Red Rocket

Times Past, 1970

Disaster in the Meadowlands

by Dan Swanson

Prologue

January 1970
New York City, Earth-S
Madison Square Garden
The 10th Annual Convention of The National Association of Licensed Private Investigators

Todd and Bonnie Drake were returning to their hotel room after a morning awards ceremony. Along with Tomas Thomas, they had received awards for their special contributions to NALPI as charter members, with special recognition to Bonnie as the group’s first president back in 1960. Their 14 year old son Jack (15 next month!) and their partner Tomas had decided to go on one of the group excursions that were part of the NALPI Convention package, a Circle Line boat tour around Manhattan. Todd and Bonnie were looking forward to some quality time alone together.

Jack hadn’t been interested in going on the tour until he saw who Tomas was escorting. Delia Lynn was a trim attractive brunette from St. Louis, whose PI husband had been killed by gangsters 10 years earlier. When the police weren’t able to track down his killers, she got into the PI biz herself and brought them to justice. Her 15 year old daughter Janet, also a trim attractive brunette from St. Louis, was going to accompany them. Jack seemed to be sweet on Lynn, and all week long, in that shy, almost furtive way of most 14 year old boys who are starting to become interested in girls but are still embarrassed to admit it, he had continually found reasons to be in the same places as she.

In their hotel room, Todd noticed that the message light was flashing. He called the front desk, and found out that the call was from Martin Martine, who had left an urgent message for Todd or Bonnie. “Please check out the TV news ASAP!” was the message.

“Well, spit! There goes our quiet afternoon!” Todd complained. Bonnie smirked at him; she knew very well just how un-quiet that afternoon would have been! Martin Martine was the secret identity of the super-hero Shiva, and if he was calling them, it must be something that required the attention of their other identities.

Todd switched on the TV. Didn’t matter what channel he selected; they were all covering the same story. Some madman had crashed the kickoff ceremonies for the New Jersey Meadowlands Sports Complex construction project, and using some kind of ray gun, had disintegrated all the of construction equipment and slaughtered all the workmen who had been poised to begin the massive project.

He was currently holding several dignitaries hostage, including the Vice President of the US, Spirit O. Badnews, the Governor of New Jersey, Richard Huge, and Pendleton Maru, the owner of the New York Goliaths football team. He was threatening to kill his hostages and then explode a super-powerful nuclear device which would turn the Tri-State area, including New York City, into a flat sheet of shiny glass unless he received guaranteed assurances, signed by President Trixem himself, that this pristine swampland would never be despoiled by construction.

“Marty must be busy with some other crisis. Guess I had better go bail him out!” Todd said, as he started putting on his Red Rocket uniform.

“Hold on there, buster! You’ve got me ready for some action this afternoon, lover boy, and I’m gonna get it one way or the other! You go without me, and you might be very unhappy at what you find when you get back!!”

Todd sometimes won arguments with Bonnie, but he knew this wasn’t going to be one of those times. “Oops! Did I say ‘I’? I meant ‘we’, of course! Guess we better let Tomas know, too… You ready? Let’s go!”

Lady Victory’s costume didn’t provide her with the power of flight; she didn’t want it and almost never needed it. Red Rocket adjusted his gravity regulator to lift her as well as himself. He floated out the window and Lady V came behind. He took her right hand in his left, pointed ahead, and off they zoomed!

Lady Victory did have a helmet radio in her costume, and she immediately began trying to reach Tom Atomic. But there was no reason why he would have his helmet radio with him on the cruise. So Red Rocket made a quick sweep up the Hudson, then back down the Harlem and East Rivers, making sure to pass low over each Circle Line boat they spotted. With his telescopic vision he was able to make out Tomas and Jack on the third boat they overflew, and he made sure that everyone on that boat got a look at the two flying heroes. Then the two headed west at top speed. They had a madman to catch!

Disaster at the Meadowlands Chapter 1

Tomas saw the flying heroes but there was little he could do right away. There was no easy way for him to sneak off the boat in the middle of the river, get to shore, then get back to the hotel and make a quick change to Tom Atomic. If they had needed him right away, they would have found some way to get his costume to him. So he would join them when he could. Still, he was going to be awfully antsy by the time he got back to the hotel!

The Meadowlands was only a short hop away, and Red Rocket and Lady Victory were there in almost no time. State Police had surrounded the construction site and were starting to evacuate everyone nearby, although it wouldn’t be much use if the villain really had a nuke. Observing the twisted melted wreckage of millions of dollars worth of heavy construction machinery, Rocket was sure he wasn’t bluffing!

The two landed about a mile from the temporary construction building that was now being used to hold the hostages. Rocket leapt back into the air, and both he and Lady V activated their battle-suits’ stealth mode. The red, white and blue of Lady V’s costume quickly changed colors to match the swampy landscape around her, while Rocket’s red and yellow changed to match the sky behind him.

As they had gotten older, Rocket and Tom Atomic had added more weapons and gadgets to Red Rocket’s costume. It was ironic, Rocket thought, that when they had met, Todd (Rocket) had been the hand-to-hand guy and Tomas (Tom Atomic) had been the one who usually carried a weapon; now those roles were virtually reversed… He launched a small, remote controlled self-propelled recon drone which carried a low resolution TV camera. He cut Lady V in on the drone’s transmission, and they both watched a small TV window on their helmet heads-up displays as the drone approached the target building.

That small a camera didn’t produce a great picture, but they could see conventionally-armed guards patrolling the outside of the building. Suddenly the drone stopped transmitting. Lady V asked through their private radio link “Could it be equipment failure?”

“I doubt it, there wasn’t anything wrong with the telemetry. I’m going to try again.”

“OK. I’m getting closer, haven’t spotted any lookouts or scout patrols yet. I should have visual on the building in another 10 minutes”. Lady V had been moving the whole time! When she reached visual range of the target, Rocket would begin his attack.

Meanwhile, he launched his last 2 recon drones, the second one following several feet behind the first one so he could see if anything happened to it. However, he was still unable to determine why the lead drone failed at just the same spot where the original drone had been lost. All he could see from the trailing drone was the lead drone suddenly fall from the air.

“Careful, Lady V. There is some kind of defensive barrier about a hundred yards out that caused my drones to fail. I’m not sure what it is, but maybe we shouldn’t get closer until we know more.”

“Roger. I’ll let you know when I reach my position. Keep me updated on what you find out…”

Rocket drove the remaining drone towards the target building at top speed. An instant before it reached the danger point, he shut down its systems. A second later, well past the danger point, he sent it another signal and was pleased when it came back on line. He updated his partner:

“My best guess is that there is some kind of electromagnetic field around that building that works like my EM scrambler, and bollixes any electronic equipment that passes through. We can probably operate on the inside ok as long as we shut down everything just before we pass through the field.”

“Roger” was all she said in reply. He moved in slowly, using his telescopic vision to examine the scene. Suddenly his vision was blacked out and an alarm blared – he had just been touched by a laser beam, and his visor had automatically cut out to avoid damage to his eyes. He flipped his goggles back so he could see, and began moving very fast – this laser was clearly a target locator and was locked on to him!

A rapid repeat fire anti-aircraft gun began shooting at him – he had expected guided missiles, but realized quickly that they would probably have the same problem with the anti-electronics field that his drones had experienced. His automated defenses snapped on and a gout of plasma flamed flared from the back of his wrist, vaporizing the incoming shells.

They exploded with a blast that was strong enough to send him tumbling backwards through the sky – and his erratic motion carried him out of the targeting beam. The firing stopped. He began high speed evasive maneuvers, and though the laser swept across him several more times, he seemed to be moving too fast for it to lock onto him again.

Unfortunately, even though he was still in stealth mode, whoever was in the building now knew somebody was in the air nearby. Rocket had better get moving – he didn’t want to give the bad guys time to execute the hostages.

Still flying evasive maneuvers, he used his remaining drone to do some scouting. There were probably 20 guards outside the building, all armed with conventional rifles. As the drone circled the building, he was astonished at what he saw.

Someone had backed a tractor-trailer truck to the entrance of the building and then just kept on backing up, smashing through the flimsy temporary walls until about a third of the trailer was inside. The top and wall panels of the trailer had been removed, revealing a weapons turret on a hydraulic lift. On the turret, now raised above the level of the building roof, Rocket was able to identify the laser tracking system and the ack-ack cannon that had been firing at him. There was also a swivel-mounted beam weapon which must have been used to disintegrate the heavy construction equipment. A 100 foot ‘antenna’ was topped with transparent sphere which was packed full of circuitry – probably the projector for the electronic disabling shield, Rocket guessed. The turret immediately became his primary target. He needed to move fast!

Because the guards below were now firing into the sky each time the scanning laser happened to randomly touch him, and now the ‘disintegrator’ ray was being aimed towards the sky as well. If it could be integrated with the scanning laser beam, sooner or later it would score a hit, and he didn’t want to find out just what that weapon would do to him!

The intermittent shooting kept him out of range for his plasma torch. He considered his other options. He had two small guided missiles, which would probably go out of control when they passed through the shield. So he would save those. He was sure his EM scrambler beam would probably disable the barrier, but it was a short-range weapon. The focused ultrasonic projector seemed to be his best bet. Still moving quickly to dodge the laser and the bullets of the enemy gunmen, he aimed it at the moving devices in the turret.

The ultrasound beam had a disruptive effect on anything organic. Within a few seconds, the lubricants on the moving parts in the platform stopped lubricating, and within about a half a minute, the laser motion had become erratic as the metal bearings heated and expanded. Finally the whole thing just screeched to a halt, and smoke started rising as the hard-driven electric motors began to overheat. Now that the scanning laser could no longer target him, Red Rocket could move within range and use his plasma torch.

Red Rocket’s distraction was working perfectly. Lady Victory advanced unnoticed until she saw the 2 disabled drones. Now she would have to take a chance. She was going to have to shut down the electronics in her suit, dash forward until she was sure she was inside the barrier, and turn everything back on. Sometimes she regretted the bright patriotic colors of her costume, and this was one of those times. Red, white and blue didn’t blend well into a green and brown background!

She circled the building, never getting any closer, looking for the best cover she could find. Suddenly she heard artillery going off and she saw Rocket’s plasma torch explode the shells. She was relieved that Rocket’s body did not suddenly became visible and fall from the sky. When the guards rushed to the opposite side of the building, it gave her the opportunity she was waiting for.

She flipped the emergency power disconnect and ran as fast as she could towards the building, until she was sure she must be inside the barrier, and dove headlong behind some bushes, raising her shield between herself and the building. But it seemed that no one had noticed her. She powered up all her electronics, which seemed to work just fine, and continued her cautious advance. She could see the weapons turret, which looked like just the target for Red Rocket, so she focused on the building.

All the guards had rushed to the other side of the building, and were firing intermittently at the sky. She hoped nobody would get hurt by falling bullets. Whoever these guys were, they had impressive weapons technology, coupled with a very poor grasp of tactics or discipline.

When smoke started to rise from the turret, she knew her confidence in her husband had been justified. Seconds later, a massive stream of plasma, seemingly coming from nowhere, poured over the platform, and the ammunition for the cannon exploded! Lady Victory was through an (unlocked!) door at the rear of the building before the roar from the explosion had died down.

Red Rocket was shaken by the explosion. He hoped none of the bad guys had been killed by the shrapnel, but he couldn’t help but be pleased when some of the armed guards were hit, taking them out of the fight. These guys had participated in the slaughter of hundreds of construction workers, and he had little sympathy for them. He hoped the walls of the building would protect the hostages. Anyway, with the electronic barrier down (he hoped) now was the time for top speed!

Rocket took out the tractor cab with one of his guided missiles and then zoomed towards one of the front windows of the building. His costume would protect him from the broken glass and his smashing entrance ought to give him the advantage of surprise. Just before he reached the window, though, all his electronic systems shut down! Damn, they had a backup barrier!

His momentum carried him through the window, but without power, he couldn’t stay aloft or slow down. He crashed to the floor at high speed. The armor cloth of his costume cushioned the impact somewhat, and he lived, but by the time he smashed into the wall and finally stopped rolling and bouncing, he was barely unconscious. And visible! Half a dozen of the bad guys jumped on him, but he was in no condition to fight back!

Chapter 2

The threat of nuclear explosion had been broadcast over radio and TV, and the population of New York was in a panic! The Circle Line had ordered all its boats to dock at the nearest pier, but the Captain of the boat Tomas was on decided to head out towards Long Island Sound rather than dock. Just before they passed under the 59th Street Bridge headed north, he made an announcement over the boat’s PA.

“I won’t make your decisions for you, folks. It might be faster to go ashore and take your chances. Anyone who wants to go ashore report to the rear deck, and we will lower the lifeboats. The old Circle Queen” the boat they were on “…isn’t the fastest tub afloat, but I think the roads are gonna be jammed. I don’t know how long we’ve got, but if we get an hour, we’ll be more’n 20 miles away, and I’ll bet most of the cars on the road will still be in Queens.” Apparently, most of the passengers agreed with him because only a single boatload was filled.

Tomas convinced Jack to remain with Delia and Janet, and he went into the river, as the lifeboat was headed for Queens. His powerful strokes cut through the water quickly, and in minutes he was ashore in Manhattan. He raced back to his hotel at his top speed. Even though he often had to find ways around or through panicked crowds, with his enhanced stamina and speed, it was only a matter of a few minutes before he tore into the hotel. It took him almost as long to fight his way up the stairs to his room. But shortly afterwards, Tom Atomic burst through the hotel window and flashed through the sky towards the Meadowlands. “Hold on, guys! The cavalry is on the way!” he radioed ahead. When neither of his partners responded, Tomas did his best to go even faster!

Lady Victory found that most of this building was empty. As she crept slowly towards the front of the building, she heard one loud angry voice, alternating between screaming orders and screaming curses. She couldn’t quite make out what he was saying, but she guessed that the man yelling orders was the leader of the group, and that he was ANGRY!

She heard a crashing noise, with glass shattering, and she knew Red Rocket had made his entrance. She rushed forward, hoping to reach the confrontation in time to join the fun. She burst into the front room, and she had a quick glimpse of a small man sitting in front of a big control panel, and then she spotted Red Rocket lying on the ground with a half dozen bad guys pounding on him.

She screamed in rage and threw her shield at the group as hard as she could, and followed it up as fast as she could move. She didn’t have time for subtlety, and the shield hit one villain on the back of the head, spun off and hit a second in the face, spun past him and hit one more a glancing blow. The first two were down by the time she smashed into the rest like a bowling ball.

Unlike Red Rocket, who was a flying arsenal, and Tom Atomic, who was one of the three or four strongest men in the world, Lady Victory depended mostly on her unenhanced physical prowess and the extensive martial arts training she had received from her partners. As a result, she rarely got involved with threats to the world; she tended to focus on threats that affected normal folks – muggings, gang violence, domestic disputes, things like that. If the 6 men she was facing had been trained fighters, she might have had some problems with them, but they weren’t – they were just ‘normal’ men with guns. She scattered them on her first pass through them, and used the far wall to redirect her momentum, pushing off and coming to a landing right next to Red Rocket. He was moving, she saw, and then she was busy again. A spinning kick to the head put one out, she dropped flat on the floor and the two who were rushing her couldn’t stop and they collided, knocking each other down. Only one was left, and he was running. She turned to the man at the control panel and immediately stopped short!

He had moved and was now kneeling next to Red Rocket, holding an unfamiliar device with a pistol grip against the side of Rocket’s head.

The man smiled. “Ah, I see I guessed correctly. Very well, my dear, you will allow my man to bind you or I will disintegrate Red Rocket’s head.” The man who had been running returned, carrying some rope. He bound Lady V’s hands behind her, not all that well, she realized, and then bound her feet and forced her backwards into a chair. The position was very uncomfortable but she didn’t complain, as it left her hands behind her, out of sight and hidden by her body. She had used a trick Todd had taught her, flexing her muscles as he tied his knots, hoping that when she relaxed it gave her some slack to play with. She was not surprised when it worked – she had been in similar (though somewhat less desperate) situations before.

She examined the leader and his follower closely. He was only about 5’2″ tall, wearing a military surplus camouflage outfit, which had a patch sewed to his shirt pocket – a Mercator projection of the Earth and the initials GGG. He had long red hair and a long red beard, and she was stunned by the fanatical gleam in his eyes. This was an incredibly dangerous man… The control panel at which he had been seated was built into the back of the trailer that had been crashed into the room, and she could see that it was mostly covered with red flashing lights.

The follower was a big surprise to her. He looked like a hippie! Long hair, a beard, tie-died bell bottoms, a paisley-print shirt, platform sandals, no socks – and older than she would have expected from his dress – right around 30, she thought. Certainly not the kind of man she would have expected to find involved in an operation that had ruthlessly killed so many people.

She checked out the rest of the unconscious bodies on the floor and they were dressed the same. She noticed that each of them had the same patch sewed somewhere on their shirts. It looked as if the entire male population of a commune had turned out to protect the Meadowlands from the evil capitalist despoilers! No wonder they had no concept of tactics – or discipline! But who could have convinced a group of aging hippies to carry guns and kill people?

“Hold on, guys! The cavalry is on the way!” she heard Tom Atomic’s voice over the radio. She was surprised that with the technology at their disposal, this group didn’t seem to be monitoring their radio conversations. She switched her transmitter on, and then started talking to her captor.

“You probably know who I am – Lady Victory. And the unconscious man you were so bravely threatening is Red Rocket. But who are you?”

“Ah, my dear – I am Gaia Prime, First Minister of Gaia, the living embodiment of the planet we live on, Terra. Yet my name doesn’t matter; what is important is my cause! Protecting the environment; keeping the unspoiled places as they ought to be, and in the long run, forcing mankind to treat the planet with respect.”

“Holy Ambitious Programs!” she exclaimed. “So you’re an idealist, are you? Protect the planet from mankind? I’m not sure killing people to make your point is going to win you any friends.”

He drew himself to attention and suddenly, he didn’t seem short any longer. He spoke with passion and absolute conviction, and Bonnie was shaken by his charisma. She found herself wishing that he had a plan she could believe in, just so she could follow him. There was no doubt that this man could have been a great power in the world – and might still become that great power if his current plan succeeded. With each completed task, his legend would grow, and those who fell under the power of his will would recruit others, and she could help him change the world! Why, they ought to get started right away! Lady V hadn’t even noticed the moment when she had gone from being his enemy to being an apostle!

“Lady Victory, my brothers and sisters around us, with my help, have created an organization called the Guardians of Glorious Gaia!. It is our mission to rescue Great Gaia’s environment from the depredations of mankind.”

“Gaia is our home, the only home of all mankind! Do you destroy your house and expect it to continue to protect you? Do you drop trash in own your living room, poison the waters in your own kitchen, burn down your own bedroom, dig up your own property and turn it into nothing more than an ugly muddy gash in the ground?”

“You say NO? And yet, isn’t this what we do to our beautiful Gaia every day? To oppose this is why I have been joined by my brothers and sisters! Our cause is right, and our righteousness will make us mighty. In the making of an omelet, eggs must be broken; in saving Gaia from humanity, many human lives will be touched, some more violently than others – yet none who are innocent will be harmed and all will rejoice when we reach our goal!”

Fortunately for Lady Victory, his mesmerizing speech was interrupted as yet another aging hippie, this one a woman, ran into the room.

“Prime, a flying man approaches us from Manhattan at great speed! He will be here in seconds!”

Gaia Prime whirled in that direction and fired his hand weapon. Instead of disintegrating the building, its only effect seemed to be that Lady Victory’s electronics were disabled.

Her head was clear, and she was filled with anger. She let it grow, adding in everything around her – the innocent workers slaughtered without remorse, the casual threat to kill 8 million people over some swampland, including her husband, son, and best friend, the sight of 6 men standing over the helpless form of Red Rocket, hitting and kicking him – she let this build and build.

Out-of-control anger can be your worst enemy in a fight. Strategy, tactics and training desert you, and a dispassionate enemy can easily manipulate your actions. But anger can be harnessed; it can get your adrenaline flowing, increasing your strength and speed; it can help you ignore pain and injury, and it can help you focus to an incredible degree. Lady Victory, Bonnie Marlowe, wife, mother, super heroine, was so angry it scared her. She was going to attack soon, regardless of the consequences,. All she needed was the tiniest distraction – an instant of inattention on Gaia Prime’s part..

Then without warning a red and blue cannonball smashed through the roof, a couple walls, and then through the floor of the temporary building. “OH MY GOD! That had to have been Tomas!” Her anger peaked, and Lady Victory uncoiled as if she had been launched from a rail gun!

She had worked the ropes loose from her arms. From her sitting position she lunged forward and pushed off with her still bound legs. She grasped one hand in the other and extended both arms in front of her, moving fast, and crashed into Gaia Prime like a missile – a foul blow, one that would have disqualified her for life if she had been fighting under any rules at all. Prime was driven backwards and landed on the floor retching. Lady Victory landed on top of him and slammed several deadly punches into his head and chest. She was still in the depths of her fury, and even when he stopped moving, she kept punching.

“Bonnie…gahgh urk” she heard a very faint voice. Yet it penetrated her fury like a bullet through tissue, puncturing her anger, which deflated like a balloon. Leaving her as limp and weak as wet tissue. “Don’t kill him…” Red Rocket’s voice trailed off; he had just used the last of his energy and made an heroic effort to save his wife. He lost his grip on consciousness and slipped back into darkness.

With an ultimate effort, Bonnie crawled to Rocket and checked his pulse. It was strong and he seemed to be breathing without major problems. She reached into her boot and pulled out her survival knife and cut the ropes on her legs… She then picked up her shield and moved to the hole in the floor. She made a wide circle around the wrecked man on the floor, the once-proud Gaia Prime, and she forced herself not to think about what she had just done – or what she would have done next if Rocket hadn’t stopped her…

She was getting a little energy back as she moved, so she carefully dropped through the hole in the floor. She had to find Tomas! He must have been stooping on the building when his systems went out. No normal human could have survived smashing through a building at that speed, but Tomas was far from normal! He had managed to roll himself into a ball before impact, and with the protection offered by his armor-cloth costume, and his super-human strength and durability, maybe there was a chance.

She found an incredibly scary scene. By the huge dent in the side of a giant natural gas tank in the basement, Tom Atomic must have smashed into it to end his out-of-control plunge. From Tom’s position and the dent in the tank, she assumed his back had smashed into it and then he had slid to the floor. She didn’t like the angle that his legs made with his body! Without at doubt, at the very least he had multiple broken bones!

He was lying next to what had to be the nuke! A massive device with a control panel covered with lights and a digital display (nixie tubes, for you techies!) – and she breathed a sign of relief – none of the lights was on and the display was dark. The EM pulse fired by Gaia Prime must have disabled the bomb as well as everything else nearby that was electronic.

She bent over Tom Atomic and gently touched his face. He was breathing! She wasn’t sure what to do – she didn’t dare move him. “Tomas! Tomas, it’s Bonnie. Oh, Tomas, please open your eyes?” Tom Atomic groaned, but didn’t open his eyes.

He tried to talk but could only croak. He tried to move and Bonnie almost screamed! “Tomas I think your back is broken! Please don’t try to move!”

He worked his mouth for a few seconds, and finally tried to speak again. He could barely whisper. “Hi, Bonnie. Fancy meeting you…here…” He stopped talking and lay there for so long she was starting to think he had passed out when he continued… “I guess… I guess I’m alive, huh? I have to be alive…” He paused again.

Bonnie thought that was a strange thing to say. Reflexively she responded “Why do you say that?” Tomas tried to smile – he’d set her up and as usual, she’d fallen for it.

“Because in heaven… you’d be an angel” he stopped and took some deep breaths “and in hell, they couldn’t possibly… make me hurt this much!”

Bonnie took this as a good sign. “Are you saying I’m not an angel!?” she said with mock severity. “That’s worse than your usual bad jokes, but considering the conditions, not bad.” Her voice changed again; Tomas thought it sounded as if she needed to cry but wouldn’t allow herself to. “Oh, Tomas! This has been so horrible. First I though Todd was dead and then I thought you were dead. And that hideous man was going to blow up New York!” She put her head down and sobbed. Tomas tried to raise his arm to comfort her, but quickly thought better of it.

“What about Todd!?” Tomas managed to gasp out.

“He’s alive. Probably in better shape than you are right now. But not much better.” She sobbed again.

“So” he said in a much stronger voice “what happened after that em pulse?”

She didn’t waste time asking him how he’d figured that out. “Well, you crashed through the building which distracted the villain long enough for me to knock him out. You ended up smashing through the roof, a couple of walls and floors and finally bouncing off that gas tank behind you.” She was slowly recovering a little bit. There were people around her who needed her help, and help she would!

Atomic smiled wanly. “Well, if you got him, I guess it was worth it then. What about the bomb?”

Lady V pointed to it. “I think the EM Pulse got it, too, it looks dead to me.”

Atomic coughed, and coughed up blood, and Lady V could hear how much pain it caused him. “Don’t move, Tomas! I’ll be back with an ambulance crew in a few minutes!” There had been several ambulances in the ring of emergency vehicles blockading the Meadowlands. She wished her helmet radio was still working, but she realized that the emergency teams’ radios were probably out too. “Wonder if their cars will work?”

She was just turning to go find an emergency team when all the lights on the bomb control panel flickered and then flashed green. The nixie tubes in the display panel lit up and started changing! They showed what was clearly a countdown in minutes and seconds! It had started at 20 minutes and was already down to 19:55 when she looked at Tom Atomic and he said ‘Uh oh! Remote control arming circuit! Must have been shielded against the EMP.”

The two heard a motor starting and a few seconds later, what sounded like a small helicopter taking off. A very small helicopter. Gaia Prime must have had an escape planned in case of failure. Tom Atomic was quick to realize… “Hey, if he thinks he can fly away in 20 minutes, this can’t be the super nuke he said it was!”

“Even if it’s only a small nuke, Tomas, it’s going to kill a lot of people, including you and me, unless we can deactivate it!” She looked at the control panel and hollered in frustration! “DAMN! There’s nothing here but the countdown display. No switches, no buttons, nothing but these damn lights.”

Tom tried to lever himself into a sitting position, and screamed in agony, then fell back to the ground. His face was ash white, almost totally drained of blood, and he was sweating; the pain in his back and legs was so intense he was about to flash, but he knew he didn’t have the time

And then suddenly, the pain stopped! “Uh, Bonnie – I can’t feel my legs!” He thought about that for just a second, and once again, knew he didn’t have time. “Pull that chair over in front of the bomb and help me up, will you? I can worry about my legs later!” Bonnie was about to argue that he might do permanent damage to his spinal cord, when she realized it wouldn’t matter if they couldn’t deactivate the bomb.

Once again he levered himself to a sitting position, and then assisted by Lady Victory, he pulled himself to the chair dragging his useless legs behind him. To Lady Victory, it looked only the costume was keeping him from leaving his legs behind. She felt the urge to be sick as well. But she resisted, more for his sake than for hers. Between the two of them, they got him onto the chair with more than 14 minutes left.

“Uh, Tomas? I don’t want to add any pressure but do you smell gas? I think the propane tank is leaking…”

Gaia Prime was in bad shape! He figured he must either have a concussion or be in shock, because he couldn’t feel much pain – but he could sure see places where he ought to be hurting! His face was bleeding, there was a piece of his ear on the floor, he had several broken fingers, and his face was so swollen he could barely see. And all that was without turning his head – which he couldn’t! For the moment he was glad he couldn’t feel any pain, although somewhere in the back of his mind, a part of him was gibbering, terrified that he would forever be denied physical sensations again. What he knew for sure right now, though, was that he had to get away!

Although he had never expected such a disastrous and humiliating retreat, he had prepared several different escape methods. He started dragging himself towards the rear of the truck once again. It seemed to be a thousand miles away, and he had to fight to impose his will on his broken body, fight every inch of that thousand miles. Finally, he reached his goal. On the underside of the truck was a ‘control panel’ which contained a single button. He desperately needed to press that button! But he couldn’t lift his arms that high.

He could reach an axle, however, so he used the axle to try to lever himself into a sitting position. He refused to look at the trail of slime that he had left, or think of anything but sitting upright. Next to crawling over a thousand miles just to reach this spot, it was the single most difficult feat of his life. And yet, when he finished, he faced an even harder task – raising his arm to reach the button, now only inches away from his head.

He couldn’t fail now! He was Gaia Prime, First Minister of the Sentient Planet Terra! (‘Maybe’ came a stray thought ‘maybe I’m just crazy…’) He ignored it; if he wanted to live, he had to believe in himself and his cause whether he was crazy or not.

He found that it was easier to lift his arm now, and he touched the button. For a second, nothing happened, and he was afraid that his own em pulse must have fried the electronics he was depending on, that the shielding he had counted on had been inadequate. Then a section of the track bed detached itself and was hydraulically lowered to the ground. In the middle of the lowered section was a seat – a pilot’s seat – and if he could climb into that seat, it would be raised back into the cockpit of a small helicopter… But he had never expected that he would have trouble wriggling into this seat, even in the confined area under the truck.

It actually turned out to be easier than he had expected, and he pressed the ‘panic button’ on the arm of the chair. His work was done, for now, either he’d planned his escape well enough, or he hadn’t – there was nothing he could do now to affect the outcome. His iron will had pushed him well beyond any normal human limits, and he finally submitted to the darkness that was trying to envelop him.

His mechanisms did their work well. The platform was lifted into the hull of the chopper, and massive bolts slid home to lock it in place. Small shaped explosive charges broke the thick electromagnetic shielding along prescribed, inscribed planes, and it fell away. The folded arms of the main rotor unfolded and locked into place. The clamps holding the skids to the trailer bed were released and the motor coughed to life.

After a short warm up, the programmed process paused and waited for human intervention. When it didn’t happen, the program continued. The chopper rose slowly, hesitated at about 500 feet as the radio direction finder located a specific beacon, then swung around to the west and started moving forward, accelerating as it flew away. This part of the program was designed to get the bird and its occupant as far away from ground zero as possible before the bomb went off.

The down blast of air from the rotor blasted Red Rocket’s face, and irritated him towards consciousness. He opened his eyes in time to see a small helicopter taking off. He thought he must be seeing things – it looked almost exactly like a one-man chopper one of his friends had built with plans from the back of Popular Mechanics! Well, he couldn’t do anything about the chopper – but just before he’d passed out, he’d seen his wife, and he was now determined to find her.

He rolled over and decided then and there that if he lived through this, he was going to retire immediately. He didn’t seem to have any broken bones, but he had pains in places that when he was younger, he hadn’t even had places! His attention returned to finding Bonnie. He tried to listen but now that the chopper was out of range, all he could hear was his own breathing…. well, gasping, moaning and coughing, really. He took a deep breath and held it as long as he could and listened carefully. He heard Bonnie’s voice – but when he tried to call out to her, he made almost no noise. He started crawling in that direction.

Someone had bled heavily here… oh, yeah, this was where Bonnie had beat the crap out of the bad guy. He smiled at the memory – how many bad guys had Bonnie trashed over the years? He noticed some kind of device with a pistol grip. It was highly advanced technology, so he picked it up and kept crawling. He came to the hole in the floor and through it, he could see Bonnie and Tomas. Tomas was slumped in a chair and Bonnie was standing behind him, looking over his shoulder. She looked very… concerned, in fact, almost frantic.

He pushed his head down through the hole and surprised the hell out of them. “Guys! The bad guy just ran away… looks like we win again!”

It was lucky for Red Rocket that neither of his partners was in any shape to attack! Lady Victory jumped a few feet, but Tom Atomic barely turned his head. “Todd – this bomb is armed and counting down. We’ve got 12 minutes left. Are your goggles working?”

“Nope… and not much else is, either. What’s wrong with your own?”

“EMP just about 10 minutes ago. Fried all our systems. This bomb must have been shielded because it started counting down just when that chopper motor started.”

Red Rocket slid his arm forward until it dropped through the hole, still holding the pistol grip. “Maybe this weird ray gun can help?”

Lady V’s voice perked up and she yelled “That’s the EMP gun! I saw Gaia aim it at you, Tomas!” She was suddenly filled with new energy. She moved quickly to her husband, took the gun from his hands, aimed it at the bomb and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened; the nixie tubes kept counting down the seconds until their deaths. “Damn, I should have realized that it was shielded!”

Now it was Tomas’ turn to be excited. “Bonnie, did you see any tools up above? Suppose I could get the gun inside the shielding?”

Lady Victory didn’t waste time talking! She leapt for the ceiling, and even though it was 10′ up, she got both hands onto the floor above, and pulled herself up through the floor. She ran to a workshop she had passed through on her way in, and grabbed a tool roll. In a flash, she was back down the hole and unrolling it. He grunted his thanks and pulled out a plus and a minus screwdriver and some vice-grips.

“Don’t go ‘way with the rest of the tools – I might need something else!” he said ironically as he turned back to the panel.

“And just” Bonnie said with all the dignity she could muster – which wasn’t much, but given the circumstances, she did pretty well “…just where do you think I would go?”

But Tomas didn’t hear her; he was already working on the screws that held the control panel together. Tom Atomic rarely did anything that pushed the envelope of his enhanced speed, but he had never worked faster in his life! Within seconds, he had removed a half dozen screws and was pulling the side panel away from the bomb mechanism. The countdown stood at 8 minutes. He grabbed the em gun, stuck it inside the control mechanism, and pulled the trigger.

The countdown stopped! All the lights and the nixie tubes went dark. Lady Victory started to cheer exultantly. But then she remembered the propane leak.

“Tomas, can a regular explosion make that bomb go off?”

“Can’t see how, darlin’! Why?

“Gas leak – we gotta go!”

Red Rocket had recovered sufficiently to help her raise Tom Atomic through the hole in the floor. They didn’t have time to be gentle, and Atomic couldn’t always bite back his screams. As soon as they were both out of the basement, Red and Lady V were putting together a travois. They manhandled Atomic onto the makeshift travois, and started towards the outside door, moving as quickly as possible. In the wreckage in front of the building, Bonnie found a two-wheeled hand-cart. They wedged Tomas in the cart, and took turns pulling it.

They had gone about 100 years when something (a random spark?) in the now-trashed building ignited the air-natural gas mixture and the entire building collapsed like a deck of cards. They hardly even felt the shock wave.

Epilogue 1

The Nuclear Crisis turned out to be more important that whatever it was that had kept Shiva from investigating this issue by himself, and he reached the Meadowlands shortly after the construction shack exploded. Lady Victory managed to get his attention, and he was able to carry the three heroes back to New York City, where Todd Drake and Tomas Thomas were checked into a hospital after a fall down the stairs at Madison Square Garden during the chaos following the evacuation notice.

Several followers of Gaia Prime were still alive, and after questioning, the outlines of Prime’s story were revealed….

in 1958, a strange family had joined a commune, situated in the Adirondack Mountains near Oil City, Pa. The commune was only a couple of years old at the time. The married couple told a story about how their 13 year old son had used an experimental psycho-active drug which had totally erased his memory. He didn’t know how to walk or talk or even eat. Over the next few months, much of his memory seemed to return to him, and by 1959 he was pretty indistinguishable from the other kids in the commune.

The commune members, being pioneers in their own ways, were very serious about their philosophy, one tenant of which was to protect the environment. This kid, who became known as ‘Tad’, adopted the environmentalist philosophy for his own, and by the time he reached 18 he was one of the accepted leaders of the commune. His influence over his comrades grew, and in the mid-60s they began organizing protests and sponsoring rallies, civil disobedience and even some well-hidden violence in support of their leader’s adopted cause.

Until he pushed some of them too far. A refinery in Oil City, PA. decided to expand, and Tad encouraged his followers to protest. Some of them sat in front of the earth-breaking machines and refused to move, which lead to a standoff – until police forcibly removed some comrades in cuffs. The construction crews got moving, but Tad convinced several more of his followers to once again, attempt to interfere. This time, they threw their bodies in the way of construction machinery that was already in motion, and half a dozen of them died horribly – but the construction was halted.

This ‘victory’ brought Tad more followers and more confidence, and he decided to make a grandiose entrance to the international arena by stopping the construction of Giants’ Stadium and the Meadowland Sports Complex – with the results we have already seen!

Epilogue 2

Tomas Thomas had indeed suffered a severed spinal column, and the medical opinion was that he would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. He didn’t agree; he was sure that the anti-crime drug would soon allow his body to heal itself. Only time would tell.

Shortly after Todd and Tomas were released from the hospital, with Tomas still in a wheel chair and the three had returned to Chicago, Police Commissioner Spinelli called a press conference, suggesting that it concerned a matter of highest public interest. Reporters arrived, Spinelli greeted them, and a few minutes later, Red Rocket flew through the window carrying Lady Victory, followed immediately by Tom Atomic. Spinelli introduced them, and Rocket took the microphone.

“Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press, we have asked you here today because Lady Victory and I are announcing our retirement as super-heroes.” There was a lot of chaos then, and everyone tried to ask questions. Rocket held up his hand…

“Please hold your questions; I believe our statements will cover everything.” He paused to shake his head and clear his throat – it was clear that this was a very difficult thing for him to do. Tears rolled down Lady Victory’s mask.

“During several recent situations, I have made some very serious errors in judgment, and we have all been fortunate that no innocents have been injured. In addition, I’ve survived several serious injuries recently and I no longer heal as quickly as I did when I got into the business! And I find it harder to just ignore the aches and pains the way youngsters seem to do – the way I used to be able to do!” He chuckled ruefully, and several of the older reporters nodded their heads. Some of the younger ones looked smug.

“I feel strongly that a super-hero should not be a danger to the people he is trying to protect. And so I’m getting out of the business while you are all safe and I’m still relatively healthy.”

“The Super Squad and Commissioner Spinelli can reach me in emergencies.”

“In addition, my partner Tom Atomic will continue to respond in those situations where a super hero is required.”

“As you are aware, I have shared many of my super heroic adventures with the beautiful Lady Victory, who has her own announcement to make. Lady Victory?”

He handed her the microphone. Several of the reporters tried to ask questions, but Rocket had the same answer. “Please let her make her announcement, then we will answer your questions…”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for being here today for our announcements. Red Rocket flatters me – during my career I have worked with him often, but more often he dealt with national and global threats while I concentrated more on the neighborhoods.”

“I also am announcing my retirement today. I’ve been finding it harder and harder to stay in shape so I could wear this costume” and she twirled, leaving all of the men and many of the women in the room breathless “without being embarrassed. You ladies can probably guess at the enhancements I’ve had to make to this costume in the past few years to keep things” and she winked “…from sagging.” Indeed, most of the women in the room chuckled at this. “And, as Rocket says, the bruises and injuries are harder to overcome these days.”

“I have also made arrangements with Commissioner Spinelli and the Super Squad, but I’m confident I won’t be needed. Ever since he came into office, the Commissioner has been improving the Police Force – providing them with better training, better equipment, and better pay than ever before, and the number of cops on the street has gone up significantly. And equally important, so has their morale! Over the past few months, there have been very few situations where my help was really required – in fact, I almost felt that I was already retired! So neither you nor I will notice a big change.”

Tom Atomic stepped forward and took the microphone, before anyone else could speak. “While I am deeply saddened by the retirement of my long-time partner Red Rocket and my long-time associate Lady Victory, I don’t plan to retire myself! When Tom Atomic is needed, there he will be!”

He gave the microphone back to Red Rocket, who finished “OK, now we’ll take questions.”

The first question came from the noted gossip columnist, Liz Jones. “Lady Victory, you’ve told us for years that you aren’t romantically involved with anyone, because it wouldn’t be fair to your spouse for you to be in danger all the time. Now that you are retired, you would immediately become the Most Eligible Woman in Chicago. Do you have any plans for romance?”

Lady V struck a pose – one hand behind the head, the other on her hip, hip thrust slightly forward, one leg in front of the other – and the younger men in the room gasped! “Why, thank you, Liz! I’m not planning to go looking just yet – I’m sort of hoping Red Rocket will be able to find the time to make me an honest woman! What do you say, Red?” She crooked her finger at him and everyone in the room could see that he was sweating! He took back the microphone.

“Next question, please!”

The questions came thick and fast for about half an hour, and finally Commissioner Spinelli called a halt to things. “C’mon, you guys, you’ve got more than enough for your stories! Time to get back to the offices and start writing.” The heroes took their leave, and Spinelli shook off the few reporters that remained. “Sorry, boys, even if you don’t have work to do, I do!”

Epilogue 3: Three visitors dropped in on Tomas Thomas’s hotel room. Todd Drake and Bonnie Marlowe, and Ron Davis (Master Man).

As they shake hands and hug (you work out who does what to whom!) Tomas spoke to Master Man. “My thanks, MM! If Tom Atomic had retired at the same time that Tomas Thomas was confined to a wheelchair, I’m sure someone would have figured out my identity.”

“No problem, Tomas! I’m always happy to aid a fellow champion for the cause of Truth and Justice!”

Tomas looked worried, though. “Are you sure you’ll have time to appear as Tom Atomic for a while longer?”

Master Man smiled. “I never sleep, you know. Sometimes it gets pretty boring when there’s no ‘Master Man’ emergencies around. I’ll be you for 6 months or so, and nobody will ever know the difference – and I’ll still have plenty of time for my own career as well.”

The four talked for hours. Tom Atomic’s friends had been worried that he would be depressed by his injury, but he seemed to be OK with it. “It will give me time to catch up on my reading!” He subscribed to virtually every scientific journal available but most of them went unread. “And I have some ideas for turning our super being tables” such as a Type A, B or C sorcerer, etc, “into a new game. Even better than SuperYou! I’ll be ok.”

The End