Synaptic Overload
by Brandy Dewinter and Tigger
Chapter 6 - Queens In Conflict
"This is Elizabeth Hawley at the 6-Shooter News desk, with an update
on the as-yet unnamed new superhero. There are now at least 5 confirmed
sightings of the flying woman. We are pleased to report that she seems
committed to aiding society, rather than preying on it. In each reported
appearance she has either rescued someone, as in the first time she was
seen, or aided the police in capturing criminals. At this time, the
extent of her powers is not fully understood, but she seems to have some
sort of laser beam, a disintegrating ball, and of course her ability to
fly."
The anchorwoman concluded her report from the TV in the faculty
lounge with a repeat of the standing offer for information on the true
identify of the costumed superhero. An action image of the flying woman
was shown on the screen near the reporter's head, accompanied by a toll-
free number for those who might have information about her identity.
Terhune watched the report with rapt attention. As soon as the image
faded from the screen when the station went to a commercial, Terhune stood
up and began to pace.
"That has got to be the most gorgeous woman there has ever been," he
gushed.
Thorson didn't know whether to be pleased or insulted. He settled
for an observation of his own. "You don't even know what she looks like,
really. She's always wearing a mask."
"I can see enough. She always holds herself so erect and dignified,
yet with those curves she's clearly all woman! She has an incredible
figure; her costume makes that clear. But it's what is inside the costume
that is the perfect example of a sensual woman. That is a lady who
deserves respect, yet she's so caring and, well, feminine, too."
"Oh, she probably wears something to make her skinny," Thorson
laughed, knowing the truth of his joke even as he made it. He carefully
avoided even thinking about the other part of Terhune's praise.
"She's not skinny, just trim," Terhune defended his unknown lady.
"And I don't think anyone could get that shapely just from clothes."
"I thought you were all hot and bothered about that other woman
that showed up a while back, the bank robber with the dark hair," said
Thorson, trying to change the subject, or at least the object of the
conversation.
"Oh, her. Well, she's a criminal. Besides, I prefer blondes. And
this new girl has the most beautiful blonde hair I've ever seen."
"It's certainly long," Thorson agreed with a sigh that Terhune
misunderstood completely. He thought it was shared desire on Thorson's
part, when in fact it was remembered bother that caused Thorson to sigh.
"I'd give anything to meet her in person," Terhune promised.
"You never know, maybe you already have," Thorson said, grinning
with a secret he couldn't share.
"What do you mean?" asked Terhune.
"Well, nobody knows who she is. So she may be just about anybody.
Maybe she's someone you already know," Thorson explained.
Terhune seemed captivated by the idea. "Do you really think so?"
"I suppose it's possible," Thorson said.
"But I don't know anyone with hair that gorgeous, not to mention a
body like that," Terhune complained.
"I imagine that some of that might be, um, costuming," Thorson said.
"Oh, quit putting her down. She's gorgeous, through and through.
Any fool could see that."
*Any fool indeed,* Thorson thought, but he said nothing further.
**********************
"Your Majesty, we are ready to begin," reported General Oahu.
"Very well," the slender brunette said. She dropped a long coat
that had covered her distinctive costume and walked toward the entrance
to the hotel. Her entourage fell in behind her, yet they had small part
to play in this particular adventure.
The door to the hotel opened automatically but most of the lobby
inside was cordoned off by obvious Secret Service agents with radar eyes
and electronic voices. Two started toward the masked woman as soon as
the door revealed her, but with a wave of her hand they seemed to lose
interest.
A woman seated behind a registration table near the entrance to the
ballroom lost interest almost as quickly, though in her case the flush on
her face and quickened breathing were signs of a different sort of
distraction. The masked woman with the regal bearing strode into the
ballroom itself as though those inside had gathered in her honor. Perhaps
they had, even if unknowingly, for the subject of the gathering was,
"Women of Power".
The speaker, a middle-aged blonde woman, stopped in the middle of her
speech at the interruption. She looked anxiously at the agents around her,
but none seemed to be paying attention. The attendees at the fund-raising
banquet were predominantly women, and they were becoming aware of an
arousal that was in many cases unfamiliar. The few men in the room,
primarily Secret Service agents, were looking frantically, yet
unproductively around, unable to determine a course of action to pursue.
"Who are you?" the blonde speaker demanded of the pretty brunette.
"We are Synapse, right Queen and Monarch of the islands of Hawaii,
which you have stolen from us."
Before the blonde could respond, Synapse spoke again. "You, who
think yourself Queen of this land, know this. We will not be denied our
heritage. We have offered you several opportunities to meet our just
demands, yet you have refused to recognize us."
Synapse took a step closer, and her smile twisted into a sneer. "You
think you have power, basking in the reflection of your husband's
position. Your sycophants tell you that you have power of your own,
despite the pathetic way you struggle to find some position to which you
can actually be elected. Now we will show you real power, that of a true
Queen, against which your self-anointed pretense has no defense."
With that, the lips revealed within the dark mask Synapse wore
smoothed into silken softness. Her long-nailed finger drew a lazy circle
in the air, then another, then a third. From the side, it wasn't clear
where her finger was pointed, but on the direct line from Synapse to the
blonde woman, the targets of her gestures were obvious. The now-silent
speaker gasped at each motion, a flush rising over her features. With the
third gesture, the blonde's eyes drooped into a heavy-lidded smolder,
windowing the heat building within her. Her breath became even more
ragged and she clutched at the lectern as her knees grew suddenly weak.
In another moment, her hands lost their strength and she collapsed slowly
to the floor, panting and twitching.
The dark-haired, self-proclaimed Queen of Hawaii looked down on the
shuddering woman and said, "See that your husband grants our just demands,
or no place within your nation is safe from our power."
Dropping her voice to a whisper, Synapse said to the blonde alone,
"Assist us in recovering what is ours by right, and we may allow you
unlimited access to the pleasure you prefer, no longer bound by the
pretense of marriage to a man."
Synapse stood and looked over the crowded ballroom. She laughed and
resumed her arrogant stride toward the exit, her spike-heeled boots
imparting an inescapably sensual sway to her otherwise regal motion. As
she exited the room, she looked back and said, "We will grant you all
another ten minutes of our power, except for your self-anointed one. She
will enjoy our gift for a full half-hour. Let all of you carry forward
our message. Grant our just demands, or face consequences infinitely less
pleasurable than those of this encounter."
**********************
"This is Bill Ivins, of World News Network, reporting to you live
from the Regency Hotel, site of the "Women of Power" conference which was
attacked earlier today by the woman calling herself Synapse and claiming
to be the Queen of Hawaii. Now, back to our anchor desk."
Janice turned down the volume on the TV and looked at Thorson. He
had come for a regular voice and mannerisms lesson, though it had become
as much a strategy session for Entropy's appearances as any training in
femininity. Both Janice and Angie had long since imparted any skills
they might have and considered "Janie" Thorson to be passable under any
social situation not involving loss of clothes. Jonny Thorson was not
as confident, despite several uneventful public excursions and an equal
number of appearances as Entropy.
"That woman is crazier than a folded tesseract," Thorson declared.
Neither Janice nor Angie understood the reference, but that didn't matter.
They understood the meaning and waited patiently for Thorson to say
something further.
"I think it may be time for Entropy to take on a real challenge,"
he said softly.
"Against this Synapse creature?" Angie asked.
Thorson nodded.
"But you don't have any defense against her power," cautioned Janice.
"I know, but no one else seems to have a defense, either. Based on
that report we just watched, there does seem to be a range limitation,
though. She might be able to do something mild across a distance as large
as that room, but she had to get real close to her target for the intense
effect."
"That's a pretty big assumption. Maybe she just wanted to, well, get
in her face or something."
"Maybe," Thorson agreed. "But I still think my weapons outrange
hers, and I should have more mobility since I can fly. I think I have to
do this."
Janice was still worried about their friend, and unconvinced the risk
was reasonable. "You may be able to fly, but you don't even know where to
fly to."
In response, Thorson pulled a newspaper clipping out of his bag. It
heralded the opening of a Hawaiian artifacts exhibit at the Castle Rock
Museum of American Heritage.
"Do you think our Queen of Hawaii will be able to resist that?" he
asked.
"So, what's the plan?" Janice sighed.
Thorson outlined his approach as though it would be simple, "I think
I'll stake out the museum. Then, when they rob the place, I'll follow
them back to wherever they've been hiding, and capture Synapse."
"Just like that, huh?" Angie said with a snort of disbelief.
"Do you have a better idea?" he asked.
"Yeah, stay home. Let the FBI catch her or something," Angie
answered.
"They haven't yet," Thorson pointed out. "Look, this is my big
chance. Now that Synapse has elevated herself from bank robber to
potential assassin, she's big news. If I can catch her, I'll have proven
myself and my powers so visibly that everyone will have to accept the
importance of my discoveries. This is what I've been pointing toward
all along."
Janice, who had been silent for several minutes, sighed again and
said, "It looks like your mind is made up. What can we do to help?"
"I don't really know. Any suggestions?" he asked.
"Johnny, you are without a doubt the best at impersonating a woman
that we've ever had in our salon. You're pretty, graceful, and demurely
feminine. In the last few sessions, I've been learning from you. I
don't have any suggestions at all."
Thorson blushed at the compliments, which looked much less congruous
on his face than on either of his alter egos, but the flush faded into
a grimace.
"That's not particularly good news," he said.
"Why not?" Angie asked. "You're a natural!"
"I'm a man. It's not right that I can look so much like a woman," he
said.
"Indeed?" Janice asked, an arch of elegant brow saying more than the
bare word, though Thorson continued on obliviously.
"One of my co-workers was going on and on about how gorgeous Entropy
is. But he was really talking about me! I don't want to be a babe! If
anything, I want to be a, well, a hunk. Or at least a man. It's not
right for a man to be so good at looking like a woman." He repeated, his
voice trailing off into silence.
Janice opened her mouth to say something more, but before she uttered
a word her shoulders slumped and she looked away. Still silent, she
walked from the room.
Thorson roused from his inward focus to see her retreating back.
His words replayed in his mind and he realized they applied to more than
himself. "Janice, wait. I'm sorry. I didn't mean you."
Only her drooping shoulders heard his words as the door to the main
salon closed behind her. Thorson started to go after her, but Angie
caught his arm and held him back.
"Let her go, Jonathon," she ordered.
"But I hurt her, and I didn't mean to," he protested. "She's very
good at what she does, and I respect that."
"Yes, you did hurt her. And no, you don't really respect her,
though you recognize her competence."
"I, but, well, that's the same thing," he said.
"No, it's not. Sit down, Jonathon. I'm going to tell you some
things you need to know," she ordered. Then repeated more sharply
when he hesitated, "I said, 'Sit down'!"
As he complied, she continued, "I am going to try to help you
understand the woman inside the man I love a little better. You still
don't fully . . .ha. . .don't *begin* to appreciate the gifts you are so
casually blowing off. It took James *years* to learn how to look the way
Janice does. Years of trial and error, of exercise, of dieting. He was
brought up eating "Mom-food", and now has to turn his back on the foods he
likes best so that Janice can still fit into that size twelve. Years of
being desperately *afraid* that someone would find out and laugh at him,
humiliate him. Do you know how long it took me to calm James down the day
I finally let him know that I already *knew* about Janice? And that I
still *loved* him?
"Hell, I love him now more than ever. Can you understand how
flattering it is to have a husband devote his life to understanding
women? To paying attention to each little nuance of gesture and
inflection, and then use the knowledge not only to emulate women, but to
be sensitive to the needs of the woman he loves? I'm here to tell you
that men who understand women well enough to emulate them, who embrace and
cherish soft words, considerate gestures, grace and beauty are far and
away the best possible lovers. And if you have some other definition of
what a real man should be, well, I don't even want to hear it."
Thorson slowly nodded his head, "Yes, I suppose so. But, well,
why didn't Janice just tell me that, instead of running off?"
"You idiot," Angie said, but there was no heat in her tone, only
gentle sadness. "Without really trying, you make a prettier woman than
Janice can ever be, because you have been given natural gifts she can
never have. Oh, Jonny, don't you see? Millions of natural-born girls
go to sleep at night wishing they could look like a "babe". You cheapen
the dream of each of them by putting down your own success. And no
genetic girl ever worked harder for that goal than Janice. Not only is
she jealous, but it hurts her to see how little you think of her because
of how little you think of your own achievement."
Angie concluded with a sad sigh, "And of me, if you think all this is
shameful."
"Oh, God, Angie. I never meant that. You guys are the best friends
I have. I would never hurt you."
"Yes, you would," she said without compromise. "You did. But I know
you didn't do it from malice. After a while, Janice will, too."
"I have to go talk to her, let her know how sorry I am," he said,
standing.
"No. You don't," Angie said with continued firmness. "*I* will go
to her. That is my privilege, and my duty. You will go home, and think
about who it harms if a man loves women enough to want to emulate them.
Once you can answer that question, you might begin to add a woman's heart
to the mind and body you can display so perfectly."
"So what should I do?" Thorson asked.
"Go home, like I said," Angie repeated as she escorted him to
the back exit. When they reached the door, she put an arm around his
waist and reached up to kiss his cheek and smile to show that things
would be all right. "You be careful. You still owe us for the wig."
Thorson dredged up a not very convincing smile of his own and said,
"I will be."
*******************
"I screwed up big time tonight, Ding," Thorson said as he fed the
cat. "I hurt someone who didn't deserve it."
Dinger was busy in his food, but he looked up with an
uncharacteristic willingness to be distracted. A flick of his tail
precluded any need to talk with his mouth full. [Care to talk about
it?]
"Ding, does it ever bother you that we don't have any friends?"
Thorson asked.
Ding's answer was a positively, well, feline licking at his chops.
[Speak for yourself. There's this cute kitten down the alley that
can get real friendly, if you know what I mean.]
"I don't mean sexual flings," Thorson snorted. "I mean real, help-
you-when-you-need-it-and-don't-ask-the-cost friends."
Dinger looked at the few remaining morsels in his bowl for a long
second, then left them as he walked over to Thorson and rubbed up against
his tall roommate's ankles. [You got me.]
"Thanks, Ding. I appreciate that," Thorson said, scritching at the
tomcat's ears.
Duty done, Ding went back to his food. Thorson joined him in a
simple meal, but his thoughts were still churning.
"I need to really rethink my life, Dinger," Thorson announced. "The
first step in that is going to be to capture this Synapse person, but
after that, well, we'll have to see. My plans may need to change."
"Mmrrowwrowff," Dinger cautioned. [Just as long as you continue to
feed me on time.]
"Oh, don't worry," Thorson said. Then he stopped and realized that
indeed there might be something to worry about.
He went to the phone and dialed the Inner Truth salon, hoping that
Angie would answer, or that if Janice answered, she wouldn't hang up
immediately. It turned out that neither of those options occurred.
Instead, he got the answering machine.
"Janice, before I say anything else, please believe me when I say
that I'm sorry. Despite what I've done, I need to ask a favor. It may
take me a couple of days to catch Synapse, and if it does, I need someone
to look after my cat. Could I ask you to come down to Armbruster, by the
college, tomorrow so that I can introduce you? I'm sorry to impose, but,
well, there's not really anyone else I can ask."
"And isn't that a sorry state of affairs," he mused to himself.
**********************
The call the next morning was from Angie, and if her pixie grin
didn't sound as clearly in her voice as it often had, still her tone
was light-hearted. "When do you need us?"
"Well, the Hawaiian artifacts arrive in town this afternoon," he
answered, "and I guess I should stake the place out starting tonight."
"Okay, we'll be there this evening," she promised.
When the doorbell rang that night, Thorson opened it expecting to
see Janice and Angie. What he saw was Angie and a slender middle-aged
man. He was about to ask if he could help the man, wondering why Angie
was with him, when he realized what was happening. Then his jaw dropped
and he couldn't say anything. It took him a moment to recover. When he
did, he stepped back into the room with a sheepish grin on his face.
"Like, duh! I was about to ask who you are."
"I think I'll take that as a compliment," James said. Angie smiled
her pixie grin as she followed her husband into the room.
"You don't have a problem with this, do you?" asked James.
"No, not at all," Thorson answered. "It's just not what I was
expecting. I've never seen you in, well, normal clothes."
James laughed and said, "Anymore, these aren't my normal clothes.
I call it being, 'en drab'. But it's a long way to ride in a corset,
and one of my problems is that I need the more overt aspects of femininity
to be reasonably convincing."
"Oh, no you don't," Angie disagreed. "You just think you do. You'd
look cute in a some tight jeans and a fluffy sweater, with a big bow in
your hair."
"Yes, dear," James disagreed by agreeing.
Just then Angie caught sight of Dinger. "Oh, what a cute kitty!"
"Mrrwrrmphrrsst." [I am not cute! And I am not a kitty!] Dinger
said as he turned his back on her. His tail said a bit more, but that
probably was better left untranslated.
"Oh, my," Angie said. "I'm afraid I've hurt his feelings."
"Probably," Thorson agreed, "but he bribes easy."
He handed the short-haired woman a treat from a bowl he kept out of
Dinger's reach, then conducted the introductions.
"Angie, this is Dinger. Dinger, you need to be nice if you want your
bribe."
"Mrraor." [Okay. I'll let her get by with it, this time.] He said
as he watched Angie's hand with the treat. Only his tail seemed
uninvolved in his focus on the food, though his tail was snapping quickly
enough to show interest, just not focus.
"Dinger?" James asked.
"Yes," Thorson confirmed.
"As in Schroedinger?" James asked next.
"Very good. Not many people make the connection."
James laughed, "A scientist with a cat named Dinger, and they don't
think of Schroedinger?"
"Most people don't think, dear, that's why so many of our clients get
so much abuse," Angie said sadly.
"You got that right," James confirmed, then turned back to Thorson.
Before Thorson could launch into a long and painful series of
apologies, James grinned and gave him an excuse for being a social idiot,
"Okay, Mr. Scientist, we're here. What's next?"
"Um, actually, I'm not quite ready yet. If you'll just give me a
minute, I need to change clothes."
While Thorson disappeared into the other room, Angie tried to build
on her friendship with Dinger, stealing another bribe from the bowl to aid
her seduction. James was looking through Thorson's reference books, and
even more closely at the fiction he had also collected, when Thorson
returned. He wore the Entropy costume, though he carried the wig and the
mask.
"I'm afraid I couldn't really get started until you got here, in case
someone else came before you did. So it'll take a little while," Thorson
explained.
"Not as long if we help," Angie offered, grinning at the relief that
showed on Thorson's face.
Dinger looked at his strangely dressed roommate with intense
curiosity. But instead of backing up screeching like he had done the
first time Thorson had presented himself in a superhero costume, Ding just
sniffed at the foolishness of humans and walked to the patio door.
"It looks like Dinger has a date," James laughed.
"Well," Thorson said, "there is this kitten down the alley that he
was telling me about."
It was strange for Thorson to have another man in the room when he
completed his transformation to Entropy. Stranger still to have that man
tugging on his corset laces, and brushing his long hair into place. Yet
the familiarity of the actions, despite the strangeness of the setting,
served to repair the breech in their friendship that Thorson's
insensitivity had created. By the time Entropy was ready for her mission,
they were laughing and joking again as though nothing had happened.
The mood changed, though, when it was finally time for Entropy to
leave.
"I truly am sorry," she said to James.
"I know. Forget it. I already have."
"You be careful," Angie said in mock seriousness, overlying an all
too true concern.
"I will," Entropy said, then slipped out into the darkness behind
the apartments.
"Do you think she'll be okay?" Angie asked.
"I hope so," James answered as they saw the silhouette of a caped
woman rise against the moonlit night.