MY JSA - pt. 4

Capt. Marvel left right away, flying out the hotel window, to go check on something in Fawcett City.  Also promising to be back in a flash was the Flash, who vanished from sight in a gust of wind. The Batman produced a pipe and began smoking while he listened to the Shadow tell him something in a hushed voice.

Scotty Thunder was still reeling from it all, and sought out the nearest restroom to get away for a moment.  All the water he had drank between courses had caught up with him, and he sought relief at the nearest urinal. No sooner had he started when he heard the door to the restroom open and someone striding into the room on soft-booted feet. Glancing over, Scotty was thunderstruck to see Hawkman himself step up to the urinal beside him. The man was topless save for his hawk-head hood, having removed his artificial wings, but still cut an imposing figure that clashed with the mundane environment.

"Hi," Hawkman said, as he began using the neighboring urinal. "I guess this has been quite a day for you."

"Yeah," was all Scotty could think to say.

"Well, try to relax and not be so intimidated. We're all just people beneath our costumes. Most of us are even human." Scotty imagined Hawkman was smiling at that last part, but didn't see. Hawkman had finished, and patted Scotty on the back with a steely hand that almost made Scotty miss the bowl.

By the time Scotty had washed up and composed himself, everyone was back in the private dining room. Scotty took his seat. Dollman was just speaking up.

"I guess it's come around to my turn now. I've been wondering what story to tell, as I've had quite a few adventures already too. But I think the most frightening adventure for any of us are he ones that threaten our real identities. As you know, I don't wear a hood or mask when I fight crime, and we've all debated the pros and cons of that before. But there was one night when I was afraid my friends and I were in danger from -- the men who knew too much.

"It was a quiet night in my lab last spring, and I was hard at work -- as always – on my shrinking formula. So far, my invention only seems to work on my own body chemistry, but the U.S.

Army was interested in a generic formula that would work on any soldier. As patriotic as the next superhero, I'm still trying not to let Uncle Sam down on that score. But that night, without warning, a thug with a gun burst through the door to my lab and shouted for me to freeze."

"I'd been caught flat-footed, and had no choice but to raise my hands like a good little scientist captive and go along. I even managed to say 'What's the meaning of this?' in a naively confused way.

"The first thug through the door told me to shut up with a gravely voice. He was big, broad, and looked like an ex-boxer with a case of the uglies. He was going to pistol whip me with his gun, when the second thug through the door told him to stop. The second thug was a tall, lean man with a long face and a cigarette hanging off his thick lip. He looked around, and nodded for two more thugs to file in and close the door behind them.

"'We know your secret, doc,' the tall lean man who lead them said. It was what I was afraid of – that the underworld had figured out I was Dollman! But I wasn't ready to give up. There had to be some way out of that jam.  “’Now that you know, what do you plan to do with me?’ I asked, still biding my time.

“’We’ll decide that before we’re through,’ their leader told me. ‘In the meanwhile, you’d better make yourself useful by explaining to us what of this stuff is valuable. If you’re really helpful, maybe we’ll even let you go.’

“By the way the other three snickered, I knew that wasn’t true. But I already had a plan. ‘I’ll cooperate -- just don’t hurt me. There’s plenty here that’s valuable…the main ratiometer is essential…the endocrinagitator is an extremely rare piece of equipment...’ I made up a few more exotic-sounding names for some of the less-expensive equipment in the room.

“’You heard ‘em, boys, start moving these into the truck outside!’ the last two thugs to enter frowned, but silently settled into the task of moving. ‘Is that all you got?’ he asked, looking back at me.

“’No, that’s not. There are several other rooms full of my equipment. It would really help if you had a better understanding of what all this does, and then you’d know which are the most valuable items. Although this is all state-of-the art equipment, much of it stems from biological concepts that have been known much longer. In 1912, for instance, we first started to learn of the importance of vitamins…’

“’Shut up!’ I was told. ‘Just show us what’s in the next rooms. We haven’t got all night!’

“’Well, alright, I’ll show you where I keep the vitamin ventrification units that I was trying to describe. But the room is fairly small. One of you can come in to lift them…’

“By then, I’d maneuvered them where I wanted them, and my double-talk seemed to have lulled them into a false sense of security. The skinny leader was naturally reluctant, and sent his biggest goon in with me.  

"'Hey..' said the big lug, 'this vitamin-thingee looks a lot like water heater.'

"But he didn't get to say anymore, because when he turned around I was gone. Sealed in the small boiler room, I had shrunk down to doll size. Taking care of this one was as simple as tying his shoelaces together and pushing on his foot with my full-sized strength. He toppled over into the water heater, smacked his head good and hard, and lost his gun in the tumble. While he lied there, groaning, I grew back to full size, pulled down his jacket, and used its sleeves to bind his arms behind his back.

"I was sure by now that these crooks didn't know I was Dollman, or they never would have separated like that. So what was the secret they thought they knew? I had to find out, but that meant capturing the other three, and still not spoiling my secret identity.  I had shrank back down just in time, because the door opened. The talkative one tried to get some responses out of the big lug on the floor about what happened and where I had gone, but by then I had slipped around the open door, grew back to full size, and closed it fast.  Grabbing a nearby chair, I jammed it under the door handle just as the crook started to pound on the other side.

"Glancing around the room, I noticed that what I had called my ‘endocrinagitor' was already gone. It was then I realized that I had already made my first grave mistake, because even though they had only taken a cabinet I stored some chemicals in, it occurred to me that some of those chemicals were volatile.  If these crooks were as bad at driving as they were at robbing scientists, then they were in for some trouble unless I stopped them before they left.

"I'd shrunk back down in time before the two goons who'd moved the cabinet came back in, and just as the doorknob to the boiler room was shot off from the inside.  Now I had all four of them to deal with again, though the big lug was rubbing a big red spot on his head and still looked groggy.  The crooks quickly compared notes, and their leader came up with the theory that I had somehow escaped out of the boiler room through a secret passage or some such thing.  One of the two movers got scared and said I must have been on my way to get the cops. They might have bolted for their truck outside, so I had to act fast to keep them with me.  Using the tables and cabinets spread throughout the room for cover, I could walk around the whole room as if invisible. And that's what I did – I walked right over to a side door, and opened it as slowly as I could. To the crooks, it creaked open eerily.

"'What is this place, haunted?' one of them asked.

"'Don't be stupid, it's just that kooky doc! And it means he's still in here somewhere.  I'll show him that no one makes a fool out of Toby Braddon!  Joe, Mitch, check out that door.  Moose, stay by that boiler room and make sure he doesn't double back through there.'

"Joe and Mitch were slow and cautious on entering the side room, which was a secondary lab with cages of test rats in it. Their slow approach had bought me enough time to race ahead of them a few rooms to the circuit breakers, and I plunged the secondary lab into darkness after they entered.  When I crept back in, they were still searching the room, and arguing over what was wrong with the lights. In the dim light from the front room, I was able to sneak past them and slam that door shut. It was now plenty dark in the lab -- dark enough for me to grow back to full size behind one of them with some things in my hands I had picked up from the room -- a rag and a bottle of chloroform. The crook fought against my grip, but in vain, and he dropped to the floor just as the other one got the door to the front lab open again.

"‘Boss, he got Joe somehow!' Mitch yelled out."

“The door to the testing lab flung open, flooding the room with light that revealed the truth of Mitch’s words. I’d taken one down again, and had to stop the rest of these crooks fast. Mitch wanted to pick up his fallen comrade, but Toby ordered him not to, and the two crooks resumed searching for me back-to-back, with their guns held high. They made it into the storage room, but by then I’d already killed the lights to that room as well, and even had a minute to string up a tripwire trap in the dark. Toby had found my flashlight in the testing lab, but Mitch was stumbling around blind and went down from the tripwire. He let out a yelp of surprise as he hit the pool of pitch I had provided, a bucket’s worth left over from when the lab’s roof had been fixed in the spring. Toby had some harsh words to say for his underling, but had to stoop over to help him up. That gave me time to grow back to full-size outside the room, come running back in, and give Toby a quick kick to the rear. While Toby was sprawled out on top of a sticky Mitch, I scooped up their dropped guns. I don’t like guns, and I don’t use them when I fight crime, but I didn’t want these hoods thinking I was too heroic. I ordered them at gunpoint to sit on the floor with their backs together, and then I tied them up tight with a roll of insulated wire.

“I had just finished knotting the wire when I heard Moose hollering for his buddies out in the main lab.  Apparently, he had come to his senses – such as they were – and I was going to have to take him down again. But as I snuck through the testing lab to get closer, I heard another, much more familiar voice as well. I could tell it was my girlfriend, Martha. I took the last sip from the shrinking potion I had on me, and snuck in for a closer look.

“Moose was shouting, ‘Boss! Come out, I think I’ve got the doc’s girlfriend here!’  Sure enough, Martha had chosen just the wrong moment to visit the lab, and the dumb lug had grabbed her.  I knew Martha was a feisty girl, and might even get out of this on her own, but there was no taking chances since Moose had a gun in his hands again.

“I slowly opened a drawer where I knew a funnel to be, and I spoke through it like a megaphone. ‘Alright, don’t hurt her! I’ll come out!’ I said.

“’Oh, she’ll get it, if you don’t come out with whatever you’re working on for the government!’

“So, that was the big secret they thought they knew – some small-time crooks had gotten wind that I had a military contract and thought I had some super-weapon.  They didn’t even suspect that my secret weapon was a shrinking formula. But Martha didn’t know my secret yet either, back then, so I had to get her out of the room…and a plan occurred to me that would work if Moose was dumb enough. I did my best impression of his boss, Toby. 'I've got the doc,' I said.

'Shove the girl in the boiler room!' Sure enough, Moose was used to obeying orders without questioning them. When Martha was shut safely away, I slipped in front of him, sipped the last of my growth potion, held my fist over my head, and waited to connect with his jaw.

One call to the police later, the crooks were taken care of, and my secrets were all safe."

Dollman had scarcely finished before the Flash was ready for his tale.

“My story has to do with sunken treasure,” the Flash began, “and how I helped a poor man escape a crowd of swashbuckling cutthroats! The Sancta Joanna, a Spanish galleon, went down

off the coast of Panama in 1567. It was laden with gold plate and precious jewels from the Aztec treasure houses. Many attempts had been made to find it but none of them had been successful. It lay in green-blue waters, unseen by man for centuries.