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  “Theo? Who’s Theo?”

  “It’s Theseus. I ran into him at my class reunion.”

  “Theseus? The Theseus?

  “Yes, if it’s any of your business. We’re just catching up on old times.”

  “Mom, you know he like, abducts women. He kidnapped Helen of Troy.”

  “You can’t believe everything you read or see… like that statue of him by Canova. It doesn’t do him justice, if you know what I mean.”

  “Eww! Please!”

  “I’ve got to go. I have to get up early tomorrow. We’re going to Crete. Theo is going to show me the labyrinth.”

  “Yeah, I don’t want to talk anymore anyway. Just do me a favor please. If you see Dad, tell him I asked about him.”

  “Don’t expect him to care, but if I see him, I’ll tell him.”

  The connection clicked closed.

  Stella sat for a moment and then decided to go back and check on Skygirl. Ignoring the “no visitors beyond this point” sign, she slipped back to the Emergency Room bed where she had left the other super only to find it empty.

  “Do you know where she went?” asked the doctor, suddenly behind her.

  “Don’t you?”

  “No. I turned around for a moment and she was gone.”

  “Crap,” said Stella.

  Chapter Four

  Azure Hotel;

  Downtown Chicago;

  The hotel room door opened revealing Linda Ford wrapped up in a fluffy complementary hotel robe. She had obviously just gotten out of the shower. Her blond hair hung limply down to her shoulders. Her face was very pale.

  “I’m glad to see you’re alive,” said Stella, pushing her way inside. “I brought your clothes and I picked up our pizzas. We can eat them for dinner.”

  “I don’t think I’m hungry.” Linda closed the door and then walked to the bed and plopped down on it.

  “Why didn’t you let me know you were leaving the hospital? I was sitting in the waiting room looking like an idiot.”

  “Sorry,” said Linda, curling up into a ball and closing her eyes. “I didn’t realize you were still there. I just had to get out. I hate hospitals.”

  “Well, who doesn’t? Can you warm up this pizza with your heat vision or something?”

  “I don’t really feel like it. There’s a microwave in the kitchenette.”

  Stella found the microwave and stuck three pieces of thick deep dish in it, turning the dial to four minutes. Just below the microwave was a tiny refrigerator, and she squeezed Skygirl’s pizza slice and side salad into it.

  While she waited for the food to heat, she stepped over to the bedside and looked down at the other girl. Her breathing was deep and regular. Stella assumed she had fallen asleep, but when she covered her up with a quilt, Linda responded with “thank you.”

  The couch was still covered with the plastic storage boxes filled with Stella’s belongings from her destroyed apartment. Stacking them off to the side, she made a bed for herself with the extra pillow from the bed and a spare blanket from a closet. After finishing her pizza, she found a spare complimentary hotel toothbrush in the bathroom, brushed her teeth, then lay down and drifted off into a fitful sleep.

  It was not quite 10:30 when Stella woke up. Linda was no longer in her bed. In her place was a handwritten note from a hotel notepad that said “meet me on the roof.” Stella took the time for a quick shower before putting on her costume and flying out the window and up to the top of the building.

  Linda, or rather Skygirl since she wasn’t wearing her brown wig, was lying on a quilt. She wore a pair of dark sunglasses and a bright purple bikini, which Stella noted barely contained those giant breasts; didn’t do anything for those huge thighs though. A small cooler filled with soft drinks and a daily newspaper sat beside her.

  “Good morning,” said Skygirl.

  “Good morning. You’re looking better.”

  She did look better too. The color had returned to her skin and there was no sign of the sickness that had ravaged her the day before.

  “I just needed to get out in the sunshine. What are you planning to do today?”

  “I have to find a new place to live. I can’t crash on your couch forever.”

  “I kind of wanted to talk to you about that.” Skygirl sat up and pulled the glasses down below her eyes. “I thought that maybe you and I could be roommates, that is, if I decided to relocate.”

  “I don’t think so. Chicago doesn’t really need another superhero. I’m already here and so are those twins with the magic rings. I never can remember their names. Look, I know you have like, this super-club back in Kansas City with Comet-Knight and the witch, and your brother…”

  “Skyboy isn’t really my brother…”

  “Whatever. The point is: I don’t play well with others. That’s why I’m here, you know.” She made air quotes. “In the mortal realm.”

  “I wondered about that. Aren’t your parents gods or something?”

  “No, they’re not gods. My father is a demigod, which just means his parents were gods. And my mother is an Amazon, which I used to think meant she was a warrior woman, but apparently just means she’s some kind of immortal hoe-bag.”

  “What about your name? Stella O’Claire doesn’t sound like anyone from Mount Olympus.”

  “Stella really is my name. It’s because my mother said I had stars in my eyes.” Stella made a face. “When I got here though I landed on O’Claire Boulevard, so I just went with it. Now most people think the street was named after me rather than the other way around, which is cool. But anyway…”

  Instead of just standing up, Linda kind of levitated and then turned around so that her feet touched the surface of the roof.

  “I don’t fit in. I don’t fit in there, in Kansas City. Ebony Witch was Dad’s friend, not mine, Comet-Knight is an old perv, and Skyboy… well, it’s just kind of creepy hanging out with a fifteen year old version of your dad. Besides, I thought we made a great team yesterday.”

  “We did alright…”

  “Maybe we could just try it out for a while, you know roommates and partners...”

  “Teammates,” corrected Stella. “Roommates and partners makes us sound like lesbians.”

  “Right, teammates. So we should get an apartment together.”

  Stella rolled her eyes and let out a big sigh. “On a trial basis.”

  Skygirl clapped her hands together. “Yay! I’ve already found a place in the paper that we need to go look at.”

  “Okay,” grumbled Stella. “I doubt I’m going to like it though. I’m very particular.”

  * * * * *

  Southside Office Building;

  Conference Room;

  “This is pissing me off!” shouted Professor Destruction. “Dark Energy, Plague-Drone, and Magmaman all in maximum security lockdown.”

  The Atomic Jack-o-Lantern stared back, neither blinking nor saying anything.

  “It’s just bad luck,” said Tiger Shark. “They could have taken on A.G., but along comes Skygirl. She’s got to be… what, ten times as powerful?”

  “Powers are not important! I’ve got no super-powers and look at me. It’s all a matter of applying the right tool to the right job. All-American Girl is affected by the Jack-o-Lantern’s radiation. We saw how easily Plague-Drone infected Skygirl. If Jack here had been there to eliminate A.G. while that was happening, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “Fine,” said Tiger Shark. “Jack and I will finish the job, but I don’t have any plague to infect Skyman’s daughter.”

  “You don’t need it. Everyone knows that a good sized piece of Polarite will kill her, just like her old man.”

  “I don’t have any Polarite.”

  Professor Destruction smiled. “I do.”

  * * * * *

  Smithson Building Penthouse Apartment;

  Wabash Avenue;

  “No fricking way,” said Stella, looking around.

  “This is perfe
ct,” said Linda in a breathless whisper.

  Linda was dressed in her secret identity—sensible shoes, socks, pleated skirt, sweater, and brown wig. Stella had on a blue sundress, but she was hardly unrecognizable to anyone from Chicago. The apartment agent, a middle-aged man in a very sharp grey suit ushered them past the entryway.

  “As you can see, the entry opens into the dining room. We have double doors here into the kitchen, which has an island bar and three stools. This is all furnished of course, just like you see it.” They moved through the kitchen and into the living room with a very high ceiling. “Just the right size. Plenty of room and yet still cozy. The couch and a couple of armchairs, entertainment system, and a beautiful gas fireplace, and right through those doors is one of the two balconies.”

  “This is perfect,” said Linda again.

  “It is perfect for two young and important ladies, such as yourselves.” He gave Stella a wink. “If you go right from the entrance, past the linen closet and the powder room, you find a guestroom, which of course could be made into an office or a study or an armory, and the smaller of the two master bedrooms. It has its own bath with a combo shower-tub, a walk-in closet, and its own balcony. The larger master bedroom is through here.” He pointed at double doors leading out of the living room. “It has a larger bath, with both a shower and a tub, as well as a walk-in closet, but alas, no balcony.”

  Linda danced from one foot to the other as though she had to pee.

  “Can you give us a minute?” asked Stella.

  “Of course. But one thing before I go. People in, how shall I say it, a certain line of work, might well expect to provide a considerable security deposit, especially if their previous residence was completely destroyed.”

  “This is perfect,” said Linda again, once he had left.

  “I know it’s perfect. It’s got to cost ten thousand a month…”

  “No, no. It’s only $4999.”

  “That’s sixty thousand a year, and they’re going to want a million dollar deposit.”

  “But you only have to pay half, and I have $43 million.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay then,” said Stella. “Let’s take it.”

  “Now the hard part,” said Linda. “Who gets what bedroom? On the one hand, it would be nice just to step out of bed and fly right off the balcony. On the other hand, I like to take both baths and showers, so that big bathroom sounds great. Also I looked with my x-ray vision and the closet is bigger in there too.”

  “Yeah, he just said it had a walk-in closet a minute ago,” said Stella. You were probably too excited to listen. I’ll make this easy on you. I get the bedroom with the balcony. And I’m turning the extra bedroom into my study.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Rock, paper, scissors?”

  “Okay.”

  “One, two, three… There I won,” announced Stella smugly. “I get the bedroom with the balcony.”

  Stella mentally patted herself on the back. She had taken paper and Linda had chosen rock, just as Stella had expected. Anyone who had to worry all the time about a rock that had the power to kill them would choose rock.

  “We’ll take it,” she said when the apartment agent returned.

  “Excellent. I’ll have the papers drawn up immediately.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking…” Stella lowered her voice in an effort at privacy, even though Linda could hear a pin drop within a three mile radius. “If you know who I am, why would you let me live here?”

  “Your deposit, which let’s face it, you won’t be getting back, will more than offset the increase in our insurance. We’ll get free repairs from the city. And we’re going to lease out all our vacancies, even at the new increased prices we’re going to institute. There are thousands of people out there who want to be neighbors with a superhero.”

  “We’re not going to get our deposit back,” said Stella, once he had left.

  “Yes, I heard,” replied Linda.

  * * * * *

  “Well, that’s the last of my stuff put away, not that I had very much.” Stella tossed the nested, now-empty plastic storage boxes onto an empty chair in the living room. “Do you have someplace you want to keep these?”

  “Just leave them there,” said Linda, not turning away from the television. “I’ll get them in a minute.”

  “What’s so interesting on the tube?”

  “Just the news. I only watch TV between 5:30 and 7:30. First the early news, then the national news, then the local news, and then Jeopardy. You know Perihelion, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s on right now.”

  “Well turn it up, damn it. I don’t have super-hearing.” Stella jumped onto the couch next to her new roommate.

  “…which according to NASA was more than sixty feet across. The asteroid, which could have leveled much of Phoenix, was destroyed by the popular superhero couple Perihelion and Omega Woman.”

  The video shifted from a telescopic image of the exploding asteroid to a street-level view of the two supers landing. The picture then shrank into one corner of the screen and the national news anchor, whose face now predominated, continued.

  “On a lighter note, The New York Times reports today that Omega Woman has surpassed Dark Defender to take the number four spot on the countdown of the most popular superheroes. She remains the second most popular female on the list, with only Ultrawoman ahead of her. Meanwhile, her boyfriend of six months keeps his position at number twenty four.”

  “What a fricking bitch!”

  “I thought she was kind of cool,” said Linda.

  “She’s like all, ‘look at me. I’m silver and gold and… fricking platinum.’ Somebody should sock her in the shiny golden eyeball.”

  “Um, you dated Perihelion, right?”

  “Yeah, we dated. For two years!” Stella stuck two fingers in the air. “For two years we dated and then we break up for a little while and she swoops right in with her… fricking… omega… grrr!”

  “I think somebody’s hungry.”

  “I don’t want food. I want to kick some ass.”

  Literally half a second later, Linda was standing in front of her, now dressed as Skygirl. “Awesome. Let’s go patrol.”

  Stella put on her boots and gloves to complete her own outfit and the two of them jumped from their balcony and shot across the Chicago skyline. They circumnavigated the city three times and found nothing more exciting than a car which crashed through the railing on a hillside. Skygirl caught it in the air and returned it to the roadway. They flew up and hovered near the flight path toward O’Hare.

  “Man, what I wouldn’t give for a giant robot or a lake monster right now,” said All American Girl.

  “There might be more asteroids. They usually come in bunches.”

  “Yeah, well, asteroids are tricky. I can’t fly as fast as Perry or you or Meg… fricking Meg… that fricking…”

  “Don’t get yourself upset,” said Skygirl. “Besides, speed isn’t everything. Look at Cosmic Man. He could fly really fast—no invulnerability though.”

  “Yeah. Splat.” Stella raised an eyebrow. “Just how fast can you fly anyway?”

  “About mach two. I beat an SR-71 Blackbird in a race once, but I think the pilot let me win… Wait, I hear gunfire… machine guns.”

  “Well alright then! Let’s go!”

  All American Girl followed her new teammate into a dive. They turned southwest toward Joliet and quickly neared the U.S. Army industrial plant.

  “You got your wish,” said Skygirl. “Giant robots.”

  “They’re not robots,” replied All American Girl. “They’re combat mechas.”

  “They look like robots to me.”

  They did indeed look like giant robots. Each was a twenty foot tall humanoid shaped from titanium and steel, bristling with weapons from 30mm Avenger Gatling guns to heat-seeking missiles. Inside of each though, behind a bulletpr
oof shield was a human controller. They had already smashed through the laboratory and six of the mechanical figures were carrying out cargo containers while the others gave them cover. About twenty soldiers who made up base security had taken up positions to try and stop them, but they stood no chance. As the two heroes approached, one of the mechas shot a nearby parked Abrams tank which exploded, sending armor shrapnel in all directions.

  “Uranium shells,” said Stella. “Very nasty.”

  “I’ll stop the ones coming out of the lab,” said Skygirl.

  She swept down like a rocket, faster and faster as she descended. She hit a mecha in the back. It shattered, component parts going in every direction, while she emerged on the other side, the pilot now carried over her shoulder. She did the same thing to a second battlesuit and then carried two men, piled one atop the other. Before she hit a third, a dozen rounds from a Gatling gun knocked her from the air. She and her two captives were sent sprawling across the tarmac.

  “You alright?” asked All American Girl, landing beside her.

  “My Dad could just shrug those off,” said Skygirl, examining a large round bruise on her arm.

  “Lucky him,” replied Stella, and then ducked as another burst narrowly missed her.

  With a leap, she crossed a hundred yards to land on her attacker. She took hold of the mecha’s left arm and ripped it off, then did the same thing to the right. Finally she grabbed onto its chest with both hands and ripped it in two. The human inside plopped down onto the ground below. Ignoring him, she ran toward one carrying off the lab’s equipment. Throwing out her shoulder, she hit him like a professional football lineman, knocking him through the air and into one of his companions. Before his partner could react, Stella had punched the mecha in what would have been its crotch, driving her arm in up to her bicep, and then pulling out a handful of circuitry and wiring. It immediately fell over on its face. The pilot had apparently tried to fire his missiles which impacted on the pavement, blowing himself and his battlesuit to pieces. But Stella realized the one she had used as a tackling dummy was still on his feet, when a burst of his Gatling gun hit her in the back, knocking her through the wall of the lab building.