StarFall Comics
In Association with El Queso Productions
Proudly Presents:
Metal Fire
#4: Assault on the Pentagon, Part 3: Within Five Walls
cover: Metal Fire soars above the Pentagon.
So Far:
Kimberly Roberts' Father created a battlesuit called the Human-I-Form. Kim decided to use the I-Form to protect her Father from the U.S. Air Force's efforts to obtain it. When Kim's Father was kidnaped, she went to Tijuana to confront the kidnappers. She defeated four thugs hired by General Mussmoth and found out her Father was being held at the Pentagon.
Now:
At 4:35 a.m. she touches down by a remote pond somewhere near Winchester, Virginia. Kim Roberts is exhausted. She's flown almost nonstop all the way from Tijuana. Lying down she closes her eyes but she still feels like she's moving.
Kim has managed to keep a lot of frightening thoughts out of her head by concentrating on how to rescue her Father from the Pentagon. She occupied her mind during the long flight with questions like, "Is it possible to sneak into the Pentagon or should I just go in blasting?" In the end Kim decided she would have to try and sneak in. She assumed they had enough fire power to rip the I-Form and her to pieces.
Now, as she rested in the quiet Virginia woods the frightening thoughts she'd been trying to suppress emerged. "I'm trapped inside the I-Form," Kim suddenly thought. The thought made her quickly sit up. "No . . . no . . . no! There's nothing wrong with the I-Form," she told herself, "Look how far we've flown and it's still powered up! It's doing great."
"Then why is my heart racing?" she asked herself, "Why am I more frightened of what happened when I tried to remove the I-Form's helmet (last issue - .ed) than I am of busting into the freakin' Pentagon?"
"Calm down Kimberly," she told herself, "Take a few deep breaths and try the helmet again." The helmet was the key to removing the I-Form. All the release latches for the rest of the suit were inside of the collar. Kim waited until she was calm enough to think. She thought about the fact that she hadn't eaten for nearly two days and it scared her. Then she realized that she wasn't hungry and that thought scared her more.
Kim reached up to the helmet latch. Her fingers fumbled trying to find the release mechanism. She tried using both hands . . . still no luck. Kim stopped fumbling with the latch. "Why can't I feel the release anymore?", she wondered. After a few more deep breaths she tried again, struggling to feel anything remotely familiar to the way the latch had felt during her training back home. It just didn't feel the same. It felt like the latch had been "rounded", as if it had somehow melted into the collar of the suit.
"Damn that spandexed jerk with his electric rod!" Kim shouted, "That power surge must have messed up the latch!" (also last iss -.ed)
In frustration Kim began to violently assault the latch. Kneeling, she bent forward and put her forehead to the ground. Then holding the helmet with both hands, she began struggling, trying to pull her head out of the helmet. After several minutes with no results she gave up. Kim began to cry.
She crawled over to the pond and didn't stop until her hands were submerged in the murky water. When the water settled, Kim looked at her reflection on the moonlit surface. She could clearly see herself. Leaning forward she craned her neck to the right so she could get a glimpse of the latch mechanism. It was rounded off, it looked like a bump. Thinking it strange that there were no burn marks or discoloration visible around the latch, she turned her face back toward the water.
"Oh my God," she gasped. Kim was looking at her tears rolling down the front of the helmet. They were coming right out of the optics. "Oh my God," she whispered when she realized that she could faintly feel them as if they were running down her face.
At 8:00 a.m., a long black limousine exits off of 395 from Washington into Arlington, Virginia . . . and into the Pentagon. The limo turns away from the traffic headed for the "Kiss & Ride" drop off area for commuter buses and trains and heads toward the gateway that serves as the entrance for the military's top brass. The driver stops and flashes some credentials at the guards and then drives through the gate. In the back of the black limo Mr. Hamilton and another man sit and talk while drinking coffee.
"It seems to be going incredibly well this time, doesn't it?", Mr. Hamilton said, "You must be pleased."
"Yes," replied the man, "I think we're going to be successful this time. slurp! What's the deal with this General Mussmoth?"
"He's the head of Special Operations for the Air Force," Hamilton stated, "Which is to say he's pretty much the head of his own private Air Force. He doesn't answer to anyone. While the President and the Washington bureaucrats argue over foreign and domestic policies this guy is acting out an agenda entirely his own . . . and the idiots on the Hill don't have a clue."
"Impressive," replied the man, "Is he . . . with us?"
"No, he has no faith," said Hamilton, "but we've worked out one of our standard arrangements with him. He provides us a front and we provide him with funding for . . . God only knows what he has going on."
"Can he be trusted?" asked the man.
"Of course not," Hamilton replied, "That's why he's ideal."
At 10:00 a.m. Kim stood on the roof of the MCI headquarters building and the I-Form glinted and gleamed in the sunlight. She was calm now. She'd accepted that there was something wrong with the battlesuit but she was certain that her Father would be able to fix it. That was the most important thing now, rescuing her Father. Putting her own troubles aside she concentrated on the building northeast of her position . . . the Pentagon.
Across Hayes Street below the traffic was getting heavier at the Pentagon City shopping mall. Kim shut out the sound of the traffic and concentrated, turning up the I-Form's optics so she could scan the entry gate of the Pentagon again. Another delivery truck passed through the inner-gate.
She'd been there for over an hour, trying to figure out how she could get inside without being seen. They were certain to see her if she tried to fly in and it wasn't like she could join a tour group and sneak away. A girl in full metal armor kinda stands out in a crowd.
The guard that had come on duty at the delivery gate twenty minutes ago appeared to be lazy. Instead of doing an inspection of the delivery truck's cargo like the previous guard had done, he was just throwing open the back, taking a quick look and letting the truck enter.
"I think that'll work," thought Kim, "Even if private slacker does see me, I'll be close enough to fly out of there and into the building before he can do anything. Now all I have to do is find a truck to sneak into and worry about finding Dad once I get in there . . . and then get us both out alive."
Terry Boganovich hates his job. He's been working at MCI for four years. He's one of hundreds of faceless employees trudging away day after day in one of hundreds of generic cubicles. His boss still doesn't know his name but Terry considers that an improvement. At least the boss recognizes him now.
Terry quietly makes his way up the stairs that lead to the roof of the building. This is the bright spot of his workday morning. His private little "screw you" to the company's no smoking policy. When he reaches the top Terry recites his mantra, "A hundred and fifty feet away from company property my ass."
Terry drops his cigarettes and his jaw. Standing across the roof is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen . . . a metal woman . . . gorgeous and shining bright . . . an angel. She's only there for an instant and then SWOOSH! - she's gone.
"That's it," Terry said aloud, "I'm going to start keeping a bottle up here."
She had no idea why some of the trucks that had been making deliveries to the Pentagon City shopping mall would then leave and enter the Pentagon, she just knew she could use it to her advantage. Sneaking through the trucks at the mall's loading dock, she searched the delivery invoice sheets the drivers left in their cabs until she found one that's next stop was indeed the Pentagon. While the driver was still gone Kim quickly slipped into the back.
She hid behind some large cardboard boxes at the back of the truck until the driver returned, closed the back door and got his truck on the road. Kim practiced using the optics night vision. She could read the boxes. "Jos A Banks," Kim thought, "Why is a mens clothing truck going to the Pentagon? And why that Mrs. Fields truck earlier?"
Typical to DC area traffic, it took 15 minutes for the truck to cover the two miles to the gate. With every stop in the constant stop and go traffic, Kim made sure she was hidden by the boxes but prepared to blast out of there if she was spotted by the guard. Finally, the back door was opened. Holding her breath, prepared for flight, she relaxed again when the door closed as quickly as it had opened and the truck started moving again.
"Cool! I was right about that lazy guard," Kim thought, " Now to sneak out of this truck and find out where they're holding Dad."
The truck pulled into a loading bay and the driver got out and went inside the building. He opened up the back door, looked at the shipping tags on a few boxes and then loaded them onto a hand truck and walked away. Kim quickly exited the truck and slipped into the shadows of the loading dock.
Twenty feet back into the loading dock strewn with boxes and pallettes was a long wall that ran the length of the dock. Every twenty feet or so along the wall there was a brown metal door. The driver went through a door with the letters "JSB" stenciled on it. No one else seemed to be around. Kim cautiously made her way to a door marked "MAINT". Slowly, she cracked the door open and looked. She could see a short hallway that opened to a large open area. Across the area she could see . . . shops. "My Lord, there's a shopping mall inside the Pentagon," Kim said to herself.
Carefully, Kim stepped through the door and crept down the hallway to get a better look. There were a few uniformed folks milling around and some clerks visible inside a few of the shops. Directly beside her was a dry cleaner shop. A young man carrying some Army uniforms wrapped in plastic suddenly walked right past the end of the hallway and into the dry cleaners. Kim took a short intake of breath from being surprised, but he didn't see her. She heard a conversation come from inside the cleaners.
"I couldn't find it," said a male voice.
"What?" replied a female voice, "Did you check the chart in the back?"
"Uh, yeah, yeah," said the male voice, "It said Sub Level 12, but Major McDonald's office wasn't there."
"You probably read it wrong . . . again," said the female voice, "Come on, I'll check it with you . . . again."
Kim crept back to the door she had entered the hallway through. When she saw the young man pass by the end of the hallway heading back the way he had come, she went back through the door and into the loading dock. There was still no one around. Kim walked over to the next door down. It was stenciled "CLNRS".
Sergeant Mitchells and Lieutenant Evans had decided to get a jump on the lunch crowd by heading down to the food court early and taking their lunch back to the office. On the way across the mall area they chatted about places Mitchells could go to find some rollerblades for his daughter's birthday.
Evans heard a loud SWOOSH and saw something rushing toward him out of the corner of his eye. Acting instinctively, he dove, knocking Mitchells and himself to the ground. "Incoming!", he shouted as something fast flew above their heads and past them.
If they had looked up in time, they would have seen a metallic woman stop in front of the elevators, pry open one of the sets of doors, take a quick look up and down and then disappear into the shaft as the doors closed. All Evans and Mitchells saw were the doors close.
Down the elevator shaft Kim zoomed, slowing down when the numbers painted on the doors got high enough. Sub level 50 . . . Sub level 51 . . . Sub level 52 . . . at Sub level 57 she stopped. This was the level that Mussmoth was listed on the dry cleaners chart. Prying open the doors gained her access to a dark hallway. It smelled like a damp cave. All of the office doors were dark . . . no lights. The place looked deserted except for one door at the far end of the hall . . . lit up like a beacon.
Kim moved quickly down the hall. Raising her palms toward the door she fired a plasma blast.
WHOOM!
The glass shattered and the door was blown off it's hinges. Kim rushed into the room where she found a young woman in an Air Force uniform sitting behind a desk. She looked up at Kim with an expression best described as half boredom/half disgust. Not exactly the reaction Kim had expected. Before she could speak the woman turned and pressed a button on her phone.
"She's here, General," the woman spoke towards the phone.
"I thought I recognized the sound of a teenager entering a room," replied a voice crackling over the speaker, "Send her in, Priscilla."
Kim stared at the woman. The woman stared back with the same dry expression.
"Well, go in, dorkus," the woman said to Kim, "What are you waiting for . . . engraved invitations?"
"What's going on here?," Kim wondered. Shaking her head to snap herself out of it, Kim walked past Priscilla to the door at the back of the room. Opening the door she saw a large man in uniform standing behind a desk in the back of the room.
"It's about time you got here girl," said the man.
Kim's angered flared. She soared across the room, grabbed the man by his lapels and pulled him across the desk.
"Where's my Father, General?" she growled through clinched teeth, "Tell me now or I'll blast you up to level 5!"
"Kimmy, Kimmy, Kimmy," said a familiar voice from the back of the room, "Calm yourself. I'm right here."
Kim turned to see her Father and another man sitting on a black leather couch. She hadn't seen them as she'd zoomed through the room. Her Father smiled at her.
"Put the General down dear, there's a good girl," her Father said, "It's time we had a talk."