My Atomic Angel Read online

and a massive cocktail of tranquilizers is injected straight into Jenny’s nervous system. On the screen, she staggers.

  Not for the first time, I find myself gripped by the horror of Jenny’s reality. Her greatest enemy is no giant monster, but her own body.

  The Red Hawks’ super-sonic jets dive toward her, arming their special payload for times like this.

  “Liquid Nitrogen rounds armed!” Davis says, “Fire!”

  The Red Hawks swarm around her, pelting her with missiles. The air quickly goes white as the sub-zero chemicals freeze everything they touch. She falls to her knees, wrapping her arms around herself. I hate watching this, but it’s the only way to save her.

  For minutes, we wait. The alarms continue to blare, the medical monitors beep in patterns I’m not even conscious of now. All eyes are focused on the swirling white cloud and the unmoving form inside. My lips move in a silent prayer.

  Suddenly, the alarms stop.

  “Core temperature falling.” Wexler says, “Returning to safe zone.”

  I hear everyone exhale in relief, myself included.

  “Good job, Red Hawks.” Cullen says.

  “Happy to help.” Davis replies, but the usual cockiness is gone from his tone. He knows how close to the edge we were.

  “Carrier One, move in for extraction. Get the Quilt ready.” Yeah, she was going to need it. Her bodysuit is just a hunk of ice now, and as soon as she stands up, well, I better quite thinking about it before I embarrass myself. Fortunately, someone had the good sense to develop a 300x300 foot thermal insulation tarp just for her.

  “Sinclair, status report.” Cullen says. Dr. Sinclair adjusts her glasses as she reviews the bio-data they received before the suit was destroyed.

  “G-Cell saturation was at less than 10%. We’ll administer the cellular degenerate when she gets home.”

  “How fast was the development?” Dr. Sinclair is quiet for a moment. As taciturn as she is, I don’t think she wants to admit to the truth any more than we want to hear it.

  “Cell growth was up by 20% from the last incident.”

  “It’s getting worse.” Cullen growls, and lightly pounds his hand on the railing. He’s been here longer than any of us, since the very beginning. He saw what happened to the first Atomic Woman, and the second. Now he’s watching it happen again.

  He regains his composure and taps his headset.

  “Carrier One, this is HQ. Bring our girl home.”

  “Roger, General.”

  “And tell her…tell her…”

  “Sir?”

  “Nothing. Just come home. HQ out.”

  An hour later, Jenny’s home, but it’ll be a while before I can visit her. Carrier One delivers its payload safe and sound, if a little worse for wear. I catch a glimpse of her hair, broken short thanks to the ice. I see the scars on her arm, and know that these are only the latest, and nowhere near the last.

  She’s immediately ushered to the medical bay, a sterile chamber over 1000 feet in diameter. Diamond tipped drills puncture her concrete hard veins, injecting her with more chemicals. The treatment will take several days to wipe out the G-Cells in her body.

  I try to get on with the only work I can do. As soon as Jenny is safe in the med-bay, the Grease Monkeys bust out the wrenches. Despite my parents’ high esteem, and the best schooling government money could afford, I barely qualify for my position here.

  “Come on ya bunch o’ slackers.” Big Earl slurs at us, “We’re on the clock now. Barnes, you and McNairy get on axel two.”

  “Right, chief.” I answer and go to work. Sid and I work in tandem, breaking down the wheel and axel of the Carrier’s landing gear, making sure everything is perfect. Every nut, every bolt is loosened, replaced, and tightened to the best of my ability.

  That’s all I am in this operation, a wheel jockey. It’s all I’m good for. Every day I do this, but I do it with pride, because I’m doing it for her. That’s my whole life.

  The first time I saw Jenny, I was 10. She was 9 and already the size of a small condo. She was playing in the sand outside the base, stacking massive boulders on top of one another. She was just like any other kid.

  My parents urged me to be friendly and talk to her. I was scared at first; any little boy pretends to be brave until he meets something bigger than he is. Full-grown men aren’t much different, either.

  But I went up, said hello, and she reached down and picked me up in that giant hand of hers. She set me down on top of the little tower of rocks she’d built and leaned down close.

  I said hello again, but she couldn’t hear me. My voice just couldn’t reach her. So I waved, and I gestured, and we ended up playing charades all day. She laughed then, one of the only times I ever remember hearing it. It was such a sweet sound.

  I wouldn’t realize it until much later, but I’m pretty sure it was then that I started to fall in love with her.

  The next time I saw her she was 14, and the call came in. A Titan had been spotted, and it was time for her to do her duty. Jenny never said a word, just put on her suit and climbed aboard the Carrier. But I could see it in her eyes; she was terrified.

  I stowed aboard, not knowing what I could possibly do, just that I had to be with her. She was curled up in a fetal position the whole trip, tears streaming from her eyes, and I hid behind the landing gear, too afraid of being found.

  But those big eyes saw me. She reached her trembling hand toward me but all I could do was wrap my arms around her fingers, and try to hold them still. She never stopped trembling.

  Then the Carrier landed, and she looked at me, and she smiled. The doors opened and she wiped her tears away. She stood up, turned toward the monster and started walking forward. I’ll never forget that moment.

  From that day on I knew I had to help her. I had to be of some use, and the only way to do that was to join A.T.O.M. But with the fate of the world riding on them, they wouldn’t accept just anyone. I studied medicine and engineering, threw myself into it with everything I had. But the best I could do was end up as a mechanic on the Carrier.

  Oh well. I refuse to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have any room to complain. I’m here, and I do something that benefits her. Anything else is just being selfish, and that’s not what she needs.

  As I make my way to the med-bay, I pass the staff lounge. The TV is blaring the Gold Standard, a news program hosted by Gary Goldstein, former economist turned political commentator and Jenny’s biggest detractor. I stop for a moment to listen.

  “Once again, ladies and gentlemen,” Goldstein says, oil leaking from his wavy hair, “The fine people of A.T.O.M., the world’s so called ‘heroes’, unleash wanton devastation on the innocent citizens they profess to keep safe!”

  Footage of Jenny’s latest duel flashes behind him as he spits every syllable, in particular the shots of her scorching the landscape with her atomic vision. Taken out of context, it really doesn’t look good.

  “Over two hundred million dollars in property damage, over 1500 cases of severe burns, and the whole Caribbean coast of Florida is now a radioactive cauldron!”

  His studio audience bursts into a chorus of jeers and boos. The camera sweeps across their angry faces. Are they really this ignorant?

  “The famed, ‘Atomic Woman’, callously and willfully ignores the safety of the environment while dealing with these threats. But it’s pretty clear to me that the biggest threat is the giant teenage girl with an atomic bomb for a heart!”

  Fire leaps into my chest. How dare you? How dare you sit there and condemn her. Don’t any of you realize that she’s the only hope we’ve got?

  I hurry on down the hall, my guts boiling, but I get myself under control before I reach the door to the clinic. I knock and the door slides open. The room inside is stark white, with a few chairs and a fake plant in the corner.

  Dr. Sinclair is sitting at her desk going over the charts. She looks even more grim than usual. She glances up as I approach.

  “
Oh, hello Ricky, didn’t hear you come in.”

  “Hi, Doc, how’s Jenny?”

  “She’s healing nicely, as always.” I feel the weight of the past few hours vanish at that news.

  “Can I talk to her?”

  “You’ll have to use the intercom. The ice damaged her audio-link. It’ll be a few days before we can operate on her to repair it.”

  I turn toward the observation deck, but I can’t move an inch until I ask the question.

  “The G-Cells, they aren’t gonna be a problem, are they? She won’t…change, right?”

  Dr. Sinclair is silent. She quietly slides the chart she was looking at into her desk drawer and stands up.

  “I’ll give you two some privacy.” She says, and walks out of the clinic.

  “Okay.”

  I walk out onto the balcony overlooking the med-bay. Jenny is reclined in a giant examination chair with numerous tubes connected to her arms and neck. She’s covered in a simple white gown, the only normal clothing she’s got. It protects her modesty, but doesn’t hide the scars that cover her arms and legs. Thick calloused marks crisscross her limbs, and I know more are etched across the rest of her.

  For the moment, she’s dozing peacefully. I almost hate to bother her. But I have to let her know I’m here.

  I pick up the small microphone on the railing of the deck. I click the button once and the loud speakers in the med-bay beep. I clear my throat.

  “Jenny? Jenny it’s Rick, can you hear me?”

  Jenny’s eyes flutter open, and I can see they’re still bloodshot from using her atomic vision. She looks around,