The Secret Lair

You sit down on the bed and fold your legs into the lotus position, which is about all the yoga you remember. The clock says 1:30 in the morning but you're wide awake. The shower finished off what the shock started.

Okay, CUNT-Ball, we have to talk.

What is it, Maya?

Don't 'what is it' me; I thought it through while Mom and I were showering. You did this somehow, didn't you?

Did what?

Triggered those dreams. And made Mom come in and... you know.

I merely smoothed out the resonances between your physical arousal and your dream state. You are the one who used your powers in your sleep to call your partner in. The result was surprising to say the least.

I should pull you out and toss you across the room.

But you won't, because now you know more about your powers and the link with your mental state.

Damn you! You're right, though. How do you know so much about my powers?

I don't. This was an extrapolation based on Carlotta's abilities.

Are there any other 'extrapolations' I should know about?

No. However, that may change when you explore your grandmother's secret lair.

"She has a secret lair!?"

Of course. Did you think thirty years of experience would fit in a shoe box?

"Where is it?"

On the island in Lake Delphi, in the base of the statue of Mayor Crassweller.

You start pulling on your costume. This deserves checking out.

Mayor Tommy Crassweller was in charge of Acropolis City during the Great Depression. He kept the city from sinking to the depths of corruption and poverty, like too many other cities had, by using his own money to prop up the city finances. The city had several major busts by the T-men and several prominent businessmen had gone to jail for tax evasion and moonshining; oddly enough, many of them were Tommy's enemies and rivals. The hero Minuteman Revere went over the whole operation at the behest of the government, though, and found everything was on the up and up; that was before the bribery scandal ended Minuteman's career.

One of the 'public works' that helped create jobs was the building of a thirty foot statue of the mayor on the only island in Lake Delphi. It was made along the same guidelines as Liberty in New York, a hollow structure held up by pins and wires and precise engineering, though it was nowhere near as big. There had been talk over the years of changing it to a statue of Athena, but the money never came together. Instead, Crassweller Park is served by a small ferry out of Dockside and is a popular place for picnics and romances.

In the daytime you'd never get near the place without being seen, but at night the park is closed and there is only a single security guard on patrol. Gangbangers and vandals don't like to swim.

The guard is down near the gazebo and refreshment stand when you get there, which means the statue is totally unattended. CUNT-Ball directs you to the back of the base to the bronze plaque honoring the skilled workers who built this great yada yada yada. A hidden catch opens the plaque like a door; the lights come on automatically when you close the door again.

The 'base' is an eight-foot cube that occupies most of the pedestal's insides. There's a fold-down cot, a shower, sink and toilet, a fold-up table and chair, and a 1920's era filing cabinet in here. It obviously didn't start its life as a superhero lair, but you put off wondering why it was built for now.

The top drawer of the filing cabinet contains a laptop and four more binders with pages that look a lot like the little black book from the shoebox. A quick look at one entry confirms it.

• Spunkmaster (male) ***: Villain, gang lord, mind control. First super-villain I directly encountered. Took over all-girl gang the Vixens using mind-controlling slime produced by mutant testes. Held me for three days until he was taken down by Atom Bob. I still wake up dreaming of his thing down my throat sometimes. Lost powers in 1987 due to advanced ED and non-production. Whereabouts unknown.

Ew; just ew.

The next drawer contains photographs and newspaper clippings from Influence's thirty-four years of super-heroics. The file is a lot thinner than a modern hero's would be; they didn't do so much self-publicizing in those days and Grandma was kind of a low-key hero anyway. There's several articles where her name isn't even mentioned but she kept them so she must have had something to do with it. One photo dated about twenty years ago shows a guy who looks like a male version of her and a weedy-looking man standing together, both nude and erect; the caption reads "Me and Transforman after a few too many whiskey sours, 19XX."

The bottom two drawers contain mementos, each individually wrapped and marked with a date. You open a sample and it's an award, an oversized key with the inscription "For Influence, on the occasion of the thwarting of the Silent Invasion."

You re-wrap it and pick up the next one when you hear a voice.

"What are you doing here?"