Chapter 1
Dawn erupted as it did everyday, casting long shadows across the city of Syntropolis, setting ablaze the eastern windows of the city. From its high-rise condos and lowly brown stone apartments, its citizens sleepily rolled out of bed, and prepared to do battle with traffic, work, and the occasional megalomaniac bent on world domination. The military stood at the ready around the city, to defend the country from the madness, and at the trendy coffee houses, an army of baristas stood at the ready to serve a needy public.
Syntropolis, New Jersey; population: 613,422; located just north of Atlantic City on Goose Neck Island, in Goose Neck County, just east of Ocean County, divided from the mainland by the Intercoastal waterway. Situated in the midst of the waterway was Goose Egg Island and Robert Hays International Airport.
Goose Neck Island and Goose Egg Island were once colonies of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, called Schwanenhals Insel and Gänseei Insel respectively. The islands were seized by the British in 1664 and were incorporated into the colony of New Jersey. To this day, Syntropolis still has the largest Luxembourg population outside of Europe. Robert Hays was named after actor Robert Hays. What it was named before the actor nobody remembers, cause it was named after Robert Hays, only the greatest actor in the world.
Beneath the 609 Bridge connecting Syntropolis with the mainland and Goose Egg Island, Kid Kaviar skirted the waters of the Intercoastal Waterway in his purple whale shaped submarine waiting for the right moment to strike. Right on his propellers was Elite Team Mariner Force X, ready at once to take the Former Fiend of the Baltic Sea down. The turbo charged atomic yacht surged forward, and turned on its flashing lights. Kid Kaviar smiled. Those do-gooding fools were playing right into his hands.
In the heart of downtown stood a massive gleaming glass spire, the Schuster Building, formerly the tallest building in the world, until that thing in Dubai. The crystalline shaped building with its thousands of golden colored glass panels shimmered in the morning sun, dominating the urban landscape. They had even made a movie about it in the 70’s. Too bad the prophecy of the movie was about to come true. Again.
Fourteen hundred feet above the city streets, the hundred and sixteenth floor suddenly exploded, sending glass and debris flying across the city. Aquatina, sitting in the patio of her apartment building across the street, sighed and rolled her eyes. She calmly wiped her mouth and put down the napkin. She put down her bagel and left her cream cheese to warm. Purvis put a pillow over his head and rolled over. He was useless. She got on her spandex Super suit and went to fix her hair as fiery debris began falling. Awe man, she got a tear along the side.
Down in the streets, reporters ignored the burning high rise and people went about their business of looking for celebrities. After all, the stupid thing had been burning since the 70’s. It ought to have been torn down. No one even occupied it anymore, except that cat dude, and no one cared about him. It had first been erected in San Francisco, but caught fire during its dedication ceremony. It had been set to be demolished but a publishing firm had decided to save it and relocate it to Syntropolis. It reopened in 1979 and a year later had caught fire again. And again. And again.
Aquatina doubted that the Syntropolis Fire Department was even going to respond this time. They hadn’t the last three times. That was the problem being a Hero; people became complacent, expecting you to come dashing to the rescue every time there was a problem. Couldn’t a girl just enjoy the morning with her bagels and cream cheese? No, her whole life was always put on hold to save the day. She had even moved downtown to save time when the building caught fire. She hated downtown and so did Purvis, if he ever was awake. She flew off to fight the fire, torn spandex, beautiful hair and all.
High atop the Schuster Building, in the Horchata Room of the 135th floor, El Gato Vato gazed out over his drug empire which encompassed all of Syntropolis and eastern New Jersey. Famed half man-half cat, he claimed he was the descendent of the pirates Calico Jack and Anne Bonny. Despite the fact that the building was burning, he smiled. One of those so-called Heroes would have the fire out soon; they always did. The weekly fires weren’t his idea, but he found them useful, as no agent from the DEA would even come close to investigating him here. His new plan, to get kids addicted to drugs through the school lunch program was absolutely diabolical. And no one, not even a single meddling so-called Hero was any the wiser. His smile turned into a wicked grin. One of his Kitty Konsorts came up and put her arms around him.
“More tuna darling?” she purred into his ear, from behind her sequined black kitty cat mask and one piece black lace unitard. The effect was absolutely devastating to the male mind, and exciting to the point of ecstasy. The plan could wait.
He turned around and began ravishing her, even as Aquatina began blasting the fire with streams of water. The Kitty Konsort did her best not to vomit. God, he was so repulsive, especially with day old cod on his breath. The idiot actually believed she was one of his minions. He had no idea that she was actually the Nightshade, a vigilant seductress, skilled in martial arts, an expert in disguise and sworn to avenge all acts of evil. She had caught on to El Gato Vato’s scheme, when he bought out the School Lunch Workers Union election and made himself president. Slowly he had replaced all supervisors with his own drug-dealing minions. Soon, she would get him to confide in her and she would have proof to take him down. But not today. Today she would continue to lure him into her trap.
Elsewhere in Syntropolis, various Heroes darted in between the skyscrapers, off to save the day. Most were natural Heroes, utilizing their God given abilities to stop villainy and keep the madness that was Syntropolis at bay. Others were Vigilantes, depending on technology, cunning, and unusually large bank accounts to finance their crime fighting exploits. Still, others were idiots, in elaborate costumes, playing at being a super hero; they usually didn’t last long though, especially when they found out they weren’t bullet proof, or couldn’t fly. High above downtown, The Penumbra was on patrol as usual, ever watchful for those who would bring harm to the city. “What is it about downtown that attracts Villains anyway?” she thought to herself. The South African beauty, who could only be seen in the periphery of the human vision, had been exiled to the city by the Apartheid government of her home since 1988.
A stream of rainbow light shot across the city, swooping in and around the museums of the Park District. It was Afrogliiide riding the beam, sipping his coffee from Galactica Coffee House while he searched for evil doers. He was one of the first Heroes to live in Syntropolis, having gained fame in 1975 when he saved President Gerald Ford from assassination in San Francisco, by deflecting the bullet with his large bulletproof afro. The Government expressed their thanks by exiling him to Syntropolis in 1977. These days he mostly chased down hoods like the criminal mastermime Noir-et-Blanc or the father-son team of Ratman and Willard, although Willard was in high school.
Across the street from Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Charity Hospital, a blue and gold painted hearse was parked. Its owner, the Pharaoh, was perched beside the ramp, which lead down to the morgue, where he waited for another delivery so that he might add to his army of the undead. His undead mummified mother, whom he affectionately referred to as Mummy, was seated shotgun. The Penumbra, spying this, flew around the abandoned Atomosub Corporation Building and hovered over the hospital, waiting for the Pharaoh to strike.
At the south end of Goose Neck Island, Olympia of the Giants of Justice stepped into the channel and grabbed a sinking ferry full of screaming commuters from Atlantic City, and held it in place as emergency rescue workers and the Coast Guard began rescue operations. Elite Team Mariner Force X had not intercepted the torpedo which had struck the sinking ferry. It had come from Kid Kaviar and his strange purple whale shaped submarine.
Seeing that Olympia had the ferry situation under control, Elite Team Mariner Force X went in for the arrest. From the top of the sub, where the whale’s blowhole would be, a hatch slid open and a capsule launched into the air, racing rapidly towards the west. It smashed right through the force field that covered Syntropolis, in a great sweeping arc, and landed somewhere in Manahawkin Bay.
Captain Aquarius stood stunned on the bridge of the atomic powered yacht. Escapes from the force field were rare, but not unheard of. The problem with escape was that the field disintegrated all living flesh, and was permeable through all known materials. The United States Government had purchased the technology in 1987 from the Fraddletraq refugees to contain the burgeoning Villain population as well as the Heroes, effectively turning all of Syntropolis into a prison. Captain Aquarius sighed and ordered his communications officer to place a call to the B.H.E. (Bureau of Hero Enforcement) for a temporary hole in the field so he could continue his pursuit.
Now you as the reader might be wondering what the heck is going on at this point. This is Syntropolis. There have always been Supers amongst us. They have carried various names across history; Samson, Sun Tzu, Hercules, John Henry, King Arthur, to name a few. They were great men (but men just the same) capable of great heroic acts of good will towards mankind. They served justice, righted wrongs, and protected the innocent. These are the Heroes. Others Supers such as Goliath, Medusa, Nimrod, Hitler and Caligula were tyrannical, despotic, and capable of great evil towards their fellow man. They were the source of much suffering throughout the history of mankind. These are the Villains.
The 1930′s and 1940′s were the golden age of the Heroes. They gave hope to a depression weary world; stood for a better tomorrow; righted wrongs, and encouraged social justice, in a time when the world was lacking sanity. Villains were starting revolutions, spreading the insidious ideas of world domination, racial purity, better evolution through eugenics, and human expendability; all of which was leading to the inescapable showdown of Hero and Villain: World War II.
After the war, Evil had been defeated and peace should have reigned. It didn’t. The Heroes had decided it wasn’t their place to lead Mankind, except by example, to be the light to show them the way. As result, a strange sense of apathy had developed amongst them. They were still protectors from violent crime, defenders of the weak and basic all around good guys doing good deeds. But they stayed away from human politics, the very playground of the new Villain elite.
Not all Villains fought on the side of Evil during the War. Many were horrified at the brutal acts of savagery throughout Europe and the Pacific. In 1942, a super secret conference of Villains was convened in the ruins of Leningrad. They foresaw that the entire world might be plunged into a dark age if they didn’t help in the war. They pledged themselves to be united in eliminating the threat that was destroying the world, so that they could take over in its aftermath. The Organization was born. They joined in the war with the Heroes and the Allied Forces. An unwritten and unspoken code of honor quickly emerged amongst this new Villain elite. While the free market and governments were still open targets for their treachery, civilians were not to be touched. Dominated? Yes. Exploited? Absolutely! Brutalized and murdered? Never. It simply isn’t good public relations and if one is to rule the world, public support is needed.
That isn’t to say there weren’t still a few bad eggs amongst them. After the war, The Organization set about their takeover of the world, their base of operations: Moscow; their cover: Communism. Communism seemed to be the best vehicle for global domination, due to its popular support for class warfare.
People around the world were shocked that the Heroes didn’t move to stop the eruption of Communism around the world. Eastern Europe, Korea, China, Cuba, Vietnam and slew of others fell to the Villain led communists. The Heroes did nothing. Brutality continued across the globe, all of it orchestrated by the true masters of politics, the Villains. And still the Heroes did nothing, hoping that their noble lifestyle would lead the way.
Wars, assassinations, coups, uprisings, and cancerous communism all led to one screaming conclusion: The Supers were the cause of mankind’s problems. In 1970 The United Nations convened a special session to deal with the Supers. After particularly damning testimony from Prime Minister Golda Meir of Israel, proving the Villains had instigated the 1967 six day war and the Heroes had not gotten involved, it was decided that the Supers would have to be confined. That would ensure world peace.
In 1972, President Richard Nixon ceded all of Goose Neck Island, New Jersey, including the city of Syntropolis to the United Nations as an a-political zone for the permanent forced relocation of all Super beings on Earth. How does one force a super being to relocate? The Heroes went willingly, albeit begrudgingly. They forced the Villains to move as well, and oversaw their incarceration in cooperation with the United States military. Many Villains still clung to power and domination across the world, while the Heroes sought to defeat them.
By 1974, with the rise of Villainous organizations such as the Symbioniese Liberation Army, the Manson Family and televangelism, many Heroes came together to form ad-hoc crime fighting teams. These were known as the CFLs, the Crime Fighting Leagues. They swore to their honor to defeat the new Villain elite, serve the public good, and occasionally defend the Earth from the madness coalescing in Syntropolis.
In 1984, thirty alien spacecraft arrived in Earth’s atmosphere. Called the Fraddletraq, they were the vanguard of an invading fleet here to subjugate Earth into submission. However, the ship’s six thousand soldiers found themselves outmanned, outgunned, and stranded when the rest of the Fraddletraq fleet did not arrive. Not holding a grudge against humanity (after all, they were just soldiers doing their jobs) they settled on Earth by invitation of the United Nations Secretary General, largely in Syntropolis.
The Reagan Administration’s purchase of Fraddletraq forcefield technology greatly aided in keeping the Villains within the confines of Syntropolis. Without their secret cabal of Super leaders across the world, Communism began collapsing only a few years later. Down, but not defeated, The Organization continued to work for world domination, glauming on to the environmental movement, addictive consumerism, the entertainment industry, and Islamic terrorism.
Being the battleground between good and evil was not enough it seemed for the city of Syntropolis. As more and more Supers were relocated to Syntropolis, the city it seemed became a magnet for weirdness. Many megalomaniac Villain wannabes moved into the city, hoping to ally with the Villains. With them came dozens of Mad Scientists and their bizarre intentions. Mutants flocked to the city, seeking some kind of equality that they couldn’t find back home. In 1991, the Bush Administration opened America’s immigration floodgates to refugees of the Bartellian Star Empire, offering them settlement in exchange for technology. Most of them settled in Syntropolis.
And so on a normal day, in a normal town, populated by normal people, it would not at all be uncommon for a tourist couple to be standing on a random street corner, gawking at the sights, only to be mugged by a random hoodlum. But this is Syntropolis. The Gecko shook his head in disgust and pulled his bulbous goggles down over his eyes. His three hundred foot tongue shot out of his mouth and snagged a flagpole jutting out of a building. He leapt from the roof of The First Mammon Credit Union Building, swinging down through traffic. He snatched the purse back from the thug and dropped it back into the hands of the tourists. Too bad he did not see the canopy of the hotel they had come out of. His tongue snagged the canopy, knocking him down onto the sidewalk. His tongue slowly snaked its way back into his mouth, like a retracting tape measure.
In the center of downtown, Aquatina finished putting out the fire on the hundred and sixteenth floor of the Schuster Building. As she flew around the great tower, making sure that the fire had not spread, there was yet another explosion, this time from the eighty-seventh floor. Still no fire engines.
Kid Kaviar smiled at his own cleverness as the atomic powered turbo yacht of Elite Team Mariner Force X sailed through the hole in the force field. With those do-gooders out of the way, he could set about his own plans. He engaged the engines of his purple whale shaped submarine and continued his course around the south of the island. Already, his sonar was pinging off his target. And there it was, U-2370. He had discovered the top-secret German U-Boat three years ago while being pursued by Elite Team Mariner Force X, but was unable to do anything about it as he was imprisoned. During his stay in prison, he did research on the U-Boat, discovering that it was to have contained Nazi treasure, and was launched just days before the Third Reich collapsed. The U-2370 was to have rendezvoused with German sympathizers of the Amerikadeutscher Bund, who were to have hidden the treasures at Camp Nordland in Sussex County, New Jersey. For whatever reason the sub never made it, and now it was all his.
Across town at the Wal-Mart on Victory Avenue, Hans Friedrich parked his Chevy Impala in the parking lot and sighed. Once the most feared crime fighter in the city, he had been forced to retire at age 65 by the B.H.E. At the age of 14, he had fought the Nazi invasion of his homeland Luxembourg. Unsuccessful he joined the Luxembourgian Patriot League, and fought the Nazis from within. Later he had fled to Great Britain only to return during the Invasion of Normandy and defend the castle of Vianden. In 1974, he moved to Syntropolis during The Relocation and became known as Captain Luxembourg, standing for liberty and the honor of Luxembourg for the next eighteen years. How was the pride and honor of Luxembourg rewarded? Relegated to door greeter with a smiley button and a nametag that said “Hi my name is Hans!” He couldn’t even nab a shoplifter without some nerd with acnes’ permission. This was not how it should end for a Hero. But such was the bureaucracy at the B.H.E.
Elsewhere across the city, secret plans to take over the world were being drawn up and crazed individuals were concocting secret potions, death rays, monsters and oversized robots. godlike men and women, sporting elaborate costumes were flying out of the sky to get kittens out of trees, or saving doomed jetliners from crashing into the city. Terrible fiends were plotting schemes with alien collaborators to overthrow governments and wealthy vigilantes were chasing criminals in souped-up vehicles. Mindless bureaucrats were regulating how fast Super Heroes could fly. Tourists from around the world were riding Epic Battles Tourbuses, just waiting for a chance to witness Supers in action. Well meaning mutants, looking for a place to fit in (like our friend with the giant tongue) fought back against the criminal element, while others sought to gain dominance of so-called normal humans. And in Nonterrestrial American Town, those whom had come from other worlds just sought a normal life and the illusion of the American Dream.
All was well in Syntropolis.
It was 7:22 AM, Eastern Standard Time. For one brief moment, just as the sun peeked over the horizon, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Charity Hospital was silhouetted against the blazing orange sky. The shipping/receiving door of the morgue opened up. The Pharaoh raised his staff and uttered a strange incantation in ancient Egyptian. A glazed look came over the two morgue workers pushing out the gurney with the dead body and they collapsed.
“Get ready Mummy!” shouted the Pharaoh, in a fake snobbish English accent.
“Uhhhhh,” garbled his dead mother from the hearse.
High above, The Penumbra became a blazing ball of white light and swooped in to stop the Pharaoh’s nefarious plan. Across the street from the hospital, the belfry roof of the Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Cathedral opened up and a large machine emerged. It looked very much like an antiaircraft gun, yet covered in blinking lights and strange tubes coming from its sides, and a coil of copper tubing surrounding the barrel of the gun. The gun turned and oriented itself, so that the barrel was pointing directly straight up. The copper tubing began glowing and a pulsating hum was heard. All at once, a purple beam fired from the barrel of the gun. It shot into the air, ricocheting off the city’s force field, and striking the hospital. There was a burst of purple light lasting only a second, and then the hospital was gone, all nine square blocks of the massive complex. The Penumbra and The Pharaoh and his Mummy were the first Super casualties.
The Bureau of Hero Enforcement building stood like a granite fortress in the midst of downtown, a grayish monolith with few windows and even fewer doors. A giant bronze statue of Hercules, that had turned green long ago from the salt sea air, stood as a sentinel beside the building’s only entrance. Ultragal flew out of the towering canyon of buildings that made up downtown, landing just in front of the statue. The driver of an Epic Battles tour bus spotted her and pointed her out. Fifty or so amazed tourists from around the world and began snapping pictures of her.
She was a fiftyish woman, with graying hair at the temples and a figure that was no longer girlish. Once a beauty queen from Ogden, Utah, her once enviable beauty was giving way to crow’s feet and lines around her mouth. Her pure white super leotard was almost as dazzling as her silver skirt. She smiled professionally, all the while despising her cheering audience.
She turned around and marched in smartly through the front doors. She was immediately accosted by her assistant, Marvin. The young man was hoping to intern as a Sidekick someday, and Ultragal did nothing to dissuade him of the idea, in that he was efficient in his duties and had no clue what it took to be a real Hero. This morning he was sweating profusely and seemed a little more hysterical than normal.
“Diane, thank God you’re here, it’s been a hell of a morning.”
“Marvin, I do believe you’ve been told to address me as Ultragal,” she said coldly, taking the sheaf of papers he was holding.
“It’s chaos, absolute chaos,” he babbled, seemingly having not heard her.
“It’s always chaos,” said Ultragal curtly, turning the corner in the marble lined corridor. She pressed the up button at the elevator bank.
“You don’t understand,” continued Marvin breathlessly, “Someone fired a missile at the Port Authority Ferry, and escaped through an escape pod outside the forcefield. Olympia is holding the ferry and the Coast Guard is saving the passengers.”
“Send Elite Team Mariner Force X after the suspect,” she said with no real concern.
“I already did.”
“What else?”
“The Schuster Building is on fire again,” he said as the elevator opened. They both stepped inside. “The hundred and sixteenth floor. Aquatina is already on it.”
Ultragal shook her head. If this was all then what was he going on about? What chaos?
“General Tso broke out of prison last night and he’s threatening to raise an army to seize all of Russia!”
“General Tso couldn’t raise five cents selling Girl Scout Cookies. What else?”
“Someone fired a particle beam at a school last night and disintegrated part of the front lawn!”
“Anyone one hurt?” The doors to the elevator opened onto the fortieth floor. The two of them stepped out and began proceeding to her office.
“No, but…”
“Then why are you bothering me about it?”
“It’s just that it’s your son’s school.”
“I have nine children Marvin; you’re going to have to be more specific.”
“It’s George Reeves High,” said Marvin breathlessly. She stopped just outside her office and turned to glare at him. “I would have called you sooner, but no one was there at the time and no one was hurt.”
“Do we know who did it?” she said, turning back to unlock her office.
“That’s the thing. I’ve sent three different Heroes down to the site and none of them have ever seen anything like this. This is scary, real scary! There’s no debris, no damage to anything in the area. It’s like something scooped up part of the front lawn and carted it away into nothing. It has literally disappeared.”
“Marvin please,” she said walking in, throwing the papers down on her desk, “Nothing just disappears. Not in this city. Now would you get my coffee?”
“Coffee, no problem,” he said nervously, walking backwards out of the office.
She had barely walked in through the door and already she was being badgered with every calamity imaginable. With endless meetings with the Mayor, PTA meetings, thousands of civilians needing her protection from the hoards of Villains seeking world domination and most importantly her reelection campaign looming, she needed all this like a hole in the head.
She had been head of the B.H.E. since 1995, and she wasn’t about to lose her seat now. The masses adored her. Most of the members of the B.H.E. hated her. Many questioned her decisions. No one crossed her. Most people thought of her as the head of the B.H.E. To those who knew her, she was the B.H.E. She buried her face into her hands, and waited for her coffee to arrive. There was a rumble of thunder that shook the building and made the lights flicker. With her super hearing, she could hear the screams of panic in the streets of Syntropolis.
She hit the buzzer of her intercom and said, “Marvin, what was that?”
There was no response. She got up and looked out the window of her office. Another rumble of thunder struck the city. There were no fires, no smoke, no giant robots; just a bit of dust in the air. Her office phone rang, each of the individual lines lighting up. Almost simultaneously, her cell phone rang, as did her instant messaging and the emergency red phone to Mayor Stanley Marvel’s office. Another rumble struck the city, this time much closer. The lights went out and dust began filtering in through the ceiling tiles. Through her super hearing she heard the screaming even louder. And there was something more: there was the jangling of car crashes, the twisting of metal near the 609 bridge and explosions.
Marvin burst back into the room, in a sheer panic. His face was as white as a sheet, and his argyle sweater was soaked with her coffee. The lights came back on a second and went dead again. Even her computer went out.
“What happened?” she asked.
The young intern shook his head, unable to find the words to speak.
“Marvin, what happened?” she asked again, this time actually growing concerned. The building actually shook hard this time.
“S-s-someone just hit Sacred Heart Hospital,” said Marvin, trying not to stammer, “It’s gone!”
“What do you mean ‘gone’?” she demanded.
The young man actually vomited on himself, covering his sweater in partially digested oatmeal. Now she was actually concerned. She may been a bitch and would have made a great Villain, but one does not have an underling soil himself with breakfast without something major happening. She reached down to help him up when the building was surrounded by purple light.
“Someone get a hold of my son!” she screamed. But it was too late, as the building had already been consumed and taken away by a blue light. All that was left was a crater filled with swirling dust.
Yet life carries on. Of course, there were the usual hysterical crowds of family members looking for their loved ones. Mayor Stanley Marvel, the chief of police, and a token Hero offered the same patronizing soothing speeches they always did in their usual pontificating style, as was custom in a Syntropolis emergency, doing their best to assure the public that everything was under control. In reality, they had no clue what was really happening. Notably missing was Ultragal and her smarmy smile and doubletalk explainations. Heroes from across the city arrived, each ready to save the day from this insidious attack and to assure the public, from the safety of their televisions, that everything was under control and the situation would be resolved quickly.
Syntropolans knew better.
And while the citizens of Syntropolis stoically continued to head to work in the early morning hours, there was an uneasy sense of dread. There weren’t any giant robots attacking the city (this time), no ten-story monsters (this time), or no alien invaders (other than the usual illegals). This was somehow different from most emergencies. There was an unwritten code of honor amongst most Villains which left hospitals and schools strictly off limits (uncontrolled monsters were generally excluded).
The people carried on carried on as always in the strangest city on Earth, the thought of this new unknown menace active in the back of their minds, secure in their faith that the Heroes would probably be able to deal with this latest assault on their beloved city. And if that didn’t work, one could always pull out his Blast-O-Matic 6000d fusion rifle, perfect for self-defense against most Supers. Thank God for the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms.
Ruling out terrorism (the Hospital, the 609 Bridge and a few other buildings were not destroyed, only missing) Homeland Security declared the event a low-level crisis. It was announced on all television stations at 7:36 A.M. Eastern Standard time, just as the city was mobilizing for another workday. Mayor Stanley Marvel made the personal decision that classes would not be canceled and the people should go about their business as usual.
