Super Born: Seduction of Being (41 page)

“
Small man, you mean?”

“
An average-sized man, such as me,
could certainly not capture the first one here,” he said, rising
and tapping Toughy on the shoulder, “without the aid of technology.
You see, Demitri did not die in vain. His sacrifice made it clear
to me that there was a need for an equalizer. I needed a way to
approach the super born safely and make them cooperative. I call
this the Interrupter. It gives off epsilon radiation of reverse
polarity to the type that made them years ago,” he said, pointing
the Interrupter at Toughy. “It temporarily interrupts their powers,
makes them manageable.” Then he turned and pointed it at me. “As an
added plus, it proved totally lethal to normal people. The military
is going to love this—modified of course.”

“
Of Course,” I said. I could see he
was ready to get back to the B.I.B., so I decided to goad him a
little further. “I hope you don’t mind my spoiling your little plan
tonight?”

“
Spoiling?” he said with a laugh.
“My friend, you are the plan, always have been from day one. You
were perfect for the job; without attachments, without ethics,
trusting, naïve, greedy, lazy, corruptible…and best of all,” he
said, leaning down and looking in my eyes, “No one will miss you.
You weren’t born in Scranton, so you looked like a juicy steak to
superwomen supercharged with insatiable sexual needs. I knew it
would just be a matter of time until they flocked around and
battled one another for you. I just had to watch and wait for this
moment for you to bring them all to me.”

“
Me? Superbait? Really?”

“
My friend, I could only handle so
many. You brought me the one that matters. The B.I.B. is the
key.”

I stood up, pretending to be weaker than I was,
though acting frightened wasn’t hard with the Interrupter in such
close proximity.

Jones paced around me. “There is just one thing
that bothers me very dearly, my friend. You came to me with
everything you ever learned, except things about the B.I.B. The
great B.I.B. expert never mentioned her once. That was how I knew
you were in contact with her, yes, but why didn’t you tell me? You
still were trusting me then. What made the perfect ‘grasshopper’ to
my ‘ant’ protect her so? I expected you to bound in excitedly one
day and say you had found her. But no, you were her guardian, right
from the start.”

I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of
an answer.

“
Let’s see then. What if I offer the
grasshopper twenty million dollars, right now—twenty million for
you to tell me where I can find her. Would that interest you?
Fifty? You could be a lazy grasshopper for the rest of your life.
We could work together again.”

“
Get fucked!”

“
Oh, I plan to repeatedly…all day
long,” he said, doing a little pelvic dance. “So, my friend, there
is nothing I can offer that will save you? No amount of money, no
title or position, no pleasures, no comforts? Imagine the women and
the beer, the pure freedom to do nothing of consequence. Is that
not heaven for you?”

“
You’re a lifetime too late with
that offer.”

“
Yes, I see now that my plans for
you have only taken us so far.”

“
You set the whole thing up, didn’t
you?” I said, disappointed with myself.

“
It was all too easy.”

“
If you knew that she was there that
first night, why didn’t you grab her then?”

Jones paused, looking a little bothered. “Who
was there?”

“
The B.I.B. She was twenty feet away
from you the night we met at O’Malley’s. You didn’t
know?”

Jones was silent but I could hear his mind
cranking, thinking, rewinding images.

“
You really didn’t know, did you?
Ha…maybe you don’t know as much as you think you do…For instance,
about marking?”

“
Marking?”

“
I thought not; there are a few
things I could teach you about Super Born.”

“
This is ri-god-damn-diculous. I
have done years of research! I’m a fucking PhD, goddamn
it!”

“
Oh, but you don’t know about
marking, do you? But I do,” I said, as annoyingly as I
could.

Jones was perplexed, his eye movements rapid. I
figured any kind of confusion might help.

“
How about their amazing advanced
sexual powers? Know about them, big guy?” Now I was on the
offensive, staggering after him as he circled away.

“
They have nothing but sexual
frustration! No man can satisfy them! Ask Demitri! They are totally
sexually dysfunctional. Believe me, that is a power I have
researched at length.”

“
I doubt anything about you is at
length.” I smiled broadly, knowingly, certain it was frustrating
the hell out of him. “When you catch up with me, let me know, and
we can discuss it then.”

“
Discuss what?” he yelled, waving
the interrupter in annoyance.

I beamed like the proverbial cat. “Super born
sex, it’s fucking amazing…it’s beyond sex.” Then I sobered a
little. “It’s a connection beyond love.”

“
You are making no sense! What could
be beyond sex, beyond love? These are man’s pinnacle
states!”

I slowly lipped the words: “F-u-c-k-i-n-g
A-m-a-z-i-n-g.”

Jones’ eyes glowed with anger and he lifted the
Interrrupter and pointed it at me. Rather than confusing him, I was
just pissing him off now. “One last time—where is she?” Jones said,
more sinisterly than I thought possible. Toughy moved threateningly
toward me.

“
Okay, okay,” I said holding up the
one hand I could. “I’ll tell you.” Then when Jones straightened and
relaxed a bit, even though it was frowned upon in the Etiquette of
Dudes , I gave him a front kick in the ’nads, which made him double
over and groan. Then I gave him the same forearm I had given
Toughy, but to Jones it was a knockout. It sent him flying onto his
back, out cold, while the Interrupter flew across the
rooftop.

I turned to follow the sliding Interrupter when
the stern face and muscular shoulders of Toughy blocked my vision.
I looked up just as she bitch-slapped me, sending me to the ground.
When another blow didn’t follow, I looked up sheepishly, a little
foggy, to see Allie side-kick Toughy, and then follow through with
a hammer fist to the face, sending Toughy down on her
butt.

I began crawling toward where I had
seen the Interrupter sliding. Along the way, I crawled over Jones,
who lay unconscious nearby with “tweety birds” circling his head. I
tapped him on the shoulder. “Okay, Doc, I’ll take the fifty mill
now. She’s right there,” I said, pointing to the
B.I.B.
Not so powerful now, eh,
Doc?

Toughy used her left hand to push her right
shoulder back into its socket and wiped some blood away that had
begun dripping from her nose. Then she looked up at the B.I.B. with
a sneer and rose.

Allie was clearly taken aback. When she hit
someone they went down and stayed down. This round-two thing was
new to her.

Toughy swung an arm and fired out a
leg, but in superspeed, Allie was as quick as me picking out beer,
and none of Toughy’s blows landed. Instead, Allie landed a
roundhouse kick that put Toughy back on her butt again. “Stay down,
bitch,” she commanded. “I don’t wanna hurt you.” Did that menacing
voice come out of my little Allie?
Whoa, that was kind of cool
, I
thought.

I was starting to feel hopeful for the first
time since Toughy and Goldie had arrived. Jones was down. Toughy
was outmatched. There was hope, if I could just find the
Interrupter. I tried to get up, but felt the roof spinning.
Crawling was good, I decided.

Then the roller coaster turned again. Goldie
sent out a beam of light that caught Allie as she was moving in for
the kill. It held her in place and defeated her speed advantage.
Toughy smiled as she stood up, reenergized, and kicked Allie into a
group of ventilation pipes. Every time my girl got ready to fight,
she was held in place by the beam from Goldie and ended up trading
blows at best. The shining, crackling tractor beam had reversed the
advantage. Now Allie was a stationary target. It was wearing her
down. But she kept battling Toughy, giving as good as she got. Both
of them stood determinedly, trading horrific blows that would have
turned a T. rex into a vegetarian or laid him out quietly, waiting
to become oil.

In the distance, Goldie glowed with three
sparkling beams streaming from her out stretched hands; one fed
Toughy, one slowed Allie, and the other kept Rebecca housed in her
cocoon.

Then a lava-red light began to form beside the
stairway door, revealing a humming, sparkling column of light
surrounding Jennifer Lowe. No nifty costume for her. She was
casually dressed, as if she was on her way to see a movie, but
surrounded in dynamic red energy.

She moved right at Goldie, who suddenly had a
look of panic on her face. Jennifer’s column met Goldie’s aura and
began to slowly shrink it. The humming and crashing of their
powerful shields grew louder and louder, like two medieval warriors
battling with swords. Jennifer’s column of red energy was growing
larger and larger, closer and closer to Goldie. Eventually, she
absorbed Rebecca’s cocoon.

By now, Allie was a struggling heap on hands
and knees unable to rise, and Toughy didn’t need help. So Goldie
cut the tractor beam holding Allie in place, as well as the one
powering Toughy, to concentrate on her battle with Jennifer. With
the extra power, Goldie was able to push Jennifer back. At which
point, Jennifer seemed to realize she was in a battle, not merely
doing her nails or having tea. Her face glowed brighter, revealing
her anger, and she pushed back harder. (Just a tip, you don’t want
to see Jennifer angry.) Goldie responded by cutting the tractor
beam to Rebecca and shoving Jennifer back once more. Now, Jennifer
was pissed.

The anger on Jennifer’s face gave way to
confidence as the whining and crashing of their power shields grew.
As she felt Goldie beginning to yield, a smirk appeared at the
corner of her mouth.

But Goldie was not without skills herself. She
reached out and pulled the energy from the buildings and homes
nearby, sending them all into darkness, and transferred their
energy into a powerful golden jolt that almost knocked Jennifer
flat on her back…big mistake.

As the two of them battled, I searched for the
Interrupter, and Allie and Toughy stood off from one another,
trying to catch enough breath to join in the fight. I began to
walk, maybe stagger, after the Interrupter—it lay somewhere in the
dark, and I had to find it.

Toughy was not in good shape herself. She was
clearly exhausted, injured, and decorated with blood, but mobile.
And her vision apparently worked just fine, as she and I spotted
the Interrupter at the same time, just to her left, under an air
conditioning unit. She crept toward it as I dove across the roof,
reaching for it. She took hold of it and lifted it away from my
fingers, which had arrived a second too late. She turned to the
immobile Allie and smiled. “Game over,” she said
wickedly.

No!
was all
I thought. That was when I leapt into the line of fire. Okay, maybe
not leapt, but it was a good saunter or maybe a shuffle. You get
the idea.

It threw Toughy off for a minute. I
was no challenge; she wanted the B.I.B. on her resume. “Get away,
little man. She’ll just be drained but, this fucker will
kill
you,” she said,
pointing the Interrupter at my face.

“
No,” was all I said, spreading my
arms…arm, I mean, and legs, so that she could not shoot around me.
Any way of prolonging what I still had of Allie was worthwhile, no
matter how fleeting. Like a twig resting against a rock in a
stream, I would cling to the rock until the stream washed me away.
But I would not let go until I was forced to do so, and not a
moment sooner. They would have to take her away over my defeated
body…

“
Your choice. I guess it will just
have to be a two-for,” said Toughy, smiling. She was no longer
trying to shoot around me, but aiming squarely at me.

“
Glad I could make your day,” I
said. flailing my arm feebly at her, reaching for the Interrupter.
She stopped and laughed at me, prompting me to try again. Every
time I reached for it, she pulled it away and laughed. Guess she
laughed a little too long.

I had seen that look of total astonishment
before—the helpless disbelief on Toughy’s face as the vapors formed
around her and she slowly faded from life. The Interrupter dropped
to the rooftop, smoking, twisted, and never able to party again.
The night breeze swirled the horrible smell in the air till I could
taste it in my throat. Toughy tasted as mean as she had
looked.

Across the rooftop, Rebecca fell to the ground,
bathed in lava light, liberated from her energy bondage, having
sent Toughy into oblivion.

Jennifer closed in relentlessly now on Goldie,
whose light had turned from gold to white. Goldie raised her arms
to ward off Jennifer as she neared, then tried to run, only to be
held in the oncoming energy of the lava-red light. The crashing
sounds from the energy fields were gone, leaving only a powerful
humming that surged in volume like the soundtrack to the oncoming
jaws of a shark. Goldie’s aura turned a cloudy blue, then she
slumped over as her energy drained further. In her last seconds,
her form crystallized into bluish ice, which then started melting
into a fluid that drained across the rooftop or flew away as
vapors.