The Ant - Chapter 13 - Dress Code (771 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: The_Ant
Rating: 1.8 on 13 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Jack McCallum (View user info) at 2005-01-24 11:48:16 EST
(Chapter 1 http://www.ubersite.com/m/56777)
(Chapter 2 http://www.ubersite.com/m/56855)
(Chapters 3-5 http://www.ubersite.com/m/56884)
(Chapter 6 http://www.ubersite.com/m/56930)
(Chapter 7 http://www.ubersite.com/m/57042)
(Chapter 8 http://www.ubersite.com/m/57139)
(Chapter 9 http://www.ubersite.com/m/57238)
(Chapter 10 http://www.ubersite.com/m/57350)
(Chapter 11 http://www.ubersite.com/m/57411)
(Chapter 12 http://www.ubersite.com/m/57474)
The Ant - Chapter 13 - Dress Code
When Rob first saw the costume he nearly shit himself.
"Jesus Doc," he whined, "Do I have to wear that in public?"
He had just given himself a shot of insulin. At this point he only needed it every three or four days, and the onset of needing another was quite prolonged. He felt it coming long before he actually had to take it.
Schroedecker had warned him that extreme stress or fatigue could shorten that gap, but he hadn't suffered any ill effects after his first encounter with Pfaltzer's freaks, and so far Rob was doing just fine.
"Is it not an American tradition, that in this country a superhero should wear eye-catching tights so he is recognized as good or evil?"
Rob shook his head. "Who says I want to be a super hero?"
It was a few days before Christmas. Rob and Doctor Schroedecker's worst fears had been confirmed. Since that day in November the Apostles of Doom had struck time and again, all along the length of the California coast. Shows from American Journal and Hard Copy to Frontline and 20/20 had done feature stories on the havoc the remaining Apostles of Doom were spawning on the west coast.
Rob and Schroedecker had talked the situation over a long time. Rob had not yet decided if he was going to try to stop whom he referred to as Pfaltzer's freaks.
He knew it was dangerous. He knew Megan thought even considering fighting these creatures was suicidal, after he told her of his first encounter with them at Schroedecker's. But there wasn't anyone else.
And the AoD had already killed two innocent people. An old security guard who was earning four ninety-five an hour in a small museum down south, and a young woman killed by flying debris while trying to push a stroller containing her baby out of the way of the AoD as they blasted their way through the wall of yet another bank.
News reports said that the AoD's combined powers were beyond anything ever seen before- they made a mockery out of the police and even trashed a unit of the National Guard that was sent after them.
Rob didn't want to go up against them, but he felt like he might soon have no choice. He was, after all, one of them, could have been one of them in spirit as well.
If he was going to prove to himself that he was not crazy, or evil or power hungry, he was going to have to stand against them, even though, as Megan pointed out, that might be displaying another kind of psychosis, a desperation to prove himself right at any cost.
They had argued bitterly and Rob had left. The last thing he heard Megan say was, "If you love me, you won't do this." He went to Schroedecker's to think things through, and stayed in the old man's spare room.
In a message to the media The Apostles of Doom had promised that they would destroy a San Francisco landmark on Christmas Eve.
"We will remove a point of pride for the city, unless we are guaranteed one billion dollars in cash to be let at a pre-determined drop point before the twenty-fourth. Anyone who gets in our way will have to pay the consequences."
Schroedecker told Rob he had to be ready by then, saying that there was no way the police could guard a city with as many landmarks as San Francisco, and he was sure Rob would be needed.
The doctor spent all his time completing the suit which he had been working on for some weeks now. Many of the suit's components were inventions the doctor had been tinkering with the last few years. It was the suit which would make Rob into The Ant.
It was midnight blue, made of bullet-proof kelvar with a treatment that made it flame-proof.
There were large gloves, which would protect Rob from his own strength if he struck something too hard.
There was a big custom-made helmet, which contained various bulky breathing apparatus and air filters, multi-band and multi-media transmitter/receiver equipment built into two jutting antenna arms, and large light-sensitive eyepieces which were polarized and included night-vision and tele/microscopic image enhancement, all of which made the helmet resemble the head of an ant.
The boots were the doctor's specialty, and he had named them after himself; Schroedecker Uberboots. They had powerful shock absorbers and spring mechanisms built into them that would not only allow Rob to safely survive a jump from a great height, but they allowed him to leap to great heights and bounce around like a man on the moon, should he need a quick getaway.
The suit itself was skin tight and had an oily sheen to it. This was part of Schroedecker's special fabric treatment. It would be hard for anyone to get a grip on Rob because the suit was as slippery as hell.
A final touch was the emblem on the chest of the suit. An ant which was almost cartoon-like, standing up on its rear legs, raising its mid-and-forelegs in a fighting stance, the ends of its legs curled into fists as it gave a cocky glare.
"You actually want me to wear this?" Rob asked.
Schroedecker's answer was a frown that did not fade until Rob was completely suited up.
Rob looked at himself in a full-length mirror.
"Fantastic," Schroedecker said. "Robert, you look like you have just stepped from the pages of a comic book. You are now The Ant."
Rob thought he looked like a member of a ballet-dancing football team. Tights and a big helmet. Christ.
The suit didn't have any goddamn pockets, so he had tucked a few cigarettes into the antenna arms, and slipped his Zippo into one glove.
The increased size of his booted feet, gloved hands and helmeted head made his body look as if it were made of toothpicks.
He looked at the cocky little ant on his chest. The ant stared back. Little fuck, he thought.
"What do you think?" asked Schroedecker eagerly.
Rob thought the old doctor looked like a hungry puppy begging for a table scrap. He didn't want Schroedecker getting his beard bent all out of joint, so he said, "Well, the boot are pretty comfortable." This, in fact, was true. The insides of the boots had been molded for Rob's feet, and they were the best fitting footwear he'd ever tried. If only they weren't blue.
He walked around the room. The boots gave him a bit of bounce in his step. He flexed his fingers, hearing the new gloves creak.
The suit was designed well. It gave him a remarkable freedom of movement, and all of the electronics in the helmet worked fine.
He picked up Schroedecker's test radio transmission just fine. Inside the helmet was a display that listed helmet status and functions, and a camera that tracked his eye movements. All he had to do was look at a listed item, blink to highlight it and blink again to confirm, and that function was carried out.
He could pick up all emergency bands, CB, AM, FM, and a host of satellite signals. He was watching a Japanese game show (on the screen an MC in a loud checked coat and pants was waving a fan of yen under a contestant's nose - the helmet provided subtitles, and it appeared that the man, whose hands were tied behind his back, was being offered a tremendous sum of money to eat a glob of pure lard the size of his head sitting before him on a table), and chuckling when Schroedecker tapped him on the shoulder.
"Shall we test?" Schroedecker asked.
"Yeah," Rob said.
User Reviews
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-08-03 11:42:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Supreme Overlord damage control...
Submitted by Supreme_Overlord (user info) at 2005-07-21 22:22:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
shite
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2005-02-08 13:33:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2005-01-26 08:23:05 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2005-01-25 18:16:10 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-01-25 13:26:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Groovy. I like how you're making Rob look kind of ridiculous.
Submitted by AshK (user info) at 2005-01-25 12:07:50 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Where can I get me some of those boots?
Submitted by FuckTheArmy (user info) at 2005-01-25 06:26:31 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I believe this again deserves a +2. Not the best, but extra points for including Japanese TV.
Submitted by horse87 (user info) at 2005-01-25 00:25:46 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Keep 'em coming.....
Submitted by TigerLilly (user info) at 2005-01-24 19:14:15 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Damn!! I almost missed this one!
Submitted by stardamage (user info) at 2005-01-24 17:17:11 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
More, please.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-01-24 17:07:34 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
43 hits.
1 review.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
Submitted by Adjomak (user info) at 2005-01-24 14:46:56 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Not as good as the previous installments, but nonetheless a decent job.