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@kingscountycomics
THRUST’S SUPERHERO PARTY on EARTH-212!!
KingsCountyComics.com Presents:
On March 24th, 2015 at Fontanas Bar, all of existence was altered, forever…
Featuring: Kurt KC Christenson as THRUST!! Ginzilla Beastmode as John Constantine OdetteCoquette as Barbie/Gwen Stacy/SpiderGwen Miss Kacie Marie as ATLANTEAN MARTIAN QUEEN Crimdella as BLACKZEUS X & Paco the G Train Bandit as Himself.
Guest Starring: The Amazing Spider-Man!
Video by VonesperStudios
The Countdown has begun. ARE YOU OMNIVERSAL?
Join TURBO & REALMER-X, along with VELOCITYGIRL & IVI, as they make their way through alt.Dimelines & CrossXover Points recruiting for the TEEN TIMESPACERS!! Pledge on @Kickstarter today to reserve a spot on the team!
TeamUpInTimeSpace.com
TEAM-UP in TIME.SPACE: Issue ZERO!
A Free Comic Book Day One Page Mini-Comic to kick off the new anthology comic series that stars YOU!! Above is THRUST & LORD ZERO, a Speedster and a Scientist at odds with one another on EARTH-212!!
Download & Print your own copy now!
Power Play Press Release - PowerPlayComic.com
From the heart of NYC comes the original digital comic book series POWER PLAY, co-created by Marvel artist Reilly Brown & writer Kurt Christenson.
Presenting the first ComiXology comic to refine what has now become known as Guided View Native Digital Comics, a series that utilizes the technology developed to read comic books on your smartphone, tablet, or web browser, while maximizing the story-telling potential of this new medium.
Power Play is about New Yorkers with superpowers, but rather than fight crime, they don makeshift costumes and form an underground streetgames league. From all across the Five Boroughs, competitors come for a chance to claim the League Cup, for fortune, glory, or for the free year of beer at their neighborhood dive bar.
Power Play is a love letter to the diversity of New York City with each character satirizing the stereotypes of the locals, with a wink & a nod to their various neighborhoods. The scenes in the comic are MADEinNY, drawn from photo reference of actual New York locations, monuments, bars, etc. so that you can experience the city first hand, building on those of us who know it well, and introducing it to those who’ve yet to visit.
Drawing inspiration from early Spider-Man, Archie Comics, & Sports Manga, Reilly and Kurt have created a new, accessible, fun comic book story that’s a fresh take on superpowers, mixed with the obstacle courses that only the Greatest City in the World can provide!
There is a FREE preview on our Facebook Fanpage as well as on the number one digital comics provider, @comixology, where the first four issues of the first story-arc THE GOWANUS GAMES are currently on sale for 99cents!!
Kurt ‘KC’ Christenson, Comic Book Creator
Let me help you Make Comics!
I live in Brooklyn as a Writer/Creator with 15 years experience with writing, scripting, editing, lettering, color flatting, graphic design, prepress, photo editing, social media, marketing & PR, event producing, & performing.
I’m the co-creator of @powerplaycomic inventing Guided View Native digital comics with ComiXology, the author of THE TOWER OF BRAHMA, and former writer for Entertainment Weekly & NY Daily News.
Find me on FIVERR & TWITTER
Visit @kingscountycomics for more!
Free Comic Book Day meets Cinco de Mayo! Cosplay Bar Crawl: May 5th 5PM @ the AstorPlaceCube
Come down to learn how @kurtchristenson used @fiverr to turn himself into a SuperSpeed, Time/Traveling, SuperHero; THRUSTisHere!!
@THRUSTisHere on @tapasapp
Time-Traveling Super/Speedster seeks CrossXOvers & Team-Ups!
Join in on the Action Now!
THRUST/VELOCITY a Valentine’s Day single
by Kim Boekbinder: Infinite Minute 2!!
THRUST’S SUPERHERO PARTY on EARTH-212!!
KingsCountyComics.com Presents:
On March 24th, 2015 at Fontanas Bar, all of existence was altered, forever…
Featuring: Kurt KC Christenson as THRUST!! Ginzilla Beastmode as John Constantine OdetteCoquette as Barbie/Gwen Stacy/SpiderGwen Miss Kacie Marie as ATLANTEAN MARTIAN QUEEN Crimdella as BLACKZEUS X & Paco the G Train Bandit as Himself.
Guest Starring: The Amazing Spider-Man!
Video by VonesperStudios
Bringing TIME & SPACE Stage Shows to TV! Pitching TEAM-UP in TIMESPACE as a series for BricTV today!
!CAUSALITY! & THRUST!!
SuperVillain Sidekick vs SuperHero Slacker
Power Play Press Release - PowerPlayComic.com
From the heart of NYC comes the original digital comic book series POWER PLAY, co-created by Marvel artist Reilly Brown & writer Kurt Christenson.
Presenting the first ComiXology comic to refine what has now become known as Guided View Native Digital Comics, a series that utilizes the technology developed to read comic books on your smartphone, tablet, or web browser, while maximizing the story-telling potential of this new medium.
Power Play is about New Yorkers with superpowers, but rather than fight crime, they don makeshift costumes and form an underground streetgames league. From all across the Five Boroughs, competitors come for a chance to claim the League Cup, for fortune, glory, or for the free year of beer at their neighborhood dive bar.
Power Play is a love letter to the diversity of New York City with each character satirizing the stereotypes of the locals, with a wink & a nod to their various neighborhoods. The scenes in the comic are MADEinNY, drawn from photo reference of actual New York locations, monuments, bars, etc. so that you can experience the city first hand, building on those of us who know it well, and introducing it to those who’ve yet to visit.
Drawing inspiration from early Spider-Man, Archie Comics, & Sports Manga, Reilly and Kurt have created a new, accessible, fun comic book story that’s a fresh take on superpowers, mixed with the obstacle courses that only the Greatest City in the World can provide!
There is a FREE preview on our Facebook Fanpage as well as on the number one digital comics provider, @comixology, where the first four issues of the first story-arc THE GOWANUS GAMES are currently on sale for 99cents!!
Kurt ‘KC’ Christenson, Comic Book Creator
Let me help you Make Comics!
I live in Brooklyn as a Writer/Creator with 15 years experience with writing, scripting, editing, lettering, color flatting, graphic design, prepress, photo editing, social media, marketing & PR, event producing, & performing.
I’m the co-creator of @powerplaycomic inventing Guided View Native digital comics with ComiXology, the author of THE TOWER OF BRAHMA, and former writer for Entertainment Weekly & NY Daily News.
Find me on FIVERR & TWITTER
Visit @kingscountycomics for more!
Twentysix. 6. 'Thirdeye x 3rd-I' (pt. a)
I'm vertically expanding my third eye into the core of the Earth. A lance of imperceptible light, withdrawn from the downward center of everything, now raised upright in a horizontal challenge. Two million unicorns, all parading around daily with varying degrees of stellar self projecting from their frontal lobe. My own spike shooting forth, clearing a path, and drawing onlookers who can't see, but feel my presence.
I'm at the 8th Street subway station over by Astor. On the other side I spot several innocents milling about, on their way home from dinner, drinks, dancing. I suspiciously try to subdue my soul long enough to slip by, escape out on to the streets above where I'll have room to maneuver.
Trains speed along the four rows of tracks between me and the others, and just as the trains pass they make their move. I can't see it from the other side but I know the scene. Eyes glaze over as brainwashing triggers seep into their ears from the headphones of their iWorlds.
The young girl is first across, bounding and leaping between the pillars. She drives her knee towards my face. I slip under as she smashes the tiles, and I make a dash for the stairs. From the corner of my eye I see McAllister has commanded a dozen more civilian assassins with his gadget.
I skid to a halt at the bottom of the stairs. Behind me a slew of flying and leaping attackers. On the top step, a Thai warrior in sandals waits patiently for my first move.
Maybe leaving New Jersey before my powers returned wasn't such a good idea. I should have known it wouldn't be this easy to sneak back into New York City.
As I'm typing this, I suddenly feel my consciousness being sucked through a straw. I warble into being at a bar out in Brooklyn. I glance at my watch and will see that I've been brought through time and space. Only one girl would teleport me to Williamsburg on a Saturday Night...
Megan Strange.
She pops over my shoulder as I think her name. I should have guessed. "It's not time for you in the story yet darlin'..."
"Oh phooey." She waves her hand and schrunches her nose, her pink highlights accenting her freckles. With a snap of her fingers and a smirk she sends me back to finish my story. Her story.
Out in New Jersey I had put my fractured mind back together, my body long since healed. Mentally resurected, I found myself wandering the outskirts of New York City, afraid of what lie in store for me across the Hudson.
My powers were all but gone and I was trying to get them back but it seemed they were temporarily blocked. At least I hoped it was temporary.
I went online so I could speak with other superpowered folks to get a better idea of what was behind all this. Taia Nihilation, the explosive jailbait anarchist who carved a path of destruction through Philadelphia, mentioned something about papaya extract. It worked to a degree but I was still not nearly strong enough to sneak back into my city. A few others from the tri-state area gave me some hints. But impatience got the best of me and within a few months I was trying to sneak back in.
I contacted Eve Impossible, knowing that she would be my best bet for slipping in unnoticed. I had my best disguise on as I went to meet up with her on the Manhattan side of the Holland Tunnel. I hit Canal, made a right, and headed up the stairs to the club.
It was lowkey and still as I searched the room. Odds are she would find me way before I spotted her. Unsure and feeling nervous, I had a beer or two before the dance floor exploded to life. The music was infectiously upbeat and I bounced right into it. I was letting go and celebrated living through the severe beating I received a few months back, just a few stories above this exact location in fact. Ms. Mercury had made it clear I was not welcome here.
But I wasn't thinking of her as I danced. I wasn't thinking of anyone but myself. And that's when Eve appeared before me. We were suddenly moving and grooving and getting down. Our mad passion to dance was spreading to all those around us as the night swung wildly on.
A few hours later we hit the streets as she led me into the empty outside. She doesn't say much and encourages me to do the same. Eve stops in front of an all black sports car as the passenger side door pops open.
"Get in. I'll contact you when I can."
I silently and obediently followed her instructions and plopped myself into the seat. The door shut of its own accord and I watched Eve, her blonde hair whipping behind her as she walked coldly away. I turned to the driver who was just as intimidatingly quiet.
I tried to strike up conversation as I was escorted back through the tunnel, but this man in black would have none of it. He was stone so I gave up and enjoyed the ride. But I felt defeated. I would have to rely on Eve Impossible from this point on.
Knowing our history I was surprised she got back to me as soon as she did. She gave me another place to meet up. I was headed out the door when Daisy Hurricane landed before me. I had ran from her a few weeks earlier as she fought me to love her.
I expected a fight that, despite being a bit stronger than before, I would instantly lose. But instead she wanted to say goodbye.
"I just want to make sure you're safe and that you're good. Use this if there's any trouble." And with that she handed me a red sword. It looked old but felt like a true weapon.
I hugged her tight and we both knew that we'd never see each other again. Tears welled up as the sound of helicopter blades suddenly rose up all around us. Daisy tossed me to safety as the bullets from the attack helicopter started ripping everything to shreds. She had caught a slug or two but felt nothing. Instead she channelled her anxiety, frustration, and broken heart on the attackers above.
Whirling into the air she knocked the copter about, whipping the winds about her. Landing gently on its side she drove her fists through the armor. She waves me off and continues to pound the artillery into scrap. I race off down the block, blood red blade in hand. My powers were pulsating in bursts, surging me forward with each pounce. SUVs screech around the corner, each with mercenaries firing automatic weapons. I grip the sheath and draw the blade.
Leaping and soaring over the hoods of the skidding trucks, I drive the sword slicing through the steel. The cars all flip and crash as I land and roar down the street. The train is blasting its engines as it pounds down the track. I pounce off a lightpost and snag a handhold, tossing myself onto the roof. We're speeding past Main Street as I see the calvary arrive in black, driving off in the wrong direction.
Just a few miles out of NYC I feel a presence behind me. I'm about to glance behind when I smell Strawberries and misfortune. "Megan, not yet. I haven't even made it back into New York yet."
"Can't you hurry it up? I want to go dancing..." I can hear her pout.
"Give me a few paragraphs sweetness."
Back on the tracks the trains bursts into Penn Station. I leap down and wrap the sword in a garbage bag. Suspicious as heck, I make my way to Union Square. Just a few minutes til the meet with Eve. Better hustle.
I'm running all the things I learned from the others I communicated with. Mary Mega's meditational mantra, Dr. Dementia's prescription of pleasure, and Minnie Soda's delicate drunken dance. They used their own magick to enhance and empower themselves. I needed to find my trigger.
Eve was late. Or I was. I shook my watch and looked up and down the block again. Empty. I started getting nervous. The people were what made this city safe. An omnipresent third party; witness and observer.
A petite blone turned the corner. She had her head down, under a hood, but her golden locks hung unevenly from beneath. She felt magical and friendly, even on these dark, foreboding streets.
I opened my mouth to speak but before I could say anything, her fingers shot out, and pressed against my lips. Her subtle twinkling eyes rose up from under the hood, locking onto mine. The moon lit up her serious smile as it transformed into a devilish smirk.
I was sent soaring straight up into the air, hit by some unseen force. She floated up next to me and grabbed me by the collar. She whizzed me around and hurled me into the side of a building a block down. I hit it hard, but grabbed hold of a ledge and hung there gathering my senses.
She zoomed towards me beating her pixie wings furiously. Her fists extended she was intent on finishing me off. I pounce off the side of the building and glide towards a flag pole. I wind up just missing it as I get a shoulder block in the back from the toughest fairy I've ever met.
We're zooming towards the pavement as I roll with the hit, flipping myself onto her back. Clumsily, I jump off as I steer her into the sidewalk. I land and start to run. My muscles start to come alive with kinetic intensity. By the time I reach the corner I'm skipping blocks at a time.
I whipped back around and slid back through Union Square. Crouched and ready for a fight I survey the scene. Eve Impossible is standing alone outside the subway station, her trenchcoat buttoned up and tied tight. The wind is gently churning through the scene.
"What's this about Eve? A double cross? You work for McAllister now too?"
"I'm sorry Charles. But I work on my own. This was a favor for a friend."
The entire area lights up in a golden flash. I'm temporarily blinded but I feel a presence. An oh-so familiar presence.
"Helena...?" I muttered weakly.
My vision came back in waves and Ms. Mercury shimmered to life before me. She was a golden goddess. Pure sensual pulsar sheen radiating all around her body.
Ms. Mercury called out, "Luna!"
The ferocious pixie came and landed on one side of me. She was scowling at me and ready to pounce at Mercury's command.
A fluttering of pigeons signaled the arrival of Raptor who appeared behind me. The four of them had me surrounded at each point. Even though I felt the thrust within me, ready to burst, I would never be able to take on all four. I wouldn't even be able to survive one hit from Ms. Mercury.
Suddenly a winter chill swept through, snowflakes raging down from every direction. The weather malfunctioned and I was sitting in the eye of the storm. A faint brimstone smell was carried away by the winds and replaced with the smell of fruit. Hmm...strawberries?
A female shape materialized beside me and I nearly threw myself off the cube in surprise. I figured she was one more of Mercury's assassins, so I prepared myself for a fight. Instead, this pink streaked, raven haired beauty stood over me armed with only a charming smile.
"Hey cutie. I just thought you could use some rescuing. Wanna come back to my place?"
I did a sweep of the snowy scene and saw that the ladies were about to make their move. I glanced up at my saving grace and nodded frantically.
My stomach lurched and I found myself suddenly sitting on a couch in a living room. The strawberry girl had her legs draped over me. Somehow we were dressed in pajamas and were watching tv.
She looked over at me and said, "Hey sweetness." Her smile was wide and as genuine as they come.
"Where am I?"
"At my apartment in Brooklyn, silly."
TEAM-UP in TIME SPACE: A new Weekly Webcomic
featuring the adventures of THRUST!! on Earth-212 fighting for a #UnitedTIMESPACE
Above: MAY 5th was the kickoff to the new comic series that will incorporate the live events, panels, workshops, & field trips organized with University of TIME.SPACE Between May the Fourth & the Gemini and Scorpio Loft ‘Cantina at the End of the Universe’ party, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 and a Firefly Musical, a Metropolis Live Score at Videology rounded out my weekend with Velocitygirl (OdetteCoquette).
To continue with the Five theme, at Bklyn Commons I was on a Local Entrepreneur Podcast Panel with Fiverr, though the audio getting lost may not have happened re: the RO-BOTOANICAL GARDEN MULCH MONSTERS!
Then the main story kicks off with THRUST at the end of the TimeLine, with Master Antares (Desmond Cava) finally catching up to him and ready to destroy his arch foe once and for all! Next it continues with YOU!! Come out to BoroughCon this Sunday 4:45pm for my Original Character Creation Panel.
COME in COSTUME to CAMEO in the COMIC!!
TWENTYSIX: The Kinetic Kid Blues A THRUSTisHere Short Story
“He’s robbing the world of its magic!”, the protester cried out one sunny morning outside the McAllister building. “Don’t believe his lies!” I took a few seconds to gawk before unfolding my trusty spiral notebook from my back pocket. I jotted down, ‘There’s never a dull moment in this city of improbable possibilities’, before zipping on down Forty-Second Street in a blur. I hit my last few deliveries and blew by the main office. I needed some cash and the bossman owed me big time. I looked over the cover story on the Post as I sat patiently for my pay to be scrounged together. The headline read: 'MILLIONAIRE MASTER OF MACHINES’ and showed the slick image of Jordan McAllister unveiling his newest gizmo. Some useless wad of tech that could do everything from capturing audio and video to doing your taxes. Sure, it’d be nice to store every song I’ve ever heard into the same device that I make my monthly phone call to my mom with, but there should be some limit to these things. I was interrupted mid-ponder by the slapping of bills into my palm. “This should make us square kid. By the way, nice rush job on that McAllister drop off this afternoon. Not sure how you did forty blocks in fifteen minutes, but I admire that hustle Chuck.” Joe Medley was the kind of boss people would follow into battle. A square jawed hombre hardened by a lifetime in the delivery business. If he would just shave that ridiculous moustache. I step outside and the thunder begins to pound on the grey skies above. An ominous smearing of the day’s blue enormity. I slid on my glasses, retied my bandana and adjusted my cap before leaping off into the swirlling cityscape. A gentle flip off of a ledge and a swift pounce from a nearby flagpole and I was sent gliding along the metro-magnetic pulse. My mind caught hold as I soared through the streets, surfing the city’s invisible veins faster than any pedestrian’s eyes could follow. But not faster than hers. Helena, or Ms. Mercury as she refers to herself these days, came floating by as if I were swimming in slo-motion. Her faux innocence seeped from her sly stare. “Hey Charles.” That damn slight curling up at the corner of her mouth. “Hey Helena.” “Did you forget about tonight?” “Not yet. I’d remember open bar.” “We have to see the exhibit this time. And try not to throw up on the V train again.” “I’m not making any promises…are they going to have the little sandwiches this time?” “I’m not sure sweetie. Gotta run. See you at 7!” and with that, in a blink of an eye, she kisses my cheek and dissappears down 23rd St. I’m not sure if it’s jealousy but I liked it better when she didn’t have superpowers. We met outside the museum that night at 7:10. It’s hard to believe any respectable superhero can make it on time to date, let alone two of them. We walked the exhibit arm in arm, and headed out for a drink. “It’s great the things you can get free.”, I shouted over the music at the lush Midtown bar. Some company or another had sent her a card for two complimentary drinks. Her sliver sandals shone brilliantly in the blurred cityscape light as it danced among the flapping of her black skirt. Her earrings sparkled as we blazed across town. Afterwards we zipped over to Jersey City where my friend’s band were playing at a local bar. The sound rocked our internal organs and the cheap booze made us stumbly, so we decided to hoof it home like regular folk and leave the superpowers out of it for a night. The wait for the train is usually a panic inducing, claustrophobic, nightmare of a wait for one with speedy powers such as mine. But tonight I hardly noticed the thirty-nine minutes it took to finally come. We were finally Manhattan bound, when, after a few sloppy kisses and through slurred speech, she presented me with a gift. “It’s an iWorld.” She smiled up at me expectantly. My confused look elicited a further explanation. “It’s the cell phone, instant messenger, mp3 player with GPS and a digital camera that also records video and audio.” That druken haze in her eyes didn’t match the tone of her voice. Suddenly, when discussing this gadget, a company salesman had taken control of my girlfriend. “Thanks baby.” Something felt off, but I accepted the gift. I hugged my appreciation as we fumbled to the side nearly falling from our seats as the train screeched to a halt. As I activated the camera function on my new toy, I turned and snapped a picture of her as we ascended the subway stairs. The LCD screen caught the dramatic lighting of the moon as we stepped outside, illuminating her hair, draped alongside an inebriated smirk. As the days passed I tinkered with my new gizmo. Seems it truly does it all, which kicked in my suspicious nature. If this thing catches on like McAllister’s numerous other expensive junk, available worldwide, then everyone will be capturing everything everywhere. Recording life around them and going back to it later to confirm it. Rather than just live our lives, we’d all just be directing a slideshow of images complete with soundtrack and then emailed off to family and friends. Isolated in our heads, viewing the world instead of interacting with it. Television is only the beginning. My head started to pound and my nose began to bleed. “Whoa, I gotta remember to watch the crazy talk.”, I said to myself. The following Saturday Helena and I danced through the ballroom they call New York, spinning and leaping as we soared along with the city night frozen in an instant below us. I spun her out, but as she pounced from a traffic light, I saw a misstep. She began to arc too far as she twirled about like a whirling dervish, spinning wildly towards a display window. Instincts drove my body forward, letting my mind figure out the plan for itself. Two kicks had launched me towards the light post, and pausing horizontally for just a millisecond, I supercharged my next leap. I rocketed across the street, rotated as I skimmed across the hood of a taxi, and ricocheted off a mailbox, just catching her in my arms as she swooned and fainted. My feet grinded to a halt on the pavement, and instantly time popped all around me as my sneakers exploded into shrapnel. “What’s happened to you Helena?” I cradled her in my arms as we glided home across the Williamsburg Bridge. She didn’t wake until she was tucked in her bed. I applied the cold compress to her forehead and smiled down at her. She smiled back but it felt sad somehow. “How you doing kiddo?” I held her hand. “I’m fine. I just need some waffles…” she hoarsely whispered. “And OJ, and toast…” I kissed her hand as she drifted to sleep. I went to look for my iWorld to see what I could do. Once I found it, I couldn’t imagine who to call, who would know how to help a sick superhero. She tossed and turned the whole night and despite her wishes, I decided to bring her to the emergency room. On the run there, she looked up at me with hopeless eyes. I never felt so useless. The doctors took her from me and told me not to worry and to get some rest. I couldn’t sleep so I paced around the neighborhood, then jogged around the city and eventually ran the entire state. This wasn’t something I could outrun. I grabbed a coffee at a rest stop somewhere in Pennsylvania. The caffeine wore off somewhere in Ohio and I slept on a bench in the lounge for an hour or two. I popped a caffeine pill and made it to Lake Michigan as the sun rose up behind me. My mind began to decompress as the tension drained from my body. Why was I running? What had happened to Helena? Why did I feel such overwhelming guilt? I took out my iWorld and began recording. I went over the details I could remember. Seemed as if I was stuck in a high gear for the past week. Oddly enough I wasn’t able to produce many memories since that delivery to the McAllister building. I began to think of Helena and scrolled through the pictures I had taken of her. Over four hundred digital images were stored on the small piece of plastic in my hands. And as I flipped through I began to notice something. She was fading away. That very first picture showed Helena for the true beauty I knew her as. In each consecutive picture she looked weaker, her skin growing more pale, and that lovely smile never extending quite as far as it did that night. Was it this device? Was it me? I sprinted back to New York City, hit the library and began searching for anything related to the iWorld or Jordan McAllister. As the newsites popped up, everything seemed straightforward. Budding inventor brings together a team of other brilliant minds to make a great leap using the technology of the times. Each year their device had evolved, from the iHear mp3 device, to the iDrive multimedia player, to the iDream cell phone/PDA. The iWorld was the most highly advertised and therefore, desired, electronic device in the history of modern society. From billboards to rap videos to coffee chain tie-ins, the presence of this gadget had surrounded us before we even had it resting in our hungry palms. I guess I just wasn’t paying attention as I blew through the city each day. Probably missed the TV commercials due to having only an old 13" b&w set at home with barely functioning rabbit ears. I was just having too much fun and, well, I suppose I was a bit out of touch with reality these days. I left the library more than a little distraught. Where could I turn now? I couldn’t head home. I’d just wind up feeling sorry for myself. I couldn’t just burst into McAllister’s office and demand that he tell me the connection between Helena’s collapse and his damned toy. “Why not?” The voice came over my headphones and I spun around. I checked out the iWorld expecting to have accidentally called someone from my address book once again. But it was off. “Drop on by the office. I’ve been expecting you.” I remembered moments like this when, as a kid I’d ride my bike around the neighborhood listening to cassette tapes. The ambient background noise would make me suspiciously glance over my shoulders every few seconds, really implanting that paranoia. Tucked into the shadows of the East Village, I questioned my sanity as the voice kept creeping out of the headphones. I ripped them out and began to hyperventilate. The random soundtrack of the city funneled into my ears and grounded my brain for the moment. But I could still hear the tinny tone of the voice as it crept from out of the tiny pieces of plastic and wires in my hands. I tossed the device into my ski cap and stuffed the whole thing deep into the pocket of my army jacket. I closed my eyes and imagined myself outside McAllister’s office, smashing through the front doors, leaping through the lobby, and slamming floor by floor up to his lush penthouse suite. I imagined myself destroying his happy and rich life, starting with his art deco decor and ending with his throat in my grip, suspending him outside the center floor-to-ceiling window of his decimated office. “Do it. Kill me son.” I hesitated and came to my senses. I dropped to my knees. With several long, deep, drawn breaths in I could see that my momentary wish had become a reality. The entire span of McAllister’s multi-million dollar chunk of real estate, with that spectacular view, was now leveled completely. The windows were all blown out, and the remaining shards of his luxurious lifestyle spread around me in a ring as if a bomb had been detonated in the center of the room. “It’s so disappointing that you’re such a failure.” McAllister, mere inches from a two hundred story drop, looked severely sad. He took off his blazer and tossed it out the window. Unbuttoning his cuffs, he rolls up his sleeves, before kicking me clear across the room with an Italian loafer to the chest. “I only ask that you end my life and you can’t even imagine that.” McAllister began to pace around the room, the splinters and shards crackling under his steps. He brushes his hand through his hair and walks towards the last of the standing walls. With his other hand, he gently waves as the wall begins to disappear, replaced with a large metal womb. “Okay Chuck, here’s how it goes. I’m the villain of this piece. I know, how post modern of me to mention it straight up like this. So clever, right?” McAllister grabs the womb and drags it closer. “Fuck clever. I’m your goddamn devil, child.” I had finally caught my breath and my threw myself across the room into a defensive position. My arms crossed before me in an 'X’, my front foot thrust forward, and my back foot at a 90 degree angle, bracing for impact or prepared to launch. My Quasar vision dazzled around the scene absorbing all the light in the room in nothing more than an instant. “Let’s finish this.” I couldn’t believe the cliched battlecries I heard coming from my mouth. McAllister’s hand is on the womb, gently raising it’s liquid metal covering. His eyes are locked onto mine, and he holds me there with his magnetic-repulsion-rays. A smile is lifting the corners of his mouth as I shake my sight free. A small mob of young men, trapped beneath the next generation iWorld, the iSoul, roar into the room. Their eyes are blank, their ears full, and their minds empty. In their hands runs the current of power emanating from the womb. The surging fractal lightning pulsed around their fists as the iZombies stomped forward, bloody screams of battle on their breaths. I strained my crossed arms against the paralyzing effect McAllister was emanating upon me, and at the very last second, mere millimeters from the wildly swung punch of an iZombie, just then did I snap out and into action. I was like a breeze between the pack, darting low beneath their grasp. The burning edges of searing raw cosmos nipped at my hair as I slid behind them. My fist rockets right and throws half the bunch down and out. I whip my right around again and fire it like a piston into the back of another, before unleashing a southpaw shot to two more. My fists pumped forward, the muscles acting almost on their own behalf, and by the time I slowed them down the room was a bloody cocoon. “Perfect. And now the for the kicker.” I swung around mad-eyed and frayed, tachyon fire streaming from my mind. McAllister had raised the womb’s cover and inside I saw that it was her. The quicksilver shine blinded me and forced out tears. Before my eyesight returned though I knew who it was that lie there naked and fetal. And I knew it was my fault. It was the silvery scorched body of Velocity Girl. I had stripped her of her form somehow, weakened her. I was the one that charged after her, trapped her, gave Helena her powers. Helena?! My god. Where was Helena? “You hit every cue my boy. Brilliant!” Ms. Mercury smashed into the office with the force of a thousand furies. The glass and twisted metal danced and glittered all around her as she just absolutely dazzled with that golden glow. Her furrowed brow was so cute, and she was making that angry face. My god. This is why he had loved her. The way she looks right now is everything I saw in her and everything I had ever loved about any woman ever. I’m not sure if her fist hit me or if it was the shockwave of compressed air that hairline fractured my cheekbone. I was sent sailing to the floor in a one knock out punch. I don’t even know if her skin touched me. And I don’t even have time to hit the ground, cause as I drift down her foot comes up under my rib cage and fires me straight through the roof of the building and high into the night sky. It’s beautiful out. The air is warm and mild. Just enough wind to carry you about. And the city is out and lit up and alive. It’s a stage with lights, camera, and action abound. But it’s all getting further away. Ms. Mercury glides upwards past me and I gaze at her amazing figure as it caresses the edges of a moonlit Central Park. Her leg stretches straight up to her chin and down across mine. Plummeting so fast, thinking isn’t possible. Until I slam into time and space expands into my mind like blood into cracks of concrete. It’s beautiful inside this silence. Crackling into my psychic ear, snow like fuzz of memories brushed aside to make room for McAllister’s thoughts. I try to squeeze him out of my mind. But it’s no use. He has a hold and he places in his reality. “I want you to realize that you must defeat her and stop me. I’m not sure if that’s clear by now. Everything I do, I do for you.” I felt him crying. Then I felt like a sack of mail snatched by a speeding train. A sack of potatoes dragged from a cropduster. The parachute behind a dragracer. Then spinning in a circular spin somehow elliptically spun until I was mentally undone and then I vomited as I was pitched full speed into and through the offices of fine and hard working individuals, that actually enjoy their jobs. She caught me on the other side and my vision had now returned. Sight smacked back into me, I now saw blood streaming behind us as the city blurred away. My face felt wet and sticky and syrupy. I was groggy and attempted to turn around. My stomach lurched and I dry heaved myself into a coughing fit, nearly letting my lungs collapse. I drew into myself and coiled up in my body. Tightly wound stone charging of my internal thrust. Fired aloud, I popped free from Ms. Mercury’s grip and carved myself through the undercurrents towards Wall Street. I grasped my forehead, hoping to close the gash across my third eye. I was karma blinded and without a guidance system now. And the bleeding’s stopped. Bouncing across the ledges and pouncing from the empty office views of Downtown Manhattan, I was ricocheting to a safe haven, where ever that was. It was then that my senses were finally coming back to me and I saw how aura destroyed I really was. I couldn’t outrun her. I couldn’t outpower her. I couldn’t out fight her. I was screwed. So I tried to run anyways, skipping along the tops of the West side. But she was always more familiar with this side of town. Damn! She taps me with an uppercut I don’t see coming. I try to brace for impact and curl into a fetal position. A million swats dribble me down to Canal St. before she kicks me into the Holland Tunnel at a hundred miles an hour. My body is broken as it rattles against the tiled walls of the tunnel. Ms. Mercury cascades up next to me as she prepares to bounce me off the walls. I have only one thought as she unleashes her venomous Valkyrie vengeance, only one solitary things crosses my mind at that exact moment. She looks so happy. I catch glimpses of dirt, and water and metal, and garbage and smoke before finally hitting something that catches me in it’s warm embrace. I can’t feel anything beyond my mind. My body must be shattered, along with my spirit, but my brain hasn’t died yet. But consciousness fades and before it does I see a single sentence that seems so odd, yet so familiar set before the apocalyptic background around him. 'Welcome to New Jersey.’
TWENTYSIX - “RUN FOR YOUR LIFE”
A THRUSTisHere Short Story Series Circa. 2006. NYC.
“For Christ’s sake Artemis, just drop it! Let me track Velocity Girl on my own, please!” I dropped and rotated through a multitude of realities until I found this one. I don’t mean to run away from our fights but I just can’t stand it anymore. I’m sitting in silence as she drones on and on about some nonsense that can’t possibly apply to me. I’m a goddamn hero honey. No, no, please let me wash the dishes while a universe perishes under the might of Sol, the Sun God. Soaring straight, and up, I look for another reality, one with a bit more pep. “You can’t run forever Raptor! That’s my job!” Great. Now she’s flying off into the night sky and I can’t even get a word in edge-wise. Sometimes this whole thing just seems impossible. Reminds me of Eve Impossible. Beneath all her disguises and gadgets there was no discernable personality, just a daddy’s girl, eager to please. Vibrating inwards I land on the WorldCycle and lose myself in shot after shot of carbonated quantum particles. This go-round she’s the bartender and I can see she’s preparing the ‘you’re-cut-off’ speech. Omniman materialized as he molecularily collided with the empty space next to me at the bar, possibly drawn by the vapors of my dimensional wake. “Omniman! Now there’s a motherfucker who knows what he’s doing.” I shot my arm out towards the bartender, pointing wildly in her direction. “This bastard saves every single one of us every moment of every day, and not ONE goddamn complaint. Fucking hell mate!” Omniman stood silently on the edge of my mind, blurry yet stoic. “I’m not Omniman. I’m you.” I wiped the quasars from my eyes and saw myself for the first time. “You’ve spent your life running. Ducking and dodging the beam. You kept shifting away from us for so long that you lost touch with those around you, lad. Come back to us. Run towards something.” My eyes raced around the scene examining it molecule by molecule, picking up every proverbial stone and looking under. “What is going on?” The light caught me unawares and slapped me in my frontal lobe, smooshing it inwards and then snapping again forward, sprouting out a Unicorn’s horn, dripping off into the ether as a single, solitary drop. I landed in her arms, the cold desert air around us. She was cradling my head as we sat upon the sand. The air was crisp as it chilled the warm earth beneath us. “Don’t worry baby. I’ve got you. Come back to me.” The sun blazed defiantly behind us, Ayer’s rock doing its best to eclipse it’s power. Before us lies the moon, reflecting like a silver puddle shimmering in the dusky horizon. “It’s the drugs baby, not you. You can beat this.” Her words came into focus and my superheroic exploits blurred around my mind. I had found my way home.
“SUPERMAN, SAVE THEIR MINDS”
THRUST!! First Short Story
“Hey man, let me tell you, the Multiverse…it isn’t a place. It’s a state of mind.” Thrust slid through the air as though soaring through zero gravity. Magnetic pulsar sheen shimmered in his wake as he tore down the city streets. His glowing red converse came down to the ground in a slo-mo warp, and with a subtle push off the pavement he skipped across our simulated world. Twisting and turning in a high-velocity spin, he slams his fist, now resonating with thundering force, into the robot’s midsection. “The key to superpowers is all in your mind. The entire fabric of reality and the myriad of dimensions exist simultaneously in the same exact location, only separated by the alternating vibrations of god’s voice. Change your wavelength for mental elevation, trigger your meta-evolution.” The other robots quickly adapted to Thrust’s speed. Their internal mechanisms were powered by the Atomic Perceptual Motion Machines which sat firmly planted in their chest cavity. These wicked machinations helped the machines expand their reach into the very Wonderverse itself. Thrust quantum-slid across the magnetic fields, flexing the very bonds that held reality together. Time and space became space in time and before the robots could register it, the charcoal glow of his crimson sneakers had sliced through the atomic symbol stamped upon their chest plates. He landed with a delicate and soundless drop into a tight crouch. His eyes glowed bright white from behind his aviator sunglasses, flashing outwards in pulses. Above and behind, springs and levers ticked, tocked, and suddenly sprung forth in a violent spray of oil and gears. “Take your illusion and make it real. Feel that twang against your horn of light, protruding from your third eye, and running divine energies down into the reservoir at the base of your lizard brain, deep into your spine.” The sunglasses whipped off and sparking, milky light erased another robot from existence. The glasses returned to his face without his pupils being exposed for a millisecond. A quiet flopped upon the scene, freezing the last of the robots in its place. Motionless, it struggled with the impossibility of its seemingly defunct state. Thrust stood up and stretched out his back. He drew several deep breaths, filling his lungs with fresh oxygen before speaking again. “Rise to the SuperEgo and unite the ID. Only you can do it. And its so much easier with superpowers.” Thrust was gone in an instant, leaving behind a human-shaped crackling warble in the dead center of the robots chest.
