In the early morning hours alarms sounded throughout Wonder Base. Within the apartments of the Wonder Heroes the alarms were firm yet gentle and just irritating enough to wake one from a deep slumber without undue irritation. Theodore found himself pulled out of a terrible dream. An enemy that seemed both terrifyingly familiar and completely alien was stalking him, and he had no defenses. Wonder Hero Gold bolted upright in bed, his eyes wide with terror and sweat streaking down his forehead. Dismissing the dream from his mind Theodore stretched his right arm for a satisfying pop in his shoulder. He still was not used to sleeping with the attached Wonder Gauntlet and no position felt comfortable.
The lights came up, and the Wonder Computer calmly explained the emergency, something to do with a problem at a robotics research facility. Theodore made his way into his bathroom and splashed water on his face to clear his mind. A look at himself in the mirror caused him to jump back in horror. The face that looked back at him was not his own. Blinking, Theodore looked again, and saw his own face staring back, breathing heavily. Theodore shook his head and summoned the Wonder Armor, instantly forgetting the bad dreams.
“These two robots were originally part of a team of three,” said Matt, Wonder Hero Ultra, quickly briefing the Wonder Heroes en route to the teleporters, “Each robot had a function: killing, destroying and crushing. Don’t ask me what the difference between destroying and crushing is, these robots seemed to know. After we got through with them there wasn’t a lot left of Destroy, but Kill and Crush were salvageable. At Wonder Base we removed the robot’s weaponry, and had the bodies in storage until about three months ago, when the USC asked to study them. Without armaments they seemed harmless enough, so we allowed it.”
“Maybe it’s a coincidence,” said Theodore, leading the team onto the teleportation pad, “the problem might not be the borrowed robots.”
Jay was, as usual, the last on the teleporter. “No such thing as coincidence, Teddy.”
Susan noticed Matt rolling his eyes and smiled: it was difficult to take Jay seriously sometimes. Then she saw Matt’s gaze fall on Theodore and quickly looked away, the trace of a frown playing across his lips. Susan knew that Matt was still dealing with the betrayal of Harlan Flicker, and that it was difficult for him to look past the golden armor and see Theodore, not Harlan underneath. Matt was the strongest person Susan had ever met, but recent events had shattered his world and she did not know how to help him.
A second later the room was empty as the team teleported away.
The Columbia Campus of the University of South Carolina, even at 8am was usually a bustling, vibrant experience. The sky was clear and the sun was out, but there were no people, and the birds were strangely quiet. In a flash of rainbow colored light the Wonder Heroes appeared out of nowhere. Susan noted a lone black squirrel watching them, and saw books scattered about the campus and some papers blowing past, evidence, perhaps, of a hasty evacuation. Susan saw smoke rise from behind a building; her sensors told her that a small police van had crashed there, but she could locate no immediate threat.
Kalomo jogged up a few steps of the wide stairway leading into the building that housed the robotics lab, his right hand up, bracing for an attack. “I can hear stuff going on inside. Sounds like machinery, but there’s some kind of shield affecting my sensors.”
Matt leapt up the stairs, and stood next to Kalomo. “There’s not much our sensors can’t penetrate.” Matt concentrated and extended his sensors as powerfully as he could. “You’re right, though. I’m getting nothing.”
Jay was getting fidgety. “I’m feeling awfully exposed out here, guys. Maybe we should go inside the lab…”
“I don’t like going in when we don’t have a clue what’s going on…” Matt said, before an incoming communication from General Rumpole interrupted him.
“Okay Heroes,” said the General, “here’s an update. Inside that lab we’ve got two teenagers, a regular Bonnie and Clyde team.”
“Human?” asked Matt.
“As far as we can tell,” said the General, “they killed a trucker in New York, a security guard in New Jersey, and broke into a military base outside DC before coming here. They might have their hands on some high-tech alien weaponry.”
“They’re blocking our sensors,” said Matt, unsuccessfully trying not to let the team hear the small tinge of worry in his voice.
There was a pause, and then the General said, “I’ve got no information on that. I don’t know where they’d get that kind of capacity. We might be talking alien possession here, or some other weird alien tech. Proceed with caution.”
Matt nodded and said, “Right.” The team stood ready for orders. No one moved.
Susan stepped forward and touched Matt on the shoulders. “Should we go in?”
“I don’t like this Susan. It feels wrong.”
“True, but we can’t wait out here.”
Matt looked at Susan and she could see the uncertainty in his eyes. The faceplates of the Wonder Heroes were opaque to the world, but semitransparent to each other when viewed straight on. “What should I do?” he asked.
“Lead the team in,” said Susan, “We stay together, and cover each other. Post one of us outside the sensor block field, just in case.”
“Okay,” Matt nodded and then said, loudly, “Theodore! You’re staying here; alert us if the situation changes. Everybody else, follow me, stay close, but not too close.”
Matt started up the stairs and Susan Jay and Kalomo followed. The doors were locked from within but Matt easily forced them open with a minimal application of the Wonder Armor’s strength enhancement.
“Great,” mumbled Theodore to himself, “I’ll stay here, out of the action.” He plopped down on a wooden bench and watched the black squirrel watching him. “Awesome.”
When the rest of the team entered the Robotics Research Lab Theodore could no longer track them, but his sensor’s did detect movement from the back of the building. He jumped to his feet, scaring the squirrel into a tree, and took to the air on a blast of golden energy. He soared over the three-story building and could see four figures, two human and two robot, fleeing from the building and heading for the parking lot.
On his Wonder Visor Theodore received confirmation that the two humans were Karasik and Jensen, wanted for a string of crimes and murders. The robots were Crush and Kill, curiously operational despite extremely low power signatures. Jaimie Karasik was carrying an alien, bazooka-like weapon in her hands.
“They’re escaping out the back!” said Theodore, but received no answer from his teammates; whatever was blocking the team’s sensors was also blocking their comms.
Deciding it was up to him, Theodore swooped low, brought his gauntlet to bear, and fired a sharp beam of golden energy at Crush. The shot was well placed. The robot was under armored, so Theodore was able to blast the legs out from under it, sending the top of the robot, torso, arms and head, clattering to the pavement.
Alerts flashed across Theodore’s visor and he had less than a second to realize that the girl, Jaimie Karasik, was targeting him with the alien bazooka. Theodore’s visor went black as a too bright flash of energy overwhelmed it, and he heard a sound like thunder. There were no known terrestrial weapon that could harm someone wearing Wonder Armor, and Theodore had an instant of soon to be dashed comfort in that fact before the blue bolt of lightning-like energy caught him in the chest and gripped him. The bolt of living energy writhed like a snake with a fighting rat in its jaw, arcing Theodore high into the air, before curling abruptly and slamming the Wonder Hero into the ground.
Underground lawn sprinklers were shattered, and water sprayed and began to fill the man-shaped crater the held the unconscious form of Wonder Hero Gold.
Inside the Robotics Research Lab, the Wonder Heroes were cut off from outside communication, and had no idea of the events occurring outside. Their sensors now only worked within the confines of the building, and they detected no life signs, but several potentially dangerous robotic systems, terrestrial, rather than alien, in design.
Matt was annoyed. “We met something like this before. I mean the old team. Sensor jamming technology developed by the Geheimites.”
“I read about that in the comic,” said Kalomo, “you found them a new home world.”
“Maybe they came back?” asked Susan helpfully.
“No. They couldn’t,” said Matt, his voice carefully neutral, “We didn’t find them a new home world. They all died fighting us.”
“What? I don’t get it…” Kalomo asked, confused.
“You read the comic book Kalomo, the official story. The truth is that the Geheimites didn’t want any world but ours. They tried to take the planet, failed and died.” Matt pointed at the room that led into what seemed to be the main laboratory. “It happens that way sometimes.”
Kalomo was speechless. Susan patted him on the shoulder. “You okay?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” said Kalomo.
“Who cares?” said Jay, taking up a position behind Matt, ready to back him up if a fight erupted, “It’s ancient history.”
“Exactly,” Matt agreed, “Let’s get this over with.”
Jay and Matt charged into the lab, followed by Susan and Kalomo.
The robots in the lab were primitive, slow, and lacked any kind of offensive weaponry that could pose a threat to the Wonder Hero armor. Matt and Jay rolled into range, Matt evading the gunfire, Jay allowing his armor to absorb the multiple impacts. They each wrapped their fists in auras of energy and punched a pair of attacking robots into scrap metal. Susan fired a blast of red energy across the lab, frying another robot’s circuitry and rendering it inoperable.
As the team scanned the room for more targets, Kalomo crouched in front of a machine, terrestrial in design, but augmented with what appeared to be advanced, perhaps even alien technology. After a moment consulting his gauntlet, Kalomo flipped a few switches and turned it off.
“It’s the sensor jammer,” Kalomo said, by way of explanation, “I just turned it off.”
Instantly the Wonder Heroes sensors and comms widened to include the outside world. Contact was reestablished with the Wonder Computer and General Rumpole, who was urgently saying, “…in. I repeat, Wonder Heroes report. Wonder Hero Gold is down…”
Susan shot out of the laboratory. Kalomo followed and caught up to her outside as she was helping Theodore climb out of a muddy, man-shaped puddle in the university lawn.
“P…” said Theodore, clearing his head, “Susan?”
“Take it easy,” Susan said as she attempted to patch her gauntlet into Theodore’s to get a diagnostic reading. Surprisingly, her attempt was rebuffed. “I can’t get a reading here.”
“Hold on,” said Theodore as he concentrated on his gauntlet settings, and suddenly the data began to flow again. Susan was relived to see that though Theodore had suffered a severe blow, but was already well on his way to recovering.
“You’re going to be fine,” said Susan, echoing what her sensors told her.
“Nothing hurt but my pride,” added Theodore, stretching to pop a kink in his back.
Jay and Kalomo took to the skies, black and white streaks against the blue sky. “They’re scouting the area,” said Matt, reviewing the data from the Wonder Computer about the weapon that had hit Theodore.
Susan helped Theodore to his feet as the Wonder Computer forwarded its conclusions to the team, saying in its usual calm voice, “It looks like Wonder Hero Gold was hit by a Procyonic disruptor.”
Matt frowned. “This is making less and less sense,” he said, “First it’s the Geheimites, then the Procyons? And they’re using robots?”
Theodore was starting to feel like himself again. “It’s as if someone’s collected the leftover tech of the aliens your team fought in the past…”
Matt palmed his forehead in realization. “Jay, Kalomo, get back here. We’re going back to Wonder Base.”
Jay and Kalomo exchanged looks as they halted their scans. “We haven’t tracked the robots yet,” said Jay by way of protest.
“They can block your scans and they’re probably long gone,” Matt looked at Susan meaningfully. “We need to talk to the General.”
Susan did not like the worry in Matt’s voice. “What’s going on?”
“Somebody’s revived Project Kryptonite.”