Nuklear Age (5 page)

“Shut up!” She stomped her foot. The scene wasn’t quite unfolding as she had hoped. “As I was saying, what I truly desire iz to defeat the mighty Nuklear Man in his most expert arena.”

Oh good, BLASTIN'!
the Golden Guardian thought to himself.

“The mind,” She said.

“Argh!” he arghed. “Lousy brain,” he muttered as Sad Plazma momentarily flared around him.

“I shall present you with a riddle.”

“Like a joke? I love jokes. I heard this one about a six inch pianist—ooh, but I couldn't say that one in front of Sparky,” he jabbed a thumb Atomik Lad’s way.

“Nuke! I told you that one”

“Don't contradict me in front of the villain,” Nuklear Man said through a clench toothed smile. “But there was this other one. Something about a canary. Or was it a woman at a bar with a uh…oh, what was it?”

Atomik Lad sighed, “A six inch pianist,” he said.

“That's the one! It's a killer.”

“Excuse me, gentlemen? Evil genius here. A life hanging in the balanze. Any of this ring a bell?”

And lo a great bell did ring forth, and the people feasted upon the many fish of the sea, the beasts of the earth and the foul of the sky, “Oh yeah,” Nuklear Man adopted an overly dramatic pose and made sure the light caught the sparkling brilliance of his teeth just right, “Continue your tirade of evil, you...um...evil lady.”

“Yes.” She caught herself almost believing in their charade. “I shall present you vith a
non
-joke-like riddle. If you can determine the anzwer, not only will your sidekick be released, but I shall give myself up az well.”

“And if I don't?” inquired the eternally confident Hero.

“I will ztill release Atomik Lad.”

“That's good!” Nuklear Man smiled.

“Only to replace him with you.”

“That's bad,” Nuklear Man frowned. “But I’m the good guy, so I’ll win anyway. “Give me your riddle, oh Queen of Corruption!”

She smiled confidently, cleared her throat and recited the riddle of evil from memory. “I never was, am always to be. No one ever saw me, nor ever will. And yet I am the confidence of all who live and breathe on this terreztrial ball.”

Nuklear Man starred at her in much the same way a cabbage does when it tries to comprehend the finer points of psychometric calculations as written alternately in Sanskrit and Okinawan. Backwards.

Atomik Lad hovered helplessly.

__________

Issue 4 – Bringin’ Down the House

“Well, Nuklear Fool?” the Venomous Villainess inquired.

“Um,” he said nervously. “Best two out of three?”

She looked to the remote control that regulated the deadly Negaflux Field that held Atomik Lad, and therefore Nuklear Man, helpless, “You are in no position to bargain, Nuklear Clod.”

“Uh...” Nuklear Man contemplated uselessly as Atomik Lad began to realize the gravity of the situation. He decided “gravity” wasn't a good word to use considering that was the force to be amplified to the point that either he or Nuklear Man would be crushed to death.

Nuklear Man glowed intensely for a moment. He chanced a look at his sidekick and gave him the “I've got a plan,” wink-n-smile that he just invented and Atomik Lad first took as “How's it goin', sailor?” but finally got the gist of the message. Ordinarily, Atomik Lad would have been extraordinarily terrified at the prospect of a scheme concocted by Nuklear Man, and would have attempted to evacuate all residents within a ten mile radius. And with good reason. But at this point, that was the sort of plan he needed.

“I grow tired of your stalling, Golden Goon.”

“Well I grow tired of the high costs of spandex dry cleaning.”

“Shut up.”

“And don't even get me started on the cape.”

“Shut up!”

“There was this one time they put in so much starch it was like having plywood strapped to my back.”

“Shut up!”
she shrieked.

“Well it was,” the Hero said meekly.

“Answer the riddle!” Menace demanded.
Can he truly be this stupid? Has this utter buffoon truly defeated my every nefarious scheme? It
can’t
be true.

“Oh yeah...the riddle. Got it. Right, um, could you ah, could you repeat the riddle?”

“No! You must answer it now or face the consequences!”

“Hmm. And what does that entail exactly?” he asked while nodding intellectually.

“Enough!” Menace bellowed. “Answer me now, or your sidekick will suffer a very messy, painful, and may I say utterly unique death due to my
fantaztic
genius.”

Nuklear Man posed confidently. His cape waved dramatically thanks to its excellent starch content. The light played on his blond hair. His perfect teeth gleamed in that very same light. His powerful build was accented by the golden spandex. It was all quite striking. Dr. Menace wasn't impressed.

“The answer to your little riddle is quite simple, Foul Temptress of Evil.” He took a deep breath for a pause that was supposed to be dramatic but just came off as being forced and generally annoying. “Toast!” he exclaimed in all seriousness.

Atomik Lad hung his head in defeat.

It took every last ounce of self-control Dr. Menace had to keep from laughing, and she was only able to keep up the tour de restraint for 2.4 seconds.

Nuklear Man stood confidently, his hands on his hips, smiling in the knowledge that he had saved the day.

“Wrong, Nuklear Boob! The answer is Tomorrow! Something which I'm quite glad to say you
won’t
be seeing!” She threw her head back and her arms out wide while cackling maniacally in victory.

Nuklear Man scratched at the top of his head. “Tomorrow? Well that's just stupid. You can’t even
eat
a tomorrow.”

“And yet,” she countered, “it's the answer, live with it.” She gave an exaggerated grin, “Oh, I suppose you won't! HA!” Dr. Menace pushed a sequence of buttons on her remote control while chuckling to herself triumphantly. The air around Atomik Lad shimmered for a moment as she redirected the focus of her Negaflux Field so that it violently spat Atomik Lad out depositing him at Nuklear Man's feet.

He jumped to a stand, shot a glare at Menace, and decided he'd show her what his Atomik Field could do without being fizzled out by some external interference. But before he could put these thoughts into motion, Nuklear Man placed his hand on the sidekick's shoulder and absorbed the explosive Atomik Power before it could manifest itself.

Atomik Lad jerked his shoulder from Nuklear Man's grip. “I'm really getting tired of having that done today!”

The Hero looked Atomik Lad squarely in the eyes. “I know, but this has to be done.” The sidekick was taken aback by how lucid and uncharacteristically noble Nuklear Man had suddenly become.

“This iz very touching boys, but I am a villain, so I muzt insist that we move on with the cold, heartless execution of a man who volunteers of his own free will to put his life on the line for no other reazon than to make life a little easier for millions of people he'll never know who are constantly terrorized by megalomaniacal geniuses such as myzelf.”

Nuklear Man looked at Atomik Lad as if the young man was about to go off to college or take some other big step toward Being A Man. Whatever that is. “Never give up, Sparky,” he said with a wink and thumbs up.

The Hero straightened his back and walked up to the Negaflux Field Generator. It was a hexagonal platform with arched metallic fingers rising from each of its six points. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes when he reached the center.

Dr. Menace snapped her fingers, “I really should have built a microwave dish to intercept and override a few of the local television broadcasts for this.” She shrugged and glanced at Atomik Lad, “Perhaps next time.” Her eyes widened as she punched another sequence of keys on her remote control. Her hands shook with excitement.

Atomik Lad felt frozen, as powerless as when he had been held in the field. He couldn't take his eyes off Nuklear Man though he wanted to more than anything else. He could hear a disgusting, alien, and all around grotesque sound echoing from somewhere outside. Dr. Menace, in her button-pushing fervor, didn't notice. Nuklear Man, in his solemn nobility in the face of defeat, didn't notice. Atomik Lad, in his need to be distracted, noticed it right away. He strained to hear it even as the spattering roar grew ever closer.

“And now witness the end of the soon to be late and not so great Nuklear Man!”

“Get on with it, villain!” Nuklear Man said. The dignity of the hero’s bearing was almost as unbearable for Atomik Lad as the dire situation itself.

“Most certainly,” Dr. Menace replied, drunk in fiendish revelry. “All that remains iz to push a final button. Now to elongate the pointer finger while flexing the others to indicate a pushing motion.”

Atomik Lad desperately wanted to scream until he exploded. The sound from outside was driving him mad like some manifestation of his rage at the hopeless situation at hand.

“And finally,” she said. “To lower said extended finger in order to press the button in question, the last in the overly complex series I've been working on for so long in order to initiate the Negaflux Field'z operation at a ratio of approximately 2,000 to 1 thus rendering anything within the sphere's interior quite dead.” She paused and looked around. “What is that wretched noize?”

An explosion erupted from the wall to the left of Nuklear Man’s own impromptu entrance. Atomik Lad felt his brain leap out of his skull he was so startled. The large warehouse was filled with smoke, confusion, and the ominous sounds of a massive structure enduring more than it was designed to. A diminutive metallic individual with an overly enormous club rose out of the masonry storm.

Atomik Lad coughed from the smoke as he waved it away, “Iron Scotsman! What are you doing here?”

“Well laddie, Ah'll tell ye. Ah was lookin’ fer that Menace lass when Ah ran into thems mimes and one thing led ta another and before Ah knows it, Ah DWARF-A-PULTed into this ‘ere buildin’.” He looked around as casually as if he hadn’t just crashed through a warehouse and accidentally thwarted a supercriminal’s latest attempt at murder. “What be ye doin’ here?”

“Nuke!” Atomik Lad exclaimed, “We've got to find Nuke!” He shot into the slowly dispersing smoke.

The building groaned as if to say, “I get built, I'm used to make and store toxic chemicals, I get abandoned, left to rot, someone finally starts to use me again and in one day I get two morons flying through my walls at several hundred miles an hour. I don't have to take this. I have my dignity.”

Angus looked above him. Cracks began exploring the roof. Hollow snaps echoed from them as plaster and concrete rained down in a fine, but occasionally chunky, mist.

Dr. Menace opened her eyes. She was lying on her stomach amongst dust and rubble. She pushed herself up and gasped as she realized the remote control was no longer in her possession. She quickly scanned the area.

Nuklear Man hadn't moved, other than to pick up the remote control that landed just next to him after the wall blew up. “Pretty,” he mumbled while staring blankly at the blinky red light atop its antenna. He was brought out of his stupor by something tugging on his cape. “Hey, Angus.”

“Aye. We ought ta find the laddie. This buildin’ is about to fall on our heads.” As if to punctuate this point, a large chunk of roof fell and became several smaller chunks of ex-roof strewn about the floor mere inches behind them.

Nuklear Man gave a sagely nod. “Ah. Yeah, let’s get movin’.”

“Not zo fast, Nuklear Dope!” Dr. Menace stepped out of a plume of smokey debris with Atomik Lad held captive in a chokehold. She held a silvery gun looking thing shoved against his temple. “Get back in the Negaflux Field Generator, or Sparky here getz it!”

“Blast!” Angus cursed.

Nuklear Man’s shoulders drooped. He extended his hand to relinquish the deadly remote, “I guess there's nothing I can do but PLAZMAAA BEAM!” A thick bolt of golden energy burst from his hand holding the remote melting it to slag in an instant. The gun held against his sidekick's head met a similar fate. Atomik Lad could smell his hair had been singed.

“AH!” Dr. Menace shouted in alarm as she fell back from shock the blast’s heat so close to her skin.

“Nuke!” Atomik Lad hollered. His Atomik Field wove itself around him and he zoomed toward Nuklear Man and Angus. He picked up his mentor and the Scotsman as he flew past them, snatching one in each hand moments before an enormous piece of roof fell where they were standing.

The trio exited the premises by shattering through yet another wall. The building answered them by thundering in annoyance, “RIGHT! That's it. I've had enough. That was really the last straw!” just before it fell in upon itself in protest.

“Good work, Sparky!” Nuklear Man praised with a thumbs up.

Atomik Lad landed a safe distance away from the destruction and released his cargo. He looked at the collapsed structure with a cocktail of conflicting emotions swirling around his face. “Do you think she uh...do you think got out?”

Nuklear Man surveyed the carnage with his patented Nuklear Sight. “Well, I don't see how anyone could have survived such an architectural disaster,” he concluded. “So she obviously escaped in the chaos through some extremely elaborate failsafe mechanism that one would have trouble believing anyone would have the foresight, time, or patience to construct in the first place.”

“What about the coupons?” Angus inquired as he rubbed his iron-covered tummy.

The Hero's eyes darkened, “Gone I'm afraid. Forever.”

The Surly Scot removed his Iron: Battle Helm and held it against his heart in a moment of silence. Nuklear Man stood at attention and hummed a dirge.

Atomik Lad looked down in hungry depression. “Hey, what's that?”

“My pocket,” Nuklear Man said.

“Spandex pockets? Since when?”

“How else do you suppose I stow things like clues? Hm?”

“Clues like what?”

“Oh yeah,” he took out the birthday note and unfolded it clumsily. He tried to read it but furrowed his brow in confusion. Atomik Lad rolled his eyes and turned the note right side up for the Hero who grinned his appreciation. “It's a birthday card from my dad,” Nuklear Man answered.