[story] capital
author: hazard_us (hazard_us)
email: scorpio_kaur [at] yahoo.com
Lynn Lake knew she was a teeny tiny bit insane. She knew should be at home doing her homework or with Jimmy at the clambake. But sanity was boring and so was Jimmy and homework. Why would you want anything like that when you could have complete control over Capital City, the destruction of the Freedom League, and ultimate power?
"Ralph? Ralph? Where are you?"
"Electro-Lad is giving me some trouble" came his voice, crackling over their two-way comlink. Her little brother Ralph had decided to follow in her footsteps and become an evil genius after she'd explained that once world domination came he would have all the resources and human test subjects for his underground lab he could ever want. He was the best little brother ever.
Anyway, an evil son was what her mom and dad deserved for making her babysit on Friday nights.
"I'm two chambers from the Heart of the City," she reported. "Keep those do-gooders busy until I've secured the Helm of Broch."
"Will do, sis." The comlink fizzled quiet and Lynn reviewed the map she'd obtained from the remains of the alien spaceship. Somewhere in these dank underground corridors, the Freedom League was trying to stop Masked Malevolynn, her sidekick Malign, and the Grievous Gang. They certainly weren't looking for a teenage girl in a poodle skirt and a little boy running around in the dark underbelly of Capital City. And that was why it had been so easy to take out the Hanni-bull and She-Face in the last room.
After what she'd done to them, she doubted they'd ever be able to go to a malt shop again.
Her plans were almost complete. The Grievous Gang had been used as fodder to slow the League and now her greatest super-villain rivals were eliminated. Her brother was setting the remaining traps for the rest of those do-gooders. She was only a few more steps from her goal.
The situation seemed like it needed a good maniacal laugh but she wasn't going to indulge herself yet.
Yes, here was the final chamber. It was directly underneath the towering Nickel Building, the first structure in the world built so that it was visible even when the rest of the skyline was beyond the horizon and one that had never been surpassed in height. The 'Scraper, as the citizens of Capital City called it, was also home to the Freedom League Headquarters.
But only she had discovered the true reason for the great success of the building, of the city itself. It was the alien artifact buried miles below the city, the talisman of greatness that had turned Capital City from a large collection of buildings into the heart and soul of music, art, politics, and business for the country.
There it sat, on its ancient pedestal. She was reminded of the helmets of the ancient Spartans as it pulsed with light and power in the dark. Lynn had only to cross the room, reach out and -
"We have you!" A silver rope tied her up as simply as a pig at the county fair. She knew who these meddlers were!
"Lady Venus! Major Amazing!" Lynn struggled against her bonds. "No!"
"That voice. It has to be you, Malevolynn." Major Amazing dropped out of the air, shock written on his chiseled features, and walked towards her. "But... you’re just a child!”
"I'm a teenager," she said as she released the ray from her yellow moonstone ring. Major Amazing fell to the ground, unconscious. She hit the activator to the electrified crinoline in her poodle skirt and zap! went Lady Venus. Lynn wasted no time climbing the dais and reaching for the pedestal and its treasure.
"Finally! Finally, the city is mine!" Lynn picked up the Helm of Broch. Now was the time for her laugh and laugh she did, until the entire chamber echoed with it. She savored the moment as long as she could and then placed the helm over her head, regretting only for a moment that it would ruin her ponytail.
A part of her saw that the remnants of the Freedom League were stumbling into the chamber. They watched with horror as the Helm wrought its changes on her, shifting her skin to steel to stone to brick and back again. She was all Lynn, but a Lynn of smooth chrome and hard steel and coppery wires running everywhere. She was a Lynn of infrastructure and electricity and brownstones and bridges. But that part of her was small, so very small, compared to the vastness of the City that lived in her.
It was an alien feeling but only because it had to be. The sensations that infused Lynn's mind felt as familiar as the streets she had grown up on. Yes, there was the cul-de-sac she'd played hopscotch on, all mapped out for her to see, but as the city saw it too - cement sidewalks and pipes and angles and corners and one light that had gone out yesterday that she felt in her mind like an itch that couldn't be scratched.
Hot things were happening in her head. She could scrape the sky, touch the boroughs, flow under and over the rivers. She dug her toes into history, into the dirt filled with bone and pottery and villages forgotten. She felt the electricity, the steam, the hot metal and cold water rushing through her like different humors in her body. It was impossible to ignore the humming and the thrumming at her finger tips, all the heavy metals in her blood churning like generators.
A part of her noticed the heroes scurrying like rats in her sewers, her veins. The ground rolled under the feet of her enemies and tossed them like dolls. Their outraged screeches were music to her ears, and Major Amazing, who’d finally gotten to his feet, seemed very surprised when pipes rose out of the ground like the necks of an angry hydra and wrapped around him and squeezed.
"Freedom League - to me!" Major Amazing shouted, but it was a simple matter to infuse the stones around him with the power of the yellow moonstone, turning the room into a deadly irradiation chamber. Major Amazing slumped in the pipes that held him.
Something echoed, deep and low. She realized it was her laughing with the voice of the city, but this was the city no one liked, the one where neighbors stepped over the homeless without looking at them, the city where you clutched your purse or your wallet like it was a talisman, the city where children went out to play and didn’t come home at night.
Someone was yelling about how the city was moving. It was. Her arm felt like cables and tension and somewhere she knew the East River Bridge was lifting off its base and into the sky. She crooked a finger and steam pipes burst into the street. One of those goody two-shoes was shouting about how the city was destroying itself, but they didn't understand. It wasn't destroying itself; it was being rebuilt better - without the chaos of humanity ruining it its streets and buildings. Soon it would be just her and twisted metal constructs, towers of doom scarring the horizon, built on dead bodies and screams. It would be the City of Cities and all would fear it!
First though, she had to clean house.
She would pull this whole underground system down on top of them and they'd never escape. It would not be a pleasant way to die - but she would do it. A smile like a crack in the pavement scarred her visage and the City moved -
"Sis?" She shook her head at the sudden crackling, causing a block of buildings to fall. This wasn't in her brainstem like all the other sensations she felt. It wasn't part of the city. What was this buzzing?
"Sis? I don’t think..." This was a voice, but not her voice. She was the City. This voice was not.
She looked at her hands. Her fingers were green bronze and her nails were grey cobbles. What had happened to her cotton candy manicure?
"Sis? I’m really sorry." That was her brother. Ralph. She was a sister. Lynn. It was hard to look away from the picture inside her head; the picture showed her everything everywhere all at once. But she focused on the very dim light and saw.
"Ralph?" Ralph wasn’t like her. He wasn't made of metal. The pipe didn't belong in his side like that.
"We did it, huh?" Ralph was saying as she knelt at his side. He coughed. The only red that should be on the outside was brick. This wasn't right. "We beat them all."
Cities could die; the Helm made her know that. When people didn’t care enough, when they were too afraid, they fled like rats from a sinking ship until the windows were empty eye sockets in cement skulls, or worse yet, until the city became a shuffling corpse of its old self. She knew somewhere now that Ralph was doing this, that Ralph was dying.
Lynn - evil genius Lynn - did not like losing. She did not like losing anything.
Lynn's cell on Robben Island, the maximum security psychiatric facility in the North River, had one of the greatest views of Capital City's skyline. The cafeteria food wasn't bad either.
The intercom to her cell buzzed. "The prisoner will step away from the bars."
Lynn stepped away and sat on her cot very nicely. She liked visitors and she had a very good idea who this visitor might be. Sure enough, her nemesis came in through the door and stood silently in front of her cell.
"The warden reads me the headlines of the newspaper. Imagine my surprise when I heard you and the Freedom League were leaving Capital City!" Lynn was all cupcakes and milkshakes today. The medicine made her like that, but so did good news.
And this was the sweetest news of all. The Freedom League defeated!
"We are moving our headquarters to where we are needed," Major Amazing said stiffly. He was probably still sore that a high school girl had run rings around him for so many years - and that the whole world had found out at her trial.
Lynn smiled but it was a nice smile, no teeth at all. "It's so wonderful that the crime rate in Capital City is so low. Now the police can do the work and your League can help other cities in need."
The smile with teeth was on the inside. She knew the reason the League was seeking new quarters. After their battle for the city, the crime rate had plummeted and the city populace wasn't interested in financing Freedom Tower headquarters. The heroes had found how expensive Capital City real estate could be.
"Yes. Well. As a courtesy, I wanted to tell you myself that we’d be leaving."
"Thank you." It was the right thing to say now. She was getting so much better at knowing what the right thing to say was. The right thing rarely had the word 'fool' in it.
"You paid a high price to learn your lesson, young lady." Lynn put on the appropriately contrite face and waited until he went. Then she danced with her pillow clutched to her chest and fell on her bed, kicking her legs in joy.
Gone, gone, gone, gone! Gone and it was all because of Ralph!
Everyone thought her little brother's 'death' had driven her mad. Her defense attorney had made much of the fact that she rambled on and on about how he was the city now and how the city was him during her testimony, not to mention aliens and helms turning him into an avatar and what have you. The jury certainly hadn't believed her words, not when they'd seen the picture of the shell he'd cast aside to reach for a greater destiny.
What they hadn't realized was that she'd gotten the Helm on him just before it was too late.
She tried not to snarl contemptuously because she knew they were watching her. But they were fools. Didn’t they see how the crime was down because criminals were disappearing? Didn’t they realize it was statistically impossible for there not to be a single infrastructure problem for a whole year? Weren’t they breathing the air that was as fresh as a mountain breeze? Couldn’t they feel that the sidewalk actually put the step in your stride?
She dropped her pillow and stared out the window at Capital City. Bits of the Helm had fried her brain, that she knew, because she loved the city. She loved it for all its smooth chrome and hard steel and delicious coppery wires running everywhere. But mostly she loved it because the city was her brother and it was he who was the hero the city had now, the only one it needed.
Capital City was quickly becoming the most wonderful, the safest, the most beautiful city in the world and someday she’d make sure it was the greatest city in the universe. It truly would be Capital!
A tiny cackle escaped before she turned it into a silent smile. Yes, she would do that. It was the least she owed her little brother.
the end
email: scorpio_kaur [at] yahoo.com
Lynn Lake knew she was a teeny tiny bit insane. She knew should be at home doing her homework or with Jimmy at the clambake. But sanity was boring and so was Jimmy and homework. Why would you want anything like that when you could have complete control over Capital City, the destruction of the Freedom League, and ultimate power?
"Ralph? Ralph? Where are you?"
"Electro-Lad is giving me some trouble" came his voice, crackling over their two-way comlink. Her little brother Ralph had decided to follow in her footsteps and become an evil genius after she'd explained that once world domination came he would have all the resources and human test subjects for his underground lab he could ever want. He was the best little brother ever.
Anyway, an evil son was what her mom and dad deserved for making her babysit on Friday nights.
"I'm two chambers from the Heart of the City," she reported. "Keep those do-gooders busy until I've secured the Helm of Broch."
"Will do, sis." The comlink fizzled quiet and Lynn reviewed the map she'd obtained from the remains of the alien spaceship. Somewhere in these dank underground corridors, the Freedom League was trying to stop Masked Malevolynn, her sidekick Malign, and the Grievous Gang. They certainly weren't looking for a teenage girl in a poodle skirt and a little boy running around in the dark underbelly of Capital City. And that was why it had been so easy to take out the Hanni-bull and She-Face in the last room.
After what she'd done to them, she doubted they'd ever be able to go to a malt shop again.
Her plans were almost complete. The Grievous Gang had been used as fodder to slow the League and now her greatest super-villain rivals were eliminated. Her brother was setting the remaining traps for the rest of those do-gooders. She was only a few more steps from her goal.
The situation seemed like it needed a good maniacal laugh but she wasn't going to indulge herself yet.
Yes, here was the final chamber. It was directly underneath the towering Nickel Building, the first structure in the world built so that it was visible even when the rest of the skyline was beyond the horizon and one that had never been surpassed in height. The 'Scraper, as the citizens of Capital City called it, was also home to the Freedom League Headquarters.
But only she had discovered the true reason for the great success of the building, of the city itself. It was the alien artifact buried miles below the city, the talisman of greatness that had turned Capital City from a large collection of buildings into the heart and soul of music, art, politics, and business for the country.
There it sat, on its ancient pedestal. She was reminded of the helmets of the ancient Spartans as it pulsed with light and power in the dark. Lynn had only to cross the room, reach out and -
"We have you!" A silver rope tied her up as simply as a pig at the county fair. She knew who these meddlers were!
"Lady Venus! Major Amazing!" Lynn struggled against her bonds. "No!"
"That voice. It has to be you, Malevolynn." Major Amazing dropped out of the air, shock written on his chiseled features, and walked towards her. "But... you’re just a child!”
"I'm a teenager," she said as she released the ray from her yellow moonstone ring. Major Amazing fell to the ground, unconscious. She hit the activator to the electrified crinoline in her poodle skirt and zap! went Lady Venus. Lynn wasted no time climbing the dais and reaching for the pedestal and its treasure.
"Finally! Finally, the city is mine!" Lynn picked up the Helm of Broch. Now was the time for her laugh and laugh she did, until the entire chamber echoed with it. She savored the moment as long as she could and then placed the helm over her head, regretting only for a moment that it would ruin her ponytail.
A part of her saw that the remnants of the Freedom League were stumbling into the chamber. They watched with horror as the Helm wrought its changes on her, shifting her skin to steel to stone to brick and back again. She was all Lynn, but a Lynn of smooth chrome and hard steel and coppery wires running everywhere. She was a Lynn of infrastructure and electricity and brownstones and bridges. But that part of her was small, so very small, compared to the vastness of the City that lived in her.
It was an alien feeling but only because it had to be. The sensations that infused Lynn's mind felt as familiar as the streets she had grown up on. Yes, there was the cul-de-sac she'd played hopscotch on, all mapped out for her to see, but as the city saw it too - cement sidewalks and pipes and angles and corners and one light that had gone out yesterday that she felt in her mind like an itch that couldn't be scratched.
Hot things were happening in her head. She could scrape the sky, touch the boroughs, flow under and over the rivers. She dug her toes into history, into the dirt filled with bone and pottery and villages forgotten. She felt the electricity, the steam, the hot metal and cold water rushing through her like different humors in her body. It was impossible to ignore the humming and the thrumming at her finger tips, all the heavy metals in her blood churning like generators.
A part of her noticed the heroes scurrying like rats in her sewers, her veins. The ground rolled under the feet of her enemies and tossed them like dolls. Their outraged screeches were music to her ears, and Major Amazing, who’d finally gotten to his feet, seemed very surprised when pipes rose out of the ground like the necks of an angry hydra and wrapped around him and squeezed.
"Freedom League - to me!" Major Amazing shouted, but it was a simple matter to infuse the stones around him with the power of the yellow moonstone, turning the room into a deadly irradiation chamber. Major Amazing slumped in the pipes that held him.
Something echoed, deep and low. She realized it was her laughing with the voice of the city, but this was the city no one liked, the one where neighbors stepped over the homeless without looking at them, the city where you clutched your purse or your wallet like it was a talisman, the city where children went out to play and didn’t come home at night.
Someone was yelling about how the city was moving. It was. Her arm felt like cables and tension and somewhere she knew the East River Bridge was lifting off its base and into the sky. She crooked a finger and steam pipes burst into the street. One of those goody two-shoes was shouting about how the city was destroying itself, but they didn't understand. It wasn't destroying itself; it was being rebuilt better - without the chaos of humanity ruining it its streets and buildings. Soon it would be just her and twisted metal constructs, towers of doom scarring the horizon, built on dead bodies and screams. It would be the City of Cities and all would fear it!
First though, she had to clean house.
She would pull this whole underground system down on top of them and they'd never escape. It would not be a pleasant way to die - but she would do it. A smile like a crack in the pavement scarred her visage and the City moved -
"Sis?" She shook her head at the sudden crackling, causing a block of buildings to fall. This wasn't in her brainstem like all the other sensations she felt. It wasn't part of the city. What was this buzzing?
"Sis? I don’t think..." This was a voice, but not her voice. She was the City. This voice was not.
She looked at her hands. Her fingers were green bronze and her nails were grey cobbles. What had happened to her cotton candy manicure?
"Sis? I’m really sorry." That was her brother. Ralph. She was a sister. Lynn. It was hard to look away from the picture inside her head; the picture showed her everything everywhere all at once. But she focused on the very dim light and saw.
"Ralph?" Ralph wasn’t like her. He wasn't made of metal. The pipe didn't belong in his side like that.
"We did it, huh?" Ralph was saying as she knelt at his side. He coughed. The only red that should be on the outside was brick. This wasn't right. "We beat them all."
Cities could die; the Helm made her know that. When people didn’t care enough, when they were too afraid, they fled like rats from a sinking ship until the windows were empty eye sockets in cement skulls, or worse yet, until the city became a shuffling corpse of its old self. She knew somewhere now that Ralph was doing this, that Ralph was dying.
Lynn - evil genius Lynn - did not like losing. She did not like losing anything.
Lynn's cell on Robben Island, the maximum security psychiatric facility in the North River, had one of the greatest views of Capital City's skyline. The cafeteria food wasn't bad either.
The intercom to her cell buzzed. "The prisoner will step away from the bars."
Lynn stepped away and sat on her cot very nicely. She liked visitors and she had a very good idea who this visitor might be. Sure enough, her nemesis came in through the door and stood silently in front of her cell.
"The warden reads me the headlines of the newspaper. Imagine my surprise when I heard you and the Freedom League were leaving Capital City!" Lynn was all cupcakes and milkshakes today. The medicine made her like that, but so did good news.
And this was the sweetest news of all. The Freedom League defeated!
"We are moving our headquarters to where we are needed," Major Amazing said stiffly. He was probably still sore that a high school girl had run rings around him for so many years - and that the whole world had found out at her trial.
Lynn smiled but it was a nice smile, no teeth at all. "It's so wonderful that the crime rate in Capital City is so low. Now the police can do the work and your League can help other cities in need."
The smile with teeth was on the inside. She knew the reason the League was seeking new quarters. After their battle for the city, the crime rate had plummeted and the city populace wasn't interested in financing Freedom Tower headquarters. The heroes had found how expensive Capital City real estate could be.
"Yes. Well. As a courtesy, I wanted to tell you myself that we’d be leaving."
"Thank you." It was the right thing to say now. She was getting so much better at knowing what the right thing to say was. The right thing rarely had the word 'fool' in it.
"You paid a high price to learn your lesson, young lady." Lynn put on the appropriately contrite face and waited until he went. Then she danced with her pillow clutched to her chest and fell on her bed, kicking her legs in joy.
Gone, gone, gone, gone! Gone and it was all because of Ralph!
Everyone thought her little brother's 'death' had driven her mad. Her defense attorney had made much of the fact that she rambled on and on about how he was the city now and how the city was him during her testimony, not to mention aliens and helms turning him into an avatar and what have you. The jury certainly hadn't believed her words, not when they'd seen the picture of the shell he'd cast aside to reach for a greater destiny.
What they hadn't realized was that she'd gotten the Helm on him just before it was too late.
She tried not to snarl contemptuously because she knew they were watching her. But they were fools. Didn’t they see how the crime was down because criminals were disappearing? Didn’t they realize it was statistically impossible for there not to be a single infrastructure problem for a whole year? Weren’t they breathing the air that was as fresh as a mountain breeze? Couldn’t they feel that the sidewalk actually put the step in your stride?
She dropped her pillow and stared out the window at Capital City. Bits of the Helm had fried her brain, that she knew, because she loved the city. She loved it for all its smooth chrome and hard steel and delicious coppery wires running everywhere. But mostly she loved it because the city was her brother and it was he who was the hero the city had now, the only one it needed.
Capital City was quickly becoming the most wonderful, the safest, the most beautiful city in the world and someday she’d make sure it was the greatest city in the universe. It truly would be Capital!
A tiny cackle escaped before she turned it into a silent smile. Yes, she would do that. It was the least she owed her little brother.
the end