Issue 7
Part One of 'Who's Robbing Who?'

Inadequate Man ushered the last of the passengers into the carriage behind him. When the last person went past, he disengaged the carriage. Now it was just him and the Worm King in the driver’s carriage.

The train was racing along at full speed beneath Premise City, all brakes in the driver’s compartment disengaged. Ahead, according to the map on the carriage wall, they were coming closer to Main Street station.

With all the noise in the carriage, Kane had to turn on his helmet’s amplifiers to be heard over the din.

“Give up, Worm King! I disengaged the other carriages. Your hostages are all gone. Now, there’s only you and me.”

The Worm King’s head poked out of the driver’s compartment, grinning maniacally. “That’s OK! They were just a trick! I didn’t care about the hostages!”

Inadequate Man moved forward and saw for the first time that the suitcase the Worm King had been carrying was opened. Inside the suitcase, was a bomb!

“I told them the ground belonged to the worms, but did they listen? Oh no! They continued on with the new subway extension. I warned them, but they didn’t listen. Well, now they will listen!”

Kane looked at the map again. They would reach Main Street Station in about two minutes. Checking his watch, he realised it was ten minutes past five. Turning pale, Kane realised what the Worm King meant to do. He was going to blow up all the people waiting at the station to go home from work.

Inadequate Man sprang forward, the confines of the compartment making it all but impossible to fly. The Worm King shrieked and tried to close the driver’s door.

A few metres before reaching the door, Inadequate Man launched himself into the air, engaging his helmet’s ‘Giant Prick’ attack. A solid ridge sprang up on top of the helmet, striking the door and knocking it off its hinges.

Inadequate Man grabbed the Worm King around the throat and lifted him off the floor. He was tall and very thin; with thick glasses that made his eyes look like a bug’s. He used to work at the Premise City Science Museum, so the Commissioner had told him, before he was fired because of his strange fascination with worms.

“Worm King, you will disarm that bomb, right now!” Inadequate Man roared at him.

The Worm King giggled, shaking his head and raising his hands. Small tubes ran from his backpack and down his arms, ending at his wrists. Laughing, he pressed the trigger. Massive amounts of slime erupted form the pipes, spraying all over Inadequate Man’s face and upper body. Stunned, he took a few steps back and slipped, falling back into the main compartment.

“Teehee, a worm’s secretion helps it dissolve the earth while burrowing and hold the tunnel in place behind it. It sets quickly and then it really starts to burn.” Laughing, he scurried back into the driver’s compartment.

The slime seemed to be thickening, freezing his jaw shut and filling up his nostrils. Slowly, small wisps of smoke started to rise and Kane saw his combat suit beginning to melt.

Flicking on the ‘Multi-Prick’ attack, hundreds of tiny little spikes sprang out from his gloves, tearing apart the slime that covered them.

Sitting up, Inadequate Man quickly punched himself in the head as hard as he could. The slime split and he peeled it away from his face.

Growling, he checked his watch. There was just over a minute to stop the train, stop the Worm King and disarm the bomb.

‘They need to pay me more for this job,’ he thought as he ran towards the driver’s compartment again. ‘On second thought, they need to pay me.’

Inadequate Man saw that the Worm King was just about to jump from the train and leapt towards him. He grabbed the Worm King from behind and drove his elbow into the base of his skull. Throwing him into the corner, Inadequate Man flipped open the lid of the bomb to reveal a mass of yellow wiring and yellow switches.

A small timer sitting on top of the bomb revealed that he only had 27 seconds before the bomb would detonate. Just enough time to reach Main Street Station.

Kane searched the mass of wires trying to work out how to disarm it when he heard the Worm King giggle.

“You can’t stop it, Teehee! Now we’re all going to be worm food.” He drifted back into unconsciousness, still giggling.

He was right, there was no way Kane could disarm the bomb. Looking ahead, he saw the tunnel was filled with bright light. The new subway extension changed lines just before reaching the station, and they were beginning to lay the tracks now.

An idea sprang into Kane’s head and he grabbed the Worm King before moving to the middle of the train. Dumping him on a seat, he moved up against the left side of the train.

Pushing away, he flew the short three metres into the other side of the train, rocking it on the tracks. Hurrying back, he tried it again, the train rocking more violently.

Ahead, the turn into Main Street Station was now visible. The timer on the bomb read 14 seconds.

Taking a deep breath, Inadequate Man steadied himself for one last attempt, because that was all he would get. As the train started the turn, he threw himself at the opposite side of the train, engaging his Giant Prick attack yet again and ramming it into the train’s structure.

The train rocked and…derailed, heading straight ahead instead of turning into the station. Sparks flew from the front of the train as the metal wheels spun on the cement beneath it. Workmen near the start of the new extension jumped out of the way as it slid past, still rocking.

Kane grabbed the Worm King and put him over his shoulder. Running towards the back of the train, he leapt into the air as the bomb counted the final three seconds.

He landed hard, using the Worm King’s body to cushion the impact and then the bomb went off. The blast wave flung them fifteen feet further down the tunnel before they crashed to the ground again, flames roaring past just a few feet above them.

Inadequate Man emerged from the dust and smoke that was quickly filling the subway tunnels to drop the Worm King on the Main Street Station platform. People, just picking themselves up from the bomb rocking the station stared at him.

Inadequate Man was covered in soot and his combat suit was blackened and torn in many places. His helmet was badly crumpled so he pulled it off his head.

The Commissioner came running down the escalator with a handful of police in tow, as well as the Head of the Premise City Rail Department.

Kane pointed towards the body lying at his feet. “This is the Worm King. I disengaged the other carriages so the hostages are probably stuck a few hundred feet further up the tunnel. He had a bomb on the train. His plan all along was to blow the station up.”

Exhausted, Kane collapsed on one of the platform seats, trying to hold his head up with his hands. The head of the Rail Department was furious.

“So, instead, you blow up the new extension! Do you have any idea how much this will set us back, not to mention the cost of repairing the damage?”

“What else was I supposed to do?”

“Well, you could have disarmed the bomb!”

“I couldn’t.”

“It’s easy. Everyone knows you just cut the blue wire.”

“He had painted all the wires yellow and I only had 27 seconds.”

“I’m sure that guy up in…what is it…Hotham City…could have done it.”

“Have you seen the hardware that guy has? Bat-mobile, Bat-plane, Bat-gun, Bat-pen. He even has the Bat-Bomb-Disarmer-1000. What the hell have I got? A stupid fucking helmet I made myself. If you guys actually paid me something for saving the city, maybe I could afford to get the equipment to disarm a yellow bomb in just 27 seconds! Instead, all I get are these keys to the city, which I might add, haven’t been able to open a single fucking door.”

Inadequate Man was yelling, spittle flying from his lips. Shaking his head, he turned towards the Commissioner.

“I need some time off.”

The Commissioner nodded. Seeing the crowd still watching them, Kane turned and flew off back down the tunnel, leaving the subway through an access hatch near his house.

* * *

Kane closed the door quietly, but Gerbil heard anyway. Opening his eyes, he smiled as Kane sat down next to the bed.

“You look troubled, sir.”

“It’s nothing. How are you feeling?”

It had taken the doctors over thirty six hours to get Gerbil out of danger, resetting his broken arm, draining the fluid build-up due to the fractured skull, and repairing the shattered ribs and punctured lung. Even now, a week and a half later, Gerbil was still hooked up to a heart monitor and the doctors told Kane he was still not completely out of the woods.

“I am fine, sir. I can only imagine what the house looks like. I hope you are not just eating…take away food,” Gerbil grimaced at the words. “I cannot wait to get out of this infernal bed and return to my duties.”

“You just stay here and get better. And don’t worry about me or the house, I have taken care of that.”

“How?"

“I got a maid from a temp agency. Her name is Martha and she is an-”

“You replaced me!”

Gerbil sat up straight in bed, setting off the heart monitor alarm. He dropped back to the mattress, coughing and struggling to breathe. Nurses rushed in and gave him an injection, checking his vitals before leaving. Lying quietly, Gerbil looked up at Kane, tears in his eyes.

“Honestly, sir. How could you replace me? And so quickly!”

“She is just a temp. I could never replace you.”

“Humph. I hope you checked her credentials. You have no idea how many…charlatans are out there, trying to steal a good man’s master.”

“Yes, I checked out her credentials and she comes with very good reports.”

“Probably made them up sir. You can’t be too careful.”

“Gerbil, please. Today is really not a good day for this.”

“I thought there was something wrong. What is it, sir?”

Kane related the events of the previous day, getting more frustrated as the story unfolded.

“Honestly, Gerbil. They expect so much from me and give me nothing in return. I slave and I slave for them, and they act like I could just be replaced.”

“I think I know the feeling, sir.” Gerbil replied blandly. “But you have nothing to worry about, I’ve never heard of a…Super Martha.”

“And now I have to buy a new car.”

“I still think that it was a bad idea to give the old car to that...ruffian.”

“Junkie Jake? What does it matter, the car was destroyed.”

As if on cue, which for some reason happens a lot in comic book stories, Jake knocked on the door to the room.

“'ello boys. I was told I’d find you ‘ere. I was wonderin’ if you could just sign this?” Smiling he pushed a pen and piece of paper towards Kane.

“What is it?”

“It’s just a little somethin’ statin’ that I own the car, and it was the one used to help defeat the ‘Grey Man Killer’. Nothin’ important. So stop being a prig and sign the bleedin’ thing.”

Kane shrugged and signed the piece of paper next to the x’s. Smiling again, Jake took the paper, said goodbye and left the room.

Kane looked at him oddly as his mobile phone rang. Immediately the heart monitor alarm went off again and Gerbil started convulsing. A nurse rushed in to see what was the matter and screamed at Kane, pointing to the ‘Switch Mobile Phones Off’ sign.

Apologising, Kane quickly switched it off. Gerbil had turned a strange shade of blue as the nurse pushed Kane out of the room.

Reaching the hospital entrance, Kane switched the mobile phone back on. It was an Alcatel. Strangely, the phone he had given Junkie Jake during the car chase had been destroyed during the fighting. Even more strange, while being destroyed, the phone had somehow amazingly pressed all the right buttons to call an erotic chatline. In Norway. Two hours after the fight with Steve was over.

Pressing callback, he heard the Commissioner answer at the other end of the line.

“Inadequate Man. I know you said you wanted some time off. But there’s a robbery going on at the Premise City National Bank.”

“Can’t the police deal with a bank robbery anymore?”

Well, yes. But this is special. They have seven innocent hostages. Oh, and three of the bank’s staff. They said that if you don’t get there within half an hour, they’d start killing one person for each half hour you are late.”

“So I have two hours to get there.”

“No. They said that they would leave the bank staff until last.”

“Damn!” Kane thought for a moment. “Give me twenty minutes.”

Kane hung up and went back into the hospital to change.

Leaving the hospital, making sure no one saw him leave, he leapt into the air, flying towards the Premise City National Bank.

Landing, he saw the Commissioner talking to a small tubby man. Television cameras and reporters were swarming behind the barricades.

Inside the bank, the robbers saw him land and smashed open one of the windows, pushing the muzzle of an automatic weapon through the hole and firing it at the sky.

“Come on in, Inadequate Man! We’re waiting for you!”

Another burst of fire and then the gun disappeared. The Commissioner picked himself up from where he had dropped to the ground and ran over to Inadequate Man.

“Thank goodness you’re here. There’s only five minutes left before the half an hour is up.”

“Shut up, Commissioner.” Kane pointed over his shoulder to the tubby man slowly making his way across to them. “You the bank manager?”

The tubby man reached them, mopping the top of his balding head with a handkerchief and pushing his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose.

“I am the bank manager, yes. I trust that you can deal with this situation without any substantial financial loss to me.”

“Hold on, buddy boy. I’m sick of working my ass off for nothing. So I think you might want to give me an incentive to help you.”

“What about the poor hostages?”

“They’re your bank customers. If they survive, you keep their business and make more money while I get nothing. If that’s it, good luck.”

Inadequate Man turned and prepared to leave, noticing that more people dressed in suits had come closer.

“Wait, Inadequate Man.” The bank manager looked ill. “What would you like?’

“I want a bank account with a high interest rate that stays high regardless of if I make a withdrawal or don’t deposit for that month. I don’t want to pay any account keeping fees, or transaction fees for using EFTPOS. Do that, and you got yourself a deal.”

The Commissioner stepped forward. “Inadequate Man, I really don’t think that you want to do this.”

“No, Commissioner. I am sick of all this charity. It’s about time I got my own. So, is it a deal?’

The bank manager smiled, weakly. “So you want a Super Hero Super Saver Account? That shouldn’t be a problem as long as there is no damage to the bank.”

Inadequate Man nodded and shook the Bank Manager’s hand. The Commissioner shook his head , but Inadequate Man ignored it.

Turning, Inadequate Man walked up to the front doors of the bank, pushing down on the handle and opening the door. Walking inside, he heard two weapons cock from inside the gloom.

Closing the door behind him, his eyes adjusted to the light. The hostages, and bank staff, were huddled together in the middle of the bank’s floor. The door to the safe was open and four sacks filled with money were waiting beside the door.

There were two men, dressed in very odd rubbery costumes with giant backpacks on, pointing machine guns at him. The suit covered their whole body’s, except for a cut out in the face, showing that one man was black and the other was white.

“All right boys, let’s get down to business.”

“Ain’t no business being done here, cause today the S&M Boys are gonna do something that has never been done. They’re gonna kill Inadequate Man!”

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Copyright © 2001.
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