* * * * * *

The Looniverse's Mightiest Heroes -- no, that's not strictly true. The Looniverse's Strangest Heroes -- not even close. The Heroes with the Most Free Time in the Looniverse (there we go) band together to fight the minor inconveniences and petty annoyances of modern urban life as the LNH 'TSK' FORCE. Led by the enigmatic Convoluted Origin Man, this hand-picked team of, er, specialists is ready to handle any threat, no matter how puny or insignificant.

LNH 'Tsk' Force #7: "Cable Bill, part 2"

Starring: Convoluted Origin Man, Mainstream Man, Kid Unique, Bandwagon Chick and No Sense of Direction Man

with: Dr. Stomper and Ultimate Ninja

Special Guest Villain[?]: Cable Bill

* * * * * *

"You're not taking this case away from me," Convoluted Origin Man said, slamming his fist on the Ultimate Ninja's desk.

The LNH's leader stood up. He was not used to being addressed in this manner. "It's not a question of taking it away from you, Gary," he said calmly. "It's quite simple. This Cable Bill is now classified as a supervillain threat. As such, he falls outside the purview of the Tsk Force. You yourself said as much not two hours ago."

"Don't give me that. When Irony Man was Tsk Force leader, he faced plenty of supervillains and you never pulled his team off a mission."

"That's . . . Okay, that's actually true. But it's irrelevant. Irony Man never brought a team in on stretchers, either."

"And that's exactly why you can't assign another team to this case. If the Tsk Force gets beaten by Cable Bill and then the Tsk Force doesn't take him down, it just confirms everybody's perception that the group is a joke. I mean, most people already see an assignment to the Tsk Force as either punishment or a sign of second class status. If you send another team after Cable Bill, you might as well disband the Tsk Force because no one will ever take it seriously."

The Ultimate Ninja considered this. The Tsk Force really had been conceived of as a way to keep the Legion's less-powerful members busy. And Gary was right, there was a certain stigma attached to the group for that very reason. "Very well. I'll give you one more chance to bring in this Cable Bill and end his insane rampage. If you fail, then I'll send my own team in."

"You won't regret it."

"And to see that I don't, I'm assigning Dr. Stomper to the Tsk Force for the duration of this mission."

* * * * * *

Five minutes later, Convoluted Origin Man was in Dr. Stomper's office. "How are they?" he asked.

"They'll be fine," Dr. Stomper said. "Mostly just bruises. Kid Unique tried to come up with a power to stop Cable Bill and passed out from the strain, but Mainstream Man is awake."

"Any ideas on how we can stop Cable Bill?"

"Not without more data. Ideally, I'd like a blood sample, but anything with DNA in it would do -- sweat, skin, that kind of thing."

"I wonder . . . Hand me that magnifying glass, would you?" He walked into the next room and looked closely at Mainstream Man's chest.

"What's going on?" Mainstream Man asked.

"Hold still. I think . . . Yes! Some of his knuckle skin rubbed off where he hit you." He rummaged around in a nearby drawer, coming up with a pair of tweezers and a plastic bag. He deftly retrieved as large a sample as he could and handed it to Dr. Stomper. "See what you can do with this, then meet me and the rest of the team in the Tsk Force Command Center in two hours."

"Rest of the team?"

"Didn't they tell you? You're part of the Tsk Force now."

* * * * * *

"All right, Contraption Man said this was really, no fooling, this time for sure, ready to go," Convoluted Origin Man said to himself as he sat down at the console. "Let's see . . . File. New. Team. Compose. Options. Default. Huh. Who set these defaults? Include villains -- NO. Include deceased/inactive members -- NO. Create humorous mix-up by summoning a random team no matter what other settings are chosen -- NO. Display ridiculously large glamour shot of each hero when selected -- YES. Now we're cooking with gas. Save Defaults. Good. All right, I've got dozens if not hundreds of operatives to choose from, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. What would Jim Phelps do? Come up with a detailed plan based on everything he knows about the target and then assess the available agents to find the best mix of skills for the operation. Nah, he'd just use the same people he always used. Okay, there's a pull-down menu -- Recent Teams. Select Individual Members. Bandwagon Chick. Kid Unique. Mainstream Man. No Sense of Direction Man. Check. Now, how do I . . . there we go, Send Message. Immediate. Now, let's see what happens."

The computer was silent for a fraction of a second. Then he heard the unmistakable grinding sound of a hard drive being accessed. A window appeared on the screen. "Access violation. Attempted read of address 000f3a 209e02. Program halted," Convoluted Origin Man read.

There was a microphone attached to the console. He picked it up and spoke into it, calmly and precisely. "Listen to me and listen good. Running gag or not, this has gone on long enough. I'm going to press this button again and you are going to perform your one and only function and summon the Tsk Force to the Command Center. Because if you don't, I will instruct Contraption Man to take you apart and reassemble you into the most hated machine imaginable: a music box that only plays the theme from TITANIC. Do I make myself clear?" He reached over and very deliberately clicked the mouse again.

Instantly, a window appeared on the console, displaying each selected hero's name and confirming that he or she had been contacted.

"That's better. Thank you."

Bandwagon Chick and No Sense of Direction Man came in. "Who were you talking to, Gary?" Bonnie asked.

"Just glad the supercomputer is finally online. Have a seat while we wait for the others."

Dr. Stomper arrived a minute later, with the bruised and limping Mainstream Man and Kid Unique in tow.

"What can you tell us, Doc?" Gary asked, getting right to the point.

"It's very interesting. Cable's genetic structure seems to have been radically altered by an outside force, sometime within the past twenty-four to ninety-six hours. It's as though the growth mechanism were completely unregulated."

"Unregulated or deregulated?" Convoluted Origin Man said quietly.

"What was that?" No Sense of Direction Man asked.

"Sorry, I seem to have started talking to myself again. It's probably a result of that month I spent in the sensory deprivation chamber."

"That was you?" Bonnie asked. "I thought it was your robot double."

Mainstream Man nodded. "Yeah, that's what I thought. Except it wasn't a robot, was it? Wasn't it just a guy who thought he was you?"

"Look, it doesn't matter," Convoluted Origin Man said, as annoyed as anyone else at the confusing nature of his back story. "I might have a lead. It's a long shot, and it's something I have to check out alone. In the meantime, Doc, can you work on some way to counteract the change to Cable's metabolism?"

"Given a couple of hours, sure."

"Great. Take Kid Unique to help you and get started. Bonnie, take Mainstream Man and No Sense of Direction Man and see if you can find Cable Bill."

"Hey, how come I get stuck hanging around the lab?" Kid Unique asked.

"You're the utility infielder. If one of Stomper's goofy experiments gets out of hand, I'm counting on you to come up with a superpower to stop it before it does too much damage."

"Oh. Okay."

"Don't wait around for me. Once the doctor has the formula ready, he'll contact the bandwagon team and they'll administer it. If anything untoward comes up, Bandwagon Chick is in charge."

* * * * * *

Back at his apartment, Convoluted Origin Man unlocked a filing cabinet and opened a drawer labeled "ID." He shuffled through folders, each containing passports, drivers licenses, warehouse store membership cards, and so on, until he came to the letter "P". He withdrew a thin folder bearing the name "Palmer, Gary" and removed a single laminated ID card bearing a picture of himself fifteen years ago and the logo of a government agency so top secret it didn't even have a cool acronym.* He picked up his telephone and dialed the phone number scribbled on the back.

*[A mysterious Agent Palmer showed up in the somewhat long prologue to this story back in #6 -- Footnote Girl]

The phone was answered by a recording. "Hello, you have reached the corporate headquarters of ConHugeCo, a great big company involved in unspecified industrial and/or commercial endeavors, and not secretly a front for a shadowy quasi-governmental secret agency. If you know the extension of the party you wish to speak with, good for you. Press '1' now. If you don't know the extension of the party you wish to speak with, how do you expect us to know it? We're not mind readers. Press '2' now. If you're calling on legitimate ConHugeCo business having nothing to do with spies or industrial terrorism, press '3' now . . ." Convoluted Origin Man waited patiently. " . . . If you own a dog, but not a cat, press '37' now. If you would like free information about worm ranching, press '38' now. If you have ghosts, then you have everything. If you got that reference, press '39' now. If you are a former agent who resigned in disgust several years ago and you're trying to get in touch with your one friend left in the organization, press '40' now. If you or any member of your family --" Although mildly curious to see how long this absurd litany would continue, Convoluted Origin Man did have other things to do today. He pressed "40".

Another, slightly different recorded voice came on the line. "Federal regulations require us to inform you that your call may be monitored by the secret masters of your former organization or their duly appointed agents. In the event that this call is being monitored, your informant may be killed before, during, or after your meeting with him or her. Federal regulations also state that your informant cannot be killed before giving you one piece of cryptic but vital information. To confirm that you have heard and understood this information, press '1' now. To confirm that you have heard, but not understood, this information, press '2' now. To confirm that you have --" He pressed "1". After navigating a few more voice mail menus, his call was rung through to Stan Bateman, who'd flown the helicar on the mission to retrieve the Deregulation Ray. [in issue #6, again -- FG]

"Stan Bateman. What can I do you for?"

"Stan, this is Gary Palmer. I need to ask you a question about the Wrenchbreaker Assignment."

"Take a hike, Palmer. I'm not your friend and there's no way I'm getting myself killed just to show how serious the bad guys are."

"Oh, come on. Be a sport. They don't always kill the informant."

"The only time they don't kill the informant is when they give him false information to pass on to the hero. Even then, they sometimes kill him so he can't warn the hero later that it's a trap. Look, I never liked you and you never liked me. What's your scheme?"

"I just need to know where you took Wrenchbreaker's device."

"No dice, Palmer. I don't know what you're up to, and I don't want to know. Don't call me again." Bateman hung up.

Convoluted Origin Man smiled. "No dice," in the code he and Bateman had worked up years ago, meant "Warehouse 42" -- the agency's most secret and most secure repository of mysterious devices and artifacts. Of course, the spymasters now knew that he was interested in the Wrenchbreaker case, but they'd find out sooner or later anyway. And since the device was already in Warehouse 42 there was no way for them to move it to a more secure facility. There was also the possibility that they'd suspect that Bateman had passed him information in code and kill him anyway, but Gary couldn't get too worked up about that. The really brilliant part of the scheme was that he and Bateman really didn't like each other very much.

Now all he had to do was find out where Warehouse 42 was, then get inside and find out if the Deregulation Ray was still there.

* * * * * *

"Okay, that confirms it. This," Dr. Stomper said, holding up a small beaker, "Is the reagent that will control Cable Bill's unregulated growth. You call Bandwagon Chick while I prepare a syringe."

Kid Unique radioed Bandwagon Chick to meet them on the roof. The doctor came back in carrying an ordinary syringe. "Shouldn't that be in a giant syringe?" Kid Unique asked.

"No. Why would it?"

"Well, I mean he's like a giant guy, right? So if you use a normal syringe on a normal guy, wouldn't you use a giant syringe on a giant guy?"

"Of course not. The needle merely has to penetrate the epidermis. Even if Cable Bill has grown exponentially since you and Mainstream Man saw him last, it's not possible that his epidermal layer is more than an inch or so thick."

"But won't you have to give him a really large dose?"

"This is a really large dose. It's 100 ccs. Look, I'm sorry I don't have a comically oversized prop syringe, but this really is the best way to deliver the antidote. Now let's get up to the roof."

A few minutes later, they were airborne, having joined the rest of the team aboard the mystical bandwagon, and heading for the suburbs where Cable Bill had last been seen.

"So, that's the antidote?" Mainstream Man asked.

"That's correct," Dr. Stomper said.

"Shouldn't it be in a giant syringe?"

"There he is," No Sense of Direction Man said. "Over to the . . . the direction I'm looking in now." He pointed toward a distant form towering over the trees.

"Two o'clock," Mainstream Man said.

"I see him," Bandwagon Chick said, twitching the reins to turn her spectral horses in that direction. "All right, we're going in. Everybody remembers the plan?" Her teammates nodded as she dipped the bandwagon toward the ground.

Once the bandwagon was about six feet off the ground, No Sense of Direction Man stepped off the side and appeared instantly several feet behind Cable Bill. Kid Unique and Dr. Stomper jumped out a few seconds later and crept up quietly toward their giant prey. The bandwagon flew up to Cable Bill's eye level, about thirty feet off the ground. Mainstream Man pulled out his bullhorn.

"William! William Cable!" he called. "This is Mainstream Man of the LNH. We want to help you."

"I told you, I'm Cable Bill. And I don't need your help." He tried to swat them out of the air, but No Sense of Direction Man used his powers to confuse the giant's aim so that he missed by several yards.

"Bah! Puny humans, stand still so Bill can smash!" He clapped his mighty hands in the general direction of the bandwagon, as one might try to crush a flying mosquito.

Dr. Stomper looked at Kid Unique as they made their way through the trees. "Are you doing that?" he whispered.

"Yeah. I figure if I make him stupid, he won't suspect that NSD Man is hosing his aim or that the 'wagon might be just a distraction," Kid Unique whispered back.

"Here goes nothing," Dr. Stomper said, charging into the clearing where Cable Bill stood. Before the giant knew what was happening, Stomper had jabbed the needle into his shin and administered the antidote.

"What you do to Cable Bill, puny doctor?" he asked, falling to his knees.

"Just something to make you stop growing, plus a sedative to keep you from hurting any of us." He held up the syringe.

"Should have been a giant syringe," Bill muttered as he lapsed into unconsciousness.

* * * * * *

Next: The fate of Cable Bill! The secrets of Warehouse 42! The resolution of the confusing prologue! Even more exclamation marks! And the reappearance of the League of New-Wave Heroes! All this and more in LNH 'TSK' FORCE #8: "Cable Bill, part 3"!

* * * * * *

Copyright 1999, Steven Howard

Ultimate Ninja created by Ray Bingham.

Bandwagon Chick created by Sue Clark.

Convoluted Origin Man created by Matt Rossi.

Doctor Stomper and Mainstream Man created by person or persons unknown.