“Birthday, huh?” Atomik Lad considered it for a moment, “Do you know what this means?”
“It means that I've found a vague hint to my elusive past that has yet to show even the slightest suggestion as to my origins and has boggled – nay –
defied
explanation of any kind for the past ten years?”
“Well that too I guess. But more importantly, we can go to a Benny's and get a free birthday cake with our meal!”
Nuklear Man's body glowed with Happy Plazma. Angus rubbed his hands together. He was hungry with anticipation. And hunger.
The odd trio took to the skies.
“Ha-Ho!”
“DWWWWAAAARRRFFFF-A-PULLLLLLLLT!”
“Um. Yeah.”
__________
Issue 5 – The Restaurant at the Beginning of the Book
Minutes later, over the rooftops of Metroville, Nuklear Man and Angus were giddy with questions for Atomik Lad about the seemingly mythical “Benny’s” with its “free birthday cake.”
“How big is the cake?” chimed Nuklear Man.
“Do it have the frilly li’l flowers?” Angus inquired.
Nuklear Man and Atomik Lad looked at their diminutive companion as though he had giant radioactive walruses climbing out of his ears and speaking in tongues.
“Er, Ah likes the icin’!” he said in gruff defense.
“Oh...um, yeah. Icing. Sure,” Nuklear Man said uncomfortably.
Atomik Lad simply looked away to avoid the heavy silence that followed.
Angus, desperately needing to change the subject, asked, “Do we even know where we're goin'?”
Nuklear Man inconspicuously glanced at Atomik Lad. The sidekick rolled his eyes and marveled at how conspicuous Nuklear Man was no matter how hard he tried.
“Yeah, I know where it is.” Atomik Lad took the lead, “Follow me.”
Angus gave Nuklear Man a shocked “You're letting the sidekick lead?!” look.
“Er. It's uh, it's Sidekick-Lead-The-Way-Day,” Nuklear Man said while tugging at his collar.
A few more moments of awkward silence that were very well disguised only by the Scotsman's thunderous Iron: Bagpipe Thrusters passed before Atomik Lad announced, “There it is! Benny’s!”
Nuklear Man and the Iron Scotsman squealed with delight.
The sidekick touched down expertly in front of the restaurant’s entrance. The Golden Guardian crashed into the sidewalk while the Surly Scot smacked painfully against the front window and made a squeaky sound as he slid to the ground. Atomik Lad groaned.
The trio scurried inside like three stooges. It took several attempts before they managed to get past the doorway. In front of them was a small restaurant style chalk board with “Today's Special! All you can eat! $5!” written in ornate pastel letters. Nuklear Man and Angus squealed. Again.
A pleasant waitress greeted them, “Hello, I'm Rachel.” she had a mildly Asiatic appearance to Atomik Lad and he found her an agreeable experience to look at. “I'll be your waitress for today. Smoking or Non?”
“Super!” the Hero answered with a thumbs up
“Ugh,” Atomik Lad said. “Non, please, thank you.”
Rachel gave Nuklear Man an uneasy smile, nodded at Atomik Lad, and asked, “Just the two then?”
“Awkch-
hem
!” Angus phlegmed. “What's the matter with ye, lass? Can’t ye see there be three o’ us?”
She took a step back as Angus rumbled.
Atomik Lad moved between them, “Uh, three. Sorry.”
Rachel tried to recover using all her waitress katas of smiling and thinking happy thoughts, mainly ones that included hefty tips. She led them to their table. The trio followed with Angus in a moody third.
They took a booth, Atomik Lad sat next to the window, Nuklear Man next to him, and Angus across from them. Rachel gave them each a glass of water, silverware wrapped up in napkins, and menus. She took a deep breath to begin her spiel, “Today's Special is—”
Nuklear Man exploded with excitement, “The Special!” he exclaimed. “Three specials! And make it quick, you’ve got two—”
“Awkch-
hem
!” Angus phlegmed in an altogether
more
pissed off fashion than before.
“Er.
Three
of Metroville’s most treasured overheroes.”
“Of course,” Rachel took up the menus and went back to the kitchen to report the order.
Atomik Lad stared out the window dreamily. He watched people dressed in ordinary clothes attend to their ordinary business. Nuklear Man toyed with his complimentary glass of water. He delighted himself with the activity of boiling and cooling the liquid at will with his Plazma Power. Angus growled like a feral beast mere moments from jumping on a trespasser. The guttural thunder was so loud even Nuklear Man became aware of it.
“What's wrong, Scotsman?”
“Ah can’t reach the table!” Angus stretched his stubby arms and waved them uselessly before the tabletop.
“What if you stand?” the Hero suggested.
“AH
AM
STANDIN’!” the Scotsman bellowed.
Nuklear Man fumbled an apology. Angus huffed moodily and slammed back in his seat. Atomik Lad could only see the top of Angus’s helmet peaking out from behind the table. He couldn’t help but crack a smile that Angus thankfully could not see.
__________
The manager made his rounds. This mostly involved smiling at customers, making small talk, and avoiding eye contact with the costumed weirdoes and their small friend. Finally, he checked the register. Glancing up from his duties, he noticed something was amiss with the small chalkboard that announced the daily specials to patrons the moment they walked in the door.
“Rachel,” he called.
She trotted to him, smiling all the while her waitress smile that borders on sincerity, “Yes, Mr. Manager?”
“This is
yesterday’s
special.”
“Oh gosh! I completely forgot about it when those three landed outside,” she pointed to the trio of overheroes. “I thought that little one was going to smash right through the front window,” she added.
“Yes, well just get the special right. Tuesdays are Lobster Days, only fifteen dollars a plate.”
“Yessir.”
__________
With eagle-like Nuklear Vision, Nuklear Man discerned their waitress from across the vast restaurant, “Ah-ha!” he announced while pointing dramatically. “I believe she's carrying five—NO.” He counted on his fingers to be absolutely certain, “Three plates.” He paused for a moment, “Atomik Lad! Take a head count.”
Through a miracle of the gods, Atomik Lad resisted answering with “Two.” “Still just the three of us, Nuke.” Even so, Angus was sure to look as though
had
Atomik Lad answered “Two” he would have severely regretted it. Atomik Lad had to chuckle.
“Just as I thought,” Nuklear Man said to himself. “Gentlemen, I think she may be carrying our order,” he said with an air of militaristic authority.
“Nuke, we're the only people on this side of the restaurant.”
“Never assume, Sparky. Else you, uh...sticks and two in a bush...make stones out of you and me?” his thought trailed off to No Brain’s Land.
Luckily, at that moment, Rachel arrived with the three steaming plates of lobster. She set them down, one in front of each Hero, “Is there anything else I can get you, gentlemen?”
“Ah mee mblm,” Angus grumbled.
“Excuse me, sir?”
“Ah mee mblm,” he repeated.
“I'm sorry sir, but I—”
“Ah bloody said Ah needs a child’s seat!” he roared as he jumped up and down hysterically.
Rachel stumbled back a step. Her face went pale from shock. She muttered something about, “Right away,” and disappeared into the lobby.
“Jeez Angus, do you have to yell at her? She's just trying to do her job,” Atomik Lad said.
“Ah don’t like her. The lass smiles too much!”
Atomik Lad would have asked Nuklear Man to help in this endeavor to better Angus's public relations, but the Hero was too busy gorging himself to bother removing the lobster shells, much less participate in speech.
Rachel approached the table with apprehension and a child’s seat. Angus snatched it from her and mumbled an apology while he tried, without success, not to look ridiculous as he climbed into it.
The Hero had already finished his plate and was motioning that he wanted another. Rachel’s skill and waitress’s intuition recognized right away what Nuklear Man was signaling for despite his wild gesticulations most of which bordered on rude gestures not fit for public display. One could say that Nuklear Man wasn’t very good at that sort of thing and still be giving him an optimistic appraisal. She promptly went back into the kitchen.
Atomik Lad and Angus finally began to partake of the feast. The Scotsman, though happy to be eating, wore an expression that made it evident he wanted someone,
any
one, to make just one remark about his child's seat so he could do something terribly violent and unreasonable about it.
__________
They ate for hours. Every time a plate neared exhaustion Nuklear Man would orchestrate a complex series of gestures that were supposed to mean to Rachel, “One more.” She was able to understand despite the complete absence of order, reason, or coherence in the Hero's obscene flailing. At times like these Atomik Lad always wondered how Nuklear Man could screw things up so perfectly.
It’s kinda like Menace was saying. He gets things so wrong that they go full circle and work out to be right in the end.
When they could devour no more, Atomik Lad excused himself to the restroom while the Golden Guardian and Surly Scot leaned back in stuffed afterglow, patting and/or scratching their bulging stomachs and making contented, “Ahhhhh,” noises every few seconds.
Noticing that the frenzy was over, Rachel arrived at the table with a broad smile. She surveyed the battlefield. With skill and expert precision she was able to place the check where neither patron would feel obliged to pick it up, nor where it would reveal any opinion or prejudice of her own as to who she felt should pay for the meal, while simultaneously avoiding the sloppy splotches of varying sauces and juices that, due to the disgusting eating habits of those seated, covered the table like bugs on a windshield. She collected armfuls of plates to have them sandblasted clean out back.
Atomik Lad exited the bathroom with a smile that made it plain to all that he was happy to be alive and most importantly, unhungry. He stood near the restaurant entrance, absorbing his own sunshiny mood when a comet of horror shattered his world.
“Tuesday's Special: $15 Lobster!” He gasped in terror. He saw Rachel carrying at least eight plates while another nine remained on the battlefield of a table in a manner not at all unlike fallen and broken soldiers.
He quickly made his way to the table and sat down next to Angus in such a forced satire of calm that one might have accused him of being a robot. He smiled widely and spoke through a teeth-clenching smile to disguise his worry, “The Special is fifteen bucks a pop.”
Nuklear Man’s otherwise dull and inattentive attention jumped into action, “What talk you!” This was no time for grammar.
Atomik Lad, in his empty smile, picked up the check and handed it to Nuklear Man who promptly fainted. Angus reached for the check, but the restraints of the child's seat held him firm. His face reddened in frustration, veins began to swell, and adrenaline began to course through his small body. “Grrrrr. Dwwwwwarf-a—” Atomik Lad snatched the check from the Hero’s limp hand and shoved it in Angus’s mouth, “—polp,” the Scotsman finished anticlimactically. He spat the check into his hand and perused it with fiery eyes. He began making unintelligible noises, “Habba. Ababbaflabba.” His breathing became strained and irregular.
Nuklear Man awoke with a jolt. “Oh, it was all a horrible dream.
Whew, thought we were in real trouble for a second there.”
“We be in real trouble, laddie!” Angus said, lowering his voice toward the end when he realized how loudly he was speaking.
Nuklear Man motioned for Angus and Atomik Lad to lean forward. It didn't do much good for Angus. “All right, we need a plan of action,” Nuklear Man began. “Atomik Lad, you shall make a feint to the northeast. Scotsman, you—”
“Nuke, we're not going to do the old ‘Feint to the Northeast’ trick.”
“It'll work!” he insisted. “I saw it in a movie.”
“All right, we'll make that Plan B,” the sidekick said to cajole his mentor. “Scotsman, any ideas?”
“Well,” he rubbed his scraggly beard and picked out a few lobster bits. “We could say that the food was horrible and we refuse to pay for it.”
“We ate seventeen plates.”
“Right!” Nuklear Man's eyes were ablaze with craftiness, “We ate seventeen plates in the hopes that the next one would taste better!”
“Somehow, I don't think that'll hold water, Big Guy.”
“Yeah, I bet everyone uses that one.”
__________
Issue 6 – Let Them Eat Cake
“Can we still have the free cake?” Angus asked.
“Well it
is
free.” Nuklear Man said conspiratorially.
“We're in it deep enough as it is,” Atomik Lad snapped.
“But it's still
free
,” Nuklear Man said.
“We can't push our luck.”
“But Ah wanted the frilly flowery icin’.” Nuklear Man and Atomik Lad gave each other sidelong glances. Angus fidgeted uncomfortably seat in a vain attempt to fill the awkward void of silence. “Ah likes the icin’,” he mumbled sullenly into his beard. Lobster juice still glistened in it.
“Maybe we could all fake heart attacks,” Nuklear Man said. “And when the ambulance is driving us away we could break loose our bonds and quip thusly: ’Ha! We weren't heart attack stricken! Nay, for we are virile and mighty with recommended cholesterol levels because—’”
“Nuke?”
“Tsk. I'm not done with our getaway taunt. Now you made me lose my place.”
“Ah mean, what’s wrong with likin’ icin’?” Angus complained to no one in particular. “It's sweet and sugary and it smooshes between ye fingers.”
“Or,” the Hero plotted anew. “We could fake an elephant stampede!”
“Guys?”
“And the management would be so thankful for our Heroic defense from the rampaging elephants, that they’d let us eat for free!”