By John Leatherman
On August 19, as I planned my lemonade stand crawl for National Lemonade Day tomorrow, a perplexing pronouncement pinged my PDA: “Hue Splatman has given Mayor Butterbloggs six hours to surrender Adver City before he detonates a network of non-yellow paint bombs.”
I gasped. “Suffering citrus, how will we paint the town yellow? Lemon Fest will be ruined!”
Along with all other available heroes, I reported to the Adver Dome, where our director, six-inch-tall, thousand-decibel-voiced Micro-Manager, barked orders from atop his seven-foot assistant, Execu-Droid. “There’s a bomb in every precinct. Split into teams of four and find them.”
Our concerned convocation coalesced into quartets of comparable crime-fighters.
Micro-Manager exploded. “Can we break up the all-smasher teams? Likewise for you mimics. Elastics, stretch. Fliers, migrate. Telekinetics, move! And invisibles?” Fuming, he glanced around. “Where are my invisibles?”
Amid a tumultuous trading of talents, our taskmaster took to a tyrannical tirade.
“Enough! Execu-Droid will assign you to optimally diverse teams. When you get your precinct number, go!”
***
“Precinct 36: Quarkman, Lepto-Lady, Super Gus, and Temp Girl.”
I gasped. “What?” I whispered to Micro-Manager, “Uh, Mike, that’s my ex-girlfriend.”
He shouted back, “Great! One less introduction.” He turned to the assembly. “Precinct 37: Photonica, Shockblast…”
Too late for reassignment anyway. Hyper-speedy Temp Girl had already zipped away. Lepto-Lady and Quarkman drove me to Precinct 36 in their Neutrocycle’s sidecar.
Along the ride, they explained their powers: when their polarities were synchronized, they could redirect nanometric nuclear forces. Or something like that.
All I understood for sure was that Lepto-Lady couldn’t charge her suit while steering, so I had to drive the last few blocks.
As we entered Precinct 36, Temp Girl zipped out from an alleyway to meet us. “Wow, you made it safely.” She sneered at me. “And with Super Gus driving!”
I turned to my passengers. “I crashed a forklift once while we dated. As part of her plan to stop Crimson Conniption.”
Temp Girl nodded to Lepto-Lady and Quarkman. “And he did it really well. Like he’d had practice. Indestructi-brain here doesn’t seem to realize the rest of us have breakable bones.”
I waved my arms. “Um, people, we have work to do. The bomb?”
Lepto-Lady hopped out. “Not before we calibrate our transducers.”
Quarkman joined her. “And find the most conducive location, of course.”
He extended a glowing wand from his wristband and waved it along the sidewalk. The power couple followed the wand’s hissing and crackling into the distance.
I stepped toward Temp Girl. “I guess it’s just us. Let’s find that—”
Running toward me at hyper-speed, she plowed into my rib cage.
My feet left the pavement, and midtown momentarily whizzed past until I plopped to the rubbery turf of the playground in Precinct 36’s Bloodbath Memorial Park.
“… bomb,” I groaned.
“You think I was just waiting around for you?” Temp Girl stomped to a picnic table holding a four-foot silver cylinder, morosely ticking away. “I already disconnected it from the network timer. Now you need to get it to the lab for disarming.”
“Can’t you move it by transferring your momentum?”
“No, the tiniest tension could be terminal!” The ticking sped up, and Temp Girl hushed her voice. “Either help or don’t show up at all. Like on August 12.” The ticking slowed.
Ouch. “Why would I show for our anniversary? You’d already broken up with me.” Tick, tick, tick.
“What are you talking about?”
I choked back tears. Tick-tick-tick. “You broke up with me—right before I had to face Colonic Flame!” I was ticked—but even more so the bomb. Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick…
It exploded, and I blacked out. And blued out. And oranged out. And several other hues—just not yellow.
When I regained consciousness, Temp Girl chided me. “Arnold, didn’t I warn you about too much tension?”
Despite the park’s permeation of pink, purple, and periwinkle, I perceived a paucity of paint on her. “Zephyr, how did you stay dry?”
“I outran the blast and pushed you onto it. What you didn’t absorb stayed in the park.”
I stood. “You pushed me onto an active paint bomb? What were you—?”
A forceful fluttering interrupted as frizzy-haired Hue Splatman descended in his helicopter-helmeted, rainbow plaid bodysuit. “Mauve-elous! My first paint bomb blue up!” Retracting the rotor blades, he snapped a plethora of pics of my paint-plastered person on his bodycam, then switched on his shoulder modem. “You’re about to go ultra-viral-et… Orange you excited? Ha-ha-ha-ha—”
His maniacal laugh cut off. Splatman convulsed, his hair splaying like a wire brush, then flopped to the ground.
The Neutrocycle careened into the park, and Quarkman leapt out. “Brilliant strategy, Super Gus! You knew when Hue Splatman tried to access his Wi-Fi to post photos of his handiwork, the interference from our boson beams would immobilize him!”
Lepto-Lady cuffed Splatman. “And I thought you weren’t paying attention when we explained our powers!”
Quarkman slapped me on the shoulder. “I’m sure the mayor will want to meet the team that captured Splatman—but you can’t show up looking like that!”
Lepto-Lady and Quarkman hauled Hue into the sidecar and sped away.
Temp Girl scowled at me. “Like you need to meet the mayor again. Didn’t you defeat Colonic Flame all by yourself?”
“I had to. You broke up with me. And over the phone, too!”
“You mean that call on August 10? I could barely hear you. I said, ‘You’re breaking up.’” Temp Girl’s eyes widened. “That’s why you hung up on me, isn’t it? You thought I was breaking up with you!”
I sighed. “I guess you weren’t the fastest—I judged too quick.”
Temp Girl looked down. “And I guess you weren’t indestructible—I broke your heart.”
Staring at each other, we spoke simultaneously. “I’m sorry.”
We hugged.
I winced at the multi-color mess newly mashed onto Temp Girl’s bodysuit. “Oops, that was smearly a mistake.”
“It’s okay. Maybe the dry cleaner will give us a twofer.” She hugged me again.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Did you base the character of the thousand-decibel-voiced Micro-Manager on my boss??! 😂😂🤣
Glad you liked it!
loved the ending!
Thanks for reading!
John,
One of my favorite stories. Simply mauve-elous.
Glad you ‘red’ it!
That was a fun read. Thanks
My favorite line: “Where are my invisibles?” Another great punny story, John!
Fun story!