1: The Question
Quarks of the Heart: A Meg Atomic Serial
It began on a Thursday. The Malevolent Med-Student was on the verge of victory in a pitched battle with Titanium-Alloy Guy. Candystriper had even taken the rare step of swapping out her infamous Death Kazoos for her somewhat less infamous Celebration Kazoos with the confetti attachment. He had just knocked the superhero out flat with his Pharma-Death Beam (mark two) when suddenly his Pharma-Death Beam flew from his hand and rocketed into the atmosphere. Seconds later he saw the distant flare of an explosion, contained in a neat sphere of graviton power.
“Ah,” the Malevolent Med-Student said, “Quelle surprise. Time to go, Candystriper!”
“But I unpacked out the Celebration Kazoos already!” his henchwoman protested.
“Yes, well, you’ll have to pack them back up because our unconscious friend here is about to be reinforced!” the Malevolent Med-Student said, gesturing to Titanium-Alloy Guy.
“Oh, fine,” Candystriper grumbled as she set about putting away her Celebration Kazoos, “But just see if I spend the extra on the confetti attachment next time ordering day comes around. You just see.”
They ran towards the Malpracticycle and the Side-Effect Car, but it was too late. Meg Atomic stepped out from behind a small Volvo and blocked their path. “Surrender, now,” she said, just as she’d said a dozen times before.
The Malevolent Med-Student smiled. “Ah, but this time I didn’t just bring my usual Pharma-Death Beam. This time I brought…” he paused for dramatic effect, “The Decaffeinator Ray!”
With a flourish, he produced the weapon from a pocket of his outfit. “With one tap on the trigger, I can remove every minute particle of caffeine within a hundred yards of this position!”
“Really,” Meg Atomic said. “Remove and do what with it?”
“Oh, well, the Decaffeinator Ray isolates and transmutes the individual molecules and then, ah, recombulates them into devanedoids contained with a secure scransomic xanthin field,” the Malevolent Med-Student said. “Naturally.”
“Real-ly,” Meg Atomic said. “A xanthin field. That’s new. What did you do about flanging problem?”
The Malevolent Med-Student shrugged modestly. “Oh, well, I had an element of padamantium left over from that one time at the Flower Festival, so repurposing that to absorb the flanging to minimal was easy, once you have that.”
“Ah,” Meg Atomic said. “That would be the padamantium you acquired from the bomb.”
“Yes,” the Malevolent Med-Student said awkwardly, “Well, of course, I was never actually going to vaporize the city; I live here after all!”
“Oh?” Meg Atomic said. “Where? I’ve got friends who want to know.”
“Well, I’m not going to tell you now!” he said. “Anyway, that was all just, ah, part of the standard performance, and I had a backup circuit that would’ve depowered the whole thing anyway if your mother hadn’t cut the right wire in time, which she did, so no harm done, right?”
“Why don’t I believe you?” Meg Atomic said, scowling.
The Malevolent Med-Student was aghast. “Because you don’t understand; I’m not a maniac like the Rogue Jaywalker, I’m not trying to overthrow the system like the Owl Bandit, I’m not even Screaming Banshee! I know what they all don’t, which is that this is all a show, a game, and I know who’s behind the game, it’s the Committee of Calamity, and I’ve been trying to get my doctorate from them, and you wouldn’t believe how hard that is! They’ve got Professor Cthulhu and Behemoth Bob, and those are just the two I know about! So here I am, not even a proper supervillain yet, not even accredited, and I’m still trying to do my best and I even solved the flanging problem with the xanthin field, and I can’t even tell anybody about it except my henchwoman Candystriper and, well, now, you.” His voice broke off awkwardly. He hadn’t meant to say all that. As words sometimes do, they had all come rushing out at once. Now what he’d said hung in the air awkwardly, like the scent of someone who’s just broken wind in an elevator and doesn’t want to admit it.
What Meg Atomic should have done in that moment was hit him very hard, then knock out or otherwise subdue his astonished henchwoman, after which she should’ve summoned local authorities to clean the entire mess up. Instead, she took a breath and then said, very calmly, “Hey, why don’t we go get coffee somewhere and talk about it?”
“What?” said the Malevolent Med-Student.
For more episodes of Quarks of the Heart, check out the serial index page below. Thanks for reading!
“Quarks of the Heart” is my favorite subtitle ever.
I love this line so much! Ha it says so much without stating it explicitly "Candystriper had even taken the rare step of swapping out her infamous Death Kazoos for her somewhat less infamous Celebration Kazoos with the confetti attachment."