The Nova Chord

The machines are revolting....no, really.

I.

Have you ever had one of those days?

You know, when it seems the world’s all against you, and nothing works for you. Especially when you absolutely need it to? At that moment?

Well, I have. More than a few. As a pre-teen, female superhero, it’s part of my “job”. ‘Specially when the forces of evil are responsible, like they usually are. Not that it’s something I can’t handle by myself. Most of the time, anyway.

My name may be Muscle Girl, but I’m not just a glorified goon, my enemies’ claims to the contrary notwithstanding. But if you do decide to mess with the bull (that being, my brawn), you’re gonna get the horns! Just making that clear…

Still, when you’re faced with a posse of berserk machines under the control of your nemesis, victory isn’t always a sure thing.

Yeah, I was mixed up in that whole worldwide “revolt of the machines” she orchestrated a while back, and it was only with a little bit of an unexpected help that I foiled that thing and got out with my lady parts intact.

Let me explain….

II.

It started back home in Bleakly Corners, Manitoba, where, as the comparatively mild mannered Gerda Munsinger, I hide out when my duties as the world’s mightiest prepubescent female allow. (But you just pretend you didn’t hear that- or else!)

I, having completed my school duties for the day, was trudging home, hoping to complete my homework as quickly as possible, and, then, to possibly sleep for long enough to repeat the mind-numbing (for me, as a super-smart kid, anyway) process over again tomorrow.

Fat chance!

Just after exiting the school, I saw a large commercial airplane up in the sky, probably on its way out from the airport in Winnipeg, to the south. However, that particular plane wasn’t going to end up where it was bound.

For, suddenly, to the horror of myself and everyone else, the plane’s engines suddenly stopped working, and it began a steady descent, nose first, towards the Earth!

A super-girl like me knows when she’s needed, so, applying my faster-than-average speed, I shucked off my secret identity wool-skirt-and-blouse ensemble and replaced it with the pink tights, white cape and panties and grey boots you see me wearing now.

Then, it was Muscle Girl to the rescue!

Like it always has to be around here. But I’m not complaining.

I sped through the air, caught up with the malfunctioning machine, and put my hands firmly on the tail. Applying my super-powerful muscles to it, I tugged it until the plane was out of its downward orbit and on a more horizontal path. Then, I switched to the bottom. Grabbing the hull this time, I held the plane above my head like some oversized hat and slowly (for me) brought it down to Earth, where I set it down, gently. Naturally, I got the usual hero’s reception, from the people in the plane and on the ground.

At least, until somebody beaned me with a rock while I was taking it all in.

My body wasn’t hurt, but my pride certainly was. And I wanted to know who was responsible- and why.

“All right!” I growled. “Who threw that?”

“I did, you FOOL!”

At this moment, to the sound of a cracking whip that caused everyone else to scatter in fear, came a figure familiar to me. A redheaded girl about my age and size, in a form-fitting black cat-suit and an eye-patch over one eye, carrying the aforementioned whip. I glowered at her fiercely from afar.

I had good reason to. She was my nemesis- Petra O’Leum.

The only girl on Earth who’s as fast, strong and smart as yours truly, since we both originally hail from the same planet (now extinct). She has dedicated her life as much to trying to destroy me- and conquer the world doing it- as I have to foiling evil.

As you can guess, we aren’t exactly pals.

“PETRA!” I snarled.

“Ah,” she answered, cheekily. “You haven’t forgotten me.”

“Why would I? I don’t easily forget my ENEMIES! Now: Am I to assume that you had something to do with this?”

Here, I gestured to the airplane.

“Of course I did, you IDIOT!” she responded. “Do you think a plane could malfunction with that level of sophistication on its own?”

“Not at all.” I pointed a finger at her. “Which is why I’m blaming YOU for DELIBERATELY trying to kill all of the people on…”

“Calm yourself! I knew you would come and save them when I did that. You “heroes” are patsies for that sort of thing.”

She had me there, but we heroes would phrase that differently. Much differently.

“You better beat it, O’Leum!” I warned her. “That little stunt hasn’t exactly put me in a good mood.”

“I am not exactly PLEASED with your intervention in my affairs, either, SISTER GOLDEN HAIR!” she shot back. “Why, I was all prepared to define my Nova Chord as a success until YOU interfered!”

“And what, exactly, is a Nova Chord?” I demanded, hands on hips, and prepared to strike if I had to.

“It is THIS!”

She produced a small portable device resembling an electric piano from out of nowhere.

“The Nova Chord,” she explained, condescendingly, “is a device that allows me to have total control over any machine I choose, whenever I wish. I can turn them on and off at random, change their functions and processes to what I want them to do, and, in particular, make them act in EVIL ways, instead of for the “good” embodied by you and your equally pathetic comrades-in-arms! This machine will allow me to control all of the machines on Earth- and, from there, Earth itself!”

“Not if I have anything to say about it!” I answered.

With all of my speed, I shot over to Petra, and attempted to steal the machine from her and destroy it. I say “attempted” because, just before I arrived, she put it down, and then, as I entered into her space, she punched me hard enough to knock me to my knees. Since she’s as strong as I am, I got socked real good, and, even though I soon got to my feet, I was punch-drunk for a couple of minutes after.

Which doesn’t happen when someone weaker than me punches me, obviously.

“Poor pathetic, predictable, pompous and pretentious Muscle Girl!” she said as I recovered from her broadside, popping each of the “p”s at the start of each of the offending words with a very arrogant pop. “You always assume, when we meet, that you can DEFEAT me….”

“…and I always do!” I said.

“Maybe, in the past. Through luck- and other forms of serendipity I cannot control. But not THIS time!”

Again, from out of nowhere, she produced….

….a toaster.

“Huh?” I said.

“What do you MEAN, “huh”?” Now Petra was in hands-on-hips attack mode.

“I mean, how is this going to stop me from defeating you and destroying that miserable machine of yours?”

“Didn’t you hear me explain how I can….AAAHHH! You lousy “heroes” always want proof, don’t you? Well, I’ll give you PROOF!”

She dropped her hand on the Nova Chord with a loud, unmusical CRASH. Suddenly, the toaster changed. Into a metal monster with arms and legs and a really ugly face. Formidable and menacing, sure- to anyone but me. Particularly considering how small it was.

“Hah!” I said, contemptuously. “You think that’s supposed to stop me?”

“It’s not supposed to,” responded Petra. “Just a demonstration of what the Nova Chord can do at its basic level, for your benefit. On the other hand…”

Suddenly, she hit the keyboard again, and I saw a large platoon of machines- large and small- with arms, legs and faces like the toaster, and much more sophisticated weaponry firing at me, besides, moving towards me at a rapid clip.

I was paralyzed with fear.

“What….is all that?” I said.

“Your doom, dear Muscle Girl,” Petra sneered. “Your doom.”

“But how did you…?”

“Don’t you GET it yet? The Nova Chord can turn a machine- ANY machine- into a rampaging metal beast intent on destruction. Especially YOURS!”

“Petra, you’re nuts!” I snapped angrily, to disguise my fear. “I’m stopping you….and them!”

“That’s what you think!”

I ignored that last comment, and flew over towards the machine, intent on using my muscles to pulverize them. But, before I could throw a single punch in their direction, they grew in numbers, and one of them swatted me out of the sky before I could duck the blow.

When I hit the dirt, they blasted me collectively with electricity, flame and heat stored inside of them. I screamed out in pain that was almost unknown to me, until I finally passed out….

III.

When I awoke, I was chained to a brick wall by my hands and feet somewhere, feeling much weaker than I had for quite a while. Obviously, I was a prisoner. Who had imprisoned me, there was no doubt. Petra obviously wasn’t going to have me interfere any further with her plans for conquering the world.

That was made even clearer when I discovered that she had imprisoned me in chains. Chains made of a metal from my home planet- which not even I could break!

“This is not good,” I said to myself, with enormous understatement, after a failed attempt to free myself, and a growing, unusual despair in my voice.

I was so low that I was even considering an act that was virtually unknown to me- crying. Fortunately, I was spared that.

The ground rumbled beneath me, as if there was an earthquake. But it wasn’t.

It was Cerberus, the mightiest puppy in the universe! My friend and colleague. (Ah, you’re nodding. You’ve heard of her.) So it looked like I had a chance, after all. She shook dirt off her white fur and monogrammed T shirt and came over to me.

“Glad to see you, Cerb’!” I said. “I’d come over, only I’m a little tied up at the moment…”

“That can be fixed easily, my friend,” she said, with surprising modesty for a dog without any weaknesses that I, for one, know of. With blasts from the heat rays in her eyes, she freed me, and I joined her.

“Hurry, MG!” Cerberus said. “We need to stop your friend Petra before she…”

“She’s not my “friend”!” I pointed out, indignantly.

“You know what I mean!” she answered, curtly. “Ever since she imprisoned you, she’s been taking out the rest of us heroes. Or, more precisely, the machines many of us rely on to do our jobs.”

“You mean…?”

“Uh huh. Turning all of our mechanical equipment AGAINST us!” she continued, theatrically. “My computer monitoring system rebelled against me. You hear me? REBELLED! I had to beat it into submission to save my fur. Not going to be easy repairing it after that- I kind of overdid it. But it can be done.”

“Gosh!” was all I could say in response to that.

“Fortunately,” said Cerberus, “I’d already gotten the co-ordinates for where you were being held, so I came here lickety split.”

“Any of the other gals able to help us out?”

“No.”

“NO?”

“I said ‘no’!”

“But, surely…”

“You don’t understand, Gerda.”

(Yeah, she knows who I really am. No secrets among us heroes-but we keep ‘em amongst ourselves from you guys, besides.)

“Most of us,” Cerberus continued, “require some sort of technology to help us with our work. You probably have some, too. Cell phones, computers, tablets, that sort of thing.”

“I see,” I said, catching on. “And might I assume that Petra and her Nova Chord were responsible for throwing them off their games? Like she did with me?”

“Yes. Among others: Candy Girl has been reduced to an anxiety-ridden wreck ever since her cell phone went dead. Poor thing relies on it way too much, as you know. Power Bunny got trapped by an inter-dimensional force field in Anthromorph and can’t come join us. Then, Jockey Girl was nearly trampled to death by her horses when the electrical power went out in her stable.”

“This is getting big,” I said, “if we’re all getting it like that.”

“No fooling. And that’s just the beginning. After she fooled around with us, Petra went ahead and blacked out all the electricity in the world…”

“I wondered why it was so dark in here…”

“…and she is demanding full control of the world in return for its restoration!”

“That’s typical for her. Are you sure there’s nobody else? What about Captain Disaster?”

“She fell down the stairs at home when the blackout hit.”

“Go Go Girl?”

“She got stuck in wet cement on the street and can’t get out.”

“The Brat?”

“Trapped on her home planet- on an unrelated manner.”

We went through the names of a couple more of our superhero chums, all of whom were in some sort of physical or mental limbo based on the events of the Nova Chord. The severity of it all was dawning on me, but in no way was I wimping out. Neither was Cerberus.

“I guess it’s just you and me, then?” I said.

“Yes,” she answered.

“So…you got any ideas about how we can fight those machine monsters?”

“Oh, sister! Have I got ideas!”

“Good. ‘Cause I have a good idea of where we can find Petra…”

IV.

So it was that, shortly afterwards, Cerberus and myself were in the process of doing our heroic duty by flying off to stop Petra and her Nova Chord, and then restore the world to some level of normalcy. My hunch of where we could find Petra hit pay-dirt when we spotted the giant black onyx Rubik’s cube vessel that Petra calls home when she isn’t trying to bash my brains out.

However, rather than make a full frontal assault, like I’m used to, we landed on the nearest riverbank, and watched the ship in action.

And waited.

This was Cerb’s plan. She didn’t think it was wise for us to smash into the cube immediately, as an immediate appearance might cause Pet to sic her machines on us- and then game over. Thus, we waited for the right opportunity to strike. I didn’t mind using stealth rather than speed, but my patience has never really been too thick, and its absence started to show.

“You know,” I finally said after a pause, “it might just float away before we can get on it at this rate…”

“If it does,” she answered, “we’re both fast enough to catch it, easily. But it’s about time we made our move, anyway. You know how to swim, don’t you?”

“Of course I know how to…”

“Just checking!” Cerberus then flashed her 1000 watt-cute puppy face at me, to cut off this debate. I, like most of the beings she encounters in her adventures, softened at the mere sight of it. But then, her game face came back- and so did mine.

“Remember what I said, okay?” she said.

“Etched in my mind,” I responded, pointing to my skull.

That being said, we both executed perfectly graceful swan dives into the river and burrowed our way towards Petra’s ship. After a punch from my fist made an opening for the two of us to fit in and enter, we made our way in, dried ourselves off…

…and were then surrounded by a crowd of Petra’s living machines, which had seemingly been tipped off to our arrival.

“Crumbs!” Cerberus cursed, as we set to work battling the machines when they closed in on us. “How in the world did they…?”

“If you knew Petra like I know Petra…” I said.

“Oh, oh, oh, what a JERK!”

“Exactly. She has a lot of the same powers as me, including my ESP and clairvoyance. Plus, she has all of her mechanical know-how, including the Nova Chord. So, even if we’d come in here without a plan, she’d find some way to trap us.”

“If you had told me all of this to start with…”

“Hey, she’s my enemy, not yours. I got a life outside of you, y’know!”

“Touche. I wouldn’t expect you to come into my world having gone through my enemy rolodex, either. So, sorry about that.”

“No worries.”

“Let’s just get rid of these things and….URK!”

I had turned my back on Cerberus for a moment, but when she said “URK!”, I turned around. To my horror, I saw Cerb being pushed into the oven of an old fashioned gas stove by said stove, clearly with the intent of cooking her alive!

“CERBERUS!” I exclaimed.

“Never mind me,” she said as she futilely fought the stove. “ ‘Tis better that you go confront your foe valiantly, whilst I resolve to meet my fate here regardless of what may occur…”

“Huh?”

“Go and kick her ASS!”

“Right.”

I left the room determinedly, putting a fist to any of the remaining machines there that tried to stop me.

V.

Petra was waiting for me when I got upstairs. (Natch!) And, like before, she wasn’t pleased to see me, even if she had predicted me coming all along.

“So!” she said. “I got your little dog, but YOU escaped!”

“Cerberus isn’t “my” dog!” I corrected her. “We’re friends. Unlike you, I haven’t the heart to be anyone’s MASTER!”

“Too bad I’ll soon be yours- along with the rest of this pitiful planet!”

“Not if I break that Nova Chord- and you!”

“My! Someone’s ANGRY, isn’t she?”

“Not the least because you almost caused a friend of mine to DIE, for all I know!”

“As if I care about the fate of some damnable MUTT!”

That did it!

Nobody talks about me or my friends that way. Especially not her!

Cursing loudly and violently, I rushed as fast as I could over to destroy her. But she acted almost as fast as I did, and blasted out another discordant wail from the Nova Chord.

Then I was surrounded, again, by what remained of the machine army Cerberus and I had just fought, along with some new recruits. If I still feared them, my anger at Petra trumped that. I ducked and dodged their further attacks on me, made my way to Petra, pushed her to the ground, yanked the Nova Chord out of her hands, and destroyed it by ripping it apart. Promptly, the machines around us turned back into the way they had been before- and, presumably, all the machines affected by Petra’s actions turned back to normal as well.

“That’s the last tune you’ll ever play on that thing, Petra,” I pronounced as I stood over her. “Now get out of here before I decide to play the same chords on YOU!”

She didn’t initially respond, as she seemed awestruck, typically, at the fact that I had undone a plan she considered to be infallible. But she quickly answered me.

“I don’t need any machines to destroy you, you spineless BITCH!” she roared.

Before I could do anything, she had gotten to her feet and put her hands on a particularly large refrigerator lying, which she lifted up above her head.

And then she beat me over the head with it.

Even though the fridge broke on my skull, it did the job Petra wanted it to do: incapacitate me. Not waiting for me to heal from the powerful, crippling blow, she compounded it by striking me with several easily available machines. Then, since her anger wasn’t spent yet, she proceeded to punch and kick me with her nearly-equal-to-mine strength, which weakened me even further. The final coup de grace was when she gathered a whole clump of my blond hair in one of her mitts, and tore it out right from the roots.

Only then did I cry out in pain.

With one arm, Petra raised what was left of me up by my shirt, and, with the other, she cocked her hand into a fist, ready to smack me into kingdom come.

“You are now going to meet your fate,” she growled with silent menace, “at the hands of EXACTLY the kind of show of force you have so UNJUSTLY shown to me and so many others! Farewell, you rotten waste of…..AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH!”

With this bloodcurdling scream, she dropped me to the ground, and tried to attend to a sudden, sharp pain in the back of her leg. As Petra hopped around, cursing the unknown level of hurt in her system, I saw who was responsible for her pain come into view.

“Cerberus!” I exclaimed. “You’re alive!”

“Of course,” she said.

“So…the oven didn’t cook you?”

“Nonsense! I destroyed it soon after you left. Then, for some reason, all of the remaining machines left the room…”

“Petra called them up here,” I explained. “I wrecked the Nova Chord, but she nearly killed me in response before you showed up.” I looked at the still flailing and screaming Petra. “Did you…?”

“Yep.”

As soon as Cerb admitted it, Petra suddenly turned around and glared at her.

“YOU!” she screamed. “I’ll…”

“You won’t be doing anything else today, O’Leum!” Cerberus shot back at her. “You’ve done ENOUGH as it is!”

“But how did you pierce my skin?” Petra demanded. “It is invulnerable…”

“Not against my teeth, I’m afraid,” said Cerberus. “Nothing I can’t bite through. And, unfortunately for you, I haven’t been vaccinated against crazy people fever!”

“WHAT?” Petra gasped in horror.

“Yeah,” continued Cerberus. “My breed is known for transmitting it. Right about now, your precious brain is about to start turning into MUSH!”

“NO!” Petra screeched. “NO! You’re a liar! I’ll CURE myself! You’ll see!”

With a mix of panic and determination, she sped out of the room.

“Cerb, you never told me about this ‘crazy people fever’ you have,” I said, with some concern. “It’s not contagious, isn’t it?”

“It shouldn’t be,” Cerberus said, making her “cute” face again. “I just made it up!”

Then she broke out laughing. And so did I.