[JimmyDimples]

Chapter 3:

Scott got the video of the cyber-taunt on the police car’s computer’s screen. Tom muttered, "I can understand making their data computer go offline, but why the whole car?"

"All run by computers," said Pierre. "Diagnostics, fuel economy control, air cond–"

"I KNOW that, kid!" snapped Tom. "I did a piece on auto thieves stealing chips from your car 4 months ago, you know! But there’s no satellite dish or modem on your engine block!"

"Did you see that green flash earlier?" said Scott. "Do you think that had might have had something to do with it?"

Officer Welsh looked with dread toward the vehicle. "So what the blazes ARE we dealing with, and what does it want?"

Before Scott could say he didn’t have a clue yet, he saw a tell-tale streak of orange and white shoot over the rooftops. "Hello!" he exclaimed, "It’s Dyna!"

"Looks like she’s headed for the athletic center," said Welsh.

"Well, what are you waiting for?!" Tom barked. "Get in the truck, and let’s follow her! Neil, crank it up!"

"Hey," said Officer Welsh. "How about a ride? My car’s fried."

"No can do," said Tom, oblivious to Pierre sneaking into the back of the truck behind him. "We’re the press. Got objectivity to keep up."

"But someone’s life might be in danger!"

"Get another car! Punch it, Neil! Follow that flying rack!" And Tom slammed the shotgun seat’s door behind him.

Welsh flashed his badge. "As an officer of NVPD, I’m commandeering this –"

But the truck had already peeled out.

***

"One! Two! Three! GO!"

Clang! The guys slammed the 500 lb. barbell into the door as hard as they could. But it held. They tried again. "One! Two! Three! GO!" Clang! The improvised battering ram hurt only their ears.

Roy took a breath, his muscle T-shirt totally drenched. "What the frack did they build that door with?! Reinforced concrete?!"

Another exerciser let go. "This heat is killing me," he moaned woozily.

"Pick it up and keep ramming!" snapped Cheryl. "Or we WILL be dead!"

Roy was hating himself. He sure could have used Bob’s weight backing up on the ram. Why’d he have to injure his arms like that?

"All right, people, let’s try again," she said, rasping for breath as they all fixed their grip. "Ready? One… two…"

Wham! went something in the outside hall. "What was that?!" yelped Bob.

Wham! went another something on the hall’s other end. "Hello!" yelled a female voice. "Anyone here?!"

Everyone shouted at once. "Hey!" "Over here!" "We’re trapped!"

"Get away from the door!" shouted the woman. Dropping the barbell, everyone backpedalled quickly.

WHOOM! The door flew right off the hinges into the weight room and slammed into the back wall. Right in front of the doorway was Dyna, the Damsel Dynamo. She pulled back her extended fist. "Is anyone else in here?"

Roy started, "Just us in he–"

"Merl’s trapped in the basement!" blurted Bob.

"Which way?" Dyna demanded.

Cheryl pointed. "Second door on the left, and take the stairs!"

Dyna floated out of the way and thrusted a finger to the nearest exit. "Hurry on out of here! I’ll go down below and get him out!"

And as she rocketed that way, the gym patrons beat feat toward the outside.

"I didn’t think 260 lbs. of blubber could move that fast!" Roy huffed to Bob’s fleeing back.

"250! Shut up before I turn around and sit on you!" Bob snarled back.

***

Merl rapped on the hinges with a screwdriver and hammer. He was thankful he still had his tools with him. He hurried as best he could to get the second linchpin out in the middle. As the huge boiler beside him rumbled, shook, and creaked, he hoped and prayed he’d get the one on top in time…

Crack! Pop! Pfshhhhhhhhh! A steam pipe elbow joint cracked, blasting out steam, and throwing a chunk of metal right in his back, making him fumble the tools. Frantically, he pawed the floor for them, but the steam made it impossible to see.

Then the machinery trembled. He was sure he was dead.

"Incoming!" Whoomp! The door flew off the hinges. Some woman was coming through the steam? An angel?

"Run for it!" he screamed. "Save yourself! The whole thing’s gonna blow!"

But instead, this woman came right near him, covered his body with hers (dang, she was BIG), wrapped her huge, muscular arms around his back, and pulled his head to that surprisingly massive, plush chest of hers. She pushed him down to the floor.

Well, thought Merl, if ya gotta go…

***

KA-BLAM!!!! The horrified escapees saw half of the New Vista University Athletic Center go up in a huge steam explosion. The debris that didn’t get blasted all over the campus came down into the basement. The smoke and steam slowly cleared.

Neil swereved to avoid a chunk of concrete rocketing past.

"Tell me you got that!" Tom shouted to Scott.

"I got it on the roof cam," was the answer.

And they bailed out of the van. But Scott tripped over Pierre’s foot.

"Pierre?!" he said. "What are YOU doing here!?"

"I thought I could…"

"You thought you were gonna get yourself hurt or killed?!" He sighed in disgust. "Stay in the van, and don’t touch anything!" And he dashed out with his camera.

"MERL!!!" shrieked Bob. He dashed to the rubble, not caring about his injured arms or any risk of fire or electric shock. He went to where the nearest corner was and started picking up and throwing stuff.

"Bob! Dude!" went Roy dashing after him.

"Keep staring, jock-itch-face! Maybe it’ll do a trick for you!" They all started to throw in and dig with their bare hands.

But though Bob’s spirit was willing, his flesh was weak. He dropped to his hands, arms aching. He started to cry.

Then with a rumble, the twisted metal and concrete fragments shifted and crumbled. Then like a Polaris missile, something blasted out and up, arched around and then came down right in front of the survivors. It was Dyna, with Merl in her arms.

"Bob!" Cheryl wailed with relief. "You all right?!"

Still tucked in against her chest, the maintenance man stuck out a hand doing the A-OK sign.

"All right," Dyna said. "Ride’s over, we’re stopped at the terminal. It’s safe to disembark." To the crowd, she called, "Everyone else OK?"

As the crowd affirmed it, Merl hopped down to his feet and looked up. "Lady," he said, "you need anything fixed, I’ll do it for free! Anytime!"

"Thanks," she said. "Right now, though, I gotta fix this hacker jerk, wherever he is."

And she flew back toward the quad, where the whole mess started. In flight, though, she wondered about her power of invulnerability. She knew that bullets couldn’t pierce her skin, and neither did the boiler’s blast or the gym’s debris. But somehow, her whole body wasn’t rock-hard all around when she protected the maintenance man. For one, she would have crushed him like a bug when she covered him. For two, she’d felt his cresent wrench against her hip.

At least she’d THOUGHT it was his cresent wrench…

And how or why did the bullets stick to her skin instead of simply dropping off?

She wondered how exactly her invulnerability worked, how much control over her solidity or density she had, if it were intuitive or autonomic, and what innovative ways she could use it in the fight against evil.

First things first. She had to get back and find someone who might find out what was going on. Maybe… that Pierre kid…

But as she got back to it, she didn’t see him anywhere.

***

"Y’know, for a computer ace, you sure showed a lousy substitute for brains just about now," Scott scolded as they rode back to the quad.

"I said I was sorry," Pierre whined.

"Where’s your mom, anyway?" Tom demanded.

"I took the bus here." Pierre answered. "I’m supposed to have an internet friend… DeenaMoe2004… show me around the campus. I want to see if I’ll want to go here."

"In what, 5 years?"

Exasperated, Pierre thrust out a news clipping. "Try next fall."

And it showed a small town paper photo, with him in a high school graduate’s uniform, and his diploma.

"Terrence Babbage, huh?" said Tom.

The student turned red as a beet. "TERRY Babbage," he said.

Scott cocked his head. "Head of your class?"

"Salutatorian."

"Well, all the same, if you’re gonna be smart, ya gotta act smart. We’d better drop you off and we can talk about more computer stuff from a safe spot."

Then the whole interior of the van glowed green. The video screens started scrambling. The feed from the studio went blank, and then the screen showed this:

#0// (4|| j00 +311 4 ||3+//0r|< 3×3(u+I /3 |z 1y|N9? #I5 1ip5 |/|0/3!!!11

Then right behind the letters, numbers and symbols, a figure appeared. It was a thin man’s black silhouette, with changing green ones and zeroes contouring his body. His digitized voice then sounded on the speakers.

"Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot I’m dealing with TV people here. Let me put it in plain 8th grade English for you."

The symbols then changed one by one, so the message now read:

How can you tell a network executive is lying? His lips move!

Pierre blinked. "Is that Mista Haxor?"

"Ding ding ding! Hey, hey, buddy!" went the mysterious figure, whose face then showed two cravats with an underscore between them like this: ^_^ "That’s right! You ARE the smartest one in this vehicle! And here’s your prize: You get to experience the beta of a new game! Something called… GTA New Vista!"

And then the screen went black, and then flashed "KILL FRENZY!"

SCREECH!!! The van then peeled out more rubber on the street and accelerated faster and faster.

"Neil!" Tom shouted. "What the frack are you doing?! Slow down, now!"

"It’s not me!" Neil yelped. "I’m not in control! This thing’s got a mind of its own!"

And the van barreled right onto the sidewalk, sending pedestrians running and screaming for cover.

**To Be Continued…**

[JimmyDimples]

Hey, I can relate to the lack of responses thing. I know you should be confident in your own abilities, with audience response or not. But if a piece of creativity is on the web, and it gets no views… does it really exist? Sorta like if a deaf muscle girl knocks down a tree, and there’s no one else to hear it… does it make a sound?

Oh, and to keep it on topic… nice pics, KTM. 🙂

[JimmyDimples]

Well… I don’t think it’s 100% society pressing it that way…

I mean… men can’t breastfeed. 🙄

[JimmyDimples]

Pfeh. What would I do with money anyway?

I mean, I’d gladly give it away for something else. 😉

Maybe if there was a reputation/karma tally for posts. Sorta like give a good score for something constructive or great, and a penalty for something that’s obnoxious or spammalicious.

(with a ban feature for really flagrant offenders.)

Seeing my characters as art, though… that’d be an incentive! Maybe a sketch/ink reward system might work.

[JimmyDimples]

Oh, that post earlier was supposed to be mine. I’d been juggling many things on the web at once, and this got on the back burner and timed out. 🙄

[JimmyDimples]

[quote="Axel3.14"]Very well said… I’ve been trying to articulate that loyalty isn’t weakness and that one can be flexible without sycophancy.

One common misconception, I feel, is to confuse meekness with weakness. Weakness is the absence of strength. Meekness is strength under control.

Submission is performed through choice – a person does not loose their strength, they just opt not to use it![/quote]

You know, if they had a karma/reputation scoring system in this forum, you’d get my thumbs-up. That oughta be on every heroine’s coat of arms. 🙂

[JimmyDimples]

SNOTLING and MUFFINMAN (and anyone else interested): It’s weight. It’s just weight, pure and simple. They will not tape me, they will not check my body fat. It is simply weight. Some people think it’s stupid, but think about it. Let’s say I’m 700 pounds of pure muscle. 5% body fat. I can carry a bunch of wounded without a problem. But if I’m hit, who can carry me?

That IS a good point. Though at 700 lbs., I think you’d probably be need to be hit with a grenade launcher or a full burst of .50 caliber autofire before it got that bad. 😉

I also think it’s good for discipline. Losing weight takes a lot of work and being strict with yourself. Also, giving up MUSCLE is actually a big thing, too. That you’re willing to part with something you worked so hard to get shows dedication.

Ah yes. *puts on turban* True strength from within overcomes physical without. True mastery over all your body and mind and desires. Thank you for stopping at BlipMart. That’ll be $2.95, please.

OK, bad stereotype aside, I seriously salute your priorities. I’ve heard many tales IRL where the power controls its wielder, not the other way ’round.

Hmm… a 700 lb. UberStrawberry in the military… any fiction writers got any ideas?

[JimmyDimples]

Now that was nuts.

Pretty darn good, though.

[JimmyDimples]

Jimmy, I would be honored 😀

The fact that I could read his name, and that I’m actually TOO 1337 for some of my friends, should show that I’m qualified enough 😀

Well, I might "employ" you more as a +3(#n|(41 4d/|z4#. A little more feedback on how you think the story was going’d be appreciated. 🙂

[JimmyDimples]

Hee hee! That was excellent delivery on the punch (pun!) line.

[Author]

Posts