Wallace, being the eternal optimist, was naturally excited when I gave him the news that the nanites had located Miracle Man. Still I remained tight-lipped as I flew him to my lab. Well no, that’s a bit of a lie.

You see, he had just showered before I’d arrived, and the scent of the shampoo in his damp hair was intoxicating. So Wallace had to slap my hand when I got just a bit too friendly by nipping the back of his neck through my mask.

He was laughing when he did it, so I’m sure I didn’t cause him any offense. So although I wasn’t exactly tight-lipped during the short flight, I didn’t say anything about Miracle Man’s place of residence, or the fact that I’d already paid my hero a visit.

Once we got to the lab, I flew in through the open window and set him down without a word, prolonging the suspense by making ‘adjustments’ to my spare suit.

After ten minutes of pacing around in a tight circle, he asked, “Well?”

I smiled, surprised he had lasted that long. “Well what?”

“Duggan!” Wallace gasped with just a small trace of mirthful annoyance. “Don’t give me the innocent act! Just tell me what the nanites found. Where does Miracle Man live?”

“Oh, that?” I said. “He lives two buildings away from Leona, in the same apartment complex as her no less.” I smirked as Wallace collected his jaw off the floor.

“You both live just a few blocks from him? How is that possible?” Wallace asked in disbelief. “Surely he would have at least noticed the massive pile of bodies outside Leona’s apartment on any given morning.”

“Well actually they’re never in big enough pieces to get away with calling them bodies. I prefer to call them stew fixings, but Leona says that’s just sick.”

I said this with a straight face, though with my mask on, I suppose the effort was a bit pointless.

Wallace asked, “What does she call them?”

“Scratching posts,” I said, feeling a touch of pride at evoking an involuntary shudder from him.

After a moment to recover, Wallace shrugged and moved to a seat across the lab table from me. “I suppose you went against my advice and went to see him already.”

I nodded. “I phased through his door without even knocking, so he had no time to prepare any lies or anything like that. I found him in his kitchen, sitting at his table as he ate a bowl of Miracle O’s.”

I conjured an image of the moment, shaking my head. “It was quite profound for me to see him there, dressed in only a silk bra and pair of lacy thong panties. It might have been wrong of me to think it, but I realized that I would never get my own comic book if anybody knew what I did about double M. Imagine it, a cross-dressing superhero. They’d call him Miracle Queer. That has absolutely no ring to it, you know?”

After several minutes of silence Wallace asked, “You’re absolutely sure that he’s a cross-dresser?”

“I’m positive, since he told me that he was,” I said.

“He told you?” Wallace asked in an incredulous tone of voice.

“He talked to me about a lot of things,” I said, and I was beaming with pride even if he couldn’t see it. “I guess he’s been feeling lonely these last few months. He also told me why he quit being a hero too, saving you some observation time, I’d imagine.”

“So why did he quit?” Wallace asked, waving me to go on with eager impatience.

“His girlfriend left him after she found out about his fetish for women’s clothing.”

Wallace considered this, rubbing his chin in thought. “Did you try to talk him into returning to work?”

“Oh sure, but it was no use. I told him about Leona’s sprees and the rat bastard said he knew. He told me that he wasn’t sure if he could be around Leona any more.”

“Why did he have to stop?” Wallace asked.

I sighed. “Without his girlfriend to relieve his daily tensions, double M lost the desire to fight crime. He can’t be around Leona, because the dumb sap is still trying to be faithful to his girl. He was doing it all, figuratively speaking, for the nookie.”

A soft smile warmed Wallace’s face and his eyes twinkled. “That’s beautiful.”

“In what way?” I asked, curious to get his take on this.

“No lofty goals; no speeches like ‘I’m going to save the world.’ No, he’s just doing it to impress his girlfriend. Now that’s love,” Wallace said. He rested his chin on his hand staring of in some whimsical daydream.

I laughed at him, amused by his romantic streak. “Yeah, well his ego is in the toilet because of her as well. It seems she called him every variation on ‘freak’ before she left.”

“How do you feel about your hero being a cross-dresser?” Wallace asked.

I gave a small wave of my hand “I admit it does ruin my image of him as the perfect man, but he did look good in that little thong. If I thought he would let me get away with it, I would have ravished him.”

“Please.” Wallace huffed a sarcastic snort. “You haven’t ravished anything since tossing your father to a greyhound.”

I gave him a dirty look, swallowing a tacky comeback. His joke stung me more than he knew, but I let it pass. “This still doesn’t change the fact that we need to get Miracle Man back on the job. If I thought it would work, I’d send Leona over to his apartment. I know he’ll turn her down, so there’s no point in having her trash his pad. What we need is a plot to get him back on his feet and believing in himself as a hero again.”

Wallace nodded his agreement. “A city-wide plot, perhaps?”

“I tried that already.” I tried to stay calm, but just remembering that caper made me angry. “A week after he quit, I tried to get him out of hiding, and I failed.”

“What was your plot?” Wallace asked.

“I kidnapped the mayor and told Miracle Man that I’d kill him unless double M came out of hiding. After two days of waiting, I was forced to kill the mayor just so I wouldn’t look foolish, and one dead mayor later, there’s still no Miracle Man.”

“Maybe it wasn’t enough people to convince him to come out. Besides, he might have voted against that mayor,” Wallace suggested.

He was trying to be helpful but didn’t know what he was talking about. “Perhaps you could hold the city council hostage while they’re in session. You get the majority of the city’s ruling body in addition to whoever came to whine at them that day. You could possibly set up an ultimatum of killing a person every five minutes until he showed up.”

“There’s a good chance it still won’t work. He is really depressed.” I held up my hand to silence his protests. “Still, it would give Leona and I something to do other than go to the movies. Leona will jump at it, since she’s always wanted to work on a plot with me. Hmm, what about  you?”

Wallace looked surprised. “You want me to come along?”

“Hey, why not? After all, it is your plan.” I told him.

“No, I—” Wallace began to object before he laughed. “Well, what would I wear? After all, I can’t be seen in public with you.”

I chuckled, nodding my agreement. “I can see the headlines now: Light Master Consults Famous Shrink.” I rose from my chair and waved for Wallace to follow me. “I have something I think you can wear. I was beta testing it for Leona before Miracle Man left.”

Speaking in a deadpan voice, Wallace remarked, “Miracle Man is the cross-dresser, not me.”

“Ha-ha, you are so funny,” I said as I walked up to the heavy vault door. “I keep things that I want kept safe from Leona in here, since titanium is just about the only thing she can’t destroy. I use it for my notes, my spare suit, my beta stage experiments, and—”

“Leona’s catnip?” Wallace quipped.

“How did you know?” I asked, catching him off guard.

He sputtered without forming real words before he snorted and said, “You’re kidding!”

“Nope.” I opened the vault door and went to a small drawer to my left, opening it and tossing Wallace a bag of catnip. I headed to the back wall of the vault to pull a slim black collar off of a peg. I went to Wallace, slipping it around his neck and fastening it before he could say anything.

“What does it do?” he asked as I directed him to a mirror.

“You’ll see. This will hurt a lot,” I warned him before reaching up to press what looked like one of several metal studs on the side of the collar.

“Then don’t do—aaaaaarrrrgh!” Wallace screamed, reaching for his neck.

Leaping forward, I pinned his arms to his sides. “Take it easy Wallace, there’s nothing to panic over,” I explained in a gentle tone of voice. “The collar is setting up a neural link and calibrating itself to your nervous system.”

“It hurts like hell!” he shouted through clenched teeth.

I nodded, my sympathy genuine. “I know, and I go through this all the time. The pain will fade soon enough, but it’s going to feel like this every time you activate the collar. Why do you think I rarely take off my suit?”

Wallace’s grimace faded as his body relaxed. He nodded to me and I released him, directing his gaze back to the mirror. The collar shimmered, then vanished, leaving what looked like eight holes on either side of his neck.

Wallace’s expression was horrified until they too vanished, and then he began staring at his neck with the same kind of fascination that he’d shown discovering Leona’s extraordinary physical traits. He laughed, turning his head back and forth to see if any of the holes would reappear.

“So will I be able to wear this at home?” he asked, and I noticed how all of the irritation in his voice was gone.

“Yes,” I confirmed. “It’s called a stealth collar. As I said, I was designing it for Leona.”

“Huh, a stealth collar? From it’s name, I would presume it can do more than fade out of sight and hurt a lot.”

“Indeed,” I agreed with a quick nod. “With that collar you can fly, move as fast as Leona, and turn yourself invisible.”

“Fantastic!”

“It was supposed to be a gift so that Leona could get her old speeds back, but I couldn’t calibrate it in any way that could replace her tail. She also hated it because she said it reminded her of the collar she was forced to wear by the government. She won’t say anything else about her past with them, but I’m guessing she had as rough a time in the military as she did in San Francisco after her injury.”

Wallace nodded and looked at me with a puzzled expression. “So how do I disappear?”

“You just did,” I said, smiling at his gasp. He reappeared a moment later with a bemused look on his face. I was going to show him how to fly when I heard a scraping sound high above me. “She’s here,” I said.

Wallace nodded, looking up to the rafters. “I see her,” he said in a soft voice.

Shutting the vault door, I turned and smiled at Leona, who was standing less than three yards away from us. “I have a treat for you. Or rather, Wallace does right now.”

“Huh? I do?” Wallace asked, being thick.

“You know Wallace, for a while there, you almost had me thinking that you were smart. That was obviously my mistake, and I’m sorry.” I sighed and took the bag of catnip from Wallace, turning around to face Leona.

I held up the bag and shook it in an enticing way.

Leona’s expression went quickly from delight to suspicion. “This is some kind of trick, isn’t it? You’re just trying to get out of kissing me tonight, aren’t you?”

“Perish the thought, my girl,” I said as I opened the bag. “This is merely a reward for having a zero spree day.” I dug out a pinch and poured it into her palm, chuckling as she snorted.

“She didn’t kill anyone today?” Wallace asked hopefully.

“I didn’t say that,” I corrected him, laughing at his shift of expressions. “I said she had a zero spree day.”

I looked back at Leona, who was purring from her fix. “Wallace is wearing the stealth collar I made for you. I was wondering if you would be a dear and run him through some paces to get him used to having powers.”

Leona shrugged, glancing at Wallace. “Why would your shrink need powers? You aren’t planning on some kind of super freaky orgy without me, are you?”

“No, something even more fun than that,” I said, lying rather smoothly.

I mean, come on. An orgy with Wallace would have been more fun than…I’m getting ahead of myself.

I laughed at Leona’s doubtful expression. “Trust me, you’ll like this, since you and I will be working together. I suppose you wouldn’t be interested in anything like that, would you?”

Perking her ears, Leona asked, “Does a cop like jelly-filled donuts?”

“Wallace has come up with a plan that he thinks might bring double M back,” I explained. “I’ve decided that he’ll be leading it.”

“W-wait a minute here!” Wallace stammered. “I’m no super villain, so how am I fit to lead this mission?”

“You aren’t,” I said. “But you will be once Leona gets through with you. As for my reason why, I’m making you the leader so that if this plan goes badly, I can tell everyone it wasn’t my idea.”

“Terrific,” Wallace grumbled. “I’m taking super powers one-oh-one with a serial killer as my instructor.”

“Hey, I completed a full training regimen at…” Leona looked at the ground and took a long breath to calm herself. She shook her head, looking back up to glare at Wallace. “I’m the best person to train you, Doc, believe me. If anyone can get you used to moving at speeds past mach three, it’s me.”

“She’s right. She usually is; something you’ll need to get used to.” I waved them off. “Now get moving. Oh, and while you’re out training, try to think up a name for yourself. I need to know what to tell the press when they ask, ‘who’s the idiot that thought this up?’”

Leona tittered, then looked at me hopefully. “So if I train him tonight, I’ll get an extra special kiss as a reward?”

“Yes.” I agreed, hoping to keep her in a good mood for Wallace’s sake.

“Cool.” Leona tugged off her sweater, revealing her costume underneath.

“You were going to go hunting tonight, weren’t you?” I asked.

“No, I was window shopping at the museum and saw the cutest antique writing desk that came in last week.” Leona kicked off her shoes and slipping out of her jeans. “This will be a lot more fun, which is why I came to see what you two are up to. Besides, I can always go pick up the desk tomorrow night. No biggie, right?”

Leona’s costume looked like a black one piece swimsuit, but it had a closed neck all the way around. The only part of her backside exposed was the stump of her tail, which jutted out from a hole made for it. Leona called the costume her black ops rig, and sometimes lamented missing her webbing.

After hearing that, I had done some research, and I found something like her costume at a military surplus store. Though their version of a black ops rig was made of regular lycra, I found that the webbing she was referring to was a set of straps that went around the hips, down the side, and around both thighs. Designed for women in covert teams, the webbing held multiple knives, grenades, guns, and ammo clips. Thinking I was doing a good thing, I bought the setup for Leona, but she was actually upset. She asked me why a thief needed military hardware to steal a stupid painting.

What’s the moral of this tangent? Don’t believe women when they say anything. Let’s move on.

Leona’s costume was made with a high grade micro polymer that was much stronger than her normal clothing. While it wouldn’t stop bullets on its own, the fabric would resist tearing at the high speeds Leona moved at.

I’d offered to replace her costume with a bullet proof version a long time ago, to which she had said, “Why? I can outrun bullets.”

Leona pivoted on one foot, leaping up to the open window. She looked back at Wallace from the sill and said, “Let’s go, bitch. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

Wallace looked nervously to me for some words of wisdom, and I instead gave him a short wave of my hand. “Toodles, Wallace. Break a leg.”

I walked to my spare suit to ‘work’ on it some more. From the corner of my eye, I watched Wallace leap up and crash through a window.

I heard a heavy thump on the ground outside and snorted

Leona giggled and shook her head, waving good-bye before she dropped to the ground to help him get up.

Leona was right. Wallace had a lot to learn, and lesson one would have to be flying.

Waiting for a Miracle - Chapter 5, 4.0 out of 5 based on 6 ratings

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... I write dark fiction in a variety of genres. My blog contains my rants and rambles, and some short fiction that can only be found here. I can be pretty fucking offensive, so viewer discretion is advised.

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