#54 Devil’s Night in Detroit

The Y+Thems set up an impromptu outdoor chimney in the parking lot of the Holistic-Humanist Congregation of Cass City. Soren and Dana made it out of brick salvaged from some demolished building nearby, and Avie and Kiddo, with Benjamin Franklin Phloog strapped to her torso, brought firewood back from the suburbs in the Y+Thems white van. By sundown, a bright, warm blaze was burning, and we huddled around the hearth in our almost-winter coats, warming our hands. Kozmik Kat broke out some marshmallows from the church pantry, and Jasper converted some fallen branches from trees on the tiny church grounds into sticks that we used to skewer and roast them. It was more than a seasonal ritual for us, although it had that air; it was also the Y+Thems’ job, what they had been hired to do as resident guardians of the century-old neo-Gothic church building. They planned an overnight vigil in rotating, two-hour shifts to protect the structure from vandalism, or worse, arson, on the most dangerous night of the year. It was the night before Halloween—Devil’s Night in Detroit.

#53: I Got the Senior Thesis Blues

I clacked away at my typewriter into the wee hours of the morning. In the background was the Warren Woodward University public radio station, WWWU, humming at a low volume on my cheap clock radio. It was so late, the programming had gone from news to jazz to classical; they were now broadcasting some free-form art rock courtesy of a deejay who was also an editorial contributor to Detroit’s anarcho-primitivist underground newspaper, The Fifth Wheel. The sounds were hypnotically weird, and I was getting bleary-eyed.

#52: Big, Blue, Bulky Guy!

The behemoth robot seemed momentarily confused; its four pairs of red camera lenses whirled around inside its bubble-like glass helmet, taking in the situation.
     “The Hybrid Man seems conflicted,” said the Phantom Jungle Girl, leveling her stone-tipped jungle javelin at the Bot, just in case. “The mad scientist here has given him a direct order contradicting the moral code Wilton and Audrey programmed into him.”
     “Kill the costumed intruders,” Grady barked again, waving the remote in his hand. “And kill these two civilians, while you’re at it.”

#51: B-50, the Hybrid Man

I ran down the hall where I’d seen my cape disappear and burst through some swinging doors into a large laboratory, darkened except for some blinking lights on equipment I couldn’t make out. With the infra-red vision of my visor, I immediately spotted my cape and buttons; they lay lifeless on the floor just a few feet into the lab. For a moment, I feared my cape was dead.
     I picked them up and shook the dust off. I slung my cape around my shoulders and snapped buttons back onto my uniform at the clavicles. The buttons responded by flashing magenta lights, and my cape fluttered.
     “Good; you weren’t killed,” I said. “But something shut you down as soon as you entered this place. What…?”