Nuklear Age (23 page)

The Crab lay prone in the sand. Waves washed against its rear half.

The Tungsten Titan dust off his metallic hands. “Heh, that was easy. Too bad Nuke missed all the action.”

Atomik Lad stood and took a deep breath. “Yeah, that was pretty easy. I was expecting a rampage through the city or something, like in the movies.”

“Kind of disappointing, really.”

“Well, it is like at least one of those movies then.” Atomik Lad beat some sand off himself. “Anyway, Dr. Genius wanted a sample of it.”

“Hey, I defeated it. You get the sample.”

“Gee,
thanks,”
Atomik Lad said. He walked toward it. Carefully, not like some idiot in a horror flick. He paid special attention to what he assumed were its eyes while taking care to avoid the pincers altogether. He reached out a cautious hand and snapped off a bit of stray carapace. He dashed back to Norman a little faster than he meant to.

“You shouldn’t worry. I don’t think our friend here is going to wake up for a long time. Eight hundred pound bullets of tungsten hittin’ your ass at a thousand miles an hour isn’t exactly something you just brush off.”

Atomik Lad observed the rounded dent Norman had bashed into The Crab’s top-front carapace plate. “I think you killed it.”

He playfully hit Atomik Lad in the shoulder, knocking him back a step. “We’re heroes, John. No one dies.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he said. He noticed movement from the corner of his eye. “Rachel!”

“Is it safe out there?” she called from under the pier.

“Is it ever?”

She rethought her question. “Is it not
currently
life threatening out there?”

Atomik Lad looked to Norman. MMMM shrugged. “Close enough!” he answered.

__________

Traffic had come to a standstill. It wasn’t rush hour. There wasn’t a wreck. There was, however, a storm. Not one of rain, save for the far-flying spittle winged with rage-spun words. Angus. God of war among men. Several overturned smoking wrecks that had once been cars advertised that someone was a bit vexed.

The Iron Scotsman waved his Surprisingly Wieldly and Concealable Enemy-B-Crushed Named “Bertha” to invite—nay—
beg
anyone to make a sound. Angus listened to the post-Magno-Smash silence. “Aye, that’s what Ah thought, ye yuppie bastards drivin’ ye blasted Sport Utility Crap and ye brain dead Minivan drivin’ morons that spend half their damn time yellin’ at their damn brats in the back damn seat screamin’ for Cow Butt Buurger Hutt!” He breathed in. “What was Ah talkin’ about?” he muttered into his saltwater and spit soaked beard.

Nothing annoyed Angus more than forgetfulness.

“Except for people who drive minivans. Or SUVs. Or giant sea monsters ruinin’ me fun!” His eyes darted back and forth, searching for more prey. He slowly pivoted to the beach. Either The Crab was narcoleptic or it had been defeated. “Well, good thing Ah was here to manage traffic.”

It’s too bad that road rage makes people do stupid things. Such as:

HONK! HONKHONKHONK
, “C’mon, you midget
freak
, get the hell out of the damn road!”
HONK HONK HONK!

Angus’s right eye twitched. “What did ye say?” he asked in a near whisper.

“I said, get the
hell
outta the road, you dwarfish
mutant!”

“Ah see.” His fists balled up. “Ah see.”

“
Move
it, shorty! Some of us got places to go!”

“What’s that? Ye want me to move, eh?”

“Yes!”

“Have it your way, then.” He turned to the belligerent motorist.

__________

Issue 20 – A Worse Case of Crabs

Atomik Lad, Rachel, and Mighty Metallic Magno Man stood. They did so in that awkward way people do when something really weird and usually socially unacceptable happens and no one knows just how to move the conversation forward. Like a very long ride in an elevator packed with strangers.

Rachel rocked on the balls of her feet occasionally.

MMMM glanced at the dent he put into The Crab.

Atomik Lad scratched his nose. “Well.” His voice cracked slightly, which did nothing to help the moment along. “Now what?”

The Tungsten Titan reached out for the crab shard. “I can take that over to Überdyne. You two just make sure no one tries to steal the carcass here. I want my picture taken with it, I think I might have set a record.”

“Sure.” Atomik Lad tossed the bit of carapace to his fellow hero.

“Well, it was fun, Sparky,” Mighty Metallic Magno Man said with a salute. “We oughta do it again sometime.” Blue threads of energy spun a sphere around him and he flew into the distance toward Metroville’s skyscrapers.

Rachel ran her fingers through her hair to give it some semblance of order despite the sand, salt, and water that insisted on occupying it in varying degrees. “Does something like this happen every time you guys get together?”

“Let me put it this way. Yes.”

__________

Angus sputtered incoherently, having long passed the stage where his mind was capable of language.

“What’s the matter, Shorty? Having a ‘little’ spasm?”

He shook like an earthquake. “Oh, Ah’m gonna love this.”

A sound somewhat like a blue whale singing exactly what it’s like to die a morbidly slow and agonizing death echoed over what was left of the dunes.

__________

Atomik Lad cringed from the sound. “What, now we’ve got beached whales too?”

The Crab awoke instantly.

Startled, Atomik Lad grabbed Rachel by the hand and ran with her back to the pier. She didn’t need encouragement to make the move.

The Crab groaned as it stood up and felt the impact crater on its topside with one monstrous pincer. Little carapace pieces flaked off. It seemed to strain, quivering like it was flexing some internal muscle to pass something that had been painfully clogging up its intestinal tract for several centuries. The dent corrected itself with a deep
pop
sound. The splintered cracks that ran along the crater’s perimeter disappeared. All signs of Norman’s devastating attack were gone.

“It can heal itself,” Atomik Lad said.

The Crab lurched sideways, then headed straight for the pier.

Atomik Lad instinctively activated his trusty Field. Sparks fluttered uselessly around him. “Oh no.” He hefted Rachel onto one shoulder fireman style.

“Oof,” she said. “Having trouble?”

He ran from the pier. “It’s not my fault!” Rachel bounced on his shoulder uncomfortably.

A giant Crab foot smashed into the sand in front of them. Atomik Lad pulled a spinning dodge thing to his left that would have impressed any football coach had he not subsequently fallen face first in the sand and dumped his cargo. “This just isn’t my day.”

__________

Nuklear Man stood at his Danger: Sink. The floor was littered with empty bottles with labels containing phrases like Keep Out of Reach of Children, Not to be Taken Internally, Do Not Swallow, and Poison. He blindly guzzled the contents of another bottle. A gout of fire erupted from his mouth. He tossed the empty container to the floor. It rolled into the others and added the phrase Keep Away From Open Flames to the growing list of warnings he’d completely ignored.

Several bottles later, and The Crab Slimy Goo Taste still persisted. He paused and reached into the Danger: Medicine Cabinet. “Hmm. Hydrochloric Acid. Sounds life threatening.” He downed it like a shot glass. He smacked his lips and probed his mouth for any signs of The Taste. His face twisted. “Yeeesh! That stuff burns almost as much as rocket fuel. Bleh.”

__________

Sparks winked around Atomik Lad. He was reminded of a car that wouldn’t start.

“Well?”

“I think I’m flooded.”

She gave him The Look.

“What am I supposed to do without my field?”

“You’re still a hero. Either you get out there and do something, or I will.”

They watched the Crab make short work out of the ruins of the boardwalk shops that used to be near the beaches. They didn’t know it, but he believed in being thorough.

__________

Nuklear Man sprawled across the Danger: Couch and turned on the Danger: TV with a shot of infrared from his finger. “Mmm. Silly Sam’s Cartoon Marathon-a-thon o’ Fun,” he smiled idiotically.

“We now interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you this news bulletin.”

Nuklear Man flared with Angry Plazma. “What.”

A soulless shell of a man spoke like he had no idea that there was any meaning associated with the sounds he was making. “We now take you to the scene of the carnage, so be certain to look for extreme close-ups of any bodies we happen to capture on tape. Ratings, ratings, ratings!”

“Grrr. PLAZMAAA—” the Danger: TV was filled by an image of “—Giant crab!”

The Danger: Couch was suddenly vacant.

A trembling hand rose from behind it and shakily delivered an infrared finger gun blast to turn off the set. The Crab was vanquished.

“Whew.”

__________

“Got any threes?”

Danger: Computer Lady sighed, “This is not Go Fish.”

“Well then, what is this?”

“Strip poker.”

Nuklear Man, his cape wrapped about him to keep decent, shivered as he scanned the five playing cards fanned in his hands. “And who’s bright idea was that?”

“Yours.”

“That’s not the point. Could you at least turn up the heat in here? I’m chilly.” He only barely failed to cover himself adequately with his cape.

“There,” Danger: Computer Lady answered.

The Hero smiled. “Gin!”

Danger: Computer Lady, despite being nothing more than a series of ones and zeroes, cringed.

__________

If The Crab could read, it would have known the loud thing buzzing above it was not a tasty morsel of food, but in fact the Channel 6 Action on the Spot Eyewitness News Copter. He watched it intently.

“I think he’s distracted,” Rachel said, keeping Atomik Lad and the pier between herself and the Angered Arthropod. “Now’s your chance. Go get him.”

“My chance?”

“You’re the hero here.”

“What happened to all that ‘if you don’t go I will’ talk?”

“Just a bluff to get you to come to your senses.”

“At least you’re honest.”

“Most of the time. Now go!”

“I don’t even know what to do!”

“You’ll think of something. Try to lead him away from the city somehow. It looks like he likes stuff that flies. Make with that Atomik Mojo you’re supposed to have.”

Atomik Lad groaned.

__________

“Hey, Charlie,” the Channel 6 Action on the Spot Eyewitness News Copter Camera Man asked. “Is that crab watching us?”

Charlie looked down. “You mean kinda intently?”

“Yeah.”

“Well.” Before Charlie could respond, giant icy blue Crab Eye Beams pierced the helicopter. The spinning and spiraling wreckage toppled into the ocean. The pair swam from the wreck. “Yeah, I think he mighta been watching.”

I had forgotten all about those
, The Crab thought.
Cool!
It glanced at the nearest object worthy of its attention.

“Now he’s looking at us!” Rachel blurted.

“Get down!” Atomik Lad yanked Rachel to the sand and covered her with his own body as per common practice in situations like this. Giant Crab Eye Beams punched through the pier and little wooden chunks of flaming debris fell on them.

Neat!
The Crab thought. It let loose a few more Eye Beams toward the geometrically impressive, oddly reflective, and freakishly huge vertical coral in the distance.

__________

“Hmm.” Nuklear Man pondered over the hand Fate had dealt him.

“And stop calling me ‘Fate,’” Danger: Computer Lady said.

Nuklear Man made a face from behind his cards. They were nearly touching his nose. He tugged at one card, thought better of it, and tapped it back in line with the rest. He nodded to himself haughtily like he just proved some universal truth. “Hit me!”

“That’s Blackjack.”

“Tsk. You shouldn’t discriminate.”

Danger: Computer Lady desperately wanted to rub her optical receptors.

“Feh, I hate this stupid game,” Nuklear Man grumbled. “Let’s play something else.”

__________

Dr. Ima Genius peered into a microscope to confirm by her own sight what Überdyne’s computers predicted. Norman stood behind her trying to make sense of the torrent of data that streamed through the dozens of monitors set into the walls of her lab. The sheer bulk of information flowing across their screens was ocular oppression.

“What is all this stuff?” he asked, motioning to the overly detailed diagrams and repeating waveforms that danced across the screens.

She glanced up from her work. “Oh, those. It’s just gibberish. I had those installed to impress our investors when they make surprise visits. It keeps them quiet.” She gazed into the microscope again. “They don’t like to admit that they have no idea what any of it is supposed to mean, and to compensate, they give us about 24% more funding each time they drop by. It’s a nice racket.”

“Ah.” Norman ignored them and watched the only monitor that made sense. It was footage from the Channel 6 Action on the Spot Eyewitness News Copter. “I can’t believe it just shook off my Magnosmash. We could be in over our heads.”

“Have a look at this, Norman,” Genius said. She pushed herself away from the microscope so he could take a gander. He bent down and adjusted the focus while she spoke. “The computers gave it a 99% match with some prehistoric DNA we’d found in fossils uncovered along the Marianas Trench.”

“Whoa,” the Tungsten Titan said. Genetic material floated in a microscopic sea right before his eyes.

“That was my reaction. What we have uncovered here is a specimen of a legendary creature of Earth’s primeval past, specifically a Crushtacean, so perfectly preserved for over a hundred million years that it’s alive and well today. The ecosystem couldn’t have possibly supported more than a few of these creatures at once, if
that
many. It’s a miracle this one survived through all these millennia, probably frozen in some gargantuan iceberg that floated to warmer climes such as our own and—”