with a coquettish smile. “Don’t you like it?” She twirled on her toes, and Ted once again couldn’t decide where to stare. But he finally found his tongue.

“You aren’t planning to out in public dressed like that, are you? It’s a toss-up whether the police would arrest you before or after the riot started! And then there’d be another riot, as every man around tried to get tossed into the same jail cell with you!”

“Why thank you, dear.” Doris said, contentedly. “Every once and awhile, I like to remind you that you married me for more than just my brains and personality.”

What could Ted say to that? “I’m reminded of that each and every time I look at you, you vixen! But if you don’t mind me asking, why did you pick right now to flaunt the new you?”

“I guess I wanted to show off a little tonight.”

“More than a little!” Ted wisely didn’t say.

Doris continued “Is that OK? Besides” she stepped closer to Ted, lightly touched his shoulder, and then trailed her finger down over his chest and stomach. The path of that finger felt like a line of living fire… “You wore this tight uniform for years, showing off all your goodies, and all the girls just oohed and ahhed. Thought I never noticed, didn’t you?.

“Besides, I’m showing a lot less skin than the Black Canary does and you never said a word about her costume!”

Ted was just about recovered. He realized she was really enjoying this, so he decided to add a little teasing of his own. “She’s someone else’s problem. Bet her boyfriend doesn’t like her running around almost naked like that!” He paused, as if for thought. “Sill, if you’d worn this costume back when we were dating, I might have married you a lot sooner!” Doris frowned, and Ted realized that might have been the wrong thing to say. He thought very quickly about what he might do to restore the mood.

He picked up a ruler from his desktop. “Anyway, let’s calculate the square footage of skin revealed by this outfit as a percentage of your total body area, and compare it with the same results for Black Canary’s costume. I’ll bet you’re showing off more than she does!” He started to measure her décolletage. She impishly slapped his hand away.

“You watch those wandering hands, buster! In case you’ve forgotten, we’ve got a guest here tonight!” She paused for just a second. “You aren’t trying to imply you’ve measured Canary like that, are you?” Her voice sounded dangerous, but here eyes were twinkling.

Ted held up both hands, palms out, and managed to look hurt. “Honey, you’re my wife. I’d never touch another woman!”

Doris thought that the banter had gone on long enough. She had a point to make, and talking about the Black Canary was leading them in the wrong direction. “Don’t worry, Teddy Bear! I’m only teasing you, see?” She stepped closer, leaned in and kissed him.

Naturally, he slid his hands around her waist, pulled her much closer and returned the kiss, with interest. Ted hadn’t realized it, but Doris had maneuvered him so that his back was towards the hallway Lily would have to use to return to Ted’s office. She peeked from under mostly-closed eyelids until she saw Lily step quietly into the corridor. Without letting on that she had seen Lily, she closed her eyes, leaned into Ted, and turned up the juice.

Lily had no way to know that Doris had seen her. She stepped back around the corner, then opened the apartment door. She called out “Ted, I really appreciate that you didn’t try to lie to me about being Starman.” and this time, she deliberately made a little noise as she walked.

As soon as they heard Lily, Ted and Doris reluctantly pulled away from each other. Ted whispered to her “We have unfinished business, you and I!” Doris only smiled sweetly in return. She casually stepped around Ted, so that she was standing between Ted and Lily when Lily entered the room.

LDIR Chapter 07

In her brief glimpse of ‘the kiss’, Lily hadn’t had time to notice many details. She had been expecting Starman, of course, but she had no idea the she was also going to encounter Starwoman.

“Oh, my! Doris, you’re a super hero too? I’ve never even heard of Starwoman before! And what a GREAT costume!” Privately, Lily was a little surprised at the revealing outfit – Doris had seemed sort of quiet when they had been talking earlier. But Doris certainly had the shape to carry it off!

“Why, thanks, dear!” said Doris. “We’ve always kept Starwoman’s existence something of a secret. I’m sort of like Ted’s secret weapon. So, do you like my new outfit?” and she twirled again. She was reveling in first, Ted’s reaction and now, Lily’s reaction. “I just recently finished putting it together. You and Ted are the first people to see me in it. In fact, Ted thinks it’s a little too revealing, don’t you, darling?” She twirled again.

Before Ted could respond, Lily interrupted. “Isn’t that just like a man? Phooey!”

Ted realized anything he said in response would only get him into trouble. He wasn’t sure how he’d gone from the best kiss in his life to the floor of the coliseum, waiting for the lions to tear him apart, but he realized he was in danger. Maybe it would be safest to change the subject…

“One of the reasons I built this observatory so far from town was that I needed a place where I could test modifications to my gravity rod without anyone watching. I set up a training grounds out back of the building. Let’s head out and get started, shall we?”

Doris winked at Lilly, and the two of them turned to follow Ted out the back door of the building. When they got outside, Ted pointed to a path that led off into the woods. “It’s about a half mile down the path, here.” He started walking. “Lily, for your first practice exercise, why don’t you use the flashlight setting on your power rod to light the way?”

Lily armed the flashlight, adjusted the focus to tight and set the intensity to low, then held down the beam button to produce a steady beam of light. The path lead off into a dense woods, and it curved a lot, limiting their visibility to only a few feet.

“Umm, Ted? I’d much rather fly. After all, I am supposed to be training to use this thing!”

“Great idea, Lily! But we’re going to need to be able to talk to you while we’re flying.” He dashed back into the observatory. When he returned, seconds later, he was carrying a World War 1 leather aviator’s helmet with goggles. “Here, put this on!” he handed her the helmet. “Doris and I used to use these for training, back before I put radios into the gravity rods. It’s set for channel 3, the one we normally use.”

Doris helped Lily don the helmet, and showed her how to change the channels and use the boom microphone. “Use channel 15 if you want to talk to me privately” she whispered. “We’ll start with the code word ‘Bear’. If either one of us says that word on channel 3, it’s a signal to turn to channel 15. OK?” When they had been playing various flying games with the Hawks, Doris had often used a private channel to Shierra to secretly come up with plans to confound Ted and Carter.

Lily nodded, puzzled that Doris thought they might need a private channel, but what the heck! Maybe Doris was planning to give her some private girl-to-girl tips.

Ted had Lily turn on her force shield, and advised her to keep it on until the training session was over. He then had her turn on the flying power, point the p-rod upwards, and move the speed thumbwheel very slowly. She started to rise, very slowly, speeding up as she advanced the wheel. Ted lifted alongside her, and had her stop turning the thumbwheel. She continued to move slowly, in the direction she was pointing the power rod, now at a constant speed.

This was the most incredible experience Lily had ever had! Even better than flying the biplane! She was moving very slowly, much more slowly than the biplane could ever fly, and she could change direction instantly, just by moving her arm! The p-rod produced some kind of invisible field that carried her as she flew. Her worries about hanging from the p-rod by one hand when she flew were groundless. And if she had to, she could let go – the rod continued to pull her along with it!

By now, Lily and Ted had reached treetop height. She was starting to get itchy to go a little faster, especially when Starwoman rocketed into the air and zoomed past her at what must have been 100 mph. But Ted was talking her through some slow, simple exercises, and she was a good enough pilot to know that she shouldn’t skip any of the early steps in training. She sure looked forward to turning loose, though!

Ted and Doris demonstrated landings, and then Lily tried. Landing with the power rod wasn’t any easier than landing a biplane – she had to swoop down and almost hit the ground, slow down quickly, aim the rod upwards so she was in the upright position but hardly moving, and then turn flying off, dropping a very short distance to the ground.

The first time she landed, she judged her speed incorrectly, and actually bounced, then fell and ended on her butt. Her force shield protected her, but her dignity was hurt. Ted lightly set down next to her and suggested “You know what they say about landings – any landing you can walk away from is a good one!” He had a big smile.

“What makes you think I can still walk?” she yelled back at him. “I don’t know who ‘they’ are, but ‘they’ sure are stupid! I know the difference between a good landing and a bad one – and that was a bad landing!”

Ted and Doris had no problems landing – the gravity rods had an autopilot built into them and landing was one of the standard functions. Lily was a little jealous, and this made her work even harder. Before long, not only was she was easily using her manual controls to land, she also developed a considerable flair for it. She thought her manual landings were a lot more stylish than the boring landings of her instructors!

Lily adjusted her speed to a slow jog, and she and Ted flew down the trail together, 10 feet off the ground. Lily had to be careful, because if her arm wavered up or down, up or down she went! She thought there must be some way to set a constant altitude, that they hadn’t discovered it yet. Well, she would figure it out eventually.

Then Ted led the way off the path and through the woods instead. Even at this low speed, Lily had trouble avoiding bushes and trees. It seemed that every time she swerved around one obstacle, there was another one in her face and she either smashed through bushes and branches, protected by her shield, or she bounced off, changed directions, and tried again. On the other hand, Ted was moving smoothly and easily avoiding everything in his path.

Her clumsiness made her mad at herself, but she quickly realized that Ted really was a good teacher. She was learning several lessons at the same time – how difficult it is to maneuver when flying with the power rod, even at low speed; how to change directions quickly and accurately; how important it was to plan one’s route ahead of time when flying amidst obstacles; how effective her force shield was at protecting her from minor collisions. Surprisingly, she also picked up another lesson, perhaps one Ted hadn’t even intended to teach – even the owner of a power rod will find that there are times when it is better to walk than to fly.

Lily hated not being good at everything she did. This occasionally led her to avoid even trying some things even when she thought might be fun, and caused her to give her full attention to learning new things when she did decide to try them. Her biplane piloting experience gave her some reference points. In particular, she realized that whenever she tried to turn, she was going to ‘skid’ sideways through the air, just a little, and once she figured that out, she was actually able to utilize the skid to improve her maneuvers.

By the time they reached the training area, she was managing not to hit anything. Not with the smooth skill and grace that Ted exhibited, but she knew that was coming. She suspected (correctly, btw) that part of Ted’s ease was due to the sophistication of the gravity rod and its controls. Ted had several times commented on how primitive the controls of the power rod were. (He had also commented several times on how mystified he was about the nugget of ‘power metal’ it used). She realized that she could have had a gravity rod instead of the power rod, but she never regretted her decision for an instant. She felt that she had some legitimate ownership stake in the p-rod, while she would always feel as if the g-rod was just on loan. Besides, as much as she liked and admired Doris, she had no plans to be an imitation Starwoman!

Ted hadn’t been out here since 1946. But someone had. Some boulders he had expected to see were smashed to dust and some trees had been uprooted and torn apart (which Ted did not approve of, btw). There were some scorched areas, showing evidence of recent fires, and there was a cave entrance in one of the nearby hills that had not been there before. Must have been Vic Valor, practicing with the powers built into his Valor armor.

Ted opened the concealed control bunker and turned on the lights. Lily looked around her, surprised. Although it wasn’t obvious until the area was lighted, there was a ring of fairly tall hills that completely shielded this valley from the rest of the world. Ted noticed her inspection of the closest hill.

“Years ago, after I bought this place, Doris and I used the gravity rods to alter the landscape. We took a couple of hills apart and used them to build some new hills and enlarge some of the existing ones. From outside the fence” (a chain-link fence surrounding the observatory grounds and some of the nearby woods and hills, all owned by the Knights) “even with the lights on, nobody can see this place – except from above. You see, we needed a place to practice in secret, at night.”

Doris had been impatiently flying in patterns overhead. She landed nearby. “Are you 2 going to talk all night? C’mon, Ted, let’s play air tag, like we used to do with the Hawks!” Years ago, Ted and Doris had shared a couple of camping expeditions with Carter and Shierra Hall in the Rocky Mountains. Couples that could fly could find campsites in places that had probably never before been visited by humans. They had developed several flying games, including air tag.

Doris explained the rules to Lily. “Because the gravity rods allow us to fly faster than your power rod” (“Or” she thought, “faster than the Hawks’ wings, too”) “we play in a restricted area that favors maneuverability and agility over speed. So the boundaries here are the hills themselves – you can’t fly out of the valley. Whoever is ‘it’ has to actually touch one of the others, who then becomes ‘it’. And, you can’t hide out down in the trees when you’re not ‘it’. You have to stay out in the open where ‘it’ can see you.”

“Collisions don’t count as tags. If you’re it, and you collide with someone, you’re not allowed to tag that person. You have to tag someone else instead. Tags only count if they are made with your free hand or your power rod. Ted will be ‘it’ first. Ready, set, go!” and she was gone.

Ted decided to give Lily some time to get better acquainted with her flight controls before he went after her, and with a whoop, he took out after Doris. Lily decided to try to keep up with him, and with her own whoop, away she flew. Doris moved quickly and gracefully, and Lily soon realized that while Ted had an advantage in experience, Doris was the more agile of the two.

Time and again, Ted almost tagged Doris, but she would twist away, or veer into a sudden climb or dive, and Lily suddenly realized that this game was a lot like a dogfight! She had never actually been in a dogfight, but her father had taught her all the maneuvers and described, second by second, several of his own encounters, including the one in which he had been shot down and injured by the Red Baron. Lily knew each story by heart. She continued to experiment with her flight controls, and meanwhile reviewed the various dog fighting maneuvers she knew, trying to determine which of them might be as useful to a gal with a power rod as they were to a fighter pilot in a biplane. Lily couldn’t yet keep up with Ted and Doris, but by cutting corners, she stayed pretty close. The ‘playing field’ was a rough oval that enclosed about 6 acres, so she was able to keep them in sight. She was trying to figure out how to do a roll, and she twisted the p-rod slightly. It sort of worked, she started rolling as she had hoped. But as she rolled, the direction the power rod was pointing changed constantly, and she ended up not only rolling but also flying in a pattern like a corkscrew. The constantly changing directions made her nauseous and she immediately felt as if she was going to be sick.

Her right hand clenched convulsively on the power rod and suddenly she stopped moving! She wasn’t falling, wasn’t flying, she was hovering! It hadn’t been a pleasant stop – going from wild motion to absolutely motionless had produced a pretty high g-force but only for a very short instant. She hung there, motionless, until her stomach had time to recover. Then she experimented until she figured out what it was that she had done. The speed control thumbwheel was mounted in such a way that when she pressed on it, rather than spun it, it worked like a button. Pressed once, it stopped her, instantly. She could then start moving again by spinning the same thumbwheel. Neat!

Suddenly, she heard Ted, over the radio. “Got you!” and then Doris said “Darn! I was sure you were going to zig instead of zag!” in sort of a crestfallen voice. Her next words were much cheerier, though. “Look out, Lily, it’s your turn now!” Lily looked around and saw Doris whizzing towards her like a bullet.

LDIR Chapter 08

Doris was stooping on me like a hawk on a field mouse! That might be a pretty good tactic to use against a mouse, but not on me…

In fact, I’d noticed that neither Doris nor Ted was really good at this game. They were good at avoiding stationary obstacles but not so well with things that moved. I could see that they were both rusty from lack of recent practice, but it was more than that.

With weapons like the gravity rods, there was no reason that either of them would ever fight hand-to-hand with a flying foe. It would be easier and safer to hover some distance away and shoot energy blasts. So they didn’t have a lot of practice being in close quarters with other fliers, and trying to touch them with your hand, well, it just wasn’t something they had a lot of practice at. Of course, neither did I. But I do have a lot of experience flying my dad’s biplane into and out of very tight areas, and I had done a little (very little) formation flying whenever air shows would come to town and let me and Pop fly with them. Ted and Lily instinctively backed away whenever the got close to another flier, and then had to force themselves close enough to make the tag. If they thought I was a little reckless, their own natural caution would work in my favor.

I didn’t figure all of this out while Doris was diving on me, by the way. I didn’t figure it all out until later, in fact, but my observations had already helped me come up with a game plan. I waited until Doris got close, and I could see her starting to get nervous – it looked like I was going to let her run right into me! She slowed down just a little, and pulled up just a little, so she wouldn’t smash into me at top speed. As soon as I was certain what she was doing, I zoomed towards her, making sure I would pass underneath her. She missed the tag by a mile! By the time she was able to slow down, I was across the playing field.

“Hey! Great move!” Ted said, over the radio. “I’ll have to remember it the next time we see the Hawks!” Doris said something too, but I can’t repeat it here. I just smiled. Half the battle is getting the other guy to lose her temper!

Doris was much more cautious this time. She approached slowly. I flew away, changing speeds, then height, and direction. She never overcommitted, and she steadily drew closer – when she saw which way I was moving, she could cut corners and catch up. She really did have a lot of experience, and she learned fast!

I had been gradually flying higher and higher, watching Doris carefully as she stalked me. She was focused on the direction I pointed the power rod. That was smart, because that’s the direction I would have to move, but I might be able to surprise her. She had me pretty much hemmed in against the ‘edge’ of the game area – I would either have to dodge by her, or go outside the area and lose that way, or get caught. At least, that’s what she thought!

I aimed the power rod over her head, and turned up the speed. Doris quickly moved to cut me off, and with a click on a button that she couldn’t see, I turned off the power rod. And dropped like a stone! As soon as I had fallen far enough to be sure she wasn’t going to be able to change direction and catch me, I turned the p-rod back on, and zoomed off to the center of the playing area. Aha, safe again! I slowed down, trying to figure out what I would do next. I didn’t want to give away all my secrets – I wanted to save a trick or two to pull on Ted.

Speaking of Ted, he was hollering at me through the radio, telling me what an idiot I was and how dangerous that trick was.

“Sorry Ted!” I wasn’t, really. “That trick really wasn’t any more dangerous that flying around with a ‘power rod’ that was built over 10 years ago by a criminal scientist, I don’t think. Besides, you guys are super heroes – I’m sure one of you would have caught me if I’d had any problems.” Ted didn’t buy it.

I was paying so much attention to Ted that I forgot about Doris. I figured she’d still be out of control, so I turned around to find her and plan my next moves.

But Doris surprised me. While I was exchanging pleasantries with Ted, she must have leaned back into a back loop and half roll, and then she stooped on me again. That’s what I got for letting Ted distract me. I couldn’t get out of the way this time. I heard her laugh as she dove past me and just barely touched me!

“Tag!”

I was horrified when I turned to follow her flight. She had been concentrating on me so much that she hadn’t stopped to realize what was behind me. She was going too fast to stop or change direction quickly, and there was a large tree right in front of her. I was sure she was going to slam into it at high speed and be seriously wounded. When she finally saw that tree, she moved faster than any person I’ve ever seen! She somehow managed to blast that poor tree to toothpicks with the gravity rod, and her force shield protected her as she zoomed through the flying debris. That had been close! It was the single most astounding athletic feat I have ever seen, reacting fast enough to save herself.

Suddenly, Ted was screaming at her! And then he told us that the game was over!

“That’s what you think, Teddy bear! It’s not over until WE say it’s over!” Doris said. This sounded like it might be fun. I switched to channel 15. “Lily, are you there?”

“Right here, Doris! Hey, that was a great move, I never expected you to recover so fast.”

“Thanks, Lil. You’re pretty hot stuff yourself! Say, did you hear Ted pissing and moaning? What an old worry wart! What say, you hit him low, and I hit him high?”

I’m afraid I didn’t catch on right away. “Sure, Doris, but what do you mean? Do you actually want me to try to tackle him?”

“Silly girl! Shoot him! Hit him with your best shot. Don’t worry, his gravity rod can handle it!”

Doris was now speeding back towards me, as if she had missed the tag and was still ‘it’. Ted was flying closer, and he was still screaming, but with our radios tuned to channel 15, we could hardly hear him.

“OK, Lily, on 3! One, two, three!”

We both spun towards a startled Ted, and we blasted him! I didn’t dare use full power, regardless of what Doris said, but I shot him with medium power, right at the knees. Doris was just a little further away from him than I was, and she hit him in the chest. He tumbled backwards for a few feet, but then somehow regained control. Suddenly, our beams were no longer reaching him; he was somehow deflecting them to both sides. I switched back to channel 3, and he was roaring with laughter! Doris was laughing along with him. Ted stopped laughing just long enough to gasp out “OK, now the exercise is over!” and the three of us landed.

I turned off the power rod and took off the helmet, and walked to join the other two. Suddenly, my power rod was too heavy to hold, and it dropped from my grasp. Doris gasped as her gravity rod fell form her hand. I tried to move to pick up the power rod, but my feet seemed to be glued to the ground. Ted was laughing again.

“Gang up on me, will you? Well, Miss Wise Guy” that must mean me “and Mrs. Smarty Pants” had to be Doris “now I’ve got the upper hand!” He laughed, sounding like a cartoon bad guy – you know, “Nyah huhn haa!” He twirled an imaginary handlebar mustache.

Doris looked at me funny, and then said ‘Why, Teddy Bear, whatever do you mean?” She couldn’t want me to use the radio – but the last time she used that phrase, she had signaled for a coordinated attack. I only had one thing I could attack with, so I wound up and threw the helmet at Ted as hard as I could. Meanwhile, Doris had pulled off her loincloth, and when my helmet distracted Ted, she snapped the cloth like a whip! It hit Ted in the hand and it must have hurt, because he dropped his gravity rod and suddenly we were both free! Doris yelled like a savage and tackled him!

I picked up our dropped weapons while Doris and Ted rolled around on the ground. They had fun for a few minutes, while I watched the sky. Finally I stared whistling. Ted was so startled he stopped ‘fighting’ and Doris quickly rolled clear, jumped up, and put a foot on his chest. I walked up to her, took her hand in mine, and raised both hands over our heads. “The winners and new champions!” and we both cheered.

Ted had a big smile on his face. He knew better than to argue.

It would be daylight in just about a half an hour. I really needed to head back to my hideout and get some sleep. I wanted to talk to John Ross later today, and I wanted to be fresh and sharp.

We flew together to the parking lot, where I gave Doris a hug and said goodnight to Ted. Something strange, though – as I closed the door, I heard Doris whisper to Ted “Business” and Ted said “Race you home!” But Doris was already gone. I wonder what that was all about?

LDIR Chapter 09

When Lily work up around noon, she was very sore. She had aches in places that she hadn’t even known she had. All the twisting and turning involved in flying was new to her. But it was a good kind of sore – she was quite proud of her accomplishments of yesterday.

She had a quick lunch and then headed back into Opal City on her bike. Her best business suit was packed in a grip, strapped to the back of the bike. She changed clothes in her garage, then headed off on today’s errands. She considered stopping at her apartment to pick up her mail, but she had no idea if someone might be watching for her – or not. Instead she went to the Post Office and asked them to hold her mail for a few days. The clerk told her that they were already holding a special delivery letter for her, and would she like to sign for it now? She would…

It was from her folks. She feared that something must be terribly wrong if they were sending her a special delivery letter. She stepped off in a corner for a little privacy and tore it open. She started reading, and quickly was stunned by what she read!

Her parents had received a letter from the Navy regarding her brother Eddie. Eddie had been shot down in Italy in 1939, while on detached duty for the US Navy with the Fleet Air Arm of the British Royal Navy. His plane had never been found, his dog tags were never found, and he apparently had never been in an Axis prison. So the Navy had categorized him as ‘Missing in Action, Presumed Dead’.

Lily’s hands were trebling to the point where she almost couldn’t hold the letter, and her eyes were blurred with tears. After all this time, finally to know Eddie’s fate – she almost couldn’t force herself to go on. And yet, she had to. She had to know the worst. If Eddie’s remains had been found, at least she and her family could stop wondering what had happened to him!

The letter was both better and worse than she had feared. Eddie’s plane had been found, but there were no human remains in the plane. The FAA investigator thought that Eddie must have survived the crash, but had no idea what had happened to him afterwards. Why had they heard nothing from him in the last 10 years? Yes, she decided, it was much worse than she had feared. Instead of reassurance, all this letter had done was pile doubt on top of uncertainty.

She reviewed the letter again. Eddie had been copilot of the Swordfish bomber biplane that led the Fleet Air Arm on the raid on Taranto in 1939. His pilot, and the squadron commander, had been Major Rupert Pennington-Smythe. After the raid was successfully completed, Pennington-Smythe had been flying cover for the rest of the squad, and had been shot down.

The plane had been found in a very large salt marsh about 15 miles west Taranto. A couple of adventurous local teenagers had built a swamp boat and had been exploring the marsh, and they found the tail of the Swordfish jutting out of the water. They had told local authorities, who informed the British consulate in Italy. When the news reached the Fleet Air Arm, a recovery team was sent to the crash site.

Someone had brought the damaged Swordfish down to a fairly good landing in the marsh. After it had landed, it had begun sinking slowly into the muck, and it was in pretty bad shape after many years immersed in salt water. But there were no human remains in the plane or nearby. The plane had been stripped of anything that a man could carry away, including a small emergency survival kit and the first aid kit.

The marsh was dotted with small wooded hummocks of solid land. On the nearest such island, the recovery team had found a very old fire pit and a number of stumps where many years ago, the largest shrubs and bushes had been cut down by someone using a saw. And they also found a shallow grave. The body in the grave was wearing dog tags that identified him as Rupert Pennington-Smythe.

The lead investigator was of the opinion that Eddie had dragged or carried the injured Pennington-Smythe to this island and tended him until he died. But there were no traces of Eddie beyond that point. People from towns around the marsh were interviewed, but no one remembered an American straggling out of the swamp 10 years ago. On the other hand, almost everyone over about 15 remembered the night of the Taranto raid. If Eddie had made it out of the swamp, he had done a pretty good job of concealing himself.

Pennington-Smythe’s remains were being shipped to England, where he would be given a posthumous promotion and a medal. And the Navy was removing the ‘presumed dead’ from Eddie’s official status; he was now listed as simply ‘Missing in Action’. Lily didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. What difference did it make? He had still not been heard from in 10 years!

By the time Lily finished reading the letter a second time, she knew she would soon be leaving for Italy. Where would she get the money? What would she do with her car? What should she pack? With a start she realized that she needed to finish her current story first. Not out of loyalty to her job or her profession, not exactly. She wanted to have a clear mind when she looked for Eddie, and she didn’t want worries about unfinished stories popping up when she needed all her attention for finding Eddie!

Besides, she wanted a little payback for being shot at, and she owed Mac, big time, too. She realized that just as she would need a clear head in Italy, right now she absolutely needed to concentrate on the current situation – she was dealing with some dangerous people here and she couldn’t afford to be distracted.

“Eddie” she had been talking to him in her mind for years “I promise I’ll be there soon, and I won’t stop looking until I find you!” Eddie seemed to be satisfied with that, so she turned her mind back to other business. She headed for the nearest trolley stop to catch a car to City Hall. On the way she passed a newsstand, and purchased this morning’s Register.

She was saddened but not surprised to read about the arrest of half a dozen armed thugs in the downtown area near the bus terminal. The police had received an anonymous tip that something had been up, and they had gotten the drop on the thugs, and arrested all of them on past warrants with no violence. She smiled to herself about the anonymous tip; that had been a great idea. She wondered how Mac was doing – the Boss must have felt as if Mac had set up his goons with the tip about the bus station. Well, serves him right!

She was particularly relieved that no one had been hurt. She had unwittingly put some innocent people in danger with her misdirection to Mac. If there had been a bus to DC at that time, she shuddered to think what Neuertski’s thugs would have done. Hijacked it? Kidnapped all the passengers?

She had been lucky this time, but if those thugs had shot anyone, she knew it would have been her fault. She had gotten away with being careless, but she knew that careless always catches up to you some day. Usually at the worst possible time.

Probably the worst news was that bail had been set ridiculously low, and all 6 bully boys were back on the streets already. Sometimes she didn’t know why the good guys bothered…

Knowing that these clowns were loose touched her caution button again. They would probably be watching Ross’s office, wouldn’t they? She couldn’t afford to get too paranoid, or she would end up frozen in one spot, too scared to make a move. But she had to continue being cautious. Neuertski’s actions so far showed that he was playing rough.

It was just about lunchtime. Lily got off the trolley a few blocks from City Hall, and then she watched as groups of city workers came out and headed for nearby restaurants. She saw a group of 6 women together and decided that they were her best bet. When they entered a restaurant, she quickly entered the same place. She sat where she could watch them. She finished lunch before they did, and she waited in the foyer until the 6 headed back to their office. She then walked very near to the group, trying to appear as if she belonged there, without actually being so close they realized she was using them for cover. For whatever reason, it worked, and all 7 of them walked into City Hall unchallenged.

Once inside, Lily took the stairs rather than the elevator to the top floor. She had to stop to breathe a little bit, but she’d made it this far.

Finally, she headed for Councilman Ross’s office. She had met Ross earlier, when she was investigating the mayoral elections, and she had liked him. She hated to think he was mixed up in something crooked, but he was keeping secret the fact that the most powerful crook in Opal City was his brother. There had to be something crooked going on. And she would find out…

Lily had met Ross’s executive assistant when she had been investigating the mayoral election scandal. “Hi, Paige! Is there any way I could talk with Mr. Ross? ”

“Why, Lily DeLuna! Great to see y’all. John’s pretty busy today. Workin’ on a story?”

“Just doing some follow-up on the election scandal” which was true; she’d learned about the planned meeting between Ross and Neuertski during that earlier investigation. “I’ve found out some things he might be interested in.”

“Well, you just sit you’self down and git comfrabul. Ah’ll see what Ah kin do.” Lily had never quite figured out her accent, but she was clearly from the deep South. She left the room, and in a few minutes she was back. “Y’all go right on in!”.

Ross was on his feet when she came into the room, and he shook her hand and appeared to be pleased to see her. Lily looked at him closely and his good cheer didn’t really seem to extend to his eyes. His eyes were baggy as if he wasn’t sleeping well, and she noticed that he moved as if he was very tired.

“Good afternoon, Lily! What brings you to City Hall? Not another election scandal, I hope!”

“I’m afraid not, John. This is why I’m here” and she handed him two versions of the picture of him sitting next to Boss Neuertski in the park. The picture where they were both clearly identifiable, and the picture were they were both clearly related.

“So, that you was you that night, eh? Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. Wald thought it was you, but he wasn’t certain.” Waldo was Boss Neuertski’s first name, although very few people knew it, and even fewer lived through saying it. Lily was stunned that Ross didn’t try to deny everything! “Well, I’m glad you brought it to me before writing a story in the Register. It’s not really what it looks like!”

“You probably don’t know that I was adopted by the Ross family. Yes, my parents abandoned my brother and me when he was 5 and I was 3. About a year later, I got adopted and Waldo didn’t. Oh, yes, Waldo Neuertski is in fact my older brother!” Lily couldn’t believe he was admitting all this. If he wanted to keep this story secret, he must be planning on shutting her up somehow. She was glad she had the power rod in her bag!

“Wald was never adopted. He grew up hating me because I had ‘abandoned’ him to the orphanage. It wasn’t like that – I pleaded with the Ross’s to adopt him as well, but they only wanted a single child, and Wald was too old for them. Mr. Ross moved around a lot, and I quickly lost touch with Wald. I’ve tried to find him a half-dozen times over the past 35 years, but he left the orphanage at 16 and nobody there ever heard from him again. Until a month ago!”

“Wald must have recognized me from a photograph, and then had my background checked out. Because one day, one of his crooked lawyers turned up in my office with the news that Boss Neuertski was really Waldo, my long lost brother. He didn’t make any direct threats, but he speculated on just how it might affect my political career if people found out I was related to the most powerful crime boss in the city. And he showed me some photographs and documents that would be very damaging to me, and suggested they could easily reach the newspapers. They were fakes, of course, but they were very good fakes!”

“The lawyer suggested that maybe a meeting would be profitable for both the Boss and me. Well, you already know how that particular meeting went!”

“His mouthpiece called again yesterday with a deal. You know that the city is getting ready to award the contract to build the new terminal at the airport? I give it to the company of his choice, and I get a kickback, he keeps my secret, and the phony documents get destroyed. And he swears that’s the end of it. All he wants is this big piece of the airport job….”

“That’s around a $12 million contract. Plenty of opportunity for a crooked business to skim a couple of million off the top, and then add on some cost overruns and skim some more. Plus, he uses this business to launder money from his illegal operations.”

Lily shuddered. If Ross was in on this, the only reason he would be telling her all these things was if he planned to kill her. She didn’t want to think that about him, as she actually liked the man. Still, she slid her hand into her bag, and turned on the power rod’s force shield. It was invisible and Ross didn’t know she was now protected. She decided to take the bull by the horns and find out the truth.

“So, John, why are you telling me all this? I hope you haven’t decided to give in to his blackmail attempts? You know, of course, that once you give in the first time, he’ll own you forever?”

Ross looked shocked! “Of course I know that. And even if I thought I’d never hear from him again, I still wouldn’t give in. That would be against everything I have worked for my whole life, everything I believe in, everything I fought in the war for! Damn it all, I’m an honest law-abiding citizen, and none of us should have to give in to blackmail, bribery and extortion, and I won’t stand for it!”

“All right, John! That’s just how I feel, too. I’m glad to hear that from you!” and she was relieved. And secretly ashamed that she had privately doubted this man. At least, she hadn’t passed her doubts on to anyone. Well, Tim at the Elmville Town Voice had seen the pictures, but Lily had not named the men in the picture for him. “So, what do you plan to do?”

“I wasn’t sure until we started talking, but since you are here, this is what I would like to do. I’d like you to write up the whole thing, and I’ll call a press conference for tomorrow about awarding the airport contract, and I’ll announce the whole deal and then resign. The mayor can appoint someone in my place. You’ll help me get the true story out, won’t you?” She nodded. “And in next year’s elections, I’ll run again, and if the people believe my story and want me back, they will elect me!”

The look of determination on his face faded. “The only thing I’m really worried about is the safety of my wife and kids. The Boss made sure I knew that he knows where I live. I need them to be safe before I do anything else.”

Lily thought she might be able to talk Doris into helping protect the Ross family. “I might be able to help you with that, John. Tell you what – give me 15 minutes to make a phone call, and then let’s sit down while you tell me the whole story.”

LDIR Chapter 10

It was going to be the news conference to end all news conferences! At least, that’s how Lily saw it. It certainly was going to be the biggest news event in her life, up until now. Tomorrow’s announcement of awarding the airport contract wouldn’t be that big a deal, but Ross’s other announcement would sure stir things up in Opal City!

Paige called the two local papers, three radio stations and both local TV stations, to announce that the city was ready to award the contract for the new airport buildings. She managed to ‘accidentally’ leak just a little information, that it was a local company and their low bid had come as something of a surprise, but their project plan had been the best and most convincing. And the bid was significantly less than what the other firms were bidding. This raised some interest, because none of the business reporters could quite figure out which local architectural firm fit that profile.

Doris had called in a big gun to help protect the Ross family. Starman was retired and they had always kept Starwoman secret, but she still had contacts. The Justice Society had been missing for a few months, but she was able to contact Lance Gallant, and he was happy to help out. Captain Triumph flew into town that afternoon. Lance checked into a local hotel, and his ghostly twin brother Michael stood invisible sentry over the Ross home.

Lily called her police officer friend, Fred Johnson (remember the police corporal she shot against at the gun club?). He normally worked on weekends, and today and tomorrow were his off days. She told him John’s story and asked if he might be willing to hang around with John, just to keep him safe, until the press conference tomorrow. Ross claimed he had his own bodyguards, but Lily hadn’t been impressed with them the other night.

In his plans for his own future, Fred hoped that someday he might work his way up to Police Commissioner. When that time came, it sure couldn’t hurt to be on good terms with Opal City’s powerful politicians. And if he got a chance to help take down an important criminal figure, that was all the better. He was a cop because he wanted to make a difference.

It turned out to be a peaceful night. Ross brought Fred home with him, and he shared dinner with the family. When the kids had gone to bed, Captain Triumph dropped in and chatted with Ross, his wife, and Corporal Johnson. Ross had previously told his wife the whole story, and she was very glad he had managed to get such powerful protection. She, John and Fred all wondered how it was that Lily could get in touch with Captain Triumph, but he just smiled and refused to answer that question. “She’s a reporter, and reporters have their sources to protect.” Since he didn’t actually know Lily, he didn’t want to take a chance on giving anything away.

When Ross and his wife went to bed, Fred returned to the hotel with Captain Triumph. Michael headed back to the Ross house, and promised to hurry back and let them both know if anything turned up. Fred was sort of surprised that Captain Triumph didn’t try to conceal his secret identity. However, the next morning, he didn’t remember anything about Lance and Michael. Over the years of his career, Captain Triumph had realized that he must have some kind of built-in memory-clouding ability – people who saw Lance change into Triumph almost invariably forgot what they had seen. Only those folks who knew Triumph’s identity independently of seeing him change retained that knowledge.

Once Fred showed up to protect John Ross, Lily had headed for stately Knight Manor. Doris had invited her back for more power-rod practice that night, and she had suggested that if Lily was really going to use the power rod in public, she needed a costume. Lily told her what she had in mind, and Doris called around to some places and located fabric in the colors that Lily had specified, and the other things she wanted as well. By the time Lily arrived, everything that Doris had ordered had been delivered, and she and her staff tailor were ready to get started. The tailor had been entrusted with the secret identities of Starman and Starwoman years ago, and had just recently helped Doris design her own new costume.

Lily and Doris argued about Lily’s costume design. They ended up compromising and two costumes were created. Lily’s design was mostly midnight blue, with a hood and cape, long sleeves and baggy pants. Doris’s design was more revealing. She kept the hood and cape, but Lily’s shoulders and legs were mostly bare.

Lily blushed when she modeled the Doris design. “You know, I’m not modest, Doris, or I could never have played baseball in those short skirts! But how could I wear something like this in public? And won’t it be really cold?”

Doris smiled. “Well, you keep it around, dear. Someday you may change your mind. You never know when you might want a cooler costume, or you might want to tease one of the boys!” Lily wasn’t sure she would ever wear that outfit, but she did realize how good she looked in it. Maybe after she got more confidence in using her new power rod… Click here to see Lily in her new costume.

Once it got dark, Ted and Doris once again joined Lily for a practice session. She wore her new costume, baggy pants and all. She was pleased at the freedom of movement she had, once she got used to the cape. It was getting on towards fall, and it was a little chilly out, and the pants and long sleeved top were just what she needed to keep toasty warm.

This evening, they concentrated on practicing with the energy blast and the light beam. Ted was amazed at how proficient Lily became with her power rod, and with the wide range of effects she could generate with just two different powers (energy blast, light beam) and three different controls (focus, intensity, duration). If the controls on the gravity rod had been as primitive as the controls on the power rod, he was sure he could have never been a successful hero. He was almost ready to feel sorry for any bad guys Lily might face. Almost, but not quite…

Ted saw some puzzling indications that the power of the p-rod had actually increased from the night before. It was only a small difference, and he finally decided that it was just because Lily was using the p-rod to much better effect than last night. But he wasn’t quite sure. If he noticed this same kind of change again in the future, he would ask Lily if he could examine the p-rod again.

Finally, they were satisfied with Lily’s progress with the power rod, and Ted suggested that Lily might want some training in hand-to-hand. Neither he nor Doris knew about Lily’s brown belt in Sinshido. Ted didn’t appear to remember her widely publicized fight with Freeda Hammond, which was actually sort of a relief. She had to put up with a lot of grief from other players and the public before her infamy from that fight had died down.

“I don’t think that’s necessary, Ted. I can take pretty good care of myself.” Lily smiled slightly. “I’ve always been able to hold my own in any fights I’ve been in.”

Ted wasn’t reassured; he couldn’t imagine Lily in a fight with someone like Vandal Savage, or even the Sportsmaster. Good think he didn’t say so, though, because she had already held her own twice with Sportsmaster, although there was no way Ted could have known that.

“Most of the bad guys I’ve come up against were pretty good with their fists. There were a lot of times when for one reason or another, I had to fight without the gravity rod. If I hadn’t had some serious training from Wildcat, I’d probably be dead many times over.” Ted’s main strength as a hero wasn’t fisticuffs, but he was quite proud of his hand-to-hand skills. “Tell you what, let’s have a round or 2. Pretend I’m a villain and I’m trying to knock you unconscious so I can capture or kill you. I’ll be careful, and then I can give you some pointers on what you need to work on.”

“Well,” thought Lily to herself “if that’s the way you think, Mr. Big Shot Hero, let’s see just what you’ve got!” Lily was used to being underestimated by men, but she was a little stung by Ted’s lack of respect. Hadn’t he learned anything from their earlier practices?

“Umm, Ted, promise not to hurt me?” she asked, a quaver in her voice. Doris was just about to voice her concerns, but Lily winked at her and shook her head. Not quite sure what was happening, but willing to follow Lily’s lead, Doris decided not to say anything.

“Of course not, Lily! But if you’re scared of being hurt in practice, maybe you shouldn’t even be thinking of using that power rod!”

Lily dropped the power rod. “OK, tough guy, that tears it!” Lily screamed and leaped at Ted, swinging both arms wildly. Ted easily managed to block both punches, although he was a little surprised at the power behind them. But he was sure now, this lady had the spunk to be a fighter – she just needed a little discipline. He backed away, dropped into a boxing crouch with his right hand up to guard his head, and started jabbing with his left. Lily got her hands up fast enough to deflect his jabs. Even though he had planned to miss her with them, he was again surprised that she was fast enough to block. But she still appeared to be relying on pure athletic talent rather than any skill. Her great reflexes were just barely enabling her to escape. He backed away and dropped his hands. Lily took a step backwards as well.

“You are sure fast, Lily! And stronger than I expected, too. But, let me show you how to hold your arms and hands, so you can block punches and then be ready to launch your own punches.”

Lily figured this had gone on long enough. “Sorry, Ted, but I’m not interested. Defend yourself!” and she dropped into a duplicate of his crouch and started to advance. Ted knew she was a fast learner, so he got ready to defend himself. Lily moved in with some quick jabs that kept Ted busy blocking. She then deliberately left herself open and Ted launched a roundhouse right. He held back a little, because he didn’t want to hurt her, but he didn’t have to worry – she easily ducked under his swing and he missed by a mile. He was starting to realize she hadn’t been kidding earlier – she could take care of herself.

Lily was still working off a little anger – not much, because anger during a fight can make you careless, and besides, she knew Ted hadn’t really meant to hurt her feelings. But she still needed to release some tension that had built up over the past few days, and this was a perfect chance. She moved from her boxing stance into her normal Sinshido stance, and launched a spinning kick at Ted. He was too surprised to dodge, and if she had been aiming at his head, she would have knocked him out. Instead she kicked his left arm aside, which left him wide open to her next move, and she leaned in and slapped him on the cheek – just hard enough to be painful. He was still pulling away in confusion when she leaned in again and slapped the other cheek.

She stepped back, clasped her hands together and bowed. Ted didn’t know whether to be angry or astonished. He decided on astonished. So he stepped back and bowed as well, and then started to laugh.

“Well, you sure suckered me in good, didn’t you? That’s what I get for not listening. You did warn me!”

Lily laughed too. “I surely did. But you know, after the past couple of days, being shot at, run out of my apartment, and betrayed by my boss, I really needed that. Thanks for the outlet, Ted!”

“It’s a good thing for me that you’re on my side, Lily!” Ted said, rubbing his cheeks. “I really am starting to feel sorry for the bad guys!” His pride was a little bit hurt, and he wanted a chance to redeem himself. “Maybe we can try this again in a gym sometime. I’ve still got a few surprises of my own.” Because he hadn’t taken her seriously tonight, he hadn’t created any chances to try some of the tricks that Wildcat had taught him. But on an even footing, he thought he might be able to tag her once or twice, even though he no longer had any illusions about the final outcome.

“I would be honored, Ted. I work out regularly at a Do-Jang in Opal City. We’ll arrange a practice match there for sometime in the future.”

Thinking about the future reminded her of Eddie. “But maybe not the near future. I have something I need to do first. I’m going to be leaving for Italy as soon as I can arrange it.” Of course, now Doris made her tell the whole story about Eddie. She finally finished, and they discussed her situation for a while, and then she reminded them that she had another big day tomorrow. And she flew away to her secret hideout.

“You know, Ted” said Doris, seriously “I wish there was something we could do to help Lily find her brother.”

“She said she doesn’t want help, Doris. It’s something she needs to do herself. We have to honor that.”

“But she’s planning to quit her job and sell all her things to pay for her trip. You know how much she loves the Cord and her bike! It will hurt her terribly to have to sell them. Can’t we do something for her?”

Ted thought it over. He thought about all the things they had discussed with Lily over the past few days. He thought about how good a reporter and writer she was, and how she had done such a great job with two totally different stories, the Vic Valor human interest piece and the mayoral elections scandal. He thought of the companies on whose Board of Directors he sat. “You know, Doris, I think we can. I’ll work on it tomorrow.”

LDIR Chapter 11

Note from the Author (that’s me!) I have a disclaimer about this chapter. The attitude that Nails McGoon has towards people who have mental illnesses is not reflective of my own attitude. Remember, this story takes place in 1949, and you will soon realize that McGoon is a not-very-well educated gangster.

***

Sylvester McGoon was lucky to be alive, and he knew it. For several years after the war, he had been the right-hand man to Boss Neuertski, boss of the largest criminal enterprise in Opal City. Until he had broken one of the Boss’s rules. Most guys that broke those rules ended up dead; Nails ended up with a year in prison. He figured it was a good trade-off.

Very few people knew Sylvester’s real name. His nickname was ‘Nails’, short for ‘bends nails in his bare hand’. It was his favorite trick, to take a twelve-penny nail between his thumb and forefinger and bend it double. The only person who ever called him Sylvester was the Boss, and only when the Boss wanted to impress people around him with his power. Because nobody but the Boss would dare take a chance of making Nails angry. Nails was big, ugly, scarred all over, strong and mean, and people that made him mad always regretted it (except the Boss…)

Nails was in prison because he had taken part in a robbery, and he had been captured red-handed. The Boss had rules that none of his important lieutenants were to actually participate in violent crimes – once someone reached that level of the organization, the Boss didn’t want them getting arrested, as he would then have to break in somebody new to fill the empty job. Apparently the Boss thought very highly of Nails, because instead of having him killed, he had actually sent one of the organization’s lawyers to defend him. Even the best mouthpiece on the payroll wasn’t able to keep Nails out of prison, but he did managed to keep the sentence down to a year.

Nails was ‘inducted’ along with several other prisoners. After dinner that night, 3 of the other new prisoners decided to see just how tough the guards were. They broke from line on the way back to their cells and surrounded the biggest guard. The other guards pulled their guns, and waved the rest of the prisoners back against the walls, but they didn’t seem inclined to interrupt. Nails couldn’t tell if that was ’cause they already knew what was going to happen, or if they were hoping that the big screw might take a few lumps.

Nails later discovered that everyone called the big guard ‘Stork’. And a lot of the other screws didn’t like him. His real name was Clarence, but nobody called him that. Nails could identify with that.

Stork was a big guy, nearly as big as Nails, and he had some scars himself. But the three new cons were armed with knives they had stolen from dinner, and all Stork had was his Billy club. Nails thought he might be stronger that then big guard, but he quickly realized he wouldn’t really want to fight with him. Nails knew a lot of dirty fighting tricks, but after watching this fight, he thought that in a fight with the guard, he probably wouldn’t get a chance to use them.

The big man was FAST! He barely saw Stork moving, and then it was over. One thug was on the floor in the fetal position, moaning, wrapped around a pain the size of the prison. (Nails didn’t think of it quite that way, he figured the guy took a whack with the baton, right between the legs – but the end result was the same!). The second one had to be taken to the infirmary where they had to put a tube in his throat so he could keep breathing. Must have been a whack to the throat, collapsing the windpipe, and Nails thought he might have seen that blow. The third was on his back, and Stork’s foot was on his throat. Nails had seen that move. Stork had reversed his side-handle baton, then used the side handle as a hook to pull the thug’s legs out from under him. After that, Nails and everyone else stayed out of the big guy’s way.

Over the months, Nails developed a grudging respect for Stork. He was always fair with all the cons, and while he used force whenever necessary to protect himself or make sure the prisoners stayed in line, he never abused a con. There were some other screws who got their kicks abusing prisoners, but they never tried that crap when Stork was around.

With only a few months left in his sentence, Nails got a new cellmate. A weird guy, in his 40s or 50s, who mumbled to himself all the time. He didn’t seem to be afraid of Nails, which was unusual. But Nails quickly realized that the man was more than a little crazy – in fact, Nails often declared that he was ‘nutty as a fruitcake’. Nails was extremely superstitious, and he was deathly afraid of nut cases – he was sure that the other man must be possessed by the devil or something like that. And he was worried that if he got on the wrong side of the devil, his turn was next!

Without his cellmate noticing, Nails soon became his protector, shielding him from whatever abuse the other inmates might have visited on this frail old crazy man who couldn’t defend himself. He took his own share of abuse – for about 3 minutes, and then two of his abusers ended up in the prison infirmary, expected to recover. And nobody bothered Nails or the old man again.

The guards told Nails that the man’s name was Dr. Edward Clariss, he had once been a professor of chemistry and the Flash had captured him. They wouldn’t tell him what crime Clariss had committed or why it had taken the Flash to capture him. They were quite pleased by the effect that Clariss had on Nails’ behavior, and decided not to risk anything by telling him more about his cellmate. Nobody else seemed to know anything about Clariss, except he had just been transferred to the Federal Penitentiary in Maryland from the Federal Pen in Kansas.

Clariss mumbled all the time, and although Nails often listened to him intently, he mostly couldn’t make out very much. A lot of mumbles about ‘healthy weather’, ‘James Garner’, occasionally Nails could make out ‘the Flash’, but that was about it.

One morning when he woke up, Nails got the shock of his life. Clariss had apparently awakened before he had, washed himself as well as he could using the sink in the cell, combed his hair, and made his bed neatly. He almost screamed when the crazy man addressed him in a normal voice…

“Good morning, Mr. Nails, is it? I realize I’ve been something of a burden to you recently, and I would like to sincerely thank you for your protection. You see, even though I was, and remain, ‘nutty as a fruitcake’ as you have so quaintly put it, I am aware of all that happens around me.”

Nails’ jaw was hanging open. To have this nut speaking to him, in such refined English, was almost beyond his comprehension. And the guy was telling him he was _still_ nuts! If he could have, Nails would be running as far and fast as he could. As it was, he was jamming himself against the bars, almost as if he thought he might be able to force himself through them.

“Oh, yes, Mr. Nails, I’m aware of my condition. The irony is, I created the condition myself. It’s a side effect of the chemical formula I developed to duplicate the Flash’s super-speed!”

Now, even from a nutcase, this was a little much for Nails to believe. “If you’re fast as da Flash, how come you’re still in jail? Dey couldn’t hold Flashy in any prison for more’n a second.”

“Very good, Mr. Nails. Yes, my formula did indeed give me the same powers as the Flash, but it wore off. I’m not exactly sure why. Perhaps there is some genetic difference in the Flash, or his metabolism is somehow different, or it may even be because he was in his early 20s when he was first exposed and I was in my late 40s.”

“So, you’re tellin’ me dat da Flash is gonna loose his marbles too?”

“Ah, Mr. Nails, an excellent question. So many people equate lack of education with lack of intelligence.” Nails couldn’t figure out if he was being insulted or not, but decided it didn’t matter. He was still scared of this guy; in fact, the lucid behavior after so many weeks of mumbling made him even more frightening.

“No, the Flash will not descend into insanity. I have been drifting in and out of lucidity since I was imprisoned. Mostly the periods of sanity come in the middle of the night, and during those times, I have been reexamining my formula. The factor that causes insanity is my own error, and was not present in the chemical that transformed the Flash. In another irony, I am certain that if I could expose myself to the revised formula that I have developed, not only would it temporarily restore my super speed powers, but it would also permanently restore my sanity. But I will probably be incarcerated in one prison or another for the rest of my life, and remain insane for the rest of my life. But it would be so simple to create the new formula. After all, it’s only heavy water…”

“Heavy water? I t’ought you was saying healthy weather! What’s heavy water?”

“Ah, Mr. Nails, if only you had been one of my students, so long ago! Do you know the meaning of the word ‘isotope’?” Nails clearly didn’t. Clariss didn’t bother to explain it to him. “Heavy water is water which is composed of a less common isotope of hydrogen, often called deuterium, combined with oxygen. It exists in nature, but it is mixed with regular water and if you didn’t know in advance that it was there, you would never notice. It can be separated from regular water, and when it is used in the proper chemical formulation, it can induce the power of super-speed. Of course, the preparation of the rest of the formula is not trivial. The Flash discovered it by accident – only I, in the entire history of the world, have ever created this solution deliberately.”

Nails was curious. “OK, dat’s da healthy weather stuff. Whatza deal wit James Garner?”

Clariss looked confused for an instant, and then burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, Mr. Nails. That’s the biggest secret of all. And even I’m not crazy enough to tell you that!”

So, Nails changed the subject. “What sorta stuff would you need to mix up some of this heavy water stuff? I might be able to get ya what you need, and den we can blow this joint!”

“Mr. Nails, Mr. Nails! We are in prison. I need a well-equipped chemistry lab. And I’m still ‘nuttier than a fruitcake’ most of the time. And you’re out of here in a month. It’s a fascinating idea, but not practical.”

Maybe, thought Nails. But maybe it would be worth breaking the old man out, once he got loose. If the old man could really make some of this super-speed stuff, boy, wouldn’t the boss love that?

“Hey, Doc, I think you’re right. Now woun’t be da right time. But I got me connections. If I bust you outta this joint, can you make up some of that speedy stuff for me and my boys?”

“It would be simplicity itself!” Clariss smiled. And then, suddenly, he changed again, and was back to his former insipid self. The light of intellect faded from his eyes, replaced by the gaze of a paranoid madman, darting here and there, never looking at anything for longer than a second, and always looking for a threat. Nails actually crossed himself, and dropped back into his routine as the reluctant protector of the mad professor.

Over the next few days, Nails was haunted by Clariss’ condition. Although he couldn’t have put it into words, the thought of being locked up in his own head, aware of everything going on around him, and yet totally unable to react appropriately, touched something inside him. Nobody in his adult life had ever depended on him the way Clariss did, and none had ever thanked him and appreciated him. A few days later, he spoke directly to Clariss.

“Doc, I know ya can’t talk back wit me right now, but I know you’se in there, listenin’. Look, if you wake up again from dreaming ’bout Lucy and you want somebody to talk wit, just wake me up. It’ll be OK.”

Clariss took advantage of that offer a couple of times, and occasionally, Nails found himself talking to Clariss even when he wasn’t lucid. Clariss always heard what he had to say, and always had some kind of response in his next lucid period. It was a very strange relationship that developed between them. But just before he was released, Nails made Clariss a promise: “Doc, it’s probly gonna be tough on you when I’m gone, but I’ll be back for you wit’ in a week. So you just hold on for a week, y’hear?” As usual, Clariss made no response, but Nails was used to that. He was quite surprised when he realized he really meant it.

The big day, September 1, 1949, finally arrived. For whatever reason, Stork was the screw who came to lead Nails outside. Nails patiently listened to his advice – “now that your debt to society is paid, it’s time to go straight, yak yak yak”. Finally he interrupted.

“Shut it for just a minute, eh, Clarence?” Nails thought he could take a chance this one time… Stork was stunned to silence by the user of his real name, and Nails quickly spoke into the silence. “Now don’t get mad, man. You know my name’s Sylvester, right? I wouldn’t call you Clarence, ‘cept you jus wouldn’t shut up! Well, I got sometin to say to youse before I get outta here.” Stork was listening…

“The old guy in my cell? Do me a favor and keep an eye on him, will ya? He’s nuts and all, but he can’t take care of hisself, and I won’t be there to protect him no more. If he gets hurt, I’m gonna make somebody pay big time, but I really hope nobody hurts him, ya got it?”

Stork wasn’t in the habit of doing favors for cons, but he agreed to this one. He really hated watching someone get bullied, especially someone with no way to defend himself.

“Tanks, bud. You’se and me, we ain’t never gonna be on da same side of da law, but if you take care of da old guy, I’ll owe ya one. And I always pay any debts what I owe.” Stork nodded in agreement, led Stork to the front gate, gave him $10, and put him on a taxi to the Greyhound station.

LDIR Chapter 12

Nails was a little nervous when he walked into the fancy Opal City restaurant Neuertski used as a front for his operation. Much to his relief, he was welcomed back. Unsurprisingly, he was reinstated at the lowest rank, and he would have to work his way back up to a position of trust, if that’s what he wanted. Some members of the organization liked being almost anonymous at the lowest levels, although while Nails was gone, the boss had shot Al (Banana) Lopenda, one of the lowest of the low. But if you wanted to run with the big boys, those were the chances you took…

Nails wanted to do something that would impress the Boss and get him his old job back – and he had just the job in mind. If he busted the old guy out of jail and got him to work for the Boss, wouldn’t that be something!? He thought it over for a long time. He didn’t want to bust any more rules. But the rules against violence didn’t apply to ‘junior associates’ such as himself. In fact, junior associates were encouraged to participate in violence, and the main rules for a junior were ‘Don’t get caught’ and ‘Don’t rat!’

Of course, McGoon still had good connections inside the organization, and everyone expected that he’d be back near the top soon, so he had more influence than the ‘regular’ junior associate. It wasn’t difficult to get a dozen other ambitious junior associates to agree to join him in his rescue effort.

Three days after his release, McGoon was first in line for visitors’ day at the prison. The guards at the gate looked at him funny – they had never seen an ex-con come back on visiting day before. Nails was surprised to see that Stork was the guard overseeing the visitor room. He was even more shocked to see that Stork’s face was black and blue, he had a cast on one forearm, and he was using a cane to walk. Somebody had whacked him, but good! But there was nobody McGoon could think of would have the nerve to even try something like that.

When Stork spotted him, his expression turned from one of pain to something grimmer, and Nails started to get a bad feeling. Stork called in another guard, then led Nails into a private room. ‘If you’re here to see Clariss, you can’t. He’s in a hospital. He got jumped the day after you left.”

Nails was out of the chair in a flash. He had Stork by the throat and slammed him against the wall, moving faster than he ever had before. He saw a flash of anger in Stork’s eyes, and suddenly he was a little worried – even injured like he was, he knew this man could give him the fight of his life. But the flare of anger quickly died out, and Stork slumped lifeless against the wall, suddenly seeming small and weak.

“I tried, Nails, I tried. 6 of ‘em jumped him right after dinner. Knocked him down and were pounding on him before I could get there. Another 6 of ‘em standing around, keeping everyone clear, so nobody could help him. Old guy never even know what was happening to him. He had no chance!”

Nails knew better. He knew that regardless of how the Doc had behaved, he had known everything that happened around him. Maybe he couldn’t have done anything about it, but he had known.

Strangely, Nails felt a strong empathy for Clariss. He couldn’t stand even thinking about being helpless like that – he would rather be dead! Nothing had ever touched him emotionally like that since he had taken to living on the streets. His anger rose – where Stork’s flare of anger had been a flickering candle, McGoon’s anger was like an oil well fire – bright and roaring and searing hot. If the screw had shown any smallest sign of resistance, McGoon would have killed him instantly. But the flame of anger helped his eyes burn through Stork’s appearance and somehow allowed Nails to see that Stork was as shattered about this as Nails was angry.

“What happened? You told me you’d watch him!”

“The Sarge musta been in on it!” McGoon could see some anger seeping back into the guard, and with it, some life. “He posted the dinner schedule” the cons ate in shifts “and I swapped shifts with Smitty, so I’d be around while the Doc was out of his cell. Damn, Smitty musta been in on it, too! I always trusted him. Guess it shows what I know.”

As he watched, Stork started to grow again. Whatever had left him when he deflated was coming back. Nails released him and backed away, cautiously. He knew he was on the verge of exploding, and he could see that this big guy was building up to his own explosion. Any spark right now could trigger them, one against the other, and right now, on this one subject, they weren’t on opposite sides, and they couldn’t afford to destroy each other.

Stork was once again larger than life. “Then, when I was over in the guard’s ‘dining room’, they dragged the Doc out for dinner. I was just getting ready for the next dinner shift when I heard the noise. I didn’t get there soon enough, but he was still alive when I did! And he’s still alive today.”

“Sylvester” Nails realized he wasn’t being insulted, so he just waited “I gave you my word, and I let you down. I owe you one, now, and I swear, I always pay my debts too.”

“Clarence, if you feel that way, help me bust him out.” Stork looked as if he had been hit in the solar plexus. Once again, he seemed to deflate. But this time, there was a solid core in him that held up. He couldn’t pay his debt that way, and he regretted being unable to do so, but his duty had to come even before this debt.

He stood straight, and looked at Nails, eye to eye. He spoke slowly and deliberately, and chose his words carefully. “I’m sorry, Mr. McGoon, but there are some things I will never do, even to pay off a debt. I cannot, and will not, help a convicted man break out of prison, much less a man as dangerous as Clariss has been. And I cannot, and will not, turn a blind eye to any attempt you make to break him out. We are not now enemies, you are I. But if you return to your former life of crime, enemies we will be.”

Nails couldn’t believe it! In his own way, this guy was as nutty as the Doc! Nails had never met a man with such strong principles, who not only advocated them, but also stood on them. Rather, everyone he knew always went with the flow, sacrificing principles for profit without any thought at all. Nails grudgingly admired the man, and he realized that if his parents had possessed half of this man’s conviction, he himself might be an honest man today. He almost felt a longing, a regret for what could never be, but then he shook himself back to normal.

“So that’s how you got banged up? Whatta the ot’er guys look like?” From one tough guy to another…

Stork smiled sadly “Some of ‘em are still walking. A couple more are still in ‘comas’, according to Sawbones.” the doctor in the prison infirmary. “I know it means they’re still out cold!” There was a little boast in those words, but just a little. Nails would have been crowing and laughing if he’d put those guys out like that.

“Two of ‘em were stupid, and they went for the guards, and tried to get their guns, and they ended up getting shot. That pretty much ended the party. One of ‘em was plugged through the heart – croaked instantly. The other one got it in the spine, and he’ll never use his legs again.” Nails took some small satisfaction from this impressive damage report. Those creeps hadn’t got away free. And, he vowed, they weren’t done paying yet, either.

“And the Doc? What happened to the Doc?”

‘Couple broken bones, in his arms and one leg. Puncture wounds to the chest, internal bleeding, a collapsed lung, concussion, and some broken ribs. But he’ll live, and they tell me he’ll heal. In fact, the doctors are amazed at how quick he’s getting better – they think it’s some kind of left over from his super speed powers.”

“If you can get me in to see him, Clarence, we’re even!”

The guard shook his head, still sad. “No can do. He was hurt too bad for the infirmary here, so they took him away somewhere else, and they ain’t told me where. If Sawbones wasn’t my friend, I wouldn’t have any news at all. I’m pretty sure they took him to a big city hospital, but I don’t know which one.” The prison was well away from all the major cities, but it wouldn’t take an ambulance too awfully long to get from the prison to any one of a half-dozen ‘big’ cities, Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia, Opal City, Dover, Annapolis… In fact, if he was stable enough, even New York, Metropolis and Gotham City weren’t out of the question.

No reason for Nails to be here any longer, and just being in the prison building was giving him the creeps. “Thanks, Clarence. I see you done you’re best for the Doc. Far as I’m concerned, we’re even. I woun’t want a guy like you owin’ no favors to a guy like me. For a screw, you’re an OK guy. But we ain’t friends, and once I’m out dat front door dis time, you better count on me working the wrong side again.”

“If dey bring the Doc back here, tell him I stopped to say hello, and tell him I’ll drop by again.” He opened the door to the small room, and then turned back. “Say, what about the Sarge and Smitty?”

“There’s no need for you to worry about them, Sylvester. I owe them, now, and I always pay my debts!” He bent wearily to pick up his cane. “I really hope I never see you here again. Don’t make me regret just watching you walk out of here.”

“I sure can’t make any promises, Clarence. See ya!”. With the last word he turned and walked away.

“Hopefully” Stork thought, “out of my life forever.”

That would be nice, but who knows?

Nails quickly headed back to Opal City and got his ‘rescue; team together. He sent them out to find out where Doctor Edward Clariss was being hospitalized. The Doc’s injuries could be a stroke of luck for Nails – it should be a lot easier to bust him out of a hospital than it would have been to get him out of the state pen!

LDIR Chapter 12.2

Nails’ ‘rescue’ team located Dr. Edward Clariss in a hospital in Philadelphia in only 2 days. A young associate, Johnny ‘the Priest’ Madonne, showed intelligence and initiative by heading to Littleville, the town near the prison, and pretending to be a magazine reporter doing a story on the ‘prison riot’ of last week. Several townsfolk remembered seeing an ambulance heading north out of town. Philly was the nearest city in that general direction, so the Priest headed to Philly.

When he called Nails with the good news, Nails made a mental note to keep this guy close to him, the kid would help him look good! Clariss was in a teaching and research hospital, with a round-the-clock ‘honor guard’ of 2 veteran cops. There was a shift change every 4 hours during the night. After that it was easy.

Nails hired a couple of local working girls to go to Philly with him. Once there, they dressed as nurses and distracted the guards, and, Nails, dressed as a doctor, was able to pick the lock on Clariss’s room and spirit him out of the building in a wheelchair. When they was safely outside, Madonne, also dressed as a doctor, ‘accidentally’ stumbled into the room where the girls had lured the cops, which broke up that activity and allowed the girls to get out before anyone found out Clariss was missing.

The two cops returned to guard duty and were relieved to find that the door was still locked. When Clariss was discovered missing at the next shift change, the two agreed that somehow Clariss must have gotten his speed back, because they had been vigilant at his door during their entire shift, and no one had gone in or out. By that time, the only other witnesses who knew the real story were almost back to Opal City.

The Boss was skeptical of the crazy old man’s value to his organization, but he was very impressed with the planning and execution of this slick operation. If Clariss was half as valuable as Nails promised, Nails would once again be an important lieutenant in the organization.

Nails drew thirty grand from the organization’s petty cash fund. During his lucid periods in prison, Clariss had outlined to Nails just what he would need to recreate his speed potion, and Nails now sent the Priest out with orders to set up a chemistry lab for the Doc.

Clariss had insisted on specific manufacturers, including Elmer-Coleman and Fisher instruments, with chemicals and supplies from Perkin Scientific. Nothing less than the best would do! The Priest located a laboratory distributor in downtown Opal City who had access to products from all 3 companies, and within 2 days, he had a lab fully equipped with brand new, top of the line equipment and supplies. He even had a few grand left over, which he kept for himself as a commission.

Nails quickly moved into a small apartment above the lab with the Doc, and the next time Clariss had a lucid period, Nails dragged him downstairs in to the lab, and the Doc went right to work. He quickly made himself enough improved heavy water solution to cure his insanity. Of course, it also gave him temporary super speed, but he didn’t want to try anything super until he was sure his bones were fully mended.

During his insanity, the personality that had appeared and befriended Nails during the Doc’s lucid periods was one whom he thought of as the ‘kindly professor’. Rather than being the real Edward Claris, however, the kindly professor was just another symptom of Clariss’s illness. Now that he was ‘cured’, the dominant personality was the man who had become the Rival Flash. Bitter at the ridicule he had endured at the hands of less talented, disbelieving ‘peers’ (if he actually had peers, which he doubted), vain and ambitious. Mean and sadistic. Dangerous, very dangerous.

For the nonce, the Rival concealed himself, and pretended to be the kindly professor. Have no doubts, he was no longer Doc Clariss, he was the Rival, but he wanted more information about his current situation before he revealed himself. He soon decided he would take over the underworld in Opal City, starting with Boss Neuertski’s organization, and even in his vanity, he realized that he couldn’t do it himself. “Should have started in a city without a hero before!” he thought. He shouldn’t have taken on the Flash until he was much better prepared. But there was no longer a resident hero in Opal City.

He realized that Nails McGoon would never side with him, so he would have to be the first to die. He thought he would probably make the Priest his second-in-command, as he could see that that young man was intelligent and ruthless. And had no loyalties to anyone other than himself, just what the Rival would be counting on.

As he worked in the lab, making more of his improved speed potion, he also made a couple of other things. He made more of his original speed potion, using the contaminated formula that had caused his recent insanity. And he made some more of the ‘Slow Gas’ he had used on the Flash during his last criminal escapade.

The Rival had followed Neuertski’s entanglement with John Ross carefully. He decided to make his move during John Ross’s press conference.

LDIR Chapter 12.4

As ‘Doc Clariss’ had realized, and the Rival seemed to have forgotten, Nails McGoon, although only poorly educated, was quite intelligent and very observant. Although Clariss tried to keep his personality change secret, Nails noticed enough changes in him to realize that he was no longer the same person Nails had almost come to consider as a friend. He wondered why Clariss would keep such a secret, and the most likely reason he came up with was that Clariss was plotting treachery. Instincts that had been dormant around the ‘kindly professor’ were aroused, and Nails began to view him with the kind of distrust he viewed everyone else in his life. He felt vaguely sad at the loss of someone he come to consider almost a friend. But he was too cynical about life to be surprised.

Nails watched as the Rival prepared various potions. He saw the potion that Clariss took to regain his sanity, and he secretly stole several vials, replacing them with vials of regular water. When Clariss filled a lot of vials with a clear potion and told him that this batch was for use by underlings in the Neuertski organization, and would give these underlings limited super speed, he was suspicious.

Why would anyone give power like that to others? He knew he would never use one of those vials himself! He knew the original potion had originally left Clariss helplessly insane. What better way to protect himself from underlings plotting to replace him? Endow them with great power, use them to help him gain the position he was seeking, and then discard them as they lost their speed and their sanity!

The Boss was anxious for results from McGoon’s pet project, so Nails set up a job where he and the Priest would use the super speed potion to rob a bank. They traveled to Baltimore, and outside of the biggest bank in the city, they quaffed their potions. Nails used one of his stolen potions rather than the one Clariss had given him for this expedition.

The Rival had warned them that the super speed granted by the potion would last for about a half hour of subjective time. If they used super speed, they could do an awful lot in such a short time. They had also been given some basic instructions in the use of their anticipated powers.

“While the Flash manifests his powers by running, it is not necessary to run to move at super speed. In fact, until you become familiar with the hazards of moving at super speed, you should move very cautiously and instead of running, you should walk.

“To manifest your own power, once you have ingested the potion, watch something that is moving, and concentrate on that object slowing down. Continue to concentrate until it stops moving entirely. Then walk, don’t run, into the bank.

“Although you will feel that you are moving at normal speed and everything around you is frozen, in fact you will be moving at a velocity high enough to make you invisible to normal humans. Because you are moving that fast, you need to be very careful of everything you touch. The world around you is very fragile when you are moving at super speed. And things behave differently than you might expect. Inertia will become much more apparent to you.”

He realized that neither man really understood what the word inertia meant. Idiots! He adjusted the level of his instruction.

“It takes a lot of energy to induce a stationary object to move at super speed. You will need to provide that energy. So whenever you attempt to move something, such as opening a door or even picking up a dollar bill, you will find that it is much more difficult, and requires much more effort on your part, than it would if you were not super speeding.

“And once you have started any object moving, you must be careful to slow it down again, rather than letting it stop on its own, no matter how slowly you perceive it to be moving! Or, the results could be disastrous. Remember that anything that you can actually see moving in your speeding state is in fact moving at thousands of miles per hour. Imagine if you throw open a door and let it smash into the wall behind it at that speed…

“Finally, you must realize that although you will not be able to see some things moving, they can still be dangerous to you. A bullet may seem to move slowly through the air towards you, and you can easily avoid it, but it has inexorable momentum and if you remain in its path, it can hurt you. You’ve heard about the Flash ‘slapping’ bullets from the air? The Flash, and I, have learned now to safely do that trick. You, on the other hand, will probably shatter every bone in your hand if you try this incorrectly.

“When you are ready to return to normal speed, concentrate on something you know is moving, and attempt to see it move. The sweep second hand on a watch is perhaps best suited for the transformation from super speed to normal speed. It is better if you deliberately return to normal rather than wait for the potion to wear off. That way you won’t be surprised when the bullet that was barely creeping towards you an instant ago suddenly starts moving faster than you can see.

“I’ve given you each an extra vial. If you need to, use the extra vial to extend the duration of your powers.” The Rival was certain that using super speed for extended intervals would hasten the onset of insanity, but his plans were just about complete. If Priest Madonne succeeded as well as the Rival hoped, he would cure the man’s insanity. As for Nails, the sooner he was insane, the easier it would be to eliminate him.

The robbery itself was anti-climactic. Clariss was absolutely right about the unexpected differences in the way the world behaved when one moved at super-speed, but Nails and the Priest moved cautiously and were in and out of the bank in less than a normal second, although to them they felt that they were in the bank for about 20 minutes. No one saw them, and the Baltimore papers the next day reported on the ‘mystery’ robbery. They returned with about $750 thousand dollars.

Nails repaid his petty cash loan, gave $50 grand each to Clariss and the Priest, and presented the rest to the Boss. An impressed Boss restored Nails to his prior position. Clariss was accepted as a member of the organization and he and the Priest were assigned to Nails’ ‘division’. “Nails, I’ve got a special assignment for your division.” Nails knew he was back in good with the Boss when he heard the boss call him ‘Nails’ instead of Sylvester! “I want a plan to take over Boss Phillips mob.” This amused Clariss, because he had already developed such a plan, but Neuertski had no part in it!

Nails watched the Priest closely and saw no signs of insanity, and he decided it must take repeated doses of the contaminated potion to actually induce insanity in the user. So that night, he took a big chance. He used the suspected contaminated potion Clariss had given him this morning, and moving cautiously, stole all of the ‘good’ potion vials, replaced them with vials which he suspected were contaminated, and replaced the contaminated vials with vials of regular water. He didn’t know what the Rival’s plans were, but he had plans of his own. When the Rival made his move, Nails would be ready.

LDIR Chapter 12.6

Fred Johnson accompanied John Ross to work the next day. The press conference was scheduled for 11:30, with a free buffet lunch at 12:30, after the question and answer session. One of the valuable political lessons that John had learned in 30+ years in politics was that the best way to get good attendance at a press conference was to provide free food afterwards. And, to refuse entry to any reporters who didn’t get there in time for the press conference itself. A little cynical, but it worked – especially for announcements that were as essentially boring as the announcement of granting a city government construction contract.

Lily showed up early, and John immediately hired her on as his press secretary. She had mailed her resignation to the Register yesterday. This hiring would only last until John resigned, and she would never even draw a paycheck. But she expected to get just a little bit of fun out of this whole thing. She was pretty sure that her ex-boss from the Register, Harold Mac McCallahan, would show up today – he never missed a free meal, and besides, this announcement was of interest to his other ‘employer’, if, as she now suspected, he was in the pay of Boss Neuertski.

Ross had insisted that MaryBeth Karnath, the most senior member of the City Council, attend the press conference as well. She really didn’t need to be there for the announcement of awarding the Airport contract, but by the Council rules, acting chairmanship would descend on her as soon as John resigned.

Reporters started drifting in about 11. Lily greeted the pair from the Register, who were surprised to see her, because she wasn’t usually on the City Politics beat. She didn’t explain anything to them, though – they would find out at the same time as everyone else. She greeted a few other local reporters who she knew, and then the fun started. Mac walked in, and just about the last person he expected to see was Lily. But he recovered quickly, she had to give him that! And he was yelling at her almost immediately.

“DeLuna, what the hell are you doing here? Why haven’t you called in over the past 3 days? Wait, never mind, I don’t want to know! You’re fired! And don’t bother trying to collect a paycheck for this week – we don’t bother to pay people who don’t bother to show up for work!”

Lily smiled sweetly. ‘Why Mac, it’s so good to see you, too! Sorry, but you can’t fire me, because I quit yesterday. And, if you try to hold my pay, we’ll just see what the reporters’ union has to say about that, won’t we?”

He sputtered and was about to loudly respond when representatives for the 5 companies who had submitted bids entered the room. 4 of these representatives were each nervously hoping their company would be awarded this contract. The fifth was certain his company would be selected. Lily knew that they would all be disappointed, today at least. The contract was the second item on the agenda, and she suspected the press conference would never go beyond the first.

When the room was full, Lily stepped to the pedestal and spoke up again. “Ladies and Gentlemen of the media, thank you for your attendance. As the newly appointed press secretary for the Honorable John Ross, Chairman of the Opal City Council, welcome. I know you are here to report on awarding the contract for the new Opal City Airport construction, but Chairman Ross has an announcement to make first. Chairman Ross!”

Fred had noticed a few men among the reporters who had media credentials, but seemed not to be known to the other media people around them. Their dress stood out as well – they were dressed a little too well and a little more neatly than most of the reporters, who seemed to feel that sloppy dress was kind of a union suit. One of these men was talking on the payphone in the hall, while another sat near the door and relayed him signals. His cops’ instincts told him these were Boss Neuertski’s men, come to see that Ross held up his end of the forced deal, and to notify the Boss if he didn’t. They were nervous. They didn’t like surprises, and they had not expected any ‘special announcements’.

Michael Gallant slowly circled the Ross home. He didn’t like what he saw on the streets. He identified at least half a dozen thugs, all trying to come up with ways to loiter nearby and still look casual. One had been standing in a phone booth for the past 10 minutes, talking to someone, and from his surface thoughts, Michael could tell that he was waiting for news from the other end of the call. Michael decided that the time for ghostly reconnaissance was past. He headed to the hotel and as soon as Lance saw him, Lance rubbed the birthmark on his wrist, and ghostly Michael Gallant and solid Lance Gallant merged into Captain Triumph. Michael wanted to round up the thugs right away, but Lance argued that they should stick with the plan. So Captain Triumph hovered invisibly over the Ross home and waited.

LDIR Chapter 12.8

Ted and Doris were trying to sleep after another night of training with Lily. But, for Doris, at least, sleep wouldn’t come. Finally she gave up. Her ‘woman’s intuition’ kept prodding at her, and she had learned a long time ago to trust it. Sometimes there seemed to be no logic behind what it was prodding her about, but she had found that it was usually right. And she felt that Lily was headed for trouble today.

“Ted, I’m just not going to be able to sleep. Lily wouldn’t have come to us for training with her power rod unless she expected to need it. She must be expecting problems when John Ross resigns today.” Over the past 2 nights Lily had given them the whole story about the rumors about the early morning meeting between Ross and Neuertski, how the rumors had proved true, her encounters with Neuertski’s associates, and her meeting with Ross yesterday, including Ross’s decision to resign at the press conference rather than bowing to blackmail.

Ted yawned. “She’s a fast learner, and we were both really impressed with her command last night. And you saw her fighting skills! She can take care of herself.”

“Ted, she’s never used the power rod in a dangerous situation before. That’s a lot different than being in a fight. Yes we did our best, and yes, she sure picked it up fast, but suppose she makes a mistake? She could get hurt and so could the people around her.

“If she does get hurt, you’ll always wonder if you didn’t teach her something important, you know. I know you, it would bother you for a long time.”

“Well, Doris, isn’t that exactly why we called in Captain Triumph? That’s darn near as good as having Superman around. Stop worrying and get some sleep.”

“Triumph is going to be guarding Ross’s family, Ted. Lily will be miles away. What if Neuertski does something unexpected?”

Ted knew that he wasn’t going to get any sleep until Doris was satisfied on this issue. And he knew she was right. He was certain that Lily would be able to handle anything a mob boss could throw at her, and yet, and yet…

“So what do you want me to do?” he asked, sitting up.

“I don’t want _you_ to do anything, Ted, except loan me the daytime gravity rod. I just want to keep an eye on her. I’ll stay out of sight, and if nothing happens, well, I’ve wasted a day. If something does happen, I’ll be there to lend a hand.”

Ted wasn’t an expert on women, but he was getting to be an expert on one woman, his lovely Doris. He realized that this was one of those times when it was best to ‘go along to get along’. And, after a few minutes reflection, he realized that he, too, would feel better if he knew Lily had some secret backup. Doris was going to do this, come hell or high water, and his best course of action right now was whole-hearted cooperation.

“OK, honey, but I need to tell you about the changes I just made to the daytime g-rod.”

Doris’ face started clouding up. “If you are in the middle of working on it, and it isn’t working right now…”

Ted broke in before she could finish “No, dear, it works just fine. In fact, it works better than ever! Let me explain.” Doris face returned to a more neutral expression, and she waited, quietly.

“You know how I’ve mentioned several times how primitive the power rod is?” She nodded; she and Lily had gotten tired of hearing it. “Well, there were two things in it that were very advanced. The power source itself, and the high storage density battery it used to use.” Once again, Doris looked like she was about to interrupt, and Ted hastily continued.

“The power source is some mysterious metal. I wish I had more of it – ever since I saw it, I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind. You know that I’ve been thinking about redesigning the gravity rod completely? I think that power metal could be the key!” Ted was staring off into space, at something only he could see. Doris knew that he was solving equations and doing complicated electronic design work in his head.

It was just like Ted, to start talking about something and drift away to another, irrelevant topic. Doris was used to it, but this wasn’t the time. “Ted, I don’t care about some hypothetical future super duper gravity rod. You’re telling me something about the daytime rod. Get back to the subject.”

Ted actually shook his head, breaking his mental connection with the schematics he had been drawing in his mind. “Sorry, dear! Anyway, there was also a battery in the p-rod, which could store an amazing amount of energy – higher storage density than anything I’ve ever seen, by at least 2 orders of magnitude! Well, I incorporated that into the daylight g-rod yesterday, after…” He blushed, and he got a far-off, dreamy look in his eyes, much different than the mental design look!

Doris smiled as she remembered. But she was not going to get sidetracked now. “You did what?”

“I put the battery from Lily’s power rod into the daylight g-rod, and then let it charge last night. You know how the daylight rod used to be good for only a few hours? With this new battery, it’s now good for 8 to 10 hours of moderate use during the day before it runs out of power.”

“I’m not satisfied that this is the final answer to the ‘future super duper gravity rod’, as you put it, but it’s certainly an improvement over a gravity rod that won’t work at all in daylight.”

“Ted, before we go any further, are you telling me that you took this super battery out of Lily’s power rod?”

When Doris used ‘that’ tone, Ted knew he was in trouble, even though he wasn’t sure what he had done wrong. “Well, not exactly. I mean, I did, but it’s OK.”

“What do you mean, it’s OK, buster? How do you know she’s not going to run out of power at any second, now? And why didn’t you tell us?”

“Hold on, Doris, please!” Ted really didn’t want to argue over this, especially when he felt that he hadn’t done anything wrong. “I wasn’t trying to keep it a secret or anything. The battery in the power rod really wasn’t necessary; it was a poor design. So I made it better, that’s all.”

“You see, the battery didn’t supply the power for flying or the shield or the energy blasts. All it did was supply electrical current to the regulator circuits. And it would run out of charge every once and awhile, and the p-rod would stop working until it could be recharged. Now, _that_ could be deadly – if the p-rod stopped working in the middle of a fight, Lily could easily be killed.”

“The power metal produces a surplus of power, so I just rerouted a little bit of that power back through the regulator circuits. Now, she will never have to recharge the rod! Since she had never used it before, she wouldn’t notice any difference. And she’s much safer now. You know as well as I do the consequences of the gravity rods running out of power if we used them too late in the morning!”

“And I used the extra free volume to install the safety override.” Ted had built an automatic cutoff into the power rod, and it would only work if it was within about 8 feet of a special radio transmitter. He had then added one of the special transmitters to each of several different pieces of jewelry. As long as Lily was wearing one (or more) of these special items, the transmitter would be close enough to keep the p-rod operational. But if someone else tried to use the p-rod, unless that someone was standing right next to Lily, it wouldn’t work.

Doris knew that Ted was rarely wrong about science or technology. And Ted’s description of the changes he had made sounded good. Somewhere in the back of her head, her intuition gave a little twitch, but it was so faint she totally forgot about it in the next instant.

“Yes, darling Ted, I do remember the consequences, and it was good of you to improve Lily’s weapon for her. But next time you do something like that, you had better tell me, at least!”

Ted nodded. He was starting to realize just how arrogant he had been, making major changes to a complicated piece of technology that didn’t belong to him, and assuming he could do so without asking, just because he was improving that technology. He knew he wouldn’t like it if he found somebody making ‘improvements’ to one of his gravity rods without telling him. He determined to tell Lily the next time he saw her, apologize, and offer to put the p-rod back the way it was. Unfortunately, both he and Doris forgot about it, and nothing was mentioned to Lily.

Ted changed the subject. “Is today the day you let the world know about Starwoman?” Ted was a little annoyed over what he perceived as a double standard – Doris wouldn’t let him be Starman any more, and yet, here she was going off to be Starwoman. And in broad daylight, no less! But he also realized, after his gaffe about the battery, that there would be better times to discuss that than right now.

“You know that gravity lens you used to deflect the Destructo Ray around you? Well, didn’t it make you invisible at the same time?”

Ted was surprised. Yes, of course it had made him invisible! Well, not really, he was as visible as ever, technically, but nobody could see him. But wasn’t that the same thing?

“Honey, that’s a fantastic idea!” then he stopped to think. “But the gravity lens requires a lot of power. I don’t know exactly, but I think if you keep the gravity lens active, you will probably cut down the time before the g-rod runs out of power from around 9 hours to around 4 hours.”

“Four hours should be fine. I’ll just wait until 11 to leave here, and I should easily be home by 3. Thanks, Ted, you’re a dear, and I love you!” To prove it, she gave him a long, passionate kiss. When they finally, reluctantly broke the clinch, Ted looked at the alarm clock.

“Hmm, it’s only 8. What are you going to for the next 3 hours?”

“I think you mean, ‘what are _we_ going to do’, don’t you?” Doris asked, with an invitational smile.

Lily walked up to Fred and whispered to him. “That jerk that used to be my boss? Watch him, he’s packing heat. I am pretty sure he is working for Neuertski. And that other guy he’s with, the reporter from the Globe? Him too!” Fred had ‘made’ the Globe reporter already, but he hadn’t noticed Mac. Swell, 2 good guys and 4 bad guys! Well, he was pretty sure the odds were about even. The newspaper guys looked like they spent too much time behind a desk.

“Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen of the media. Thank you very much for attending. There are undoubtedly many media events more exciting than the awarding of a city construction contract. But I hope the buffet lunch afterwards will make up for the tedium.” There were only a few titters of laughter in the audience, but it wasn’t all that funny, after all.”

“Before we get to awarding the contract, there’s another announcement I would like to make.” This piqued their attention, a little, but nobody could imagine anything exciting coming out of this press conference. “As many of you know, I was adopted by the Ross family and I haven’t seen any members of my birth family for over 35 years.”

Bully Boy #1 in the back row was waving frantically at Bully Boy #2 on the phone. Fred stepped into their line of vision just before BB#2 drew his finger across his throat. He said quietly “You know, Chairman Ross is still taking. But I don’t suppose anybody ever bothered to teach you manners, or maybe you were just too stupid to learn?” Fred didn’t like hoods, and he didn’t care who knew it. Especially the hoods… “Just sit back and enjoy the show, buddy boy!” BB#1 was just about to come flying out of his chair when he noticed that Fred had a gun in his hand, pressed against his side where no one else could see it. He settled back in his chair and pretended to listen.

Lily was near the door too, and she was watching Fred’s back. Bully Boy #2 dropped the phone, and headed towards the conference room. Lily warned Fred, and he backed away so that he could cover both of them.

Ross continued speaking. “Just recently, I was contacted by my older brother Waldo. He was surprised to recognize me from a news photo. But he couldn’t have been as surprised as I was, when I learned that Boss Neuertski was really Waldo Neuertski, my older brother!”

This was the press equivalent of a bombshell. Bully Boy #2 pulled out a gun, and took a quick shot at Ross. He missed, but he hadn’t really expected to hit. He hoped that this would tip off the listener on the other end of the phone that something had gone wrong. And suddenly the quiet press conference dissolved into chaos.

BB#1 pulled a vial out of his pocket and quickly drank its contents. He then jumped at Fred, and was clearly surprised when Fred’s shot passed through his left thigh! “What’d he think, that gulp was gonna make him Superman?” was Fred’s thought. He turned quickly, and as he turned, he saw the other hood quaffing an identical vial. He stopped and stared at Lily, and was still staring when Lily flattened him. “Guess it didn’t work for him, neither!” Fred chuckled.

His chuckles stopped when 2 more hoods, this time wearing gas masks, burst into the room and hurled glass bottles into the crowd. A vapor billowed out of the broken bottles, and as each person in the room breathed the vapor, he or she stopped moving!

***

Doris had arrived early, brimming with energy. She was always surprised at the difference in reaction between her and Ted – a little exercise left him worn out, while she was always bright and peppy. She was able to sneak into the conference room through an open window. It was a big room with a domed ceiling, and there was a wide ledge at the base of the dome. Good, she would just perch on the ledge. It would save power in the gravity rod.

She almost changed her mind when she saw a half-inch of dust on the ledge. It made sense – who would dust on top a ledge 10 feet off the floor? But she didn’t want to get this nice outfit filthy and she didn’t want to have a big cloud of dust billow into the room unexpectedly. She thought for a second, and had an ‘Aha!’ moment. She aimed the g-rod at the ledge, and increased the gravitational attraction between the dust and the wall, and the dust moved slowly off the ledge. When she was sure she wouldn’t raise a cloud, she momentarily increased the gravity enough to pack the dust together, and then she perched.

Ross started to speak. She watched Lily and Fred watch the bad guys. She tried to put an energy shield around Ross, but she couldn’t control a different kind of field through the gravity lens. She had just used gravity control through the gravity lens on the dust, though, so she tried something else – something Ted had taught her to do last night, in a different context.

During their training sessions over the past few nights, Ted and Doris had spent some time on their own training concerns as well as on training Lily. Because of the news of the Rival’s escape from prison, possibly aided by a gangster from Opal City, they had spent quite a little time discussing fighting foes with super speed powers. Actually, Doris had mostly listened and Ted had discussed.

“It is virtually impossible to fight against someone that much faster than you are. You can’t hit anyone moving that fast. You have to depend on strategy and advance planning, and make sure your defenses are already in place when your opponent arrives.

“You need defenses that will work without any help from you, and they have to be able to affect people moving at super speed. Fortunately, the gravity rods allow us to set up these kinds of defenses – if we are warned soon enough.”

He had gone on to show Doris how to create a momentum screen. Any person moving at super speed through this curtain would be slowed down significantly. Doris figured that if it would work against people, it would probably work against bullets as well.

She created a momentum screen between Ross and the reporters. That ought to stop any bullets fired at him from the audience. She would have to quickly shut it off if any person headed in John’s direction, so she kept a close eye on things.

Pandemonium broke out when Ross made his announcement, and one of the thugs shot a bullet towards John Ross. It crashed into the momentum screen and just crashed its way through, falling harmlessly to the ground a few feet past the invisible momentum screen.

As soon as Lily flattened thugee 2, she had pulled her power rod out of her purse and turned on the force shield, Thus she was not affected by the slow gas. She used the energy blast, narrow focus and low power, to knock the air canisters off of the gas masks, and thugees 3 and 4 slowed down to match the other folks in the room.

Suddenly Doris felt a jolt on her gravity rod. Two super-fast men had tried to run through the momentum screen, and the force of their impact with the screen almost knocked the g-rod from her hand. But she was lucky compared to the two men. Ted later figured that they must have been going about 600 miles per hour when they hit the screen, and they were doing 25 mph when they reached the other side.

The rapid change in speed caused both men to trip, and they hit the floor and rolled until they smashed into the far wall. Doris winced as she heard bones break. “Serves them right, trying to use super powers against a normal person!” she thought. But she was still a little sickened. Anyway, they were both unconscious and out of the fight.

***

Eddie moved carefully into the room, following two of the other ‘boys’ from the Neuertski mob. The Doc had lectured him and his buddies for a good thirty minutes before giving them the vials of ‘heavy water’, but Eddie hadn’t paid much attention. The Doc had told them to be careful of inertia, whatever that was. Things would be harder to move than they expected, like opening doors, or even picking up a newspaper.

Eddie had noticed a little added resistance when he first felt the affects of the ‘heavy water’ but he had already adapted. Of course, he had let the other guys open the doors and stuff. It gave him time for some side trips and a little fun on his own.

There was a lotta dames between here and the street who was gonna be real embarrassed in just a few seconds, when they discovered somehow all their buttons had disappeared! He woulda done more but the other guys were yelling at him to keep up. Eddie figgered that the Doc was trying to scare them all – he hadn’t noticed no ‘inertia’ in those buttons!

As they walked through the door into the conference room, Jack and Gil headed for Ross. Eddie realized he was standing right next to the DeLuna broad. She had almost got him killed! He was lucky he wasn’t still out cold when Stones and the boys came back for him, and lucky she hit him on the side of the head, where his hat and hair covered the lump. Stonalli would probably have shot him if he knew what had really happened. Eddie owed this broad, big time. And since she was just standing there like a statue, he thought he’d let her have it!

He hauled off and belted her with a backhand, right across the mouth. If he’d heard the Doc right, that would probably kill her – only what she deserved for knocking him out! Eddie quickly leaned that he shoulda paid more attention to the Doc!

***

Doris turned her attention back to Lily, and as she watched, Lily was somehow lifted into the air and slammed backwards into a wall, where she collapsed unconscious to the floor. A third ex-speedster suddenly appeared, although he was minus a hand! From his posture, he had evidently hit Lily with a hard backhand across the face, and his hand had vaporized when it hit Lily’s force shield at several thousand miles an hour! He fell to the floor unconscious from the pain.

Doris was the only person left in the room who could move at normal speed and was still conscious. She dropped her gravity lens and flew towards her unconscious friend. As she approached Lily, she saw a faint pink mist in the air above the unconscious bad guy, and when she realized what it was, she gagged and almost threw up. But she knew Lily might need her help, so she forced her stomach to cooperate. She was glad she could use the gravity rod to prevent her from breathing any of that! She quickly used the g-rod to sweep the pink mist from the air, as she hurried to Lily’s side.

Lily’s force shield was still on, so Doris used her gravity rod to increase the force of gravity on the appropriate button, clicking it off. Lily was still breathing, thank goodness, and the shield seemed to have protected her from broken bones. Now that she had a second or two to think, Doris used another trick Ted had just showed her. The gravity rod could be set to detect the rapidly changing gravity waves that a super-speedster generated, and she did a quick check to be sure there weren’t any more. She thought she might have detected some super speed activity miles away, but she had other things to worry about right now.

When she was sure that her friend was reasonably safe for a few minutes at least, she quickly used the radio in her gravity rod to call for help. She reached the police, and by sounding hysterical, she convinced them to send a squad car and an ambulance.

Next, Doris put a tourniquet on the wrist of the one-handed crook, using his belt, and then opened the door and screamed as loud as she could. There were other women screaming in the Council building as well as Doris, but they didn’t seem to be screaming because they were hurt or in pain. She heard guards and others running towards the chamber doors.

She moved over to the window and restored her gravity lens, and as soon as City Hall workers started to pour into the room, she headed for home. She was really shaken up, retching as she moved, and she couldn’t get the sight of that pink mist, or the sound of cracking bones, out of her mind. She needed to cry on Ted’s shoulder, soonest! Well, she amended, as soon as could control her stomach again. She definitely wasn’t used to the ugly side of super powers.

Lily DeLuna Conclusion

Back at the Ross home, Captain Triumph had finally decided that it was stupid to let the bad guys attack first. These guys all had potions that would let them move as fast as the Flash, and while super speedsters couldn’t harm him, he didn’t have super speed himself. So, best to take them out before they drank their potions.

Michael, in his ghostly form, had identified each of the hoods, so Captain Triumph turned invisible, and moving quickly, took them all out before any of them could react. As quickly as that, the Ross family was safe.

Two battles won by the good guys, but perhaps the most important battle was between villains. The Rival planned to depose Neuertski, kill Nails, and take over as the new Boss, with the Priest as his second-in-command. The Priest figured that right after Clariss killed the Boss and Nails, he would probably let down his own guard, and the Priest would finish him off and take command. None of this second in command crap for him! Did Nails have his own plans? We’ll soon see.

An hour before the start of the press conference, a private courier delivered a large box to Opal City Police Commissioner O’Dare. There was a lot of useful stuff in this box – materials and evidence that could be used to convict Boss Neuertski and finally put him behind bars. Extortion, blackmail, racketeering, tax evasion, just to start. Stuff nobody in years of investigation had ever been able to pin on him. Recordings, photographs, ledgers, documents – you name it. Somebody inside Neuertski’s organization had decided to bring him down!

O’Dare was convinced of the legitimacy of this ‘stuff’ within minutes – but with something as big as bringing down the biggest mob boss in Opal City, he wasn’t going to take any chances. He called in lawyers, detectives and police scientists, and they pored over everything. About the time Ross made his stunning announcement and Captain Triumph rounded up a bevy of bad guys, O’Dare and a handpicked group of cops had surrounded Neuertski’s current location.

When a police riot squad pulled up outside Boss Neuertski’s HQ, Nails downed a vial of fortified heavy water, twice as much as a regular dose. It seemed to him that twice the dose ought to be twice as effective, and he figured he would soon be in a fight in which he might need a little extra advantage. He concentrated on stopping the sweep second hand of his watch, and then he was ‘up to speed’.

Nails had expected a showdown soon with Clariss, but he had not expected a raid by the OCPD. To keep the Boss safe, it would be better to carry him (gently) to one of the mob’s safe houses and then return to trash the cops – but he didn’t get the chance. The heavy wooden door to his office literally vaporized, exploding into shards that were immediately burned to nothing by air friction, as the Priest’s kick accelerated it to super speed. The Rival, in full costume, followed the Priest! A super speed battle in the office could very well end up destroying the building and kill the Boss, so Nails vibrated through the wall, heading for a ‘safer’ place to fight.

The deadly pair was right behind him. They were out of the city in less time than the blink of an eye, heading almost north. When he reached the Susquehanna River, Nails headed upstream, north, skimming down the center of the river, but that didn’t slow down his pursuers, who knew this trick as well. Just north of the US 1 bridge, he ran ashore and then abruptly stopped and turned. The Priest had to veer to avoid him, and Nails stuck out his leg, vibrating at just the right frequency to avoid injury when the Priest tripped over him.

“Saigonnara, Johnny!” he snarled, as the tumbling body of the Priest bounced twice off the hard packed gravel beach, and then smashed into the granite cliff bounding the river. There was a stunning explosion, as if several tons of TNT had been detonated, but Nails was already several miles south, in the hills of Susquehanna State Park. He smiled grimly – he was younger and in better shape, and slightly faster than the Rival. That was OK, he was done running!

The Rival stopped a few steps from him. “Excellent, Mr. Nails! You have always been a most apt pupil! As it happens, I am currently in need of a new associate. Based on our prior acquaintance, I propose an alliance.” He sounded just like the insane Dr. Clariss, the kindly professor, who had been Nails’ cellmate back in the Federal Penitentiary of Maryland, almost a year ago. That insane personality had been the closest thing Nails had to a friend since he was 14.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know youse. Dat guy is gone!” Hearing a voice that sounded so much like his now-departed friend actually hurt Nails, and also made him angry. Before, stopping Clariss had been business, now it was personal. “I works for da Boss.” He charged at Clariss like a linebacker about to make a tackle. He passed right through his foe and began to stumble. ‘Clariss’ vanished, then appeared again, a couple of feet away, and he helped Nails’ stumble with a quick kick to the rear end.

Nails vividly remembered Johnny’s body starting to shred as he hit the ground at super-speed, and he instantly began vibrating at just the right frequency to pass through matter. He disappeared into the soil, and suddenly the ground around the Rival began shaking like a mag 10 earthquake, and then about a half an acre of ground around him suddenly dropped away. The Rival was suddenly running on air, and by ‘stomping’ his feet at super speed, he was a able to create a column of compressed air underneath him, which prevented him from falling. His outline blurred for an instant and then was invisible.

Nails was startled – how had the Rival made himself invisible? Nails had the same powers as the Rival; surely if his foe had simply run away, Nails would have seen him. Then the ground under him started to rumble, and the Rival burst from the ground, spinning impossibly fast – and after him came a stream of lava, and the pit Nails had created started filling up with molten rock! Nails accelerated and ran up the sheer wall of the pit. He saw his foe, standing across the red-hot lake from him, and realized that they were evenly matched, and this battle might go on for hours. Time to see if his mega dose of heavy water worked as he hoped it would!

Using the same technique Clariss had taught him for activating his super speed, Nails focused all his attention on Clariss and concentrated on slowing him down. It was working – even though Clariss was now rushing towards him at top speed, with some other super speed trick or tactic on his mind, Nails could see him slowing down, with every step, as if he was running through water, and finally, barely moving, almost as if frozen in glass! Nails carefully moved towards the Rival – and during the instant that he moved, the world seemed to disappear! Stunned, he stopped moving, and realized that in that smallest instant, his body speed was so great that he had moved thousands of miles, and was now surrounded by ocean! And his senses couldn’t keep up with his hyper-speed! He couldn’t stand here, or he would sink, but did he dare to move again?

The ocean around him made it an easy choice. He tried to slide forward by no more than an inch – and again, the world around him blurred and disappeared, and when it cleared again, he was still surrounded by ocean. Well, it was keeping him from sinking – and sooner or later, he had to end up on land, didn’t he? He repeated the experiment, still water, try again… and ended up surrounded by a lot of ice. Not where he wanted to be, but it proved his point. Even though he couldn’t control his hyper speed, by making these very careful small moves, he was sure that eventually he would end up someplace safe. His next cautious move proved him right – he was standing in a market square of some sort, surrounded by buildings of wood and stone, no more than 2 stories tall, and the square was partially filled with a small crowd of people – some of them in makeshift booths, others milling around, all of them wearing heavy furred clothing. He had no idea where he was, but he didn’t care. He needed to shed part of his hyperspeed and this place would suit him just fine.

He concentrated on one of the statues, a girl with a pretty face, and imagined that he could see her moving. Just barely moving, he didn’t want to totally lose his speed, or he might never get home! As he concentrated on her face, he got to wondering about her expression. He had thought she might be angry and yelling at someone, but the longer he looked, the more he started to realize that this woman was terrified of something! He interrupted his concentration and looked around him, this time really seeing the crowd.

Some of these people were terrified! Everyone who was looking in the same direction as the girl he had been observing. Some were in the middle of screams, others were pointing at something in the sky, and still others seemed to be trying to turn and run. He looked in that direction – and saw a giant ball of fire in the sky, barely moving, seeming headed directly towards this village! At the same time, he felt an incredible pain in his chest, as if there was a giant clamp around his body, being tightened by Superman.

Nails was not well educated, but he was very intelligent, and he recognized the symptoms of a heart attack. He staggered and collapsed backwards to the ground, and everything around him started to go dark. All he could see was the flaming meteor that seemed to be growing larger and larger, and there was a roaring in his ears, a roaring so loud it was painful, and then his vision failed, everything went black, and the sound cut out and he was alone in an infinite silent black universe…

Eons later, he heard a noise. It sounded like the rush of the wind, an eerily familiar noise, and then he remembered, he heard this noise whenever he ran. He had never realized just how much he had enjoyed the running, but it came back to him now. When he had run, he had felt different. Stronger and faster, yes, but also… better, somehow, and happier, content with life in a way he had never achieved as ordinary thug Nails McGoon. It was too bad he hadn’t realized this sooner, he thought with regret. He had wasted so much of his life, and it had been necessary to die to figure out the meaning of life…

With that thought came a distant puzzlement… he had never believed in an afterlife. If he was dead, how could he be thinking? What’s going on? With that thought, he opened his eyes… to horror!

The meteor still had not struck. It was maybe 100 yards away and approaching slowly, inexorably, like an unstoppable Juggernaut. There must be a shock wave of some kind in front of it, as people and buildings were slowly being flattened as he watched, and everything flammable was bursting into flame!

Nails didn’t understand the revelation stuff, and he had always scoffed at near-death stories. Certainly he didn’t think about those kind of things right now. What he did think about was another chance to run! He felt.. exalted, somehow, though he didn’t know the word, as if he had somehow transcended the old Nails, and become something different, something new (he didn’t know ‘transcended’, either!). It was rapture!

He was going to need more time, but he couldn’t take the time to follow Professor Clariss’s directions – he blurred into super speed motion and as he ran, he concentrated on running faster. And it was working! He flashed through the village. again and again, grabbing villagers and whizzing them away to safety. He found another village, a few miles away, and he could only imagine the astonishment of the villagers when their neighbors started to pop up out of nowhere, babbling about a star falling on their own village!

It was going to be close, getting the last villager to safety. Over the last dozen trips or so, Nails had noticed that his rapture was starting to leak away, and his speed was starting to fail. He had to concentrate harder and harder to keep the things around him from moving, and now, the pain in his chest was growing again. He started making shorter runs, grabbing villagers and dashing only a mile or so away, in a final blitz to get everyone out of the danger zone. On his last trip, he stumbled into the safe area where he collapsed, dropping his last passenger, then fell still to the ground, never to move again.

The Russian villagers never found out the identity of the man who appeared from nowhere and saved them all from the ‘Burning Hammer from the Sky’. The erected a monument to their anonymous hero. So at least once in his life, Sylvester McGoon did something good. It must have been his destiny…

Back in Maryland, USA, Captain Triumph had dropped the crooks off at an undermanned Police Headquarters and was flying back to New York. The billowing smoke from a forest fire, started by the pool of lava in Susquehanna Park, caught his attention, and he dove to investigate. A half-acre pond of lava less than 10 miles from downtown Opal City was definitely dangerous, and more lava was bubbling up even as he watched!

He landed and touched a T-shaped mark on his left wrist. Then he started talking to the air?

“OK, Michael, while you check out the vent, I’ll look for anyone in danger!” He turned and started running around the pond, as close to it as a human could get, given the great heat being released. His ghostly brother Michael, meanwhile, dove into the pond and drifted towards the bottom. He discovered that a single, human-sized vent was feeding this whole pond. Curious, he followed it down. It descended, straight as an arrow, a long way down. It was clearly not natural, and he didn’t discover any natural faults that might have caused this. Well, that would make it easier to plug! He floated back up to the surface, aiming directly at Lance, who by now seemed to be moving away from the lava pool. About a half mile below the surface, he passed through a small cave – and came up with a plan.

He found Lance headed away from the lava pool, using a fireman’s carry to move an unconscious man away from the slowly growing lake of red-hot lava. Although normal human eyes couldn’t see Michael, Lance could, and he gently put down the man he was carrying, then touched his birthmark again. Though there was no visible change, and mortal Lance Gallant once again gave way to Captain Triumph!

Cap picked up the unconscious man again, and quickly flew him across the river where he would be safe from the forest fire, at least. He then returned at top speed, and dove into the sluggishly boiling pool. Guided by Michael’s memory, the invulnerable hero found the narrow vent, and dove downwards. At what he judged to be a half mile down, he started carving carefully-sized chunks of rock from the walls around him, and jamming these down into the vent below him, driving the plug downwards by stomping on it with super strength, then cutting another plug and driving it downwards and then repeating the process again, until he estimated that he had a plug about 100 yards long.

He then drove a horizontal tunnel, and as soon as he popped into the cave Michael had discovered, lava started filling it, as the pond on the surface started to drain. Triumph then bored upwards and was pleased when he broke through into the bottom of the lava pond, giving it another drain. The small cave wouldn’t drain all the lava, but the level would go down considerably. And he actually had a use for the hot lava!

As fast as he could move, Captain Triumph flew to the outer edge of the forest fire, and started creating a firebreak by pulling up trees and throwing them into the lava pond. He moved along the face of the fire as he worked, and eventually he joined up with his earlier efforts, completely encircling the remaining fire with a wide strip of bare earth. He then turned his attention to saving the forest in the circle, but it was really too late. So he flew over the river, picked up the unconscious man, and dropped him off at Port O’Souls Hospital in Opal City. Of course, that unconscious man was Clariss, and he was later identified and sent back to prison. He must have been battered into unconsciousness when Nails ran past him at hyper speed – but no one ever knew for sure, because Clariss never told, and nobody in Opal City ever saw Nails again!

Epilogue of sorts…

Boss Neuertski (and Stones, and several other of his mob) end up in Maryland Federal Prison (see Bumps in the Night for a cameo). Lily had another adventure with Doris (Super Girls’ Knight Out) and then headed to Italy to find her brother. And a year later, John Ross ran for office again – but nobody has written that story yet.

The End