April Year 5

Children of the Atom: Mutants alone in a world with no mentors, no resources, and no barriers but prejudice.

What has gone before: Purple Haze unearthed that a group of pushers are acting near his school and defeated them, alone, as Burn watched. They arranged a picnic with their friends at the Central Park. Meanwhile, the Walrus is planning on doing something that same day.

Three guys are having breakfast. Jimi Powell, Ted Cleary and the above mentioned Mark. Jimi pours cereal on his bowl, Ted drinks some hot cocoa and Mark filters some coffee. Silence reigns, but it's not that they don't wanna speak to each other. To the contrary, after last night *, Jimi knows he can talk to the others, and Mark told Ted so.

[* Last issue]

It's just that they're incredibly tired, you know? Jimi has been studying and working a lot, and Ted and Mark were awake a good part of the night, not exactly playing backgammon. Their eyes are swollen, their hair is messy, and their breath is unpleasant. They just woke up.

"Mark, this isn't hot enough. Could you...?" Ted says.

"Sure." Ted passes it to Mark, and a flame starts to dance around Mark's fingers. His pyrokinetic powers have some day-to-day usefulness, he muses.

"Mark!"

"What?"

"Microwave?" Ted asks, rhetorically.

"So, tomorrow?" Jimi mumbles to Ted. Ted looks up, and looks at Jimi, his eyes half-closed. He looks at the green face (his power makes every mutant look green, remember?), puts his mug on the table, and makes an effort to open his eyes further.

"Uh?" he finally says.

"Tomorrow. Picnic. Central Park."

"You're coming, too?" Ted asks him, fully awake. He looks at Mark, who just started to pay more attention to the conversation. He puts his right hand on the back of his head, scratches it a bit, smiles a bashful smile and finally speaks.

"Yeah, I invited Jimi... and I've e-mailed Susannah and called Bruno. And..."

"You've called Greta already?" Ted asks, grimacing. Jealousy flashes through his mind.

"Uh, yeah... well..." Mark says, walking past Ted, avoiding his angry look. He stands behind Ted, and looks at Jimi with a begging look. 'C'mon, buddy,' his face says, 'help me out here!'.

"Yeah, Ted, I asked Mark to. I kinda think she's... doable. You think I shouldn't...?" Jimi says.

"I think you should totally go for it! I'm pretty sure you can score with her."

"Really? Not just sayin' that?" Jimi says kinda surprised.

"Yeah!... Anyways, I have to hurry up; I don't wanna be late for my English class. Call me, Mark?"

"Sure." Ted Cleary stands up and leaves the kitchen. Mark hands Jimi a piece of bread, which Jimi bites hard on. Mark then walks over to Jimi. Jimi looks at the slight grin on his face and starts to question Mark's intent. Was last night just a farce? Does Mark want something else?

"Thanks, man. "

"You're welcome. Mark?"

"Yeah?"

"Pass me the bread."

"Here you go."

Saturday already...

Time sure does fly, doesn't it? A minute ago Ted was jealous his time with Mark had been cut shorter, now he's even ready to have a good time with his friends. The wind hits his face, and he feels the distance from his parents growing. It's not that he doesn't like 'em; he loves them, they're very supportive and caring and all but... They're his parents. Getting away is mandatory all too often.

"So, Sue, you like picnics?" Jimi decides to start conversation with Susannah.

"Sure. Breath some fresh air, eat some healthy natural food, get out of the big city..."

"Sue... We're going to NYC, and bringing along the same stuff we eat everyday. Where the hell are you going and why didn't you invite me?"

"*sigh* A girl can dream, can't she?"

"Right.... Ted, could you close the window? It's too windy."

Ted pushes a button and the air inside the car starts to warm up slowly. Jimi, Susannah, Mark and him. Then, when they finally get to the city, there will be Greta, Mandy and Bruno. Just like he planned... not.

The space between a hat and an overcoat...

That's the best disguise for any costume, be sure. Under it, the Walrus thinks and talks.

"They laugh all the time... Frog-Man and Spider-Man... After today no one is gonna laugh at me no more. I'll be daring and new, I'll be complet... Are those donuts? I'm starv... fierce and bold. I'll be respected by these loonies running around in tights and punching people in the nose and knocking them down with their fingers just because they have cooler powers and an over-developed sense of responsibility that doesn't allow them to... What a cute toosh! Come to papa... Yeah, walk away like you don't see me. Tomorrow you will be begging for me to take you and make you my whore, 'cuz after today I'm gonna be the most..."

And he goes on and on like that.

Let's skip some more boring parts...

"Greta! Mandy! You made it!"

"Thought we were gonna stand you up, Mark? Not that kinda gal! What's up?"

"Well, I brought this;" mark shows her a basket with sandwiches, cans of soda, cookies, plus the other half of the shelves of the convenience store near his home. "I think it's only going to be three Abe Lincoln's for each of us. All very cheap." He shouldn't have said this and he knows it. "But good. What did you bring?"

"This." Greta says and then pulls a wallet from her purse. "All we need."

Mark nods and they start setting up their picnic. After a laborious couple of minutes and a spilled bottle of Coca-Cola (Bruno can be such a klutz sometimes; you would not believe the things he has broken over the years), joyful conversation initiates naturally.

But that cannot last, now can it?

How could one let it last? Such idyllic retreats from modern life and the stressing work/study/family environment are bound to be turned into mayhem and chaos. It is only fair to the reader, after all, to show random acts of violence perpetrated by social outcasts who are mistreated by the overly competitive and unfair capitalist system. Conflict is an important part of life, and the portrayal of it is necessary for it to deserve the regard of any reader. Thus, you, the reader, are to be granted a scene of uproar and conflict.

Besides, we just love seeing the kids in trouble, don't we?

"What's that noise?" Amanda asks.

"I don't hear anything, honey."

"Me neither. Nothing unusual for NYC, anyway."

"Alright."

More minutes pass with peace and tranquility undisturbed. After that, the kids start noticing people coming from one specific side of the park. Most of them are running, many of them are pissed off because they had to left their spots.

"Let's go check that out!" Bruno is the first to propose.

"You guys think it's safe? Could be something..."

"C'mon, man! We are all mutants with great powers..." At this moment Amanda laughs a bit at Bruno's words, but she goes along with it -- she likes the edge as well. "What could possibly happen to us."

"I guess..."

"Great! Wrap it up, guys and gals, wouldn't want our stuff to be stolen or anything."

"And you help out, too." Susannah speaks for the first time in half an hour. She is always quiet, but seeing the intimacy between the others, especially Greta-Amanda-Bruno and Mark-Ted (she doesn't see all of Ted's and Mark's intimacy, though; they disguise their deep love very well), left her kinda annoyed today.

They start heading there and a tree flies past them. Jimi blinks and asks himself how many times he saw super-heroes do that trick and how many times it ended with heavy damage to private and public property. Plenty times.

The others barely notice it in the confusion, and hush more and more through the small crowd coming their way. When they get there, they finally see the behemoth of strength wreaking havoc, the renegade hulking ruffian hazing hell here, where rightfully rested residents of the Big Apple; they react together:

"Who the hell is that???"

Ted looks at him and a bell rings inside her head. He remembers him!

"That's... that's the Walrus!"

"Who?"

"Some guy who once raised some hell in a bank my mom and dad... he is a super-villain. He fought Spidey and, uh, a guy in a frog suit."

"And the fat-ass ain't in jail?" Jimi asks, rhetorically. Well, nobody Spidey arrests stays in the slammer for long anyway, Jimi. Get used to these super-villains running around all the time.

That infamous secret hideout we keep returning to...

"Are you all dressed up, men?"

"YES, SIR!"

"Joseph, has Zimmer made any contact? Is he positioned?"

"Yes, sir, Zimmer is in position with the machinery. All is ready."

"Then today we march."

Back to the Walrus...

"I am the Walrus, and I demand... RESPECT!"

Apparently Hubert Carpenter, the Walrus, thinks park benches thrown randomly are a way to find social acceptance, or maybe the underworld of New York has started respecting unprofitable aimless temper tantrums.

"Man, the White Rabbit never let me have this much fun!"

From nowhere, however, a fireball hits his costume. The man with the proportionate speed and force of a walrus isn't greatly injured by it, but he curses. "I bet this stained the tusks!" he says thinking about his helmet.

"I hope that isn't real walrus ivory, you maniac!" Hubert hears a female voice shouting from behind and turns around. Kids! If Frog-Man wasn't enough for a young archenemy, regular kids are mocking him. 'Wait, maybe one of them is the Human Torch impersonator! Woo-hoo!' Attention. He is starving for attention.

"The seven of you are no match for me, for I AM THE WALRUS!"

"And I am the eggman!" The tallest of the bunch retorts. Hubert looks at him, so confident of himself. Probably the boyfriend of one of the girls. Hubert bolts towards him, head lowered, when he suddenly finds himself going slowly, almost still. The effect of Greta "Still" Maugham's powers, but he doesn't know that. Taunting words from children surface in his head and he starts to force Greta's power. He can't hear, but the teenagers talk among themselves.

"Greta, is everything alright?"

"Not really... He is... Too strong..." The girl frowns and clenches her fists as she struggles to hold the mighty Walrus. Hubert Carpenter smiles; triumph at last! He breaks free from her control and considers that maybe it's time for him to charge against them wit--

"He's gonna attack as again!" The brown-haired one yells. "Split!"

How the hell did she know?, the Walrus wonders. He was just thinking about it. He brings his finger to his mouth and starts considering what could have tipped her off. He was, after all, just considering that. His body language! That's what betrayed them.

He runs again and this time the girl says nothing. He aims for the black boy, but when he is almost getting there the boy dodges, laving a purple haze in the way. An inoffensive cloud! Hubert Carpenter doesn't stop there, and runs through it. But Jimi's acidic haze starts burning through his costume, right in the middle of the chest, where the multicolored W symbol is. And when it corrodes its way to his skin, the Walrus lets out a cry not unlike his namesake's, heard hundreds of yards from where he stands.

"This isn't working..."

He looks around and has an idea. Yes, an actual idea stems from his mind. He starts to run, adrenaline rushing through his body just because he suddenly found creativity within. The brown-haired girl -- the freethinking Susannah Caparelli -- looks at him confused, his thoughts are no longer the screams they once were. And then she sees something very... odd. The Walrus jumps over a horse and yells "Haaah-Yo, Silver!", and forces the horses back for it to prance, but the beast falls.

And the poor horse is right under him.

I'm afraid this is our first casualty in these tales. The first life to be taken, the first act of irreversible violence that is gonna stain their lives forever. The horse, which so proudly pulled carriages with lovers and absent-minded gentlemen, doesn't resist the weight of the Walrus and his spine is broken. It lets out a final wail, before finally perishing.

"No..." The Walrus laments at the sight. "I didn't mean to..."

But it doesn't help. Everything becomes blurred around him (Amanda's powers robbing his eyes of light), and he feels the pain of fire and acid, unable to move. His mind is bombarded by the feelings of the dying animal, something our FreeThinker didn't even know she could do to a person.

The Walrus cries in pain and finally breaks free. He runs, and runs, and runs...

But that's not the end of it...

"We did it! We stopped that SOB!"

"That was so cool! We should do it again!"

"We? You didn't even do anything, Mr. Let's-go-see-what's-happening!"

"I didn't have a chance to!"

But this friendly discussion is ended in haste. You see, a sound booming from a megaphone interrupts their joy of having defeated a bona fide super villain on a rampage. Marching only a few dozens yards from them are a group of men clad in colored uniforms with thunders on it.

"We are the Broken Cross, and today we make a stand for the white straight human majority!"

They all look at the confusion and the crowd forming around the source of the yelling. Ted and Mark are the first to be horrified. Jimi follows suit soon. The others can't recognize the leader, but the three know all too well the man that was trying to kill them.

What, have you forgotten the nutter dressed in red, white and blue, crying words of superiority at our kids? Have you forgotten the man that swore revenge at the mere children that humiliated him? Back in our very first issue, remember? Well, that won't happen again...

"So swears MAJOR VICTORY and his THUNDER WARRIORS!"

A nightly epilogue...

Hubert Carpenter feels the chilly wind on his baldhead. He is wearing blue jeans and a black T-shirt with a brown coat over it. He is walking calmly by through the streets of Manhattan at 3 AM. As some have said, this city may never sleep, but it gets pretty quiet sometimes.

He stops in front of a jewelry store and stares at the necklace displayed there. It has steel bars protecting it. The Walrus laughs to himself. So easy...

He punches through the glass and bends the bars with his bare hands. He has the strength of the Walrus regardless of his clothing. He grabs the necklace and starts running away from the alarm breaking the peace of the night.

He is in glee. Success, at last! Thinking about his old partners he mutters a sentence:

"Take that, White Rabbit!"

Next issue: We start tying that dangling plot thread that is "Who is Major Victory?" and maybe even see some action.

Author's Notes

The Walrus has always been one of my favorite "loser" villains. Problem is, seems no one else around here likes the guy enough to focus on him. I hope you appreciated my usage of him. Anyway, the next two issues will deal with who "Major Victory" is and was trying to do in the first issue.

E-mail your comments, thoughts and constructive criticism to Francisco Araujo da Costa

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