🚀 go-pugleaf

AUTHOR'S NOTE
*************
    Hey, Marie, is this thing on?  Testing, one two...AHEM.
    Due to a sudden lapse in sanity, accompanied by a lapse in
judgement, I mistakenly sent this story out prematurely, without
yet receiving the feedback from the author of one of the most
prominent characters in this segment--Lawrence Brown.  I have
since had time to rethink that decision.
    I am now sending this revised version in an attempt to
correct that error.  This version should supercede the old
version in the Superguy Chronicles.  For a number of reasons,
making Lawrence Brown angry is not something I am desirous of
doing.  Some of these reasons, in no particular order, include a)
I've already done more than enough to annoy him, including
accidentally naming one of my characters after his wife; b) I
have to work with him, due to the interwoven nature of our
storylines; c) I may be meeting him at the next AuthorCon, and I
want to convince him to leave the shotgun at home; d) he was nice
enough both to lend me this modem AND to (however coincidentally)
name his son after me, and I can't repay that kindness by doing
something stupid like that; e) he's currently ill and doesn't
need this aggravation; and f) my conscience won't let me live
with myself for being that stupid.
    So here it is, with Amigoid's revisions incorporated and a
couple of other small changes to make the story work better.
They take place during the latter part of the chapter, so if you
read it last time, just skip down to the keywords "take you on
anytime."
    Thanks for your tolerance.  Okay, Marie...roll tape.

                              -----

                       TEAM M.E.C.H.A. #46
            By Robotech_Master, Back by Popular Demand

            A Story of High Technology and a Long Trip
     (Welcome back, Robo!  (Hey, wait a minute, I sound like a
                            sitcom.))


Falling down the mountain
End up kissing dirt
Look a little closer
Sometimes it wouldn't hurt
            --INXS, "Kiss the Dirt (Falling Down the Mountain)"

    The trip from Dallas to Bob City is a long one, especially if
you're a prisoner.  And there were a couple of those in the
nondescript truck that rumbled up the interstate at a steady 50
miles per hour.  Ariella, Princess of Terrania and a minor mage,
was one; Deckmaster, former petty criminal and current minor
mage, was the other.  They were tied up in the back of the truck,
with Unorthodox Lass keeping a jaundiced eye on both of them.
    Also in the back of the truck, behind a partition separating
it from the prisoners, sat Spectrum and Adam Douglas, and the
gleaming metal behemoths that were the powered-down forms of
Elizabeth's Ginsu World Class armor, Marie's Tornado suit, and
Adam's Cyclone.  (Liz was currently taking her shift driving, and
Marie was keeping her company in the shotgun seat.  Doubtless
Marie would have been driving, if she'd had 1) a license, and 2)
any understanding at all of how to drive.)
    Though none of them knew it, there was another person in the
truck with them.  As much a prisoner in her own way as were
Ariella and Deckmaster, Summer was inside of Marie's Tornado
power armor suit.  Not inside as in the cockpit, but inside the
working mechanisms themselves.  She still wasn't sure exactly how
she did it, but Summer's ability to dissolve into a silvery
mercurial goo and merge into other machinery had stood her in
good stead during the course of this kidnapping.  She only
regretted that she hadn't been able to leave a message for Mike
and the others.  They were probably worried about her.
    Summer took a "look" around the onboard computer of the
Tornado, which would be the seat of her consciousness for the
time being.  She didn't like what she saw.  "Geez!" she thought.
"This place is more cluttered than Mike's room back home!"  The
whole suit of armor was such a mishmash of unrelated technologies
cobbled together, Summer supposed it was unreasonable to expect
the OS to be any different.  But still--this looked like it had
been thrown together from pieces of other software within about
half an hour!  Examining the code, Summer wasn't surprised to
find pieces of a spreadsheet, the "Castle Wolfenstein 3-D"
computer game, Anime Freak's tape list, and a recipe for cheese
blintzes.  "Eeeyuck!  How on earth can this thing manage to MOVE,
let alone FIGHT?!"
    If she was going to be inside it, Summer didn't want to be
tripping over the code all the time.  She'd have to make
some...alterations.  But first, she'd have to make sure these
alterations weren't noticed, to avoid discovery.  Even though
Marie didn't seem like the type of person who would go through
system logs, it paid to be certain.  She checked the
logfiles...and turned up something very interesting indeed.
    "Telemetry?"  Summer examined the transmit uplink from the
suit, then checked the logs again.  "This has been transmitting
continuously since...when...ever since this mecha was
comissioned?  This simply won't do...can't let anyone know I'm
around."  She switched the signal on and off a few times to
simulate a failure, then turned it off for good.  She also shut
the system logs off temporarily so she could work.
    With that out of the way, Summer did some hurried rewrites of
code.  Actually, she didn't do this the way Lincoln Douglas or
some other computer programmer would have, by actually writing
the programs line by line, but rather intuitively, visualizing
the results she wanted and letting her nanocomputers do the rest.
    By the time she was finished, she'd downloaded most of the
operating system from her hardsuit (which, thanks to those
nanites and that flash of hyperspatial energy, was now an
integral part of her) to the Tornado, and disguised it with a
shell interface identical to the one that Marie's mecha had
before.  She wouldn't notice the difference, except the Tornado
armor would probably work a great deal better.  It was helping
the enemy, Summer knew, but she rationalized that it HAD to be
done in order to retain her sanity, and there was just no helping
it.
    For a moment, she considered restricting the voice input
parameters to Marie only, and fixing the bugs in the mental
command subroutines.  But she decided against it; there was such
a thing as doing too much, after all.
    With that out of the way, Summer "relaxed."  There was
nothing more she could do just then...except to check out the
sensor systems.  Audio and video input seemed to work even with
the armor in its compacted storage form.  So, she could look
"out" and see and hear what the other two occupants of this
particular section of the truck were saying.
    But Spectrum and Adam weren't saying much, weren't even
making eye contact.  Undoubtedly, each was unsure of what to say
and was waiting for the other to begin the conversation.  At
last, Spectrum cleared his throat.  "I didn't expect to see you
here."
    Adam looked up from his combat boots and fixed Spectrum with
a steely glare.  "After the way you and your FRIENDS dismissed me
so easily back in Bob City, I would have been very surprised if
you had."
    "Hey, that was uncalled for," Spectrum protested.
    "Was it?" Adam asked.  "Look at me.  Me, Adam Douglas, the
guy who fought by your side in Springfield and twice in Bob City.
My mother was killed by a mage.  She was raped and then brutally
murdered.  And I was with you on that grisly day when we both saw
what magic-users are capable of.  Do you remember the blood?  The
screams?  The--"  Adam stopped, noticing how ashen Spectrum's
face had become.  He sighed.  "I'm sorry, I guess THAT really was
uncalled for.  The point I'm trying to make is that I have just
as much reason for hating mages as you do.  They're a danger to
society, and they have to be controlled.  And I am more than
willing to help do that."
    "I can't believe this!" Summer fumed, though no one outside
of the mecha computer could hear it.  "You idiot, mages are
people, too!"
    "But the question that remains is really one of ability,"
Spectrum pointed out.  "It's fairly easy to fight when you have
an advanced machine that will fight most of your battles for
you."
    "You think it's EASY to drive a Cyclone?" Adam asked,
affecting a tone of near-disbelief.  "Let me tell you something.
In order to fight effectively in ANY mecha, you have to have
hand-to-hand skills OUTSIDE the mecha first.  Sheesh, even
Palladium knows that, and their utter cluelessness is quite well
reknowned."  Despite herself, Summer had to agree with that.  "My
father was a Green Beret Colonel, who served with honor for over
twenty years, and he taught me everything he knows.  Don't
underestimate me because of this."  He patted the folded-up
Cyclone with one hand.  "If it weren't for your powers, I'd take
you on any time."
    Spectrum sighed tiredly.  "Pray that day never happens," He
glanced upward, the new lunar crater fresh in his mind. "Fighting
a friend is the worst fight you can be in."
    "I didn't mean it like that," Adam said.  "But what I'm
trying tell you is I HAVE the skills."
    Spectrum shook his head.  "But skills aren't enough.  What
about experience?"
    "I've had over thirty-five episodes of experience," Adam
replied.  "I started out fighting a guerilla war against Dr.
Zwarghoff, fought in Springfield, Bob City, and if it hadn't been
for Summer's blasted intervention, I would have given Deckmaster
the Kennedy treatment."
    "Don't thank me NOW," Summer muttered.
    Spectrum shook his head. "Thats not what we're here for, or
we wouldn't be hauling these two back.  They'd be in body bags."
    Adam shrugged.  "If you say so.  But you know as well as I do
what magic-users are capable of."  There seemed to be nothing
more to say.  They sat in silence for a moment, looking at the
ceiling, listening to the sounds of the engine and the tires on
the road.  "You got him, then?" Adam said at last.
    "Got who?"
    "Deckmaster."  Adam directed his gaze to Spectrum once more.
"He's why you came here, and I hardly think you'd be leaving town
without him."
    Spectrum nodded reluctantly.  "We got him.  Him and one
other."
    "Where are they?"  Adam looked around.  "Back there?"  He
started to get up, and Spectrum put a hand on his arm.
    "Adam, wait--I'm not about to let you make good on what you
tried back in Dallas."
    Adam snorted.  "I don't plan on it.  If you want to hold them
instead of kill them, fine by me.  I just want to see them."  I
probably couldn't make myself pull the trigger from this close
anyway, he didn't add.
    Spectrum considered this.  "I dunno..."
    "Look, I'll leave all my weapons here, okay?  And you can
make sure I don't try anything."
    Spectrum capitulated.  "All right."  He waited for Adam to
remove his gun belt and shoulder holster, pull the knife out of
his left boot and the Colt Mustang .380 out of the holster around
his right ankle, then accompanied him beyond the barrier.
    Unorthodox Lass looked up at their entrance, nodded, but made
no other moves.  She was sitting against the side of the truck,
grasping a jaggedly-sharpened metal yardstick wrapped with duct
tape at one end in her right hand.  Her silence was not simply
ordinary conversational silence, the absence of talking.  Trudy
Unorthodox's silence went deeper.  It was the silence of a
wounded soul.  The silence of someone who'd seen death, who'd
endured calculated torture that was enough to break most ordinary
people into little pieces.  The silence of someone who didn't
have anything to say.
    The two prisoners, who had been staring dully at their feet
due to the cumulative effects of lingering traces of tranquilizer
drug, road hypnosis, and boredom, looked up.  There was no
recognition in Deckmaster's eyes, but Ariella knew that face.  "I
know you," she said.  "I've seen your picture.  You worked with
Team M.E.C.H.A., didn't you?"
    Adam had been momentarily shocked to see this person here,
this person who looked so much like Sarah Conner.  Was she--had
they--?  But then she'd spoken, and Adam had realized that it
wasn't Sarah but her sister, Ariella.  Still, it was quite a
jolt, seeing this person who resembled his girlfriend to such an
uncanny degree, half-lying bound on the floor.
    Spectrum was somewhat nonplussed himself.  To tell the truth,
he wasn't quite sure what to think.  He'd heard of Sarah Conner's
twin sister, but hadn't realized that she was a mage until very
recently.  Until they'd captured her, in fact.  That had been
part of the reason he'd been avoiding coming back here,
confronting her face to face.  "Yes, I did," he said, briefly
wondering why he couldn't bring himself to maintain eye contact
with her.
    Ariella Conner gazed up at him with pure hatred in her eyes.
"I do not know how my sister could think of you as her friend,"
she said in a quiet voice that was filled with malice.  "Team
M.E.C.H.A. will rescue us.  And when they do, you had better find
yourself a very deep hole.  For if THEY don't hunt you down, be
assured that I will."
    "Yeah," Deckmaster added.  "What she said."  He was
presenting a brave front, but was actually scared almost out of
his mind.  He knew what the media had said about him, knew how
close Adam Douglas had come to terminating him.  Hell (TM), he
still had the bullet in his pocket.  He knew that if these people
believed what had been said about him, then he was already in
neck-deep and getting deeper.  What would they do, hold some kind
of trial?  A kangaroo court that would condemn him to death...or
something worse?  "I don't know how you can stand to live with
yourselves.  And that goes double for YOU."  He looked at Adam.
    Spectrum shook his head.  He looked distinctly uncomfortable
at the idea of having to fight Team M.E.C.H.A., his friends...
"You don't understand.  This is for your own good--"
    "What have I ever done to you, that you should kidnap me
thus?" Ariella demanded.  "I have never even SEEN you before,
except in photographs and film footage."
    Then Unorthodox Girl spoke up, startling all of them.  "You
mages mess around with powers which you don't understand.  Power
corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
    Ariella laughed bitterly.  "Tell me, do you know how this
truck works, what makes it go?"
    "Of course I do!" Unorthodox Lass replied.  "It runs by
internal combustion, anybody knows that!"
    "But do you know how THAT works?" Ariella asked.  "Do you
understand the mechanics of the engine?  The physics of the
explosions that make that combustion possible?  How the atoms
combine and are split apart?  The exact amounts of heat generated
by such a reaction?"
    "Only a nuclear physicist would know that kind of thing!"
Unorthodox Girl protested.
    "Precisely.  But that level of knowledge, of UNDERSTANDING,
seems to be what you expect of the average magic-user."
    Deckmaster caught on.  "By that logic, you should be hunting
down anyone who drives because they don't UNDERSTAND nuclear
physics and might possibly have a car wreck!"
    Unorthodox Girl shook her head.  "People who drive can't
destroy the world--"
    "That's not what the environmentalists say," Deckmaster said.
Unorthodox Lass glared at him.  "Uh, right.  I'll shut up now."
    "--and you can always run out of gas."
    Spectrum angrily slashed his hand down. "Thats enough! You
don't give children guns and crack to play with.  You are dealing
with something that ultimately corrupts you, no matter how good
your intentions.  I've seen where it leads, and if you can't be
trusted to walk away from it, then we're going to have to shut
you down."  He turned and walked away.
    "I can see it's useless to try to change a closed mind,"
Ariella sighed sadly, leaning back to try and get some sleep over
the long trip.  But as Adam turned to go, Ariella said, "Oh,
Adam..."  Adam stopped dead in his tracks, but didn't turn
around.  "You do know that my sister, your dear Sarah Conner, has
been learning magic.  What do you plan to do when it comes time
to hunt HER down?"  The question was left hanging in the air as
Spectrum and Adam walked out.

    "That could have gone better," Spectrum remarked.  Adam was
silent.  He'd gotten a couple of good jolts from what he'd just
seen and heard.  Ariella seemed to have a point...but she was
wrong, Adam KNEW she was.  It was her kind, the magic-users of
the world, that he had to blame for the death of his mother.  If
magic wasn't around, his mother might still be alive today!  It
was his duty to make sure that no other little children had to go
through what he'd gone through.  And Sarah...well, if Sarah was
captured, then let them do to her what they would.  She deserved
it, they ALL did.
    A tiny part of Adam's conscience insisted that he surely
didn't REALLY believe that.  But the images of his mother's
death and the grisly scene on that Bob City bus kept going
through his head, and he found that tiny part easy to ignore.


              WILL ADAM DOUGLAS COME TO HIS SENSES?

           WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO MAKE HIM SEE THE LIGHT?

                   WHAT IS SUMMER GOING TO DO?

   WILL MARIE NOTICE THE DIFFERENCE IN HER SUIT'S PERFORMANCE?

    WHY DO I WRITE THESE TEASER QUESTIONS ANYWAY?  THEY'RE SO
                            *OBVIOUS*!

          Because I pay you to, that's why. --the Author

                        OH.  I KNEW THAT.

 ANYWAY, TUNE IN NEXT TIME FOR THE NEXT EXCITING TEAM M.E.C.H.A.
                        ADVENTURE, ONLY ON

                  S ~ U ~ P ~ E ~ R ~ G ~ U ~ Y