DCU - Dial "H" for Hero #4: Starting Small

"We can slip in, two minutes. Just like that, piece of cake."

 

Edward Murr's aggravated countenance went unnoticed by the younger strategist at his side, straining at the leash. This was not the usual way. Waiting there in the damp, small hours of Fairfax's morning, Murr miserably contemplates whether or not to correct his partner. His own pause of uncertainty in his authority agitates him further.

 

"George," Murr posed to his accomplice, "do you believe Cathan would have sent you to do this task on your own?"

 

George considers, shifting his stance in the bushes that the pair was using for cover.

 

"He might have."

 

"He would not," Murr redresses. "Leading me to my next question: Do you think there is a reason why I'm the person on this crew that Cathan hasn't been inclined to lecture about, shall we say, a botched errand?"

 

George lets an indignant puff of air out from the back of his throat this time, but fails to suppress a smile, all the same. Murr raises a hand before the hothead can conjure a sarcastic riposte.

 

"No, I'll help you; I'm aware your power isn't cerebral. See, I've already taken my trial by fire. Cathan was there. When I work, the calls I make don't come from a place of needing to prove myself. Not anymore. Now if you're going to assume to tell me how to go about this operation in a way Cathan would approve of..."

 

It's George's turn to cut in. "You're going to have to share your best friend, Ed. Do you think there's a reason why he's extended his circle of trust beyond just you?"

 

Murr shrugs off the intentionally disparaging imitation. "Home invasions are sloppy. You can take my word for it. We get the kid on the way to or back from the school."

 

"There's still going to be cops crawling all over. We've been holding up in this town for too long."

 

"Kaleidoscope managed the patrols last night. So will we now."

 

"Right..." George sits back. "And the kid. If she knows nothing..."

 

"Then we throw her back, and the interrogation won't need to be... excessive. What kind of question is that?"

 

"Oh you misunderstand, Pops. I'm hoping she IS tied to this hero running around. Be a shame if Kalei or Chain Master were the only ones who had any fun, before we have to get serious for the big day."

 

At this, Murr is overcome with revulsion. "This is necessary. Not fun."

 

George just keeps his eyes on the Nash household. "You can call the shots on the mission, Ed. Do me a solid, though; don't tell me how much I can enjoy it."

 

 

***

 

 

Vicki vowed to herself for the tenth time that, if she made it out of (whatever this was) alive, she was never going to get anywhere she needed to be by running, ever again.

 

Even after all she had experienced in the past few hours, she was finding it difficult to accept what she had been told, and what she now held in her scratched hands. Frannie Nash-the mousy, wouldn't-harm-a-fly Frannie, of all people-was next on these creeps' hit-list? There was a whole community living in the old mines, helping a superhero? And this phone... this phone was going to solve her problems. Somehow.

 

"It's not a wireless, it... HAS a wire!" Vicki bemoans, still plodding along into town, grappling in annoyance with the clunky object and its blanket. It hadn't been hung up by its owner; the cord was simply a tangled mess, fastening the receiver to the body of the dial. "How does he expect me to use this piece of-"

 

Angrily holding the device to her ear to prove to herself its worthlessness, she detects, to her amazement, the white noise of functional electronics. She halts for an instant, before remembering the urgency behind her flight, and she resigns to making tracks towards Frannie's home, first, and pondering this bizarre phenomenon, second. But over the earpiece comes a diligent, somewhat droll voice:

 

"If you wish to assume a new identity, please, end your current call and redial."

 

"... What the shit," Vicki concedes in exasperation.

 

"If you are still in immediate peril, please, stay on the line."

 

Vicki continues navigating the streets, having, at long last, put Fairfax's more rural landscape behind her. She sees a lone jogger, but no stationed police officers. The lax security was nearly enough to make Vicki question whether she was being subjected to the glass woman's trickery again, but nothing else was sickeningly off-putting. She wasn't sure a policeman would be up to listening anyway, with the story she had to tell. Fairfax wasn't supposed to be quite this crazy.

 

Diverting to the precinct and chancing her troubles with the authorities was off the table, Vicki decided. Frannie could already be...

 

"My friend is about to be in danger! You're supposed to do... something. Whoever 'you' are."

 

"I am your Operator. Are you requesting assistance beyond your H-Dial's standard function?"

 

"I just got this thing today! I need serious help!"

 

Vicki all but plows straight into three pedestrians as she cuts past a hedge around a café corner. It's Glinda, Roger and Chris, wide-eyed, as equally ragged as she was.

 

Roger, having apparently caught her last exclamation, penetrates the awkward silence of the confrontation. "Well... I always told you as much."

 

Vicki's eye twitches absentmindedly, as she prepares to lambaste Roger's comedic timing to no end, only for Chris to also chime in.

 

"We just got back, thought we heard you yelling a street or two over. Vicki... We uh, well, you aren't going to believe this-"

 

"The boy in the park is a superhero and we almost got killed by a witch and a giant but there are people living in the silver mines and he told me to take a phone with me to save Frannie because they'll think she's in cahoots!" Vicki blurts out.

 

"Did... did you take drugs?!" Glinda asks, aghast at the prospect. "THAT's what you were doing instead of meeting us last-"

 

"THE PHONE. IS TALKING. Say 'Hi', phone!" Vicki's friends exchanged concerned glances as she hoists the machine towards them.

 

"If you are grievously injured, please, allow a friend or family member to hang up for you."

 

"There, crystal clear? Great, explain it to me," Vicki says dryly to the other astounded kids. She skips backward in the same direction she had been headed, calling out, "Frannie needs help, I'm going there. I'm starving, terrified, I kind of really really want you to come, and at the same time, not so much because I feel like this is definitely going to get freaky, sooo..."

 

"Vicki, w... oh come on!" Roger stumbles after her.

 

"Is this night ever going to end?" Glinda complains, following suit.

 

Chris cocks his head, bringing up the rear of the pack. "Did she say Frannie? You mean that... weird girl she knows who never comes over to our table during-"

 

"It's best to not go there, Chris," came Roger's interjection.

 

"She's not weird, Christopher; it's something you just... you don't need to know," Glinda summarizes.

 

"Why do girls keep all these things hidden and then still expect a guy to be perfectly mindful of the subject?" Chris asks, not condescendingly but earnestly.

 

"Why do boys assume they're going to have something worthwhile to say if they did hear the whole story?" Glinda counters.

 

Chris and Roger slow as Vicki and Glinda keep up the pace. The boys share a look. "Huh."

 

 

***

 

 

"She's... Ed, she's coming out. Back porch."

 

Murr spies the girl, tromping out the screen door. She seats herself despondently on rickety wooden steps, oblivious to the men's presence yards away.

 

"And early enough that there's not a potential witness in sight. Here I was thinking we were going to have to work for this," George spits, still tugging at his gloves as a force of habit.

 

Murr speaks softly. "Circle around now, I'll stay here. We corner her. In case she's faster than she looks."

 

"Sheesh, would you look at this kid. Sitting out here at the crack of dawn like some depressed old lady. Being kidnapped might be a marked improvement."

 

"NOW."

 

"Loosen up, 'Distortionex'. We're about to be Cathan's favorites."

 

 

***

 

 

Vicki and her pursuers arrive at one final hill's crest, serving as the border of Frannie's back yard. There are but a hand-full of aspens obstructing their view of the residence.

 

"... and so we just took off," Chris pants, recapping for Vicki his account of the beings in the cornfield. "The guy in the armor barely touched the monster and it-"

 

"Blew up," Glinda quivers. "Some of it did, anyway."

 

Vicki stops dead in her tracks, the other three piling up at her back. She turns around timidly, not at all like herself.

 

"I made up my mind. You guys should stay away, if those goons are here. Nick and I barely got away the first time."

 

"Vicki, just pause for five seconds and tell us what's going on! Weird stuff went down last night, for ALL of us, and I for one want to know if and how it connects," Roger implores. "What exactly are we doing here?"

 

"I hope I'm doing nothing here. I hope-" Vicki doesn't finish, suddenly dropping to the ground. In her hurry she slides on wet leaves beneath her shoes, yanking Chris down with her behind a tree, and shushes him. Roger and Glinda do the same without instruction. Just a short sprint below them sits Frannie, seemingly meditating in the still air, unaware of a man clothed and masked in blue, easing toward her around the north side of her home.

 

"Stay. Here," Vicki mouths. She throws away the dial's cloth.

 

"What's Frannie DOI-" Chris mutters not so quietly, prompting Roger to slap a hand over his face.

 

The man was thirty feet from Frannie.

 

Vicki holds the phone up once again. "Phone guy? I need that help now!"

 

"If you wish to assume a new identity, please, end your current call and redial."

 

The man was twenty feet away.

 

"We have to warn her!" Glinda objects. Roger and Chris both look to Vicki questioningly.

 

"I haven't used you yet, why do I need to redial?" Vicki demands.

 

Glinda pulls her hair. "Who cares?? Dial!"

 

Fifteen feet.

 

The speaker crackles like a fire. "Please redial for another hero. Your H-Dial is still in use."

 

"Nick," Vicki realizes. What was going to happen to Nick if she...

 

Ten feet.

 

Roger pounds the tree with his palm. "Do it or I will!"

 

Vicki slams the phone down in its cradle, then slings it back up to her ear. The dial is emanating heat now, and magenta strands of electricity dance across the cord.

 

"Dial 'H'," it offers Vicki.

 

"Dial!" Glinda repeats.

 

A body-length separates Frannie from the menace.

 

Vicki dials.

 

 

***

 

 

A concussive blast of light and sound sizzles out from the woods, ripping Edward Murr off his feet. George Schneider, too, is taken by surprise, and cannot reach Frannie in time to nab her, as he is unceremoniously lifted headfirst into a drain pipe. Frannie tumbles off the porch, skipping a heartbeat or two as she recovers and scans all about the property. She recognizes Glinda, and two other boys she knew were Vicki's friends, standing in a now-cleared ring of smoldering grass. They were shielding themselves from a fourth figure within the haze: A lean woman, wearing striking blue over all but her mouth and hair.

 

"Who-"

 

"The hell is that supposed to be?" Murr finishes, wiping mulch off his helmet.

 

The heroine steps forward, one hand curled to make a fist and the elbow down at her side.

 

"If you evildoers think you have the run of the town, you're in for a little surprise! THUMBELINA is here!" she belts out.

 

"Uh," Roger adds.

 

The woman snaps out of the moment, now appearing thoroughly bewildered by her own voice. "Why did I just say that? Why... am I THIS TALL?"

 

A dumbfounded Glinda stares, mouth agape. "Vicki?!"

 

Frannie bolts for the door back to her kitchen, but from her right, a gleaming, gold netting zips past her nose and adheres to the frame and knob. George takes aim again with an index finger, nursing a lump on his temple with his free hand. His expression is, to say the least, unamused.

 

Vicki/"Thumbelina", larger than life and overflowing with untapped power, springs forth to stop the would-be assailant. "You could use some micromanaging, you ugly WHAT AM I SAYING?!"

 

"Okay," Murr accepts, pointing his knuckles at the woman rushing his ally. The air between his fingers ripples.

 

"Watch out!" Roger hollers. "Red guy!"

 

Vicki spots the second man. Her new form shrinks reflexively, closing the last bit of distance to George in a flying leap, and letting Murr's beam attack carry on careening through the yard. It impacts a tree, instantaneously reducing it to a brownish puddle, as Vicki executes a kick to George's upper arm, driving him against the wooden slats of the house; even at a fraction of her original size, she seemed to have lost no velocity nor mass. Frannie sees the opening and takes off again, now towards the kids who are still up the hill, scarcely comprehending the circumstances.

 

"Help, Glinda!" is Frannie's cry.

 

Murr unleashes another blast, this one aimed at Frannie. She tackles the grass in time to avoid the open air she had just been occupying hardening; it crinkles and squeaks like a crushed water bottle. Vicki leaves a doubly battered George to now take on Murr, while Chris notes something amidst the pandemonium.

 

"The dial slid down there!" he informs his two friends, steeling himself to get closer to the action to retrieve it.

 

"There's also some dude liquefying TREES down there!" Roger reports, as though Chris had missed this.

 

"And a vegetable monster almost pulverized you last night. So let's not-"

 

"Nothin' doin', Chris!"

 

Roger grips Chris' sweater, but not so tightly that Chris couldn't break free if he wanted. That was just it; Chris, despite his words, truly could not make himself take one step nearer to the dial, Frannie, or the metahuman powers whizzing left and right. He saw himself again in the corn field, fixed in place there in the mud, at the mercy of a threat his friends had been able to overcome when the chips were down. But not him. The thought of it ate through Chris like acid.

 

"Let's all go! All at once!" Glinda urges. "Come on, Frannie is-"

 

"Almost mine," Murr tells himself, having completely cut Frannie off from the far hill with pillars of solid air. Vicki lunges at him at one-twentieth her normal height, but the man directs a wide ray of energy into her. A jet of boiling water surrounds her, and she is flung clear through the nearby tool shed. Just then, police sirens blare beyond the row of houses, and Murr stays his hand long enough for Frannie to regain her footing. She faces him, unable to keep a few tears from escaping.

 

"We just want some answers, kid. Don't make a whole production out of this."

 

"Hey!"

 

Glinda, Roger and Chris, shoulder to shoulder, bounded to the base of the hill. To Frannie, none of them come across as the spitting image of confidence. Even so, the trio standing there rigidly, appearing as though they weren't sure what to do with their arms, gave Frannie an unusually warm feeling. Roger then commences to pick up the H-Dial.

 

"You must be looking for this, jackoff," Roger deduces. He and his companions back away a few inches, at Murr's face twisting with both rage and desperation.

 

The sirens continue to close in. George begins to stir on the porch, swearing and clutching his side. Vicki somersaults out of the wreckage of the shed, scalded but determined as ever.

 

"Didn't your mother ever teach you to minimize damages?" she berates Murr. Vicki groans her own instinctual pun, then waves a hand behind herself. The shed reconstructs in a flurry, rakes and shovels settling back onto their hooks with absolute precision. "... I can do that?"

 

"Drop the phone," Murr commands.

 

"Just ICE 'EM ALREADY!" George screams, loosing a slew of gilded, silk strands at the gathered kids.

 

Vicki wills several blades of grass to enlarge, swatting the projectiles out of the air, before focusing on Murr. George does not cease the barrage, forcing Roger and the others to duck and dodge along a clothesline. The hanging shirts provide minimal protection, with one of the webs snaring Glinda's shoelaces and pant leg, dragging her down. Roger and Chris purposely fall to their knees to stop their momentum, and scramble back to Glinda. All three pull hopelessly at the bonds, as George zeroes in.

 

Wrenching both of Murr's forearms in the crook of one leg, Vicki flips into a handstand on just one arm. Murr roars in pain, struggling to grab his opponent. His outstretched fingers arc and sputter with transmutative properties, licking at Vicki's scorched suit. Her unoccupied hand points at George, intending to shrink him. Her concentration shatters when Murr succeeds in tapping her lower leg, and a chunk of boot, skin and muscle evaporates. Vicki yowls; distracted, the hex she had meant for George only influences his mask. The disguise, significantly scaled down, immediately constricts his face. George joins the other superpowered persons' cries with his own distressed caterwaul. He claws at the taut latex around his jaw and eyelids.

 

Glinda remains stuck in spite of her friends' efforts. The sirens have stopped now. Police are shouting from the street.

 

Murr rams Vicki into the dirt using a plated shoulder. Inches from grasping her neck, something conks into his reinforced helmet. Paper-thin fractures spread over the glass guard, and he trips, as tiny crystal particles begin to infiltrate his tear ducts. A baseball rolls to a stop at Vicki's heel. Murr can't see it, only the blurry outline of a pink windbreaker worn by Frannie Nash, who slowly straightens from her pitch. Not realizing the man is effectively blinded, she backs up, nearly tripping herself, closer to where Glinda lay on the turf.

 

"Agh... Golden Web?" Murr stutters in the direction he believes George to be. "Get us out... of here."

 

The police were close enough for their radios' scratchy commands to be heard. George finally acknowledges the ticking clock and, still hindered by his mask, crawls to Murr's voice. He links their arms, and fires a web up and over the rear hill's trees. The blonde man drools like a feral dog; his face is red both from its inhibited movement, as well as no small amount of humiliation.

 

"I'll have your heads, brats. You and your super-friends... ALL your heads, on pikes!"

 

The pair of villains catapult over the ground on Golden Web's rope, until they are out of sight. Roger dives for Vicki the moment their adversaries have disappeared. Frannie maintains her distance.

 

"Vicki?! Hey!"

 

Roger's hands hover tentatively over her leg wound. Her eyes are cloudy, but she breathes plainly. Having retained the Operator's advice, Vicki indicates with a bloodied finger for him to present the H-Dial.

 

"Han- ... Hang up."

 

Roger does so without hesitation. A smoky vacuum effect develops between the heroine and the device. Her voluminous hair and the blue of her costume drain into the funnel of strange energies, and with a slight gust, the artificial storm vanishes entirely. The real Vicki, with only the minor scrapes and bruises she had earned before using the dial, rests in the grass, alert and speechless.

 

Glinda bites her lip and watches the sides of the house anxiously. "Vicki... run with it!"

 

All five kids use the last seconds, before the police arrive, to mull over their options. They didn't require any more time than was available. Five kids, who had just found a way to turn the tides, who had known little else besides barriers, a time and a place for everything, and childhoods sifting away all too soon... were not going to surrender this gift.

 

The verdict is reached unanimously, with no more than four nods, and an apprehensive gulp from Frannie. Vicki splits off for the treeline, toting the H-Dial once again.

 

"More running," she remarks laboriously. "Stellar."

 

 

***

 

 

"Help! My friend needs help, she's stuck!"

 

Chris runs directly towards the band of policemen approaching from the left of Frannie's home, as Roger does the same to those on the right. If they can just keep the officers busy for a few seconds, Vicki could sneak away with-

 

"Hold your fire! Hold!"

 

"Please, she's over there."

 

"Okay, son, stay right here; we're going to check it out and help your friend," the first officer assures Chris.

 

The boy sees Roger trying to shepherd every cop to Glinda's spot in the yard, but Vicki is already gone without a trace, rendering the diversion unnecessary. Frannie races up her porch's steps. Two of the officers attempt to call her back until her mother emerges from the doorway onto the stoop. She clings to Frannie, ushering her inside. Chris wonders briefly if Mrs. Nash will ignore the cops altogether, but she turns to engage their questions, once she and her daughter are behind the screen door.

 

"I guess Glinda and Roger know best," Chris concludes for himself. "If Frannie's mom is some kind of recluse, that's not my business."

 

All in all, he knew things had played out very fortunately for him and the others. As for the sit-down with parents and explanations for reckless behavior that were sure to come, Chris was holding onto the hope that he could at least make it home, and catch them off guard with the news. Rather than...

 

"Son."

 

This time it wasn't the geniality of a policeman that had earned Chris the title.

 

"Hi Dad."

 

Detective Greg King looks back at the squad cars parked alongside the curb, and his own unmarked vehicle, roosting majestically in the center of the Nash's flower garden. Chris' father composes himself, hands pushing his jacket aside to rest on his waist, eyes fixated on the end of his tie. "Good thing I was in the neighborhood."

 

"Yup."

 

"Let's go home, Chris. Your mother needs to kill you."

Done