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Post by DocQuantum on Jun 12, 2017 0:50:08 GMT
Prologue: Young Love
When I was sixteen years old, I fell in love.
It was the end of the school year in 1979, and everyone was just arriving at Andrew Jackson High School in Gateway City. I was just a nervous, lanky kid with a crush on Denise McKinnon. She was a pretty brunette who was really into punk rock, and who hardly ever gave me the time of day.
That morning, I summoned up all my courage and approached her in the parking lot. "Hey, Denise," I said.
She barely looked at me as she said, "Hey."
I asked her, "So what's up?"
Denise just grunted something by way of response.
"Great, great," I said. Pausing for a moment, I gulped and continued, "So listen, uh, I was wondering if maybe you wanted to go to the prom -- you know, with me."
Denise looked unenthused by the suggestion.
"It's no big deal," I continued. "Whatever. I mean, if you want."
"See, the thing is," said Denise, "I heard a rumor that this guy I like was gonna ask me."
I said, "Uh-huh."
"Yeah, so," continued Denise, "I'm gonna wait and see what happens there. But that sounds great, yeah."
I nodded at her, but I was confused. "OK," I said, turning briefly away before turning back again. "So... is that a yes or a no?"
"I think I was very clear, Stan," Denise told me. "If everything else falls apart, maybe." At that, Denise McKinnon stormed off.
I called out, "I'm gonna hold you to that."
While I'd been wasting my time with Denise as usual, a beautiful red-haired girl was just arriving at school.
Her name was Geri Sloane. She'd begun attending our public school two years earlier after being privately tutored for most of her life. She was also a bona fide genius. She was so intelligent and well-read, in fact, that she could have taught the classes herself -- every one of them, from French to Physics to Gymnastics -- but her folks thought she needed to be around normal kids her own age. Her dad had also been a child prodigy who had graduated from high school at the age of eleven, and he spent his early teenage years mastering every subject at college. But the one thing he didn't know how to do was relate with kids his own age, and he was determined that Geri's childhood would be happier than his had been. And it had worked; Geri never had any troubles making friends, and everyone at our high school loved her. Even so, I'd heard that she was taking an early graduation this year and going off to university in the fall.
Geri was very smart, and very cool, athletic and tanned, and she had a faceful of eyes that promised you a better life if you could only know her. And unlike a lot of beautiful girls, she honestly didn't have a bad bone in her body.
I was sitting on a picnic table with a couple of friends as she climbed off her ten-speed bike at the other end of the parking lot. I was watching as she locked it up and started walking toward the school, and it was like watching something unreal, intangible. It was hard for me to believe that Geri and I could exist in the same world, let alone go to the same high school.
"Hey, dirt-bud, who you going to the prom with?"
It took a couple of moments before I realized that one of my buddies, Pete, asked me a question. I finally took my eyes off Geri and said, "Ah, I don't know if I'm even gonna. You know, not my style."
"You have a style?" said another friend, Bobby.
The guys kept on making a few more jokes at my expense, but for all that I was only able to make a really lame comeback, which they also mocked me mercilessly for. Needless to say, I didn't really have very good friends in high school.
After their laughter died down, Bobby had also noticed Geri, who was talking with several of her friends. "I wonder who she's going with," he said.
"Some guy named Hymie," said Pete.
"Who?" I asked. I was crestfallen to learn that she already had a boyfriend, even though she was unattainable for a nerdy guy like me.
"Big guy," said Pete. "Goes to Barrington High School."
This irked me. "Hymie from Boring-ton High?" I quipped. "Sounds like a loser."
"Loser?" said Pete, offended. "Hymie was all-state football and basketball and valedictorian of his class. He's also a genius who won the State Science Fair with a powerful, lifelike robot he named after himself."
Bobby added, "I heard he got a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford, but first he's going to a Yeshiva in Israel and then to Europe to model."
This completely took the wind out of my sails. This Hymie sounded almost perfect. That figured; only a perfect guy could attract the perfect girl.
Then Pete noticed something and said, "Hey, check it out."
We looked over and saw a large, goofy-looking young man with an unfashionable crewcut walking up the street. He was in his early twenties, and though the late spring weather was mild, he was wearing earmuffs. He approached a group of kids sitting on a car hood in the parking lot, asking them, "You seen my baseball?"
"No," they told him.
And they watched as the earmuff guy approached another group and asked, "You seen my baseball?"
The kids on the car hood were all snickering to themselves, and one of them called over to the earmuff guy, "Hey, buddy, come here. I think I know where your ball is."
The earmuff guy headed back to the car and asked, "You seen my baseball?"
"Yeah, I seen it," said the kid. "That girl over there, she has it." He pointed over to a girl named Nancy, a big-busted girl dressed in cut-off jeans and a tight, low-cut shirt, who was leaning against another car talking to her boyfriend, a big guy called Smokey. "Except she doesn't call it a baseball," he continued. "She has another name for it." And he whispered something to the earmuff guy.
The earmuff guy marched up to Nancy and Smokey and asked, "You seen my... pecker?"
"What?!" screamed Nancy.
"You seen my pecker?" he repeated.
Smokey grabbed the earmuff guy by the collar and yelled, "You son of a--! I'll kick your ass!"
I'd been watching along with everyone else until now. As Smokey threw the earmuff guy to the ground and was about to pummel him, I ran over and tried to intervene. "Take it easy, Smokey," I said.
Smokey yelled, "This pervert just came on to Nance!"
"All right, just be cool," I said, adding under my breath, "He looks like he's not all there, y'know what I mean?"
A crowd started to gather, which only incited Smokey more. "Get the hell out of my way, man!"
Smokey tossed me into a mud puddle and moved toward the earmuff guy. Just then, Geri showed up and stepped between them.
"What's going on here?" she cried, bending down to help the earmuff guy off the ground. "Are you all right?"
"Geri, you seen my baseball?" he asked.
"No, I haven't seen your baseball," said Geri. "Jeez, Junior, you know you're not supposed to leave the yard by yourself."
"You know him?" asked Smokey.
"He's my brother," said Geri.
"Oh," said Smokey. "I didn't realize he was... you know..."
At this, Smokey and Nancy reluctantly headed toward the school, along with most of the crowd.
Geri turned her attention to me and asked, "You OK?" It was the first time she'd ever said anything to me.
I stood and tried to brush the mud off my pants and jacket. "Oh, yeah. Fine," I managed to say.
"Thanks a lot, Stanley," she said, smiling at me. As Geri helped me up, she turned her attention to Junior, leaving me in shock.
I couldn't believe what I'd just heard. But the fact that she knew my name blew my mind. Some of my best friends didn't know my name.
***
We decided to skip school that morning and walk Junior home. It wasn't too big a deal to do so, anyway; we were both good students with near-perfect attendance records. We talked about a lot of things during the walk.
She told me that Junior's real name was Terrence and that he was named after their dad, a college English professor, philanthropist, and businessman who also ran the Sloane Foundation and the Fair Play Club. The Sloanes had tried for years to have a child of their own without success when they decided to adopt Junior, a special-needs child born premature with both physical and mental disabilities. But they loved him all the same and provided him with everything he needed for a good life. It was a surprise to them when, a few years later, Geri was born. She had the talents and intelligence of her father Terry and the beauty and spunk of her mother Lysette, who was a former policewoman.
It was ironic, I thought, that a girl who was a physical and mental marvel should have a brother -- even an adopted one -- who was handicapped and had been in and out of hospitals for all of his life. When he was able to live at home, their parents and Geri took care of him as best they could, but they'd been looking at programs that would help him to have a bit more independence and learn how to relate with others like him. And Geri didn't think of him as adopted; he was her brother, and he had always been her brother. It made me admire her and her family even more.
I told her a bit about my life, how I'd even been a Fair Play Club kid myself for awhile when my dad was injured in Vietnam and couldn't find work to support us, and how I'd always had my nose in books for as long as I could remember. I told her how, when I wasn't reading, I was doodling in my sketchbooks or on any pieces of scrap paper I could get my hands on, and how I used to make my own comic-book stories when I was young. All the early stories starred Gateway City's greatest hero, Mister Terrific, who in my comics could do absolutely anything and had any super-power he needed for any situation. Those stories were fairly juvenile, of course, since I was really young when I made them. Later, after Mister Terrific went into retirement, which was about ten years before, I began creating my own heroic characters, and one in particular was the star of all of them -- Will Power. I guess you could say he was my own version of Mister Terrific. While Mister Terrific was more like a father-figure kind of hero, Will Power was me, except with all kinds of powers and the strength of will to do all kinds of good deeds.
I remember telling Geri all this while walking next to her in my muddied clothes, while Junior was lagging behind, mumbling to himself. As we talked about our lives and got to know each other, I felt like I was walking on air, despite my limp.
"Hey, you're limping," said Geri, mentioning it for the first time. "Did you hurt yourself back there?"
"No, it's an old football injury," I explained.
"Oh, are you on the team?" she asked, perking up.
"No," I said reluctantly, "a couple of the players and me were just joking around and, uh, I fell off the school's roof."
Geri nodded and asked no more about it. I didn't need to explain that I was constantly bullied at school; that was understood.
Junior approached and motioned for me to hop on his back. "Piggyback ride?" he asked.
Geri laughed and said, "Junior, come on, leave Stan alone."
Junior just patted his back again and said, "Piggyback ride."
I turned to Geri and said, "I really don't mind. If you think he can hold me."
"Oh, he can hold you," said Geri, laughing. "He weighs two-hundred and thirty pounds."
"A real Clydesdale, huh, Junior?" I joked, and I hopped onto Junior's back and said, "Giddy-up."
Junior walked about five feet, then stopped and said, "My turn now." And he hopped on my back -- all two-hundred and thirty pounds of him -- on me, a scrawny teenager.
Muddy sweat was running down my face as I struggled up a hill with Junior on my back. As we reached Geri's house, a palatial mansion on a large estate in Gateway's most posh neighborhood, I said, "We're here, Junior. You wanna get off?"
"Giddy-up," said Junior, not showing any signs of moving.
I continued toward the front door as Geri looked on, amused. Finally, I let Junior off, and he went inside.
Then Geri suddenly looked at me and asked, "So who you taking to the prom?"
"Huh?" I said, dumbfounded.
"The prom -- you going?" she asked.
"Oh, I don't know," I said, trying to sound cool, and failing. "I think proms are pretty dumb."
"'Cause I thought maybe you and I could go, if you weren't already taking someone," she said.
"I mean dumb in the sense that they only happen once a year," I quickly added, causing her to smile at this.
***
From that moment on, the guys at school looked at me in a whole new light, as I could tell the next day when I was leaning against my locker, surrounded by a group of them, having just finished telling them about how Geri Sloane had asked me out.
"You're a #$*@^ing liar!" was Pete's response.
Bobby added, "You expect us to believe you're going to the prom with Geri? What about Hymie?"
"They broke up," I explained. "She said he started getting weird on her."
"I got twenty bucks says you're full of crap," said Pete.
"Oh, come on, why would I lie?" I said.
"Because you're a loser," said Pete, "and in some warped way this gives you a momentary sense of worth."
"Put me down for fifty," said Bobby, and he and the others started taking bets. But I knew the truth, and that was all that mattered for me.
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Post by DocQuantum on Jun 12, 2017 0:52:25 GMT
Chapter 1: Prom Night, 1979
Days passed quickly, and soon it was the night of the prom. Dressed in my baby-blue tuxedo, I drove up to Geri's house in my parents' station wagon. I remember it being a beautiful evening in early twilight, the sky painted all kinds of fiery colors, as I knocked on the front door of the Sloane's mansion home.
The door opened, and an old man with blond hair stood there looking at me expectantly. "Hi, can I help you, son?" he said. It was Geri's dad.
"Um, hello, Mr. Sloane," I said, nervous about talking with him.
Besides the fact that he was Geri's dad, Terry Sloane was something of a local celebrity in Gateway City, almost as well-known as Mister Terrific. And he was connected to that hero because Sloane was also the general director of the Fair Play Clubs, a philanthropic organization founded by the man of a thousand talents with chapters in several cities across America that helped poor and underprivileged youth, including me when I was a kid. Sloane was also multitalented, though, with a few careers under his belt. The latest was his career as a professor of English literature at Gateway University. Like Geri, he'd been a child prodigy and had made himself an expert in every field he had ever studied. I was nervous about meeting him, since I was nothing but a poor schlob next to him. But I'd always heard that he was one of the nicest guys you'd ever meet, too, so that put me at ease somewhat.
As all this flashed through my mind, I gulped and continued, "I'm Stanley Beamish. I'm here to take Geri to the prom."
"Prom?" he replied, looking confused. "You're about twenty minutes late. She just left for the prom with her boyfriend, Hymie."
I was devastated. All I could do was nod weakly and walk away, but as I started turning around to go home, the door suddenly swung wide open, and there was Geri's mom, Lysette.
"Terry, that's mean," she said. "Come on in, Stan. Don't listen to the Prankster, here. He's a joke a minute."
"Oh," I said, extremely relieved. "Oh, that's a good one."
"Sorry, son," said Geri's dad, laughing by now. He extended his hand and shook mine, adding, "Just having a bit of fun with you. No hard feelings?"
"No, sir," I said. Still nervous, I came inside and saw Junior watching TV in the den. "Hey, Junior," I called to him, but he was too transfixed by the Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show to look at me.
Just then, Geri began walking down the stairs. I couldn't believe my eyes. Geri Sloane was always beautiful, even in the casual clothes she wore to high school, but in her lime green prom dress, with her long red hair flowing over her shoulders, she was absolutely stunning.
"Hi, Stan," she said at the bottom of the stairs.
"Hi, Geri," I said, grinning widely.
"Poor Stanley," said Geri's mom. "He's been getting it both barrels from the Joker, here."
"Dad, have you been giving Stan a hard time?" said Geri.
Terry Sloane shrugged and grinned at his daughter. "I'm sure Stanley knows I was just kidding around. Right, son?" I just smiled and nodded.
"Junior, did you say hi to Stan?" she asked her brother.
"Only about ten times," Junior replied, not looking up.
"Hey, Junior," I said, "I think I know where your baseball is."
This finally got Junior's attention. "You seen my baseball?" he asked hopefully.
I winked at the Sloanes and discreetly pulled a brand new baseball out of my pocket, palming it in my hand. "Well, if it's a big white one with red stitching," I continued, walking over to Junior, "I think I saw it right behind your ear..."
As I reached behind his ear to pretend to pull the baseball from it, like a magic trick, he suddenly took a powerful swipe at me, knocking me to the ground.
"Junior!" cried Geri as I hit my head on the coffee table, dropping the ball, which went rolling out of sight.
In a split second, Junior was up like a cat and dived onto me. As Geri and her parents screamed, I managed to free myself from the disabled man's clutches and got Junior in a headlock.
"What the heck are you doing?!" yelled Geri's dad.
"Stanley, let him go!" said Geri's mom.
"I'm trying," I said, out of breath. "Tell him to calm down!"
The family jumped on Junior and finally broke it up.
Terry Sloane said to me, "Son, just what the heck did you think you were doing there?"
"I was playing a trick," I said lamely. "I-I-I had a baseball."
"What baseball?" said Lysette Sloane, still upset. "Where's a baseball?"
But as I looked around, there was no ball in sight. "There was a ball I had. Honest."
Geri helped me up, and I was a mess, with my shirttail out and my tie hanging off. Geri's parents led the still-frothing Junior back to the couch.
"I'm sorry," Geri said to me. "I should've told you, he's got a thing about his ears. He won't let anyone he doesn't trust go near them."
"Oh," I said. "OK. I gotcha."
"Are you all right?" she asked.
"Oh, yeah," I said.
Lysette Sloane looked at Geri's prom dress and said, "Honey, now you're all wrinkled."
Geri looked down and frowned. "Stan, will you just give me one more minute?" she said. "I have to iron this thing."
I started to tuck my pants in as Geri and her mom headed back up the stairs toward the east wing of the house, and I was left alone with Terry and Junior. I rubbed my head and saw a spot of blood, so Geri's dad directed me to a bathroom in the west wing of the house as he continued to do his best to calm down Junior.
In the bathroom, I dabbed my head with a tissue, then moved to the toilet. As I was taking a leak, I glanced out the window to my left, where I saw two lovebirds perching on a branch on a tree in the courtyard behind the house. The sight and the sound of these beautiful tweeties singing their love song for themselves, for the spring, for me and Geri, made me smile.
Suddenly, they flew away, and I saw Geri in the open window in the east wing of the mansion directly behind where the birds were, wearing only a bra and panties. Before I realized what I was doing, Geri's mom glanced my way and made eye contact with me. From the shocked look on her face, she must have thought I was a Peeping Tom.
I quickly stopped smiling and ducked my head back into the bathroom, horrified. This kind of thing always happened to me. In a panic, I quickly zipped up my fly.
A moment later, I screamed. I'd got myself stuck in the zipper!
The next half-hour passed in absolute pain as I tried and failed to get myself unstuck, but the teeth of the zipper were wedged in too tightly and painfully. As the evening light quickly faded into night, I was stuck with nothing I could do about my situation. It was the most embarrassing moment of my life until then, but it wasn't over. Not by a long shot.
The Sloanes were by now all huddled outside the bathroom.
Geri knocked gently and called in, "Stan, are you OK?"
"Just a minute," I said with a pained voice.
I could hear Lysette Sloane talking just outside the door. "He's been in there over half an hour." Then she whispered, "Terry, I think he might be... you know..."
"Mom!" Geri cried out.
"Well he was watching you undress with a silly grin on his face," she said.
"I was watching the birds!" I shouted.
"Terry, do something," Geri's mom said.
"All right, son," said Terry Sloane. "I'm coming in."
By this time I was whimpering in pain and huddling in the corner when Geri's dad entered the bathroom.
"What seems to be the situation here?" he asked me. "You have an accident in your pants or something?"
"I wish," I said, motioning for him to close the door. After he obliged, I continued, "I, uh... I got it stuck."
"You got what stuck?"
"It."
"It?" asked Terry Sloane. "Oh, it. All right, these things happen. Let me have a look." He moved in and took a closer look, then cried out, "Oh, for the love of--!" I frantically tried to shush him, but it was no use.
"Just relax, son," he said, looking genuinely concerned. "Now, um... what exactly are we looking at here?"
I was a little dizzy as I said, "What do you mean?"
"Well, to put it delicately, is it the frank or the beans?"
"I-I think a little of both," I said.
Suddenly, outside the door, Junior shouted, "Franks and beans!" And I hung my head as Geri quickly shushed him.
"How the heck did you get caught in the zipper like that?" Terry asked me.
"I don't know," I said. "It's not like it was a well-thought-out plan."
"I'm guessing that's what the soprano shriek was about, then," he said, trying to lighten up the situation. "I'm going to go get my first aid kit and some antiseptic."
"No, please, I'm fine!" I shouted.
"Don't worry, Stanley. First aid is a hobby of mine," said Terry Sloane with a wink.
Suddenly, a police officer stuck his head in the bathroom window. "Hi there, Terry." I was utterly humiliated by now. "Everything OK here? Your neighbors called me saying they heard a lady scream."
"You're looking at him, Joe," Terry replied. "Stanley, wait here while I get my kit. Joe, would you mind keeping an eye on him until I return? Call Lysette in if the bleeding gets worse." The police officer nodded, and Terry Sloane left the bathroom, discreetly closing the door behind him.
After a moment's silence, Officer Joe winced when he saw how I was bent over in pain, and he said, "Mind if I take a look, young man?"
I began, "No, that's really unneces--"
"Don't worry. In the line of duty, I'm sure I've seen a lot worse," said Officer Joe, already climbing in the window. Once inside, he turned his flashlight on me and whistled. "Now I've seen it all! What the heck were you thinking?" he asked me.
Frustrated, I said, "I wasn't trying--"
"How... how'd you get the zipper all the way to the top?"
"Shhh!" I said. "They'll hear you!"
"It's OK, Stanley," called Geri's mom from outside the door. "He's just trying to help."
Officer Joe looked disgusted at the sight but began rolling up his sleeves. He said, "Well, there's only one thing to do."
"No, no, no, I'll be fine," I told him, visibly shaking. "I'll just hang my shirttail out over it and work on it in the morning."
"Look, son," said the cop, "this'll only hurt for a second." He reached down and took hold of the zipper.
"Uh, maybe we should wait for Mr. Sloane to get back!" I cried.
From the other side of the bathroom door, Junior yelled, "Beans and franks!" And Geri shushed him again.
"No, no, please!" I squealed.
"We're going to have to get this over with sooner or later," said Officer Joe. Feeling utterly defeated, I held my breath and braced for the worst. "It's just like pulling off a Band-Aid, son," he continued. "A-one and a-two, and..."
Well, let's just say it wasn't pretty.
Shortly afterward, two paramedics were rushing me out the front door on a stretcher, shouting, "We got a bleeder!"
Geri was running alongside me, holding a towel on my crotch, while a third paramedic was dabbing at it with a towel, telling her to, "Keep pressure on it!"
My embarrassment was not confined to the Sloane family, unfortunately. Besides Geri's parents standing on their front porch, there were two firetrucks, four police cars, and a crowd of about thirty neighbors gathered on the front lawn of the estate, watching.
As Geri was running along the stretcher, doing what she was told to do, she said, "Stan, I'm so sorry. Are you going to be OK?"
I felt like I needed to put on a brave face, and I must've sounded irrationally cocky as I gave her two thumbs up and said, "You betcha!"
They slid me into the ambulance and the doors slammed shut. And as the ambulance pulled away, I started to whimper as I watched Geri Sloane fade into the night.
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Post by DocQuantum on Jun 12, 2017 0:54:48 GMT
Chapter 2: The Bureau
Washington, D.C., July, 1988:
"Anyway, school ended a few days later, and a couple months after that Geri's dad died -- killed by some creep who was taking revenge on Mister Terrific by going after Terry Sloane and his family. (*) After the funeral, Geri just left town. I think she went off to study at Oxford. I remember thinking how tragic her dad's death was, and how I wish I could've been there to comfort her. But after what happened I was too embarrassed to even call her, even if I could have reached her, and besides, I couldn't walk straight for months."
[(*) Editor's note: See "The Murderer Among Us: Crisis Above Earth-One," Justice League of America #171 (October, 1979), "I Accuse," Justice League of America #172 (November, 1979), and Justice Society of America: Times Past, 1979: Swift Retribution.]
Stanley Beamish, now in his mid-twenties, was laying on a couch in his psychiatrist's office. The scrawny teenager he had once been had grown into a somewhat underweight man with a freckled face and dark auburn hair.
Nearby, the chair behind him was empty. All this time, Stan had been telling the story of how he met Geri Sloane to absolutely no one.
"It took me half the summer to pay off all those bets about my prom date," continued Stan, sighing deeply. "I never did see Geri again. That was nine years ago."
Just then, the door quietly opened, and Stan's psychiatrist, Dr. Simon LaGrieve, tiptoed back into the room and took his seat, not noticing that he had a dab of mustard on his chin and still had a cloth napkin tucked into his collar. Obviously, he'd been taking his lunch break while Stanley told his story in excruciating detail as usual, even narrating all the voices with different tones. "Uh-huh. That's very interesting," he said absentmindedly. He then looked down and noticed the napkin; quickly wiping the mustard off his chin, he tossed it aside.
"Anyway, it's not something you exactly forget about, but I guess I must've blocked it out of my head," said Stan. "I honestly hadn't thought about her for years, until... until last year, when I was... you know, when I was recovering in the hospital. I was just lying there, feeling sorry for myself and for all that had happened to me, when I got to thinking about Geri, and suddenly I couldn't breathe. I felt like I was going to die. I quickly sat up and just started shaking. It felt almost as bad as when I was dying in that hotel bathroom in Las Vegas."
LaGrieve scratched his chin, as if in thought. "You know, I've heard that hotel bathrooms are homosexual hangouts."
Stan frowned and said, "Huh?"
"Bathrooms," continued LaGrieve, as if he had just seized upon some new direction to explore. "Especially in Las Vegas -- they're the '80s version of bathhouses for some gay men."
Stan thought about this for a moment, then glanced back at the shrink, extremely confused at this line of thinking. "What are you saying?"
LaGrieve checked his wristwatch and said, "Oops, time's up. We'll have to delve into that little bunny-hole next week."
Stan sat up and stared off into the distance for a moment, still confused by his psychiatrist's reasoning, before grabbing his jacket.
"Oh, and Stan?" said Simon LaGrieve. "Go visit the Chief. He has a mission for you."
"A purple alert?" asked Stan, looking excited.
LaGrieve raised one eyebrow. "Yes, if that's what you people like to call it."
***
Stanley Beamish stepped out of the medical building into a wet city street at night as vehicles passed by, splashing water from a recent rainfall. He nodded patriotically at the U.S. Capitol building in the distance and began walking down the sidewalk. Before he went too far, he suddenly turned into a building just two doors down and entered it.
Unknown to anyone but those who worked there, this was the Washington headquarters of Operation: Liberty, a top-secret government agency that employed metahuman agents on missions too risky for ordinary operatives to handle. Most of those metahuman agents were super-villains who were given reductions on their sentences, and in some cases pardons, in exchange for participating in this risky program. Because of that risk and the deaths that sometimes arose from its missions, the team that operated on the field was called the Suicide Squad.
But Operation: Liberty did not consist solely of the Suicide Squad. It also had a separate function called the Bureau of Special Projects, which had been set up twenty years earlier to produce its own metahuman agents that would loyally serve the United States government rather than merely trying to turn existing metahuman heroes and criminals into government agents, which had varying degrees of success so far.
The Bureau, headed by its Chief, the esteemed Barton J. Reed, had been trying and failing for several years to produce metahuman agents for the CIA and the FBI through various methods, and just as the head of Operation: Liberty was about to advise the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to cut the Bureau's funding, they hit upon a success.
Unfortunately for them, that success was Stanley H. Beamish.
Stan knocked and cautiously opened the door to an inner office, which was very dark inside. "You wanted to see me, Chief?" he asked, spotting Barton J. Reed, a bald, somewhat obese, middle-aged man wearing a tweed business suit and smoking a pipe. Stanley gulped as he recognized the man next to him as the same man who had found him in the hospital last year.
Reed rose and greeted Stan at the door. "Yes, Stanley, yes," he said in an upper-crust English accent; Stan always wondered if Barton J. Reed had originally been MI-5 or something before coming to America. "Please do come in. I'd like you to meet the man who oversees our little Bureau. He'll be explaining your upcoming mission."
"We've met," said the other man, who couldn't be more unlike Reed if he tried. He was tall, muscular, and well-built, and he had short-cropped gray hair and a stern-looking face. "Commander Steel," he said, extending his hand. "Good to see you again, Beamish."
"Good to see you, too, sir," said Stan as he shook his hand, a grip of steel that caused the young man to wince in slight pain.
They walked to the desk, and Stan sat down in the visitor's chair, while Reed sat on the desk close to him. Commander Steel remained standing.
"I understand you've been availing yourself of the services of our psychiatrist, Dr. LaGrieve," said Steel. "Is there anything we need to worry about? You're not about to crack from the pressure, are you, son?"
"Oh, no, sir," said Stan. "I just like to be able to talk freely about things with someone, you know? It's so difficult, sometimes, to keep my double life a secret from all my friends and family."
"That's the price of freedom, son..." said Steel in a deadly serious tone, "...the price of freedom."
"Well, Chief, Commander -- what's all the excitement about?" asked Stan.
"Stanley, this is a big one," said Reed. "The fate of our entire nation might depend on it."
Commander Steel walked over to the wall beside the window and pressed a button, causing the curtains to close. He returned to the desk and turned on a bright desk lamp pointing in Stan's direction, then sat down behind the desk. "As you know, it's our policy to assign cases based on several factors, including personal involvement. Well, son, you're up at bat."
"Right!" said Stan excitedly, slamming his hand on the edge of an ashtray on the desk, which flew up, somersaulted, and landed on Steel's hand, spilling ash everywhere.
Stan looked mortified, and he jumped to his feet, brushing away the ash from Steel's face and suit with his hand. "Oh, I'm sorry, sir. I'm really sorry. It's just that I'm raring to go." He swept the rest of the ash off the desk with one hand into the other, then placed the collected ash in his jacket pocket.
Commander Steel and Barton J. Reed sighed in unison, then Steel harrumphed uncomfortably and growled, "Beamish, let me give you a quick briefing. First of all, do you know what this is?" He held up a snapshot of a futuristic-looking weapon.
"It's a photograph, right?" said Stan.
Steel sat back incredulously, while Reed sighed and said calmly, "It's a picture of a machine called the Inthermo, and it's capable of converting heat waves into immense destructive power."
Stan whistled as he took a closer look at the photograph.
"Now, Beamish, it's been stolen," said Steel, "and its inventor, Professor Hugo Dante, has been kidnapped from his Long Island laboratory."
"Huh," said Stan. "Do you know who's behind it?"
"We believe it's the work of the Syndicate," said Barton J. Reed. "And the reason we called you in is because of your own involvement with one of the Syndicate's associates."
Stanley's eyes went wide, and he gulped yet again. "Is Ape-Face back in action?"
"Not exactly," said Commander Steel. "Vincenzo 'Ape-Face' Dyke, son of George 'Gorilla Boss' Dyke, is still behind bars ever since the incident at that Las Vegas hotel. But we have reason to believe he's still been operating his organization from behind bars. We think he made a deal with the Syndicate's Mister X, whoever he is, for the Ape-Face mob to kidnap Professor Dante and steal the Inthermo in exchange for the Syndicate's help in knocking off a couple of witnesses."
"W-witnesses?" said Stan. "You don't mean--?"
"Yes, Stanley, you were on the list," said Reed. "You and a few others identifiable only by a few clues that the Ape-Face mob was able to find."
"I thought you said my identity would be protected if I came to work for you," said Stan, sounding alarmed.
"We did everything we could, Stanley," continued Reed. "But as you know, you left behind a great deal of your own blood on the scene. Some of it was kept as evidence by the local authorities, and we believe a corrupt police officer may have procured it for the Syndicate."
Stanley Beamish looked like a nervous wreck now, wondering how soon he'd have to worry about mobsters sneaking into his apartment in the middle of the night or catching him unawares at a time when he was utterly powerless to stop them. Looking up, he said, "Is there anything else?"
"Yes," said Commander Steel. "This Mister X has broadcast a demand for one hundred million dollars ransom, or he'll use the Inthermo against several East Coast cities." Leaning forward, Steel said, "Mister X must be stopped before he goes any further. Now, Beamish, how much do you know about the Syndicate?"
"Not much more than what I've read about in the papers," said Stan. "Isn't it a massive criminal organization made up of all the most powerful mobs and gangs in America and overseas?"
Steel nodded his head. "Those are the basics. Unfortunately, beyond that and the fact that they've been around for decades, we know little of the Syndicate's hierarchy and inner workings. We suspect, however, that they have a new leader."
"Mister X," said Stan.
"Yes," said Steel, "whoever he is. But the title of Mister X goes back nearly five decades to one man who founded the Syndicate. Although the Justice Society thought they'd stopped Mister X and crushed the Syndicate back in 1941, it merely grew another head for itself and gained new Mister X's again and again, over and over, up to the present day." (*)
[(*) Editor's note: See Justice Society of America, All-Star Comics #5 (June-July, 1941).]
"Sort of like the Hydra of Greek myth, huh?" said Stan.
"Hm?" said Reed. "Oh, yes. Quite. What Commander Steel's trying to explain, Stanley, is that Mister X could be anyone, but whoever he is, he is most assuredly dangerous."
"That's why, Beamish, we need you to be ready to go on your mission at a moment's notice," said Steel. "Can you do that?"
"You can count on me, sir," said Stan, smiling even as memories began to swirl around in his head of how he met Ape-Face and a group of strange characters during that awful Las Vegas weekend, and how his life took a strange and unexpected turn toward the heroic.
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Post by DocQuantum on Jun 12, 2017 0:57:44 GMT
Chapter 3: What Happens in Vegas
by Doc Quantum, with Martin Maenza and Tynnechris, based on a concept by Dan Swanson
Las Vegas, Nevada -- February, 1986:
Stanley Beamish couldn't believe the good fortune he'd been having lately. His life had been fairly ordinary and boring, but here he was in Las Vegas -- the entertainment capital of the world -- having himself an adventure he never would have dreamed possible in his existence up until now. It was almost as good as one of the stories he liked to make up but better, because it was real, and it was happening to him.
Just a week ago he had been an ordinary shoe clerk at Finney's Department Store in Washington, D.C., barely making ends meet. He liked his job, he supposed, but he couldn't help but think that his boss, old Mr. Finney, didn't like him. After all, every time his boss wanted to talk to him, he'd sneak up on Stan just when he was at the top of the ladder stacking something on a shelf and yell at him. This would usually cause Stanley to clumsily knock himself, the ladder, and the entire shelf over, throwing boxes of shoes all over the floor. It didn't happen every day, but it had happened twice one day, and he had a feeling Mr. Finney's patience was wearing thin.
He wasn't having much luck with the ladies, either. Ever since he got his shoe clerk job, he'd had a crush on a perfume counter girl named Tiffany. After she flashed a wide, beautiful smile at him when they met, he ended up asking her out for the first time within twenty minutes, a new record for him. She'd said no, of course, but Stan had been prepared for that. His Uncle Stanley, who had recommended him for the job after having worked there himself back in the 1960s, told him how he'd ended up dating and finally marrying Aunt Gloria -- a beautiful woman who obviously outclassed him -- only through persistence. Thus Stan had kept asking her out, and she kept on saying no thirty or so times since then, but he'd finally managed to wear down her resolve. Today, when he'd asked her out, she sighed and said, "All right, if it'll get you off my back."
Perhaps that was the first sign of his luck to come, for that very day, upon returning to his lonely apartment, he found that he'd received an envelope in the mail that would change his life.
It was an unmarked, unstamped white envelope with neither a return address nor even his own address to indicate where it had come from or how it was delivered. It looked like something the building's super might leave him, but it was something else entirely. As Stan opened it, he realized that it held a dated plane ticket to Las Vegas, a hotel receipt for a paid-for room, and a small amount of cash. Puzzled, Stan shook the envelope again, and a letter dropped out from it.
Unfolding it, he found a very strange letter written on the stationery of the Howard Johnson Inn Las Vegas Strip. Quickly perusing the words, he'd discovered that he had received a job offer for an amount of pay twice that of what he made at the department store for work as a bellboy at the HoJo on the Strip. Looking at the plane ticket, the paid-for hotel room, and the job offer letter, Stanley was perplexed and amazed. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before.
Now, Stanley H. Beamish had played it safe all his life, and it had gotten him nowhere. He was unmarried with no prospects, had a lousy job in a department store, and his only source of pleasure was writing and drawing his stories in his free time. Now that an exciting opportunity had presented itself, Stan decided that he would break the course of his life thus far and take a chance. He would have an adventure.
The only problem was that he had to leave right away, and that meant breaking off his date with Tiffany. She would never agree to go out with him again after this.
Stan gulped and dialed her number. After several rings, he heard a click and Tiffany's voice on the other end; she sounded weary. "Uh, hi. Tiffany? Oh, hey, it's Stan. Stanley Beamish? You know, from the--? Oh, no problem, that's OK. People are always forgetting my name. Ha-ha. So, uh... about tonight... Oh? Oh, really? Didn't you wash your hair yesterday night, too? Yeah, I guess all the fumes from the perfume can do that to you. Well, that's kind of good news, because I was actually calling to break our date tonight, and... What? Yes, I'm serious. I'm Stan, remember? No, I'm not joking around with you. I really had to cancel tonight, and... Oh, well, I'm sorry you feel that way, Tiffany. I--"
He frowned and looked at the receiver. She'd said something really nasty and hung up on him. He just couldn't understand it; why was she so angry at him for cancelling a date that she'd already planned to cancel herself? He'd never understand women.
Maybe in Vegas he'd have better luck. After all, wasn't that what the city was known for -- luck?
His next call was to Mr. Finney at the department store to inform him that he'd temporarily taken a job elsewhere. But when he asked his boss if he could take a leave of absence and come back at some time in the future, Mr. Finney just laughed, long and hard, until Stan wasn't sure that he was even listening to him at the other end of the line any more. So he hung up.
He departed for Las Vegas that very night.
Working as a bellboy for the Howard Johnson Inn Las Vegas Strip was a dream come true. Pete, his old high school buddy from Gateway City, had gone to Vegas for his bachelor party, and what a party that was. His old friends still talked about it and all the adventures they had there, which were so awesome, so epic, that the memories couldn't be spoiled by the fact that Pete was divorced for infidelity within a week. And it would have been awesome if Stanley had been there, too, but he'd come down with a bad case of the flu just before and was bedridden for days. It was just as well, though; everyone just assumed he'd been there, too, and had forgotten that he wasn't able to make it.
Now he was finally in Las Vegas, on the Strip, no less, and experiencing it for himself. True, it wasn't exactly a party for him, since he had to work, but after the weekend rush was over, he would finally be able to explore Vegas at his own pace. Perhaps he would even meet a girl that would push Tiffany out of his mind forever.
***
Stan Beamish was whistling a happy tune to himself as he walked through the hallway of the Howard Johnson Inn, clad in his red bellboy uniform and hat and feeling on top of the world. The Las Vegas Strip was a great place to work, because people who came here to gamble and to drink tended to be big tippers.
As he hummed and whistled his way down the steps to the hotel lobby, he was waved over to the front desk. Wearing a big smile on his face, Stan walked up to the young couple standing there and said, "Can I help you with your bags?"
The girl was beautiful, with honey-blonde hair and a bright smile. She giggled as she saw Stan in his goofy bellboy uniform and said with an obviously fake Southern belle accent, "Shore thing, sugah."
Stan laughed to himself and picked up the bags as the young man, a dark-haired cool kid wearing sunglasses, whispered something in her ear, causing her to giggle some more. Stan sighed, wondering if he would ever find the kind of love that these two had at such a young age. They looked like teenagers no older than eighteen at the most, but then it was hard to distinguish ages these days. He walked upstairs to their hotel suites and carried their suitcases into the room, placing them neatly out of the way.
When Stan returned to the hallway where the couple was waiting, the young man handed him a bill. Stan looked at it, smiled, and said, "Thank you, sir!" And he walked off, happier than ever.
With all these tips he was getting, he was sure to be able to save up enough money to do something really spectacular for himself, like start his own business. After all, his buddy Hal back in D.C. had been bugging him about buying a service station. Stan wasn't sure why Hal didn't just buy it himself, since he had the money, but he figured Hal was doing him a favor. Hal was just like that. Being the co-owner of a glorified gas station wasn't exactly Stanley's dream job, of course, but it was better than the string of low-paying, go-nowhere jobs that he'd had all his life. Maybe if he showed some ambition, he'd even be able to impress Tiffany into giving him another chance.
***
Back in the hallway, the young woman looked at her husband and said, "Was that a twenty you tipped him?"
"Sure, why not?" said the young man. "I figure since we're staying for free as well as cleaning up on the floor, might as well be kind to the little people, you know? Besides, it wasn't so long ago we were struggling for a buck ourselves."
"True," she replied, nodding. As her husband started to walk into the room, she made a loud, throat-clearing sound to get his attention. When he turned around, she crossed her arms and eyed the doorway. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
He looked at her, then the door. "Oh, you want me to do the threshold thing? It's not like this is our honeymoon."
"Yeah, but you forgot before. Besides, this feels like a honeymoon, what with this suite and all. Now, get to lifting."
The young man snapped to attention. "Yes, ma'am." He slipped back out into the hall and scooped her up into his arms. He then took three steps into the room, lifted one foot and used it to close the door behind them. "Whoa!" His balance started to shift a bit; he teetered to the left, then began to stumble into the room.
"Stretch, quit kiddin' around!" she said, beating gently on his arms.
"Whoa, whoa, whoaaa!" The man began to fall forward but stretched himself at the last moment so that they'd both land on the king-sized bed. "Boy, were we lucky." His sarcastic tone and playful grin tipped his hand.
"Why, you!" she said. Then she laid a great big kiss on him. This was the closest that Stretch and Maggie O'Brien would come to a honeymoon. Unfortunately, for Stanley H. Beamish, the O'Briens' honeymoon suite would soon become for him a hotel room of terror.
***
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful for Stanley Beamish. As usual, once all the check-ins were over and dinner time arrived, he doffed his red bellboy uniform and exchanged it for the all-white uniform of the room service staff and began delivering dinners.
In one room he blushed when he accidentally walked in on a couple who had obviously just stepped out of the shower and were still wet and still very, very naked. But since he'd announced himself several times before entering the room, he didn't think it was an accident. Some people just liked to be exhibitionists.
Still, he turned away until the couple -- a big-busted blonde woman and a muscular Latino man, both with ample tattoos all over their bodies -- had donned their snowy white bathrobes before he wheeled in the dinner cart. Even then, the woman left her robe just loose enough for Stan to get a full view of her breasts, if he took a look. But he didn't give in to the temptation, because Stanley H. Beamish was, after all, a decent man.
The dinner crowd gave him a few good tips, but it wasn't until later in the evening and early morning, when all the drunks started getting back to their rooms from the bars, that the really good tips would come.
Finally, someone called for room service from the hotel suite of the young couple who had given Stan a twenty-dollar tip upon arrival earlier that day. The O'Briens, Stanley recalled. But when the service clerk told Stan about the call, he thought it sounded a bit strange. The voice was a woman's, apparently, but it sounded somewhat distorted, almost robotic; in other words, nothing at all like Maggie O'Brien, the charming young blonde whom he'd met earlier. And the really weird thing was that the robotic-sounding woman had asked for Stanley H. Beamish by name.
The service clerk wouldn't even have mentioned it if it hadn't been such a weird request from a couple she was sure she'd seen leaving the hotel earlier that evening and whom she hadn't seen return yet. Stanley shrugged and tried to put it out of his mind as he set to work wheeling up the cart to the elevator. Sometimes things were just unexplainable that way.
***
Fourteen months earlier, in December, 1985, a metallic-looking, female-looking golden robot ended the phone call to the room service desk in a Las Vegas hotel in February, 1986, and grinned as evilly as an android could grin.
Her companion, a huge, burly-looking white ape with a large head who wore a yellow-tinged red vest over his white fur, had been listening with impatience during the phone call from his sub-basement laboratory below the Metropolis headquarters of Ultra-Corp. What games was this robot playing now? Had she resorted to mere prank phone-calls to pass the time? Was that what he had contributed his resources toward? He had already built for her two powerful new members of her legion of androids as she requested, but as yet he had seen no payoff. The Ultra-Humanite was ticked off. "I thought you promised me this Legion of Doom would help me destroy the JSA, Mekanique!"
Mekanique seemed amused by the outburst. "But they will help us. The Ragnarok incident's outcome is uncertain, but either the JSA will be gone forever, or it will be greatly weakened by the battle. We, in the meantime, will destroy all the future JSAers, and any hope of the Legion of Justice to even exist, much less challenge Fredersen's -- and your -- future empires."
"Infinity Inc. and the Junior JSA?"
"And all of the families, allies, and loved ones. Why don't we start with... Will Power?"
"I've never heard of that one."
"And you never will..."
Mekanique smiled slyly at her little joke as she picked up from the table an unmarked, unstamped white envelope containing several items. "Now, if you'll excuse me for a moment, I have to deliver a letter to February, 1986, and break the rules of causality while doing it." And at that, she vanished into the time-stream, the letter in her hand. If manipulating time was like surgery, then Mekanique was skilled with the scalpel.
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Post by DocQuantum on Jun 12, 2017 0:59:59 GMT
Chapter 4: Mistaken Identity
by Martin Maenza and Dan Swanson, with Doc Quantum
Stanley Beamish wheeled the room service delivery cart out of the elevator and into the hallway on the third floor of the Howard Johnson Inn Las Vegas Strip. The cart was covered with a long, white, linen table cloth. A number of covered dishes as well as a single red rose in a vase sat on top the covered surface.
He walked over to what he remembered was the O'Briens' suite and knocked on the door. Almost immediately, he heard people move inside. A harsh-sounding voice, deep and guttural, said from within, "Get that!" It sounded nothing like the young man who had given Stan a twenty-dollar bill as a tip earlier that day.
Someone in the room then looked through the peephole and muttered something incomprehensible to Stan's ears. Then the same deep voice barked in answer, "See what the $#@* he wants, then get rid of him!"
Stan's eyes shot open in shock for a moment. People weren't usually this rude in Vegas, especially at this hour. Some people just couldn't hold their liquor.
The door opened slightly, and a tough-looking man far too old to be the same young man from before answered, "Yeah? What do you want?"
"Room service," said Stan, glancing down at the delivery cart before him.
"We didn't order any room service," said the tough guy.
Stan wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible. Some people liked to play practical jokes on hotel staff, and he didn't want to put up with it. He said, "I don't take the orders, I just deliver them. The kitchen said to deliver this here, so that's my job." He began to push the cart toward the door, which the tough guy still had partially closed. "Sir, please, may I just put the food inside?"
From the back of the room, the same deep voice from before growled, "Let 'im in." The tough guy did as he was told, opened the door, and stepped aside. Stan wheeled the cart into the center of the room.
Looking around, Stanley then noticed the damaged furniture and cracked mirror. He knew something was terribly, terribly wrong. As he turned quickly to leave the room, the deep-voiced guy, who was facing the window to keep his face hidden, said, "Not so fast." Stan turned around at the source of the grating voice, and the guy with the voice turned as well.
Stanley Beamish let out a gasp of surprise to see the simian features of the deep-voiced man, who was obviously the leader. Stan was as discreet a bellboy as they came, but he couldn't help but notice that this huge, hairy man had the face of an ape. Unknown to him at the time, he was in the presence of the psychotic mobster named Vincenzo Dyke, better known in the annals of the underworld as Ape-Face. And Stanley Beamish was about to become the victim of a very bad case of mistaken identity.
"Lou, the door!" Ape-Face snapped. The hireling quickly closed and locked it. He then began to approach Stan from the other side to block his path.
"What...? What's going on here?" Stanley stammered. He started to back toward the wall.
"Louie, I was just thinking," Ape-Face said as he began to crack his knuckles. "I just remembered that the one we seek has some special talents, just like his old man. I almost wonder if he'd be just cocky enough to try and slip back here disguised as someone else."
"Yeah?" said Lou. "Like who?"
"Oh, I don't know," Ape-Face said as he reached into his pocket. "Maybe as a $#@*ing room service delivery boy!" Stanley's eyes widened in terror.
Ape-Face pulled out his pack of Chesterfields and took out a cigarette. He lit it with a silver lighter and took a few drags. He began to pace the room slowly.
Stan kept his eye on the well-dressed mobster. "I... I... don't know what's going on," he stammered. "But I won't say anything to anyone. I swear!"
Ape-Face lunged forward, and the lit end of his cigarette jabbed into the top of Stan's hand. He let out a scream in pain. "Did that hurt?" Ape-Face asked. "It was an accident. Accidents happen all the time. Did you know that most of the serious accidents that occur in the home happen in the bathroom?" Ape-Face turned to his associate. "Louie, take him back to the bathroom and show him what I mean."
The tough guy, whose name was Lou Rossi, grabbed Stanley by the arm. "Sure thing, boss," he said. Lou was pretty strong and was able to drag Stan easily.
"Let me go!" screamed Stan. "Help!"
Lou smacked him hard in the jaw with his fist. "Shut up, kid. Don't make this any harder than it has to be."
Ape-Face turned to watch them disappear in back and began to chuckle.
He failed to see a form slip out from underneath the table cloth that covered the cart and to take shape of a man.
Stretch O'Brien tried his best to move quietly and quickly to the suitcases in the corner of the room. He was glad that he and Maggie hadn't completely unpacked before going to dinner. There was a good chance he'd be able to slip out undetected.
Stretch could hear the painful screams coming from the back bathroom as Lou Rossi beat the young man. It sounded like someone beating a side of beef. He felt a bit sorry that the man was being attacked for no reason, but Stretch had to look out for himself first and foremost.
In the bathroom, Stanley Beamish was getting the worst beating of his life as Lou Rossi struck him again and again, the force of each blow made worse by the set of brass knuckles Lou wore on his fists. Stan had screamed until his throat was raw, pleading with the man to stop, that this was all a terrible misunderstanding, a mistake, but the beating just continued. It continued until it seemed every bone in his body was broken, and his body was literally seeping with blood from the many surface wounds. The bathtub he was in was slick with his own blood, and there seemed to be more of it outside of his body than inside it. Stan wasn't sure how much longer he could survive the pummeling.
In the hotel room, Stretch quickly got the items into the last of the bags and closed the lids. Both let out a loud snap, and Stretch winced.
Ape-Face turned at the sound. "Well, I'll be a son of a $!^@#!" he said. "Louie, get out here!" Ape-Face reached for his gun.
In the hotel bathroom, Stanley Beamish no longer felt any pain; he was too far gone. And soon the beating itself stopped as his attacker heard the harsh, deep voice of his boss and slowly rose, apparently winded from the beating. As Lou Rossi stood, Stan could see through his badly bruised eyes that the thug's whole body was spattered with Stan's blood, and his brass-knuckled hands were the bloodiest.
The thug left the bathroom, absentmindedly closing the door behind him, and Stan heard him say, "Damn! How'd he do that? I thought the delivery guy was him in disguise."
"I misjudged our friend here, Louie," Ape-Face said. "He's much more trickier than I gave him credit. He was willing to let us beat the crap out of some innocent bystander just so's he could grab his stuff to scoot. Too bad he $#@*ing forgot that the only way out of this room is through the two of us. Let's waste 'im!"
Then Stan heard the sound of gunfire in the room outside. He waited for the inevitable end, for a helping hand to come and save him, but no one came. And for the rest of his life he would remember the name of Stretch O'Brien -- the kid who let him die.
***
But Stanley Beamish would not die this day, despite the manipulations designed to place him here at the right place and the right time to get killed in a case of mistaken identity. For there was more than one player watching, and the Monitor -- alias Alexander Lane, Lois Lane Kent's supposed nephew -- knew that he had to save Stan's life in order to safeguard the future.
A small team of teenaged super-heroes from the future called the Legion of Justice had come to the past seeking the Monitor's help to fight the time-manipulations of Mekanique, but in their inexperience they had gone to the wrong place and time and had unwittingly taken along an innocent bystander named Jemi Olsen. Moreover, their malfunctioning time-cube was about to destroy them.
Using his hyper-advanced technology, the Monitor was able to partially avert the disaster after pondering the problem for several months. He couldn't remotely fix the time-cube, but he could make sure that this super-team and Jemi were safely returned to Earth, though not exactly at their original destination -- but a useful time and place, nonetheless, which he had learned from his records was about to occur in his present of February, 1987. There the Legion of Justice could save a life and an entire heroic legacy in the process.
***
Stanley Beamish had just resigned himself to die in peace when he heard a strange sound, and the room seemed to shimmer. And then they were there, all talking and chattering as if there wasn't a badly beaten, bloody near-corpse in the bathtub a few feet away from them.
The shrill voice of a teenaged girl, a freckle-faced, red-haired tomboy, was the first thing Stan recognized. "A bathroom?! Your secret headquarters is a bathroom?" Then, almost immediately, she became the first one to notice the scene of the crime. "Oh, my God! You are villains, after all!" Stan heard her run for the door at top speed, screaming at the top of her lungs.
"Sandy, catch her!" said an authoritative voice, that of another redheaded teenaged girl who seemed to be the leader. The leader came close to the bathtub where Stanley lay and quickly recognized the small signs of life that indicated he was still hanging on. "Chall -- this just happened," she said, sounding almost angry. "Find out who did it. Now!"
As the dark, panther-like figure left the room, Stan watched as the leader girl quickly located a small capsule and inserted it into herself, then quickly began to bind his many wounds. Meanwhile, the gold-colored kid stretched his form just like the O'Brien kid could and quickly grabbed the screaming tomboy, wrapping one elongated arm around her waist and clamping his other hand over her mouth to stop her from screaming. He dragged her back to the side of the tub. She stopped struggling when she saw that the leader was binding Stan's wounds.
"We can't spare the resources to keep you prisoner, kid," Stan heard the leader say. "Sandy is going to let you go. You can run away if you like, but I need help." She turned to the one she called Sandy and said, "Let her go and help Cat. I want the butchers who did this!"
Sandy released the tomboy, and the brave redhead didn't even think of running, instead asking, "How can I help?" The leader smiled and set the tomboy to gently washing Stan's body, trying to find wounds that might be disguised by caked blood. Fortunately, there was an ample supply of linens in this ultra-luxurious bathroom. They heard gunshots outside the door, and Sandy was out of the room in a flash.
After that, Stan began to drift in and out of consciousness, and he heard a fight in the hotel room outside, presumably between Ape-Face and his men and these strange-looking teenagers who seemed to be super-heroes. And all the while the leader girl and the tomboy were working on him, reducing the worst bleeding, then binding his wounds with bandages unlike any Stan had ever seen.
Finally, the leader left to join the fight, and the tomboy was left to look after Stan, who opened his eyes to see her leaning down over him. While the leader girl mostly looked determined in her mission to save him, the tomboy wore a look of genuine concern for Stan. If he was going to die here and now, he was thankful that she was with him as he went. "You must be an angel!" he whispered.
The tomboy was flustered and didn't know how to respond. "I'm... I'm not an angel, I'm just Jemi. Who are you?"
"Stan," he whispered. "Stanley Heinlein Beamish." He grimaced. "Parents are Heinlein fans," he said, trying to laugh, but he passed out again.
He thinks I'm an angel! Jemi Olsen thought to herself as she continued to tend his wounds.
Meanwhile, the fight in the hotel room outside the bathroom continued furiously. But it wouldn't stay there, as Ape-Face was kicked toward the bathroom, where he staggered backward and tripped on the slightly raised threshold to the bathroom, then fell backward to the floor. The noise of his collapse startled Jemi Olsen and awakened Stanley Beamish.
The leader girl, who was called Kid Terrific, followed the crime boss into the spacious bathroom, and as he struggled to all fours, she kicked his head like a football punter. He rolled onto his back and struggled into a sitting position. She had prepared to flatten him backward with a foot on his chest, when a weak voice stopped her.
"Stop! He's beaten... you don't need... to kill... him!" It was the severely wounded bellboy, Stan Beamish, making a plea to save the life of the man who had ordered him mutilated and killed. The plea got through Kid Terrific's anger and her fighting trance, and she did stop.
"I don't know who you guys are," Jemi spoke up. "But you saved Stan's life. The police should be able to take care of this guy now." She pointed to the barely conscious Ape-Face. "We need to get Stan to a hospital!"
"We can do better than that," came another voice.
"Alex?" Jemi Olsen looked around and saw the Kent family's boarder, Alex Lane. He had just stepped into the suite from somewhere else, passing through a rectangle of solid black that now filled in one of the connecting doors. He was also dressed in a suit of golden armor. "Are you a super-hero? I like the suit!"
"I'm not exactly a super-hero, no. But let's talk about it later, OK?" He turned to the Legionnaires. "Kid Terrific, WildCat, Golden Boy, I'm Alexander Lu--" He stopped as he remembered that Jemi didn't know his real name and coughed. "--uh, Alex Lane, the Monitor. I hate to rush you, but we probably don't want to be here when the police arrive in..." He looked at his watch, waited a second, and continued. "...three minutes from now. Please come back to my headquarters with me. I can help you with your mission, Jemi can go home, and we can put Stanley Beamish, there, into the Monitor's healing machine."
Kid Terrific, whose real name was Cathy Beamish, gasped when she heard the name. How many people in the world could be named Beamish? Had they just rescued one of her ancestors?
"I wonder what all these thugs are going to tell the police?" Jemi speculated. "This place is sure busted up good. And blood all over, too!"
"Maybe that they'rrre having a gangsterrr orrrgy? Who carrres?" WildCat snickered. "Let's go!"
With Golden Boy gently carrying the again-unconscious Stanley Beamish, the good guys stepped through Alex's portal directly from a luxury suite on the third floor of the Howard Johnson Inn on the Las Vegas Strip into the detached bunkhouse on the Kent farm in Smallville that Alexander Lane had refurbished into the high-tech headquarters of the Monitor.
***
Sometime after the Legion of Justice from the future made their exit, Alexander Lane looked down alone at the young, unconscious busboy in the medical machine and wondered if the young man's heroic destiny had been altered when Mekanique had manipulated Ape-Face into mistaking him for Stretch O'Brien and almost killing him. The Monitor's records of the future were good but not exhaustive, and he did not know the answer. Alex wondered if this event would, by some twist of fate, be the catalyst that changed the ordinary Stanley Beamish into the hero he knew he would eventually become.
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Post by DocQuantum on Jun 12, 2017 1:05:05 GMT
Chapter 5: Mason
Stan Beamish shuddered as he remembered being beaten to within an inch of his life by that thug working for Ape-Face and then the long recovery afterward in the hospital. He ended up spending much of last year in traction or on crutches while his bones reset themselves. It was like an entire year of his life had been erased. But during that time his life had been changed forever. And that was also when he started thinking about Geri Sloane again.
His buddy Hal Walters, a tall, good-looking, muscular guy with dark, slicked-back hair, said something to him, pulling him out of his thoughts and back into the present. They were standing on the green-turfed rooftop of Hal's service station. As usual, Hal had closed up the shop for Saturday, and they were up on the roof whacking a basket of golf balls into a target on a net, something they used to do when Stan was still involved in the business. Even the tall sign on the corner still read Hal and Stanley's Service Station, with the motto capital service in the nation's capitol, although the Stanley in the name was now blacked out. Stan had sunk all the money he'd earned in Las Vegas into the business, since the Bureau had been paying all his medical bills, but he would live to regret it. The service station business wasn't what it used to be, and it became a money pit. Thankfully, Hal bought out his part of the business, but it was for a small fraction of the price Stan had sunk into it, and Stan was now broke again like he usually was. But at least now he was finally doing the kind of work he loved, in more ways than one.
"Huh? What's that?" Stan muttered.
"Gay? He said you were gay?"
Stan had to take a moment to remember that he had told Hal a few minutes ago what his psychiatrist had said to him during their last meeting, leaving out all the context of the Bureau of Special Projects and Commander Steel. "Well, he implied it."
"Well you're a writer, and a lot of writers are gay. Look at Truman Capote."
"Yeah, but he was successful," said Stan. "And he didn't write and draw funny-books, either."
"Well, funny is a relative term, Stan," said Hal. "Anyway, let me ask you this: When you smoke a cigar, is it more than a cigar to you?"
Stan stopped and thought about that. "Come on, that wouldn't make me gay."
"I'm going to fix you up with my new mechanic," said Hal.
"What's he like?" Stan quipped.
Hal laughed, then watched as Stan hit a ball into the target. "You're leaving it out. Finish your swing." He continued, "You're going to like this one -- she's half-Asian, half-American."
"Good-looking?" asked Stan.
"I just told you, she's half-Asian, half-American," said Hal. "They're all good-looking. You could mate Don Rickles and Yoko Ono, and they're going to have a gorgeous kid. It's a foolproof combo."
Stan thought about it for a moment. "I dunno, Hal. I tried dating a half-Asian girl last year, and it didn't work out."
"You mean Indigo?" laughed Hal. "I always thought you just made her up. I never actually met her, unlike Tiffany. I still remember when ol' Tiffany threw that drink in your face at the bar that one time."
Stan looked thoughtful for a moment. Even if it had worked out with Debbie Blue Perkins, alias Indigo of the Suicide Squad, he'd never have been able to introduce her to Hal for a very specific reason -- she had blue skin, and she was a metahuman. That was part of the secret life of Stanley Beamish, the one he agreed never to talk about. As Commander Steel put it, that was the price of freedom.
"What's the point, anyway?" he said. "Let's face it, Hal, I'm in a slump." Stan sighed deeply and added, "Lately I've been feeling like... well... like a loser."
"Loser? You?" said Hal, trying to cheer him up. Stan merely shrugged. "Give me a break. Remember five years ago, when your kidneys failed? If you were a loser, would they have been able to find a donor with an exact tissue match? What are the odds of that -- one in a million?"
"Oh, so I'm lucky because my uncle got killed in an explosion?" said Stan defensively.
"I never said that. I'm saying you're lucky those kids found his kidneys." He took a swing into the net and said, "Besides, your Uncle Stanley didn't leave you a thing in his will -- he never gave a crap about you."
Stan shot him a look of warning.
"You know, you're a real glass-half-empty guy," continued Hal. "You got a #@&*ing guardian angel, man."
Stan managed a small smile. Just then, Stan's pager buzzed. "I gotta check this. It might be my boss." Checking the pager, Stan grabbed the telephone, which Hal had threaded up to the roof in case of emergencies, and dialed a number. "Hi, it's Stan. You paged me, sir?" Stan held the phone receiver away from his ear as a tirade of angry words blasted out, and then there was silence as the person on the other end hung up. Stan put the phone back on the receiver. "Yep. That was my boss, all right."
***
Hal and Stan were having a couple of beers while sitting on Hal's front steps. Kids' toys -- a tricycle, a six-foot basketball hoop, and several dolls, among other things -- were strewn everywhere haphazardly.
An attractive young woman came out and handed them each a cigar. "I thought you guys might like these with your beers," she said with a docile smile.
"Thanks, baby," said Hal, and she went back inside.
"See, that's what I want," said Stan. "I don't need these bimbettes you've got me chasing. I want what you have -- a family... someone to... you know... love." Stan began to blush with embarrassment, not used to opening up about this with his buddy. "It must be great with a wife like that."
"Each day is better than the next," Hal said automatically. Turning to Stan, he asked him, "Have you ever been, you know... in love with someone?"
"Nah."
"Never?"
"Well, once," said Stan. "Geri."
Hal sighed deeply. "Geri again."
"Look, I admit it was brief, but it was definitely love," said Stan defensively. "Crushes don't last nine years."
"Whatever happened to Geri, anyway?" asked Hal.
"I told you," said Stan. "Her dad died, and she went to Oxford."
"I mean since then."
"I don't know. She might be back in Gateway by now, but she could be anywhere."
"Well, why don't you look her up?" suggested Hal.
"Yeah, right," Stan said, laughing.
"Why not?"
"Because I guarantee she's married and has a couple'a kids," said Stan. "Girls like Geri don't stay single."
Hal frowned and looked at Stan. "What if you're wrong? You just said she's the only girl you ever loved. What have you got to lose by calling her?"
"I did try calling her," Stan said, sheepishly, "a few years ago. Her old number was out of order, and she wasn't listed."
"So that was it?" said Hal, laughing at him. "One bump in the road, and you gave up?"
"Well, a couple of years ago I inquired at the Fair Play Club that her dad used to run, and they couldn't tell me anything. And also, when I was still in the hospital last year, I called Unsolved Mysteries."
Hal laughed. "You're kidding! What did they say?"
Stan shrugged. "They told me they don't help out stalkers." Stan shook his head and said, "Look, maybe they're right. It's been a long time."
"I've got it," said Hal, looking excited. "You hire a private eye, fly him out to Gateway City, he follows her around a couple days, she'll never know a thing."
Having conflicting feelings between his desire to see Geri and his desire to do the right thing, Stan gave this a moment's thought, then shook his head again. "No. No way. That's too creepy."
Hal thought for a moment, then snapped his finger and pointed at Stan. "Wait a second. There's a guy I know named Mason who might be able to help you out. He's a security consultant, and he goes to Gateway a few times a year on business."
"No, Hal. No go. Uh-uh. Nada. Absolutely not."
***
On Monday morning, Stanley Beamish was meekly following Hal Walters down the hallway of a large security consulting firm in D.C., which was also Hal's biggest client. He had begun overhauling all their security vehicles with bulletproof glass and computerized controls, and his relationship with this firm consequently gave him a lot of pull.
"I still don't know about this, Hal," said Stan.
"Relax," said Hal, "this guy owes me a big one. A couple years ago, he got in a jam; some crap about his whereabouts during an alleged crime they thought he committed -- like we haven't all been there. Anyway, they were going to fire him and press charges, but I covered for him and backed up his story with the company, and he's owed me ever since."
"Whoa, Hal," said Stan, stopping completely and speaking in a hushed voice. "You were his alibi for a crime?"
Hal shook his hands and said, "Alleged crime. And it was nothing. Nothing. There was a drive-by at some Smithsonian employee's home, and he claimed it was a hit, but the guy was totally fine, and they didn't even have much of a case! There wasn't a scratch on him. Anyway, Mason was with his mother the whole time. She even wrote me a tear-jerker letter about it."
"His mother?" asked Stan. "And you believe her?"
"Of course I do," said Hal, looking at Stan like he was crazy. "It's his mother, for cryin' out loud. I guess he still lives with her. Seemed like a sweet old lady -- got diabetes or something -- so I went out on a limb and padded the alibi, though I can guarantee it didn't need padding."
Stan was trying to process everything, but his head was spinning from Hal's reasoning. He shook his head and decided to refocus on their purpose for being there. "And you think he could find out her number for me?"
"He'll do better than that," said Hal. "I'll come up with some ploy to have him sent over to Gateway on business, you throw him a couple bucks on the side, and he'll track her down for you."
"I don't know..." said Stan, thinking about it.
"No pressure, buddy," Hal continued. "But if you do go through with it, just let me warn you -- this guy runs a little hot, but he gets the job done."
***
A few minutes later, Stan was seated in a small office across the desk from Mason, a shaggy-looking guy in a mismatched, three-piece suit, who looked more like a used-car salesman than a security consultant.
"So, Hal tells me you're looking for some lady-friend you knew in high school..." began Mason.
"Uh-huh."
"Any idea where I might start looking?"
"She's originally from Gateway City, like me. I checked directory assistance over there, and if she does live there now, she's not listed. She might've moved ten times since then."
Mason was looking at Stan without breaking eye contact. After an uncomfortable few moments of this, he said with a skeptical tone, "And all you want is a phone number?"
Stan moved as if to rise and walk away. "Well, I know you're busy..."
"Sit down," Mason growled, and Stan sat down immediately. The security professional leaned forward and said in a voice that was barely more than a whisper, "Don't play games with me, Stan."
Stan shrugged and said, "I don't know, maybe you could poke around for a half-day and see if she has five kids and a Labrador."
"I don't buy it."
"You don't buy what?" asked Stan, unnerved by Mason's unending stare.
Suddenly, Mason stood up and came around to the other side of the desk, sitting down on it just in front of Stan's chair, then he moved his face only a few inches away from Stan's. He said, "Stan, I'm the kind of guy who shoots from the hip. Now, I want you to level with me: Did you knock this skirt up?"
Stan frowned, offended by the question. "No."
"She's blackmailing you, right?" Mason continued without a beat.
Stan was even more indignant. "No!"
Mason whispered, "You want her dead, don't you?"
Stan was utterly shocked. "You can't be serious."
Mason kept staring at him and pursed his lips. He stood up and began pacing behind Stan as he spoke. "Do you really expect me to believe this is a straight stalker case?"
"I'm not a stalker!" Stan insisted. "She's a friend of mine."
"Sure she is," laughed Mason skeptically. "That's why she got an unlisted number, and you haven't heard squat from her in a decade. Oh, you're good, Stan. You're a real piece o' work."
Stan finally stood up and said, "Look, let's forget it. Let's forget the whole thing."
"I get one hundred a day, plus expenses."
Stan laughed at Mason's nerve and said, "You get fifty a day, period. It's a business trip. They'll pay for your expenses."
Mason thought about it for a moment, then said, "OK, Stan, I'll do it. But if this chick turns up with a toe tag, I'm rolling over on you."
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Post by DocQuantum on Jun 12, 2017 1:07:20 GMT
Chapter 6: The Stakeout
A few days later, Mason stood waiting alone on a corner by the Gateway City Airport carrying one bag and a case of beer. Suddenly, a 1985 Chrysler LeBaron convertible with a Great Dane in the back screeched to a halt in front of him. The driver was a muscular, well-groomed man in his thirties; he was bald with a mustache and wore sunglasses.
He shouted from the car, "Mason, you dog!"
Mason walked around the car, checking it out. "Hey, Sully, look at you!"
Sully grinned, and in a few moments, they were driving down the highway in the Chrysler LeBaron, the dog in the backseat catching wind. Sully handed Mason a packet. "Here's the info you asked for."
"Thanks," said Mason.
"You should thank me," Sully said seriously. "That girl was not easy to find. What'd she do -- scam you out of some dough?"
"Nah, some guy threw me a few bucks to track down his high school girlfriend," said Mason.
"Stalker, huh?"
"Big time."
They soon arrived at Sully's apartment, which was modest and clean, with a direct view of Gateway University.
Mason put his bags down and looked around. "Very nice."
"I'm doing OK," said Sully. Looking at his watch, he said, "I gotta get ready for work." He ducked into his bedroom.
Mason looked around the apartment. "Just OK, huh? With this pad, the killer wheels? Looks like you really cleaned up your act."
"What can I tell you?" called Sully from the bedroom. "It's a healthier lifestyle over here, and it's easier to succeed when your head's clear. Those guys I worked with back in D.C., they were a bad influence."
"Lousy animals," grumbled Mason. "Hey, what do you say we go grab a couple drinks?"
"Not for me, buddy," called Sully. "I don't drink anymore."
"Yeah, and you don't drink any less, right?" laughed Mason. Suddenly, a huge boa constrictor slithered up onto Mason's lap. "What the--?!"
Sully came back in the room wearing a police uniform. "Take it easy; that's Bill."
"Tell Bill to get the hell off!" shouted Mason.
Sully grinned and said, "Relax, he just ate." Mason just stared at his buddy. Pride in his voice, Sully added, "Nineteen months I been sober."
"What are you talking about?" said Mason, frowning. "You were never an alky, you were a coke-head."
"Yeah, well, when you quit blow, you gotta quit the booze, too."
"Is that right, huh?" said Mason thoughtfully. "Well, good for you, Sull. I'm proud o' ya." He popped open one of his beers and handed it to Sully. "Here, just have one of these, then."
Sully just looked at it disdainfully and said, "Mason, what'd I just tell you?"
"This is a light beer," he said, laughing. "You can't have a light beer?"
"No, I can't," Sully said weakly.
Mason stared at him, baffled. "Sully, it's one #&@%in' beer, for Chrissakes." Holding up the beer, he said sarcastically, "Ooh, the big bad beer's gonna get ya."
Sully stared at the beer, his resolve beginning to weaken.
"I'm worried about you, man," said Mason, lowering the beer. "You better learn to have a pop once in awhile, or you're gonna fall off the wagon. You're being a fanatic, and that ain't healthy."
"Am I?" said Sully.
"Bet your ass you are," said Mason, grinning. "Now, I don't want to hear anymore of your happy crap. You gotta learn how to bend a little, or believe me, you're gonna break."
Finally, Sully took the beer. Staring at it for a moment, he finally took a sip. His face curled up in a grimace, and he said, "Geez, you know what? This crap doesn't even taste good to me anymore."
"Ah, screw you, then, you big wuss. What are you, spotting?" Mason roughly grabbed the beer from Sully and chugged it back.
***
That night, a few hours later, Mason was on a stakeout in Sully's LeBaron and going over the information Sully had found out through his various connections, both to law enforcement and organized crime. This Geri Sloane was a real piece of work, with a private life she had taken great pains to keep private. But even so, he began to realize that Stanley Beamish couldn't have looked all that hard for her. If he ever really did try to find her, it must have been during one of her absences, because until the last couple of years, this girl had really been on the move.
According to Sully's sources, Geri Sloane did go to Oxford University in England, where her grades were good but not exceptional. She didn't pursue any one field of study, preferring to move quickly from one subject to another. A professor Sully spoke with said she had tremendous potential, but lacked the discipline necessary for any one career. He also said that her grades were less of a representation of her intelligence as they were of her boredom once she'd learned as much as she'd wanted to learn. She sounded like a real Renaissance woman. After Oxford, she spent a couple of years traveling through Europe, Asia, and Africa, sometimes on her own and sometimes with the odd non-governmental organization, such as the Peace Corps and Amnesty International.
She had finally returned to Gateway City in the summer of 1985, just before all the chaos of the red skies and the shadow demons that plagued the world during the Crisis. She had all the signs of settling down again, even taking up her father's old directorship of the Fair Play Club and the Sloane Foundation. And then, just after the Crisis in September, 1985, she just disappeared. There weren't any serious inquiries made about her, even by her now-elderly mother Lysette Sloane, because Geri was known to just pick up and leave to go traveling at a moment's notice, and everyone knew she loved to travel. But even so, she left no forwarding address and no information at all about where she was going.
Then, nine months later in June of 1986, Geri Sloane returned. (*) Mason snickered to himself as he wondered if her nine-month absence had meant anything. If Stan hadn't knocked her up as he had earlier speculated, then he was willing to bet that some other poor slob had. And she must've given up the baby for adoption, or maybe even placed it in the care of one of the Fair Play Clubs, for all he knew. So much for the image of the saintly Geri Sloane.
[(*) Editor's note: For she was really up to, see Justice Society of America: The Anarchy Society of the World.]
Ever since then, she'd settled down and more or less followed in her father's footsteps, running the Sloane Foundation and paying special attention to the Fair Play Club, even opening up a few branches in Europe. But Sully had also discovered some evidence of fraud; it appeared that this girl had at one point shortly after her return withdrawn all the funds designated for the Fair Play Club for her own use, only for the funds to get placed back soon after. But the Sloane Foundation's trustee, one Simon Stendal, had made a formal complaint against Geri Sloane that was later withdrawn. Apparently, the girl had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, only to have second thoughts. In any case, the would-be scandal was covered up, and it wasn't public knowledge. (*)
[(*) Editor's note: For the real story behind this incident, see Justice Society of America: Vanity Fair (Play).]
The one thing that Mason couldn't figure out was why Geri Sloane, who had inherited a great deal of wealth from her father and was slated to inherit the rest after her mother died, wasn't really living the life of a millionaire. Instead of a fancy Italian sports car, she drove a modest, new model Honda Civic. Instead of a mansion, she lived in a one-room duplex apartment. She didn't particularly need to work, especially since Simon Stendal had been maintaining the Sloane family fortune without her help for several years, but she nevertheless went in every weekday at the Sloane Foundation and the Fair Play Club's main branch. And when she wasn't working, she was volunteering on the weekends. The only part of her day he didn't know anything about, really, were her evenings. She could be up to anything then. Perhaps, Mason thought, she turned into a real party girl when the sun went down.
As Mason's picture of Miss Sloane began to take shape, he realized that he was dealing with someone who appeared to be a good girl on the surface but who was capable of some seriously messed-up stuff. He had grinned to himself as he realized that beneath Geri's girl-next-door exterior there lurked a bad girl. And he liked that; it kind of reminded him of himself. The only thing was, Sully hadn't provided him with a recent photo of her. For all he knew, Geri could have grown into one of those granola-chewing activist types like the ones who joined Greenpeace or something.
The hours passed while he was on stakeout overnight, and at some point before dawn he finally dozed off in Sully's car, surrounded by food wrappers everywhere. The LeBaron convertible was parked across the street from the address to an apartment that Sully had provided for him. As he slept with his head uncomfortably against the side of the headrest, he had left on his headphones, which were connected to a radio surveillance microphone attached to a pair of binoculars.
Suddenly, very early that morning, loud music exploded through his headphones, jolting him awake. Who threw the grenade? Mason thought, having a momentary flashback to a particularly violent episode from his past. Quickly recovering, Mason aimed the binoculars toward the second-floor duplex apartment across the street.
Mason had a clear view into Geri Sloane's apartment, obstructed only by the bedroom blinds left open just enough for the morning sun to peek through. The music that was blaring through was coming from Geri's clock radio. As Mason watched, she sat up in bed and shook herself awake, like someone had just poured cold water over her. She cranked the music even louder, prompting Mason to turn his own volume control lower. Mason turned back just to see Geri, now out of bed and heading for her walk-in closet with his back to him. Mason shifted his position and peered closely through the binoculars, trying to get a better look at her figure, but by now Geri was already out of view in her walk-in closet. He cursed as he realized he still didn't see anything he really hoped to see, but what little he had seen was surprisingly nice. Though she was a little older than her high school photo, she still looked like she was in great shape.
He'd now become extremely interested in his work. But as much as Mason was enjoying the show, he still had a job to do. Speaking into a micro-cassette recorder, he said, "OK, Stan, I found your Geri. Her current address, two-niner-eight Athena Avenue, Gateway City. Husband, negative. Children and Labrador, negative. Extremely nice ass, affirmative."
***
Now fully dressed in a sporty golf shirt and pants combo, Geri Sloane walked into the living room, where an old woman was sitting on the couch listening to a stack of radio scanners. "Have you been up all night again?"
"You bet I have," the old woman said. "It's an important job, neighborhood watch is."
"Neighborhood watch?" laughed Geri. "Is that what you call listening in on strangers' phone conversations?"
"These ain't strangers, honey, they're neighbors. This only picks up signals in a half-mile radius."
"Meaning?" Geri prompted.
"Meaning these are the people you live amongst," the old woman said. "You got a right to know if they're creeps. For instance, did you know there's a guy down the hall cheating on his wife?"
Geri feigned shock and said, "You picked that up on the scanner? Pack your things; we gotta move."
"I confirmed it on the scanner," the old woman said, ignoring Geri's humor. "I knew something was up, because Puffy used to bark like hell whenever he saw him, and you know Puffy only barks at bad people." She patted her little dog Puffy on the head as she spoke.
"Magda, Puffy barks at everybody," Geri pointed out.
"That's because there's a lot of bad people out there," said Magda. "Hey, Puffy tried to warn you about that Steve guy you was seeing a couple months ago. He was a no-good dirt-bag, but you had to find out for yourself, didn't you?"
"OK, you win," Geri replied, giving up the argument. "Now try to get some sleep, huh?" She gave Magda a kiss and headed to her bedroom.
***
For the next few hours, Mason began to follow Geri Sloane all around Gateway City, using all his surveillance skills to keep from being seen.
First, Geri left her apartment that morning and bounced out into the world, seemingly without a care in the world. She walked up to a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk, flipped him an apple, then jumped into her Honda Civic and drove off.
Next, Geri went to a nearby driving range and began practicing her aim. As Mason watched with his binoculars from the parking lot, he could see that she was hitting the mark every time, without fail. He spoke into the micro-cassette recorder, "Looks like we got a little athlete on our hands, Stanley-boy."
Then Mason followed Geri to a Big Belly Burger, where she was handed three huge bags of food. Mason laughed as he said into the recorder, "Well, from her figure and her appetite, I'm guessing she's either got a bowel disorder, or we've got a hurler on our hands."
Geri then went to a mansion-sized house in a posh neighborhood. Mason recognized the address -- it was her parents' old home. Apparently, even though Geri herself no longer lived there, it had been turned into some kind of home for disabled people. Mason frowned as he watched, thinking it was kind of weird.
Pulling up to the large, parklike front lawn within the gated estate in her Honda Civic, Geri Sloane got out and started handing out burgers and fries to a group of waiting disabled people, young and old.
"Get in line," she called, smiling. "One at a time."
An overweight patient approached her and asked, "Can I have two, Geri?"
"Yeah, you can have two halves, just like everyone else," she laughed.
"Thanks," he said with a smile, and walked off.
A few more patients came up for their food, and then a bucktoothed patient stepped up to her and said, "Will you marry me, Geri?"
"Oh, yeah, pretty boy?" said Geri, keeping it light. "And what about Dolores?" She pointed to another patient staring bashfully at him.
"Would you marry us both, Geri?"
"Yeah, that'd be a good deal for you, wouldn't it?"
The man laughed at the joke, took his burgers, and walked away. The next one in line was the obese man again, trying to be inconspicuous.
"Wow, this is weird," said Geri. "There was somebody who looked just like you here a minute ago." She smiled and handed him another burger.
Nearby, a man in his thirties who was wearing a Walkman with headphones was playing catch with an athletic African-American man while other nearby patients entertained themselves. Mason realized that the man with the headphones must be Terrence Junior, Geri's adopted brother, and he was the reason that the Sloane mansion had been turned into a special home.
Mason wore a strange admiring smile on his face as he spoke into the recorder, "Ixnay on the big appetite, Stan. She's just got a big heart."
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Post by DocQuantum on Jun 12, 2017 1:08:59 GMT
Chapter 7: Hospitalized
Mason hadn't been able to follow Geri Sloane around Gateway City very closely after she dropped by the mansion, since she was behind doors at the Sloane Foundation for the rest of the morning, and then at the Fair Play Club headquarters for the rest of the afternoon. He waited until she left the Club at 4:30 P.M. and headed out to a neighborhood restaurant and bar, where she joined a group of her friends at a table under an umbrella. Without drawing any attention to himself, Mason took a seat with his back to them at a nearby table obscured by a large column between. It was the perfect place to eavesdrop, although he had to wait for a while before the noise of the after-work crowd began to die down.
After listening for several moments, he had been able to identify all of Geri's friends by name. The feisty one was named Candy, and the others were Lisa and Joanie. They were now amusing themselves by checking out the personals column in a local magazine.
"Listen to this one," continued Lisa. "'Seeking sensitive WASP doctor to share candlelit dinners, long walks on the beach, marriage.'"
"What does this girl want, a corpse?" said Candy. "You gotta be more specific. 'Seeking deaf mute with a nice butt and a trust fund.'" The others giggled.
"No," said Joanie, "it should be 'a hockey player with great pecs.'"
"Ugh, don't use the word pecs," Geri said disdainfully. "That makes him sound like one of those guys with a fishnet shirt and leather pants."
Candy turned to Geri and said, "I suppose you wouldn't like someone with a washboard stomach like Rob Lowe?"
Geri shook her head. "I'm just saying I don't mind a guy with a bit of a beer belly. It means he's a guy. You can have those pretty boys who hang out in a gym all day staring at their own reflections."
Mason clandestinely brought the micro-cassette recorder up to his mouth and quietly commented, "A girl after your own heart, Stan."
"I can live with those reflections," said Joanie.
"I'm sick of those calorie-counting pretty boys," Geri said. "Give me an honest guy who likes kielbasa and beer and playing thirty-six holes and still has enough energy to take me and Junior out to a ballgame."
Joanie rolled her eyes and said sarcastically, "Jeez, Geri, I don't know where you're ever going to find a guy like that." They laughed at this.
"But here's the rub," continued Geri. "The guy I'm talking about has got to be self-employed."
"You mean, like an architect or something?" asked Lisa.
"Architect? Sure," said Geri.
"You mean creative, but not poor, right?" said Candy.
"No, why would I care about his money?" said Geri. "Creative, yeah, that's good, but it's the freedom I'm talking about. See, this guy has to have a job he could do anywhere. That way we could just up and leave at the drop of a hat."
"And where would you and your beer-bellied architect be leaving to?" asked Lisa.
"I don't know," said Geri. "The Super Bowl, the New Orleans Jazz Festival... maybe a couple months in Nepal."
"Yeah, and you'd probably dump the poor guy halfway to Katmandu," said Joanie.
"What's that supposed to mean?" said Geri, offended.
"It means you're too hard on guys," said Joanie. "You expect every one of them to be as noble as your dad."
"Not this again," said Geri, immediately frustrated. "And I am not too hard on them. I just don't have time for dating in my life."
"Oh come off it, Ger," said Joanie. "What about what's-his-name... Steverino? You could've at least given that one a chance."
"Yeah, Steve," said Geri. "Steve was all right for a while."
"All right for a while?" said Joanie. "The guy's good-looking, rich, witty. He was a god."
"At one point you were talking about marrying him," said Lisa. "Come on, why'd you dump him?"
Geri thought about this before answering. "I don't know, it was complicated. He's in San Francisco, I'm in Gateway..." She paused, not wanting to answer the question. "Besides, Magda's dog hated him."
"Is that old lady still with you?" said Joanie. "Geri, you said you were putting her up for a month -- it's been a year and a half."
"Ah, she's OK," said Geri, waving it off.
"Geri, cut the crap," said Lisa. "What really happened with Steve?"
"Nothing. I mean, you know my brother," she said, sighing, "Junior."
"What? Steve seemed to put up with Junior," said Joanie.
"I don't want someone who'll put up with him," said Geri. "I want someone who will enjoy him the way I do. Besides, he always seemed to be really jealous about Michael."
"Michael..." all the girls said in unison dreamily, then laughed.
"I've never understood why you don't just ask him out," said Lisa. "He'd be perfect for you."
Geri laughed at the suggestion, which her friends had made many times since they'd first met Michael Holt, an employee of the Fair Play Club who indeed shared a great deal in common with her. (*) "No, no, no," she said, waving her hands, "I keep telling you guys, just like I told Steve, that there's absolutely nothing romantic between us. In a weird way, he's more like a second dad to me and Junior than a romantic interest. I can't really explain why, but that's the way it is.
[(*) Editor's note: See Miss Terrific: Something New Every Day.]
"Anyway, besides thinking there was something going on between me and Michael beyond friendship, Steve told a friend of mine -- one of Fair Play's goodwill ambassadors, in fact -- that he would've popped the question if Junior wasn't in my life." Geri paused for a moment to collect herself, then said, "Well he is in my life, and I'm lucky to have him. Steve can go suck a lemon, as far as I'm concerned."
***
In Washington, D.C., Stan Beamish sat back in his chair, his eyes dry from staring too closely at the pages spread out on his desk before him. His boss, the editor, had sent back every single one of the layout pages covered with blue editor's marks in the margins. Stan worked for an educational children's book publisher notorious for treating its staff terribly. They published a couple of magazines that were distributed directly through the schools that contained all kinds of fun articles on pop culture, cartoons, and current kids' trends.
Stan worked as the writer and artist of two comic-book backup stories featured in each of the two magazines they published. For the first magazine, titled Pineapple, Stan had taken over a comic-strip created by someone else that featured a group of four kids -- a blonde girl, an Asian boy, a black girl, and a Native American boy -- with an amazing device called the Argometer that allowed them to do amazing things, from shrink to the size of ants, to travel back in time, to exploring outer space. All of the stories were meant to entertain as well as to educate, and they all contained various facts and puzzles that the readership were meant to learn or figure out based on their knowledge before the end of the story. Those who did work out the puzzles were rewarded by seeing the correct answer written upside-down below the last panel in the story.
It was a fun little series, and Stan enjoyed working on it, despite the constant interference from his editor, who often made baffling editorial decisions. Unfortunately, Stan's editor -- a former machinist -- had no background in editing or writing and had neither the qualifications nor the experience for the job he had, so Stan was often forced to make changes that made the stories worse. And there was nothing he could do about it, since the editor was the publisher's nephew. He suspected that was the reason the creator of the Argometer series had quit in frustration last year.
The other magazine they published, called Skywriting, was aimed at the somewhat older audience of teens and young adults. This was a newer magazine begun shortly after Stanley was hired last year, and because of that, Stan was able to create his own comic-book backup series for it rather than continue someone else's creation. A longtime fan of super-heroes such as those in the Justice Society of America, Stan convinced the editor to allow him to create a super-hero backup series, even though super-hero comics traditionally hadn't done well since they peaked in the 1940s. Stan had briefly considered calling his character Will Power after the hero he had created as a child, but instead he went another direction. In honor of the old Mister Terrific, who had retired way back in the late 1960s and had only been seen a couple of times in the seventies since then, he called his new hero Mister Terrific.
This fictional version was a kid who could transform himself into the grown-up Mister Terrific once a day in order to have amazing adventures, and each time he did so, he'd have a new set of powers and had to learn how to use them. Like the Argometer series, this series was meant to be both entertaining and educational, with the educational part of it being all the places in the world that Mister Terrific had his adventures in, as well as the science behind the various different kinds of super-powers that he had. Unfortunately, because it was a new series that hadn't stood the test of time like the Argometer series, Stan was often sent back to the drawing board for a multitude of changes demanded by his boss, the editor.
Between the deadlines for the two magazines and the many changes that his boss had demanded on a regular basis, Stan found himself with very little time lately to do anything outside of work. Although he was perfectly capable of working from his studio at home, Stan's boss wanted him close so he could forward his changes at the last moment. The problem was, his boss made so many changes, sometimes even reversing earlier changes that he had made, that Stan often risked missing the deadlines. And because the one responsible for this was his boss, Stan was the one who had to pay the price.
That was why he found himself at work after the working day was officially done -- and long after his boss had gone home early -- going over the latest changes to his Mister Terrific story from his editor. With all the work piled up on his desk, Stan was lucky if he'd be able to get home before dark tonight.
But he was so tired from work that he couldn't keep his strained eyes open any longer. And once he had leaned back in his chair to give them a rest, his body began to shut down, and he fell asleep and started to dream.
***
In his dream, Stanley Beamish was back in the Kansas hospital, covered in a body-cast and bandages from head to toe. He had awoke in the hospital some days after the incidents in Las Vegas with a confused jumble of memories about what had led him to be there.
Eventually, of course, as he got better he began to piece it together again. And then there were the people who visited him when he was still falling in and out of consciousness. There was the redheaded teenaged tomboy, Jemi Olsen, who came to visit him every week and read to him. His little angel was very sweet, and Stan soon learned that Jemi's sudden reappearance had been somewhat of a mystery, since she had disappeared some fourteen months earlier without a trace from a science and technology show in nearby Midvale, accompanied by the strange group of teenagers dressed as super-heroes calling themselves the Legion of Justice.
Except Jemi soon forgot completely about the Legion, knowing only that she couldn't remember anything about the time she was missing. From her perspective, it was as if she had just made a jump from December, 1985, to February, 1986. Alexander Lane knew better, and he told the truth to the Kents and Jemi herself, but to the general public Jemi Olsen's missing fourteen months became a local weird story that was picked up by a news agency and republished by newspapers around the world. Some people even guessed correctly that she had traveled through time, but this line of thinking was confined to the fringe. Most people assumed something more plausible must be the truth. Jemi and her parents had even been approached by a Hollywood studio for the rights to her story, but they turned down all such requests, just hoping interest in her story would eventually die. There was too much at risk if Jemi's disappearance and reappearance was tied to the crimes in Las Vegas.
Alexander Lane only visited Stan once in the hospital when he was doing a bit better, and Stan thanked him for saving his life by placing him in his healing machine. Thanks to that machine and the lifesaving techniques of that girl from the future called Kid Terrific, Stan was able to survive his wounds for treatment in a hospital. The Monitor merely accepted his thanks and let him know that the Legion of Justice was now safe and sound back in the future.
After a while, Stanley began to wonder who was covering his hospital bill. He had saved up a bit of money over the years and a bit more from his short time working in Las Vegas, but that was hardly enough to cover his cost. Finally, Stan opened his eyes one day to find a stranger standing in his room, looking down at him from the end of the bed. He was no doctor nor friend, nor anyone else he'd met before. This man was tall, well-built, gray-haired, and very tough-looking. This was Commander Steel.
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Post by DocQuantum on Jun 12, 2017 1:12:02 GMT
Chapter 8: The Power Pill
A hospital somewhere in Kansas, July, 1987:
Stanley Beamish's heart had skipped a beat when he first saw the tall, gray-haired man in the dark suit standing at the foot of his hospital bed, and he tried to say something, but his mouth was too dry. All that came out was a short yelp.
"Hello, Mr. Beamish," the man said. "Please, don't try to get up. I'm Commander Steel, and I'm a friend. You may have wondered who is handling your hospital bill. Well, worry no longer. I've got you covered, and I'll continue to cover you for as long as you need it. But there is one request I'd like to make of you in return."
"Y-yes?" said Stan, trying to gulp but finding his throat too dry.
Steel walked over to the side of his bed and picked up an empty plastic cup, then poured water into it up to the brim. As Stan licked his lips in anticipation of the soothing water for his dry, parched mouth, Steel suddenly swung his head back and gulped it all down.
"Beamish, you may not realize this, but you are very special," continued Steel, holding the empty plastic cup in his hand. He turned and began to slowly pace the room, holding the cup briefly out of Stan's view. "Several months ago, government scientists were working on a secret formula based on the works of Abednego Danner and Tyler Chemical to cure the common cold. While their original endeavor failed, it did produce an interesting chemical formula that had a strange effect on a monkey they'd been using for experimentation." Steel turned to Stan and said, "Do you know what happened then, Beamish?"
"What?" asked Stan, still eyeing the plastic cup.
"The monkey was not cured of the common cold by the formula, if that's what you were thinking," continued Steel. "No, but it did change the monkey in a very unusual way. This monkey became very powerful, very strong and fast, and there were various other strange side-effects as well."
"A super-monkey?" Stan said, his eyes still on the plastic cup.
"It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?" agreed Steel. "I thought so as well, until I saw the footage for myself. But even that was not enough for me, so I demanded to see the monkey perform its amazing feats with my own two eyes. And it was true. Our scientists had somehow happened upon a chemical formula that was able to grant this monkey super-powers. And we asked the inevitable question: could this chemical be used to make a man super-powerful? Could we create our own super-agents and super-soldiers, all working for the security of the United States?" He turned to Stanley expectantly.
Stan merely began, "Uhhh..."
"Yes!" Steel said, cutting him off. "Yes, we did ask that question, and we went to the next step. We transformed this chemical formula into pill form, one candy-coated pill that would grant super-powers for one hour, along with two booster pills that would grant super-powers for ten minutes each. The maximum dosage would be if all three pills were consumed in a single span of twenty-four hours."
Stan frowned. "How did you find that out?"
"The monkey died," said Steel bluntly. "Just as all the other test monkeys had died earlier. But that's beside the point. That death merely told us what we needed to know -- that the power pill could not grant super-powers indefinitely, but only for short bursts of time. And if the maximum dosage was exceeded, the subject would die. The next step was to find the right human subjects to test with these low dosages. We sent in our best and brightest for testing -- Air Force pilots, soldiers, athletes, fire fighters, and policemen. And do you know what happened with each and every one of those men?"
"They died?" Stan asked.
"No, Beamish. They became sick. They all became so violently ill, each and every one of them, that they were all hospitalized and, in some cases, they needed to have their stomachs pumped. And these were from the smallest of doses, a mere fraction of the size of the full, hour-long power pill. Their perfect, genetically superior bodies rejected the power pill. So we went back to the drawing board. What was it about the one monkey that survived long enough to gain super-powers? Perhaps there was a genetic similarity to a percentage of humanity that would allow the same effect to reoccur in men."
"So thirsty..." choked Stan.
"And so we widened the net, enlarged the pool," continued Commander Steel without a beat. "We used the entire population of the United States of America as our testing pool, so to speak. The full resources of the U.S. government were brought to bear to find the specific set of genetic variables needed for the power pill to work. We pulled out medical records from across the country. We checked everyone who had ever had a flu vaccine within the last three years. We even went to schools and hospitals, just hoping against hope to find a percentage of people with the right genetic makeup to work with the power pill. And do you know what we found, Beamish?" Steel met Stan's eyes.
"Don't know, but could you...?"
"Hmm?" said Steel, leaning forward. "What was that, Beamish?"
"W-water," Stan choked out. "Could you get me some water?"
"Oh, sure. Of course." Steel reached over and poured water into the plastic cup. "Here you go, son," he said, delicately holding the cup up to Stan's parched lips.
Stanley Beamish drank the whole cup down voraciously. When he looked up, he was startled to see the stern-looking Commander Steel smiling at him.
"You," said Steel.
Stan frowned and waited, but Steel didn't continue. "You, what?" he prompted.
Steel was still smiling as he asked him, "Just how long have you been in this hospital bed, Beamish?"
"Uh... four... or is it five months?" said Stan, trying to remember.
"Well, isn't it time you went home?" asked Steel.
"If it's about the hospital bills, I'm sure I can pay you back. Just give me some time, and--"
"Get up from your hospital bed, Beamish," Steel commanded him.
"Are you crazy?" said Stan. "I can't walk. My back was broken. Every bone in my body, too. And my muscles are all atrophied. There's no way I'm walking out of here today."
"Is that so?" asked Steel.
"Yes. Now, thanks for the water, but I'd like to be alone now. I won't be walking anywhere soon." Stan turned his away; whoever this crazy person was, he hoped they'd just leave him alone. His life was lousy enough as it was without another weirdo making it worse.
Commander Steel stopped smiling and sighed. "Well, don't let it be said that I didn't try to do this the easy way, Beamish."
"What do you--?" began Stanley, when he suddenly felt the bed move. Faster than he could have thought possible, the bed was raised to a standing position, and Stan was thrown completely off of it toward the wall opposite the bed, where he collapsed into a pile on the floor. "Aaahhhggg!" he screamed, while his skin became briefly purplish in color, and strange sounds emanated from his stomach. "What the hell, man? What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Just... just give it a moment, Mr. Beamish," said Steel, who was impossibly holding up the bed with one arm. But even his voice didn't sound too certain about Stanley's prospects just now.
"Give what a moment?!" exclaimed Stan, angrier than he'd been for a long time as he flopped around helplessly on the floor in agonizing pain. "Are you trying to kill me, man?"
Commander Steel sighed and said, "Beamish, I've just given you a small dose in liquid form of the same chemical formula that created our super-monkey. In effect, you've swallowed the power pill."
"What?!" cried Stan, fearing that he'd been poisoned.
"You see, you are the only man in America who has the right genetic makeup for the power pill to work," continued Steel. "It's unfortunate that you had to be hospitalized before we found you. I suppose it's a terrible bit of bad luck for you that we've been searching for you since the very day that you left for your ill-fated Las Vegas trip with that mysterious plane ticket. I can only surmise that someone wanted you out of the way. I have my suspicions about that, of course, but I can't prove them as yet."
Stanley slowly began to move his body, shifting his left leg out from beneath him to a more comfortable position.
"Now, if we're right, and the power pill formula works on your unique genetic structure, then we will very soon begin to see some positive results. You will not only walk again, but you will be able to do many amazing feats."
"And what if you're wrong?" Stan asked, now shifting his right leg.
Commander Steel shrugged and said, "Well, if we're wrong, then let's just say a hospital is the best place for you to be right now."
"Oh, great," said Stan, moving his arms to his side. "I think I'm gonna be sick."
Steel turned and looked at Stanley once more, and a sly smile broke over his face once again. "No, Mr. Beamish, I don't think you will be." He raised his eyebrows and looked down at Stan's arms and legs, which were in a completely different position than they'd been when he collapsed onto the floor. "I'd offer you some help getting up, but I suspect you won't need any help ever again."
"What do you--?" began Stan, when he clued in and realized he'd been just able to move his arms and legs almost effortlessly compared to the past five months.
A wide, goofy grin broke over Stanley Beamish's face as he realized that the pain he'd been living with for so long now was slowly fading away. He placed his right hand on the floor in front of him, then bent his knee and slowly raised himself shakily from the ground. As soon as one leg was erect, he brought the other one up and was soon standing on his own two feet.
But he was still dizzy, and he lost his balance, falling backward. As he sought to correct his balance, he took a few clumsy steps backward until he tripped and fell back against the window, shattering it as he fell through.
"AAA-AAA-AAA-AAA-AAA-AAA!" Stanley Beamish screamed as he fell hurtling from the fifth floor of the hospital toward the concrete below. Without thinking anything but that he was certainly going to die, he began desperately clawing at the air and -- amazingly enough -- he began to fall a bit more slowly.
He was still moving toward the ground, but all the glass from the window had quickly passed him and shattered upon the concrete below, even as he slowly descended to earth. His bare feet touched down a moment later. As he realized he was standing in many shards of glass, he jumped off them and found himself soaring into the air once again. Then, with nothing but a thought, he was able to stop himself in midair.
"I've gotta be dreaming," he muttered to himself, then checked his feet. There were no cuts upon them as you'd expect from walking on broken glass. "Yep. Gotta be a dream."
"This is no dream, Mr. Beamish!" shouted Commander Steel from Stan's fifth-floor hospital room. "Come back up here!"
Stanley did as he was told.
***
The effects of the small dose of the power pill formula wore off shortly afterward, and Commander Steel was able to have Stanley Beamish transferred to a hospital closer to home in Washington, D.C.
The formula did not cure Stan entirely, but it did accelerate the healing process and enabled his body to heal itself in ways that, under normal circumstances, were impossible. Stan had resigned himself to never being able to walk again, but now not only could he walk, but whenever he took the power pill formula, he could fly. His other powers were still developing, but they were much like that of Superman and Superboy -- flight, super-strength, super-speed, and super-vision. He was also somewhat invulnerable, but not as much as Superman; he retained just enough invulnerability to keep his body from being damaged whenever he used his tremendous strength. But he wasn't so sure about being able to survive a bullet unprotected.
Stan spent another two months in the Washington hospital as his injuries fully healed. It was then that he began thinking about Geri Sloane again, regretting what had happened in high school and wondering what might have been.
During his time in the hospital, his buddy Hal Walters approached him about investing in a service station with him. Stan had always been mechanically inclined and had worked on cars with Hal several times before, and Stan had been initially eager to have a job that was a bit more stable. Although he later lost money in Hal and Stanley's Service Station, as the business was called, he did not regret the time he spent working alongside his buddy.
Stan had also spent quite a bit of his time -- something that he had plenty of while hospitalized -- writing stories and sketching once more. After a few months, he had an impressive portfolio of fully drawn comic-book stories to show off to any potential employer. So when the gas station business seemed to be tanking sometime later, he was able to procure a job with an educational magazine publisher. And if not for his unreasonable boss, it would have been his dream job.
But all of this was nothing compared to the new career that he'd inadvertently gained when Commander Steel found him. Since he was the only man in America capable of being given super-powers by the power pill, he was enlisted as a secret weapon, an agent to be used in emergencies. After his initial involvement, Steel passed Stanley on to the Bureau of Secret Projects that had developed the power pill, and Stan answered to his chief, Barton J. Reed, and he also worked with Reed's assistant, Harley Trent.
After a brief training period with Operation: Liberty's Suicide Squad team, Stan Beamish was put into the field. The only thing he lacked was a name.
"I've always known what I wanted to be called if I ever became a super-hero," said Stan one day while visiting Reed and Trent at Secret Projects. "I'd like to be called after a hero I created when I was just a kid drawing my own comic-books. I'd like to be called Will Power!"
"Already taken," said Reed without a beat.
"What?!" said Stan, utterly shocked. "Are you sure? I haven't heard of anyone with that name."
"Trust me, it's taken," said Reed. "And we can't have two Will Powers, especially when both are so obscure. It would mess up paperwork for the DEO," Reed explained, referring to the Department of Extranormal Operations. "Have you any other ideas, Stanley?"
"I just can't believe it," Stan said, the wind out of his sails. "I thought I'd been so clever with that pun... that no one else would have thought of it..."
"Get over it, Stanley," said Harley Trent, rolling his eyes.
"I've got it!" said Reed excitedly. "Stanley, you're the marvel of D.C. Why don't we call you the D.C. Marvel?"
"Sorry, Mr. Reed, but that's just awful," said Stan. "But you know, growing up in Gateway City, my favorite hero was always Mister Terrific..."
"Excellent suggestion, my boy!" said Reed. "You shall be Mister Terrific!"
"...but I'd feel bad about using that name," Stan continued. "I have a feeling no one would like it if I was using it."
"What difference does it make?" said Trent impatiently. "You're a secret weapon, not a public super-hero, remember?"
"Sure, but if I worked with any of Mister Terrific's old teammates in the JSA, I'd hate for there to be any bad blood between us." Stan's eyes suddenly sparkled, and he looked up. "But you know, Mr. Reed, you may be on to something. I could call myself something that basically means the same thing -- Mister Marvel!"
And with that, the career of Mister Marvel began.
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Post by DocQuantum on Jun 12, 2017 1:15:09 GMT
Chapter 9: The Hit
Police Commissioner Chuck Sharp was an old friend of Terry Sloane. In fact, when Sharp was still a police detective, he had worked alongside fellow officer Lysette Andrews and had in fact encouraged Terry to pursue her despite their very different backgrounds. As a young man, Terry Sloane had always seemed like something of a wealthy snob, a millionaire playboy in the vein of Gotham's Bruce Wayne (many years before Wayne became a fellow commissioner of police). But as the young man grew older, he slowly became less and less of a cad and more of the philanthropist and educator that he turned out to be in his later years.
Sharp had already seen glimpses of this side of Terry Sloane and was not surprised when Sloane was revealed to be the prime benefactor of the Fair Play Club that Mister Terrific had set up. It was revealed that years ago Mister Terrific had approached several wealthy families in Gateway City to fund the Fair Play Club, but Sloane was the only one to initially agree to it on the grounds that his involvement be kept a secret. And that secret was kept, to the detriment of Sloane's reputation, until Valerie "Lady Danger" Vaughn -- a reporter who usually worked the crime beat -- exposed Sloane's involvement in the Fair Play Club. Overnight, Gateway City's favorite son had become a hero to rival even that of his friend, Mister Terrific. And with the revelation of Vaughn's scoop, many citizens of Gateway came forward to explain how they, too, had been helped in secret by Terry Sloane. The image of the rich snob he had been vanished overnight, and Lysette Andrews began to see him in a different light.
Earlier, Terry Sloane had been linked romantically to Wanda Wilson, a young woman who had served as his assistant for several years, but there came a day when Wanda realized that her affection for Sloane would not be returned in the way she wanted it to. While Terry had seemed content to just leave things the way they were, Wanda wanted a husband and a family of her own. In 1947, she left Terry's employ and Gateway City altogether and was married within the year. With her departure, there was nothing stopping Terry and Lysette from becoming the couple that Sharp had hoped they would be.
They were married in 1950, with Mister Terrific himself -- coming briefly out of retirement for the occasion -- serving as the best man. And shortly after, Terry Sloane announced that he would be changing careers, or more accurately, taking on another one. No longer would he be merely a businessman and philanthropist; he would also be an educator. He was welcomed with open arms to the faculty of Gateway University as an instructor, and within a few years he had been made head of the department of English Literature, a position he retained until his death.
As for the Sloane family, they grew in 1957 by the addition of young Terrence Junior, an adopted special-needs child. Then little red-haired Geri Sloane, who was her father's daughter in nearly every way, was born to the couple in 1962; Sharp was one of her godfathers, along with Professor Al Pratt of Calvin College and former heavyweight boxing champ Ted Grant. With a start like that, Geri was sure to succeed.
In 1963, the Justice Society of America returned after an absence of twelve years. Several of the individual members had been seen here and there during that time, but for the most part the 1950s had been a decade of very different types of heroes, such as civic hero Terry Sloane. That was why Chuck Sharp was very surprised when Terry revealed to him the secret that he had kept for so many years -- he was Mister Terrific.
Although he was at first surprised by the revelation, a lot of things suddenly made sense to Sharp. Despite Terry's efforts to make himself as different as possible as Mister Terrific with the whole rich snob routine in the 1940s and by having a buddy of his pose as Mister Terrific at his wedding, the two were similar in so many ways. And now, as Terry explained, he was resuming his career as Mister Terrific along with the rest of the JSA.
Sharp wasn't so sure that was a good idea. Terry had always been the best at what he did, but he was still just a man, and he had retired from heroics since 1947. A lot of things had changed over those sixteen years; was Mister Terrific ready?
With a wink, Terry told Sharp that he had been never been more ready in his life. In fact, he had kept himself in optimal physical and mental shape, and he had also taken on the odd case or two during his retirement. And even though he was juggling several careers along with being a husband and new father, Gateway needed Mister Terrific. Sharp was reassured, and he agreed to help him keep his secret and to provide him with any police assistance that he could.
Terry's second career as Mister Terrific lasted even longer than it had the first time. He had originally been Mister Terrific from late 1941 to early 1947, a period of just over five years, before he retired. And he was again Mister Terrific for nine years, from 1963 until 1972, when he retired for good. But given his family duties and other careers, his case load was less frenetic the second time around. Terry also began to feel his age catching up with him, and he decided to retire while he was still on top. As he'd told Sharp, many of his fellow JSA members had artificially retained their youth thanks to being exposed to a unique type of energy back in 1941, before Terry had become a mystery man and long before Terry had joined the JSA himself. Despite being what many considered to be the world's most perfect man, Terry was ultimately a man with no super-powers and no supernatural or extranormal abilities. That was what so many loved about him.
Chuck Sharp was shocked and devastated by Terry's murder in 1979, but he also had a responsibility to protect Lysette, Geri, and Junior from retaliation by the unrepentant criminals that Mister Terrific had put away. Although Terry had been killed as Mister Terrific by one of his old enemies, the Spirit King, it was very important that Terry Sloane and Mister Terrific still be considered as separate people by the public.
Mister Terrific had retired to great fanfare in 1972, and Gateway City even honored the hero with a banquet dinner to mark the occasion. So, despite Terrific's few appearances since then, he was considered to have been in retirement for seven years by the time Terry was murdered. Sharp took it upon himself to officially establish in the public record that the Spirit King had murdered Terry Sloane, not Mister Terrific, and that this murder happened in Gateway City rather than on a satellite on a parallel world. It was not exactly ethical, and he was not sure that Terry would have approved of his methods, but Chuck Sharp was satisfied in the practical steps he had taken to protect Terry's surviving family.
But even that was not enough. He made sure to have Mister Terrific appear in costume a couple of times after Terry's death by employing Ted Grant to play the same role as he had when he served as Terry's best man. Finally, when the Crisis on Infinite Earths hit the world in 1985, some six years after Terry's death, Sharp realized that it was a good time to make it seem that Mister Terrific had died along with many of the other heroes who had perished. Now the Sloanes were safe.
Then little Geri Sloane, who was all grown up now, decided to become a hero herself. When Miss Terrific had approached Chuck Sharp to pledge her help to the Gateway City Police Department two years earlier, Sharp vowed to help her out as much as he did her father. He didn't say anything about knowing who she really was, however; that wasn't necessary. All that was necessary was that they have a trusted system of communication, and that he could summon her and vice versa.
Police Commissioner Chuck Sharp now waited in his office this evening for Miss Terrific's requested arrival. But unlike most of their previous meetings, he was not alone. A military man from Washington, D.C., was waiting with him -- a blond man who, rumor had it, was much older than he looked.
"She should be here any moment now," said Sharp from behind his desk. The other man nodded and smiled pleasantly, but it was obvious that he wanted to get this over with.
"You wanted to see me, Commissioner?" said a pleasant-sounding voice.
Sharp and his guest rose from their seats as the red-and-green-clad heroine entered the office through the open window. "Miss Terrific! I'm glad you could make it."
The girl of a thousand talents smiled and nodded at Sharp, then extended her hand toward the military man. "General Steve Trevor, I presume?"
Trevor raised one eyebrow and smiled as he returned the handshake. "Correct! I don't believe we've met before. How did you know my name?"
"Well, besides the fact that you have a very recognizable face, General," began Miss Terrific, "I had been listening in for the last five minutes. Commissioner Sharp had warned me that he had a guest, but I wasn't sure if he'd be friendly or not."
"Our Gateway City protector is a very talented young woman, as you can see, General," said Sharp.
"Indeed!" said Trevor, knowing full well who Miss Terrific really was. His wife Diana was, after all, a JSA member like Geri's father had been. That was why Commander Steel had sent him rather than anyone else; she knew who he was as well. "Well, I don't want to take up too much of your time, so I'll cut to the chase. Miss Terrific, I represent a government intelligence agency that routinely monitors domestic and international organized crime, among other things. We've learned that the Syndicate has taken out a contract on your life, or -- to put it literally -- on the life of the girl who wears the fair play symbol on her costume."
"The Syndicate?" clarified the heroine.
"Yes. The very same one led by Mister X, whoever he is."
"Do you have any idea who ordered the hit?" asked Sharp, looking concerned.
"It appears to have been ordered by Vincenzo Dyke, also known as Ape-Face," explained Trevor. "And before you tell me you've never met him, we already know that." He sighed and said, "It seems that you're the victim, Miss Terrific, of a mistaken identity."
"But no one else wears the fair play emblem," said Sharp.
"Well, that's not exactly true," said Trevor. "We've got footage of a group of apparent teenage super-heroes who crashed a science fair in Midvale back at the end of 1985. One of them had a costume based on Mister Terrific's. It seems that Ape-Face has mistaken that young individual, whom we're calling Kid Terrific, for Miss Terrific."
"But surely even a gangster could tell the difference between a teenage girl and a grown woman, even if we were wearing similar uniforms," said Miss Terrific.
"You would think so," said Trevor. "But the contract is still out there. So my purpose for coming here is twofold: first, I needed to warn you that you've been targeted by the Syndicate, and second, that we have a plan to bring down Mister X, and we'd like to enlist your help in doing so."
"I'm listening..." said Miss Terrific.
***
Mason was parked outside Geri Sloane's apartment, waiting for her to get home. He had lost her trail completely earlier that evening when he slipped out for a moment at the restaurant where she'd met her friends. When he returned, they were all gone. He realized that they had probably gone out on the town and could be at any of Gateway's many nightclubs, but he couldn't be sure which one. He also knew Geri could have returned to the office, or gone home or to anywhere else. After checking each of the places she'd earlier visited that day and coming up with nothing, he realized she was nowhere to be found. And since he hadn't thought of bugging her car, he couldn't follow her. All he could do was return to the vicinity of her apartment and wait for her to get home. Now it was past midnight, and he was bored.
He picked up the car phone and dialed a number, and although he heard the receiver pick up on the other end, no one spoke. "Hello...? Sully...?" He looked into the phone and then placed it back to his ear. "Sully, that you?"
"Who the hell izzit to ya?"
"Sully, it's Mace," he said, frowning as he listened over the phone; the cellular reception here was weak. "What's going on over there?"
Back in his apartment, Gordon Sully was sitting on the kitchen floor in his police uniform, a ring of white around his nostrils. The room was littered with beer cans, along with another one in his hand, and there was a pile of cocaine and a rolled-up bill on the breakfast table. His pets, the dog and the snake, were looking at him with concern.
"%@&*in' Mas'n! You think your $#!^ don't stink? Well I got news for ya -- you're damn right it don't! How the hell are ya, pal?!"
Mason looked at the phone, concerned. Since he'd left that morning, Sully had fallen off the wagon, hard. "Uh, I'm fine. Just wanted to let you know I'll have your car back in a couple hours. I'm still staking out this girl's apartment."
"You found my car?!"
Just then, Mason noticed Geri pull up and park her car. He slid down in his seat to keep from being seen.
Geri got out of the Honda Civic carrying a bag. Approaching the homeless man, still sitting on the sidewalk, she handed him the bag.
"Thanks, Geri," said the man gratefully.
"You watch out for yourself, Herb," she replied. As she bounded up the steps of her building, Herb happily took a sandwich and soda out of the bag and began to eat.
Inside the apartment, Magda was glued to her radio scanner, listening intently. "Geri, you gotta hear this -- some cop's staking out some broad's apartment."
"No time, Magda," said Geri. "My show's starting."
Mason still had his directional microphone pointed at Geri's apartment and could hear everything.
"This is a good one, Ger," continued Magda. "Sounds like his partner's all plastered up."
Mason's eyes went wide as he realized the old woman had overheard his conversation, and he said into the phone very quietly, "Call you back."
Sully said, "Hell, I miss ya, ya lousy--"
Mason hung up abruptly.
Inside the apartment, Magda said, "Ah, shoot. I lost 'em."
Geri ran into her bedroom, shut the door, and flipped on the TV just as a show's theme song was playing. She laid back on her bed and started watching, then pulled a book from her bedside table and read it during commercials, writing in the margins from time to time.
An hour and a half passed as she watched her shows and continued reading. Finally, Geri stood and went into her walk-in closet to undress for bed.
On the street, Mason sat up, very interested now. "Here we go, Stan-man." He quickly reached in the back seat and pulled out a bigger, more powerful pair of binoculars.
Looking through the window, Mason again missed seeing anything salacious, but he was able to see her as she finished slipping on a T-shirt.
Watching her trim, athletic figure as she walked up to the window to close the blinds, Mason began to drool, muttering, "Oh, baby..."
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Post by DocQuantum on Jun 12, 2017 1:17:20 GMT
Chapter 10: Bad Business
Just before dawn a few hours later, Mason returned to Gordon Sully's apartment. Entering, he saw that it was just as messy as he'd pictured it when he spoke with him on the phone earlier, but there was one noticeable difference. Sully, the happy, drunken cocaine addict, had turned into Sully, the man whose life had just crashed all around him again.
Walking in, Mason looked at Sully, who sat at his kitchen table expressionless, surrounded by beer bottles, including a full one loosely resting on the table in his hand. "Sully?" said Mason, but there was no response. Looking concerned at his old friend, he walked over and picked up the bottle of beer from the table and was puzzled to find that it was very warm. Obviously, Sully had taken this bottle out several hours ago but hadn't touched a drop of it for some reason. This really bothered Mason, but he couldn't pin down why.
He looked more closely at Sully's face. He was still breathing, at least, and he still seemed to be somewhat intoxicated, but something had sobered him up very quickly. "Hey, compadre, you're scarin' me."
"Mason," said Sully, almost breathlessly. He looked up at him and said, "Remember our friends back in D.C.?"
"Uh... which ones would they be?" asked Mason, not catching on.
"The ones I got into trouble with awhile back? The same ones you still owe?"
Mason's eyes went wide, and he slumped into the chair facing him, his expression almost as blank as Sully's. Whatever this was about, this was bad. This was very, very bad. "Yeah," he said dryly. "What about them?"
"They called me."
"Uh-huh. About what?"
"They have a job for you."
Mason was floored. Now this was completely unexpected. If they had a job for him, then maybe -- just maybe -- he could get out of this after all. "Oh?" was all he said.
"And you'll never guess who it is," continued Sully in a flat tone of voice that intimated all kinds of headaches.
"Do I want to know?" Mason sighed, and opened the warm bottle of beer. He drank down half the bottle with a grimace, then placed it on the table.
Sully wasn't in the least bit tempted to take a sip of it himself. He simply said, "The Syndicate wants you to kill Miss Terrific."
The expression on Mason's face would have been impossible to guess at this point. This was going to be bad. This was going to be so much worse than the last job he did for the Syndicate.
***
It was nearly two years earlier, and Mason was still a hot-shot security consultant who did a bit of work for the Syndicate on the side. Most of the jobs he'd done for them had been relatively simple, like bribing judges, delivering packages, and threatening witnesses. He'd also performed a few hits, but they'd all been rat-finks -- hardened criminals who betrayed their own mob for a little cash on the side or in the hopes of rising in the ranks with a rival mob. Those mobs would pass on the job to the Syndicate, who would hire a hitman with no connection to them whatsoever. They called it Murder, Incorporated back in the 1940s, and it was still alive and well today.
Mason had never turned a job down, since he knew full well that to do so was dangerous in itself. And once you knew what the job entailed, there was no way you could turn that job down. You were in it until the job was done, or you would be done.
But even Mason had second thoughts about the job when he found out that the target of the hit wasn't a wise guy at all this time, but an academic -- a historical researcher at the Smithsonian Institute. He couldn't figure it out. Who would want this Miles Ambrose guy dead? Even if he owed massive gambling debts, there were other ways to collect. It was one thing to kill a wise guy -- they were always getting killed in gang wars -- but the murder of a well-respected historian would surely be front-page news. It was all very strange, but Mason was a professional, and it was too late for him; he'd taken the job.
***
Miles Ambrose cried out in his sleep, waking himself up. He blinked in the dark room, unable to see a thing. His pillow and sheets were slick with sweat.
Turning on his bedside table lamp, Miles put on his thin-rimmed spectacles, then walked into his small bachelor apartment kitchen and absentmindedly opened the refrigerator door without really looking for anything to eat. He only saw the briefest reflection of moonlight shining out of the corner of his eye when the kitchen window shattered, and he suddenly felt a pain in his chest.
Not a heart attack; he was too healthy. Miles felt the side of his chest, just under his arm, and brought his hand up to his eyes. He could see by the dim refrigerator light that his palm was slick with blood. That was the last sight Miles Ambrose ever saw.
***
From the window opposite Ambrose's apartment, Mason smiled with satisfaction at his marksmanship. That was a direct hit if he'd ever seen one, clean through the heart. Despite his reservations about killing a civilian, he'd have to admit that this was turning out fairly well for him. Fifty-thousand dollars to kill a historian wasn't bad, all things considered.
The professional lowered his rifle and turned around to have a drag from his cigarette, telling himself that this kind of thing would only get easier with enough practice.
***
Miles Ambrose stirred from his kitchen floor and attempted to rise, his coughing reflex causing him to cough out red spatters of blood onto the refrigerator. The floor was covered in it. His own blood. How was he even alive?
He realized why, now. He was no longer truly Miles Ambrose. That man had died, and he had been reborn in his place. But how long had it been? The last thing he remembered was that collapsing building, and then the whiteness surrounding him, seemingly preventing him from escaping or even being reborn ever again. And yet here he was.
Sensing the thing in the room, he walked over to it. It was not the same gemstone, no, but it was very similar. Where had it come from? He put it in his pocket as his mind reeled, two separate sets of memories competing for attention -- one less than a half-century old, and the other many thousands of centuries, many thousands of lives in one.
Blood still dripping from his shirt, he walked over to the table and found a newspaper. He looked at the date: September, 1986.
"One year?!" he said aloud. "I've been gone a whole year this time?" He could feel only confusion as he searched for more news. Apparently, the Crisis had come and gone, and his adopted world was back to normal. Except where was the news about Superman, and Batman, and the Justice League of America? None of them could be found in the newspaper. His new memories could have told him everything, except for the fact that these first few moments of confusion as his old memories and new memories integrated themselves made it impossible to think and remember clearly. He finally came across a photograph. It was the Justice Society of America. He was on Earth-Two; he was back home.
***
Mason had just been about to pack up his things and leave. It was never a good idea to stick around even seconds after a hit, since every moment was needed for a clean getaway. But as he held his rifle with the intention of breaking it down into its component parts, he took a glance over into the bachelor suite apartment of Miles Ambrose. The man was still alive. Fumbling with his rifle, he aimed once more.
"%#!" Mason grumbled to himself as he fired off a second shot. He was sure that the first bullet had gone right through Ambrose's heart. This one was sure to be the one, though. "%$#&!" he muttered after realizing the man was not only still alive, but that he had somehow missed him. He fired off another shot, but this time Ambrose was onto him, and he moved out of sight.
Mason shouted a string of epithets to himself as quietly as possible and collected his gear. He knew that he would have to track him down and complete his mission in person. This would be messy. Mason smiled in anticipation. Ambrose was giving him too much trouble already. From here on in, there would be no quick, painless end for Miles Ambrose.
The professional left his apartment and hesitated at the stairway door. It would only be quicker that way if there were no interruptions on the elevator. Plus, it would tire him out before he had a chance to begin his hunt. He made his decision and pressed the down button, watching as the light moved from the twenty-fifth floor ever closer to his floor, the fourteenth.
The expected ding of the elevator indicated the opening of the elevator doors. Cautiously, he stood along the edge of the wall as they opened. He looked in. A pretty young woman stood there. She smiled at him, and he stepped inside.
"Going down?" she said, her finger hovering over the button.
"Yes," he replied, grinning salaciously. "Main floor."
The woman pressed the M button, and the Door Close button, clutching her purse somewhat more tightly at his stare. The elevator began to move down.
"You live in this building?" the professional asked her.
"Uh... no. I'm visiting my father," she replied, glancing at him quickly, then turning her attention back to the door.
"Lucky father," Mason grunted, regretting that he did not have the time to pursue this. She pretended not to have heard him.
He chuckled to himself and watched the numbers go down. Nine, eight, seven, six, five... Finally, the elevator stopped at the main floor, and the doors opened with a ding.
The woman walked quickly out of the elevator, not looking back, and headed toward the front glass doors. The professional chuckled to himself again and fingered his Bowie knife in anticipation, taking a step through the doors into the now-empty lobby.
He suddenly found himself pulled back inside, however. "What the %^&*?!"
Mason felt a hand move quickly around his mouth a moment before the elevator doors shut and the lights flickered out. He felt the elevator begin to move slowly upward.
"Hello."
Mason futilely tried to squirm out of the strong grip he felt himself in; it was no use. He could not reach his knife, either.
"I assure you, sir. Resistance is futile."
The hand removed itself from Mason's mouth, and the professional took a moment to speak, "Who are y--?" The hand clamped over his mouth again.
"The question is not who am I? sir, but who are you? And for what reason did you murder me?"
Mason frowned in confusion as he tried to figure out who this was. He was a skilled assassin, a professional in every respect. That meant making sure all of his targets were dead. So who was this guy? He tried to play dumb. "Murder you? I don't know what the hell you're--" The hand silenced him once more.
"I do not believe you are that stupid, my boy. We both know what you've just done. Now I want to know why. Who sent you? Who are you working for?"
Ambrose, Mason suddenly realized. But how? "N-nothing personal, Ambrose," he said. "It was just a job. I don't know who wants you d--" The hand again.
"That is not what I wish to hear right now, sir. You must understand that. The recently departed are not as patient as one might think. Now, a name."
"We don't use names," Mason said quickly. "What do you expect from m--?" The hand.
"Savage."
Mason was quiet. He had not expected that. "I can't--"
"Quiet."
The professional dimly heard a ding just before he passed out.
***
Mason's head throbbed as he realized that he had been unconscious for several minutes at least. He was cold, and he had a terrible headache. He groaned as he tried to move but found himself unable to do much more than squirm. Then he opened his eyes fully and looked up -- at the street.
"AAAHHH!"
The Immortal Man, reincarnated in the body of Miles Ambrose, waved at Mason -- hanging strung upside-down off the building's flagpole -- with a smile as he walked down the sidewalk below. That trick wasn't really his style. It was something he had learned from a certain young man named Wayne long ago in another lifetime, but he had always wanted to try it out.
Right now, though, he had his answer. The memories he retained from Ambrose had pointed to the right clues, but the would-be assassin's answer was confirmation. Vandal Savage was back on Earth-Two, and the Immortal Man had somehow followed him back to their home-world. (*)
[(*) Editor's note: See The Suicide Squad: Path of the Immortal, Chapter 8: Reincarnation.]
"This is the police!" shouted a voice from behind the stairway door on the roof. "Don't make any sudden moves!"
Mason rolled his eyes; could this job have gotten any worse? After a few moments, Mason heard the door slam open, followed by the sound of footsteps walking across the roof. Then a police officer looked down over the side of the roof and spotted Mason hanging upside-down from the flagpole. The officer laughed.
"You're the luckiest bastard I've ever met, you old dog!"
"Sully, will you get me out of here?!" Mason yelled. "Quick!"
"Hold your horses," said Gordon Sully, the corrupt cop. "Let me go find a rope or something."
***
After that night, Mason and Sully had both tried to turn over a new leaf. Mason was questioned for his role in the supposed assassination of Miles Ambrose, but the murder investigation quickly turned into something else altogether when most of the evidence disappeared, and despite leaving several pints of his own blood on his kitchen floor, Ambrose himself turned up alive but was unwilling to provide any help the authorities, since he had secrets of his own to keep. From his strength and speed, Mason guessed that this Ambrose guy was actually a metahuman, and probably one of the new ones, since the Syndicate usually didn't place a hit on an established super-hero. Too many risks involved.
With a little help from Gordon Sully, Mason was able to clear his name completely, and the investigation was dropped. Mason settled back into his dull life as a security consultant, and the Syndicate stopped calling, except to let him know that he owed them for failing to finish the job. As for Sully, he decided to get out of town and take a job with the Gateway City Police Department, where he was able to get himself clean and sober.
But now the two were locked into another job, one that was so much more risky. There was a reason the Syndicate never targeted super-heroes -- they had powerful friends, and if you targeted one, you had to target them all or risk becoming a target yourself. It was bad business. But for Miss Terrific they had made an exception, and Mason and Sully were both screwed.
Well, if he had to kill Miss Terrific, a super-hero, and a chick at that, then so be it. He'd track her down eventually and be done with it as quickly and painlessly as possible. But there was no way he was going to let Geri Sloane slip out of his life, now that he'd found in her his ideal woman -- a good girl during the day, a bad girl at night. Stan Beamish be damned.
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Post by DocQuantum on Jun 12, 2017 1:19:19 GMT
Chapter 11: The Pickup Artist
In Washington, D.C., the next afternoon, Stan Beamish was sitting alone at a patio table at a pub when Mason approached him, smiling like a cobra.
"I've got some very, very good news for you, my friend," said Mason without preamble.
"Really?" said Stan, perking up at this. "Very, very?"
Mason sat down, waved a waitress over, and got a beer. When she left, he turned to Stan and said, "Stanley, I think your life's about to change."
"So you found Geri!" said Stan excitedly.
"Right there in Gateway City," said Mason, nodding. "And you were right. She's really something."
Stan wore a goofy grin on his face as he said, "So she hasn't changed?"
"Now that I couldn't say. Let me ask you something, Stan. Was she a little big-boned in high school?"
"No, not at all."
"Well she must've packed on a few pounds over the years," said Mason.
Stan kept smiling; this didn't dampen his enthusiasm in the least. He found this merely endearing. "Geri's a little chubby, huh?"
"I'd say about a deuce, deuce and a half. Not bad."
Stan's smile began to fade into a look of surprise.
"But you know," continued Mason, "you have a bunch of kids, you're going to put on a few pounds.
"So she's married?" Stan asked, his heart sinking.
"Nope, that's the thing," said Mason. "She's never been."
"Huh?"
"Four kids, three different guys," said Mason, taking a gulp of beer.
"Three different guys?"
"Well, I'm guessing," added Mason. "There's a black kid, two whites, and a midget."
"Oh, my..."
"Hyperactive little buggers, too," laughed Mason. "Tough to keep up with in a wheelchair, I bet."
"She's in a wheelchair?!" said Stan, looking completely deflated.
"Don't look so shocked," said Mason. "It's been a long time. I bet you've changed a lot over the last nine years, haven't you?"
Stan shrugged and said, "It's just that... Geri. I wouldn't have thought..."
"Anyway, the good news is I have all the information you need," said Mason. "Got it from her bookie -- nice guy. You should definitely call her, Stan. I mean, she's a real spark plug, that one. She seems determined to get those rugrats off welfare, and with your help, I'll bet she does it."
Stan stood up and said, "Thanks anyway, Mason. Good work." He began to walk away, feeling dejected.
"Stan?" called Mason. "Don't you want the name of the housing project?"
"Uh, that's OK."
"You sure, big guy?" shouted Mason. "I'll bet she'd love to hear from you before her mastectomy!"
As Stan left, Mason put his feet up on the table and sat back, feeling proud of himself. Yes, there was no way he was going to let that sad sack get his hands on Geri Sloane.
***
That night, Stanley Beamish sat awake in bed, disturbed and unable to sleep, partly thanks to the loud heavy metal music coming from the apartment next door. Finally, he got up and walked over to his dresser. Flipping on a small light, Stan picked up his wallet and opened it. Inside was an old high school photo of a smiling Geri Sloane.
As Stan looked at it, he couldn't help but smile, too. And that made his decision for him. Despite everything he had heard, he would look up Geri after all.
***
The next day, Mason was taking his last box of items from his small office at the security consulting firm. Spotting Stanley Beamish, he tried to duck back in, but Stan saw him. Mason forced a smile as Stan approached.
"What are you doing?" asked Stan.
"Oh, uh, I resigned," said Mason.
Stan picked up a plane ticket off the desk and said, confusion in his voice, "You're... you're going back to Gateway City?"
"Yeah," said Mason dismissively. "This security consulting business is too slow for me. I'm going to go down and try my hand in NASCAR."
"NASCAR?!"
"Yeah. I don't know why, but I always thought that motor racing, beer, and rednecks made for a good ol' time."
Mason walked out of his office, and Stan followed him. Mason had a hard time looking him in the eye, so he didn't, merely picking up his pace as if in a hurry.
"Look, uh, I've been thinking about everything you told me," said Stan, trying to keep up with Mason's brisk walk.
"Good, good..." muttered Mason.
"Well, I think you're right," said Stan. "I should look her up."
"Her? You mean the Christmas ham?" asked Mason. "Are you nuts, kid?"
"But you said she was a spark plug," said Stan.
"More like drain plug. I was just being nice, Stan," said Mason. "She's heinous."
Stan sighed and followed Mason out the front door. As they walked across the parking lot toward Mason's car, he continued, "All the same, I still want to call her. I know it sounds crazy -- Geri sure has a lot of troubles in her life -- but I don't know, maybe I can help her out." He sighed again and said, "The poor thing's had it tough -- she's in a wheelchair, for crying out loud!"
"It's a bunion," said Mason. "It'll heal."
"Oh, I thought..." He paused in momentary confusion before continuing. "That's not it, anyway. I know this doesn't make any sense to you, but I just can't turn it off that fast. I still feel something for her."
Reaching his car, Mason put his box in the trunk. "OK, tell you what, Stan -- I'll get her number for you just as soon as she gets back from Japan."
"Japan?" asked Stan, surprised once more. "What's she doing in Japan?"
"You've heard of mail-order brides?" said Mason, getting into his car. "Well, they go that way, too."
Stan was devastated. "Geri's a mail-order bride?"
"Fetched a pretty penny, too," said Mason from his front seat. Backing out of his space and driving away, he shouted over his shoulder, "Don't forget, Stan, it's the Sumo culture -- they pay by the pound there. Sort of like tuna." And he drove off, leaving Stan in utter shock.
***
Stan Beamish and his buddy Hal Walters met for lunch the following day.
"That's it," said Stan. "I'm making an oath. I'll never procrastinate about anything again. Life is too damn short."
"Hey, look on the bright side..." began Hal.
"What's that, Hal?" interrupted Stan with uncharacteristic hostility in his voice. "What's the bright side of this?"
"Well, at least now you know."
"I think it was better when I didn't," said Stan. "It was kind of inspiring to know there was someone so pure and perfect in the world."
As Stan dwelled on this thought, Hal burst out laughing.
"What's so funny?"
"I'm sorry," said Hal. "It's just that you're taking this all wrong, pal. Don't you see? You're liberated. Even I feel liberated. I mean, here you've been in therapy thinking you blew it with the greatest girl ever, and it turns out that your prom night zipper story was the best thing that ever happened to you!"
Stan flinched at this. "Wait a second -- I never told you that."
Hal rolled his eyes. "Sheesh, Stan, I was only four towns away."
Stan thought it over for a moment. "Maybe you're right. I should look on the bright side. I mean, I've still got my health." Checking his watch, he said, "I'm out of here. I've got to get up at six A.M. to move my boss's brother into his apartment."
"What?" said Hal. "On your day off? Do you even know the guy?"
"Never met him."
"Jeez, Stan, you've got to finish that damn graphic novel of yours so you can quit that stupid publishing company."
"Amen to that."
***
Back in Gateway City, Mason headed to the driving range at just the right time, paid for a bucket of golf balls, then took his clubs and strolled jauntily to a golf tee, which just happened to be next to Geri Sloane's. It was time to begin his sensitive confidence man routine.
Placing a ball on the tee, Mason took a swing, but he topped the ball, and it dribbled for about ten yards. "Hit a house! Bite! Bite!" he shouted. Casually turning to Geri, he said by way of explanation, "Haven't swung the wrenches in awhile."
Geri glanced at him and nodded politely. Mason took another swing and duck-hooked one about fifty yards. Geri addressed her ball and took a smooth backswing.
"Hey, can you give me some tips here?" interrupted Mason, just as Geri cracked her shot long and straight.
"Yeah," said Geri. "Don't talk in someone's backswing."
"Thanks," Mason said, an oblivious smile on his face.
As Geri teed up another ball, Mason put down his club and watched her for a moment before saying, "I'm gonna get a soda. You want one?"
She replied in an annoyed tone of voice, "No thanks."
Mason pulled out a handful of change from his pocket. "Oh, cripes," he said. "Do you have change for a dollar? All I have are these stupid Nepalese coins."
Geri took a second look at him and said, "Nepal, huh? Have you been?"
"Not in months," said Mason with a disaffected air. "I don't even know why I bought the damn place."
"You own a home there?" asked Geri, her curiosity piqued by now.
"Well, it's just a condo, really. Right outside Katmandu."
"Wow," she said. "That's a place I've always wanted to go. Is it true the mountains are so tall you can't see the tops?"
"Not 'til you get about three hundred yards from the summit," said Mason. "That's been my experience, anyway."
She was strangely impressed, and Mason knew it as he casually looked at his watch. "You know, I should just get going. I'll work on my game next week."
He flipped her a coin and said, "Here. Spend it on your trip to Katmandu."
"Thanks," Geri said, smiling. Mason started to walk off, and Geri watched him leave. "It was nice meeting you!" she called.
Instead of answering or turning around, Mason just raised his hand and gave her a little wave. Geri shrugged her shoulders and went back to her game.
***
In the parking lot outside the driving range, Mason waited in Sully's Chrysler LeBaron right next to Geri's Honda Civic, watching the rearview mirror. The moment he saw Geri coming out from the driving range, he swung his legs out the door and started changing out of his golf shoes. As Geri tossed her golf bag into the trunk, she noticed Mason tying his shoes.
"Well, it was nice meeting you, again," she said as she closed the trunk of her car.
"Same here, again," said Mason.
"By the way, what's your name?"
"Mason."
"Is that a first name or last?"
"Last," he said, and there was an uncomfortable pause.
Geri began to wonder why this guy didn't ask the usual questions. "Don't you want to know my name?" she said.
"I already know it, Geri."
"How'd you know that?" she said, surprised.
"It's right there on your golf bag," Mason said nonchalantly as he opened the back door to put away his golf shoes. Suddenly, rolls and rolls of paper began tumbling out. Geri bent over to help Mason pick them up.
"What are you doing with all these blueprints?" she asked.
"Oh, just some buildings I'm working on."
"Are you an architect?" she asked.
"Well, just until I get my PGA Tour card," Mason said with a smile.
Geri stared at him, mouth agape.
"I'm kidding," he said. "Yeah, I guess you could call me an architect -- it's just a job, really, a way to keep me moving. My real passion is my hobby."
"And what's that?" asked Geri.
"I work with retards," said Mason coolly.
Geri was suddenly taken aback. "I beg your pardon?" she said, offended.
"You know," said Mason, flapping his lips with his fingers. "The guys who ride the short bus."
"Isn't that a little politically incorrect?" Geri said, frowning.
"The hell with that," said Mason. "No politician's gonna tell me who I can and can't work with."
Geri shook her head, still offended. "No, I mean--"
"There's this one kid -- we call him Mongo on account of he's a mongoloid," Mason continued. "He got out of his cage once, and--"
"He's in a cage?!" cried Geri.
"Well, it's more of an enclosure, really."
"They keep him confined? That's horrible!"
"Yeah, that's what I said! So I went out and got him a leash -- you know, one of those clothesline runners for the backyard? He's got plenty of room out there to dig. The kid's really blossomed. Now I can take him to ballgames, movies -- you know, happy stuff."
Geri wasn't sure what to make of this guy. "That... sounds like fun," she said hesitantly.
"Yeah, it's fun for them, but it's heaven for me," said Mason. He paused and fought back sudden tears, too choked up to speak for a moment. Finally, he said, "Those goofy bastards are just about the best thing I have in this crazy old world." Wiping a tear from his eye, he looked at his watch again and said, "Ooh, hey, I gotta run."
Geri thought about it for a moment as Mason closed his car door, then said through the open window, "Uh, I was thinking maybe you could tell me more about it over coffee sometime."
Mason smiled as he thought to himself, Hook, line, and sinker.
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Post by DocQuantum on Jun 12, 2017 1:22:10 GMT
Chapter 12: Nice Guys
Washington, D.C.:
A profusely sweating Stan Beamish, a dresser on his back, slowly and painfully made his way toward the front door as his boss' disabled brother caught up to him in a wheelchair. His boss had somehow managed to convince Stan to help his brother, even though he'd never met him before. But he'd left out a few important details, which Stan only discovered when he arrived early that morning to help with the move.
The man was meaner than his boss, if that were possible, and he'd been nothing but a nuisance all that morning as Stan helped him move. And since the man was in a wheelchair and had no friends of his own to help him move, that meant Stan had to do the entire thing himself. He'd already hurt his back loading up the truck, but now that he had to unload it, he wasn't sure how long he could hold out.
"Hey, crap-for-brains, be careful not to scratch that thing, huh?" the man said.
"What...?" Stan said, straining to speak while trying not to let the weight of the dresser crush him.
"You heard me," he said. "You already put a #^@%ing nick in my piano."
Stan bit back his words and took a breath. Having actually been physically disabled himself only a year ago, he could understand how it could embitter a person. He gulped and finally said, "I'll... try to be more careful."
"S'matter with you?" the man in the wheelchair said. "You look like you're starting to fade."
"Well... the thing's kind of heavy," said Stan.
"Heavy? Heavy?!" said the man, rage quickly building. "What I wouldn't give to know what heavy feels like, you insensitive prick."
"No, I just meant..."
"Yeah, yeah. I'm going to the corner to get a cup of coffee." The disabled man then turned his wheelchair and zipped away up the sidewalk.
Stan took a step, then rested, another step, then rested. But the dresser wasn't getting any lighter, and he finally slumped to the ground and let the dresser fall none too gently to the ground with a slam.
"Ouch," said Stan. He looked around and saw that the street was empty, with no one in sight. "Wish I'd been able to do this before I broke my back," he muttered to himself as he fumbled around in his pocket, then brought out a small pill.
Taking another glance up and down the street, he quickly knocked it back and waited for the effect to take hold. As usual, he felt sick at first, and his skin turned purple. But in a moment he felt stronger than ever. This wasn't a regular large-size power pill, which supplied him with an hour of power; those were only available to him on an as-needed basis. Rather, he had taken a booster pill that would give him super-powers for only ten minutes, and he was only to use them in emergencies. Well, he hoped that his other boss, Barton J. Reed, wouldn't find out about it.
While his boss' brother was still down the street at the coffee shop, Stanley Beamish finished moving the rest of the furniture singlehandedly into the apartment. With the booster pill-granted powers at his beck and call, it was easy for Mister Marvel to finish the job within ten minutes.
But when the ten minutes was up, Stan's back pain returned in full force.
***
That afternoon, Stan was splayed out on a table in obvious pain while his chiropractor, Dr. Peter Lalonde, palpated his spine. The two were old friends from high school.
Stanley yelped as his spinal cord made a cracking noise.
"Ooh, that sounded good," said Pete. "I don't know what you've been doing to your back, Stan, but I think you should start coming in three times a week again."
Instead of replying, Stan asked, "Pete, do you remember Geri?"
"Who?" said Pete.
"Geri, from Gateway City?"
"From high school Geri?" said Pete, breaking into a smile. "Yeah, I saw her about six months ago at a convention in Las Vegas."
Stan sat up. "A convention? How'd you see her at a convention?"
"It was a medical convention," said Pete. "I'm a chiropractor, she's a doctor..."
"She's a what?" said Stan, sitting up on his elbows.
"She's a doctor," said Pete with more conviction. "Though, from what I understand, she's a non-practicing doctor with several degrees." Pete sighed, still able to recall the feeling of seeing her. "What a fox..."
Stan sat up on his elbows hopefully. "'Fox'?!"
***
A buckled-over Stan Beamish limped into Hal Walters' office at his service station with a crazed look on his face.
"Geri's a fox!" he cried.
"What?" said Hal, confused.
"My Geri -- she's not in Japan, she's single, and she's got no rugrats," said Stan. "My friend says she's a fox -- a doctor fox!"
"Huh?" said Hal. "But why did Mason...?"
"Well, think about it," said Stan, folding his arms.
"No... You mean...?"
"Uh-huh," said Stan.
"The lazy bastard just didn't bother to look her up," continued Hal.
Stan nodded. "That sneaky jerk was probably just down there to talk with the people from NASCAR the whole time!"
Hal shook his head. "Y'know, I feel like a jerk myself, because I set you up with this guy. You know what you've got to do -- you've got to call her, man."
"I'm not calling her," said Stan excitedly as he began to back out of the room. "I'm going down there."
***
In her apartment in Gateway City that evening, Geri Sloane was coiffing her red hair in front of a bathroom mirror, getting ready for her date.
Nearby, Magda sat in front of the radio scanner in her bathrobe, with her little dog Puffy on her lap. "So who's the lucky guy?" asked the old woman.
"Name's Leslie," said Geri. "Leslie Mason. I met him at the driving range."
"Good lookin'?"
Geri shrugged and said, "Well, he's no Prince Arthur."
In a car outside her apartment building, Mason wore headphones and was listening to the conversation with his directional microphone. He raised his eyebrows at this nervously.
"What's he like?" asked Magda.
"I don't know," said Geri, stopping to think about it for a moment. "He's kind of a mook."
"What's a mook?"
"You know, a big lug, a schlep."
"Then why you going out with him if he's a schlep?" asked Magda.
"Come on, Magda," said Geri, sighing. "It's like that movie, Harold and Maude."
"I don't watch the new ones," said Magda dismissively while she sprayed loads of hair spray on herself as well as Puffy.
"This one's almost twenty years old," said Geri. "It's about a young kid and an old lady who fall in love."
Magda laughed. "That's exactly why I don't watch 'em anymore -- it's crap! Why the hell would an old lady go for a young kid?"
Geri smiled at this. "The point is, love isn't about money or social standing or age, it's about connecting with someone, having things in common, kindred spirits."
"Screw kindred spirits," said Magda. "My little Puffy here's gonna tell you all you need to know about this guy in about two seconds flat. If he starts yapping, he's a loser. If Puffy's relaxed... well, you got yourself a keeper."
Outside in the car, Mason took off his headphones and took a moment to think before starting up the car and driving away.
***
Several minutes later, Mason returned with a drugstore shopping bag and entered the apartment building, tiptoeing up to Geri's apartment door, where he peeked through the mail slot. There, on the other side of the door, was Puffy. The little dog was staring at him and growling.
Mason reached into the bag and pulled out a bottle of Valium pills and a box of doggy treats. Taking out a doggy treat and spilling a few pills on his hand, Mason shoved one pill into the treat's soft center and examined it for a moment. What the hell, he thought, and shoved in another pill, then put the rest back into the bottle.
Puffy began to growl louder. Mason popped the treat through the mail slot and listened as the dog devoured it. Looking at his watch, Mason snuck back outside to wait a few minutes for the drugs to kick in.
***
Half an hour later, Mason was sitting on Geri's couch with Puffy spread-eagled upside-down on his lap, knocked out cold. Geri and Magda looked on in amazement as Mason rubbed the dog's belly and spoke baby talk. "Oh, yeah, Pufferball likes his little tum-tum rubbed, doesn't he, now?"
"Wow," said Geri. "I've never seen him like this. He doesn't usually like guys."
"You mean he doesn't like bad guys," said Magda knowingly.
"That right?" asked Mason.
"He can tell you're an animal nut," said the old woman. "You are, aren't ya?"
"Truth is, I usually get along better with animals than with people," said Mason. "In Nepal, the villagers call me Kin-tan-tee, which means 'man who is loved by many animals... uh... who in kind, he loveth, too'..."
Magda stared dreamily at Mason, already smitten. "Would you like a glass of tea or something?" she asked.
"You got a brew?"
"Sure," said Geri. Noticing Magda's trance, she said, "Uh, Magda, why don't you help me in the kitchen?"
"Oh, yeah, of course, dear."
The two women went into the kitchen, and Mason was left to pet the motionless dog. Suddenly, Mason noticed that the dog was a little too motionless. He placed Puffy's chest to his ear to check his pulse, looking at his watch to time the rate and starting to look worried.
Geri called from the kitchen, "Sorry, Les -- out of beer. You like a rum and Coke?"
"Great," Mason said absentmindedly. He started shaking the dog, but Puffy didn't move. So Mason went into action, starting to press on his heart in an attempt to perform CPR, counting, "One and a two, and a three," as he continued trying to revive him.
"Would you like a little clam dip, honey?" Magda yelled.
"No, thanks," replied Mason, beginning to panic now. "Love a little bundt cake if you have some!"
In the kitchen, Magda and Geri were on their way out the door when they stopped and looked at each other.
"Bundt cake?" asked Magda.
Geri shrugged and said, "Must have a sweet tooth. See if you can find some cookies."
Magda started to go through the cupboards.
In the living room, a panicked Mason began giving the little mutt mouth-to-mouth now, then pressed on the chest, then back to the mouth, then the chest.
"Come on, man, stay away from the light!" Mason said quietly but desperately to the dog.
Mason resumed blowing into the dog's snout, pumping his chest, with no results. Desperate, he picked up the cheese knife on the end table and quickly sliced the wires on two table lamps.
Grabbing the two wires, he touched them together like a defibrillator on the little dog's chest, zapping him.
ZZZTTT!
The dog bounced a few inches off the couch as sparks flew.
Mason took his pulse again, but there was nothing. He zapped him once more with the live wires, this time for a little longer.
ZZZ-ZZZ-ZZZTTT!
He checked again, and the dog still wasn't breathing. Mason got to his feet and peeked into the kitchen. When he turned his back, Puffy ignited in flames.
When Mason turned back, he was horrified at what he saw. He grabbed a vase of flowers and poured the water on the burning dog.
At that, Puffy flinched and came to, gasping for air.
"All I had was some Oreos," yelled Magda. "How does that sound, honey?"
Mason picked up the stunned pooch and quickly swaddled it in a blanket as Magda reentered the room, followed by Geri.
"Fine, fine," said Mason, sweating as he petted the dog through the blanket.
"Oh, my God..." said Magda. "He's got him wrapped up like a baby!"
"He was... he was a little chilly," said Mason.
***
Geri Sloane and Leslie Mason were walking along the sidewalk near downtown Gateway City, when Geri tugged at his arm and led him toward a certain building. Mason frowned and looked slightly disoriented as she led the way into a courtyard behind the building.
"The university?" asked Mason, looking around at the huge building at the edge of the Gateway City University campus. From the inner courtyard, the seven-story-tall university library could be seen through the windows on the left, while on right were several small shops and an impressively large array of windows through which the moonlight shone. Several college students were walking through the courtyard. "I thought we were going out to dinner."
"We are, but first I have a surprise," said Geri, leading him down a staircase next to the library's front doors.
"A surprise?"
"It's a fundraiser sponsored by the Fair Play Club," Geri said excitedly. "My friend Captain Nice is going to be here."
"Captain... Nice?" asked Mason, raising an eyebrow.
"That's just his super-hero name," said Geri, shrugging. "He's not a real super-hero, of course. But he's a goodwill ambassador for the Fair Play Club. The kids all love him. I think you and the Captain should hit it off -- he's an architect, too!"
Mason stopped halfway down the stairs, panic on his face. "Uh, I don't know. I get the shakes if I don't eat..."
"It'll take ten minutes, tops," said Geri, and she pulled him along.
In the large hall beneath the library, the two walked through the hall, which was full of men and women dressed in their finest outfits. Drinks and hors d'oeuvres were being served at the tables along the walls as well as by roaming waiters. Geri scanned the room for the Fair Play Club's goodwill ambassador. Mason's face was ashen as he tried to figure out a way to get out of this.
"I know he's around here someplace."
Mason suddenly wore a huge smile and said, in his most cheerful voice, "What say you an' me get outta here and go get some Krispy Kreme?"
"We just got here thirty seconds ago," she replied with a laugh. "Hey, this might interest you." She pulled him toward a set of architectural models. "This is part of the new harbor redevelopment. Isn't this stuff great?"
Geri pointed to an architectural model and asked him, "Is this one art deco or art nouveau? I can never remember."
"Deco," Mason said without a beat.
"And would you call that a portico or a vestibule?" asked Geri.
"That...?" said Mason, trying his best to look knowledgeable. "Vestibule."
"How about--?"
Mason stopped her in her tracks and said, "When you look at architecture, try not to concern yourself with the pieces -- look at the building in its totalitarian... ism."
Geri shot him a suspicious look. Suddenly, Mason drew a couple of invisible six-shooters at her and said, "Time for some BBQ! Come on, let's get outta here, goofy."
He turned to go, but Geri scanned the crowd again and saw someone she was looking for. "Captain Nice!" she called.
Mason looked like a dog that was being dragged to the veterinarian's office as Geri led him over to a man dressed in a silly-looking costume, who was signing an autograph for a little boy standing next to his mother, a beautiful young woman. Patting the boy's head and handing him his autograph, he turned and smiled as Geri approached.
Captain Nice was a tall, slender man in his thirties who would have looked intelligent and distinguished had it not been for his unusual-looking super-hero suit. It consisted of a blue cape with a red liner, blue goggles, red-and-white-striped pants, a red, white, and blue belt with a large, stylized golden buckle, white running shoes, and a long-sleeved white shirt emblazoned with a couple of yellow stars and the large words CAPTAIN NICE spelled out over his entire torso. Geri gave Captain Nice a warm hug.
"Come on," said Captain Nice, not letting go of the hug, "like you mean it."
Geri laughed and hugged Captain Nice tighter. "Captain, this is my friend, Leslie Mason." Mason and Captain Nice shook hands.
"Pleasure to meet you, Leslie," said Captain Nice.
"It's Les," said Mason. "Same here."
"Les is an architect, too," said Geri.
"Is that right?" asked the Captain. "Where are your offices?"
"Uh, well, mainly I work out of D.C.," said Mason coolly.
"Washington, huh? Did you get your degree up there?"
"Yes, yes, I did get my degree up there."
"Georgetown?" asked Captain Nice.
"You bet," said Mason.
"Ah," said the Captain, looking pleased. "Did you study under Kim Greene?"
Mason nodded his head. "Among others."
"Kim and I are close friends!" said Captain Nice with a smile.
"Well, I'll tell her I ran into you," said Mason with a nod.
"You mean him," said the Captain.
There was an uncomfortable pause before Mason finally said, "Well... that's debatable."
"Really?" said Captain Nice, looking surprised. "But he's been married for twenty years --they've got six kids."
"Nice smokescreen, isn't it?" said Mason.
Captain Nice simply stared at Mason in shock.
"Les does projects all over the world," said Geri in an attempt to defuse the tension.
"Very interesting," said Captain Nice, looking impressed. "Where would I have seen your work?"
Mason frowned and said, "Have you been to... let's see -- Santiago, Chile?"
"Absolutely!" said the Captain. "I was there twice last year. Which building is yours?"
"Do you know the... soccer stadium?"
"Did you build the Estadio Olympico?" said Captain Nice with astonishment.
"No... just down the street -- the Amigo Tower."
"I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with it. What style?"
"Uh, sort of nouveau deco... with a big vesterbule," said Mason. "I recommend that the next time you're up that way, that you, uh... take a ganders at it yourself."
Captain Nice no longer made any effort to hide the suspicious look on his face.
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Post by DocQuantum on Jun 12, 2017 1:24:26 GMT
Chapter 13: In Jail
by Doc Quantum and Christine Nightstar
A determined Stan Beamish was driving along the highway that same evening in a two-door Toyota Tercel borrowed from Hal and Stanley's Service station. He had a cup of coffee in his hand as he drove, and a hitchhiker was in the seat next to him, sitting with a large red duffel bag between his legs.
"Thanks for picking me up," said the hitchhiker.
"No prob," said Stan affably. "I could use the company. I've been on the road going on four hours straight."
"I know how you feel. I been standing in the same spot for the last five hours. You know, it's against the law to pick up a hitchhiker in this state."
"That must make it tough."
"Sucks," said the hitchhiker. "So, what's up? You some kind of salesman or something?"
"Nah," said Stan, shaking his head. "I'm... I'm nothing."
"Oh. Well, I am."
"Hm?" said Stan, not really paying attention.
"A salesman -- that's what I am," said the hitchhiker. "I mean, I'm gonna be, anyway. I'm starting my own company -- video sales -- just as soon as I get enough seed money."
"That right? Good for you."
"Yeah, you wouldn't believe my idea -- it's a home run," said the hitchhiker. "You ever hear of Eight-Minute Abs?"
"The exercise tape? Sure, I've seen it on T.V."
"Two million copies it sold last year," said the hitchhiker excitedly. "Two million, man. But not next year -- my idea's gonna blow them outta the water. Get this." He paused dramatically before continuing. "Seven. Minute. Abs."
There was a pause as Stan thought about it for a second. "Ah, I see where you're going."
The hitchhiker smiled broadly and said, "Think about it. You walk into a video store, and you see Eight-Minute Abs, and right next to it you see Seven-Minute Abs -- which one you gonna spring for?"
"I'd... go with the seven."
"Bingo. Especially since we guarantee you'll get every bit as good a workout."
"How do you guarantee that?" asked Stan.
"Well, it's the company motto," said the hitchhiker. "If you ain't happy, we'll send you the extra minute."
"Huh. That sounds great," said Stan. "Unless someone else comes out with Six-Minute Abs." He chuckled at this but was unaware that the hitchhiker was just glaring at him, completely unamused. "Well, I'm gonna pull over. I gotta take a leak."
Stan pulled into a rest stop and parked the car. But just as he walked over to the bushes and unzipped his pants, he tripped over something and fell to the ground. "What the--?!"
Suddenly, several huge floodlights lit up the area, and two dozen frightened-looking men were scurrying around, trying to pull up their pants.
A voice on a megaphone shouted, "This is a police raid!"
Stan looked like a deer caught in headlights as he realized he was in the middle of something that looked very bad. "Wait a second -- it's not what you think! I was just taking a whiz!"
One guy with pants at his ankles said, "Yeah! I was just taking a whiz, too!"
"Me, too!" shouted another man in a similar state of undress.
Stan glared at them. "No, really! I was taking a whiz!"
"Yeah, I'll bet you all were," said a gruff police officer. "You perverts make me sick! Come on, into the truck."
Nearby, the hitchhiker was sitting in the Toyota, watching the raid unfold and starting to panic at the sight of all the police officers. Quietly, he opened the car door, ducked down, and then sprinted away into the woods, unseen, leaving his big red bag behind.
***
Stan Beamish found himself sitting alone at a table in a small interrogation room at the local police station. Outside the room, two police detectives were watching him.
"Man, they never look like you'd expect," said Franek, a middle-aged, jaded-looking detective who looked like he'd seen it all over the years. He was sipping from a cup of coffee in his hand.
"That's probably how he got the victim to drop his guard," said Cavallo, a younger detective who had an air of intensity about him, which only grew worse as he glared at the suspect.
"Where'd they find the body, again?" asked Detective Franek.
"In a big red bag on the front passenger seat," said Detective Cavallo slowly. "All hacked up -- #^@%ing gruesome -- a real psycho, this one."
The two police detectives entered the room, and Stan stood up as the detectives took a seat across from him.
"I'm telling you, I did not solicit sex!" pleaded Stan. "I was just stopping to go the bathroom, next thing I know I tripped over something -- well, someone -- and, poof, there's cops and lights, and--"
"OK, calm down, Stan, we believe you," said Franek. He paused for a moment before adding, "But the problem is... we found your 'friend' in the car."
As Stan slowly sat back down, the detectives just stared at him. Finally, Stan thought he got what they were driving at. "Oh, right. The hitchhiker." He chuckled. "That's what this is all about?" He put his head in his hands and grinned in relief. "Isn't that just my luck -- I get caught for everything."
"So, you admit it?" said Cavallo gruffly.
"Guilty as charged," Stan said, waving his arms dramatically and rolling his eyes. "I'm not gonna play games with you. I could give you a song and dance, but what's the point? I did it, and we all know it." He laughed again and added, "The hitcher himself told me it's illegal. The irony, huh?"
The detectives glanced at each other, surprised by his forthrightness.
"Well, uh, can you tell us his name?" said Cavallo.
"Jeez, I didn't catch it," said Stan, shrugging. The detectives flinched at his glib demeanor.
"So he was a stranger? It was totally random?" asked Franek, taking another sip of coffee.
Stan frowned in confusion. "I dunno. He was the first hitchhiker I saw. What can I tell you? Now, cut to the chase. How much trouble am I really in?"
The detectives looked at one another. Franek said, "First, tell us why you did it."
"Why I did it?" said Stan, shrugging again. "I don't know. Boredom? I thought I was doing the guy a favor, I guess."
The detectives looked at each other again, unable to believe what they were hearing.
"This wasn't your first time, was it, Stan?" said Cavallo, barely able to control his growing rage at this apparent serial killer. "How many we talking?"
"Hitchhikers?" Stan said glibly. "I don't know -- over the years, fifty... a hundred, maybe -- who keeps track of that kind of thing?"
Finally, Detective Cavallo exploded over the table and started wailing on a shocked Stan Beamish. "You son of a $!^@#! You're gonna fry!"
***
In Gateway City, Les Mason and Geri Sloane were walking home at the end of their date. Mason was eating a big, wild cone of cotton candy and drinking a beer. "That grandmother of yours -- she's really something."
"Magda?" laughed Geri. "She's not my grandmother. Actually, she rents the apartment right next to mine. Her husband passed away a couple years ago, so she doesn't like to be alone."
"And it doesn't cramp your style?"
"Sadly, no," said Geri. "This is the first date I've been on for months. The Fair Play Club keeps me pretty busy."
"You know," said Mason, "sometimes I wish I could be like Magda and not go home. I'd like to just bounce around for a while, do a little traveling..."
"Why bounce when you have your own condo in Nepal to go to?" said Geri, smiling.
Mason frowned for a moment before he remembered that particular lie. "Oh, right... Ah, I'd sell that. Start fresh in a new place, quit the architect game, slow things down, read more books, see more movies..."
"Are you a movie buff?" asked Geri.
"Try to be," said Mason, sighing. "It's tough going with the crap they make today. I, uh... I guess I just wish they made them like they used to. You know, something like The Heartbreak Kid... or... or Harold and Maude..."
Geri stopped in mid-stride, hardly able to believe her ears. "Harold and Maude is my all-time favorite movie!" she said.
"Ouch," said Mason, wincing. "Come on, don't bust my chops. I know it's corny, but I do love it."
"Les, I'm not kidding," began Geri. "I really think it's the greatest--"
"--Love story of our time," completed Mason.
Geri smiled, taken somewhat aback. Was this guy for real? "Yeah," she finally said, hiding her thoughts.
"Wow," said Mason, almost gushing as they kept walking. "I thought I was the only one."
Reaching her apartment building, they came to a stop at the front door, and it became a bit awkward.
"So..." said Geri.
"Yeah... I guess this is it, huh?" said Mason.
"I guess," said Geri, taking a step up the front steps toward the door. She hoped he would take the hint that the date was over.
"Okey-dokey," said Mason. "So, are we on again tomorrow night?"
"Um... sure," said Geri with a slight smile. And Mason, giving her a nod, walked away.
***
Stanley Beamish sat in the jail cell, feeling sorry for himself. His plan to go to Gateway City, find Geri, and sweep her off her feet was going nowhere. Who knew that picking up hitchhikers was considered to be such a major crime in this state?
Although he knew that the Bureau wanted him to be ready to go into action at a moment's notice, he'd completely forgotten to bring his Power Pill with him on his trip. That turned out to be a good thing after all, since that might have raised a lot more questions with the police. If picking up hitchhikers was this bad, he was sure that potential drug charges would be even worse. When he was given a chance to make his phone call, he briefly thought about calling his boss at the Bureau, Barton J. Reed, but decided against it. Being arrested in the way he had been was just too embarrassing.
He began thinking back on the last time he'd been in jail, though that time he hadn't been a prisoner.
***
Washington, D.C. -- October, 1987:
Nothing ever seemed to go right for Stanley Beamish. He'd been beaten to within an inch of his life out of a case of mistaken identity and had been forced to spend several months hospitalized after that, and the doctors even told him there was only a slim chance that he'd ever walk again. That was, until he'd been given the power pill. Of course, as with all good things, there was a catch: Stan's hospital bills had been fully paid for, but he would forever owe his life to the United States government, and the government always came to collect.
So, just when Stanley had finally begun to get his life back in order, the day inevitably came that the Bureau of Special Projects had need of him. He still wasn't sure why that so-called power pill only worked on him, and no one else. When that government spook Commander Steel showed up at the hospital and got him to ingest the pill without telling him what it was or what it would do to him, Stan should've just told him to take a hike and leave him be.
Of course, Stan couldn't deny the appeal of being needed by his government, especially since it also meant becoming the super-hero he'd always wanted to be since he was a child. Due to his top secret status Mister Marvel would never make headlines like Red Robin or Power Girl, but he could still do his part to save the world, and his powers came with strict limitations. The government was determined to keep him on a short leash.
The letter had told him to meet with his new boss, Barton J. Reed, at a certain time and location in Washington. But now that the day of his scheduled meeting had come, Stan had already run off to the bathroom at least six times; his nerves were bothering him terribly, and his stomach always seemed to pay for it. He had a bad feeling about this meeting for some reason, though he had been relieved when he learned that Steel wouldn't be there. That gray-haired, stocky old man positively terrified him. Reed, on the other hand, was cheerful and smiled often... but then again, so did a cobra eying its prey. Was he unwittingly walking into the lion's den?
Nobody he knew had ever heard of the Bureau of Special Projects, and Chief Reed had a background that was as top secret as Steel's. All he knew was that the Bureau of Special Projects was a little-known branch of the Department of Extranormal Operations. Stan wasn't so sure about being a super-spy, but the fact that he had a debt to pay to the U.S. government left him little choice in the matter.
"Stanley Beamish to see Mr. Reed," Stan said calmly, smiling at the young woman sitting at reception.
"He's been expecting you," she replied. "Go to the commissary. Just follow the signs." She pointed the way, and Stanley began walking in that direction, trepidation evident in his every step.
"Beamish, good to see you again, my boy!" said Barton J. Reed as he left the commissary.
"Hello again, Mr. Reed," said Stanley, wearing a flat smile. "I'm here at the, uh, Bureau as you requested."
"The Bureau of Special Projects," corrected Reed with a warm smile. "Not to be confused with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, nor any other agency."
"So, is this some kind of spy organization?" chuckled Stan. "You know, 'just call me Secret Agent Man,'" he added, making air quotes as he spoke, before awkwardly glancing down at his shoes.
"Go ahead and make your jokes and pithy quips, Mr. Beamish, but we at the Bureau do more good than anyone will ever know."
"Why me?" asked Stan. "Aren't there some other, more qualified people you could get? Some professional spies, like yourself?"
"You are to be a different breed of secret agent, Mr. Beamish," explained Reed. "Something of an experiment, really. If you work out, we may take in others like yourself and recruit them as well."
"I can't imagine that would be a good idea," Stan muttered under his breath. "So, what did I sign up for, anyway? Are there any perks to the job you're asking of me, or will you have to erase all records of my existence and place me deep undercover?"
Reed chuckled. "Nothing so fanciful as that. After a few days and several weekends with us, in which the Bureau will fly you in and out at our expense, you'll resume your normal life. Your friends and family know only that you've decided to take a brief sabbatical, in order to undergo special physical therapy each weekend to treat the back injuries you sustained in Las Vegas. Whenever we call on you, we'll find ways to ensure that your missions do not unduly interfere with your life. And there are indeed perks. As long as you remain an active agent with us, you will earn a paycheck, as well as receive a pension when you reach retirement age, which will be kept in a special monitored account. As you become more capable, and we send you on more critical missions, you will be rewarded with other perks. But you must follow the rules."
"Uh, which are...?"
"No killing any target without express orders or in the defense of your life or that of another," said Reed. "Any and all seized properties are to be handed over to the Bureau. And you must always remain employed in a job of your choosing, since your cover must be maintained."
"I'm... not too comfortable with the idea of killing anyone, even if you did give me permission," said Stan. "Can't I just bring a 'target' in alive?"
"That is always the preferable option," Reed said, nodding his head. "The Bureau does prefer to cooperate with conventional law enforcement whenever possible. However, you will be going into situations in which the people you face are potentially themselves killers, slavers, and much, much worse, who will not hesitate to kill you even if you show mercy to them. If you can complete your objectives without killing anyone on a consistent basis, I will be very pleased... but also surprised."
Stanley shook his head; he'd never even considered that he'd ever have to kill someone, even in the line of duty. "So can I come and go as I please? I mean, if I want to drive down to Gateway City some weekend to visit friends or family, would that be a problem?"
"Not at all, Mr. Beamish," Reed said jovially. "You are free to come and go as you please. But you will find that, wherever you go, we may call upon you at a moment's notice, even if you're in the middle of a vacation in, say, Waikiki. Any more questions?"
"A big question, actually," said Stan. "Do you mean to say that you're going to plant some kind of tracking device on me? Do I have any say in this?"
"You are free to express your concerns, of course, but as long as you're our agent, you will be fitted with a tracking device."
Stan wasn't happy about this -- at all. "Can you answer me just one more thing? Why don't I trust you, Mr. Reed?"
Barton J. Reed grinned like a cobra as he replied, "Because it's always a good idea to be a little suspicious at all times, especially with the kind of people you'll be working with."
Stanley Beamish sighed. Would his first mission as Mister Marvel also be his last?
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Post by DocQuantum on Jun 12, 2017 1:27:55 GMT
Chapter 14: Indigo
by Doc Quantum and Bejammin2000
Five days had passed at Belle Reve Prison in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the most exciting thing Stanley Beamish had done was training exercises with Agent Liberty and some of the team. Mister Marvel had to admit that they did have some interesting members, even if most of them were super-villains. Tigress, better known as the original Huntress, was deadly with a crossbow and as fit and agile as ever, but not one for chit-chat. The tough-talking Karnage walked around like he owned the place -- at least whenever Commander Steel or Agent Liberty weren't around. And the twin gunslingers were almost as new as Marvel was to the team, but nobody really knew much about them except that they were enthusiastic about firearms.
Because his true identity was to remain a secret, Stan wore thick goggles and his shiny tinfoil-like Mister Marvel outfit at all times. It turned out, however, that his trepidation over being surrounded by super-villains in a super-maximum prison was all for naught, since everyone just kept their distance from him. Even the hardened criminals, whom Stan had expected to give him a hard time, were polite but distant, as if they'd been warned ahead of time not to mess with him. He wasn't sure what to think about it.
After being there a day, Stan had begun to realize that he was being shadowed wherever he went by the strange fellow called the Minstrel, who was dressed like a minstrel or court jester from Robin Hood or something. Whenever Stan tried to strike up a conversation with him, though, the Minstrel would simply cut him off and break into song, as if actively avoiding any attempt to socialize. It was very disconcerting.
After he'd been there for three days, Stan caught a glimpse of a gorgeous young woman with striking blue skin, who started making eyes at him in a coquettish way, but he kept his distance from her at first. Since he'd assumed she was a prisoner like most of the others, he was quite pleased when he learned that she was one of the few non-criminal agents in the organization, and he resolved to be somewhat friendlier when he saw her next.
As for the others, everyone seemed to keep their distance from him. Even the hardened criminals, whom Stan had expected to give him a hard time, were polite but distant, as if they'd been warned ahead of time not to mess with him. Finally, after five days of this lonely existence, Stan requested another meeting with Barton J. Reed.
"Why did you bring me here, Reed?" asked Stan. "I don't have the experience you're looking for."
"Trust me, I know that," said Reed. "But truth be told, you should have no misgivings about your capabilities."
"But I'm not a trained agent or tech genius. I'm an ordinary guy who's in way over his head."
"You're also Mister Marvel," said Reed. "Listen, if I wanted another mere agent, I'd be recruiting from the FBI, the CIA, or the Secret Service. If I wanted a tech genius, I'd visit MIT. But none of them are you. None of them have the right genetics to work with the power pill, only you."
"That still doesn't make sense."
"Don't worry about that," said Reed. "Just try to learn what you can from those around you, such as the Tigress or the Minstrel. This young lady Indigo sounds quite interesting as well. Have you considered asking her for advice? She's been in this team as long as anyone, and came in with little more experience than you. She could prove to be your most valuable asset."
"Hmm... I suppose," said Stan, thinking about it.
Reed placed one hand on his shoulder. "I understand it must be lonely, my boy. But once you've got some experience under your belt, you'll feel much better about this whole situation. Trust me."
"Thanks. So, you think I should talk with Indigo?"
"Indeed. I'm sure she would be happy to act as your guide."
***
"Mmm..." said a young woman's voice. It was too dark to see anything in the supply closet, but it was evident that she was enjoying the kiss.
Stan was making out with a girl he hardly knew, and he was enjoying it immensely. As Stanley Beamish, he'd never had much luck with women. The closest he'd even come to dating anyone in the past five years was Tiffany Dickinson, and she only pity-dated him once or twice, despising his attention the rest of the time.
But as Mister Marvel, Stan found himself an object of attraction to the young women in this special wing of Belle Reve Prison, where Commander Steel's Suicide Squad was stationed. The blue-skinned, half-Asian girl he was kissing, for example, was named Debbie Blue Perkins, but she called herself Indigo. Unlike the other women here, Indigo was not a prisoner but a voluntary member of the Suicide Squad. She was a high-class girl, too, being the son of a United States senator who was also a super-hero and a former member of the All-Star Squadron, of which her mother had also been a member. Her father, Neptune Perkins, had insisted on putting her on the team, but she was often deliberately kept out of the most dangerous action. It wouldn't do for a senator's daughter to be killed while on a top-secret mission for the government.
The two had met and hit it off nearly right away after Stan was sent to this Louisiana prison for training in his Power Pill-induced super-powers. He wouldn't be cleared to act as an agent of the Bureau of Special Projects until he completed his training, and part of that training was accompanying the Suicide Squad on a mission. Since he had a new business to help run -- Hal and Stanley's Service Station -- he was able to arrange a training schedule on weekends only. The Bureau flew him in and out every weekend; his cover story for his absences on weekends was that he was in special physical therapy each weekend after his back injuries.
Once he arrived, Indigo began flirting with him right away, and soon they found themselves in several make-out sessions between combat simulations. They weren't exactly going out, but they were having fun. But Indigo had never seen Stan without his Mister Marvel costume on. She insisted it was better that way; she didn't even want to know his real name. Stan was just thrilled to have such attention from an obviously hot young woman his own age, but he began to wonder if she was really interested in him at all, or in just the idea of him being Mister Marvel. He hadn't cared at first, but it was beginning to really gnaw on him.
"Hey... uh... why don't we do this without my goggles on?" said Stan, breaking off from the kiss. "They're really starting to chafe."
Indigo immediately stopped her tiny little moans of pleasure and remained quiet. Stan could only guess that her facial expression showed deep disapproval, just like the other times he had made the suggestion. She had made her feelings very clear about the matter already.
"Or... or not," said Stan after an uncomfortably long pause. And they went back to kissing.
In the common room, which had been empty a few minutes earlier when Indigo and Mister Marvel went into the supply closet, four other members of the Suicide Squad had gathered. Stan had been ignoring their conversation until two young men became quite loud.
"Oh, baby," said one with an accent straight out of a John Wayne movie. "Whee-oooh!"
Stan and Indigo stopped moving and became as quiet as possible. Had the two men somehow discovered what they were doing?
"Damn, Jake, that's gotta be the hottest thing I've seen in a looo-ooong while," said the other with a New Yorker accent. Stanley knew who they were, now -- Mitch and Jake Lawton, alias Marksman and Sharpshooter, together known as the Trigger Twins. They were also new to the Suicide Squad.
Indigo covered one hand over her mouth to stop herself from giggling, as she and Stan quickly realized that the Twins hadn't somehow found him and Indigo in their hiding place, but were just goggling their eyes at a nudie magazine or something equally ridiculous.
Stan heard some more murmuring, and then another voice said, "You two... are freaks." That sounded like Karnage, a two-bit gang member from Gotham City who'd been equipped by the Crimelord and had fought the second Huntress. With him was the original Huntress, Paula Crock, who now called herself Tigress after her mother's nom du crime. She snickered as she also took a look at what they were looking at.
"What?" said Jake in a characteristically loud tone of voice. "It's next year's model. Shore, five-point-five-six ain't as good as the thirty-aught-six, but it can use all NATO-standard ammo. What's not ta like?"
"I dunno," said Mitch. "I still like the Winchester Model 94. Something about a classic that just stands out."
"Forgive mah poor brother, Mitch. That boy ain't got no idea what he's talkin' 'bout," added Jake.
"Hey, it was that Mare's Leg that saved your hide last year."
"'Mare's Leg'...?"
"The one with the pumpkin ball... that lifted the SWAT captain up and off his feet?"
"Oh, yeah. I plumb fergot. That was a Model 94?"
"Like I said," Karnage spoke again, "you two are freaks."
The sounds of conversation died down as the criminals left the common room, until all was quiet once more.
Finally, Stan broke the silence with a whisper. "Are they gone yet?"
"Mmm... Who cares?" replied Indigo seductively. "Just focus on me, Mister Marvel."
"All right, Indigo..." Stan replied, and they began making out once more as he realized his losing streak might have finally come to an end.
***
November, 1987:
A couple of weeks had passed before the Suicide Squad's next mission was finally revealed. Mister Marvel and Indigo hardly paid attention to Commander Steel as he began the briefing.
"Do any of you know what type of gun this is?" began Commander Steel, motioning to the semi-automatic rifle on his desk. Both Mitch and Jake Lawton started to speak. "Anyone who isn't a gun nut?" he quickly added. There was no answer from the others, so Steel motioned to Mitch.
"It's an H.I. Rapture, World War II model, right?" said Mitch. "Has this odd recoil mechanism. Was a little cleaner than the one used on the Garand. Allowed for more efficiency to ejection, but it couldn't use the en bloc clips of the Garand."
"Yes. It was also a bit more delicate and lacked the heft of a Garand," added Steel. "You had to smack a goon in the head twice to make sure the job was done."
"And even then, you might'a busted its unique feed system," Jake said. "I mean... Raptures were nice an' all; they was just lackin'," the younger and less-mature Lawton added, almost if he was defending himself.
"Okay, what does this all mean? You call us just to reminisce about the war?" said Paula Crock. As far as she was concerned, there were better things to do besides talk about guns.
"Yes. This does have a lot to do with the mission I've set up," Steel replied.
"And that is?"
"We're going to do a... hostile corporate takeover, of a sort."
"Why?" was the general response. And Commander Steel explained. Even hardened criminals had their limits. Starting wars in Third World countries was far past this group's limits. Steel told them about an arms manufacturer called Helstrom Industries, Ltd., which he'd learned about while going through papers seized from Vandal Savage's office in the Illuminati building. One of his agents, a young woman called Gypsy, had infiltrated Helstrom and found a lot of incriminating information.
From what Stanley Beamish could gather from the briefing, which was made difficult for him to follow when Indigo began distracting him by snuggling up against him, the corporation's chief executive officer, Darius Helstrom, had staged a coup in the Central American nation of Juvara, where Helstrom Industries was heavily invested. It couldn't be legally proven, so Commander Steel was sending in the Suicide Squad to stage a hostile corporate takeover, of sorts. It was an unusual mission for the team, one that Mister Marvel and Indigo would both be joining.
As usual, the Trigger Twins dominated the conversation once it turned to guns. Mitch and Jake Lawton, he had learned through a private briefing with Steel, were the grandsons of Floyd Lawton, alias Deadshot, an old enemy of Batman. (*) Deadshot's two grandsons had taken after his criminal ways, becoming notorious bank robbers the Marksman and the Sharpshooter, better known as the Trigger Twins. (*)
[(*) Editor's note: See "The Man Who Replaced Batman," Batman #59 (June-July, 1950) and Dragon Knight: Into the Light, Chapter 11: The Dragon Knight.]
The Trigger Twins had languished in prison for four months before Commander Steel finally recruited them into the Suicide Squad for this mission against Helstrom Industries. With their intimate knowledge of firearms, they would come in handy in the assault on the corporate headquarters of this corrupt gun manufacturer.
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