Trouble from Terry Town

The Mite smashed through the wall. It was a scene he had done many times in the past. He couldn't count how many walls of how many lairs he had punched through. That was a part of his job as a Gangbuster.

Someone caused trouble. He arrived to stop it. It was an old game.

"The Mite." The smooth voice drifted from speakers all around the room where the hero found himself floating. "I expected you seconds ago."

"It's time for you to close it down, Parry." The Mite looked around, frowning at the lead in the walls. "I don't know what your scheme is, but these robberies are over."

"I'm afraid not." Parry should be radiating anger, or frustration. He kept his cool. "I have things planned that must go on."

"What plans?" The Mite flew to a speaker. He looked through the electronics. The pipe around the conduit was lined with lead to keep him from using that to see through the walls.

What was going on?

"That would be telling." Parry seemed to be smiling.

"Don't make me tear this building down, Parry." The Mite's eyes glowed. "You know I can do that."

"Go ahead. I'm not even there." Clicks came over the wire.

The Mite struck a wall with his tiny fist. The lead bent out of his way. Something coated his gloved hand. He stared at it in understanding.

The Mite had a vulnerability to a rare isotope. Something about the radiation it gave off drained his powers, drained his life if he remained close to it long enough. Somehow Parry had gathered enough to coat this room in the stuff except for the outer wall he had flown through to get to this chamber.

The Mite turned to fly out of the building. The outer wall should be no danger.

The Mite grew a foot as he zoomed across the room towards the hole he had made. He saw a blockage but was already committed to his punch through with what strength he still had. His growing body crashed into a shutter of the isotope. It wrapped around him as he tried to maintain his speed.

"It took me a while to find enough to drain your powers." Parry sounded satisfied out of the speakers. "Now that I have you, your comrades will be that much easier to capture."

The Mite didn't answer. His strength barely lifted his head as he tried to think of some way out of the trap he was in.

"All I need to do is let them know that you're in mortal danger." Parry laughed softly. "They'll rush to help you out. One by one, they will join you in confinement, and I can move on to the next phase of my plan without interference."

The Mite found himself in a cell of plain glass. The isotope glowed in the bottom of the cell. Tongs in the ceiling lifted him up and moved him along. He tried to punch the wall. His knuckles didn't strike hard enough to make a sound.

The tongs dropped the Mite in a recessed alcove. They retreated as a cover dropped down on top of him. The glowing radiation cut through the darkness.

The Mite sat in his captivity. He hoped his comrades were faster than he had been.

What was Parry's plan this time? Their relationship had always been of a cat and mouse nature. Death traps fit in with his general operating mode, but not like this.

The change in methods meant something. The Mite couldn't figure out what. Usually Parry only threatened death if someone got in his way. He didn't usually preemptively attack his opponents.

The Mite reached down and pulled the radio he carried from his belt. He listened to it. It whined with static. Maybe he could boost the signal and let the others know he was in trouble. It was the best plan he could come up with at the moment.

He certainly wasn't punching through the cell walls, or the storage bay walls beyond.

He had a feeling his plan was what Parry wanted him to do. What other way could he lure the other Gangbusters to their deaths except by letting them know where he was.

The Mite put the radio back in its belt holster. He took off his dark brown cape and spread it out on the bottom of his cell. That cut the glow down. He laid down, and closed his eyes.

Parry would have to think of some other way to lure his friends into his traps.

The Mite put his gloved hands behind his head and tried to get some sleep. Something would turn up to help him. He just had to have patience and be ready to act if he got a chance.

If Parry wanted him dead, he would have already poured poison gas into the cell.

Parry wanted him for something. He wanted the hero to be there to witness something. He wanted all the heroes to be there to witness something.

The Mite wondered what the event could be. Parry was not known for thinking small. All of his schemes had threatened Terry Town, and the world beyond. Capturing the heroes as a first step was not part of how he liked to do things as a rule.

His ego usually demanded some kind of fair combat.

The Mite worked at the problem until he fell asleep. The power drain from the radiation also ate at him. Sooner or later, it would kill him. Parry would have made sure that it was just enough to keep in place until the grand plan had been enacted.

Parry smiled in his secret lair as he planned how to gather the rest of the Gangbusters. He had hoped the Mite would call his friends. The hero had anticipated him. The villain tapped a button to send out his own call.

His grandest plan could not be stopped now that it was in motion.

Law Dog cocked his black slouch hat back as he stared up at the front of the building they were going to enter. His badge glittered on his vest in the afternoon light. His long barreled musket rode in the crook of his elbow.

"This can't be the place." He squinted at the array of windows. "I don't see any damage."

"You're right." Gary Stu looked up to match his comrade, goggles pushed up on his white helmet. "The Mite usually destroys whatever's around where he's fighting."

Gary Stu's white suit turned him into a white line as he stood next to his friend. His face wore a worried look that would make women swoon when they saw it. Blue gloves covered hands that could do surgery, fix machines, or knock a goon into next week.

"This is some kind of trap." Gary Stu's assessment made the other Gangbusters nod.

"The Mite's signal is coming from up there somewhere." Heathcliff pointed with one hand, the sleeve of his overly large red coat falling back to his elbow. "I don't know why he's not speaking. I can't get the visual to snap on."

Heathcliff pulled out a display and showed them a map engendered from his scans. He frowned at it, adjusting his Ben Franklin glasses.

"This can't be right."

"I see what you mean." Gary Stu turned gleaming hazel eyes on the map. Obvious changes had been done to accommodate massive pieces of machinery. "Why would they need personal generators that big? The whole top of the building is a typical villain lair."

"We still have to go in to find out what's going on." Hide and Slide finished each other's sentences like the twins they were. Their black suits with orange boots and faceplates made them hard to tell which was which.

Obviously that also made it hard for their enemies to figure out which one did what in a fight.

"Law Dog and I will go in the front to let them know we're coming." Gary Stu smiled radiantly now that the time for action had come. "You three come in from the roof and try to find the Mite while we're attracting all the attention."

"Can do." Hide and Slide pulled Heathcliff back down the alley.

"Let's go get this over with." Law Dog pulled his hat down. "I'm glad to be volunteered for this."

"Heathcliff can bypass security ten times faster than we can." Gary Stu strode toward the front door of the suspect building. "Hide and Slide can get around all but the most extraordinary means. They are perfect for burglary. We aren't."

"Doesn't mean I have to like it." Law Dog pushed the doors open so he could shoot the camera looking down on the front doors.

Gary Stu pointed at the guards reaching for their weapons. They froze in mid-reach. He shook his finger. They let the Gangbusters through without any more trouble.

"They don't make minions like they used to." Law Dog reloaded the musket after stepping in the emergency stairwell. They sure weren't riding the elevator up to the secret lair.

"I doubt they were minions." Gary Stu pointed. "Another camera."

"Got it." Law Dog blew the electronic watchdog away. "How long do you think before someone comes down to stop us?"

"I don't think anyone will." Gary Stu stopped when he reached the floor where the lair should be. He tried the door and found it a fake. "I think they want us to walk in the trap and deal with us then."

"We'll see about that." Law Dog motioned Gary Stu out of the way. He took aim with his rifle and fired. The shell punched a small dent in the door. "Armor plated. I'll have to bring out the big gun for this."

"Heathcliff's scan said there was a wall behind this too." Gary Stu looked up the stairs in case someone tried to come down from above.

"Definitely need the big gun." Law Dog worked on his rifle, changing the barrel and breech for pieces from inside his vest. He loaded the weapon with a bullet as long as his hand. "Let's see what this does."

Law Dog took aim as his friend went down the stairs behind him. He pulled the trigger. Thunder filled the stairwell. The rifleman started to reload as pieces of the wall behind the false door fell to the floor beyond.

"Nice shooting." Gary Stu stepped through the portal. No one waited beyond. "Looks clear."

"I expect so." Law Dog pointed the musket at the ground as he stepped inside the villain base. "I hope we find someone soon. This is giving me the willies."

Gary Stu said nothing. He led the way towards an internal door. His memory of the map told him that the control room should be up and to his left. If they got there, things would play out, good or bad.

Law Dog fell silent. He knew the value of quiet when hunting. His eyes flicked back and forth as he waited for the walls to close in at any moment.

Gary Stu paused at the door that should lead to a control room. He thought he heard gimbals moving beyond. This might be the trap room.

Law Dog nodded. His hearing might not be as sharp as Gary's, but something had moved beyond the door. It was a real sound.

"Blow it." Gary Stu stepped out of the way. "Let's see what we're dealing with."

Law Dog stepped back to give himself some room. He pointed the musket and fired. The heavy bullet ripped the door off with a roar.

An empty room waited beyond.

"This isn't right." Gary Stu stepped in the room. He looked around. "Where did all the controls go?"

"Maybe you made a mistake."

Hide, Slide, and Heathcliff made their entrance through the building's roof entrance. The twins had been able to get up there with their powers. They let Heathcliff open the door. He had a special tool that could do that with a twist of his wrist.

"We go down according to the readout." Heathcliff led the way. He made sure to activate his security dampeners. He didn't want any bad guy to hear him over listening devices.

"This is familiar." Hide crept along behind Heathcliff.

"How many of these places have we been in?" Slide kept to the rear.

"Too many." Hide checked behind a door, disappointed to find an ordinary office. "Still I feel like we've been here before. I just can't remember."

"The layout is similar to other places of the type." Heathcliff led the way to the emergency stairs. "Logic suggests that they be built along the same lines if they support the same needs."

"That would explain the deja vu." Hide sounded unconvinced.

"I'm not sure it does." Heathcliff started down the stairs.

The three heroes descended the stairs. No one challenged them. Someone should have been there to bar their path. Where was the staff?

They met Gary Stu and Law Dog at what should have been the control room. Heathcliff stepped inside, surrounded by his friends. He raised the scanner.

"The control room seems to have switched with this room somehow." Heathcliff studied the machine. "I'm going to say an elevator of some kind."

"Very good, Heathcliff." Parry's voice drifted down to them. "Please make yourselves comfortable."

Shutters slammed down over the entrance. The group looked for exits. Heathcliff pulled out his switch. They had to get the door open. A death trap was usually quick to slam down.

"Don't bother." Parry smiled. "I have made sure to deadlock the door. I have no interest in harming you yet, but you are going to have to stay there until I'm done."

"What are you doing, Parry?" Gary Stu pointed at the ceiling. If Heathcliff was correct, they could get out through the real control room if they could blow a hole through the ceiling.

"I'm conducting an experiment." Parry sounded thoughtful. "In forty-eight hours, this will be over. You will be released."

"Pardon me if I don't believe you." Gary Stu nodded when he saw Law Dog nod.

Law Dog took aim and fired. The bullet slammed against the ceiling. It did nothing else.

"Sorry." Parry laughed. "I prepared for that."

Hide and Slide shook their heads. The room blocked their powers. Parry had set his trap right this time.

"Now behave and it will be over and you will be released." Parry laughed again. "Food will be dropped in after a few hours."

"All right." Gary Stu gestured for the others to get together in a huddle. That should block lip reading, and Heathcliff's field should put up some kind of interference so they could make a plan.

"Any ideas?" Gary Stu whispered to keep his voice down below the level of a microphone pickup.

"I can try to punch through by using my time machine." Heathcliff kept his head down. "I can go back several days and come back to release you guys."

"Why not warn us ahead of time?" Law Dog frowned at the other man.

"It might make things worse." Heathcliff shook his head. "Time travel is tricky stuff."

"Let's go with your plan." Gary Stu broke in to forestall any digression. A lecture about time travel made little sense at the best of times. "I don't think we can trust Parry. What do you need?"

"A few minutes without Parry seeing what I'm doing." Heathcliff reached into his coat pockets.

"Let's see if we can come up with a distraction." Gary Stu broke from the huddle. "What are you doing, Parry? Why the theatrics?"

"No theatrics." Parry seemed to have turned to other business. "I'm just reproducing something a colleague of ours worked on. I have just about everything figured out to set things in motion."

"A colleague?" Gary Stu thought about the number of people he and Parry had in common. They were all scumbags as far as he could recall.

"Dr. Modius." Parry's pronunciation brought a frown to Gary's face.

"This is Modius Tower." Hide snapped his fingers. "I knew I had been here."

Heathcliff worked feverishly under the guise of not doing much at all. He fitted the linkages together as fast as he could. He didn't remember a Dr. Modius. That didn't mean anything. His memory developed gaps to deal with the paradoxes of time travel.

"Dr. Modius left a majority of his equipment in storage." Parry's voice drifted from the speakers as if he had turned away from his microphone. "It was a simple matter to put everything back together for my own use."

"What are you planning?" Gary Stu kept his body on one side of Heathcliff. He didn't know if he was actually blocking any cameras.

"Does it matter?" Parry almost laughed, but coughed instead. "You're not leaving that room until I'm done."

"It's unlike you not to gloat." Gary Stu looked around. The others had surrounded Heathcliff. "Usually you have a soliloquy prepared for us."

"I don't have time for the friendly banter." Parry did chuckle then. "I apologize. Normally I would love to brag about my latest scheme."

"I'm ready." Heathcliff kept his voice down to avoid being picked up on the room's microphones.

"Go." Gary Stu nodded. "Don't worry about us."

Heathcliff pushed the button to activate the ring of his time machine's influence. The glowing column erupted out of the air, surrounding him in its embrace. It felt wrong. He looked down at the pad. The numbers spun wildly.

Heathcliff doubled from the pain ripping at his middle. He tried to cut the power. The column vanished. The only thing left behind was smoke.

Heathcliff picked himself up off an alley floor. He looked at the time machine control pad. Smoke drifted from it.

Heathcliff stepped out of the alley. He pulled the pad apart. The insides emitted smoke and the smell of melted plastic.

Heathcliff closed the pad. He put it in his pocket while he took the rest of the control surfaces apart and stored them. Parry must have had some kind of shield. He probably expected to kill the time traveler with his gravity well.

Heathcliff looked around. He realized that he wasn't in Terry Town. The skyline didn't match anything he remembered.

Heathcliff decided the best thing to do was look for a newspaper rack. That would have the local paper, maybe another city's paper, and the New York Times if there was a New York.

Heathcliff wandered down the street. He couldn't get back to Terry Town if he didn't know where and when he stood. He spotted a gas station. That place should have maps and papers.

Heathcliff went to the newspaper racks on the outside wall of the gas station. The Times called, but so did the Futuropolis Free Press. More important, various free apartment guides indicated he stood somewhere in Futuropolis.

That made it a good news/bad news situation.

He had escaped. He could rebuild his time machine. He could pass off his money for the money the natives used. That was all good.

The main problem revolved around the fact he stood on another Earth. He didn't know if he could modify his time machine to take him back. He didn't know what Parry planned. He imagined he didn't have a lot of time to excuse the expression.

I need more information about this Earth. Maybe someone can help me.

Heathcliff went inside the gas station. He picked up a map of Futuropolis and opened it. A glance out the window told him the street he was on. He found a library marked on the map. A finger traced the route.

Heathcliff put the map back. The library should give him something he could use. He started for the door.

"Hey, mister." The clerk pointed to his face. "Are you okay?"

"What?" Heathcliff touched his face with a finger. He felt wetness. The finger came back red. The jump must have caused his nose to bleed.

Heathcliff stepped into the restroom and looked in the square mirror above the chipped sink. His lower face looked like someone had thrown crimson paint over it. He shook his head. He soaked some paper towels and wiped his face clean. He smiled, revealing bloody teeth. A finger and water washed his mouth clear.

Heathcliff stepped out of the restroom. He gave the clerk a thanks as he headed for the library. He hoped the blood didn't mean something inside had ruptured.

Heathcliff found the library almost exactly where he thought it would be. He went in. He spotted Internet connected computers in a corner near a large window looking on the street. He realized he needed a card to use them.

"Excuse me, miss." Heathcliff smiled at the librarian at the counter. "I would like to use the Internet computers. I don't have a card."

"No problem." The librarian ran a hand through long, straight brown hair. "I'll get you a temporary card while you fill out the application. You can sign on right after that."

"Thank you." Heathcliff put in fictitious information on the paper's blank slots. He doubted the library would check on it. The librarian pulled out a card and scanned it in the reader on the checkout desk. She handed it over with her thin fingers.

"Just put in three zero three zero as the pin number." The librarian smiled. "When your card arrives in the mail, you can put in any number you want as the pin."

Heathcliff went to the computers and signed in. His temp designation appeared at the end of a list. A few people were ahead of him.

The time traveler decided to check the reference books for anybody who might be able to help him. He had to get back home. A terrible idea had crept into his skull despite how he fought it.

Parry had seized Dr. Modius's tower. Dr. Modius had built a doomsday machine. Parry had activated the machine.

Heathcliff had the feeling if he didn't get back soon, he wouldn't have a home to get back to.

Heathcliff's turn came up while he was halfway through a book of superhuman history. He signed in, opened the library page, then instituted a search. He decided he needed a genius to help him with the time machine.

Molly Cule comprised the first thousand links to answer his query. The address given fell in Futuropolis. Heathcliff called up a map and memorized the location.

She was the one person he needed right then.

Parry sat at his consoles flipping switches. Panels in monochrome told him that everything ran just as perfectly as when Dr. Modius first built his tower. That made his plan much easier.

Dr. Modius had been a master of gravity. His tower represented the idea that he could use his knowledge to do things with gravity that no one else could do. His last plan had been to threaten the world with a collision with the moon.

The Gangbusters decided this was a bad idea and stopped him from actually pulling the moon from orbit. Dr. Modius tried to catch them in a self destruction blast by sacrificing his tower. Heathcliff had done something to freeze the blast mechanism. The good doctor went to jail.

Parry decided the tower was too good a base to waste. He concocted a device to deal with Heathcliff's freeze, took the detonator switches out of the bombs, and took the building over from the government without anyone knowing it.

He refitted the equipment between money gathering exercises. He took the time spent in jail when caught to plan whatever changes he needed to undertake when he was free again. Occasionally he went over the wall to work on the tower and returned in time for roll call the next day so he could use prison as a hotel.

Release came and Parry smiled when he walked the streets again as a free man. That turned sour at his next physical. A tumor had grabbed hold of his lungs and kidneys and wouldn't let go. The doctors gave him a few years at best to live.

Parry decided to put Dr. Modius's plan in action. He went through the tower, double-checking the former owner's calculations. A cell had been put in place to hold the Mite. Then he constructed a gravity cage to hold Heathcliff and the twins Hide and Slide.

Their abilities made them the hardest to hold.

Parry turned to the camera. His gaze drifted over the Gangbusters as they tried to think of a way to get out of the cell. He frowned. Something seemed off with the pictures.

He shook his head. Apparently his cage hadn't stopped one of his birds from fleeing the coop.

"I see Heathcliff found some exit." Parry smiled. "I wouldn't count on him coming back."

"Why not?" Gary Stu crossed his arms. "If he's on the loose, he can find some way to stop you."

"I created a gravity shield outside your cell." Parry watched the realization creep over Gary's face. "If he used the time machine like I think, he's lost forever."

Gary Stu looked at the others. They might not understand what had been said, but they knew something was wrong. Let the Gangbuster explain how gravity warped time/space. Then the fact that Dr. Modius was a master of gravity would dawn on them.

Heathcliff had probably died as soon as he threw the switch on his time machine. Parry imagined a fossilized finger found in some cave somewhere and no one knowing that was all that remained of the traveler.

Parry checked the alignment of the dish on a tower on the roof. It pointed right at the moon. He wondered how long would it be before someone noticed what he was doing. He imagined the panicked astronomers calling anyone who would listen.

He wondered how many would go home and shoot themselves when the Gangbusters didn't appear to handle the problem like they had before.

He fired the beam at the moon. The tower touched the satellite, but it couldn't pull the celestial body down to Earth.

Parry coughed. He wiped his chin with a Kleenex. Blood marked the white tissue. He threw it with a pile of others in a nearby trashcan.

Parry didn't have long but he wanted to make sure that the world was in the same position. Best of all, the Gangbusters minus their missing technologist had to sit and wait for it to happen. Too bad Heathcliff had gotten away. That didn't diminish the way Parry felt since he had surely went to the grave first.

He switched aim to a smaller target out in space. An asteroid would do the job if it was big enough. He found one and yanked on it.

Parry looked at the countdown clock. He still had hours before the moonlet set on Earth for the last time. He regretted that the devastating plunge wasn't instantaneous. Still moving a planetary object took a lot of time and a lot of power.

Installing the extra generators had been a good idea from the looks of things. Dr. Modius probably would have blown a fuse if he had been able to start his engines.

Parry sat back in his chair. Everything pointed to a successful mission. Soon he would be a stream of atoms crushed into an expanding wave when the moon struck. He looked forward to that.

Living hurt too much at the moment.

Parry pulled another tissue and wiped his face again. He threw the stained paper away. He didn't plan to make a run to the dumpster downstairs.

Parry focused on the moon falling toward him. He wondered what the life after would be like. Maybe he could get out to cause more mischief.

He would have to go to some other planet if he did get release. Earth would split apart on impact.

Parry watched the screens. He hoped that some of the people outside guessed what was happening. Why should he have the realization of impending death alone?

Heathcliff wandered the streets from the library to the address given for Molly Cule. She seemed to be the high caliber genius he needed to help him. At the very least she would have parts he could adapt for his time machine.

The pages he had scanned on the library's computer spoke of her scientific skills. It also said something about her being a member of a theater with some friends. He hoped she wasn't just acting smart.

Heathcliff paused at the house at the address listed from the web. It looked like gingerbread on icing inside a picket fence. He noted wide windows and a narrow door. He scratched his head at the look of it. He checked the address again from a scrap of paper from the library. He stood at the right place.

Heathcliff walked up to the door, wondering what he could say that didn't sound crazy. He decided to just state the obvious and hoped to be believed. He knocked on the door.

"Who goes there?" A mechanical voice issued from a speaker in the porch above the door.

"My name is Heathcliff." The time traveler pondered the meanings of the clicks he heard all around him. "I would like to talk to Miss Cule about extradimensional travel."

"You're not on the list." The automated doorman's voice seemed to get an extra chilly with those words. "Please turn and leave."

"Won't you give her my message?" Heathcliff reached into his coat pockets. "This is a matter of life and death."

"You're not on the list." The doorman's voice dropped a few more degrees. "Please turn and leave. You have ten seconds to comply."

"I don't think so." Heathcliff pulled out his tool kit, selecting a screwdriver to get him inside the house.

Cannons extended from around the front steps. The muzzles pointed at the large red coat. Flickers of energy denoted charging.

Heathcliff stepped through the front door before the security system could burn him down. He needed to find Molly Cule before he had any more problems. He shut the door as klaxons sounded his breach.

Heathcliff called out for Molly Cule as he walked through the house. He didn't like the way the furnishings changed as he moved. The only reason he could think that a couch slid into the floor was to prevent the couch from getting blood on it when the security got serious.

A cat appeared. It rubbed against Heathcliff's leg, stretching its body impossibly long. He knelt and scratched the feline's ears.

The interior defenses surely wouldn't shoot the cat too.

"Who are you?" A slight woman in black appeared. Goggles obscured her eyes. A hair dryer pointed at Heathcliff as he petted the cat.

"My name is Heathcliff." The gangbuster made sure he didn't take his hand from the cat. He wanted to talk first. "I need some help."

"And what kind of help do you need?" Molly Cule didn't quite lower the hair dryer.

"I broke my time machine." Heathcliff decided that was the best approach. Present a technical problem, then explain what happened. "I was hoping you could help me fix it."

"A time machine?" Molly raised her goggles from her eyes. "You're kidding me."

"I'll show you." Heathcliff pulled out the control pad. "This plugs into a ring that cuts me off from the present and then sends me back and forth across the timeline."

The cat whined at the loss of a scratching hand.

"Let me see it." Molly took the pad, tucking the hair dryer under an arm. She cracked the case open with expert fingers. "You've burned out some circuits. Might be because of heavy gravity when you activated it."

"Gravity?" Heathcliff picked the cat up by the middle. Paws still touched the ground. "I see. Can you help me fix it? I have an emergency to deal with back home."

"Sure, I can fix it." Molly led the way out of the room. Heathcliff felt electronic eyes follow him as he walked behind her.

Molly led him out the back door and across the back yard to a bunker squatting in the grass. She put her hand on a pad. The door snapped open. Heathcliff followed, trying to keep the cat bundled together.

Heathcliff held the cat up while watching his hostess search through parts bin after parts bin. All kinds of machinery covered every clear space in the lab. The pages had not lied about Molly's ability.

"Gravity would explain why I jumped sideways." Heathcliff liked that theory. It fit in with Dr. Modius's base. The man had been a master of gravity.

"Probably." Molly pulled out a collection of circuit boards. "Space and time are distorted by the presence of high gravity fields."

She paused.

"What do you mean sideways?" She looked at her visitor.

"I'm from a parallel timeline." Heathcliff paused. She was not surprised that he was from another Earth. He could tell by the look on her face. "You had dealings with other Earths."

"Some." Molly shook her head. "You got caught in a gravity field as you activated the time machine and it brought you here. What's the rest of the story?"

"My friends are waiting on me to return and help them." Heathcliff decided to stay as honest as he could. "As soon as you fix the time machine, I'll adjust the lens to try and duplicate my home timeline and go back there to help them out."

"I have a quicker way." Molly smiled. "I might even be able to get some help for you if my friends agree to help out."

"I don't know if a group of actors is the best thing to face the danger waiting for me." Heathcliff put the cat down.

"Actors?" Molly laughed. "The Theater doesn't have any actors."

"Then why call yourselves the Theater?" Heathcliff frowned.

"Because we put on a show." Molly headed deeper into her lab, soldering wires with a miniature welder as she walked. She paused to let her visitor catch up in front of a rectangle in the shape of a door. "Don't move."

Molly walked to a control panel. She pressed some buttons. Heathcliff's skin tingled for a few seconds. A street opened to the lab on the other side of the empty frame.

"That should be your Earth." Molly smiled. "Of course I could be wrong. The only way to know for sure is to go there and find out."

Heathcliff took the repaired control pad back. He put it back in its place. He nodded at the thought of going home.

The Hole hovered in space between Earth and Mars. He looked around. The area felt wrong to him. It felt heavy.

The Hole sectored a volume of emptiness. The pull formed an unsteady line from Earth. It reached into the Asteroid Belt. He supposed that eventually one of the floating rocks could be induced to break orbit and head to the big blue marble.

He planned to stop that before anything bad happened.

The Hole headed toward Earth along the line. Once he reached the planet, he could see what he could do about shutting it down. A line like that wasn't natural.

The Hole descended into atmosphere, keeping a feel for the line. The Earth's own gravity obscured the trail. Still he had enough to lead him to a desert town in the Southwest. He flew over the area before landing.

The Hole looked at the four wooden buildings. No one had been there for a long time. He supposed that no one had even decided to use it for a tourist trap.

The Hole walked down the wooden sidewalks, looking into the windows at dusty, empty interiors. He reached out with his senses. They confirmed no one lived there.

The Hole took flight. He didn't like mysteries. He especially didn't like mysteries that might threaten the planet his friends lived on. He needed a mystery solver.

And he knew just the man.

The Hole headed east. The Network's headquarters took up part of a house in Sign City. His friend lived in the basement.

If anyone could solve a mystery, it's Hector Hex.

The Hole dropped down over the Network's house. He landed on his balcony and entered the guest quarters he used sometimes. He headed downstairs.

Hector should be down in his lab. He spent a lot of time there working on his inventions. They didn't always work the way he intended when he built them.

The Hole knocked on the lab door when he reached the bottom of the basement stairs. He knew better than trying to bull his way in. He could do it, but he would have to wreck the house. And he wasn't letting Hector stay at his place on Mars after what happened the last time.

Hector didn't come to the door.

The Hole shook his head. He checked his com unit. He pressed the alert button after setting it only to ring on Hector's unit.

He pressed the button and held it down when Hector didn't come to the door. Let the thing ring until Hex showed his face.

After a few minutes the door opened. Hex glared at the faceless mask. The Hole said nothing. He released the button finally.

"What do you want?" Hex continued to glare. "I'm in the middle of something."

"I need some of your machinery." The Hole smiled under his mask. "I have an anomalous tractor beam to track down."

"Tractor beam?" Hex's glare turned quizzical. "There's no tractor beam originating from space. The alarm would have sounded."

"The source is here on Earth." The Hole kept his tone even. He had Hex hooked. He knew it.

"You're crazy." Hex laughed. "I would get an alert for that too."

"I don't think so." The Hole never laughed. He inferred it.

"Let's look at this source of yours." Hex disappeared inside his voluminous lab. He returned with his black labcoat and sunglasses over his black shirt and pants.

"I appreciate that." The Hole led the way up the stairs. He tried not to wince at the number of locks turning before Hex started up after him.

When the two of them stepped outside, the Hole extended a sphere of antigravity around Hex and they took flight. He retraced his path to the little desert town. It looked the same as when he left it.

"It's coming from around here." The Hole waited for Hex to get to work.

Hex raised his hand to his sunglasses. He looked around. He frowned.

"I apologize." He struggled with the words. "You were right and I was wrong."

"What's causing the beam?" The Hole floated a few feet off the ground, ready for anything.

"I don't know yet." Hex reached into his coat. "It's definitely not magical, or natural. It's scientific in some way."

"It's reaching into the Belt." The Hole didn't spell out what that meant. Hex was sharp enough to figure out what that meant.

"Let's see what's going on and fix it." Hex waved his hand over a set of parts. A screen set to a radar dish appeared. He installed a stand to hold it upright on the sandy ground.

A tracery of light appeared in the sky. It vanished upwards toward space. Hex turned the sensor right and left. The other end vanished at an endpoint.

"Crossdimensional." Hex frowned. "Definitely crossdimensional."

"So the beam is coming from another universe." The Hole knew that gravity could punch a hole in reality. That was how the black holes he was named after operated.

"Yes." Hex inspected the endpoint. "I think this is a side effect because something is being used in another universe. We're going to have to shut it down."

"You're going to open a door right here?" The Hole held up a hand. "I think we should at least let the others know before we leave."

"You're right." Hex packed up his gear. "If I opened a gate here, it might expand the beam into our universe."

"Thank you for thinking of that." The Hole grabbed Hex up and headed back to headquarters.

"We should use the door." Hex checked his watch. "We can get the coordinates from the sensor and go there."

"I'll call the others." The Hole nodded as he descended to the house. "We might need them."

"Another Earth." Hex rubbed his hands together. "I wonder how many more will need our help."

"Hopefully we'll visit one that has everything in the bag so we don't have to help them." The Hole let Hex off.

"What's the fun in that?" Hex headed down to his lab to work on the dimension door. He needed to figure out what the numbers were before he opened the door.

The Hole went to the communications board to issue the call. The others would get there before Hex was ready.

One by one, the others signed in. They would get there as soon as they could.

Heathcliff looked around as he and the Theater arrived at Parry's headquarters. He felt the waves of energy rolling off the building as he considered how to breach it. He didn't think his new companions had anything in their bag of tricks that would work.

"Gravity." Molly Cule held up a flat screen scanner. "It will rip anybody trying to cross it apart."

"So we need to get around it somehow." The Pixie checked his watch, butterfly wings flapping slightly at the back of a brown suit. "We can try to go underground."

"I'll check it." Denver Dead pulled down his goggles and descended through the sidewalk. Part of his head returned by itself. "Not that way."

"Let's see what energy does." Betty Bit changed her bronze colored arm into a cannon. She pointed and let a volley of red lances go. They bent along the surface of the invisible wall and circled it until the energy charges ran out.

"I got nothing." Vic Ing shrugged in his blue t-shirt. "If I try to rip up the ground, the building will drop on a lot of innocent bystanders."

"I can take us back in time before this building was here and bring us forward." Heathcliff reached for his time pad. "We might have some problems since the gravity wall may affect my equipment."

"We might get transitioned to another timeline like what happened to you." Molly searched her belts for something she could use on the wall. "We need something to punch a hole to get inside."

"I told you." A familiar voice cut through their planning. "Wherever there's trouble, Hec's girlfriend can be found."

"Do you mind, Bee Bee?" Hector Hex glared at the hovering Chemical Girl. "Ignore her, Molly. What can I do for you?"

"We're trying to get inside this protected building." Molly smiled at the red head in black. "Got any ideas?"

"I think we have a way in." Hector smiled back. "After all we have our own master of gravity right here."

"This is bad, Hec." The Hole pointed into the sky. "This thing is pointed into space. There's no telling what it's pulling down."

"So we go in and shut it down." Chemical Girl slammed her hands together. "Let's get in there before something bad happens."

"Let's see what you can do, Hole." Hector gestured everyone out of the way. "I'll back you up."

The Hole raised his hands. He activated his shield. The wall warped as he closed on it. The two fields battled against each other. Cracks ran along the sidewalk at the base of the wall. The Network spacer frowned under his hood.

He didn't have the power to crack the wall on his own.

"Let's put a little magic on it." Hector raised his hands. Symbols of light rolled out, pulling the wall apart where the Hole attacked it.

"Let's go." Chemical Girl blasted through the breach, ripping a hole in the building.

"She's always trying to jump ahead." Joe Boxer strolled through the hole, hands in jeans pockets. His fighting ability couldn't create a hole in the defense.

"Reminds me of someone on our team." Denver floated next to him, partially rebuilt.

"Impatience isn't the same as hotheadedness." Nick Number held his assault weapon ready. He had an array of weapons on a utility harness and bulletproof vest. He was the one member of both groups that depended on heavy firepower to get through the day.

"After you." Hector didn't bother to make an after you gesture as the rest of the group proceeded into the beam. "We'll be right behind you."

"We'll have to find the others." Heathcliff put the time machine control away. "The generators should be easy to knock out with your groups' powers."

"Like falling off a log." Molly paused to kiss Hector on the cheek before crossing into the area next to the building.

"I think everyone's across, Hec." The Hole felt the edges of his control start to slip. "Let's go."

"Right behind you." Hex whispered some more words. An arch followed his pronunciation. They walked through the shrinking hole.

A hole in the wall showed where Chemical Girl carved her own entrance to the citadel. Sounds of combat echoed down the tunnel.

"Let's get in there before she tears the place down." Joe Boxer started down the tunnel.

"Some of us should try to get in from close to the top." Molly pointed at the upper floors. "We can use Chemical Girl as a distraction."

"Fliers, go." Hex grabbed Molly around the waist and levitated straight up. He let the smile he felt bloom on his face.

"Ah, true love." Nick Number shook his head.

"Let's go." Vic Ing waved as the flying part of their forces took off. "Chemical Girl seems to be in trouble."

"Only if she's causing it." Nick hefted his rifle and headed into the tunnel after Joe Boxer.

Heathcliff, Vic, and the Pixie made up the rest of the group on the ground. The time traveler hoped they could provide enough of a distraction the others could figure some way to free the rest of the Gangbusters.

The group followed the path of destruction. They found robot parts scattered across the halls as they went. They found Chemical Girl trapped in a round ball of gravity. It exerted enough force to slow her down. Joe Boxer figured it must equal something like two Jupiters to hold Bee Bee down.

The robot guards in control of the gravity field posed a whole other problem.

"Time to get to work." The Pixie struck the floor with the star on his wand. It grabbed one of the robots and squeezed until the head came off.

Nick sprayed lead with abandon. He didn't need to hold back against machines. He just had to make sure he didn't hit any of his friends. Sparks showed the bullets bouncing off small plates.

Vic waved his hand. Air pushed some of the robots against the wall. That didn't free Chemical Girl.

Heathcliff took a moment to take stock. He had a number of allies with strange abilities. He didn't quite know what they all could do. One of his allies was being held in a gravity bubble that exerted enough pressure to crush a mountain.

Heathcliff counted ten to fifteen robots. They all had tractor beams to hold the heroes inside gravity bubbles.

One of them had to free Chemical Girl. Everyone else concentrated on the robots. He might as well do it. He still had his tool kit in his coat.

Heathcliff pulled out his screwdriver. He reached up and unscrewed several coverings on the cannon. Wiring revealed itself to his long hands. He yanked the stuffing out.

The bubble shut down. Chemical Girl stood up, stretching her arms out. She smiled.

"Can you find the others?" Heathcliff ducked a bubble beam, large coat flapping around him like red wings. "The Mite vanished first, before all this happened."

"No problem, red coat." Chemical Girl vanished in a rainbow streak. A hole in the ceiling appeared as she headed up with a scream of ripping metal.

"That's impressive." Heathcliff looked up at the tunnel being drilled up through the floors.

"Don't just stand there." The Pixie struck the floor again. A tidal wave of metal blasted a line of walking steel out of his will. "Keep moving."

"I'm coming." Heathcliff headed for the stairs he and the other Gangbusters had used in their search for the mastermind. "We can use this way unless Parry changed the floor plan."

"Clear the way." Nick nudged Joe Boxer to get going. "I'll cover the back."

"Give us a wall, Pixie." Joe headed into the stairwell, jogging up the stairs.

Nick emptied out his rifle. The robots shielded their faces with arms. Bullets ricocheted off the armor.

Vic swept his arm in front of his body. That wave created a tornado that scattered the robots like bowling pins. Air was the only element he could use, but the ability to hurl things with a strong wind was all he needed.

The Pixie used his wand on the door frame. A wall sprang up to protect the combined forces from the gravity using robots. As soon as everyone made it to the stairwell, he sealed the vertical corridor from the bottom floor.

"We have to go up." Heathcliff headed upwards. He pointed. "I left my comrades in a cell up towards the center of the tower."

"Pixie, cover the steps up." Nick reloaded. "We want to make it impossible for the robots to follow us if they get pass the wall."

"Got it." The Pixie hit the stairs below the landing where they stood. The steps rolled up from the bottom floor landing. "That should do it."

"Let's get up there before everybody else saves the day on their own." Joe started jogging up the stairs.

The Pixie tapped the stairs again before flying ahead. The concrete started moving on its own. That carried the others on an escalator instead of making them walk.

"I'm glad he didn't fly up the outside with the rest." Heathcliff held up his scanner to give himself a better view of where they should go.

"He's not one for fighting." Vic leaped up several stories. "Come on, slowpokes."

"I should have worn running shoes." Joe looked up as the Elementalist leaped up another couple of flights.

"I'll say." Heathcliff put the scanner away. He pulled out a grappling gun. "I didn't expect to use this."

Heathcliff fired a piton above them. He tripped the reel rewind switch. He soared up as the cable rolled back on the winch. He waved at Joe and Nick as he stepped on a landing a little beyond Vic.

"It looks like you're on your own." Nick slung his weapon.

"What?" Joe jogged up the moving escalator.

Nick pushed a hand control. Wind ripped from his backpack. He flew up on a trail of smoke. He gave Joe a thumb's up as he soared upward.

"Am I the only one around here who can't fly?" Joe looked up as the rest left him behind.

Joe grabbed the railing on the side of the steps and used that to vault to the next set of steps, then again. He did this numerous times to cover ground fast. He landed behind Heathcliff and Nick. They peered out at the floor.

"What's going on?" Joe kept his voice down. Something was wrong by the way they didn't charge out in the hall beyond the door.

"The Pixie and Vic got caught in one of those gravity bubbles." Nick aimed his rifle around the cracked door. "I count ten more of those robots."

"What do you want to do?" Joe didn't approach the door. That meant pushing the other two out of the way.

"We have to blow those things away before they catch us." Nick withdrew. "The only problem is they are bulletproof as far as I can see and I don't want to use a grenade. That might kill the Pixie and the Elementalist."

"I'll handle this." Joe straightened his jacket. "You get ready to get them free when I make the opening."

"Are you sure?" Heathcliff stared at the other man.

"What kind of question is that?" Joe Boxer stepped through the door.

The robots not holding the Pixie and Vic turned their bullet heads to stare at the newcomer. He walked forward confidently. They decided he needed to go in a gravity field too.

"What can he do?" Heathcliff frowned as he watched through the ajar door.

"Just get ready." Nick aimed his rifle, holding the door with his foot. "Joe is fast."

Joe walked forward. He didn't have any weapons to reach beyond arm's reach. That made it where he had to get where he could touch them to do anything. He concentrated on his goal of freeing the Pixie. The wand wielder could clear the hall once he could move his hands.

"Let's get it on." Joe smiled.

While Heathcliff led his forces into the building to free Chemical Girl, Hector Hex opened a door in a window for his group. He did this while robots on the roof fired down on them. He put Molly through the opening first, before landing.

"Hole, put that cannon out of commission while we look around." Hector pointed with a thumb. "We'll look around for the brains."

"Be careful." The Hole waved for Betty Bit to follow him.

"Always." Hector started down the corridor.

"Why does he lie like that?" Betty jetted after the Hole.

"It's natural." The Hole concentrated on the antenna on the roof of the building. He spotted waves reaching into the sky.

"What do we do?" Betty avoided beams from the sentries trying to keep them at bay.

"I'll handle this." Denver Dead blasted forward. He became invisible as he flew. The robots looked confused. Where had the enemy gone?

Robots fell apart. They started looking around at each other as limbs flew apart with small explosions of crackling joints. Only legs remained standing after Denver was done.

"That's impressive." The Hole drifted to a landing to examine the gravity cannon.

"We blow that thing up?" Betty projected more gun barrels than a porcupine has needles.

"Let's try to shut it down first." The Hole increased gravity around the base on one side until it started to lean over. "Cut the wiring."

Betty fired one precise shot into a cable exposed by the leaning tower. The wave projection snapped off as the wiring fell into the shaft housing it. The Hole nodded as the beam died.

"That's a good job." The Hole examined the cannon. "We'll have to deal with the guy behind this before we can check on what kind of damage he's done."

"He snagged something." Denver looked up at the sky. "We might have a rock coming down here."

"We have to help the others first." The Hole started for the roof access.

"One of us should check it out before something happens." Denver floated up.

"I think Denver's right." Betty activated her jets. "We should make sure nothing is going to happen while the rest are ripping this place up."

The Hole looked at the two of them. He turned his blank mask to the sky. Maybe they should check it for trouble before it became more than they could handle.

"Hector, we're going to head into space." The Hole took a sighting along where the cannon had stood. A dish had been on top to focus the blast. He scanned the heavens. "We'll be back in a few."

"We'll hold things down." Hector seemed calm. "Stay out of trouble."

"We'll be back in a few minutes." The Hole took off from the roof.

The Hole paused at the gravity shell. He extended his own field to disrupt the other so a hole formed. Betty and Denver passed him without being told. He flew through and let the shell collapse together behind him.

The Hole took the lead. His knack for navigation kept him on a straight line. The area close to Earth was clear.

The Hole sped up. In his universe, the line extended into the Asteroid Belt. What would happen if a tractor beam pulled an asteroid to Earth? He didn't have to guess at the result. It would be enough to kill all life on the other Earth.

Denver had been right to want to check on this.

Once a big enough rock got started for the Earth, they would have to stop it and reverse its course. That would be almost impossible. Chemical Girl could move a mountain, but even she couldn't move a moon.

"How far do you want to go?" Denver's voice carried over his radio.

"I think we will find something before too long." The Hole focused on a distant point ahead.

The Hole floated to a stop just off Mars. An asteroid headed toward the Earth. He didn't know how they were going to stop it. His first idea was fire the gravity beam at the planetoid with the hope of reversing its course.

That was the only hope they had.

"We have to get Hector and Molly to get that thing firing again." Denver hovered next to the space crusader. "When that thing hits, it will kill everyone on Earth."

"I'll try to hold it back while you two warn Hector." The Hole headed towards the rock. "The coms will take too long at this distance."

"Got it." Denver started back toward Earth with his ghostly speed. His speed depended on his will, and he had a lot of that.

The Hole descended to the surface of the rock. He started pushing against the asteroid. He tried to decrease the velocity.

He gave up after minutes of effort. He couldn't stop the moon from rolling through space. He didn't have enough power to repel it.

The Hole could maybe chew some of it up with his shield.

He didn't think that would do anything but it was the only idea he came up with that might buy a little more time. He hoped the others could back him up soon.

"What are we going to do?" Betty Bit stood on the rock at his side. She had anchored herself and fired jets out her back. She stopped when he did.

"I don't know." The Hole looked back across the vast space toward the blue speck of Earth.

"Maybe we could break it up into smaller chunks." Betty's metal face didn't show the doubt her words did.

"We can try to steer it toward another planet." The Hole doubted that would work either. "We just have to move it a few inches off course to make it miss the Earth."

"There's no way we can do that." Betty's computer brain analyzed the vectors in seconds.

"We can try." The Hole lifted off. "It's already moving in one direction. We can get behind it and push as hard as we can."

"We can try." Betty took off, jet fire trailing behind her.

"Our only hope is Hector and Molly get the machine working and reverse the beam." The Hole picked a spot where he could try and push the moon behind the Earth as it circled the sun. "Now if we can push this rock into Jupiter, that would be great in my book."

Betty didn't have to say how unlikely that was going to be even with the both of them pushing the planet to one side of its path.

Parry wondered how had things gone so wrong. He checked his instruments. He needed to keep these interlopers busy until his plan became unstoppable. He needed to push the self destruct button.

The robots that Dr. Modius had built with his gravity weaponry in place was not slowing these newcomers. The strangers tore them apart as they worked their way to where the Gangbusters were being held. Parry tried to come up with a solution to hold them off, wanting to see the world end when he did.

He certainly didn't plan to let them haul him off in chains so the world would know how sick he really was. No one must know he was dying.

Parry reached for the keyboard. He typed in commands. Sections of controls lit up as the gravity began to push in on the building. Soon it would collapse. That would make sure these heroes couldn't stop the end of the world as he planned it to happen.

The building collapsing might fool them into thinking the threat was over.

Parry watched the gauges as he poured more of his mechanical minions into the fight. He had to keep the enemy distracted from his real purpose as much as possible. Once they realized they were being duped, he expected them to try and counter the problem.

The rainbow girl was the biggest obstacle to his strategy. She equaled the Mite, and he didn't have time to try and pinpoint weaknesses. Her presence was causing more and more of his troops to try and stop her. Parts spread around the building told him how successful that was.

He needed to get rid of her somehow.

Parry pressed several buttons. That produced gravity curtains in the halls. If she could get through those, he would quietly wait for the Gangbusters' friends to find him.

Parry smiled. His countermove had slowed the rainbow girl down to a walk. He doubted she would even be able to hit the floor, much less punch through now.

Parry turned to the rest of the motley group. The only one he considered a problem was Heathcliff. The man knew too much. Take him out of the equation, what could the others do?

Parry directed the robots freed from trying to stop the most powerful of his new enemies to capture Heathcliff. Once they did that, he could turn his attention to the rest of the group.

Parry added some more gravity curtains to hold them down. None of them seemed to possess the sheer power of the rainbow girl. He didn't want to find out he was wrong.

The robots converged on Heathcliff. He pulled a screwdriver out. He seemed to determined to take his attackers apart. Gravity pinned him to the floor. No one could help him out of that.

That left a soldier, an unarmed combatant, a man with butterfly wings, a bald Asian, and the couple in black. He wondered which one he should target next.

He decided that the couple in black should be his next targets. He noted the presence of tools on the woman. That implied a mechanical aptitude he didn't want working on his machinery until he was done.

Parry directed the robots not holding Heathcliff to concentrate on the pair. Once he had captured them, he could turn on the butterfly wings. Then the rest would follow in a matter of moments. He might even be able to abort the self destruct sequence and continue with his plan.

This might just be just a bump in the road to smooth sailing.

The Gangbusters broke free from their cell. Parry fell back in his chair like he had been slapped. How had they done that? It should have been impossible for them to get through the door, much less the gravity screen around their pen.

Parry slammed his hand on the armrest. He entered commands to target Hide and Slide first. They were the most mobile of the Gangbusters other than the Mite. He couldn't have them running loose in his domicile.

He checked the Mite's holding cell. The prisoner still sat in his dudgeon. At least that part of the plan was still going right. He needed to put the rest in similar rooms before they took things out of his hands.

Parry's minions had problems with Gary Stu and the unknown boxer. They seemed to be giving each other tips. He groaned. He should have recruited villains to help him with his plan.

Parry thought about his options. He had to continue to stall them while he waited for the target asteroid to hit. His cannon had been knocked out of commission but the thing was on its way. All he had to do was stall and wait for impact.

As long as they couldn't find the control room, he should be safe for long enough. He might need to put on his suit in case they did find him. He didn't want them controlling the control room while he waited for the building to collapse.

They might find a way to reverse things.

Parry struggled into an exoskeleton. He didn't know if he could do anything but offer a token resistance. He had to try if he wanted to succeed.

The gauges told him the building had entered the first stages of collapse. In a few minutes, nothing the heroes did would help them.

Parry finished strapping his personal suit into life as he waited. It looked like no matter what help Heathcliff had gathered, nothing was going to stop him. The Earth would vanish in a fireball like he planned.

It felt good to win for once.

The wall burst open. A tiny figure appeared, floating in the air. It looked like a blob of mustard had got a cape and decided to fly around.

"It's over, Parry." The Mite glared at his enemy. "It's time to stop what you're doing."

"I doubt that." Parry pressed a trigger to dump firepower from his suit on the tiny titan.

"Good job, Denver." Hector Hex smiled as he brushed his hands together. "You were the best man for the job."

"What are we going to do about the asteroid?" Denver raised his goggles. "I don't think Betty and the Hole can stop it."

"We'll have to stall like Parry was trying to do to us." Hector raised his hands. Robotic henchmen fell apart before the sign of Grem.

"How do we do that?" Denver blasted a robot trying to put them in a gravity bubble.

"First we need to secure the building." Molly blasted a group of the metal minions with her wind gun. "Then we can send Chemical Girl and whoever else we got to try and stop the rock while the rest of us try to get the tractor beam back in operation."

"Freeing the Mite seems to at least bought us an advantage." Hector looked around, scanning the area with his sunglasses. "Let's get to that Control Room and see if we can learn anything."

Molly and Hector jogged down the hall. They paused to deal with anything in their way, but Denver cleared the path for them. His arrival from space had turned the tide.

Hector realized they were outnumbered. The gravity guns the robots used could stop any of the heroes with increased gravity. He needed something to turn the tide. When Denver arrived to tell them what they had found in space, he used the ghost to free the Gangbusters. That had been enough to clear the floor for the moment.

Hector didn't know how the Mite had gotten free from wherever he had been kept. He didn't care except the tiny titan had blasted holes in any robot in his way. He seemed intent on one thing.

That one thing had to be Parry's command center.

Hector followed at a brisk trot. He didn't know what the Mite could do with the technology. He certainly didn't want it busted before he could look at it. Reversing the tractor beam might be all that was between the Earth and demolishing.

A power suit crashed through a wall. The man inside with his slick hair and mustache looked pained as the armor crashed through another hall and into the room beyond. The Mite appeared with a wave of his cape as he paused to talk to his comrades.

"Parry set some kind of timer in operation." The Mite nodded at the three strangers. "If you are going to stop it, you better hurry."

"That's about what we expected." Hector looked at the villain trying to pick himself up off the ground. "We'll try and shut it down. We're going to need you in space if you can survive in space."

"Give me a second." The Mite blurred out of existence for a second. The man in armor flew through the next wall. Then the smell of melting plastic and liquid metal filled the air. "What was this about needing me in space?"

"We'll need Chemical Girl and The Pixie too." Molly headed for the control room. "We need you to keep an asteroid from falling down on the Earth while we look at the gravity controls."

"All right." The Mite looked at the three of them. "Who is Chemical Girl and The Pixie?"

"I'll get them." Denver sank into the floor. "It'll be faster this way."

"Let's take a look at this thing." Hector stepped inside the room where Parry had been evicted. He paused at the number of machines staring back at him.

"I'll get Heathcliff and Gary Stu." The Mite vanished before either of the other two could say good job.

"What do you think, Molly?" Hector looked around the cramped room. His glasses told him which machine seemed to be having problems.

"I think we have a countdown here." Molly sat down at the keyboard. She grimaced. The screen asked for her password.

"Naturally." Hector loomed over her shoulder. "We'll have to get in and restart before we can use the computer to stop whatever he did."

"The operative words are getting in." Molly typed several passwords on the screen. It rejected her every time.

"Let me try." Hector put one hand on the keyboard. The screen started showing letters and numbers at random in time with green strikes from his hand. "I used to be good at hacking."

The computer displayed a menu of options.

"Let's start with stopping everything." Molly searched the menu, and options. She canceled the countdown she found. Maybe later they would need it, but right then they needed to be able to use the cannon without letting the building blow up around them.

"Let's check the last known targeting data." Hector nodded as the numbers froze in place.

A digital picture of space wrote itself on the screen. A target had been fired upon and seized. The projected path took it right to Terry Town.

"Let's try and put it back in its orbit." Hector smiled. Things might be done faster than he thought.

"I can't." Molly pointed to the message on the screen. "The cannon is down."

"I'll have to go up and fix it." Hector started for the door. "That should be easy enough to do."

"Right." Molly searched the data. "As soon as the connection is made, I'll fire the cannon and put the asteroid back on track."

"Good." Hector stepped out in the hall. The others were congregating in the hall, waiting for news.

"We need anyone who can move mountains in space. Denver will take you. We need technical guys to look this place over for repairs. Someone needs to watch over Molly in case there's trouble." Hector looked the group over. They divided up accordingly.

Hector headed for the roof. He believed that was where the tower that guided the tractor beam had been. That was the most necessary spot for repairs. And he was good at that type of thing on his own.

Colorful streaks told him that the powerhouses of the teams were heading into space to try and slow the rock down. That was the best he could think of to do while he was looking for anything that might need to be fixed to get the machines running again. Heathcliff and Gary Stu would have to be able to handle things on their own inside the building while he worked topside.

Hector also hoped Molly came up with a better idea while going through the computer history.

Failure was not an option. They were saving the world.

The Hole took a sighting. The tumbling rock still rolled towards the Earth. He and Betty had not budged the falling moon an inch.

He couldn't think of anything else to do. Even if he tried to use his shield to compress chunks of stone, he couldn't break up the whole thing in time. Whatever was left would still cause an impact that would break the world.

Hector better have some kind of solution to the problem.

"I brought some help." Denver Dead appeared a moment later. He didn't look too happy.

Three figures streaked into sight, hovering above the surface of the planetoid. The Hole recognized Chemical Girl and the Pixie. The other was a six inch flying man in mustard yellow with a red cape.

"This is the Mite." Chemical Girl indicated the doll man with a gesture. "I broke him out of solitary."

"We were hoping to knock this into an orbit where it would miss the Earth." The Hole pointed to a spot five degrees to the left. "We're not having much luck."

"Let's see what we can do." Chemical Girl took off in a rainbow streak. She came back with a slam, pushing on the giant rock. The Hole took a sighting. He shook his head.

The Mite did the same thing. He slammed down right beside Chemical Girl in a smaller puff of rock. The Hole took another sighting. They weren't having an effect no matter how fantastically strong they were.

"We need a lot more powerhouses if we want to push this thing." The Hole racked his brain on what they could do. "Maybe we can break enough off it's not a threat anymore."

"We only have to delay it a little." Denver floated in space without his legs. He resembled a genie more than a ghost. "The others are working on getting the gravity ray back in operation."

"We can cut the pieces away with our energy powers." The Hole considered that. They would have to cut more than three quarters of the rock away before it stopped being a threat. "It'll reduce the threat some, but not enough to save the Earth."

"It's better than doing nothing." Chemical Girl started flying circles around the rock. Energy beams from her eyes cut the stone as she zipped by.

Denver started blasting small pieces of rock with his energy blast. He made smoking dents, but the rock kept rolling.

The Mite started a line similar to Chemical Girl's so that it cut across her flight path. That effectively quartered the rock. Their combined traffic started digging trenches in the asteroid. Sooner or later, they could cut the thing apart like a sectioned orange.

The Pixie used his wand on Betty who turned into a giant drill. She started boring a hole, using grippers in her feet to avoid being thrown into space. She calculated that she could remove a sizable amount of material before they reached Earth. It wouldn't be enough on its own. Combined with what the others were doing, it might reduce the asteroid into something that could be moved by Chemical Girl and the Mite.

The Hole picked one of the orange slices and extended his shield as wide as it would go. He pressed it into the rock. Stone vanished into the horizon at a steady rate. He didn't know how long he could keep it up, but he hoped to absorb enough to cause the planetlet to break apart into smaller sections.

The Hole drew in more and more of the asteroid's substance. He found himself digging into the rock. The shield kicked up sparks from rock slivers as it ripped through the planetoid. Cracks began running up the sides of the tunnel.

Finally the asteroid broke around him. The pieces split away, taking their own flight paths. The Hole flew off to check the flight paths the rocks would be following.

Most were still headed for Earth in big enough pieces to be planet killers.

The Hole picked the next biggest piece. That would be the one he would work on while the others tried to do something about the rest. At least Chemical Girl and the Mite could deal with the smaller pieces before they hit Earth. That would be a help.

The Hole got in front of his target and activated his shield. He let the rock bore down on the miniature black hole. That started sending fractures back along its back.

The Hole kept at it until the smaller fragment splintered into spears that vanished completely in his shield. He checked their position. The meteoroids would be entering the orbiting position of the Earth soon.

The Hole looked around for his next target. He noticed that some of the cloud of falling stones had vanished. He realized that the two powerhouses had grounded the rocks somewhere with their tremendous speed and strength. That would cut back on damage some.

The Earth was still headed for extinction. The Hole had given it his best shot. He could try and help survivors but it looked like nothing they were doing would affect the outcome. Humanity on this Earth was doomed.

"All right, guys." Hector Hex's voice cut across their com channels. "We're getting ready to activate the gravity cannon. We're going to try to place the rock on the moon."

The space warriors flew clear of the cloud of stones. A beam shot from Earth, reaching out like a giant hand. It gathered up the pieces in its grip and pulled them toward Earth. Minutes later, the puffs of crash landings could be seen escaping into space.

"Thanks for your help." The Mite saluted the rest of the heroes. "It looks like we have some cleaning up to do, but the Earth is saved."

"No problem, short stuff." Chemical Girl smiled. "Think you can handle it from here?"

The Mite laughed quietly before speeding back to the Earth, and Terry Town.

epilogue

The mighty Mite flew over Terry Town. He had failed to take the threat seriously. If Heathcliff had not gained allies by sheer chance, the world would be a smoking crater. He didn't know what to think of himself.

Parry had been placed in prison with a record of what had happened. The government didn't want the world to know how close he had came to committing suicide and taking as many as he could with him. They weren't granting leniency because of his cancer at least.

The Mite stopped to change a tire for a stranded motorist. He only paused long enough to make sure the woman was ready to get back on the road before taking flight again.

Maybe he had been on the job too long. He had been rendered helpless by one of his most hated enemies. He should have been ready for the trap before it sprang closed.

The Mite punched a store robber. He used a piece of metal to tie the man up and hang him from the outside of the building. The police would get him down in due time.

The Mite looked at where Dr. Modius's base had been. He had personally taken it apart after it had been disarmed and declared safe. No one else would use it to threaten the Earth.

The Gangbusters had talked about using the remains of the asteroid to build a base on the moon. The Mite hadn't taken part. His power allowed him to reach anywhere on Earth anytime he wanted to with speed to spare.

He would help with the project when it was decided on what to do. Until then he would use his apartment and the secret place beneath it as his base of operations.

The others seemed to be dealing with the near miss better than he was. He guessed it was because they had won when things had looked bleakest. Gary Stu and Heathcliff had actually helped to put the cannon back together. Law Dog had shot the beam. Hide and Slide had nothing to do, and wanted to enhance their natural powers to get around a similar trap in the future where their abilities had been targeted and neutralized.

The Mite prevented a train derailment by lifting a tractor trailer off the tracks before the train could slam into it. He put the truck down and checked on the driver. The man seemed to be having a heart attack. The tiny hero rushed the driver to the nearest hospital.

The Mite returned to the sky as soon as the doctors took over. They knew their business better than he did.

His avocation of being a hero seemed like a waste of time. It had lost some of the excitement. Maybe he should retire and kick back. The others could handle things without him.

He could go fishing, take a cruise, win some hands of poker. He could take the time to enjoy things instead of rushing around and saving people. The world wouldn't miss the Mite.

Maybe he could try and restart his relationship with Pearl Pressley. She had broke things off when he had vanished one time too many. Maybe he should have shown her who he really was instead of keeping his secret to himself.

He knew he couldn't expect her to understand when he couldn't explain why he had to rush off in the middle of dinner for the hundredth time.

I'm the Mite. I have to stop a building fire. I'll be back as soon as I can.

That didn't seem to have the ring of love me despite my faults that he wanted.

The Mite dropped down over the ocean. A ship seemed to be sinking. He dove under the hull and lifted it into the sky. He headed for the docks. The crew could get off there, and try to fix the boat after he placed it in a cradle on land.

The Mite landed on a skyscraper he used for a lookout post. Maybe he should give up the heroing business. It didn't seem to matter much anymore.

He heard screaming in the distance. He turned his vast vision toward where the sound had emerged. He spotted men and women fleeing. He looked for what they were fleeing from. He frowned at what he saw.

A giant egg had crashed into the ground, flattening a building under it. Two sets of metal stalks extended from the bottom and the sides. It stood on the stalks, opening an eye in the middle of the mass. It started walking.

Hide and Slide appeared. They seemed to be confusing it with their abilities to move and teleport. The thing seemed to become enraged at their antics. Beams of light shot from the eye as it tried to kill the twins.

The Mite took to the air. Maybe he wasn't the hero he used to be, but he wasn't going to stand around and let something kill his friends. He had that much of a standard he knew he could uphold.

The Mite arrived on the scene with a hole punching charge through the mechanical monster's eye. He started ripping up the insides with his bare hands. The giant robot's creator would have to be dealt with later. Until then, the mad scientist could put down the wrecking of his machine to being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And it felt good to smash something in the heat of battle.

The Mite pulled the machine apart from the inside like a tiny bullet bouncing around inside a human body. When he was done, the thing fell over on its face. It refused to move despite whatever remote signal it was getting.

The Mite brushed off his hands. Maybe he thought too much about what almost happened and not on what he could still do. He looked up in the sky. He should stick to doing what he did best.

Previous Story Next Story Table of Contents Main Page