V. Crime Backmasked

Time's on His Side, but She Has Time to Kill...

Art by Kevin John Jacob

With a kick in the gut and a 30 feet drop, Lita’s job was finished. Her black-suited target tumbled into the alleyway, landing on the curb with a crunching thud. She’d been getting calls left and right about burglaries in the Eastern District, targeting haves and have-nots alike. With no community police and the H.P.D. turning a blind eye as always, her hot line was ringing like a fire alarm.

The dark gray punk made her way down the rickety old fire escape to the street. She ripped off the crook’s ski-mask and shook her head.

“Alright Rando, what’s your name, seeing as ya’s still breathing and all?”

The crook didn’t say a word, he just dead-eyed her. He was a white wolf, with a thick snout and icy blue eyes. Blood pooled beneath him as a thin wisp of the stuff slid out the side of his mouth.

“Shall I get it over with?” she chuckled.

The thief coughed up a scoff as he looked to the Red Devil, waiting in the back of the alley. “That piece of shit’s gonna kill me?”

Lita crouched down and patted his cheek preciously. “Hun, you ain’t worth wasting bullets on.”

As she walked away, ready for her melon-crushing routine, she heard him mutter something.

“I betcha you want it too. Ain’t no chance Sister. Only I know.”

At first, Lita paid him no mind, climbing behind the wheel and firing up the engine. She killed the Bug’s lights and gassed him up. When it came time to charge on the thief, she made it halfway before slamming the brakes, getting out, and bolting back towards the burglar.

“Mind spilling what ‘it’ is?” she asked.

All she found were closed eyes and sealed lips; bastard croaked. Now he wasn’t worth running over. Though she did just to be sure.

Her slate now cleared, the Red Devil headed back to their cozy hole-in-the-wall. Lita threw off her jean jacket and whipped out one of her joints, the sandpaper smoke soothing her. As she let the plumes flow out her snout, one thing remained to cloud her mind; “it.”

What in God’s name was so hot, someone would rifle through everyone in a nine-block radius just to get at it? She kept mulling it over, trying to make any sense of it, only to draw blanks. Whatever “it” was, she was about to meet the crazy asshole who wanted it.

The Red Devil pulled up to an intersection, and in the five seconds it took Lita to check for the slim chance of traffic, she heard a shriek from behind. It was the scream of smoking tires. Before long, sitting pretty beside her prized Bug was a Firebird. A black-and-white killer from ‘83 on all fours in a city of 90% hovercraft. And behind the wheel…her burglar?

Alive, kicking, and cackling to his passengers before catching sight of Lita and howling with mad glee.

“GETALOADOFTHIS!” he guffawed, “We got ourselves a butch bitch and a punch buggy to boot.” He swung his fist into the shoulder of the hound riding shotgun.

“How the hell you still—”

She cut herself off in a fit of sputtering confusion. Without missing a beat, she drew her Mateba and lit into the windows. Glass shattered, she put a hole in each hound’s head, and just as soon as she made a mess of the whole crew…

No. It couldn’t be, could it?

Like Father Time rolled back his tape deck, the glass pieced itself back together, the exit wounds healed, & that cruel, conniving little grin came back to the burglar’s face, cackling as he hit the gas & tore away into the night. Lita gunned the Red Devil in a flash. In a final shot across the bow, no sooner did she round a bend that she discovered…no one was there.

Not a solitary soul in the alleyway. She threw the brakes down and slammed her hands on the steering wheel.

“Guess this town ain’t getting any less weird.” she huffed.

Lita took a deep breath (and a good long drag) before backing the Red Devil out and rocketing down the street. Her rack in the sanctum was all she wanted now.

But try as she might, and no matter how hard shit hit the blunt, the image of a roving pack of red-light loonies refused to leave her. The thought of some terrific treasure refused to leave her. She had gotten it in her head that it was gems of some kind. Part of it was one too many paperback mysteries, but the other part was the nature of the burglaries.

They had hit the civvies, and it was always their homes. Whatever these crooks wanted, you couldn’t nab from a bank, a truck, or a police auction. It was locked up somewhere safe and sound in an apartment.

The only thing stopping her from getting in on the chase was a lead. Some kind of sign, symbol, or a good old-fashioned clue.

Whatever it was, it flew out the 42nd floor of a skyscraper and planted itself right in the sidewalk with a searing slice. Had it been a few feet closer, it would’ve blasted right through Red Devil himself.

“Holy mutha!” she exclaimed, bolting for the stray godsend. When she ripped it out of the sidewalk, it was the most beautiful thing she’d seen all night. It was a diamond, or at least it looked the part. The kind of perfectly carved stone you saw in a museum. She looked up to the building with a mile-wide grin.

“I don’t know if you’s the real McCoy, but you’re gonna help me nail some of these bastards, eh?” She kissed the gem before sauntering slowly towards the alleyway beneath the window. She gave the loudest whistle, the kind you do with both fingers.

She had expected some heads to rear out from the window, a cry of “GET HER” to follow suit. All she got for her troubles was the pointed nose of the Firebird and a twirling ride over the length of the car, body slammed against steel and glass as the windshield cracked. Midway through the hit-and-run, the thief grabbed for the diamond, only to get the whole hound instead, slammed down into the passenger’s seat.

Lita tore right into him, sending the car veering and careening all over the street as she savaged him with flailing fists and gnashing teeth. She even got one good jab in with the pointed tip of the crystal. But in her feral state, she didn’t see the button sat upon his leather bracelet. In a second, all wounds healed, the windshield looked pristine, and his fist socked her flush in the snout. When she dove for the bracelet, he kicked the brakes and threw her neck onto the gearshift. As the punk gagged and spluttered, the thief went for the loot, only to get another shot of green laserfire to the face.

The second between her shot and his rewind was long enough for her to dive out of the Trans Am window. She had made it to the Red Devil when the white wolf looked at her with a merciless grimace.

“I get real fucking tired of cunts like you,” he growled.

She blew him a kiss before peeling out. Bloodied, bruised, and howling with mad-eyed glee, she soldiered into the night, taking another drag while she looked down to her newly-minted blood diamond.

So I got my great whatsit and the bastards after it, she thought. What you think they willing to do for it?

She gave it some thought, only for a volley of zaps to come racing up from behind. The thief’s chorus of doppelgangers shared a good aim, the streaks of orange and yellow cutting through the streets, bouncing off the Red Devil’s body.

Down the throttle went, claws sunk deep in suede as the sandal-pawed punk flicked a switch beneath the radio.

“Let’s try the oldest trick in the book.” she snickered.

What followed was a nice, even oil slick from the Beetle’s rear bumper. With tires hissing & screeching, the crooks spun out of control and right into the side of a derelict tower. But right on cue, just as the Trans Am’s engine erupted into a hellish fireball, the flames rolled inward and the car looked good as new.

She could almost hear the thief’s boot slam against the gas as the black-and-white beast roared towards the Bug, the gap closing fast. Lita wiped a trickle of blood from her snout before making her next move.

“Alright Babe,” the dark gray smiled, patting the wheel, “Let’s try a little experiment.”

She came down on the brake and clutch, the blood-red Beetle skidding with a scream alongside the Trans Am. Lita opened the driver’s side window, the killer riding shotgun and ready to come out swinging. She reached out and grabbed his arm, putting the tip of her Wildey to his peashooter.

“Howdy stranger!” she smiled. This white wolf didn’t look quite the same as the thief now. The slender snout and hazel eyes prove she wasn’t dealing with quadruplets. She held her grip and kept the silver lawbringer trained on the snub-nosed revolver. Slowly, the Beetle drifted further and further away from the Trans Am. When the thief realized the Chicago handshake being pulled, he did his best to keep close, only for Lita to give a good tug, the gunman sent flying out the window and under her wheels.

The blood bag didn’t get up, no matter how much the thief tapped on his button.

It wasn’t all roses for Lita either. The Bug hopped the curb, careening onto the sidewalk and buffeting against the wall of synthetic concrete, a lamp post fast approaching. The thief swerved to box her in, only for Lita to kick the brakes and gun the Bug in reverse.

In a wrong jerk of the wheel, the Red Devil was caught, all fours almost touching ground but not quite, teetering awkwardly. Lita rocked and jostled within the car, fighting to get him back on the ground. The thief and his gang tore into the Bug, round after round of laser fire digging into his protective shell.

At last, the back wheel caught and she floored him, caving the gunman’s head in as she backed over and gave chase.

The role reversal lasted five seconds once the thief remembered what he wanted.

As tires squealed and the wild goose chase carried on through the winding streets of the Eastern district, Lita heard something she couldn’t begin to believe.

“Let’s talk!” cried the voice of the thief. The call fell on deaf ears as she shifted up.

“Let me finish the fucking experiment and you can have it for free!” he hollered.

She eased off and rolled her window down once more. “No tricks?” she roared.

“No tricks!” he replied.

It was less the promise of free jewelry and more the curiosity. What was this experiment? What was worth going through this much hell to get something done? She figured if he was serious, it would be worth watching. If he was insane, she’d have to find a way to get that timeslip device off of him.

Carefully, both cars pulled off into an alleyway. The Firebird first, then the Beetle. All four wolves exited their rides and holstered their guns. Lita thumbed away the blood from the gem and handed it off to the thief. “You better be curing something if you got half the neighborhood calling me up about you.”

The white wolf glowered at first, then nodded, taking the diamond from her hand and opening the Firebird’s trunk. Inside was a strange contraption. Like a makeshift flamethrower, though it couldn’t throw flames. No trigger, no barrel, but all of the tanks and tubes such a device would use.

The thief slid open a compartment and rested the diamond in the chamber, neon-red lasers refracting through the gem into a colorful display. He flicked a handful of silver switches in a single swipe of his hand before the machine began to whir and whine. He looked to his men. “When I press this button, should all go well, this will be the cure to old age, preempting terminal ailments, and all-around keeping us young and healthy.”

He had shifted his gaze to the perplexed Lita, who could only look on as the thief pressed the button on his leather strip once more. The machine revved up more and more and more, the sound growing deafening until, with a violent cry of “GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAH,” both hound and car vanished without a trace.

The goons stared blankly at the spot where their leader and his machine once stood. Lita quietly backed away and towards the Red Devil. She slid into the driver’s seat and gingerly pulled the Bug away. The last thing she heard from behind her was the rattling mechanical call of “H-H-H-ALT. HALT,” leaving the rest of the thieves to their fate at the nonexistent hands of the autocop closing in.

One thing still nagged at her about the whole affair: the room on the 42nd floor of the skyscraper they had raided. The Beetle opened up for his master once more as they hightailed it to the complex. When they got there, she backed the Red Devil into the alleyway and hopped out.

The back elevator was still electrified, so there was no need to hit the staircases. Higher and higher the glass hut climbed until it hit Floor 42. And it wasn’t long before she saw a door ajar; the ransacked apartment.

She stepped inside, the room graced only by moonlight as papers and glass lay strewn about everywhere. She picked one up, and with its header alone, everything about the night became twice as bizarre, and twice as dumb.

“Progress on Operation: Backmask: Page 14 of 128”

The information was like a crazed fever dream, dozens and dozens of hypotheses, diagrams, dates, and test results. Whether he was a White Coat or a private engineer, the realization of what the poor bastard wanted and where he had left it put her in stitches.

“Shoulda checked between the cushions next time,” she chortled, gathering up the pages. Mixed up in the mess was one of the bracelets, though when she pressed it, nothing happened. She pocketed the memento and left with a binder’s worth of scientific insanity under her arm. As the elevator doors closed, there was only one thought left on the vigilante Lita’s mind.

I wonder what the boys on the Force could do with this?