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- The Librarian Notebook (a collection of sketches)
The Librarian Notebook (a collection of sketches)
So after a long chat with AuGoose, I decided to follow his example and put out what little I managed to write down and see if I can find a sense to it all
If anything, it will help clear my mental attic.
“Decontamination cycle complete.” the loudspeaker over the door blared, “I hope you two have some good news. The colonel is getting nervous.”
The two sighed at unison and proceeded to the locker room, emerging a few minutes later in pristine green lab coats and not so pristine civilian garments.
As they walked the hallway to the conference room of the compound it was the girl who broke silence first: “What's your thinking to this 'doctor Green'?”
Between his receding hairline – in spite of his relative young age – and permanently disheveled beard, her colleague looked very much like the character from the old E.R. TV show. “Nothing good. 72 hours at best. You?”
The girl twirled a lock of her walnut brown hair around a finger: “Agreed, that's my best estimation as well.”
A trio of older men with heavy bags under their eyes greeted them in the conference room: one was wiry, with a lazy left eye and dressed in a serious dark blue office jacket; the second was short and bald, with a thick salt-pepper beard, wearing a pinstriped shirt with both sleeves rolled up; and, finally, a tall man with a goatee, wearing a green army uniform with colonel shoulder straps.
As the two technicians took their places at the grey Ikea table the colonel eyed them from under his deeply frowned eyebrows: “No good news from the two of you, I surmise.”
As the senior of the two, 'doctor Green' answered: “We are very sorry, sir, but there's nothing we can do. At least in the current conditions. We just don't have the time to dea—”
The colonel bit his toungue for moment before xploding: “Do you think that is going to cut?” He had been on the edge for hours, pressed in a tense situation he didn't have the technical know-how to understand fully. He has been a field officier for most of his career and had taken a job as a liason officier only after taking multiple bits of shrapnel in the right arm in Syria. “If this was a proper installation, you could bet your sorry ass it wouldn't!”
“Colonel Morris.” the wiry man stood up, displaying a surprisingly deep voice, “I'm not an expert in military tradition, but can you please avoid badmouthing my people?”
The colonel went red up to his ears and looked like he was about to explode any second, then he let out a huge puff: “I'm sorry, Mr. Reyes. Doctor?” he said holding out his right in an apology.
“No harm done, sir.” 'Green' shook the hand, “We all had too little sleep and too much to think about.”
The man with the salt-pepper beard looked at the reports in front of him and nervously clicked the button of his ballpoint pen, before bringing everyone's attention back to the matter at hand: “So, how much time do we have?”
“70 hours, probably less, by our best estimation.” the girl responded adjusting a pair of rimless glasses over her nose and taking a look at the papers on the table.
“Seem plenty of time to me.” the colonel commented.
“Under normal circumstances I would agree,” the salt-pepper beard answered, “but it took us over 10 hours to get the tube into position and that's our only way in right now.”
“Can't you use some kind of probe from there?”
“We already scrapped that idea.” 'Green' sighed, “We won't be able to reach the root from the current position and I don't think we can manage to put another tube in there. The first attempt burned half of our heavy equipment and the replacements won't be ready before a couple of days.”
“So, Mike, what are our options?” Reyes asked.
They all sat in silence for a long moment, before Mike DeCarli nervously tugged his beard: “None I can think of, the only way to get through would be to have some kind of remotely controlled probe, like a drone and send it in from the tube, but I'm not confident that we can maintain the radio contact long enough to provide it the instruction. Even if we had drone that could fit—”
“Actually there's another option.” the girl interjected with a quivering tone. All of the sudden she became the center of attention, as all four men stared at her with hope. She started babbling a bit.
The colonel poured her a glass of water: “What other option, doctor Bernard?”
Liz Bernard downed the water in a single swig: “I think I know a person that might be able to help us, but I'm not sure she will. I need to make a call.”
About three thousand miles west, a phone rung in a small house in the suburbs of Seattle and an old and short, but surprisingly athletic, woman answered: “Hello?”
“* * *”
“Liz, dear, how are you?”
“* * *?”
“A problem? Yes, dear, I think I can help.”
“* * *?”
“You need me to bring what?”
“* * *!”
The woman's lips parted in a poisonous smile: “Really? If that's the case how could I refuse?”
“* * *?!”
“Oh, don't fret, dear, I'll promise to behave around your colleagues but, given the stakes, I guess the military is there too.”
“* * *”
“Then tell to your liason, whoever he is, to get his sorry ass moving and call the DARPA and tell them to get 'Project 381' out of the mothballs. I'll take the first flight.”
“* * *”
“A military transport? Even better, I'll get ready”
She hung the receiver and took a long moment just to smile. It wasn't a reassuring smile, in fact many bad guys would have killed to have a smile that was half as terrifying.
While waiting for her transport, she walked up to her room and took due time to get herself to look better. As the doorbell rung she adjusted her dark red jacket and skirt. Between the dark blood color and her head of straight gunmetal gray hair she looked very much dressed to kill, which was actually pretty accurate. With a glint in her eyes, she recovered a small dark leather briefcase and got to the door.
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- Woodclaw
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- shadar
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shadar wrote: A nice start. Some decent world building, albeit without giving too much away. Leaves me with both anticipation and questions. That's always good for a teaser.
Thanks
I hope to be able to deliver soon.
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- Woodclaw
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Liz was waiting for her just on the other side of the entry checkpoint. She tried to smile, but she was clearly too tired to manage even the least believable smirk.
She embraced Liz trying to ignore the two-days-of-chinese-food breath: “Hello dear, may I say that you look positively terrible.”
“Always the charmer, aren't you?” Liz snorted in response.
“Your father thought so.” she whipped back, but immediately changed tone “How is he?”
Liz undid the embrace: “Not good. He's trying to hold to what little he has left. They gave him 8 months, 12 months ago. He's living on borrowed time.”
“Maybe I should have come here sooner.” the older woman replied, trying to sound as sympathetic as possible as they set out to the conference room.
“I don't think that would have done much difference. It's the body that is failing, not his mind.”
They didn't exchange any more words as they proceeded through the corridors, with Liz's squeaking sneakers making a strange counterpoint to the rhythmic clicks of the older woman's dark red heels.
Inside the conference room the team was already waiting: 'Green' was studying one of the last report and, judging by the constant need to massage his eyes, he hadn't got any sleep; DeCarli seemed just marginally more awake than his researcher, but likely because he seemed to have a tougher skin; Reyes looked as calm as humanly possible, except for the constant twitching of his right hand; colonel Morris, probably thanks to a lifetime of habit, had been able to get enough shut eyes to appear the more human of the group.
“Gentlemen, this is special agent Marie Bernard, formerly of the D.I.A. …”Liz wasted no time to introduce her guest, sighing “… my mother.”
'Green', being the only one in the room that was – more or less – intimate with Liz's family history, made a face like he had just eat a lemon; DeCarli steeled himself; while Reyes and Morris seemed just anxious to get some answers.
“Gentlemen,” Marie greeted them with a firm and professional handshake “And Michael. A pleasure to see you again.”
“Let's hope the outcome will be different.” DeCarli grunted.
They sat and briefed Marie on the latest developments. Apparently the situation was growing worst by the minute and they had the shorten their predicted window of opportunity to roughly 40 hours, which meant that – until the crisis was over – all of them were permanently on call.
Marie looked at the data with a dispassionate eye and, after an extensive briefing, looked over to colonel Morris: “What news from DARPA?”
Morris checked his wristwatch twice: “It took all the extra leverage the Pentagon afforded me, but the equipment you required is on route. Still I don't see how that is going to help us—”
“I agree with the colonel, I think we need some more information on how you're going to proceed and what is this equipment you required.” Reyes interjected.
“Last time I checked the specifics of project 381 were classified.” Marie answered coolly, causing her daughter's face to contort in a mxture of frustration and rage. 'Green' grabbed his junior colleague's left arm and the human contact was, apparently, enough to calm her.
“Considering the stakes, I don't think we have time to play cloak and dagger, agent Bernard.” Morris retorted “381 is the serial number of a one-of-a-kind prototype the DARPA developed around 1989: the only working battle-ready exoskeleton with an internal power supply capable of sustained combat.”
Reyes opened his mouth to ask, but Marie anticipated him: “Unfortunately this prototype had one flaw: the pilot had to be under 5 feet and weighting less than 120 pounds – meaning, scratching the bottom of the men physical requirements. This was way before women were allowed in any active combat role, so the project was officially put in mothballs.”
“All very interesting.” Reyes commented “But how's this going to help us?”
“It's all very simple. Mr. DeCarli's is right: you can't send a radio controlled probe in, you need someone on the field to handle this and, I believe, I'm your only option.”
“That's …” 'Green' tried to find a word to describe the level of sheer craziness of that claim, but he couldn't find any in his vocabulary.
Marie showed her poisonous smile once again and put her briefcase on the table. Without a word she pulled out a shock-proof vial holder with two metal tubes in it. Like a stage magician about to perform a major trick she passed them for inspection: “You might not be familiar with the work of doctor Szalinski.”
Before anyone had the chance to reply the internal phone ringed and a voice announced that the crate from the DARPA had arrived.
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- Woodclaw
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Talking about a big compound with buildings spread over a half acre needs some work. Try five or ten acres if this is supposed to be in the US. Or a hundred.
My back yard alone is 2.5 acres, and my property is the smallest allowed in my area. Outside of the cities, it's a little different than Europe.
The government lab a few kilometers from my house that actually does classified DARPA research is on 100 acres and borders a bay to provide some privacy for whatever they do. Involves boats and submarines is all I can figure out. Saw a bunch of SEALS dressed in black with a black boat at the lab's dock once as I cruised by in the boat at sunset. Story is they do all kinds of strange things after dark. Nights are very long and rainy here in the winter. Lots of Navy bases and ballistic missile subs based about fifty kilometers from me, and they go right past here on the way to sea. Some of those massive subs (look up USS Ohio) have been converted into underwater SEAL bases that can go anywhere in the world, launching tiny subs.
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- shadar
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shadar wrote: Getting better and better. I like your attention to detail (sneakers squeaking as they contrast with click of heels as two women walk down the quiet hallway). Engaging all the readers senses is good writing.
Thanks
Talking about a big compound with buildings spread over a half acre needs some work. Try five or ten acres if this is supposed to be in the US. Or a hundred.
My back yard alone is 2.5 acres, and my property is the smallest allowed in my area. Outside of the cities, it's a little different than Europe.
The government lab a few kilometers from my house that actually does classified DARPA research is on 100 acres and borders a bay to provide some privacy for whatever they do. Involves boats and submarines is all I can figure out. Saw a bunch of SEALS dressed in black with a black boat at the lab's dock once as I cruised by in the boat at sunset. Story is they do all kinds of strange things after dark. Nights are very long and rainy here in the winter. Lots of Navy bases and ballistic missile subs based about fifty kilometers from me, and they go right past here on the way to sea. Some of those massive subs (look up USS Ohio) have been converted into underwater SEAL bases that can go anywhere in the world, launching tiny subs.
Well, the compound isn't meant to be military, nor outfitted for major mainteinance work, but maybe I got my measurements wrong. Problem is that I'm more used to think in terms of square kilometer. I'll go recheck my math.
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“Decontamination complete. You may proceed.”
Marie nodded to the unseen loudspeaker and took the first step through the door with a resonating thud. The personnel inside was just a single lab technician in a yellow plastic hazmat suit, behind the clear visor the frowning face of Mike DeCarli.
Marie moved her jaw to the side and switched on the on-board radio: “You didn't have to do this, Mike.”
DeCarli punched his earpiece on: “Maybe, but I'm the only one here who really understand what you're about to do. And I'm not really convinced that we aren't in some way responsible for this situation in the first place.”
Before Marie could reply the speakers inside her helmet blared to life: “Agent Bernard, we are ready to see your show.” Colonel Morris called.
The servomotors whined as Marie turned on the balls of her feet toward the glass window overviewing the scene – a feat that she made appear deceptively easy – and did a military salute. Morris's eyebrows twitched but – not being able to see Marie's expression behind the armored faceplate – he decided to let it pass.
Mike produced a small vial, filled with physiological, and placed it next to Marie's armored feet, before retreating to a safe distance. Marie double checked the gauges on her left forearm, making sure that the pressure of her oxygen tanks was fine before double tapping a small module strapped to her left hip. There was a mechanical hiss, as the module started pumping vaporized chemicals in the suit and Marie gritted her teeth, getting ready for the change to happen for the first time in over a decade.
The change wasn't unpleasant, just extremely disconcerting. At first Marie felt a heavy and constant pressure on her chest and arms, as if someone was sitting on it, followed by a series or snapping sound, while all her major articulations shifted and ground against each other, trying to adjust to the incoming shift. The pressure started to get more bearable, indicating that the major change was just a fraction of a second away. From Marie's perspective it was like an acceleration tunnel vision effect in reverse: her field of view widened violently, putting almost everything around her out of focus and distorting the perspective, until her eyeballs made a popping sound and adjusted. At the same time her innards started to push against each other making her gasp for oxygen for a split second, before her body stabilized. She paused for a moment and checked the gauges again – keeping her attention focused on them and the floor – before looking up and seeing the world from a totally different perspective.
From the point of view of the spectators it seemed like Marie's body was folding upon itself at amazing speed, yet retaining the same shape, leaving a fuzzy afterimage that looked like a bad special effect from '70s TV show and a whiff of vapor. In a split second she was nowhere to be seen.
“What the hell!” Reyes cursed with wide eyes.
“Where is she?” Morris asked.
“I'm more or less where I was before colonel.” the voice of Marie came out of the loudspeakers.
“I thought that the Szalinski's formula was a fraud.” 'Green' murmured under his breath.
“The D.I.A. probably put the rumor out and, in a way, it was true.” Liz explained to her colleague “The formula is a binary compound. The only working catalyst in existence is in her system.”
“So where is she?” Reyes asked, his voice tinged with anxiety. He was mostly a manager with a limited understanding of medical engineering, not a scientist.
“She's right there, but she's currently a just a few micrometers tall. Probably the size of a bacteria.”
There was a moment of astonished silence, that was interrupted by the loudspeaker: “I'm boarding the vial right now. Mike you can load me when you are ready.”
Mike DeCarli took up the vial and, trying to be as careful as he could, he loaded into the tube running from the drip-feed into the left wrist of their comatose patient: lieutenant colonel Jackson Willis – codename “Goliath” – the army first and, often, best supersoldier. Mike smirked at the irony of it all. Willis was of of the few successful test subjects of the supersoldier program from the late '50s: 7 and something feet and over 360 pounds of superhumanly strong and almost completely impervious muscles – not to mention almost completely immune to poisons, starvation and, apparently, aging. To think that the big giant was falling for something as trivial as illness – although there was nothing trivial about what looked like a tumor pushing against the spinal column – was ironic. Knowing that Willis's only hope was a woman that he hated with passion was like the cherry on top.
“Good luck you magnificent bastard.” Mike muttered.
“I can hea—” Marie replied, but the last word was swallowed by the sound of the pneumatic injection.
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Looking forward to reading more!
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“Control, do you copy?” she called turning the on-board radio on, “The insertion was successful.”
From the static came Liz's voice: “We can hear you >fizzz< now. >Buzz< getting a lot of >crackle<ference. The vide>fzz< looks good”
Marie frowned and she silently cursed Willis's invulnerable skin. “Got it, dear. I'm going to move on toward the chest. I hope not to get any kind of surprises. Over and out.”
Unwilling to put a dent in her very limited supplies, Marie decided to go with the flow and started to swim. Everything around her had a vague red tinge, but not as much as they might have expected she was – after all – just twice the size of the red blood cells that “swam” around her like some kind of weird tropical fish. The buzzing of the servomotors was a constant background noise against the loud and distant thunder of Willis's heart. 'Hard to believe Willis have a heart' she mused – although her mouth curved down in a sneer – while keeping an eye on the gauges on her wrist and one out for trouble. An image of their first encounter flash in her mind's eye, but she pushed it back and clenched her teeth– it was not the time for reminiscing.
Trying to focus on the task at hand, Marie revied the mission parameters: reaching the base of the tumor from the outside seemed rather trivial but, from her current perspective, it was like swimming several hundred meters through a pressurized tube filled with murky water. Not to mention the dangers of going through the heart: like almost every other muscle in Willis's body his heart was super-strong too, which meant that going through it was like trying to move through a car compactor and—
A sudden jerk at her right ankle pulled her backward through the fluid and smashed into something that felt like an octopus jelly.
“SHIT!” Marie cursed as she tried to turn around and face her captor. She kicked convulsively with her left and was able to get the right ankle free.
While she was moving to get into position another translucent tentacle whipped for her, this time binding her left arm. Marie grabbed the tentacle with her right and faced her captor: about five semi-transparent blobs, with dark blue cores, were converging on her. She moved her mouth and tried to push the radio button: “Control, I got a bunch of neutrophils on me. Requesting permission to go active.”
In spite of the previously bad reception, she heard 'Green' howling: “What do >buzz< mean 'active'? Does that thi>fizzle<e weapons?”
The leukocytes closed in on Marie who yelled back: “Of course I've got weapons, this is a combat unit. Requesting permission again.”
There was a buzz as several voice screamed at each other at the other hand of the line, then Liz's voice answered: “N>scrartch<tive mom, we can't risk you piercing that vein.”
Marie rolled her eyes and grunted: “It's you funeral boys.”
She wrapped the end of the tentacle around her right forearm, the turbines of her legs whirled to life – burning through some of her batteries – and she dived for the bottom of the vein. The neutrophils swam after her, probably considering her a bacteria of some sort, and Marie evaded left and right trying to keep their pseudopods away from her. As her feet touched the rubbery wall of the vein, she expertly inverted the turbines to root herself in place and jerked her upper body, swinging the grabbed leukocyte around like a flail. The servomotors squeaked and whined, trying to compensate Marie's movements, and two of the white cells collided with incredible violence. As the grip on her forearm loosened, Marie pushed the turbines in full throttle and smacked another neutrophil with a powerful haymaker. The impact felt a lot less substantial than she expected, but it was powerful enough to send the white cell rebounding against the wall of the vein. While the last two tried to grab her, Marie changed her course and zipped away up the arm.
Meanwhile the control room had fallen silent, as the entire land crew watched the, very low quality, video feed of the fight.
“What the …” colonel Morris murmured, before straightening up. “What did we just watched?”
“Those are granulocyte neutrophils.” 'Green' answered automatically, while watching the feed wide eyed. “But, the law of mass clearly states that she shouldn't—”
“Doctor.” the colonel replied with a hint of scold. “Can you, please, be a little more clear?”
“Sorry sir. The neutrophils are a kind of white blood cells, part of the human body immune system, they exist to search and destroy external agents, like bacteria or toxins.”
The colonel nodded, while the rest of the room forgot about the feed and listened.
“But that's not the point. From previous test we determined that Goliath's powers operate at cellular level, meaning that even his white blood cells should be extremely strong and tough. Ms Bernard shouldn't be able to smack them around like that, not at her present size.” 'Green' continued, before looking at his colleague, “Liz?”
The young lab technician raised her shoulders and made an uneasy smile: “Sorry, I got nothing on this.”
“Welcome to my nightmare.” Mike DeCarli tired voice commented from the speakers.
“Do you know anything about this, Mike?” Liz asked.
“Not as much as I would like.” DeCarli commented while checking the monitoring equipment in the operation room and placed two small metal plates on Willis's, thankfully hairless, chest. “I've been part of Marie's team between 1989 and 1994, even then, the effect of the Szalinski's formula were not clear. For some reason even when shrunk down she retains most of her strength, as if her body mass was unchanged.”
“That's not the case.” 'Green' interjected, “Because if her mass was the same we wouldn't have been able to inject her.”
“Precisely. There were at least two or three working theories, ranging from some form of microleverage, to the idea that her compressed body acts like some kind of micro-singularity.” DeCarli continued casually, but his clenched jaw betrayed his concentration, while he tried to calibrate the defibrillator. To make Marie's passage easier they had to stop and restart Willis's heart with precise timing, but his invulnerability made the whole process way trickier. A jolt too powerful would fry Marie, one too weak wouldn't stop the heart and, eventually condemn her to be crushed. 'Unless she tries to blast through his chest.' DeCarli grumbled to himself. He knew that there was no love lost between them and Marie wasn't idealistic enough to sacrifice herself trying to complete the mission.
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- Woodclaw
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Looking forward to more.
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Writing in a second language introduces some wrinkles, but those are easy to fix in the final editing. As drafts go, this is great stuff.
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- shadar
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The room was as impersonal as humanly possible: squared off-white panels lined every wall, the door, the ceiling and the floor – the seams between incredibly thin – and the whole set up was painstakingly clean. The entire furniture was a clean aluminum table and the chair of the same material were Emma was sitting. She was was sharply dressed in a black-on-black two pieces office dress that looked absolutely out of place in the off-whiteness around her.
“So, what do you make of her?” Asked a dark skinned man in a blue suit and blood red tie. He had a hard mouth and thick spade-like hands.
A woman with pale white skin and bleached blue hair, wearing a shirt and black jeans looked at Emma’s profile on a monitor linked to one of many hidden optic fiber cams, evaluating the contrast between the sharp jawline and the rounded cheeks with a dispassionate look. “She’s good. Very focused. She has been sitting there for over forty minutes and she looks relaxed, as if she was reading a good book.”
“I agree,” an unusually tall and thick limbed Asian man added appraising Emma’s posture in the wide angle monitor – she was sitting straight with both her arms quietly resting on the armrests, in spite of the uncomfortable chair and the cuffs on her right wrist. “So far she has shown no clear sign of tension especially considering her age – 24 isn’t it – but I believe there’s more to it.”
“Actually she’s 28. So you think we might be on to something?” the man in blue asked.
“I won’t go that far. From a purely professional perspective she is very interesting. I don’t think I’ve met someone with such amazing self-control.”
“Neither have I.” added the fourth member of the team, an aging bald man who was cleaning his glasses, “I would venture a bit further than my colleague and say that she doesn’t just look relaxed, she looks … in control not just of herself but of the entire situation. I’d wager she is very used to have the upper hand.”
“So, what are we dealing with? A control freak? Type ‘A’ personality?” the man in blue ventured, getting a snort of laughter from the woman and causing the old man to roll his eyes and sigh.
“No, I believe …” the Asian started, but he trailed off as Emma moved slightly on the chair and her head shifted ever so slightly to her left. That tiny movement grabbed the attention of the entire room and the team eyes locked on the monitors. The bald man divided his attention between the various parts of her lovely oval face, trying to catch any off beat movement from her nostrils and red lips. The woman studied her profile, searching for any involuntary moment of her throat or chest. The Asian meant to focus on her eye movement, but his attention was captured by a second movement in the full body monitor, she had just crossed her legs just a tad above her slender ankles and—
“Eyes up, doctor Fang.” the woman with the blue hair called him.
The Asian blushed, “Sorry …” he said sheepishly. Myra Jordan had known him for years, ever since they were both students of psychology and she knew he was a leg man.
“I can see what you mean professor.” Myra went on, “She looks like … I’d say the epitome of a world class chess player.”
“Not the most technical description, doctor Jordan, but quite accurate.” the bald man replied.
“I think that Myra might have hit it on the head. Look here,” Fang added with eagerness, pointing a camera that was zoomed on Emma’s big brown eyes.
“Microscopic movements, but a very focused field of vision, quite similar to R.E.M.” Myra pondered, “She’s formulating some very complex scenario. Probably weighting her options.”
“Uhm,” the man in blue coughed, “Not to interrupt the talking, but I supposed that she’s not ready yet.”
“No, she isn’t.”
Looking at his wristwatch the man shrugged his shoulders. “We are on a schedule here. Let’s hope that another half hour will do the trick.”
The three experts looked at each other and ever so slightly shook their heads.
The click of the door was barely audible and it was set in a corner that was out of Emma’s immediate field of vision – another small trick to add to the impersonality of the room. She tilted her head slightly sideways – indicating that she wasn’t surprised – but didn’t turn to greet the newcomer.
The man in blue moved in front of her without any apparent hurry and just stood at the other side of the table: “Good afternoon Ms. Wells.” he said with flat, neutral tone.
The tips of Emma’s lips quivered a bit as her eyes shifted up to look her, but her reply was equally flat and professional: “Good afternoon to you, Mr. …”
“Sanders.”
“I presume you must have some really important questions for me.”
“Straight to the point, no complains and she immediately tries to take control of the conversation.” Doctor Fang commented, “So far she fits the profile.”
“Are you familiar with the concept of facial recognition, Ms. Wells?”
“I’ve heard of it.”
“It’s actually a remarkably simple concept,” Sanders went on, aiming to dodge the main issue as long as he could to wear her down, “Over the years the police forces of different countries have worked on establishing a uniform code to describe suspected or previous offenders, starting with the biometric code of Bertillon …”
Emma’s eye remained fixed on Sanders’s face, but her pupils seemed to enlarge a bit.
“Hell! How did she do that?” Myra hissed, looking at the screen, “It’s like she can space out at will.”
“… with current technology things have changed.” Sanders finished and eyed Emma still sitting calm and composed.
“A very interesting lecture Mr. Sanders, but I’m still waiting for your questions.”
Sanders upper lip twitched and he produced his smartphone. Showing a picture didn’t have the same psychological impact of slapping the table with an old still file folder, but he firmly believed in technological advancements.
“Oh no. Too early.” the professor snapped.
He move his fingers twice across the screen and put a picture right in front of Emma. “Looks familiar?”
The picture showed a woman of immense height – well over 1.90 meters judging by the streets signs around her – and an impressive degree of muscularity, but both considerations were obscured by the fact that her skin shone with dark gold tint. The picture was taken from a three quarter rear angle, clearly showcasing the valleys of her back muscles, which led to a pair of steel hard glutes clad in a meager dark brown bikini. She was hoisting a heavy duty vehicle – probably a truck – over her head and, in spite of enormous expansion of her biceps and lats, there was a hint of enormous breasts visible and the dashing smile she awarded to the lucky photographer clearly showed that this was no effort.
“The ‘Golden Giantess’. I’ve seen the picture many times on internet, but I can’t see how is this related to me. Except that we seem to have the same hair stylist.” Emma commented with a laugh, puffing a strand that escaped her sci-fi bob haircut off her face.
“What do you think?” Myra asked Fang, while scratching her right temple with the back of a pencil.
“I don’t know. No telltale either way and it’s not her acting background. I’m starting to suspect that she might be able to fool a polygraph.”
“Maybe not just that.” Sanders said dryly, while absently moving his fingers on the screen.
Emma’s eyebrows rose a bit, making a few lines appear on her forehead, while her laugh turned into a flat grin. “I can’t really comment on her nailjob.”
Sanders breath went a bit heavy for a moment. “Ms. Wells, I know for a fact that you’re a very intelligent woman. Your university record is nothing short of impressive and I don’t think that many actresses can say that they have been asked to play lady MacBeth before they were 30.”
“Laying down facts … he’s trying to regain some ground. This is not playing as intended.” Myra noted.
“This whole scenario was based on some pretty shaky premises.” the professor nodded, “But we should be happy to be here. This is a magnificent exercise.”
“Hence,” Sanders continued, “I think you can understand the link between my introduction and this picture.”
“The only link I can think of is that somehow my face is very similar to this woman’s, but …”
“But?”
“… as you can see,” Emma run her left down her slender profile, from her neck to her abdomen, deflecting a bit more than necessary over her modest B-cup, “I’m hardly a giant amazon with enormous breasts.”
“The easy way out. Do you think she is losing steam?” Fang noted.
“Nothing in her body language suggest that. I think she might be trying to luring him.”
“Touché.” Sanders admitted with a predator grin, “But the similarity between your faces, it’s just part of the equation.”
For the first time the amusement disappeared from Emma’s face, her eyes locked on Sander’s face and her mouth curved downward in a pensive look.
“So far this ‘Giantess’ has appeared twelve times, each and every time she performed some superhuman stunt before disappearing. All those stunt were quite different, but there was one constant among them: they were deliberately theatrical.” Sanders let the words hang in there for a moment before tapping the smartphone once more.
The phone started playing a video, very blurred and taken from a downward camera angle, possibly a security tape. Two men wearing balaclavas and heavy jackets scuttled across a vast room – a shop or a mall, judging by the racks of clothes around them – the uncoordinated way they ran suggested they were both panicking hard. From the right side of the screen the Giantess appeared, wearing the same skimpy outfit she had in the picture – a sort of swimsuit formed by a single strip of cloth running from her bikini bottom behind her neck and back. She moved with deliberate slowness and, in spite of the low quality, it was possible to see that she turned a bit to acknowledge the presence of the camera. Before she could return her attention to them, one of the men aimed a shotgun at her and fired twice. The buckshot hit the amazon dead on and didn’t seem to have any more effect than droplets of water.
Sanders stopped the video. “This video is from ten days ago, in previous appearances this woman demonstrated that she could move and react at extremely high speed, so why did she allowed herself to be shot?”
Emma didn’t answer, but her left eye twitched with a bit of interest.
Sanders pushed one step further: “I think that she did it because she was putting on a … performance for those poor bastards. If this doesn’t reek of theater I don’t know what does.”
In the other room all the three experts remained silent.
Emma shifted her position a bit to extend her legs and allowed her body to slip a bit further into the chair. Her lips curved once again upward, but there was no humor in her expression, her eyes were cold and fixed like two gunsights aimed straight at Sanders. “I presume there are other circumstantial similarities between me and this woman you’ve uncovered.” she considered in lower tone, “but still there’s the basic issue of our different bodies.”
“Considering that there aren’t many women that would fit her body type, we considered that she might be able to change it dramatically.”
“In that case, Mr. Sanders, you must be a very brave man.” Emma said as her eye acquired an unnatural level of immobility and fixed on a spot behind Sanders’s head, an unspoken threat hanged in the air, “You’ve been alone in a room with a woman you suspect can transform into a superstrong and invulnerable juggernaut and hoped that a single handcuff would be enough to stop her.”
She finally raised her right hand from the armrest and the thin chromed steel links clinked gently.
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- Woodclaw
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I can suggest some tweaks to the dialogue if you are still working on it, but if this is your final version then I won't bother you with suggestions.
I'm also intrigued by the mention of Lady MacBeth. She is the opposite of a self-empowered woman: Lady MacBeth calls upon her husband to commit a horror but then does not have the strength to bear the moral weight of the consequences. Was the selection of Lady MacBeth intentional or just an example of a difficult role?
Do you have a follow-on plot in mind?
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circes_cup wrote: Nice! I like how he is making the connection based upon her theatrical behavior rather than anything more mundane. I wonder whether the reason he feels so safe in the room is that she doesn't not have enough of an audience to merit doing anything interesting.
Your reasoning implies that she actually is the Giantess, which is something that I purpoutedly left undefined. She might be or she might just be just so good at playing mind games that her threats appears are much more substantial that they should.
circes_cup wrote: I can suggest some tweaks to the dialogue if you are still working on it, but if this is your final version then I won't bother you with suggestions.
The entire purpose of this thread is to publish works in progress for your enjoyment, so fire away.
circes_cup wrote: I'm also intrigued by the mention of Lady MacBeth. She is the opposite of a self-empowered woman: Lady MacBeth calls upon her husband to commit a horror but then does not have the strength to bear the moral weight of the consequences. Was the selection of Lady MacBeth intentional or just an example of a difficult role?
The choice was mean to highlight Emma's level of skill, given that it's a role that is rarely offered to young actresses, as far as I know, I didn't consider the female empowerment implications of it. While your analysis have some merits, there's one additional fact Lady MacBeth is the true engine of the entire plot and, in the first act, she stand out as being the only character willing to act and scheme -- however desplicable -- to get what she want, instead of waiting passively, like most of the male characters.
circes_cup wrote: Do you have a follow-on plot in mind?
Not right now, this was single scene I had in my mind and needed to be written.
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- Woodclaw
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Anyway, a couple of years ago I stumbled upon and very nice online software for building 3d printed miniatures called Heroforge . It's mostly geared toward building fantasy and sci-fi character, but it can handle a few superheroes designs with a little bit of help. So far this is my best effort with it and I don't think I'll have to spell who she is
I also tried to do a Supergirl, but due to the software limitations I could only manage to recreate the Linda Danvers white shirt design.
If anyone is interested to try his hand at this, each picture links to my original design and you can tweak it however you like
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Season 3 Episode 5
Author's Note: A special thanks to Lustmonster for allowing me to borrow and temporary demote Commander Barbara Wallace.
More powerful than a locomotive!
Or not?
Superwomen have been part of our existence since the ‘70s, but how much do we really know about them?
Can they really squeeze coal into diamonds?
Or survive leaping a tall building in a single bound?
Karen Masters and Leni Travis had been at the top of the superwomen business for over fifteen years. They know all the tales and they’re ready to test them in this crazy science hour of power.
In the middle of the scene, a large and sturdy table is covered by dozens of notepads. A laptop with a heavy duty custom-made case takes the center of the stage and two women in their early forties sit at the end of the table.
A stocky, big boned, brunette scratches the side of her button nose. Her fair and immaculate complexion contrasted heavily with her dirty denim overalls and green plaid shirt. “Okay Karen. From the look on your face, I can tell you have a new tale ready, so shoot.”
Her companion is a 2-meters-tall uneven mixture of bleached blonde hair and dark Indian features – in black jeans and a blue t-shirt – showing off a pair of respectable biceps. She leans on her chair and pulls a Beretta M9 from the small of her back, cocking it with a loud ‘clack’.
“‘Shoot’ is the operative word here.” The taller woman says with a grin.
The brunette’s mouth twists downward and her eyebrows rise a bit. “Guns?! We’ve done guns to death!”
“Yeah, and I loved every minute of it!” Karen replies, attempting a Robocop-style gun spin.
Leni rolls her eyes at the childish enthusiasm of her co-host for handling firearms … or rather being shot by them. “We did the bullets & bracelets thing with Lynda Carter last season.” she starts, flipping her index finger to count.
“And you loved it! You still have those things locked away.”
“Point. Then there was the bullet to the eye.”
“Okay, that one stung.” Karen concedes.
“Next,” still counting on her fingers Leni continues, “we did that weird ‘boobies rebound’ suggestion from of of our viewers.”
“Oohhh, I love that! It was my favorite. Being shot there felt so—”
Karen looks straight into the camera: “We are two very hot ladies, who used to fly around in very revealing costumes while being shot at.” she points to the scarlet and gold low-cut costume hanging from the wall props, “There’s nothing here that is less than PG-13.”Ladies, let’s keep this family friendly.
“Speak for yourself.” Leni grins, giving a longing stare to the dark blue armored suit, “My armor was anything but.”
Karen rolls her eyes and sighs, “One day, I’ll get you.”
“You know where to find me.” Leni smiles.
“Anyway, today’s story is a redo of the barrel bending.”
“Really? We already busted that to kingdom come a while ago.”
“True, but some … actually a ton viewers wrote in saying that we got it wrong.”
Leni’s eyes become two small slits as she props her jaw with her left fist. “Humor me.”
“They say that we only tested it with guns at room temperature. Apparently the expanding gasses can get as hot as 1700° Celsius and that isn’t something to underestimate.”
“I can see that, but I doubt it would change much. In my experience, even after shooting an entire magazine on full auto, the barrel is still more likely to break than to bend.”
“So you’re sitting this one out?” Karen asks, an unmistakable glint in her eye.
“And let you stay all day at the range mangling guns without supervision? In your dreams, Masters!”
Leni leans aggressively over a heavy walnut table with a row of gun racks behind her. “Okay, Jason, we’re back to the gun bending story. Some people seem to think that twisting the barrel before and after firing might provide very different results. What can you tell us?”It’s a classic moment in superhero fiction: when the hero grabs the barrel and, after a few seconds of tortured metallic screams, all the bad guy is left with is a banana shaped gun. However, when the ladies tested it, we ended up with a pile of broken barrels and no bananas. So, before hitting the range, Leni decided to get some more insight into the matter.
Cut to our old friend gunnery sergeant Jason Stewart. A veteran of the 75th Rangers and a certified ballistic engineer. If there’s a gun in the world that he hasn’t fired, we don’t know about it
A portly 50-year-old man – sporting an impeccably trimmed horseshoe mustache and a army green shirt – clears his throat: “Well, there’s more than a grain of truth in it. What happens in the chamber is more a less a contained explosion that is vented through a narrow tube. As the Gas Laws clearly state, pressure and temperature are directly related and a rapidly expanding gas in a contained space gets very hot pretty fast.”
“I remember reading that this was a big problem with the early models of the M-16.” Leni interjects.
Sergeant Stewart shifts in his chair, tugging his mustache: “That’s a can of worms better left untouched, but it’s true that one of the big problems was the decision to change the type of gunpowder after the design was in production. It lead to a different level of pressure and, consequently, a significant increase in temperature and muzzle velocity. This resulted in overheated barrels that lost the rifling much faster than expected. The A2 addressed many of these problems. Even when this is all said and done, the big question is: how much of said heat is going to transfer to the barrel?”
“Because the gas expands in a very short time.”
“Precisely. Heat transfer isn’t something that happens instantly, but requires a certain amount of time. Repeated firing over an extremely short period of time damages the rifling and might cause a drop in the barrel, but as far as making the metal really pliable … I can’t see that happening. At least not with modern alloys.”
“Okay, thank you Jason.” Leni says, straightening up and shaking his hand.
Karen – wearing a pair of massive aviator goggles strapped to her head and a replica of a Vietnam war aviator jacket slung over a shoulder – appraises the 3 meters long container encased within a cage of steel tubes and heavy duty metal plates.Well, the expert said that this is not going to happen, but that’s no reason to skip a lovely day at the range … California gun laws on the other hand …
Lucky for us Karen and the reinforced container built for the car lifting tale are giving our Breakers a helping hand.
“Hey Karen,” a short stage hand with curly hair calls out, “we’ve got everything we need here.”
Licking her lips, the extraordinarily tall blonde answers, “Are you sure? Even the …?”
“Yes, even that, but you’ll have to get the ammo on site.” He says while slamming the main door shut.
Karen smiles with anticipation and grabs a piece of rebar from the ground. “Time to secure the cargo then!” She runs the metal rod through the ring where the padlock usually sits and starts to slowly twist the endings toward each other like the twist-tie on a loaf of bread.
As the metal squeaked in protest, she comments, “This might look easy, but it’s actually precision wo—” With a loud ‘CRACK’ one of the ends of the rebar snaps off, leaving Karen with two mangled halves.
“Padlock?” ‘Curly’ offers.
“Killjoy.” she answers drily donning her jacket.
“Hey, you’re the one who’s going to fly to Arizona under her own power. We are looking at a 12 hours drive in the pickup.”
“Yeah, but you don’t have to haul this.” Karen replies, grabbing a point along the bottom of the container marked in red. The camera captures an inadvertent view of her backside, blue jeans clinging to her toned curves.
“One … two … and …” With a grunt that sounds out of place given her smug smile, she lifts one end of the container straight off the ground. Her biceps and calves bulged as she raises the massive load. Balancing it in a precarious one-handed grip, she works her way under the metal container. Repeating the process she makes her way to more or less the center of the container, where she can support it without it snapping under its own weight.
She, and the container pop a dozen feat up into the air. “See you guys in Arizona.” she beams at the camera before accelerating eastward.
“Did she turn her GPS on?” ‘Curly’ drawls.
“I hope so.” an off-stage voice replies.
A white and blue pickup screeches to a halt and throws up a cloud of desiccated sand. Leni dismounts, marching toward the massive container baking in the desert sun. Her steel-tipped boots thud loudly across the not-so-empty landscape. Looking up to the top of the container where Karen’s basking against the overheated metal she calls out, “I’m not going to ask what are you doing, but would you care to explain to me why we had to come all the way here?”So, welcome to the Arizona desert, where you can usually fire lots of ammo without hitting people.
Karen rises into the air, re-ties her jacket around her waist and floats down from the top of the blue box. “Because,” she grins while twisting her hands in anticipation, “I’ve called in a couple of favors from the army and I scored the sweetest deal ever.”
“Seeing is believing.” Leni snorts, with a hint of irritation.
Karen puts her index through the ‘C’ of the padlock and gives it a tug. The weakest parts of the mechanism resist for only a split second. “Voilà!” she bows theatrically as the doors swing open.
“You’ve got to be kidding me …” Leni gasps, her eyes going wide as saucers.
“Since this story is all about heat and shooting a lot of bullets,” Karen explains, trying to hide her own salivation, “I thought better to go big.”
Leni shakes her head in awe. “Even when I was doing my villain stint, I never saw half of these guns in person.”
Karen smiles broadly: “A classic M60 … SCAR-L … about half a dozen handguns and SMGs and the pièce de résistance …”
“A M134 Minigun. How in hell did you get that?”
“If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you.” Karen turns it into a black metal style growl.
“First, nobody uses that line anymore since … 1979 at least. Second, your villain voice is bad. Christian Bale’s Batman bad.”
“So, let’s hear something from you, Lady Darkness.”
Leni straightens instantly, as if she had been stung by a bee. She pivots slowly and deliberately, like a naval gun turret zeroing on target, leveling her gaze on her co-host. “I used that name for less than a year, you know.” she said with a tone devoid of any color or inflection. Her face is a metal mask, not a twitch, not one muscle moving. Her mouth moves like a it’s separate being: “So if you mention it again …”
Karen gulps.
“… I’m going to talk about your little wardrobe malfunction from 2006.” Leni finishes with a smile so cold and ferocious that Karen steps back in genuine alarm. “Now,” Leni continues, “We’d better get this stuff unloaded.”
Karen stands there for a moment before looking straight into the camera: “That was terrifying … I mean, really terrifying and I know …” she said with her eyes wide, “… I know for a fact that there’s pretty much nothing either of us can do the other that would result in permanent harm, but she scarred me sh>beep<.”
Karen’s already started unpacking, hauling the massive six-barrel machine gun in her arms like a newborn baby. Leni grabs a trio of 2-by-1 meter, 10 cm thick steel plates and a bundle of metal struts. She walks to the end of the impromptu range with them and, with a massive grunt, slams the plates into the naked ground, burying them nearly 30 cm in a sort of three panel screen. Next she shores them up by setting the two struts behind each one in an “X” pattern. “Better safe than sorry,” she mumbles to the camera, “Karen … is a good shot … but I guess my parole officer won’t be happy if I shot someone, even by accident.”
At the opposite end of the range, Karen lines up gun after gun on the table, all empty. “Usually, we only load a few rounds at a time for each test, but this time the story is all about transferring heat after firing. So, to give it the best chance possible, we are going for maximum firepower.” She glances down to a half-meter-high pile of ammo boxes and sighs: “Unfortunately, this means we have to load them and I’m not superfast.”
Leni slams a 50 rounds drum magazine into the SCAR-L with a resounding ‘thunk’. “All set?”Indeed, but lucky for us there’s always the magic of time-skipping montage and Leni’s accelerated reflexes.
“Ready when you are, Ms. Travis.” a tall and thin lawman with a khaki shirt and Stetson answers.
“Where is Karen?” Leni asks, looking for her co-host.
“Nature called.” ‘Curly’ replies, “She said not to wait for her.”
Karen’s eyebrow twists in an uneven curve, “Why do I suspect that she will pop up as soon as she hears the first shot?”
The rest of the crew snickers.
“Boys,” she scolds them in a dry tone, “I’d like to remind you that in some circles what you are thinking now is considered sexual harassment.”
“Come on! We can dream at least, can’t we?” ‘Curly’ retorts.
“Sure.” Leni grins, “In your beds at night … unless you’re married …”
“You’re no fun, boss.”
Leni trembles visibly: “Don’t call me ‘boss’.”
“Well, don’t intrude in my dreams. Deal?”
“Deal … minion.” Leni smiles wickedly.
“Are we ready?” Karen calls from over a nearby ridge.
Leni grips a Luger P08. “Waiting for you.” she shouts back.
Karen flutters down gracefully next to the gun bench with her jacket flapping in the breeze and a greedy glint in her dark eyes. “Heads or tails?”
“Tails.”
The camera follows the coin as it flips in the air catching the sunlight several times before landing on the cracked dry ground. “… and tails it is!” Karen scowls, “Are you going to shoot or bend?”
Leni cocks the hammer and puts her ear protectors in. “Since I already have the gun … Range is hot!” she called at the top of her lungs. Aiming low to the metal screen, she unleashes a torrent of 9mm parabellum rounds as fast as the old 20th century pistol is able to spit them. In less than a minute the first magazine is empty and the firing mechanism locks on open. Faster than humanly possible, Leni snatches a fresh magazine from the table, slams it in, and is firing again before the spent one hits the ground.
“How in hell …?” the Stetson-wearing officer blurts from behind a bullet-resistant screen set up well back from the action.
“You never got any reports on her from the FBI, did you?” ‘Curly’ suggests with a fanboy-ish glee, eyes never leaving the high-speed camera monitor.
“I’ve heard of her.”
“… but seeing it is quite different.” Curly grins cockily while trying his best to look professional.
After seven empty magazines pile up at her feet, Leni tosses the weapon to Karen. “Go for it!”
The Indian supergirl clasps the gun with her left hand, wrapping her right index and middle fingers around the tip of the barrel, using her thumb as a fulcrum. She slowly starts to twist and the heated metal seems to bend just a little bit with a thin squeal. Before anyone can say anything, a loud twang announces failure of the experiment.
“Damn!” Karen curses under her breath, putting the mangled Luger back on the gun bench. The camera moves in for a close up: the barrel snapped just a centimeter from the main body of the gun.
“Before any of you gun-aficionados blow up,” Leni comments, looking at the camera while donning a pair of heat resistant gloves, “we didn’t use an original Luger for this test, just a replica. We choose the P08 because most of its barrel is exposed, unlike most automatic pistols, and it’s relatively thin, making it easier to bend. This also means that there was nothing to dissipate the heat, which should give us the best possible result. But as you can see …” she lifts the mangled weapon, “The 9mm is small caliber, meaning it doesn’t generate that much heat, but this doesn’t bode well for the rest of the test.”
“Range is hot!” Karen calls out, shouldering a long-barreled H&K MP5 fitted with a massive drum clip. Like Leni, she empties her magazines as fast as she can before tossing the weapon to her co-host in the exact moment the fourth drum hits the ground. Leni grabs the smoking weapon mid-air and proceeds to push with both hands. The metal squeals for two long agonizing seconds before the high-pitched squeak gives way to a loud crack and the barrel’s locking pins sheer under the strain.
“Damn!” Karen repeats while examining this second failure. “I think we need to rework our parameters for this.”
Leni pulls off her gloves and blows a bit on her hands. “Agreed. If we want this to work we need to take the engineering of these weapons into better consideration.”
“Meaning?”
“Guns have to be built to dissipate as much heat as possible and their barrels are able to take a lot. To give this experiment the best possible chance we might have to tinker with them a bit.”
“Good plan … and I might have one more trick to help us. Straight from my army days: tracers.”
“Wait a minute, tracer rounds are illegal!” Leni objects sternly.
“In California, sure, but here …” Karen grins happily.
Karen collects the modified M60 from the bench, double checking the safety. “For the sake of brevity we decided to dispense with the rest of a small arms and go big. The M60 fires 7.62 NATO rounds, the heaviest caliber in our arsenal and we’ve removed as much of the heat sink as possible. If this doesn’t work there’s only one option left …”It seem that the ladies have a plan. So, after an hour of tinkering for Leni and a shopping trip of death for Karen, it’s go time once again.
Meanwhile Leni has exchanged her usual attire for Interceptor body armor and stands just a few steps behind her co-host. “For those who are only joining us just now: yes, I’m bullet-proof, but they’re still painful. Try to imagine getting peppered with hard rubber balls all over and you will get an idea of what is like for me being shot at. Since this isn’t ‘superpowered Jackass’, I’m not going to take any chances.”
“Okay, range is hot!” Karen warns before double checking her grip and unleashing a burst from the hip. The tracer rounds burn bright, even in the immolating sunlight, creating a pattern of hissing trails and light darts across the desert that looks right out of a sci-fi movie. Karen keeps the bullets in a tight pattern, landing shot after shot within a head-sized circle, fully demonstrating both her superhuman strength and that the army didn’t waste money on her. Even with the 1,500-round belt clip attached the pyrotechnics are over in just two and a half minutes.
Smoke pours from the mouth of the gun. Karen cheers: “It’s now or never!”
Leni takes the barrel with both hands with the blonde keeping the stock steady. She begins to twist the barrel upward. Music rises as the heated metal flexes a millimeter, then two, slowly succumbing to the brunette’s strength. After ten seconds or so Leni lets go, inspecting the weapon: the barrel has lifted at a 20-ish degree angle and deformed about 7 cm from the attachment point. The point of the bend is flattened like a plastic Coke bottle.
Leni hastily strips her smoldering gloves, puffing on her reddened hands. “That’s what I call a result!” she remarks.
“Yep!” Karen agrees with a big smile, “That’s a nice bent barrel.”
“I think we might call it a day.”
Karen’s eyes go wide. “What? And lose the chance to see you doing your impression of the Terminator? No way! Go fetch that minigun!”
Leni’s eyes narrow as she leans forward trying to see through her co-host’s motives. “What are you planning, Masters?”
“What? It’s a beautiful day in the desert and we have some sweet toys to play with. It would be criminal not to use them.” Karen smiles, showing the powerful contrast between her tanned complexion and pearly white teeth.
There’s a loud “uhm” coming from behind them when the Stetson-wearing lawman steps into the frame: “I’m very sorry ladies, but I’m afraid I have to ask you to stop here.”
Karen squares her shoulders and confronts the man. They’re pretty much the same height, but she carries herself with such confidence – one could say a bravado – that he draws back half a step. “I’m sorry, but why?”
“The agreement with your production team,” the man coughs as he points at the M60, “was that you were going to shoot until you get a result, or you fired all your guns …”
“A deal’s a deal,” Leni agrees, putting a hand on Karen’s shoulder. “Let’s pack up.”
Leni and Karen sit at the planning table once more. The Indian supergirl gazes dreamily at the bent M60 barrel and sighs: “You know, I’m still a bit pissed that we weren’t able to shoot the minigun.”So, we are back to the Bay area …
“I know, that’s why I got a surprise for you.” Leni smirks knowingly.
“A surprise? What surprise?”
“As you know, we can’t legally shot that monster in California.”
“And?”
“I said ‘we’.”
Leni and Karen – one in dark blue shirt and camo trousers carrying two green metal boxes, the other in her usual ‘going anywhere’ get-up with the minigun slung over her shoulder – march through the entry checkpoint of the base. A balding 40-ish NCO greets them in the middle of the tarmac right beyond the checkpoint: “Good afternoon, ladies.”Cue dramatic foreshadowing and welcome to the Camp Parks P.R.F.T.A. – the stomping ground of the 104th Infantry, among the others – and, for the next couple of hours, our Breakers. Here, heavy guns are at home.
“Gunnery Sergeant Torres?” Leni shakes his scarred hand.
“In the flesh. I presume this is the beast.”
“Right on.” Karen comments, taking it off her shoulder and handing it to Sergeant Torres, who takes a prudent step back. “Sorry …” she says blushing, “Sometimes I forget that things have mass.”
“No problem.” Torres smiles, “If I got it right, you want us to shoot it until it can’t take any more, correct?”
“Not just ‘any more’.” Karen points out, “We want to see how long will it take to make this thing go red hot.”
Torres massages his heavy-set chin: “A pretty tall order of business and it will surely put a dent in our stocks.”
“Well,” Leni whispers conspiratorially while dangling one of the boxes in front of the NCO, “We might have a way to—”
Sorry for bleeping out the rest of the conversation, but it seem that our resident reformed super-criminal is still up to her old tricks.
The trio walks through the base, with Karen staring wide eyed at the size of the parked tanks and giving the occasional lustful stare at the cannons. “We so have to do a ‘lifting tank’ episode.” she whispers to Leni.
The stocky supergirl shakes head: “Do you know anyone who can even think of lifting that kind of weight without causing it to collapse?”
“You’ll never know.” Karen objects while visibly salivating.
Leni rolls her eyes and keeps going, straight toward a series of low concrete bunkers.
“Here we are.” Chief Torres announces in front of an armored door, “This is the light weapons firing range.”
“Light?” Leni snickers.
“Under the general definitions from the U.N., any non-explosive and non-anti-material weapon is considered a light weapon … albeit only our resident specialist would consider a M134 ‘light’.”
Leni and Karen look at each other quizzically. Then the door opens, revealing a 2.1-meter-tall silhouette of hulking proportions.
Torres snaps to attention and salutes sharply: “Ma’am!”
A gigantic redhead – with a short buzz-cut and dressed in what seems like a custom fitted combat uniform that leaves her arms bare, showcasing biceps the size of hams – emerges from the shadow of the bunker. The girls shuffle back a little as an arm as thick as their legs rises to answer the salute. Karen notices captain epaulettes, but no unit patch.
The towering woman drops her salute and extends her right hand to the girls: “Welcome. I’m Captain Barbara Wallace of the A.R.L.”
Karen cranes her neck upward at an angle she is not used to, in order to look at the captain’s face. Usually people have to do the same with her. “Nice to meet you, but you don’t look much like an egghead.”
“Oh, I’m partial to field research. Kinda of like you two. In fact I really love … handling big guns.” The behemoth flexes her monster biceps to drive the point home.
“The captain is our ‘expert’ in these kind of situations.”
Karen lifts the gun: “So, this is for you then.”
The captain grabs the multi-barreled weapon with a glint of lust in her eyes: “Sergeant?”
“It’s not a standard regulation M134, for sure. At first glance, it has been heavily tampered with.” Torres comments dryly while examining the barrels, “Nearly every heat sink is gone. Under normal circumstances, I won’t fire this thing in a million years.”
“Sounds perfect!” The captain grins as she casually twirls the monster gun with just one hand.
The team enters the bunker and the captain puts the massive weapon down on a metal table. Sergeant Torres starts all the prefiring checks with admirable attention and machine-like precision, while Leni stabs her fingers through the plastic seal of the boxes and rips them off.
Meanwhile Karen approaches the towering officer: “Captain Wallace, do you mind a question?”
“Sure, but I already have a steady girlfriend.” the giantess smiles.
“And I’m happily married” Karen blushes, “I want to know how did you end up with the A.R.L.? I got my powers when I was enlisted, but the eggheads never came through to ask me for some help.” Karen pouts.
The hulking redhead smiles. “Sheer luck, I presume. I’m a late-bloomer and I was already on the D.A.R.P.A. radar. So when I … blossomed during my internship,” she explains while flexing her right bicep to emphasize the point, “They tried to keep me there, but the Army wanted me so bad that they end up making a deal.”
“Lucky you.” Karen grumbles.
“No offense, Ms. Masters, but what’s the problem? I read your file. Your combat record was nothing short of spectacular.”
“Yeah, but I never had the chance to play with the really sweet toys.”
The captain bursts into deep laughter, causing Karen to frown and hiss: “What?”
“Sorry.” the captain says while her shoulder still trembles, “It’s just that you remind me of someone I … know.”
“Ready!” Sergeant Torres calls.
Captain Wallace marches up to the table and grabs the minigun looking down at the long ammo belt. “How many rounds?”
“We were able to link together several belts. You’ve got about 4,000 tracers … I’d say about 45 seconds to one minute of firing.”
“Good. Range is hot!”
Leni and the sergeant retreats quickly behind a blast shield set up at the opposite end of the bunker, while Karen remains next to the captain, with a sly smile on her lips. “3 … 2 … 1 …” she counts under her breath, looking at the anticipation on the giantess’s face.
The electric motor whines to life and two seconds later a stream of bullets erupts from the rolling barrels, highlighting the much more dangerous guns of the captain. The rate of fire is so high that the single detonations are lost in a continuous dragon roar and the burning trails become a continuous torrent of fire. Under the endless cacophony the captain starts to laugh.
Karen watchs enraptured for about 10 seconds before taking off …
“Oh >beep<!” Leni swears behind the glass.
… and landing gracefully in front of the incoming onslaught. As the burning rounds starts to flatten against the micron thin force field surrounding her body, Karen giggles: “Oh god … please … stop i-it-it’s too much.”
Contrary to any common sense, the captain keeps pouring lead against Karen without any apparent worry. In a few more seconds it’s over and Karen collapses to the floor trying to catch her breath between the giggles.
“Are you two >beeping< mental?” Leni shouts, barging off the blast shield and rushing toward the giantess.
Without answering the captain licks her lips and grabs the disk bundling the six red-hot barrels together. She slowly rotates her giant arm while keeping the weapon steady with her other hand. The sizzling metal protests as it is bent in ways it was never intended to, one little bit at a time. Small bits of red hot zinc drops as the barrels are sculpted into something similar to a hourglass.
“There we go.” Captain Wallace comments with a smug smile, “And to answer your question, Ms. Travis: no, I’m not mental. Before meeting the two of you, I read your files thoroughly. I know what you’re capable of and that your friend won’t be harmed by this little stunt. I believe this is the result you were looking for.” she concluded, handing her artistic effort to Leni.
Grumbling, the stocky brunette grabs the twisted barrels. “It sure is!”
“Then my work here is done.” the Captain smiled. She turns and walks leisurely toward the nearest wall.
“Captain!” Sergeant Torres calls emerging from behind the safety glass.
“Yes?” she acknowledges without breaking her stride. She turns her face toward him just ask her left foot makes contact with the reinforced concrete. The hard material crumbles like a sandcastle under a wave, but the Captain seems oblivious to any resistance or discomfort and keeps going right through the wall.
“Nevermind …” Torres sighs.
“Contrary to popular belief,” Leni hisses, gazing straight into the camera, “I don’t like guns. I don’t have a problem with the object per-se and I even appreciate the engineering, but I have lot of issues with people using them. They can’t do me much harm, sure, but every bullet that doesn’t hit me is going to ruin someone else’s life. Moreover, having a loaded gun makes a lot of people act stupid.”Leni, why did you flip like that?
Taking a deep breath, Leni continues: “When we, as in ‘we humans’, feel threatened, our automatic reaction is to either run or fight back. The problem is that a lot of people seem to think that having a gun makes them invincible and they stay instead of running. Also, I’m not going to diss on the second amendment. I can understand having one, two, even three guns for self-defense. But unless you’re completely nuts, or you’re planning a shoot-out, why the hell would you keep over ten working and loaded weapons in your home?”
“Now,” her face hardens, “If the N.R.A. want to come after me, they’re very welcome, but I’m going to exercise my right to self-defense.”
“Time to call it.” Karen says, leaning forward on the bunker gun bench and resting her chin over her folded arms.Okay, that was a bit unexpected, but it’s time to wrap this one up.
Leni pulls back, tapping her left cheekbone with a finger: “You know, I think we should really get into the spirit of this story: what is bending a barrel good for?”
“Disarming and intimidating, I think.”
“Okay. Now the big point is: is this a viable way to achieve either of those?” Leni asks, grabbing the bent M60 barrel and using it to tap the artistic effort of Captain Wallace.
“As far as disarming goes … I’d call it ‘fiction’: to bend this one we had to fire enough ammo to stop an entire company and still it barely worked.”
“‘Fiction’ it is. To bend a metal tube you need to use completely different techniques: there are machines able to do that, but they require several passages at very low speed, each bending the metal just a fraction. I can think of at least five better ways to disarm someone, especially when you’re strong enough to lift a car.”
“As for intimidation … it’s viable, but not the best.”
“Agreed, although we are underestimating one detail: to intimidate someone you don’t need to bend the barrel, breaking it in half is equally effective.”
“So ‘fact’, but not recommended?”
“Yeah. Time to go.”
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- Woodclaw
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This is a younger Leni (bodycast Shay Massey).
And is very close to Karen (bodycast unknown).
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Woodclaw wrote: Okay it has been a while since I dared upload something here, this is part one of a new story idea I've been working on since this summer. It's still very rough in my eyes and the following parts won't come fast, I fear, but here you go for all to enjoy.
Very MythBusters in feel, but totally SWM in style. A fun read, although it would have been even better if it was written more "R" than "PG".
But now I'm confused -- do gun barrels actually bend or break?
I apologize for the following geek-out, but I spent two semesters in the 1960's as a metallurgical engineering student before I escaped, and I've still got a passing interest in the field.
[Geek-out
Most gun barrels are 4140 steel, with some of the upper-end mil-spec barrels made of 4150. While 4150 has a bit more carbon than 4140, both are highly ductile steels.
Ductile refers to their ability to bend or be drawn out into wire without breaking.
But 4140/50 steels are also high tensile (95,000+ psi ultimate yield) which is at the upper end of steel, which says its VERY stiff and hard to bend.
So, in reality, gun barrels are extremely hard to bend (unless you are Karen or Lena) but they WILL bend and not break when overstressed at anything other than perhaps cryogenic temperatures.
That said, I would expect receivers or other parts of a gun to break long before the barrel would bend, so one needs to hold the barrel at each end when bending, sort of like bending a crowbar.
Oh, yeah, the classic crow-bar bend? Not happening. Pry/crow bars are made of high carbon steel, something like 1095 or its ilk, and that's more or less the kind of steel used for automotive springs. It's high tensile but low in ductility. Which means that once you bend a crow-bar more than a small amount, which is very hard to do, it will snap. Think of it as brittle, although that's not exactly right.
So, gun barrels will bend in half without breaking. Crow-bars will not.
You might want to pass that on to Karen and Lena. Tell them when it comes to gun barrels, it's all in the grip.
/Geek-out]
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- shadar
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shadar wrote:
Woodclaw wrote: Okay it has been a while since I dared upload something here, this is part one of a new story idea I've been working on since this summer. It's still very rough in my eyes and the following parts won't come fast, I fear, but here you go for all to enjoy.
Very MythBusters in feel, but totally SWM in style. A fun read, although it would have been even better if it was written more "R" than "PG".
But now I'm confused -- do gun barrels actually bend or break?
I apologize for the following geek-out, but I spent two semesters in the 1960's as a metallurgical engineering student before I escaped, and I've still got a passing interest in the field.
[Geek-out
Most gun barrels are 4140 steel, with some of the upper-end mil-spec barrels made of 4150. While 4150 has a bit more carbon than 4140, both are highly ductile steels.
Ductile refers to their ability to bend or be drawn out into wire without breaking.
But 4140/50 steels are also high tensile (95,000+ psi ultimate yield) which is at the upper end of steel, which says its VERY stiff and hard to bend.
So, in reality, gun barrels are extremely hard to bend (unless you are Karen or Lena) but they WILL bend and not break when overstressed at anything other than perhaps cryogenic temperatures.
That said, I would expect receivers or other parts of a gun to break long before the barrel would bend, so one needs to hold the barrel at each end when bending, sort of like bending a crowbar.
Oh, yeah, the classic crow-bar bend? Not happening. Pry/crow bars are made of high carbon steel, something like 1095 or its ilk, and that's more or less the kind of steel used for automotive springs. It's high tensile but low in ductility. Which means that once you bend a crow-bar more than a small amount, which is very hard to do, it will snap. Think of it as brittle, although that's not exactly right.
So, gun barrels will bend in half without breaking. Crow-bars will not.
You might want to pass that on to Karen and Lena. Tell them when it comes to gun barrels, it's all in the grip.
/Geek-out]
Strange, from my sources I gathered that many present day firearms use harder steel than 4140 to keep the rifling in working condition longer.
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- Woodclaw
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Woodclaw wrote:
shadar wrote:
Woodclaw wrote: Okay it has been a while since I dared upload something here, this is part one of a new story idea I've been working on since this summer. It's still very rough in my eyes and the following parts won't come fast, I fear, but here you go for all to enjoy.
Very MythBusters in feel, but totally SWM in style. A fun read, although it would have been even better if it was written more "R" than "PG".
But now I'm confused -- do gun barrels actually bend or break?
I apologize for the following geek-out, but I spent two semesters in the 1960's as a metallurgical engineering student before I escaped, and I've still got a passing interest in the field.
Strange, from my sources I gathered that many present day firearms use harder steel than 4140 to keep the rifling in working condition longer.
In the case of weapons like the AR-15 and its military analogs, some mfgs went to 4150, which is more expensive but wears better, but is still relatively ductile. Some speciality weapons have gone to higher chromium content for corrosion resistance, but you start dealing with more wear-out issues unless you use liners.
Given the requirement to machine barrels (the hardest part being rifling), the steel has to be workable, and ductility is a good parameter of suitability for that kind of machining.
So called "gun steel" or "ordnance steel" is 41xx steel. Some applications, like machine guns, ala M60 and its ilk, use a thin inner liner made of some kind of cobalt steel (like Stellite) that is more wear resistant, with the bulk of the barrel remains 41xx steel.
None of this is actually relevant to enjoying your story. I was just mystified by the "barrel breaking" thing and did some research.
But given we're in the comic book universe, we have to cut each other some slack, and I really enjoyed the story. Sorry for the geek-out.
Shadar
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I have personally watched a larger caliber cannon barrel (25mm) snap when struck from the side, so I know that if they are cold, and force is applied in the right direction, they will snap.
That’s why if I were a super being and wanted to stop a weapon from firing, I’d squeeze it shut. Quick and doesn’t require any real thought about where I’m applying force. Just wrap fingers around and squeeze.
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jnw550 wrote: They will bend and as Shadar says, it’s in how you apply force. Enough force fast enough and it will snap. If you take a hammer to it numerous times, it will slowly deform.
I have personally watched a larger caliber cannon barrel (25mm) snap when struck from the side, so I know that if they are cold, and force is applied in the right direction, they will snap.
That’s why if I were a super being and wanted to stop a weapon from firing, I’d squeeze it shut. Quick and doesn’t require any real thought about where I’m applying force. Just wrap fingers around and squeeze.
Crushing the barrel in one’s grip will make the shooter regret firing it the next time. Same goes for sticking one’s finger (or some other suitably sized bodypart) in said barrel, if you happen to be Karen or Lena.
Shadar
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jnw550 wrote: They will bend and as Shadar says, it’s in how you apply force. Enough force fast enough and it will snap. If you take a hammer to it numerous times, it will slowly deform.
I have personally watched a larger caliber cannon barrel (25mm) snap when struck from the side, so I know that if they are cold, and force is applied in the right direction, they will snap.
That’s why if I were a super being and wanted to stop a weapon from firing, I’d squeeze it shut. Quick and doesn’t require any real thought about where I’m applying force. Just wrap fingers around and squeeze.
That was my understanding as well and, in fact, the idea was that the first showcased test was them trying to do a quick push on a cold barrel. I'm going to incorporate many of these informations in the final version, so please keep them coming.
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