The Ice Demon

Posted on 18 July 2020 by Larry Russwurm

Mostly the big fire was out. So a very tired Near Absolute Hero flew away from the scene towards the base of the Mother Earth Force. Something that had bat wings much like his own approached him, coming from the direction of the base.

Near Absolute Hero was intrigued. He thought it might be an American soldier outfitted with the wings from the pentagon. But as the two got closer, Near Absolute Hero could make out that the other wings were different and overall the UFO was smaller.

As they got nearer it looked to be like a winged gargoyle with a trident in its hand. They approached and both began circling each other.

“Who are you?” asked/yelled Near Absolute Hero.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out!” the living gargoyle yelled.

“What are you?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out!”

“Leave me be, then!”

“I may leave you be but I’m certainly not going to leave this city be!”

Near Absolute Hero sighed. He wasn’t going to get out of this without a fight. With his cold gun he tried hitting the creature’s trident holding hand.

“Ooh hoo! That tickles!” said the flying gargoyle.

Near Absolute Hero didn’t want to shoot his cold gun any longer. That would be risking frostbite. So he tried his new superhero trick. He said aloud “Ice balls from the sky!” and let his cold gun hand and arm go limp. The computer and exoskeleton in his suit moved his arm and trigger finger up over the flying gargoyle’s head and the gun made the water vapour into ice balls that fell on the creature.

But the creature lifted its head and swallowed each ice ball whole. They were the size of tennis balls and would have hurt or injured some lesser creature.

“You don’t know what I am,” said the creature. “I am the Ice Demon. Someone summoned me from the coldest bowels of Hell. So I ate him and here I am now.”

“So you do not cooperate with the summoner. I’ll make sure I spread that publicly so no one summons a creature such as you, again”

“I think it’s time to lay waste to this city. Obviously you can’t stop me.”

“Just a minute,” said Near Absolute Hero. He had one last trick to try against the Ice Demon. He spun around in the air so his back and wings faced the Ice Demon. But most importantly his back pack which attached to the cold gun faced the creature.

He shot in the opposite direction, away from the Ice Demon. He turned the setting of his gun to its very highest. His wings fanned the air at the Ice Demon. He looked around, over his shoulder at the Ice Demon. The demon looked very ill and was getting worse till suddenly it went “poof” and it disappeared from this plane of existence.

“Back to the coldest bowels of Hell, I hope!” said Near Absolute Hero. He looked all around while continuing to circle. Finally, he decided that his interpretation was correct. He headed back to the Mother Earth Force’s base.

On the way he praised his back pack. “Never again will I call what you produce back there ‘waste heat’. The heat is a feature, not a bug.”

“Hmmm! Maybe I should call myself Old Hot and Cold.” He mused this as he landed at the base and yawned. He would have a well deserved sleep.

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Ice From Above

Posted on 11 July 2020 by Larry Russwurm

“I’ve watched your cold producing powers for some time now,” said Mother Earth to Near Absolute Hero. “Am I right in supposing that your cold gun focuses the cold at a certain point?”

“Yeah. That’s what I think of as the art of using my gun. I’ve got to estimate how far away that object I want to make cold is.”

“Would you be interested if I said I could make it a science that required little thinking on your part?”

“I would love to hear how.”

“We’ll just get Modern Ninja to make you a pair of contact lenses that can tell your gun what your eyes are focusing on. She uses it to make herself invisible to an enemy at a certain point.”

“I didn’t realize that she was using something that could help me so much. I would thank her profusely if she gave me a pair of contact lenses like that.”

“Don’t forget it was my idea.”

“Thank you Mother Earth.”

“Since you’ve been polite, I will elaborate on my idea. You know that the air has a component of water vapour in it?” asked Mother Earth.

“I guess. When it’s humid we say the air is pretty damp.”

“Yes. And if the air is cooled enough, some of that water will no longer be supported by the air and it will become drops.”

Near Absolute Hero was getting where Mother Earth was going, “And if we cooled it even more an iceball could fall on my enemy. But I’ve already thought about that. If I could just motion my gun in a perfect straight line over my enemy’s head I could knock him out with a little iceball. The problem is I just don’t have the delicate and complex control of my gun to do this.”

“With the contact lenses connected to the gun we can take into account everything spatial with the humidity and temperature and let those ice balls rain down on your enemy. We would need to make a computer system on your suit to handle all the calculations. And the gun would need to be pointed just so. So your arm and trigger finger would need to be automatically controlled by the computer system. I can program this. Perhaps Modern Ninja could do it as well.”

“Well let’s get this system working. I’d love to test it out,” said Near Absolute Hero.

“First I want to get you to give it up for ladies in the STEMs.”

“You mean Science, Technology, Engineering and Math? I’d say I was only an engineer myself. I guess I’m relying on you ladies for science, technology and math.”

“Why can’t you just give it up to us for all four?”

“If you ladies can pull this off then I will toast your abilities in all 4 of these specialties. More women in STEMs I will say to anyone willing to listen.”

“Then you will become the superhero you always dreamed of becoming. Near Absolute Hero isn’t just Near anymo-”

Near Absolute Hero put out his hand to stop Mother Earth. “Absolute Hero isn’t possible. But we might be getting closer.”

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Super Cold for a Superhero

Posted on 4 July 2020 by Larry Russwurm

Mother Earth appeared on Near Absolute Hero‘s phone and immediately launched into what she wanted to say. “You’re the best fireman the world has ever seen but when it comes to the Mother Earth Force, you are our worst regular superhero.”

“I played it perfectly with our big fight against Flame Tosser and his gang.”

“Yes you were perfect for the job. But he was fire and you were ice. Are we to demand that supervillains remain just fire so you can be useful against them?”

“I’ve still never tested my cold gun to its highest setting. Who knows what a hero I’ll become?”

Mother Earth went in for the kill. “Blah, blah, someday, blah blah. We can also take an analytical tack and see the scientist that I think you’re needing to maximize the use of your cold gun.”

“What kind of scientist is that?”

“Fly to the York University campus.”

When they got there, Mother Earth first pointed the way to the Farquharson Life Sciences building and up to the second floor. The door she pointed out said Professor Keeshawn Betts on the outside. Near Absolute Hero knocked. A sixty year old man with graying hair answered.

“Keeshawn?”

“Near Absolute Hero? Mother Earth told me about you. Do you know what she thinks is your greatest need?”

“I think I need to cool hands that are holding guns, so much that they drop them. It’s just that I’m not sure if I will kill them or give them a bad case of frostbite, forcing amputations.”

“That’s what I already told him,” said Mother Earth from the computer screen on Keeshawn’s desk. “Guess what he studies?”

“What?” Near Absolute Hero asked looking at Keeshawn.

“I study cryogenic effects on living things. Allow me to take you to my lab in the basement.”

Keeshawn wasn’t talking, just leading till they got down to a basement door which read “Live Animals”.

Not knowing what kind of live animals, Near Absolute Hero was scared as Keeshawn took his keys and opened the door. A light turned on. Keeshawn went directly over to a giant terrarium.

Keeshawn waved at the terrarium. “Welcome to the abode of the wood frog. These frogs can be endure freezing – and when thawed will simply hop away again.”

“Can I just freeze any of them?”

“Oh no,” said Keeshawn. “I believe you have the power to freeze them too quickly. But if you use low power on their periphery there is no danger of frostbite. If you use too much power on their periphery they might eventually totally freeze. But that should take long enough to not hurt them.”

Keeshawn had set up experiments for them to try. Near Absolute Hero was displeased that they were still only using his lowest setting. He was pleased that the building had an inner court yard to do these things safely outdoors.

At first he aimed a few centimeters from the frog’s limbs with his lowest settings. Then he aimed closer to the legs of the live wood frog. The frog had a suit to measure how cold its skin was. Eventually they hit a sweet spot. That should be good to make it drop a gun. They could see the involuntary twitching of the aimed at limb.

Then they aimed further toward the body of the frog. The professor believed this would induce frost bite in another organism like a human. They pushed it further till professor Keeshawn said “There, I think its whole body is going to freeze.”

The frog stopped moving – including breathing. It was frozen. “Watch this,” said Professor Keeshawn and nudged the frog off the bench and onto the patio stone. There was an audible “clunk” sound as it hit.

Near Absolute Hero got into the action. He picked the frog up off the patio stone and threw it as hard as he could at the bench. It made a “Whack!” sound and bounced a couple feet in the air before settling on the patio stone again with the now familiar “clunk”.

“What are you doing?” challenged Professor Keeshawn. “It’s frozen but it can still be damaged!”

“I’m so sorry! I just thought I had to test a theory of mine.”

“What possible theory would that be?”

“I’ve always wanted to write about the perfect crime. I know that’s silly for someone who is so anti-crime they are a superhero.”

“What perfect crime?”

“The victim could be bludgeoned by a hard blunt murder weapon that later thaws out and hops away.”

“That’s not a perfect crime. In some murders the murder weapon is never found but they can still convict someone of the crime.”

“Again, sorry if I hurt the frog.”

“It’ll probably be alright.”

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The Last Gen Xer

Posted on 27 June 2020 by Larry Russwurm

I’ve been looking at generation lists with their starting points and end points for a long time. Lately Millennials and Baby Boomers have been getting in dust ups so it seems more important now than ever.

Firstly Millennials were named so because their date of birth and their milestone dates would have the millennium in them. Having a kid in 1982? They will be the class of 2000 if everything goes right or just normally. But then it seemed like it was handed down from on high that Gen Z should start in 1996 and thus have the easy to remember birth year marker.

I think this made Millennials angry. They still had the numbers to request a bump from Gen X and got it. Soon 1980 and not 1982 became the beginning of this generation.

Then the wars between Boomers and Millennials began. No one wanted to see Boomers win again. They seem to have the power in numbers to scare off almost anything. But sociologists knew this so they decided to expand Millennials to begin at 1977. So the war got more intense.

Under this new regime, Gen Xers are comprised of just 11 years. In most cases an 11 year old cannot have a baby so how can this possibly be a generation?

But I believe it is going to continue. The Boomers have seen how to magnify their strength and are undoubtedly going to claim some of Gen X for themselves. I have seen it before that some sociologists believe Gen X started in 1967, not 1965.

Since Gen X isn’t large enough to protest, we will be taken over from both ends by the Millennials and the Boomers. No one will hear our voices as usual.

I am a Gen Xer. Given a choice I would move over to the Millennials. After a whole life of hearing what the Boomers were doing whether I wanted to hear it or not, the Millennials are a nice change. Of course my preference would be to stay a Gen Xer but that seems unattainable. And what sociologist listens to the voices of Gen X? Obviously no one. It’s not enough that we were also called the baby bust – now there are even fewer of us due to Millennial erosion.

So obviously Gen X is done for. We don’t have the numbers to protest loudly. The only question is who is going to be the last Gen Xer? If it’s me, I will use my very brief time in the spotlight to say “A pox on all the other generations!” Then they will make me one of the other generations and the pox will be upon me, too.

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DJ Experiments with Yes

Posted on 20 June 2020 by Larry Russwurm

Dancing in the era of rock has been easy. The majority of rock songs are in 4/4 time and are fairly easy to dance to because of it. I guess that makes it easier to improvise dance moves. I think DJs love 4/4 time because its easier to get most people out onto the dance floor. But that’s not all there is.

I am a fan of the band Yes and DJs never play their 70s music. It might be that they dislike really long songs, some clocking in at 20 minutes. Yet many DJs will play Stairway to Heaven or Paradise by the Dashboard Light songs that clock in at about 10 minutes or a medium length Yes song.

Maybe it’s the key changes that turn them off. You have to mix things up to keep songs interesting when they log so much time. But I’m betting that what DJs hate the most about 70s Yes is their time changes. I think that DJs just assume that their dancers will be confused. Very few of them have played 70s Yes.

Someday, somewhere a DJ will play 70s Yes just to see if it kills dancing. I would propose other experiments with Yes music to them.

The thing is, songs with time changes are okay for dancing if you know or memorize the song and thus have a brain that can translate this to your body when dancing. If 70s Yes does kill dancing then I should say we could try a second experiment.

You could bring in a group of Yes fans that dance. They will know the different parts of the song. They will be able to dance to it. Let’s see if this will affect the normal dancers. Will they try dancing to this more complicated music? Will they sit on the sidelines tapping their feet? They probably at least won’t boo the DJ.

Believe it or not, Yes in 1983 put out a popular 4 minute 4/4 song. The strangest thing about Owner of a Lonely Heart was that it made it to number one on the dance charts. No one could have predicted that accomplishment based on their 70s music.

The change in music for Yes between the 70s and 80s was their 1980 album. On it was a song called “Does it Really Happen?: It had a bass heavy part that in my mind is the best part of that song. The first bar was 3/4 time, the second and third bars were 4/4 time and the fourth bar was 5/4 time. It repeated this pattern over and over.

How is this different from their 70s times changes? Well it has the effect of averaging out to 4/4 time despite all the changes. I would like to see unsuspecting dancers try to dance to this part. I’m not sure if they would be able to transfer their usual moves to this song. It’s my belief that some of those moves would still work. Or would the dancers flounder and give up on that part of the song?

To find out I imagine I would have to splice together the three parts of the song that use these complex but simple time changes. The rest of the song has other more complex time changes. So I’d like to get this mashed song to a DJ that is willing to try it out as an experiment. I think these excerpts from “Does it Really Happen?” are not really more complex then dancing to Reggae. But I could be wrong. I would love it if a DJ would try my experiment.

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Supervillains Raise Their Rates

Posted on 13 June 2020 by Larry Russwurm

After their successful arson, despite the work of the Mother Earth Force, Flame Tosser raised the demanded rate for not burning Montreal to 5 million dollars. It was suspected that savings on insurance alone could pay off these arsonists. But the culprits also wanted guarantees of not being prosecuted and proof that the Mother Earth Force was forced to leave the case.

The fire department told Near Absolute Hero that they might pay the city’s ransom. It’s just that the police and by extension, the Mother Earth Force were being given one more chance to capture these supervillains.

Tail even suggested that the Mother Earth Force call in Flying Squirrel to even the odds.

“That’s what they expect us to do. But Flying Squirrel has no obvious skills for defeating even one ninja,” explained Mother Earth. “Besides Modern Ninja and I think she could handle two ninjas on her own. It’s just that if she gets caught in the middle of those two it again wouldn’t work.”

“I can watch her from time to time,” said Near Absolute Hero. “If she gets caught in the middle again, I’ll fly her to safety one more time. But it will mean we can’t defeat the Flame Tosser gang and should avoid angering them and ratcheting up their price for a second time.”

“Are you up to the challenge, Modern Ninja?” asked Tail.

“Yes, I am. I think it’s just a matter of keeping my distance till I know where both ninjas I must fight are. Then I can defeat them.”

Again the team hung out in the hotel room waiting for the call of the A.I. that was watching all the downtown cameras. This time they knew about the network of tunnels in downtown Montreal so the A.I. was mainly watching the cameras from near those tunnels.

The first night there was nothing. The Mother Earth Force kept their night hours and it was 4 a.m. the second night when the A.I. had a positive ID of the supervillains. Again they rushed after the supervillains.

Again the fire had already been ignited by the time they were there. Again Near Absolute Hero doused Flame Tossers fart flames, braving the stench to do so. Tail was still a trial for his ninja with that extra appendage to fight with.

Modern ninja was the one to watch that is if you could see her. She used her point invisibility on one of the two ninjas she was after. He could still see her eyes so Modern Ninja raised her arm in front of her eyes. Her suit made that invisible so from the point of her targeted ninja there was nothing to see.

Quickly Modern Ninja moved so her target ninja was in front of the other ninja. Now neither could see her. Modern Ninja lowered her arm revealing only her eyes. She could now see her enemies and approached ready to fight.

First came the fight with the target ninja. He couldn’t see her leg as it smashed into his face and knocked him out.

Modern Ninja hopped over him and attacked the second ninja in the same way. He fell down for good, too and Modern Ninja handcuffed him and then did the same with her first victim. She finally dared to look at Tail who was handcuffing his own villain.

Flame Tosser could see that he was about to be assaulted on three fronts and ran toward the building that would give him freedom.

There was nothing left for Near Absolute Hero to do so he grabbed Flame Tosser by the armpits and went up, up, up to the top of the highest building in downtown Montreal. “Don’t struggle! You’ll fall to your death if you break loose!” informed Near Absolute Hero on the way up.

When they were up at that height, Near Absolute Hero had a revelation. “The tallest building in Montreal is exactly as high as Mount Royal’s peak! They must have put that in the zoning for the island of Montreal!”

Near Absolute Hero could also see that the fight below had finished. To Flame Tosser he said, “Even falling from a few feet off the ground could break your leg and you wouldn’t be able to escape.” Then as a surprise move, Near Absolute Hero dropped Flame Tosser from about 10 feet onto the concrete.

While Near Absolute Hero cold gunned Flame Tosser’s flame, Tail handcuffed the supervillain. After Tail was finished he could finally complain about the smell. Even without flames it seemed deadly.

They could hear sirens. It was a race to see if police would reach the battle first or the fire department would reach the fire first. The cops arrived first. Tail and Modern Ninja told them about Flame Tosser’s power. The ongoing smell backed up their story. They took no chances and used 4 cruisers to haul away the 4 supervillains.

Near Absolute Hero flew to the fire and fought it till well past sunrise.

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A Gaggle of Superheros in Montreal

Posted on 6 June 2020 by Larry Russwurm

The Mother Earth Force rented a room in a hotel in Montreal near the spots where the three linked arsons had taken place. Mother Earth scanned all the nearby active cameras with an A.I. she had stolen from the American military to identify Flame Tosser regardless of any disguises he may have donned. With the A.I. doing most of the “work”, the troop played games to pass the time. These games were easy to readjust from if they were going to see action soon.

The A.I. sounded the alarm during a raucous game of rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock. Immediately the group was up and running (well flying for Near Absolute Hero). Mother Earth shouted out directions from each of their smart phones. They spotted their nemeses some meters from a large building.

Flame Tosser sparked one of his farts which was pointed at Near Absolute Hero. Near Absolute Hero put out the fire with his cold gun and idly looked at the rest of the group to see their faces sour one by one from the smell.

Tail was giving a good accounting of himself with his ninja but Near Absolute Hero spied Modern Ninja being encroached on by two ninjas from either end. That was one extra ninja than they thought there would be.

Modern Ninja could use her point invisibility for one of the ninjas but the other one was bound to attack without any problems.

Near Absolute Hero let Flame Tosser go and flew Modern Ninja up over her attackers and yelled to Tail about the rest. Modern Ninja yelled for him to retreat. Finally Tail could avert his attention from his foe long enough to see the other two ninjas. He immediately retreated.

Flame Tosser and his minions fled into the building and ran downstairs. This immediately nullified Near Absolute Hero’s powers and made the rest vulnerable to Flame Tosser’s fire. Near Absolute Hero couldn’t use his cold gun inside because the backpack part would cause fires on its own. He had hoped Flame Tosser would try inside by a window where the glass could be broken and the cold gun fired inside.

“Quick,” yelled Near Absolute Hero. “They’re probably going to come back up the stairs on the other side of the building.”

Mother Earth stopped Near Absolute Hero’s flight. “All these buildings are connected by tunnels. Apparently Montreal has over 30 kilometers of tunnels downtown.”

“No,” cried Near Absolute Hero in anguish. “Now we know why Flame Tosser chose Montreal.”

“Are you up to help the Montreal fire department with the fire Flame Tosser and the ninjas set?” asked Modern Ninja.

“Absolutely. We’ll need good press after this leaks. No one caught the third ninja by camera. How is that even possible?”

“They might not have used him the previous fires. They knew once the city was held for ransom that we would be on the hunt,” said Tail. “That’s when they used their advantage.”

Near Absolute Hero followed the fire trucks. The rest went back to the hotel.

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Enter the Mother Earth Force

Posted on 30 May 2020 by Larry Russwurm

The rest of the Mother Earth Force gathered around Near Absolute Hero as he came into the training facility and sat down heavily at the table.

“Spill it!” ordered Mother Earth herself, her image and voice on a laptop.

“They’ve been keeping something from me for a couple days down at the firehouse,” said Near Absolute Hero. “The fire services in Montreal are being shaken down by a new arsonist there. They want 2 million dollars to stop their reign of terror – er – fire.

“How on earth can you tell arsonists apart? It could be anyone claiming they are a serial arsonist…” thought Modern Ninja aloud.

“This arsonist has a clear modus operandi. They start the fire about a meter up with methane being the ignition source.”

“No!” Exclaimed Tail. “Not the Flame Tosser! Surely he should have disappeared better than this!”

“How come there are no reports about this in the news?” asked Mother Earth being sensible.

“They ordered quiet in the press, that is until tomorrow night’s deadline. I was going to go there myself without telling the crew and make up for losing him a few weeks ago.”

“That would be a fool’s mission,” said Mother Earth. “Flame Tosser wouldn’t be so brazen unless he had some advantage over you.”

“It’s like we talked about,” said Modern Ninja facing Near Absolute Hero directly, “He knows you can’t use your power indoors. He’s mulled over why he has escaped you.”

“And I think,” Mother Earth said, “he expects the whole team to come after him. I’d be wary of any meeting with him. He’s the type that likes an advantage.”

“Yes, we believe he is expecting the full team,” said Near Absolute Hero. “Some video captured him and what appears to be 2 ninjas near one of the fires. One for each one of us.”

“We all will have to go,” said Tail standing up arms akimbo. “This will be the first mission of the Mother Earth Force.”

“I’ve gotten through to a private jet at the airport. We can be out of here in minutes,” said Mother Earth.

“Only Mother Earth can be truly safe from this diabolical fiend,” said Near Absolute Hero.

“You fear injury or death?” asked Tail.

“No, but it’s a certainty that I will encounter that smell yet one more time!”

“The horror,” said Modern Ninja. She alone knew about Near Absolute Hero’s trauma on the subject that forced him to relive the smell again and again. She just hoped that she would not have to suffer as badly.

They all got up and headed to the airport.

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Can Cockroaches Survive Dr. Phil?

Posted on 23 May 2020 by Larry Russwurm

In the book, “The Cockroach Papers: A Compendium of History and Lore” it is believed that the first mention of cockroaches being able to survive the Nagasaki and Hiroshima nuclear blasts occurred. This eventually led to the idea that if there was a nuclear war, humanity would be dead but cockroaches would continue on.

This became part of our popular culture lore. This led to studies with radiation to see just how much a cockroach could stand. The answer they found is more than a human but less then other insects. But a nuclear war is so much more than one burst of radiation. It is that, but also how can the creature handle the radiation over generations and survive in the changed post nuclear strike world?

One way to look at it is to see how animals have survived in the area around the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. While bears, foxes and wolves and other large mammals exist in the exclusion zone, there are way fewer insects and spiders than there should be.

So I am going to say that insects and especially cockroaches are unlikely to survive a nuclear war. Especially here in the temperate zones of earth where winter temperatures go below freezing. The only reason cockroaches survive our winters is because of humans being nice enough to heat space for those cockroaches in the winter. They are a tropical insect.

Meanwhile, Dr. Phil has been repeating that “study conclusion” that the overweight and obese are getting serious covid-19 cases in greater numbers than the rest of the population. That rate was 64% in Britain when being overweight or obese occurred in just 62% of the British population. So let’s make my stats more ironclad. I said (in a post from a few weeks ago) that because overweight and obesity was increasing in the population that should take us to 64% – the same rate that were overweight or obese and got serious cases of covid-19.

From 1980 to 2013, the increase in obesity of the United Kingdom was 13%. 2013 is where the 62% obese and overweight rate comes from. Assuming the same rate of increase in obesity and overweight people, we can find that 13% divided by 33 years gives .394% change per year. Multiplied by 7 years this gives a 2.76% increase in obesity and being overweight in the UK. So there should be about 64.76% of the population that is obese or overweight. This rounds up to 65% but I am going to be generous and assume that doctors are making some headway against the obesity epidemic and that the overweight and obese are 64% of the British population.

Again, there is no link between obesity and serious covid-19 cases. Dr. Phil you are wrong.

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Modern Ninja and the Commish

Posted on 16 May 2020 by Larry Russwurm

Modern Ninja walked into the police station in her LED body suit. Some stared as it was uncommon to see someone with such an odd fashion choice. Modern Ninja made a beeline to the cop that was behind a desk that looked like the best bet to be the reception area. That cop seemed to ignore Modern Ninja even though Modern Ninja was staring at him with simmering intensity.

“Mmm hmm,” Modern Ninja cleared her throat.

The cop turned his head and looked right through Modern Ninja and then past her before turning his head back to its original position.

“Sure! Pretend you don’t see me. Like I’m –” Modern Ninja changed her tune as realization hit, “Invisibility off!” she ordered to her suit.

“I was wondering what I was hearing,” said the now smiling cop. “You must be Modern Ninja. Commissioner Corwin told me to let you up whenever you show up. At least one rumour was true.”

“You mean you really didn’t see her there, McCain?” asked another officer loudly.

“Nope. That’s her superpower.” He turned back to Modern Ninja. “Go to the fifth floor and turn right from the elevator and go the end of that hallway and that’s where Commissioner Corwin is.”

“Alright,” said Modern Ninja. The elevator ride and walk took only a minute. The commissioner’s door was open so Modern Ninja just stepped inside and saw the greying man behind the desk for the first time in real life.

“Commissioner Corwin?” Modern Ninja asked.

“Modern Ninja,” He closed his paperwork in a file and stood up offering her a seat. “I have a few questions to ask of you.”

“What questions?”

“Specifically about the museum heist. My lead detective and I can’t seem to agree. How did you know that the two men you apprehended were the only ones there?”

“I didn’t act alone. I had Mother Earth with me.”

“What? That foolish joke that Tail tried to pass off on us a few months ago? How could that be related?”

“I realize that Mother Earth didn’t ever tell the public what her powers were. She can crack any computer system in less than a minute. That night she broke into the museum’s surveillance system and told me via my phone that there were two men headed for the exit, three seconds apart.”

“Oh, that does make sense. Then we will not worry about arresting you for now.”

“For now? I thought you were going to congratulate me for helping the police. Your men would have never have gotten them because, you see, they never even saw me that night. I thought you were going to offer me the keys to the city, a paid position with the police or at least let me call you Commish!”

“Firstly, the mayor is in charge of keys to the city. Why would I pay you when I could buy more beat cops with the money?”

“I’m more valuable than a beat cop. Or did those men not tell you about my invisibility? Invisibility On!”

Now all that Commissioner Corwin could see of her was her eyes. “We’ve already figured out how you pull off your little trick. We saw that invisible car news.”

“Did you now, Commish?”

Comissioner Corwin’s face flushed with anger but he tried to play it cool. “We need to keep a lid on this superhero thing. Tail, then you and now you tell me about Mother Earth. You’re all vigilantes.”

“And part of our group is Near Absolute Hero. He’s a fire vigilante. He’s making quite the money with the fire department of the Big Smoke. Why not us, Commish?

“Vigilante is a bad thing. Absolute Hero is a prized volunteer. So much so he was put on the payroll.”

“I volunteered at the Museum, Commish.”

“If you don’t let it be I will arrest you and put the question to a jury.”

“Wow, I didn’t think it would digress this badly. Tail was right. All of us, Tail, Mother Earth and I as well as Near Absolute Hero are part of the Mother Earth Force. Do you want to know what Tail suggested I do if the meeting got tense?”

“No.”

“He said I should threaten to ask every criminal I can find what it would be like if someone yelled ‘Suuu Weee. Weee, Weee, Weee. Here piggy piggy. ‘ at the top of their lungs at any cop shop including this one. I can head down to the prison today so we could find out what the reaction is.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Try me, Commish.”

“Get out now! And if my men catch you at a crime scene…”

“They’ll what? Threaten someone who helped them?” It was then that her eyes disappeared, too, and the impression she had made on the chair disappeared.

Commissioner Corwin huffed and puffed but did not call any other cops to the scene.

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