Post by Admin on Dec 13, 2023 3:23:57 GMT
July 6th, 1948
Prologue
“You went to the observatory again last night, didn’t you?” Krista Quest asked her husband with mild disapproval. “And you’re going to spend another day at the track. Don’t you think you’re taking this rich and idle playboy thing too far? Because if you’re actually being a playboy, Buster, you’ll pay for it!”
“Honestly, Kris, it worries me too,” Ned sounded concerned – he was. “Ever since I retired over a year ago, I’ve been having trouble concentrating… at least during the day. At night, though, at the observatory, I’m the old Ned, and my project is really moving along. I even brought some of the pictures from last night!”
Ned hadn’t taken well to retirement. After the war, when he’d retired from the Department of War, he had spent a lot of his new free time as Dr. Lambda; after Dr. Lambda’s retirement a couple of years later, he hadn’t been left with much to do. His boredom was compounded by two issues: the alien potion that had saved his life had reduced his need for sleep to only a few hours a day; much more recently, ever since his vacation with Kris and the Trasks (see: Adirondacks Vacation) he’d had an inability to concentrate on anything for more than short period. (Today we might call it ‘acute ADHD’, but back then it wasn’t a recognized disease).
Much to Kris’s dismay, he’d taken to working on his pet project (a total star map of the Northern Hemisphere sky) in his observatory most of every night while during the day, gambling in underworld casinos in Marble City and frequenting Marble City’s horse and dog tracks. To her relief, he neither won or lost very much – on average he won just enough to cover the large tips that were making him well-known and welcomed at all of these establishments.
“Anyway, today’s just about my last day of leisure. Thursday, Jason and I are formally opening QuesTech®, Inc., so I’ll be working with him full time to determine which of our inventions are best suited for commercialization, and what, if any, changes we need to make before selling the patents.” Ned had met Jason Heber in the early years of World War II, in the Manhattan Project. Jason had fallen out of favor when he’d been revealed as a German spy; even when it was revealed later that the spy had NOT been Jason, but a German with chameleonic powers who had imprisoned and tortured Jason, very few people would trust him. He’d worked privately for Ned every since that incident, helping build Ned’s private observatory and then purchasing or building, then installing, then maintaining and upgrading, all the instrumentation the observatory required. He and Ned had talked about going into business selling patents to their inventions for year – and this was the week QuesTect® opened their doors!
“That’ll be a relief! You’ve been letting your life go to waste for too long now!” Krista said emphatically. “Even with your powers, Ned, I’m always worried about you, constantly hanging around with crooks and mobsters! You’re NOT invulnerable, you know!”
“But I’m not just wasting my life, Kris – you know that,” Ned protested mildly. He really didn’t want to get into an argument about this. “Sometimes I overhear someone boasting about a crime, or planning a crime, and that often helps the police after I tip them off!” Although everyone knew that Dr. Lambda was ‘semi-retired’, he had kept his hot line to Marble City Mayor Jake Barker and Police Commissioner Charles Ranger, and several times he’d passed them useful information he’d gleaned in his gambling adventures. He couldn’t be Dr. Quest any longer, but he could continue to be one of the good guys!
“But I’m relieved, too. I just hope getting involved in important work helps me get my concentration back.” In fact, he was worried that his inability to concentrate was an unfortunate side effect of the potion that gave him his powers. He’d heard about an experimental drug (methylphenidate) that was supposed to improve concentration, and even inquired about it, but had been told it was still being tested for safety. “Anyway, that’s about to end. And Jason and I are going to make us even richer!” He changed the subject to her. “So what’s new at the Linda Tracy Foundation?”
Krista had used some of their unexpected fortune to set up a non-profit organization to help empower girls and young women. She remembered all the times she’d felt powerless to achieve one goal or another because of her gender, and she wanted to change that. She’d had a feeling of accomplishment as Lady Lambda, a role model showing that women could do anything men could do, and she’d lost that feeling when she retired. The goals of the Linda Tracy Foundation (named for her mother) was to encourage education and provide academic assistance for girls and young women, in many forms, including tutoring and scholarships. “I’m in the process of interviewing for a Director of Marketing and Public Relations” she gave him the latest update.
“It’s tough finding a woman who has the background for this,” Kris was determined to fill as many positions as possible with women, to show everyone that women could be successful in business roles. “Kylynn, Mina, and Sandy have all agreed to be on the Board of Directors, as you know.” (The Red Lynx, Flux, and Storm Bird, the secret identities of some of the women heroines from the Alliance of Mystery Heroes. “And I have some of the best agencies in the country sending me resumes. It’s great that we could start the Foundation with a personal endowment!” The Quests had already donated a substantial amount of the riches they had inherited from Fannie Hought to the Tracy Foundation. “I wish I could thank Fannie again!” She looked at the clock. “Time to leave for work. You make sure you stay out of trouble, dear!”
A Hot Tip
By midafternoon, Ned was in the Clubhouse at the Marble City Fairgrounds Horse Track, seated by himself, ostensibly making his choices in the next round races. He’d already won a couple of times in the prior round of races, and when one of his bets won big, he’d secretly purchased a round for the room. Sometimes a free round encouraged loose chatter. His attention was split between the trying to overhear the chatter going on at the tables around him while pretending to work on his betting sheets. Seated at one of the nearby tables were a couple of ex-cons that Dr. Lambda had captured a few years ago, who had recently been released, with several others, some of whom he also remembered from Dr. Lambda’s career.
Donovan, one of the guys Dr. Lambda had arrested, was bragging to his fellows. “Yeah, I moved to Philadelphia when I got out, see? Best thing I ever did! I hooked up a mob that runs with one of them so-called ‘mystery villains’ and life has been sweet, I’m tellin’ you! We wuz getting rich, pullin’ jobs like you ain’t never even thunk off, see?” At this, Ned got interested, reached in his pocket and turned up the gain. “Guy’s name is the Cobalt Warlord, see? Maybe you’re read about him?” He started off boasting pretty loudly, but then his voice dropped abruptly as his companions shushed him and reminded him they were in a public place.
Ned missed a lot of that but he did hear ‘Cobalt Warlord’. That really sparked his attention, and he focused on trying to hear what Donovan was saying, while pretending not to notice and remembering what he knew about the Cobalt Warlord.
Maybe Donovan’s companions hadn’t, but Ned had. He’d never really figured the guy to be a big time contender, but it could be he’d been out of the business too long. The Cobalt Warlord name was based on his gimmick –he wore a very thin, flexible, full head-and-body suit of armors, deep blue in color, and apparently totally impenetrable to just about anything he’d encountered so far. Knives and high caliber bullets just bounced off him, and while greater impacts, like a speeding car, might knock him down, somehow his armor protected him from injury. He also seemed to be immune to extremes of temperature. He couldn’t fly, and didn’t appear to have super strength, but it appeared that the armor protected him from electricity and electromagnetic radiation, and store and discharge electrical energy.
The Cobalt Warrior and a gang he’d gathered had been on quite a spree, initially, but Ned knew that the city had appealed to the Alliance of Mystery Heroes, and the Volunteer had volunteered (what else?) to spend enough time in Philadelphia to deal with him. New York would be safe in the hands of Major Power and Raptor for a few days. Ned considered it a done deal, but he kept listening – maybe this Donovan guy would spill something that would make life easier for Duke.
“…this Volunteer guy from New York City, see … can’t stop Cobalt, see? … I’m out on bail, but som’a’da guys is waitin’ in jail … a plan for that. … callin’ a buddy … Bashcan or Nightlight or somtin’ … midnight tomorrow night … quittin’ Philadelphia…” There was some excited chatter following this, but with several guys at the table talking at once, Ned was no longer able to make out anything specific – and then the PA system announced that the next round of races would start in 10 minutes, and there was a rush to the betting windows to turn in their betting sheets before the windows closed.
But he’d heard enough. The mangled name almost certainly seemed to refer to his old foe ‘Bashlight’ and if he was ‘buddies’ with the Cobalt Warrior, perhaps the Warrior too had received his gimmick from Dr. Daytona. He’d contact the Volunteer today and let him know Dr. Lambda would be joining him tomorrow night. As he headed for the windows, he mused regretfully about the enhanced hearing capabilities he had built into his Lambda helmet. “I ought to be able to build some kind of tunable hearing aid into something I could wear under my street clothes. Sounds like a good first project for Jason and QuesTech!”
***
“Yeah, I’ve busted up several of the Cobat Warlord’s operations in the past week,” Peter (The Volunteer) DuQuesne (better known as Duke) was recounting his run-ins with the mystery villain and his gang. “His name is a fake. He is colored cobalt blue, he wears dark blue armor, and he carries a war axe slung across his back, but he never uses the axe and he has no knowledge of fighting whatsoever. He always has some slick getaway planned, and he usually ends up putting civilians in danger, knowing that’s my first priority. A dozen of his guys are in jail right now, but they’re sure he’ll bust them out, so nobody’s talking, and so far none of his mob has turned against him.” He sighed in frustration. “He’s not a great fighter, but hitting him is like punching a locomotive – it just keeps coming and your hands get shattered. Guns don’t stop him, tear gas doesn’t stop him, and I’ve seen him walk through an explosion – knocked him down but didn’t hurt him. And when someone grabs him, he somehow releases enough electricity to throw the grabber a dozen feet away, unconscious – or worse!” He shook his head. “Thanks for showing up to help, Ned! My guess is that tonight’s the night he plans to raid the jail – and from what you tell me, if he’s really getting help from Bashlight, I’m going to need it!” Then he paused for a curious question. “It’s great to see you again, but say, I thought Dr. Lambda had retired?”
“Semi-retired!” Ned corrected. “I think helping a friend in need, and stopping two dangerous mystery villains, qualifies as a Lambda-worthy emergency.” Ned wondered why saying this made him uneasy – but he could worry about that when they had stopped the bad guys!
It was after dark. The two mystery heroes sitting on the roof of a tall guard tower overlooking the grounds of the Cherry Hill Prison in Philadelphia, where 5 of the henchmen of the Cobalt Warlord were currently being held, monitoring the police frequencies as they chatted. Dr. Lambda had them cloaked in a low level force field, and he had finally learned his lesson – he had made the field visible and then faded it into a shadowy black color so they looked like just another shadow. They could see out but it would be very hard to see them unless someone was nearby – though anyone shining a bright light in their direction would see a suspicious ‘cone of darkness’.
The Volunteer continued. “His usual tactic is to orchestrate some kind of disturbance across the city from his real target, like having his gang members setting a fire or blowing up a truck or busting into a bank and then running away, and while everyone is paying attention to that emergency he hits his real target. But the ‘disturbances’ are usually real emergencies, that keep me and the cops busy, and his main operation is usually very low key. We catch the decoys but I usually get to the main scene late and he gets away – and then he always has someone put up bail for the decoys and they vanish. So this time, we’ve put his henchmen into an actual prison, not just a jail cell in a district police building. I expect this Bashlight character will be part of the diversion and will be expecting me to show up there. What did you say his powers are, anyway?”
“He uses a knock-off of my Stellar Scepter, it looks like a serial movie ray-gun with a globe at the end of the barrel. He can fly and shoot electricity, project concussive beams, and is protected by a blue aura that blocks bullets and energy attacks. Last time we met, I was on the verge of defeating him but overloaded the Stellar Scepter, but I’ve improved it significantly since then. Since you are familiar with the Warlord and me with Bashlight, why don’t we each capture our familiar foe?”
“I suspect it won’t be as easy as it sounds – it never is,” the Volunteer warned. “But that sounds like a good plan to me!” The two mystery heroes continued to catch up and discuss strategy and tactics for their expected upcoming encounters.
***
And then, around 1:30, the unexpected occurred. Behind the far wall of the compound, there was a blinding blue flash, and the thick stone wall exploded inward, and an instant later, the two mystery heroes heard the crash of the explosion.
“That’s the color of energy used by Bashlight!” Dr. Lambda said urgently. “C’mon, we have to get over there right away! The Warlord must have changed his strategy for tonight!”
He created a platform with waist high railing out of visible energy. “Climb on!” In a second they were racing across the yard of the facility, and they could see several men with Tommy guns climbing through the rubble of the destroyed wall, spraying rapid fire into the yard whenever they saw motion.
“This isn’t anything like one of his earlier operations.” Even in the seconds before plunging into a deadly fight, the Volunteer’s voice sounded calm and analytical. “Try to pay a little attention to the police reports, even when we’re fighting – I wonder if this attack may be tonight’s diversion instead of the main event?” He pointed at one end of the line of men with machine guns. “Drop me there and let me worry about the gunmen – you deal with Bashlight!”
Duke was planning on dealing with 5 men with Tommy guns on his own? That really wasn’t the division of labor Ned would have suggested, but there really wasn’t time to discuss it! He dropped Duke where his partner had pointed, then zoomed towards Bashlight – but as he flashed by the row of shooters, a battering ram of force knocked several of them down.
The shooters actually _were_ a sort of diversion. The Cobalt mobsters were all in cells near the center of the prison, and while all the guards in the yard were taking shelter and trying to return fire at the breaching forces, Bashlight was zooming across the yard toward the cell block where the prisoners were supposed to be. Of course, they weren’t in the expected cells – they’d all had visits from their lawyers today, and as soon as those visits were over, they had been returned to different cells, per Duke’s advice to the warden. The glowing blue blob that was Bashlight enshrouded in his force field stopped near the wall, and with his vision enhanced by the gear in his helmet, Dr. Lambda could see a giant blade, cutting a slice off the side of the outside of the cell block like the end of a bread loaf – and then the wall fell away, exposing empty cells. Bashlight didn’t have time to react – Ned ordered more of the Stellar Scepter’s power into his battering ram and it slammed into the blue sphere enveloping Bashlight, knocking him across the sky like a giant cue ball!
Prologue
“You went to the observatory again last night, didn’t you?” Krista Quest asked her husband with mild disapproval. “And you’re going to spend another day at the track. Don’t you think you’re taking this rich and idle playboy thing too far? Because if you’re actually being a playboy, Buster, you’ll pay for it!”
“Honestly, Kris, it worries me too,” Ned sounded concerned – he was. “Ever since I retired over a year ago, I’ve been having trouble concentrating… at least during the day. At night, though, at the observatory, I’m the old Ned, and my project is really moving along. I even brought some of the pictures from last night!”
Ned hadn’t taken well to retirement. After the war, when he’d retired from the Department of War, he had spent a lot of his new free time as Dr. Lambda; after Dr. Lambda’s retirement a couple of years later, he hadn’t been left with much to do. His boredom was compounded by two issues: the alien potion that had saved his life had reduced his need for sleep to only a few hours a day; much more recently, ever since his vacation with Kris and the Trasks (see: Adirondacks Vacation) he’d had an inability to concentrate on anything for more than short period. (Today we might call it ‘acute ADHD’, but back then it wasn’t a recognized disease).
Much to Kris’s dismay, he’d taken to working on his pet project (a total star map of the Northern Hemisphere sky) in his observatory most of every night while during the day, gambling in underworld casinos in Marble City and frequenting Marble City’s horse and dog tracks. To her relief, he neither won or lost very much – on average he won just enough to cover the large tips that were making him well-known and welcomed at all of these establishments.
“Anyway, today’s just about my last day of leisure. Thursday, Jason and I are formally opening QuesTech®, Inc., so I’ll be working with him full time to determine which of our inventions are best suited for commercialization, and what, if any, changes we need to make before selling the patents.” Ned had met Jason Heber in the early years of World War II, in the Manhattan Project. Jason had fallen out of favor when he’d been revealed as a German spy; even when it was revealed later that the spy had NOT been Jason, but a German with chameleonic powers who had imprisoned and tortured Jason, very few people would trust him. He’d worked privately for Ned every since that incident, helping build Ned’s private observatory and then purchasing or building, then installing, then maintaining and upgrading, all the instrumentation the observatory required. He and Ned had talked about going into business selling patents to their inventions for year – and this was the week QuesTect® opened their doors!
“That’ll be a relief! You’ve been letting your life go to waste for too long now!” Krista said emphatically. “Even with your powers, Ned, I’m always worried about you, constantly hanging around with crooks and mobsters! You’re NOT invulnerable, you know!”
“But I’m not just wasting my life, Kris – you know that,” Ned protested mildly. He really didn’t want to get into an argument about this. “Sometimes I overhear someone boasting about a crime, or planning a crime, and that often helps the police after I tip them off!” Although everyone knew that Dr. Lambda was ‘semi-retired’, he had kept his hot line to Marble City Mayor Jake Barker and Police Commissioner Charles Ranger, and several times he’d passed them useful information he’d gleaned in his gambling adventures. He couldn’t be Dr. Quest any longer, but he could continue to be one of the good guys!
“But I’m relieved, too. I just hope getting involved in important work helps me get my concentration back.” In fact, he was worried that his inability to concentrate was an unfortunate side effect of the potion that gave him his powers. He’d heard about an experimental drug (methylphenidate) that was supposed to improve concentration, and even inquired about it, but had been told it was still being tested for safety. “Anyway, that’s about to end. And Jason and I are going to make us even richer!” He changed the subject to her. “So what’s new at the Linda Tracy Foundation?”
Krista had used some of their unexpected fortune to set up a non-profit organization to help empower girls and young women. She remembered all the times she’d felt powerless to achieve one goal or another because of her gender, and she wanted to change that. She’d had a feeling of accomplishment as Lady Lambda, a role model showing that women could do anything men could do, and she’d lost that feeling when she retired. The goals of the Linda Tracy Foundation (named for her mother) was to encourage education and provide academic assistance for girls and young women, in many forms, including tutoring and scholarships. “I’m in the process of interviewing for a Director of Marketing and Public Relations” she gave him the latest update.
“It’s tough finding a woman who has the background for this,” Kris was determined to fill as many positions as possible with women, to show everyone that women could be successful in business roles. “Kylynn, Mina, and Sandy have all agreed to be on the Board of Directors, as you know.” (The Red Lynx, Flux, and Storm Bird, the secret identities of some of the women heroines from the Alliance of Mystery Heroes. “And I have some of the best agencies in the country sending me resumes. It’s great that we could start the Foundation with a personal endowment!” The Quests had already donated a substantial amount of the riches they had inherited from Fannie Hought to the Tracy Foundation. “I wish I could thank Fannie again!” She looked at the clock. “Time to leave for work. You make sure you stay out of trouble, dear!”
A Hot Tip
By midafternoon, Ned was in the Clubhouse at the Marble City Fairgrounds Horse Track, seated by himself, ostensibly making his choices in the next round races. He’d already won a couple of times in the prior round of races, and when one of his bets won big, he’d secretly purchased a round for the room. Sometimes a free round encouraged loose chatter. His attention was split between the trying to overhear the chatter going on at the tables around him while pretending to work on his betting sheets. Seated at one of the nearby tables were a couple of ex-cons that Dr. Lambda had captured a few years ago, who had recently been released, with several others, some of whom he also remembered from Dr. Lambda’s career.
Donovan, one of the guys Dr. Lambda had arrested, was bragging to his fellows. “Yeah, I moved to Philadelphia when I got out, see? Best thing I ever did! I hooked up a mob that runs with one of them so-called ‘mystery villains’ and life has been sweet, I’m tellin’ you! We wuz getting rich, pullin’ jobs like you ain’t never even thunk off, see?” At this, Ned got interested, reached in his pocket and turned up the gain. “Guy’s name is the Cobalt Warlord, see? Maybe you’re read about him?” He started off boasting pretty loudly, but then his voice dropped abruptly as his companions shushed him and reminded him they were in a public place.
Ned missed a lot of that but he did hear ‘Cobalt Warlord’. That really sparked his attention, and he focused on trying to hear what Donovan was saying, while pretending not to notice and remembering what he knew about the Cobalt Warlord.
Maybe Donovan’s companions hadn’t, but Ned had. He’d never really figured the guy to be a big time contender, but it could be he’d been out of the business too long. The Cobalt Warlord name was based on his gimmick –he wore a very thin, flexible, full head-and-body suit of armors, deep blue in color, and apparently totally impenetrable to just about anything he’d encountered so far. Knives and high caliber bullets just bounced off him, and while greater impacts, like a speeding car, might knock him down, somehow his armor protected him from injury. He also seemed to be immune to extremes of temperature. He couldn’t fly, and didn’t appear to have super strength, but it appeared that the armor protected him from electricity and electromagnetic radiation, and store and discharge electrical energy.
The Cobalt Warrior and a gang he’d gathered had been on quite a spree, initially, but Ned knew that the city had appealed to the Alliance of Mystery Heroes, and the Volunteer had volunteered (what else?) to spend enough time in Philadelphia to deal with him. New York would be safe in the hands of Major Power and Raptor for a few days. Ned considered it a done deal, but he kept listening – maybe this Donovan guy would spill something that would make life easier for Duke.
“…this Volunteer guy from New York City, see … can’t stop Cobalt, see? … I’m out on bail, but som’a’da guys is waitin’ in jail … a plan for that. … callin’ a buddy … Bashcan or Nightlight or somtin’ … midnight tomorrow night … quittin’ Philadelphia…” There was some excited chatter following this, but with several guys at the table talking at once, Ned was no longer able to make out anything specific – and then the PA system announced that the next round of races would start in 10 minutes, and there was a rush to the betting windows to turn in their betting sheets before the windows closed.
But he’d heard enough. The mangled name almost certainly seemed to refer to his old foe ‘Bashlight’ and if he was ‘buddies’ with the Cobalt Warrior, perhaps the Warrior too had received his gimmick from Dr. Daytona. He’d contact the Volunteer today and let him know Dr. Lambda would be joining him tomorrow night. As he headed for the windows, he mused regretfully about the enhanced hearing capabilities he had built into his Lambda helmet. “I ought to be able to build some kind of tunable hearing aid into something I could wear under my street clothes. Sounds like a good first project for Jason and QuesTech!”
***
“Yeah, I’ve busted up several of the Cobat Warlord’s operations in the past week,” Peter (The Volunteer) DuQuesne (better known as Duke) was recounting his run-ins with the mystery villain and his gang. “His name is a fake. He is colored cobalt blue, he wears dark blue armor, and he carries a war axe slung across his back, but he never uses the axe and he has no knowledge of fighting whatsoever. He always has some slick getaway planned, and he usually ends up putting civilians in danger, knowing that’s my first priority. A dozen of his guys are in jail right now, but they’re sure he’ll bust them out, so nobody’s talking, and so far none of his mob has turned against him.” He sighed in frustration. “He’s not a great fighter, but hitting him is like punching a locomotive – it just keeps coming and your hands get shattered. Guns don’t stop him, tear gas doesn’t stop him, and I’ve seen him walk through an explosion – knocked him down but didn’t hurt him. And when someone grabs him, he somehow releases enough electricity to throw the grabber a dozen feet away, unconscious – or worse!” He shook his head. “Thanks for showing up to help, Ned! My guess is that tonight’s the night he plans to raid the jail – and from what you tell me, if he’s really getting help from Bashlight, I’m going to need it!” Then he paused for a curious question. “It’s great to see you again, but say, I thought Dr. Lambda had retired?”
“Semi-retired!” Ned corrected. “I think helping a friend in need, and stopping two dangerous mystery villains, qualifies as a Lambda-worthy emergency.” Ned wondered why saying this made him uneasy – but he could worry about that when they had stopped the bad guys!
It was after dark. The two mystery heroes sitting on the roof of a tall guard tower overlooking the grounds of the Cherry Hill Prison in Philadelphia, where 5 of the henchmen of the Cobalt Warlord were currently being held, monitoring the police frequencies as they chatted. Dr. Lambda had them cloaked in a low level force field, and he had finally learned his lesson – he had made the field visible and then faded it into a shadowy black color so they looked like just another shadow. They could see out but it would be very hard to see them unless someone was nearby – though anyone shining a bright light in their direction would see a suspicious ‘cone of darkness’.
The Volunteer continued. “His usual tactic is to orchestrate some kind of disturbance across the city from his real target, like having his gang members setting a fire or blowing up a truck or busting into a bank and then running away, and while everyone is paying attention to that emergency he hits his real target. But the ‘disturbances’ are usually real emergencies, that keep me and the cops busy, and his main operation is usually very low key. We catch the decoys but I usually get to the main scene late and he gets away – and then he always has someone put up bail for the decoys and they vanish. So this time, we’ve put his henchmen into an actual prison, not just a jail cell in a district police building. I expect this Bashlight character will be part of the diversion and will be expecting me to show up there. What did you say his powers are, anyway?”
“He uses a knock-off of my Stellar Scepter, it looks like a serial movie ray-gun with a globe at the end of the barrel. He can fly and shoot electricity, project concussive beams, and is protected by a blue aura that blocks bullets and energy attacks. Last time we met, I was on the verge of defeating him but overloaded the Stellar Scepter, but I’ve improved it significantly since then. Since you are familiar with the Warlord and me with Bashlight, why don’t we each capture our familiar foe?”
“I suspect it won’t be as easy as it sounds – it never is,” the Volunteer warned. “But that sounds like a good plan to me!” The two mystery heroes continued to catch up and discuss strategy and tactics for their expected upcoming encounters.
***
And then, around 1:30, the unexpected occurred. Behind the far wall of the compound, there was a blinding blue flash, and the thick stone wall exploded inward, and an instant later, the two mystery heroes heard the crash of the explosion.
“That’s the color of energy used by Bashlight!” Dr. Lambda said urgently. “C’mon, we have to get over there right away! The Warlord must have changed his strategy for tonight!”
He created a platform with waist high railing out of visible energy. “Climb on!” In a second they were racing across the yard of the facility, and they could see several men with Tommy guns climbing through the rubble of the destroyed wall, spraying rapid fire into the yard whenever they saw motion.
“This isn’t anything like one of his earlier operations.” Even in the seconds before plunging into a deadly fight, the Volunteer’s voice sounded calm and analytical. “Try to pay a little attention to the police reports, even when we’re fighting – I wonder if this attack may be tonight’s diversion instead of the main event?” He pointed at one end of the line of men with machine guns. “Drop me there and let me worry about the gunmen – you deal with Bashlight!”
Duke was planning on dealing with 5 men with Tommy guns on his own? That really wasn’t the division of labor Ned would have suggested, but there really wasn’t time to discuss it! He dropped Duke where his partner had pointed, then zoomed towards Bashlight – but as he flashed by the row of shooters, a battering ram of force knocked several of them down.
The shooters actually _were_ a sort of diversion. The Cobalt mobsters were all in cells near the center of the prison, and while all the guards in the yard were taking shelter and trying to return fire at the breaching forces, Bashlight was zooming across the yard toward the cell block where the prisoners were supposed to be. Of course, they weren’t in the expected cells – they’d all had visits from their lawyers today, and as soon as those visits were over, they had been returned to different cells, per Duke’s advice to the warden. The glowing blue blob that was Bashlight enshrouded in his force field stopped near the wall, and with his vision enhanced by the gear in his helmet, Dr. Lambda could see a giant blade, cutting a slice off the side of the outside of the cell block like the end of a bread loaf – and then the wall fell away, exposing empty cells. Bashlight didn’t have time to react – Ned ordered more of the Stellar Scepter’s power into his battering ram and it slammed into the blue sphere enveloping Bashlight, knocking him across the sky like a giant cue ball!