Justice Machine Prequel: Recruiting the Free Force

[dans]

Since this story doesn't take place in any of the 5EP main universes, it probably doesn't matter on which of the gazillions of alternate Earths it occurs, but for the record, this story happens on the same Earth that was referenced in: The Owl and Lady Owl: Department E

Recruiting the Free Force

Prologue

Douglas Hamilton, Dr. Victor Von Croft and Jon Clark sat in a conference room next to Hamilton's office in the floating city named New Atlantis, somewhere in the North Atlantic. They had been here for a while, reading portfolios from the folders scattered across the table. Each folder had a color photo clipped on the front. Most had been now pushed into a jumble across the table but there were still three each in front of Von Croft and Hamilton.

"So, Victor, we agree that for now we are going to avoid well-established, publicly known 'supah heroes' and instead recruit a team of unknowns?" Hamilton, a tall and skeletally thin man, with a long face and light brown hair, permanently confined to a floating chair, asked Von Croft. His accent was pure Bahstan.

"Ya, dey vill be easier to control," the red-headed fully bearded scientist agreed reluctantly in a strong German accent. "Still, vat a team dees vould haf made for us." He sounded regretful as he slowly re-examined the photos on each of his three folders before dropping them on the pile across the table.

'Atlas', a black-haired clean shaven man with a square jaw, wearing a skin-tight blue top with a high yellow collar and the emblem of a closed fist highlighted on the chest, his fists on his hips. 'Lightning Girl', a slender woman with wide shoulders in a skin-tight red top with a jagged yellow emblem on her chest, shoulder length golden brown big hair, a silver belt and a blue skirt 'The Human Fly', a man in a gray chain mail costume, a hood which closely covered his entire face with big, faceted goggles over his eyes and two antennae protruding from his forehead, with big transparent wings

The folders Hamilton retained showed photos of

• Michael Joburo, a bulky young man with short-cropped almost white hair
• Rick Bondshield, an unusually handsome man dressed in a tan leisure suit
• Brad Parks, a somewhat taller powerfully-built man with black hair and large black-feathered wings

"So the problem now is how to convince them to work for us." Hamilton mused. "Mr. Clark, that's up to you and Mrs. Smith. The two of you will begin immediately."

As Clark, a handsome young man wearing a military-style uniform with a logo that said "New Atlantis Security" gathered up the three portfolios, in an adjacent office Mrs. Smith, a young woman, tall and thin wearing a very modest, undistinguished business suit with her reddish hair pulled back in a severe bun, was already on the phone making travel arrangements.

Part 1

In a world with dozens of super powerful beings, a carnival could no longer bill their strongman as 'The World's Strongest Man'. The adventure hero Atlas probably rated that title, though there were at least a dozen super-powered men and women around the world who might argue the claim. So Tom Titan wasn't billed as the World's Strongest Man, but the signs surrounding his exhibit on the midway were pretty lurid anyway, including a prominent picture of Tom pulling a boxcar while carrying a pony on his shoulders. The stage was littered with weights, including a dumbbell with the bells larger then beach balls, each labeled '250 LBS'. A big clock on the back wall of the booth ticked down towards Tom's next performance 25 minutes away; a very large, ruggedly handsome man with black hair and an handlebar mustache, dressed in a traditional leopard-skin strongman leotard casually warmed up.

Though people were trickling in, the booth was still almost empty. Standing near the back, one watcher, a big guy wearing a denim dungaree over a white t-shirt with a straw hat, was commenting disdainfully to his friend about the upcoming presentation, and he didn't bother to lower his voice. "Fake, phony, just another rip-off is all. The steel bars are rubber, the weights are paper mache, hell, even your third-grade daughter could probably lift them."

Tom Titan had been listening to this man for a while during his warm-up routine, and had earlier suggested in a fairly even tone that the fellow should leave and maybe go admire himself in some of the fun house mirrors, but now he was tired of the loudmouth. He was currently casually curling the 500 pound dumbbell; he angrily bent it into a U shape, then then threw it at the heckler with a laugh. "Here, buster - why don't YOU try lifting it!"

A young man, maybe 6' tall with white hair in a flattop buzz cut and very wide shoulders who had just entered the booth lunged at the flying weight and managed to grab the bar, and grunted as he stopped its flight. The young man looked around, found an open spot away from the sparse audience, and carefully placed the bent dumbbell down. "You should be more careful, that could have killed him!" he admonished the astonished Tom Titan. (This is one of the men we've seen before, on a portfolio in New Atlantis - his name is Michael Joburo.)

"Told you it was phony!" the loudmouth spoke loudly. "Look how that bar bent - must be plastic! And that other guy caught it like it was nothin!"

"Who the hell are YOU?" Tom Titan roared, aiming his anger at Joburo. "You must be the strongman from Bingading Brothers looking to take my job! My girl Alex is still recovering from some kinda crud one a your buddies put in her beer!"

The Bingading Bothers Road Carnival had recently gone bankrupt and a good number of performers had been trying to get jobs with the Walker Traveling Circus. Bingading Brothers had always had a shady reputation and some of the unemployed performers had used unscrupulous methods to try to create openings in other carnivals. Alex was the featured aerialist in the Walker Traveling Circus and she'd been drugged by an out-of-work trapeze artist from Bingading who wanted her job. Lucky for her she wasn't much of a beer drinker; one of the roustabouts she'd been hanging out with a week ago when she'd met the aerialist had finished her beer and almost died; he was still in the hospital on constant IVs.

"Hey, not me!" Michael tried to deny the accusation. But Tom Titan wasn't listening; he raced from the stage and threw a powerful punch at the young man, who was too startled to dodge or block.

"THWACK!" the impact was audible a hundred feet away - and Joburo reeled backward into the hanging canvas that separated this attraction from the next one (Big Chief Eagle Claw, the Flying Indian), and tore it down around him. But he easily tore away the heavy canvas and angrily confronted Tom Titan, and the two large, powerful men began fighting. Tom Titan really was extremely strong, but now that the youngster was prepared for them, even Tom's most powerful blows no longer had much effect. Michael wasn't very fast, though, and was definitely unskilled as a fighter, so the circus strongman was easily able to evade his clumsy blows - and when a missed punch by Joburo easily shattered the totem pole outside Eagle Claw's booth, a totem pole which had been carved from a telephone pole, everyone realized that the young man was much more powerful than even the rugged circus strongman.

"Hey, RUBE!" Eagle Claw hollered (...nobody turned into a bare-chested superhero with a red cape, that's another circus...) and there was chaos for the next few minutes, as carnival goers fled the fight and carnies raced to help their fellow. Michael calmed down quickly when he was surrounded by a dozen big roustabouts carrying knives, sledgehammers and clubs.

"I'm not a circus strongman, and I'm not out to take your job!" he protested indignantly to Tom Titan. "I probably saved that guy's life and kept you from being arrested!"

"It's OK, guys! I got carried away," Titan responded slowly and reluctantly, trying to calm his fellow carnies. "He's right, I coulda killed that guy. Not that I woulda minded a lot... but I mighta ended up in a lotta trouble."

Everyone milled around for a while, until the Ringmaster showed up and took charge. He put a team of roustabouts to work restoring the damaged booths, and then gathered Joburo and Tom Titan for a private talk.

"Sorry, kid, we're all edgy these days. A lot of other carnivals have gone out of business and we're all of us, including me..." that was an aside to Tom Titan, "...worried about our jobs. But Walker ain't firing - or hiring. If you're looking for work, try Haley's."

"All I wanted to do was go to the circus. But I've had enough - you guys are all nuts! It's back to the farm for me!" Michael declared loudly.

"We're all nuts, huh?" Tom Titan snarled back at him, and it seemed like they might come to blows again.

The Ringmaster thought about stepping between the two large, powerful, angry men, then thought better and just reached out and grabbed Tom Titan by the shoulder. "Tom, enough for one day! You're on in 10 minutes; let's not miss the show!"

One big powerful man looked at the other; both seemed to decide that continuing their fight was pointless, and without further words, they turned away from each other. Tom Titan headed back to his booth; Mike headed for the gate and the parking lot.

Unknown to all the participants, the entire encounter had been secretly but intently observed by two interested groups.

A group of around a dozen men were gathered in a small tent; the original occupants of the tent were currently unconscious on the floor, their hands and feet tied and gags over their mouths. One of the standing men had opened a canvas tote bag and was passing out gray robes to the others.

"Say, Hawley, maybe we outta tink about pickin up that udder guy stead a Tom Titan. Didja see how he caught that dumbbell? Made it look easy as pie!"

"Why not both of 'em, Spuds? We used Willy and Terry to 'charge up' today, and if we can get charged from both this Titan guy and that white-haired kid, we'll be the strongest guys in the world!" the leader of the group responded approvingly. "You take Tilly and keep an eye on the kid. The rest of us will put the snatch on the muscle guy, then we'll figure out how to snatch da kid, too, tomorrow." Spuds and another man dropped their robes and headed for the gate. "OK, you mugs, get ready," Hawley ordered the rest of his group. "Time ta introduce the Bridgeport Muscle Mob to the world! Don't you guys worry about nothin' - for the rest of the day, even the weakest wimp a ya is strong as any 3 guys, easy!"

In a secluded area between several tents, Jon Clark was supporting Mrs. Smith. She was leaning heavily on him, with one hand on his shoulder for added support. Her head was bent forward, her eyes were closed, and her other hand was on her forehead. Her face was white and Clark could feel her shuddering.

"Do you need medical attention, Carolyn?" Clark was very concerned.

"I'll be OK, Jon," Mrs. Smith responded, speaking so weakly he could barely hear, gasping slightly between words. "It wasn't too... difficult, telepathically convincing Joburo and Tom Titan not to fight. Neither of them... really wanted to fight. Titan was... really... worried after... he saw the totem pole get shattered... by a single punch. And Michael has some kind of... really complicated... bizarre mental block about fighting. But calming down the crowd... I've never before... tried to affect so many people at once." Suddenly her knees gave out and Clark barely caught her in time to ease her into a sitting position.

He squatted next to her as she drew up her knees and put her head down on her crossed arms. He had to bend forward to catch her next words, but her voice grew stronger as she spoke.

"Michael's on his way home now. He is pretty upset right now; we should wait until tomorrow to try to contact him. And I'd like to spend some more time figuring out his mental block. Some terrible event in his past caused him a lot of anguish, and even though his mind has blocked it out, the suppressed memories always affect his behavior. I think I can help him - even if he doesn't want to work for New Atlantis." She shifted her position and before he could offer her help, she was back on her feet. "C'mon!" She headed for the fairgrounds parking lot.

Jon surreptitiously pocketed the device he was holding, a handheld communicator that resembled exactly a cheap pocket-sized transistor radio. He'd thought about calling in a New Atlantis medical team, but for now, at least, it looked like it wouldn't be necessary.

Michael Joburo lived on a farm about 10 miles northwest of Cheshire. Though they didn't find out until much later, the New Atlantis team was about halfway to Cheshire when the Bridgeport Muscle Mob struck at the carnival. Ten men, dressed identically in gray robes and pointed hoods, began wreaking havoc on the fairgrounds. They had guns but didn't use them much; they seemed more intent in showing off their physical prowess. They delighted in beating up fair goers, breaking things with their hands and tearing down tents, and three of them rampaged through the parking lot overturning vehicles. Hawley and two of his men battered their way into Tom Titan's show and made a point of fighting with him, letting everyone see how the powerful strongman was helpless against them, while one of them knocked him out with a sucker punch while he faced the other two. After a 10 minute rampage of destruction, the robed and hooded Bridgeport Muscle Mob threw the bound body of Tom Titan into the back of a pickup truck, then piled if after him and headed out. The truck was found abandoned later that day on the Wilbur Cross Parkway, halfway to Bridgeport. And the Bridgeport Muscle Mob were the headliners in all the nearby papers the next day!

[dans]

The next morning, in the Muscle Mob's hangout, a long abandoned YMCA building in the poorest section of Bridgeport, the mob gathered in a surprisingly orderly, large room - half the gym had been repurposed as a research lab, with tables covered with electronics and chemical apparatus interspersed with big storage cabinets and a number of bookshelves. In the rest of they gyms, half was devoted to exercise equipment while in the other half stood a big metal box the size of a garden shed, one metal wall partially covered with dials, switches, gauges, and flashing lights, the rest dominated by two large reels of magnetic tape. The machine was flanked by two big transparent glass tubes with hinged doors, each large enough to hold a standing tall man, with a big metal cap at the top of each tube connected to the machine by a heavy cable. Tom Titan, his arms and legs tightly bound, slumped against the inside wall of one of the tubes, while Teddy, the strongest man in the mob, stood uneasily in the other. Green rays streamed down from the metal caps and washed over the men.

"Geez, boss, I'm glad you got someone to take my place in dat tube today!" Willy, another very strong mobster, spoke to Hawley while pointing at Tom Titan in the left hand tube. "I was weaker than a kitten all day yesterday. Almost got knocked down by the wind when the fan came on!"

In his tube, Teddy snarled. "You'd better get some other sucker to take my place tomorrow, Hawley. There's nothing I hate worse'n a weakling - except BEING a weakling! You'd better bring this sucker back withya today or you can find someone else ta drain tomorrow!"

Hawley was starting to understand the attraction of being physically powerful. He'd loved being strong enough to bend steel bars yesterday, and couldn't wait to be even stronger today. He turned to a thin older man with white hair and wearing a white lab coat who was standing at the controls of the machine. "How many more times before it's permanent, doc?"

"Maybe a dozen, Mr. Hawley," the man said with perfect diction, a little annoyance evident in his voice. "And you KNOW I prefer Professor!""

"You ain't at Yale any more, 'Perfessor'! They couldn't bust your ass outta there fast enough after you got that jailbait girl pregnant!" Hawley sneered. "And this ain't no Doby Gillis Island TV show! You want us ta make ya rich, you answer to 'doc'...or 'fockwad', if that's what I feel like callin' ya. Get it?"

"I understand, Mr. Hawley," the professor answered tightly. "After a few more 'treatments', as you call them, you will be permanently stronger than you ever were without my invention - and after about 3 weeks, you'll be permanently as strong as the two 'samples' put together." What he didn't tell them was that being that strong would destroy their bodies in another 6 months - he expected to take off with his share of the loot long before they discovered that particular piece of bad news.

The green rays stopped and doors in the tubes opened. Tom Titan fell to the ground, barely turning his head enough to avoid breaking his nose, too weak to support himself or even break his fall with his arms. Willy grabbed Teddy to keep him from falling and eased him into a chair. The Professor picked up a device like a paint sprayer connected to the machine by a long flexible tube. Hawley stepped forward and the Professor aimed the sprayer at him; he was washed in a barely visible beam of yellow light. He stepped back, another Muscle Mobster stepped forward and was sprayed, and the process repeated. On the front of the machine, the hand on a big speedometer-style gauge kept falling back to the left; it was almost on Empty when the last mobster got his daily dose.

Hawley remained in front of the machine to oversee the process, but around him the enhanced mobsters were trying out their new strength, throwing around the weights and engaging in several impromptu wrestling matches.

"Cheez, boss, lookit this!" Spuds shouted, and Hawley turned to see his minion straining to hold a 750 lb. barbell overhead. "Yestiday I could only do 500!"

"And after we capture that Joburo kid today, tomorrow you'll do twice that!" Hawley boasted.

"Err... Mr. Hawley, that might not be wise..." the Professor spoke up hesitantly. "The process makes the bones stronger as well as the muscles, but not as efficiently, and it doesn't affect the instinctive use and more importantly restraint of strength..."

"Shaddup, doc!" Hawley barked. "You just keep musclin' up my guys!" As the last Muscle Mobster was enhanced, Hawley called them together. "Willy, Spuds, bring in the new robes!" Those two hurried to a side room while he addressed the rest of the group."OK, you guys know what to do - mosta you hit the city; me, Willy, and Spuds will grab the other strongman. And I got bigger plans for tomorrow!"

Willy and Spud carried in a big wooden crate, almost as large as the enhancer machine, and even with their new strength, they were struggling a bit. That box weighed a lot! They dropped it; Hawley stepped up and easily ripped it open. Inside was a jumble of grey Muscle Mob robes and hoods - but these were made of chain mail.

"Now that we're all strong enough to wear these, from today on, we're not only stronger than anyone, we're bulletproof!" Hawley gloated. "Hand 'em out, boys, and suit up!"

The long-sleeved, floor length gray robes, each with the red crossed Ms of the Muscle Mob emblem on the chests, clanked to the ground. Each weighed around 75 pounds, and the pointed hoods added another 15. Even yesterday, when his mobsters had each been enhanced with the strength of his 2 strongest minions, Hawley had felt these were too heavy to wear all day, but today they felt no heavier than the gray canvas Muscle Mob robes they had worn previously. After they all donned the robes, Hawley pulled out a pistol and before anyone could react, took a couple of shots at Spuds. They all laughed when the bullets bounced off. "Tilly, get goin - you and the boys go out an show Bridgeport who owns this city!"

[redsycorax]

So, does this Earth have any anti-metahuman legislation which might be provoked by the reckless conduct or behaviour of some of the more ruthless supervillains or edgier superheroes? Or do the villains behave themselves akin to the Silver Age Flashes Rogues Gallery, Earth-One Lex Luthor and others and have moral boundaries which they won't cross (ie intentional homicide)?

[dans]

Haven't worked out a lot of the history of this Earth yet. But compared to any of the Earths in the 5EP, there are relatively few super powered humans, and their powers are relatively limited. (Basically they are all either PD characters from the World War II era, legacy characters related in some way to those PD heroes, or OCs with limited power sets - or related to the Free Force, which doesn't yet exist in the year this story is set...) There are enough super-humans that the average person knows of their existence; not enough to cause major changes in major events in history from our world - until the mid-80s, at least.

Doc Hugo Strange (of alosun fame) was the most powerful man on Earth through 1946 when he vanished. Atlas is the most powerful man on Earth at the time of this story. Atlas is not invulnerable, can't fly, and doesn't have super sensory powers - so there is no Superman equivalent. (I think a good comparison in power levels would be to the late 60s Legion, minus Superboy, Mon-el and Supergirl...)

For the moment, Bridgeport is going to have to deal with the Muscle Mob on its own...

So I doubt if there is any anti-superhuman legislation. There is an obscure US government department concerned with super-humans, Department E, which is not taken seriously - the Super Soldier serum Dept. E created during World War II, Machtedicine, was notoriously unreliable. I am planning to work in Department E shortly; there is a relationship between Michael Joburo and Doc Hugo Strange.

[dans]

"There's his mailbox!" Jon Clark noted to Carolyn Smith, who was driving their rented car. "That dirt road into the trees must be his driveway!"

She stopped the car on the shoulder of the narrow country road and concentrated for a while. "Yes, that's his farm and he's in. We're all set."

Jon shuddered. "Geez, Mrs. Smith, it creeps me out when you do that kind of stuff."

"I'm always very careful never to touch anything important, Jon! You know that," she snapped back with some asperity. "And it's for the cause of New Atlantis - helping to create a peaceful tomorrow. We've talked about this before!"

They had, and they never came to agreement, so he didn't reply. She turned down the driveway; it was about a quarter mile, first through some woods and then through some carefully tended fields, to Joburo's farmhouse. It was very large, and they thought it odd that there wasn't an equally large barn, but instead a much smaller equipment shed, maybe the size of a two car garage. Michael Joburo answered the door shortly after they knocked - he was dressed in a faded, well-worn denim coverall and looked like he was ready to begin his workday.

Mrs. Smith began talking as soon as he opened the door. "Good morning, Mr. Joburo. We're the reporters from "Scientific Farming Monthly Magazine". I'm Mrs. Smith and this is Jon Clark."

Michael looked confused for a few seconds, then his face cleared in a smile, as he searched his memory and 'recalled' a letter he'd received a month ago from the magazine requesting an interview, and his acceptance letter in return. "Ah, yes! I apologize; I'd totally forgotten our appointment today. Well, you've caught me at a good time; I'm just finishing breakfast. Can I offer you some coffee, and maybe some home-made pastry?" He stepped back to let them in.

Clark expression shifted to annoyed anger; Mrs. Smith jabbed him hard with her elbow when she was sure Joburo wouldn't notice.

"Thank you, Mr. Joburo!" she smiled brightly as she led her colleague inside. The farmhouse was neat as a pin though very sparsely furnished. They reached the dining area which opened off the entrance hall and Juboru seated Mrs. Smith. Clark winced at how heavy his chair was; the dining table chairs must have easily weighed 30 pounds each though Michael handled them easily. That led him to notice that all the furniture in the house seemed to be made from heavy lumber, and though it was stained and varnished, there was no attempt at decorating or ornamenting the wood - all the surfaces seemed to have been built from 2x8 planks and all the legs were plain columns of wood perhaps 5 inches in diameter.

All of Michael's movements were slow, restrained and very deliberate. As he was pouring Mrs. Smith's coffee, there was a tremendously loud noise like an explosion, as outside, Hawley lowered his shoulder and slammed into the the closed front door. The door shattered inward, spraying the entrance hall with a deadly hail of jagged shards of wood. The three Muscle Mobsters charged into the house and were in the dining room before Michael and his guests could react. Simple taps on the chin knocked out Smith and Clark.

Michael stood up quickly and grabbed the back of his chair, then swung it at the invaders like a baseball bat. He hit Hawley and knocked him backwards; the mob boss crashed into the the heavy china cabinet, exploding the glass doors and crushing most of the china inside, though his robe and hood protected him from glass cuts. Joburo threw the chair through the bay window and then followed it, hoping to draw the intruders away from his guests. The tactic worked; the three Muscle Mobsters, Hawley, Spuds, and Tilly, burst out of the house through the shattered wall.

Michael wasn't running away in fear. A few years ago, he had ingested a chemical compound that he had (mistakenly) identified as alosun*. It had made him immensely strong and durable, though it had also damaged his mind. He wasn't afraid of the Muscle Mobsters, but he was worried about Smith and Clark being hurt, and also about further damage to his house. He'd fight this battle outside.

*Alosun: a serum invented by Dr. Hugo Strange, reputed to be the "distillate of sun atoms". Alosun temporarily grants the user superhuman strength, increased durability and resistance to damage and the ability to fly. What Michael Joburo actually discovered was a dose of a drug called "machtedicine", a compound that had been given to Doc Strange by Department E, a small US Government department that had been created during World War II to try and perfect a Super Soldier formula. Machtedicine had proven to have unpredictable results and sometimes debilitating side effects, and Doc Strange had never taken his dose, preferring to rely on his own creation, alosun, even though he had to periodically take a new dose to renew his powers. He'd always planned to try to analyze and improve machtedicine, but he'd never begun that project before he disappeared in 1946.

"What the hell do you want?!" Joburo screamed at the men who smashed through the wall of his house. "Who are you?"

"Why, Mikey boy, I'm your Uncle Sam - and I want you!" Hawley laughed. The three Muscle Mobsters spread out to flank their victim, and started closing in.

"I know you now!" Joburo exclaimed as he recognized the robes of his foes. "You're the bums who kidnapped Tom Titan yesterday from the circus. The Muscleheaders, or something like that. The "Klan in Gray" they called you in this morning's papers. A bunch of cowards is what I call you, wearing masks and ganging up on one guy. You think three of you is enough?"

"Get 'em, boys. Nobody mocks the Muscle Mob no more!" Hawley snarled to his minions. The three closed in.

Hawley had 'graduated' from brawls when he'd become the boss of the Muscle Mob, and he was definitely out of practice. He got a little too close a little too soon, and Joburo slammed a roundhouse haymaker to his jaw - and Hawley flew backwards, crashed into a long-dead elm tree, cracking the trunk and knocking it down. He scrabbled weakly on the ground for a while as Spuds and Tilly, both experienced street fighters, moved to each side of their opponent - if he turned to face one of them, his back would be to the other. As Michael swung his head back and forth, trying to watch them both at once, Spuds waited until he was looking at Tilly and then dove at his legs.

After Spuds knocked him down, Tilly jumped on him as well and Michael was unable to squirm out from under the two men. He was stronger than both of them, but their punches hurt and wore him down, and while he did manage to landed some powerful blows from underneath, they were less effective than those of his foes. The pounding went on a lot longer than Spuds or Tilly would have anticipated and Joburo actually seemed on the verge of turning the tide when Hawley finally recovered enough to rejoin the fight. Simultaneous punches by all three of the Muscle Mobsters finally knocked their foe unconscious. By then, Joburo's carefully tended lawn was cratered and torn up and two more of his trees had been knocked down.

"Cheez, Hawley, it ain't fair. Lookit us, bloody and bruised," Tilly complained loudly, "and him not a scratch on him!" To emphasize his anger, Tilly kicked Joburo strongly in the head. It was true - They had seen bruises form and cuts and tears open on their opponent, but he seemed to mend from these 'minor' injuries almost instantly. In contrast, while the Muscle Mobsters were now many times stronger than a normal man, they weren't invulnerable and didn't heal any faster, and they were covered with cuts and bruises. Hawley's face was swollen and black and blue, and Tilly was favoring his left leg after Joburo had practically twisted it off.

Watching the incredible fight from inside the wrecked dining room, when they saw Tilly kick their new acquaintance in the head, Mrs. Smith had to exert her mental powers to restrain Jon Clark from screaming in rage and rushing to attack the Muscleheads. "You're no match for the three of them!" she insisted. "We can't help him if they capture us too. I can't control all of them, either. But I think I can make them forget we're here. And I know where they're taking Michael. We can follow them, and between the skills of both of us, we ought to be able to free him..." Clark reluctantly agreed with her, and she dropped her mental control.

Meanwhile, the Muscle Mobsters showed that they had come prepared to deal with a physically powerful opponent. They pulled chains and manacles from the back of their panel truck and wrapped Joburo in restraints - to the point where it took two of them to carry him into their truck. Hawley drove; Tilly and Spuds rode in the back with their captive, armed with metal baseball bats and orders to smash him in the head if he started to come around. They seriously dented two bats on their trip back to Bridgeport; in both cases, the visible damage done to Joburo's head by the bats was healed in only a few minutes.

They were followed by Mrs. Smith and Jon Clark in their rental car. Mrs. Smith's mental powers allowed her to follow far enough behind that they weren't spotted. So when the Muscle Mobsters backed up to the loading doc of the abandoned YMCA building in Bridgeport, the pair from New Atlantis were parking not far away.

Michael was carried into the gym and stuffed into one of the glass tubes. The professor stood in front of the controls and the green rays washed over the unconscious captive - and suddenly, there was a loud retort from within the machine, the green rays blinked out, all the gauges on control panel dropped to their pins, and the many lights studding the panel all winked off. The professor started swearing, using terms Hawley had never heard before.

Hawley screamed at the professor, demanding to know what had happened. "The circuit breaker tripped; the machine's storage capacity is overwhelmed!" the Professor yelled back equally loudly. "This man is immensely powerful; I designed my machine to store the power of a hundred normal men."

"You better be able to fix it, by tomorrow!" Hawley threatened.

"Simplicity in itself," the professor replied smugly. "A simple cut-out that stops the energy ingestion process when the subharmonic energy density in the quantum dialectic condenser is near to full charge... but I warn you again, Mr. Hawley, it will be dangerous, supercharging a normal human to that extent."

"Just be sure you CAN supercharge the Muscle Mob tomorrow, Doc. I got big plans for tomorrow!" Hawley growled. Then he gave orders to his team. "Put the kid in the storage room and make sure he's still tied up good - we're gonna need him tomorrow!" He rubbed his hands together in satisfaction, looking quite like a Saturday morning villain as he did so. "And then, let's head out and join the rest of the boys and have some fun!"