🚀 go-pugleaf

                              The Defense Squad          QUOTE OF THE DAY:
                                 Episode 179           "You know, we really
                           The Last Turdian, Part 3     don't have a word
                                     or                 for 'male bimbo.'
                         One-way ticket to wackiness    Well, alright:
                                 Written by             'senator.' But
                                 Bill Paul              still..."
                         The man with two first names     -Elaine Boozler


        Three days since the apocalypse. Three days since the world
turned itself upside down then rightside up again without so much as
saying 'May I?' Three days since she'd dragged herself to the brink of
disaster and waited for the machine to push her over the edge. Three
days, and even now she could still hear it laughing at her, calling
for her soul.
        Just looking at it was enough to chill her. It stood there,
bristling with that intangible power all inatimate objects have to play
tricks on our minds, damning her, condeming her, tearing her innocence
apart, all without making a sound.
        "I wish you could just destroy it," she said.
        The Superuser looked up from his console and squinted at the
scratched and pitted chestplate of the Ginsu World Class armor before
turning around to face Liz. She refused to set foot in the lab, choosing
instead to wait for Bill in the corridor while he put the armor in storage.
It was important, he said, to give it a quick check before retiring it,
especially in light of the damage inflicted on it during the huge battle
from which they'd just returned. The lab hadn't fared too well itself
and still bore the scars of the armor's first trial run. It was fitting,
in a way, that they should both have gotten the crap kicked out of them.
        "Can't scrap it just yet," Bill explained, "Smartman's not
thrilled with me for having built it in the first place. No doubt he'll
be less thrilled when he discovers where it's been the past few weeks.
And the thrill-o-meter would plunge headlong towards negative infinity if
he heard that I destroyed it for no apparent reason."
        Liz turned, propping herself against the doorway with her arms
crossed and her shoulders tightened. The shadow of the armor stared up
at her from the floor. The damn thing just didn't know when to shut up.
        "Fine: drop it in a cement mixer then."
        "Count yourself lucky that no one thought to do that while you
were wearing it."
        "I'm feeling a lot of things right now. Lucky is not one of them.
I still can't believe what happened... It felt so right, though. This may
sound crazy, but for a while there, everything seemed to make sense. Now,
looking back... I don't know what to think anymore."
        "Well, look at it this way: at least we got some free Bunzai pizza
out of the deal."
        The Superuser plugged a thick collection of cables into a port
in the armor's midsection and checked the console one last time before
stepping down from the repair platform. The birthing process had been
reversed: the child was back in the womb and the umbilical cord was once
again attached. It was frozen now bewteen a chance at a second childhood
and a long, messy abortion to be performed with a blowtorch.
        It would be difficult for a pile of scrap metal to laugh.
        "There: the link between the armor's diagnostic systems and our
central maintenance computer is all set. The HQ's auto-repair systems
should be able to handle everything from here."
        "You're going to fix it?" Liz asked, incredulously.
        "I'm going to make sure there's no chance of it leaking radiation.
If there is, and it's possible considering the hole Summer put in it, I'm
going to make enough emergency repairs to insure that we don't wake up
tomorrow morning with glow-in-the-dark sunburns."
        "And then?"
        "That rather depends on our friendly neighborhood president and
CEO. You're certain you want it dismantled?"
        "Will you be upset if I say yes?"
        "Not a chance: you're far too good a kisser."
        "Then I'm certain."
        "Well, that's it then: I'll put together a proposal and run it
by 'His Holiness' as soon as possible. If we're lucky and he decides to
see reason, we could be rid of the armor inside of a few weeks."
        "What if he doesn't see reason?"
        "We'll burn that bridge when we get to it. C'mon, let's go: the
maintenance drones can take care of the repairs, and I'm asleep on my
feet."
        "Me too. Your quarters or mine?"
        "Which is closest?"
        "Mine."
        "Bingo."
        The two weary heroes walked arm in arm down the hallway, ignoring
the thump of the lab doors sliding shut behind them. The armor maintained
its silent vigil as the maintenance computer began methodically testing
its subsystems. With the increase in computer activity came a sudden burst
of power; a brief flash of electrical energy that arced across the armor's
faceplate.
        Error messages hashed with random data trickled onto the armor's
internal display and were echoed on the nearby diagnostic console. Without
any external instructions to do so, the right gauntlet of the armor
twitched and began to clench into a fist. More equally incomprehensible
error messages appeared, followed by a second electrical discharge.
        Suddenly, and without anybody around to hear it, an eerie, garbled
plea sputtered from the audio amplifiers.
        "*zrk*-ease... Pleas-*arrrrrtz*-on't leave... *fnnnzrt*-elp
meeeee..."
        The maintenance computer noted a sharp rise in absurditron
emissions and, having been programmed to know that this was not a good
thing, decided to halt its active probing until the levels returned to
normal. Emergency circuit breakers were deliberately tripped. The lab
vibrated with the whine of the servos winding down as power flooded out of
the main systems. The tightened fist fell limp and the internal display
went dark.
        The maintenance computer, not having been programmed to know that
the armor wasn't supposed to talk without someone inside, continued on
its merry way without reporting what it had witnessed to anybody.
------------------------------If you neglect---------------------------------
        The footfalls rumbled through the empty factory, tinged with
the grating of stone on stone. A figure moved carefully between the
rusty chains dangling from the idle assembly line winches, listening to
the creaks and groans of neglected  machinery, searching diligently
between the shafts of sunlight stabbing down from the punctured roof into
the must and decay. A shuffling briefly seized the figure's attention
though it quickly became lost in the rattling of the chains.
        Suddenly, and without warning, a baseball bat made of something
more than just wood carommed off the figure's head. While most people
would undoubtedly react to such treatment with surprise, disorientation,
and an indeterminate period of unconsiousness, this particular figure
didn't seem bothered by the impact at all. Rather than collapsing in
pain, he spun around and searched the shadows for his attacker,
half-listening to the bat as it skittered along the floor.
        A strip of rich, Corintian leather assailed him next, latching
firmly onto his wrist. A second wrapped itself around his ankle. Both
proved surprisingly difficult to dislodge. The figure heard the shuffling
again and abruptly found itself framed in the infrared display of a highly
sophisticated set of gold wraparound glasses. Two feet with the weight
of a trenchcoated individual behind them drove themselves into the figure's
chest.
        Following the sounds of a body slumping to the ground and several
joints popping in a most distasteful manner, the factory was once again
quiet.
        "Enough!" said a commanding yet charming voice.
        The tension on the strips of rich, Corintian leather eased.
Ricardo Montalban stepped out of the shadows and released his 'captive,'
then rushed quickly to help his teammate Crankshaft to his feet.
        "Owwww... I feel like I just tried to kick through a cinder block
wall."
        "Please forgive my pseudo-antiheroic friend," Montalban said
charmingly, "he seems to have this irrational penchant for dramatic
entrances. This is Crankshaft, and I am Ricardo Montalban, leader of
Defense Squad Detroit. You, I take it, are Hardass?"
        "Damn straight," said the anthropomorphized donkey of stone, "and
I don't take kindly to being bushwhacked by people that're supposed to be
my friends."
        "Piss off," hissed Crankshaft.
        "Look, I didn't come out here from San Fransisco just to let this
jerk abuse me."
        "Don't mind him, Hardass," said Sister Sludge as she too appeared
from the shadows, "he's just frustrated. We all are."
        "Indeed," said a hidden, oddly fragile voice.
        Crankshaft left Montalban's side and was vaulting over Hardass's
shoulders before anyone could even blink, nevermind start to wonder where
the voice had come from. His .38 was in his hands well before he landed,
and it stayed aimed at what the others thought was empty space until a
hand slid out of the darkness and grabbed the end of the barrel.
        "You know son," said the Grey Panther as he stepped forward, "if
I were a few decades younger, you'd be eating this gun now."
        "Don't try it pops: even without the infrared in my glasses and
my enhanced reflexes, there's no way I could miss you from here."
        "Crankshaft, please," said Sister Sludge, trying to peruade him
to lower the gun, "these people are supposed to be on our side, remember?"
        Faced with Sister Sludge's pleas, not to mention the possibility
of having several tons on of raw sewage shoved up his nose, he relented.
Slowly, the .38 found its way back into Crankshaft's trenchcoat, and the
Grey Panther presented him with his baseball bat.
        "This is yours, I believe." he said smugly.
        "Now then," began Montalban, "if everyone has settled down, we
can begin. I've asked you here in secret to discuss some very important
matters. Out of all the active DefenseCo franchise members, you are among
the tiny handful of those that I feel I can trust. And to be frank, I was
hoping there would be more of you. Hardass, is there any chance that
others from your team might be able to join us?"
        "Ms. Marvelous is with us. Though she said that as a team leader
she'd have a hard time justifying any extended absence from the west
coast without anyone getting wise. However, her comic awareness told
her that Mime Man and the Crimson Amoeba can also be trusted. That's good
enough for me."
        "I suspect the home office might become suspicious if more than
two members of a franchise left town suddenly," Montalban mused. "It might
be best if we only called on one of them for now."
        "In that case, I think we should get the Crimson Amoeba out here
and keep Mime Man in reserve. Mime Man's good, but Crimmy's got more
experience."
        "Excellent: I will see to it. Panther, what about your group?"
        "My instincts are not as sharp as they once were, but I don't
feel we can rely on any of the other members of Defense Squad Miami.
Citrus Man is worthless as an independent operative, and Surfer Girl and
Sunblock are deeply involved in several regional publicity campaigns.
Dr. Feet may in fact be trustworthy, however he's apparently fallen
several months behind in his administrative duties and the suport staff
won't leave him alone for a moment."
        "Wait," said Sister Sludge, "aren't we forgetting about Defense
Squad New England?"
        Crankshart snorted derisively.
        "Yes," he said, "we most certainly are."
        "Oh. Okay. Just checking."
        "There may be others who can help us," Montalban noted,
charmingly, "For now, your four -- and the Crimson Amoeba -- will have
to do. Regrettably, I too cannot leave here without my staff becoming
suspicious."
        "Let's get down to business then, okay?" insisted Hardass, "This
place doesn't feel safe to me."
        "Relax," said Crankshaft, "DefenseCo owns this property. Used
to be a Ford plant until Smartman bought Ford out and laid off half the
workers. Real strange that: he could have made a fortune using his brains
to design and build more fuel efficient cars, but instead he decided to
save money by 'downsizing' the company. The teamsters were furious when
they heard. Anyway, I figure this is the last place anybody will think
to look for us, and if someone does come snooping around, I'll know."

CONTINUED IN PART TWO, IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING...