The Midvale Girls
The further adventures of the teenaged Alex and Kara Danvers
Metamorphosis
Chapter 5
One large compartment seemed to fill most of the interior space of the spaceship. Unlike the time bubble, this craft had a large, panoramic window at the front and just aft of that what had to be a main control station. Several more workstations were located along the sides of the cabin.
Lyle pushed by Alex, who had paused just barely inside the ship's entrance, and almost ran over to the main console and immediately began tapping in commands.
As soon as the rest of them were inside, the hatch through which they had entered slid closed and less than ten seconds later the craft lifted straight up from where it had been parked until it was clear of the surrounding vehicles. Straightaway, the craft began to move forward and a large portal in the side of the Clubhouse simultaneously began to iris open. Less than forty-five seconds after they had entered the ship, it was clear of the Clubhouse and climbing rapidly.
"We can't engage the hyper-dimensional drive until we are clear of the atmosphere," stated Lyle, as though he had read the question forming in Alex's head.
Alex had momentarily forgotten about the red sun, but the higher they climbed, the more intense it seemed to become. She glanced around and spotted Kara sitting in a chair at an unused workstation.
Kara smiled back at her. "I'm fine. I guess I'm getting used to not having my special abilities."
Alex knew Kara had agreed not to use her special gifts when she came to live with their family unless it was an honest-to-god emergency. Alex also knew that she used them a lot more than Eliza knew or at least acknowledged. She wondered what this must be like for Kara. Would it be like if she lost her hearing or her voice or even her sight? She shuddered at the thought.
"Okay, I'll be engaging the hyper-dimensional drive in ten seconds," said Lyle.
Alex turned back to the large front window. Around them was the black of space. Way, way below the last vestiges of the pink-tinted atmosphere could be seen. It had to be well under a minute since they had left the Clubhouse. This was one FAST spaceship.
"Engaging the H-D drive, now," said Lyle.
Instantly, the front window was filled with a blinding kaleidoscope of colors which flooded the interior of the craft.
"Wow! That is hard on the eyes," exclaimed Alex.
"Sorry," said Lyle. He touched a couple more spots on the control console and the large window turned an opaque gray. Imposed on its surface was a large clock currently displaying thirty-six minutes, forty-eight seconds and counting down.
Gesturing towards the clock, Alex said, "Since we have some time, how about telling me a little more about this Salu Digby I'm supposed to be rescuing?"
"In just a second," said Lyle before turning in Kara's direction. "Kara if you wouldn't mind moving to the aft end of the compartment, I'll erect a force-barrier so that we can start helping Alex into the Kryptonite suit while we talk."
Kara nodded and climbed out of the chair. Alex noted she didn't seem to be having any problems moving around. Hopefully, she was fully adjusted to the loss of her powers.
Once she had moved to the back, Lyle stabbed a few more commands into his console. A translucent yellow barrier appeared between them and Kara. She was left with about eight feet of space to move around.
Then Lyle entered another command and an eight-foot tall recessed panel in the left side wall slid open. Inside, Alex could see what had to be the Kryptonite suit.
It was nothing like what she was expecting. Of course, after the insane turn her life had taken in the last hour, why she should expect anything else was beyond her.
She had been expecting a simple suit with some pieces of kryptonite attached. Given the proclivity for skintight garments she had seen since arriving in the 31st Century, she figured it would be a catsuit with a myriad of thumbnail-sized chips of Kryptonite like the catsuit was covered in green rhinestones.
What she actually saw was a powered exoskeleton that looked more than anything like one of Tony Stark's suits from the Iron Man comics. An Iron Man movie was supposed to be coming out next summer and she had seen a few behind-the-scenes photos on some website. This suit looked exactly like that except this one was mostly Kryptonite Green rather than red and gold.
"Kara, are you feeling any ill effects?" called Lyle.
"No."
"Okay, I'm going to command the suit out of the storage compartment. The shield in front of you should prevent any seepage from the kryptonite, but if you start to feel anything, Kara, let me know and I can try to further tune the barrier."
"Okay."
Lyle was holding another small controller. It didn't look quite the same as the one he had used with the time bubble. Alex hadn't been paying attention to notice if he had pulled it from another pouch on his utility belt or from some compartment in the command console. He fiddled with it for a moment and then the exoskeleton lifted silently six inches into the air and glided out to the center of the compartment and then settled back down to the floor.
"Holy shit!" exclaimed Kara. "That looks like the Iron Man suit."
So, it wasn't just her imagination, thought Alex. It looked even more like it when it had come floating out. All that was missing were the bright thruster-flames coming out of the hands and feet.
"What's an Iron Man suit?" asked Lyle.
"Oh, it's the powered suit used by a comic book character back home," explained Alex. And suddenly she remembered why it looked so familiar. It wasn't from the stills from the upcoming movie; it was from the large, framed Iron Man poster she had seen when she had been at Kenny's house when he had helped her with her calculus. Kara must have seen it there, too.
"Comic book?"
"Comic books are mostly illustrated adventure stories about fictional superheroes. In our time, there were two main publishers each with their own stable of superheroes. The biggest is Marvel and they have heroes like Iron Man, Spiderman, Thor, and a bunch more. The other is Radiant Angel, which leans more to the mystical, supernatural end of the spectrum with heroes like Radiant Angel, Pink Ghost, and The Electric Philosopher."
"Wow, I'll have to tell Brainy about this when we get back. He will find it fascinating," said Lyle.
"Actually, he might even find it useful," added one of the Luornu's.
"Huh?"
"You know how he is always trying to come up with new, unusual gadgets. There might be hundreds of things like that in these comic books to inspire him."
"Hmm, I hadn't thought of that," said Lyle. Then he happened to glance towards the forward window. The large countdown timer was now reading twenty-eight minutes, thirty-seven seconds. "Ah, we better focus on the mission at hand. Luornu, if you wouldn't mind helping me get Alex into the suit."
Two of the Luornu's walked over to join him as the front of the suit started opening up. The other Luornu walked over to where Alex was standing.
"I think you need to take off the jacket and the backpack. The suit will be a tight fit and it has internal heating and cooling so the jacket won't be necessary."
For a second, Alex figured they would want her to strip all the way down to her underwear, so she was happy if she just needed to remove the jacket.
"So, how does the suit fly?" asked Alex.
"Anti-gravity."
After unslinging the backpack and leaning it up against the nearest workstation, Alex took off her jacket and hung it over the back of the workstation's chair. When she straightened, she found Luornu staring at her chest. It wasn't until she glanced down that she remembered it said Future Sex in big letters above a picture of Justin Timberlake.
"It's from an album cover for a collection of music by the singer Justin Timberlake," Alex explained.
"Comic books and shirts like that, I may have to visit your era once we get beyond this current crisis," said Luornu with a grin. Alex glanced over to the other copies of the girl and they were also grinning.
"We are ready for you over here," said Lyle.
Alex took a deep breath and walked over. The front of the suit was wide open. It was obvious she needed to back into it and then it would close up around her. She turned around, stepped back, and then worked her feet in, one at a time. Then she leaned back. It wasn't a perfect fit as hard protrusions dug into her back in several places and the space for the shoulders felt too high.
"Ah, guys, this isn't the most comfortable thing I've ever worn."
"Once I power it up, it will better mold itself to your body," stated Lyle. "I'm going to do it now, which will initiate the closing sequence. The whole process of the suit's configuring itself to your body will take seven and a half minutes. It will be easier to explain the controls once it is done. While it is working, we can brief you about Salu. Are you ready to begin, Alex?"
Alex took another deep calming breath. That seemed to be all she was doing lately. Her mother had dragged her to several yoga classes and now she wished she had paid more attention to the meditative aspects.
"Yeah."
Lyle twisted the small control in his hand again and the forward half of the suit began sliding closed. Alex was suddenly glad she wasn't claustrophobic like her friend Karen. Then she suddenly wished she hadn't thought of Karen. Karen had told her that her greatest fear was to be sealed away in a mummy's coffin like in some old horror movie. The closing suit did give that same feeling.
She found herself holding her breath. The suit finally reached the fully closed position and then things inside it began to move. The outside might look like an Iron Man suit – all hard metallic plates that slid around as it moved, but the inside felt like it was made of some liquid metal that began flowing around her body. It even felt like it was moving straight through her clothes to caress her skin. She had never felt anything remotely like it.
"Alex, can you hear me?" asked Lyle. His voice seemed to be right next to her ears. It had to be coming from speakers built into the suit.
"Yes, I can hear you."
"Can you focus on what I'm going to be telling you?" It seemed like an odd thing for the boy to say, but the way the suit flowed around her was a major distraction. Perhaps he had worn this suit or one like it before and understood what she was experiencing.
"I, ah, I think so."
"Okay. Like Brainy mentioned before, Salu is an Imskian from Imsk. Imsk is a planet of extremes. It can have years of bountiful crops and then decades, even centuries of extreme famine. The creatures of the planet developed the ability to reduce their size to where something like a single banana could feed a million of them for a year, meaning the Imskians can control their size. Originally they could reduce themselves until they were less than a ten-thousandth of an inch tall. Eventually, with training, the best of them could take it even further until they were down to atomic-size.
"And Salu is one of the best. She can reduce her size until she can easily enter not just a human body, but a human cell. And she can also enter any piece of electronic equipment. She can even directly interact with nano-machines that consist of only a few thousand atoms."
That ability struck Alex as absolutely crazy. It made Superman with his impossible strength, ability to fly, his heat and x-ray vision, his freeze breath and everything else sound almost mundane. More than once she and Kara had tried to figure out the physics behind those abilities, but had been largely unsuccessful. But being able to shrink yourself down to the size of atoms was a whole other level of weird.
"Let me guess," replied Alex, even while she tried to wrap her head around the concept. "That's how she got into this Emerald Eye thing."
"The Emerald Eye of Ekron is much larger than a human eye; it is almost two feet in diameter and apparently there is a proportionately large head with another eye out there somewhere. But, yes, she must have greatly shrunken herself to get into it."
"So, somehow, when I touch the Eye, she will be able to jump from it to my body. And then, when I'm back here, she can exit my body and then resume her full-sized, normal self."
"I think so," replied Lyle.
"And she's going to reduce herself again to enter Mongul's citadel and then take control of the device controlling the Sun-Eater."
"Yes."
"Couldn't you just use your invisibility to do the same thing?"
Lyle shook his head. "Unfortunately not, for a couple of reasons. First, Mongul has defenses that will stop a full-sized person from gaining entry regardless of whether they are invisible or not. Second, to gain control of the Sun-Eater will require someone who is simply the best at understanding and manipulating electronic and nano devices. And that's Salu. Now if expertise in chemistry was the answer, then I would be your man."
Just then, a new, unfamiliar female voice began to speak in Alex's ear. "I am the Mark 43 combat suit, but you may call me Buffy. How may I assist you?"
Buffy, the suit's name was Buffy? Alex thought if it was going to have a name, it should be something like Thor and have a deep commanding man's voice.
"Ah, guys," said Alex. "The suit just talked to me and said its name is Buffy."
Lyle nodded. "That means the initialization phase is complete. How does it feel, Alex? Is it more comfortable now?"
Alex had been so focused on the conversation about Salu, she had almost forgotten about how the suit's internal structure had been reconfiguring. Now, when she thought about it, she realized it was very comfortable. The earlier eerie liquid metal had transitioned to where it felt like she was almost floating in a pool of water. Oh, when she tried moving it was apparent the liquid layer was less than a half inch thick, but she felt unexpectedly safe and cocooned.
The other thing that happened when she wiggled around was that the suit moved around with her. She raised her right hand and the suit moved smoothly and it didn't seem to take any more effort than moving her arm alone, not at all like she was wearing the equivalent of a suit of armor. She lifted each leg, one at a time and then tried jumping in place several times. Again, the effort seemed to be no higher than if she was jumping while wearing her gym clothes.
"Everything seems to be working," said Alex for the others' benefit.
"Okay," said Lyle with a small smile. "Now you need to try flying. Well, while you're still in the spaceship, you better just try hovering. The suit has a neural interface. So you should just need to think about what you want to do and the suit should do the rest, but it may need a few attempts to calibrate. If you have any questions or problems, try asking the suit for assistance."
Alex had seen the suit hover its way out of the storage compartment, but it hadn't really sunk in that it would allow her to fly just like Clark and Kara. Perhaps using this suit might actually be fun.
She concentrated on rising six inches into the air. Nothing happened. She tried concentrating even harder. Still nothing happened.
"Ah, Buffy, I'm trying to hover above the floor, but nothing is happening. What am I doing wrong?"
"It should be working," replied the suit. It paused for a long ten seconds before continuing. "I've just asked the ship's AI as well as the Clubhouse AI about you. I am designed to interface with someone from the 31st Century. Apparently, being from the 21st Century, your neural pathways are sufficiently different to be causing the issue."
"You mean I can't interface with you?" asked Alex. She was one part relieved that now she might not have to do the mission to the Eye and one part frustrated.
"No, it just means we will need to do a little extra calibration beyond the normal," replied Buffy. "I am going to show you a series of colors on the internal display. I want you to say their names out loud."
Everything in Alex's field of view abruptly turned green. "Green."
Then it changed to red. "Red."
"Orange . . . white . . . blue . . . black . . . gray . . . pink."
"Okay, now I'm going to show you a series of objects. Please say their names out loud."
"Ball . . . chair . . . hat . . . lamp . . . dog . . . spaceship . . . book."
"Excellent," replied Buffy. "Give me five seconds to process the data. . . . . And ready. Please try thinking of an action again."
Alex thought again about lifting six inches into the air. Immediately, it happened. Then she thought about moving sideways to the left by three feet. Again it was as easy as thinking about it.
"Flight calibration completed. Good job, Alex," said the suit.
"Ah, thanks?" It still seemed a little strange to be talking to the suit.
Lyle had moved back over to the master control panel. He nodded and then looked in Alex's direction. "Very good. Now we just need to do a quick run-through of the suit's weapon systems and you will be ready to go."
"Weapon systems?" echoed Alex. "Ah, why do I need weapon systems?"
"Venegar is a class K7 planet. That means it once had a civilization, but that civilization is no longer present, for whatever reason. However, just because its people are gone, doesn't mean it is completely lifeless. The galactic database lists four different alpha predators still inhabiting the world along with a complete ecosystem of lower life forms. The suit has excellent sensors and should be able to avoid most hostile life, but in case it can't, it is best that you are prepared."
Alex had simply known there had been some important details Brainiac 5 had left out, probably intentionally. But she couldn't gracefully back out now. She just hoped she would live through this day. Where was Superman when she needed him?
They spent the remaining six minutes until the spaceship would drop out of hyper-dimensional travel discussing the offensive and defensive capabilities of the suit. Unfortunately, discussing them was all they could do while the suit was within the confines of the ship without risking damaging something.
Just as the ship was about to drop back into normal space, a final question popped into Alex's head.
"Ah, you never did mention Salu's superhero moniker."
"Most of us called her Vi similar to how we refer to Brainiac 5 as Brainy. Her full title is Shrinking Violet."