Nuklear Age (15 page)

“Because they're big humanoid robots and they’re doing your chores, which, by definition,
you
should be doing.”

“But that's what robots are for! They will take over all the menial tasks that humans don't want to do thus allowing us to live idle, relaxing lives with lots of cartoons the production of which I suspect will also benefit from their robotic precision. And of course all the world will bow down to me for providing them with the keys to paradise!”

“Is this one of your world domination schemes?”

“Define ‘domination.’”

“That's it. No more Nukebots.”

“Nuts!” Nuklear Man pouted with a thump of his fist against the table.

“Soon as they're done cleaning up, out they go.”

“All the other heroes get to have robot armadas.”

“No. No they do not. Now who were you talking to before I came in?”

“Danger: Computer Lady,” he said proudly. “She made me the Danger: Nukebots.” He added in a whisper, “She's not very good at math. Don't mention it, she's touchy about it.”

“I can still hear you, Nuklear Man.”

“See?”

“Eleven times thirteen,” Atomik Lad requested.

“One-hundred forty-three,” she answered.

“Wait, wait!” Nuklear Man scanned the calculator again, “Where'd they put the eleventeen button on this thing?”

“Never mind.”

“Right-o.” He tossed the calculator into the Danger: Kitchen Sink.

“So, Nuke, how about that beach trip tomorrow morning?”

“Sounds like a plan. All kinds of gals to impress with my Herculean physique!” He beamed a winning smile and flexed. “What'dya think, Danger: Computer Lady?”

“Egotistical.”

“Oh, I bet you say that to all the Heroes,” he said with a coy blinky-blink.

The Nukebots stood behind Atomik Lad as twin sterling statues. “Task completed,” they reported in unison.

Nuklear Man glanced up at them and his face flashed with terror. “AH! What're those?!” he exclaimed with a quivering finger pointed toward the Nukebots.

Atomik Lad rolled his eyes with his trademark tired sigh and re-stuck the “Danger: Nukebot” labels on their foreheads.

“Ohhhh.” Nuklear Man's horrified features strolled from his face only to be replaced by a calm, almost dull look that his musculature was much more accustomed to, “Danger: Nukebots.” He gave them a thumbs up.

Atomik Lad looked behind the automatons. The Danger: Living Room hadn't been so clean since, well, ever. “Wow. I hardly recognize the place. It’s perfect.”

“Negative,” the Nukebots corrected in unison. “Item #5806, the Fully Interactive Holographic Cultural Archive, was missing.”

Atomik Lad squeezed between the robots to walk among the polished, waxed, vacuumed, and all around shining cleanliness of the Danger: Living Room while it lasted.

“Holowah?” Nuklear Man, in his typical inability to follow even the simplest conversation, asked.

“The cow goes moo, Nuke,” Atomik Lad called back from the Danger: Living Room.

The Hero sullenly slumped over the table and rested his head on his crossed arms, “Aww gee. I loved that thing.”

Atomik Lad knelt down to give the Danger: Floor label a closer look. “Sheez, they even polished the labels. Thorough workers, these soulless machines.”

He heard the clip-clop of the Nukebots' synchronized footfalls against the titanium floor. He turned to see them march toward the Danger: Landing Pad directly underneath the Danger: Main Entrance. This wouldn’t have been a problem were they not suddenly bristling with missile racks, gatling guns, and futuristic energy cannon things.

“Nukebots, halt,” the Atomik Lad commanded.

They marched on.

“...
Danger:
Nukebots, halt.”

They instantly stopped and awaited further orders.

Atomik Lad spun to face Nuklear Man as the Hero walked out of the Danger: Kitchen, “I turn my back on you for just one minute and—”

“Can't I take over some backwater nation? They'd thank me, I bet.”

“A backwater nation like what?”

“Canada.”

“No.”

“Or maybe France.”

“No!”

“Probably wouldn't really need the Nukebots for that though.”

“Computer Danger Whatever Lady, no more Nukebots. And anything Nuklear Man wants done has to get my authorization first, got it?”

“Certainly,” she answered.

“Ack! Danger: Computer Lady, cancel that last order.”

“Atomik Lad, Nuklear Man requests I cancel the last command, PW097A. Would you like an overview?”

“That won't be necessary. And don't cancel the command.”

“But, but, but,” the Hero stammered.

“Shall I dissolve the Nukebot units into the Nanobot Brood?” Danger: Computer Lady inquired.

Atomik Lad looked them over. “No, I think they have potential. Set them up as some kind of security system for the Silo.”

The floor beneath the Nukebots opened and they fell into the Silo's depths, cushioned by their thrusters tossing orange hues against silver walls before the hole closed itself. “Done.”

“I never get to have any fun!” Nuklear Man said.

“What about the beach tomorrow?”

“That doesn't count.”

“I think someone's cranky. Sounds like nappy time.”

“I'm not tired,” the Hero protested, crossing his arms defiantly.

“I guess the gripping conclusion to that
Captain Liberty and the Squad of Diplomatic Immunity
bedtime story will just have to go to waste.”

Nuklear Man's face filled to the brim with excitement and he dashed to his Danger: Nuke's Room.

Atomik Lad released a heavy breath and let the clean air of the Silo cleanse his tired body. His eyes strayed to what should have been the Danger: Storage Room in the corner but was instead, “Danger: Religious Differences? Well, I’ve put this off for long enough.”

He walked to the door. A peculiar sound came from behind the door. It was barely audible above the Silo's background humming, but it was there all the same. Or was it several sounds? Perhaps music of some sort?

The door
fwoosh
ed open and the sound, the noise, the chaos escaped and invaded the Danger: Living Room like water through a submarine's breached hull.

But only for an instant.

As inexplicably as it had begun, it stopped. It was as if every nuance of sound had coordinated one exact microsecond to cease and Atomik Lad happened to stumble into that moment.

“Excuse me?” a small voice near his feet said.

“What's—
AH!”
He hopped back a step. Spiders. Thousands upon thousands of spiders swarmed all over the Danger: Religious Differences closet.

“Excuse me?” it repeated.

Talking spiders. Wearing archaic armor, sporting blue-ish paints on their bare exoskeletons, wielding tiny spears and swords, marching in phalanx formations, readying tiny ballistae and catapults, mounting siege engines, and defending castles that seemed to have been discarded shoe boxes in a past life.

The sheer absurdity of the situation had yet to sink in. “Er. Yeah?”

“You're interrupting our Jihad.” A chorus of similar opinions mumbled through half the vast sea of arachnids.

“Jihad?” another small voice said with no small measure of disbelief. “This is a revolution, an end to the tyrannical reign of the self-perpetuating Arachnorian Oligarchy!”

“Blasphemer!”

“Um. I'll be going now,” Atomik Lad said, more to inform himself than the spiders. “Have fun.”

The door
fwoosh
ed shut and a minute later, when the sidekick had regained enough of his faculties to walk again, he went to Danger: Nuke’s Room for an explanation. Standing outside the door, Atomik Lad thought better of it and decided to simply read the story and pretend there were not two camps of warring spiders in the storage closet.

It was probably for the best.

__________

Issue 14 – On the Road

And lo, the morning sun did rise, and with it the denizens of dawn.

“C'mon, Nuke, we're going to be late!” Atomik Lad prod at his mentor while trying to coax him out of his Danger: Dreamship.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” Nuklear Man asked with the prerequisite grogginess that specific phrase demands in order to be spoken.

“Yes, it's nine-thirty in the morning.”

The Hero rolled over in an attempt to wrap himself so thickly in blankets that it would somehow turn back time. He ran out of Dreamship half way there and hit the Danger: Floor nose first.

“Ah! Cold floor, cold floor!” he sprang to his feet and hopped from one to the other like a ceremonial dance.

“At least you're awake.”

“Prove it.”

Atomik Lad sighed. “Just get ready for the beach, we have to be there by eleven.”

“But we've got.…” He counted on his fingers. “Nine- thousand minutes.”

“Ninety.”

“Exactly. What’s the hurry? It won’t take more than ten minutes to fly there. Three if we don’t feel like being safe.”

“We're going to drive.”

“Bah! Driving's for the weak. If God had intended for Heroes to drive, he wouldn't have invented overpowers.”

“Well, yes, but we're picking up someone along the way.”

“Who? Mighty Metallic Magno Man?”

“No.”

“Iron Scotsman?”

“No.”

“Some of those nice Minimum Wage Warriors?”

“No. Rachel.”

“That’s not a very good name.”

“She’s not a hero, Nuke.”

“Well not with a name like that.”

“She’s the waitress from Benny’s. She called last night, you gave her a hard time. Any of this sinking in?”

“Something like ‘RacHell’ but that’s awfully villain-ish.”

Atomik Lad wondered just what it was like inside whatever mind Nuklear Man had.

“Ooh, ooh, even better. How about
Rachinator?”

“Are we having the same conversation here?”

“Could be. What were you talking about?”

“Just get ready.” He looked at his watch. “No time for breakfast, we’ll have to pick some up on the way. Now hurry.” Atomik Lad left Nuklear Man to his own devices, many of which didn't quite work properly.

__________

Six minutes later, Nuklear Man walked into the Danger: Garage.

“Hey, you can’t drive!” the Hero called across the echoing vehicular storage space. The only had the one car, but there was parking for approximately eight hundred just in case an airport opened up nearby.

“What're you talking about?” Atomik Lad asked. He sat up in the seat slightly so his head poked out of the small, golden motifed convertible. Both doors had electron orbited “N”s on them. It should surprise no one that it was often referred to as the Danger: Nukemobile.

“You’re not old enough. Now scootch on over,” Nuklear Man commanded while walking to the Danger: Nukemobile and waving at his sidekick to move. “C’mon, get to scootchin’.”

“Nuke, I’m nineteen.”

Nuklear Man stopped short. “I don’t know how old you are?” he asked in disbelief.

“Apparently,” Atomik Lad said.

“If you think I’m stupid enough to fall for that old trick—”

“I’m in
college!”

“What kind of sucker do you take me for?”

“Oh, about six feet tall, gold spandex, cape. Shall I continue?”

“Sounds like an interesting fellow.”

Atomik Lad clawed at his own face.

“Probably handsome too,” Nuklear Man mused aloud.

“Will you just get in the car?”

“Not till you get in the passenger seat, little mister.”

“Fine, fine, if it'll get you going.”

The Hero smiled triumphantly as Atomik Lad climbed into the passenger seat. Nuklear Man floated over the Danger: Nukemobile and slipped into the driver’s seat

. He placed his hands on the steering wheel like it was made of red hot iron. He scrutinized the dials, readouts, tape deck, radio knobs, CD Player, climate control, gearshift, headlights switch, turn signals, windshield wipers, and air-conditioning vents. He gave the totality of the vehicle’s interior an intellectual look like he imagined Einstein gave the theory of relativity after first writing it out.

“Hmmm,” he said.

Atomik Lad’s cauldron of impatience boiled over. “
What?!”
he yelled louder than he meant to.

“How does it, that is to say, where in the, I mean all these neat buttons but, if one were inclined to initiate the device how might it...um, go?”

“Do you even have a license?”

“Since when do you need a license to drive? What kind of elitist society is this?”

Atomik Lad rubbed his eyes. “Do you at
least
have any keys?”

“Keys, eh?”

Atomik Lad reached into his pocket and pulled out a jingling mass of metal. “Here, use mine.”

Nuklear Man snatched the keys and puzzled at them. “Hmm, numerous.”

“Ugh, here.” Atomik Lad picked out the ignition key, put it where it belonged, and gave it a turn. The vehicle's engine revved to life and hummed beautifully.

“Ahem, yes. Very good display of, uh, car knowledge stuff.”

__________

“Outta the way! Hero in transit here, you incompetent motorists!” Nuklear Man yelled as he careened through the streets of Metroville. He showed complete disregard for the laws of the road, so he fit right in. “Hey! Le’go the wheel, I’m drivin’!” he snapped at Atomik Lad while swatting his meddling hands away.

“Nuke, you were about to have a head-on collision with a bus full of Sister Mary's Pious Nuns N' Company.”

“Lousy nuns, what they do for Nukie?” he cursed while cutting across three lanes of on-coming traffic to pass a car that hadn't taken a dive for the curb soon enough to satisfy his need for speed. The only difference between Nuklear Man’s style of driving compared to those around him was that the idea of having a collision didn’t involve slowing down or being damaged at all. Unlimited access to invincibility and high speed flight do not make for the world’s safest drivers. “Besides, that’s what the Abort button is for, wherever it is.”

Atomik Lad sank in his seat and covered his eyes. “Maybe we could slow down a little?” he suggested as a bicycle spun end over end above and over the Danger: Nukemobile. “Oh God.”