Doc Masterson and the Prisoner of Time, Chapter 9
Doc Masterson’s been in the superhero game for most of his life. But his powers are more dependable than his mental health. While he’s in upstate New York recruiting CRUSH, in Manhattan, Isabel gets her photos taken for an action figure…
Chapter Nine: HumilityMeanwhile, back in Manhattan, Isabel was having her pictures/scans taken for the design of an action figure/doll. Her face was everywhere now. Every newspaper and radio station talked about her daily as they pondered and argued the meaning of the intra dimensional ship. The Apparatus controlled all the news – not through any kind of coercion or force, but simply through manufactured, agreed upon reality. There were a set number of narratives citizens of the world could choose from, some varying wildly, but all led to resignment and apathy, and they all were based on the same false assumptions. Forgive the cliché of the expression, but it was the oldest trick – it wasn’t that those in power made a better world seem impossible, it’s that they made it seem undesirable. I knew all of the arguments of the Apparatus. But what was I doing about it? How was I bettering the world? I was working for them. I was just as apathetic and resigned as anybody else, regardless of what barbs and bombs my mouth might cast.
I know Isabel loved this. What teenage girl wouldn’t? She was the most famous person in the world. Every girl on the planet wanted to be her, and every boy on the planet wanted to be her boyfriend. She even got a generous percentage of everything.
“This is what I was born to do,” she told interviewers. “I love it.”
After the photo shoot was done, she found herself hungry and tired, and she was scheduled to be in the recording studio in a few hours to work on her first album with a very fashionable producer. She quickly slipped out the back door of the building into a dark limousine driven by the same guy who drove me and Susan Stein around on the day of the Tokyo crash. While he navigated through traffic, Isabel was on the phone with her mom, arguing about a boy (who was really a man, and also a billionaire) who had bought her a famous necklace once thought lost to time, and now wanted to fly her to Turks and Caicos for the weekend.
They were about halfway to their destination (an interview at Fox News) when something huge crashed into the front of the car. Isabel was thrown back into back of the front seats (she never wore her seatbelt). At first, she thought they had hit a truck.
“Get out of the car, quick!” the driver said.
“Why?” Isabel yelled back.
Whatever had hit the front of the car hit it again with just as much force as the first time. The windshield shattered. The roof splintered.
“Come on!” the driver creaked open his half-ruined door and jumped out of the car, just as it was hit a third time.
“Okay, okay,” Isabel shrieked, finally waking from her daze (she had smoked a joint with this chick before the photoshoot).
Once she was outside, Isabel couldn’t believe her eyes, it wasn’t a truck that hit the car, but an eight-foot-tall guy draped from head to toe in white armor that looked like five-thousand year old styrofoam. He was huge, thick with muscle, carried a big metal hammer, and wore a helmet that obscured his face, except for the slit that showed his orange eyes.
It was Stomper Blukowski, a grade C supervillain who had been paroled the day before. Apparently, decided to make a name for himself by attacking the most famous girl in the world. So, now, here he was.
“What the fuck?” Isabel yelled at him as phone cameras leered. She had her costume on, but she didn’t have her laser gun or any of her other gadgets — including her jet boots. All she had were her fists. They will be enough, she thought to herself.
“Hello little girl,” the Stomper said in his lumbering voice. “I’ve come here to play with you.”
Stomper swung his hammer, catching Isabel off guard. The hammer slammed into her left side, breaking her left arm in two places. The force of it threw her to the ground.
“Isabel!” the limousine driver cried out. He rushed at Stomper, throwing a wild punch that hit the villain with little effect. Stomper responded with a punch of his own straight to the driver’s forehead. The driver collapsed.
Isabel screamed in pain. She got up to her knees, and then up to her feet.
“I’m going to kick your ass!” she yelled. She ran towards him. He tried to kick her at the last moment but she was too quick. Isabel punched him with her remaining good arm. Stomper was knocked backed; he collided with the front glass of a bodega, which shattered in a crash of brittle sound.
“Bitch.” Isabel spat.
But in a second, Stomper was back on his feet, towering over her, a pure engine of muscle trying to kill her. He swung his hammer again, this time missing, turning his back to her. She gave him another right to the small of his back, but it didn’t seem to affect him.
He whirled around, swinging the hammer. This time he hit her right knee while she was dodging out of the way. Isabel grunted as her body landed on the hood of a car, whose alarm shrieked upon the impact.
“I’m going to kill you, superhero!” Stomper boasted.
Isabel tried to get up from her bed of crunched metal. Her arm was an explosion of pain. Her knee felt like something had ripped out its bones.
“Ha, ha, you little slut!”
The next moment everything changed –
“HEY!” a strong voice interrupted. “You armored faggot! Leave her alone!”
Everyone there – both Isabel and Stomper, all the onlookers, all the people recording video of it with their phones, people streaming it all on the internet – they all turned at the same time towards the speaker.
He wasn’t tall, but he was built and in terrific shape. He was dressed all in red, except for his golden Buddha mask that glinted in the sun. A superhero.
It was Thousand Dragon Fist, mostly active in the 1980s, but who still sometimes policed this part of New York known as Hell’s Kitchen. He supposedly didn’t have superpowers, but he was a notorious difficult to defeat.
“Who are you?” asked Stomper, incredulous. He was too young to remember the Fist’s glory days.
“I’m about to be your lord and master,” said Thousand Dragon Fist. “I’m about to be your daddy and punish you for being a bad boy. Didn’t anybody teach you not to hit girls?”
“Don’t waste my time!” laughed Stomper.
“Surrender now,” the Fist said, bored.
Stomper replied by running towards Thousand Dragon Fist, raising his great hammer in fury. Thousand Dragon Fist stood unmoving, his arms folded across his chest, until the most perilous moment, when he slipped out of the way of Stomper’s hammer so quickly it was difficult to see or believe. While leaping and twirling through the air, in a movement so graceful and fast it would make a world-renown gymnastic appear clumsily inept, he reached out his right arm and extended two fingers to punch into a tiny spot at the base of Stomper’s neck that his armor didn’t protect. Stomper collapsed like a curtain.
It was over.
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 109/13/2021Jeez, we’re halfway through September and football season has started. Reality is bizarre.
I’m working to strike a balance between posting my regular stories and my “picture stories”. Regular stories take less time but are harder to concentrate on. Picture stories are tedious and take a lot of time, but I really enjoy losing myself in the experience.
I would like to usually make picture stories where the text story is available to people who want to read ahead. On that note, I do plan on updated the text of He-Thing soon with the latest chapter (taking place after He-Thing is rescued by Zolantos and Vaila from the outer hells).
So I’m trying to organize my thoughts here. I also have to clean up the Medium site which is a mess, as well as clean up the WordPress site, which looks like someone started working on it, and then abandoned it (true story.)
The Prophecy of Carson McCullersI posted this on Substack, but no one reads that. Here it is on Medium, in less parts. Part three coming tomorrow.
The Prophecy of Carson McCullers, Part 1
The Prophecy of Carson McCullers, Part 2
The VISUAL He-ThingHere is chapter four of this. I hit a new level with this one.
The VISUAL He-Thing, Chapter 4
The VISUAL Festering Wound of Stephen KingChapter 4. Not my best work, but it was a learning experience. Working exclusively in black and white is hard for me.
The VISUAL Festering Wound of Stephen King, Chapter 4
And I think that’s it!
Matt
