The Chateau, Subbasement Two Medical Laboratories
October 9, 2008, 10:08 a.m.

“I expect this to be worth it.”

Dominique, dressed from head to toe in navy blue leather, donned a lab coat over the fetish wear she called clothing. Her escort in the laboratory beneath the estate was a young man just out of the Master’s program at MIT. Just like everyone else in the facility he possessed immense knowledge in genetics and a weakness of will that made him easy to manipulate. He shuffled nervously as Dominique drew her imperious glare over him.

“Yes, ma’am. I think it will be and so do the senior doctors.”

She waved one hand casually towards the door to the next room. The young scientist hurried to open the door and lead her inside.

Inside, another half dozen geneticists worked in and around the most advanced most expensive equipment in the world. The lead geneticist, a smallish bald man in his early forties with a beard more gray than black, scooted towards them as soon as he saw Dominique. Dominique stole Doctor Feldstein from Cambridge where he was known as the top scientist in his field.

“Doctor Feldstein,” Dominique said. Feldstein closed his mouth as his employer spoke. “I hope you have called me here for good reason.”

“For the best reason, mistress! We have discerned the genetic markers from Mister O’Malley’s samples. My assistances have already generated several ounces of the serum.”

Dominique’s grim expression melted in to a soft grin. “You have made my day, doctor. Start the gathering process. I think twenty-five will be about right for the first test?”

Feldstein said nothing. Dominique watched the sweat bead on his forehead.

“Is there something wrong, doctor?”

“Human experimentation? I thought animal testing first…”

“You and I both know that meta-genetics allows no room for alternative testing. Don’t get cold feet on me now.”

Doctor Feldstein slowly nodded. “Yes, mistress.”

“Good. Start the gathering of the first twenty-five. None over the age of twenty, all fit and healthy. We have enough potentials for that, correct?”

“Over five hundred in the New England area alone.”

“Select a few from the Midwest and southern states as well. We don’t want too many missing teens in one area, after all.”

“Yes, mistress.”

Dominique patted Feldstein on his shoulder. “Good. As a reward for your good deeds, you are allowed in my chambers tonight. Nine p.m. Don’t be late, doctor.”

“Yes, mistress.”

She turned back to her escort. The young scientist nervously shuffled his feet as her gaze fell on him. He was new enough to not yet have felt her touch. Her Lilim did their part, but she licked her lips at the thought of new flesh to despoil.

“Come with me. I have need to celebrate immediately and you will do quite nicely.”

*****

Gaius Manor, Italy
October 9, 2008, 2:13 p.m.

Things seemed to be edging back to normality since the “sudden departure” of Gaius Martius nearly three weeks ago. Ace moved in to a new larger suite and set about taking command of the vineyard.

He found it to be very little work. The vineyard ran without much input from him, as it had for the past sixty years before his and Gaius’ arrival. Nor did the household needed help from him and his broken Italian. Ace could understand why his master could so easily lose himself in horseback riding and debauchery. Otherwise he could find little else that required his attention.

He thought back to the old Zorro serials he enjoyed so much as a boy. He felt like Don Diego, a rich boy with little to entertain him. But unlike the legendary hero, he didn’t have any evil dons to stop from pillaging the common folk.

Hopes of rekindling any kind of relationship with Lena evaporated the day after they returned to the manor. Her disappearance came with only a quickly scribbled note:

“Ace, I’m sorry to do this to you but I can’t stay here. My memories of the manor hurt too much. I’ve left to stay with my aunt in Nice. I ask you to not come find me. I love you, but I think we were not meant to be. I’m sorry. Love, Lena.”

Ace spent the next three days in his room. He worked through his grief alone to the best of his ability. It hurt, but he knew he could survive. I have to survive.

Now weeks later, he spent most of his time making a nuisance of himself around Vittorio and Vera. He knew he needed to find a hobby, something to occupy his time. So far he hadn’t had much luck. So he sat in a chair in the foyer, a copy of Harry Potter in his lap, and contemplated what path to take from here.

He kept coming back to the same thought.

I’m a superhero, damn it! I don’t know how to do anything else.

The doorbell rang as if to purposely break his contemplation. Vera rushed for the door, but he shooed her off. He went to the door and opened it.

As soon as the door swung in, the young woman on the other side collapsed forward. Ace sprang to catch her and helped her inside.

Her hair was reddish blond and almost seemed to sparkle in the sunlight. She was young, no older than him. She looked tired and stressed, but otherwise showed no sign of injury. He helped her to the ottoman and helped her sit down.

“Are you all right, miss?”

She slowly nodded her head. “I think so.”

“What brings you to my manor? And how did you get here in such a weakened state?”

“My name is Starla, Starla Prince. I need your help. They told me you could help me, and I don’t know where else to turn.”

“Slow down, Ms. Prince. Please tell me what’s going on.”

“It’s my father. He’s a… well… he’s a very important person at InterTech Oil.”

“What does this have to do with me?”

“They took him. I’m not sure who they are, but they took him. They want him to sign some kind of plan to cut production or something like that. But they’re also threatening to kill him if the company doesn’t pay a ransom!”

“Whoa, start from the beginning. Where was your father kidnapped?”

“We were vacationing in Venice. One moment we were at a café, the next they had him. Two more grabbed me, but they only roughed me up and left me with a ransom note.”

“What did the note say?”

“It said that they would kill him if I went to the police and that I needed to get the money and go to New Salem where they will give me further instructions. I didn’t know what to do, and I met this girl on the train that suggested I should come talk to you.”

“Lena?”

“I didn’t get a name, but she was very insistent that you could help me with my problems. I figured one extra stop couldn’t hurt. I didn’t realize how far from the trains your vineyard was though and my rental car stopped a couple miles back.”

“I’m sorry for your trouble,” Ace said. “But I really don’t—”

“Please, don’t say no. I need any help you can give me. Please, I’ll do anything.”

His recurring thought returned to him: I’m a superhero, damn it! I don’t know how to do anything else.

“I’ll help you.”

“You will. You mean it?”

“The girl on the train was right. It’s what I do.” He looked at the watch on his wrist. “Give me ten minutes to square things away with my staff and get a few clothes packed. We can make the drive to Rome in a couple hours and find a flight to New Salem from there. You can fill me in with everything I need to know on the way. Okay?”

Starla nodded. He turned towards the kitchen to find Vera, but she was already coming towards them. She held a tray with a meatball sandwich and a glass of lemonade.

“On top of everything as always,” he said to her in the best Italian he could muster. “Please see to Ms. Prince while I pack. I will be taking a little trip.”

Vera nodded but said nothing.

Ace rushed off to pack. He wondered if he was a fool to follow this girl half way around the world on only her word. And Lena’s, he thought.

You can’t change your destiny. And my destiny is to be a hero.

Look out, world; the Amazing Boy is back in action!

*****

Robert Morgan’s penthouse apartment, Boston, Massachusetts
October 9, 2008, 11:08 p.m.

The night was chill but still comfortable, and Isobel Blake felt no pain as Lash opened the door to his penthouse apartment. After taking in an opera at the Shubert Theatre, he took her to Top of the Hub. Atop the Prudential Tower they ate and gazed out over the city skyline and she couldn’t help but fall for the romanticism of it all.

The few too many glasses of champagne she drank didn’t hurt any either. Lash gently pulled her in to his apartment as he switched on the lights. The living room was massive; bigger than the entire flat she currently shared. Modern art lined the walls and mixed with the various pieces of ancient ceramics and metalwork that rose from pedestals randomly around the room. A massive divan filled the center of the room. It sat in front of a one hundred inch television screen hung from a retractable enclosure on the ceiling.

He guided her to the divan and helped her sit. Her head fell back in to the soft, body-hugging cushions of the couch. She grinned as she closed her eyes and leaned in to the surface.

“You’re trying to spoil me, Lash. It’s not very nice.”

Lash chuckled from across the room. “I haven’t seen you in sixty years, Isobel. Please allow me to indulge my long lost love.”

He returned to her side with a pair of martinis in hand. She looked at the drinks and shook her head. “Don’t you think I’ve had enough to drink already? I have class tomorrow.”

“School is made to skip,” Lash said. “Those words got me through school days and I think they hold as true today as they did seventy something years ago.”

She accepted the martini and took a sip. “You’re a bad influence.”

“I try,” Lash said.

She grabbed him by the tie and pulled him down to the seat next to her. “You always were a trouble maker.”

She held the drink up as she turned her body up and over his legs. She dropped down to straddle Lash’s lap. “It’s a good thing I like trouble.”

“Do you now?”

She ran one hand slowly down his chest. Her hand stopped at his belt, turned and quickly unbuckled it. “You knew I was a nasty, naughty girl back in forty-five.” The buckle loose, her hand deftly opened the button. As she casually lowered his zipper, she leaned in and pressed her body against his. Isobel closed her eyes as their lips met.

She heard his drink fall to the floor and a moment later felt his hands on her hips. They rose up to his blouse and up across her chest. Isobel couldn’t hold in the sigh that came at his touch. She felt his hands touch against the buttons of her blouse. A moment later she heard the buttons snap and clatter to the floor as he ripped her blouse open to expose the strapless new push-up bra beneath.

“Eager, aren’t we?”

“You have no idea,” he said. He pulled her close again and his mouth went to the curve between her breasts. His kisses made her moan with pleasure. She silently made a note to thank the girls for suggesting her new undergarments. They seemed to really pay off.

His hands fumbled at the hook on the front of her dress, but she pushed them away. She leaned back and set her drink down gently next to Lash’s spilled glass.

She stood up on her feet and immediately felt light headed from the earlier drinks. She just closed her eyes and enjoyed the sensation as she unhooked the cinch on her dress. She let it fall from her hips and expose the see-through black panties below.

“It’s my turn now,” she said with a grin.

She slowly dropped to her knees in front of him. She ran her hands up his thighs all the way up to the top of his pants. She reached her fingers around the hem and ran them down beneath his boxer shorts. He raised his hips slightly as she yanked both pants and underwear down the floor.

As their eyes met, Isobel ran one hand up and around his manhood. Lash’s eyes widened with surprise. She smirked at him before she lowered her head to take him in her mouth.

Lash gasped for air and groaned. She could feel his toes curl against the floor. As she ran her tongue up and down him, she also ran her hands up and down his tensing legs. She closed her mouth down around him and slowly started to bob her head. It had been sixty years since she did this to him, but the feelings all rose back inside her like it was yesterday.

She continued her ministrations for several minutes as Lash struggled and gasped for air. She refused to release him. She wanted to taste him, to feel his pleasure, before they continued any farther.

His words came out staccato between gasps for air. “No… please… stop!”

She shook her head.

“Stop, please!” He reached down and grabbed her cheeks and pulled her away from his manhood.

She looked up at him confused. “You never had a problem with me doing that before.”

He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. “I’ve went sixty years without you. I don’t want a blowjob. I want to make love to you.”

“We have time for that later. Right now—” She leaned forward again but his hands forcefully held her shoulders in place.

He tapped the bottom of her chin to force her to meet him eye to eye. “I’m serious, Isobel. Let me make love to you.”

She nodded as she rose to her feet. He stood up a moment later and quickly lifted her up in to his arms. He quickly carried her across the room and in to his equally lavish bedroom. He placed her gently on the edge of his oversized bed.

She lifted her hips as his hands grabbed her panties and yanked them down her legs. She reached down with her own hands to unfasten the clasp on the front of her bra and pulled it off her chest. In a matter of seconds she was completely naked beneath him. A moment later, she felt his manhood press in to her.

She moaned with delight as he worked his magic upon her. She felt every inch of her skin come alive as the electricity rose up between them. As she felt her orgasm approach streaks of lightning shot between their skins again and again. She closed her eyes as she felt her climax overtake her. The lightning shot over the room as everything but her own pleasure disappeared for several blissful seconds.

She heard Lash grown a top her and felt his seed rush in to her. She gasped in delight as another tremor overtook her, but this time she was able to watch as their sparks literally filled the room. A lamp at beside exploded as did the bulbs on the chandelier above. Bits of glass rained down only to be melted by the head of the electricity that connected them and everything else in the room.

In the hull, the lights flickered once, again, before they faded out completely. They lay in their afterglow in complete darkness.

“Wow,” he said. “It’s been a long time since I felt that.”

She smiled up at him. “You have no idea.” She pointed out the window. “But maybe next time we shouldn’t wait so long.”

Lash rose wobbly to his feet and Isobel sat up beside him. They both gazed out the window at the rows and rows of darkened buildings that filled the city skyline. From their vantage point, it looked like a citywide blackout.

Lash snickered. Isobel couldn’t help but join him a moment later. She raised a hand and unleashed a low yield orb of electricity that lit the room.

“We already knocked out power in the city,” he said. “So we don’t have to worry about causing much other damage, do we?”

“No, we don’t,” she said as she pulled him back down in to the bed.

*****

Royal Palace, Riccapoor
October 10, 2008, 5:35 a.m.

The file handed to him at the airport made his mission very clear: break in to the palace, find the prince of the isle, and gain the location of the captive Atoman and Black Owl. The instructions were quite clear about the need to find the prince, right down to his location marked on a map of the palace. London didn’t quite know how he felt about saving Atoman from anybody. He still held the atomic hero in contempt for Flag Man’s death.

He also knew that anyone who could hold Atoman against his will needed to be found and stopped. Atoman in the wrong hands could make all General Wallace’s paranoid daydreams come true. I can’t let that happen. Even if it means causing an international incident, I can’t let that happen.

Which brought him here to just past the outer walls of the island’s royal palace, home of Prince Temujin. He didn’t like the idea of breaking and entry, but he didn’t have much choice. Time was most definitely not on his side.

He turned the dial on the harness he wore across his chest. Instantly he felt a wave of strength course through him. He knew from experience that he couldn’t use it for more than an hour at a time without causing serious strain on his body. He figured an hour was more than enough time.

He came out of his crouch among the flower beds and immediately started a sprint towards the main doors. He heard dogs bark, but he ignored them. He crossed the hundred yards to the gate within seconds. He lowered his head, threw his arms in front of him, and slammed in to the massive silver door. He could hear the door’s frame crack. Seconds later, it crashed inward to the floor.

London ran in to the entrance hall and was met by two guards holding their ceremonial scimitars in hand. He ducked a swipe of the first’s blade, hit the man with a strike to the chest, turned, and backhanded the other guard’s sword in to his skull.

The hall he stood in stretched deep in to the palace and rose to the ceiling. The twin doors at the far end would take him in to a lavish throne room, while the doors to either side took him to the guest rooms, dining hall, and kitchens. He ignored all of them. Instead he turned to his right and stood before the large portrait of the late King Ogedei, the current prince’s father. Three plaques marked his name in English, Thai, and Chinese. London reached out and turned the Chinese nameplate clockwise ninety degrees. The painting slid upwards and revealed another passageway.

London ran down the dim hall towards Temujin’s bed chambers. Another pair of guards, this time armed with AK-47s, turned to see him. He leaped in the air as they raised their guns and fired. The bullets passed below him. Before they could bring their weapons in line with his new trajectory, he struck with a twin clothesline across their chests. Both men went down under his weight. He sprang to his feet. He drove a boot down in to the chest of one guard, yanked the weapon from the other’s hand, and drove the hilt of the rifle down in to the man’s forehead. He continued forward and ripped the sliding door from its hinges.

Temujin sat up in his massive four poster bed. The prince’s long hair and beard were tousled by sleep. He wore an ornate robe, far more than the two women on either side of him. The women screamed as they awoke and saw London in the doorway. Temujin didn’t realize his guards were already unconscious, and called out in Chinese for their aid.

“They aren’t coming to help you,” London said. “You and I have a lot to talk about.”

Temujin spat a series of invectives in Thai, Chinese, and English. The women scattered from the bed and ran naked towards the closet at the far end of the hall. Temujin rose up to join them. London leaped from the doorway and on the bed before the prince. He reached down and grabbed the prince by the collar of his robes. He hefted Temujin in to the air.

“I’m not here to play, prince. I’m here to save my friends. Where are Black Owl and Atoman?”

Temujin struggled and fought against his grip. London shook the prince.

“Tell me!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Don’t lie to me!”

“Lethimgo!” Before London could even make out the words of the new voice in the room he felt a body strike him from his right. He dropped Temujin as he tumbled off the bed to the floor. He could only see a blur as the woman flashed past him.

The speedster turned and flung at him. London threw himself forward and collided with the new arrival. Agony ran through his shoulder as they both collapsed in a heap to the floor. Stopped, he could see she now wore a silver body suit. Her boots were gold in color as was the Chinese character printed on her chest. The clear goggles attached to her cowl did nothing to hide her Asian features.

“Get off me, American lout!”

London pushed her away. “I’m English dammit! Who the hell are you supposed to be?”

She stood up and threw her long black hair behind her. “I’m the Silver Streak, protector of this island! I will not let some foreigner assault our leader!”

“Your leader kidnapped my friends! And I don’t know who you are but you are not the Silver Streak!”

“Liar!”

The Streak flashed towards London again. She caught him in the midsection, but London drove his fists down in to her back. She cried out as she collapsed to the ground beneath him.

London struggled to his feet to see Temujin making a break for the door. He leaped across the bed and tackled the prince.

“Your stooges can’t help you and neither can your pet hero! Where are Atoman and Black Owl?”

Temujin struggled beneath him, but London kept his grip too tight to let the prince free. “He will kill me if I tell you!”

“I’ll make you wish you were dead if you don’t tell me!”

“The Great One has taken them! Your friends are surely dead!”

He shook the prince again. “Who is this Great One? Where are my friends?”

“The catacombs beneath the city,” the prince sputtered. “The Claw holds them in his lair!”

London let the prince drop from his hands. He couldn’t believe his ears. That monster can’t be alive. He can’t be—

“You have betrayed us and this island, Temujin!”

The Silver Streak’s words only just registered before she shot across the room and struck the prince as he tried to stand.

“You have let evil brood in this city again. Evil that will destroy us all!”

She raised a fist to strike. London’s hands shot out and held it from hurting the prince.

“No,” he said. “He’s just a patsy in all this. If you want to fight, you can help me against the Claw. Help me find my friends and stop him.”

Silver Streak turned and looked him over for the first time. “You are one of the old ones. The Americans who came from the past.”

“I’m a Brit actually, but yes.”

“And your two Americans are also old ones?”

“I don’t really like your nickname, but yes.”

Silver Streak paused for a moment of introspection. After a matter of just a couple seconds, she nodded. “I will help you.”

“Do you know anything about these catacombs?”

She nodded.

“Good, then it’s you and me, kid. We have some heroes to save.”