Lodestone

" Choices " by Martin Maenza


"Beverly!" Kyle Harper called as he bound down the stairs. The man in his mid-forties, dressed in a brown suit that complimented his sandy brown hair, barely waited two seconds before calling his wife's name again. "Beverly! Where are you?"

Sebastion the cat darted under the skirt of the tan couch, avoiding the black leather portfolio that Kyle dropped on the floor as he reached the foot of the stairs.

A woman of similar age with shoulder length blonde hair entered from the kitchen where she was preparing dinner. "Good gracious, dear. What has you so agitated?" She wiped the flour from her right hand on the apron she wore over her blue dress.

Her husband's flushed red face wore a very severe look. "You are not going to believe what I found," he stated. He thrust a large ten by fifteen inch envelope towards her, allowing her to view the contents through the open flap.

From his expression and tone of voice, she wasn't quite prepared what to expect. After peering at the contents inside, Beverly replied rather calmly. "Oh, my."

"Bev, is that all you have to say? Oh my." He was obviously expecting a reaction more similar to his own. "Oh my is something you'd say if you discovered you were a cup of flour short for a recipe. Oh my is how you'd respond if I had just told you that the bird feeder was empty and some poor robin was going to have to fly off starved." He shook the envelope in his hand. "This is not an oh my situation!"

"Well, it could have been worse." She smiled. "You could have found alcohol or birth control pills, or something like that." The vein on Kyle's right temple was throbbing even more so. Beverly could see that her attempt to alleviate the situation was only adding more fuel to her husband's fire. Maybe humoring him would have been the better way to go.

Just then, the oak front door opened and in stepped a blonde teenage girl wearing a blue denim jumper with a white T-shirt underneath. "Hi, Mom. Daddy. Sorry I'm late." She placed her canvas book bag on the sofa. "The Spanish Club meeting ran longer than expected." Beverly could not believe Clare's bad timing.

Kyle crossed the family room in two quick steps and launched right into his daughter. "Young lady, would you care to explain this?" He emphasized the last word as he thrust the envelope into her left hand.

Her weight shifted back on her left heel for support. In a brief second, Clare recognized the envelope from the familiar papers visible from the opening. "Daddy, what were you doing snooping in my room?" she cried. Defensively, she hugged the envelope tightly to her chest.

Beverly stepped between them. "That's my fault, honey. I asked him to put your dry cleaning in your closet," she explained. Right now she was wishing she had done it herself, to avoid this whole incident.

"And what did I find on the floor of your closet?" Kyle asked rhetorically. "None other than that very envelope containing a number of papers, filled with sketches of costumes!"

He shook his finger at her. "How could you forget the discussion we had last weekend? 1 We told you how dangerous being a super-hero could be and you agreed to give up this foolish notion!"

"Daddy, they're only drawings," Clare protested. "They might not be any use right now but there is always the future."

"Your future is finishing high school and going off to college, young lady! You are not going to be running around town risking your life!"

The antique grandfather clock in the corner of the living room chimed four thirty. Kyle checked his watch and muttered under his breath. "I have to run or I'll be late for the walk-through at the new Civic Center." He grabbed his portfolio by the door and gave his wife a quick peck on the cheek. "We'll finish this later, Clare!" He then stormed out the front door and slammed it behind him.

***

Greg Carlin slammed his copy of the Victoria Herald into the green metal waste can. The article regarding the investigation of the AtlanTech fire angered him greatly. The blaze incinerated the entire second floor, including the alien engine that he desperately sought. He was banking his future on that engine. All the millions I could've made were up in smoke literally.

He kicked an empty soda can with his right foot and it clattered across the parking deck floor. Damn those stupid foreigners! Carlin regretted ever entrusting them with such an important job. Luckily for him no bodies were recovered so there was no way he could be implicated in the matter. All I'm out is the money I provided them up front. Maybe, there's still a way I could recover it.

Carlin pulled his keys from his pocket and raised them up to unlock the driver's side door of his Ford Explorer. Before he could turn the key, a charred but strong hand grabbed his own firmly and spun him around. "Bonjour, monsieur Carlin." The man smelled heavy of smoke, his clothes all black. "We have unfinished business."

Carlin struggled to make out the charred features of the man's face. The voice sounded similar to one he had heard over the phone a few times and once in person. "H-Hardouin?" he stammered.

"Oui," the other man smiled. All the color left the southern man's face as Hardouin grabbed Carlin by the collar. "Oh, mon ami, let me help you. You look as though you have seen a ghost." He then shoved the heavy set man against the vehicle; the side panel bent inward as it gave way to the force of the action.

"W-what do you want from me?" Carlin asked. "More money, perhaps? I can get some for you if you give me some time." The pressure being exerted against him was too great for him wriggle free of the grasp.

"Oh no, mon ami." Hardouin's smile grew wider. "We have, as you would say, seen the lumiere, the light. It is not about simple material things any more. It is all about power." His hands were lambent now. "For example, the power over life and death!"

The golden glow quickly enveloped his hands and tendrils of energy leapt for Carlin's throat. The man let out a brief gasp before the energy filled his entire throat and lungs. As Carlin's body slumped to the ground, Hardouin began to chuckle. He then walked away, his laughter becoming louder and echoing off the walls of the parking deck. The same lambent hue now covered his entire body.

Before moving twenty steps, he spun around on his left heel and thrust his right arm in the direction of the Ford Explorer. Energy crackled from his finger tips and instantly pierced the vehicle's gas tank. The explosion quickly consumed the Explorer and its owner's body. Hardouin's glee erupted like a volcano. As he strutted towards the parking deck exit, he randomly fired upon other vehicles and soon the explosions he left in his wake shook the entire structure.

***

Beverly and Clare sat on the couch, watching WVTV's early news while waiting for the soufflé to finish baking. Clare set down her can of Diet Coke. "Mom, why is Daddy taking all of this so hard? First my rescuing the hostages from Assault and now my drawings."

"Your father is a very protective man, dear. He is just looking out for your future."

"But Mom, he shouldn't worry at all. I've always been an excellent student, top in my class. My SAT scores are high enough to get me into any college I want to go to. I've always been responsible with things at school. Does he think I wouldn't take being a hero seriously?"

"I don't think that is really an issue. We both know you'd take it seriously. There are just so many factors involved, factors which you have no control over. All the powers in the world wouldn't change that."

Clare took a sip of her Diet Coke. "Yet, don't I have an obligation to use my powers to help others despite the risk? How can I sit around and do nothing if there is some way I can help out? Some situations are too much for the police to handle alone."

Beverly was quiet for a moment. Clare certainly had a point, one that she and her husband had made abundantly clear when their daughter's powers first surfaced. They both assumed, however, that she would be much older before she took on that responsibility.

She reflected upon her own long career as a costumed hero. More often than not, didn't Magnet and Steel choose to put themselves in perilous situations regardless of their personal safety, all in the cause of the greater good?

Beverly lowered the volume on the television with the remote. "Clare, I don't believe I ever told you the story about..."

~ ~ ~

March 1979:

Magnet flew down the long hallway of the South End Nuclear Plant with a man clad in silvery-gray spandex towed along in her wake. She could barely hear Steel's pleas over the klaxons, though she was becoming very familiar with his recent concerns. "Bev, I wish you would reconsider this! There is more at stake than the well being of you and I!"

She decelerated as they approached the metal blast doors at the hallway's end and placed herself and her husband on their own feet squarely before them. "I know, dear, I know. I promise to be careful." She gave him a reassuring smile. "Besides, if whoever is in there has figured out how to breach the core, you'd have your hands full trying to stop them and a meltdown at the same time."

Magnet extended her red gloved hands and concentrated. She strained against the locking mechanisms of the servomotors that held the foot thick doors shut, using her magnet powers to reverse the pressure. The motors put up a great struggle but eventually conceded, allowing Magnet to open the doors wide enough for the duo to slip past.

Inside, they witnessed a number of consoles being smashed by a six foot six, hulking figure in green tights. The bald man pounded his fist into one console, ripped it from the floor and smashed it against the loud speaker mounted on the wall. "Stupid sirens!," he growled. "A guy can't think with all that racket!" The unit shorted out instantly.

Across the room, the heroes could see that the reactor core shielding was still in tact. But Magnet wondered how long that would hold if this man rendered any more of the equipment inoperative. Whoever hired the man to demolish the newly opened facility did so for the superhuman strength he possessed. Any kid on the street of Victoria could tell you that Brute was not renowned for his brains.

Steel took three steps, crouched down on both legs, and then launched himself at Brute. His costume shimmered in the light as he somersaulted through the air. Both of his steel-enforced boot sole's impacted squarely in the villain's back, knocking him off his feet. "Care to do this the easy way, big guy?" Steel asked.

Brute caught himself before hitting the floor and rolled over to a stance. "Well, well, if it ain't my old playmates." He charged back at Steel, waving his massive fist like a sledgehammer. "Let's see what you're made of, pretty boy!"

Steel rolled to his right, hoping to lure his quarry to a safer distance from the core and his wife. "Remember, I'm called Steel. That should give you a clue." The two men were equals in the strength and invulnerability department, yet Brute had mass and reach on his side. Steel would need to find his weakness and use that to his own advantage.

Magnet couldn't concern herself with that since her task was to insure that the reactor core was undamaged. She was cautious about using her powers on the reactor itself, not wanting to disrupt it in any way.

Physics had been her major in college. Yes, she knew all about the concepts of fission and fusion, and the theories of Rutherford, Bohr and their colleagues. However, she was an educator, not a researcher; this was as close to a nuclear reactor as she had ever been. From everything she had studied, she believed the structural integrity of the thermal shield and reactor vessel were still intact.

Meanwhile, Steel recovered from a blow and saw Brute about to smash some more equipment. The villain raised his right fist over his head, allowing Steel grabbed it from behind. "I think you've done enough damage for today, buddy."

Brute latched onto Steel's wrist with his other hand, threw him over his shoulder and slammed him down into the console before him. "Thanks for being my wrecking ball, pretty boy! Ha ha ha!" He did not let go just yet; Brute took the opportunity to spin the stunned hero around like a parent would with his child playing airplane. However, Brute made sure, after a few rotations, to release Steel so that he would crash right into one of the walls. His body slumped to the floor.

Brute took a moment to revel in his victory before setting his sights back on his work. He saw Magnet focusing her attention on the reactor core and deduced that there might be a reason for her to be doing so. He grabbed a large piece of broken pipe and charged across the room with it held high. If his heavy footfalls were not enough to alert her to his approach, his yelling "Hahrrhhh" sure did.

With a wave of her hand, Magnet used a magnetic burst to knock the pipe from his grasp. Brute stopped suddenly, looked for a moment at his empty hand and a wicked grin crossed his face. "I'll just use my bare hands then!" he growled as he resumed his charge.

Magnet utilized the momentary delay to analyze her surroundings. Suddenly, each piece of battered equipment became part of her arsenal. Broken consoles slammed into Brute's side, smaller portions pelted his back, head and arms. "Brute, please stop this now!"

He swatted the metal down as fast as he could but each hit seemed to just anger him so. She impeded his advancement but failed to stop it. "Thanks for the help, blondie." Brute said. "If you don't want me near that equipment, that means it must be what I'm here for. And I was told to turn it into so much junk!"

Magnet tried direct blasts on the approaching villain but his will was relentless. "This is stupid! You won't be able to enjoy whatever you were paid if you're dead! Destroying this reactor will kill us all instantly and wipe out most of Victoria too!"

Magnet saw the anger in his eyes as his face twisted with rage. "Stupid? Did you just call me stupid?" Brute cocked his right fist back and swung it towards her with all his might.

Magnet had one option now. All she could do to stop his fist from damaging the reactor was to take the blow herself. She tried to maneuver into a better position but was not fast enough. She took a hit directly to her abdomen and fell to the ground in excruciating pain!

Simultaneously, Steel recovered from his injury and stood up just in time to see Magnet crumple to the floor. "Nooooo!" he screamed as he burst across the room, driven like a bat out of hell. His nostrils flared; his eyes filled with anger.

Brute turned from the reactor core just in time to catch a right hook in the jaw from the berserk Steel. The blow knocked the villain left to the floor. "You son of a bitch!" Steel swore. He was not about to let Brute recover. His concern for Magnet gave him the added edge, driving him. "I should kill you right now!" He pounded on Brute with a right, then a left, then another right. The dazed Brute could not defend himself. He tried to block the hero's blows but his quickly swelling eyes did not allow him to see straight.

After a few more punches, Steel realized Brute was unconscious and stopped. Brute's face was severely bruised and some blood trickled from his mouth. His chest rose up and down with slow, shallow breaths. He was not dead but would require a long stay in the prison hospital.

Steel then heard his wife's soft groan and hurried to her side. She doubled over and clutched her abdomen, tears streaming down her face as she tried her best to hold back the pain. "Bev, don't move just yet." He gently put his arms around her and held his face close to her's. All the anger washed away as he supported her in his arms. "Are you both okay?"

Magnet had never hurt this badly before. With all the injuries she sustained from all the fights she participated in over the years, this one by far felt the most devastating. She grimaced again and then looked directly into her husband's brown eyes. Softly Magnet said, "I'm not sure."

Two hours later after getting her to a hospital, their worst fears were realized. Beverly bled heavily from her uterus and had miscarried the eleven-week old fetus.

~ ~ ~

Clare noticed the single tear forming in the corner of her mother's eye. She too felt a lump in her throat. "Mom, I'm so sorry." She gave her a firm hug.

"It's all right, dear. We both were quite despondent for weeks afterward, your father more so than you'd expect." Beverly recalled how she wanted to curl up in bed, block out the rest of the world while she dealt with her grief. Kyle had needed her though, so she came to terms with their loss quietly. "By helping to pull him out his malaise, I found myself feeling better too. Taking care of his needs made me feel needed too."

Beverly brushed away the tear that had now reached her cheek. "When something happens like this, you have to get past it and move on. About a year later, we conceived again, with you." She patted Clare on the shoulder. "And this time, I heeded your father's advice and hung up my costume for the duration of the pregnancy."

Clare reached for her Diet Coke and caught a glimpse of the news. "Mom, turn up the volume, quick!" WVTV news repeated their fast breaking story about a glowing energy being tearing up downtown Victoria.

"Clare, you've got to see if you can help!" Beverly sprang from the couch. "Come on upstairs - I'll get you my costume to wear again!"

Clare followed on her heels as they headed upstairs. "But what about Daddy and my being grounded?"

"You leave him to me. He certainly can't argue if I've given you permission to be Magnet once more."

Clare could hardly contain herself. This confirmed that her mother was on her side. If anyone could convince Daddy that this was the right thing to do, it was Mom. "I'll use your costume again, but I'm not going as Magnet." Clare smiled. "I've been thinking of names and I like the sound of Lodestone."

1 See "My Dinner With Andre " in issue 2 for that dinnertime conversation. - the Editor.