Masks XXVII: Tales Old and New

by

Rodford Edmiston

Part One

The domestic bliss of the Peltior household was disturbed by a muffled exclamation from the kitchen.

"You all right in there?" asked Michelle, concerned, from their couch in the living room.

"I broke another garlic press," said Vic, sourly.

"It's all those fingertip pushups," said Michelle, laughing. "I've shown you how to smack the flat of a knife blade to crush garlic."

"Yeah, but the last time I tried that I... well, let's just say I used too much focus."

"I wondered what happened to my good chef's knife."

"I got you a replacement for your birthday!"

"It's not a gift if you're replacing something you broke."

"I got you a better knife!"

The banter continued between the occupants of the two rooms as Vic laboriously made their supper and Michelle tried to catch up on her professional hairstylist magazines.

Victoria Peltior was a young woman who appeared to be about sixteen, and a mix of Asian and Caucasian, though her eyes lacked epicanthic folds. She actually had French ancestry on both sides of her family. Her hair was dark brown, and rather short; though she often wore extensions, just now she was completely natural. Her skin was dark enough to further confuse people as to her ethnicity, though with her hair and eyes she was often thought to be of Mediterranean extraction. Perhaps even Egyptian. She had taut muscles and high, firm, small breasts. She also had broad, muscular shoulders tapering to a slightly narrowed waist, below which her body flared into very feminine hips, which were positioned on quite fit legs.

Michelle Peltior was much darker of skin, with full, curly hair, though with dark eyes similar to those of her wife. She was a bit taller and better endowed than Vic. She appeared to be a several years older than her spouse. In fact, they were very close in age.

Finally, Vic entered their apartment's small den to announce that the meal was ready. However, she did a double-take on seeing her wife, before she could say anything.

"Is something wrong?" asked Michelle, innocently.

"Sorry. Still getting used to the hairdo."

"I think my coworkers did a good job."

"Oh, it looks fine; I just forgot they had been practicing on you."

"Better each other than a customer."

"Or me," muttered Vic. "Anyway, supper is served."

* * *

Later that evening, workmen peered through the hole they had laboriously opened in a heavily steel-reinforced, poured concrete wall. They found themselves looking into a large, dark room which wasn't on their plans. Neither was this wall supposed to be so sturdy. Despite working on it for over an hour, they had barely made an opening large enough in the concrete and the thick steel rebar for someone to get a good look through. Which was only one reason they were working overtime.

Their assigned task was to take down the non-structural walls on this floor, which would open this upper level of the office tower for restoration. Instead, when they finally broke through...

"What's the holdup?" demanded their foreman, as he came hurrying to join them. He was understandably in patient, since this wall had already put them behind schedule.

Stale, stuffy air wafted gently from the hole.

"That's... not on the plans," said one of the workers.

"Get some of those light stands over here!" the foreman called out, making sweeping gestures with an arm.

More light gave them a better view of what lay beyond the hole, but did little to solve the mystery.

"Looks... like some sort of executive suite," said one of the workers. "Table, desks, chairs, bookcases... Only... it's completely inside. There's no carpet on the concrete; just a rug in the center. No windows. I don't think this is a load-bearing wall, either, despite being thick, reinforced concrete."

"It better not be," muttered another of the workers. "We just put a hole in it."

"This might explain the load-bearing walls in this area on the levels below this," said another workman. "They all looked like they'd been added later. Like this."

"A concealed, interior room, not on the plans," said the foreman, nodding. "Some executive's hideaway?"

It wouldn't be the first time the renovators had found something like that, and not just in this building. Also, even if this room had not been included in the original 1913 construction, there had been plenty of time for later improvisations before the old train station had closed in 1988. As well as some opportunities after that.

"I think I know what this is," said another one of the workers, in a hushed voice. An older man. "Heard about it from my Dad. The Operators were supposed to have their headquarters somewhere in this building. Or somewhere in the station. If this is that..."

"The Operators?" said the foreman, startled, obviously recognizing the name.

"Yeah," said the older worker, nodding slowly. "We've found a super hero team headquarters, probably left abandoned since the Fifties."

"Nobody in!" yelled the foreman, suddenly concerned. "We need to call the cops on this. No telling what's in there. Put up hazard tape!"

* * *

"The Operators?" said Michelle, on her cell phone, while at work the next day.

"They were one of the earliest super teams," said Vic, on her own phone, as she drove to the scene in her heavily modified - and repeatedly repaired - Corolla station wagon. "They formed only about a year after the Shepherds got together for their first case. The group was named after the guy who organized them, Operator 3. He supposed to be a communications expert. Among other things.

"They were the first super team in Detroit. One of the first known super teams, period! The other members were Voo Dude, Doctor Dire, Captain Sticky - the Mister of the Mastic Arts - and Miss Tress."

"The one with the prehensile hair?" said Michelle, as she nodded to her customer to reassure the woman.

"Yeah. Figured you'd know about her. Anyway, they were based out of a concealed section of the Michigan Central Station, something which wasn't really a secret but the actual location of their lair in that big building wasn't widely known. Their use of the facilities and the secrecy being thanks to one of the owners of the station being a supporter - a patron - of theirs. That place is so large and the team's headquarters so small and well hidden that supposedly no-one found the rooms without being shown the way, first. Until last night.

"J. Edgar Hoover tried to recruit the team for the FBI's short-lived Inhuman Assets Program during the Second World War, but didn't have any luck. Congress quickly shut that down, anyway, stating that only they had authority over supers. One of the few times they stood up to Hoover. Anyway, the team specialized in crimes the police had given up on. What today we call cold cases. One of those was the kidnapping of young Emil Colditz, which happened over fifteen years before they even formed their group."

"I've heard of most of those costumed supers," said Michelle, doubtfully, as she saw that her customer was a bit impatient but willing to wait for her to finish the call, "but not the group."

"They came back in the news a few years ago because of a tontine, which couldn't be fulfilled until the team's records were located," said Vic. "What few people knew before this - my boss had to explain all this to me; remember, he's from Detroit - was that they kept extensive case files, which were sealed until fifty years after the last team member died. Which death was surprisingly big news at the time. Workers who are currently renovating the old station think they found the lair, which hopefully contains all their records."

"So who died fifty years ago?"

"Voo Dude, who was the youngest member. Only, he actually died almost sixty years ago. While the publication of their casebooks was supposed to be done a half-century after he died, the instructions he left said the records were in their old headquarters. Except nobody still alive knew where that was! Until yesterday, when a hidden set of rooms was found during the renovation of the old train station's office section. The police were called in, and since masks who were probably all supers were involved the local cops called the Bureau. Approval came down first thing this morning for me to go over there and take a look.

"Anyway, besides their records and whatever else the team left in their lair, they put aside funds to have the files published. The half-century delay of the tontine was due to secret identities - of both team members and masks they worked with and against - being involved. Plus another eight and a bit years to locate the headquarters. Which should have the missing records."

"Okay, well, you better focus on your driving, and I need to get back to my customer."

"Just letting you know why I'll probably be late getting home tonight. Love you!"

"I love you, too," said Michelle.

* * *

"Wow..." said Vic, as she looked into the ragged hole. It had been substantially enlarged since the night before. She directed the beam from her borrowed flashlight around. She did not have her armor on; the situation did not seem to require it. However, she had the case containing it nearby. "There's no sign of water damage, either, even though the roof leaked through into other parts of this floor. They must have sealed this place well."

Standing with her were the foreman and a local detective, plus a couple of the workers who had been designated to help.

"We think they had an internal gabled roof of concrete," said the project foreman. "See how the ceiling in there is made of two slabs angled together in the middle, and it meets in a central peak? Also, the place is like a bank vault; thick concrete all around. They probably sealed all the joints with bitumen, too."

"You can see why we called you," said the Detroit plainclothes detective, a fellow named Wight, whom Vic knew slightly. "Those officers and detectives who looked at this yesterday decided the situation called for experts; they didn't even go in. They made sure the place was guarded all night, too. Your Bureau sent you, and our department sent me. I have a little experience with super stuff. I suppose you're the closest expert on super hero headquarters."

"Forget me, you need to call... Would it be the local historical society?"

"We already talked to the state archeologist," said the detective, who was a fit man in early middle age. "He said as long as we take lots of photos ahead of us and don't disturb anything we don't deem dangerous, we're free to take a quick look. He said he would call several people who will make a proper study of this once it's been cleared of any hazards. So you can see why we called the Bureau. Unfortunately, with so many in local law enforcement being held ready because of the strike, we're it."

"Okay, yeah. You need someone familiar with super lairs, and I do have experience. Enough to know when to call in someone better equipped to handle stuff I can't, anyway. Also, my helmet can record about three hours of video. You got anybody with a camera?"

"Yeah," said the detective, holding up a case with a shoulder strap. "Me."

"Well, the helmet on my armor has lights, and I see that you have a flashlight besides the camera. Let me get my armor on and we'll go see what we can find."

* * *

They found wonders. Once they squeezed through the roughly cut gap in the rebar, the pair found themselves standing on a slightly gritty, bare concrete floor, leaving the first footprints in decades. Only a small amount of debris from the puncturing of the wall had fallen inside, thanks to the care of the workers, and that was all around the hole. There was a dusty area rug on the concrete floor under the table and chairs in the center. In the corner to the left, which they couldn't see from the outside, was a table full of archaic radio equipment. This had several antenna leads going through the ceiling, presumably to long-gone antennae on the roof of the building.

There were eight completely dark rooms, total. Nine, counting the generous bathroom, which had both a large tub and a walk-in shower. Though, interestingly, there was no lock on that door. None of the rooms had windows. Which wasn't surprising, since none had an outside wall. The suite included a private room for each of the team's members. These rooms were each furnished with a stand-alone closet, bed and desk, and had a sliding latch on the inside of the door. The beds were all neatly made, the desks left in order, with no personal items remaining in the rooms. In fact, the pair of explorers could find nothing which would be considered personal in the entire suite of rooms. This was almost certainly deliberate.

The pair of investigators did find the door between the lair and the rest of that floor, which had at one time merely been concealed. It was in the main room of the suite - opposite the radio corner - and was prominently signed "Emergency Exit" on the lair side. Previously, it had opened into a hallway leading to stairs. Now there was just one, large, open room on the floor except for the lair near the center, due to the demolition. Vic had to force the "Emergency Exit" door open, breaking through generations of paint and some wallboard. In the process mildly traumatizing the workers in that area.

A door at the end of the only corridor in the dark lair led into the mundane stairway. The other side of that door also looked like a section of blank wall, this one on the landing for the floor. At least that wall had fewer layers of paint, and no wallboard. The regular stairs led upwards and downwards from there. That door bore the sign on its lair side of "Standard Exit."

The two LEOs finished their inspection with a quick look around the largest room. There they stopped to compare perceptions. The sign beside the double-wide, open doorway read "Trophy Room." The chamber was appropriately filled with oddball items. These included a floor hatch. This hatch, strangely, was not labelled. For now they left it unopened. Given the sign on the wall outside the room and the diverse nature of the contents, Vic figured the items in that room were souvenirs from the team's cases.

"This place wasn't decommissioned or mothballed," said Detective Wight, making a show of shining his light around that large space. There was hardly any dust in here. "It was just... left. Very neatly, but... I bet the power and water are still on. Though I'm not flipping any switches until the bomb squad checks everything."

"I suspect those journals on the shelves in that first room are the missing records which are mentioned in the tontine," said Vic, quietly. "That was certainly their meeting room and library. Not only does it look like it, there's a sign beside the hallway entrance telling us that! So far I haven't seen anything potentially dangerous except the arsenal, and that door has a deadbolt lock. We'll need to have a locksmith open that, later."

"Make you wonder, though, why they put up signs for the rooms, since there were only five team members." The Detective shone his light around again. "Also, this trophy room..."

"Well, some of the contents in here are disturbing, but all the dangerous stuff seems to have been decommissioned."

"They have giant stone head with a surprised look on its face," said Detective Wight. His dispassionate façade dissolved into outrage. "How did they even get that in here?!"

"A giant stone shrunken head," said Vic, who was just as stunned as the policeman by the sight of the trophy. "Note that the lips and eyes are stitched shut. I wonder if there's some connection with Voo Dude."

"Yeah, well, there's enough in these rooms to keep the archeologists busy for months."

"Fortunately, they love stuff like this," said Vic, with a smirk.

* * *

"That's... weird," said Randy, reading the powers testing results again. "Not just that Sarah's showing powers at a little less than 9 years old, but which powers. Roy didn't show powers until last year. He's almost 14, now, and still growing into them."

"Well, it looks like she inherited some of your induced powers," said Karen, looking over his shoulder. "Strength, toughness, flight..."

"She got some of my original induced powers, but not my innate energy control," said Randy, baffled. "Even though those powers she did get aren't genetic - well, they aren't part of my base genes - and the energy control runs in the family. Of course, Roy doesn't take after either of us with his powers."

"That just means we need to have another one, to get a kid who has my power," said Karen, smirking.

"Only if you're volunteering."

"Ah, no," said Karen, firmly. "I figure one each is enough."

"Don't remind me," said Randy, rolling his eyes. "Anyway, she has good reflexes but not super speed or life support. So, she's a typical flying brick."

"I think it's up to us to make sure she's not a typical anything," said Karen.