Girl Power

  She races into a gift shop for a cigarette lighter. After a few clicks the lighter comes to life. She lights the fuses for the firecrackers and then speeds away. Along the way, she grabs the translator, making sure he’s safely away from the area. Everyone else had the good sense to clear out already.

  She ducks as the firecrackers begin to go off. There’s no way to see the EMP pulse as her homemade devices explode. She has to hope for the best.

  She’s certain she’s failed when she hears the monster roar again. “Damn it.” She doesn’t have any idea what to do now. About all she can do is help the people of Tokyo evacuate while Dr. Roboto crushes the city with his giant toy.

  The monster takes one step, but in midair the foot grinds to a halt. There’s a screech of metal that makes Allison put her hands to her ears. She watches as the monster teeters now that it’s off balance. It just needs a push to fall over. If only Starla were here to give it that push—

  A cluster of missiles slam into the back of the beast. They must be cruise missiles launched from some of Major Dalton’s assets in the area. At least they didn’t get caught in the EMP pulse. A second barrage hits near the thigh of the monster. Allison watches as the creature teeters again.

  This time it begins the laborious process of falling down. Allison puts her hands to her ears again as a horrible screech comes from the monster. It falls forward and a little to the right, into the side of a skyscraper. She hopes everyone got out of there in time.

  Allison hears the whop-whop of helicopter rotors. She recognizes the Osprey cargo transport as the same one back at Major Dalton’s base. This must be the cavalry here to break into the monster and root out Dr. Roboto.

  She speeds over to where the monster lays. It takes some advanced free running skills for her to make her way through the rubble of the collapsed building and to the top of the beast, what used to be its back. Major Dalton is already out of the Osprey, dressed in full combat gear.

  “That was some impressive work,” Dalton says.

  “Thanks. I wasn’t sure it would work.”

  “Well it did. We’re going to clean up now. You’re welcome to join us.”

  “Of course,” Allison says. There’s a chance Starla and Elise might be in the monster if Roboto captured them. If not, then she can punch Roboto a few times for them.

  There’s a rent in the creature’s armor big enough for the soldiers to drop through. Major Dalton gestures to her. “After you.”

  Allison drops through the rent, into darkness. Her eyes are still trying to adjust when she hears Major Dalton come down next to her. Then she feels a prick like a bee sting on her left arm. Instantly Allison’s knees buckle and her legs turn to rubber. Like the monster she teeters for a moment before she falls forward.

  The last thing she hears is Major Dalton saying, “Sorry, sweetheart. It’s nothing personal, just business.”

  Chapter 25

  They come up empty in Atomic City and Focal City. Starla and Allison have probably gone somewhere else; God knows they both have the capability to be pretty much anywhere they want at any time. From the backseat of the jet, Melvin whines, “Do you even know Apex Girl and Velocity Gal?”

  “Yes. You want me to get you an autograph?”

  “That would be cool.” He looks out the window, down at Focal City. Then he grabs one of the barf bags to spew into it. Once he’s finished, he asks, “How can you know they aren’t here from way up here?”

  “Superpeople have a unique heat signature you can pick up on if you have sensitive enough equipment. Try to keep that on the down low, would you?”

  “OK,” he says. Midnight doubts he has anyone except her to tell and no stranger would believe him. “What do we do now?”

  She sighs into her mic and then says, “I guess we check out Pacifica. Mermaid might be hanging around there.”

  “Can this thing go underwater?”

  “No.”

  “Batman’s plane can go underwater.”

  “Then maybe you should get a ride with him.”

  Times like this she regrets not hitting Melvin with the Taser again and leaving him tied up in the bunker. He doesn’t seem to appreciate the gravity of the situation yet; for him it’s all still make-believe. He has no idea of the stakes involved.

  She cuts in the jet’s primary engines to get them out to Pacifica. It should take a couple of hours to get there and then they’ll have to wait while she drops a sensor buoy to check for Elise. That stuck-up bitch is the last of the Super Squad Midnight wants to go to, but she doesn’t seem to have a choice. The jet has great range, but not even it can traverse the whole globe to look for someone who might have flown off into space or someone who can run from one side of the earth to the other in a minute.

  Once she has the autopilot set, she turns back in her seat. Melvin’s face is still green, but he hasn’t been puking quite as often. “How you holding up back there?”

  “Fine.”

  “It’s going to be two or three hours until we get to Pacifica. You should take a little nap. It might help settle your stomach.”

  “I can’t sleep at a time like this. It’s too exciting.”

  “Suit yourself.” She turns forward again and then pushes a few buttons to bring up her auxiliary console, which is like a primitive version of a tablet. It’s connected to the computer at the bunker, which allows her to do some more research on the traitorous Major Dalton.

  She still hasn’t been able to figure out exactly why Dalton is working with Roboto. It doesn’t make much sense to her as so far Dalton hasn’t really benefited in any way from the arrangement. What connection the Feminazi has to all this is even less clear.

  Midnight looks through Dalton’s service record for any red flags. She already knows about a lot of the engagements listed since she and the rest of the Squad were involved. Before she took over as the liaison to the Super Squad, Dalton served as an aide to Colonel Max Storm, their previous liaison. Storm hadn’t been any more forward with the team. He had also demonstrated a certain amount of distaste for the job. She supposes out of professional pride he’d hated to need a bunch of freaks in costumes to fight battles for him.

  “What are you doing?” Melvin asks.

  “Playing a game.”

  “No you’re not. You never play games. You don’t even have solitaire on your iPad.”

  “So what? Maybe I play my games online.”

  “Why can’t you tell me what’s going on? I’m part of this too.”

  “That was your decision. I’m the one who didn’t want you to come, remember?”

  “Maybe I can help.”

  She scoffs at this. “I doubt it.”

  After another bout of puking he says, “Why not? At least let me try.”

  She rolls her eyes despite that he can’t see it and then says, “Fine. Maybe it’ll put you to sleep.” She gives him an abbreviated version of what she’s found out about Dalton and Dr. Roboto. She doesn’t mention the Feminazi or the incident that changed the Super Squad into women; there’s no need to creep him out with that yet.

  “So this major is working with a bad guy?”

  “In a nutshell, yes.”

  “Maybe we should go talk to her.”

  “Unless you think you can storm a secure government facility that’s not on the menu.”

  “So you want to tell one of the Super Squad to let them deal with it?”

  “Winner, winner, chicken dinner.”

  “What?”

  “It’s what they say when you win at blackjack.”

  “You play blackjack?”

  “I have a time or two,” she says. She used to play it quite often in casinos when she was living off the grid and needed money. When they tried to work her over in the back room for counting cards was also a good way to get in some fighting practice. “I can teach you the rules later.”

  “Sure.” He throws up into
his bag and then reaches for another. His voice trembles as he asks, “Before you got to Swearingen, did you ever…you know…with anyone?”

  “Are you talking about sex?”

  “Yes.” When he throws up this time she doubts it’s from motion sickness. “Did you?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “I hear other kids talking about it all the time and you seem so…worldly that I wondered if you had.”

  “Worldly? You mean I’m a slut?”

  “No! I mean you’ve done so many cool things—” he trails off to make use of the bag again.

  “No, I haven’t done it,” she says. She supposes that’s technically true since she hasn’t done it as a girl. “Are you wanting me to show you how?”

  “No! I…I—”

  “I’m just yanking your chain,” she says.

  “Oh.” He doesn’t say anything for a while, probably too embarrassed after this last exchange. She goes back to Dalton’s file. She notes before Dalton joined the army, she was a student at Sarah Lawrence. That doesn’t seem like the kind of school for a hard-nosed grunt like Major Dalton.

  She only needs a few seconds to obtain Dalton’s school records. She was a good student, an art history major. Then she dropped out in her senior year, only ten credits shy of graduation. Did she run out of money? Or did she just realize there was no point in an art history degree?

  Out of curiosity, she finds copies of Dalton’s yearbooks. It never hurts to know more about a potential enemy. Maybe something in one of these yearbooks can explain why a promising art history student at a prestigious school dropped out to roll in the mud with a bunch of poor rednecks, ghetto kids, and illegal aliens.

  The freshman Carrie Dalton looks almost like another person with her long hair, bulky glasses, and shy smile. With each successive picture the hair gets shorter and the smile gets narrower. She ditches the glasses in senior year and sports a mullet that would fit right in with the army rednecks.

  The computer brings up another picture of Dalton in her senior year. She’s in the back row of the field hockey team photo, one well-toned arm around another girl. Midnight’s blood turns cold as she recognizes the other girl.

  It’s the Feminazi.

  She has the computer zoom in and extrapolate to give her a better look. There’s no doubt at all that the girl Dalton is cozying up to on the field hockey team is the same one who took over Roboto’s island and used that weapon on Midnight and the others. “Goddamn it,” she mutters.

  “You found something?”

  “I think so.” She finds the name listed in the photo: Katrina Knox. She tries to look up the girl’s records at the school, but nothing comes up. In fact, nothing comes up for Katrina Knox anywhere. It’s like she’s a ghost.

  No, she’s not a ghost. She just had a well-connected friend who could make her records disappear. That would allow her to operate without anyone in the Pentagon, CIA, FBI, NSA, and the rest of the world’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies to be able to track her. She wouldn’t be surprised if the same were true for the thugs she’d had on the island.

  And then after Roboto is captured, Dalton uses her influence to get operational codes from him. She passes those on to her buddy the Feminazi, who gets the island working. She triggers the security alarms and Dalton calls up the Super Squad to send them into a trap.

  Why? That’s the missing piece of the puzzle. She doesn’t understand the end game for the Feminazi. Why turn them into women? Why not just kill them when she had the chance? Midnight supposes like a lot of supervillains the Feminazi had wanted them to suffer. Maybe she wanted them to see how the other half lives. And meanwhile Dalton’s been egging them on, helping them adjust to their new bodies, giving them new identities, and showing them off to the world press.

  Midnight checks their position on the computer. Now more than ever she needs to get a hold of her former teammates. They’re still about a half-hour out of Pacifica. She hopes Elise is there. Or maybe she’s in her little hideaway to shack up with some guy, provided she still likes guys and hasn’t turned lesbian yet. That would be an interesting case study for researchers—

  Melvin taps her on the shoulder. She figures he’s going to ask for another barf bag. Instead he says, “I know where your friends are.”

  “What? How could you know that?”

  “It’s all over the news right now.” He hands over his cell phone. Midnight stares at the screen in disbelief. There’s a giant metal dinosaur in Tokyo! The footage is a bit grainy, but when Midnight runs the news feed through the bunker’s computers, she can see Allison putting together a crude EMP device. The pile of iron pipes and copper wire explodes and then the news feed cuts out.

  There’s no doubt in Midnight’s mind Roboto is behind the metal dinosaur. She also has no doubt Dalton sent the Super Squad into another trap. This time Midnight doubts they’ll get out of it alive.

  “Hold on,” she tells Melvin before she lights the afterburners to top speed.

  ***

  When they’re a hundred miles from Tokyo, the radio comes to life. “Unidentified aircraft, you are entering a restricted area. Please change your course immediately.”

  She ignores them until she sees the two F/A-18 Hornets approaching, probably from an aircraft carrier in the vicinity. One of the Hornets falls in behind them while the other tries to pull alongside for a closer look. Midnight has to slow the jet down so the Hornet can catch up. “Take off your helmet,” she says to Melvin.

  “What? Why?”

  “Just do it. Unless you want to get shot down.”

  He whips the helmet off. He follows her lead in waving to the Hornet’s pilot. She manages to smile while Melvin musters only a queasy grin. The pilot waves back to them and then gestures they should turn around.

  “Christ, it’s just a couple of kids,” the pilot says over the tactical frequency. Midnight grimaces at this, though she knows it will work in their favor.

  “Unidentified aircraft, you must turn around and leave this area immediately or we will be forced to open fire,” the air traffic controller says.

  Midnight takes a deep breath and then forces herself to sob into the microphone. “I’m so sorry. I was just taking my uncle’s plane for a ride. Please don’t tell my parents!”

  “Young lady, you have to turn your plane around right away.”

  “I can’t! It’s on autopilot and I don’t know how to turn it off!”

  “Do you know what type of plane it is? We need you to tell us so we can help you get down safely.”

  “I don’t know! It’s just a stupid plane. I wanna go home!”

  Behind her, Melvin throws up into the barf bag again. That should help sell the validity of their story as a couple of idiot teens out for a joyride. Except most teens did that in a car, not a hundred million dollar fighter jet.

  “Amber One, can you get an ID on the aircraft type?”

  “Negative. It’s not any make I’m familiar with.”

  “It looks like a damned sweet ride,” the other pilot chips in.

  “Can the chatter, Amber Two. Give me a description of the aircraft.”

  While Amber One begins to describe the plane, Midnight settles her helmet back on her head. “You better get your helmet back on,” she tells Melvin. “It’s about to get bumpy.”

  She waits until Melvin’s helmet is on before she changes over to the vertical landing jets. The jet stops in midair. The Hornet behind them is barely able to avoid a collision while the one beside them streaks past. Midnight throws the jet into a sharp climb, into the clouds. Then she triggers the jet’s camouflage.

  In seconds the outside of the jet changes from matte gray to bands of blue and white to mask it against the sky. “Can Batman’s plane do that?” Midnight says.

  “No, but Wonder Woman has an invisible jet.”

  “Some people are never satisfied,” she g
rumbles. She wishes her plane truly were invisible. It is practically invisible, especially when she turns on the jamming to scramble their radars and their radios. Then she eases the jet through a bank of clouds, the paint scheme changing to accommodate the changing tones of white and gray.

  They hover amongst the clouds while the Hornets futilely search the area for them. They move along after a few minutes, probably figuring their quarry slipped out of the area. She changes over to the afterburners again to head towards Tokyo.

  By the time they reach the city, the metal dinosaur is already on the ground, buried amongst a skyscraper. She sees an Osprey in the area, keeping watch over the monster. There’s no sign of Allison or Starla, but they’re probably inside. Still, something doesn’t feel right about this to Midnight. It’s too easy.

  She does a few lazy circles over the creature from high overhead. On the second pass, she drops a sensor buoy. While it’s designed to go underwater, it should work well enough amongst the debris to give her a better look at the thing.

  “What are we doing?” Melvin asks.

  “Biding our time,” she says.

  “For what? They killed the dinosaur already. Shouldn’t we go down there to talk to them?”

  “We’ll go down when I say,” she growls. That shuts him up. She goes back to studying the readings from the sensor buoy. It uses a combination of infrared, X-rays, and magnetic resonance to give her a three-dimensional view of the outside of the dinosaur. Most of the interior is shielded, but thanks to a few gashes torn in the metal, Midnight’s scanners can give her a partial view of the interior.

  The interior view gives her a look at something very familiar. Now it’s all starting to make sense, though as with many supervillain plans it still only makes sense in an impractical, roundabout way. “The dinosaur wasn’t supposed to destroy the city,” she says. “They wanted it to get stopped.”

  “Why would they want that?”

  “If I tell you, you promise not to freak out?”

  “Yes.”

  “You mean it? Because this isn’t going to be pleasant.”

  “I promise.”

  With a sigh, she takes off her helmet and then turns to face him. She tells him everything. It’s no surprise he needs to use the barf bag a few times throughout the story. As she finishes, he leans back in his chair, his eyes wide. “You mean you used to be…a man?”