Thrusts of Justice (Chooseomatic Books) Page 9

  More information is always a good thing, and you’re confident that if necessary you could have the Ox throw Verminator pretty far. But is the mystery orb really your top priority? The truth is, if you’re building a criminal empire, you’re bound to cross Reginald Thorpe’s path sooner or later, and if he’s working with an army of space marines to haul in villains, you should probably look into it. Thorpe has no superpowers of his own — with this crew you should be able to lean on him pretty hard. And Tinker’s contraption should allow you to handle any Cosmic Guardians he might have protecting him, right?

  ▶ If you gather up your forces and pay Mr. Thorpe a visit, click here for page 244.

  ▶ If you organize a jailbreak and follow up on Magnifico’s worm, click here for page 119.

  99

  Let the Justice Squadron deal with the Washington Monument, you think. Without Magnifica’s help you’d probably just get yourself clobbered, anyway. If you’re going to New Mexico, though, you’ll have to fly well outside the path of interference, since the jet is mind-controlled as well. “What’s in Sante Fe?” you ask.

  “Here, I’ll show you.” Before you can protest, Magnifica grabs you by the waist and hauls you into the clear blue sky.

  Flying in the arms of a superhero is far from the magical experience that it looks like in Saturday morning cartoons. She wraps her withered arms around you in a full-body hug, but even so, you’re moving so fast that the wind feels like knives. And you can’t breathe! You start to panic, but a moment later you’re back on the ground.

  “Are we there?” you gasp. That experience was terrifying.

  “Who’s the kid?”

  You’re greeted by a silver-haired woman who looks slightly younger than Magnifica and much better preserved. She’s dressed in denim and Native American prints, which makes her look like a high school art teacher trying a bit too hard to be culturally diverse.

  “What, you don’t recognize the Nightwatchman?” Magnifica is glaring at her. “Fess up, Octavia. You killed Brain Stem with some kind of brain beam, didn’t you?”

  “Hmph. I probably should have. But no, it wasn’t me. You know I don’t have anything to do with the hero crowd anymore, Maggie. I help people.”

  “With psychoanalysis! Of course!” Magnifica takes a step toward the woman. “Saving the world, one self-actualized yuppie jackass at a time. You never had the balls for real hero work. Even before Maximus died.”

  Maximus? You’ve just realized who this woman is. Professor Medium Maximus was the Gentleman Mentalist, a hero and stage magician from Magnifica’s era who passed away in the ’80s from pancreatic cancer. He fought crime alongside his completely human, non-powered female assistant.

  “Girl Friday!” you say. “You have psychic powers, too?”

  “She has psychic powers instead,” Magnifica says. “It was always her. The Gentleman Mentalcase was a giant fraud, and she did all the mind junk while hiding behind his stupid coattails.”

  “Ramón was a great man!” Friday says. If Magnifica is trying to push her buttons, it’s working. “And a lot of women stayed under the radar back then. It was a different time.”

  “Yeah, well some of us never gave a load of crap about that.”

  “Some of us didn’t have diamond-hard skin! Some of us couldn’t lift freight trains!”

  “You’re a coward, Octavia.”

  “You’re a pompous ass!”

  The two of them lock stares for a moment, then suddenly clutch one another in a long, passionate kiss. Geriatric tongue is everywhere. Ew. You keep waiting for it to end, but they don’t seem to be stopping.

  You clear your throat. “Uh, about the Brain Stem thing… ”

  Girl Friday breaks away, her face turning red. “Uh, sorry about that. Years of pent-up, convoluted superhero backstory.”

  Magnifica seems unfazed by the extended makeout, but you give Octavia a moment to straighten her clothing. “We followed a trail of psychic interference from Brain Stem’s murder scene straight here,” you say. You’ve checked your gear, and sure enough, it shorts out in a straight line pointing from Girl Friday back toward New York. “Do you know what that’s about?”

  “I sensed his death when it happened. Usually I need to be close by to read someone’s thoughts, but I think he blasted the entire contents of his psyche out into the ether when he died. Even this far away, I couldn’t get it out of my head. And believe me, I tried. For a hero, that man was a bastard.”

  “Do you know who killed him?”

  “No. His mind was a scrambled mess. Just trying to sort through it has been giving me nightmares. It’s as if someone deliberately tampered with his thoughts — there are real memories covered with fake memories, and huge swaths have just been erased. I know it has to do with Crexidyne Megacorp, though. I keep getting this flash of the Crexidyne labs, and then just emptiness.”

  “Crexidyne was keeping tabs on him,” you say. “Him, the Ox, and a bunch of other superhumans. It’s the only other lead I have. I think we should head back to Cleveland and find out what the Ox has to do with all this.”

  Magnifica grunts. “It’s Thorpe. It’s always Thorpe. If you don’t wanna go bust his head open, fine. But with Octavia here, we can at least go spy on his brain. You want answers? That’s where you’ll find them.”

  ▶ She does make a compelling case. If it’s time to pay Reginald Thorpe a visit, click here for page 170.

  ▶ Nightwatchman was in Cleveland, though, investigating the Ox. It must have been important. If you follow up on that lead instead, click here for page 262.

  102

  Five villains at once seems like a lot, especially on your first patrol. To the harbor it is.

  You locate the ship, and find that it’s a posh luxury yacht. “That’s him, right on the deck there,” Dale says. “According to your armor, there’s no one else on board. Do you think he’s transporting drugs on that thing?”

  “Seriously, how are you doing that?”

  “You know, I think it communicates through a telepathic link, and my superslime is acting as, like, a signal booster or something.”

  It makes a kind of sense, you suppose. Either that or Dale is just plain making stuff up, and you’re about to scare the pants off of some old rich guy. Well, there’s only one way to find out. You bring the suit down slowly and land on the boat about ten feet from its passenger.

  He’s a small, middle-aged man who looks fairly well built but not particularly imposing. His weathered face, though, doesn’t give the impression that he’s lived a life of luxury, and he’s dressed in a big leather overcoat. Before you get the chance to calmly explain that you just want to ask him a few questions, he completely flips out.

  “I knew you’d come for me!” he shouts, tearing off his coat and throwing it on the deck. “Bastards! You won’t take me without a fight!” Underneath the coat he’s decked out in a brown, armored outfit that looks vaguely familiar.

  “Wait a second,” Dale says. “There’s another superpowered being behind us. No, two. Or four — what the hell?”

  Oh, no. You recognize his guy now: he’s the Savage Cockroach, a villain with the ability to split himself into dozens of copies. They’re each inhumanly strong, and operate with a kind of hive mind — there’s no “master” copy, so whichever units survive any given fight will simply merge back into a single form and carry on. The clones are legendarily vicious, often throwing themselves to their deaths like kamikaze pilots. The one in front of you charges.

  Dale is still stuck to your back. “Split up!” you say. You bat your attacker away, but feel several sets of hands — other than your partner’s — grabbing you from behind.

  “No!” Dale says. “We should combine our strength and attack as a single, unified whole!”

  What? “Dude, we’re not Voltron!”

  “Trust me,” he says. “This will work!”

  ▶ If you like Dale’s idea of combining two superheroes into one mega-superhero, click h
ere for page 238.

  ▶ If you think he’s nuts, click here for page 303.

  104

  If the Ox thinks this is a lost cause, who are you to argue? The heroes surround you but don’t seem to be in any hurry to take you into custody. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence and the superhero stink eye, a black, unmarked helicopter descends into the empty intersection in front of you.

  “Hey, I’ve seen that thing before,” the Ox says as it lands. “These guys work for that Reginald Thorpe dude. I did some freelance for ’em one time — buncha assholes, though.”

  Reginald Thorpe is known throughout the world as the CEO of supervillainy, and can count at least half of the Justice Squadron among his arch-nemeses. If the Squadron is working with his goons, something truly strange is going on. The helicopter door opens and a small man with a tablet computer pops out. Behind him are two more alien forms in Cosmic Guardian armor — one with six arms and no head, and the other shaped like a giant insect. This just gets weirder and weirder.

  The man approaches you, shouting over the noise as the helicopter’s rotors slow to a halt. “Ox! You may not remember me. Carlo Moretti? We met once before.”

  “Yeah, and I told you to go screw yourself,” the Ox says.

  Moretti smiles. “Perhaps you should hear me out before you turn down my offer.” Gravity Bomb, Coldfront, Skyhawk, and the tentacled Cosmic Guardian join the other two behind him, looking more like henchmen than heroes. It’s disconcerting.

  The Ox is getting angry. “Which one of those words did you not understand?” he asks. He waves the big duffel bag of cash in the air. “I don’t need your freakin’ money.”

  “You certainly don’t,” Moretti says, “which is why I come bearing information instead. How much do you remember about the night you got your superpowers?”

  Your partner grimaces. “What do you know about that?”

  “Everything,” Moretti says. “Magnifico was supposed to offer you a deal, but it seems things got a bit out of hand.”

  You remember the glass ball. “Ox,” you say. “I think this has something to do with it.”

  Moretti looks surprised to see the bauble in your possession. “It’s a mnemonic grub,” he says after a short pause. “Every memory that you’ve been missing from that night is contained within it. We can answer all the questions you’ve ever had, Ox. Come work for us.” He flashes you a grin. “Bring your friend, too. Anyone who can take out Magnifico certainly has skills we can make use of. How does three hundred grand a year sound? Medical? Dental? A 401k?”

  The Ox is seething. He looks at Moretti, then at the various superheroes flanking him. “I already have your stupid brain worm,” he says. “Maybe I just stick it in my head right now, and you can all bite me.”

  Moretti’s smile stiffens. “We can do this the hard way if you prefer.”

  You’ve been unemployed for several weeks now, so you instinctively jump at the mention of health insurance. It certainly appeals more than getting your ass kicked by superheroes or seeing your friend stick a worm in his brain. There’s still something about all this that doesn’t feel right, though.

  The Ox turns to you. “What do you think?”

  ▶ If you encourage him to take the job, click here for page 145.

  ▶ If you think he should stick the worm in his ear and see what happens, click here for page 274.

  106

  What the hell — you’re trying to keep the whole alien powersuit thing under the radar anyway, so why not celebrate? You’ve been a little preoccupied since your trip to outer space this morning, but Dale’s unbridled enthusiasm reminds you that this is something you’ve been dreaming about your entire life. You’re a real goddamn superhero now, and that merits a drink!

  Besides, drinking is old hat to you. What could possibly go wrong? Previous drunken evenings with Dale have involved a small amount of blacking out, the occasional ill-advised hookup, and at your very lowest, stumbling around downtown Cleveland and doing something…

  Stupid. Uh-oh.

  Of course, you and Dale egg each other on, trying to determine if your livers now have superpowers as well. And of course, sometime around 1 a.m., drunken crimefighting sounds like the best idea ever. It’s all just a blur of jumbled images and sensations after that: Flying through the air. Stopping to open your helmet’s visor to throw up. The overpowering smell of saltwater. Battling an army of… cockroach people? Is that even a thing? An electric shock, and something that smells a bit like bacon frying.

  It reminds you that you could totally go for some bacon, but by then it’s too late. Remember, kids: alcohol and superheroics don’t mix.

  THE END

  107

  “Heck yeah, we are,” you say. And who knows? Life as part of an alien invasion force is still probably better than unemployment.

  Megawatt sneers, “Oh, so you wanna join up with us all of a sudden? What makes you think you have anything to offer?”

  “Well, I kicked all these guy’s asses, for starters,” you say.

  “Whatever. These pus bag dudes are like administrators and scientists and stuff. What else you got?”

  The Ox vouches for you, telling Megawatt that you kicked all kinds of butt back on Earth. It’s nice to hear your friend stick up for you. Megawatt taps the chin area of his space helmet with one gloved finger. “If Ox says you’re okay, I guess you’re okay.” He takes a step toward you. “There are still a couple of problems, though,” he says.

  “Yeah? What?”

  With a flash of light, one of Megawatt’s arms turns to pure electricity, shooting out of his space suit and directly into your skull. You drop to the floor in agonizing pain.

  “I don’t make the rules, and you’re not on the list.” Before you can get your bearings, you’re being pulled from your suit, and within moments your entire physiology is ripped apart from the inside by toxic brown gas. You’re dead as hell, but at least you’ve learned one important lesson about duplicitous, mass-murdering psychopaths:

  You can’t trust ’em.

  THE END

  108

  Like it or not, these are the soldiers you have to work with. And as much as you’d like Magnifica by your side, she’s the only one you can count on to lead the second team. “I’ll take the North,” she says.

  “You’ll need me with you,” says the Human Torpedo. “You know that’s just a sheet of ice up there, right? The actual pole is underwater.”

  Princess Pixie flutters to Magnifica’s side. “Then I’ll come, too. With my force bubbles, I can function under the sea.”

  Wait — she’s taking all the good ones! That leaves you with Octavia, Mechaman (sans mecha) and Wheelchair the Barbarian. Even at top speed, it will take your jet some time to reach the South Pole — you hope it’s enough to work out a plan that plays to your team’s strengths. Also, to figure out what those are.

  “So, Tina,” you say as casually as possible once you’re airborne. “Your wheelchair. Is that some sort of secret identity thing, or… ?”

  She frowns. “Tank lose both feet to adult onset diabetes. Frosted cupcakes bad! Tank smash stupid frosted cupcakes!”

  “Say, what do have for spare parts on this old rig?” Mechaman asks. He seems a little too chipper considering the enormity of your situation. “I bet I could hook up some rocket boosters or something to that chair.” Mechaman is a civil rights icon, and was the first African-American superhero in 1969. His power is some kind of supernatural control over machinery that you never completely understood.

  He’s busy rummaging through the jet’s storage bins. “Mechaman — what about the alien technology?” you ask. “Can you disable it with your powers?”

  “Call me Conrad, son. I haven’t gone by Mechaman in decades.” He sighs. “The truth is, I’m obsolete. My juju doesn’t even work that well on the stuff they make on Earth anymore. It’s all circuitry — I need moving parts, you know? The Cosmic Guardian’s tech was always way too weird for
me.”

  Octavia perks up. “That’s because it’s biomechanical,” she says. “It’s alive. Conrad, come here. I want to try something.”

  She’s buckled into a padded seat with the remains of Cosmo the Space Dog resting next to her. “I’m going to enter your mind and guide you. Between us, maybe we can get a handle on what really makes this thing tick.” He closes his eyes, and after a moment, gasps.

  “My lord, Octavia. It’s beautiful.”

  By the time you reach Antarctica, the two of them have worked out a plan. Their explanation manages to combine psychobabble and technobabble into complete gibberish, but you take them at their word that they’ve refashioned the alien organism in Cosmo’s robo-tumor into some kind of virus bomb. It uses the technology’s ability to graft to a living host in reverse, spreading incompatible human genetic material into the alien machinery and, with luck, destroying it.

  “The alien tech had to completely mutate this dog before attaching to it,” Mechaman says. “We can reverse the process so that human genetics corrupt it instead. But we’ll only have a few minutes to get it to the target before it burns itself out.”

  “And that’s just the first problem,” Octavia adds. “The space dog is useless as a carrier. We’ll have to graft the bomb to one of us.”

  “Tank ready to make ultimate sacrifice,” Tina says without hesitation. “Tank live long, full life. Tank have no regrets.”

  “I know you don’t, honey.” Octavia takes Tina’s hand. “I’m actually better suited for this, though. We all have a little alien genetic material in us — it must have something to do with the way we got our superpowers. It seems that I have less mutation than you or Conrad, so I’m the most incompatible with them, and the best bet to corrupt the alien system.”

  Actually, that would be you — the closest things you have to superpowers are a cape and a utility belt. Before you can volunteer, though, a siren erupts throughout the cabin. You see a gleaming, mechanical monolith the size of a skyscraper towering over the horizon out the jet’s windshield. It looks like you’ve arrived.