The Summer Job
by The Chocolate Thunder
One slightly geeky high school kid, one heartless corporation, and one vat of pink goo. A recipe for the ultimate superhero... sorta.
One slightly geeky high school kid, one heartless corporation, and one vat of pink goo. A recipe for the ultimate superhero... sorta.
Maxwell Summers was bored. This, in and of itself, was nothing spectacular. Max himself would venture that he was bored at least thirty to forty-five minutes every day. No, what was special about this particular case of boredom was not merely its existence, but its incredible intensity. Max had stumbled upon what could possibly be the most boring place in all existence. It wasn’t just boring, it was boring with gusto. Most of the time boring things are only passively dull. They’re not exciting, but they’re only being what they are. But this place was something different altogether. It was like it was actively trying to bore him into killing himself. It was going out of its way, in fact, to be tedious. It was like some sort of strange, unexciting alien entity or CBS. It also happened to be the location of Max’s senior class trip.
Max’s class had originally planned to go to the beach for a weekend the week before graduation. It would’ve been sweet. They all wanted to escape from the urban sprawl of the city to a tropical paradise before they left school. But then, a very big problem developed. The class treasurer entered into a torrid affair with one of the lunch ladies. They had run away together to a remote Polynesian island where cafeteria workers were revered as gods. They had taken the money with them. At least that was what the principal told them. “Luckily,” one of the local businesses heard about this sordid tale of deceit and meat loaf and had offered an alternative. And so, instead of heading to a tropical paradise, Max and his classmates were touring an office building. And not a very good one at that.
“And this is a 232A Series Industrial Lifting Crane,” said the tour guide, pointing at an old, busted looking crane thing. “We like to call her Old Craney. We don’t get to use her much anymore since we switched from the 41-A boxes to the 66-Cs. But they say she’s still as young and spry as the day she was bought. Say hello Craney!”
What Max found the saddest about all that was that he actually knew the difference between those types of boxes now. The tour guide had explained it all in great detail sometime between the exciting jaunt to the hall that lead to the executive washroom and the wondrous tour of the second floor supply room. And even after all this, Max still had no clue what the hell the company actually made. Under his breath, Max cursed the name of the embezzling class treasurer.
“Stupid Gil. If I ever see him again I’ll kill him so hard he’ll wish he was dead.”
Max and his classmates were currently walking on a catwalk high above the factory. Beneath them, machinery was being operated, barrels and crates were being moved, and people wearing hardhats were doing whatever it is that people do in factories.
“And here we come to the vats,” said the tour guide as he stopped the group and gestured below. Several rows of giant vats were under them, all filled with different colored chemicals being smoothly swirled around. “They’re what give our drugs that special something extra.”
‘So they make drugs,’ thought Max. ‘Mystery solved. I wish I was dead.’
One of the girls taking the tour raised her hand. The guide acknowledged her with a finger. “Question? Be warned, I can’t reveal any of our secret formulas.” The guide then paused for laughs. He received none.
“Umm, sir? Why’s there all this stuff in here? I thought this was, like, supposed to be an office building. This is like a factory,” she said.
The tour guide laughed. “Well, that may be true for other companies, but we’re a little different than the average pharmaceutical producer. We’ve found that by combining production and management facilities, we can create a powerful synergy of resources. Good question, though.”
“But that doesn’t make sense, or even answer the ques-”
“Yes it does!” interrupted the tour guide. “It makes perfect sense. You’re the one who doesn’t make sense. I don’t want to have call security. I‘ll do it. You don‘t know me.”
“Umm, I withdraw my question.”
“Good.” The tour guide cleared his throat. “If you’ll turn your attention back to the vats, please. Directly under us is our company’s newest product. We can’t reveal just what it is right now, but I can say that the ladies in the crowd will be quite pleased by it…Except the one who asks stupid questions. She can go to hell.”
The vat in question was full of a strange pink substance. It looked like some kind of a gel and it shined like it had glitter or something in it.
“What I can tell you,” continued the guide. “Is that it will revolutionize the drug market as we know it. Right now, you are looking at a concentrated form of the drug. It is so concentrated, in fact, that one pound of it weighs two hundred pounds. Isn’t that fascinating? In addition, the hypothyroid matrix is…”
The tour guide continued talking after this, but Max stopped listening. He just stared down at the vat of pink stuff. It just looked so weird. It was a sad indictment of the day when the most interesting thing he had seen was pink goo. He was really wishing that he hadn’t come to this in the first place. He hadn’t wanted to come. None of his friends were there. He had only come because his mom made him. Nobody in their right mind wanted to spend their Saturday in an office building/factory/whatever.
“And I say Plan 9 From Outer Space is the Worst!” someone yelled.
Max turned his head away from the goo. Behind him, two guys seemed to be having a small falling out. Max guessed they were just as bored by the tour as he was. The guide seemed to be just ignoring them.
“Dude, how can you say that? Glen or Glenda is far inferior,” said one of the guys to the other. “No contest.”
The first guy raised his arms in exasperation. “Dude, Glen or Glenda is almost a good movie compared to Plan 9.”
“C’mon! Glen or Glenda’s not a good movie by any standard. Plan 9 has moments, at least.”
“What moments? It’s terrible. It makes no sense whatsoever. And the cast…Damn. Glen or Glenda at least has a message somewhere in it…”
One of the guys narrowed his eyes at the other and pushed his shoulder. “What are you trying to say? That a well-intentioned theme makes up for plotless pseudo-sentimentality?”
The other guy pushed back. “Well, when compared more production flubs than a thousand third grade Christmas plays, then yeah. It does.”
The one got in the other’s face. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah!”
“Oh yeah?!”
“I’ve said yeah like two times already.”
“I’ll show you!” shouted one of the guys. Max had lost track of which was which by now.
The guy gave the other guy a hard shove, send him right into a bystanding Max. The force sent Max flipping over the bar on the side of the catwalk. Luckily, he was able to grab onto the side before he fell to his doom.
A girl in the class screamed as she saw what happened. Panic soon broke out among the students. No one knew what to do, or what those two guys had been talking about. Max simply held on for dear life.
“Stay calm students,” said the tour guide. “Relax. Take some deep breaths. It’s going to be alright. Be cool. Be cool.”
“Umm, help! Please? I think I‘m starting to slip,” exclaimed Max.
“Be cool, dammit! I just said that! Are you even listening! Don’t be stupid! Be Cool!” The guide paused and took a deep breath. “Okay everyone. This has happened before, actually, so let me now turn your attention to the Emergency Rescue Kit. Or, as we like to call her, Old Rescuey. She had a long and varied history at this company and I think that…”
As the tour guide continued rambling on, Max realized something. Either he would have to listen to another boring speech or he would plummet to his death. It wasn’t much of a choice, really. One was the scariest thing a man ever has to face, and the other was death. He decided that he just had to grit his teeth and hang on a few minutes longer. Soon he’d be rescued and could forget all about this.
“Actually, the Kit uses a specially made 65-D box, which allows us to use a very special box opening device to open it. There’s a diagram right over here, actually. There‘s actually an interesting story behind it. It‘s a little dry at first but really picks up after twenty minutes or so.”
Max closed his eyes and let go. He never thought it would end this way, falling into a big vat of goo. He had expected more of a botched operation or an eating mishap to do him in. Time seemed to float away as he fell. He could vaguely hear the screams of his classmates, but they seemed so far away now. And then, he hit the goo. The last thing he saw was an infinite sea of pink. It was beautiful. Then his eyes really started to burn, so he closed them. He passed out shortly after this.
***
Max woke up the same way he had gone out: with ridiculous amounts of eye pain. He tried to scream, but his throat was super sore. After a quick bout of almost-screaming, Max realized that this eyes only hurt because they had to adjust to the bright lights in the room he was in, which was good. He was afraid he had an infection or somebody had poked them too much or something.
Calmed, Max looked around and took stock of where he now was. It looked like some kind of medical ward or hospital room or something. There were beds and monitoring equipment and all that jazz. He was even wearing a hospital gown. He was relieved. He had been really hoping that that fall hadn’t killed him.
Looking closer, he noticed that the equipment was really nice looking. It was much nicer than what you would see at a regular hospital. It just looked very modern and futuristic and cool. There were even some machines that he had never seen before, and he had seen every episode of ER.
He absentmindedly pushed back some hair that was in his face, getting in the way of his looking around. The room was fairly small and there were only two-
Wait, hair? Max blinked. He had never grown long hair. It made his face look disproportionately small. How could he have long hair? He reached back and grabbed a fistful of it. Sure enough, it was much longer than it had been. He was shocked. How long had he been sleeping? It must’ve been a while for his hair to grow out like this.
He looked down at his hands. They looked…thinner, like he’d lost weight or something. He was starting to get really worried. Maybe he had been in a coma. Maybe it had been months or even years since he had fallen off that stupid catwalk. Maybe he was, like, in the future or something. That would explain all the equipment.
He decided that he had to see a mirror. Maybe he was older now. That would be cool. He’d always wanted to skip the rest of his awkward teenage years and go straight into his swinging twenties. He just didn’t want to be old. It would suck if he turned out to be thirty or something. He would’ve slept through all the best years of his life.
He sat up on his bed and shifted his legs so they hung over the edge. They looked pretty atrophied. He hoped he was still able to walk. He took a deep breath to steady himself, then let his feet hit the floor. He took a couple of test steps, bracing himself against the bed with his arm. Surprisingly, his legs moved fine. They didn’t feel weaker at all. If anything, they had more bounce in them than ever. He decided that the future must have super-anti-atrophy technology or something.
What wasn’t so fine was his balance. He felt like his center of gravity had gone all wonky. It didn’t keep him from walking or anything, but it did make walking feel a lot weirder.
He had to find a bathroom. If there was anywhere in the hospital that would have a mirror, it would be there. There was a door in on one of the corners of his room with the little stick figure man/stick figure woman sign on it, so he decided that it was as good a place as any to start.
He stumbled over to the door and opened it up. Sure enough, it was a bathroom. It had all the standard bathroom accoutrements. A toilet. A sink. A hot chick wearing nothing but a hospital gown staring at him. One of those rail things for people to hold on to if they needed help. A bedpan for some reas- Wait. Hot chick?
Max immediately averted his eyes. He was no pervert. At least without the safety of a locked door and a DSL Internet connection. “Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! My bad! The door wasn’t locked! I didn’t mean to I…”
Max blinked, though his eyes still maintained their aversion. Was that him? His voice sounded weird. Like, kinda higher and softer. He thought the timbre was off, too. He didn’t really know what the word timbre meant, but he was sure it had something to do with it.
“Uhh, hello? Testing…Testing…Check, one two. Check, one two. What hath God wrought? Qui est tuus pater?” Yep. There was definitely something funny about his voice. And something not funny about his jokes, but that’s beside the point.
Mike was beginning to get worried. Things were beginning to add up to a very ungood conclusion. The hair, the apparent muscle loss, the previously unmentioned lingering weight on his chest, and now the voice. It was becoming crystal clear to him. How could he not have seen it before?
He was turning into a werewolf. That pink stuff must’ve been some sort of…werewolf juice. And it was slowly mutating him into an inhuman monster, driven only by primitive, subhuman lusts and drives. He would be an outcast, shunned by society and hunted by those he used to trust the most.
“Awesome,” he muttered to himself, and then louder. “Miss? I have to warn you that I’m 60% sure that I’m turning into some sort of cool, inhuman monster. You should probably try to escape while I can still hold on to my last few shreds of humanity. Or we could, y’know, talk for a while.”
Max may have thought he turning into a monster, but that was no reason to miss a perfectly good chance for hooking up.
“Umm, miss? I can’t really see you so…maybe you should, like, say something. It’d be really great if you could tell me where we are. I think that we may be in the future, but I haven’t proven it yet. Well, I guess it’d be the present for you. Unless you’re from the past, too, which would be really cool, by the way. It’d be just like that episode of Outer Limits with the people in the future. That’d be sweet. I guess what I’m trying to say is, what’s your name?”
Again receiving no answer, Max decided it was time to look. The girl had had plenty of time to get in a reasonable state of dress. He wasn’t really sure what the policy on seeing other people in hospital gowns was anyway. Were they like underwear or bathing suits or what? He decided to just look. If he accidentally saw a flash of breasts or butt…Well, that was a risk he was just willing to take.
Without hesitation, Max moved his eyes back to the bathroom. The chick was still staring at him, but she was still hot, so it was okay. Seriously. She had long, blonde hair that cascaded down to her shoulders, huge baby blue eyes, and a face that totally like an angel. Even with the baggy gown on you could tell she had some serious curves, even though she was about Max‘s age. Her breasts were sizable, but not huge, and a pair of legs that went to-
Oh shit. It was fucking mirror. The realization hit Max like a metric ton of bricks. Max didn’t know whether that was less or more than a regular ton, but it was still enough to hurt like hell.
He slowly walked towards the mirror, looking at himself or herself or whatever it was now. Equal parts of shock and horror mixed with disbelief and…more disbelief. He lightly touched his face. It was so different It was soft and smooth, without a trace of stubble. Hard lines had been replaced with gentle curves. He looked totally and completely like a girl. But looking closer in the mirror, he could sort of see how she looked like him. Or how he looked like herself. Or how she himself looked like him herself used to look when she had been him. Something like that. Under all the changes, there were still some similarities to his old self. Maybe he couldn’t quite pass as his own sister, but he could definitely be a cousin.
His hands began to move around his body, inspecting the new curves with precision his eyes could not. They finally found themselves clutching her chest. He had managed to touch a few boobs in his lifetime, but it felt much different when they were his boobs. He didn’t really know much about bra sizes, but he had read enough erotic stories to get the gist. He would guess that they were a C cup or so, give or take.
Suddenly, it was as if a torrent of adrenaline hit him all at once. His flight or fight reflex had finally kicked in. And it was telling him it was time to fly.
He wheeled around and dashed out the bathroom door. He had to get out of this place. He had to escape and find someone who could fix him. He should’ve known to expect no good from the future. If Blade Runner had taught Max anything, it was that the future was a dark, scary, dehumanizing place. And that Deckard was totally the sixth replicant. But mostly that first thing.
A set of double doors lay at the other end of the hospital room. Max ran for them with inhuman speed. A little too inhuman, in fact. The doors happened to be locked. Max had more strength, and inertia, than she thought, for upon hitting the door, it broke off its hinges and fell to the floor. As did Max.
“Oww,” murmured Max. Hitting the door had really stung. And falling down hadn’t been to great either.
“Wow,” said a male voice above Max. “You knocked it clean off, Princess. I’m impressed.”
Max looked up at the source of the voice. It was some dude in a white lab coat holding a clipboard. “Princess?”
“Well, I was going to call you Sleeping Beauty, but that was based on the premise that I would greet you right after you woke up. But now that you’re already up and about, the point would sort of be moot. I toyed around with some similar names, but none of them really worked. I was thinking Rapunzel, maybe, but that doesn’t really make sense. So I just ad libbed.”
“Congratulations,” said Max, half-growling. She pushed herself up to her knees. “Who the fuck are you?”
The guy smiled widely and pointed at a badge on his coat. “I’m Steve. You can call me Dr. Steve. I’m the Chief Medical Executive/Head of Research & Development/Scrabble champion in these parts.”
Max looked ‘Steve‘ in the face. “Oh good. I’m happy for you. Maybe you can answer a little question for me, then.”
“Yes?”
“Why the hell am I a girl?! And where the hell am I?! And why’d that door break like that?” screamed Max, nearly at the top of his lungs. This whole experience had left him a bit frazzled.
“Whoa. Slow it down, Princess. You said one little question. That was three questions, and they all have pretty long answers.”
Max, now fully upright, glared at the doctor and poked him in the chest with his finger. “I was being idiomatic! Just answer the questions!”
Dr. Steve’s smile waned a bit. “Well. It’s kind of complicated. You might want to sit down. I can get you a juice pack if you want. Maybe some chips. Dip maybe. I wonder if Accounting still has those pudding-”
“Just tell me already!” interrupted Max.
“Well, first things first, you’re in the illustrious R&D Lab of Zerotech, Inc. We design everything that Zerotech and its subsidiaries sell. We also design the company Christmas cards every year.”
“That’s…great,” said Max. “Can we get to the me being a girl thing? That was kinda the main question. The others were more ancillary.”
Steve took a deep breath and began. “You fell into a vat of an experimental drug we were developing.”
“Really? I almost forgot, seeing as how it was the second most traumatic experience of my life,” said Max.
“What was the first?”
“The moment I realized I wasn’t a werewolf.”
“Right,” said Steve, deciding not to ask. “Anyway, the drug was an experimental…athletic supplement for female athletes.”
“Athletic supplement? You mean, like, steroids?” interrupted Max.
“Kind of. Anabolic steroids may give female athletes righteous physical abilities, but they also tend to make them a wee bit masculine. And angry. And not so healthy in the long run.”
“Right…”
“So, we here at Zerotech designed Femaroid. The athletic supplement for ladies who like their genitalia to not change shape.”
“Femaroid?”
Steve nodded. “Yes. I now. It’s a very clever name. The drug itself uses cutting edge gene therapy to actually maximize the efficiency muscle fiber and increase its contractile force without any unnecessary hair growth.”
“Wouldn’t something like that be highly illegal, not to mention morally despicable?” asked Max.
Steve shrugged. “Probably. If it worked, that is.”
“It doesn’t work?”
“Nope. Turns out gene therapy is trickier business than we thought. We did manage to get people to grow a few extra arms and teeth and stuff, but the FDA tends to look down on that kind of thing.”
“Then why did you have a huge vat of it lying around?”
“We were going to market it as an herbal supplement. Let’s see the FDA get their claws on it now. You’d be amazed at what you can get away with that herbal stuff. I once saw a man who was on so much gingko biloba that he grew a tail. Out of his eye!”
“That’s beautiful. How ‘bout you get back to explaining what the hell’s going on now?”
“Well, we were planning on shipping the first batch of the chemical to our distribution center. It was concentrated far beyond levels tolerable for human consumption. We think that’s why you had such an unusual reaction to exposure to it. We believe it changed you on a genetic level, making you the girl you are today.”
Max rolled his eyes. “Not to bust up your pseudoscience there, Professor, but wouldn’t a change in my genetic structure after I’ve gone through puberty not really do anything.”
“I dunno. I’m a doctor, not biologist. It might have something to do with how you were melted for a while there.”
“Melted?”
“Yeah. There was just a big puddle of you. We were afraid that you were dead, but you formed back up quite nicely. Not like that time you really were dead. Now that was worrisome.”
“I was dead?!”
“Only for a little while. Like, a day or two.”
“Dead?!”
“Yeah. You should be glad we didn’t throw your body out. I have to say, it wasn’t very pretty at the time. You weren’t quite a girl yet, and you were still a little melty and stuff. But I held out for you. I was going to use your body to host a swarm of genetically engineered super-maggots. They turn into super-flies. And that‘s just a cool name.”
“I’m glad you were so concerned.”
“I’m just that kind of guy,” replied Steve with a totally not ironic smile. “Anyway, judging by that door, I’d say you gained some of the intended benefits of Femaroid. We’ll have to have run some tests, but I have high hopes for you. Hopefully you won’t get the addiction to skin lotions.”
Max sighed. This was a lot to take in. By his perception, he had only been a guy not twenty minutes ago. And now he was some kind of freak girl because of something that made no sense whatsoever. “High hopes for what?”
Dr. Steve smiled devilishly. “The boys upstairs have been talking. You could be Zerotech’s first superhero.”
Understanding immediately hit Max. That was why he was here instead of a hospital. Corporate-sponsored superheroes were nothing new. Some of the biggest heroes in the game had gotten started as corporate flunkees. Guys like the Human Shuffleboard, Pumpkin Pie, and Mr. Taco Bell. Some purists looked down upon the practice, but most just went with the flow. Costumes and gadgets and legal protection cost money, after all. And the corporations doing the sponsoring loved good press. The only real drawback was that the one doing the superheroing was basically a slave, but all agreed that this was usually for the best.
Max rolled her eyes. “Why would I want to that for you guys? You turned me into a girl! I’m not me anymore!”
“You’ll get paid. Handsomely, I might add. Plus you’ll get to be a superhero.”
“O I could, y’know, just sue you guys for doing this to me. I think that pasy handsomely, too.”
“I don’t think that’d do so well in court. What’s happened to you is a little bit on the impossible side, and you don’t have any proof.”
“No proof?! I’m a freakin’ chick.”
“Exactly. Our negligence lead to an accident for a dude, not a chick. Genetically speaking, you’re two different people.”
“Well…That is a good point…”
“Besides,” continued Steve. “If you’re not under the employ of this fine company, how can we work out how to turn you back?”
“You make an excellent point, jackass. I guess I could hang around…maybe.”
“Great. Could this be the beginning of the exciting adventures of the dynamic Zero-girl?” Steve chuckled. “Like the name? I came up with it myself.”
“That’s like the stupidest thing you’ve said yet,” said Max.
“Maybe it is,” said Steve with a shrug. “But there’s no time for that kind of talk now. We’ve got to get you tested. And then we have to fit you for a costume. Would you say you were more an Autumn or a Winter?”
“I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?”
“That all depends. Which do you think would be better, tube top or halter top?”
Max sighed. She should have known that he should’ve never agreed to a field trip on a Saturday. This was the kinda thing that could happen when you tempted fate.
One slightly geeky high school kid, one heartless corporation, and one vat of pink goo. A recipe for the ultimate superhero... sorta. After her dramatic transformation, our intrepid heroine must now do battle on the field of...battle. Will she survive the onslaught? Or will there be an unnecessary cliffhanger?
Max was excited. Very, very excited. It was almost time for her very first field test run. After all the stupid shit she had been through, she could finally get to the fun part of having superpowers: running around the city at night, beating up people.
She took one last look at herself in the mirror. It was the same mirror she had first seen herself in all those days ago. She had certainly come a long way from the scared girl wearing nothing but a hospital gown staring disbelievingly at the mirror. Now she was a scared girl wearing the lamest costume ever staring disbelievingly at the mirror.
Max didn’t much care for her outfit. Dr. Steve promised he would get a new one designed for her later, but she was pretty sure he was full of shit. The costume consisted of a tight pink lycra catsuit that didn’t leave much to the imagination with a slightly darker set of pink gloves and boots. Emblazoned on the left breast was the Zerotech logo, a stylized zero with a slash through it. The ensemble was topped off by one of those masks that just go around the eyes and don’t really conceal anything, but people still use for some reason. It was pink, too There had been much fighting over the color of the suit, but Steve had said it had been decided by their corporate overlords and there was nothing Max could do about it. Max still thought he was full of shit.
Her mind briefly began to wander to all she had been through to get to this point. First she’d had an “interview” with the previously mentioned corporate overlords. She still hadn’t figured out what all had gone on at that meeting, but was pretty sure that they were going to pay her to be a superhero in exchange for her soul and the soul of all her descendents until the end of time. Maybe she was exaggerating, but she was pretty sure that she saw a clause in her contract about them optioning the rights for virgin sacrifice.
Then there had been the tests. There had been a lot of them. A whole lot. The Vigilante Protection Act of 1978 required that every aspiring hero provide documentation that they actually had a superpower or a special skill before they could be registered in The Directory. The act had been passed in the wake of public outcry after it was revealed after the brutal deaths of the Lotion Lads that the only thing extraordinary about them was their diligence to moisturization.
Not being listed in The Directory did not prevent one from being a superhero, but it did prevent one from enjoying the perks. Superheroes who weren’t listed weren’t allowed into most super groups, were distrusted by the public, and, worst of all, couldn’t score an endorsement deal to save their life. It only really worked for your dark, brooding types who worked alone and already had enough money to finance their own set of collectable plush dolls.
Since Zerotech was not willing to finance such a thing, Max had been forced to undergo a strict battery of tests. She ran on treadmill to test her to test her speed, she lifted weights to test her strength, and she dodged hammers being thrown at her to test her agility. The test results were conclusive: She was as fast as Flo-Jo, stronger than the average bear, and more agile than a thousand construction workers, which is not much agility taken individually, but quite a lot added when together like that.
Dr. Steve also said he also detected something else within her that hadn’t manifested yet, but Max thought the science behind his “Superpower Super-detection Station” was a bit questionable.
After being certified as actually having powers beyond mortal men, the suits had insisted that she call her mom, even though she was 18 and could technically make her own decisions. She could have called home at any time, but she hadn’t really wanted her mom to know she was, well, a she. As far as she knew, he had been put in a coma by the chemicals and was recuperating in the company infirmary, free of charge. This explanation didn’t make much sense, but the “free of charge” part was music to Max’s mom’s ears. Max was sure that telling her what had really happened would be the most uncomfortable moment in his entire life.
She was right. Dead right.
To further explain what had happened. She decided to have an impromptu flashback, complete with wavy line transition sequence.
***
“Where’s my son?! What did you idiots do to him?” shouted Max’s mom as she stormed into the R&D lab‘s infirmary. Steve had picked her up in the corporate Pinto and chauffeured her down to the Zerotech office building. He neglected to tell her that Max’s…condition was worse than she had been originally told until right before they entered the building, hence her anger.
“Uhm, hi mom,” said Max, sitting on two hospital beds she had pushed together. Since no one else was ever in the infirmary, she had converted into a sort of pseudo-bedroom. She was reading a series of pamphlets that Zerotech gave to all potential employees. Some were on things like employee benefits and retirement stuff, but some were more serious and oddly specific. They had titles like So You Now Have Two and a Half Sets of Genitalia and Tentacle Monsters: Orifices to Look Out For. His favorite, though, was What To Do When it Turns Out You’re Your Own Clone: A Freudian Approach.
Max‘s mom stopped in her tracks. That hadn‘t told her the details of what had happened. “Maxwell? Is that you?”
Max slowly nodded. “Yeah…It’s a long story. You should probably ask Steve. The way he tells it, it almost sorta makes sense.”
And so, Dr. Steve regaled Max’s mom with the tale of Max’s adventures with Femaroid. She was not particularly amused by it. Especially the bit about the extra body parts. She actually liked gingko biloba.
WARNING!!! RED ALERT!!! DANGER WILL ROBINSON!!! FAKEY SENTIMENTAL BULLSHIT AHEAD!!!
“Oh my god, Max,” exclaimed Max’s mom. Tears began to spill down her cheeks. She grabbed her former son and held him in a tight embrace. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, Mom,” said Max. Tears were forming in the corners of her eyes now. She hadn’t hugged her Mom like this in years. It felt good. “We can get through this.”
Steve looked on with a sagacious smile. He wondered if it was wrong to hope that a mother and her recently feminized son would start to make out. He guessed it was, but you could never be certain with things like this.
After this touching moment, things began to get a bit…awkward.
Max’s mom pulled away and reached for a handkerchief in her purse. “Look at me, crying like this. I’m probably embarrassing you in front of your creepy friend/boss,” she said as she dabbed away at her tears with the handkerchief.
“It’s okay, Mom,” said Max. She wiped her nose with her hand. “I guess the stupid female hormones are getting to me.”
Max‘s mom finally cracked a smile. “I guess so, dear. It‘s amazing, really. You look just like I looked when I was that age. Just like me…” Max could swear that he saw his mom’s eyes narrow. “Only prettier…”
FALSE SENTIMENTALITY RISK OVER. RETURN TO YOUR HOMES. MORE PUERILE HUMOR AND JOKES THAT AREN’T REALLY FUNNY AHEAD.
Max blinked. “What?”
“Yeah…Just like me. Only prettier. And younger…”
Max wasn‘t liking the direction the conversation was going. “I wouldn’t say that. The prettier thing, I mean. You are older.”
Max’s mom raised an eyebrow. “So I’m old now? Well, I’m sorry. Not all of us have gallons and gallons of steroids to keep us young and beautiful. Let’s see how good that trim little body of yours looks after you’ve had your first kid, missy.”
Max blanched at the very thought of having a child. “Uhm, I don’t really like the way this is going. Can we change the subject?”
Max‘s mom pointed a finger in her face. “Oh, so you think you’re in charge now that you’re such a hot young thing. I’ll say this once, little missy. As long as you live under my roof, you follow my rules.”
Max shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. I was just thinking that-”
Max’s mom cut her off. “That’s the problem. You weren’t thinking. You strut around here in your tight little clothes, like a common trollop. You think its so cute, don’t you. The boys must love you.”
Mac blinked and looked down at herself. “I’m wearing a hospital gown!”
“I can’t pay for clothes like that! I’m not made of money!” Max’s mom shouted back.
“It hasn’t been washed in, like, two weeks!”
“Pregnant?! You’re only a baby yourself! Don’t tell me that slow Henderson boy did this! I can‘t raise another baby! I‘ve got to get married to the Prince of Monaco next week, then collect my lottery winnings!”
“Okay. Now you’re just making stuff up,” sad Max.
Max’s mom shrugged. “Sorry. I kinda got on a roll there. I’ve got all these great parenting speeches worked out that I never get to use…Until now.” She smiled broadly and embraced Max once again.
“That’s, umm, great, Mom,” said Max. Something about the way her mother had said that worried her.
“Speaking of which, there is one talk every mother needs to have with her daughter, or son, when she blossoms into womanhood.”
“Goodnight everybody!” said Dr. Steve, waving. “I’ll see you…later.”
He promptly ran away with the speed and grace of a decapitated chicken. Then Max’s mom preceded to tell her of things that she had never thought could exist. Horrors beyond all imagination that happened on a daily basis. Things that would chill the heart of even the warmest-hearted man, and then re-warm it, so that it burned at the man’s very soul. Max realized that she lived in a much darker world than she could’ve possibly imagined. Far darker than the darkest…dark thing. Frank Miller dark.
After properly scarring Max for life, Max’s mom left her. They weren’t going to tell her about the superhero bit just yet. Or ever if Max had her way. As far as she would know, Max was going to spend some more time recuperating, then become so enamored with the place that she would take a part-time job there. A part time job with very good pay. It wasn’t a particularly good explanation, but again the lure of money was enough for Max’s mom.
And then there were some more wavy lines.
***
“You ready, Princess?”
Max’s flashback sequence was cut short by the arrival of her boss/hated nemesis, Dr. Steve.
“How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling me that?” asked Max, glaring at her erstwhile mentor.
“But I had a good reason that time,” protested the doctor. “See, you were staring off into space, like you were asleep. Like you were Sleeping Beauty. See where I’m going here?”
Max tightened her glare. “You always have a reason like that. That’s almost as bad as your explanation for calling me…that name during the swim test.”
“What? You were in the water. Like a mermaid. Like a certain mermaid from a certain movie who happened to be a princess…Get it?”
Max sighed. “I hate you, dude.”
Dr. Steve nodded. “I know. But we have more important things to deal with tonight. To the Batcave!”
Max brightened a little. “We have a Batcave?”
“Well, not really, but we have something almost as good.”
“What?”
“To the Accounting Floor!” shouted Steve.
“Seriously, dude. Hate,” Max deadpanned.
***
As Max and Steve walked out of the elevator onto the accounting floor, Max discovered it really did hold two devices important to Max’s quest. A sophisticated launching bay installed under the floor and a vending machine that had both regular and peanut M&Ms.
“Why exactly do I need a launching bay and a vending machine that has two types of M&Ms?” asked Max as they arrived. Steve had told her about it in the elevator.
“Well, sometimes you might be in the mood for some sweet, delicious chocolate that melts in your mouth and not in your hand. But other times, you might want something added to it to make it a little more filling and change to flavor a little. By consolidating both in a single machine, you reach the height of convenience. If only we could get the crispy ones, too. Now that would be unbelievable.”
Max sighed again. She was starting to get sick of it. Her sighing muscles were getting exhausted from all the exasperation she had been experiencing recently. “You really have no clue how to tell what part of a question is important and what isn’t, do you?”
Steve shrugged. “Meh. It comes and goes.”
“What does that even mean?!”
“It means, Princess,” began Max, “That I have something very special for you.”
“This better not be like when you had something special to show me when I was in the bathroom that time.”
“I’m telling you. You’re eighteen. I’m twenty-two. It’s totally cool. I looked it up,” said Steve.
“Just show me what you were talking about,” said Max, beginning to grow impatient.
Steve grinned devilishly and his eyes darted downwards for a moment.. “Well…”
“The thing you were talking about just now! This scene is already unsettling enough as it is.”
“Well, you were probably wondering how exactly you would travel around the city.”
Max shrugged. “Not really. I just thought I would run around and jump from roof to roof.”
Steve sniffed. “Like a common whore? Hardly…”
“How is that like a common-”
“Silence,” interrupted Steve. “Prepare your eyes to look upon the face of the future! And what a pretty face it is. Big brown eyes you could get lost in for days. Cute, little nose. Some make-up, but not too much. The lips are a little poutier than I care for, but the make-up does a decent enough job de-emphasizing them. I could do without the glasses, but I’m flexible. The hair’s really nice, though there are a few split ends. I know a good shampoo that’ll fix that right up.. Speaking of which, there’s this moisturizing conditioner that-”
“Uhm, is there a point to this? ‘Cause I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh yeah. Lemme think…silence…eyes…future…Oh! I will now show you my greatest invention yet!”
“Wait,” said Max. “I thought you were like a chemist or a physician or a biologist or something. You invent stuff?”
“Well, I didn’t invent it personally. But it is an invention. And it is mine. Well, actually it’s yours, but its mine for now.”
“Just let me see the damn thing.”
Steve smiled and turned on the tap of a nearby water cooler. Instantly, the floor in the middle of the room began to rise as huge metal arms pushed it up. Then it rotated over, revealing the long strip of futuristic-looking metal and stuff that was the launching bay. It also sent the cubicles that were previously in the space to fall down to the Marketing floor, but nobody cared, ‘cause they were accountants.
“Voila!” said Steve, gesturing at the object.
“What is it?”
Steve smiled even wider. “Your own personal jet glider. Now you can get around the city in style.
Max stared at the object appraisingly. “Jet glider? You mean like the Green Goblin’s flying thingy?”
“Yeah. I guess. But we prefer to downplay similarities like that for copyright reasons.”
“Great. After all the stupid crap I go through I end up with a second-rate method of transportation,” said Max, dejected by the turn of events.
Steve looked shocked. “What? How can you say that? What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s a glider! Who wants a glider? I thought I might something cool, like something that would make me able to really fly, or at least webbing or something. I don’t even like the Green Goblin.”
Now Steve was just confused. “You don’t like the Green Goblin?”
“Yeah. He was all over the place from a thematic standpoint. He had bat-themed stuff and pumpkin stuff and he wore green and purple. What do bats and pumpkins have to do with a goblin? Is it supposed to be because he’s a goblin and goblins are scary and those things are scary? And what’s that have to do with a serum that makes you super-strong/immortal/crazy? It doesn’t add up. They were just making up shit. Really. And don’t even get me started on the Hobglobin. Geez.”
“I hate to interrupt your little speech, Princess, but the night isn’t getting any younger and you probably wanna get out while people are committing crimes.” He picked up the ‘jet glider’ and held up the side she would be standing on. “The controls are pretty simple. Steer by shifting your weight. There are buttons on the side for acceleration and braking. You’ll figure it out.”
Max took the glider and glared at her de facto boss. “Let’s just do this. One thing, though. You just called me that name for no reason at all.”
Steve chuckled. “I had a really good one this time. See, the glider is kind of like a magic carpet, and a certain movie princess had a very enlightening experience on a magic carpet. Found a whole new world, if you will.”
***
Max looked down fondly on the city of Insert Large City Here, her city. With its stately towers bathed by the sickly orange glow of light pollution, it was like something out of a fairy tale. A really good fairy tale, with ninjas and magic scullery maids and everything.
The flight to her current location had been better than she thought. The glider could really move. She’d have never in a million years be able to control it without her super-enhanced agility combined with years of experience playing that snowboarding game at the arcade. You know the one.
There had been some trouble when the launch bay had launched her out of the building at high speeds and it turned out that the glider hadn’t been turned on, leading to a not so pleasant encounter with the ground, but after that she basically got the hang of it.
Until she needed to stop. The deceleration system being called “brakes” was kind of a misnomer. Pressing the “brake button” did lower how powerful the jets were and there was a hover function that kicked in when the jets were completely stopped. But unfortunately, there was this thing called inertia that made her first attempt at landing not so fun. She had ended up flying into an incredibly painful amount of concrete.
But besides this, her flight had been cool. Not as cool as actually flying on her own would be, but still cool. She decided that there were worse ways of getting around. At least she could sorta fly. There had only been one major problem so far. The city of Insert City Name Here was completely devoid of actual criminals.
“Do something illegal, assholes!” she screamed into the night.
She stood on top of the RonCo. Towers. She had hoped she could spot some criminals from up there, but so far it had worked about as well as her patrol, turning up nothing. The city seemed to be crime-free. No break-ins, no muggings, no nothing. Not even a damn mendicant. Just peace and quiet. She couldn’t even hope for a super villain.
She was beginning to grow very discouraged. Being a superhero had always been a dream of hers. Sorta. It wasn’t a major dream or anything. She hadn’t thought about very much. It was the kind of dream like when you’re in the bathroom and you think how cool it would be to be a rapper. And your name could be Tarantula, and you could reach stardom with a remix of Flight of the Bumblebee put to the Theme From Shaft, then lose it all after being caught by your trophy wife, Jennifer Garner, in an orgy with the girls of Destiny’s Child, the Olsen Twins, and, somewhat surprisingly, Joan Rivers. Max’s aspirations of being a superhero were like that, except without the orgy bit.
“Gawd!” she exclaimed, starting to feel more and more monologuey. The gothic beauty of stately RonCo. Towers reminded her of the hero they had famously sponsored. “I bet Captain-o-Matic doesn’t have to deal with stuff like this. People just line up to get beat up by him. People schedule it in advance. He doesn’t have to sit around on a roof waiting for something to happen.”
She began to think that maybe she had picked the wrong night to get started. Was Sunday night a slow night or something? She hadn’t seen any other superheroes either. Maybe criminals took a break on Sunday nights.
Max sighed to herself and sat down on the edge of the building. No matter what, this was boring. She hadn’t become a superhero to sit around for no reason. She had become a superhero so she wouldn’t have to think about the massive changes in her life and could instead sublimate her fears and angst into bad guy beatdowns. She began to contemplate calling it a night. It was cold and she was uncomfortable and that ringing noise was beginning to get real annoying. Even worse, her underwear w-
Ringing noise? An alarm! Max immediately sprang to her feet. She finally had something to do. She quickly threw down her glider and leaped on it, then flew it down to street level. The noise was coming from around the corner, so off she flew, with the speed and grace of an Olympic acrobat…on a high-tech glider thingy.
Turning the corner, Max saw what was assuredly a crime scene. The alarm was coming from a bank with its front door wide open and a man in black was fleeing the scene with a big sack over his shoulder. Max steered the glider after him.
“Stop!” Max shouted at him. “In the name of the law!”
The criminal stopped dead in his tracks and turned to look straight at Max. Max only barely managed to get the glider into hover mode before it flew right over the guy.
The guy stared up at her incredulously. Up close, Max could make him out much better. He was about five or six inches taller than her at 6’1” or so and was probably in his early twenties. his black outfit also had accents of yellow on it, many of them in the shape of lightning bolts. Most of the guys face was covered by a mask but his eyes and everything under his nose was visible.
Max was overjoyed. She never imagined she could go toe to toe with a real super villain on her first night out. Score!
“Is that really your warning?“ he asked. “Stop in the name of the law?”
“Well, yeah…Is there something wrong with that?”
“No. Not if you want to be the lamest superhero ever,” quipped the guy. “Who are you supposed to be, anyway?”
“I’m…” Max paused, remembering how she didn’t exactly have a name yet. All the names Steve had offered were stupid/copyright infringing. “Your worst nightmare.”
“Oh, good one. I’m shaking. Your cliché frightens me to my core.”
“Just hand over the bag peacefully and-” She stopped mid-sentence, noticing something on the bag. “What’s that thing?”
“What thing?”
“That thing on your bag? The symbol.”
“What about it?”
“It’s a dollar sign!” exclaimed Max.
“So?”
“You’re robbing a bank with a sack with a dollar sign on it and you’re telling me about being clichéd? That’s not even a real thing!”
The thief looked hurt. “Yes it is.”
“Really? You mean to tell me they make bags with money symbols on them like that?”
“…No.”
“Then where’d you get it?”
“My mom made it for me. Happy?”
Max burst out laughing. “Your mom? That’s hilarious!” She began to imitate the guy’s voice. Not very well I might add. “Hey mom, I need you to make me a big money bag with a dollar sign on it because I’m an idiot and also a big baby and also not cool. Then I need you to dress me.” She burst back into giggles. “Classic!”
The guy dropped the sac on the ground and glared at Max, his eyes seething with rage. “They call me Electrode. Let’s see whose laughing now.”
He held up his right hand and pointed it at Max. Instantly, a small spark of electricity flew at her.
“Wow,” she said after getting hit by the tiny blast. “That kind of stung.”
Electrode shrugged. “I have to warm up.”
“That’s too bad,” said Max. She jumped off the glider and landed right in front of Electrode. She pulled back her fist and punched him in the face, knocking him all the way into a nearby alleyway “I don’t.”
Max smiled and looked at her fist. “And I didn’t even break a nail. Heh, I should right that one down. That’s a good one.”
Without warning, a much bigger beam of electricity came her way from the alley. She easily dodged it by tilting her head. Electrode now stood at the entrance to the alleyway, both his hands now surrounded by electricity.
“Oh. Guess I might have to break a nail after all,” Max said. She hoped her training would kick in for this. Then she realized that she’d had no training and that all she knew about fighting had come from watching kung-fu movies and reading one of those weird pamphlets, Corporate Ninja Takedown Techniques for the Girl on the Go.
Electrode rushed at Max and started swinging. Max easily dodged the blows. The guy was pretty slow, at least compared to Max. Occasionally, the electricity on his hands grazed her body and gave her a little sting, but she suffered no direct hits. Finally, seeing an opening, she punched him right in the stomach. He went down. Hard.
“I’ll give you one more warning. Give me the bag, and then we can go to the police. You don’t have to get hurt.”
“I know I don‘t,” said the guy as he slowly look up. Max saw with shock that his eyes were dead white. His iris and pupils had disappeared. “But I think you do!”
Electricity surrounded all his of his arms now. He stood up in a flash. He seemed much faster than before. This was proved when he attacked again, sending a blazing volley of punches at Max. Max could barely keep up with him now. A few of the blows to her midsection got through. They hurt quite a bit. Worse yet, he seemed to be growing even faster and stronger as the electricity continued to spread. Then finally, Electrode got a clean punch to Max’s face, knocking her to the ground.
He was now covered head to toe by the swirling electrical currents. He laughed maniacally, as villains are prone to do when they think they’re winning.
“Not so tough now, are you little girl?” taunted Electrode.
“No,” replied Max matter-of-factly as she looked up at him. “I guess I’m not, really. Oh well.”
She scrambled to her feet as quickly as she could and ran in the opposite direction. She was stopped, however, as a bolt of electricity struck the ground in front of her, leaving a fairly large crater where the street used to be. She turned to see Electrode waving his finger scornfully at her. He had even more of an electrical aura now.
It was at this point that Max realized that she was in trouble. This guy totally outclassed her power wise and she didn’t have any idea how to fight him. She knew she should’ve gotten a gimmick. She didn’t have squat to fight this guy with. She needed a laser or a magic ring or webbing or something. Hell, even a stupid billy club would be better than what she had now.
There was only one thing she could do. She closed her eyes and began to focus. She had to tap into whatever power it was that Steve had detected on his stupid machine. It was her only hope.
“What are you doing?” asked Electrode. “I thought we were fighting.”
“Shut up! Just gimme a minute…”
She focused and meditated and counted sheep and did everything she could think of to bring out the power within her. She called for it with all her soul. Without it, she would surely be destroyed. With every fiber of her being she searched for it inside her self. Just before she was about to give up she felt it. A tingle. But it was more than that. It was something new. Something…powerful. But then just like that, it was gone.
She opened her eyes. Electrode was still there, and he looked like he was growing pretty impatient. She didn’t feel any different…Had she just imagined the feeling?
Then she caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye. A flare of red. She turned her head, but saw nothing there. She still saw the red, though. It was her hair? It couldn‘t be. Her hair was blonde. She had only just gotten used to that. She grabbed a handful of it and pulled it to her face. Sure enough, it was bright red.
“Oh come on!” exclaimed Max. “This is bullshit! My hair? My hair?! What is that supposed to be?”
“Nice trick,” said Electrode coolly. “My turn.”
Electrode held out his arms, and suddenly a lightning bolt fell from the sky, despite the fact that there wasn’t any clouds. The amount of electricity surrounding him grew at least by ten.
Max, in awe of what she had just seen, did the only thing she could think of. She looked down at her chest. “This is your fault, isn’t it? I know it is. You guys have been nothing but trouble from the day I found you!”
***
Will our heroine survive the onslaught of Electrode?
Will she finally get a name?
Who is behind the mysterious Zerotech corporation?
How did Steve become a doctor and high ranking executive at a large corporation at the age of twenty-two despite being cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs?
Why was there a reference to RonCo? No one’s gonna get that.
Will our heroine look as good as a redhead?
What’s up with Electrode? Y’know what I’m talkin’ ‘bout.
What really is up with the Green Goblin? Seriously.
Whatever happened to the Dell dude? I never thought I’d miss him, but I really do.
(Insert question that makes apparent plotholes seem like well constructed plot points)
For the answers to these questions and more, take a trip to your local library. Reading is fun-damental!
One slightly geeky high school kid, one heartless corporation, and one vat of pink goo. A recipe for the ultimate superhero... sorta. Now with 30% less fat.
Max Summers had never been good at Friday night outings. More often than not, he would stay in, enjoying the majesty of late night chatrooms and incredible humor provided by ABC’s TGIF block. (See, that’s funny ‘cause ABC sucks. Just FYI.) And even when he did go out, he and his friends always ended up stuck in the classic Activity Conversation Loop. For those not familiar with the ACL, it tends to go as following.
“What do you wanna do?”
“I dunno. What do you wanna do?”
“I dunno. What do you wanna do?”
“I dunno. What do you wanna do?”
Repeat ad nauseam. And even when Mac could overcome the dreaded ACL, he still had to contend with its variants, such as “I dunno, where do you wanna eat?” or “I dunno, what movie do you wanna see?” Dreadful stuff. Not dealing with this was part of the reason why Max favored the Friday night chatroom. At least there, you know where you stood. There, you knew you were pretending to be a twenty-three year old lesbian painter sharing a loft in the Village with your beautiful but emotionally unavailable German girlfriend. And you liked it, too.
Currently, Max’s skill with the Ars Friday-Nightica was still pretty low. Instead of spending the night doing something cool like seeing a movie or hanging out in the parking lot of a large retail center, he was flying through the city on a stupid glider thing while being chased by a crazy electricity guy. And he was a she. And she didn’t even have an emotionally unavailable German girlfriend.
Max zipped about down the streets on her glider. She was actually getting pretty damn good on it. Having huge bolts of electricity shot at you every five seconds really helped one learn to keep one’s balance. And hurt like hell.
Electrode was propelling himself behind her by shooting twin blasts of electricity at the ground, thereby pushing him into the air and allowing him to move at great speeds. Or something. Max thought that it didn’t seem physically possible or even probable. Just stupid really. She hadn’t found the time to ask about it, what with the constant almost dieing and all.
“Can’t we talk this over?” called out Max, completely ignoring the fact that at the speeds they were going, it would be almost impossible for Electrode to hear her.
“No. No we can’t,” said Electrode, likewise ignoring the fact that it would be impossible for him to hear such a thing.
“Why not? We’re both reasonable people, aren’t we?” said Max, ignoring how her hearing it would be even more impossible, considering how Electrode was behind her and how he only- You know what? Fuck it. If these characters don’t want to follow the rules of physics, let them. And when it all ends in tears, you know whose fault it’ll be? Not mine.
“Uhh, not really. I’m a dashingly handsome rogue with amazing electrical powers, and your some crazy chick with hair that changes color. I think the possibility of a reasonable conversation between us ended years ago.” He shot out another energy bolt at her to accentuate his pint.
“I’ve explained this several times. I didn’t know my hair could do that,” said Max after narrowly avoiding the blast. Her dedication the ’hero’ thing was dropping by the minute. “I’m just saying it might be nice. I’ll start. I’m sorry I made fun of your sack. It was very nice. I’m sure your mother put a lot of work into it.”
“Thank you,” replied Electrode, shotting. “I accept your apology. And let me add, I will kill you and feast on the blood of your ancestors!”
“What? That’s stupid. Nobody sticks to theme anymore.”
“Huh?” uttered Electrode. He shot another blast, this time to accentuate his confusion.
Again Max zipped away from the bolt, but not without it coming close enough to singe a bit of her hair. “You’re, like, an electricity guy. You should say something like, ‘I’ll put a shock to your system,’ or ‘Time to get charged up!’ or something like that.”
“That’s dumb. Can we just get back to fighting?”
“Not until you get back on point thematically.”
Electrode rolled his eyes and sent another blast Max‘s way, which she dodged with a flipy-kicky-jumpy move thing.. “Nag, nag, nag. Jesus. Is that all you do? You’re not my girlfriend, y’know. You’re just my arch-nemesis.”
Max looked back at her foe with a worried expression. “Arch? Isn’t it kind of soon for that kind of commitment? I mean, we just met and all. I barely know you.”
“But we had that long conversation earlier. And the banter. What about all the banter?”
“That’s all it was. Just banter.”
“Just banter?! So you banter like that with all the villains?”
“Well…You were my first, but still. It takes a lot of hate and distrust to be someone’s arch-nemesis. I just don’t feel that way about you yet.”
“Really? So all of this meant nothing to you?”
“Not nothing,” said Max. “We’ve had some fun times. Why can’t that be enough?”
“Fine. Whatever you say. So what now? We go back to being enemies like nothing happened?”
“I guess. We should probably start killing other people.”
Electrode breathed a long, heavy sigh. “Whatever.” He began to turn so he could fly in the opposite direction, but was stopped by the sound of Max’s voice.
“Wait…“ she began softly. “I’ll always remember how I made fun of your dumbass money sack. Always.”
“Yeah,” said Electrode with a nostalgic smile. “Yeah.”
And with that, Electrode flew away. After seeing that he was sufficiently far away, Max landed her glider on a nearby building and did the only thing she could do in such a time of emotional stress: the cabbage patch.
“It worked! I can’t believe it!” she exclaimed as she stepped off the glider and started getting funky with her bad self. It had worked. She couldn’t believe it. She had actually tricked Electrode into letting her go. And it was easy, too. She was the best superhero ever.
Maybe that could be her theme. She could outwit criminals with her awesome super-intellect. She could be like the Riddler, only good and without the stupid riddles. Or the Shadow. She couldn’t remember exactly what he did, but she thought it had to do with being smarter than people. Either that or fog. She remembered there being something about fog.
“Go me! Go me! I’m awesome! I’m awesome!” said Max as she continued with her exuberance. She stopped for a moment and looked down at her chest. “Good job, girls. I don’t think that would’ve worked without you.”
“Yeah right!” yelled a voice from behind Max. She didn’t even have to look. It was Electrode. Without missing a beat, she continued her conversation with her lady bits. “I give you a damn compliment and this is how you repay me? I hate you guys.”
“Did you really think I was stupid enough to fall for your little trick?” asked he.
Max turned around and shrugged. “Well, yeah. Pretty much.”
Electrode was now surrounded entirely by a bright electrical glow that dwarfed the displays of power he had put on before. Max guessed that he wasn’t so good at anger management. “Well you were wrong. Dead wrong!”
“Thank you, Mr. Movie Tagline.”
“Hey! I thought we were through with the bantering! What happened to slowing down and killing other people?”
“That joke stopped being funny five minutes ago. Get over it, man.”
“Okay,” replied Electrode with a devilish smirk. He suddenly threw his arms upwards towards the sky. The electricity around him began to focus into his hands. “I believe this is checkmate”
“Uhm, how so?”
“I finally have you right where I want you. My ultimate attack is nigh.”
“Ultimate?” asked Max.
“Yes,” said Electrode with a nod. The energy in his hands was growing larger and larger. “A blast of electricity so powerful and so pure that it will ultimately decimate you.”
“How can electricity be pure? I mean, have you been using impure electricity this whole time.”
“Shut up. I’m not done explaining why this is an ultimate attack yet.”
“Because it will break me into ten parts?”
“What?”
“That’s what decimate means. The word you’re looking for is obliterate. They’re not really synonyms.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“I never knew that. Interesting.”
“Now you know.”
“Cool. But as I was saying, this attack truly is an ultimate one. Even with your flying thing, you will not be able to escape this blast. For I was summon forth a might bolt of lightning that will utterly ‘obliterate’ you. Prepare for doom.”
After all the unnecessary conversating, the energy around Electrode’s hands had grown pretty large. Max found it easy to believe that his attack would probably do a lot of damage. She needed a way out, and fast. Electrode was just standing there, gloating and gathering power. There had to be a way to escape. Freedom was so near, yet so far. The glider was right next to her, but so was Electrode. Even not fully charged, she guessed that whatever he would do would sting quite a bit. She needed a plan.
And suddenly she had one. The kind of devious plan that usually only graced the last five minutes of any given detective show. She just needed to implement it, and she only had one chance.
“Holy shit! It’s Captain-o-Matic and his arch nemesis, Evil Chef Tony!” shouted Max.
“Where?” said Electrode, turning his head.
Then, in one fluid motion, Max picked up one end of her glider and swung it in all its pink metallic glory at Electrodes. He dropped like a baker’s dozen of cupcakes at an Alaskan luau. And that doesn’t even make sense.
“Snap fool!” said Max as she reached down and grabbed the bag of money from her now unconscious foe. “Once again, good triumphs because evil is really, really stupid.”
There was a dent in her glider where it had hit Electrode’s head, but now she had something better than an intact personal flying device: a moral victory and a sack of money. And can anyone ever put a value on that? The sack of money I mean. The moral victory ain’t worth shit.
“Perhaps now you’ll learn a lesson,” said Max to her fallen foe. “Crime doesn’t pay. Give a hoot, don’t pollute. Only you can prevent forest fires, douchebag. Who‘s bad now, huh? Who? Ultimate attack my ass.”
Max’s celebratory gloating was interrupted by the sound of a groan from Electrode. He seemed to be recovering from his unconsciousness faster than Max had anticipated.
“Oh shit,” said Max. Without hesitation she jumped onto her glider. Now she would make her daring escape. She would fight this clown later when she was better equipped. Her glider would fly her away like the graceful and majestic eagle.
There was only one problem. After flying her about five or so yards, Max’s graceful and majestic eagle decided to explode. It was a big one too. If Max had been conscious for the whole thing, she would’ve been impressed.
***
“Time to wake up, Sleeping Beauty. Sweet! I finally got to say it.”
Max groaned. She had one hell of a headache. Being in the middle of huge explosions tended to do that to her. She slowly began to open her eyes, allowing them to adjust to the light. As she saw her surroundings, the truth quickly dawned her. For the second time in a month, she was waking up in the Zerotech infirmary.
Her erstwhile mentor, Steve, was standing over her with a self-satisfied grin on his face. “So you’re finally up. Excellent. I was afraid that you might melt again.”
“What…what happened?” said Max. Once again she was lying down in a hospital-style bed in a hospital-style gown talking to a hospital-style idiot.
“The Jet Glider somehow suffered immense damage to its fuel cells, leading to a chain reaction which caused the craft to explode after being activated.”
“Oh…” said Max. She was guessing that hitting some dude in the head with a piece of complicated, physics-defying technology that she didn’t understand was not such a good idea after all.
“You were pretty messed up afterwards. Luckily, we were able to send the strike force down to bring you back here before things got too serious.”
“Zerotech has a strike force?”
“Strike force, group of interns that we don’t allow to sleep. Same thing. The point is, we got you back safely, and the interns got to touch a girl. It was win-win. Except for your injuries and all.”
“So how’d you know I was hurt? It’s not like I sent out a distress signal.”
“Oh, but you did,” said Steve with a smirk. “The chip in your head sent out a signal as soon as you went unconscious. That’s how we were able to find you so quickly.”
“Wait, what?! There’s a chip in my head?!”
“Of course. You don’t remember? We put it in when we were doing all that brain stuff that day.”
Max stood straight up. She was not amused. “Brain stuff? You did something to my brain? What the hell did you do?!”
“Uhh.” Steve paused for a moment, looking down at his protégé with a slightly worried expression. “What? I didn’t do anything? Why are you talking about brains? I didn’t say anything about brains.”
“I’m not kidding, Steve. What the hell did you do?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t say nothing about nothing. You must’ve been dreaming or something.”
“Seriously. What did you do to my brain?”
“This is more serious than I thought. You appear to be suffering from a case of Post…Explosion, uhm, Dementia. Yeah, Post Explosion Dementia. Or PED as we doctors. That’s a real thing. You can’t prove it isn’t.”
“That’s not a real thing!”
“How do you know? Did you go to medical school? I don’t think so. I graduated at the top of my class, y’know.”
“You totally just made that up.”
“No I didn’t. You just think that you’ve never heard of it. That’s the insidious effect of PED. It temporarily wipes out any and all memory of its existence. Nobody knows how or why. To the uninformed, it may even seem nonsensical or contrived. But I assure you, you should stop asking questions.”
“You’re not going to tell me about the brain thing, are you?”
“Nope.”
Max crossed her arms and frowned angrily. That was what she was going for, anyway. It came out as more of an exceedingly cute pout. “Fine. But if I get any weird brain diseases or anything, you guys are getting super sued.”
“Actually, if you read clause seventeen of your contract, you’ll see that-,” Steve stopped mid-sentence and paused for a moment. “Y’know, don’t worry about it. You’ll see eventually. But on the lighter side, I’ve got good news.”
“You figured out a way to give me back my man parts?”
“Even better.”
“You’ve figured out a way to give me back my man parts and got me a girlfriend.”
Steve chuckled. “Yeah right. I’m a doctor, not a genie.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that after your successful test run last night, I’ve gotten you full access to the fruits of Zerotech’s weapons division.”
“How could what went on last night be considered successful by anyone?”
“You didn’t die. That’s pretty much the only watermark for success we have around here.”
“That makes me feel real good about this place.”
“I know.”
“Wait a tic, isn’t this a drug company?”
“Yeah.”
“Why the hell does it have an weapons division?”
Steve shrugged. “I don’t ask questions like that. I think it has to do with people’s hands in foreign honey pots and the lagging economy and stuff like that. You know how it is.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Well, regardless of that, you’re going to be much better armed the next time you go out. It’ll be sweet, I assure you.”
“Great,” said Max as she lay back down. “That’s just what I wanna do. Go fight loonies in tights again.”
“Aww, don’t be so jaded. You’ll feel better about it when you recover from all the severe internal damage.”
“Whatever,” said Max with a roll of the eyes.
“I’ll just leave you here to heal for a while. Briar Rose needs her rest, after all.”
“Just leave, dude.”
“I’m going, I’m going. Just one more thing.”
“What?”
“Is there any particular reason why your hair is green?”
“What?!”
***
What did Zerotech really do to Max’s brain?
Why is Max’s hair green and why didn’t she notice?
Whatever happened to Electrode?
When will medical science finally stem the rising tide of PED?
Why is Taco Bell so damn delicious?
Why does this story have so much pointless dialogue? Damn. It’s not funny anymore. It’s just stupid.
If a train leaves from Cleveland at 5:00 going 75 mph and another train leaves from Baltimore going 80 mph, how long will it take for anyone to give a shit?
Why was that last question such a ridiculous non sequitor? Seriously. Not funny anymore.
What sort of weapons will Max be receiving?
How come Samantha from Bewitched always took Darren’s shit? She was a witch. He was just some advertising dude. I know they were in love, but he was just a bastard. I always hated him.
I’m not even going to pretend this is a question. That last one was just stupid.
Why did it take so long for this chapter to come out? It’s not even good. And it’s shorter than the other chapters to boot. What a rip-off.
For the answers to these questions and more, get a job you dirty hippie. Do it now before I call the cops.