Thrusts of Justice (Chooseomatic Books), page 24
Speaking of which, the charred Guardian battlesuit from last night is probably still on the roof of the liquor store where you left it. From what you gathered, it didn’t possess anywhere near the brainpower of the space dog — if its mechanical memory is intact, it should be easy to dig through it and pull out any useful information.
You use your elastic arm to slingshot yourself back across town, since traveling this way is faster than dealing with city traffic. It’s a bit disturbing when you think too much about it — you can make your limb as solid or gelatinous as you want with just a thought. Clearly there is no musculature or bone structure in there. And yet the hand on the end of it still functions normally. You wonder about the rest of your body. Can you turn your other arm to slime as well? What about your internal organs? Could you function with goo lungs? A goo brain?
Well, you’ll have time to experiment later, assuming the world doesn’t end. You reach the rooftop and find the Guardian armor undisturbed (also, still filled with cooked flesh). You cover the scorched helmet in purple tendrils, establishing a link to the artificial intelligence inside. Without its host body, it’s not in good shape. Tell me about the invasion plan, you think.
HE OR YOU THE DESTRUCTION WHICH IS ETERNAL UNDERGOES FROM THE BOAT OF THE MOTHER WHO IS TO METHOD.
Well, that’s just gibberish. This isn’t getting you anywhere. BOAT OF THE MOTHER ARE FOUNDATION PROCESS. BEFORE GOING ROUND A STANDSTILL, POLICY DOES NOT HAZARD.
Wait, boat of the mother? Does it mean “mothership?” Tell me more about the boat of the mother, you insist.
Suddenly, various pieces of Guardian armor jerk to life, assembling themselves through some unseen force into a rough sphere, and launching straight into the clear blue sky. You, of course, are still attached. Before you have time to react, you’re rocketing through the air and already starting to break atmosphere, seconds away from blacking out. You were wondering what would happen if you tried transforming your entire body into the purple slime? Now would be the time to find out.
▶ If you will yourself into goo, internal organs and all, click here for page 197.
▶ Wait! You NEED your internal organs. If you disengage from the battlesuit and try forming a goo cocoon to protect yourself from the inevitable impact waiting below, click here for page 251.
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“It has to be Tina,” you say. “She’s willing to give everything to save us all — I’m sure that’s more than enough humanity for the job.”
Octavia briefs Tina on the task at hand while she and Conrad attach the alien technology to her back. “It’s all about willpower,” she says. “Once you get to the tower, press up against it and use the strength of your will to overpower the alien intelligence. It’s like smashing, but with your brain!”
“Tank strongest brain there is!” Tina says, blasting off in her newly-upgraded chair. She’s famous for being an unstoppable force of destruction — surely, if anyone can get past the tower’s guardians, it’s her. Now the fate of the planet is riding on the willpower of a woman who… hmm. Who apparently couldn’t manage to cut out sweets despite the advanced stages of diabetes, you realize. You’re starting to have second thoughts about your decision.
The Cosmic Guard attacks her in force, obscuring your view of the proceedings. Octavia sprints toward the action, trying to get close enough to attack them with a mind blast, and Conrad heads back toward the jet, hoping to build something from the wreckage. For lack of a better plan, you just stand there and watch the action.
It’s over in minutes. You can’t know if Tina made it to the tower and failed in her task or if they stopped her from ever reaching it, but soon all the Guardians are flying toward you and your companions.
They take their time finishing you off.
THE END
287
As soon as you think it, your armor splits open in front and you fall from its embrace onto the cold, tiled floor. You’re overcome with a sudden loneliness. It’s not just the suit itself that feels missing — it’s as if it took a little part of your consciousness with it. Technically, that’s just the telepathic link that you were beginning to establish, but it leaves a small hole in your psyche nonetheless.
“So what now?” you ask. You know full well that Moretti holds all the cards — he can still kill your associates if he chooses (not to mention you), but what else could you have done? “Reginald Thorpe’s little flunky gets to play superhero dress-up?”
“Seriously?” he says. “Have you seen what happens to the sorry sons of bitches they stick in those things? No, thanks. I’ll leave that particular honor to some other flunky.” Several engineers in lab coats enter the room and start loading the battlesuit onto a kind of high-tech forklift.
“I do want to thank you for being so accommodating, though,” Moretti says. He pulls a small-caliber handgun from his jacket pocket and fires it, point blank, right into your forehead.
“I’ll be sure to make a note of it in my report.”
THE END
288
Okay, here goes. It’s ruckus time.
Before you have the chance to start, though, you see someone hustling toward you, waving his arms frantically. It’s Moretti. “Thank God it’s you,” he says. “We have a critical situation!”
Is he still pretending to be a government agent? “Yeah, I know,” you say. “And you’re here because… ?”
“Because I’m deep under cover,” he whispers. “I’ve been worming my way into Thorpe’s organization for years. Listen, I know you want to remain a free agent, but I really need your help.”
Does Moretti think you’re dumb enough to buy that? You’re supposed to be covering for Nightwatch’s espionage mission — you should probably tell him the jig is up and get on with it. Then again, maybe if you play along you can find out what he’s up to. Plus, who are we to say how dumb you are? It’s technically possible that he really is a government mole. What better place for a secret agent than at the very top of Reginald Thorpe’s corporate ladder?
▶ If you tell Moretti you’re on to him and commence with the ruckus, click here for page 224.
▶ If you go along with his ruse to see where it leads, click here for page 198.
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“Fire!”
Everything goes orange again, but this time the flash is followed by an explosive force that rocks your craft, toppling it end over end. There’s the concussive blast you were looking for.
The temperature in your cockpit drops suddenly. “I think it’s a hairline crack,” Tinker says. “Were losing pressure. Fast.”
“It was a pleasure working with you both,” Conrad says.
You try to respond, but the air is already too thin to speak. It’s only a few more moments before you black out.
* * * * *
When you regain consciousness, Magnifica is standing above you. “You know how hard it is to stay mad at you,” she asks, “when you go off like that and save the whole goddamn world by yourselves?”
You’re lying on a dirty blanket in Nancy’s hangar, back on Earth. “We did save the world, didn’t we?” Tinker muses. “That doesn’t sound like the sort of thing I’d do at all.”
“Get used to it,” Conrad says. He already has the jet torn apart and is reconfiguring it into something that looks like a Japanese battle mech.“We’re going to need some new recruits if we’re getting the old team back together.”
“We still have a buttload of evil heroes and supervillains to deal with,” Magnifica agrees. “And Christ knows how may Cosmic Guardians.” She turns to you. “We’re definitely going to need the Nightwatchman on our side.”
“I can’t even turn the suit on without alerting the whole alien army,” you say.
The old bird looks at you and smiles. “Bring ’em on.”
THE END
290
What good will it do to charge off into battle half-cocked? If you’re going to fight supervillains, you at least intend to make sure you’re cocked all the way. The answers you need right now lay within. You turn off your suit’s internet connection (in fact, you consider dumping the Windows install entirely, but decide that you may want to squeeze in a few relaxing games of Bejeweled later), and focus on you.
And anyway, it’s been quite a while since you’ve slept. After a few more hours of AI-bonding meditation, you find yourself drifting off. In this state, it’s hard to determine where your dreams end and your armor’s begin — as you slumber, you have visions of some vile alien race with plans to completely transform the Earth’s ecosystem and atmosphere, killing every living thing on it in the process.
The thing is, the plot in this book moves pretty fast, whether you choose to participate in it or not. And while you’ve been puttering around on a mountaintop, a lot of the stuff you’re dreaming about is actually happening. Your battle armor may know to switch to its internal oxygen supply when blasting off into deep space, but unless it has reason to believe otherwise, it assumes the air on Earth is safe for you to breathe. By early evening, the toxic alien gas reaches the top of Mount Everest, seeping through your suit’s filters and turning your entire body to brown sludge while you sleep.
You die alone.
THE END
291
You’ve spent your entire life studying superheroes, but have actually given surprisingly little thought to the villains. You’re pretty sure you know why they always fail to take over the world despite repeated efforts, though: it’s because they’re stupid. Or at least egomaniacal to the point of stupidity — every time they have the hero in their clutches they stand there gloating, or worse, going over their plans in fine detail instead of simply pulling the trigger. If you’re going to be a villain, you decide you’re damn well going to be a smart one.
You solidify the molten sludge inside Magnifico and pull with all your might, dragging his internal organs out through his face in a spectacular, bloody mess. They say that death is never final when it comes to superheroes, but there’s no way anyone is getting reincarnated from that.
“Holy crap,” the Ox mutters.
The weirdest part about all of it? It felt good. You’ve turned a corner now, and there’s no going back. You’re going to be the baddest-ass supervillain the world has ever seen. The question is, how to go about it? You’ve already taken out one costumed buffoon, and you can definitely see yourself doing more of that. Perhaps a superhero murder spree is in order? Or are you more the type to consolidate power, build an organization, and rule over the underworld as the kingpin of villainy? They may be a superstitious, cowardly lot, but Magnifico’s head on a stick should buy some serious street cred in the bad-guy community.
▶ If hero thrill-killing is for you, click here for page 162.
▶ If you prefer the idea of building a criminal empire, click here for page 96.
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You made the call to put Migraine in charge, and now you’ll just have to put up with his crap. Maybe this is some kind of Mr. Miyagi thing, and by the time you’re done washing, you’ll be able to instinctively block karate kicks?
“So, does it matter if I wash them up and down, or side to side or anything?”
He’s already gone. And it turns out some of the trucks are really filthy. Other than a short break around midnight when an intern brings you a sandwich and a can of orange soda, you spend the next ten hours scrubbing. By morning you’re exhausted, and someone leads you to a cot where you immediately pass out right in your armor.
It’s a pretty big day, but you’re fast asleep so you miss it. Seriously, it starts out with coordinated global attacks by dozens of supervillains and ends with an honest-to-god alien invasion. And things might have turned out differently if you were on hand to change them, but you made your choice.
And your choice was washing cars. The air around you fills with thick, brown, poisonous smoke before you even get a chance to wake up.
THE END
293
Involving the Justice Squadron may be a crapshoot, but if it means getting complete sentences out of your battlesuit, it’s worth the risk. You try to talk it into opening up a web browser on your viewscreen, but it either can’t understand you or doesn’t have internet in deep space. Sigh. After a short trip at light speed, you’re back to Earth, trying to enter your apartment building as quietly as possible. Your desk chair creaks ominously under the armor’s weight, but you pull up the Justice Squadron exposé you wrote in journalism school. You were fairly certain you’d narrowed Brain Stem’s secret identity down to one of two people: either a Jamie Kramer or a Barney Llewelyn. Kramer turns up about a million hits on Google (although you’re pretty sure he wasn’t Miss Maryland 2003, at least) but Llewelyn only turns up—
Oh, no. A man named Barnaby Llewelyn was found murdered and stuffed into a refrigerator in upstate New York last Tuesday. That can’t be a coincidence. Could the superhero traitor have done it? Or the government agents? The Cosmic Guard? You start to panic. Do they know where you live?
Get a hold of yourself. Nobody knows you’re the Guardian. And even if they do, they won’t find you here. You’re a freakin’ superhero now. So what would a superhero do? Check out the crime scene. You take a moment to slap together a sandwich, dig up an address, and get ready to head out. Then you pause for a moment, and decide to check your email. Fifty-seven comments forwarded from Facebook? Lord. Hit the “like” button on your cousin’s wedding pic just once, and suddenly you’re in the loop for every little—
“Cosmic Guardian. Long time no see.”
You almost choke on your sandwich. The woman standing in your apartment is Nancy North, a legendary TV journalist with ties to the superhero crowd going back to the 1970s, when she worked for the Daily Globe in New York. “Wha… ?” you stutter. You realize your visor is open, and she can see your face. “You’re… How did you…”
“You’re a new one,” she says evenly. “Relax. I was covering the Ox’s bank job and saw you fly toward this building. You left the door open.” You’re flabbergasted, and not just because you’re almost certain that door was locked. Nancy North’s illustrious career inspired you to write that superhero exposé in J-school to begin with. One night after a few drinks, you even mailed her a copy. Seeing her in your apartment right now is blowing your mind.
Nancy, on the other hand, seems less thrilled to meet you. “I hear you stopped a meteor in front of a bank, and then had your ass handed to you by the Ox twenty minutes later,” she says. “Care to tell me what’s going on?” You pause for a moment, then decide to come clean. If Nancy’s been investigating this, she might have some useful information for you. And besides, you’re not sure how well you’d hold up under her steely gaze — she’s a famously tough interviewer. She made Schwarzenegger cry. You explain that the original Guardian didn’t survive the meteor strike, that the suit was passed on to you, and that you’ve uncovered what you think is Brain Stem’s murder.
“It all leads back to the Crexidyne corporation,” she says. Crexidyne is an international megacorp run by Reginald Thorpe, a criminal mastermind who can count any number of superheroes among his arch nemeses. “I’ve been investigating a Crexidyne black ops division that snoops on various heroes and villains. Brain Stem and the Ox were both under their surveillance.”
If Reginald Thorpe is involved, you may have stumbled onto something big. “Hey, do you know a man named Agent Moretti?” you ask. “Little guy, tablet computer, rides around in a black helicopter?”
“That’s Carlo Moretti,” Nancy says. “He’s Thorpe’s second-in-command. Jesus, do you not have the internet?”
“I was going to look him up, but I got attacked by space aliens.” She gives you a blank look. “Maybe I should start over from the beginning.”
You tell Nancy the whole story, from the bank robbery to your trip to the sun, and how you hoped Brain Stem could help you commune with your battle armor. “That’s actually not a bad idea,” she says. “There’s still someone who might still help with that — she’s a better telepath than Brain Stem ever was. But I’m worried that the Cosmic Guard might actually be working with Crexidyne — if that’s the case, time is of the essence. How would you feel about infiltrating the Guard?”
“Infiltrating?” You swallow hard. “Last time I ran into them them, I barely survived it.”
She smiles. “Yes, but this time you’ll have a plan.”
▶ If you like the sound of infiltration, click here for page 252.
▶ If you think that decoding your battlesuit’s gibberish should be top priority and contact Nancy’s psychic friend, click here for page 24.
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Your search for Nightwatchman can wait. Nancy tells you that her first choice would be to send you into Crexidyne headquarters with your cloaking device activated to break into their computer network. If they’re in league with the Cosmic Guard, though, she can’t risk it. “You’ve stayed off their radar so far, but if they can detect the suit, you’d better not push your luck,” she says.
Instead, she decides to have you kidnap Crexidyne’s chief of operations, a man named Carlo Moretti, and bring him to her for interrogation. You could argue that the Nightwatchman would make a more intimidating inquisitor, but you’ve seen her conduct celebrity interviews — Nancy North could get a tearful confession out of a turnip. She gives you an address and tells you to meet her there with Moretti as early as possible tomorrow morning.
