🚀 go-pugleaf

     Jack looked up at the girder and strut framework in front of him.
"Are you sure about this stunt, Steve?" he asked, gesturing at the building
under construction.
     "Yeah, I worked out all the angles.  See, there, that wrecking ball,"
he pointed at a big black ball suspended from the end of a cable and
attached to a top floor girder, "is really made of rubber.  When we start
the scene, it's released and swings down to bounce you off your perch up
THERE," he pointed emphatically at a girder jutting out into space about
five stories up.  "We intercut shots of a real wrecking ball later, of
course.  You fly out and fall into that water-filled foundation pit over
there," he pointed at a hole filled with muddy water.  "Hey, guys, get some
more light on that landing spot!" he shouted across to the crew.
     They nodded and pulled some reflective sheets out of the van, dragging
the sheets over to the hole and setting them up to catch the late afternoon
sun.
     "I get how it's supposed to work, but how do you know I'll fall in the
pond?" Jack asked.
     "Oh yeah.  Basic physics, Jack."  He pulled out a notebook on which
he'd scribbled various sketches and figures.  "See, when the ball is
pulled back, it picks up energy...mass times the height it goes up times
gravity, just like we learned in high school."
     "I didn't go to high school," Jack protested.
     "Trust me," Steve replied.  "Anyway, when it's just about to hit you,
all the energy has turned into motion energy...mass times the square of
velocity.  Then...you're about 75 kilograms, right?  Okay, then momentum is
conserved, you get a velocity and go flying out into space.  Simple
ballistics show where you'll land.  Of course, you might not take all of
the ball's energy, so the pit's dug long enough to compensate for shorter
flights.  It's all here on the page," he thrust the notebook at Jack.
     "Okay, okay," Jack said, pulling on the Crazy Guy mask.  Despite the
inauspicious premier, the first Crazy Guy movie had turned a profit in the
first three weeks, prompting a sequel.  He wasn't sure what it was about
yet, it was still being written.  But since it was being written around
set pieces, they could work on some of them right away.  And since he was
being paid better this time around, he figured he shouldn't make too much of
a fuss.  The diagrams made no sense to him, but Steve's explanation sounded
reasonable.
     Jack boarded the elevator and started up to the fifth floor.
     Meanwhile, Kevin, the director (who was leaving stunt direction to
Steve) walked over to Steve carrying a special express package under his
arm.
     "So, how's the stunt going?" Kevin asked.
     "So far, so good.  Take a look at the planning stuff," he handed Steve
the notebook. Steve juggled his package a bit and took the notebook.
     "All set here!" came Jack's shout from above.
     "Okay!  Cameras rolling!" Steve shouted.
     "Say...something here's bothering me," Kevin mumbled.
     "Release ball!" Steve shouted.  "What?" he asked Kevin.
     "Well, isn't kinetic energy supposed to be mass times velocity
squared times...."
     The ball swung down and struck Jack with a loud THWACK! of rubber on
flesh.
     Jack sailed through the air.
     Jack looked down and realized he wasn't going to land in the pond.
     Jack screamed in panic as he came crashing down on the silvery cloth
sheets strung up behind the pond.
     "...one-half," Kevin finished with a sigh.

Coherent Comics UnInc. Presents:   ___  __   __ ___ _  _   ___   _  _ _  _
         CRAZY GUY #11            /   '/  | / |  /   \/   /   ' /   /  \/
  "Hell (TM) Hath No Fury..."    /    /--' /--| /    /   /  __ /   /   /
copyright 1996 Dave Van Domelen `___ /  | /   |/__ _/    `__/  \__/  _/
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

     "Okay, so I left out a factor of two...no one got seriously hurt,
right?" asked Steve.  As the viewpoint pulled back, it was visible that he
was being dangled upside down by his ankles over the muddy pool.  And, of
course, Jack wass doing the dangling.
     "That's NOT the POINT," Jack said emphatically, his lips almost
seeming to match up with his words for once.  "Aside from the fact that
I could have fallen on top of somebody and killed him, you're getting
SLOPPY!  Ever since I told you about my abilities, you've been designing
more and more dangerous stunts around me...and while that's okay, you're
also not checking to make sure the stunt will WORK!  Getting broken bones
for the sake of the movie is one thing, but I don't want to be in a body
splint for a week because of something that's not even going to be usable!"
     "There's also the matter of scheduling," Kevin added.  "We only have
this place for a couple of days, and have a lot more scenes to shoot.  We
can't afford to lose a set piece because of careless stunt design."
     "Okay, I'm sorry," Steve apologized.  "Can you put me down now?"
     "Sure," Kevin grinned.  "Cameras!  Action!"
     Jack dropped Steve head-first into the pool.
     "We can use this for the wrap party reel," Kevin smirked.  "Cut.
Okay, Steve, you rework those numbers and have the stunt ready to go in
fifteen minutes.  Jack and I will be looking this over," he held up the
package.  "Kartoffelkopf sent over some more information about the demon
who crashed our premier.  C'mon, Jack."
     As Jack and Kevin headed off to the trailer, Steve sputtered and
climbed out of the hole.  Shaking off most of the water, he picked up his
notebook and stomped off to the foreman's desk to borrow a calculator.

               *              *              *              *

     "So, anything interesting that couldn't be worked into the exposition
last time?" Jack asked.
     "Shh, we're live.  Ahem.  Well, looks like most of the stuff Hans sent
us is pretty dry...probably just trying to show us how much he knows and
all that.  Or keep us busy wading through BS long enough for him to get out
of town."
     "Heh.  So, you don't believe he just stumbled onto me either, do you?"
Jack asked.
     "Nope.  Anyway, there's a couple points here you'll be glad to know.
Yu Dingbang is the last of a long line of eunuch sorcerors.  No known heir,
so no one to come gunning for you in revenge."
     "He was a eunuch?  That explains the bad attitude, I suppose.  But I
thought they stopped the whole palace eunuch thing when the last Emperor
was kicked out by the Communists," Jack puzzled.
     "I think the Emperor kicked the eunuchs out long before he got the
boot from the Nationalists, but yeah, it's weird.  Guess it was tied to his
magic or something.  Okay...here's some stuff on Eng Fan Boi.  The good
news is that he probably won't be summonable again for several decades.
I suppose the bad news is that you'll probably still be around then, and
hence number one on his hit parade if he gets out."
     "I'll worry about that in a few decades.  After all, it's not like I'm
planning on visiting the infernal regions personally any time soon, right?"
     Somewhere in Canada, a Muse chuckled.

               *              *              *              *

     Jack rubbed his bruises as he walked back to his apartment for the
night...thankfully there were no nighttime shots planned for the set piece
at the construction site.  It'd taken another few shots to get the stunt
right, camera angles this time instead of carelessness.  His whole back was
one big welt.
     He pondered that.  His minor injuries seemed to take almost as long to
heal as they would on a normal person, but life-threatening ones took care
of themselves much more quickly.  Well, no one said magic worked in a
logical way.  Maybe Hans knew more about the immortality pills Jack's
father had stolen.
     Jack paused for a moment to get his bearings.  Han's office should be
fairly close by, maybe a mile or two at most.  It was getting late, but Jack
figured Hans was the sort of guy who lived in his office, sleeping on a beat
up old leather couch that smelled of old booze and tears while a flickering
neon light from the bar downstairs flashed in a staccato of blood red over
the fitfully-sleeping form...Jack shook his head to clear it.  Maybe it
wasn't a great idea to spend too much time around Hans, actually.  His
speech patterns were starting to rub off.
     Still, Hans was a riddle wrapped in a trenchcoat, and Jack couldn't
shake the feeling he'd regret not finding out more about the Shaman Shamus.
So he shrugged and headed off in the direction of Hans's office, never
noticing the figure watching him from the rooftop shadows....

               *              *              *              *

     As I sat at the creaking swivel chair of my run-down office, looking
at how the numbers were finally adding up on my account balance and
wondering what life would be like not hounded by creditors out for my
blood, first born child and left leg, I couldn't shake the feeling that
something really bad was about to happen.  Not just the normal Murphy luck
feeling that when things are going right you wake up one morning to find
a wrecking ball coming in your front window, forcing you to disguise
yourself as a woman to get an affordable apartment...no.  This was a far
more specific type of bad feeling, and it called for a little of the old
hocus pocus.
     Like I told the kid, I don't have any real powers.  I'm one of the
low-rent accredited types, after all.  But you don't hang out with mages
and slobbering horrors built out of demonic tinker toys as long as I have
(which, thankfully, hasn't been all that long, really) without picking up a
trick or two about fortunetelling.
     Not the cold-reading fraud stuff they advertise on TV for $1.95 the
first minute and small chunks of your immortal soul for each additional
minute, but real scrying.  It's not very accurate and can take more effort
to interpret than the revised version of the current tax laws, but it
works.
     I picked up the phone.  See, I don't go in for casting I Chings or
reading tea leaves.  Too old-fashioned, designed around the needs of the
average hut-dwelling farmer of a few thousand years ago.  Me, I prefer to
go for prank calling.  It hasn't worked as well since the government broke
up Ma Bell into a half dozen squalling, puking little Baby Bells, since
the old monopoly really had something going in the old tapping-into-the-
primal-forces gig, but you go with what you can get, right?
     Without looking at the phone, I tapped out a random number.  It rang
three times, then was picked up by an answering machine.
     "Jack's Body Shop, if your car's been through Hell(TM) we can bring it
back.  Our hours are..." I hung up the phone.
     It was the kid.  And he was about to get in way over his head.

               *              *              *              *

     Almost there, Jack noticed.  Apparently Hans's office wasn't
accessible from the street, he'd have to head down a side alley to get in.
Jack peered down the alley.  It wasn't very well lit, several of the lights
along it buzzed and flickered wanly, with the occasional pool of decent
lighting here and there along it.  He palmed his staff just in case someone
was in the alley and looking for a victim.  Taking a moment for a second
thought, he shook the staff out to regular size...better to deter any
potential muggers than waste time beating them into pulps.
     Something about this alley seemed more sinister than other parts of
town.  Maybe that's why Hans had his office here...better ambiance.  Jack
walked confidently down the alley, checking addresses in the intermittent
light and keeping an eye on the darker areas.
     He heard a metallic CHACHINK from above  and whirled about to face
the direction the sound came from.
     Just in time to see the harpoon smash into his gut and slam him back
against the wall, pinned like a butterfly.  His staff clattered to the
ground and rolled into the darkness.  He tried to ignore the pain and free
himself from the harpoon before he healed around it...and before the
person who fired it showed up.
     There was a slight fluttering sound and a light thump as someone
landed in front of him.  He pushed aside the red haze in his eyes and
looked up.
     "Hi, Jack," mocked Ben Sidhe as she twanged the harpoon, sending new
waves of pain through his body.
     Then the scream started.  That terrible, awful screech that made his
muscles weak and his already blurred vision swim.
     But this time it seemed to be somehow different.  It was slowly rising
in pitch.  After a moment, he could no longer hear it, but he *could* hear
the baying of dogs in the neighborhood who apparently could still hear the
scream.
     Suddenly, she lashed out with her stiffened right hand.
     Windows shattered all down the alley.
     The dogs stopped howling and ran whimpering into the night.
     She touched him gently on the chest.
     Then all was silent for a moment.
     Now it was Jack who screamed, as the pain suddenly shot up to new
levels he'd never before experienced.  Gasping, he asked, "Wha..what?"
     Ben Sidhe smiled coldly.  "Ye couldnae jest take a dive when I
attacked ye last time, could ye?  Yea, I know yui've got superpowers,"
she drawled out the word in her best American accent, "ye couldae let me
think I killed ye and walked off later.  But NO, ye had tae HUMILIATE me.
Grab me like a cheap whore 'n tie me up like a Christmas turkey!  If I
thought ye had any shame, I'dae done worse tae ye than death, but I guess
I'll have tae settle for that."
     "But..." Jack gasped, starting to at least get used to the pain.
     "But how can I kill ye?  It wasnae easy, but once I knew ye were
immortal and had one of the sea-fix pins, I figured ye might have taken the
legendary Chinese elixir of immortality.  Which meant the scroll I found
inna old temple a while back might be a' use.  The technique of the 'God
Kill Strike' breaks up the body's chi flow an' should keep ye from healing
from this.  Oh, ye could take hours t'die, even if someone finds ye.  But
my little yell's probably attracted some attention, so I'll be seein' ye.
In Hell(TM)."
     With that, the red-haired assassin was gone into the night.
     Could she be right?  Would this kill him?  Jack still knew so little
about the more mystical aspects of his heritage, how could he say for sure
her "God Kill Strike" wouldn't work?  Certainly he wasn't healing this
wound...and it was definitely mortal enough he should have started to heal
it by now.
     As the pain threatened to overwhelm him, he also wondered if perhaps
she'd been justified.  He hadn't hesitated in using the Stoned Invid style
on her, when all losing meant was being late for dinner.  His father'd
taught him all about fighting, but almost nothing about women.  And now,
for all he knew about fighting, it looked like his lack of savvy about
women was going to get him killed.
     Then he laughed, a bitter laugh which turned into a bloody cough.  He
thought back to the scroll his father had shown him, with the identity of
the 36th Crazy Plot on it.
     Death.
     He'd thought he couldn't fulfill that plot then, but now it looked all
too likely.  Too bad he'd never have a chance to work on the remaining 33.
     Something penetrated his pain-addled mind.  A smell.  A horrible
smell.  The smell of a thousand sweaty feet.
     He forced his eyes open and looked at the well-dressed figure before
him.
     "Hello, sir.  My name is Jones.  Satan T. Lucifer Jones.  I've noticed
you're in a bit of a predicament.  Perhaps we could strike...a bargain?"

SATAN T. LUCIFER JONES?  IS THE AUTHOR HIGH? (Well, yes.)

WILL JACK MAKE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL?

DOES JACK EVEN KNOW ABOUT THE WHOLE JUDEO-CHRISTIAN HELL(TM) THING?

ALL THIS AND MORE, ON THE NEXT...SUPERGUY!

===========================================================================

Author's Notes:

     Okay, for anyone who missed the Canadian Muse joke, Chris Angelini's
Muse is Murphy.  And he's Canadian.  Yes, THAT Murphy.  And for those
coming in late or reading this on RACC or my webpage, in the Superguy
setting, Hell(TM) has gone corporate and trademarked its name.  More on
Hell(TM) next time, of course.
     The opening sequence with the stunt set up is based on a project I'm
developing for my Physics Education work.  I've already built a nice demo
version of the experiment, complete with a Crazy Guy action figure (a
repainted metal Silver Surfer toy) that gets whacked by the rubber ball.
http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~dvandom/sggallery.html has a link to
a scan of this toy.
     I created Ben Sidhe about the time I was working on 36 Crazy Plots #2,
and she sprang into my mind complete with subplot baggage.  Specifically,
I knew that as part of her character development she'd have four major
interactions with Jack.  The first was to be beaten and humilated by him.
The second was to get her revenge and force Jack into a bad situation vis a
vis Mr. Jones.  The third and fourth are yet to come, but may not happen
for a dozen episodes or more.  Scary longterm type stuff.  So yes, she will
be back, but not right away.