Miss Marathon Read online

  Miss Marathon #2: Bay City Defenders

  Joseph Bradshire

  © 2016

  Chapter One

  Black Brewskie walked through the exit gates of Bay City Correctional, breathing his first free breath in over a year. Candy ass California laws regarding a man and his pistol had done Brewskie in. Apparently, felons weren’t allowed to pack heat. So how was a man supposed to defend himself? Call the cops? For a man like Brewskie that was not an option.

  He hadn’t worn his leathers in a year but they still felt right, dull black, protective and heavy. As they should be.

  While Brewskie was inside the whole world had gone crazy. Alien invasions, superheroes, an international armed force created to protect the planet from more space visits. All of the international cooperation was unprecedented. Like the whole goddamn world had gotten together for some sort of hand holding love in. So much had changed. It was time to make sure at least some things stayed the same.

  Black Brewskie was the boss of the Pacific Exiles, PacEx for short, the most exclusive and successful motorcycle club on the Northern California Coast. Weed country. They handled the transport of all legal and illegal weed running up and down the coastal highway, Interstate 101, from North Bay City to the Oregon border.

  It was a small, close knit territory they’d wrestled away from various other groups over the years. They just ran weed, no white drugs or pills, and they didn’t allow anyone else to run that poison through their territory either. Let that shit run down a different highway. If it was shipped on the coastal roads the PacEx ran it, period. That meant Brewskie ran it.

  But Brewskie had been away too long. 16 months. 16 months of radical change in the world. He might have gotten out sooner on good behavior but good behavior was for cowards.

  Chopper, Brewskie’s overly large second in command, sat on his motorcycle waiting for Brewskie to exit the gates. As always, Chopper had a large battle-axe fixed to his forks where he could get at it quickly. It wasn’t just for show either. The intimidation factor alone was usually enough but the axe was no stranger to blood.

  Chopper’s wife and partner, little Sammy, was in the flatbed truck. Brewskie’s bike had been offloaded from the truck and was waiting for him. Someone had cleaned it up nice, but there was no shine. Flat black only. No chrome. PacEx rules. Black Brewskie’s rules.

  Chopper’s bike was huge, as befitting his stature, it was also entirely flat black. Zero shine, no frills. Completely custom and scratch built, of course, but devoid of vanity. Brewskie smiled, at least some friends had remained loyal to the code.

  “Chopper, Sammy.” Brewskie gave his big friend a fist to the chest salute and nodded to Sammy.

  “Boss.” Chopper gave the salute back, thumping his leather jacket, “...you think you can remember how to ride?”

  Brewskie gave him the glare. About the only person in the world who could tease Brewskie about anything was Chopper, but Brewskie wasn’t in the mood. He had business to attend to.

  “Where’s the meet up?”

  “Bonner’s place.” Chopper gestured north, as if Brewskie didn’t remember which way to go. Brewskie slid into his saddle smooth as ever, fired up, and peeled out of the dirt parking lot headed north.

  * * *

  One hour and 90 miles later Brewskie pulled up to Bonner’s Hole, a skeevy stripper dive run by PacEx affiliate Rick Bonner. There were already over a dozen bikes in the parking lot. Brewskie noticed quite a few chromed up, shiny, glossy black finishes. Sissy bikes. Less Harleys then he remembered from before, but the company that made the bike wasn’t the issue. It was all the bullshit flash and flair. Disgusting vanity. Not a good sign. Brewskie headed in.

  It was still before noon but the place was hopping. It wasn’t often that the boss gets out of prison. Bonner had opened up early. The girls were already dancing, working the poles, making money.

  They turned the music down as Brewskie walked in, half a dozen guys gave the fist to chest salute and Brewskie returned it. Many more didn’t salute at all. Lots of hard men, very few smiles. A younger man in the back with a red mohawk looked up from where he was snorting lines off a table, he gave Brewskie a halfhearted salute. Mocking. What a difference a year makes.

  Bonner yelled from behind the bar, “Hey Brewskie welcome back. Been too long man. I have someone you should meet.”

  A woman stood at the bar wearing nothing but heels. She couldn’t have been more than 20 years old. “So you are the great Black Brewskie? I’ve heard all about you. I’m your date for the evening. Would you like to go have a private chat maybe? In the back?”

  Leave it to Bonner, the goddamn pimp.

  “No. Not yet, but stick around. Business first. Bonner, is everyone here?”

  “All the other bosses, yes.” Bonner gave Brewskie a knowing look.

  There were no other bosses, just Brewskie. Bonner knew that, his choice of wording was a warning. Brewskie thumped his chest in salute, Bonner returned it with zero irony.

  Brewskie yelled over the music, “Alright everyone, outside, meeting in the parking lot.”

  Brewskie turned around and walked out the doors. A few men followed, the ones that had saluted, others were slow to trickle out. Chopper and Sammy were still outside, leaning against the truck. With a glance from Brewskie Sammy pulled her pistol and climbed into the back of the truck, out of the way. Chopper picked up his battle-axe and tossed Brewskie a pump action 12 gauge.

  Brewskie pumped and fired into the first glossy black gas tank he could see. Stalking around he fired into the next chromed out vanity ride, he was to the third bike before people started shuffling out of the club yelling and threatening. Over two dozen men and a few strippers were out on the deck, not sure what to do.

  Brewskie ignored them and kept firing until he went empty. He was calmly reloading when someone shot him in the back, in the shoulder blade. Brewskie went down, hard, stunned. The parking lot around him erupted into chaos.

  Sammy started firing off shots with her small pistol while Chopper swung his axe in a great arc, braining the man that had shot Brewskie and gutting another. It was over quickly, a couple of men lay prone and bleeding, some would die, a few others were dead already.

  Sammy had probably killed more than Chopper, but it was Chopper and his axe that was dominating the crowd. Keeping everyone intimidated, in check. Some sat in shock, the newer members, some of the older members stood off to the side nodding their approval.

  Black Brewskie stood up. He flexed his shoulders and took off his jacket. It was armored, bulletproof. He pulled the slug out of his jacket, frowned at the dent it left. He picked up his shotgun and finished reloading, nice and slow, while everyone watched. The lot was dead silent but for the groans of the wounded.

  “Who’s bike is this?” Brewskie pointed to the one with the mirror polished chrome pipes. It looked like a Christmas ornament, not a real man’s ride.

  A newer man Brewskie had never met stepped forward, defiant. Brewskie shot him in the chest. Another, an older member named Ford, moved forward to object and Brewskie shot him too. Brewskie had always liked Ford but the man needed to know his limits, now he’ll know them in hell.

  “Anyone else?” Brewskie barked at the crowd, or at least those still alive. No one moved.

  Brewskie looked back and forth, looking every member in the eye, looking for any rebellion, any at all, until he came to the red mohawked man who had been doing lines of white shit in the club.

  “Red mohawk, step forward.” The man didn’t move, he was scared for his life, whimpering. Brewskie raised his shotgun and fired, people barely got out of the way as red mohawk went down, dead in the dirt.

  A barely clad stripper shrieked and ran to the side of the dead man, scre
aming, “Brewskie you bastard, I hope someone kills you.”

  Brewskie fired into her as well, but she was only wounded. So he fired again, finishing the job.

  Brewskie, calm, almost conversationally, said, “Okay. I think that’s enough for now. So now let’s everyone try to remember the rules. No hard drugs, that’s how we keep the feds away. Bikes are flat black only, a show of solidarity. It ain’t hard to remember. There are only two rules.” Brewskie spoke while he again reloaded his shotgun. No one moved, no one even breathed.

  “And one more thing. There’s only one boss. Me.” With that Brewskie thumped his chest in salute. Everyone in the lot thumped their chest in return, hard, in unison.

  Brewskie was satisfied. “Chopper, Sammy, dump the bodies, wash the lot. Enlist any help you need. I’ll be inside.”

  Sammy was already spraying the lot down with bleach when Brewskie disappeared into the back room with two terrified young dancers.

  Chapter Two

  “So, how is our Miss Marathon today?”

  Maggie winced, “Uhg. Please don’t call me that.”

  Dr. Sariya turned in her office chair to Maggie. “I thought you liked that nickname.”

  “It’s okay for strangers. People like to think of me as a hero. Let them. But you know I’m no hero.”

  “I know that the Earth has been attacked twice, three times depending on how you count it, and you were there to defend us on each occasion. That doesn’t make you a hero?”

  “Not really, I just happened to be there helping Cannon out. He’s the hero type, not me. I don’t go charging off into trouble. That’s Cannon’s job.”

  “Your job too now, right? I hear you are working with Cannon’s team.”

  “Yeah, special consultant. Basically I hang out with Patty. Fly the boys to where they need to go. It pays the bills, gives me time to draw and paint. A little.”

  Maggie didn’t think of herself as an artist so much, she was a teacher. She loved teaching art. There’s a difference.

  “Are you thinking of going back into teaching?” The doctor asked.

  “No. I wish I could but I’m way too busy now. Someday, when the Patton and Cannon and all the rest don’t need me anymore. I’ll go back to it then.”

  Dr. Sariya grinned at Maggie for a while until Maggie asked, “What?”

  “Self sacrifice. Check. Humble demeanor. Check. Super powers. Check. You sure you aren’t a hero?”

  They both had a laugh. It was nice for Maggie to talk with a woman once in a while. Cannon and the boys were as rough, tough and gung ho as any group of men she had ever been around. Not a lot of opportunities for girl talk. Patty was nice, but she was more like a daughter.

  Come to think of it, Dr. Sariya might be Maggie’s only real girlfriend. With all that had happened in the last year and a half, she’d grown apart or lost contact with pretty much everyone else. Sad, but life moves on.

  Dr. Sariya inhaled and put on her serious face, time for business. “Well then, on to other matters. Like the purpose of your visit. Let me call up the x-rays on the wall monitor.”

  Dr. Sariya started fiddling with her projector chord, checking it and rechecking it. Finally she looked to Maggie, “Would you mind...?”

  Maggie smiled and patted the computer and chord. The wall monitor lit up instantly.

  “Hero or not, Maggie, you are handy.”

  Dr. Sariya put her serious face back on. “As you can see Maggie, this is an x-ray of your pelvis from the front. All these lines, these are wires interfacing directly with your nervous system. And these here, I don’t know about those.”

  The top expert in the world on super humans, and on Maggie in particular, was saying she didn’t know. That wasn’t good.

  “What is clear, Maggie, is that your body and prosthetics are integrated completely, and many of the connections run straight through your uterus. Because of that, I just can’t see you conceiving a child in any sort of conventional fashion. If you’d pardon the analogy, it’s like you don’t have all the necessary parts anymore. Your body has changed so much.”

  Miss Marathon, defender of the earth, was stripped away at that moment. Tears welled up into her eyes, blinding her. She fought it, but couldn’t. She cried. Not a full breakdown, but a good hard cry. She could breathe life into a space ship by thinking hard enough, but she couldn’t do this most basic of human things. The cosmos was unfair. She already knew that but hated being reminded.

  “It’s alright doctor, I expected as much. I knew it was a long shot.” Maggie, still crying, looked at the ground.

  “What about Cannon?” The doctor asked, “Is he fully functional? He won’t let me examine him.”

  Maggie paused. A subject change, good tactic, get her thinking about something else. Anything but the bad news.

  Cannon was a private person when it came to discussing his anatomy, but Doctor Sariya was the world’s leading medical expert on super humans. Discussing strange biology was part of her job.

  “He seems to work just fine. There is some discomfort because he’s made completely of diamond, but I’m half machine down there. We make it work.” Maggie almost giggled that last part. Here she was, almost 28 years old and still embarrassed to talk about sex.

  “Well, all I can recommend is that you keep trying. No one really knows with super humans. How it all works is a mystery. You could get lucky and get pregnant tomorrow. Stranger things have happened.” The doctor smiled, pointing at Maggie’s legs.

  Yes. Stranger things had happened in the last 2 years. Aliens, super humans, giant hive migrations threatening the entire planet, Maggie turning into a cyborg as her prosthetics merged with her biology, bucket loads of weird. Huge changes in a short time.

  The impossible seemed to be happening every day. Maggie decided to hold out hope. Truly. Anything could happen.

  “What about Patty?” Dr. Sariya asked.

  “Oh, she’s fine. A bit impulsive but she’s really maturing, getting a handle on herself.”

  “No, no,” said the doctor, “I mean what about Patty as your child? Do you not think of her that way? You did create her.”

  “Well Yes, I guess she is like my kid for sure. A strong willed kid at that, like a teenager. Between her and Cannon I spend most of my time exasperated.”

  The maturation process of the USS Patton was subject of much discussion, having a giant nuclear submarine with a mind of its own was frightening to people. If they truly knew how sentient and thoughtful Patty was there would be a panic. The extent of her individuality was a secret. Dr. Saryia knew though, Dr. Saryia knew about everything.

  As much as giving life to a machine was like creating a child, it wasn’t the type of child Maggie and Cannon had in mind. Maggie thought of an old saying, something about beggars and choosers, but the saying escaped her.

  Maggie was jerked out of her thoughts by a code red message from the USS Patton. Patty could ping Maggie’s cell phone from anywhere on the planet, at will, but didn’t need to. They shared a mental connection. They could speak to each other over any distance, instantly, through thought alone.

  Maggie spoke to the air, “What’s up Patty?”

  “Sorry to bother you, but Cannon and Cordel are in a bit of trouble.” With that, the USS Patton sent a mental image of a seven foot tall demon spitting fire and flying over central Bay City.

  “Hold on Patty. I’m on my way.”

  Never a dull day.

  Maggie said goodbye to the doctor as she rushed out the door. By the time she got to the parking lot she was already moving at Olympic sprinter speeds. Running that fast would destroy her pants, they would shred, but no matter. As always, she had on her bright yellow space suit underneath her clothes. Never leave home without it.

  When she got to the road she really poured it on, going full highway speeds while leaping over the cars and trucks blocking her path.

  Running, her favorite activity and her best skill. She loved it.

  The media ca
lled her Miss Marathon.

  * * *

  Sergeant Cordel looked over the troopers in the drop bay. The newly reformed Jaunt Troopers were in full armor. The previous platoon sized group of 30 had been lost in an attack by the Torvin. 100% casualties. This new unit was formed to replace them.

  Only 10 troopers strong this time, but using high tech weapons salvaged from the defeated Torvin and modified to the human body. The new Mark II suits were lighter, stronger and could fly for over an hour before needing recharge.

  Their purpose was to support Captain Gannon, more popularly known as “Cannon”, and the USS Patton as a special response unit. Special response covered situations like aliens, super humans and all manner of other oddities. This was their first live mission. They were ready.

  Sergeant Cordel thumbed on the team frequency, “Okay listen up troopers, we’ve got reports of some sort of devil flying over downtown Bay City. This is our backyard and he’s scaring the hell out of people. Our mission is to apprehend and question. To assess the situation. Do not go lethal unless I give the order, understood?”

  “Understood!” Echoed back to Sgt. Cordel from the 9 other troopers. Yes. They were ready. They better be.

  * * *

  Captain Carlos “Cannon” Gannon looked at the big screen monitor on the bridge of the USS Patton. He had the light low but the glow from the instruments reflected and refracted off his diamond skin to light up the bridge in a rainbow of color.

  “What do you think it is Patty?” Cannon asked the ship.

  The Patton’s voice boomed through the bridge, the vibration came from the bulkheads, “I dunno Captain, some sort of flying beast. Probably not an alien, or at least not one that we’ve been told about. When the guys net it we’ll have to ask it what it is.”

  The Patton chuckled, vibrations shivered through the ship. Lacking real vocal chords, if she wanted to talk to someone she vibrated the walls to create vocal sounds, words. She could also speak clearly over a com signal, like cell phones and radio, but she preferred her own ‘voice’ when communicating aboard ship.

  Captain Cannon had seen a few strange things in his decade plus in the US Marine Corps. Fighting in the sand box against religious zealots, black ops, giant bug aliens, fish head aliens with lots of eyes, you name it. The Patton, however, was probably the most amazing. A fun loving flying submarine, heavily modified for space flight, with a salvaged alien gravity drive and nuclear power plant at her core.