Women of Power Read online

  “Yeah, he does that,” said Stella, looking sidelong at the other super. “You don’t have your boots on.”

  “I was just out for a walk,” said Skygirl. “You know, in my secret identity.”

  “Your what?”

  “My secret identity.”

  “You’re Linda Ford,” said Stella.

  “Shh. Not so loud.”

  “It’s not a secret. Anybody can Google you and find it. It’s at the top of your Wikipedia page.”

  “What are you so upset about?”

  Stella put her hands on her hips.

  “Well first of all, my home got knocked down, and all my stuff is gone. Then a glowing excuse for a Halloween costume tried to kill me, and you let him get away.”

  “We’ll get him next time.”

  “We? There is no we. There’s just me—me and Chicago—my kind of town.”

  “Don’t get yourself upset,” said Skygirl. “You’ve had a rough day. Why don’t we go out to lunch together tomorrow? I’m staying at the Azure—room 1205. Come by a little early. I have something for you.”

  Before Stella could reply, Skygirl had shot into the air faster than a speeding… well, faster than a speeding anything. Stella ran her hand through her close-cropped blond hair and tried to figure out just how fast the other super was. Skygirl was much faster than she was, that’s for sure. She could probably give Perihelion a run for his money. Then again, with a name like Skygirl, flying had to be one of her specialties.

  Stella spent the night back in her storage unit. The fold-out bed was comfortable enough, but she didn’t get much sleep. Her home was destroyed and all her stuff was gone. Skyslut had moved into her city. Worst of all, she had run into Perry and his new squeeze at Ditko’s and had acted like a total loser. When eleven in the morning came, she had slept at most three hours.

  She got up and grabbed some clothes and some of her emergency money, and then flew down the street to the YWCA to shower. She ran a comb through her hair and slipped on a yellow sun dress and sandals. She had her costume on underneath, but carried her boots and gloves in a handbag. Just before twelve, she landed atop the Azure Hotel and went in the roof entrance, arriving outside the door of Linda Ford’s twelfth story room. When she knocked, Linda answered wrapped in a wet towel.

  “Hi. I just got out of the shower. Give me just a minute. In the meantime, go look on the sofa. I told you I had something for you.”

  Closing the door behind her, Stella walked past the bedroom portion of the room and into the sitting area. Several plastic storage boxes were stacked on the couch. Right on the top was Stella’s teddy bear. Lifting him up, she found the box full of her clothes. Another box was full of books including her photo album. All the boxes were full of the things from her apartment.

  “I picked as much as I could out of the rubble,” said Linda, walking back into the room. She was wearing a denim miniskirt and a purple top, with matching purple boots. Her own hair was covered with a nondescript brown wig.

  “Thanks,” said Stella. “That was nice, I guess.”

  “You’re welcome. What did you want for lunch?”

  “You’re new to Chicago, so let me treat you. I know all the chow-down spots.”

  “Alright.”

  “Are you in the mood for pizza, sandwiches, or dogs?”

  “Dogs?”

  “Hotdogs.”

  “Oh, I don’t care much for hotdogs. I like pizza though.”

  “Great,” said Stella. “I know just the spot. Shall we fly?”

  “I don’t fly in my secret identity,” said Linda. “I’ll call down for a cab.”

  As the two women exited the building, dozens of cameras clicked and they had to push their way through the photographers to get to the waiting taxi.

  “A.G.! How do you feel about your apartment being destroyed?”

  “How do you think I feel, idiot.”

  “Skygirl! What do you think of Chicago?”

  “Skygirl?” said Linda, with wide eyes. “I don’t know what they’re talking about. Do you, Stella?”

  “Are you two an item now, Stella?”

  Stella flipped the photographer a bird, just as he snapped the picture.

  “Linda, blow us a kiss, eh?”

  Linda curtsied and blew a kiss towards the man, just as the camera clicked once again. Stella grabbed her and pushed her into the open back door of the cab, and climbed in after her, pushing her over onto the far side.

  “What did you think of Omega Woman, A.G.?”

  “Get bent!” said Stella, as she slammed the door shut.

  “Where to, ladies?” asked the cabbie.

  “Tony’s East.”

  “Do they have New York style pizza?” asked Linda.

  Stella gave her a withering look. “New York pizza is to Chicago deep dish what McDonalds is to Filet Mignon.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ll take you to where Johnny Liberty used to eat.”

  “Johnny Liberty?”

  “You’ve got to know Johnny Liberty,” said Stella. “He was the Chicago super who defeated Baron Von Nazi in World War II.”

  “Oh.”

  There were no photographers in front of Tony’s East, though they were set up across the street. The management at the restaurant had won an injunction in court preventing tabloid reporters and their cameramen from disrupting business and consequently had provided a place that Stella could enter without being disturbed. Of course inside a few patrons stood up and pulled out their own cameras, then a few more, and finally dozens of diners were happily snapping away. The chance of seeing All American Girl was one of the draws of eating at the establishment, and a large framed picture on the wall by the entrance proclaimed that this was indeed her favorite pizza restaurant. Stella led Linda upstairs to a booth, covered in graphitied brick, with a large picture of Stella above the table, shoving a huge piece of pizza into her mouth.

  “You’re in for a treat,” she said to Linda, as the waitress arrived, who had dark hair and a tattoo of a spider on her neck.

  “Six meaty legends and a beer,” said Stella. “What do you want, Sky… uh Linda?”

  “I’ll have a slice of veggie deep dish and a side salad. And some bottled water to drink.”

  “A slice? One slice and a side salad?” asked Stella, when the waitress was gone.

  “Vegetables are important,” said Linda, brushing back her brown hair.

  “But only one slice?”

  “It says on the menu that one slice weighs three quarters of a pound. I don’t think I can eat all that.”

  “You didn’t look at the menu.”

  “I read it with my x-ray vision. Do you always eat so much? Six slices.”

  “I’m not having six slices. I’m having six pizzas. I have a very high metabolism. Most supers do. Perry… some people I know eat twice as much as I do. How come you don’t?”

  “I guess it’s because I’m half Polarian. My cells soak up the sun and convert it to energy, giving me my powers.”

  “Figures. What about at night? Are you weaker at night?”

  Linda smiled. “No. I guess my body sort of works like a battery. In fact I’m a little bit more powerful each month, so I guess as long as there isn’t an extended period of darkness or I don’t get trapped in a cave or something, I’m fine.”

  “Hmm. So that reminds me,” said Stella. “Your mother was a super-villain, right? How come you didn’t go bad?”

  “My biological mother was Madame Mesmer. She seduced my father when he was under her power. But when she went to prison, Daddy took me home. Mom, I mean Doris Drake-Ford, adopted me. She raised me just like her own daughter. I think of her as my Mom.”

  “What about your brother?”

  “Skyboy isn’t really my brother,” said Linda. “He was cloned from Daddy’s blood cells. He’s okay, but he’s just a kid.”

  The waitress brought a bottle of water for Linda and a pitcher of beer, which Stella lifted to her l
ips and drank from.

  “So what made you decide to come here? Chicago, I mean.”

  “I haven’t decided for sure whether I want to stay, but I’ve been thinking about moving for some time. There’s also something that I would like to run by you.”

  “And what might that be?” wondered Stella, but Linda had turned and was staring at the brick wall. “Are you alright?”

  “There’s something going on at the lakefront. I see Magmaman, and it looks like he broke your friend Dark Energy out of jail, because he’s there too.”

  “Let’s go!” said Stella. “I really enjoy punching him.”

  She threw a wad of bills on the table and shouted to the waitress. “We’ll be back for our pizzas!”

  Linda ran to the restroom and Stella followed. They pulled off their street clothes, pulling gloves and boots from their purses.

  “We could have done this on the fly,” said Stella.

  “I don’t fly in my street clothes.”

  “I know. Your secret identity.

  Outside the entrance of the restaurant, both shot into the air, tossing their clothes onto the top of the building, where they could retrieve them later. Stella was pleasantly surprised that Skygirl didn’t shoot ahead but flew right next to her. As it was, it took less than a minute to reach the scene.

  Dark Energy was there, hovering above the lake and hurling bolts of his namesake at hapless barges below. As one of the ships exploded, he threw back his head and laughed. Though she had never said as much, Stella had always thought that Dark Energy was handsome, in an evil sort of way. He had a shaved head and a goatee that set off his glowing eyes. His black costume made his purple gloves and boots work. Not many men could pull off purple gloves and boots. Down on the docks, Magmaman was throwing fireballs at buildings. Though his costume was a predictable red, orange, and yellow, right now he looked like nothing so much as a man-shaped blob of lava.

  “You take Magmaman,” said Stella. “I’ve got Energy.”

  Skygirl nodded and peeled off, shooting down toward the dock.

  All American Girl flew directly at Dark Energy. The supervillain, seeing her, zoomed upwards into the bright blue sky.

  “Where are you going?” shouted Stella. “Afraid of me?”

  “Don’t worry little girl,” Dark Energy called back. “I’m just picking up some altitude.”

  “How’d you get out of jail?”

  “I get out with a little help from my friends,” he grinned.

  It was obvious that he was faster than she was, but he seemed to be doing just what he said. Although he could have shot off in any direction and outdistanced her, he just climbed higher and higher. In two minutes they were so high that the sky had turned to black, and it was getting decidedly cold. Dark Energy suddenly turned and fired a blast of power from his fists. It hit Stella far harder than she expected and she fell several thousand feet before catching herself and flying back up.

  “Hurt?” he asked.

  “Don’t worry about me. Worry about yourself.”

  “Oh, I don’t have anything to worry about. See?”

  He hit her with another blast. Although she was able to brace for impact this time and didn’t fall, it still hurt. She dived for Dark Energy, but he easily dodged her, flying around and hitting her again and again with missiles of cosmic force.

  “I’m supposed to kill you,” he said. “Too bad. I always thought you were kind of a little cutie.”

  “Really? I always thought you looked like a dick.” Stella zoomed after him, trying to grab any part she could get, but once again he flew out of her reach.

  “Too bad. I was thinking that I might let you go. You know you can’t beat me. My power is greater up here, I can fly faster than you can, and the air is too thin for you.”

  Sure enough, Stella was gasping for breath and her lungs were burning. She charged, but Dark Energy dodged again. With a growl, she dived down toward the lake. Dark Energy lobbed a few bolts after her, but by the time it occurred to him that she might be getting away, she was almost to the water’s surface. With a splash, she disappeared beneath the waves. The supervillain, who had flown halfway down after her, paused and hovered in the air. Slack-jawed, he stared, looking for some sign of All American Girl.

  Suddenly, Stella shot out of the water. In her left hand, held at shoulder height like a waitress holding a tray, she balanced a large stack of about twenty bowling ball-sized rocks. She shrugged her left shoulder and one rock fell from the stack to be caught in her right hand.

  “I may not be the fastest flier,” said Stella. “But I can throw a hell of a fast ball.”

  She rocketed the rock at Dark Energy. He was barely able to dodge left and out of the way. Before he had recovered his balance, another rock was flying toward him. This time he ducked under it, but at the last minute the rock shifted downward and hit the villain in the head with a large crack.

  “Slider,” said Stella, then she hit him with a second and third rock. The fourth one he managed to shoot to rubble with a dark energy blast, but then another hit him square in the face. Blood sprayed from his nose.

  Unconscious, Dark Energy fell toward Lake Michigan. All American Girl snagged his limp form from the air, and turning, flew back down toward the dock. When she had dropped down enough to see the people on the ground, Stella was surprised to see Skygirl zooming around. She thought at first that she was still fighting Magmaman, but then she saw him lying unconscious. What was that chic doing? She was putting out all the fires that Magmaman had caused.

  “We have people to do that,” said Stella. “They’re called firemen. I hear the siren already. And there’s that emergency response guy—Fred or something.”

  “Phil,” said Skygirl, after blowing out the last of the fires with her super-breath. “I met him yesterday.”

  Skygirl stood waiting as Stella sat the limp form of Dark Energy down next to his comrade. She stood up and turned around just in time to see someone else jump onto the other woman’s back. It was Plague Drone. He reached around Skygirl’s head and grasped her face in his hands. Reaching over her shoulders, she flipped him over her head and onto the pavement, but even before he hit the ground, red pustules began to appear on her face. Plague Drone rolled to his feet and pressed his slimy hands against Stella’s stomach.

  “Sorry Plague Dork. Immune to poison or disease,” said Stella, then she beat him into unconsciousness.

  Skygirl collapsed, pustules now beginning to spread across her thighs and arms. Stella looked from her to the three villains. Spying an old length of chain, with links the size of glazed doughnuts, she picked it up and pried open one of the links with her hands. Then wrapping the chain around her three unconscious enemies, she fastened it shut.

  Sirens heralded the arrival of the fire department, paramedics, and police. Chicago PD’s meta-enforcement squad took Dark Energy and his friends off her hands, cuffing them in anti-superpower restraints, and locking them in the back of the meta-protection van. This allowed Stella to return her attention to Skygirl. The paramedics were checking over her vital signs but were clearly at a loss as to what to do next. Stella scooped the other woman up and shot back into the sky, heading toward Mercy Hospital.

  By the time All American girl dropped to the pavement outside of the emergency room, the red spots covering Skygirl’s skin had turned to black and blood was running out of the corner of her mouth. Carrying the stricken heroine, Stella rushed in the ambulance entrance and placed her on a hospital bed. Immediately they were surrounded by doctors and nurses.

  “Plague Drone?” asked a doctor.

  Stella nodded.

  “We need gentamicin here, and hang a banana bag.”

  “We can’t get the needle through her skin,” reported a nurse. “Should we try to go in through one of these sores?”

  “Go downstairs and see if we have any of those needles that Mr. Mystic enchanted.”

  The nurse returned a few minutes later with an I.V. needl
e in a small plastic box. She removed it and stabbed it into Skygirl’s arm and then attached the I.V. line to it, releasing the bright yellow ingredients from the hanging bag into the superheroine’s bloodstream. Then she shot the contents of a hypodermic into the line.

  “Some supers are vulnerable to magic,” explained the doctor.

  “I suppose.”

  “But not you?”

  “No, not me,” said Stella, smugly.

  “Let’s hope we don’t have to give you an I.V. then.”

  Stella sat down to wait in the appropriately named room. She glanced at the magazines stacked on a small table by the chair but they were all at least two years old and all of them save one were medical magazines. That one was an old issue of Modern Protector and featured Skyman on the cover. She flipped it open and saw a much younger, flat-chested Skygirl standing beside her dad. It must be terrible to lose your dad—you know, permanently. Grabbing the receiver of the nearby phone, she dialed 9 to get an outside line and then a twenty four digit phone number. A gruff voice answered.

  “Yeah?”

  “Hi, yes, can I speak to Melanippe please?”

  “Just a minute,” then a muffled “it’s for you.”

  Stella tossed the Modern Protector back on the table and leaned back in the chair.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi Mom, How are you?”

  “Stella? Do you have any idea what time it is?”

  “Sorry. Who was that?”

  “I practically beg you to call me and I don’t hear from you in weeks and now you call me in the middle of the night.”

  “Sorry. It’s not even five o’clock here. Who was that?”

  “It’s just a friend. Now what did you need, Sweetie? Now isn’t really a good time.”

  “Um well, I was just wondering if you’d heard anything from Dad lately.”

  “That figures. You don’t call me for weeks and when you do call, is it to find out how I’m doing? No. You want to know about your deadbeat father. Well, I haven’t talked to him. Stop it Theo, I’m trying to talk to my daughter.”

  “Sorry. It’s just that you both live on Mount Olympus, so I figured you’d run into him once in a while.”

  “Well I haven’t. Last I heard he was hooking up with some muse or fate or something. I said stop it Theo.”