COLONEL CHRONOS and the Time Bomb (Part Seven)[1]

by  Rodin

The QQ superheroine away team suffers multiple missteps, and must use every ounce of their strength and cunning to escape a megalomaniacal Marine’s paralyzing grasp. 
Meanwhile, Project Sodom and Gommorah concludes impressively… thus providing final pieces to the high-tech “Big Bang” puzzle.

[Check out the previous installment here, read this saga from the beginning by clicking here. Ed.]

COMIC PAGE SIXTY-NINE:  FBI Agent John Straightarrow sits in a comfortable gray leather passenger’s seat aboard a  Government S-H750 Lear Jet while it whisks eastward at 25,000 feet above the Arizona desert terrain.  His stark-yet-manly Native American facial features betray a grim (almost reckless) determination in this chess match endgame with dastardly Colonel Chronos.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.  Fierce gray eyes close as 'Dances with Evil' conjures forth a trance-like focused state as means of mental teleport into the realm of his Animal Spirit Guide.  Time and space cease to have definition or meaning to the muscular G-man immersed in deepest concentration.  Finding his consciousness magically marooned upon a fantastical moonlit Alaskan shoreline, his mind’s eye scans the idyllic harmonious environment… until it suddenly alights upon the gigantic King Crab partially camouflaged by rocks, sand and seaweed among a swirling tide line.  John rivets his full energies onto complete communal with this mystical mentor and companion of the past three decades,  seeking ability to piggyback and channel its para-psychological powers into obtaining information and evidence necessary to defeat the infamous CC criminal gang.  Yet none of the omens are good.  A dark shadow gloomily passes across the pale full moon of this hunting-ground world: auguring inescapable doom and destruction. 

Sudden dreading fear for well being of his Quintessential Quintet crime-fighting partners (especially the daring-brave Inga, as well as kindly and considerate beautiful young Emma!) wells within his chest, and he asks Crab-brother to show him some portent of their impending fate.  And with swift reply, the mythical nature scene responds.  A huge polar bear rises up from the surf to seize a preoccupied Spirit Guide and tear him to shreds between razor-sharp teeth and claws!!  Reeling in shock from the abject violence of this unmistakably-disastrous sign, the copper-skinned lawman jolts back into a here-and-now of the Lear Jet with sweat pouring  down his forehead and cheeks.  Punching an intercom button to gain communication access with the aircraft’s cockpit, our intrepid investigator now orders a course correction away from Washington D.C. toward a North Dakota SAC installation.

 

COMIC PAGE SEVENTY: A fog thicker than in any Conan Doyle novel enshrouds exceptional thought processes and lightning-quick ingenuity of the Quint-Quints leader.  Blinking and shaking dizzy head from side-to-side, Inga still struggles to fight off radiological impact of Weasel’s precisely-manipulated theta-waves… without success.  As ultra-high-security elevator doors slide open, the green-and-yellow spandex-clad good gal gazes upward from her buckled kneeling position to meet a triumphant leer overlaid by coke-bottle-thick horn rims.  Dwight Wyolzelsczki is about to have the time of his life.  Weasel had waited patiently once clues began to filter in over base security communications: a perimeter sentry report about his inexplicably-disarranged trousers… entryway surveillance cameras briefly catching sight of an ice-encased Lieutenant… it could only add up to mean one thing.  Advancing QQ superheroines had actually made it further than he had anticipated.  In the end, though, that just made their entrapment and collection all the more easy.  Self-delivered to his very doorstep! 

As he surveys the elevator’s crippled occupants, Chronos’ third-in-command notes with glee the last two of Colonel’s desired targets are now within their grasp.  Looker…Dura-Damsel…Maw, and now Ingeno-Lady and Empath Girl.  Seems like my Mind-TRAMP’s scored five-for-five!  He takes a casual second bite from a bologna and cheese sandwich as torment begins.  Addressing both prized catches (who ogle him with confused vacant stares), Weasel states, “Hello there, pretty ladies!  I’ve been down here waiting upon your imminent arrival.  Sorry about those nasty little shocks from the elevator floor buttons.  Something of a necessary evil, I’m afraid.  Dual theta-wave overdoses provide me with the proverbial 'upper-hand'.  Allow me to demonstrate, gals.  LISTEN UP!  You’ve both worked very hard to get inside this military base… so I order you now to more fully play that part.  Welcome to Boot Camp Chronos.  TENNNnnnHUUUUTTT!!!  Twin superheroine psyches warp and twist in immediate struggle against this first suggested scenario.  But the MIT and Cal Tech engineering genius knows his stuff too well.  High-tech analytical assistance from two Cray supercomputers has provided the exactly perfect radiation frequency to disconnect synaptic-ganglia linkage between Inga and Emma’s Hippocampi and Brain Stems.  This has the unfortunate effect of short-circuiting willpower and resistance to all forceful commands.  In fact, Weasel’s booby- trap is so overwhelming even usual initial verbal protests are forfeit. 

Green-costume-clad and saffron-sari-sporting females merely rise and straighten their seductive figures into ramrod-straight postures while staring blankly ahead!  While both plebes teeter helplessly at full military attention, Dwight takes the opportunity to check for life signs from the splayed frame of Scott McGillicutty.  His pulse and respiration are non-existent as result of lengthy contact with ill-suited theta waves.  The power hungry criminal allows several long moments to pass, as shocked realization of the total helplessness of their predicament (as evidenced by rapid QQ complicity to his first command) sinks in ever-deeper.  While a geeky slimeball’s roaming hands wander across her tight spandexed derriere curvatures, Ingeno-Lady’s slowed-but-still-active mind scientifically examines and analyzes circumstances, searching for any weakness which might give her an advantage or opportunity to break free from mental imprisonment.  But Weasel is beginning to distract and annoy her.  Tweaking of both her costume breast peaks by the lascivious villain is causing her sensitive nipples to tingle and puffer.  Seldom-experienced erotic sensations begin to slowly awaken inside a trapped body as IL mentally protests, stop that, you presumptuous goon! However, Weasel is only just getting started.  Taunting the pretty girl-next-door brunette, he continues, “You’re probably wondering what you can do right now to stop me from making you fulfill my every wish and whim, Ingeno-Lady?  Trust me, the answer to that question is absolutely nothing!  I’m the drill sergeant and you’re the buck private. When I say ‘jump’,   baby, you’ll most assuredly levitate.  Perhaps you don’t believe it yet?  Well, we can always take things to another level.

Let’s try this one.  You’re not a human being anymore.  Flesh and blood are transmogrified to synthetics, metal and wires.  That famous super-intelligence of yours is now nothing more than circuit board chips and semiconductors.  I rename you as Mechano-Lady!  You’ve just become a robot!!  Inga begins to laugh out loud at the ridiculous circumstances laid before her.  But then she realizes that her own voice is strangely sounding dull… weak… monotone.  Her laugh chokes off amid a weird rattling resonant echo.  “Whhaaat….  Haaaaavvv……….Yooooouuuuuuuu………….Duuuuunnnnnnnnnnnnn ….T.….…” would be last flat-pitched attempts at free speech our heroine would be able to muster for quite considerable time to come.  Physically struggling to move away from her heartless tormentor, Inga hears gears and rotors whirring and grinding inside her body!  Even her steel-blue eyes seem to metallically click-clack with every blink.  Dwight completes Inga’s switch into silicon-based existence with, “Your new programming has just been downloaded, Mechano-lady.  All systems are hard-wire dedicated to immediately and unquestionably serving your owner- that’s ME!  Accompany me into the laboratory, drone”.  As incredible intellect reluctantly wafts into mechanical oblivion, our superheroine takes detached notice of her awkward herky-jerky stutter steps and slicing-vertical forearm movements which punctuate slow progress out of the fateful elevator.

Grinning ear-to-ear, the fully-in-charge nerd queries IL by, “and what is your prime directive”?  With her convincing and swift toneless reply of  “to…obey…your…every…command!!”, what was once Ingeno-Lady is effectively erased.  She is  now instead the Chronos gang’s utterly compliant robot. Yet to make sure a newly transformed good-gal will be no trouble while still-at-attention Empath Girl also becomes properly conditioned, Weasel has one last scenario for the demoted QQ leader.  “Mechano-Lady, all your battery-cell charges are extremely low.  I believe you're experiencing a power rundown”.   

Sockets, gears and levers convulse and dis-coordinate inside IL’s imagined high-tech superstructure for subsequent few seconds; then- very suddenly- all limbs freeze up and she pivots abruptly sideways at the waist.  Next a raven-haired head lilts down and to the right, her jaw pops helplessly open and both eyes become dull and saucer-wide.  IL is immobilized!!

As consciousness slips from her fully controlled mind, she hears nasal laughter and faintly-familiar Madonna song notes.

 

COMIC PAGE SEVENTY-ONEHaving completed adjustments to her Gone With The Wind time-stopped diorama, an anxious and excited Natalie Raygun (a.k.a. 'Mommy')  plunks down onto the back seat of a black stretch limousine parked in the regal front-entry courtyard of their 1920's Santa Barbara mansion.  It's a pastoral sunny April afternoon in Southern Cal, given soothing ever-present lulled roars from ocean surf in the audible distance, and birds chirping merrily among the dense grove of pines atop shoreline cliffs bordering their estate.  Unfortunately, ear-splitting noises and dust from adjacent condo  construction at a property next door shatters the Rayguns' once-peaceful solitude.  Patience, Natalie thinks to herself while batting down ideas of lawsuits and arson. The 'Big Bang' will fix all of these problems…very soon!  Feeling a bit-too-warm inside a camouflaging full length beaver pelt coat she wears atop her silver temporally-insulating Melkosian flight suit,  Mommy waits impatiently for the newly-hired chauffeur (her last one is frozen shaved-bald in a loincloth serving Sharon Rock's Cleopatra by waving a giant purple feathered fan) to come around and shut the car door for her. 

Receiving a very displeased scowl once he finally remembers his role and place, the tanned athletic James notices his employer is carrying some sort of 1-foot-cubed black box which has a variety of strange hieroglyphics printed alongside buttons, levers and its crowning red plunger.  "Where to, Ma'am?", he inquires in a practiced, most-deferential tone.  The always-on-the-prowl egomaniac replies, "To the Miss America contest in Mann's Chinese Theater, James.  But first, we'll pick up a newspaper reporter at the corner of Hollywood and Vine.  Once she's joined us, be a good fellow and pull right up behind any moving van you happen to come across?  I need some serious storage capacity for cargo we'll be picking up tonight. And step on it"!   Gravel sprays as the limo tears out from a circular driveway towards Pacific Highway US1 in the distance.  Mommy notes with dissatisfaction the lackluster impression of their rather plain-looking courtyard fountain.  Her scheming mind whirls.  

 

COMIC PAGE SEVENTY-TWO: "Private Emma…  Forward, MARCH!!", bellows Dwight at the second of two victims of his diabolical Mind-TRAMP devices.  Showing no emotional reaction to the run-down trapped circumstances of the QQ team leader as Empath Girl obediently struts past her into the center of Colonel Chronos' laboratory headquarters; there is nonetheless a tremendous mental struggle going on inside the waist-length straight black-haired teen's remarkable head.  Yet (so far) all of EG's attempts at unleashing telepathic counter-attacks and telekinetic weapons in the direction of the nerdy   supervillain's assistant have failed…  she's finding thoughts cannot be diverted from their laser-like focus upon interpreting and speedily acting out Weasel's ineluctable requests with an enthusiastic glee!  Deep down Emma knew the extremely high stakes of a seemingly-silly game here being played.  But there was nothing a delicate olive-skinned brainless beauty could think or do to prevent the bizarre game clock from ticking ever-onward.  Behind two empty-looking entranced coal eyes and red bhindi dot atop her smooth forehead, the superheroine was screaming  Mind-Blow!…    Mind-Halt!!…   Mind-Meld!!!…; yet without their practiced corresponding hand gestures (not permitted, as her arms simply continued to swing rhythmically along by her sides in compliance with Dwight's marching orders) her super powers were useless, and so she was no more than pretty puppet and plaything!  Also, her receptive telepathic abilities were somehow defeated by theta-waves invading her skull: Emma couldn't even thereby anticipate or discern what her white-lab-coated captor was planning to do with her.         

From a long-run mental health perspective, however, this unknowing aspect of her entrapment was probably a good thing.

Placing his late-lunch sandwich back down on its plate next to three secretly-gathered QQ personnel files, the controlling criminal now punches the 'play' button on a boom box arranged especially for the arrival of this particular young woman. 

Strike a pose!

Strike a pose!

   Each time the 150-decibel sharp command from Madonna's Vogue song lyrics fills the room, Empath Girl finds her monotonous steps halted and her body poised in angular model-like presentation.  In the very first instance, she simply halts in mid-stride and beams with hands upon her hips. Under theta-wave-driven spell of a singer's second command, however, our diminutive teenager perches onto tip-toe and thrusts her conical breasts up-forward with hands clenched behind her neck among waist-long black strands shimmering in the overhead lighting.  Hovering in this fashionable attitude, she feels resistance and willpower slackening further as her cruel criminal overseer's strategy continues to succeed.  Licking the QQ's pointy nipples evident and obvious through a white spandex tank top, Dwight more fully spells out Emma's impending fate. "Very nicely done, little one.  I enjoyed the mind-bended transition from sexy soldier into supermodel.  Quite smooth and almost flawlessly-flowing from one role into the next!  But you don't have enough practice yet under your belt, I'm afraid.  Nor do you have the complete picture about this specific assignment.  You see, Empath Girl, your superheroine days are over.  The Colonel wants both you and your pretty friend here as decoration in his collection next door. And I'm afraid those dangerous mental powers of yours aren't quite fully put to bed.  So we're going to give you more experience at following my lead". 

 

All you need is your own imagination

So use it- that’s what it’s for…

Go Inside for your finest inspiration

Your dreams will open the door

The lyrics bore mercilessly into the tip-toed teen's subconscious, drawing her further and further away from reality and into the nightmare carefully selected for her benefit.  Facts begin to cloud and then disappear from what was a  highly-disciplined, razor-sharp mentality only minutes before.  Who am I??   What am I doing here??  What am I supposed to be… considerations are rudely interrupted by Dwight's insolent imperatives: "Emma, you've just now been hired as a Victoria's Secret runway model for their Spring lingerie line debut in Milan.  Get to it and strut your stuff"!!   For a long instant the good-gal wavers, as sight of the military installation vanishes to be replaced in her mind's eye with a harshly illuminated raised hardwood corridor ending in a six-foot-radius circle.  Hundreds of  attentive potential buyers and trendy spectators crowd close onto edges of the runway platform with flash cameras poised to preserve Emma's entrance into imaginary fashion world history!  Something inside her brain snaps as she gives herself now fully over into her assigned role.  Working fast to undo QQ insignia throat latch of her full length saffron sari, we witness this robe having ever-increasing company on the laboratory floor as it is joined by sandals, black bicycle shorts and tank top from EG's inner-costume. A supermodel's haughty glare replaces usual innocent and considerate gaze of the reserved  teen; and we note that her matching micro-mini tiger stripe bra and panties combo seems both incongruous to our superheroine's demure personality and appropriate for her imposed scenario.

Stepping with alacrity off into pretty prancing imprisonment, the long-haired young victim faintly discerns wheezy

guffaws which strike a humiliating interior alarm bell.  Her muta-cloning Asian-Indian ancestors would be totally mortified to see her romping about in her underwear in time to a white woman's lousy rap song!  She was helpless.            

Let your body move to the music…

Let your body go with the flow…

Don’t just stand there, let’s get to it

Strike a pose, there’s nothing to it

 

COMIC PAGE SEVENTY-THREEEvents had taken their expected course.  Mike Stone and Roger Bannister wasted no time fully succumbing to hypno-hallucinogenic forces unleashed by Madame Giselle’s chemical trap. They ripped each others’ uniforms apart into tatters decorating an acrylic posing platform in less time than it took  their knockout blonde captor to say  lavages des cerveaux!  Suggested French kissing had led onto lewd fondling, after fondling began pawed manhandling, and (before they really knew what hit them) these Air Force career hunks swiftly found themselves totally enraptured by each other’s rugged charms.  The evil Motion Vampire’s[2] directives guided them straightway into an inescapable classic deux hommes clinching embrace! Bent over to grab his spread-apart ankles, Captain Stone was at once ashamed, confused and surprisingly stimulated experiencing a new-found lover’s stiff member encroaching where sunshine had never dared to wander.  For his own part, Major Bannister could not help but arch his back and lean an impressively-endowed midsection into an imposed passion imprinted upon his drugged discombobulated libido. 

Our frenzied French beauty giggled with delight as she surveys Roger’s clamped together strong defined-yet-toned legs pushing full weight up onto tip-toe toward his taller USAF partner.  Now playfully swatting at the Major’s energetic taut dimpled backside, she again unleashes her alien temporally-extracting powers and freezes the thrusting airman in his tracks!  Meanwhile in front, Mike has little time to react to these bizarre circumstances, as a mostly nude Cirque member quickly rounds the foot-tall clear platform to take a two-handed firm grasp upon her other defenseless catch-du-jour’s thickened seven inches.  Almost immediately, Giselle’s eyes close as waves of bio-resonant electricity course, eddy and crest throughout her voluptuous frame.  Shapely hips wiggle side-to-side barely perceptibly as our lovely artist approaches temporal-sexual energy climax.  Head lurching back, she lets loose with, “Unnghhh…  MAIS  OUI, Cheri!” as Mike’s lusty astonished expression (along with the rest of him) becomes totally stock-still.  Organic molecules have correlated kinetic life-force sucked completely out from them, and his upside-down-U stiffened shape sparkles and winks upon the very outer edge of time-space existence… only then to regain equilibrium by adopting stability from the solid podium on which he stands.  The Captain’s poised bulk quickly assumes complete transparency as it becomes… Acrylic!!  The still-cognizant Major Bannister stares in bleak static horror down across an involuntary partner’s clear back to discern his own engorged member visible through several inches of what was Mike’s flesh and blood only seconds before.   Guessing the nature of his thoughts, the merciless Madame taunts a military soon-to-be-statistic with, “Aren’t you happeee, mon ami?… youu told me zat youuu vould loooovvv eeet from behind, n’est-ce pas”!?  Glimmers inside Roger’s ever-paling blue eyes suggest he understands the irony of Giselle’s words as he transforms and she moans.

 

COMIC PAGE SEVENTY-FOUR: Glancing back-and-forth between binoculars and Hummer countdown timer, Colonel Chronos restlessly awaits visual cue signaling commencement of Project Sodom and Gommorrah.  From his Sierra Madre peak vista (some twenty kilos distant from the chrono-cradle-crowded ‘ground zero’ base of his instrument-calibration tower), Ollie has clear view of neon-strewn targets shimmering in Nevada desert heat waves off to the southwest.  Oppositely, faraway blue glowing emanates from globes of theta-wave energy incapacitating

more than 150 feminine-perfect temporal fuel cells… at least for another twenty minutes!  At that point, all their stored bioresonant energy would be channeled and focused through a parabolic dish atop the 200-foot structure, and Big Bang dissipation rates (and related questions) would be answered.  CC twists his handlebar moustache.

He then rotates the 'on' capacitor-dial for the 6" video monitor mounted into the communications console on the dashboard of his truck.  "I wonder how Weasel's doing with those interfering goody-two-shoes cloned mutants", he angrily mutters to himself.  "Two of them should be well on their way to becoming classic works of art by now…".

 

COMIC PAGE SEVENTY-FIVEEmerging from the nearby storage closet while carrying various cans of specially treated paint, brushes and a motorized sprayer-diffusor, Dwight Wyolzelczki momentarily considers the trio of imprisoned females in the diorama displayed before him.  Drop-dead-gorgeous floating curves of Captain Kel-Bar Sasha seem suddenly in stark contrast to an aghast expression of dissatisfaction crossing her aquamarine facial features.  Is she conscious inside that stasis tube? wonders the engineering geek in his white laboratory coat.  Just to be sure she poses no threat, the pasty-skinned nerd adjusts his Melkos captive's environmental controls.  By dropping her argon-ammonia mixture's ambient temperature 100 degrees further,  Kel-Bar begins to freeze solid!

Passing closely by the green-and-yellow spandex-clad QQ head honcho halted within her awkward angular robotic rundown pose, Weasel leers up-and-down every inch of Inga’s close-fitting costume. Punching in Chronos’ secret access codes on a high-security control panel for thick metal doors marked NO ADMITTANCE, he finds himself  inadvertently humming along with the blaring 150 decibel quasi-rap Vogue lyrics filling their secret headquarters.

Grace Kelly, Harlow Jean

Picture of a Beauty Queen

Mind-controlled Empath Girl is doing much more than humming in accompaniment to this Madonna score.  Her icy supermodel’s stare is flashed all about the room while she brainlessly wriggles and sachets in time to the beat.

Thrusting full hips, fanny and bustline out into a machine-gun-like sequence of fashionable display poses allows Dwight  to consider her microscopic tiger-strip lingerie from virtually every angle.  Inside her theta-wave flooded skull, Emma revels in the loud applause, photobulb flashes and oohh’s and aaahhhh’s from her imagined audience.

Putting down his accoutrements inside the now-opened threshold of Chronos’ gallery of frozen feminine beauty, he strides over to the boom box atop his workstation and amuses himself by apprising the Asian-Indian teen’s runway routine.  As looping lyrics reach their final fateful commanding words, Weasel touches the player’s ‘pause‘ button.  

Strike a Pose!

As if participant in an adults-only game combining freeze tag and musical chairs, EG slips seamlessly into one last silky-sexy attitude and then halts abruptly.  The helpless heroine finds herself turned fully away from Dwight with feet and ankles firmly planted together while slightly bent at the knees.  Her waist twisted forward-sideways, both dark eyes deliver a smoldering supermodel's killer stare back over her right shoulder.  Reaching round behind to her olive-skinned rump, ten splayed fingers are plastered across firm half globes bisected by an orange-and-black- striped lingerie T-back.  Emma's frenetically-frozen full moon veritably captures and embodies arrogant abandon of a Victoria's Secret model's philosophy:  'if you've got it… flaunt it!!'  The criminal geek with inch-thick glasses responds to his captive's selected stance with an appreciative wolf-whistle.  "Wheeeeww!!! Not bad, little one. No Sireee… not bad at all!"  As he slowly circles the rigid bent beauty, Empath Girl's own mental struggles continue unabated.  Realizing the deep peril of her situation, one last para-psychological blast manages to issue forth from her TRAMP'ed prison:  a modest-sized Mind-Blow which strikes Weasel squarely in the chest and shoves him to the wooden floor!   But this venting of superheroine frustration does little more that swell up a dangerous anger  inside EG's adversary, thereby only sealing her fate more quickly and completely.  Gathering himself back from

the crumpled heap where our diminutive QQ teen's telekinesis threw him, an evil frown sets harshly on his brow.  Referencing the ultra-secret personnel dossier marked "EG" atop his desk, the Colonel's henchman continues, "Well, I see my suspicions are confirmed.  Those mental weapons are not fully bottled up behind that big dot on your forehead.  Some more conditioning seems in order?!  You're too short and dainty to be an actual supermodel, anyway".  This was certainly true of the 5'2" delicate female.  In fact, Emma was desperately wishing that she was  even smaller at the moment… insignificant and somehow invisible to her tormentor.  Such déjà vu thoughts now trigger total recollections from a dream-state experienced two nights before, and she suddenly realizes that she had then been peering into the future!  By grace of Great Shiva… NO!  NOT THAT!!   Weasel would grant her desire.

"Time for Mechano-Lady's base coat.  And you, sweetie, must timidly bide your time.  As Steve Martin says, GET SMALL"!  Snipping away top and bottom of her matching lingerie set, he whispers his evil transforming command into EG's left ear.  She fights back pleading, "Don't…do…this… I can't  be…beeee……eee…… eeeeEEPPPP!!.."

Making enthusiastic cries completely in character with her newly-assigned role, reserved and demure Empath Girl scrunches down nude onto all fours and scurries away toward dark shadows in CC's laboratory corner... squeaking.

 

COMIC PAGE SEVENTY-SIX:  Professor Nils Johannson peers through an electron microscope viewing portal and grunts with dissatisfaction.  Tissue samples from each of his three remaining superheroines had been extracted prior to departure on their rescue-reconnaissance mission to North Dakota.  He hoped for better understanding of a ZONK(zenith-onset-nadir kinesity) sub-atomic chain reaction between QQ proto-matter and Chronos' time-altering theta-wave overdoses which had already permanently solidified Molecularly-Adustable Woman as sand sculpture.  Yet he was getting nowhere fast.  Without knowledge of the specific timing and complex frequencies of Maw's particular alien radiation exposure, his empirical testing and experimentation could provide little more than a few educated guesses about undoing CC's paralyzing damage.  Nils wished Scott McGillicutty was beside him now, assisting in unraveling this quantum physics mystery.   Thoughts inside his Nobel-caliber intellect absently wander 1000 miles to the NE as he considers various good and bad outcomes for the Quint-Quints' bold attempt to save Looker and catch the Colonel with his pants down.  Ominously, only two of four pre-arranged mathematical radio codes designating successful mission progress had been transmitted back by his away team to their New Mexico Area 57 base.  The gray-bearded biogenetics expert took comfort in knowledge that John Straightarrow was going in as backup for Inga, Scotty, Emma and Diedre.  But would he be too late?  The Professor refocuses his view lens.

 

COMIC PAGE SEVENTY-SEVEN It was becoming increasingly difficult for her to move.  The bubbling clear liquid prison of almost 20 years was suddenly changing into a slushy slur of ice crystals!  But process of her tube's  medi-environment chamber solidifying was steadily progressing from bottom-up… leaving Captain Kel-Bar Sasha complete and full view of truly heartless circumstances laid before her.  Existing in a semi-conscious dream state within this chilly sensory-deprivation tank, an intrepid former commander (and sole survivor) of the time-spaceship

Phaethon  had groggily borne witness to Chronos' seizure and corruption of the temporal-manipulating technology imbedded in her downed vessel.  Hundreds of time-stopped human females had been presented on CC's laboratory-base viewscreens as they were deposited inside 6'-wide chrono-cradles down empty ICBM silos for their temporary storage.   Nearly eight weeks after the Colonel's temporal fuel acquisition runs began, most of these frozen women were now gone: shipped off to some unknown evil purpose (and other likely bastardization of Melkosian science!).  

Yet a half-dozen-plus remaining women occupying a gallery directly opposite her stasis tube's location now stood

visible for her consideration through open-wide double mechanical steel doors. Each beauty on display inside bore the trademark silver blue glimmer of temporal dilation- seemingly emanating from a small sparkling disc held in place by a ribbon-thin headband across the forehead.  Sasha had recently witnessed the weird fragile human male in his white lab coat tending to this collection of unmoving victims, as well as his group's obvious leader occasionally interacting with them in various mating ritual activities.  The subordinate male had apparently been given the chore of painting most of the women to more closely resemble inanimate objects. For example, a willowy shoulder-blade –length  brunette gal, partly clothed in what Kel-Bar recognized as a ballerina's dance costume and lying upon her back, had been spray-painted with a translucent pink-gray-white coating.  Sprawled propped-up on her elbows with head thrown back and legs perched in a mid-air wide V-shape, world-famous dancer Irina Petrushkova had become a delicate porcelain sculpture atop her 3-foot-tall dais!   Some five feet behind this erotic Russian statuary stood an abstract granite work of art.  Supermodel Tyra "Blanks" (as CC's gang had nicknamed her in her unthinking and unmoving circumstances) still stood as cresting theta-waves had captured her: in a shocked and fearful dead-run sprinting pose.  Attempting to escape temporal fuel acquisition by fleeing down a Catalina Island shoreline had almost succeeded for her and fellow Sports Illustrated cohort Carol "Halt", thanks to intervention by three brave Quint-Quints.  Streaking naked atop the sands, the SI duo nearly reached safety among Spring Carnival crowds...  only then to be recaptured by CC's expanding radiation field.  Calf, thigh and buttocks muscles now an interesting contrast between tensed-coiled potential energy and bouncing frenzied freedom, Tyra perches on single tip-toe glued down onto a foot-tall pedestal.  With head slightly thrown back and fist-clenched arms bent and locked out from her sides, the gazelle-like lanky supermodel is a near-perfect embodiment of aesthetic athleticism.  Except for  her O-shaped mouth frozen amid "Nooooooo"  protest uttered as she realized her impending fate at the last.  Under CC's instructions, Dwight had slathered five thick coats of grainy pebble-gray paint (mixed also with a heavy-duty acrylic polymer used by Catalina Island sand sculpture contestants to strengthen 'staying power' and durability of  their artistic entries) to create an elegant crackly-impressionistic sculpted stone effect across her tall energetic blue- glowing  features.  Gray muscles stretching, boobs bouncing and hair streaming back behind her, lovely Ms. Banks  manifests granite essence of motion itself, while-in artistic counterpoint- held absolutely motionless. Sasha frowns.

  Other unwilling occupants of Colonel Chronos' gallery of sex-toys stand in various stages of transformation.  Two UCLA cheerleaders are as-yet-untouched by any brush stroke: their energetic bare-ass-wiggling attitudes remain in frozen full-living color.  Broadway starlet Vanessa Williamson hovers over in a corner halted by Weasel's Micro-TRAMP temporal governance device in a classic theatrical stance.  An open chest of Elizabethan costumes next to the African-American treasure suggests she was 'caught-in-the-act'(or 'caught-between-acts'?) amid a quick-change.  Right leg forward with knee slightly bent, Vanessa sports foot-tall laced boots and sheer thigh-high stay-up caramel  stockings, along with a tight bustier-corselet designed to provide appropriate hourglass accenture under her forest-green Lady Macbeth gown (left behind at the Winter Garden).  A late-1500’s poofy-shouldered sub-chemise is yanked wide open.  Guided into an almost mannequin-like position, the actress teeters with left hand firmly planted on her hip,  and raised right hand bent round to cradle the back of her neck.  The former Miss America's upraised faraway stare has become strangely glassy-eyed, as CC's specific orders required she transform into a wax dummy.  Several viscous clear-coats atop the starlet's voluptuous mostly-nude frame have produced the Colonel's desired effect.  However, Weasel has not yet completed this project: Vanessa's coffee silky-smooth thighs, calves and feet remain unpainted.  Nearby, the newest (before today, at least) member of this presentation of petrified pulchritude kneels on all fours atop an oblong 3' x 5' x 2' white podium.  A slinky siren dressed head-to-toe in a leather catsuit- including a tail and ears- crouches in feline fascination of a partner as-yet-absent from an adjacent 2-foot-radius circular stand.  Stilled while springing ever-so-slightly forward as if about to pounce upon rodent prey (watch out, Emma!), Seleena Kyle a.k.a. Gotham City's Catwoman cranes head and neck into empty space with  accompanying lustful leer and pink tongue outstretched.  Weasel has already lovingly applied reflective bright gold color along the stilled supervillainess' delicious catsuit undulations. Blonde ponytail, unmasked portions of her comely face and alluring bushy nether regions exposed by a split-wide-open costume crotch have yet to receive artistic attentions.  A quarter-sized TRAMP disc glimmers atop her forehead.  However, it is the cluster of podiums and creations to Seleena's right which require greatest attention from the Colonel's third-in-command at the moment.  A statuesque supermodel-like strawberry blonde is the only human female on display without the tell-tale glow of time-dilating radiation.  Instead, Quintessential Quintet teammate Looker now exhibits a pink plasticized shininess of her own making underneath the overhead gallery spotlights.  With curvaceous gams spread apart and clenched fists atop perfectly-proportioned hips, our appearance-altering good-gal has been frozen amid an ultra-convincing mannequin imitation inside the classical superheroine's stance!  Green sparkling sequins of her cocktail-minidress costume stand in considerable disarray, as CC has posed and plumped dynamite feminine assets (molded, featureless and color-faded as they may be in her current state) for his own amusement.  Mostly-nude Looker's blank artificial countenance can't now show any reaction at arrival of a QQ colleague to her immediate left.

Phaethon Captain Kel-Bar watched in unmitigated horror from her icy stasis tube only moments before as Weasel re-energized captured "Mechano-Lady" into an obedient expectant 'at-attention' stance.  A brave Melkosian female felt waves of disgust and sympathy wash over her as she closely considered the robotic predicament of the proud pretty brunette.  Yet even these circumstances seemed preferable to those of her naked olive-skinned partner, who was now hunched over and scrambling about on closely-drawn-in hands and knees in apparent terrified timidity!

The white-coated male tormentor methodically chased down this mind-controlled young woman across CC's lair-base wooden floor… EG fled from beneath his desk to behind a Cray supercomputer, scampered straight through a scattering table and chairs set until trapped quivering next to Sasha's tube in the lab corner. A green-skinned visitor was forced to witness point-blank such depths of bizarre cruelty which this human male was capable of.  He first pinned a windmilling and squealing Empath-Girl beneath a brown shoe firmly planted into the small of her back.  Chuckling with demented evil glee, Dwight Wyolzelsczki unceremoniously shoved plug of a gray 3-ft. computer audio connection cable up Emma's butt, coaxing her more completely into character with addition of a mouse’s tail.    As sick Weasel hastened off to order Mechano-Lady into the confines of Colonel Chronos' time-stopped collection, extreme anger swelled inside Sasha's impressive 45EE cleavage.  Thoughts of applying her alien super-strength in assistance to the defeated Quint-Quints (despite almost certain death from the hostility of an alien oxygen-nitrogen  atmosphere) came too late.  Her legs and lower torso were already completely frozen into place. She was stuck fast!

Sight of a fully-reprogrammed Inga awkwardly goose-stepping mechanically past a perfectly-posed plastic Looker seared into Captain Kel-Bar's psyche.  As a freezing fog descended mercilessly onto her consciousness, the furious Melkos traveler viewed jet backpack and gauntlet weapons discarded and IL's costume-connecting waistline zipper unfastened.  Following these and further self-undressing orders from her master to the letter, Mechano-Lady tugged the lower half of her green and yellow spandex costume (dainty pink panties too!) down into crumpled heaps all about her tan toned calves and just above integrated leather boots.  Imagined circuits and systems whizzing and whirring to interpret Dwight's specific posing imperatives, Inga hears the strange whooshing sound of an airbrush.

Meanwhile, inside the open doors of the high-security access elevator, we notice that one of the ceiling panels has been loosened and swung back.  An inch-thick golden lariat strand drops to traverse the distance, striking a cold metal floor just two feet away from the limp and lifeless frame of Scott McGillicutty.  A shiny yellow boot appears.

 

COMIC PAGE SEVENTY-EIGHT:   A bewildered USAF Major Shirley Glide call-girl swallows uncomfortably while trying not to gag upon the sticky-salty substances recently deposited into her mouth against her will.  Let me rephrase:  the NASA Shuttle Commander no longer has a will of her own to object to any forceful suggestions or commands, thanks to the disguised Mind-TRAMP encircling her left wrist.  As President George W. Lush pulls away from kneeling attentions of an athletic early-forties brunette dressed only in buckskin boots, chaps, Western-style fringed jacket and ten-gallon hat,  a dour desperate- almost cornered- look crosses his face.  Once the zipper on his trousers fly is again raised, he demands an explanation from 'The Chief' (more popularly known as former President Donald Raygun) standing next to him while assessing the array of digital photographs just collected from GW's interplay with the Air Force officer.  "All Right, just tell me what you want. I'm not exactly in any position to disagree with you after those antics.  Hope you and the Captain and NASA Chief Perigee enjoyed the show.  What- ever that gall-darned contraption is you put on Glide’s wrist, it sure made her do a total about-face!  She went from a royal pain-in-the-rear to a complete 'yes-woman' at the drop of a hat.  And I can't complain about her enthusiasm, either"!  A rejuvenated 90-year-old criminal responds, "I'll pass your approval along to the Colonel, Mr. President.

But we really don't want very much.  Just as Captain Nicholson said, we only ask that you take the necessary steps- an executive order will certainly suffice- to maintain all secrecy and security around Monday's launch of Endeavor.

Major Glide's request to remove and examine the Shuttle payload bay instrument package will, of course, now be disregarded.  I highly doubt she will be voicing any more objections, don't you"?  The entrapped and blackmailed President considers an eager looking astronaut-turned-slut still kneeling beside him.  "Just how far are you boys willing to go to keep this little project of yours quiet?" he asks.  "It's obvious to me there must be some serious money involved here, and I'd be willing to keep silent about all this for… say… 10% of the take"?  A goofy smile hangs on the oilman's face while The Chief and Hercules exchange annoyed glances. Raygun nods toward his USN partner in crime and addresses GW: "Hmmm….I don't think you realize whom you are dealing with, George.  You aren't in a position to negotiate anything!  Vast technological advantages for Colonel Chronos provide us absolute power and control here. I see we need to punctuate this point further.  You may now proceed with demonstration C, my boy".  All eyes turn to the Navy Captain, who himself fixes Shirley Glide with a maniacal evil leer. Deep inside her exposed breast, alarm and trepidation burst forth to produce a look of confused horror over the officer’s brave pretty facial features. Her lower lip quivers ever-so-slightly as Hercules' final mind-controlled scenario unfolds. 

“First she was a cowgirl”, begins a swooning Seal awash in the giddy sense of power of his overseer’s role. “Next    our plucky Major will change into a girl cow!  You’re gonna morph from feminist astronaut to farm animal, babe. 

Pain-in-the-rump becomes almost-rump-roast.  Two legs down onto all fours.  Hubris replaced by total docility.  A quite-fitting way to teach you a lesson… don’t ya think, cutie"? A stunned gal can only shake her head in disbelief.  

Hercules helps the doomed victim of merciless theta-waves through her bovine transition by stepping over to the kneeling American heroine and rapid-fire stripping her of all the buckskin attire providing Shirley with last links to homo sapiens.  As her boots, chaps, jacket and hat fall to the Oval Office carpet, CC’s colleague produces a plastic packet of freshly-cut grass and collared bell from the coat pocket of Navy Dress Blues.  “Slave, you’re realizing now just how deep the hole is you’ve dug for yourself by opposing the will of Colonel Chronos.  You should have played along and kept your mouth shut… not said anything.  Now instead, your vocabulary will soon be seriously reduced for other reasons.  MMMMOOOOOOOOOOVE IT, honey!  Transform NOW from chattel into cattle”!!

A hapless Shuttle Commander’s eyes go blank as she slumps slowly forward from her squatting position to assume Hercules’ demanded hands-and-knees attitude. Dangling boobs bump together and sway back and forth as Shirley’s cowbell is attached round her neck… sole adornment to her utter humiliation amid imaginary barnyard entrapment.  While the four male occupants of the Oval Office exchange looks of amused amazement,  a slight drizzle of saliva appears at the corner of her mouth in response to the sharp sweet aroma of grass clippings spread as a leading trail between Commander Glide’s current rump-raised position and a coffee table across the room.  Grazing begins.

 

COMIC PAGE SEVENTY-NINE: I...Must....Maintain...Attitudinal Orientation.... Within...Specified....Millimeter Tolerances........ I....Must.....Maintain.....Attitudinal Orientation.... Within...Specified...Millimeter Tolerances.... An irresistible posing command loops endlessly through the vacuum-cleaned skull of what was (until a mere fifteen minutes ago) once a brilliant and resourceful feminine intellect.  With sockets tightly fused in place, all gears and rotors ground down to a halt, she was powerless to prevent progress of the geeky villain wielding a sponge-tipped brush. Mechano-Lady sits motionless upon her pedestal leaning steeply forward, the lower half of her superheroine costume scrunched down about twin tawny calves.

Colonel Chronos has chosen stereotypically-pensive positioning for his new plaything, displaying Inga both quite artistically and in a manner ironically consistent with her brainy super powers. Once the upper-half of her green and yellow spandex form-fitting suit was brazenly yanked upwards until its connecting waistline zipper lay atop creamy softball-sized protruding breasts, our pretty girl-next-door QQ victim whirred and clanked over amid her robotic role to plunk helplessly bare-assed into Weasel’s commanded orientation:  toes of her boots touching the floor with both knees angled, her arms draped casually across spread-apart thighs with elbows bent up.  In her left hand she is forced to hold aloft an old-fashioned circular slide-rule device beneath a frozen downward gaze. The other V-shaped arm flexes fully up and back, with right fist tightly clenched to provide under-support to chin and head.  A twinkling silver blue Mind-Tramp perches atop furrowed brow now fixed in feigned deepest concentration of various calculation tasks set before her.  Powerful theta-waves emanating from this ingenious device perpetuate ongoing disconnect between Hippcampus and Brain Stem, thus reinforcing the lovely Inga-droid’s last orders from her owner to precisely hold her pose.  Worse still, she’s now completely  tan-brown… already 100% covered under a primer base coating of bodypaint which would veritably ‘cement’ this unwillingly-undertaken career change from crime-fighter to crafted fixture.  But outpourings from Weasel’s airbrush some minutes earlier had not contained the exact same chemical mix as had been deposited over demure Empath Girl’s dainty sexy frame.  Lured squeaking and scrambling into CC’s gallery by a Hansel-Gretel-like cheese crumb trail from his lunchtime sandwich, nibbling Emma obediently stuck with her assigned rodent role  to the very last.  Caught while swallowing last bits of a tasty cheddar treat atop her foot-tall round dais, Chronos’ henchman made use of EG’s secret dossier, turning the tables via muta-cloned pre-programmed literary knowledge. Dwight commanded her befuddled brain to abandon a harmless mousy mindset and instead assume the new role of mythological Galatea! 

Lost amid the confusion from segue between small gray captive to half-woman and half-clay, the Asian-Indian beauty found herself unable to stop the coke-bottle-thick spectacled Pygmalion stand-in as he guided her as sculpture-in-progress into another classical stance nearly as famous as that of her QQ colleague.  Even elements of her superheroine attire had been employed into the pose… her ankle-length saffron sari was now artfully-lovingly draped along her shoulders and arms outstretched sideways. Emma’s limbs felt thick and heavy, her mind-controlled body becoming more and more like molded clay drying into immutable hardness.  She found herself poised like a flamingo, teetering upon one foot planted atop her pedestal with the other leg drawn up within a sideways-tuck, bent knee pointing outwards and to the left.  From Weasel’s perspective, the trickiest part about posing Empath Girl was folding and creasing her robe just so to become both true to the intended original artist’s representation; as well as providing full and unfettered future access for the Colonel to key and critical areas along her delicate shapely physique.  Once this was accomplished, however, the end for the olive-skinned beauty came quickly from airbrush blasts combining a creamy orange-pink translucent covering with a fast-drying shiny clear lacquer.  The process was so rapid that her crowning Mind-TRAMP was superfluous! Poor Emma’s original theta- wave jolt inside the elevator had carried her brain fully through from boot camp to fashion runway to pet store to her final podium pose. Head turned to the side and uplifted slightly toward the gallery ceiling, her imitation of a rose-quartz early-1900’s masterpiece stood strikingly upon its perch, while enclosed under-lighting enhanced this QQ’s artistic attitude by coaxing forth an outward warm peach glow. Stepping back from this rapidly-rigidifying teenager (once the Catalina Island clear-coat blended into her bodypaint dried there would be nothing she could do),  CC’s cruel third-in-command proclaimed her transformation to be complete: “Sweetie, that’s damned-near perfect!  You’re a museum-quality life-sized copy of Lalique’s Suzanne.  Hold it right there!... as if you had any choice in the matter. Ha….Hah…Hah”! Weasel’s guffaws punctuate her predicament.  Emma is now a shellacked statue.

Disappointed that he could not yet run his hands over immobile conical breasts or delightful rounded backside of his latest erotic creation (lest he spoil the shimmery quartz-like effect of EG’s coating), Dwight Wyolzelsczki then turned attentions back to application of a second bronzy layer on Emma’s companion.  Starting from the toes of our Quint-Quint’s integrated costume boots and then working upwards, sponge-brush hatchings of mottled green, dark brown and gold colors already provide extremely realistic imitation of an intended alloy to just below Inga’s knees.

“Of course, Metal-TRAMP frequency #13 would generate an even more convincing bronze effect, honey… but I suppose if you really were made of metal the Colonel wouldn’t be able to have nearly so much fun with you”, he taunted.  “The iron grip of my clear lacquer embedded in this second coat will hold you just as still, anyways…”, a white-coated scientist continues.  “Perhaps you remember its effect upon Dura-Damsel as she held her voluptuous Lady Godiva pose?  That original polymer has been improved by Cray supercomputer analysis to now maintain its molecular viability and staying-power for more than seven wee…OWwwwch?!%#?”!  Weasel collapses to the floor after his skull is abruptly impacted by a precisely-hurled boomerang weapon launched from the doorway threshold. 

 

COMIC PAGE EIGHTY: Covered head-to-toe by identical skintight silver temporally-insulating alien flightsuits, Natalie Raygun and Dawn Fall stride purposefully across the raised wooden stage of Mann’s Chinese Theater.  The elder of these two villainesses (although Dwight’s theta-wave age regression algorithms have knocked considerable years away from both)  struts appreciatively among nine of  ten swimsuit-clad Miss America quarter-finalists who smile blankly from their semi-circular arrangement in front of twin television cameras.  An unearthly tinkling noise is only disturbance to the sparkling-blue-permeated scenario of the silenced theater.  Mommy’s sinister black box emitter once again performed flawlessly: its time-dilating bio-resonant radiation having frozen everyone and every-  thing in its tracks.  “We’ll take Wisconsin… and that brunette with the big gazongas at stage left… Ohh! and Miss blondie-long-legs from Arizona here has attached earlobes!  She’s probably directly descendeä from a Melkosian visitor.  What’s her composite comeliness score”?  Dawn responds quickly to her superior’s enquiry, stepping up directly behind Shawna Dunston and setting her rigid-yet-pliable arms into a floor-pointing upside-down V-shape.

Her contestant’s cream colored one-piece is thus easily and immediately evacuated from about shoulders, upper torso, down across her strikingly-proportioned 37-25-36 frame, to come to rest stretched between gorgeous gams just above the knees.  Eyeballs of the cameramen would likely fall straight out of their sockets (to say nothing of the rest of America tuning in for their annual dose of sexist posed pulchritude and feminine objectification), but for the fact that this healthy tanned now-nude contestant’s unknowing striptease is taking place within the spark of a nano-second relative to “normal time”.   Viewer’s brains are now just still registering a blue-white flash at the back of their retinas while Chronos’ twin cohorts make this final temporal fuel acquisition run. “Arizona’s CCS is .9243  Ma’am”, she replies while moving her pulchri-meter (another one of Dwight’s ingenious tie-in devices dovetailing perfectly with Melkosian time-stop technology) slowly around from Shawna’s downy exposed nether-region  to glide lovingly just inches away from the deep delicious crevices of her ass crack.  With legs apart to shoulder width and arms gracefully set out and back in parallel, this time-stopped lovely closely resembles an Olympic swan diver- or perhaps even a superheroine capable of flight itself- except for her hapless unmoving circumstances.  Evil Dawn allows herself a slight smile, thinking how this stilled early-twenties beauty queen’s exuberant expression would alter should they decide to cease theta-waves for just an instant or two.  Drifting back to consider an earlier fuel collection in the Rose Bowl, she remembers Weasel actually likes to freeze them with a look of shock and surprise stuck onto their faces!  Noticing an unfriendly scowl that her momentary daydream is producing over Natalie’s countenance, the Colonel’s former D.C. personal secretary finishes estimation of a blue-eyed victim’s bio-resonant temporal energy potential:  “With an attached earlobes bonus score, that brings this one’s CCS up to just under .95!   We’ve hit a fuel mother lode here tonight, I believe”. 

Thinking back to a partially completed Titanic exhibit some   75 miles away in Santa Barbara, Mommy scans through silver-tinted protective goggles about the stage in search of the much-vaunted Miss Massachusetts.  However, she is nowhere to be seen.  Meanwhile, Dawn has attached a conventional TRAMP governance device to Shawna’s dangling shoulder strap, now floating in defiance of gravity next to her bronzed left thigh.  Mere seconds later (had any clocks in the theater still been ticking!), a distinct six-foot-diameter sphere of temporal energy encircles the immobile honey-blonde contestant.  With a practiced-perfect beaming expression still stuck incongruously across her face, Miss Arizona is rolled unceremoniously off from the stage to become first of several acquisitions deposited inside a Mayflower moving van backed up to the rear entry door.  As Dawn returns back to the stage, she notices sandal heels sticking out from folds of tall green velvet stage curtains on her left.  “I may have just discovered whereabouts of our tenth quarter-finalist, Ma’am”, she declares.              

Heather O’Clancy is absolutely stunning.  Perfectly coiffured , full-bodied copper-color tresses cascade sensuously down across a pale, delicately-freckled back while caught in her kneeling position.  The deep cut of her regulation contestant’s swimsuit back allows full appreciation of  sculpted hourglass figure curvatures, all the way down to a comely taut fanny protruding backwards against suit fabric as Heather leans energetically into her task at hand. As Mommy’s black box red plunger thrusted downwards to spray paralyzing Melkosian theta-waves, ‘Miss Mass’ had  just then been coaxed offstage during a short commercial break into the confines and secrecy of the stage curtain coverings. Once there, she agreed to provide Master of Ceremonies Rob Parker with a complimentary blow job so as to increase her own chances to win!  Mommy and Dawn survey the erotic-yet-pathetic stilled scene.  Green eyes are fixed purposefully upwards attempting to make meaningful lusty contact with a tuxedo-clad companion, whose suit trousers are currently resting about lower shins and ankles.  Ruby lips are tightly encompassing ¾’s of a MC’s aging member, with Heather’s left hand grasping its base to provide extra needed support.  Both eyes closed, Rob is stiffened with his hand in appreciative mid-pat atop a blazing mellifluous hairdo. Both silver-suited criminals guffaw heartedly at harsh reality of life as a beauty contestant.  Natalie now announces, “Tsk…Tsk…Tsk… people.  We can’t have this sort of blatant favoritism clouding the outcome of the competition!  I’m afraid we’re going to have to turn you two in.  In Rob’s case, I mean that in a more traditional sense; but for you, my red-headed vixen, I’d rather say that I’m now going to turn you into…”.  Snapping her fingers, she holds out an open palm to Dawn.

 

COMIC PAGE EIGHTY-ONE Madame Giselle leans languidly up against one of numerous marble support pillars running full length of the covered outdoor main promenade interconnecting lobby and casino of the Grand Façade Hotel.  Behind her, blossoming manicured landscaping and tree-lined grounds sweep off to meet Nevada desert and Sierra mountains in the distance.  Directly across the cobblestone walkway stands a curved outer glass window framing her newest masterpieces.  We see from this viewpoint that the erotic acrylic sculpture strikingly displayed upon its podium inside a ten-foot-diameter curtained alcove is merely one of a dozen-plus such similar artworks.  To humping Roger and Mike’s immediate left, for example, is a life-sized representation of a curvaceous female perched precariously on left knee atop a rough-hewn wooden block. Roxanne’s bark-covered heel touches the alcove floor in counterbalance, with torso and waist twisted around sideways to deliver a killer stare backwards across her left shoulder.  Giselle briefly compares this ‘all-natural’ solo feminine statue versus her very latest two creations shimmering in transparent splendor underneath glaring overhead lighting. 

Next door, Roxy’s dark maple graining traverses deliciously along the small of her polished brown back, across half-moon shaped slightly-spread glutes, all the way down to petrified wooden feet.  Our Motion Vampire’s entire walkway exhibition displays a raw sexual tone (something Hotel management encourages, because of huge curious crowds attracted in from the strip), and this gal victim was no exception.  Close observation reveals her right hand has been posed to tuck beneath and through frontal pubic hairs, with appropriately-placed twin maple fingers extended caressing clit among split nether folds.  A Cirque D’Artificiel  member froze and transformed this back-gazing bar maiden amid a lasting gasp of her own self-induced pleasure.  Yet contrasts between these two displays: lighting, materials, posing.- not to mention chosen masturbation versus gay sex subject themes– were breathtaking… almost hypnotizing.  The animate French bombshell smiles in satisfaction while igniting a triumphant galoise and muttering, “Tres bien, mes chers soldats.  Merci beaucoup”.   At this moment, a pair of dynamite showgirls dressed in little more than strategically- placed feathers covering critical regions saunters down the breezeway.  Taking note of freshly-unveiled acrylic male nudes imprisoned within their unwilling rearwards embrace, these enticing employees are at once fascinated, amused and slightly aroused.  A tall chestunut-haired burlesque girls’s distinct blush catches Madame G’s attention, and she suddenly considers whether the two of them might make an attractive face-sitting statue diorama in the still-vacant alcove to the Air Force officers’ right.  Watching closely as the willowy brunette leans down and whispers some intimacy to her shorter blonde girlfriend, we see knowing nods and hushed exchange of a giggle.  Giselle is pleased with such strong sexy responses from very first “customers”, and continues imagining their intended future pose and medium. 

What should I choose to change them into??   Stone…no!...  metal, perhaps?  Hmmmm… Possibly pink plastic like manneq...  Casual musings by the nearly-200-year-old are cut abruptly short as her scrutiny moves from ample feathered cleavage to a look of blatant horror strangely affixed on the woman’s lovely face.  Following the direction of the showgirl’s stricken stare, the heartless sculptor is herself astonished to discover a 300-foot-tall wave of sparkling silver-blue alien energy cresting like a tsunami directly toward them, growing rapidly larger with its racing-car-quick progress across desert sands!  The temporal onslaught doesn’t even allow them time to scream.

 

COMIC PAGE EIGHTY-TWODura-Damsel slowly enters Chronos’ gallery of play-toy statues, brushing her disheveled cascade of bushy chocolate ringlets back over red spandexed tunic shoulders and waist-length yellow costume cape.  As the cheetah-like QQ super-athlete proceeds to retrieve a fully effective boomerang weapon, we note that her usual prancing leggy gait is veritably slowed to a crawl, and a wild-eyed look of disbelief crosses her elegant facial features. Now given DD’s hyper-extended libido interconnected to her “flashing” super powers, there were also warm damp stirrings going on between those lean caramel runner’s thighs.  Brazen erotic overtones of all these motionless displays around her swarmed throughout senses again and again.  It's hard for her to concentrate upon the mission, but a perspiring and deep-breathing Diedre now successfully removes nine quarter-sized Micro-TRAMP’s from foreheads of the Colonel’s playthings. And yet, these frozen women still won’t move!  All of their millimeters-thick glowing auras diminish, yet CC’s statuesque victims remain imprisoned amidst various selected highly accommodating poses.  No change whatsoever occurs in Looker’s O-shaped shiny red lips; nor in the deep pensive expression stuck behind Inga’s opaque spray-painted-brown visor lenses.  What’s going on?!?  Why aren’t they being freed??  Suddenly, Deedee thinks back to her own similar shellacked predicament at the Catalina Island shoreline, and remembers about the twelve-minute residual effect of Melkosian theta-waves once turned off.  By sharp contrast, however, this newest Quintessential Quintet teammate was rapidly getting ever-more turned on!  Strong psycho-sexual stimulation erupts recalling 24-hour entrapment inside a mercilessly rigid clear-coat prison.

DD reviews bizarre humiliation by Sports Illustrated photographers and support personnel (once they themselves re-animated after CC’s time-stopping effect dissipated) ogling her frozen Lady Godiva side-saddling beaver shot.  Perched atop a stallion sand sculpture, her shellacked-solid circumstances fully illustrated the tale of QQ’s defeat.

Damage had been done to both her ego and psyche that afternoon to be sure; yet even as she posed motionless for all to see, secret thrilled exuberance emerged as her darting eyes saw masculine appraisal of her slinky caramel- skinned physique lingering over her partly-exposed breasts, bushy pubic triangle, and lean runner’s derriere.  Yet a bitchy cohort of Colonel Chronos’ brazenly labeled her butt with an oversized REJECT red ink stamp as both she and sand-sculpted Maw were left behind while the nefarious gang made its escape.  Strangely, faint pangs of raw jealousy had washed over Dura-Damsel as she realized her physical beauty was not quite up to the high standards and purposes of CC’s Time Bomb.  Watching Looker and four SI swimsuit supermodels being towed out to sea in a large net containing three-foot-radius shimmering chrono-cradles, the tall stiffened superheroine had bided her time (she had nearly a full day’s worth of nude immobility still ahead of her!) by then imagining ultimate whereabouts and circumstances of the ‘chosen few’ from that fuel acquisition run.  Well, now- some six days later- the answer to that question was plainly in front of her green eyes...  at least for two of those victims.  Tyra Banks had become an artsy-fartsy gray stone statue, stuck upon tip-toe amid a dead sprint.  An attractive, yet impractical, plaything pose,  she now thinks to herself about the inaccessibility of Ms. Banks’ key body parts time-stopped in a frenzied wild-bouncing state.  She’s luckier than these other ones… they’ve got obvious sex toy mileage on them. 

In sharp contrast to Tyra’s aloof sculpture was a legs-splayed-in-mid-air porcelain like ballerina statue obediently posed on her back atop the three-foot-tall pedestal; as well as two fanny-waggling flesh-and-blood UCLA cheerleaders.  DD couldn’t help but chuckle at the wavy blonde one’s look of astonishment cemented across her back-glancing face… nor could she help but notice self-spread butt cheeks revealing a savory crinkly-hair-covered pink delight.  Once again, her accelerated and heightened libido began to betray her, and so her steps quickened to avoid delay and further enticing entrapment.   And in so doing, Deedee bumped headlong into the plasticized Looker!  Poised atop  trademark emerald 3” heels (perfect color match to her sequined green minidress QQ costume!), the mostly-naked superheroine mannequin wobbles back and forth with hollow-sounding thunking! noises for a few seconds before recapturing her balance and settling back down.  From now-point-blank range, fuller extent of this appearance-altering beauty’s predicament became quite obvious.  Looker’s hazel eyes- once her most striking and irresistible feature- seemed lifeless… much like those of a Barbie Doll’s.  DD wonders whether her partner in crime-fighting was cognizant or not?  The hemline of her close-fitting minidress had been pulled up and intertwined between ten fingers closed into fists resting atop splendid full hips.  With her provided SI micro-bikini undergarment removed days ago,  a distinctly non-human pink sheen of perfection reigns from the dent which was once her belly button all the way to her fused-together synthetic toes. Looker’s body hair below the neck had vanished during the dynamite-sexy QQ’s involuntary transformation: even her pubic area gleams in waxy-smooth glory beneath overhead lights.

Circling this trapped good-gal whom their away-team had struggled so hard to find, reach and rescue, eyebrows on the lanky gazelle-like super-athlete shot up as she notices tell-tale whitish goop dried and hardened amid curvatures and impressions of her mannequinized fanny.  Shock from the reality of her partner’s circumstances over the past week drive her to more forceful measures.  Moving  back to stare directly into Looker’s fixed thousand-yard stare, DD wraps firmly upon her plastic forehead and exclaims in a South-African lilt:  “Hello!?!  Why can’t you hear me?  We’ve got to get out of here while we’ve the chance!  For heavens sake, MOVE”!!  More of the same white substance gracing her frozen bent backside is evident at the left corner of the strawberry blonde’s lower lip, while from there another dribbled trail coaxed by gravity has left dried drops across dangling featureless 40DD cleavage. Lewd thoughts of being put into Looker’s place- becoming nothing more than an involuntary receptacle for CC’s stimulations and ejaculation- at once begins to repulse and tantalize her!  Recoiling and turning about from this unresponsive department-store dummy stuck amid her classic superheroine’s stance, Diedre shifts her worried gaze along peach and warm earth-toned rose quartz lines of the statue that once was Empath Girl, as well as a  partially-completed Inga-based feminine copy of Rodin’s Thinker. Her dizzy mind whirls…uncertain what to do next.  Panic starts to set in over this last-remaining relatively inexperienced crime-fighter.  Success or failure of the QQ mission hangs in the balance!  With a grimace, Deedee runs both hands up over pretty facial features and through long dark frilly ringlets, pulling them back through a pate-crowning hole in the red fitted hooded cowl as she dons her mask.  Kneeling down over the white-coated unconscious form of Dwight Wyolzelsczki, she grabs him by the lapels and shakes him up-and-down with such frenzied ferocity that his head bumps the wooden floor. No response.  Very unexpectedly, a deep insidious voice now booms from behind her, “Quite an impressive collection, don’t you think Dura-Damsel?  Having seen your personnel file, I’d think you’ll be most pleased to be joining them very soon”! 

 

COMIC PAGE EIGHTY-THREEAnnoyed Professor Johannson gathers a lanky 6’5” white-coated frame into the plush beige leather of an Area 57 conference room chair.  Looking past Maw’s stilled sandy curves squatting atop an adjacent oblong sandalwood table, he continues his disagreement with four Genesis Donors occupying the far side of the room.  Atmosphere within this communications nerve-center of the QQ’s ultra-secret New Mexico base is tense, to say the least.  Brilliant Joyce Sisters (aka ‘Doctor One’ in her semi-anonymous role as Inga’s DNA contributor to Johannson’s muta-cloning process) and tough-as-nails Hotelier Leonna Ruddersly (Maw’s ‘Mom’) have come forward with a bold proposal to stop Colonel Chronos and his evil machinations.   On the other side of the coin, however, are ‘Doctor Two’ Ruth Eastheimer and world-famous Martha Stalwart.  These Genesis Donors to Empath Girl and Dura-Damsel urge more caution and consideration.  It’s all the bearded Swede biogeneticist can do to keep their discussion from deteriorating into an all-out catfighting brawl.  The know-it-all Joyce speaks first:

“Once the away-team has freed Looker, she can then morph into disguise and take the place of a second-tier crony within CC’s criminal gang.  We can next track her using GPS or telegyroscopics from an emitter implanted under her skin ? When the entire Chronos group is assembled and their plan fully revealed, our spy could then signal the rest of the Quint-Quints to rush in and grab the whole bunch in one fell swoop…”.  In an irritating Teutonic whine, Doctor Two counters with, “But vee are not taking into conzideration eggzactly how poor Looker will be feeling about zis.  She haz been nothing more than a pretty mannequin plaything among zees evildoers for nearly a week!  Zat is something she must come to terms with before she can…”.  The Professor interjects, “Yaaahh, I um afraid you ladies underestimate firepower of CC’s entirely-assembled evil forces. Zey hav demonstrated technological abilities far in excess of our expectations time and again.  Und zey are deviously clever!  We do not even know whether the QQ away-team has succeeded in rescuing Looker to begin with…”. 

The arrogant Leonna rudely cuts off the avuncular pipe-smoking scientist with, “Divide and conquer, that’s what I always say!  If their gang is now scattered preparing to detonate the Time Bomb- whatever it’s supposed to do- then we should hit ‘em hard while they’re down!   Too bad my baby (glancing at the zonked sand sculpture upon the table) is out of action, or she’d pulverize them all into dust”!    Martha pushes her graying blonde locks back on a furrowed brow before throwing in her two cents:  “I think we should exercise caution.  Until Inga and the Professor have completed their successful prototype of a countervailing ‘temporal accelerator’ to fully neutralize Chronos’ time-dilating black boxes, the QQ’s are simply at too much of a disadvantage in combat.  Except for my super-speed daughter, they’ll all be fighting in veritable slow-motion.  We must be patient and let innovative creativity carry the day so that…”.  Personalities and predispositions continue to clash together harder and harder.  Volume reaches 100 decibels.

Attempting to get four GD women to agree on anything is worse than trying to herd cats!!, Nils exclaims inwardly.

The Professor’s eyes roll in disgust, but wide peripheral vision catches a strange sight among the bank of 19” AV monitors mounted into the high south wall of the conference room.  TV coverage of the Miss America pageant is suddenly and inexplicably lost amid silver-blue flashes of light!  Nils frowns in concern and draws from his pipe.

 

COMIC PAGE EIGHTY-FOURJohn Straightarrow notices the bizarre interrupt of television coverage from Mann’s Chinese Theatre in LA also, but he is extremely busy arguing with a military AWACS air traffic officer about his plane’s unexpected and unauthorized approach to the North Dakota SAC base airfield.  John has pulled every string and dropped just about every name and contact he knows in Washington D.C.; and yet the twin F-18 fighters still hang like Spanish Moss on the wingtips of his slower, less maneuverable Lear Jet.  Just in time, the FBI agent remembers that Area 57 security chief ‘Hercules’ Nicholson has appointments with Joint Chiefs Chair General Hawke and the President himself today!  Referencing his laptop cell-phone directory, the by-the-book G-Man soon has his Navy Seal on the line.  What luck!!  He’s in conference with G.W. Lush and Space Shuttle Big-Whigs at that very moment.  John asks Herc to speak to the President on his behalf… getting top-notch clearance to make an immediate landing at the ultra-secret National Security Agency listening post and provide assistance to the Quint-Quints!  Strangely, however, he is told that the Commander-in-Chief is busy at the moment.  Our perplexed FBI agent pulls the receiver from his ear in disbelief.  He swears he hears a farm animal lowing in the background.

 

COMIC PAGE EIGHTY-FIVE:  She was beginning to weaken, just as the Colonel had planned.  Deedee wasn’t exactly certain how he knew about her burgeoning addiction to sex… but it was obvious that Chronos fully planned to use it against her.  With an interconnection between the wellspring of energetic endurance which gave name to her QQ character and an overexcited libido growing moment by moment, things looked pretty bleak.  Dura-Damsel had already sucked the tits of a frosted blonde reporter in a lavatory upstairs, not to mention the hearty BJ beneath an XO’s desk and her rapacious romp atop a copying machine with the Base Commander’s stiff nine inches. 

And those weren’t even with outside encouragement!  X-rated words emanating from the gigantic lips of a silver-suited criminal occupying the 11-foot-wide jumbotron communications screen on the laboratory far wall bore down hard on her puzzled psyche and good judgment.  “Come on, my long-legged lovely. We both know of your not-so-secret desires to be fondled… caressed… adored by a skilled lover capable of putting you right onto the brink of ecstasy!  Look at your friends. All now statues pleasingly posed to receive my utmost affections and attentions.  Imagine my hands sliding across Looker’s plasticized glutes…each so sumptuously smooth, firm and round. Or my head buried down between Inga’s parted bronzed thighs.  Bet that will scramble up her vaunted super-thought processes! You should appreciate my attention to detail, honey.  I’ve put hours of thought and preparation into each of my sex-toy displays.  Empath Girl’s podium, for example, is the exactly perfect height to accommodate me easily taking her from behind through a rearwards U-shaped gap in her solidified quartz sari.  What thoughts and emotions will be swimming around in that telepathic skull as she feels me penetrate inside?  Hmmmm.  Helplessness… pleasure… surprise… fear maybe?  Put yourself in Emma’s place, Ms. Legs.  How would you react to being ‘taken’ while immobilized in your tracks”?  

The avaricious criminal standing on a Nevada mountaintop takes thrilled pleasure watching the reaction of his entreaties on the wavering superheroine.  Tall Deidre had placed unconscious Weasel back down to the gallery floor and stood uncertainly atop her thigh-high shiny yellow boots.  Her green-eyed gaze darts nervously between the jumbotron and sequentially among still-immobilized playthings surrounding her.  CC knew that his window of opportunity would soon close… the twelve minute residual time dilation shortly will give way and release all nine deliciously-decorated females.  Well… likely at least some of them?  Depending upon how thoroughly and thickly each statue was coated with the Catalina Island hardening spray, their freedom might well only be limited… or not at all!  Empath Girl, for instance, looked totally stiffened thanks to (now-stirring) Dwight.  If she’s had a chance to fully dry, she’s not going to be of any help to the Quint-Quints.  EG’s looking rock-solid. 

    Then a stroke of brilliance, accompanied with a degree of sacrifice.  Ollie had so wanted Miss Massachusetts to join his collection of sculpted beauty.  He’d even already designed a rotating pedestal for her and placed it next to Seleena Kyle.  Sapphic silver and gold  spinning round and round… offering unending choices of ‘heads’ or ‘tails’ between each other- and to me!, he had reasoned.  Yet he knew Mommy also coveted the knockout redhead for her own static purposes in Santa Barbara.  And being married to ‘The Chief’ let her essentially outrank him.  Natalie already had trumped him on supermodel Kathy England more than a week ago: stealing the world-famous beauty away to become a Marilyn Monroe stand-in.  So logically Dura-Damsel will make an appropriate substitute for the Miss America contestant.  After all, he had to do something quickly before time ran out!  So he continues, “It’s all so easy for you now, doll.  Look at Catwoman over there.  Frozen in time on all fours.  Tongue outstretched and  perched pussy just  waiting for you to lavish your affections onto her.  And think of the poetic irony of your pose!  Supervillainess goes down on superheroine.  Absolutely delicious.  Come on. She’s there in golden splendor- yours for the taking.  Her display pad rotates 360 degrees, so you have your choice of positioning. Moment of truth, baby long-legs.  I know you’re just aching to become part of my collection.  You can’t resist the temptation any longer”!       

    The biogenetic design defect inside a cloned DNA proto-matter-laced crystalline matrix proves to be her final undoing.  First one hesitant step… then another… then bold strides, and a perplexed caramel-skinned good-gal next finds herself atop the small round podium immediately adjacent to time-stopped Seleena. Almost without thought, one swift tug sends frilly white panties down from under a too-short costume miniskirt to rest across booted shins.

Our hesitant heroine scrutinizes the immobile expression of her partner.  Joy in realization of an imminent escape from San Quentin solitary still stands cemented over her face, just as when Ollie had captured her.  There was an eager excited animation hovering on Catwoman’s countenance which sparks our very-last-free Quint-Quint toward her inescapable doom.  Grabbing the golden gal by her shoulders, she spins the entire exhibit 180 degrees around until bushy blonde nether hairs gape up at the QQ from inside a split-open costume crotch.  Colonel Chronos was right.  She couldn’t hold her libido back one second more! DD dives face-first down into a villainess’ poised pussy.  

Lost in a swirling haze of delight, all a good-gal hears is CC’s muffled laughter and her own slurping ministrations.  Far too late do sharp pangs at the base of her neck signal placement of awakened Dwight’s Mind-TRAMP ribbon about her sweaty forehead.  Springing up and back from Catwoman’s crotch in surprise, she falls immediate prey to the nerdy henchman’s imperatives:  “Stand up straight, Dura-Damsel!!  Both hands behind you: up under your skirt clamped firmly onto ass cheeks”.  She swiftly obeys. Weasel folds and tucks hemline of a shocked mind-controlled victim’s miniskirt up into a slim yellow belt holding her boomerang holster.  Rotating the nearly-completed golden feline back round to face her partner, the electrical engineering genius delights seeing Seleeena’s tongue make full solid contact with the bushy dark triangle freshly exposed on the superheroine.  “You’ll become artwork, now, my dear.  I will only permit you the slightest of movements.  Shift your weight… wiggle your toes… rock up and back … do what you must to apply her tongue to your clit and folds until you come all over her face!  But when you do reach climax, you’ll stand instantly rigid amid a rictus of nirvana.  Understand, slave”?  DD’s too far gone to even think about resisting.  Chronos had guided her exactly into doing this. A lusty heroine gives her tiny nod of assent.

“Well, GET TO IT THEN”!! is Weasel’s final command as he departs in search of metallic silver paint canisters.

 

COMIC PAGE EIGHTY-SIX:  The point had to be made crystal-clear to this dense Commander-in-Chief, and our Navy Seal Hercules enjoyed every minute of it.  Casually and lazily, the bovine impersonator had smacked and chewed her way across the Oval Office carpet emblazoned with the US Presidential Seal to find a mother lode of freshly-cut grass clippings atop the sitting area coffee table.  Location of the sweet aromatic pile of green fibrous  food had at first perplexed now-limited faculties of this female-astronaut-turned-farm-animal, but eventually her grazing instincts encouraged her sufficiently to raise her front hooves onto the glass tabletop and strain her thick neck to reach the tasty snack.  To blackmailed Nasa chief James Perigee, the humiliation of Shirley Glide's newly assigned role was at once disgusting and riveting.  He watched her swaying boobs clunk against one another and the shiny copper cowbell dangling from the studded leather collar about her neck.  Finally settling into her cud- producing process in full earnest, the fit and trim Shuttle Commander balanced on one knee atop round table edge, her rounded buttocks perched higher into the air. 

Heartless Don Raygun shattered a thick-hanging atmosphere of bizzare sexual tension as he spoke: "Those photos of your daughter Jenna boinking a cowboy, and you with our cowgirl-callgirl over there are very impressive… but I think we need something just a little bit more reassuring, George.  Perhaps something which will absolutely guarantee you'll do exactly as we ask"? Raygun, or "The Chief" as he is known to his Chronos gang cohorts, shifts his gaze repeatedly between the rump-raised chomping Shuttle astronaut and the current leader of the free world.  GW is slow on the uptake, but eventually he gets his electoral predecessor's drift.  President Lush backs away, shaking his head in defensive disbelief.  "OH NO!  There isn't any way that you're gonna get me into a picture like that…".   In reply, Raygun merely holds aloft the stack of photos already collected:  likely more than sufficient ammunition to derail Lush’s reelection bid, or at least significantly upset most of his right-wing religious supporters.  The Chief then makes his final assertions.  "Come now, George. In for a penny, in for a pound…that's what I always say at times like this.  Besides, I've heard your Dad tell that old joke about the lady cow stuck upon a rancher's fence.  Now you're going to more fully appreciate its punch line"!

Moments later,  Lush's personal secretary looks up from her appointment book, sternly frowning across the Oval Office anteroom.   Rhythmic cowbell CLANKing and repeated throaty MOOOing escape closed mahogany doors.   

 

COMIC PAGE EIGHTY-SEVEN: Her world had spun away uncontrollably after she touched that damn elevator button.  Gallant Scotty tried to save her from the merciless jolts of Mind-TRAMP radiation searing her psyche and stealing all free will.  It seemed that rescue attempt had cost him his life.  Inga too had fallen prey to Chronos' vile booby trap, and suffered a similar humiliating fate.  Perched atop her new home: a one-foot-radius lighted pedestal inside the Colonel's frozen collection of sex-toys,  teenage Empath Girl had no choice but to mutely await return of  her new owner and initiation into his club of frozen playmates.  Heightened empathic and telepathic powers could already foresee and relay anticipated lewd fondling and unstoppable violations to her horrified mind.  Sensations such as these fed back onto earlier vague reminiscences from the Area 57 Combat practice range, where EG had lost her maidenhood amid a surprising stiffened sexual squat.  Despite Hercules' efforts to conceal his ravages of paralyzed females using memory-disrupting SDT-3 taser darts, it all came flooding back to our superheroine now encased in rose-quartz paint and solidifying lacquer.  Emma fought hard against a posing imperative droning again and again through her brain:  a merciless feedback loop emanating from a glowing quarter-sized disc atop bhindied forehead.  Occasionally, she lost herself among the high-tech illusion of her circumstances, succumbing to Weasel's final orders to her.  I am Lalique's Suzanne… no more than a translucent work of erotic art… a nude living statue.

But now cries for help flooded her amazing thought processes, overwhelming Chronos' objectifying spell.  It was not only the pleas from the other time-stopped women surrounding her in CC's gallery (foolish oversexed Diedre its latest acquisition-  DD’s shocked realization of entrapment mixed with gleeful gurglings of yet another orgasm swept through Emma's mind only moments ago), nor the enraged helplessness from the alien female in the next room.  Something extremely terrible was unfolding at that very moment.  Screams and fearful exclamations of  hundreds of thousands of victims wafted into her paralyzed psyche all at the same moment, and it was far more than the young Quint-Quint was prepared to absorb.  Cries from the Las Vegas victims of Colonel Chronos' time-calibrating 'Little Bang' time-bomb device shattered EG's sanity.  Of course, in her current immobilized state, there was absolutely no clue or evidence to the mental destruct that had just taken place.  She couldn't so much as bat an eyelash in response to the overwhelming wave of dread and dismay as temporal existence abruptly rewound and ended for everybody in the desert City of Sin.  Frozen Emma crested to the zenith of her empathic powers, then simply retreated into a deep dark hole of disturbed semi-consciousness.  Who knows full extent of damage done?   

 

COMIC PAGE EIGHTY-EIGHTThe TV cameraman couldn't believe his eyes.  In what seemed like an instant between going to commercial break and now(with some inexplicable blue flashes of light crowding his viewfinder) eight out the ten Miss America semi-finalists had disappeared from right in front of him!  Only tatters from various contestant bathing suits lay scattered across the front portion of the Mann's Theatre hardwood as evidence that they were ever there.  Nonetheless, clues were left behind to make it clear what had happened.  Miss Oregon's gleaming physique was testament to the incredible technology and malevolent will behind these disappearances.  Tamara Wilcox still stood exactly where the CBS technician had last noticed her… beaming her million-dollar smile from a semi-circle of pretty perfection chosen just before the three-minute hiatus began.  Sandaled left foot forward and hands demurely clasped behind her back with ample cleavage thrust up-outward, Tammy had assumed  'position three' taught her all those years ago in Miss Hovey's Finishing School for Girls.  It was a pose she would hold now for eternity, thanks to Mommy's desperate need to discover the proper auric-molecularizing theta-wave frequency.  Our time-stopped beauty's own bioresonant energy had been used against her to spark one of Weasel's remaining Metal-TRAMP possibilities.  Transition from Miss America hopeful to criminal guinea pig had been effectively instantaneous.  She never knew what hit her.  Tamara's priceless exuberant expectant expression now glistened beneath the harsh TV lights and shone out to hundreds of millions of viewers across the globe… as solid brass!!  Yet she need not despair too much, for she had company.  Plunked down right next to her was MC Rob Parker and a kneeling Miss Massachusetts.  Heather O'Clancy's swimsuit was yanked down to mid-thigh, just inches above the floor.  Thus the camera had delightful side-view of her curvaceous frame… plump dangling boobs, back-thrust full fanny, hunched-over shoulders and craning neck.  Likely the judges would now have given Miss Mass first prize  after such an incredible presentation of feminine pulchritude… except for the fact that she was now solid gold.  And still attached to Parker's animated manhood!  Gleaming yellow-brown puckered lips held the tuxedoed old geezer fast for the whole world to see that all the rumors circulating from his TV show were indeed entirely true.      

Encased by Heather's solidified mouth and caught with his pants down on worldwide television, Rob squirmed and gesticulated  frantically for assistance to escape his embarrassing predicament.  Amid his struggles, he neglected to notice that CC's colleagues had deposited their trademark about his neck.  A silver pocket-watch hung from a long leather cord atop Parker's plaid cumberbund.  The watch ticked backwards and was inscribed upon its back with the words:  Colonel Chronos Strikes Again!!  Professor Nils Johannson walks away from his TV monitor in dismay. 

 

COMIC PAGE EIGHTY-NINEWith practiced precision, Weasel slices away a wide oval portion of the red sparkling spandex costume overlaying Dura-Damsel’s ample coffee-skinned cleavage.  Half of a QQ signature white lightning bolt flops to the floor, taking most of our suddenly stiffened superheroine’s built-in brassiere with it.  Bursting free from confinement are perky chocolate nubs which provide anatomical evidence of Deedee’s bliss.  There are other visual clues as well:  the pronounced backward arching of the lanky good-gal’s spine, her head now thrown back with mouth wide open in a naughty exclamation of pleasure.  Wide green eyes are locked upon a fixed point in the Colonel’s gallery ceiling as this sexually overcharged Quint-Quint teeters at the brink of nirvana.  And teeters… and teeters… and teeters, as she helplessly complies with the criminal gang’s imperative to join Chronos’ collection of erotic statuary.  It was now up to Dwight to complete DD’s static journey into the world of artistry.  By activating the power-sprayer airbrush in his hands, the evil engineering genius spreads a smooth lacquer-mixed coat of shiny silver paint across Diedre’s baseball-shaped mammaries.  Cold liquid sends a shiver of sheer delight from twin shiny thimbles down to a smoldering exposed dark crotch of their latest gallery acquisition.  This causes a feedback reaction from Seleena’s outstretched buried tongue.  What a predicament!  Caught among the swirling thoughts and emotions of thrilled exhibitionism, helplessness and raw lust, all hope fades with capture of this last of the Quintessential Quintet.   Her mind explodes with bursts of color and light amid an immobilized legs-straight orgasm while the Colonel and his henchman discuss her as if she is already merely an object.  “I feel much better now that all of those superheroines are caught.  I just wish I didn’t have to sacrifice my spot for that Miss America contestant in order to do it”, begins Chronos.  “By the time you finish painting and shellacking our newest statues, Dwight, I should have arrived back at Ground Zero to retrieve the instrumentation readings from the “Little Bang”. I will re-establish contact at that time”.  The criminal gang’s third-in-command is becoming increasingly absorbed in his work (who wouldn’t be?).  He is especially looking forward to investigating rearward folds of Empath Girl’s solidified rose-quartz costume.  Yet he must complete this silver-gold lesbian duo and bronze Ingeno Lady first.  “Aye, aye, Sir!” Weasel whines as the Jumbotron monitor fades to black.  Finished slathering Deedee’s sumptuous silver cleavage, the thick-spectacled nerd increases radius of his airbrush strokes, covering the entire front of DD’s lean athletic costumed torso, as well as hundreds of front-cascading dark ringlets.  Just as he is about to envelop her masked face and cowled head, a yellow lariat rope descends across his shoulders from behind!  Immediately, truth serum chemicals are released from the weapon’s interior reservoir across the henchman’s exposed skin at his neck and collar line.  Swift anesthetizing impact causes his eyes to glaze and his head to slump forward onto his chest.        

A power paintbrush contraption slips to the floor, creating an ever-widening silver pool… until Scott McGillicutty reaches down to shut it off.  Almost lost within an ecstatic sexual stupor, Dura-Damsel somehow realizes that her salvation (and that of her teammates) has finally come.  But deep in her mind, there is more than a little degree of disappointment at her eluding a statue-ized fate.  Scotty!!!  Thank Goodness Emma’s healing touch combined with my CPR worked to revive you.  Help us!  We’re all stuck as sex-toy statues and…  Ohhh…yumm…Unnnngghhh!!  YYYEEESSSSSSSS!!!  Diedre’s slightest wavering triggers release via Catwoman’s talented tongue one last time.

 

COMIC PAGE NINETYSurprisingly little physical force accompanied arrival of the Little Bang temporal tidal wave.  Madame Giselle's desperate clutching of the Grand Façade’s marble pillar next to her for bracing support against CC’s 30-story roiling shimmery blue-white juggernaut thus turned out to be totally unnecessary.  At nearly two hundred years of age, this sensual blonde siren was at a comparative advantage versus most other people and objects surrounding her in the City of Sin.  As all the bioresonant life-force energy extracted from 150+ helpless temporal fuel cells more than fifteen miles away swept down neon-decorated city streets and into autos, building lobbies and through open windows, frantic expressions of amazed astonishment froze into place again and again.

Unlike the purer form of alien radiation typically emanating from Melkosian black box emitters- which was fairly malleable and containable- Weasel's Time Bomb test prototype intensified theta-wave dilating potential more than one thousand fold.  Whereas 'untreated' alien energy might well have been contained by a well-constructed wall or thick leaded glass, merciless concentrated impact from this regressive tsunami left absolutely nowhere to hide. And  so our French Motion Vampire stood transfixed amid a legs-akimbo crouching grasp of a Corinthian style column to become sole surviving witness to the perverted technological genius of Colonel Chronos and his criminal gang.

It was as if she had been immersed into a science-fiction nightmare from which she could not awaken.  Giselle now reckoned and compared her surrounding circumstances to a 1960's cinematic adaptation of H.G. Well's The Time Machine.  The temporally-reversing force began rather slowly, with all affected areas (including her own body, she realized to her dismay!) freezing in mid-motion.  A five-hundred square mile tableaux vivant thus ensued in reply to the manipulated Melkosian Chrono-Cradle sweeping across the Nevada desert.  Pedestrians halted in mid-stride.  Looks of joy and despair cemented onto faces of winners and losers inside the gambling casinos.  Burlesque show girls petrified onstage in topless mid-prance. All forward progression in Las Vegas ended. Then the clock rewound.

From perspective of the beautiful Motion Vampire’s static stare, she watched with fascinated horror impact of CC’s merciless temporal regression upon her surroundings.  Nearby tall chestnut-haired and shorter blonde showgirls had clutched each other tightly in desperate last-gasping terror of the oncoming radiation wave, bookend expressions of absolute dread and despair now cemented upon their pretty faces as the Little Bang took its unrelenting toll.  Torsos fused together and arms intertwined, Bambi and Deanna met their fate together cheek-to-cheek.  At first it seemed as if the curvaceous naked (skimpy months-old costumes vanished almost immediately in the temporally-reversing onslaught) duo was actually shrinking in each other’s arms, slowly losing stature from twin voluptuous physiques. Yet as the regressing energy became more dense and potent through the Grand Façade courtyard, it seemed quite clear what was truly going on.  Not only height but maturity of the young (and getting younger by the second!) gals quickly ebbed away. 

Alluring curvatures- so painfully sculpted in the gymnasium and through dieting- melted off hips, thighs, calves and shapely derrieres… not to mention their enhanced ‘showbusiness’ bust lines.  Giselle was forced to witness their sex appeal dwindle back into the lanky awkwardness of adolescence, then proceed further arrears into indistinct girlhood.  Hairstyles roiled and fluttered as temporal waves washed and eddied around and about them.  Within sixty seconds, two cute little toddlers stood stumpy arms-length apart from one another where once drop-dead gorgeous women clasped.  The pace of Chronos’ rewinding continued to increase.  Twenty seconds more and newborn babes sprawled next to each other on the cobblestone, each only recognizable to their former selves by identical looks of astonishment frozen on their faces when the tsunami struck them.  From her stretching arms-circling grasp of the marble support column, the Cirque D’Artificiel sculptor witnessed as a quarter century evaporated into the desert air and the showgirls collapsed into protoplasm, becoming nothing more than sidewalk smudges of  fluid.  Then they were no longer.   More correctly, they never had been.  Perhaps they never would be.

All was accomplished in an eerie near-silence of a Melkosian chrono-cradle technology multiplied thousand-fold.

Major Stone and Captain Bannister had also vanished from their display alcove too, along with all of the statues so lovingly/lustfully created for the Cirque’s sexy exhibition.  Yet the emptiness of the podiums was not obvious for very long, as the bricks and mortar of the building itself began to disappear in rapid machine-gun like order.  From the upper to the lower floors, row upon row of cinderblocks, stones, drywall, and even the concrete foundation itself unraveled and vanished into the tinkling blue Melkosian haze.  The Grand Façade, of course, was only one of thousands of structures (and occupants) experiencing this fate.  Within a 500-square-mile radius, the Little Bang worked its time-reversing magic, wiping the bizarre Las Vegas neon skyline off the Nevada map.  Time-stopped Giselle saw surrounding modern buildings evaporate, to be replaced by tin-roofed shanties and creaky wooden structures no more than one or two stories tall.  Asphalt and cobblestone transformed into deeply rutted avenues of  mud and animal waste.  Horse-drawn wagons and buggies supplanted internal combustion.  And all around: desert.

It was as if the hand of God himself had reached down to smite this Sodom & Gomorrah-like city and its ill-fated occupants, erasing their heretical existence from the history books.  Only, in this case, God was replaced by a merciless Marine egomaniac wearing an alien skintight silver suit while twirling a waxed handlebar moustache.

Whether by accident or design, our beautiful French blonde found herself in the very center of a town square.  Her upreaching-crouching stance was undisturbed by even a millimeter since theta waves engulfed her.  However, all traces of the early 21st century were long gone.  She was now completely nude.  The support column against which she braced  had disappeared as well.  Yet in her particular case, the loss of latex gloves and subsequent contact with red-veined Italian white marble in the presence of Melkosian temporal regression had unexpected aesthetic effect.

Temporal bioresonant energy from her kattra-like malformed liver had leached out during the 130+ year reversal, and so Giselle experienced what so many of her ‘models’ had before her…  lovely flesh and all molecules of her body teetered at the very edge of winking out of existence, only to be stabilized by an inert substance she had held within her grasp.  As the gigantic alien energy wave wafted out into foothills in the distance, a much-younger evil sculptor realized in panic that what had been before mere paralyzation was growing into rigid immutable mineral-like hardness.  Tell-tale crackling filled the air as our artist transmogrified to artwork...  turning into solid stone!  

 

COMIC PAGE NINETY-ONEThat weakling human white-coat has lowered my environment thermodynamics in order to entomb me!  are among final thoughts crawling through Captain Kel-Bar's Melkosian mind during its process of freezing solid.  A shimmering gauze has descended across her field of view, replacing the once-bubbling nearly transparent argon-ammonia mixture keeping her alien physiology alive these past twenty-something years.  Ambient temperature of her ultra-secret environmental medi-chamber tube approaching -40 degrees, this luscious lithe earth visitor now has another rude add-on to her 'lack of hospitality' list.    Through her frozen-stiff field of view, however, Sasha's heart and mind warm to witness escape of every time-trapped occupant of the Colonel's private statue collection.  With jaw practically dragging the gallery floor and inseam bulge inhibiting pedestrian progress,  Scotty had slowly-but-surely removed (for a second time!) the glowing Micro-TRAMP discs which imprisoned  exquisite near-naked beauties from their millimeters-thick Chrono-Cradles, as well as four Mind-TRAMPs brainwashing Looker, Ingeno Lady, Dura-Damsel and Empath Girl.  During the intervening twelve-minute residual waiting period before theta-waves would be fully and completely swept away from all victims, Professor Johannson's brilliant young assistant took Diedre's lariat weapon (already effectively employed to incapacitate Dwight Wyolzelsczki into a drugged stupor) to bind Weasel's hands and feet tightly together.  A look of obvious pain in response to the extreme tension of his bonds about feet and ankles gave the abused and exploited Melkos explorer some slight degree of satisfaction.  Yet no smile or other external evidence of heartening condition could be expressed… perhaps a point-blank observer right outside the inch-thick acrylic of Kel-Bar's stasis tube might have been able to detect a naughty twinkle in violet lidless cat's-eyes?  And her chilly stare reveals more.

      As the least-longest affected (and with only her torso and shoulders covered in solidifying silver shellac), Dura- Damsel is the first to stir: emitting one long last peal of pleasure while descending from heady immobile delight.  Seconds later both UCLA cheerleaders slacken from long-stiffened mooning poses, standing up straight to look about them with expressions of bewilderment and shock etched across their brows.  Busty blonde cheerleading Captain June Metcalf exclaims, "What the %#$!*! happened??  Last thing I remember, we were first-and-goal against Southern Cal… then some crazy blue flashes of light and a wimpy guy dressed in a silver scuba suit…  Maggie, are you OK"?  June queries of her bent-round time-stopped bookend statue from only moments before.  Receiving a nod of assent from her teammate who is smoothing and pulling down her pleated white miniskirt to cover a shapely panty-less bottom as best she could, their attention shifts to stirring members of the Quintessential Quintet. 

Finally regaining control over stolen appearance-altering super powers, blushing-beet-red (from anger or embarrassment we can't be sure) Looker rearranges remnants of her slinky green sequined strapless cocktail dress costume to cover previously-plasticized crotch, tits and ass.  Muttering curses and exclamations against Colonel Chronos under her breath, the most-stunning of our QQ heroines next strides briskly over to tied-up Dwight to land a pointy emerald toe of her three-inch heels into the criminal's left shin!  About to continue with this petty payback, she is suddenly restrained from behind by Inga, who has just then escaped her own pose as a feminine version of Rodin's Thinker.  "Save it for later babe, after we've debriefed him and gotten all information that we need to short-circuit Chronos' plans", IL commands over top of Weasel's loud howlings of pain and displeasure.  Without time to yet pull together vertically-separated halves of a skintight spandex costume, Inga's spray-painted bronzy-brown curvatures and R-rated points of interest stood fully on display.  Scotty's near-drooling ogle from the gallery corner signals to the QQ head-honcho that she should immediately fasten her costume-connecting waistline zipper.  Yet other members of CC's exclusive club of stock-still sex toys aren't budging a millimeter…including Empath Girl!  Despite removal of the sinister mind-controller affixed to her forehead many minutes before, solidifying lacquer has managed to dry sufficiently so as to entrap her inside erotic Rose-Quartz positioning.  Three QQ teammates closed in to encircle and examine her frozen form gleaming from spotlights mounted into her display pedestal.  It is obvious they- as well as the nerdy shy Scotty- are measurably impressed by her helpless statue status.  Deedee (now recovered from her X-rated stance astride Catwoman's stiffened tongue) gives voice to what EG and the still-statued supermodel, actress,  ballerina and villainess were likely thinking from inside painted prisons.  "We've got to get out of here, boss… take them all back to base.  Maybe the Professor can determine a chemical antidote to…"

Ingeno Lady cuts her off.  "Right. Let's get moving ladies.  Looker and Diedre: work together with the cheerleaders to load inanimate victims into the elevator.  Scotty, you're in charge of that whiny scumbag!  I'm going to take a look at the files out there on those supercomputers.  With relief, pride and satisfaction, Kel-Bar Sasha witnesses steady procession of good-gals toward ultimate escape from Chronos's grasp.  Just then, the Jumbotron illuminates.

 

COMIC PAGE NINETY-TWO Dust and skidding sand accompany arrival of Ollie’s Humvee back at ground zero.  It is a much-changed location, to say the very least.  Gone were 150+ shimmering 6-foot-diameter globes encasing petrified pulchritude captured from Southern Cal.  Weasel’s evil theta-wave collector-condensing-emitter instrument package had sucked all bioresonant potential energy from the time-stopped lovelies and used it to send an inescapable wave of reverting radiation rolling over the desert as dry-run calibration for Operation Grand Slam.

Six high-tech radio-linked saturation badges worn by drivers of the six military mega-haulers (still sitting nearby with rear cargo doors flung open)  transmitted rad exposures, kilo-joule intensities, flux volatilities and other key information back to analysis computers integrated with the bundle of metal and wires situated atop a 200-foot-tall tower of girders.  Support bolts connecting this package (with one Melkosian black box taken from the Phaethon crash at its heart) to the spindly gold-plated directional deflector dish had melted from the heat and kinetic energy released by Colonel Chronos’ regressing onslaught.  Crushed remnants of this delicate parabola now lay strewn  among dust and blowing sands at the base of the tower.  Yet this is the very least of amazing sights holding our maniacal Marine’s appreciative gaze. Sir Issac Newton was right. In physics, each action has an equal-but-opposite reaction.  A backwards-reeling chronological juggernaut released as corruption of alien spaceship technology was purchased with price of complete and utter expenditure of available temporal fuel.  As bioresonant energy inside the imprisoning Chrono-Cradles swirled up and out towards pinnacle of the calibration tower, currents and eddies of time itself left behind rapidly advancing age.  It seems that- like matter and energy counterparts – total absolute quantity of time must also be conserved.  So for the 130+ years which the City of Sin went backwards, ground zero accelerated forward into the future.  However, inefficiencies of an energy-to-radiation-to-time conversion had made this exchange non-linear.  As Oliver South glances about him on his way to the steel ladder attached to the network of criss-crossing girders climbing into the sky, he guesses more than ¾ of a millennia had passed over the vicinity.

Stunning vivacious beauties held motionless by Melkosian theta-waves in R-rated poses just as the Colonel’s gang had collected them were no more.  All that remains across the quarter-mile-square temporal fuel cell area were a few bleached bones among dilapidating and rusting ancient metal hulks of the mega-haulers.  In mere seconds the life force of these unlucky victims was so thoroughly and completely extracted that their bodies had collapsed into dust!  Yet some few rivulets and swirls amongst the temporal acceleration have left ghastly clues behind.  Chronos notes a seemingly-untouched New Balance running shoe sticking out half-buried from a sandy mound, as well as a UCLA cheerleading pom-pom blowing off into the distance to join other more-conventional desert tumbleweeds.  Ollie’s predilection for redheads strikes a chord of sympathy and regret (for mere seconds only!) as he notices Tina Sorenson’s still-steaming wiener sitting unscathed next to the foot of his ladder.  Four-inch-thick construction of the calibration tower itself had withstood the hundreds-year assault well, suffering only minor structural decay and superficial rusting.  As CC reaches the top of his climb, he turns on the instrument packages’ readout and analysis software and energizes a video uplink with his North Dakota base.  He is stunned and angered by what he sees.

 

COMIC PAGE NINETY-THREE:  “So… you have managed to escape my time-stopped girlie gallery after all!”, booms Ollie’s baritone from huge panel speakers framing his 11-foot Jumbotron video monitor.   The suddenness of CC’s appearance on the viewscreen almost causes Looker and Diedre to drop gray-stoned Tyra “Blanks” as they haul the stiffened supermodel sprinter into CC’s base access elevator.  Half-wax-statued Vanessa Williamson is also slowly making progress across laboratory hardwood using baby steps: head, arms and torso frozen underneath multiple layers of vise-gripping clearcoat.  Shock from the immediacy of Chronos’ virtual confrontation makes her lose already-precarious balance, and only June Metcalf’s lunge prevents the Broadway starlet from toppling over like a Barbie doll falling from a store shelf.  Our intrepid QQ leader defiantly whirls upon her (now bronzy) heels to confront a silver-suited supervillain for the very first time.  “The Game is Over, Chronos!  We have control of your hideout and your geeky henchman is taken into custody.  It’s just a matter of time until we have you and your  cronies all where you belong… behind bars!!”, Ingeno-Lady asserts bluntly. Long seconds pass as a cruel Colonel allows his anger to settle while he considers his options.  Twirling his moustache in bemused thought, he suddenly punches a few buttons on the transmitter/control console of the Little Bang instrument package beside him.  Ollie’s eyebrow raises slightly (not visible behind his Melkosian flightsuit’s protective goggles) in a gesture of superiority before he replies.  “I don’t think so, Miss goody-two-shoes.  I’ve got all the information I need right here to finish my preparations for detonation of the real Time Bomb. You seem to have depleted some of my temporal fuel stock, but there’s always more where that came from.  I’m SO disappointed that I didn’t get a chance to enjoy and explore your bronzed curves and crevices. By your appearance, it looks like you were shaping up to be quite a cute statue”!

This time it’s IL’s turn to flush furiously, yet her beet-red complexion is hidden by Weasel’s brown primer coat.  Hot anger keeps her from responding in time to prevent the megalomaniacal Marine from continuing, “And as for having control of my secret laboratory?... I doubt that seriously.  In fact, you might want to think about calmly-but- quickly heading for the emergency exits…”.  A loud humming noise deep from within twin Cray supercomputers draws Inga’s attentions away from Chronos’ gloating guffaws.  The 15” computer monitor screen where she had been supervising download of dual memory cores onto portable tape backup now glows with a chilling caveat:

HARD DRIVE REFORMATTING COMPLETE: ALL DATA FILES DELETED.  SELF-DESTRUCT IMMINENT

Fighting back deep frustration and angry feelings of humiliated defeat, Inga’s gaze lifts up to meet the frozen-solid stare of Starship Captain Kel-Bar Sasha.  Earlier imaginings of freeing this alien captive from her stasis tube prison of  two decades goes up in smoke as IL realizes there is no way to relocate Sasha’s medi-enviornment chamber to safety in their few seconds of remaining safety.  For a brief instant, thoughts between two dauntless leaders merge.  I’m SO sorry we can’t save you! was fully conveyed by our QQ brunette’s steel-blue-eyed pained expression. And as if in mystical reply, comes the telepathic transmission:  GO!  Save yourselves.  We shall meet again some day... 

Next their spell was broken as flickers of flame emerge from Cray computer casings and white-hot electrical sparks rain thickly down after abused and vengeful Looker hurls a desk chair through CC’s image upon the video screen! 

FBI Agent John Straightarrow somehow materializes in the ensuing chaos of blaring base smoke alarms and rising flames which will not be subdued by fire suppression systems.  With added assistance from this Native American hunk, the Quint-Quints are barely able to shuttle all of Chronos’ victims upstairs in the nick of time.  Just as the ultra-secret base elevator closes behind their last escapees, several mortar-sized explosions engulf the laboratory.

     Through billowing dark-gray smoke and freely dancing flames staggers the seven-foot-tall graceful form of  Kel-Bar Sasha, quick-thawed and freed  from a shattered acrylic tube by concussive forces from CC self-destruct. 

Through a cascade-failing Jumbotron system an astonished CC follows the nude green-skinned knockout’s halting hesitant progress across smoldering laboratory hardwood.  Captain Kel-Bar’ wheezes and coughs in this deadly environment- more from poisonous oxygen-nitrogen-CO2 gasses invading her lungs and bloodstream than from  anything else.  A strange crackling and crunching accompanies Sasha’s desperate progess toward the instrument console controlling secret-base-within-secret-base communications.  Whether it is simply the inhospitable earth environment itself outside her life-sustaining stasis tube, or the roiling heat and flames also we can’t be sure,  but an ominous series of dessicated brownish-black patches begin to appear all over the Melkosian’s undulating green curvatures.  Ollie starts to address the alien visitor in a cruel farewell, but Looker’s damage to the screen is too much and the Jumbotron system fails.  She is glad for one fewer distraction:  nearby roaring fire, flying debris,  suffocating heat and smoke are almost more than can be handled. 

After a moment of quick study, the doomed alien female begins to punch a sequence of buttons on the panels in front of her.  Movements are becoming increasingly difficult as an ever-more-painful dry stiffness (result of chemical reaction between her ammonia-based cells and superheated CO2 in the surrounding air) relentlessly continues its progression.  Darkening elongated fingers can barely move, yet somehow Captain of the fateful Phaethon vessel manages to master the controls and tap into NSA communication eavesdropping systems up at base surface levels.  Pretty Major Maureen Wooden, on-deck watch commander in the INTEL-COM-SAT listening post arena on level three, is summoned over (shapely legs still more than a little bit stiff from her hour-plus sentence served as backstepping-astonished mannequin/statue, thanks to Inga’s ARCHIE gas dose!)  by a confused technician as one of their facility’s huge external radio collector dishes realigns with an extra-terrestrial target.  Just as the 75-foot-diameter radio telescope locks onto a star system in the Beetlejuese vicinity, Sasha closes her eyes in deepest concentration… for the last time.

At that very moment, a fatal fireball sweeps out of the Cray supercomputers and washes from corner to corner of what was once Chronos’ base nerve center.  We lose sight of our heroic Melkos captive as her body recoils from this roasting onslaught: one half- step back and arms flung up in front of torso and face in a futile protective gesture.  Yet instead of succumbing to  intolerable temperatures and blazing blast, her unearthly body seems to crisp and crunch into a bizarre full solidity.  Suddenly, a blue-white aura emerges from Kel-Bar’s lifeless petrified frame, bioresonant life-force energy leaping into control panel electronics!  Upstairs, Major Wooden and the com-techie jump backwards away from a short- circuiting computer monitor as a sparkling effervescence transits through base hardware and exits toward the huge radio dish antenna.  An amorphous pulsating blue energy bolt shoots skyward, crossing into the vacuum of space.  

 

COMIC PAGE NINETY-FOUR:  Ingeno-Lady emerges back through an oval door connecting passenger cabin and rear cargo bay of  an ascending  Ionospheric Clipper with a smug look of bemused satisfaction painted across her face- itself already spray painted brown earlier by their captive now tightly secured in front-row aisle seat 1B.  G-Man Straightarrow's lean expressive countenance appears briefly in the doorway behind Inga sporting a scowl of disapproval, but then vanishes as the passageway seals closed.  John has elected to brave this IC roller-coaster ride  (flight trajectory of our superheroines' airship being more akin to that of an ICBM than conventional jet) in back next to a tightly-tied-down rose quartz statue of pretty Empath Girl.  A legs-splayed porcelain ballerina and granite sprinting supermodel provide aesthetic (albeit mute) chaperoning for this budding cute couple, as well as a temper-tantruming Seleena Kyle. Catwoman is mostly immobilized by Dwight's stiffening paint-lacquer combination, with pretty face, flowing blonde hair and crotch yet to be completed.  So this haughty supervillainess has spent the past ten minutes shouting and complaining: demanding that she be freed immediately from her humiliating pose.  Since it would take hours of chemical analysis back in New Mexico before an antidote solution can be identified, IL has done the next best thing.  Slowly progressing up the steeply-sloping cabin aisle, our QQ head-honcho regains the seat next to Dura-Damsel and puts a can of gold spray paint down atop her pivoting tray-table.  Our girl-next-door brunette refuses to meet Deedee's eyebrows-raised inquiring gaze; but as shouts and screams of swearing protest slowly subside into muffled moans- then eventual complete silence- Inga emits a triumphant gleeful giggle.  "You DIDN'T?!?!!" asks a tall super-athlete with fully-exposed shiny silver cleavage of her boss.  With a grinning nod, leader of this successful away team acknowledges she has completed a Seleena statue so to gain peace and quiet.

 

      Connecting a PC keyboard into a serial port, IL energizes the computer monitor built into the seatback in front of her and recommences mathematical calculations and simulation-testing of a hypothetical 'temporal accelerator' virtual prototype.  Her engineering and design skills have inexplicably sharpened ever since the QQ's return from Catalina Island, and it is only a few moments before she cries, "EUREKA!!" loudly to the surprise of other airship occupants.   Only Vanessa Williamson (seat-belted-in horizontally sideways while still stuck in her semi-frozen state at 5C&5D) can’t help to notice Ingeno-Lady's animated excitement.  Even Looker at the pilot controls in the forward cockpit compartment next overhears this brilliant superheroine exclaim, "I don't know quite how, but I've solved the partial differential equations necessary to resolve the TA chip capacitor-resistance bottleneck, and my heat dissipation rates are well within a .85 tolerance range.  We can now build portable protection against Chronos' time dilating radiation fields!  And I think this may also solve my quandary with the short-range teleportation unit so…" 

ZZZZONK!!!!

The green-and-yellow spandex-clad heroine is struck dumb in mid-sentence.  Literally.  Genetically enhanced super-intelligence has crested to its pinnacle at that very moment, then abruptly reversed!  Professor Johannson's theoretical concerns about destructive interactions between CC's insidious theta-waves and his own proto matter are sadly coming true.  A second Quint-Quint has just succumbed.  Inga sits immobilized in seat 3B, index finger of her right hand still pointing at the Nobel-caliber breathtaking analytical results glimmering on the CRT screen.  But her incredible gray matter of only seconds before has tumbled down a deep dark well.  Effective intelligence now reduced to rough equivalent of the foam-rubber seat pad caressing her stilled shapely glutes, the cute heroine’s  eyes cross severely and lower jaw lolls open.  Diedre sitting next to a suddenly-stupefied victim of 'zenith-onset-nadir-kinesity' cannot relate to the QQ's earlier encounters with Mademoiselle Mensa;  yet her companion surely resembles one of that heartless criminal's many targets after undergoing assault from MM's brain-drain device.

UCLA coeds June and Maggie seated across the passenger aisle exchange glances of incredulity at Ingeno Lady’s brilliant-to-brainless transformation.  But they are even more astonished at what happens next.  Instead of raising the alarm,   Dura-Damsel merely waves her own yellow-gloved hand in front of the embarrassing frozen facial expression next to her.  "Inga?… hey boss… what gives?", she queries.  Then the wheels begin to turn inside DD's head.  Snapping her fingers a few times directly in front of now-vacant steel-blue crossed eyes (and receiving not so much as blink or twitch!),  our lanky caramel-skinned superheroine begins a process of removing IL's right-hand outstretched gauntlet.  Once this task is completed, Diedre grasps the stitched-on miniaturized weaponry steel tube and detaches an elongated phallic-shaped ARCHIE cannister from its dissipator-dispersal atomizer.  With an oddly  sheepish grin, the red-blue-yellow-clad Quint-Quint squeezes by her idiotically-immobile companion and heads off toward the IC lavatory.  Moans and groans soon escaping from behind a washroom door elicit cheerleader guffaws.  These sounds also attract the attention from FBI Agent Straightarrow in the rear cargo compartment.  Taking in all the bizzare circumstances of the passenger cabin, John flings the lavatory door open.  Eyes agog, his jaw drops to the floor!  Dura-Damsel is seated precariously bare-assed within the washroom sink, miniskirt upraised and panties pulled down to her knees.  Inga's paralysis-gas container is being used as make-shift pleasure toy, plunging deep in and out of the sex-crazed woman's bushy triangle at a visually-blurred, super speed pace.  Despite a growing bulge along his trousers inseam, the Native American cop manages to decry, "Deedee… WHAT THE HELL?!?!??", just as the Ionospheric Clipper reaches its course trajectory apex and begins its meteoric descent towards home base.

 

Days of Chronos’ criminal gang seem numbered, with destruction of their secret base and capture of its genius high-tech henchman.  Yet wild animals are most dangerous when they're backed into a corner.  Quintessential Quintet beware!! 

Stay Tuned. –R.



1Copyright © 2003 by B.B. on characters and story. Any similarity between individuals described in this fictional work and actual persons (living or dead) is purely coincidental. No such personal affiliations should be inferred or made.

2 Special thanks to Dmuk and Fool for loan of their ‘motion vampire’ character concept and Grand Façade story location, respectively.


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