🚀 go-pugleaf

   It had been a pretty good day for the Plotzkins.  Muriel and
Stan had spent the day sightseeing in Laconia, along with Stan's
brother, Wilbur, and they had managed to collect a fairly large
collection of trophies to bring back to the hotel: an "I LOVE
LACONIA" t-shirt, an owl statuette made of brown and white
seashells, three pairs of cheap sunglasses, a World Cup '94 beach
towel (half price!), a set of ceramic frogs, and several dozen
postcards.  Also, during the course of the day, they had taken
enough pictures to produce a slide show that would have their
friends and family gnawing off limbs in a desperate attempt to
escape with their sanity intact.
   "What's on our agenda for tomorrow?" asked Stan.
   Wilbur consulted his tourist guide.  "Bob City, the final
showdown of the Industrial Revolution."
   "Hasn't that already happened?" asked Muriel.
   "Yes and no.  It's already been written and posted, but the
story we're in now is out of continuity, so we have to pretend it
hasn't happened yet."
   "Oh.  Do we have much time before our bus leaves?"
   "A few minutes.  Why?"
   "I thought we might want to grab some soft-serve ice cream--
Hey!"  A coil of electricity looped out of nowhere, surrounding
the Plotzkins like a lasso and pulling them into a nearby alley.
There, they were confronted by three figures wearing leather
jackets over their homemade superhero costumes.
   "Muriel, it's Mr. Plasma, Anode, and Magnoboy from the Super
Seven!  Quick, get the camera!"
   "My arms are kind of pinned to my sides right now, Stan."
   "Ah, right.  Isn't that always the way?"
   Mr. Plasma glanced over at Anode.  "Are you sure about this,
Tracy?"
   His teammate flipped through Stan Plotzkin's wallet until she
found the little white card with the Hotel LaGrange logo.
"Jackpot," she announced.  "Folks, we're going to have to ask you
for a teensy-tinsy itty-bitty little favor..."
   "Anything for you guys," said Wilbur, enthusiastically.
   "We're going to take your loud tourist clothing, your cameras,
and all of your trinkets, leaving you tied up in this alley in
your underwear as we sneak aboard your tour bus using your Hotel
room cards."
   The Plotzkins were silent for a long moment.  "Stan, are you
sure these guys are *heroes*?"


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                           SUPER SEVEN #6E
                           WORLDS APART #5
         Copyright 1994, Greg Fishbone, all rights reserved.

  Permission is hereby granted to disseminate or reproduce this
  work via electronic means only, for entertainment purposes only,
  and only if all attributions and headers remain in place and the
  text of the work (including attributions and headers) is not
  altered in any way.  Any reproduction of this work for profit of
  any form is strictly forbidden without the express written
  permission of Greg Fishbone.  Hard copy reproduction is limited
  to single copies printed for the use of the user only, and
  cannot be mass produced or disseminated in any way.  Implicit
  permission is granted to make reference to the characters and
  events of this work in the context of the Superguy Subtopic of
  the Superguy Mailing List only, and such use does not constitute
  an abridgement or relinquishment of any of Greg Fishbone's
  rights as they are expressed or implied herein.  All other
  rights not specifically referred to in this notice are reserved
  to Greg Fishbone.  "Super Seven", "Dillweed City", "Worlds
  Apart", and all character names used in this story are
  trademarks belonging to Greg Fishbone, who reserves all rights
  to their use except in the context of explicit or implicit
  permission granted to Superguy authors.  (WHEW!)

Feedback to fishbone@astro.ocis.temple.edu -- just to let me know
you're out there!


   "Isn't this exciting?" asked Tracy.  Her new outfit consisted
of Muriel Plotzkin's green plastic sunglasses, polyester slacks,
and a t-shirt that read, 'MY FRIEND WENT TO SUPERGUY'S FUNERAL AND
ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT!'  "Can you believe that we're
actually on a space shuttle, surrounded by actual aliens?"
   "No," said Tom, frankly.  "Look around, Tracy.  We're on a
charter bus, surrounded by tourists, and I'm wearing clothes that
belong to some guy named Stan Plotzkin, including a 'WEEKENDS WERE
MADE FOR GOLFING' baseball hat!"
   "They're *alien* tourists," Tracy insisted.  "And if they made
their spaceship *look* like a spaceship, it would completely blow
their cover."
   "Sorry, Tracy, I have to agree with Tom on this one," said
Mark, pulling uneasily at the 'LIFE IS A BEACH' t-shirt he had
taken from Wilbur Plotzkin.  "There's absolutely nothing unusual
about this bus or these people"
   "May I have your attention, please?" asked the bus driver over
the intercom.  "Coming up on our right is a small, white dog."
   "Ooooooooooo!" the passengers chorused, crowding over to the
right side of the bus with their cameras.
   "Okay, so they're a little camera-happy," he admitted, "but
that still doesn't make them aliens."
   "What about the others?" asked Tom.  "You say you can see them
through Stacy's eyes...  Are they all right?"
   "They're in the morgue."
   "What?!!"
   "Oh, they're not dead," she said quickly.  "They're just doing
a little investigating, now that they've broken out of the
orbiting Hotel's brig.  In fact, I feel a bit sick right now from
what Stacy's seeing."
   "...and on our left, a billboard advertising Zima..."
   "Aaaaaaaaaah!"  Snap-snap-whir-flash...
   "Tourists," Tom muttered.
   "If what you say is true," said Mark to Tracy, "and that's a
pretty big if, there's no way we'll possibly be able to travel up
into orbit in a chartered bus!"
   "May I have your attention again, please?  Prepare yourselves
for transformation sequence and launch in ten seconds.  Thank
you."
   "Prepare for *what*?" asked Tom, as all of the other passengers
quickly strapped themselves in.  A viewscreen slid down in the
front of the vehicle, displaying a rotating image of the tour bus.
The three heroes felt a series of vibrations coming from under the
bus, and the at the same time the image on the screen shifted and
changed.  Wings popped out of the sides, three rocket engines
popped out of the back, an array of sensors appeared, and the grey
metal of the bus was replaced by gleaming white space-age ceramic.
Finally, the wheels folded under the vehicle and disappeared, and
the passengers were thrown back into their seats by strong g-
forces.
    Tracy sat in the center of the vehicle's rear seat, smiling
smugly.  On either side of her, Tom and Mark jumped to the windows
and looked out at New Hampshire's White Mountains, far below them
and receding fast.
   "And coming up on our left is an old communications satellite."
   "Oooooooooh!"  Snap-snap-snap-whir-snap...
   "You guys were saying?"
                            * * *
   "I've found it, sir!"
   Detective Bob Lemon, head of Hotel security, looked up from his
videoscreens and addressed to his digital assistant.  "Good work,
Marie.  What have you got?"
   "A listing in our database.  Apparently our three escapees are
human superheroes from Earth, just as they claim -- Taximan,
Cathode, and the Human Microwave, formerly of a group known as the
Super Seven."
   "Super Seven...  Why does that sound so familiar?"
   "It was one of our special projects, sir.  A dismal failure,
I'm afraid.  One of the team members was killed in their first
battle, and the others have been completely angst-ridden ever
since.  One seems to be in denial, another has become a cynical
vigilante, the twins are burying themselves in busywork, one is
having power-related problems, and the last has been in a
depressed funk since May.  They have provided us with nothing in
the way of tourist draw for a number of months."
   "Good grief!  Who is in charge of this fiasco?"
   "Agent Schlock, sir.  He has since been transferred back to the
home planet, and no other agents have been assigned to the
Dillweed City district."
   "What about the Author?  Surely he must be able to salvage
something from this mess."
   "I wouldn't bank on it, sir.  The Author has had some small
accomplishments, including a Super Seven cameo in a 'Teen Team'
episode and a small crossover with Pliable Lad of the Legion of
Net Heroes, but his posting over the summer has been erratic on
both of the series he's been working on.  He has introduced an
unorthodox numbering sequence, dropped out of continuity with the
Industrial Revolution, left quite a few hanging plot elements from
the spring, and probably won't be able to live up to his promise
to wrap up this summer miniseries by the end of August.  He is
apparently writing as he goes along with very little in the way of
pre-planning, even resorting to cliched meta-references to
himself."
   "Yes, and now it seems he's sent these ex-heroes up to the
Hotel to murder one of our desk clerks.  Why, Marie?"
   "Who can fathom the mind of an Author, sir?"
   "Who indeed.  Very well, we must find these ex-heroes and
return them to the brig before they can kill anyone else.  Marie,
set up a scan of the ship, send a memo to all of the Hotel staff,
and set up a random pattern of surveillance for all security
cameras."
   "Sir, might I suggest that we monitor the front desk?  I have
heard that criminals often return to the scene of their crimes..."
   "That's nonsense, Marie," said Lemon.  "Why would they
*possibly* return to the front desk?"
                             * * *
   Kyle, Nick, and Stacy found their way back to the front desk,
where a man in a desk clerk's uniform was busily trying to wipe up
the blood from his brutally murdered co-worker.
   "The other guy we saw didn't have a uniform," Stacy noted.
   "Which confirms our theory that he was the real murderer," said
Nick.
   The desk clerk looked up with mild curiosity at the three
figures approaching him.  Something about them seemed familiar,
but he could not quite remember what until he happened to glance
down at the electronic memo he had just received from Detective
Lemon: "To all Hotel personnel, be on the lookout for three
escaped teenaged humans, wanted for the murder of Desk Clerk
Bobbin.  Subject number one is a short, thin, wiry male wearing a
t-shirt and jeans.  Subject number two is a female with a brown
pony-tail, wearing a green waitress uniform.  Subject number three
is a rather average-looking male wearing pajamas.  Subjects are to
be considered super-powered and extremely dangerous -- do not
approach them, and report any encounters to Hotel security
immediately.  And whatever you do, please don't allow any of the
Hotel guests to suspect that powerful bloodthirsty murderers from
Earth are roaming free through our corridors.  Thank you."
   "Oh no, here they come," said the clerk to himself.  "I'll just
keep calm and be cool...  Nothing bad will happen as long as I
stay in control..."
   "Excuse us, sir."
   "Yes?  Can I help you?"  He smiled, and tried to ignore the
beads of sweat that were running down his face.
   "We were wondering if you could--"
   "Ohmighod, ohmighod, ohmighod!" the clerk shouted frantically.
"Please don't kill me!"
   "Calm down.  We're not going to--"
   "Help!  Somebody help!  Murderers are on the loose in the
Hotel!"  He lunged over the desk, fell flat onto the carpeted
floor of the lobby, clumsily recovered, and began to run for one
of the exits.  "Assassins!  Murderers!  Killers!"  Five feet from
the door, he discovered that he could no longer run, no matter how
hard he struggled to move, because of an electric lasso wrapped
tightly around his waist.
   "Nice reflexes, Stacy," said Kyle.
   "Nothing to it," she replied, though she seemed to be
noticeably weakened from the effort of generating the electric
coil so quickly.  The three heroes grabbed onto the coil and
pulled the clerk back to the front desk, where he quivered and
murmured in terror.
   "Really, we're the good guys," Nick told the man.  "We're
trying to clear our names and we need your help."
   "Oh, of course," said the clerk, calming down.  "I knew it had
to be something like that."  He looked up to see about a dozen
Hotel guests in their loud touristy shirts gathered around the
perimeter of the lobby, looking at the group with intense
curiosity.  "Uh, show's over folks.  No bloodthirsty murderers
here, and they certainly would *never* be allowed to roam free
through our corridors.  Heh-heh."
   "There was a man we saw here before," said Nick.  "We think
that he's the real murderer."
   "He was in his twenties, tall, medium build, with dark hair and
green eyes," said Stacy.
   "And he was missing his left arm," Kyle added.
   "What?  I didn't notice that!"
   "Oops, sorry.  I was thinking of that Harrison Ford movie..."
   "He was working on the computer," said Stacy, "and he had a
little box with electronic components that he was hooking up."
   "Let's see," said the desk clerk, looking under the desk.  "You
mean this box?  The one with the little timer on it and the label
that says 'ACME NUCLEAR ANNIHILATION KIT FOR JUNIOR TERRORISTS'?"
   "Yeah, that's the one.  You don't suppose it's a bomb, do you?"
   "What?" the clerk demanded, his eyes wide with horror.  "A
*bomb*?!!  Ohmighod!  We're going to die!  We're all going to--"
Kyle gave the man a hard whack on the back of the head and he
slumped over onto the floor.
   "You know," said Nick, looking down at the unconscious desk
clerk, "this is definitely not going to win us any points with
Detective Lemon."


SO WHAT DO YOU THINK, BLOW THE HOTEL OUT OF SPACE?
OR MAYBE I'LL JUST DELETE MARIE OUT OF THE COMPUTER SYSTEM.
"VERY LITTLE IN THE WAY OF PRE-PLANNING..."  JEESH!
AND WHO DOES SHE THINK SHE IS, ANYWAY?

JUST WAIT 'TIL THE FINAL CHAPTER OF "WORLDS APART", COMING SOON
(I PROMISE) TO A COMPUTER NEAR YOU, ONLY FROM *SUPERGUY*!

HMMPH!  CLICHED META-REFERENCE MY FOOT!

-----
Greg Fishbone                                  fishbone@astro.ocis.temple.edu

   "As you can see, Your Honor, I have no eyebrows."
           --Defendant on "The People's Court" responding to Judge Wopner's
             question: "What seems to be the problem, ma'am?"