 The Stormcrow, A Superhero's Tale |
  |
Replies
| SubRosa |
 Aug 3 2019, 04:35 PM
Post
#2
|
 Ancient  Joined: 14-March 10 From: Between The Worlds  |
Renee: I had no idea the 'Gucci Biker' line would play so well! I was casting about for a way to describe him, and that just popped into my head. The poorer you are, the harder it is to part with that cold, hard cash. I have been there many times buying cars, with my envelope filled with all the money I have in the world.
Acadian: As you noted, the only way January can afford a bike this cool (and it is a really awesome motorcycle IRL, I would love one) is to buy one that is wrecked. I was there when I was her age. Thankfully not anymore. But I can still remember having to do math everytime I looked at a menu in a restaurant, or a cd on a shelf, and figure out if I can really buy this. treydog: I still remember my first cars too. The very first one never left the driveway, except on its way to the junkyard. So I don't count that one. The second was a 1972 Impala. I big old four door boat. The roof would leak, and sometimes the power steering went out when I was turning, which always made things exciting. I loved that car. It was my first taste of freedom. I paid $100 for it, which was a lot of money for someone making $3.30 an hour. It died after 3 months. I paid $200 for my second car, a 74 Plymouth Fury. It lasted 6 months. You can see where this is going... I did eventually get my pony car too. It was a 74 Javelin, with a 360 4bbl. It was so fast! My mother took it to the 7-11 on the corner and peeled out going around the corner in front of our house! That car was fast! Crowgirl is going to finally get her wheels, and I am tapping into those feelings of both that first Impala, and that monster Javelin. Laser Inertial Fusion Energy Ultra Dense Deuterium Plasma Tesseract Victory Empulse TT Pic Victory Empulse Side View Victory Empulse TT With Panniers Victory Empulse TT Instrument Panel Bell Helmet (it really is from the 1950s) Book 2.3 - Stormcrow Recycled After Avery gave her the all-clear, January picked up the motorcycle again and carried it through the back door and down into his Gadget Cave. There he went into full Gadget mode, and began to strip out the engine with a socket wrench. "So how's your mutual training going with Lighthammer?" he asked. He strained at a particularly recalcitrant bolt. Then he slid back out of the way and pointed it out to January. She broke it loose with her fingers with no difficulty. Then she stood back to let him continue his work. "It's going really well." January allowed a certain amount of satisfaction to creep into her voice. "He's taught me so much about the principles of flight already. He must be a pilot when he's not Lighthammering. He's picking up Krav Maga pretty well too." "Just be careful around that guy," Avery warned. "You never know with Gray Hats." "Is someone getting jealous?" January teased. "Don't you worry mi amigo, I'll always need you to fix my stuff." "And here I thought you loved me for my body!" Avery grinned. "Well your body is not that bad," January mused. "Except for all the... man parts that is." "My man parts are my best parts!" With a grunt of effort Avery pulled the wrecked engine from the motorcycle's frame, and dragged it onto the cracked tile of the basement floor. January lifted it up with one hand and set it aside. "I have some parts here that you'll like." Avery rose and went over to his worktable, where January saw a large lump concealed under a tarp. Avery yanked the covering off with the flourish of a magician performing his show closer. Revealed beneath was a gleaming beast of an engine. It was all shining metal and bottled speed. While January stared at the wonder of machinery in amazement, Avery walked over to the downstairs fridge and pulled out a large metal sphere dotted with glowing led panels. It practically screamed "mad science". Gadget - the mad scientist himself - was completely unfazed by all this of course. He calmly opened up a compartment in one side of the engine, snapped the miniature Death Star inside, and then sealed it all up tight again. "What in Freyja's name is that?" January looked at her friend in disbelief. "You've heard of heavy water right?" Avery asked. "Well I made some back when I was working on the cold fusion reactor for my Geo. I never used it though, since Evian worked much better." "You put a nuclear reactor in my motorcycle!" January stared at the engine in horror. "I thought you were going to make a fuel cell?" "I was intending to go that route originally," Avery nodded. "But then I read that Zero Point and Stinger from the Sentinels are building a LIFE reactor for Chicago. It's laser inertial fusion energy. I reached out to them, and they gave me some tips. I use lasers to induce fusion in heavy water. There's no special cooling needed, and it can be turned on and off at any time." "Isn't that dangerous?" January stared at the engine with the same caution she reserved for white supremacists and anti-vaxxers. "Not at all," Avery insisted. "The only byproducts are hydrogen and helium. No gamma rays, no nuclear waste." "You're sure?" January looked from the engine to its inventor. Mundane scientists had been promising nuclear fusion for all of her life, as well as cold fusion, and a host of other inventions. Yet they were all still promises. It was not that Avery was one to lie. Neither were those scientists. Anyone could be over-optimistic. Granted, Avery had built a cold-fusion reactor for his Geo years ago. She had been there countless nights to listen to him swearing and pounding on it with a wrench while he tried to get it to work. But this was quite a leap beyond the innocuous spring water and coffee filter-driven power plant of his car. "Oh yes, I've been testing this for the last few days. No issues," Avery crowed. "I have been reading about people doing this with ultra dense deuterium. So I might try that next. The energy output would be spectacular. I would just have to mitigate the extra weight." "Extra weight?" January wondered. "That stuff is more dense than the core of the Sun," Avery explained. "A four inch cube would weigh 140 tons." "That's denser than most voters," January nodded. "You are actually thinking about that?" "I just have to find a way to compensate for the weight," Avery reasoned. "Stinger gave me an idea about that too. She shunts her excess mass off to higher spatial dimensions when she goes down to the atomic level or lower. If I could do something like that, I could store most of the mass outside of the normal three-dimensional universe. Well, above it. Or in a different direction to it at least." "You mean build a tesseract?" January tried to keep her voice neutral. When Avery got to brainstorming, his ideas could get pretty wild. But he did have a habit of making his dreams come true, even if it sometimes took a lot of swearing and wrench-wielding to get there. "Ever since Panzer created the first suit of powered armor back in the 30's, people have been trying to generate more energy in a smaller package." Avery said. "Of course Zero Point uses zero point energy, Annihilator uses anti-matter, and who knows what Doctor Heisen is up to these days? No one has heard much from him since he came back from Jupiter. If I know the Technocrat, he's working on something big, maybe harnessing dark energy, or something even wilder." January looked from Avery to the gleaming beast of an engine, and its fusion reactor. Was Avery planning on building a suit of powered armor? In that case her motorcycle engine was just the prototype for something much grander. She fought the smile that wanted to play across her lips. He wasn't talking about it yet, but clearly, that was in the back of the meta-inventor's mind. She said nothing. She would play it cool, and pretend to be surprised and amazed when he finally did unveil it. But her inner fangirl squeed as loud as ever at the thought of him suiting up beside her one day. "Anyway, even without the ultra-dense deuterium you could probably ride this bike to Pluto and back and not run out gas. Well... fuel." "So this isn't going to go up like the Hindenburg is it?" January silenced her inner fangirl and paid attention. She stared at the engine, and her friend, with even more respect. "Well, you don't want to crack the reaction chamber," Avery rubbed the back of his neck. "That might be bad." "How bad?" January pressed him. He was rubbing his neck. That meant he was really uncomfortable. "It's fine with it turned off, when no reaction is taking place," he insisted. "What about when it's turned on?" "Well that would be bad," Avery rubbed the back of his neck once more. "If the magnetic containment is disrupted… Well that's fully ionized plasma everywhere." "Note to self, being splashed by the Sun is bad," January breathed. "But as long as it doesn't break, it's safe, right?" January hoped. "Of course!" Avery insisted. "Like I said, no radiation, no toxic chemicals. It's completely eco-friendly in fact." Following Avery's direction, January lifted the engine and carried it over to the motorcycle. She held it in place while he bolted it to the frame. Then she stood back while he hooked up the drive chain and made the final connections. In a few minutes it was ready, and he led the way while January carried it back up the stairs. He stopped abruptly at the landing, and waved January back with one hand. "Hey Nana, I thought you'd be sleeping." Avery spoke in his nice voice, the one he reserved for dogs and his grandmother. "I was thirsty," a feminine voice as creaky as an attic floor floated out from around the corner. "Here, let me get you some Ensure," Avery said diffidently. "I bought some strawberry this morning." "You are such a sweet young man," his grandmother said. Then her voice lowered to a whisper that January could barely hear. "Do you have that white girl downstairs? I thought I saw her come in." "Uhh, yeah, January's downstairs doing her homework," Avery said. January could imagine him rubbing the back of his neck. "She's such a nice girl," his grandmother replied. "You should tap that thing. I bet she's a wild one in the sack. The quiet ones always are." "Nana!" Avery cried in horror. January could not suppress a grin. "She's such a nice girl," his grandmother said again. "You should marry her. She'd be good for you." "Well, I'll take that under advisement Nana," Avery said. "Why don't you go lay down on the couch, and I'll bring out your drink." "Avery!" his grandmother's voice rang out loudly a moment later, sounding surprised. "When did you get home? "Um, I just walked in," Avery said. "I thought you might be thirsty, so I got you a drink." January's smile faded to dust. Her heart went out to her friend. His grandmother Vanessa had her good days, and her bad ones. This was somewhere in between. She could not imagine how he coped with it. Avery poked his head around the corner a moment later. "Go ahead and try it out," he nodded to the back door of the house, off the basement landing. "I'll try to catch up later. Oh, there's an old helmet in the basement." January went back down to look for it, trying not to think about how her friend must feel. Most of the time he was so cool and self-assured. He seemed to know everything. His future seemed so certain. Then she was reminded that his life was not so perfect after all. She found the motorcycle helmet half-buried under a pile of ancient issues of Popular Mechanics. Avery had not been kidding when he said it was old. It looked like a relic from the 50s. It had an open face, with a snap on visor to shade the eyes, and the word "Bell" written over the forehead. January blew the dust off of it, and immediately regretted the gray cloud of detritus that engulfed her. She fought down a cough and tried to wave it away, which of course just spread the dust around even more. Since it seemed like things could not get much worse, she pulled the old Bell down around her ears. Her hair was not going to get any dirtier after all. She picked up the motorcycle with one hand and carried it back up the stairs. She paused at the landing to peek around the corner into the kitchen. When she saw that the coast was clear, she tip-toed out the back door and set the motorcycle down on the concrete walkway behind the house. Why did this feel like a Scooby Doo episode? She stared down at the bike with a rapidly drying mouth. Would it actually work? Or had she just wasted all of her money and half the afternoon? Would Gadget's new power source turn into a hydrogen bomb when she turned it on? She was afraid to find out on all counts. Simply backing out was not an option. She needed wheels. Other cities had mass transit systems. But Detroit was the Motor City, so that had never been an option. The people here built cars, so the people here drove cars. No one could live here without one. It was time for her to live. She swung one leg over the Victory Empulse's frame, and settled down on the seat. It was a little small for a motorcycle. But that suited January just fine. At five foot, seven inches, she was not the largest person after all. She ran her hands over the grips, and saw that just above the center of the bars was a dial covered in words and symbols. "Ignition" caught her eye. She turned the knob over and held her breath. After a long moment the large round speed gauge lit up. So did the smaller led display to its right, with the Victory logo displayed on it. It worked! January stared at it for long moments, expecting something more to happen. But the bike just sat there. Then she noticed that the LED display said "Hold Start For 1S". Feeling stupid, she looked over the instrument panel for a Start button. The center dial was already set to Ignition, and the other symbols on it did not look like a Start option. A bright red switch on the right handlebar caught her eye. She flipped it up, but nothing happened. Then she noticed another, gray switch underneath it. She held it down for a long moment, and a feeling of relief passed over her when she heard a loud click from deep within the bike. The speed gauge turned green, the word "On" flashed yellow, and the speed dial flipped up and back down again. A faint hum rose from under her legs, but otherwise the bike made no sound. January had to continue studying and fiddling with the controls to figure out how to get the bike into gear. An unintentional goose of the throttle sent it careening across the back yard toward the driveway, and Avery's parked Geo. Only quick thinking got her fingers around the brake lever. Clamping down on it locked the front brakes, but not the back ones. She felt the entire back end of the bike lift up off the ground as the front tire came to an abrupt halt. She shifted her weight back and up out of reflex, and for a moment she stood in mid-air. The hood of Avery's car was just inches away. A moment later the back of the motorcycle fell down to earth. Only then did she find the rear brake under one foot. January wondered if she should try downloading the user manual? She quashed that momentary ascent of reason. Who used manuals anyway? Hoping that she was not going to turn herself, or someone else, into a pancake, she took the bike into the street and learned what it could do. It was glorious. -------------------- |
   |
 
|
Posts in this topic
SubRosa The Stormcrow Apr 19 2019, 11:34 PM
SubRosa [b]Chapter 1 - Stormcrow Rising
[center]Early May... Apr 20 2019, 12:04 AM Renee Hee hee, this is awesome! She's doing medi... Apr 20 2019, 02:21 PM
SubRosa
Hee hee, this is awesome! She's doing med... Apr 20 2019, 03:27 PM Acadian Oh this was a hoot! January, her crow fan cl... Apr 20 2019, 06:32 PM Grits I’m very excited to see Stormcrow so soon! (... Apr 22 2019, 06:17 PM SubRosa Renee: I went to MCC for a while, so it was my go-... Apr 26 2019, 04:32 PM Acadian ’Naturally she did what they said to never do.... Apr 26 2019, 06:33 PM Grits Awesome, a fight and flying sequence! I though... Apr 28 2019, 11:29 PM SubRosa Acadian: Courage + questionable judgement sounds l... May 3 2019, 09:35 PM Acadian I’ll take your wonderful Two Steps from Hell mus... May 8 2019, 07:31 PM Renee Whoa, she's wearing her superhero outfit in pu... May 9 2019, 03:55 PM SubRosa All: I created a Google Map of all the Stormcrow l... May 10 2019, 10:05 PM Acadian Neat Gadget Cave! Replete with ingenious tech... May 11 2019, 09:10 PM SubRosa Acadian: The Gadget Cave is a fun setting. I have ... May 17 2019, 04:41 PM Acadian What a fun episode, as the plot thickens with more... May 17 2019, 09:54 PM Renee There's a Beverly Hills in Michigan!
I u... May 24 2019, 07:07 PM SubRosa Acadian: Now we know that things were not quite as... May 24 2019, 10:18 PM Acadian This was a wonderful episode that sleuthed the sto... May 25 2019, 06:41 PM SubRosa Acadian: Working in the pop culture references is ... Jun 1 2019, 05:09 PM Acadian "I think I forgot to pick that at character ... Jun 1 2019, 07:17 PM SubRosa Acadian: One fun thing about writing January and A... Jun 8 2019, 04:52 PM Acadian Clever how she got her Crowsuit into the house.
... Jun 8 2019, 10:38 PM Uleni Athram A superheroine who actually knows her Marty Arties... Jun 11 2019, 03:27 PM Renee Ah, typical Renee has fallen behind. :blink: Life... Jun 11 2019, 04:30 PM SubRosa Acadian: I used the old window trick to sneak thin... Jun 15 2019, 04:58 PM Acadian January shows us plenty of raw emotion in this pow... Jun 15 2019, 07:13 PM SubRosa Acadian: That was a very intense episode, that giv... Jun 22 2019, 04:28 PM Acadian Nice job here, setting the scene and stakes for wh... Jun 22 2019, 07:18 PM treydog The way you weave “existing” tech in with poss... Jun 24 2019, 05:46 PM Renee
Nice.
Also, the whole time her family's ha... Jun 24 2019, 06:52 PM SubRosa Acadian: This will be the crescendo of the chapter... Jun 29 2019, 04:15 PM Acadian Despite the superhero tech, you rendered everythin... Jun 29 2019, 06:21 PM treydog Most excellent fight scene! And again, very h... Jun 30 2019, 12:34 AM SubRosa Ooops, I forgot to add some links. I went back and... Jun 30 2019, 06:48 PM Acadian Thanks for the additional links and update.
I ... Jun 30 2019, 07:36 PM treydog I tend to agree. While on the one hand, it is fun... Jun 30 2019, 08:33 PM SubRosa Acadian: That Carotid Slap was something I filed a... Jul 6 2019, 03:49 PM Acadian Another intense fight! It was very neat how ... Jul 6 2019, 06:38 PM treydog A most enthralling fight! Then there is the d... Jul 8 2019, 04:36 PM Grits Catching up with January and Avery has been quite ... Jul 12 2019, 12:28 PM SubRosa Acadian: This two part fight forced me to think cr... Jul 13 2019, 05:08 PM Renee Lighthammer has force fields! That's cheat... Jul 13 2019, 06:34 PM Acadian It just struck when you referred to January as Jan... Jul 13 2019, 07:46 PM SubRosa As an editorial note, given that I have decided to... Jul 13 2019, 11:56 PM treydog A nice bit of calm after the Stormcrow (sorry). B... Jul 15 2019, 12:19 AM SubRosa
Side note- still looking at early Boston. Did fi... Jul 15 2019, 02:50 AM SubRosa I bought Boston in the American Revolution: A Town... Jul 17 2019, 02:03 AM Grits Excellent shirt! I’m a fan, even if Freya do... Jul 17 2019, 03:28 AM Renee
“fine-toothed search bot” :lol:
Ha ha I li... Jul 17 2019, 03:40 PM SubRosa Renee: Lighthammer's not a cheater! :lol:... Jul 20 2019, 05:06 PM treydog The thing (okay ONE thing) I like about this story... Jul 20 2019, 07:15 PM Acadian The bus ride and encounter did a couple of things ... Jul 20 2019, 09:35 PM Renee I think I want an African Goddess next to me, if I... Jul 21 2019, 02:12 AM Grits Not Cthululemon? :P Good idea to stash the backpac... Jul 23 2019, 01:10 AM SubRosa treydog: Inserting the human element into these st... Jul 27 2019, 04:35 PM Renee
:lol:
Yes, how apt a description, the handing ... Jul 27 2019, 04:51 PM Acadian A superbike for a superhero - hopefully. Unfortun... Jul 27 2019, 11:00 PM treydog Quotes first and then observations.
Have known... Jul 28 2019, 03:06 PM Acadian A nuclear powered Stormcycle emerges from the Gadg... Aug 3 2019, 07:47 PM Renee
He put a nuclear reactor in her motorcycle? :O
... Aug 4 2019, 12:30 AM treydog :lol:
Loved all the dialogue- this is the way... Aug 4 2019, 01:05 AM Darkness Eternal Chapter 1 - Stormcrow Rising
What a great way to... Aug 6 2019, 02:30 AM SubRosa Acadian: I did a lot of work on developing power s... Aug 10 2019, 04:13 PM Renee
Yes, I was thinking of buses. :) Fusion-powered ... Aug 10 2019, 05:43 PM Acadian This episode drew me in immediately and was a joy ... Aug 10 2019, 07:53 PM Darkness Eternal Chapter 1.2:
I get what you mean. The crows did i... Aug 10 2019, 09:41 PM treydog :blink:
Jan is certainly in a position to und... Aug 10 2019, 10:43 PM SubRosa Renee: This chapter is set about a week after the ... Aug 17 2019, 05:07 PM Acadian The beginning of another Crowventure assigned to h... Aug 17 2019, 09:03 PM Renee
Yeah, totally. He's like that voice over the... Aug 18 2019, 03:05 PM treydog
"
The interactions between Gadget and Cro... Aug 18 2019, 03:47 PM Darkness Eternal Chapter 1.3:
I like how you mentioned how deep-ro... Aug 19 2019, 02:17 AM SubRosa Acadian: I had not really thought of doing more be... Aug 24 2019, 04:32 PM Acadian Thanks for your peek/insight into the future of th... Aug 24 2019, 06:44 PM treydog More excellent Crow-Girl action! The fight wa... Aug 25 2019, 10:11 PM Renee Nice. She plays Fallout (or at least knows of this... Aug 27 2019, 08:16 PM SubRosa Acadian: I enjoyed writing the fight between Janua... Aug 31 2019, 04:23 PM Renee Yes there is some reason why our armed forces ofte... Aug 31 2019, 07:01 PM Acadian Another wonderful episode!
I liked how her ... Sep 1 2019, 07:29 PM Darkness Eternal Chapter 1.4: There was plenty in this chapter that... Sep 2 2019, 03:06 AM SubRosa Renee: Gasoline is much quicker to burn and explod... Sep 7 2019, 04:15 PM Acadian Gosh, I'm learning a lot about Michigan and De... Sep 7 2019, 07:17 PM Renee We recycle. At least I do. Where I live it seems l... Sep 9 2019, 12:16 AM treydog
A lesson my A and A team are learning (slowly). ... Sep 9 2019, 01:13 AM Darkness Eternal Chapter 1.7: Heh. Good question honestly. What is ... Sep 14 2019, 01:55 AM SubRosa Acadian: I know you were joking, but the reason I ... Sep 14 2019, 05:30 PM Acadian With a name like Wilhelm Wundt, it is indeed hard ... Sep 14 2019, 08:31 PM treydog Way back when we were reading Gawain and the Green... Sep 15 2019, 09:15 PM SubRosa Acadian: I still remember my Into to Psychology cl... Sep 21 2019, 03:33 PM Renee Yeah, I don't think she'd be able to conce... Sep 21 2019, 04:34 PM Acadian Another fun episode as you ever so smoothly show u... Sep 22 2019, 12:09 AM Darkness Eternal Chapter 1.10: Great thing you provided us with th... Sep 24 2019, 02:51 AM SubRosa Renee: You are right, even if she tried to ignore ... Sep 28 2019, 04:58 PM Acadian Looks like the stealth approach was a good call as... Sep 28 2019, 07:45 PM Renee See, where is Lighthammer during all of this? It m... Sep 29 2019, 03:27 AM treydog Caught up again- yay! And also phooey, becaus... Sep 30 2019, 11:30 AM SubRosa A minor note. Thanks to tredyog correctly identify... Oct 2 2019, 10:02 PM Darkness Eternal Chapter 2.1:Ah, Jan has been meeting some ladies a... Oct 4 2019, 03:33 AM |
3 User(s) are reading this topic (3 Guests and 0 Anonymous Users)
0 Members:
|
Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 25th April 2024 - 03:39 PM |
Invision Power Board
v2.1.7 © 2024 IPS, Inc.
Licensed to: Chorrol.com
