Bulletman and Bulletgirl

Times Past, 1949

The New Adventures of Bulletboy

by Dan Swanson

Prologue

This story starts in late 1943, in New York City, the hometown of Jim and Susan Barr (Bulletman and Bulletgirl). Jim, a renowned police scientist, had been asked to be a judge at the Abraham Lincoln Memorial Elementary School Science Fair. Some of the projects were less than sterling (“Do cows give more milk if the are milked in the morning than the evening?” “Which cola has the most fizz?”) but he was extremely impressed with a project in the 14 and under category.

The project was called “Magnetic Levitation with Permanent Magnets” by an 11 year old named Todd Drake. Drake had built a wooden race track of sorts, lima-bean shaped and about 9 feet long. The track was really a wooden tray, about 2 inches wide and 2 inches deep. The bottom of the tray was lined with flat magnets, glued to the wood, with the north poles facing up and the south poles facing down. Todd had built a flying ‘boat’ which moved around the track, floating above it on magnetic repulsion.

The boat was about 6 inches long by 2 inches wide, and it had ‘runners’ down both sides the fit into grooves in the wall of the tray, and glued to the bottom of the boat were more flat magnets, with the north pole facing downward. When the boat was placed over top of the track, the magnets repelled each other and the boat ‘floated’.

However, the floating was inherently unstable – no matter how carefully you were to position the boat motionless above the track, it would slide to one side or the other and then flip over. That’s why Todd had added the walls of the tray; they kept the boat from sliding to one side or another. This meant, of course, that when the boat was pushed forward along the track, it would bounce from side to side, which eventually would bring the boat to a halt. The runners on the sides of the boat were made of highly polished glass, and the walls of the tray were covered with a very thin coat of oil, to minimize the loss of forward momentum due to friction against the tray walls. If the boat was pushed firmly enough, it would glide entirely around the track once without any further application of power.

What impressed Jim the most was that Todd had further experiments already mapped out. He hoped to build magnets into the walls of the tray, and replace the runners with more magnets, to see if he could use magnetic repulsion to prevent the boat from hitting the walls. And he also wanted to see if he could use magnetic attraction to drive the boat.

“Suppose”, his proposal went, “I could put a series of switches into the track, each of which would be toggled by the boat as it passed them. The toggle switch would turn on an electromagnet approximately 6 inches in front of the boat, built into the track itself. This electromagnet would attract a permanent magnet set in the front of the boat. As the boat approached the electromagnet, it would trip the next switch, which would shut off the current electromagnet and turn on another one, further from the boat.”

Todd had drawn schematics for the whole system, but he didn’t have the money to buy the switches or relays he would need. He had managed to build a single electromagnet using wires he pulled out of an old TV set and he was able to demonstrate the principle by pulling the boat around the track with the electromagnet, never touching it.

As something of an expert on magnetism himself, Jim was very impressed with the thoroughness of Todd’s research, and the logical progression of experiments he had devised. To him, this was hands- down the best project in the Science Fair, regardless of the age of the kid who submitted the project. Todd didn’t win, though. Most of the other judges thought the whole idea was silly and impractical. But Jim did introduce himself and Susan to Todd and his parents, and told them of his admiration for this project.

When Todd found out that Jim was a chemist, he asked if Jim would teach him chemistry. Jim agreed, and 3 times a week, Todd would head to the Barr’s house after school. Up until this point in his life, Todd had been only an average student, but when he realized how important math was to chemistry, his interest in math picked up too. And he quickly realized that he needed an excellent command of the English language in order to understand all the chemistry books. Todd went from being a mediocre student to being an excellent student. His parents were pleased as punch, and Jim and Susan Barr became good friends with the Drake family.

One day, Jim was called away from a tutoring session and quickly changed to Bulletman. He was a little careless, and Todd saw him change. When Jim came back, Todd told him what he had seen, and asked if he could join Jim and Susan as crime-fighters. Jim figured that the Mag/Grav Helmet would protect him, so after considerable discussion with Susan and Todd, he was finally added to the team.

Todd’s stint as Bulletboy didn’t last very long. Jim was reluctant to let him use the anti-crime drug, because he was worried about potential side-effects in someone that young, and Todd’s normal 12 year old boy’s strength and speed soon let him down. A trap by one of the more vicious super villains ended up breaking his arm, and his parents didn’t believe the cover story that he and the Barrs came up with.

The Drakes were flabbergasted and extremely angry when they discovered that their son was Bulletboy. They had trusted the Barrs to educate and protect their son, and instead they were putting him into deadly danger. Todd’s parents threatened to sue the Barrs if they every again came near Todd, or worse. Mr. Drake hinted that he might know somebody who would break bones pretty cheaply. Todd and the Barrs were devastated, but after both Barrs thought it over, they realized just how reckless they had been. They hated to lose the friendship of the Drakes and Todd, but they really had exercised very poor judgment in letting someone else’s son become Bulletboy, without his parents’ knowledge.

Just to be on the safe side, the Drakes moved to another state. Before they left, however, Jim was able to sneak Todd a gift – his Bulletboy costume and a vial of the anti-crime drug, but he only passed these on when Todd took a solemn oath not to use these things until he reached 18. But, by the time he reached 18, Todd was no longer interested in being a hero.

Todd was born in 1932. He graduated from high school at 17, in 1949. He worked for a year to save some money for school, and in 1950 he went on to college. He wanted to be a nuclear chemist, so he went to college at the school where atomic energy was first produced – The University of Chicago, and majored in physics and chemistry.

Chapter 1

Todd’s roommate his freshman year was named Tomas Thomas. Tomas was the son of a US Ambassador, and he had lived all over the world as he was growing up. He was one of the older students in the freshman class, as he had put in a 4-year stint in the Marine Corps directly out of high school, and then decided to return to school. He was studying to be a ‘nuclear engineer’ – he wanted to design nuclear power plants, and he was majoring in physics and engineering. Tomas had a flair for languages, and he spoke English and Spanish extremely well. He also had a good ear for accents, and he could usually tell a lot about a person’s history just by hearing that person talk.

Tomas was a big man, particularly for the early ’50s, about 6′ tall and around 210. His face was exotic – he had a high forehead and high cheekbones, and his skin was somewhat dark – perhaps the color Todd would be if he spent a couple hours each day in the sun. People who were familiar with Americans Indians immediately guessed he had some Native American blood, while most other folks assumed he was at least partly Hispanic. A thin mustache and a goatee completed his look. Todd liked hanging around with him because a lot of women found Tomas’s exotic looks attractive.

Both Todd and Tomas wanted to try intercollegiate athletics. Todd was a good athlete, but he had never been selected early when he and his friends had picked teams, and he had never developed much interest in team sports. Jim (Bulletman) Barr had taught him to box, and he had become quite good, boxing in several Golden Gloves tournaments after he retired as Bulletboy. At 16, he had actually been the state champion for his weight class and age group. UC’s boxing team was mediocre, so he figured he had a good chance of making the varsity.

On the other hand, Tomas had always been a star athlete. But, having grown up almost entirely outside the US, he had mostly played soccer. He had only played baseball, football and basketball after he had joined the Marine Corps, and he had never really enjoyed them. But he had been an outstanding hand-to-hand combatant in the Marines, so he thought he would give boxing a try as well.

That year the varsity didn’t have anyone at the 175 pound weight class, and Todd stepped right into a starting position. Tomas had more difficulty – the team captain was in his weight class, and even though Tomas consistently beat him in practice bouts, he _was_ a senior and the team captain. So the coach kept him on the varsity in the 210 pound class, and Tomas had to fight in the heavyweight class, which was up to 225. He was usually outweighed by up to 15 pounds, but he won more than he lost. Todd, Tomas, and the senior captain all had good years, and the UC boxing team turned in their best season in school history.

Todd and Tomas attended the same physics classes and shared an interest in nuclear power. They often did their homework together, and they soon became best friends. Todd was always puzzled by Tomas’ refusal to talk much about his past, but then, Todd had a secret he wouldn’t talk about either. They developed kind of a friendly rivalry over their grades, and as a result, both worked harder at their schoolwork than they might have otherwise. For the two, life as freshmen at University of Chicago was pretty good.

They roomed together again the next year, even though only freshmen had to share rooms. A couple of weeks before the boxing season began, they heard about a great jazz club on the other side of town. Although they didn’t go to clubs often, they were looking for a change.

They either got their directions wrong, or someone had been playing a dangerous joke on them, because they ended up in a seedy dump full of scary characters. Todd was all for leaving right now, but there was actually a pianist and a girl singing some torch songs, like Melancholy Baby, What I Wouldn’t Do for That Man, and He’s My Secret Passion. She was quite good, and quite pretty as well, so they stayed for a while. Neither was much of a drinker, so they didn’t spend a lot, but they sent a few drinks to the musicians, who came over and sat with them between sets. After the two had played their last set, Todd and Tomas decided it was time to leave. Tomas headed to the men’s room.

As he passed the bar, someone jostled and shoved him, and he tripped over the outstretched foot of a second man, and stumbled into a third.

“Hey, buddy! Watch where you’re going!” said the one he bounced into. “What’s the matter, you drunk or what?”

Tomas immediately recognized what was happening; these guys were looking for a fight. He’d seen it before, in seedy little bars all around the world, and the routine almost never changed. If he protested that he had been shoved and tripped, the other 2 would call him a liar, and they would keep harassing him until it got physical. He suspected all 3 of them had knives – jerks like this almost always did – and they would have them out in seconds, too. But Tomas didn’t want to play this game.

“I’m sorry, pal. It was totally my fault. Can I buy you a drink as an apology?” he said to Mr. OA 3 (Obnoxious A**), the man he had bumped into.

“You’re damn right it was your fault! You jerks got some nerve, coming in here and stumbling around like idiots. Somebody ought to teach you a lesson!”

Tomas still wasn’t biting. “Yes, sir, my fault entirely. I’ve already learned my lesson, thanks! Tell you what, why don’t we have a drink and forget about it.” He shouted to the bartender. “Two boilermakers, with the best whiskey you got!” and threw a $5 bill on the bar. OA3 looked kind of bemused – he hadn’t expected to get a free drink. He was willing to give up his ‘beef’, but his friends were having none of it.

OA1, the one who had shoved Tomas, spoke up. “Hey, jerk, are you a coward, or what? You gonna let that guy insult you and then buy him a drink? What a momma’s boy!”

Tomas turned to him slowly, and smiled. “I’m sorry, sir, but this is a private conversation between me and my new friend” and he indicated OA3. His smile sort of vanished and his voice turned cold and hard. “It’s really none of your business.” and he turned back to OA3.

“I’m makin’ it my business. We don’t like cowards in here!”

This guy was really pushing things. Tomas was starting to get tired of this crap. “Well, friend, then you must really hate yourself, or do you think the three of you beating the crap out of one guy is the epitome of courageous heroism? Oops, sorry, that’s probably too many big words for you.” He called the Bartender back over. “Bartender, two more boilermakers. Take it out of the 5 and keep the change!” He turned to face the three of them, raised his own drink in salute, and walked back to his table with Todd and sat down.

“What the heck was that?” Todd asked.

“Todd, you had better leave. Those guys are going to sit there, finish off the drinks I bought them, and talk about how I just made them look like fools. And they are going to taunt and goad each other until one of them, probably the one in the middle (OA1) is going to come over here and find some reason to pull his knife.”

“What about you?” Todd asked. Let’s both get out of here!”

“Nope, I can’t. If I head for the door they’ll cut me off, and if I head to the restroom, they’ll follow me in. But you should be able to get away easily.”

“What about the bartender? Why doesn’t he do something?” Todd was starting to get a little worried. He didn’t want to get in a fight with someone he didn’t know, for no good reason. Particularly if they had knives.

“Oh, he will. Probably call the police 5 minutes after the fight starts, so they have time to beat us up, clean us out, and be gone. He probably gets a good cut of whatever they take from the guys they beat up, just for looking the other way and giving them time to get away from the police.”

“I’m not going, Tomas, I’m staying right here with you!” Todd declared stoutly.

“Todd, have you ever been in a knife fight?” Tomas looked more worried about Todd than he was about the three goons.

“Actually, I have. More than one, in fact.” Tomas looked at him oddly. Something about Tomas’s calm seemed false to Todd, and it suddenly struck him what it was. “Tomas, have _you_ ever been in a knife fight?”

Tomas looked a little embarrassed. “Well, we were trained with knives in the Marine Corps, so I know what to watch out for. But, really, every time I ever thought I might end up in a knife fight, I made sure to be carrying my pistol.”

“You’re packing a pistol?” Todd asked, his eyebrows rising in surprise.

Tomas sighed… “Nope, not tonight. Actually, I stopped wearing it when I started school, and I never thought I’d need it tonight. Hey, head’s up! Here he comes! Too late for you to leave now!”

It was OA1, as Tomas had predicted. OA2 and OA3 followed him over, although OA3 looked kind of reluctant.

“Hey, pretty boy, I decided I don’t want a drink from you!” He poured the drink in Tomas’ lap.

Todd stood up and started to protest. OA2 pulled a switchblade, using his body and the bodies of his friends to shield it from the rest of the room. “Sonny Boy, you can walk out of here right now, or we’re gonna cut you up like your friend.”

“You won’t hurt me?” Todd said, a quiver in his voice.

All three laughed. “Git your ass outta here, little boy!”

Todd turned towards the door, and the three relaxed just a little. Then he whirled around and used the momentum of his turn to drive a backhand blow into the cheek of OA2. His head was jerked around and his body followed, and when he slumped to the floor it was apparent that Todd had knocked him out with a single blow.

OA1 lunged at Tomas, using his knife like a sword, trying to stab Tomas before he could get out of his chair. Tomas swung his right hand up from the table and used it to knock the knife aside. He was still holding his glass beer mug, and he swung it so fast, the beer and whiskey sprayed out into the face of OA1. Unfortunately for him, so did the shot glass, which struck him flush in the mouth, breaking a tooth.

His right hand, which had been holding the knife, was numb from the collision with the heavy beer mug moving at high speed. At that, he was lucky the mug didn’t break, or the broken glass might have seriously wounded him. He brought his left hand up to his face to try and clear his eyes. By this time Tomas was standing up, so he brought his knee up hard between the man’s legs, and then hit him with a two-handed blow to the back of the head when he bent forward in agony. OA1′s shoulders and head struck the table, and he lay there, not moving, not even moaning.

OA3 was already backing away, holding his hands up, sweating and talking fast. “Look, guys, I don’t want no trouble. I didn’t do nothun to you guys, did I? Please, I don’t want no trouble!” When he saw that neither Todd nor Tomas seemed inclined to pursue him, he turned and ran out the door.

Tomas turned to Todd. “Damn, we shouldn’t have let him go. We need to get out of here, pretty fast, or he’ll be back with more friends.”

Todd shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think he won’t stop running for miles!” He was grinning.

Tomas turned and headed out the door. “I know his type. He’s a rat, and rats always come back in a pack.” Perforce, Todd followed him. The Bartender yelled at them “Hey, you ain’t paid me for the last round of drinks yet!”

Tomas turned and laughed. He pointed at the two unconscious men. “They’re paying. Or maybe we ought to wait for the cops to show up, and listen to your buddies spill the whole story?” He turned to face the rest of the bar. Todd was amazed at how quiet it was. “I don’t know how many of you guys have watched this guy” pointing at the Bartender “and his friends” pointing at the unconscious OA1 and OA2 “pull this little soft-shoe routine on other ‘poor slobs’ before. But if you’re not part of the set-up, think about this – is this the kind of place you want to be drinking? Is this the kind of guy you want to give your money to? Think about it!”

The two turned and walked out onto the street. Todd thought that if they were in a hurry, they ought to hail a cab, but Tomas insisted that they wait until they were several blocks away. They got home safe and sound, and agreed that they wouldn’t head down to that part of town again soon.

They were both too keyed up to sleep, so they sat up and talked for awhile.

“Hey, man, where’d you learn that backhand? It sure wasn’t boxing!” Tomas asked, with true admiration in his voice.

“Well, I know a little martial arts, too.” Todd was smug about it. The next time he saw Minute Man, he would have to thank him for that move! “But most of the moves, I can’t use in boxing. I’m getting a little stale. Lucky for me my adrenaline was pumping and I hit him right the first time.”

“Geez, I wish you had told me before. They taught us that hand-to- hand stuff in the Marines, too, but it’s been tough getting a workout in since then. Say, there are a bunch of other students who are ex- military types, too. I’ll bet if we started a martial arts club, we could find a few other guys to work out with!”

“And maybe some girls, too!” Todd was enthusiastic, remembering Susan Kent, a.k.a. Bulletgirl, and her enthusiasm for the martial arts. He had certainly enjoyed watching her work up a sweat! “What a great idea!”

Tomas was really interested in finding out more about Todd’s history of knife fights, but he sensed that Todd didn’t want to talk about that part of his past. Well, that was OK, there were things Tomas didn’t talk about, either.

Chapter 2

In their junior year, Todd and Tomas were the twin stars of the UC boxing team. The last league match of the season was with the University of Minnesota, and both teams were undefeated. The winner would win the conference title. As the teams had not met before this year, it was difficult to predict who would win. In the past, UM had always dominated, but this year promised to be different.

As the season had progressed, it had become clear to every observer that something special was happening at UC. College boxing was not the most important sport of the time, and the crowds rarely reached 500. But with each win, the crowds at UC got larger, and a turnout of over 1500 was expected for the match with Minnesota.

While he was writing a preview of the big match for the student newspaper, one of the student sports writers decided that Tomas needed a nickname. The name Tomas Thomas immediately suggested to him the nickname of ‘Tom Tom’, and he thought it was a natural, since Tomas looked so much like a Native American Indian anyway.

Even the Chicago city papers began to follow the UC boxing team. It was a slow year for Chicago sports, and having two undefeated teams competing for the conference championship was a compelling story.

Somewhere along the way, the newspaper coverage magically transformed the match from an obscure sporting event into a Really Big Deal. Advance ticket sales forced the athletic department to move the match from the ratty little gym the boxers normally called home into the big fancy gym where basketball was played. To the amazement of everyone, when the bell was rung for the first match, there were over 5000 spectators in the stands, a good 1500 of them from nearby Minneapolis.

The crowd was raucous, the match was hard-fought and closely- contested. When the UC fighter at 175 pulled out a victory, it put UC into a 12 to 11 lead, and it seemed certain that UC would win. Todd now fought at 190 and he was a cinch, and Tomas ought to win at 210, and after that it wouldn’t matter what happened in the 230-pound class.

Todd kept his part of the deal, winning easily, running the score to 15 to 11. A win by Tomas would make it 18 to 11, an insurmountable lead. Anticipation rose – this could be his toughest match this year, but he was expected to win.

*****

Tomas had read the story in the school paper yesterday, and Todd had noticed that something in the story had upset him. Todd quickly re- read the story, but there was nothing obvious in it that he could see that would upset Tomas.

He turned to his friend. “So you’re ‘Tom Tom’ now, huh? That’s kind of neat! I wonder why I never thought of that?” Todd was the kind of guy who gave everyone nicknames. His nickname for Tomas had always been ‘Nuke’, both from his major and from the power in his punches. In fact, the whole team and even the coaches all called him Nuke by now.

Tomas turned, and Todd was surprised to see real anger in his eyes. “Todd, do not _ever_ call me that!” he growled. Todd was stunned to see his best friend react this way. But he knew one thing; he sure didn’t want to fight Tomas!

He raised both arms, his palms out. “Sure, Tomas, no problem.” He hesitated for a few seconds. “Umm, can I still call you Nuke?”

The anger drained from Tomas’s eyes. He knew Todd was his friend, and in fact, he was quite proud of his ‘Nuke’ nickname. “Please do. But don’t use that other, ever.”

“You got it, buddy! Tell you what, though, save your adrenaline for Minnesota!” The two had laughed, and headed off to class.

*****

Some clever UC students had also read the story, and they had come to the match prepared to root for their favorite. Two dozen of them pulled out small drums, started chanting ‘GO go Tom Tom, GO go Tom Tom, GO go Tom Tom!” and beating out that same rhythm on their drums. Within seconds, all of the other UC fans were chanting the same thing. They started stamping out the same rhythm with their feed, and in a few more seconds, the entire gym was rocking! Except for Tomas.

Tomas had been approaching the ring when the cheering started, but now he stopped. His face turned chalk white, as if he had just had an unsuccessful encounter with a vampire. He turned slowly, and his gaze swept over the crowd. The anger in his face stunned those who noticed it enough that they stopped chanting, but he couldn’t silence anyway near enough people to even make a dent in the din. He then started walking towards the locker room.

The coach and Todd intercepted him. “I’m sorry, coach, but I can’t fight tonight.” He tried to push his way past the two. As the crowd noticed what he was doing, the chants and the drumming died out, leaving the gym in silence.

Todd grabbed him and whispered in his ear “Tomas, if we forfeit your match, you know we lose! We’ve worked our butts off for over two years for this night!”

Todd wasn’t exactly sure why the nickname ‘Tom Tom’ bothered his friend so much, but he was at least sensitive enough to realize that it was the nickname.

“You get your ass back out there and beat this guy, or am I gonna have to fight him for you?”

Tomas smiled feebly. “Fat chance you’d have! You just barely beat the other guy!”

Todd was pleased that Tomas was getting back a little spunk. “Oh, yeah? Wanna make a little wager? 5 bucks says I beat my guy worse than you will!”

Tomas had his eyes closed, and he seemed to be praying. He opened them again, and laughed. “You’re on!” He shook himself all over.

Todd took a few steps towards the crowd and yelled “His name is NUKE!” The rest of the guys on the team jumped up and started chanting “Nuke! Nuke! Nuke! Nuke!” Once again, the crowd picked it up, and within seconds the place was roaring again.

Tomas didn’t fight very well. When he had first heard the ‘Tom Tom’ cheers, his anger had surged and adrenaline had flooded his system. But he had then been inactive for several minutes, and now he was coming down from the adrenaline high. He was slow and sluggish, and he didn’t seem to be thinking very well, either. He was outscored badly in the first round.

The coach was worried, and didn’t want to see him get hurt, so he told Tomas he was going to forfeit the match, letting UM win by TKO. That would make the score 16 – 15 in favor of Minnesota, and UC’s inexperienced heavyweight would have to beat last year’s NCAA champ for UC to win. The coach was willing to lose the match to keep Tomas safe. But Tomas wasn’t ready to give in just yet!

“Coach, I’m OK now. You gotta let me go!” He was pleading. He didn’t appear to be too badly hurt so far, so the coach relented.

“OK, Nuke. But if you don’t fight better’n you did before, I’m stoppin’ the fight, got me?” Tomas nodded his head, stuck his mouthpiece back in, and answered the bell.

And this round he did do better. He started off slowly, but his speed returned to him, and his defense got better. About a minute into the round he landed a punch, and then another, and he unloosed a flurry, driving the other into constant defense and retreat. When they reached the corner, his opponent grabbed him, and the referee broke the clinch, leading them back to the center of the ring. Before Tomas could attack again, the bell sounded. Tomas had won that round, but he was still way behind.

When the third round started, Tomas slipped on a wet spot on the canvas, and while he was recovering his balance, he left himself open. His opponent, no slouch, stepped in and hit him with a left- right combination that whirled Tomas around and knocked him down. He was back up in an instant, but the referee stood over him for the mandatory standing 8 count. It had been a lucky knockdown, but it all-but-sealed the victory for the UM fighter.

Or at least, some people in the crowd thought so, and they were very vocal in their disappointment. “Hey, Tom Tom, you coward!” “Hey, Tonto, you’re a loser!” were just 2 of the loud, ignorant comments. There were a variety of other pejoratives, but they shouldn’t be repeated here, and won’t.

Todd got off the bench and walked to the edge of the stands, trying to see who it was that was spewing that kind of crap. It wasn’t students, he was relieved to see, but a bunch of older men, none of whom looked too savory.

“Whata you looking at, kid?” one of them yelled at him. He just looked back, silently. “G’wan back to your bench before I come down there and mess you up!” Todd didn’t say anything, but he raised his hand slightly and waved the loudmouth to come ahead. The loudmouth and his friends looked at the crowd around them, and thought better of starting something just then, and went back to yelling at the match. They were clearly hoping that Tomas would lose.

Tomas had heard some of the ignorant remarks, and once again his anger was rising. With his hands raised high, he began stalking his opponent. He didn’t even try to defend himself, and he got hit 3 or 4 times, but he didn’t even flinch, he just continued relentlessly moving forward. Knowing he had the fight won, the UM fighter was just trying to cover up for the last 30 seconds. But Tomas didn’t let him.

Ignoring the other’s attempts at defense, he punched with precision and power, and a savage anger that no one had ever seen in him before. Two savage body blows forced the UM fighter to drop his guard to protect his body, and Tomas was waiting for that moment. A hard right cross, as devastating a punch as any fight fan had ever seen, caught him on the right cheek and knocked him back into the ropes. The ropes bounced him back into the ring, but he was stunned and unable to get his guard back up, and a left jab to the point of his chin finished him off. He was counted out and only a couple of seconds later the bell sounded to end the fight. Tomas had won! And by a Knock Out. That put UC so far ahead that the results of the last bout wouldn’t matter.

Tomas helped the other fighter to his feet and shook his hand. The referee raised his hand to signal the victory. His teammates all cheered and slapped him on the back as he headed for the bunch, but he said nothing. He picked up the traditional sliced oranges, and headed for the other bench. While the final bout of the evening took place, he talked with the UM fighter, whose name was Terry. Tomas handed him an orange and they shook hands again. Before Tomas could start talking, however, Terry spoke up enthusiastically.

“Wow! Tomas, I spar with Billy boy, there, every day” and he pointed to the UM heavyweight out on the mat “and he’s the national collegiate champion, but I ain’t never been hit like that before! You really oughta think about going pro! Right now, in fact, so I have a chance in the tournament!” He had a big smile on his face, and he clearly respected Tomas for what had just happened.

Tomas was amazed. He had been planning to apologize for losing his temper. But here was his beaten opponent, acting as thrilled about Tomas’s victory as his own teammates were. He really didn’t know what to say. “Um, thanks, Terry. I got in a couple of lucky shots, there at the end, but you know you had me all the way.”

“That’s a load of bull crop, Tomas! I’ve seen you fight before, and something was bothering you. And I admit I’m pretty damn pleased with most of that fight. But the accident was the first 2 and a half rounds, not the last 30 seconds, and you know it too. You are good, Tomas. Whatever was bothering you? Let it go.”

Both men stopped talking as cheering from the crowd interrupted them. They turned to see that Billy had won on points, making the final score UC 20, UM 14. It was certainly the biggest win in UC boxing history, and the first school championship in boxing ever.

Todd watched the loudmouths leave the gym. They looked a lot more depressed than most of the Minnesota fans. His long-dormant crime fighting instinct told him these guys had lost more than a friendly wager on this match. Well, that’s what they deserved, for gambling on a college sports event!

The coaches had set up a buffet dinner in one of the school cafeterias, and the team and some of the best friends of the fighters got together for a small victory party. It broke up about an hour later. Tomas had never showed up. Todd looked for his friend, and when he couldn’t find him, he made a half dozen sandwiches, and then he too left the party, looking for Tomas.

He found Tomas in the first place he looked, a small campus park on the shore of the Lake Michigan. Tomas was just sitting, watching the small waves roll in. Todd wasn’t trying to be sneaky, but he was surprised when Tomas spoke up.

“Well, Todd, I’m surprised! I didn’t figure you’d be here for another half hour or so!” Todd was still 20 feet away, and behind Tomas. Tomas had never turned his head. “Oh, come on!” Tomas continued. “We’ve lived together since we were freshmen; you think I don’t know your walk by now?”

“And you can read my mind, too?” Todd was astounded. “Anyway, Tomas, what’s bothering you? What’s the deal with this ‘Tom Tom’ thing?”

“Sorry, I’m not ready to talk about it. You ought to go back to the party. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be in later.”

“As if! You gonna sit here all night?” Todd asked him. “Could be sort of boring… especially if you aren’t talking!”

“Actually, I wanted to get a little more exercise tonight. You can come along – if you can keep up!” and Tomas stood up and walked back towards the middle of campus.

They approached one of the oldest buildings on campus, 4 stories tall, with a library on the first three floors and a gym on the top floor. It was a very ornate marble building. Tomas walked right up to the corner of the building and started climbing. He swarmed up the wall almost as fast as he could walk.

Todd shook his head. Tomas must be part cat, or squirrel, or monkey to climb like that. Todd had never done any serious climbing in his life. When he was Bulletboy, he could fly, so he never had to climb. When he was Todd, he was never really interested in climbing things. But he was determined to stay with Tomas tonight. And heck, if Tomas could do it, Todd could at least try!

It turned to be much easier than he had expected. The many decorations carved into the building wall almost made a ladder for him. He reached a big wide ledge that ran all the way around the building, just below the window level on the 4th floor, and found Tomas perched on the ledge, waiting for him.

Todd reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the bag of sandwiches and a pint of whiskey. He used the cap as a shot glass, and knocked back a shot, and then began to pour a second shot for Tomas, but Tomas stopped him.

“Sorry, Toddles, but we have to climb back down, too, remember!” he chuckled.

“Not me” Todd replied in a growl. “I only got up here because it’s so dark, I couldn’t see the ground when I looked down. I’m going through that open window there, and going down the stairs. Anyway, what’s bugging you?”

“Well, it’s a long story. If we’re going to take the stairs when we leave, how ’bout that shot, before I start?”

Todd looked at the bottle, then the open window, and then down at the ground, so far below. “Tell you what, let’s go inside before we talk.”

Chapter 3

Sitting in the dark gym, Todd and Tomas ate sandwiches and talked. No more whiskey; that one shot had felt good going down – like liquid fire burning down to the stomach and then exploding into the rest of the body. Just what they needed after an emotional roller coaster of an evening at the boxing match, followed by the slightly unnerving climb up the outside of the building.

Todd wanted to know more about why Tomas was acting the way he had. “Ok, Tomas, what’s the deal?”

Tomas thought for a while. “Sorry, I still need to calm down a little bit before I can tell that story. But I’ve got an idea. You have some kind of secret in your past. I think I’ve figured it out.”

Todd shook his head; he had been really careful to protect his secret and he was sure Tomas couldn’t possibly know the real story. But it would be fun to hear what he had come up with. “OK, go ahead! This should go good!”

Tomas began to lay out his case. “OK, the first time I met you I knew you had grown up in New York City and then moved to Chicagoland sometime in your teens – your accent is a dead giveaway. When you told me about the move later, and how much it had disrupted your life, it only confirmed what I already knew.”

“It was a weird move. The War was just over, everybody was celebrating, but your parents were trying to get away from something. And your dad left a good job he really liked and was unemployed for about 6 months, and the new job he got, he didn’t like, and it didn’t pay nearly as much money.”

Todd remembered telling this whole story to Tomas, so there was really nothing new here. But he was stunned by what came next.

“Something about that move created a major rift between you and your folks, and you hated and resented them for several year. You still have some lingering resentment, you know?”

“How did you know that?” Todd asked “I’ve never told anyone that!”

“Don’t forget, I’ve met your folks” when they had spent a Thanksgiving at the Drake’s house “and the three of you were walking on eggshells the whole time I was there. And, when you first told the story, you had no sympathy for your Dad being unemployed. In fact, you swore about it. ‘It’s his own dam fault. He didn’t have to quit the old job!’ Of course, you muttered this under your breath, but I have a way with language, you know – I can even read lips pretty well.”

Todd suddenly became very thoughtful, wondering what else he may have whispered to himself over the past few years that Tomas had been able to understand. He decided his conscious was clear – if Tomas had ever been upset about Todd’s mutterings, he would have said something.

“I also learned a lot from the way you fight at our martial arts club workouts.” Tomas had acted as the main instructor over the first few meetings, but he hadn’t kept the job long.

Most of the club members had learned a lot of the philosophy behind the martial arts in their past training. Tomas, on the other hand, had been trained in the physical skills without any of the philosophical underpinnings. The physical skills of the martial arts were just another type of weapon for a Marine. They figured they didn’t have time for the philosophy stuff, and, if the basic martial arts training provided by the Corps helped keep a Marine alive, he could learn martial arts philosophy after his enlistment was up.

The other students missed the mental and philosophical training and discipline they were used to, and the instructorship passed to a martial artist with a more traditional background. What was amazing to Tomas was just how effective a fighter this new instructor was. And how his own physical skills improved as he began to accept the mental discipline and the philosophy behind the art.

“Somebody taught you to fight, and taught you very well. But, like me, you were only taught the ‘martial’ part of the martial arts. Somebody was teaching you to fight, as quickly as possible.”

Todd thought back on his training with Minute Man. As he reviewed his memories, he realized that Tomas was correct. Minute Man, he was sure, had rushed his training, probably because Todd had already had a few adventures as Bulletboy before Bulletman had been able to arrange the training sessions. It was only Todd’s power of flight and his partners subtly protecting him that had saved him from some serious beatings in his first few outings.

When he was younger, he had not realized this. He had always thought of himself as a great fighter and never thought about how unusual it was for a 12 year old, even with a gravity helmet, to fight against adults and not end up battered, bruised and seriously injured – or even killed! And he had never bothered to go back in his mind and review these battles.

Through the filter of all of his more recent fighting experiences, Todd realized just how lucky he had been back then to avoid serious beatings. No wonder his folks had been so upset!

While Todd was coming to this stunning realization, Tomas was still talking. “The other thing that is odd is that the moves you use, blocks, throws, punches, counters, holds, whatever, come from several different koas. Whoever taught you was clearly familiar with a lot of different styles and schools. You use elements of karate, judo, kung fu, tae kwon do, Aikido, jujitsu, eskrima, savatte, and some that I’ve been unable to place. It seemed like a random mishmash, until I figured out that every element was selected because it was designed for a fighter whose opponent is both larger and stronger. Your sensei was teaching a boy to fight adult foes!”

Todd’s head was spinning now. It seemed that he was right – he had not given away any obvious clues. And yet, Tomas had found clues that were so much a part of him that he couldn’t hide them, and these clues had given him away.

“There are a couple of other things. You don’t seem to realize it, but I’ve noticed that whenever we talk about super heroes, you get really animated, and you often talk as if you’ve met the big names – the Bullets, Minute Man and Captain Marvel – in person. And you’ve got a hero complex, always doing what you think is right, even when it puts you in danger. You don’t know how often you’ve scared the pants off of your friends by butting in to someone else’s business, like the time you gave that mobster a hard time for smoking in a crowded elevator, or the time you chastised that all-pro linebacker for littering.”

Todd remembered both incidents well. “You weren’t scared, too, were you? When you backed me up, they both backed off.”

“Todd, if you aren’t a little bit scared in situations like that, you’re a fool. But I’ve always been told to stand up for what’s right, too.” He grinned, and reached out to grasp Todd’s shoulder. “We make a good team, you know!” Todd grinned back.

“The final clue, or really the first one, was that autographed picture of Bulletman and Bulletgirl you nailed up on our wall the first day they assigned us to a dorm room! So, put it all together, and my conclusion is that you, Todd Drake, used to be Bulletboy!”

“Ah HA! It worked! All those little clues I planted worked. You’re close, my friend, really close. But you got the wrong kid sidekick! I was really Pinky, Mr. Scarlet’s partner.”

Tomas looked startled for a second, then smiled again. “Nope! Your accent is wrong. ‘Fess up, you are Bulletboy. Right?”

“I guess there’s no fooling you, eh? Well, you’re right. I didn’t know I was giving so much away. Do you think anyone else might know?”

“I don’t think so; nobody knows you as well as I do, and I haven’t told anyone. How about telling me more? Why did the Bullets pick you? What’s it like, flying? Why’d you quit? Are you ever going to go back into the superhero biz? What’s Bulletgirl really like? Is she as sexy as her pictures?”

Todd broke out laughing at all of these questions. “You did some good detective work, roomie! Tell you what, though, now it’s my turn. Let’s see if I figured out as much about you and you did about me!”

Chapter 4

“Before you start, Todd, we really ought to get out of here before the place opens in the morning. The campus police are pretty relaxed about most things, but they might think we were breaking and entering or something.” So the two cleaned up their mess, and headed out of the building. As they walked back to their dorm, Todd took his turn at being a detective.

“Ever since I’ve met you, you’ve said nothing about your life before you joined the Marine Corps. You’ve never once mentioned your parents, or what you did in high school, or old girlfriends, or anything like that. It’s almost like you’re pretending that you didn’t exist before you joined the Marines.”

“Given all the weird things that I saw when I was Bulletboy” he looked at his friend and shook his head – he still had trouble believing that Tomas had figured it out… “that’s the first thing I checked into once I noticed your strange behavior. ”

“I had all kinds of wild ideas. Maybe you were some kind of magical creature, like a genie or a golem or something, or maybe you were an alien, come to Earth as an advance scout for an invasion fleet, or maybe you were a robot or an android! Or maybe you had a criminal past you were trying to hide from, or maybe you were a Nazi or maybe…. As you can see, my imagination was running wild!”

Tomas didn’t know whether to laugh at some of these wild ideas or to be insulted. He decided he was glad his best friend trusted him enough to tell him about these crazy thoughts, and he just nodded his head and kept listening.

“One thing Bulletman tried to teach me, as both a detective and a scientist, was that you shouldn’t theorize without facts. Keep an open mind, gather all the facts you can, and then come up with a hypothesis that explains the facts. And then test the hypothesis against the real world. I calmed down a lot at that point.”

“Here are some of the facts I gathered. You are an American citizen – you have a US passport, you were a Marine, and you voted in the 52 election, I think for Ike. You have a talent for languages and accents, not just for different American dialects, but also foreign accents, which suggests that you moved around to a lot of different countries when you were growing up. I thought you might be a military brat, but I heard Bulletman in the back of my head telling me to do more research first!

“Once a month, regular as clockwork, you send a long letter to someone. It almost always goes overseas. You’ve always been careful never to let me see the address, even when we would go to the Post Office together. But you asked me to pick up your mail for you a few times, and once you got a letter from John and Amitola Thomas, care of the US Embassy in Cameroon.”

“I figured these must be your parents, and your mom’s name was so unusual, I tried to learn more about it. Amitola is an American Indian name that means ‘Rainbow’, isn’t it? After that, I came to the conclusion that this was really none of my business, and I stopped snooping.”

“The only other thing I know, I learned by accident, really. Remember that time you lost your dog tags?” Tomas was superstitious about some things, and he wore his dog tags all the time as a good luck charm. During their sophomore year, he had taken them off before a boxing match. After the match, he had been unable to find them. He and Todd had searched the locker room for over an hour, before Todd found them under a bank of lockers. Someone had apparently accidentally kicked them there. “As I was pulling them out from under the lockers, I noticed your middle name – Deganawidah. Sorry, Tomas, but I couldn’t help looking that up. Deganawidah was a Wyandotte, and he helped found the Iroquois Confederation, didn’t he?”

Tomas smiled. “He was and he did, and he was a great prophet besides. His name means ‘Two Rivers Running Together’ and he was a prophet of peace. Our family records show that he is my great-to-the- 14th grandfather!” There was real pride in his voice as he said this.

Todd nodded. “My hypothesis, based on the facts I have, is that you are half Wyandotte Indian, your Dad works for the State Department as a diplomat, and for some reason you prefer to forget your childhood. So far, the hypothesis has stood up under all the real world situations I’ve been able to test it against. But it’s far from a complete explanation.”

Tomas nodded, and then started talking… “I don’t talk about my past a lot because… well, because… um, I had some pretty painful experiences because of my ancestry.”

“It’s like this… in the mid-20s my Dad worked for the US Bureau of Indian Affairs. The government was attempting to renegotiate yet another of the umpteen failed treaties between the US and the Wyandotte Nation when he met my mother.”

“While the Wyandotte nation has a council of chiefs, and all of our chiefs are men, the heads of most families, and the wisest advisors to the chiefs, are all women. My mom was one of the most respected diplomatic advisors in the Wyandotte nation. Many of the Indians she represented felt that she must share some part of her 13 times great grandfather’s soul.”

“Anyway, Dad and Mom met over the negotiating table, hit it off, got married, and guess what? Here I am!”

“The reason I don’t tell anyone about my background is the amount of crap I had to deal with when I was growing up. Dad is really great at solving diplomatic problems, and he was always being transferred to another diplomatic hot spot somewhere around the world. It seemed like in every embassy, wherever we went, some clever ‘white’ kid would find out I was half Indian and decide to nickname me ‘Tom Tom’.”

“I got in a lot of fights, and everyone decided I was a problem child. I won more’n I lost, and after a couple weeks at a new place, the other kids would usually leave me alone. But I didn’t have many friends. I was probably headed for big trouble ’till Mom convinced Dad to take a leave of absence from the Diplomatic Corps. We moved back to Kansas, where a lot of the Wyandotte live. I thought I’d have a problem with them, too, because of being half paleface, but not a single Wyandotte ever treated me as anything other than a family member!”

“I learned something then that I think was really strange. There’s a lot of people with at least a little Indian blood in them, and it seemed like the worst, meanest bastards were the folks with just a few ‘drops’, you know, maybe their great-great grandmother was part- Indian. It’s like they hate themselves and take it out on everyone else, or maybe they think that they will be accepted by the ‘pureblood’ white folks if they show just how much they hate us ‘half-breeds’. It’s kind of like Hitler being part Jewish, I guess, and trying to purge the world of Jews.”

“Tonight, when all those folks were beating drums and chanting, it really got to me. I was so mad I couldn’t see straight! All I could think of was all the times I’d get taunted with those words, usually by 5 or 6 other kids, and how many times I got beat up when I couldn’t keep my temper any longer.”

Todd interrupted. “Tomas, they weren’t taunting you; they thought they were cheering for you. Well, except for those creeps in the mobster suits.”

“I know. That’s why I came back to fight. I’m sure there were some haters in the crowd, but most of the folks wanted to see a good fight, and an awful lot of them wanted to see me win.”

Todd looked at his friend thoughtfully. “You know, Tomas, I’ve never been the victim of discrimination and hatred just because of who my parents were. But I don’t see how you can hide who you are. It really isn’t like you at all.”

“I’ve been your friend for a long time, and I’ve seen how uncomfortable keeping your past a secret has made you sometimes. You can’t keep it up forever. Somebody might think you were ashamed of your past…”

Todd realized he might be treading on pretty dangerous turf here, when he saw anger flash in Tomas’ eyes. “You can’t have ANY idea what it’s like!” Tomas realized who he was yelling at, and stopped, abashed. When he started talking again, he was very subdued.

“Sorry, pal! I guess you’re right. You’re probably the best friend I ever had, and it is ridiculous for me to get mad at you when you’re just telling me things I already know. I have to get over this anger!” He stopped and thought for quite a while. There were a lot of things Todd could have said, but he decided that keeping quiet was probably the best choice for right now.

Tomas finally spoke again. “I’ll have to think about it some more. I’m definitely NOT ashamed of my background, but there are a lot of ignorant people in the world who would never let me know peace. ”

Todd was pretty sure how Tomas would finally resolve this issue. He wasn’t the kind of guy to run away from his problems….

They reached the dorm. Instead of heading for bed, they sat up even later, swapping stories about their youth. Todd had some pretty exciting adventures as Bulletboy to share, and Tomas had lived ‘most everywhere, and his stint in the Marines had not been dull. Lucky tomorrow was Saturday! (well, actually, by now, it was already Saturday and tomorrow was Sunday!). They finally had breakfast and then hit the hay. later today, they were supposed to do some lab work for a special seminar they were taking.

Chapter 5

Saturday, the day after the fight…

The University of Chicago was the site of the first working atomic reactor on Earth, and both Tomas and Todd had chosen to go there because UC was the acknowledged leader in Atomic Energy-related fields. Many of their labs were held in rooms in the building where that reactor was built. UC was also the safest place to learn about Atomic Energy.

Enrico Fermi, who had been one of the chief architects on the atomic pile, had been obsessive about safety and safety precautions. The ‘Atomic Building’ had special safety features, such as alarms, various types of movable radiation shields, emergency showers, protective gear in lockers throughout the building, and a lead-lined holding tank for containing radioactive waste. UC had a fairly standard campus police force, but not many campus police forces could boast that they had an 8-officer squad especially trained to deal with a variety of radiation hazards.

One big perk for both men was a seminar called ‘Advanced Topics in Atomics’. It was largely unstructured, and participants designed their own curriculum. Tomas and Todd wanted to contribute to the medical field, so they decided to build an instrument to deliver highly calibrated doses of gamma radiation (the most dangerous, and potentially the most useful type) to a target.

(if you want details about their gamma ray projector project, scroll down until you see ‘GAMMA PROJECTOR APPENDIX’)

For reasons of safety, none of the students was allowed to actually work with radiation of any kind except during specified periods during the week when the hazard team was assigned to the lab building. Last week’s test of their prototype had been the first time that they had actually produced measurable pulses of gamma radiation, and the two were cautiously pleased. But the pulses varied widely in both intensity and duration. They had to improve the repeatability of the device!

So on Saturday, Todd and Tomas headed to the lab, and started work on the power supply and the pulse generating circuits. They would make their modifications today and tomorrow, have them approved on Monday by their faculty advisor, and then do another smoke test on Tuesday. And then back to the drawing board and go through the cycle again!

Suddenly, the door to their lab was kicked open so hard that the window shattered. 4 men with drawn guns rushed into the room. Todd recognized them from the group of loudmouths who were at the match the night before. Tomas noted that the guns all had silencers. To him, this was ominous – if these guys were planning on just threatening them, they wouldn’t need silencers!

The one who Todd had challenged to a fight the night before seemed to be the leader. “Look what we have here, boys! The Lone Ranger and Tonto!!! Looks like we got the drop on them and the Ranger ain’t got his silver bullets ready. Ain’t that a shame…”

“You boys lost us a lot of money last night, particlarly you, Tonto!” he waved his gun at Tomas. “We’re gonna take payment outta your hides! Now, boys, get your hands up!”

Tomas had already raised his hands. Todd was watching him closely. Tomas looked at the guns, and then at Todd, and saw Todd start when he noticed the silencers. Seeing that Tomas was now watching him, Todd snatched a solder pot from his lab bench and threw it at the criminals. He and Tomas immediately dropped to the floor, and rolled behind lab benches. As hot solder splattered the bad guys, two of them fired wildly. One of the rounds hit the irradiation projector. There was a brilliant flash and the projector exploded, and every Geiger counter in the room went crazy! Todd was out of line-of-sight of the explosion, behind his bench, but debris from the explosion battered the gunmen.

Scared witless by the explosion and the Geiger counters, the four turned and ran, leaving a trail of blood. Todd opened the cabinet in the bottom of the bench and started pulling out the contents, which were lead-lined poncho-like blankets, and immediately draped one over himself. These damn things were heavy, but that hardly mattered now! He picked up several others, and holding one up between himself and the gamma ray projector, he advanced until he could lay a blanket over Tomas, and then he dropped several others over the wreckage on the lab bench. The clattering of the Geiger counters had dropped significantly the first instant after the explosion, and with the radioactive remains of the gamma projector covered in several layers of lead, they quieted further, reaching a level that Todd knew from his training was safe for a short time.

He quickly ran into the lead-lined emergency room and slapped the big red Panic button. Immediately, alarms started going off throughout the building, letting everyone within hearing range know that there was a potentially deadly radiation hazard in the building. Todd went back out into the lab, picked up a Geiger counter, and started examining Tomas. Tomas was more radioactive than was safe! Todd needed to do something to help him in a hurry. Fortunately, Tomas was unconscious.

He pulled the blankets off of himself and Tomas and tossed them over the pile that was already on the bench top, and the Geiger counters slowed down a little more. He put on a pair of work gloves, and then carefully pulled Tomas into the emergency room and into the small shower and turned the shower on. He then pulled a protective anti- radiation suit from a locker, quickly pulled off his clothes and put on the suit.

He carefully pulled off Tomas’s clothes, and then stuffed the contaminated clothes and gloves into a lead box designed specifically for that purpose. He made sure that the water from the shower was streaming over as much of Tomas’ body as possible, hopefully to carry some of the radioactive particles down into the special emergency holding tank below the building.

Todd could see no external injuries. Tomas had been below the trajectory of the flying debris, but he had been closest to the exploding gamma projector and had taken the biggest dose of radiation. The lead-lined blankets in the bench he was hiding behind had protected Todd. Todd’s worst dose had occurred when he was moving Tomas, and he was certain that he was well below the limit where he would even notice anything. He was equally certain that Tomas had received a fatal dosage.

By this time, the hazard team, wearing protective gear, had entered the lab, first cautiously and then more quickly as they realized that the lab itself was empty and the radiation levels were fairly safe. As his men cautiously searched the room, the team leader saw the two of them in the emergency shower and came over to ask some questions. Before he could say anything, Todd spoke up.

“There were 4 men with guns in here, and they were all exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. Did anyone see them?”

“Not as far as I know, but we did see blood on the floor. They went out the back!”

Todd gave the man orders, urgency making him sound hoarse. “Call your Captain and tell him that those gunmen need to be decontaminated as quickly as possible, along with anyone who touches them. With the radiation dosage they took, they’ll be sick in a few hours, and without treatment, they will probably die within a week!”

The policeman blanched under his headgear. He hadn’t signed up for the campus police with this type of thing in mind! “What about the people who touch them?”

“Secondary radiation is unlikely to hurt them, but they ought to take a good long shower and burn their clothing. You had better alert the Chicago Police as well, and they ought to make sure that the radio and TV stations broadcast a warning. And get a doctor here as soon as you can!”

The squad leader ran to do these things. Even though his team was trained, this was the first actual emergency they had faced, and he was relieved that there was someone involved who seemed to know what needed to be done! Before he picked up the phone, however, Todd yelled at him again.

“You and everyone else who enters this room before we get the mess cleaned up needs to stay here, so we don’t spread the radioactivity any further. As long as the blankets stay in that pile and we keep the suits on, we’ll be safe, be we need to wash the suits down with decontaminate solution before we take them off!”

Todd was absolutely devastated. He couldn’t think of any way that their device could have emitted such an intense burst of radiation. The wild bullet must have somehow dumped the 5000 Volt 500 micro- farad capacitor they were adding to the power supply directly through the pulse generator. But they would never know; as the explosion has destroyed the prototype beyond recognition or recovery. But it didn’t matter how it had happened. What mattered the most to him is that his best friend was already dead, but didn’t know it yet, and there was nothing Todd could do to help him. He supposed he might someday take a little consolation in knowing that the bad guys would soon be very very sick, and if they didn’t get to a doctor in a couple of hours, they would all likely die. But that sure didn’t help Tomas!

GAMMA RAY APPENDIX

The less dangerous forms of radiation, alpha and beta, consist of very small charged particles moving at high velocities. The alpha particle is a helium nucleus with no electrons and a charge of +2 while the beta particle is a free electron with a charge of -1. However, gamma radiation consists of photons, very similar to the photons in x-rays. The difference between gamma rays and x-rays is a difference in energy. X-rays are very high energy, which is why they can be dangerous. Gamma rays have even higher energy (and are even more dangerous).

In the standard X-ray machine, x-rays are produced by aiming a beam of high-velocity electrons into a target of some kind. The beam is aimed by controlled electromagnetic fields. (This is how all TVs used to work, too, before plasma and LCDs and LEDs).

In an x-ray machine, the target is made of metal, such as copper. The interaction between the electrons in the beam and the metal atoms in the target causes the fast-moving electrons to slow down. Under the correct conditions, when an electron slows down, it releases a photon. A beam of electrons, aimed at the target, produces a shower of photons emitted from the target.

The energy of the photons depends on how much the electron slows down. The faster the electrons are moving when they hit the target, the more energetic the released photons will be. If the emitted photons have high enough energy, they are called ‘x-rays’. If the emitted photons have even higher energy, they are called ‘gamma rays’. Gamma rays are dangerous to living things – they damage living tissues, and a large enough dose can cause enough damage that the exposed tissue dies. There are many unpleasant side effects, and radiation sickness is extremely painful.

On the other hand, if the gamma radiation could be tightly focused, and would only strike tissues designated by a physician, what a fantastic surgical tool it would be. Instead of cutting out a cancer, you could just aim your gamma ray scalpel at the cancer and it would die – and the tightly focused radiation would not damage the other tissues around it.

The problem with building gamma ray surgical tools like this was that it was extremely difficult to produce gamma radiation, much less control it. The electrons had to be going much faster than in an x- ray machine, which required more power, and more power was not just harder to generate, it was harder to control. And, since the shower of photons from the target flew off in all directions, not just the same direction as the electron beam, this meant that whenever the gamma ray projector was working, it would be spewing dangerous radiation in all directions. The x-ray machines got around that by producing the x-rays in a spherical chamber which only had a small hole in it, and all the x-rays flying around in other directions were blocked, but it was difficult producing a chamber that would block gamma rays.

Todd and Tomas had a plan for dealing with these problems. They thought that an electromagnetic ‘target’ might be able to slow the electrons down more efficiently than a metal target, and also control the scattering of the emitted gamma rays. It is easier to generate pulses of high power than continuous high power, so they thought of using a pulsed electron beam rather than a continuous electron beam. The higher power produced faster electrons, and the em target slowed them down more efficiently, and Todd and Tomas’s instrument was able to generate controlled bursts of gamma radiation Their design was not a great improvement over the current devices used to produce gamma radiation, but the new techniques that TnT had developed promised rapid improvement in the years to come.

Chapter 6

Within a few minutes a team of physicians and their assistants, also wearing protective gear, had arrived and were examining Tomas. Several of the doctors who taught at the UC Medical School were doing advanced research in radiation-related health issues, so Tomas would get the best possible treatment without even having to leave campus. When the doctors determined that the level or radiation Tomas was emitting was reasonably safe, they put him onto a stretcher cart, and gently but quickly transferred him to a special suite in the Med School’s teaching hospital. They were beginning IV and putting some type of salve on his emerging blisters even as they started pushing the cart out of the room. Two of the doctors stayed to check out the other folks in the room.

Todd told the whole story again, and then one of the doctors started to question the hazard team. Todd and the other doctor went into the emergency room in the next lab, decontaminated and removed their suits. Todd took a shower and scrubbed with decontaminate cleaner, and then put on a clean lab robe. The doctor tested him with a Geiger counter and pronounced him to be `clean’ and safe. Todd then asked him more about Tomas.

“He must have taken a fatal dose, Doc. What did you think?”

“I can’t tell you for sure, son, but the blast of radiation was enough to knock him out, right? We’ve found that when that happens, the dosage is invariably fatal. All we can do is make him as comfortable as possible.” Now the doctor looked angry. “What the hell were you guys doing? It’s against the rules to work with radioactive materials without supervision. You’re lucky you aren’t dead, too! And what are you doing working with that level of gamma radiation anyway?”

Todd held up his hands, palms out. Under normal circumstances, he might have been angry at being falsely confused, but he was tired and worried and upset about Tomas and had no emotional energy left over for this man.

“We haven’t violated any rules, Doc. We were working on the electronics in our prototype, and the device wasn’t even turned on today. And that blast of radiation was an order of magnitude higher than anything that we expected. The bullet crossed circuits or something, I haven’t figured it out yet. But I guarantee we weren’t doing anything wrong!”

The doctor knew that any research into the unknown could be dangerous, and he realized that the device that TnT had been working on could potentially revolutionize some kinds of surgery. But he was never happy when faced with death – he saw it as a personal failure in his battle to help the living.

The head of the hazard team came out of the emergency shower in a lab robe and the doctor examined him. When he was pronounced safe, he used the phone in the lab to contact his deputy who was keeping people out of the building, and let him know that people could come in if they avoided the lab where the explosion had been. The deputy reported that he was sending up some Chicago City police.

Once again Todd told his story. One of the cops smiled at him. “I thought you looked familiar. I’m really sorry about your buddy. I saw you guys fight last night, and you won me a bundle. We’ll get those mugs, I promise!”

Todd’s attention picked up. “Say, do you remember the guys in the stands who were such jerks last night? Did you recognize any of them?”

“I know who you mean, I saw your confrontation with them, and I was getting ready to come out of the stands myself. But no, I didn’t actually recognize them. It was those same guys, right?”

“Yes, and they said they had lost a lot of money on the match. Where did you make your bets?”

The cop suddenly looked very uneasy. If the police force officially knew that he was gambling on sports events, he would probably get fired. And if he told Todd about it with his partner here, his partner would probably feel compelled to report it. “Just some friendly wagers with some of my brother officers” he said. “No bookies or nothin’ like that.”

“Darn! I was hoping you could give me a name. Those guys need help, fast!”

“Well, son, why don’t you come down to the station and look at some mug shots? Maybe you can identify them that way.” He noticed that his partner was talking to the doctor, so he reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card. “Talk to this guy.” he whispered. On the card were a name and a phone number. Todd nodded his thanks, and pocketed the card.

At just that time, the door to the lab opened again and the President of the University, Dr. Phillip A. Grenco, bustled into the room, followed by Dr. Jonas Wright, who was the facilitator for the Advanced Topics seminar. Wright looked angry and worried. Grenco just looked Angry. He spotted Todd and immediately started yelling at him.

“You! Mr. Drake! You and Mr. Thomas are expelled from UC effective immediately. I will not have this kind of careless accident on my campus! And I’ll make sure the two of you are blacklisted from any other colleges too. I want you off campus before 9 PM tonight.”

Todd was tired, and upset, and distraught about his friend. He wasn’t about to take any crap from this idiot!

“Mr. Illustrious President” he responded, with sarcasm dripping from his voice. “Perhaps you don’t know the whole story yet. You don’t need to expel Mr. Thomas – he will be dead in less than a week.”

Clearly the President was looking for someone to blame. “That’s even worse!” He turned to the policemen. “Officers, I demand that you arrest this man for murder of a student at UC. And this man should be arrested as an accomplice!” he pointed at Dr. Wright.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Todd started. Grenco, shouting, interrupted.

“Your gross negligence in violating our rules, experimenting with radiation without supervision, and working with dangerous radioactive substances without permission or the knowledge of the university is ample grounds for negligent homicide, at BEST!”

Now Todd was yelling too. Anger and adrenaline had overcome his apathy. “We have a complete description of our entire planned development program, as required by the university, on file, and it includes the signatures of Dr. Wright, Dr. Perlman (the dean of the Atomic Energy programs) and the President of the University, who just happens to be you, Dr. Grenco!” Todd pointed out hotly. “If there is any negligence here, it is on the University’s part. 4 men, armed with silenced pistols, were able to come onto YOUR campus and slip unnoticed into YOUR high security Atomic Building. The University has over the years told us many times that the campus was as safe as our homes!”

“But, no posse of armed men has just walked into my home and shot my friend before! Where was YOUR highly trained campus police force? Oh, yeah, not to forget: even bloodied and radioactive, and with radiation alarms going off, they managed to get away without anyone other than us even seeing them!”

“Go ahead and expel us, Mr. President. And I’ll see you in court! Betcha I’ll win, too! It’ll cost you, and just think of all the wonderful publicity. I’ll bet every family will want to send their kids to UC after that!”

Grenco sputtered, but finally settled on: “I do not take kindly to being threatened, you damn punk kid!”

“And I” said Todd, in his coldest voice “do not take lightly being accused of murdering my friend, by some idiot who has no idea what he is talking about. Or, being expelled from school on trumped up charges. Anyway, I’m not threatening you, Mr. President” a sneer crossed his face as he used that word. “I’m just telling you some things you may want to consider before expelling me – or Tomas!”

He turned to the cop again. This individual had recognized this argument as a good opportunity to keep quiet. “Officer McGuire” he read the name off the Officer’s uniform. “let’s go take a look at those mug shots.” With that, Todd turned around and marched out the lab door, with McGuire following him, while President Grenco just stood and fumed, his face turning redder and redder. Just as Todd was about to close the door, Grenco turned to Wright and Todd could see he was about to explode again. Wright ignored him and followed Todd and the cops out of the room.

Chapter 7

Susan Barr was curled up on the couch, reading a thrilling Harlequin bodice-ripper, wishing Bulletman would get back from whatever he was doing. She had some very interesting plans for tonight, but they required two people.

She could hardly believe what she was reading! Nowhere in the book was there anything explicit, but the unmarried heroine in the book wasn’t spending many nights alone! And while her practices were mostly left to the imagination, they were most unconventional and sounded like a lot of fun. Sue had an excellent imagination.

She had seen some pretty wild things in her career as Bulletgirl, so she wasn’t exactly shocked, but she had never expected to buy books like this in `mainstream’ bookstores! To be honest, though, her plans for the evening had been pretty nebulous until she had read Chapter 3! There were people who thought the Romance genre was just a fad and that Harlequin would be just another bust, but she suspected they would have a long and profitable history…

Just as she started Chapter 4, the phone rang. She hoped it wasn’t Jim with some lame excuse for working late, or telling her that Bulletman was needed someplace else! If it were, she would tell him a thing or three!

“Hello?”

“Hello, this is the long distance operator, and I have a collect call for anyone from Todd Drake. Will you accept the charges?”

“Of course, operator. Thank you!”

“Thank you! Sir, please go ahead.” And she heard the click of the operator hanging up.

“Sue! I need your help! Can you and Jim come out here right now?” Todd sounded worn out and really worried.

“What’s the matter, Todd? You sound awful!”

“I feel awful, too! You remember my roommate, Tomas? He’s in the hospital and not expected to live. He’s dying of radiation poisoning. Some gangsters broke into our lab and took a shot at us. Our prototype blew up and Tomas took a fatal does of gamma radiation.”

“Todd, that’s horrible! Are you OK?” Sue asked, worry in her voice.

“I’m ok, just really tired. But I want to catch the bad buys. You and Jim are the best detectives I know, and I need help tracking them down.”

“Todd, it sounds like a police matter to me. The police will catch them sooner or later.”

“No, Sue, you don’t understand. It somebody doesn’t find these guys fast, they’ll probably die of radiation sickness too. The police seem to feel that there’s no hurry; if these mobsters die on their own, it’s 4 less bad guys in town! But I want to see these guys stand trial, so I’m going to find them myself, fast! So, will you help me or not?”

`Well’ Sue thought to herself wistfully `I suppose I can wait until some other time to try “The Dragon’s Lair”.’

“What did you say, Sue?” Todd’s voice showed that he was very puzzled.

`Oops, I hope I didn’t say that out loud!’ she thought, although a roguish grin flashed across her face.

“I’ll call Jim and we’ll be there as soon as we can. Until then, don’t you be a fool.” This phrase caused Todd to listen very carefully. “Wait for us before you do anything!” Jim and Sue had taught him a couple of secret codes that they used whenever they had to discuss Bullet matters in their civilian identities. `Don’t you be a fool’ was a catch phrases that indicated that a coded message would follow, in a specific code. Sue was about to tell him when and where they would rendezvous. Todd knew that at top speed, it would take them about 5 hours to fly here from New York, and he hoped he could get a little sleep in during that time. Sue’s next words surprised him.

“It will probably take us 2 hours or so to get plane reservations, but we’ll see you tomorrow! Maybe you can meet us, like you did last time?” Two hours, in the little park by the lake! How were they going to get here that fast? Well, they had never let him down before; he was willing to trust them one more time.

“That would be great, Sue! Thanks very much! Umm, I know it may seem like strange thing to worry about right now, but do you remember that hat you guys gave me when I left New York? It was my favorite, but it doesn’t fit any more. Do you remember where you got it?”

That wasn’t part of the code, but Sue understood it anyway. The Bullet helmet they had given him when he was 14 no longer fit, but he wanted to join them as Bulletboy in this investigation. Wait, they couldn’t call him Bulletboy any more – she and Jim had been at a conference in Chicago about 6 weeks ago, giving a presentation on the use of infrared spectrophotometers in police crime labs, and of course they had dropped in on Todd. `He sure growed up nice!’ She thought. “Very handsome boy. I wonder why he doesn’t have a bevy of bouncy bimbos hanging around all the time?”

“That’s funny! I just bought your birthday present, and it’s one of those very hats! I’ll bring it with, and I’ll get you something else for your birthday. Todd, don’t worry, we’ll be there before you know it. I’ve gotta call Jim! See you soon!”

After she hung up, she hurried down to the basement and through the secret door into the hidden room they called `The Armory’. She sat down by the short wave, tuned to the wavelength that she and Jim used when in their costumes, and gave him a call. He answered right away. “BG to FD, come in. FD (for Flying Detective), where are you? I just talked to our old friend BB, and promised him we’d meet him in that little park near his dorm in 2 hours!”

“FD to BG, are you crazy? We can’t possibly get there in less than 5 hours, even if we could leave right now and fly straight through!”

“Don’t worry, FD, I have it covered. Meet me near Central Park in 40 minutes, 500 feet straight up over the Lagoon!”

“FD to BG, Roger. I’m just finishing up my business now, see you then. I won’t spoil your surprise by asking! Over and out!” She later found out that his `business’ that night had involved busting a dope smuggling ring.

Sue smiled. Sometimes he was infuriating, but there were times, like now, when he said exactly the right things. He trusted her enough that he didn’t even question what she had in mind.

She picked up the special Squadron of Justice phone, pressed one of the buttons, and waited. If she didn’t get an answer right away, she was going to have to try an alternate plan, but she was relieved when the call was answered on the 4th ring.

“Alan? It’s Sue. Jim and I need to get to Chicago fast, faster than we can fly. Do you have a few hours right now?”

Alan Armstrong was only half-awake. His wife Eve was asleep next to him so he spoke quietly. `Do we have to go right now, Sue? We had a big night tonight, and I’m bushed. How about tomorrow morning?”

“Sorry, Alan, but it’s got to be right now. Tell you what, though – if you’re a dear and help us out, the next time I see Eve, I’ll tell her about my latest discovery. It’s something called `The Dragon’s Lair’. I promise you’ll both like it!”

Sue had always been a very persuasive lady. She had shared some of her earlier `discoveries’ with Eve, and that’s part of the reason Eve was sleeping so soundly right now. Alan was already getting dressed. `Where do I pick you up?”

`500 feet above the lagoon in Central Park, 40 minutes! See you then!”

Sue hung up and pulled her Bulletgirl costume from a locker. She was changed in seconds. She then found civilian clothes for herself and Jim, along with a spare (adult) helmet and costume for Todd. She threw everything in a backpack. She almost folded the teddy and put it away in a drawer, but then shrugged her shoulders and tossed it into the pack as well. Maybe she and Jim could fly over to Michigan and find a nice romantic motel along the rocky shores of Lake Michigan before they came home! She added her purse and Jim’s wallet, then strapped on the backpack, flew out through the secret tunnel, and zoomed off towards Central Park. She didn’t want to be late!

She never did actually reach the Lagoon. The gyro-sub pulled alongside as she flew, the door opened, and she saw Bulletman already inside. Sue flew in and gave him a hug. He closed the door, and they both hurried forward and sat down in chairs in the cockpit. Spy Smasher gave her a quick wave of greeting, turned the g-sub to match a compass reading, and `stepped on it’.

For a few seconds, all three passengers were pressed back into their seats by an exhilarating acceleration. Sue felt the vessel shudder a little and realized they had just broken the sound barrier. A few seconds later, the acceleration eased, and Spy Smasher turned to the Bullets. “Good to see you two! We’ll be there in about an hour. We could move faster, but we’d wake up people all along our flight path. When we get closer, Sue, you need to tell me exactly where you want to be dropped off. Say, you aren’t looking for a ride back tonight, too, are you?”

“Nope, Alan, I expect we’ll be in Chicago a couple of days, and then I’m going to try to convince this lunk to take me on a short vacation in upper Michigan! So you should head on home, once you drop us off.”

Jim looked at her thoughtfully. She looked especially appealing tonight. It must come from inside, he decided, because he couldn’t notice anything different about her appearance. They hadn’t had a vacation in a long time. Of course, he was going to take a few days off later this year to attend that awards ceremony with Captain Marvel, but that was quite a ways off. This sounded like a good plan to him!

The three old friends talked quietly for the rest of the flight. Sue and Jim directed Alan to the west edge of Lake Michigan, and then the two hopped out of the gyro-sub. Alan turned the g-sub around, and within seconds was headed home. The g-sub moved so fast, it was out of sight in only a few more seconds.

Bulletman and Bulletgirl flew down to the small campus park on the lakeshore. True to his word, Todd Drake met them there.

Chapter 8

Todd greeted his friends with hugs and warm handshakes. He looked awful. He told his story again (probably the 15th time that day, he reflected ruefully, but hopefully the last!). But he had more information than during his earlier recitations. He had been able to pick out the pictures of two of the bad guys from the police mug shot albums. He knew their names (or at least the names they had given the police at the time of the photos) but not much more. Each man had been busted once, a few years ago, for some minor crime, and neither had come to the attention of the police since. So they had no way of knowing how to find these guys.

Todd pulled the business card out of his wallet. “I think we ought to start by calling this guy. He’s apparently a bookie, and the cop who gave me this implied that he might be able to help us find those thugs.”

Jim shook his head. “We should definitely contact this guy, but not on the phone. He won’t tell us anything over the phone, and if we try to find him after the call, he’ll be gone. We need to learn his real name and where we can find him. Sue and I met one of the guys who works in the evidence room downtown at the conference and he told us to look him up the next time we were in town. Probably didn’t mean this late, though!”

Sue gave Todd the new gravity helmet and the spare Bulletman costume. Todd went behind a bush and discreetly changed into the costume and helmet. He had thought that getting back into super- heroic action would be a great feeling, but it almost seemed to him as if he were going back to a childish pastime that he had long outgrown. Well, he might feel differently if the circumstances were different, and anyway, this was the best way to accomplish his current goals.

When he returned to the Bullets, Sue looked him over. He cut a very handsome figure in the revealing costume that Jim favored! “Todd, we sure can’t call you Bulletboy any longer! And we can’t call you Todd all night, either! Any ideas for a new code-name?”

Todd thought about it, and realized he didn’t care. He doubted he would ever need a super-hero code name again after tonight. If he ever changed his mind, he could worry about a code name then. But Sue was right – they needed something to call him, just for tonight. “I don’t know. How about `Red Rocket’?”

The Bullets exchanged amused glances. They had often been referred to as `The Human Rockets’ in news stories, so this seemed as good a code name as any. “Red Rocket it is, then!” Jim answered heartily. “Well, let’s get going. Todd, can you stash most of the stuff from Sue’s backpack in your dorm room?”

The three flew towards Todd’s dorm. It had been about 7 years since Todd had flown on his own as Bulletboy, and he realized that this was what he missed the most about being a super hero! He was pretty rusty, but he was so exhilarated he forgot his fatigue, and by the time they reached the dorm, he was doing rolls and loops just as if he’d been flying all along. He still didn’t have much interest in being a super-hero, but he knew he could never again give up flying like this!

The three landed discreetly behind a high hedge. Jim pulled his civilian clothes from the pack while Todd put on his own clothes over his costume. He stashed his helmet in the pack, and then went into the dorm and up to his room. He emptied the pack into a drawer in his dresser, took off his street clothes, put on his gravity helmet, and jammed the window open with a yardstick to be sure he could go in and out freely. He flew out and rejoined the Bullets, and Jim led then across town to a small residential suburb. They landed near a big house with a nicely maintained yard.

“This is the place. Hope he’s not too upset about us waking him up this late!” he said. He handed his helmet to Sue, and put on his clothes. Then he walked up to the door and rang the doorbell. Sue and Todd lifted from the ground and landed on the roof of the two-car garage. It was in deep shadow and no one should be able to spot them up there. There was a single light on the ground floor, in a window at the rear of the house. Someone must have been awake in that room, because lights started coming on in other rooms and within a couple of minutes, the front door opened slightly.

“Mister, you better have a damn good reason for ringing that bell this late…” Suddenly, the person in the house recognized Jim. “Jim Barr!? What are you doing out this late at night? You’re not in any trouble, are you?” This guy didn’t know Jim all that well, and he obviously wasn’t happy to see him.

“Well, Marty, it depends on how you look at it! I’m trying to track down a couple of bad guys before they die or radiation sickness, and I don’t quite know where to start. I have one lead.” He pulled out the card. “If I can ask this guy some questions, I think I’ll be able to track them down. But I don’t want to call him, and I don’t know where to find him. Can you help?”

Marty took the card, looked at it, and then gestured Jim to come inside. After 15 minutes, Todd and Sue got tired of sitting on the roof, so they flew up in the air and started playing tag. Todd needed the practice. Sue wasn’t any faster than he was, but she flew almost instinctively, whereas he still had to think about his maneuvers. He could feel his old skills coming back, though. Finally, they saw the front door open again, and they swooped back down to just above the level of the house. Jim walked around the corner and then ducked behind a fence, and they joined him. He took his helmet back and doffed his civvies.

“Got an address and directions. Sorry it took so long; Marty had to call in a few favors and I had trouble convincing him to stay out of this. He promised he would leave it to us until he reports to work tomorrow – if we haven’t turned in prisoners by then, he’s going to follow up with the bookie himself. So, we better get cracking!” Once again, they took to the air, and followed Jim as he slowly traced out the directions he was given. A couple of times, they had to descend to look at street signs, but they finally reached the place Marty had described.

Chicago had a bustling port. It was a transshipment point for cargo being shipped throughout the Midwest. Virtually everything that could go by water came into Chicago on trucks and trains and was loaded onto ships which plied the Great Lakes and even carried cargo across the Atlantic via the St. Lawrence Seaway, or to New York City via the Erie canal and the Hudson river. Marty had sent them to a seedy bar down in the warehouse section of the port. The three were not surprised to see that the bar was filled with patrons, even this late at night – it was the kind of place were you could get a drink round-the-clock. The patrons appeared to be a mix of longshoremen, merchant sailors and denizens of Chicago’s underworld. Definitely not a place any of them would enter on their own!

The bookie they were looking for reputedly owned this bar and had his office on the second floor. The bar was a good way for him to `launder’ the profits he made; much of that money showed up in the till every morning and was recorded in the bar ledger as `legitimate’ profits from the night before. He also paid the cops on the local beat to leave him alone, and as long as nobody got killed in his bar, they mostly did leave him alone. There were always a half-dozen or so well-armed `patrons’ in the bar, and all the regulars knew that they were actually paid security.

Which made it a relatively safe place to drink – all the regulars had seen what happened to troublemakers in the bar. Not that an occasional drunk didn’t make trouble and get thrown out after a minor beating, but nobody was ever killed or badly hurt while actually in the bar itself. Of course, none of the regulars had ever seen 3 super-heroes walk through the door, either!

Suddenly, the crowded room was dead silent. The three red-clad heroes walked slowly towards the bar. They heard whispers start up behind them, although the folks still in front of them remained quiet.

`…shouldn’t be here!’ `look at the…’ `…didn’t know there were 3 of them!’ `…on that broad!’ `…throw them outta here!’ `damn do- gooders! I say we…’ `..wonder if she wants to have some fun?’

Bulletgirl turned when she heard that one. She looked right at the man who had said it, and replied. “You know, I wouldn’t mind some fun tonight! I always love sending jerks like you to the hospital!”

That started some more muttering. “Uh oh” Red Rocket whispered. “I don’t think you should have done that!”

Bulletman answered for her. “It doesn’t matter. Whether she said something or not, sooner or later, trouble is coming our way. Her warning might keep a couple of these guys out of the fight, and out of the hospital, so we always do it that way. Never seems to work, though – I’ll bet the one she talked to is the one who starts it.”

They trio walked up to the bar, and Bulletgirl talked to the bartender, while Bulletman and Red Rocket watched the crowd. Bulletgirl often got answers from men who would never tell Bulletman anything, even when he was clearly listening to their conversation. “We’d like to talk to Lenny.” the name on the business card.

The bartender was nervous, but he knew his lines. “Lenny who? Ain’t no Lenny works here. Might be a Lenny in here” he swept his arm, indicating the bar “but I don’t know mosta der names. Want I should ask?”

Meanwhile, Bulletman was using the radio in his helmet to whisper to Red Rocket. “Pick out the ones who work for the bar; they’re the ones who are going to start it. And they are probably the toughest. Most of these guys are here to drink, but the security is here to fight.” Red Rocket scanned the room and picked out several men who were watching them more closely than the others. Bulletman watched where his eyes rested. He was impressed.

“4 of them?” Rocket whispered back.

“I think there’s actually 6. I thought there were only 4 as well, but you picked up on 2 I missed. And I think you missed those guys at the last booth.” Rocket had discounted them, because they had seemed to be pretty… intimately …involved with a couple or women who were sharing the booth.

Bulletgirl leaned closer to the bartender, and crooked a finger for the bartender to move closer as well. His view was spectacular, and under other conditions, he would have been thrilled, but now it was all he could do to keep from shaking. He glanced around once, wildly, for help, but so far, the crowd had not yet worked itself up enough to take action.

Bulletman turned to Red Rocket and commented “Another minute or so. It’s usually a thrown beer mug, so be ready to move fast. Bulletgirl and I will handle the ones with knives, you take care of the unarmed idiots. But watch out for broken bottles!”

The bartender heard that, and quickly responded. “Hey, we don’t want no trouble here. If you let me, I kin git mosta da troublemakers outta here. Da boss’ll fire me if da place gits busted up. I really need dis job, see?”

Bulletgirl smiled – one of the sweetest and most welcome smiles the bartender had ever seen. “Y’all know, huney” she drawled slowly “Ah really luuuv smaart mai-en.” Red Rocket was surprised – he had never heard her do that southern accent before, but, boy, she did it well! “If y’all kin do thaa-at, why, this eve-a-nen will be evvva so much more plea-as-ant.” (Sure is hard to write a southern accent!)

The bartender almost changed his mind. But the boss would be even more upset if he didn’t get rid of these guys than he would if the bar got busted up a little. He was more scared of the boss than the super-heroes. Piss off a hero and you ended up in jail; piss of the boss and you end up on the bottom of the lake, wearing cement boots. After a little friendly torture, naturally.

“OK, babe!” At the look on Bulletgirl’s face, he hurried on. “I’m gonna move real slow, like, and signal my boys to clear out da place. Dat OK wit you?”

“No su-prazes, hun? Go ahai-ed.”

The Bullets weren’t fooled, and Bulletman nodded his head towards the closest `bouncer’. “He’s yours.” He whispered to Red Rocket. This gave Rocket a split second advantage on the bouncer.

The bartender turned towards the crowd and as he did, he `accidentally’ knocked over a glass. This was the signal to the security, and they attacked. Bulletman was right, the first attack was a flying beer mug, and it came from the man who Bulletgirl had talked to. Red Rocket dodged easily.

Bulletgirl grabbed the bartender by his collar. “Naughty boy! Momma’s a goin to spank you, latuh.” She slammed his head into the bar and knocked him unconscious. “Boy, I’ll bet that’s going to hurt later!” she mocked him, losing the southern drawl. She turned to the brawl, which was already in full swing.

The thug nearest the bar had kicked his table at the heroes, hoping to trip them. He surged out of his chair and leaped at Red Rocket. He assumed he had the advantage of surprise, and he intended to knock RR to the ground. He was wide open, and RR’s short right to the jaw, backed up by the speed of the man’s leap, knocked him out and he collapsed to the floor.

When he turned his attention back to the fight, it was no longer possible to separate the security from the other patrons. At least half the patrons had headed for the door, but there were still a lot of people in the room, all trying to reach the 3 heroes.

Bulletgirl zoomed quickly into the air. This bar, like many bars, had a high ceiling in order to try and keep the floor level relatively clear of smoke. Her nose twisted in distaste as she flew threw the smog. When she was as high as she could get, she dived towards the fight, picking up as much speed as possible, and she slammed into a group of thugs at high speed. She managed to hit the first one with her helmet in the chin, and he flew backwards, knocking down the two thugs behind him. He was out of the fight! She passed between the next two and her shoulders impacted them in their chests, and they both staggered backwards. She thought she heard some ribs break, but didn’t have time to worry about it right now. She lowered her head just in time, and smashed into the stomach of a final opponent, driving him backward into a wall.

Her momentum was used up by this time, and she landed. Two thugs fired pistols at her. “You guys don’t know much about us, do you?” she laughed at them. They were stunned when their point blank shots bounced off the magnetic field around her helmet. She turned to the first one and slammed a swift right to his chin, and with her enhanced strength she knocked him out.

Before she could turn around, the other man jumped on her back. He swung his right arm down over her right shoulder and tried to drive his knife into her stomach. The strike was deflected by her belt buckle, and instead of stabbing straight into her stomach, the knife slid across her right thigh. If she had been wearing the uniform with the long pants, she would have escaped unscathed, as the material in their costumes was designed to resist knives. But she had on the short pants outfit, and the blade sliced into her upper thigh, cutting a long shallow gouge. Still, it was not the first time she had been cut.

She was unable to control a shriek caused by shock and pain, but she was in no way disabled by the wound. She quickly grabbed the arm that was draped over her shoulder and pulled down hard, bending further forward as she did so. The thug’s arm was pulled out of his shoulder socket and he was screaming as he started to fly over her shoulder. At just the right instant, Bulletgirl straightened up with all her strength, pushing the thug forward and into the air. He slammed into the wall back-first, feet high, his head about 2 feet off the floor. He then fell onto his head and collapsed into a crumpled. Sue hoped he hadn’t broken his neck in the fall, but she was already turning her attention to her leg.

It was a long ragged slash, not deep enough to have caught an artery, but she was going to have trouble walking on that leg for a while, and she would need stitches for sure. She could worry about that later, but she realized she was going to be in trouble if she didn’t stop the bleeding soon. She flew behind the bar and found some clean bar towels, which she used to make a temporary compress. She pulled the belt from the unconscious bartender and used it to hold the makeshift bandage in place, and then turned back to the fight. As she had half expected, it was over.

She had left 4 men unconscious. The men she had knocked over had fled. She had rammed her helmet into the stomach of another, and he was still rolling on the floor, moaning. `7, huh?’ in exchange for a slash on her thigh? She must be getting careless! Bulletman had apparently accounted for just about the same number, and Red Rocket, even without the enhanced strength and agility of the Bullets, had knocked out 3 more.

There was a door behind the bar that led into the rest of the building. Bulletgirl kicked it open with her uninjured left leg, wincing just a little from the pain in her right. The three of them were through it quickly, and found a short hallway, with two other doors and a stairway. Bulletman flashed up the stairs, so Bulletgirl and Red Rocket each smashed open one of the doors. A storage room on one side, an office on the other, nobody in either. So they headed up the stairs, and found that Bulletman had had more luck!

A man had been sitting behind a big desk on which there were half a dozen phones. Papers were scattered all over, and there were a couple of ledgers that had been knocked to the floor. The man behind the desk seemed to have a broken wrist, and there was a gun on the floor. Bulletman was standing in front of him, in the act of picking him up by the front of his shirt.

“I hope you’re Lenny!” Bulletman said to the man as he shook him slightly.

“OW OW OW OH S**T! STOP!” the man screamed, and then he started moaning. He held his injured wrist against his body with his other hand. “PLEASE STOP! I’LL GIVE YOU ANYTHING! I’LL TELL YOU ANYTHING YOU WANT TO KNOW!”

“Thank you” Bulletman said gently. “You know, if you had been that agreeable in the first place, we could have avoided this unpleasantness.” He set the man back down in his chair. He opened the bottom drawer of the desk, found the whiskey bottle he had been sure would be there, opened it, and handed it to the moaning Lenny. “This might help.”

Lenny put the bottle to his mouth and upended it. After a couple of seconds, Bulletman took it away from him. “You can finish this off later, Lenny boy. But we’ve got some questions for you.”

Lenny’s face was as white as a sheet, and he was shivering and crying and moaning. Bulletgirl stepped closer. “Umm, partner, maybe I can ask the questions instead of you? I don’t think he’s going to give us any more trouble, are you Lenny?” Lenny started to shake his head violently, but that jolted his wrist and he screamed again. When he quieted down, Bulletgirl spoke again.

“We don’t want much from you, Len, and we aren’t looking to hurt anyone. All we want to do is save some lives – probably some friends of yours. You believe me, don’t you?” Lenny just barely nodded his head. He didn’t believe, but he didn’t dare contradict her, either.

“Good, because that means we’ll be able to get out of here soon, and leave you alone. In fact, we’ve even already called for an ambulance.” When Bulletman heard that, he went outside the room and used his helmet radio to call for an emergency team. He had to use the special Squadron of Justice code word for the day to convince the radio dispatcher he was on the level. When the dispatcher finally realized who he was talking to, he quickly notified a hospital.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Bulletman, but I get calls from kooks all night. The ambulance will be there in 15 minutes. Say, if you come by police HQ, could you look me up and give me your autograph? Just ask anyone for Sparks!” Bulletman didn’t think they would be stopping by HQ, but he promised that if they did, he would.

“Sparks, make sure that at least a dozen cops get here before the ambulance! Some of these guys are just groggy and they could be dangerous. We’ll make a sweep for obvious weapons before we leave, but we don’t have time to tie anyone up.” In the distance, Bulletman could hear police sirens. Leaving Red Rocket and Bulletgirl to question Lenny, he headed downstairs to do the promised sweep for weapons.

Meanwhile, Lenny wanted to shake his head `no’ regarding the ambulance, but he quickly thought better of it. Not only would it hurt like hell, he realized that it was already too late for him to escape the consequences of this evening. Injured as he was, with 3 super-heroes in his bar and no protection anywhere, he couldn’t possibly get away before the police showed up. So he might as well get treated by a real doctor as soon as possible. Maybe, if he told these awful people what they wanted to know, they’d even go away sooner!

Red Rocket showed him the two pictures. “These two guys lost big betting on the UC boxing match last night. Today the busted up an atomic energy research lab and took a critical dose of radiation. If they don’t get to a hospital as soon as possible, they’re going to die of radiation poisoning. If we can find them, they have a chance to live. Big betters like this, you probably know them, don’t you? Where can we find them?”

Lenny moaned in pain. He took a deep breath and visibly attempted to pull himself together. The whiskey was starting to ease the pain a little bit. He tried to make a bargain. “I can’t tell you how to find them, but I can show you. They’s part’a the DeLucranto mob, and they got a sawbones workin for `em. But yous gotta take me wit’ yous! If you leave me here, I spend da next 10 years in da Big House!!”

Red Rocket spoke up. “You know, BG, that sounds like a good idea to me, what do you think? That way, if Lenny finks on us, he’ll be right there with us when we find out!” Lenny, who had no intentions of finking on them, tried to smile.

“OK. Lenny, let me wrap your wrist real quick – it might hurt when I do it, but it will save you some pain on the trip. Oh, I really wish you hadn’t tried to pull that gun on Bulletman!” She busted the bottom out of a drawer in Lenny’s desk, and ripped his jacket into strips. Surprisingly gently, she straightened the broken wrist and wrapped it tightly. Even with the whiskey, Lenny screamed in pain and almost passed out. Bulletman came back upstairs to see what was wrong, and BG told him about the deal they’d made. He wasn’t totally pleased, but he did help Lenny out onto the fire escape, where he picked him up, and the three took to the sky. The flashing lights of the squad cars and ambulance seemed to be 3 or 4 blocks away.

The cold night air rushing past his face revived Lenny somewhat, and the whiskey made the pain seem more bearable. He was slurring his words, but he was able to point with his left hand, and within a few minutes, they were approaching a brownstone build with a sign out front, showing that “Austin Valentine, MD” lived and practiced here. They landed on the front stoop, and Red Rocket knocked on the door.

A few minutes later, an older gentleman answered the door, wearing wrinkled butler’s attire and still rubbing sleep form his eyes. He was very surprised to see a trio of super-heroes at his door, but he was used to midnight visitors.

“Oh, my, I sincerely hope you have the wrong address!” Then he saw Lenny and the splint on his hand, and the pain still showing through the alcohol. “Come in, come in! Lay him down here” he led them into a small examining room which contained a bed and sink “and I’ll go get Doctor Valentine!”

“If you don’t mind, Jeeves, I’ll come along with you” said Bulletman.

The gentleman’s gentleman sniffed haughtily. “My name, sir, is James, and I certainly do mind!”

“Sorry, James, I was just trying to be nice. You’ve got no choice in the matter. Let’s go find Dr. Valentine.”

James wasn’t about to argue with Bulletman! He led Bulletman deeper into the house. Apparently the Dr. and James resided on the upper floors. The back half of the house was fitted out as a clinic, and four of the beds were occupied! Bingo! Bulletman could hardly recognize the 2 men from the photographs, but he did recognize the symptoms of severe radiation sickness. These men were not getting the treatment they needed from Dr. Valentine. Bulletman made another quick call on his helmet radio.

Bulletman grabbed Dr. Valentine before James could explain anything, and pulled him into the examining room. `See to his broken wrist!” he pointed at Lenny. “And don’t try to run away; I’ve got ambulances coming to pick up your patients and take them to the UC Med School radiation clinic, and you’re going with them.” Valentine paled and moaned a little himself, but with 3 super-heroes around, he wasn’t going to have a chance to get away. “Red Rocket, go with James here and see if you can find any medical records for the sick thugs, and bring them back here.” The two went off to do those things.

Once again, they could hear sirens approaching. A lot of citizens of Chicago were having their sleep interrupted tonight! Valentine looked over the splint on Lenny’s wrist. “He needs a cast. Do you want me to do that now?”

Bulletgirl asked `How long will it take?”.

“About 20 minutes.”

“Can it wait until we all get to the hospital?” She was sure it could.

“Yes, this splint was expertly applied. He might do a little better with morphine, though.”

“Not on top of all the whiskey he had, Doc. We don’t want to kill him!”

The doctor nodded reluctantly. “Good!” she continued. “Now I want you to do something about this!” She showed him the bandage on her thigh. Red Rocket noticed how white she was.

“Bulletgirl, why don’t you sit down? Lenny’s too drunk to cause us problems, and I can make sure the Doc doesn’t run out on us. You need the rest.” She agreed, and gratefully sat down. She had been running on adrenaline for the last 20 minutes or so, and she was close to the limits of her endurance.

Valentine was a good doctor, even if he did treat mobsters in secret. In fact, he had to be; if too many of his mob patients died, he knew he would end up on the bottom of the lake. He had started the practice for the money, and now he wanted out, but he knew he couldn’t get out on his own. Perhaps this was his golden opportunity – the Bullets might be able to set up some kind of protection for him if he treated them straight.

He disinfected and bandaged Bulletgirl’s leg. He wanted to put in stitches, but she refused anesthetic and he refused to do it otherwise. She could live with it the way it was, for a while longer, and she would be in a hospital where she trusted the doctors shortly. She noticed that Valentine did an excellent job, and did things carefully and gently, causing her the minimum possible amount of pain.

As they waited for the ambulances, he discussed his situation with her, and she promised to help him as much as she could. He eventually did prison time, but he received the minimum sentence, and he was sent to a prison where the mob was unable to reach him. A few years later, when he was released, the government helped him establish a new identity, and he was an honest citizen throughout the rest of his life. Was there magic involved? Bulletgirl was a close associate with Ibis, so it’s possible. Or maybe Bulletgirl had a magic of her own…

About midway through Sunday morning, the three heroes returned to Todd’s dorm. The Bullets recovered their clothes and headed out to find a hotel. Todd called the hospital and found that Tomas was awake right now, and he was there in just a few minutes. He was carrying a small briefcase with him. When he walked through the door he stopped, stunned by shock and dismay. Tomas was mostly wrapped in bandages, and there were dark red spots dotting the bandages. Todd could see open sores on the skin that was still exposed. However, Tomas was awake, and he smiled when he saw Todd.

“Hi, hero!” he whispered. “Say, I heard that Bulletman, Bulletgirl and somebody else in a Bulletman costume brought in those thugs. Thanks!” He stopped talking; the effort of saying that much had worn him out.

Todd walked up to him. “Tomas, I just talked to the doctors. They have no hope. They are giving you another day, no more.” Todd saw the question in Tomas’ eyes. “Nope, I’m not saying this just to depress you even more. I may have a way to help you! I can’t guarantee that it will work, and even if it does, there could be some serious side effects. So you need to know exactly what your situation is, so you can make an informed decision. What do you say?”

Tomas could barely whisper. Todd bent over and put his ear near Tomas’ mouth. He could barely make out “Tell me”. It was painful just to watch him, and Todd had to wipe away tears before he could start talking.

Chapter 9

Todd set the case on a table next to the bed. He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket, opened it, and searched through the various folds until he found a small key. He had been carrying this key since he was 14, and it had survived at least four wallet changes.

He unlocked the case, opened it, and started pulling things out. First was a folded red costume, and Tomas realized this must be Todd’s Bulletboy costume. Next came an oddly shaped piece of metal. Todd manipulated it, and suddenly it opened into the shape of a very large bullet, with an opening in the base just the right size for a boy’s head. Finally he pulled out what appeared to be a jar of some kind of white preserves, tightly sealed.

Todd flipped the lever that broke the seal, then reached into the jar and started pulling stuff out. Tomas realized it was cotton. Quickly, Todd found what he was looking for: a small bundle of black cloth electrical tape. He stripped away the tape, revealing a small bottle of dark brown glass; the type of bottle that often came with an eyedropper instead of a regular cap. No eyedropper here, though. He held up the bottle.

“Tomas, this is a dose of the drug that gave Bulletman and Bulletgirl their super powers. Bulletman gave it to me when my folks moved us out of New York City, and told me not to use it until I was 18. I had sort of forgotten about it until today.”

“I discovered I really don’t want to be a super-hero. It occurred to me that this drug might be able to save you, so I talked to Bulletman about it. He’s not sure if it will help or not, but he agreed that it was worth trying. But I have to tell you about the side effects before you use it.”

Tomas tried to protest – if the choice was dying in agonizing pain or unknown side effects from a super drug, why, that was no choice at all. But he was still worn out from his last efforts, and Todd didn’t realize he was trying to agree, so Todd went on talking.

“Bulletman thought he was inventing an anti-crime drug. But when he tried it on himself, it gave him super powers instead. A few years later, the same drug gave the same super powers to Bulletgirl. As far as they could tell, then, there were no side effects. But that was 13 years ago. Today they are aware of two very serious side effects.”

“The first one sounds great. Their aging has slowed down. Bulletman figures they are aging maybe one year for every three or four that pass. So they are going to be young for a long time.”

“Now for the bad news. The anti-crime drug made them both sterile. They’ve seen the best doctors in the world, and nobody has been able to help them.”

“Just so you have all the facts, Bulletman claimed that the drug made him smarter, too. But he was already a genius before he took the drug, and sometimes he doesn’t act very smart at all, so I don’t know if that’s true. So there you have it. What do you think?”

“Oh, yeah, it doesn’t work immediately; Bulletman didn’t see the results until the next day. If the doctors are right, you don’t have any time to worry about the decision. I assumed you would want to try it, so that’s why I brought it with me. All you gotta do is say yes or nod or something, so I know it’s what you want.”

Actually, even if Tomas said no, Todd was planning to dose him with the drug in his sleep, anyway. But Tomas gathered all his strength and whispered “Yes!”

“I knew you were still fighting! Good luck, buddy!” He brought the bottle to Tomas’ cracked and bleeding lips, and slowly poured it into his mouth, making sure that none was lost. He saw that the effort of drinking had finally exhausted his friend’s fading strength, and he was closing his eyes to sleep. “It’s in the hands of God now, pal! I’ll be praying for you!” He turned and left. The Bullets were going to stay in town at least until tomorrow to see what effect the drug would have on Tomas. He was going to meet them for dinner. They had a lot of things to talk about, but he was sure it was going to be one of the longest nights of his life anyway.

Chapter 10

Nobody was enjoying dinner very much. There was a minor sense of accomplishment in capturing the guys who had put Tomas into the hospital, but that was tempered by the condition of Todd’s best friend. Todd finally told his mentors about giving the anti-crime drug to Tomas. Jim stopped talking when he heard that, his attention left them, and stared at the ceiling for several minutes. Just about the time Todd wondered if something was wrong, he smiled.

“Great going, Todd! I predict that Tomas will make a full recovery and be ready to check himself out of the hospital by midnight or so! Boy, won’t that cause a ruckus! Aside from the side effects, did you tell him what else to expect?”

This announcement cheered everyone up considerably. Todd was intrigued by the question, however.

“I told him that this was the drug that gave Bulletman and Bulletgirl their super powers. So I assume he expects to get super strength and super agility like you guys got. What else is there?”

Jim smiled. “There seems to be some kind of random affect that may alter the physical appearance of the one who takes the drug. Overnight I grew several inches and gained more than 40 pounds. But Sue’s appearance didn’t change at all. I’ve never quite figured out why it affected us differently. Of course, our circumstances were a little different. I was scrawny and out of shape when I took the drug. But she was already a superb athlete in tip-top physical condition; she was my partner as Bulletgirl for several years before she actually used the drug herself.”

Sue had been leaning forward, listening carefully. She sat back with a smile, snapped her fingers, and announced “I’ve got it!”

Jim kept talking. “Not to mention the mental changes. I had always been very logical and `bookish’, and pretty smart. But afterwards, my logical thinking and deductive abilities had been vastly enhanced. On the other hand, Sue was always very intuitive, and the anti-crime drug seems to have vastly improved her intuition. She is simply amazing at coming up with the right answers without enough information. You would be astounded at the number of our most difficult cases that she has solved right up front, and the rest of the case was simply us looking for enough information so that I could prove she was right.”

“I used to think the mental enhancement was somehow gender-linked, but the look in my love’s eyes tells me I’m about to learn something new. So, Sue, you have the floor!”

Sue had a big smile on her face. When her intuition was this strong, she was almost always right, and she loved being able to produce the right answers when Jim was still looking for clues!

“There is much more to the mental aspect than you’ve figured out, dear. In fact, the drug changed both of our appearances. Somehow, the drug changed our bodies into the bodies we had always wished we had. You were always the 98-pound weakling who wanted to look like Charles Atlas. So you evolved the god-like physique I love so much. On the other hand, I was mostly satisfied with my appearance, so I didn’t change very much. But I did sometimes worry about my physical shortcomings, and once I took your wonder drug, I never needed to worry about that again!”

Jim looked puzzled. “I didn’t notice any changes. You didn’t get taller, you didn’t grow big muscles like I did, your face didn’t change…”

“Later, honey. It’s not something you would have noticed before we were engaged! Anyway, I think the aging thing is part of the same effect. Neither of us wants to get older, so your wonder drug allows us to age slower. It’s not strong enough to totally ward off aging. Or it may be that we actually don’t want to be young forever, somewhere deep in the back of our minds. I don’t have any intuitions on that one, so I’ll leave it for you.”

Jim turned to Todd. “Over the years, I’ve grown to realized that she is almost always right about things like this. I’ve never really investigated the appearance-changing affect of the anti-crime drug because only 2 of us have ever used it, and it isn’t good scientific practice to generalize from only 2 samples. But sometimes Sue makes a generalization from a single sample, and after many hours of research, I can back it up with solid facts and logic.”

“It used to bug the hell out of me, but what can you do? If she’s right, she’s right. Although on those very rare occasions when she’s wrong, I have to admit, I used to like to rub it in. Can’t even do that anymore – once I proved her wrong, and 2 years later, an advance in physics verified her intuition! Still haven’t finished paying for that one – although I think another installment is due tonight!”

Sue only smiled a slow, lazy smile, and winked at Todd. He was still wondering about her prior physical imperfection, which her partner, who saw her in a skin-tight uniform every day, had failed to notice. She must have been reading his mind, or intuited what he was thinking, because she winked at him again. When he realized where he was staring, he blushed and immediately turned away. Sue took pity on him…

“So, Todd, you know Tomas well. What should we expect to see tomorrow? He’s a pretty big guy already; if he grows like Jim did, he’ll have trouble walking through doors.”

Todd thought it over carefully. He and Tomas worked out together often, and Todd thought he knew the answer. “We do a lot of conditioning and endurance work when we train. We are both of us pretty strong, and we do some strength work, but we are both very careful about putting on bulk. I don’t want to gain weight because then I’d be in the same weight class as Tomas, and I don’t know if I could beat him. But he really likes the weight he’s at. So my guess is, he’ll look pretty much the same tomorrow as he did last week. Say, he’s going to have to quit the boxing team, though.”

Jim laughed. “That is probably going to be the least disruptive effect on his life, Todd. Think of the uproar at the hospital when a man dying of a terminal dose of radiation is suddenly healed overnight! And as far as his doctors know, it must be spontaneous, because no one knows you gave him the drug. Then, suppose someone finds out he took a wonder drug. Can you imagine the public reaction to a drug that can cure a man in a condition like that? EVERYONE will want that drug. And if people find out it can change them into physically perfect specimens, and extend their life indefinitely – and then they find out that you were the one who gave him that drug… well, I predict you won’t have any peace for a long time.”

Todd’s face turned white as he started to think about the consequences of his act. He had saved his friend’s life, but what kind of Pandora’s box had he opened? “Jim, you’re not mad at me, are you? What else could I have done? I couldn’t let my friend die.”

“Of course I’m not mad, son. I would have done the same thing. But, now that it’s done, you need to think about the consequences and how you and Tomas are going to deal with them. Just as a quick example, when you go to the airport tomorrow to pick up Tomas’ parents, how are you going to break the news to them? They’ve been traveling pretty much non-stop for the last 36 hours, and they’ve been told that they chances of them arriving before Tomas dies are only about 30%. And you’ve never met them! How are they going to react when you tell them that not only is Tomas still alive, but he is totally cured?”

“Nope, I’m not mad. But your world may be about to change radically, and I think you’d better think about how you are going to deal with it.”

Todd was now looking a little fearful. “What can I do? What should I do?”

Sue looked at him and smiled. “I think you should probably see if you can convince your two best friends to help you make some plans, Todd!”

“Gee, Sue it would be great to sit up talking with you and Tomas all night. But Tomas isn’t here. Do you think Jim might help us instead?”

Sue laughed out loud at that, and after a couple of seconds, Jim joined in. When she finished laughing, Sue winked at Todd once more, and then turned to her husband. “Lucky you, dearest one. It looks like I’m going to have to wait for some other time to collect your next installment.” And then she reached out to ruffle Todd’s hair. “As long as you keep your sense of humor, Todd, you ought to be able to deal with anything.”

Chapter 11

Todd got back to his dorm room very late, but he couldn’t sleep. In spite of Jim’s assurances, he couldn’t be sure Tomas would live until he actually saw him. Since he couldn’t sleep, he tried to get some work done instead. What had caused the massive burst of gamma rays the damaged projector had emitted? Since it _had_ happened, it must be possible. But the schematics weren’t helpful; there had to have been massive voltage surges here, here and here, but the big capacitor was `way over there on the schematic and there seemed to be no way to get the charge from `there’ to `here’.

So he moved on to the details of the construction. They had built the device of independent modules, and interconnected the modules with a single connection strip. That had to be it! Here, here, here and there, though widely separated on the schematic, used adjacent terminals on the connection strip! The bullet must have actually struck that strip and somehow bridged those various circuits in the exact order necessary!

As Todd considered this, he slowly realized that in fact, this accident had solved the very problem that he and Tomas had been wrestling with earlier. If he could find some way to reliably duplicate the momentary circuit connections the bullet must have created, their device would be operational!

He studied the problem for close to an hour, but no solution presented itself. Vacuum tubes could not be turned on and off quickly enough, and it would be virtually impossible to get three relays to work in such perfect synchronization. Those new transistor devices were the closest thing to an answer, but they couldn’t control that much current without burning up. He was getting too tired to concentrate, but he had made some notes, and he could investigate this more fully at some later time.

Todd was still unable to sleep, but he was sort of dozing. His thoughts drifted back to how unlikely this accident had been, and he drowsily realized that there had been a number of other unlikely events leading up to the accident. The publicity the boxing match had received, turning it into the largest UC sporting event in years; the student sports-writer using Tomas’ hated nickname; Tomas almost losing the boxing match; the gangsters managing to sneak into their lab without being caught, and Todd not having used anti-crime drug, even after he had lugged it around for years…

If any one of these unlikely events had not happened, either Tomas wouldn’t have been dosed by the radiation or he wouldn’t have been saved by taking the wonder drug. In his half-asleep state, Todd considered ideas he would have instantly dismissed if he had been wide awake. Could there have been some mystical force, guiding him and Tomas to their current states?

Todd’s training in physics, chemistry and engineering generally meant that he didn’t consider the mystical side of life, but he had ample proof that beings with mystical powers occasionally interfered with human destinies. Look at Ibis and Captain Marvel, ordinary humans given great powers by the magic of Shazam, though thousands of years apart… Could there be some similar power guiding his and Tomas’ lives?

Had it just been an unlikely accident? Maybe Sue’s intuition would have something to say on this topic, or maybe, if he ever saw Shazam again, he could ask him. His thoughts continued to drift, and he was finally on the verge of true sleep when the phone rang!

For a split second, as he was jolted back to full wakefulness, Todd was annoyed. Who the heck would be calling him at this hour? Then he realized that given Tomas’ condition, there could be any number of people calling him. Was this the hospital with the worst news possible? He was suddenly trembling; emotional and physical exhaustion, combined with his worst fears… He forced his rebellious hand to pick up the phone. “Hello? This is Todd…”

Chapter 12

“Todd, it’s me, Tomas! Greatest stuff in the world, what you gave me! I’m better – I feel great and all the sores are healed. But this stuff is really messing with my mind!…” His voice suddenly lowered, and Todd could hear him muttering to himself. Suddenly he was talking to Todd again. “I can hardly think, Todd. You GOTTA come over and get me out of here! They’ll think I’m crazy and lock me up!”

“Geez, Tomas, it is awfully good to hear your voice. I’m glad the potion helped. But visiting hours don’t start for several hours…”

“So land on the fire escape! You can fly, Mr. Red Rocket! Todd, it’s urgent! I need your help RIGHT NOW!”

“On my way” and Todd hung up the phone. Within seconds, he had on his new gravity helmet and was rocketing out the window. It only took him a few minutes to get to the hospital. Finding the right room from outside was another challenge, but Tomas was watching for him, with his window open and the room light on.

Todd was delighted to see his friend looking so well, after being so close to death only hours before. He embraced his friend, the stood back and shook his hand as well.

“Todd, am I glad to see you! Something has happened to my memory and it’s overwhelming me! Everything I ever seen, heard, read or thought is filling my head and I’m losing the present!” Tomas appeared to have just reached a limit of some kind, and he just sort of ran down, then stopped talking. He stood, swaying gently eyes closed, sometimes muttering, sometimes moaning, apparently lost in his memories!

Todd thought quickly. Jim’s logic and reasoning abilities had been enhanced by the anti-crime drug, as had Sue’s intuition. It seemed as if perhaps Tomas’ memory had been enhanced in a similar fashion. Imagine what it would be like if suddenly, all the memories you have filed away, all the things you have forgotten, all the things you have thrust from your mind and never think about any longer, all were suddenly recalled, as vividly as the day they happened! Tomas must be lost in the past; Todd had to give him an anchor in the present! He pushed Tomas down into a sitting position on the bed, and sat down next to him. Not wanting to alert the entire hospital to what was going on, he leaned close to Tomas’ ear and spoke. “Tomas, I’m the real Todd, and I’m in the real present. Tomas, focus on my voice and let me lead you out of the past. Tomas, listen to me, you are lost in your memories and only by listening to me will you find reality again.” He continued to repeat the same themes over and over again

Tomas suddenly snapped to attention, and looked around him. “Todd, is this real? I can’t tell any more! Keep talking to me, don’t stop!” Again, he stopped talking. This was hopeful, and Todd kept up his conversation. He kept repeating that he was real and this is the present, the rest is only memories. He had an insight, and he started to add comments about what Tomas had to do to save himself.

“Tomas, you have to relearn how to put your memories away and ignore them unless you want them. You’ve always had a superb memory, so you must know, somewhere in your mind, how to do this. You just have to put these memories away again. I’m the real Todd, and this is the real present.”

He repeated these things over and over, and over. Tomas kept snapping back into the present, and he and Todd would talk sensibly, and then he would fall back into his trance-like condition. The moments of reality came more often, and closer together, and about an hour after he had arrived, Todd thought that Tomas might at least now be out of danger.

He sill lapsed into dazes as they talked, but shaking his shoulder and speaking to him seemed to reach him quickly and draw him back from whatever lost land of memory his mind was roaming. He was relearning how to recognize the present and differentiate it from his memories, and he was growing less overwhelmed by the gigantic store of readily accessible information that was now available to him.

Finally, he turned to Todd. “I’m absolutely exhausted! I don’t think I’ve ever done anything harder. I thought I was lost in my own mind forever, and everywhere I turned, all I could find were more memories! Some of my memories aren’t so good, either! You know, I had a photographic memory when I was younger, and it caused me so much trouble that I deliberately forced myself to be able to forget things. It’s a good thing I had that practice, because that’s what I had to do all over again. Remember how to forget! And, all the time, I could hear you talking to me from the present, and every once and awhile I found the strength to follow your voice and escape!”

“For a guy who looks so good, you sure look awful!” Todd quipped. Compared to last night, Tomas looked great. But there were heavy rings under his eyes, he was sweating, and he was still wrapped in bandages dotted with blood spots.

Tomas ruefully looked at his image in the mirror. “You got that right! Say, did you bring any of my clothes with you? I really want to get out of here!”

“Don’t you think you ought to see a doctor first?” Todd asked.

“I don’t know – what if they don’t want to let me go?” Tomas was reluctant.

“How can they keep you here, if you don’t want to be here?” Todd wondered.

“Boy, for a smart guy, you sure ask some dumb questions!” Tomas responded sharply. “I would have thought one of the first things you learned in super-hero school was how the real world works!”

“Tomas, you’re not a realist, you’re a cynic! Besides, all the super- heroes I know are idealists.” He was thinking about the Marvel family, the Bullets, and Minute Man in particular. “I have always tried to exist somewhere between idealism and cynicism. Why wouldn’t they just let you go?”

“Yesterday they diagnosed me as being terminally ill of radiation poisoning. If they pronounce me healthy right now, what will it do to the credibility of the hospital? How will it affect the credibility of the UC Medical School, and of UC itself? And that’s just for starters.”

“Those doctors who correctly diagnosed me are going to want to investigate and find out why I got better, and see if there is any way they can duplicate the process with other radiation victims! They’ll want to run hundreds of tests on me – up to and probably including vivisection!”

“And if I tell them I got a wonder drug from you, no doubt you’ll be arrested for practicing medicine illegally, and they’ll try to make you tell them more about the drug. And if you tell them you got it from Bulletman, people are going to be way upset that he created a drug that is so effective, and then kept it for himself. Side effects be damned, there are millions of people who would give up everything they had for a single dose of the stuff. They aren’t going to just forget it when they find out!”

Todd nodded his head slowly. “I guess that’s what Bulletman was hinting at earlier, when we were talking about consequences. We spent all evening talking about how to tell your parents, but I never thought beyond that.”

Tomas was immediately interested. “My parents? Why are you going to have to tell them anything?”

“Well, the University notified them when you ended up in the infirmary, and they caught the next plane out of Bora Bora or wherever it is that they were assigned. I’m supposed to meet them at O’Hare later today, about 3:30. They’ve been told there is only a 50/50 chance that you’ll be alive by the time they get here, and that your chances of living out the next few days are non-existent. I’ve been spending most of the night thinking about how to break the good news to them.”

“Anyway, I’m going to go get the on-call doctor and have him release you. Then we’ll get some sleep and then we’ll figure out how to deal with your parents.” Todd was relieved that he would have Tomas with him – he had never met Tomas’ parents, and Tomas’ presence at the airport would be ever so much better than him trying to explain things to them.

“Hold on, boy! You ain’t heard a word I said. He won’t let me out; he’ll lock me up under the tightest security they have here!” Todd had a stubborn look on his face; Tomas could see he wasn’t going to listen to reason. “OK, let’s do it this way. Find us some of those white doctor’s outfits and you and I will go find him. We’ll carry my paperwork with us, and get him to sign it, and then just walk out the door. OK?”

Todd smiled. He was sure it wouldn’t be necessary, but he wanted to humor his friend, who had just come through some incredibly rough times. Tomas lay back down in the bed to rest, while Todd snuck through the corridors, looking for a changing room. He was back in a few minutes with two sets of white hospital doctor’s attire. The two put on the outfits, and Todd put his clothes into a laundry bag, which he brought with them. Tomas gathered up his bed sheets, bandages and everything else he had touched and stuffed them into another bag and used a marking pen to write `Radioactive’ on the bag. The secondary radiation from his body had probably not been dangerous to anyone, but no use taking chances!

They walked to the nursing station, and Tomas addressed the nurse on duty. “Good evening, Nurse Williams. I’m Dr. Amato, one of the new staff doctors. It’s my first night shift. I’m looking for Dr. Van de Carr; do you know where he might be at the moment?”

Nurse Williams hadn’t been expecting a new doctor on the night shift – they usually mentioned things like that in the weekly staff meeting, but she hadn’t really paid much attention at the last one. The doctor _did_ look familiar; she was sure she had seen him before, or at least a picture of him. “He’s on his rounds, Dr. Amato. Right now he’s probably over in 4B, that way.” she pointed helpfully.

“Thanks for your help, nurse. I already like working here!” He smiled, and he and his intern walked away, towards 4B.

The eventually found Dr. Van de Carr making rounds. Neither man knew him, but he was wearing an ID Badge. Tomas walked up to him and said “Dr. Van de Carr, I need your opinion on the Tomas Thomas case, if you don’t mind. I’m a radiation specialist, and I just arrived from New Mexico. Do you have a minute?” Van de Carr nodded, but Tomas had already walked into an empty room. Van de Carr followed him in.

When Dr. Van de Carr was in the room, Tomas turned and handed him the clipboard he was carrying. “I’m sorry I mislead you, Dr. Actually, I _am_ Tomas Thomas, and I’d like you to sign the release form so I can go home.”

Van de Carr looked shocked and then angry. “I don’t think this is at all funny! I just saw Thomas about 4 hours ago, and he’ll be lucky to live through the end of tomorrow. I don’t know who you are or what you are trying to do, but you had better be out of here before security gets here!” He moved towards the phone in the room, but Tomas stepped in front of him.

“Dr. Van de Carr, I’m not joking. Check my picture…” he handed the doctor the clipboard, which had his name and picture on it, a copy of his student photo ID. Van de Carr compared the photo with Tomas’ face. His anger slowly changed to puzzlement. As he continued to start at Tomas’ face, he mentally updated his memory of Tomas, removing the sores and bandages, and he realized that he was really talking with the terminally ill man he had checked up on, only hours ago.

“This is impossible! You can’t be well.”

“Why not, Doctor? Isn’t that what hospitals are for?”

“Well, yes, but there was nothing we could do for you except make you as comfortable as possible. You can’t possibly be healthy! It must be some kind of hoax or trick?”

“Dr. VdC, I guarantee you this is neither a hoax or a trick. A miracle has occurred and I am totally healed, and I want to go home. I’d like you to sign the paperwork, but if you don’t, I’m just going to walk out anyway.”

“But you can’t! We need to study you and find out what happened!”

“Told you, Doc, it’s a one-of-a-kind miracle. Studying me won’t do you any good; all you’ll find out is that I’m healthy! Besides, I don’t feel like being studied. Now, sign my papers and I’m gone.”

Van de Carr started to protest again, but then he changed his mind. He took the clipboard and signed a form approving the discharge. Tomas took his copy, laid the clipboard down and the bed, and headed towards the elevator.

As soon as he judged Tomas was too far away to hear him, the doctor picked up the phone and connected to the hospital operator. “Jill, please connect me with security! We have a sick patient wandering around the halls!” Todd stepped into the room and quickly pulled the phone cord from the wall. “I’m more than a little disappointed in you, Doc! You just lost me $5.00. I thought this was a hospital, not a prison?”

He hurried out of the room and caught up with Tomas. Tomas had already known what was going to happen, so he had called all 3 elevators, and he blocked them open. He and Todd hurried to a window and climbed out. Todd put on the gravity helmet, Tomas grabbed him around the waist, and they were gone. Next stop, their dorm!

Chapter 13

Todd hit the sack immediately and he assumed that Tomas would do the same. However, as soon as he could hear snores coming from Todd’s room, Tomas went back out into the small common room they shared, carrying his tool kit. In a few minutes he had disassembled the smaller gravity helmet, the one Todd had worn as Bulletboy. Todd had left it in Tomas’ hospital room, so Tomas assumed it was supposed to be his, especially since Todd now had a new one that fit correctly.

He worked very carefully, and sketched as he worked. About the time it started getting light outside, he had a pretty complete schematic of the two different functional units in the helmet, the gravity regulator and the magnetic controller. He had never been a whiz with electronics before, but now, when he could instantly recall anything he had ever read, he realized he was developing a much better understanding. He didn’t feel any smarter, per se, but if he was trying to solve a problem, and anywhere in his memories was information he could apply to that problem, he had instant access to those memories.

The problems he now encountered came when he had information from more than one source and the information conflicted – he had to stop and work out which was right and which was wrong. This happened several times, and slowed him down considerably, but he realized he was still working much more quickly than he had been able to before.

He did discover that once he had mentally accepted a certain piece of information as being `correct’ and conflicting information as being `false’, the next time he needed that information, only the correct information was recalled, unless he deliberately tried to recall the false information as well. He realized this could be a great tool for him, but it also had the potential to narrow his thinking. He would have to be very sure before he mentally labeled something as `false’.

The gravity helmet was a study in contrasts. The physics it made use of were advanced beyond Tomas’s level of understanding, but the circuitry that implemented the physics was built using the technology available in 1944 – practically ancient history by now! Through the sponsorship of their seminar, he and Todd had access to cutting edge electronics, and they had often designed and built their equipment right on this table. Tomas realized he could replace some of the older style `valves’ (vacuum tubes) and relays with transistors without changing the functionality at all.

He was so tired he had to fight to keep his eyes open, but something was driving him to finish his work. He drank several cups of coffee. He was surprised when he looked up and saw Todd watching him.

“Hey, I thought I was supposed to be the electronic wizard! That’s some pretty complex stuff, there! What are you doing, anyway?”

“You’re still the whiz kid, buddy. That drug did something to my memory, and if there is something I need to know, and I’ve read or heard anything about it, that information seems to automatically pop up where I can use it. But I don’t seem to be any more creative than I used to be. If I don’t already know something, I’m not any better at figuring it out than I used to be. All I’ve been doing is updating the old circuits to use transistors.”

“It seems to me that it wouldn’t be too difficult to enhance these circuits here and here” he pointed at the schematic “to improve the magnetic controls. But it would take me several hours to figure those enhancements out, and for some reason, I don’t think I have the time.”

Todd looked at the areas Tomas indicated. By the standards of today, those designs were pretty crude. Todd felt sure he could improve on them fairly easily, but he was going to need some source books which they had left at the lab. When he mentioned going to get them, Tomas suggested that Todd just ask him for whatever information he needed. If Tomas had looked at the correct pages, he would be able to remind Todd of what they said.

As Tomas finished up his update of the rest of the circuits, Todd redesigned the areas Tomas had indicated. Several times he had to stop and ask for transistor specifications and parameters from Tomas, who ended up drawing several graphs and well as regurgitating a lot of information that he hadn’t understood the first time through.

Finally Todd’s design was finished. He and Tomas rebuilt the last 2 sections according to Todd’s new design. Tomas had built the two controllers into 2 separate disks, about a half inch thick and 6 inches in diameter. He attached these to a belt so that one disk lay on either hip. A small power pack rode in the middle of his back, connected by wires to the disks.

Tomas grinned at Todd. “Now for the smoke test! Hope it fails!” This was a standard joke between the two of them – a smoke test was `successful’ if there was smoke. He lifted slightly off the floor and remained, hovering! “YEE HAH!” he yelled!

Just in time! There came the sounds of feet tromping down the hall and raised voices, claiming to be the police, telling students to stay in their suites. Tomas ducked into his room and shut the door, as somebody started pounding on the front door to their suite.

“Open up! This is the police!” Todd looked around. The tools were still on the table, along with some test equipment; he ducked into his room and came back with a partially-completed electronic something or other and placed it on the table. Through force of long- standing habit, he had stashed his Red Rocket gear in a secret hiding spot before he turned in – behind a loose brick in the shower down the hall.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” he yelled. The pounding stopped, but someone yelled through the door to hurry it up!

When he opened the door, 4 cops pushed their way into the room. They were city police, not campus police – they were accompanied by 2 campus policemen who were apparently trying to calm them down but not succeeding.

Todd was angry and he let it show. “What’s going on? Why do you think you can…” That was as far as he got.

“Shut up, kid. Your roommate was kidnapped last night from the hospital, and the doctor that reported it says it was you what took him! So you just keep your yap shut while we look around!”

“Kidnapped? C’mon, he was too sick to even get out of bed. I would have had to carry him. And what would I do with him? He was going to die in less than a few days. Why would I take my best friend away from the best care he could get?”

“Shaddup! Say, you don’t mind if we look around, do ya?” The 4 spread out to search, one going into each bedroom. They didn’t wait for his answer. “Thanks!”

An few minutes later, the 4 cops gathered once again in the common room of the two-bedroom suite. “Nobody here but the joker, Sarge. The big guy’s bed ain’t been used. Checked out the window, too, no fire escape in that room. And no way to climb up or down. The guy ain’t here!” One of the campus policemen went back into the hall to use his walkie talkie to report what was going on. The Chicago city cops were clearly annoyed about this but they couldn’t do anything about it – the school and the city had an agreement about which police force could do what on campus, and they were already exceeding the limits in the agreement. UC was a pretty powerful political force in the city, and the mayor was a UC grad. Any further provocation from them and they might find themselves looking for work. But they weren’t about to leave without the last word!

“All right, kid, looks like you’re clean this time. But we’ll be watchin ya!” The 4 left the room and clumped back down the corridor, swearing at any students who stuck their heads out to watch.

The older of the campus cops turned to Todd. “Sorry, son. Sometimes there’s nothing we can do to keep them out of here. Look, your roommate disappeared from the hospital last night. From what they tell me of his condition, without medical treatment, he has probably died by now. I know this is rough on you; sorry we couldn’t keep them out of it.’

Todd reached out to shake the officer’s hand. “Thanks, Lieutenant! I appreciate you trying to protect me. I know you guys are under- appreciated.”

“And underpaid!” the other officer interjected. They all smiled, and then the campus cops left too. Todd sat down at the table and started studying Tomas’ schematics. A few minutes later, Tomas walked into the common room from his room.

“Well, the flying part still works!” he said with a grin as he slapped Todd on the back. “Who woulda thunk that somebody would kidnap a terminally ill radiation patient? I guess they have to explain my going missing somehow!”

Todd was uncomfortable with the whole situation. He had to admit that Tomas and Jim had called it right. Tomas’s recovery really had caused a brough ha ha! He realized they couldn’t tell people the whole story, but he was also very uncomfortable about being in conflict with the police. Yet he didn’t see any way to clear it up right then.

Todd picked up the phone and called Jim and Sue at their hotel. The hotel had a Sunday all-you-can-eat brunch buffet, so the 4 decided to meet for breakfast.

There was a crowd of other residents of the dorm in the hall outside their door. Tomas didn’t want to walk through that crowd – even though they were all his friends, some of them would probably tell the campus police where he was. He didn’t like this secrets game! But until he and Todd could come up with a story, he was going to have to try to avoid people he knew.

Todd left the room and everyone crowded around him, demanding to know what was going on. He told them the same story the police had told him, Tomas was missing from the hospital and they somehow thought he was involved. It took him a good 20 minutes before his friends would let him go, and the crowd around him continued to grow. Tomas slipped out the window and hoped nobody would see him. Eventually they joined up again at the hotel, which was on the north side of the city, miles from UC. A hearty breakfast was had by all, and with the help of the Barrs they were able to come up with a pretty convincing cover story.

Chapter 14

Shortly after World War II, John and Amitola Thomas had been assigned to Paris for six months to help set up diplomatic relations between the US and the new Provisional Government of France, led by General Charles de Gaulle. The Marie Curie Museum in Paris was a wonderful treat for Tomas, who had spent a lot of time there, studying the exhibits and even helping to catalog some of her personal papers. He had to learn to read Polish, but he was a quick study.

It seemed quite possible that he had read a formula of some kind that didn’t mean anything at the time, but that he might have recalled recently, his subconscious returning it to the surface in an attempt to save his life. He could have passed the formulation on to Todd, who mixed up a batch for him. And then when it worked, the two had been (rightly, as it turned out) paranoid about getting Tomas out of the hospital.

The only problem was the formula itself. Todd would certainly have written it down, and almost certainly would not have thrown away his notes. And any formula they came up with had to be plausible, at least, because it would be scrutinized heavily as soon as they revealed it.

Fortunately, Jim was a genius in chemistry. He engaged his super intellect for several minutes. “Other than the anti-crime drug, I can’t quickly formulate a cure for radiation sickness” he told them. “But we may not really need a cure, just an approximation. And I’ve got that.”

Todd and Jim headed for the Atomic Building, and used Todd’s master key to get access to one of the chemical storerooms. Todd gathered together the chemicals, lab equipment and other things Jim told him they would need. He carried them all into an empty lab, where he wrote down the formula Jim gave him, and started mixing it together.

He made notes every step of the way. There were some steps he didn’t understand, but Jim had him gather various reference books and open them to the correct pages, then gave him step by step instructions, which he again wrote down. When he was finished, the lab looked as if a very intelligent amateur chemist had used a bunch of reference books to develop a fairly simple procedure to create a fairly complex compound, and that this compound would be very useful in treating radiation sickness. Leaving the books and apparatus, they took the notes and the compound, which was in a liquid form, and flew back to join Sue and Tomas.

“It’s not a cure, but it is a useful medicine.” Jim explained the rest of his plan. “Here’s what should happen next. You two go to the airport and meet Tomas’ folks. There may be police looking for Tomas, but I doubt if they will bother the son of the top Ambassador in the Department of State. You may have to give the police the cover story, then you guys should all go to the hospital to complain to the Director about the bogus kidnapping charge. Show him the signed release, if you need to.”

“He’ll want some assurances that Tomas is well and that the hospital won’t be sued. Arrange a deal with him – give him the formula and the notes in exchange for the university and the hospital leaving Tomas alone. Get it in writing! Todd, you can tell him your suspicion that some mystical power is involved and point out the many coincidences you noted. Mystical powers have interfered in human affairs often enough that it can’t be discounted out of hand.”

“The hospital can announce that they have uncovered a secret formula developed by Madame Curie, and they’ll get lots of good publicity, and another story will be added to her legend. If they never uncover the formula in her papers, everyone will just assume it got lost in the last few years.”

“Tomas, you may be sort of a celebrity for the next few days, but it will die down…”

“So what do we do with this?” Todd held up the beaker.

“Drink it?” Jim suggested. Everyone laughed. “Don’t laugh!” he quickly responded. “While this stuff wouldn’t have actually cured Tomas, I predict it will almost immediately become part of the standard treatment for radiation overdose! Everything in it was selected to help a human body recover from radiation – there are a variety of electrolytes, a moderate pain reliever, chemicals to stimulate the healing process, anti-inflammatory agents, and a variety of vitamins, nutrients and proteins that a body would need in order to restore damaged tissues.”

Those around him still looked dubious. Jim was a little peeved that nobody appeared to believe him, so he took the beaker from Todd and knocked it back, drinking the whole thing in 3 big gulps. “After all, I am a chemistry genius!” he said, a little annoyance showing in his tone.

He quickly opened the refrigerator and pulled out a soda. “Why do things that are good for you always taste so awful?”

Sue smiled at him sweetly. “It’s because they are usually created by men, dear! It’s part of the male psyche, I think. Men seem to feel that if something is easy, it must be wrong.”

She and Jim had had this argument before and he didn’t really want to continue it now.

Tomas was a little uncomfortable. “Everyone comes out of this winning except you, Jim. Why, if you patented this medicine you could get rich, but you are giving it up for nothing!”

“Not for nothing, Thomas. I’m giving it up to protect our secret identities – and it’s well worth it. Besides, if we really wanted to be rich, I could easily patent some new developments. But we’ve never really been interested in being rich.” Sue looked at him funny, but Jim didn’t see it. Todd figured it was a good time to keep silent.

Tomas stood up “Hey, anyone else want a soda?” He took a step towards the fridge, and he bounced about 3 feet off the floor. He flailed about for something to grab on to, and manage to grasp one of the shelves on the bookcase. The wood splintered in his grasp! He allowed himself to fall to the floor, then lay still. “Wow! What’s wrong with me?”

Jim smiled. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you. You forgot that this drug also gives you super powers. Your strength and agility are being increased significantly, and it will take you a little time to regain your coordination. You should have seen me – I smashed a table and shoved my dresser through a wall before I figured out what was going on! Here, let me and Sue give you a hand.”

They helped him up, and guided and supported him as he slowly walked around the room. His steps became increasingly more steady and he soon regained his confidence.

“Say, you know it’s time to go to the airport?” Todd put in his two cents. So far, he figured, they had handled all the crises that had faced them. If he could get through this last ordeal, and then events proceeded as Jim predicted, he could get back to his normal life. Although he had an idea that normal might have a different meaning for him soon!

The meeting at the airport was much simpler than Todd had imagined. Tomas met his folks at the gate, and, once they got over their disbelief, their joy at seeing him was almost beyond description. (Well, we aren’t going to describe it here…). After that, things went pretty much as predicted by Jim. The biggest change for Tomas was that he felt he had to quit the boxing team. With his new powers, it wasn’t really fair. He told everyone that his health was still fragile. This made him unpopular for awhile, but eventually people got over it.

And life went on, pretty much as before… until the Suspendium event…

The End