I found myself in Prof. Doctor’s lair. At the moment I was a little fuzzy on how I got there…I’d been in the monitor room. Then I recalled the good Prof’s obsession with Mind Wipes and keeping her location a secret. Blindfolds were to retro for her and her truck was always too full to jam someone in so she just erased your memories of the trip when you arrived. The Professor’s quality social skills ensured her an open calendar. Random, non-specific mind-wipes have a way of doing that. Judging by my internal clock she’s blown away at least an additional day and a half worth of memories from me.
I’d seen worse.
I’d like the Prof. quite a bit—my own creator had the drawback of both being in jail and having me on the top of his rue-ing list. Rue as in “You’ll rue the day! Oh the rue-ing will be endless for you” rather than a French sauce. That’s another story. I’d asked the Prof. to do an upgraded body before my most recent and unfortunate explosion and more importantly, I had paid her in advance. She had the know how and skills to do the job as demonstrated by her own homemade team of robot superheroes, the Tank Force.
That was to be my first horror-filled surprise.
“They’re called Real Dolls,” she said pointing at the horrific dead-eyed figures prancing around her lair. They had various complex outfits on, all apparently design to elicit panty shots with any kind of basic movement. And they had laser guns.
“G—g—gaahahaaa…” may have been my response. “….um…Tank Force…?”
“They were severely damaged when the Devil came to earth and tried to destroy all of the robots. And squirrels…which I never quite got a good explanation for…anyway that was about three years ago. I managed to get these case-mods at a super villain estate sale when Predator Man got put away.”
One of the petite robots hopped up beside me. I tried not to look at her. For a moment I could have sworn she whispered “kill me,” and then she pranced away.
The Prof continued. “Once I got them cleaned up…” she shivered, “…I used them for the Mark II versions of everyone. I’d miniaturized everything so they were half the size of before. They just didn’t seem intimidating at four foot.”
“I’m torn between whether they’re cute or horribly creepy.” Did the Lolita Goth costumes come with them or had the Professor had sewn them? There was something not altogether reassuring about the idea of the Professor playing with dolls—atomic death dolls, but dolls nonetheless.
“Go with creepy. I’m trying to send the most mixed messages I possibly can to confuse my opponents—a female super-villain sending a team of refurbished sex-toys to destroy them…”
“You know, Prof. I think I’ve heard much, much more than I needed to.” I stopped. “Wait. Did you say super-villain? Are you batting for the other team now?” Doing research would have been a good idea…or had and she’d mind-wiped it from me. I gently got my taser ready. Good taser. Happy taser.
“I shouldn’t have said that, I don’t like to pin my super-identity down. Hero, Villain, they’re all categories…” I think the lights must have started to fade in my eye-sockets at this point. “…but let’s go look at your new body. We walked out into a gigantic underground chamber. The Professor pointed at a row of wheeled contraptions which she called Segways and we were off.
I still kept a close eye on the Professor. She came from a long line of unstable geniuses who were delightful company when heavily medicated. On the other hand, I was apparently trapped in the abandoned salt mines under
Detroit and so just saying my goodbyes felt a perhaps unwise. Plus, I really wanted that new body.
Eventually we arrived at what looked like a bomb shelter door. She fumbled with her keys but eventually got it open. “Yes—you know I kept trying to get your black box from Dr. Boom. When I told him I had another body for you he requested some modifications and had me send it to him. Then he stiffed me on the shipping charges. I waited a couple of weeks and then sent a retrieval signal. I was more than a little surprised to find he hadn’t installed your OS…”
“My brain you mean…”
She flipped on the light. “Same difference. I got the robot back, undid the modifications, and then had to spend a week cleaning it up.” The Spartan chamber only had a table with a cloth covered shape.
“Cleaning it up?” Perhaps Dr. Boom had sent me into combat—could I be a back up?—was there another version of me that had been destroyed. Propagating my program wasn’t easy and I didn’t think anyone on my old team could do it.
“Yes, well he apparently availed himself of the modifications…”
“STOP. No more.” I said perhaps overly loudly for a potential cave-in area.
“…sent the specs for a duplicate of himself.”
“STOP. Please.” This story could go a number of ways and none of them pleasant to my self-esteem. Between this and Team Star-Brite Death-Lords I needed to go to a Car Wash. Now.
Prof. Doctor moved to stand over the table. “Ready?” I nodded as best I could with a fixed position neck and she whipped the sheet away.
Huh.
The Prof. had apparently taken it upon herself to build this body…differently…from my old one. She’d taken my shoulder pads, cut off the complicated series of belts and buckles which had served as body armor and over-underwear, my golden segmented bicep clasps and…
“Where are all my knee-pads?” I looked around.
“I took those off. You had a half-dozen of them, but you only have two knees…that are already made of metal.” She made a dismissive gesture.
“And my high collar?” I tried not to whine.
“Since you didn’t have a cape that’s gone too, along with the six inch brass buttons pinning it in place.”
“But…” it took a moment to say it “…purple and orange?”
She sighed. “Yes. It works, believe me. I even hired a costume color design consultant.”
That got my attention. “Someone who makes super unstable molecule costumes?”
“No—Iwasn’t going to waste that kind of money. I just hired a boy genius costume designer; I think he’s from the future. He made me a drawing. Besides they outlawed unstable molecule costumes.”
“Why?”
“Um…they were unstable. One mix-up at a Boy Scout Jamboree from Cruel Butterfly and orders came down from MASS. Speaking of which, about your powers…I had to make some adjustments.” For the first time she actually looked a little embarrassed.
I wasn’t paying that much attention, more trying to picture myself standing next to Cybertron and picturing how I’d look. “OK…what?”
“Well, you can’t fly anymore. Your electro-static field interferes with Bluetooth devices.”
“Is that some kind of robot dog?”
She ignored me. “You also can’t do the electro-force field any more. We found that it draws the energy in an area and creates a disruptive effect.”
“Disruptive effect?”
“Yes. It creates permanent areas of exceptional cell phone reception.”
“That doesn’t seem so bad.”
“Yes and no and no. People injured themselves colliding and wrestling for the reception point. Oh, and if they talked to long their phones blew up.”
“OK then.” That seemed reasonable to me. “What about my electro-bolts?”
“You can still electrocute people, but you have to be careful…”
“I have to be careful when I electrocute people?” Now I was upset. They’d have to pry my taser out of my cold, dead finger…and it was welded there.
“Well, we installed some specialized repair nanites into you. They sometimes have problems with significant electrical shocks.”
“What kind of problems?”
“Hive mind, world dominating problems.” She made a gesture of dismissal. “The good news is I have some experimental superpower modules left over my robots, so you can pick one.”
Left-over powers. Oh, there would be much rue-ing. “Ok…what are my choices?”
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