Free Big Superhero Action by Raymond Embrack Page A

can’t get to him. That happens they control his powers. That can’t happen.”
    “I know. But are we…enough to stop them?”
    “We find him,” JKM said. “We protect him. That takes superheroes.”

17
    I nside the city of Brutalia the OSD was headquartered in the 77-story OSD Towerplex. It had proven impregnable to the U.S. armed forces. Nuclear warheads had dissolved against the tower surface. You felt secure there.
    Dr. Playground’s indestructible exoframe activated itself, the white light went on, hit the gleaming surfaces. There were two types of supervillain, the Lex Luthor/Joker type and the Darth Vader/Dr. Doom model. One was villainous, the other villainous and the most powerful motherfucker in the room. Dr. Playground’s exoframe was made with better comfort design than a warm bed while it made Darth Vader’s suit look like a string bikini. It was indestructible and better armed than a third world country. Dr. Playground could level four city blocks or strangle a mosquito. The face plate was a screen that flashed ghost-like a face. This week it was a mash-up of black eye-patched Emilio Largo, the villain in
Thunderball,
with the Wizard of the 1939 MGM
Wizard of Oz
. The synthetic voice made James Earl Jones sound like Jennifer Tilly. The exoframe was neuropedically connected to his brain and nerves. Its “face” changed with every twitch of his mood. The face image darkened.
    Across from him sat Xoir. Born 1932. By age sixteen she had earned a doctorate in psychiatry from Columbia. At twenty she had been a Yale graduate reinventing neurosurgery. By thirty she had taken to esoteric projects in the field of aging reversal. Today she permanently appeared to be age 36. Brutalia was the next frontier. It had advanced her scientific work to a 23rd Century level. She became a masked and costumed supervillain named Xoir. Then Communications Director of the Order of Social Domination.
    Once a week they met for the weekly recap of OSD operations.
    “You’re not going to like the weekly recap, Doctor.”
    “I already didn’t like the week. But we still earned. Go.”
    “The Blue Boss took down the Customizers. He gave Sonny Ditlow to the PD. Both he and Man Mafia 3 are under indictment for the eight murders. Martian Justice wiped out an entire outlaw biker gang in one night, the Motorchrists. Both superheroes are out of commission until next month. That makes two big ones down. By now the carousel is thinning out.”
    “That’s two AXIS strikes,” Dr. Playground said. “One has no effect on OSD, taking out the Motorchrists only drained the free agent pool. The Customizers go to Man Mafia 4. I want a dead AXIS member in two days.”
    “We have no members identified.”
    “Still only Milo Spector?”
    “Yes.”
    “Still no known friends or associates?”
    “No.”
    “Then we need to fucking find one in two fucking days.”
    “Done.”
    “Where’s the twink?”
    “A sighting or two of a flight or two. One account of Chase Juniper rescuing a suicidal gay teen in Massachusetts. The teen was about to go off a bridge when Chase spotted him, intervened.”
    “Why can’t a gay commit suicide by jumping?”
    “Why?”
    “Because he never reaches the ground.”
    Xoir gave that a dutiful smirk.
    He said, “I am not happy with Her Blue Majesty. Why him? Where’s his technology? Obviously he has it by accident. Ask him how he passes through the Brutalia Limit he couldn’t tell you to save his life, poor little fucker. Even with the laser beam slowly cutting the table towards his crotch. Yet he has the key. Confirmed.”
    “If he doesn’t know,” Xoir speculated, “then the reason may be biochemical. Or genetic. Or any of the physical causes related to the ability to fly. We may not be asking him
why
as what he eats. We may need him wired to machines we haven’t invented. For years.”
    “We have to find him before AXIS does.”
    “We find him. We recruit him hopefully. We seduce him. Create