[quote name='Scobie']__________ 3 __________
Dawn broke with a spoiler’s glee. Mrs. Wombat lay silent and sleeping in bed under a mountain of blankets, hair scattered over the pillow like the beautiful chaos of a new game of pick up sticks. Next to her lay Wombat, heavy eyes betraying a poor night’s sleep. “Putting your father in a nursing home has got to be one of the most rotten things you can do,” he thought sadly to himself.
He willed himself out of bed, quickly dressed as quietly as he could, but still waking his loveable dog Zelda who looked up at him puzzled and with a sleepy frump to her muzzle. He reached down and gently petted her head when out of the corner of his eye he saw the blur of a mouse running along the baseboards. “Goddammit!” he muttered before leaving the apartment dejected.
After picking up a McGriddle and a large cup of coffee, he found his way to pick up the MTA over to his father’s lab in the southern section of Manhattan.
Dr. Dixon, a colleague of Dr. Wombat and a long time family friend, answered the door at the lab. “Ah, Wombat! So good to see you again!” He wore grey flannel pin-striped trousers visibile under a knee-length white lab coat. His accent was vague. Not that of a New Yorker for sure. It carried an aristrocratic tone that a casual eavesdropper might mistake for British, but it wasn’t. Dr. Dixon was born into old Connecticut money and followed a bizarre muse into the abstract sciences with an almost equally passionate side interest in world religion and mythology. “Come in! Your father is most anxious to see you.”
The two climbed the spiral granite staircase to the second floor laboratories and research rooms. “And how have you been?” asked Dr. Dixon.
“Pretty good, I guess. Just got to level 29 last night. Should be able to beat this dungeon I’m in... finally. Let me tell you about these freakin’ developers...” Their footsteps echoed through the stoic corrridor as they moved to the end of the hall and a window flooded with the light of morning.
“Ah, very good,” interrupted Dr. Dixon, beaming with bemusement. “And Mrs. Wombat?”
“Meh, she’s alright. Keepin’ busy.” They turned to enter the private office and library of Dr. Wombat.
“You’re late, but thank you for coming.” The room represented a life’s work of collecting rare and precious things along with sundry eccentricities. A stuffed giant jumping rat from Madagascar, nearly two feet long, greeted visitors upon entering. Oak shelves lined each wall twelve feet high to the cavernous, vaulted ceiling. A wide, rolling leatherbound sofa and matching chairs hemmed in an elegant Persian carpet, upon which rested a delicately carved Qing Dynasty table.
Dr. Wombat was reclining in one of the chairs, his back to the door. “Please, come around. We need to talk... thank you, Dr. Dixon, I will meet you later in lab four. Please continue documenting today’s experiment.” Dr. Dixon withdrew, pullng the door solidly closed.
Dr. Wombat’s face was clean shaven and somewhat avuncular, but his eyes were set with a piercing brilliance. “Son, do you remember when you were a young boy, and I would tell you stories of our family lineage as great knights and the power that they held?”
“Sure I do... those were pretty good times. But you haven’t told me stories like that since I was maybe eight or nine. So what gives?”
“The point is this, their power is our power. It is still in our bloodline, waiting only to be harnessed and directed to the cause of justice. Within your flesh and bones are energies and abilities that can make you a true force, a force to stand up against criminality and evil in the world.”
“Uhm, pardon my French, but that’s
in’ nuts. I’m just a regular guy! I work, I play video games, I eat, I crap, I play more video games, and I do this podcast with a giant bald guy in Japan. Average Joe over here!”
“Please, listen to me. Dr. Dixon and I have spent the past twenty years designing a super suit that provides protection against temperature extremes, abrasions, and punctures. It is an extraordinarily lightweight and resilient body armor to aid in what you must do. It will offer you outstanding protection as you develop your latent abilities.”
Wombat’s eyebrows jumped up towards his forehead with surprise. “Well, why didn’t you say I’d get to wear a super suit?”
Rising from the leather chair and turning towards the door, Dr. Wombat said “Please come with me to lab four.”
__________ 4 __________
The room had a cold, sterile presence of its own that dominated the senses of the unaccustomed. Pure white floors, stainless steel tables, carts, and chairs radiated a frigidity that must feel like old blue jeans to men of science, but felt like a full-body cold pack to the rest of the world.
“Dr. Dixon, please retrieve project X-5277.” Dr. Dixon raised his head from his notes, nodded, stood, and walked to a seemless wall which opened with fluid pneumatics at a slight press, revealing a swooping metallic valet containing a thin garment and accessories.
The super suit had a bronzed, heather green patina with joints reinforced by some sort of flexible material the color of gun metal. There was a rich, regal purple helmet with a thin opaque visor, a cod piece with accessory belt, and sturdy but surprisingly stylish boots.
“Here, try them on and let us know what you think,” said Dr. Dixon, gesturing towards the valet and drawing a modesty curtain. “I believe you will find they are a perfect fit.” And a few moments later with enormous pride, “Well?”
“I’ve got to admit I like the cod piece, but the rest of it... well, I’m damn glad I went on that NutriSystem.”
“We are most proud of the boots,” said Dr. Wombat. “You could walk through lava in those boots and not be burned or injured in any way. The rest of the suit is quite impressive as well. The codpiece, for example, can take unlimited rounds of large caliber anti-tank rounds at extraordinarily close range without exhibiting even superficial damage. This is even so with uranium-tipped missiles. The suit will maintain your normal body temperature in ambient temperatures as low as -270 degrees Celsius.” Stepping back to view Wombat in full view, he remarked “And it is remarkably flexible and light in overall weight, is it not?”
Then gravely: “Within this suit rests remarkable power, and with this power comes commensurate responsibility. Please remove and return it to Dr. Dixon and join me once more in my office.”[/QUOTE]
Uhhhhhhhhh...
