Thunder & Lightning  
By The Captain  
Rough draft for the movie "Thunder & Lightning" 


What was now a "studio-apartment" in Burbank had started off life as a small
industrial space over fifty years ago. While the old roll-up cargo door had
been replaced by a modern garage door the rest of the apartment retained its
original appearance. The ground floor was now filled with exercise equipment,
a ten- year-old motorcycle and a large mechanic's tool case. The upper floor,
reached by the original metal staircase, held a micro-kitchen, a tiny bathroom
and a sleeping area.

Fast-paced rock-music poured out from mis-matched speakers as the apartments
current owner moved hundred of pounds of heavy weights. Muscles bulged with
effort, much harder and stronger than appeared. The morning workout was not
even half over, there was another ton to move. On the table upstairs was a
thick script for "The Children Of Dracula". Several sections were labeled with
yellow sticky notes. The reading was in two hours.

On the other side of Los Angeles, in an upscale neighborhood filled with BMWs,
two teenage boys huddled in front of a computer. "We are too cool!" whispered
Jason, "The money from the credit card numbers will score us some hard-core
hardware!" Freddie could only smile as streams of sixteen-digit numbers fill
the computer monitor. Suddenly a few of the numbers started to vanish, as if
they had been erased. More and more numbers were deleted, the process
increased in speed until less than a minute later the screen was totally
blank. "What the fuck!" screamed Jason, "What just happened?" Fred pointed at
the monitor where a single line of text had appeared. "YOU HAVE BEEN STRUCK BY
LIGHTNING!"

In a book-encrusted apartment five miles away Martin Edwards looked up from
his computer monitor to check the time, "Damm, why did I have to agree to do a
job interview on a Saturday? I better run if I don't want to miss the bus." He
turned off his monitor and garbed the directions to Green Wood Studios. As he
rose the light from the window flashed off of the two crossed lightning-bolts
that were engraved on the front of his belt-buckle.

With the exercise session completed the apartment grew quiet as the stereo was
turned off. The powerful body that emerged from the steam-filled bathroom was
clearly the result of years of extreme exercise. Bluejeans, black tee-shirt
and calf-high boots could barely conceal the muscles they covered. Electric
motors whirred into action as the garage door slid open. The motorcycle roared
to life as Debbie "Thunder" Harrison, professional stunt-woman, exploded into
the street.

Martin ran from the bus stop into the lobby of the Jackson building. He was
unimpressed by the aging twenty-story glass and steel building. He seemed to
remember that it had been some kind of government building back in the 1960's,
but since that was pre-ME he wasn't interested. His back-pack, filled with his
"essentials" banged against his back as he ran, almost knocking him down onto
the well-worn tile. While the light-up buttons looked like something he
expected to see in a museum the elevator that responded proved that they still
worked. Martin got into the elevator and punched the button for the floor
Green Wood Studios was on. Just before the elevator doors closed a strange
little girl slid in.

Debbie selected the floor where the production company was hiding its office.
She hoped to get this over with quickly as she expected to be passed over,
again. He only hope was to pick up some stunt work as a body double for a
couple of the kids she knew would be hired for the actual acting work. The
only other person in the elevator was a slim guy a foot taller than she was.
Since she was four-foot-eight that was a very common experience. Debbie could
tell that he didn't work out, though at least it looked like he ate healthy.
She wondered if there was some meaning to the custom belt-buckle with the
lightning bolts.

High above the elevator a timer count down to zero. A series of explosive
charges caused all four of the building's elevators to start plunging
downward. Due to the time of day only one contained passengers. Other
explosive charges sealed every entrance to the long-forgotten underground
facility that lay beneath the Jackson building. Debbie and Martin were slammed
into the ceiling of their elevator as it fell, but then some of the damaged
emergency brakes kicked in, slowing it down just before it reached the bottom
basement.

His first thought was that the little girl was wearing some kind of body
armor, until his hand brushed against one of her firm breasts and he realized
that she wasn't really a little girl. Martin fumbled around in the dark
looking for his back pack. After a few moments of near panic he found it, only
to discover that some piece of metal had sliced through the material, causing
most of its contents to spill out. However, he did find the comforting feel of
his Surefire LED flashlight. Setting it to low he started to examine what
remained of the elevator. Most of his equipment had vanished, perhaps dropping
into one of the several jagged holes that now lined the bottom of the
elevator. The same piece of metal that had sliced open his pack had also done
a number on the short woman with the leather jacket.

She was alive, at least she was breathing, but he had to stop the bleeding.
While he did have his multi-tool he knew he lacked the strength to cut through
the material of her jacket. Putting the flashlight down in a secure location,
Martin started to wrestle her jacket off of her. This took longer than he
expected, she weighed much more than he expected. What he had first thought
was body armor turned out to be a thick layer of hard muscle. Though she was
much shorter than he was both her arms and her legs were thicker than his.
While Martin did not have a photographic memory he was very close. The
first-aid book he had read five years ago came back to him as he concentrated.
Thankfully the little hiker's first aid kit had remained strapped to the back
pack.

Debbie tried to remember what had happened. Had the pyro guys messed up the
stunt? Or had she missed her mark at the last moment? Then she remembered, she
wasn't on a set, that was just some elevator in a dumpy office building. After
a moment she discovered that her jacket had been removed and was now under her
head, acting as a pillow. Debbie looked down at her left arm and saw that it
had been bandaged. She felt the stiffness underneath that told her she had
been cut, again. Mild profanity drew her attention to the slim guy with the
odd belt buckle. He had taken apart the control panel and was trying to work
with the wires to do something. "Hi," she said, "Thanks for patching me up.
What are you trying to do?"

Martin half-turned to the short woman, "I'm hunting for some voltage that I
can route over to that door latch. If I can just get a small pulse I can get
it to pop open. Unfortunately it looks like the entire cable bundle ripped
free when we crashed. From the lack of road noise I think we're stuck in some
kind of sub- basement. We've got to get out of here in case there are
aftershocks!"

Debbie smiled, "That wasn't an earthquake, those were explosive charges. I've
been doing stunt work for over ten years, so I really know what they sound
like. Whoever did this meant for the elevator to crash."

Martin stood up, grabbed a thick cable and jerked down. The end of the cable
whipped into view. He reached down and picked it up. The end of the cable
clearly showed burn marks. "Well, that's just prime!" He turned to face
Debbie, "I've got a couple of small tools, but we'd need either a cutting
torch or a sledge hammer to open that door."

"Let's see what I can do," she said. As Debbie stood up she found that the
haze in her mind was slowly clearing. The locking bolt was bent and hard to
get to, but there was just enough room for her to get her right hand around
it. "I'm going to try to wiggle it free, but I need you to pull me away from
the door so I have some leverage."

Martin wrapped his arms around her chest and pulled with all his strength. He
didn't notice that Debbie was using her left arm to push against the door.
What he didn't need to know was that she had some problems working inside of
small dark rooms and actually wanted human contact to fight her growing panic.
What she didn't know was that he was finding her extremely stimulating.

After a few moments the locking bolt was bent enough for the door to pop open.
Martin let go and stepped back to watch her muscle open the door. Echoes from
the screaming metal bounced back from the empty corridor beyond. He stuffed
his pockets with what remained of his kit and followed her out of the
elevator. She pointed at the dust covered signs on the wall, "It looks like
they just shut down this place and walked away." Outside of the destruction
zone caused by the crashing elevators, the corridor was neat and orderly, and
covered with several decades worth of dust.

Right from the elevators led to a thick steel door that had been welded shut.
Debited gave it her best effort, but the only result was a spike of interest
from Martin. Thankfully she couldn't see his expression as she turned to face
him. With her muscles pumped up, her "Got Meat?" tee-shirt made her look like
a fantasy he was just realizing he had kept hidden from even himself. Besides,
her manic intensity seemed to match his own. And she was cute!

As they walked back the other was Debbie run to and picked up every phone she
could spot. All were dead. Martin guessed they had been disconnected when this
facility had been sealed. She was beginning to like him, he was about her age
and seemed really smart, almost a genius she figured. He had told her he
thought of himself as a white-hat hacker, and he seemed to know a lot of
useful stuff. And while she hadn't said anything, she was starting to see the
signs that he was getting interested in her, but in a way she normally wasn't
used to.

"Hey! Look at this!," Martin shouted, "This was a CONALRAD studio! There might
be some connections to the surface." He rushed in and started to examine the
banks of equipment. "Wait a second, that's not right!"

Debbie walked over and spotted a small LCD monitor, "So it's a monitor, what
wrong with that?"

He turned to her and said, "This monitor was made last year, it doesn't belong
in a studio built fifty years ago. But what worse is what we are looking at,
that's a Soviet mini-nuke. And while I can't read those displays, I think it's
counting down."

"Where is it?" she whispered.

Martin glanced around the room and spotted a pile of trash. Unfolding a
Starbucks napkin he tapped the map it revealed. "Behind that door that we
found. The one that was welding shut!"

The crunching noises behind them were their fist clue they were not alone. The
sounds of the AK-47's being armed was their second. "You and the fat little
girl turn around now!"

Debbie gripped the heavy metal chair in front of her. She spun around and
slammed it into the terrorist behind her. Martin leaped out of the way, and
accidentally knocked down the terrorist behind him. In a flash Debbie pounced
on the second terrorist and knocked him out with one punch. Close up, Martin
could feel the heat of her anger, "I am not fat!"

"No, you're not," Martin said softly as he ran his hand along her muscular
left arm, "And you are not a little girl either." They both looked up as six
more terrorist ran into the room. Debbie glanced over to the weapon her
terrorist had dropped and was starting to calculate the timing when an AK-47
in full-auto went off inches from her head. At this close range the terrorists
had no time to dive for cover and were mowed down like third-party candidates
in a presidential election.

After a minute or two Debbie's ears stopped ringing. Martin, sitting next to
her with AK-47 in hand, looked both stunned and satisfied. "Five years of
paint-ball games, who knew? OK, these guys came from someplace, let's try to
backtrack. We need to find a way past that door."

"Have you ever disarmed a nuke before?" Debbie asked.

Martin closed his eyes for a moment, "No. But I don't really have a choice, do
I?"

As they entered to corridor one shot rang out. Martin felt his right leg turn
to fire and he fell to the ground, dropping his weapon. Debbie found herself
facing the barrel of modern looking assault rifle. Clearly this guy had a
bigger budget for toys. She dropped her weapon and kicked it away. From behind
her came two massive arms which pinned her arms to her side and picked her up.
Martin looked up to see Debbie trapped by a terrorist with arms thicker than
his head. The first terrorist walked over and kicked Martin's weapon back into
the studio.

Martin felt the terrorist search him for weapons. While the multi-tool was
tossed into the studio, his wallet, keys, and other stuff made a pile inches
away from Martin's face. It was as if the terrorist wanted him to know how
useless they were to him now. The pain from his leg wound filled him with a
red haze that was difficult to focus through. His mind wandered. The blinking
LCD display on his pocket multi-meter caught his eye. It was still set to
measure resistance from when he had been trying to trace wires in the
elevator.

The needle-sharp points of the probes were in the right position. Normally the
micro-amps produced by the meter would have no effect on a human. Unless. The
terrorist was still by his side, now in deep conversation with the
man-mountain that held Debbie. Martin could feel himself fading. Time was
running out. With his last burst of strength he grabbed the multi-meter and
rammed it's probes into the left side of the terrorist's chest. The probes
easily punctured the black shirt and went a full two inches into below the
skin. Now past the protection of the skin, the tiny current produced by the
meter over-rode the timing signals sent to the terrorist's heart.

Debbie, and the terrorist who held her, watched in shock as somehow Martin
caused his terrorist to have what looked like a heart-attack. That terrorist
was trying to pull Martin away, but Debbie's new friend stubbornly refused to
give up. Debbie slammed her head back into her opponents face, he grunted in
pain and squeezed harder. "So, he wants to play this game?" Debie thought to
herself, "He doesn't know that strength doesn't come from size, it comes from
muscle!"

Martin felt his terrorist slowly die. He forced himself to pull off his belt
and wrap it around his leg. For a moment the blood flow was slowed, but he
felt very weak. This terrorist looked better equipped that the others. Perhaps
he had a real first aid kit. Yes! Martin smiled when he saw the sealed pack of
Quick-Stop. Several minutes later he had managed to stop the blood loss and
the pain was slowly growing less. Martin looked up to where Debbie still
struggled with the giant terrorist. He had managed to get her into a full-
nelson, but in doing so had ending up with her standing on the ground. She saw
that Martin was looking at her and she whispered, "Watch this!"

Debbie's muscles, now fully pumped, began to grow even larger. Her tee-shirt
was stretched to the limit. In an instant Debbie bent double, getting under
the terrorist's center of mass, and flipped him hard onto the concrete floor.
Though a ring of dust blocked Martin's view, he clearly heard the sound of a
neck being cracked. With an amazing gracefull walk for someone showing such
massive muscles, Debbie walked over to Martin, bent down, and slowly kissed
him. "Think you can handle someone like me?" she asked.

Martin smiled, "No. No one can handle a woman like you. But you would be
pleasant to hold."

"Good answer. Now let's get you some transportation, I don't think you're
going to be walking for a while." She went back into the studio and came back
out with a heavy office chair and Martin's multi-tool. "Here we go, sit in
this chair and I can push you." Several minutes later, with one stop to fix a
stuck wheel, they arrived at a room filled with bunks and stacks of food. On
the wall a blueprint of the complex clearly showed where explosives had been
used to seal all of the entrances. Martin studied the blueprint while Debbie
searched the room for communications equipment. "Well, they knew this was a
one-way trip," she said as she held up several smashed cell phones.

"There might just be a way," Martin pointed to the blueprint, "There a large
cable run from the studio to the equipment room they put the nuke in. See,
there were several connections leading up from that room to antennas on the
roof of the building. The cables run from the studio through a series of right
turns. That's to block shock-waves. The door is heavy because it has to do the
same job but in a smaller space. It'll be tight work, and you'll have to pull
me most of the way, but we can do this!"

Debbie looked at the blueprint. "A long, dark, small tunnel that is who know's
how far underground. And at the other end is a nuclear bomb set to go off.
Yeah, only in Hollywood." She could feel the first hints of panic forming in
her gut. She looked up at Martin, so far he'd held up his side of things,
better than some muscle-studs she could name. Five minutes later they were
back in the studio and Martin had discovered the access panel. Three solid
kicks from Debbie's boot and the metal plate deformed enough fo her to peel it
off the wall. It was a process she had to repeat four more times along the
way. For some reason she felt the need to tell him everything about her life
and career. Talking helped keep the panic back, that and the grip she had on
his wrist.

Every little bump sent bright red flashes of pain along his body. Martin felt
his strength fade to nothing until Debbie was forced to drag him along like a
dead weight. Thankfully she had more than enough physical power. Her non-stop
babble, rather than drive him mad, actually helped him focus. It took over a
minute for him to realize they had stopped. His vision cleared enough to see
the six foot gap between where they were and the next platform. He forced
himself closer to the edge and looked down. The gap went down farther than his
flashlight would reveal. However, six feet down lay the platform that held the
nuke.

"OK Debbie, you've got to toss me over there!"

"What?" she shouted, "Is that some kind of joke?"

Martin shook his head, "Unless you think you can toss me over your shoulder
and monkey me over there, that's the only choice. If my leg worked I might
have been able to do a running start, but I'm afraid it's up to you to get me
there."

Debbie paused and started to look at the angels. On the other side of the
bomb, against the wall, were a pile of boxes, depending on what they contained
they might provide some protection. Martin was right, she had no business even
looking at a bomb, he had to get there. So she started to think of it like it
was a movie stunt. She took off her jacket and her tee-shirt and stuffed them
with the thick insulation that covered the walls of the cable tunnel. It was
some kind of woven plastic material that Martin assured her would not give
them both cancer. Two carful tosses later and Martin had something to land on.

"OK Martin, I strained something fighting that big guy so my arms arn't up to
full strength. Though I think I could actually toss you there on a good day.
That would give new meaning to the term dwarf-tossing, I think. However, my
legs are in great shape and they are much stronger than my legs."

"If we survive this I'd like to see you prove that," Martin muttered to
himself.

Debbie smiled, though her arms were nearly wiped out there was nothing wrong
with her hearing. She positioned Martin near the edge of the platform and sat
down with her back against the wall. With a count of three her powerful legs
snapped out and pushed Martin off the platform and across the gap

Martin felt himself launched out by her powerful legs. For a second he felt
the wind from the fall and then he slamed into the far wall and dropped down
onto the make-shift pads. He sat up and turned towards the nuke, forcing the
waves of pain and dizzyness back. For some reason his vision refused to clear,
but he could make out the unreadable russian labels and the LED counter that
just as it moved down into double- digets. Time was running out.

"Damm it, those terrorist sure screwed this up, what were they using, a butter
knife!" he muttered to himself, "Don't have time to hack the trace the control
system, so hacking it is not an option. Time for Plan B." Working as quickly
as he could he started to unhook the series of thick plates which covered the
actual weapon core. As he removed each one he tossed up up to Debbie, who
moved it into the relative safety of the cable tunnel. "I hope this is enough!
There only twenty seconds left!" martin started to push the bomb into the open
shaft but found it too heavy. "Debbie! Got out of here! It's going to blow!"

Debbie dropped down besides him, "Do you know how hard it is to meet someone
interesting in this town? No way I'm I letting you out of my sight!" The bomb
felt like it weighed over three hundred pounds, so instead of picking it up
she simply rolled it off the platform and dived on top of Martin. She heard
the bomb splash into what sounded like a large pool of water a second before
it went off. Time stopped.

Somebody was poking her in the shoulder. Debbie opened her eyes to see a
strange face under a fire department helmit. "You sure know how to send a
signal!" he said to her with a smile. The world faded.

An unknown number of hours later she awoke in a hospital room, her body sore.
"If they make a movie will you play yourself?" came a weak voice from her
right. Debbie turned to see Martin in the next bed, looking more like a mummy
than the cyber-coyboy she remembered.

"Excuse me folks," said a strange voice from across the room, "We'll let you
two catch up in a moment. God knows we owe you that! I'm Agent Briggs and this
is Agent Straton. We have turned the world upside down trying to figure out
how you two managed to do what you did. Ms Harrison was easy, we just
contacted your agent and got your bio. Ten years of training that would
qualify you for many special ops groups, very impressive. Mr Edwards was a
little more difficult. That is until we found your secret identity as the
good-guy hacker Lightning. We discovered that we owed you for a large number
of things. You identity will remain secret."

Agent Straton stood up, "The two of you took out nearly a dozen well-armed
terrorists and disabled a small nuclear bomb. We estimate that you saved the
lives of over a million civilians. It took them over two years of planning to
move the parts of the bomb into the country and put them together in that old
cival defense facility. Several agencies were tracking them, but we only made
the final connection this morning. Far too late if not for you. We can keep
the press off of you for a few hours more, but then you'll learn how much your
world has changed."

The other agent got up and they both started for the door. "Oh yeah, is there
anything we can get you guys?" asked Agent Briggs, "The doctors said you're OK
for that."

Debbie smiled and said "How about a cold six-pack and a couple of Macho
Burritos!"

"Well, I'd like a couple of bottles of Code Red and a cheese-and-onion pizza!"
remarked Martin.

After the agents closed the door Debbie and Martin looked at each other and
smiled. Thunder and Lightning were doing all right.