4: Mayday

Captain Happily Married: The Serial

Previously, Meg Atomic and Agent Hawkins of D.E.R.P., having been delayed by traffic, were too late to stop the explosion of the Kaboominator. What happens now? Read on!

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Tasha Case, known to the public as Super Soccer Mom, stood in the vault site, watching her cybernetically enhanced soccer ball Seymour scan the area where the Kaboominator and the relic had been, trying to forget her fear. She’d been trying to do that every day of her marriage. She’d been trying, really, every day since that moment on the space station, when she’d seen the energy wave crackling towards her and had known that there was not one single blessed thing she could do to stop it from burning her into oblivion.

How she had survived, why she’d gained the ability to talk to computers with her mind, she still didn’t know. Of course she’d kept working for the government; what else could she do? She’d made an identity as a famous soccer star, traveled the world, hacked into enemy systems, it had been a great life. Except for the fear. The cold knowledge that lurked at the edges of her mind like a wild animal, the knowledge that even with her newfound power, even with the government’s support and her soccer-star fame, she might encounter something she couldn’t hack or control. Tasha had seen Death up there among the stars. She hadn’t liked it.

She’d felt her fear ebb when she’d married the Captain. He hadn’t been a captain then, of course, just a guy with the odd name of Sergeant Happily Single, who evidently spent his nights pummeling bad guys instead of trolling bars for dates. They’d happened to find themselves chasing the same guy, some rando who’d gotten hold of tech he shouldn’t have. Tasha found herself asking the Sergeant if he wanted to meet up and talk afterwards. He found himself saying yes. They kept on meeting, and talking, and soon enough they found themselves realizing that they wanted to keep on doing this for the rest of their lives.

He asked. She said yes. The day they got married and they were officially pronounced man and wife, a relic Tasha had saved ever since her first mission suddenly lit up like an almighty firecracker, and her newlywed husband acquired a cape, a promotion, and a whole bundle of new superpowers, including super-strength, flight, and the ability to hurl a unity candle with deadly accuracy. For the first time in years, Tasha almost forgot the fear that had lived at the edge of her consciousness for so long.

It was back now. As she stared at the empty vault, as Seymour reported that the only traces it could detect were, unaccountably, indicators of her own daughter, as reports came in over Seymour’s news hookup of a massive explosion in near downtown Edison City, Tasha’s old terror came roaring back into her mind, only ten times worse now. This time it wasn’t just her that was under attack by something she couldn’t explain and maybe couldn’t take down like she had so many bad guys before. This time it was her family.

“Seymour,” she said, her voice shaking, “Get me the Captain. Get him now!”

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He was still in the sky when it happened. The Relic cracked. The cape unraveled that instant. Suddenly Justin was plummeting towards the street below and he didn’t have a grappling line or a parachute or anything to stop him. Who needs a parachute when you can fly? He did, now.

“Um, mayday, mayday, can’t fly, falling!” he managed to blurt out over his radio to anyone who could hear.

Gaseous Girl was several streets away, in civilian clothes, picking up a takeout lunch after a hard morning’s work at her day job. She heard the call and the desperation in her superhero colleague’s voice and immediately leapt into the sky, flames blazing in her wake. She knew she’d be too late anyway.

Titanium-Alloy Guy, Mr. Ecosystem, even the Scarlet Shapeshifter heard the S.O.S. and moved to help, but they were even further away than Gaseous Girl. Meg Atomic might have been able to alter the gravity forces even at that range, but she had turned off her communicator when she’d gone to meet with Hawkins, for obvious reasons. There was no chance anyone was close enough. No one on the good side of the line, anyway.

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Justin saw the ground rushing up to meet him. From this height he knew impact would be…. well, it’d be pretty bad. He tensed. A swear, a really good one, might be appropriate now. He started to say one. “Oh cr-”

A hand grabbed onto him at the absolute last possible second. “Language!” a voice said. He looked up. The uniform was no longer green, the energy had a different flare, but he recognized her all the same. “Sunflower?”

“Close enough,” she said, laughing, though her laugh had an edge to it that he didn’t remember. “How’ve you been, Cap?”

He shrugged, as best one can when one is being held aloft by someone else in midair. “Oh, just hanging around.”

She laughed again, and the edge almost seemed gone. He laughed too, the relief of survival flooding through him. He hadn’t noticed that his communicator had shorted out.

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Seymour’s readouts showed no emotion, and no response.

“Justin?” Tasha called into her radio, her anguished voice echoing around the desolate vault walls. “Justin?”

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Thank you for reading! For prior episodes and other stories in the world of Edison City, check out the Edison City Index below. Stay tuned for next week as the adventure continues!