Chapter 15 – If I were a snake …

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" '… I thought you had'."

That one actually got a chuckle out of Zabrowski.  Whether Batman had intended it or not, our swapping jokes had relaxed the two congressmen.  They were not longer expecting to die at any minute.  Good.  Tense people made mistakes and shortly there would be little margin for mistakes.

"You delivery isn't bad," I told Batman judiciously, somewhat distracted by the way he was playing with my pony tail, "but your material is dated."

He stretched.  "Well, soldiers don't like to tell jokes to generals, for some reason.  I only get them from the other generals, and since no one tells them jokes either …"

He reached back and tugged gently at my ponytail again.  I turned to look at him.  He smiled and tugged again.  I realized he was pulling off one of the rubber bands.

"If I take out the camera across the room," he whispered so softly I had to strain to hear, "can you disable the one above us without being seen by it?"

I nodded very slightly.

He grunted.  He pulled his hand away from my hair and spat his gum into his other hand.  He grinned at the two congressmen, who had not heard him and were looking puzzled by the silence.

"Well…" he drawled and opened his hand.  The rubber band was stretched between his thumb and forefinger.  He pulled the band back with his other hand and released it.  With a snap, his wad of gum flew across the room and landed on the lens of the camera, obscuring it.

Not to be out done, I spat my gum into my palm and, with a flick of my thumb sent it arcing up over my head.  Batman looked up and shook his head.

"Show off," he muttered, ripping open his uniform shirt.  I grinned at him.

 With his beer belly now exposed, he took a careful grip of one corner and pulled back the artificial skin.  Underneath was a soft putty-like substance.  He pulled off a piece and rolled it into a ball the size of a golf ball.  He tossed it to me.

"Rip off the grill," he told me, "and toss that as straight and as far down the shaft as you can.  Then duck."

I nodded, flew up and grabbed the grill.  It was far stronger than I had expected.  I stuck the ball into a pocket, grabbed the grill with both hands and pulled with all my might, bracing my feet against the wall.  With a screeching, tearing sound, the grill finally came loose.  I tossed it to the floor, took aim and threw.

I dropped to the floor as a 'blam!' came out of the vent, followed by a tongue of flame and debris.  I covered the congressmen with my body.  One or two pieces of shrapnel bounced off my armored back.

"The plane, Diana," grated Batman, carefully putting his skin back together.

I nodded.  His plan was obvious now.  I popped the plane from out from under my thumbnail and enlarged it.  A triangular cross-section, I thought, to fit into a corner.  The high ceilings helped, we could stack two high with the congressmen on the bottom.  For the moment, I left the side facing into the room open.

"Into the corner, please," I told the congressmen, who obediently stepped into the corner, clearly not understanding what was going on.  I caught Batman under his arms and lifted him above them.  Then I willed the plane to close around us.  Connelly cried out as the invisible hull of the plane pushed them further into the corner.

"No one can see you while you are inside the invisible plane," I told them, "but they can hear you.  So please be quiet.  All our lives depend upon it."

They looked up at me and nodded.

However, I couldn't resist a question.  "Forty pounds of plastic explosive?" I whispered to Batman.

"Never know when it might come in handy," was his off-hand reply.  "The artificial skin is impermeable," he added very quietly, "so the chemical odor is undetectable."

 That golf ball had been about half a pound, I judged.  I pondered what he might achieve with forty pounds.

There was a loud 'clang!' and the cell door opened ponderously.  As soon as the gap was wide enough, soldiers poured in, weapons at the ready.  They swept every corner of the room with their guns.

"No one's here!" one shouted.

"No wonder," cried another, who had looked up.  "Look at the grill!"

The lieutenant we had seen earlier entered, still wearing his headset.  He swept the room with his gaze and then checked out the grill.  "That's affirmative, colonel.  They're gone.  Someone ripped the grill out of the wall.  They must have escaped through the ventilation ducts and then blown their way out."

He paused, then said, "Sir, I don't know how they got that power suit working again."

The soldiers, except for a few with their attention and guns focused on the air vent, had relaxed their guard.  One leaned back against the invisible plane.  I tensed.  Surely he noticed that his back was more than a foot from the wall and the angle was all wrong?

I quickly plotted my strategy.  I would open the top part of the invisible plane and toss Batman towards the soldiers in the far corner then dive into the midst of the soldiers in the center, knocking out the leaning soldier as I passed.  I estimated that we could take out half the soldiers before they could react.  Then….  I wondered if the plasma blasts would ricochet off the walls.  I would have to thicken the lower half of the invisible plane to protect the congressmen.

Amazingly, the man noticed nothing amiss.  If anyone looked his way, however, they were bound to realize something was wrong and the Batman's carefully plotted misdirection would be for nothing.  We could defeat these soldiers, I was sure, but that would bring more down upon us.

I glanced down at the soldier.  His head was just inches from the toe of my boot.  I thought of the saying I had heard Helena Sandsmark tell Cassie: 'if it were a snake, it would have bit you.'

If I were a snake, I thought, I would… what?  To say I would bite him seemed inappropriate, since he was not near my teeth.  I could kick him.  All it would take was opening a small hole in the invisible plane….

I reined in that thought hastily.  The invisible plane was controlled by my mind and a stray thought might be interpreted as a command.  In any case, having a snake kick someone was an atrocious mixing of metaphors.

"All right," snapped the lieutenant, "let's go.  Chin, you take your squad and search the mess hall and the adjoining offices.  Snyder, you take your squad back to the production area.  Move, people!"

The soldier below us came erect and headed for the door.  So did the others.  No one looked back.  As soon as the last soldier was out, the door began closing again.

I opened the invisible plane, tossed Batman out and flew towards the door.  I heard Batman land on his feet but I had no attention to spare as I grabbed the edge of the vault-like door and tried to hold it open.  The force of it pushed me back until I could brace my feet against the doorframe.  Then I could stop it but the drone of the motor grew louder and louder.  I was afraid the soldiers would hear.

Then Batman slipped under my outstretched arms, stood and slapped a button on the outside wall near the door.  Immediately, the pressure eased and the door started opening again.

I wiped the sweat from my brow.  Batman stepped back inside the room, grabbed my blouse and pulled.  Since it had been sliced down the back, the blouse came off with little resistance.  He stepped closer, hit some buttons, and a panel dropped open in the front of the power suit I was wearing.  He pulled out my golden lasso and bracelets and handed them to me.  Then he pulled out his utility belt and snapped it on.  The last to come out were two pairs of black gloves.

As we were putting these on, I asked, "What if they had forced me to take the armor off?"

"I built a screamer circuit into the armor.  Too high pitched for anyone but you, and dogs, to hear.  It would guide us to it.  Should be going off any minute.  I'll turn it off."

"Don't bother."  I flexed my muscles and with a loud "snap" the power suit broke into several pieces and fell off my body.  I ground the pieces beneath my boots.

Batman handed me back my blouse.  "Pull the sleeves down over your bracelets," he commanded, "and keep your lasso hidden until you need it.  We don't want them to know who they're dealing with until it's absolutely necessary."

The blouse inhibited my freedom of movement, somewhat, but not nearly as much as the power suit.  I put it back on and tied the ends of the back together.  I turned and saw the two congressmen still huddled in the corner.  I handed them out, then shrunk the invisible plane and stowed it in a pocket.  Finding the package of gum, I offered a piece to the congressmen.  After a moment's hesitation, both took some and started chewing.

I turned to Batman and saw he had peeled off his beer belly and tied the ends of the artificial skin together to make a handle of sorts.  He carried it negligently in his left hand.  I wondered, if he accidentally dropped it, whether it would go off.  Without the beer belly, the shirt was too big for him and fell down over his utility belt, effectively hiding it.

"Time to go," he told us.

I nodded and we turned towards the door.

We were not alone.  A diminutive figure in a blue and red uniform stood in the doorway, arms crossed.

"You're late," complained the Atom.

Author's Note: Diana does not have super hearing, per se, but she has demonstrated in many comics that her senses are unusually keen.  I am assuming means her range of hearing is greater than an ordinary human.