| 3.5 Count The Seconds |
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| Written by Alexandra Erin and Quinn Isley | |
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It was the day of the state track meet. The sky overhead had grown darker all day, but so far the weather had held. Buford LeChamp hoped it held a little bit longer. He knew how important this meet was to his brother, Beauregard, the school's track star. Beau started running as he approached. Ford piled on the speed. He knew Beau was counting the seconds. They were almost to the hand-off zone, and he was running neck-and-neck with another team's runner. Once his brother had the baton in his hand, the race would be in the bag. Ford began calling "Stick, stick," and Beau obligingly held out his hand. He made the pass... and the sky opened up. A single finger of lightning reached down to strike the metal baton. Electricity coursed through Beau's body. Ford felt a sharp pain in his hand and a tingling up his arm, then a blast of hot air knocked him off his feet and sent him flying with explosive force. The Calder mutation gene, long dormant in his body's cells, awoke... Psychout was a short, owlish-looking man with a wide white streak that parted his wild curly brown hair all the way down the middle and continued (or more accurately, resumed) down the center of his equally untamed beard. He dressed like a vaudeville villain by way of thrift stores and garbage bins, in a faded peacock blue waistcoat that went with neither the pinstripe pants or the once-black, now-gray tailcoat. His gloves were fingerless by chance rather than design, and his black lacquered walking stick had lost whatever ornament had once adorned its top, leaving only the threaded post upon which it had stood. No one had ever conclusively determined where Psychout's penchant for faded elegance came from, though he outfitted himself in this fashion every time he found the freedom to do so. It didn't play up any element of his powers, or fit into any sort of general criminal motif. He saw himself as a grand schemer and a criminal mastermind, a true archvillain... but like most of the more disorganized villains who regularly found themselves residing in the Howard P. Dunwich Asylum, his schemes seemed mostly to be products of momentary desires. He normally tried to keep a low profile for some time after an escape, though he would inevitably surface to take control of a crowd of people and direct them to bring him whatever had caught his fancy or to destroy a person or thing that had somehow angered him. He rarely employed any subtlety or complex tactics... his megalomania prevented him from seeing the need for any such things. The morning after his most recent escape from captivity, he lead a crowd of vacant-eyed shoppers down Wichita Street. Their minds were locked in a maze somewhere far, far away from their normal seats of consciousness. With nobody at the controls, their bodies were effectively slaved to the sound of Psychout's voice. He directed them in acts of destruction and vandalism, though the lack of specific instructions resulted in a lackluster performance from the puppets. Notably, a few garbage cans were overturned. One of them was thrown at a plate glass window, but it bounced off. One of the drones then kicked the rolling receptacle listlessly. If Psychout noticed the dismal performance, he didn't give any sign. "Ah, yes, continue your reign of destruction, my industrious pets!" Psychout cried to his minions. "Soon our efforts will draw one of the city's costumed protectors to us, and then... then... well, it isn't that I don't love each and every one of you hapless drones dearly, but I'd trade all of you and a thousand more for a hero to play with. But what's that? A slight tingling... and the pitter-patter of superpowered feet. If I didn't know better, I'd say we're in for a bit of a storm..." Sure enough, a distinctive blue blur came racing up the street trailing a sizable cloud of dust and leaving the air sizzling in its wake. A human observer would have been hard pressed to even spot the racing form before it was upon them, but Psychout's senses were not merely human. He clearly saw the man outlined inside the glowing nimbus. Almost casually, his mind reached out and grabbed hold. The running man reeled, skidding fifteen feet in the space between the moment he lost control of his own body and when Psychout's will asserted itself, locking him in place. The sparking corona began to fade, revealing the figure underneath to be tan and well-muscled, but light... a real runner's build. His outfit consisted of a pair of silver-gray shorts and a muscle shirt, both made of honest-to-goodness spandex. Stereotypes aside, that was something of a rarity in the hero world. On his chest was the outline of a circle with the image of a thundercloud and a double fork of lightning highlighted in blue. His headgear looked resembled a bicyclist's racing helmet with protective goggles attached. The costumed hero Thunderhead, otherwise known as Beau LeChamp, found himself transported into the middle of a vast maze of walls that shifted and twisted and flickered from hedge to stone to leaping flames to iron spikes to a writhing mass of distorted human faces screaming silently in anguish to polished ice and so on with no sign of stopping or stabilizing. Psychout's voice rang through the maze, echoing off walls and seeming to come from every direction at once. He focused on that sound, closing his eyes and sorting through the echoes. "You thought you were fast enough to steal a march on me?" the villain cackled. "Even lighting can't strike faster than the powers of the mind! Let's see how fast you can traverse the infinite pathways of the labyrinth of thought, hero, without your precious..." Psychout's self-aggrandizing speech was cut short, however, as in the physical world Thunderhead resumed his forward momentum, the energy sheath crackling back to life around him. "You should listen to yourself more often," he said in the time it took him to cover the remaining distance. He cocked back his fist, letting fly with a sonic punch that stopped mere inches from the psychic's solar plexus. The villain's enhanced mind had only the briefest of moments to register relief before all the crackling energy the speedster had built up streamed forth. It was something like being hit with a stun gun and a bean bag round at the same time... Psychout was knocked off his feet, his limbs twitching. His nervous system was more resistant than most to such shocks, however, and he quickly recovered. "H... how?" he stammered. "You said it, not me... not even lightning is faster than the speed of thought," Thunderhead said. "You shouldn't be surprised at how much faster I am when I don't have a body slowing me down." "Well, let's see how fast you act when innocent civilians hurl themselves at you with nearly suicidal abandon," Psychout said. "My pets, des..." The rest of the command was drowned out in the ear-splitting sonic boom that heralded the arrival of Thunderclap. Anybody would have picked out the family resemblance Ford had to his older brother, even without the matching costumes. The only difference between the two outfits was in the chest emblem. Thunderclap's insignia was inverted, with just the outline of the cloud-and-thunderbolt surrounded by a solid blue circle. "Now, it's just no good lookin' all surprised-like," he said. "Every fool knows that after lightning strikes, you've just got to count the seconds until the thunderclap hit. Hey now... none of that!" Psychout may have been repeating his command or just screaming wordlessly, but Ford wasn't taking any chances. He clapped his hands together to drown out the villain's voice, and temporarily deafen any drones whose ears weren't still ringing from his grand entrance. The villain responded by lashing out with his mind, ensnaring Thunderclap as he had his older brother. If Ford was a little bit slower than Beau in the physical plane, though, he was somewhat more agile in the mental. His mind grasped the emerging shape of the maze even as it sprung up around him, and he escaped so quickly that the only outward sign of the psychic assault was a small shudder that passed through his body. The LeChamp brothers exchanged a quick look. They could keep Psychout on the ropes, and keep him from issuing any commands to the zombified citizens, but he could keep tripping them up with his mind maze. They had to incapacitate him. Ford's foot tapped a rapid beat on the pavement. It was over in an eyeblink, and to anybody else, it would have been an indecipherable blur of motion and a single short uninterrupted sound. To a superpowered speedster (or a mutant with Psychout's enhanced perceptions), it was morse code, and what it said was "Double Whammy." Beau indicated his assent with a single small nod. "Oh, shi..." Psychout said as Thunderhead and Thunderclap simultaneously projected a stream of electrical and kinetic energy, respectively, from their fists. The combination of the crackling energy and the concussive blast was enough to jolt the deranged mutant off his feet again and leave him dazed long enough for the brothers to run up and slap him with the tranquilizer patches the asylum staff had issued to the heroes. "You... haven't... seen... the... last... of..." he slurred, before his eyes rolled back and his body went limp. "Dang it, now we'll never know what he was going to say," Ford joked as they hauled the man up on their shoulders. "Is this the life you pictured for us?" Beau looked at Ford, wondering where the hell the question had come from. It was around lunch time. The two of them were lounging on a grassy spot beneath a tree not far from the student union and the dining hall. The tree had changed to its fall colors, but the the day was fairly warm. "Well, actually, I always thought we'd have kids by now," he said. "I'm serious," Ford said. "After the, you know, the accident at the track meet... is this what you pictured when you decided to come up here? Fighting psionic misfits and monsters on our way to classes every morning?" "I don't see that it was much of a decision," Beau said. "I mean, you had a whole 'nother year to get your stuff together, but I was counting on my athletic scholarships. If the Everett Foundation hadn't heard our story and offered me a full ride here, I'd probably be back in Jefferson Parish right now, helping dad in the hardware store." "Are you actually happy here, though?" "Are you kidding?" Beau asked. "I've got superpowers. I'm a member of the Midwest's premier not-quite-a-superteam. I'll never take home the gold for the United States, but I can still run like the wind when I've a mind to... and the chicks, man. The chicks dig me, inside or out of the costume." "If you say so," Ford said. "What's with you, anyway?" Beau asked. "You don't regret coming here, do you?" "I don't know," Ford said. "It just sometimes seems like I've been following after you my whole life. You went out for track, so I went out for track. You go away to Nebula City, and a year later, I do, too. You say you want to be a superhero, and I'm right there behind you." "So which part of that is bad?" "None of it," Ford admitted. "But none of it... well, none of it's me." "What's with all the soul-searching questions all of a sudden?" "It's just... we beat a guy like Psychout, and I wonder 'Is this all there is?'" Ford said. "We've got these tremendous powers, and we're using them to wail on the mentally impaired." "We didn't really 'wail' on him," Beau said. "We just shut him down, before he got hurt. Anyway, what else do you want to do? What would you do that would be 'you'?" "I'm not sure," Ford said. "But... I applied for an internship at Dunwich." "You did what?" "The, uh, interview was supposed to be today, but it's off for now. They're not letting anybody who isn't already cleared in or out, after what happened last night." "When exactly were you going to tell me this?" Beau asked. "When I knew for sure if I got in to the program," Ford said. "It wasn't exactly supposed to be a secret. I just didn't want to, you know, jinx it." "It's cool," Beau said. "Just kind of threw me... that's where the bad guys live, and we've helped keep a lot of them in there." "They're not all 'bad guys'," Ford said. "Some of them can be helped." "Well, you know, you do gotta do whatever you gotta do," Beau said. He pointed over to the outdoor seating area next to the dining hall, from which a stunning platinum blonde had just emerged. She appeared to be looking for an empty table. "Hey, look, there's that hot girl I was telling you about, the one from my anatomy class." "You don't say," Ford said, picking up the notebook with his statistics homework in it. It wasn't that he wasn't interested in girls... but it would take more than mere superspeed to keep up with Beau's level of interest in them. "No, seriously, bro, you should check this one out," Beau said. "She's a bit chubby, but only in the right places, if you know what I mean... blonde... and she looks like such a ditz, too, but I bet anything she's kinky as hell." "It ever occur to you that you're probably talking about somebody's sister?" Ford asked. "I'm talking to somebody's sister, more like," Beau said. "Heh, whenever I see a girl who's like, really stacked like that, I always wonder how they stand up without falling over." As he spoke, the girl stumbled and fell down on top of her tray, plastering her food all over her chest. He chuckled. "Whoops, I spoke too soon." "What are you going on about now?" Ford asked. "That blonde girl over there, over by the dining hall," Beau said, pointing. "The one with mashed potatoes all over her... self." Hating himself for it, Ford looked. "Are you kidding me?" he asked, sounding aghast. "Don't you know who that is?" "Uh, am I supposed to?" "That's Claire fucking Clevenger you've been ogling!" Ford said. "Who's Claire 'Fucking' Clevenger, and what'd she do to earn that charming nickname?" "Don't you ever spend any time at the Owlery?" "Yeah, because I just don't get enough exposure to books going to class every day," Beau said. "Doesn't the name 'Clever Claire' ring a bell?" Ford said. "The homeless girl who got busted by the twins for cracking ATMs, and now she works for them?" "That's Clever Claire?" Beau asked incredulously, gawking as the bedraggled blonde surveyed the mess of her clothes and the ruin of the tray. "I heard she was like a total spazz, or something... I never imagined..." "'Total spazz or something'... listen to yourself," Ford said, shaking his head. "Anyway, yeah, she's a little bit clumsy sometimes. Her brain works faster than her body does... which I have to say beats the alternative." "Sorry," Beau said. "It just never occurred to me that someone like that might also be... hot." Ford gave his older brother a pitying look. "And it never occurred to you that the hot girl you've been drooling over might be anything other than a dumb blonde who lucked or slept her way into college, did it?" he said. "Somebody should go over there and help her," Beau said. "Somebody should definitely go over there and help her out. It would be the gentlemanly thing to do." "It would be an improvement over sitting here gawking at her, but there's two things you should remember," Ford said. "I'm not going to blow my secret identity," Beau said. "That's moot, anyway," Ford said. "She had mine five seconds after I met her, and she sure as hell copped to yours at the same time." "What the hell did you say to blow your cover that fast?" "Didn't have to say anything," Ford said. "She's Clever Claire. Anyway, two things to remember: one, she's only seventeen, and two, her legal guardian can sometimes bench press an armored personnel carrier." "Hey, I said gentlemanly, didn't I?" Beau said. "What should I say, though? Should I offer to get her a towel, or another tray of food, or..." "Why don't you ask her what she'd prefer," Ford said off-handedly. "She's coming over here." Beau almost choked on his gum before he realized he wasn't chewing any. He looked back over and, sure enough, the girl in question had spotted them and was heading towards them. "Hey, uh, Claire," Ford said as she approached. "I don't think you've met my brother." "Hey. Uh, do you guys have a dorm room, because I could go and take off my shirt and get cleaned up," Claire said. "Then if one of you has like an oversized jersey I could wear instead of my own shirt, or you could take my clothes to the laundry room and I'd be stuck there without any clothes until they were done, or we could just have sex and forget the shirt." "I... uh..." Beau stammered. "We live off-campus," Ford said. "I could probably sneak off and run you a change of clothes from the Owlery, if you want. I know Beau wouldn't mind keeping you company. Right, Beau?" "I... uh..." "Bro, you're sparking," Ford whispered. Beau's legs were shaking enough to trigger his speed power, and the electrical energy was spitting out the cuffs of his jeans. "So, anyway, um, sex and shirts aside, I wanted to talk to you about something," Claire said. "I think Athena's in trouble." "So tell Minerva," Ford said. "I think Minerva's in trouble, too," Claire said. "See, Athena got a call from the Pantheon of Heroes asking her to check out this sketchy-sounding local company for them, and they sent over a sketchy-looking older guy who didn't have breath or a heartbeat, and this is all somehow tied into Rhyme's scheme, and Minerva's going to be meeting Rhyme later today, and I think it's probably a set-up to get..." "They're superheroes, Claire," Ford said reassuring. "I'm sure they're going to be all right." "They are not going to be all right!" Claire shouted, stomping her foot. Her chest bounced appreciably. "I think we should probably look into those... them... that," Beau said. "We should definitely look into... what are we talking about?" "Athena and Minerva are in danger!" Claire said. "I'm sure they'll be fine," Beau said. "Didn't you want to come back to our off-campus laundry dorm?" "Why does nobody ever listen to me?" Claire asked, crossing her arms, heedless of the fact that this just smeared food on them as well. "My IQ is higher than the Gross National Product of some countries, but does that get me any slack? Nobody ever believes me when I say the Portaliens are stealing my bicycle parts, or the Wisdom Twins are in danger, or... or... or… there's a big black bug guy attacking the campus!" "Be fair, Claire," Ford said smoothly. "You've got a great big brain, but you've got a great big imagination, too... and some of what you come up with is just so... far-fetched." "No, seriously, there's a big black bug guy attacking the campus," Claire said, grabbing Ford by the shoulders and trying to forcibly turn him around without much result. He was so shocked by her urgency that he turned and looked anyway... ...and saw a big black bug guy attacking the campus. More specifically, it was a man in shiny black mechanical armor, with six segmented legs sprouting from the back and a horn like a rhinoceros beetle's sprouting from its helmet, along with nasty metal mandibles. A whole swarm of mechanical insects of different shapes and sizes flew and crawled on the ground around him. The robotic minions were fanning out to surround a group of students gathered in the quadrangle in front of the union. They were being corralled, but not harmed... so far. "Looks like that thing that tried to tear up downtown," Beau said. "They showed it being hauled away, remember?" "Carapace," Ford said. "That thing was a whole lot bigger, though." "So we lucked out and got the junior version," Beau said. "Carapace Light." "Actually, the smaller size is evidence of increased sophistication of design," Claire said. "According to the chatter that's been flying around 4B's networks, the guy in the last armor was just a hired stooge, a test pilot who got turned loose in the city so whoever made the armor could see what it could do. I'd guess this is the next iteration. Obviously it wasn't made overnight, but I'm sure the maker improved it based on the results of the previous test." "Right," Ford said. "We'll pull the ol' quick change, then you come at it from the front and I'll come at it from behind." "Hey, I should probably go in first," Beau said. "We've got exactly no time to be fancy with," Ford said. "Not with students everywhere. Let's hit it at the same time, from different sides, and see if it cracks." "But... don't you think maybe I should go in first, anyway?" Beau said, gesturing madly with his eyes in the direction of Claire, who was watching the armored villain in rapt fascination. Ford sighed. "I'll give you a ten second head start," he said. "Twenty." "Fifteen," Ford countered, and Beau was gone as soon as the word had left his lips. A moment later, Thunderhead streaked across the grounds towards the man in the black beetle armor, his lightning field shorting out a good number of the bugs and clearing a path for the hostages. Ford leaned back against the tree and watched, counting the seconds. |
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