Nuklear Age (32 page)

“Soon,” she said to herself. “Soon I will have all the secrets of those
accursed
Heroes. And then I shall be able to topple their empire of wholezome goody-goody freedom and inefficient democracy! The Reign of Menace iz at hand!”

Throughout the world, millions of Fubars simultaneously saluted to the glorious Menace Coalition of Evil. Everyone thought it was really cute.

__________

Katkat, slouching on the Danger: Floor on his back, feet poking up in the air, watched with catlike intensity as Pookaboo the evil Fubar scurried across the Silo. He gave the situation a yawn and a stretch before moving on to the more pressing matter of sleep.

__________

Atomik Lad and Nuklear Man stood outside the History Department of the University of Metroville, the former staring down at a stapled batch of papers, the doltish latter trying not to go insane from the long seconds without stimulation.

“I got a C+?” Atomik Lad asked the paper.

“I’m bored,” Nuklear Man told the universe. “Make with the adventure.”

“I got a C+?” Atomik Lad asked the paper he had spent a week’s worth of nights researching in between calls to herodom.

“If something doesn’t happen or explode soon, I’m going to, to, um.” He considered his options, “...Explode!”

“I got a C+,” Atomik Lad told the paper for which he’d taken extra care to make every iota of the piece resonate with a fluid stream of facts presented in a concise yet detailed fashion.

“I’m waiting!”

“C+.”

“That’s it.” Nuklear Man sucked in a deep breath of air, crossed his arms defiantly, and stood there with a funny puffy-cheeked look.

“This is crazy,” Atomik Lad said. He tore his gaze from the history paper for the first time since viewing the enormous “C+” plastered across the cover sheet in red ink. “I’m going to ask Dr. Volcano what I did wrong,” he told Nuklear Man without looking at him. “Stay here and keep out of trouble.”

“Mphm,” Nuklear Man said.

__________

Dr. Volcano’s office was a hazardous area that was confined from overtaking the world in a wave of disorganized horror only by the heroic efforts of its four walls. Atomik Lad had blazed a path through the forest of precariously stacked paper and nearly fell into the pit of venomous ball point pens. He sidled along the cliff of overstuffed filing cabinets and hopped over a heap of books opened to pages with yellowed streaks highlighting what were no doubt important passages. It was at this point that he let out a sigh from the effort.

Somewhere within the dark jungle of academia, a chair creaked somewhere beyond his sight due to the interference a set of man-sized wooden crates in front of him. “Hello?” Dr. Volcano’s disembodied voice rang from the intimidating wilderness of tomes.

“Dr. Volcano?” Atomik Lad asked.

“Yes, it is my office after all, isn’t it?”

“Er, yeah,” Atomik Lad answered as he took in the office’s contents. It reminded him of a museum’s worth of items packed into an already crowded broom closet.

“Well then, who might you be?”

“I’m, uh. John. You know, Atomik Lad.”

The chair screeched the high pitched creaking moan of someone leaning back. “Ah yes. Please, have a seat.”

“Er,” Atomik Lad responded. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, sir, but I, um. I don’t even know where you are, much less where I should sit.”

The chair creaked again. “Hm. That is something of a problem, isn’t it? I’m afraid I’ve gathered a few odds and ends in my years.”

“So.”

A dim light appeared in the distance. It was muffled by a jungle of obstructions. “Follow the light.”

“Sure.”

“Oh, and be careful. I’ve lost my share of freshmen over the years. I believe a few of them may have regressed into a primitive tribal mentality. I even found evidence of mild cannibalism as recent as last week.”

Atomik Lad swore he heard a twig snap.

__________

Outside, Nuklear Man’s veins bulged with strain. His face had gone through the spectrum of breath-holding colors all the way back to his natural glow. His fists were balled, his limbs quaked, his Plazma Aura raged around him nearing an intense white instead of its typically soothing sun-yellow/gold.

__________

Atomik Lad collapsed into the chair in front of Dr. Volcano’s desk. He let out a huff and enjoyed the act of relaxing after the ordeal of getting there in the first place. Dr. Volcano had been looking at him for several long seconds before Atomik Lad remembered where he was. Remembering
why
he was there was another matter altogether.

“Yes, Mr. Atomik Lad? What can I do for you?” the professor prompted.

Good question
, he almost said aloud. He looked into his lap and dusted off a few patches of moss and post-it-notes. He caught sight of his History Paper in his own hand of all places! He set the C+ paper on Dr. volcano’s desk and asked, “Why?”

__________

Nuklear Man sputtered. He bashed his fists against the ground as he lay on his back in spasms of pain. The breath-holding epic raged into a battle of mind over matter, and Nuklear Man’s arsenal wasn’t much to talk about.

A pair of attractive college girls—because there are no other kind in this universe—on their way to class paused in front of the thrashing Hero. “Isn’t that the epileptic guy Teri, Cheri, Kari, and Mary told us they saw Mighty Metallic Magno Man helping at the beach the other day?”

The second attractive college girl looked him over briefly with a mask of pity. “Yeah.”

“Mighty Metallic Magno Man sure is dreamy.”

They cooed in unison and continued their trek through campus.

__________

“Well, Mr. Atomik Lad,” Dr. Volcano began as he idly thumbed through the paper. “It was an excellent paper. I can tell you put a great deal of effort into it. But there was one overriding problem with the entire piece.”

Atomik Lad’s eyebrows hopped up. “Oh?”

“Quite simply, it’s impossible.”

“Oh,” his eyebrows relaxed.

“I must admit, I admire your idealism, but there’s no way your system could work.”

“But it all makes sense. Redistribute the wealth, provide universal shelter and food and—”

“But it’s impossible. Right from the start, it’s flawed. Redistribution of wealth? Do you think anyone that rich would give it all up for no better reason than to better the world? After all the cheating and fraud they committed to get it fair and square?”

“But it’s only money, it doesn’t actually
mean
anything. It’d be for the good of mankind!”

“Fortunes aren’t built on moral actions, Mr. Atomik Lad. This is a world of competitors, not cooperators. It’s not your system that’s flawed so much as the nature of humanity. That’s why you got a C+ and not an F. It’s not your fault people are assholes.”

Atomik Lad stared without emotion at his paper laying on Dr. Volcano’s desk.

__________

Nuklear Man lay motionless. No special effects, no twitching, nothing. “Holding my breath sucks,” he told the sky above him. He waited 2.7 seconds for something to happen. “Oh, nuts to this.” He floated to a stand and scanned his surroundings. “I’m keen. I’m ‘gnarly’,” he said while making that little quotation mark motion with his fingers. “I’m hip and these kids know it. I’ll mingle for a bit.”

__________

The remote controlled Fubar doll of pure evil tapped a constant stream of commands through the Danger: Supercomputer while Katkat watched it from the floor.

“Excellent,” Dr. Menace said from her Evil: Lair located miles away. “All of their files shall be mine and I’ll have direct access ztraight into the inner workings of their precious base! Chaoz shall befall their every action!”

“Mreower?” Katkat asked Pookaboo.

“Blasted feline!” the Venomous Villainess spat. “No matter. Using my remote Fubar doll of immeasurable evil, I have nearly finished hacking into their computer files. All that now remains iz for me to initiate the final keystroke and victory will be mine!”

Katkat hopped up onto the keyboard and knocked Pookaboo to the ground. Every byte of Dr. Menace’s treacherous program was replaced with a series of random, meaningless keystrokes.

“Drat!” she cursed while frantically operating Pookaboo’s remote controls to no avail. “What? My drone izn’t rezponding!”

The Fubar doll lay on its side on the Danger: Floor. Its little legs pumped back and forth uselessly. Dr. Menace let out a bloodcurdling scream at her large computer display. It showed a view of the Silo turned on its side.

“Why must I be zurrounded by such incompetence?” she howled while hitting her Evil: Computer Console. She took a deep breath, pulled her shining black hair from her face, and chewed on one willowy finger. “You win thiz battle, foul feline, but not the war! Plan D
will
reach its fruition!” Lightning flashed to punctuate her adamancy, but it did so somewhere along an uninhabited stretch of Zimbabwe’s northern border, so the effect was lost on all but the most omniscient of observers.

__________

Nuklear Man stuck out like a dinosaur at a wine tasting. Naturally, he didn’t notice. He was too busy winking at the passing university ladies while dashing in front of them with a Heroic pose and flashing that “Hi there” smile that was supposed to make him look debonair and coy but actually had the effect of making him look like a perfectly ordinary stalker. The end result was a lot of stumbling and a few slaps in the face. “Must be part of the dating ritual nowadays. Oh, these crazy college kids!” he reasoned.

__________

Atomik Lad opened the door out of the History Department and embraced the wondrous multi-faceted Beauty of Nature and Other Arbitrarily Capitalized Concepts. He Looked down at his Paper and huffed. “Aww, bite me,” he told Reality. He glanced at his watch while brushing aside a wavy lock of hair.
While I’m out, it couldn’t hurt to drop by Rachel’s for a little lunch.
The thought erased any notion of Nuklear Man from his mind.

__________

The Hero was observing a group of humans. He did this stealthily so as not to arouse their suspicions. The group was in fact a small faction of students from one of the less inane fraternities—making it very inane indeed—standing outside of their frat house. Their discussion had ranged from beer, to excessive drinking of beer, to when “Stoner” would be back with more beer in order to engage in more excessive drinking of beer. That is, until Nuklear Man began his covert operation. It was a unique approach to the clandestine arts: be so mind numbingly obvious that no one would notice.

“Who’s that dude floating up there?” one frat guy asked, pointing to Nuklear Man, who was hovering directly over a completely flat and otherwise empty field across from the frat house. The meadow was barren of anything even approximating cover.

Nuklear Man, being a self-taught master sniper, waved at them.

“Wah?” another from the group of frat boys inquired.

“Beer, beer beer, beer,” the third interpreted.

“Ohhhh. He looks kinda like beer to me.”

“Beer doesn’t float.”

“Wah?”

Nuklear Man made several mental notes about his quarry. A: they wore primitive capes by tying sweaters around their necks and B: they were pretty boys. So naturally, C: they were young heroes in need of a mentor. And finally, D: he was that mentor.

“Never mind. The dude’s gone now.”

“Wah? No beer? That sucks.”

“Hello, fellow school-chums!” Nuklear Man heartily bellowed while stepping out from behind a bush to the group’s left. Thanks to his Nuklear Speed, the Hero had rushed to the nearest Gorge clothing store, “borrowed” the fashions his test subjects were displaying, and put them on in mid-flight on the way back. The whole trip took less than one second. He could now blend into their natural environment and be accepted into the community for further study. He would then take over the world. How that last part was supposed to work out was still a bit sketchy, but thinking about it now would only slow him down!

“Wah?” they said.

“Er,” Nuklear Man explained.
Ha! That was close, but thanks to my good ol’ Nuklear Brain Power, disaster was adverted.

“Dude?” one said to Nuklear Man. “You gonna come outta those bushes?”

“Wah?”

“Dammit. Beer beer beer, beer.”

“Ohhh. Maybe he’s pukin’ in the bushes. From lack of beer.”

“No, my hearty and loyal classmates. I was merely, um, checking the bushes. Yes, you see. Perfectly natural. I’m a, um, a bush inspector.”

The frat trio stared at him with blank visages for several seconds before breaking into laughter. “Dude. That. Is
so
. Awesome!” they said at last.

“You rock, man!”

“Wah?”

“Beer, beer beer, beer liquor.”

“Ohh. That is
so
. Awesome! I wish I thoughta that.”

“This dude is like a genius or something.”

“Yes, well, we can’t all be Nuklear—” his eyes flashed in horror. “That is, I meant, um. You know, Nuke. Lear.”
Whew. Nuklear Brain Power 2, Weakling Humans 0.

“This dude
rocks
, man!”

“Hey, what house are you from, dude?”

“Oh. Um. Yeah. I’m from, the uh, just down the, over by the building with windows and roof. With cars sometimes. Next to a road?”

“Wah?”

“Beer beer.”

“Ohhh. I think he’s not drunk enough to talk good.”

“Naw, dude. What
house
are you from? You know, the letters.”

The Hero racked his brain for every iota of knowledge he possessed that pertained to the Greek alphabet. Coming up with nothing at all, he faked it. “I Phelta Thi?”

“Oh, yeah. Sure.”

“Didn’t they have that, like, party uh, before?”

“Wah?”

Truly, the Hero was a mental titan among these trolls. Nuklear Man beamed pride from his intellectual triumph. Unfortunately, due to the unique nature of the Hero’s relationship with energy, this beaming of pride produced a focused and entirely unconscious Beaming of Plazma that destroyed every car in the frat house’s parking lot due to a lot of chain reaction explosions.