SG: The League #7 (1 of 3)

[Eric Burns]

                               June 23, 2000
                         Awesome Amalgamated Towers
                           Hartford, Connecticut


     The Chairman's Office was somewhere between a laboratory, a planning
center, an executive suite and a crash pad. Technically, the top three
floors of Awesome Amalgamated Tower One 'belonged' to the Chairman, with all
the secretarial support and the like on the lowermost one. The top floor was
actually where most of the service and support gear were, and of course
there was the rooftop landing facilities right over it, which even in this
late day sometimes hosted the various ships of the Awesome Force.
     As a result, the Chairman's Office was, in all practical senses, one
floor down from the top. And that was where the Chairman himself sat,
looking out two Awesomite Pseudoglass windows where they came to a join in
the corner, seeing Hartford and its environs. After the War, with all the
reconstruction efforts going on worldwide, Hartford had become a major
industrial center, with Awesome Airships cargo craft bringing vital supplies
and equipment wherever it was needed.
     The Chairman was not given to surprises. And indeed, when there was a
knock on the terrace door, from the outside, where no one should have been
able to land without being detected, he in fact wasn't surprised. He just
set his drink down and walked over to open the door.
     "Hello Mike," Andy said, warmly.
     "Hey, Andy. Lookin' awesome as always." Mike Green wore a greatly
updated Xolchipalian Defense Forces uniform -- though red and silver, as all
the uniforms were, this one had a tailored coat, and was as much designed to
impress as to defend its wearer against attack or the rigors of space. His
Tihorn -- a crowbar shaped multi-purpose tool and weapon that defined the
Xolchipalian Defense Forces -- was holstered at his side. And his face was
bare. The 'Masked Bruce' was masked no longer.
     "Why thank you, 'Leftenant Commander.' I hadn't realized you jumped
promotional grades with your new command." Andy Goodwin might have left off
day to day superheroing, but his white lab coat, pens at the ready in the
pocket, his immaculate dress shirt and blue tie, matching slacks and
designer glasses still screamed 'awesome.' But then, there was little Andy
could do about that. He simply was awesome, and had long before come to
terms with that.
     "Yeah, well, no one said they were bright." He grinned. "Spare a drink?
It's your last chance."
     "I suspect I could do that." Andy smiled a bit, walking over to the
bar. "Sherry?"
     "Make it a rum and coke."
     "There were no Monty Python routines about rum and coke."
     "Yeah, but they taste good."
     Andy smiled a bit, and began mixing. "So when do you, Jane and Dianna
leave?"
     "Tomorrow morning, bright and early. Which is all symbolic and junk,
but it just happens that tomorrow the Xolchipalian clock syncs up with
Terran Eastern Daylight Time. Call it a coincidence."
     "Dan would say there's no such thing."
     "Dan says a lot of stuff." Mike accepted his drink, saluting Andy. Andy
had a gimlet of his own, and returned the salute.
     They drank.
     "Whoa -- you wouldn't think you could have quality shifts with rum and
cokes," Mike said, "but this drink right here? This drink is awesome."
     "I do try." Andy half-smiled. "Before we go too far, I have an official
complaint to pass along."
     "Oh yeah?"
     "Indeed. Linda had to take an airship to Glasgow to attend her
convention. She wants whatever official pulled the Xolchaportation Network
out strung up by his sweetbreads."
     Mike laughed. "Remind me not to take an elevator ride alone with her."
     Andy chuckled. "So it's your fault?"
     Mike laughed again, more lightly. "Sort of. Not really." He looked out
the pseudoglass. "Man, it's amazing what you've done here. I keep flashing
back to my Freshman year at U-Ha. None of this stuff was there, back then."
     "That's the nature of progress, Mike."
     "I know. And that's the point." He looked back at the Awesome
scientist, former classmate and friend. "The Xolchipalians gave the Adjusted
League all kinds of xenotech on extended loan, ostensibly to help us fight
crime and preserve the peace. But... the real reason was me."
     Andy nodded. "You're an Un-KAL Mil-TEE," he said. "A bringer of chaos
through comedy."
     "Yup. They wanted to watch me closely while keeping me away from the
really good stuff back on Xolchipalia. Not that it worked -- I mean, I did
destroy the universe."
     "You put it back."
     "Elizabeth, Dianna and the Kid put it back. Jane and I just made it
possible." He kept looking out the windows, down onto the production fields.
Airships drifted to and fro below them. Activity was everywhere. "With the
Adjusted League folding its tent and my heading into space, there was no
longer a justifiable reason for the Exdefs to leave the Xolchatech where
people could access down here. If we wanted to keep it, we'd have had to
petition to be made a Xolchipalian Protectorate. That would spell the end of
human progress and development. We'd become a resort world, using
technologies other planets invented to export our resources. That's too high
a price for rapid transit to Europe."
     "I'm aware," Andy said, softly. "Further... they've always been nervous
about us."
     "The Xolchipalians?"
     "The Xolchipalians, the Ottasamattawidu, the Kreeps, the Magestrix. All
of them." Andy half-smiled. "No race has spawned the breadth of
paranormality that humanity has. If any one of the major galactic powers
were to dominate the planet--"
     "The others would freak. Trust me, I know," Mike said, finishing his
drink. "The Ottsamattawidu supported Earth before. The Xolchipalians did
too. And lots of galactic powers have coveted it. Ultimately, if Earth's
going to maintain its integrity--"
     "Then we have to reach out into space, not have space come down and
smother us," Andy finished. "I know."
     "Is that what you're going to do?"
     "Sadly, not any time soon." Andy set his half-full drink on his desk,
and walked to the other side of the office. He gestured down to the loading
docks. "You see those airships? Full to bursting with medical supplies,
building materials, food, infrastructural equipment... it's been over two
years since V-AIF Day, but we're still rebuilding from the war, here and all
over the world. The resources of Awesome Amalgamated -- and so many other
corporations of integrity and conscience -- must be devoted to those efforts
and solving the attendant problems they represent, before they can once
again turn to the stars."
     "It's important work."
     "You could help with it, you know." Andy half-smiled, turning back to
his old friend. "There's a place for you at Awesome Amalgamated. There has
been for years."
     Mike grinned. "If you'd said that six months ago, I'd have probably
said yes. But..." he chuckled. "I want to see it all, Andy. For years I've
been a cosmically powered cop on the beat. Now I want to explore. To see
that universe without an emergency prompting my heading. And it's not just
me. With Jane's evolution heating up, we need to extend beyond our world's
capacity to research what she's becoming."
     "And Dianna?"
     "Dianna's continuing to adapt to the Oanthat. Conservatively, that
process will take a century or two. As Jane looks inward, Dianna looks
outward. And they both want to see the galaxy, and I want to give them the
room to become what they're becoming...."
     "Without it ending up in the Daily Planted again?"
     "Something like that." Mike shrugged. "On the other hand, I was voted
Luckiest Son of a Bitch Ever by the readers of Superbabes last week."
     "I'd have to contest those results, honestly speaking." Andy shook his
head again. "It's strange, Mike. Here we are, on the dawn of a new
millennium, and everything seems to be changing. The old hero groups are
disbanding. The old heroes are getting jobs and raising families. The wheel
turns, and the cycle passes, and I sometimes wonder if we can change with
the times."
     Mike arched an eyebrow. "Andy Awesome wondering if he can adapt to a
brave new world? Now there's something I never expected to hear."
     "Awesome or not, I'm just a man. And sooner or later, someone smarter
than I ever was will show up and turn the world upside down in ways I could
never have predicted."
     "Maybe. But we have a few years left before those whippersnappers
displace us."
     "Maybe we do. Maybe we do."


                             September 19, 2007
                         Awesome Amalgamated Towers
                           Hartford, Connecticut


     "Excuse me, sir -- are you listening to me?"
     Andrew Goodwin blinked. "Sorry," he said. "I got caught in a memory."
     Reed frowned. "...yeeeeees. I'm sure. If we can move back to the here
and now?"
     "Certainly, Matthew. Certainly."
     Reed pointed to the projections on his laptop. "We're looking at a
severe shortfall on revenue inside of eight months. The Pentacle Seven
processors are eating our lunch -- I have it on good authority that the PC
consortium's going to jump to their architecture by Christmas. The
'Awesomenet' media service is taking on water thanks to Amazon and Wal-Mart
jumping into the DRM free realm. When the iPhone went with AT&T instead of
Annet-based services, that was a major public relations hit, and as strong
as our own touchscreen offerings are, they're not getting the marketplace
penetration to compete."
     "Annet enabled service spots are up thirty-three percent since the
start of the year," Becki Law cut in on the other side of the conference
table. "We're positioned to own laptop wireless broadband inside of--"
     "Oh thank Elvis we can own laptop broadband," Reed snapped. "I'm sure
that 2006 is going to be really excited to hear that."
     "Don't argue convergence technology with me," Law shot back. "Business
and education spaces still--"
     "Are you two following this Theodora Tesla?" Andy interrupted.
     The two vice-presidents paused. They weren't used to having their
freeform argument undercut. "Excuse me?" Law asked.
     "Theodora Tesla," Andy said again. "The one out of Manchester, New
Hampshire -- just inside the Exclusionary Zone? The one who's put
together--"
     "Have you looked at what she's putting out," Law said. "She honestly
thinks she can market these toys as serious contenders."
     "It's stunningly retrograde thinking on her part," Reed said.
"Unitaskers. Superfluous networking. And frankly, her designs are suspect at
best. She sent us a proposal in response to an RFP? It looked like an eight
year old designed it with tinkertoys, then tried to render it on a blueprint
after the fact."
     "And she's -- what? Sixteen? Seventeen maybe? No one's going to take
her seriously outside of a few media gladhanders. The dot com bust taught
them the folly of following vunderkin."
     Andy arched his eyebrow at that. Law paused, then flushed. But she
didn't offer an apology.
     "Honestly, boss," Reed cut in smoothly. "Worry about Rogers Industries.
Worry about DefenseCo. Worry about Apple and AT&T. Our share price is
getting soft -- we don't need to go jumping at shadows."
     Andy nodded. "All right. I want to see a marketing plan for an
Annet-enabled convergence device. Let's not compete with the iPhone again.
Let's try to grab a completely different niche."
     The two nodded and packed up. They muttered to each other on the way
out of the Chairman's Office.
     Andy watched them shut the door. He walked back to his desk, where his
coffee was being kept warm by his induction mug. He took a sip, tapping on
his computer's keyboard.
     A confidential report on the still highly classified Tesla Technologies
Matterportation Coil came up. Andy had read it several times already, but he
glanced over the specifications again. The specifications, and the
handwritten 'Theodora Nikolai Tesla' written across the bottom.
     "Awesome," he murmured. "Simply awesome."



                                 THE LEAGUE
                                 Episode #7
                               Exploitations
                                     by
                              Eric Burns-White
           You can't take three from two, two is less than three
                 so you look at the four in the tens place




                             November 5th, 2007
                On the Banks of the Charles River, Cambridge


     It was fair to say that the woman called 'Reflects' and the man called
'Capacitor' didn't care for one another. It was commonly assumed the pair
hated each other, but to be honest that wasn't accurate. For Reflects,
hatred was a far more intense thing. She hated Random Encounters, who both
turned her into a living statue that was cut off from all physical sensation
for *years* and then used her to her betray her best friends. She hated the
surviving members of the Unimaginable League Amoral and Awe-Inspiring Force
-- though they were very few and very far between -- over their genocidal
war that slaughtered millions upon millions of innocents world-wide. She
hated Heidi and Spencer Pratt, because she was in no way brain damaged. She
didn't hate Capacitor -- the erstwhile Kid Electron -- no matter how
reprehensible she found his manner or work ethic. She was annoyed by him.
She often wanted to punch him into a sack of broken meat. But she didn't
hate him. And she could certainly work with him. Besides, he had some uses.
     Capacitor, on the other hand, didn't hate Reflects because he couldn't
bring himself to hate anyone with breasts that magnificent, especially when
her costume was willing to display them in such a nice way. But then,
Capacitor was at heart a simple soul. "Scullers incoming!" he shouted,
electricity lining his gloved hands.
     "Yeah, I'm not blind," Reflects snapped, pushing forward, using one
foot to push along the grass while the other was braced -- she'd made her
left foot's mirror force nigh-frictionless, so she slid over the grass as
easily as inline-skates on smooth pavement. "I'll draw, you close?"
     "Works for me, hotness."
     "Good Lord, try to focus."
     Capacitor watched the heroine skate forward, building speed. Most
notably, he watched the interplay of her silver skin and her shiny black
suit along her posterior. "Not a problem," he said with a grin.
     Their opposition were the Scullers -- one of the many gangs and
syndicates that had cropped up since the Lickmi invasion. With the various
gigantic walls cutting Boston into smal neighborhoods, the ongoing
emergency, the Exclusionary Zone being declared by the Federal Government
preventing licensed paranormal organizations from 'interfering with local,
state and federal responses' to said ongoing emergency and the culture of
fear that had taken root as a result, surprisingly well armed and organized
gangs of criminals were operating openly in the streets, seeking to carve
out their own agendas in the wake of chaos and despair.
     Even by those standards, the Scullers were unusual. Based out of the
Charles River area, their territory ranged anywhere from Mass Ave and
Northeastern University through Boston University, across the bridges into
Cambridge -- MIT, Harvard, and beyond. The gang was made up of young
university students, inducted into a not-so-secret society that made them
stronger, more durable -- and gave them the ability to rule the streets by
night even as they went to classes by day.
     Why they focused on Crew of all things, dressing in polo shirts and
shorts, carrying around oars and rowing shells and the like, absolutely
mystified Capacitor. If this had been 1920 -- maybe that would have made
sense, but even powerhouse Crew schools like Boston University barely even
noticed their rowing teams.
     It didn't matter. Reflects slammed into the four closest to her, using
her built up speed to add to their momentum. Her mirror force didn't just
protect her -- it literally 'reflected' the forces applied to it, according
to how she used it, so the four went flying like bowling pins, dropping
their oars.
     A female Sculler -- looking hot in her short shorts and white polo
shirt, in Capacitor's not-so-innocent opinion -- turned with her bullhorn,
focusing a blast of pure sound at the heroine. The sonic blast curved and
reflected off Reflects's back, causing almost a distortion effect as it
dispersed off into multiple directions. Capacitor reached a hand towards the
chick -- feeling the patterns of electromagnetism as they flowed through the
air, through the power lines overhead, through the cell phone and battery in
her front pocket, and up into the bullhorn itself. Powerful battery,
computer controls, generators and amplifiers -- for a half-second, Capacitor
indulged in an appreciation of the electromagnetic signature. It was a thing
only he could see, and that was a shame.
     Then, of course, he caused all the electricity to arc outward and down
into the ground, giving the Sculler a nasty shock as she dropped the
bullhorn -- now melting and on fire -- and jumped back. She whirled, pulling
a boatknife out.
     Capacitor smiled as she faced him. He felt the electrical lines mapping
along the woman's 'upper architecture,' curving slightly. "Nice underwire
bra," he said. "It suits you."
     "What are you talking about, you--"
     Capacitor watched her jerk as he put a high voltage, low amperage
charge through said bra's underwires, turning the undergarment into a short
term taser. "Sorry babe," he said with a grin as she fell. "Can't dodge your
underwear."
     "You cad!" one of the Sculler men shouted, running for Capacitor. He
was carrying a cricket bat -- Capacitor didn't get that affectation at *all*
-- curved behind him ready to bash Capacitor's head in.
     Capacitor liked to use the electronics of his enemies against them --
that way, he didn't have to use much of his own reserve charge. Still,
sometimes there wasn't much choice. He blasted the man before he got within
ten feet, letting him drop and quiver. "Sorry, dude," he said with a grin,
turning to face the rest.
     Reflects had them in hand. "Come on, big man," she was saying, ducking
and punching out at one. The blow knocked him twenty feet -- Reflects didn't
have super strength, but in punching she could maximize her 'reflective'
power outward, meaning that the crook's own body pushing back against her
fist then reflected forward to increase that impact, which in turn cause
more reaction back in a feedback loop that just built up until something
gave way. Capacitor had seen the reflective heroine shatter steel with one
of those punches, and the more durable an opponent was, the more powerful
the resulting strike became. Scullers were generally denser than unenhanced
humans, so she was pretty effective. Behind her, another Sculler with a
cricket bat bounced it harmlessly off Reflects's back, hitting himself in
the face with the rebound. A third tried sweeping her legs with an oar, only
to have it bounce out of his hands entirely. A fourth slashed with his own
boat knife, cursing as he skittered to one side.
     With time, she'd clearly beat them. But by then the police would be
there and that could be trouble. So Capacitor focused on the power lines and
transformer overhead. With a snap, electricity sheeted down onto the group
-- again with almost all its amperage drained, so that the massive voltage
was still a stunning blast, not a killing one -- and grounded through them.
He didn't bother to avoid Reflects, since her powers meant the electricity
would have no effect on her, and almost enjoyed watching the electrical
energies bounce off her and arc into the Scullers for a second hit.
     And then they were down. Reflects turned to glare. "That took you long
enough," she snapped.
     "Oh, I'm sorry," Capacitor snapped back. "I thought the invulnerable
girl could handle a few punks with oars. I was busy on my own you know!"
     "Yeah, taking a nice long time to fight the only girl with them! What,
did her C-cup distract you?"
     "D-cup," he said absently.
     "Oh God -- you did the bra-taser thing with her, didn't you?"
     "Hey -- if I can stun some chick with a knife from fifteen feet away--"
     "And cop an electrokinetic feel at the same time!"
     "Multitasking is still on-task! Besides, I couldn't help but notice you
went straight into the middle of those burly, sweaty men!"
     "I went to the largest group! So they wouldn't beat the crap out of
you, I would add! God, you're such an asshole--"
     "Hey! Language! We're role models, remember?"
     "Oh, that's just great coming from you--"
     Their L-Phones pinged. "I'm sorry to break up such an intellectually
stimulating debate," Ops said, "but there's another group of Scullers on the
Cambridge side, and they just attacked a group of unaffiliated students for
their money. If you two think you can shut up long enough--"
     Reflects pulled her L-Phone out. "No problem. Tell Ordinal we're good
to go." She slapped the button and put the phone away. "Assuming you don't
have somewhere better to be?" she snapped at Capacitor.
     Capacitor grinned, turning to one of the bystanders. Nearby, he could
see a couple of cops running towards them. "She's crazy about me, can't you
tell?"
     "I... don't think I should get involved," he said.
     "Well, maybe she's just crazy. You know, cult-membership will do that
to you."
     "The Catholic Church is not a cult!" Reflects screamed, just before she
imploded into Cherenkov radition as Ordinal teleported her away.
     "I love doing that," Capacitor said, grinning. "Give the nice cops a
stateme--" and then he was gone as well.

              [Part One ends here, as all parts end somewhere.
        This was its time, and Batman stayed with it until its end.]
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