Madame Science Chap 6 (ROUGH)

 I actually debated about posting this chapter as is...the tone changed a LOT from draft one to draft two! Thanks for reading :) 

Momento wakes me up at 4am, headlamp eyes shining right into my face, absolutely losing his tiny robotic mind. He doesn’t have good enough speakers for really good barks, but what he lacks in volume he makes up for in pitch. Ouch.

“Why?!” I flail out from under my blankets, accidentally toppling him off my chest. How did he get up here again? He couldn’t have had help, the other four are still loading the updates I made—

Then I remember what I set an alarm for and I scramble for my phone.

SINKHOLE OPENS UNDER 5 FREEWAY. TRAFFIC STOPPED IN BOTH DIRECTIONS.

Yikes. That’s going to be a pain for morning commuters. The 5 is the main freeway through LA. If it’s closed I can’t imagine the congestion along the side streets—

Wait.

“The 5 is in LA!” I leap out of bed, tossing my sheets over Momento by accident. He barks and wiggles, trying to get free, but I don’t have time to help him.

Was it a coincidence? Could it be? The week I get the case and the bionanites are in LA? Coincidence or not, this is probably my only chance to get a sample. I need to get there now, hopefully before too many DOD agents arrive on scene.

I don’t have a lot of gadgets left from the old days. When I first started my parole, I was a little too honest. I don’t have my lab coat, outfitted in cloaking technology and an array of defensive measures. I don’t have my actually-floating-floaties, capable of flying me to the site in mere minutes. I also don’t have my sentient slime. The slime wouldn’t really help me in this situation since all it really wants to do is roll around, but I thought I’d mention it.

What I do have is an outfit in all black, a car that’s easily traced back to me, a couple of test tubes, my worst invention ever created also known as my Dancing Queen shoes, and my gloves. For some reason, of everything they confiscated from me, my gloves slipped by. Go figure.

Loathe as I am to do it, I put on my Dancing Queens. They’re absolutely hideous with big, clunky heels that are already rusting again, a hundred buckles, and the world’s sharpest ankle supports that reach up to just below my knee. I always get blisters from them and I regret ever making them for several reasons.

My gloves, however, are as soft and supple as the black turtleneck I throw on. Why can’t all my inventions be so comfortable? For good measure, I tie one of Hero Force headquarter’s generic black masks around my neck for later. I’d probably need it.

I go out my bedroom window. There isn’t a convenient firescape which is for the best, even if it is a housing code violation. The Hero Force would have insisted on putting cameras on my windows if it looked like I could get down easily. I’m lucky that nobody remembered how I got around the city before I made my flying technology. 

My gloves are black and not actually made of rubber. Rubber is not a good conductor.  I tug them up as high as they’ll go before securing the wrist ties as tightly as I can. Then I snap twice.

Purple electricity crawls across my palms, following the careful matrix sewn on the interior of the gloves. Testing, I press my hand to the brick just below my window. It sticks fast.

“Oooh, baby,” I say, “we’re in business.” I drop my full weight out my window, trusting my tech to do the work. My legs bang against the wall when the Dancing Queens get the best of me, but that’s about the worst of the damage. The cling current buzzes pleasantly through my body, deferring the strain from my wrists which is nice. I scuttle down the wall like a salamander and sneak the long way around to my car.

It’s early, early morning on a Friday so there’s hardly any traffic and, better, very few police out. By the sound of it on the radio, most officers have been diverted to managing the traffic surrounding the “sinkhole.” That’s less than ideal, but I can handle sneaking around a few police lines. I think. Maybe.

Like the Dancing Queens, I’m a little rusty. I really should start going to the gym. I never had to when I was a villain since Light was always chasing me around at supersonic speed. I’m already winded from climbing down from my apartment.

I park in a cul-de-sac that backs up to the affected part of the 5. The streets in this part of LA are crowded and dark except for what little light filters from the windows of the old houses. With any luck, people in this area know better than to go investigate the sounds of an accident. When I climb out of my car, I can already hear the warning blip and shriek of sirens. I’d gotten the alert within two minutes of it happening and arrived on scene 10 minutes later. Apparently that’s slower than local first responders.

I cross through someone’s backyard to the corner and clunk my way towards the on-ramp. The Dancing Queens are heavy. I peek around the last building on the street. Walnuts. I’d been thankful none of the residents were in their front yards a little too soon. They’re all clustered around the start of a police barrier, about a dozen of them in pajamas and the other dozen fully dressed.  There’s already a line of cars at the stoplight leading to the on-ramp. Doesn’t anyone sleep in LA? 

Then, of course, I clunk my way towards the crowd, trying to act like I’ve also just stumbled out of my house to check out the sirens, and I see the damage. Yeah, that’d be pretty hard to sleep through.

Oh my god, I think, staring at the shards of rebar twisting through mountains of concrete and rubble, no one is going to believe this is a sinkhole.

The overpass has collapsed. Ten lanes of highway look like they just crumbled down to street level. There weren’t any injuries reported on the radio, but I don’t see how that’s possible. Numbly, I join the crowd pressing against the police barrier, making sure to keep to the back and the shadows.

Impossibly, there aren’t any cars in the destruction, thank god. A piece of the overpass cracks and tumbles down, causing a number of residents to shriek and stumble back. The chunk has to weight at least a couple hundred pounds judging by how loud the impact is. I hear it hit once, roll, a beat, and then a more distant crash.

No way.

I struggle around the crowd, finally dodging out into the street to get a clear breath. Walnuts. There’s the sinkhole.

The street under the overpass is just a giant hole. I can’t wrap my head around what I’m seeing. The edges of the hole, the ones I can see around the rubble, are so smooth it looks like someone edited the ground out of a picture. The mouth of it has to be at least eighty feet, spanning from one side of the street to the other. That’s almost three times wider than the damage in the DOD’s file.

“The base is wider,” I murmur, staring at the wreckage. A chill races down my spine and I nearly tip over when I forget about the Dancing Queens. My arms windmill twice before I regain my balance.  Yanking my mask up around my face, I lurch forward. “The base is wider! Get back!”

Nobody’s listening to me. As if hearing my words, I hear an all to familiar crack and rumble. The ground underneath, already weak from the sheer number of cables and pipes running through it, is crumbling.

I jump into the air, slamming the platforms of the Dancing Queens together. Gold sparks splutter at the impact and for a heart pounding moment I think they’re malfunctioning. Then I feel the familiar vibrations under my toes as the speed function engages.

The next second I’m blasting forward, wind whipping loose strands of my hair against my face.

The Dancing Queens are, by far, the stupidest and most dangerous invention I’ve ever made and I’m including the sentient slime. They’re a standard part of my old uniform because they’re useful, but I never used them unless I had to get away.  The speed function isn’t my least favorite function, but it’s close. Why I ever thought rocket-powered roller skates were a good idea, I don’t know.

I skid to a stop in front of the police car blocking the on-ramp, just behind the barrier. Do I remember jumping over it? No. The Dancing Queens have a tendency to take care of that for me, thank god. Even I can’t think at the speeds they’re capable of.

The police officer closest to me stares. “What?” 

The one behind him draws his gun.

I am way too comfortable in the line of fire. I raise my hands and speak very quickly. “I’mavigilantedon’tshoot.”

Now the cop closest to me draws his weapon. His eyes narrow and his graying mustache twitches. “What.”

“I’m a vigilante,” I say. I throw a wide-eyed look at the hole when another crack rents the air. “The, uh, sinkhole doesn’t go straight down. We need to get these people back, the ground is going to collapse.”

One of the officers turns towards the hole while the other keeps his weapon on me. After a long moment, the sound of crumbling rock echoes up from the depths and he swears. He yanks the radio on his shoulder towards his mouth and growls a series of ten codes.

The other officer holsters his weapon and turns to wave at the crowds. “Everyone back up! The street’s not safe!” He calls over his shoulder to me, “Either help or go, vigilante. I’d go—unregistered heroes get arrested.”

I don’t answer him. There’s a crevasse in the asphalt bolting under their patrol car. Their patrol car which the other police officer is climbing into. “Walnuts.”

“What was that?” The officer with the mustache asks as grinding pierces the air. His eyes widen. “Oh sh—“

I bolt forward just as the ground starts to go.

I race for the patrol car and as I’m about to hit, I slam one foot up. My platform smashes into the backdoor, denting it spectacularly, but I stop before I plow through the driver’s side. The officer inside jumps, fury in his eyes when he sees me yanking open his door. “What are you—“

“Sorry,” I say and clap once. My gloves light up an eerie green and I grab the front of his shirt. “Clench your teeth.”

I throw the officer, strength enhanced for three seconds by the current running through my gloves. It absolutely wrecks my shoulders without the corresponding enhancements in my clothes, but the other option is letting the officer fall with me when car shudders and then drops.

This is very heroic of me, I think as I fall. Then I hit the bottom of the hole, nearly 63 feet underneath me by my calculations and all I think is ow.

The Dancing Queens throw up a cloud of sparks in agreement.

I’m lucky to not be under the car. I blink furiously, flat on my back. Dust and debris are still falling around me, the earth rumbling ominously. I cough when I exhale dirt and groan as I roll over. There’s a lot of screaming coming from above me, but there’s hardly anything I can do about that. I’m already at the bottom of the hole.

Painfully, I drag myself up. My gloves need a chance to recharge, maybe a minute or two. I tug one off so I can use my bare hand to get the dirt out of my eyes. This is why I prefer my old costume’s welding goggles. Dirt doesn’t get in your eye when you’re wearing welding goggles.

I cough again, squinting through the dust clouds. I’ve got a handful of minutes before the DOD arrive and spots me poking around their active scene. Since I’m not allowed to be here, I need to get my butt in gear, recovering from a 20 meter fall or not.

The damage looks way worse from the bottom than the top, but there’s still not enough wreckage for what’s happening above.  The bionanites must have eaten a lot of the debris.

“Yummy,” I murmur and continue my inspection.

Like in the field, the hole is wider at the bottom. I can’t quite see to the other end, but it’s at least 150 feet if, like the crater, the way the wall tapers is consistent all the way around. I study said wall taper. If the ground under the street didn’t have so much infrastructure in it, the hole would’ve been stable. About 80 feet at the top, 160 to 200 feet at the base. 

Water is gushing out of more than one cut waterline. The extra moisture can’t help. Warily, I eye the frayed electrical cables. There’s a lot more than I expected down here. Someone in the neighborhood’s got absolutely insane WiFi if I’m recognizing that grouping over there correctly. It almost looks military.

I clomp my way towards the center of the hole, partly to get out from under any more crumbling street, partly to see if the bottom of this one is as eerily smooth as the crater pictures. I’d need something the bionanites touched to run tests and you can’t pay me to get too close to the wall after a fall like that.

“Walnuts!” The toe of my boot catches on concrete and I swear as I go down. I bang my elbows painfully against some sharp corners. I pray I’m not bleeding. I’m pretty sure my blood is in the system after all the scans and prints they logged when I surrendered myself as Madame Science.

I sit up to see what tripped me. I’m expecting rubble, maybe some rebar. I’m not expecting a foundation. 

I scramble to my feet, backing up so I can get a better view. The dust is nearly completely settled, revealing that I didn’t jump to conclusions. This is a building foundation buried under the streets of LA. Whatever building this belonged to wasn’t small.  Judging from the structure, it would have been about...4000 square feet.

What was a building that size doing down here?

This is too suspicious. I can’t wait to tell—Oh, walnuts.  I don’t have anyone to tell. Not until I can connect this to a super-powered person anyway.

Well, I can’t wait to be proven right for my own personal gratification.

Metal shines from the center of the pit. I clunk forward, staring in awe at the foundation. Judging from the design, it’s not exactly old. Mid 1980s at the oldest since that’s when these particular earthquake protective measures came into play

“Are you okay, vigilante?” a man shouts from far away. I recognize his voice as that of the cop I threw. Nice to know he’s okay. “Knock twice if you’re dead!”

I look up, stilling for a moment. Can they see me? A quick scan of the lip reveals no faces, but if they’re yelling for me then it won’t be long before they try and come down to get me. I need to get a sample and get out of here. I pull a test tube from my back pocket. Luckily they’re nearly indestructible otherwise I’d have a bunch of glass in my butt.

The ground underneath my feet goes from dust and rubble to completely smooth. I was right. Like the crater, the bottom of this hole’s been melted and compressed. The only parts of the foundation left is the outside ring of it. All the supports and connections the building would have sat on are completely gone.

The shiny metal in the middle that caught my eye turns out to be a plate, much too shiny to be part of the building or any of the surrounding infrastructure. It’s especially noticeable since everything around it is bitten, decayed and melted. I kneel down, frowning. The plate’s about three inches by three inches, dust obscuring the face of it. I wipe away the dirt.

“Oh,” I say faintly. There’s a symbol engraved into the metal, dark and blaring against the shine. Mannaz. I swallow, new chills racing down my spine. There are some really nasty implications for why this symbol is here. There are some really nasty implications for me if the DOD knows my connection to this particular rune and gave me the case anyway. Or, worse, because of it. “That’s not good.”

I whip around when more rocks fall behind me. Flashlight beams sweep across the bottom of the hole, briefly touching on the police car and then zeroing in on it. “Vigilante?” The cop calls again.

I need to get out of here. I stuff the metal plate into my back pocket, praying it doesn’t fall out. Why didn’t I bring a bag? I should really have brought a bag. I pop open my test tube and use my thumb to tap my middle finger, then my index finger. Small claws deploy from the tips of my fingers and I use them to pry up bits of the ground. It’s barely more than a couple pebbles, but it’d have to be enough. I shove the tube into my bra and bolt in the opposite direction of the flashlights. 

There’s got to be a way out of this hole besides the top. There’s a whole building down here, if there isn’t a way out I’ll be shocked.

I get to the opposite edge of the pit. The overhang above me is unstable, liable to fall at any moment. I don’t have a lot of options. I look up, eyes scanning the walls. Cables, pipes, weird pockets of gravel, come on, come on, come on…

There.

“I hate sewers,” I groan. It’s about forty feet up and slowly dripping something dark and viscous. This part acts as drainage for the street when there’s rain. It doesn’t rain in LA. I don’t want to think about what that sludge actually is.

I click the toes of the Dancing Queens together at the same time snapping twice. The soles light the same purple as my gloves. Cling function.

I haul myself up the wall, gritting my teeth at the incline. I really need to take up rock climbing or something. This used to be easy. Is it because I’m nearly thirty? Is that why my body is betraying me like this?

I slither into the sewer opening right as the first flashlight beam skims by. Any slower and I would have been spotted. I stay on my hands and knees, panting. Maybe yoga?

This is no time to relax. My arms and legs scream at me when I get to my feet. There are two intact tunnels in front of me. Judging by the angle, the left one runs along the main street where the cars are getting stopped by the police barrier. The right one snakes under the residential areas, closer to the big parks by downtown.

Yeah, not a hard choice.

I go right.

The tunnel is narrow, just a little over three feet tall at the shortest parts, maybe four and a half feet at the tallest. Junctions where other tunnels meet this one are bigger, but I stay away from them for now. I need to get further away. I also can’t risk light being spotted through manholes. Luckily, my boots provide just enough of a glow for me to really appreciate how disgusting the little water that’s in here is.

My thighs burn as I crouch through the darkness, thanking my lucky stars that LA is perpetually in a drought. The slime at the bottom of the tunnel is preferred over a flash flood.

I’m about ten minutes into my painful crawl through the sewers when I realize I’m being followed.

Whoever’s following me is good, I’ll give them that. I can’t pick out any footsteps besides my own and they’re staying far enough back that I can’t see them out of my peripherals when I take a sharp left. 

The only reason I know they’re there is because of the water dripping from a small pipe branching off of the top of the tunnel. When I go under it, disgusting ammonia-smelling water drips on my shoulder. Absently, I count the number of drops as they echo behind me. I get to six. No drip. Then seven.

That single missing drip sends my heart racing. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. If I had my old equipment I wouldn’t have missed it for so long. I keep my pace steady, head spinning.

I have to assume whoever’s following me is going to attack. They haven’t attacked me yet because...because… The tunnel narrows and I’m forced to sit-crouch to get through it. Like hell I’m getting on my hands and knees in here even if it means I do let them get the drop on me. Oh. A light turns on in my head. They haven’t attacked me because they’re at a disadvantage too. They need more room.

I grin into the darkness. It’s not the soft smile or diluted smirk I give Scott. Adrenaline is pumping through my veins. Nobody gets the jump on Madame Science. 

Light filters into the tunnel from an opening twenty feet ahead. If I’m getting my directions right, we’re in an industrial area. That means less care to compact design, bigger sewer junctions. Probably enough room for a proper brawl.

I wait until I’m parallel with the entrance and then bolt into the junction. Like I’d hoped, it’s giant, the top opening up like a cathedral. Against the far wall of it is a ladder leading up to a manhole. Perfect. I stop about ten feet from the ladder and turn to face my pursuer.

“Looks like you spotted me,” a man says. His voice echoes ominously from the pipe, making him sound even more threatening. Metal slams against concrete. He doesn’t care if I hear him now. “But you’re not running. That’s a mistake.”

I laugh. If people think my real grin is off-putting, it’s nothing compared to my laugh. Cackling might be a more appropriate name for it. Mad cackling. “I don’t make mistakes.”

“Neither do I,” the man snarls. In the dim light, I can see him rise out of the tunnel to his full height. Three metal appendages writhe behind him, catching the dim light from the manhole cover.

I stumble back, horrified. “No.”

Machinery whirs and hisses as the LEDs around the man’s eyes flicker on. They flood the junction with light, revealing that it’s not just appendages. The man is wearing a full suit of prosthetics. He laughs. “Yes!”

Looks like Gear’s made a jailbreak.