🚀 go-pugleaf

[Part Three]

                                 * * * * * *

     "Are you sure we should have climbed that flight of stairs?"
     "Yes I'm certain!"
     "All right, there's no need to shout.  What's that."
     "It looks like a window.  Look outside."
     "Wow.  Nice view."
     "Yeah."
     "It looks higher than forty-two floors."
     "It is."
     "What do you mean?"
     "Well, assuming the floors on this tower match the floors on that tower,
we're at least eighty floors up."
     "*What?*  The stairs weren't that steep!  You pressed forty-two, right?"
     "Yeah -- hey, there's a fire-door -- we can get down through that!"
     "All right, but this had better work...."

                                 * * * * * *

     "Welcome to Awesome Airways Bob City.  How may I help you?"  The man was
very well trained at his job.  This mostly meant he was perky as Hell (tm).
     "I'd like to book an Airship stateroom, one way, from Bob City to Boston,"
the woman said.  She was dressed like a businesswoman, though she was pretty
enough to be a model.
     "Steerage, coach, business class or executive class?"
     "Business."
     "Smoking stateroom or non-smoking?"
     "Non."
     "What date?"
     "What's the earliest flight you have leaving?"
     "As a direct route?  Let's see..."
     "Any flight.  Any number of stops."
     The attendant looked up.  "Really?  That could mean a lot of extra travel
time, ma'am."
     "I'm in no hurry.  Whenever I get there is fine."
     "All right... well, the Shearstone leaves in three hours.  There are five
stops before Boston, and the route isn't that direct--"
     "I'll take it.  Paid by Visa, please.  No shipping."
     "Name?"
     "Dianna Potentiate."
     "Diana--"
     "Dianna.  D-I-A-N-N-A.  Potentiate, however you happen to spell it."
     "Checked baggage?"
     "I'll handle it."
     "Thank you very much, ma'am."

                                 * * * * * *

     "How the Hell (tm) did we end up in a basement?!"
     The Masked Bruce covered his eyes with his hands.  "I have no idea,
Unorthodox Girl.  You're the one who said she saw a directory that told us to
take the spiral staircase."
     "Who designed this damn building anyway?  Escher?"
     "I don't know.  Maybe we should just go outside and take a plane to
Boston."
     "Yeah."
     There was a long pause, accompanied by knocks from the furnace nearby.
     "So how do we get back outside?"
     There was another long pause.
     "Tell you what," the Masked Bruce said.  "Whichever we reach first -- the
door out or the Xolchaportation Station, is what we'll take."
     "Deal."

                                 * * * * * *

     Relativity Woman saw her husband leaving Trashman's office even as she
approached it.  For a brief second she felt a stab of concern -- Trashman had
hurt Lars before -- but it was quelled.  Whatever Lars and Trashman had been
talking about, it didn't seem to bother him.  He smiled and nodded her into the
office.
     Relativity Woman went, and paused at the door.
     Trashman was sitting in near-darkness, his eyes staring out at the city.
"You can come in if you want," he said in his damnably neutral voice.
     Relativity Woman stepped inside, and slowly approached the desk.  Through
the entire Dark City affair, she and Trashman hadn't talked, except for that
one angry exchange, when she had thought--
     But she had been wrong, then.
     "You... seem concerned," she said.
     "You could say that," he replied.  "Please, sit down."
     Relativity Woman sat.  She noticed Trashman hadn't replaced the picture
she had broken when she was in this office last.  "What's wrong," she asked.
     "What's wrong.  That's an interesting question, Marjorie."
     Relativity Woman's insides turned to ice.  "I -- who told you that name."
     "Marjorie Hopkins MacPherson.  3.9 average in high school.  Graduated cum
laude from a rather prestigious college.  Granddaughter of Lightnin' Hopkins,
who single-handedly disabled Japanese defenses in the second world war.  Your
first boyfriend's name was Rick, you owned a brown rabbit until you were
fourteen, and the closest thing to trouble you got into was the time you
shoplifted a five cent peppermint patty when you were eight and had a spanking
for it."  He turned to look at Relativity Woman.  "When I research a subject,
I'm thorough, Mrs. MacPherson.  And I had cause to research all aspects of your
husband's life, not too long ago."
     Relativity Woman controlled her irritation.  "I see.  Well, I can see
you're busy--"
     "What's wrong is there is a very good chance that the Adjusted League
Unimpeachable will not survive the next few weeks, Relativity Woman."  Trashman
sounded tired, as though the words had taken the life out of him.  "What's
wrong is that for all the best reasons, we may be dying out."
     Relativity Woman was stunned.  Everything had seemed all right -- they had
resoled their business in Dark City perfectly well, if somewhat mysteriously.
"What do you mean?"
     "The Industrial Revolution," Trashman said distantly, as though he were
answering some vague trivia question.
     "That... fight?  How would that break up the Adjusted League?  The
President exonerated all the participants."
     Trashman turned and looked into Relativity Woman's eyes.  "Near the end of
the fight, Spandex Babe murdered a Mage.  He was apparently helpless and
defenseless.  Immediately following the murder, the Masked Bruce followed his
duty to the letter, attacking the paranormal who had shown herself to be
dangerous and bringing her down hard.  Couple that with the Masked Bruce's
other activities -- all far outside the bounds of the A.L.U. charter, if not
the Federal Government's idea of justice, and the actions of Unorthodox Girl,
and you tell me how we can survive."
     "You... have to take disciplinary action."
     "We will.  But will any of us trust each other again?"
     Relativity Woman looked away.  She suddenly felt a kind of sympathy --
even pity for this man.  She realized he was all alone in the world, and that
the closest things he had to friends or family were slipping away.
"Trashman... you'll do the right thing.  I'm sure of that much."
     "Are you?  Hm."  He swiveled in his chair and stood, staring out the
window again.  "I'm glad you've agreed to teach a course at the Academy," he
said.  "Your experience will be invaluable."  It was a dismissal and Relativity
Woman knew it.  She had gone too far -- reached out too much.  She knew that,
right then.  She stood and started out the door, murmuring formalities.
     "Marjorie?"  The voice was still distant.  Turning, she could see his face
reflected in the glass.  She didn't even mind the intimacy of her first name
right then.
     "Yes?"
     "The last time you were in my office -- you came very close to killing me,
didn't you?"
     Relativity Woman remembered that moment.  Remembered the pain of her
husband abandoning the Earth, abandoning her...
     "Yes," she said.  "Yes I did."
     "Something of a pity you didn't," he said, as though he were speaking of
the weather.  "It might have saved us all a lot of trouble."
     Relativity Woman had nothing to say, so she shut the door.

                                 * * * * * *

     Unorthodox Lass and the Masked Bruce stepped around another corner.  They
had discovered that somehow they had ended up in the other tower, and now they
were trying to find any recognizable landmark at all.  They had passed through
three more of the Chandleresque pockets, but had gotten through them with only
a moderate craving for cigarettes and bourbon.
     "Looks like you folks are having a bit of trouble."
     They turned, feeling another Chandler-pocket swarm over them.  The first
thing you noticed about the speaker was that she was a dame.  That came in
second and third, too.  She had a set of legs that made Priests consider
Lutheranism, and a smile that made you think of retirement and picket fences.
The second thing you noticed was the Trenchcoat.  The Fedora.  The look in her
eyes.  She was a tough customer.  She had attitude and a pistol between her and
the world.  She was a gumshoe, that much was for sure.
     "Trouble's not the word for it, see," the Masked Bruce said, his voice
sounding thick, lie he had swallowed a brick soaked in cheap scotch -- the kind
that was made in a bathtub in Queens, New York.  "We need the door or Room
4291a, whichever's closer."
     The woman took a drag off her cigarette.  "Could be trouble," she said.
     "Bring on trouble," Unorthodox Girl said.  "We'll make it think it was in
a mix-master."
     "Okay, it'll cost you two thirty bucks, plus expenses to the Room.  Forty-
five bucks if you want the front door."
     "What?" the heroes said in unison, dropping the Sam Spade accents.
     "Hey, a girl has to make a living, and in Manchu Towers, that's the best
way."
     "You have change for two forties to the room?" the Masked Bruce asked.

                                 * * * * * *

     The A.A.S. Angela Shearstone's engines powered up.  The moorings were
released, and the graceful airship rose into the air.  The envelope was filled
with helium, the engines were powered by generators developed by Andy Awesome
himself.  The gondola below was as luxurious as a passenger liner, as
comfortable as a hotel.
     Dianna Potentiate sat in the Business Travellers' Lounge staring out a
window as they rose above Bob City.  The city where everything had changed for
her.
     By no, no doubt the Masked Bruce had Xolchaported to the
A.L.U.C.H.Q.M.O.U.S.E.  No doubt they had heard his story.  But then again, she
didn't really have a story, did she?
     It didn't matter.  It was time to put an end to it all, and get on with
her life.
     Whatever that meant, now.


WHAT WOULD IT MEAN, NOW?
WHAT WILL TRASHMAN DO TO SPANDEX BABE?
WHAT WILL TRASHMAN DO TO THE MASKED BRUCE AND UNORTHODOX LASS?
WHAT HAPPENED TO TRASHMAN, DANGEROUSMAN, RELATIVITY WOMAN, HEALER, THE DASH AND
DANGEROUSGIRL IN DARK CITY?
WHAT WILL IT MEAN FOR THE ADJUSTED LEAGUE UNIMPEACHABLE?
WILL MIGHTY GUY EVER GET A CLUE FORCED DOWN HIS THROAT?
AND WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH THOSE ALIENS FROM PLANET SOUTH DAKOTA, ANYHOW?

For the answers to a lot of questions, including these, you just need to keep
looking for Superguy Digest, and the 1994-95 Superguy season!  Let's all be
there!