THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GLOP----Part One By HENSPURS cockscomb@juno.com The combined essences of heroes and villains give a young novice a leg-up onto the pedestal of Amazons. PROLOGUE: SUPERHEROINE SLAIN---screamed the morning headlines in the giant, accusing letters meant to grab casual readers and sell half again the number of issues. Future-Chem, the elaborate, four day convention was not going to be cancelled over an incident such as a break-in, a shoot-out and a death. Out of town attendees stepping off the arriving trains thronged the just-opening newsstands, jostling for papers. Crunch Corben tenderly lifted an issue off the ground, ignoring the dirty shoeprints which had marred the grainy photographs which accompanied the tragic headlines. Aching from the armor-piercing bullet which had torn through his side, Corben surreptitiously downed another quick-healing pill and felt the little wonder boil hotly in his cold stomach. He would be back in fighting shape to take on the thugs responsible for the slaying in a few days-""make that nights. In the meantime, he had a funeral to prepare for. * * * Big people make big targets. Sure they do, Corben thought, eyeing the dark wooden coffin from a safe distance. He couldn't approach the grave. He couldn't attend the burial. That ceremony would be watched, watched by the thugs that had gunned down Gale "Queenie" McKuen at the beginning of the hectic weekend. The days-old newspaper bearing SUPERHEROINE SLAIN on the front page sat on his knees. There were other papers; he had memorized the stories. Future Chem would be in town one more night. That left him a little time to get ready for the final showdown. And so, Crunch Corben, AKA Beatdown, sat in the driver's seat of one of three limousines, dressed spiffily in chauffeur's duds, letting the reporter in the backseat scope out the burial from behind smoked windows. Flint Greer licked his lips, wanting a cigarette in the worst way. "Nothing out there, Crunch. I guess the bad guys are giving this party a miss." Corben whirled around. "The hell you say! This is no party, in case you didn't notice." "Jeez, Crunch, I didn't mean nothin' by that." Flint raised the binoculars to his face. "Queenie was the greatest." "Sure she was," Corben faced forward again. Had be been any angrier, he would have thrown a punch at the reporter. "Level with me, Crunch," Flint said. "Is this business worth throwing away a hero's soul?" "You didn't see what those robbers were trying to steal at the Future-Chem show. I did. If that slimy goo winds up in the wrong hands, there's nothing any security agency small or large can do to counteract what happens. Democracy? Well, you can kiss freedom goodbye. I'm telling you that goo is just about sentient. With the right kind of chemical tinkering, it can think. It can be used to read minds. This may be the last year of the good old status quo. From here, it can only get worse. Yeah, it's worth body and soul. Queenie knew that. She only lost her body. She was the good one. Me, I can't afford to be that good anymore." She went quick, Corben thought. I guess she didn't suffer to much. That's for me do. He didn't want to play out her death again, but the record-player in his mind was on automatic. At six and half feet tall and heavily built, Queenie had been just Corben's size. And maybe the coward who had shot her from three blocks away with a king-sized sniper rifle had mistaken her for him as she stepped out from the door on the convention center roof and into the distant shooter's line of fire. Slowed on his charge up the stairs by a bullet-hit, Beatdown let Queenie get several paces ahead of him. The crooks had dropped much of their swag on their way to the roof. There were a few thugs left with some fight in them, but no match for a pair of superheroes, Beatdown thought even as the sore on his torso throbbed. Aching, he pushed his way up the last of the stairs and barreled out into the cold night air. Where was everybody? Dropped cases with bio-hazard symbols and warning colors littered the roof. Beatdown almost tripped over them as he sized up the situation. If the heavies were near, they were hiding pretty good. "Beatdown! Look out behind you""" Queenie never finished. No one on the convention center roof heard the shot. A half-assed attempt at a tackle threw Beatdown off balance. He didn't look away from Queenie as her middle suddenly erupted in a red burst. Blood had sprayed suddenly, splashing Beatdown's face, blinding him for a moment. In the midst of his own fight, he tore the white dress shirt clean off his opponent and used it to wipe his face. A single punch put the bare-chested baddie out of it. Beatdown dragged Queenie to cover and tried to plug the gushing wound, but it was too deep. And when Corben was in charge of things as Beatdown, he had to take responsibility for what happened. Not that Queenie was a helpless waif. Tough, fast, resourceful, she had taken down a number of heavies on the rooftop before the fatal bullet struck her down. Having dealt with heavies and holding Queenie until her last breath, Beatdown remained on the roof, watching the villains jet-boosted helicopter zoom into the night without its prize as police choppers dazzled the grim scene with searchlights. The piece of torn shirt with Queenie's blood was still warm when Beatdown tucked it into an empty holster on his belt. He had to save that much of her. Beatdown didn't stay to answer the cop's questions. He had a score to settle that wouldn't sit easy with the ones wearing the badges. Especially that having stolen a small sample of what the bad guys were trying to steal themselves, he had become a thief. * * * Big people make big targets. Corben knew this long before he donned his body armor. Superheroes went bad, especially those who bent the rules and formed entangling alliances. A vigilante and proud of it, Beatdown packed the small photograph of his murdered sweetheart, Queenie and several other telling pieces of information into a large manila envelope addressed to a certain reporter at the city newspaper. If anything happened to him, if the worst happened to him, that envelope and its contents would hopefully finish the job he set out to do. * * * "Stop him""-he'll contaminate the batch!" "I can't get another shot at him...too much in the way!" "You three, get on that catwalk!" Rushing footsteps on metal clanged in the hollows of the huge building. Beatdown didn't know who yelled, but he didn't worry about it. He was finished. A four-foot metal spear transfixed his powerful frame. "I'll be with you soon, Queenie..." Beatdown fell to the catwalk of the secret chemical plant, pitching the gelatin capsule with Queenie's blood and his own into the open top of the enormous vat. It plopped into the swirling, multicolored mess of liquids, dissolving as he had planned. He could only hope the strange essences of two heroes would be enough to negate or change the nature of the evil brew sloshing twenty feet below him. Doomed, Beatdown crushed the engagement ring in his fist, making sure that no one would recognize it for what it had been. The heat of the mixing goo broke down the flimsy outer shell of the gelatin capsule, letting Queenie's and Beatdown's blood to blend. The ratio, fifty thousand parts to one, seemed hopeless, but stranger things have happened. PART ONE: Last night...whoa! That was a real discovery. I found out that superheroes have a sex life like everyone else. But only in the fact that they have one; don't go thinking superheroes make love in the same parameters as the little people they have to save in their spare time. Before I say any more, I should tell you there were no tights, capes, masks, boots or gizmos involved or even in sight; the experience...well, the experience went pretty much like ordinary people go about it. Except, of course, the SCALE on which it occurred. The encounter took place in a remote, secluded spot so that the peace of any nearby town wouldn't be disturbed---superhero. Hold on a minute, I've been saying hero. I'm no hero. Superhuman, yes. But statues of me, action-figures and all that comes with being a hero will never come to be, unless it's a joke. Was I talking about sex? Oh, yeah---sex can and does upset the balance of things. The anticipation was something equal to climbing Mount Everest or breaking the sound barrier or abolishing the I.R.S. Before, during and after, you know you're involved in something absolutely transcendent. And I have to say, I'm better for it. You might have seen superhero make-out scenes in movies, but they don't tell the whole story. There was no rehearsal, no takes, no editing. No super-secret lair, either. And no sidekicks looking on. By the way, the super one involved was me. And who am I? My name is Jane. Y'know, it was some old guy...cowboy hat, jellybeans, pet chimp, who asked, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" Something like that... Good question. I wonder if that old guy thought the next four years were going to be any easier for him. I say this, because from what I hear, it wasn't too long after that when somebody (who really didn't hate him) made him a target. BANG. BANG. BANG. Well, earlier today, I nearly took a few bullets. But I have to say yes; I am better off now than I was four years ago. But it took a lot of work; I didn't just sit and wait. Something I can barely explain happened between me and an unlikely friend of mine. Of us both, I know I got the better part of the deal. M-GUU (Those are his initials, but I pronounce them like Mr. Magoo from the cartoons). I'm left to carry on, but even though M-GUU is gone, my life from now on will have a special purpose-""and some pretty freaky memories... In the first month after my transformation, I could lift my step-dad's midgety Japanese four-door by the rear and pull it to the end of the driveway and then right back up to the garage door. At the time, that was a supreme effort. Since then, I can hold that same car over my head so long as I can get a good grip. I thought the huge veins that rose up in my skin would tear through. No. And to my relief, those tell-tale blood vessels sank down when I relaxed. Take Note: the underside of a car is notoriously greasy and grimy. If you don't watch where you apply your grip, the whole damned thing will slip from your fingers. Why would I try such a dangerous thing? I'm pretty freaky. All really strong people think that about themselves. A select group. Well, barely. I heal with amazing speed, but I'm not bullet-proof; I've got a crease on my hip half an inch deep from where the ricocheting round hit. If the shooter had really been taking aim at me, I wouldn't be around to tell this story. I'd either be dead, paralyzed, or missing some body parts that I'd rather hold onto. By tomorrow, or the day after, there will only be a tiny scar. A normal guy wouldn't have fared so well. But that was four years ago when I last thought of myself as normal. It all kicked off when a jet of mutagen squirted on me during a school field trip to Retort Labs. At first, I thought someone had spit on me, but no one was behind me. Above, maybe. I couldn't see the container it had escaped from. Looking up, I saw only a tangle of catwalks, conduits, lighting fixtures and signage. Typically shy, I didn't let on that anything had happened to the rest of the junior high class. Perhaps there was the merest possible gap from which the mutagen could have dropped whilst missing five levels of obstacles which, added up, were practically a solid wall. But-- The fluid was warm; I felt pleasurable tingles as it traveled over my skin like a trail of the finest oil. The balance of it hit my nape and dribbled down my spine. Something happened to me just then. When the advanced bio-chemical hit my skin, I suddenly became aware of what the mutagen was-""and not just that. I became acutely aware of what its designers had in mind for the stuff. That tiny squirt, maybe only enough to fill a coffee spoon, was deliberate. It was aimed. It went right for me. And it got me. It was a cry for help. The chemical, the mutagen was sentient. It could think. It could learn. It had an actual identity, a personality. It was alive, as alive and real as anything. As unique and irreplaceable as I am. M-GUU hadn't performed as expected. They were planning to weaken him. And if that didn't work, M-GUU was slated to be destroyed. Aborted before he had a chance to see anything of the outside world. I felt, well...motherly. Or something. I still had a good trickle of the mutagen's essence on my skin. It was like a flirtation. It made me hard. I couldn't believe it. By the time I got back into the bus with the rest of the school kids, the little amount he had "spewed" on me, had absorbed into my body. I was more than I had been. I had new life in me, just a little. But I wanted more. Intrigued, I gave the matter twelve hours of long, careful thought. Then I put my rescue plans to work. TO BE CONTINUED. 9