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  THRUSTS OF JUSTICE. Copyright © 2012 by Matt Youngmark. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First edition, April 2012

  Chooseomatic Books and the Chooseomatic Books and Atherton Haight logos are registered trademarks of Atherton Haight.

  www.chooseomatic.com

  Illustrations by Matt Youngmark

  Library of Congress Cataloging-In-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 13: 978-0-9840678-1-7

  ISBN 10: 0-9840678-0-9

  Acknowledgements

  Dedicated to two

  grandmasters of cartooning,

  Sergio Aragonés and Phil Foglio

  Because discovering GROO THE WANDERER

  and MYTH ADVENTURES in the mid-’80s

  made me fall in love with comics

  in the first place, all those years ago.

  A note about the Kindle edition

  Thrusts of Justice is an interactive story, based on the choose-your-own-ending books of yore. When asked to make a choice, simply click the link for the path you choose (depending on which Kindle model you have, you can either tap it, or move the cursor to it with your directional pad and click).

  If you discover you’ve made a terrible mistake, you can use your Kindle’s “back” button to retrace your steps (again, access to this button varies by model, but open up a menu and you should find it). Is this considered cheating? Well, If you were reading the paperback version, we assume you’d have your finger stuck in the last page anyway.

  We know how you roll.

  1

  The truth is, you never really wanted to be a reporter, anyway. Sure, you’ve been single-mindedly working toward a job in journalism since junior high, but it wasn’t out of a true passion for the news or anything. It was because reporters get to hang out with superheroes, and you realized at the age of 12 that, short of tragically-murdered billionaire parents or a freak accident involving radioactive waste, “superhero” probably wasn’t a viable career path.

  “Man, screw the Cleveland Tribune,” Dale says. “After we make a billion dollars with ClevelandNewsExplosion.com, we’ll buy the damned Cleveland Tribune. And fire all those guys.”

  “Have another drink, Dale.” That’s Melah. She’s just as inebriated, judging from the number of empty whiskey glasses in front of her, but carries it better. The three of you are having what’s essentially the same argument, at the same bar, for the eleventh consecutive day since being laid off by your common employer. Theoretically, you’re exploring the idea of launching a website, but deep down you all know it’s empty talk. Drunken rambling about the internet is just what unemployed journalists do.

  Today, however, will offer a break in your routine debauchery. Before you can flag down the bartender for another round, the room is flooded with an intense white light, followed by a strange sense of weightlessness that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand on end. Whoa. How drunk are you? A deep, soft voice calls out from what feels like the inside of your head, rattling your fillings.

  “They’re coming.”

  What? Who’s coming? “Heed my words,” the voice continues. “They’re coming, and you alone can stop them. The way forward is twisted and there is very little time, so do not hesitate. Choose your actions carefully. The fate of this world is in your hands.”

  The light subsides and the voice fades away with it. You silently meet your friends’ eyes and find that they’re as shaken up as you are. Whatever that was, it knocked the drunk right out of you. “Heed my words?” Dale mutters. “Who talks like that?”

  In case an ominous psychic warning isn’t enough, suddenly the entire bar shakes from a concussive blast. Gainful employment or not, your reporter’s instincts kick in and you leap from your bar stool to investigate. Outside you see pedestrians fleeing in all directions from a smoking crater in the middle of the street, and three unmistakable figures dotting the landscape. The first is an enormous man in a horned helmet who you recognize as the Ox, a famous New York supervillain. He’s carrying several large, unmarked bags, and you realize that much of the rubble comes from the busted-through wall of a bank building directly behind him.

  The second is a cloaked figure with glowing eyes — Nightwatchman, the most mysterious of the whole crop of costumed heroes. His modus operandi is to hide in darkness and strike terror in the hearts of criminals. He’s old school, and seriously badass.

  And inside the crater itself is a figure in some sort of high-tech battle armor. Could that be the Cosmic Guardian? He’s a legendary hero who disappeared some time in the mid-’90s. From the looks of things, he appears to have just saved downtown Cleveland from a stray meteor.

  Superheroes! And villains! Right in front of your favorite bar! The three of them exchange glances, and you’re pretty sure you’re about to witness a superpowered smackdown. But then the Guardian launches into the air, sputtering off on a wild trajectory (and, from the sound of things, crashing back to earth a few blocks over). Nightwatchman disappears into an alley, leaving the Ox alone amid the chaos. What the hell is going on here? Could a simultaneous meteor strike and bank robbery be pure coincidence? And if he’s not here to battle the Ox, what could Nightwatchman possibly be doing in Cleveland?

  Melah is the first to say what you’re all thinking. “If you two still want to start that website, I think we’ve got our first story.”

  “We should split up,” Dale says. Sirens are approaching, which means the Ox is about to go toe-to-toe with Cleveland’s finest. That’s front-page news for sure — cell-phone video of the Ox in action would generate the kind of page views a typical start-up news site could only dream of. Then again, the darkness-lurking, fear-inspiring reason you always wanted to be a superhero just fled down that alley. And a long-missing champion may have saved the city from a meteor. That’s some big-time, interplanetary space hero stuff right there. Which lead should you follow?

  ▶ If you stay put and report on the Ox situation, click here for page 6.

  ▶ If you chase after the Nightwatchman, click here for page 8.

  ▶ If you track down the Cosmic Guardian instead, click here for page 11.

  5

  The real Nightwatchman is still out there somewhere, and if you wreck his jet, you’re pretty sure he’s going to kick your ass. Human Torpedo grabs Ocean Boy by the waist and flings himself out the open hatch. Man, those guys get to have all the fun.

  You start scanning the cityscape for a suitable landing pad. Wait a minute — shouldn’t a jet this awesome have some kind of autopilot? Before you can start digging through the manual, though, an alarm goes off in the cockpit. You ask for a report, but the display doesn’t respond to your mental command. Uh-oh. You quickly discover that you’ve lost all telepathic control — you grab the flight stick and pull up, but the plane ignores your panicked attempts at steering and falls into a tailspin, plunging to the city streets below.

  What the hell? Is someone shutting down the jet’s systems remotely? Did its owner finally realize that you stole his plane? You were totally going to bring it back! You start to realize that this whole villain-bashing joyride was doomed from the start. Plummeting to your doom, you try to figure out where you went wrong. Was it not sticking with Magnifica back at her Florida rest home? Thinking you could fill Nightwatchman’s boots in the first place? Deciding to even get out of bed this morning?

  These are your thoughts as you crash into downtown Washington, D
.C. The exploding aircraft also takes out three or four truly horrible supervillains along with it, though. Feel free to think of that as a silver lining if you’d like.

  THE END

  6

  If you’re serious about launching a local news site, the Ox duking it out with the Cleveland police department is a no-brainer. By the time the local press arrives it’ll be long over, and after one late night with too much coffee and a free Wordpress template, ClevelandNewsExplosion.com (the name might still need a little work) can debut with an eyewitness scoop.

  Your friends bolt in opposite directions. Are they chasing down other leads or just plain fleeing? Either way, your whole career has been leading up to this moment. You don’t have your notebook on hand, but you’re a trained observer. Taking a mental snapshot of the scene, you commit everything to memory down to the finest detail, and creep into the street for a better view.

  At which point you stumble directly into the giant crater, hit your head on a chunk of meteor, and immediately black out.

  * * * * *

  You regain consciousness in what looks like a cheap motel room, tied to a chair. Judging from the numbness, you’ve been there for some time. Looming above you, hunched over a little to fit inside the room, is the Ox — even without his horned helmet, there’s no mistaking him.

  He grunts. “So, you got superpowers now?”

  Superpowers? “What? Uh, no.”

  “Meteors give a lot of people superpowers,” he says. “You know that Verminator guy? Leather suit? Talks to rats and stuff?” He seems to expect a reply, so you nod.

  “Meteor,” he finishes.

  “I don’t have superpowers!” You’re pretty groggy, and although you still want to get this story, you’d also really like to live through it. Are you a hostage here? If you can convince him that you’re not any kind of threat, will he let you go?

  “Plus, you kinda melted into a puddle of purple goo for a couple minutes outside the bank,” the Ox says. “That sounds like superpowers to me.”

  “I promise you that I don’t have — wait, what?” You melted into a puddle of purple goo? Holy crap, maybe you do have superpowers. You feel sort of weird, now that he mentions it. Testing the ropes, you find that they have a surprising amount of give. Either your captor isn’t great at tying knots, or you’re about to rip right through your restraints. Your mind is racing — if that meteor gave you superpowers, they could be anything. Super strength? Super speed? Laser beam eyes? You stare at the Ox as hard as you can, but he just looks back at you like you’re stupid and fails to burst into flames. Probably not laser beam eyes, then.

  He leans toward you. Unless you have some kind of super bone density, you’re fairly sure he can squeeze you into pulp with one hand. You strain against the ropes with all your might and feel them tear away. Um, did you just free yourself with newfound powers far beyond those of mortal men? Is there any chance you could actually take this guy?

  ▶ If you punch the Ox right in the face with everything you’ve got, click here for page 14.

  ▶ If you run like hell instead, click here for page 27.

  8

  A supervillain shootout may be the local Cleveland angle here, but you know what? Screw Cleveland. The Nightwatchman just fell into your lap, and your inner twelve-year-old superfan won’t let you pass up this opportunity.

  You’ve got a mysterious vigilante to track.

  You hit the alley just in time to see a dark cloak at the top of a rusty metal ladder on the building in front of you. He’s getting away! You throw yourself onto the ladder, but the life of a journalist is a mostly sedentary affair, and by the time you’ve reached the rooftop, you’re desperately out of breath and the Nightwatchman is already several buildings over and quickly disappearing into the skyline.

  It turns out that rooftop scrambling is an awkward, grimy business, and although there’s no gap between buildings, the various architects involved clearly didn’t put much thought into the needs of anyone trying to participate in an action sequence on top of them. By the time you reach the end of the block, your quarry is nowhere to be seen. Catching your breath, you scan the area for any clue to where he went. The next building is at least 30 feet away — way too far to jump. You also notice that the alley directly below you is blocked on one side by a brick wall and on the other by an ancient-looking dumpster and pile of debris. There’s a fire escape leading down into it, but other than from the rooftop you’re currently standing on, there’s really no way in or out.

  Curious. You climb down, and the area appears altogether abandoned. The only marginally interesting feature is the metal dumpster, which looks like it’s been rusted shut for decades. You give it a shove, but it doesn’t budge.

  Suddenly a blast of steam hits you in the face from underneath the dumpster. There’s a loud click, and the entire thing shifts about four feet to the side, knocking you to the pavement in the process. It’s on rails! The moving dumpster reveals a circular hole in the asphalt and a ladder leading down into the darkness.

  You’ve just discovered a secret passage — could the Nightwatchman have some kind of safehouse here? In Cleveland? Or maybe it’s a villain’s hideout — this could be a lair, for all you know. After a bit of hemming and hawing, curiosity finally wins out over good sense and you hesitantly climb down into the hole. As soon as your head is clear, the dumpster slides closed above you, shutting you in the darkness with a clang. You frantically grasp around for some kind of control mechanism, but feel only cold, rough stone.

  Crap. Well, it looks like you’re committed now. You find the floor about ten feet down, and the wall here feels like smooth tile. You stumble upon a switch, which bathes the underground chamber in light — it’s a tiny room with a ledge built into one wall that houses a computer terminal, a nondescript office chair, and that’s about it. There’s a door on the opposite wall, but you discover that it’s locked tight. Thrown over the chair is a big, dark blanket, a pair of funky gloves, some goggles and…

  Holy crap — that’s not a blanket. It’s a cloak. This is Nightwatchman’s stuff.

  Your heart skips a beat. You’re definitely alone here — the room just isn’t big enough to be hiding another person. Also, you’re pretty much trapped in it. You test the computer, but it just gives you a blank screen with a command prompt. So you examine the gauntlets, and notice a small touchscreen built into one of them. There’s a message on the display.

  “System reboot completed. Set controls for new host?” A little green button onscreen is labeled “Set host controls,” and a red one reads “Shut system down.”

  Is that glove asking you what you think it’s asking?

  ▶ Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes. If you don the Nightwatchman’s costume and set the host controls to YOU, click here for page 16.

  ▶ Whoa, there! You don’t know where the real Nightwatchman is, but if he finds you messing with his stuff, you could be in serious trouble. If you play it safe and shut the glove down, click here for page 21.

  11

  Melah and Dale can stick around and report on the local angle if they want. As far as you’re concerned, superheroes from outer space trump anything that’s happened in the entire state of Ohio, ever. You hazard a guess at where the Cosmic Guardian — if that was the Cosmic Guardian — might have landed based on the erratic flight path and miscellaneous crashing noises. It’s not an exact science, but after canvassing a few blocks you spot a thin column of smoke wafting out of a broken window on the fifth floor of an apartment building. That’s a pretty good bet.

  Some teenaged stoner is standing in the front entryway as you approach it, so you scoot past him and head up the stairs. The building isn’t in great shape, and is apparently the kind of place where you can crash through a plate glass window without making a stir, because when you arrive on the fifth floor (panting and sweating, thank you very much), you don’t see a single concerned tenant milling about in the hallway.

  Okay, the smoke was
coming from the third window, so… apartment 503 or 505? You take your best guess and knock gently on a paint-cracked door. “Uh, hello? Is everything all right in there?” The door shudders violently, as if someone on the inside had smacked it with a baseball bat. Or… unlocked it with an energy beam? You gingerly test the knob and find that it’s open.

  Lying by the window is an armored figure with one arm stretched toward you, still smoldering. The battle suit is bulkier than you remember from the posters in your childhood bedroom, but from the gleaming blue metallic polymer and pattern of circuits on the arms and chest, there’s no question: this is the Cosmic Guardian. His helmet is open, revealing a pale, emaciated face crisscrossed with blue veins.

  “Keep it… secret,” he says in a whisper. There’s a flash of light, and the man inside the suit literally dissolves into smoke before your eyes.

  His empty armor remains frozen in position. Then its arm suddenly stretches toward you. You try to leap out of the way, but it strikes you in the chest, knocking you to the floor. Struggling to get up, you feel the suit envelop your entire body. For a moment, everything goes black. Then the room in front of you crackles into view, tinted green and overlaid with a horizon line and various digital prompts and readouts.

  Before you can get your bearings, the suit launches you off the floor and out the broken window. You’re flying! And utterly out of control! You don’t feel any sense of motion inside the armor, but the city quickly disappears beneath you. A voice pops into your head — it seems to be bypassing your ears and streaming directly into your mind, and yet somehow has the feeling of an educational film from the 1950s.