SG: [h1996] (a/d) Adjusted League Unimpeachable #110

[Eric Burns]

*[[Mandy Harken's Voice]]*

In 1991, Legendary heroes Mighty Guy and the Non-Biodegradable Trashman
joined together with the super-fast Dash and the Un-KAL Mil-TEE known as
the Masked Bruce, forming a League -- Unimpeachable in its glory -- to
fight crime, protect the innocent, and arrange for significant
infrastructure repair. This League was Adjusted over time, adding the
neophotonic warrior woman Spandex Babe, atypical amazing Unorthodox Lass--
["*Girl*"] --whatever, thermonuclear powered Dangerousgirl, and disbelief
empowered Kid Solipsism. And though they had to say goodbye to Mighty Guy,
they have flourished as heroes, even founding an Academy run by Doctor
Elizabeth Tirkoff -- the legendary former secret agent, psychologist, and
telepathic superhero called Healer -- to train the next generation of
heroes. With their associates Mandy Harken and their Xolchipalian digital
intelligence JOEL, they continue to fight for the rights of all as the
Adjusted League Unimpeachable!



*May the Sixteenth,*

*One Thousand, Nine Hundred and Ninety Six Anno Domini,*

*(Terran Frame of Reference)*



    "...yeah -- yeah. I understand. You're kidding. No, seriously, you're
kidding. You're **kidding*!* No **kidding*?* You're **kidding*!*"

    Mandy Harken put her face in her hands. "Someone **has** to be
kidding." She was not, technically speaking, in her own office. She was in
fact in the office of Doctor Elizabeth Tirkoff, much better known as Healer
-- super heroine in semi-retirement, Commandant of the Adjusted League
Unimpeachable Academy, psychologist and psychiatrist, former espionage
agent of the Mega Intelligence Bureau, former partner of the reality
bending, monumentally gullible, currently transcendent Faith, girlfriend of
Mandy's boss, surprisingly skilled flutist and surprisingly unskilled limbo
player. Said Elizabeth Tirkoff was on the phone. Mandy was waiting for her
to finish.

    "...well, okay. I'll free up the day when you know it. **Yes** I'll try
to get Bruce to come. He'd want to anyway, I'm sure. Everyone? All right,
everyone! Okay -- right. Chalandra will be there? **Excellent*.* No -- I'm
excited. No, really! No, **really*.* Yury -- I'm excited. I can't **wait**
to be there. Okay? Yes! Okay! Gods I'm glad you made it home all right--
yes, Yury! Yes! Yes. **Yes*!* I can't wait! I'm looking forward to it! Yury
-- I'm **looking forward to it.** Okay! Bye!"

    Elizabeth hung up and dropped her head onto her desk with a 'thump.' "I
am **not** looking forward to this."

    "I take it CalForce made it back from the depths of space just like the
A.L.U. did?"

    "Yup."

    "So what's wrong. You've been pacing for what feels like years, waiting
for them to get back."

    "Back's not really the right word. But there'll be a party when they've
gotten all the details worked out. Everyone's invited -- the whole A.L.U.,
including you. I think you're all my plus one."

    "Wouldn't Bruce be your plus one?"

    "It's a party at Hal's new restaurant. I think defining "plus one" as
"everyone" is part of the attitude."

    "Yeah." She paused. "Well, almost everyone, since Dianna--"

    "Yeah. I know. Dianna's still under corporate house arrest and can't
go. I'm sure she'll take monitor duty so we can all go, and won't be
dramatic or martyr-ish about it at all. I'm sure it'll be a fantastic
opportunity for all of us to go and see everyone again, and have a
wonderful time dressed to the nines, and give everyone a chance to get used
to Mike's apparent apotheosis."

    "I'm sure. Liz -- why do you sound miserable?"

    "Please don't call me Liz."

    "You're not answering the question."

    Elizabeth took a deep breath, sitting back up. "I sound miserable
because I'm miserable. It's a wrap party."

    "A... wrap party?"

    "A wrap party. CalForce is folding their tent. Kent's going back to
Megapolis, Templar's going all in in Hollywood, Key's going back to Japan--"

    "Wait... CalForce is breaking up?"

    "Yup. It's not a shock. They've been headed that way since...."

    "Since?"

    Elizabeth shrugged again. "Since Akane went nuts and Faith went away,
followed rapidly by Badass and... well, heh. I suppose it's possible they
could have weathered the changes...."

    "But?"

    "But then this slightly square bitch who had grief counseling training
quit instead of doing her job. And of course Chalandra and Manny--"

    "Hey. Elizabeth... it's not your fault. You had to do what was right
for--"

    Elizabeth started laughing.

    "Elizabeth?"

    "Sorry... just... 'it's not my fault!'" She waved her arms. "I always
wanted to be the one to do that. It was always a Key and Yury thing. And
yeah -- rationally I know CalForce isn't breaking up because I left. Or
even because of Akane. It's just... time. Time moves on. CalForce was a
glorious moment, but glorious moments are just that -- moments. I'm just
feeling sorry for myself."

    "Well, it's understandable. CalForce meant a lot to you."

    Elizabeth laughed again, softly. "CalForce meant everything to me.
Whenever things looked dark, I knew they'd be there for me. When the ULA
and AIF took the Chick-Mouse and I was in the middle of the woods on an
outward bound... CalForce came and got me and took me to Boston. They're
still my first phone call when anything happens in my life. I always knew
that... that I had a home if I needed one. That I had backup if I needed
that. I guess in the back of my head I figured I was... I don't know. On a
break. But that I'd go back, eventually, you know?"

    "...you're on a Hell of a break, Elizabeth. You have a life here now."

    "Yeah. But... I've never really been A.L.U. I've been part of the
Academy, and I've been support staff... but when I think of **Healer...** I
think... well, of Faith, and after Faith I think of CalForce." She takes a
deep breath. "It'll be okay, Mandy. I need to be a little wistful about
it... but the important things are they're all back safely, and life goes
on. I'm sure no one else is feeling like--"

    The phone rang.

    Elizabeth blinked at the number, and picked up the phone. "Hello?
Manny! Yes -- yeah, Yury just called. Ye-- I know!"

    She listened for a moment, then smiled a little bit. "Trust me, Manny.
I know **exactly** how you feel."

    Mandy smiled a bit... then realized she was stuck in the office, *
*still** hadn't actually gone over expenditures with Elizabeth, and she was
on **another** phone call. Sometimes, Hell was New England Telephone.




*The Adventures*

*of the*

*Adjusted League Unimpeachable*

*Episode #110*

*"Origins Volume the Fifth"*

*"There are Those Who Call Me... Bruce"*

*Part the First*

*by*

*Eric, Lord Sabre, who is amused it's taken all this time to *

*get through the 'Origin' story of his team series.*


*CONTINUITY NOTE*

    It may seem as ridiculous that there's a Continuity Note for ALU #110
as there was for The League #9. After all, this is still in fact a period
piece -- picking up where we left off in 2003 when we picked up where we'd
left off in 1996ish.

    Stop and consider this. This story takes place in May of **1996*.* And
here we have a Continuity Note, like we were worried people wouldn't figure
out how to slot this into an actual Continuity with its fellow series, of
which exactly none are still being written.

    Maybe it's a form of mid-life crisis -- not simply clinging to the
forms of the past but actively invoking them. Maybe if we set a continuity
note to explain just where this series takes place, and we do it just
right... it will in fact **be** 1996 again. Because that's how this all
works! It's magic! It's magic, and through the act of posting this we can
return to the days of the Dot Com bubble and Bill Clinton's sex life
literally being the biggest concern we had politically.

    And if not? Hey, maybe it'll mean getting a yen to actually read some
of these stories.

    Nevertheless, this story takes place, at this point, right at the cusp
of the end of the "Last Empress" storyline in CalForce and before the
"Twisted Reflections" storyline in Mason's Mazin' Mob. It also takes place
before the fall of the Mega Intelligence Bureau and the Genocidal Wars as
detailed in Rad and The Ballad of Richard Less.

    Technically, at least the prologue takes place the same day as the
prologue of Adjusted League Unimpeachable Academy #6 -- in fact,
specifically ten minutes after Healer gets off the phone the second time,
since Trudy tracks her down to talk about CalForce's retirement right about
then.

    In other words... it's May of 1996.

    You may now move about the cabin.



* * * * * *


    "Did she say why she was moving to Japan?" Bruce asked, sipping tea.

    "She didn't not say it, old chum!"

    Bruce paused, watching his friend drink Bosco from a molybdenum duck
cup they kept on hand for him. "Kent? Casual conversation voice."

    "Ah! Right. Sorry. She didn't not say it, old chum."

    His guest was a massively huge man in an incredibly tasteless orange
and neon purple plaid suit with striped shirt and a tie designed to look
stained in the actual pattern. It was garish enough and the man was huge
enough that it actually took about thirty seconds for the viewer to realize
he had bright blue hair. His name was Kent Clark, but he was better known
as the Man of Petrified Wood himself, Mighty Guy. Whose series, it's worth
noting, this used to be, but then he made a lateral to California.

    Bruce was dressed in his own conservative grey suit with slightly
darker grey tie and grey shoes. His blond hair was carefully coiffed.
Everything about the man screamed to onlookers to not bother looking at
him, because he was bored and boring. This, of course, didn't fool Kent --
he and Kent went back a long way. But, in the same way that Kent's glasses
-- despite invoking the Mask Principle -- didn't begin to conceal his
identity as Mighty Guy... absolutely nothing about Bruce Rogers would begin
to suggest the Non Biodegradable Trashman. The pair were sitting in a
lounge adjacent to the Xolchacafe on the broad fourth floor of the Load Pan
Bay, which housed the Chick-Mouse's lobby, elevators to each of the three
towers, the cafe in question, laundry services, and access to resources
like the Excessive Liability Chamber. Said lounge, as with the rest of the
building, looked hideous. "Kent?" he asked.

    "Yes, Bruce?"

    "You still haven't actually answered my question."

    "Oh. She says she needs to think."

    Bruce arched both his eyebrows. "I see."

    Kent nodded. "Yes indeed, friend of friends. I got dumped. Lo these
many days as my heart yearned for justice, so too did it know that the day
might come that I meet the single most wonderful woman in the world and
then, caught between worlds and lives, I be dumped by her." He kept his
voice to 'casual conversation,' which first off made his personal rhetoric
somehow more disturbing... but secondly concerned Bruce -- normally a
speech like that would have excited Kent too much to contain himself.

    "I'm sorry, Kent."

    "So am I, and so is she. Sorrow is the great equalizer, it would seem.
But, with the dissolution of CalForce, the movement of the once again
rechristened Daily Planted back to the great city of Megapolis, and the
siren call of journalism which fuels my soul and keeps me connected to the
drab, minor lives of those around me, lest I become overly impressed with
my own Heliumian physique and tremendous power to continue to really **get**
the common man... well. It would be hardly fair to demand she move with me,
would it?"

    "Hardly fair indeed. I can certainly understand how she feels about
that, though I also understand how she feels about you -- and you feel
about her."

    "Ah yes -- you too are well understanding the purity of true love and
the joy of exploring that love with a wonderful human being who also
happens to be a piece of hot CalForce hinder." He pronounced it hind, as if
it rhymed with rind.

    Bruce paused. "Did... Key know you called her that?"

    "It was her suggestion. Well, she used a term other than 'hinder,'
but... oh, not butt, either...."

    "Of course it was her idea. I wouldn't mention it to Elizabeth, though.
But yes. I do know... and I know how hard it would be to lose her.
Honestly... I've thought a lot about it."

    Kent blinked. "But why? She seems besotted, old chum!"

    Bruce shrugged slightly -- which of course only people who knew him
well would even notice. "I've had love in my hand before, old friend."

    "Ah yes. Jan Taylor. She who was Force, when you were Trashman and
Force, heroes of Dark City, before her accidental horrible death in a
nuclear explosion that formed the motivation for a considerable part of
this series back in its early chapters."

    Bruce frowned slightly. "Kent," he prison-whispered. "We don't actually
talk about the series as a series in this series."

    "Ah! Right! I forget. My apologies."

    "But of course. And yes, precisely." He took no offense at Kent's
phrasing. He knew the Mightiest Guy Around better than most, after all. "It
took years and me nearly killing a man for me to get over Jan dying. I
am... understandably concerned about going through that again... or putting
Elizabeth through it."

    "Yes. I too have thought about the pain I might endure should my
beloved perish. But... I did not really put much thought into the pain I
might endure should my beloved not perish but instead move back to her home
country of Japan because she didn't want to move to a different city with
me." He shrugged, which caused a rush of wind behind him that blew Kid
Electron off his feet -- he'd been passing by after getting his mail. "I
likely should have. I mean, I do understand. I'm no catch, old chum."

    Bruce blinked. "What did you say?"

    "Mm? Oh -- old chum. It's a term of endearment that compares you to
ground up rotted fish entrails used as shark bait."

    "No, Kent. Before that."

    "What? Ah! Yes. I'm no catch." Kent smiled. "I'm not **stupid*,* Bruce.
I know I am somewhat high maintenance. It takes a very special person to be
my friend, much less my hot piece of CalForce hinder. It is hardly a
stretch to realize one's patience would be tried to the point of snapping
eventually. As Key has dumped me, I have been forced to do some self
examination, and come up with the only logical conclusion: I am no catch."

    Bruce leaned forward, his voice more intense. "Kent, of all the people
I know and respect -- including so many in this building itself -- you are
the man whose friendship I am most honored and humbled to have earned. You
are the kindest, most noble soul I have ever encountered. You brought me
hope when I had lost it. You drew me out of my shell when I had thought
there was nothing left to draw. You love purely and without reservation,
and any person who you love is *lucky* to have that. You're the biggest
catch in the sea, Kent." He arched an eyebrow. "By weight, if nothing else."

    Kent blinked, and laughed a Mighty Laugh, which caused the kitchen pots
and pans across the cafe to all fall off the shelf and got Mighty Dog
barking excitedly. "Well said, old chum, well said! Still--"

    "Still nothing. Look, I understand how Key feels. But I promise you,
she's not moving to Japan because she doesn't love you -- or doesn't think
you're a good catch. This is about her. She's been in a relationship her
entire adult life, and faced with that relationship changing... she has to
reevaluate. That's good and healthy. I'm sorry it hurts you, old friend --
but it's not because you're anything less than you are."

    "Her whole adult-- Bruce... I don't wish to call your deductive skills
into question, but we haven't dated that long--"

    "I'm not talking about that relationship, Kent."

    "Oh -- you mean CalForce... but even that--"

    "Try again."

    Kent looked blank.

    "Kent -- HotFlash and MeltDown?"

    "Oh. Oh! Yes... I hadn't really thought of that -- but she and Yury
have always been pretty well joined at the well toned hip, haven't they? I
wonder why they're not staying together at least professionally. Yury isn't
leaving California."

    "No, but they're moving into different phases of their lives. I promise
you, she's not leaving Yury's proximity out of animosity -- and the same is
true of you. And of course she may end up back with Yury after her time
away." He paused. "Still, did you try to find other work in Los Angeles?"

    "Leave the Planted and work for another paper?!" Kent paused, then
leaned in conspiratorially. "I left resumes at every newspaper in a three
hundred mile radius. Apparently no one is hiring. Loudly. And several are
now closed for significant renovations, interestingly enough."

    Bruce nodded slightly. "That can happen. Hm. I do have some media
interests -- I could likely find something in Los Angeles--"

    "Bruce! Nepotism? I think not -- I do have my honor!"

    Bruce chuckled. "Yes you do. Consider that matter dropped. Look, either
she'll decide to join you or she won't. Either way... you have your life,
your work, and your calling. You are a lucky man, Kent."

    Kent nodded. "I am. Indeed, I have Mighty Luck on my side! Thank you,
Bruce! Thank you for your wisdom and friendship!"

    Bruce smiled a bit as Kent's volume went up. "Of course, old friend.
Besides, there's always Flores Lame--"

    "*Ugh*. No, sorry! That was beneath me! She is a fine reporter and a
grand woman and in all ways superior -- but she's so **clingy*!* It's like
-- get a hobby, Flores! And she's so obsessed with penetrating my secret
identity I sometimes wonder if I should just tell her once and for all! But
she would publish it in the Planted and never could I again walk
anonymously through these streets, one puny man among puny men!" He paused.
"Also, she clips her toenails at her desk."

    "Seriously? **Ugh*.*"

    "I **know!** Still, good legs."

    "Good legs indeed, Kent. Good legs indeed."



[[This is the end of the first part. Proceed inexorably to the second
part.]]
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