8FOLD/ACRA: Jolt City # 19, "The Little League of Doom!" (3/3)

Scott Eiler seiler at eilertech.com
Wed Jun 16 07:07:33 PDT 2010


On Jun 13, 11:54 pm, Tom Russell <milos_par... at yahoo.com> wrote:

> ... Many moons ago, I put out a public request for short
> vignettes featuring Darkhorse as he tries to convince other heroes to
> come to Jolt City's rescue.  Their absence in these pages is
> conspicuous, and that's not because I didn't receive them (I got quite
> a few) nor is it because they lacked for quality-- they were just what
> I was looking for.  The problem is, between then and now, what I was
> looking for then and what the story eventually became were two very
> different things, with vignettes that seemed perfect before now
> disrupting the sense of pacing/tension (they were intended to be
> intercut with Martin's following-the-carnage-sequence in the second of
> the three parts) and/or tone.

Yeah, good call.  In a high drama story like this, it would be jarring
to dwell on heroic super-dickery.

> Again, this had nothing to do with the quality of the writing-- and if
> anyone would like to share their vignettes in this thread, I encourage
> them wholeheartedly to do so.

Well, then... I wrote two vignettes, featuring characters you can find
in Superhuman World.  (I figured if they made it into Jolt City,
figuring out how many universes they lived in would be a fairly
pleasant problem.)  Tom tossed the first vignette back because
Darkhorse was too influential to go through that sort of thing... but
I figure Darkhorse's secretary was just trying to help out there.

.....

"Hello, you've reached the Power Patrol hot line.  If you know your
party's extension, please dial it at any time.  Otherwise, press 1 for
emergency and 2 for the business office."

"... If you are calling from 120 Central Avenue, Jolt City, press 1.
Otherwise, please hold."

"... You are being transferred to the Power Patrol emergency hot
line.  Please hold."

"... You will now be transferred to a Power Patrol operator.  Your
call may be monitored for quality assurance purposes."

"... Hello, how may I help you?"

"... I'm sorry, the Powernaut is not available.  What is your
emergency?"

"... Superhuman attack.  How many attackers?"

"... You aren't certain.  Okay, let me enter that in..."

"... The computers are being a bit slow today.  Just a minute..."

"... We'll dispatch Dermis to your location on patrol."

"... No, not Dennis, his name is Dermis.  That's D-E-R-M-I-S.  He can
control his own skin."

"... I'm sorry, no, the Powernaut is away from the phone right now.
Would you like me to connect you to his voice mail?"

- click -

...

"Darkhorse?  Skyhawk.  You know I owe you, bud.  But I still couldn't
raise the Powernaut.  You know, the big guy never answers his phone
when he's on a mission."

"... Yeah, we have one telepath on the team.  I *asked* him to wake
Powernaut up, you know I did.  But funny thing is, he told me no Jolt
City thing could be important enough to interrupt the Powernaut."

"... Yeah, I told him he had to do it anyway.  And he tried, but he
told me there was telepathic static so he couldn't.  And I believed
him.  I know it sounds silly, but I always believe him when I talk to
him."

"... You know, we can't release the secret ID's of our personnel.  But
I can at least tell you, this name starts with Kwame.  Maybe you can
do something about him.  I just can't work with the guy."

"... Yeah, I'll send the team out looking for the Powernaut.  Hell,
I'll go myself.  But you know, we just can't keep up with him."

"... Well, good luck, and I'll let you know if anything changes."

...


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