Stupid is as Stupid Does (IC)

[Supercape]

Dr. Simian was preoccupied with his Idiot Ray and only noticed Supercape when he landed at the other end of the roof.

Monkey man make lights... said his brain, unbidden. Chest pain. Thinky go bye bye.

He pressed his goggles tightly to his head.

"Cease your self-defeating scheme, Dr. Simian! your plan will only cause chaos. Use your mightly intellect to further the good of all hominids! the greatest good for the greatest number. Surely you can see the logic of my argument if indeed you do strive for equality?"

Dr. Simian sighed. This man barely needed an idiot beam, he decided. An anti-monologue ray would be far more appropriate... nevertheless, an idiot beam he would get.

"Fool! come back for more punishment have you? well... let me be the first to grant your wish!" and with that, he activated the pulsing, although not yet fully tuned, device, which emitted a localised pulse of light.

Supercape stood quite still...

[Electra]

The goggles will work, they will work, Miss A reminded herself, even as Supercape bravely put himself into the line of fire again. She knew the formulas, she knew her own skill. She just had to trust herself right now as much as he was trusting her. And she had to do her part. Flying at her full speed, faster than a racecar could drive, she dove down towards the roof and straight for the aerial. As soon as she was close enough to maximize her chances of success, she stretched out her lovely, manicured fingers and shot laser fire at the antenna that threatened the whole city!

[Supercape]

Supercape experimentally looked left and right.

Yes, it appeared his thinky was still working.

Dr. Simian was roaring with laughter "Muahaha! so much for your puny human intellect, and your ridiculously large cape!" he mocked, secretly jealous he didn't have such a sparkly big cape himself.

He was soon roaring with anger as Miss Americana's laser beams hit his beloved contraption!

Supercape soon followed suit, bathing the device a warm red-green haze of radiation, that caused the contraption to glow and fizzle slightly.

"Don't be so confident, Dr. Simian! it looks like we still have a few brain cells to rub together!"

[Electra]

With the aerial destroyed, Miss A turned her attention to Dr. Simian. "Looks like playtime is over!" she said brightly. "Your toy is all gone now, and it's time to go home." Quick as lightning, she dove down onto the rogue supervillain, bearing him to the ground and doing her best to pin him down and render him harmless. 'Your gun is gone, there's no point in fighting us any longer," she reminded him reasonably.

[Supercape]

"Curses! How could my idiot beam fail! It was... well... it was Idiot proof!" moaned Dr. Simian, grappling with Miss Americana.

Supercape flew up to the disabled fizzing idiot beam. It didn't take long to determine it wasn't working. His super senses soon realised the power supply had all but died from the radiation burst he had unleashed on it.

"Game over, Dr. Simian! Who is the fool now?"

[Electra]

A quick call to the Star Squad had Dr. Simian squared away very quickly, the remains of his evil weapon entrusted to the heroes to deal with and disassemble. Miss A was more than happy to take over custody of the items, and before the paddwagon had even pulled away, she was looking over the slagged aerial and the battered components, trying to determine how much of the pieces would be salvageable to repurpose for something less sinister. "Are you all right?" she thought to ask Supercape when they had a little privacy.

[Supercape]

"Err... I think so" replied Supercape, and gingerly removed the Goggles.

Lights. No, not lights. Energy, streams of wavestrings. Everywhere.

Something had happened. He had, for some time now, been able to pick up on crude energy levels, but now his sensitivity and range had multiplied. He could feel radio transmissions course through the air, feel their flow. Electricity cables poured forth electrons through man built cables and wires. Cosmic radiation streamed through the air.

And Miss Americana...

Coursed with electrical currents throughout her body. Electrical circuits everywhere. Limbs, body, head. He could see the spiderweb of electrical systems as though one could see the blood system of a living being.

"Err....." he said, staring Miss Americana up and down. "There's more to you than meets the eye..."

[Electra]

Miss Americana gave him an arch look. "Well, I am more than just a pretty face," she told him. "I told you that the goggles would work. Not for more than a couple of hits, but we didn't need any more than that." She accepted the goggles back, then turned to survey the equipment. "Well, this looks like it can be broken down for transport. Want to give me a hand?"

[Supercape]

Supercape looked down at the idiot beam. The powercables were largely lifeless.

"I'm not sure I'm as strong as you, to be honest..." he started. He looked back at Miss America - visually she remained a perfect copy of a human. However, his expanded senses could quite easily see the pulsing electrons that coursed through her like haemoglobin.

"I think something happened when the second pulse hit me" he continued, rubbing his eyes. Even closed, he could stretch out and feel the ebb and flow of energies around him. Heck, he could even tune into the news station.

"The energies around me, I can sense them. Sharper and clearer than before. Much sharper. Much clearer. Its beautiful, and overpowering too. "

"And you are like a magnificent flower of electricity, my dear..."

[Electra]

Miss A stiffened at that, and the electrical current flowing within her body increased perceptibly, almost like an adrenaline reaction in a human. The reaction only lasted a second though, before she turned to him. "Really?" she asked with mild interest. "That's fascinating. What do you make of it?" She bent down and began to pack the equipment, signals and current traveling through her hands and arms as she worked.

[Supercape]

"Well, I make of it you are not flesh and bone. That's fairly clear. It would explain your incredibly fast intellect, and the fact you always have a radio transmission beaming out of your head to somewhere. And the fact that the idiot beam didn't work on you. For which we should all be grateful. "

He shrugged. "The rest is just speculation. Artificial Intelligence maybe? A computer child of Doktor Archeville?"

He walked up to her as she examined the idiot beam, and placed a hand on her shoulder. "I guess that's your business. I know you have effectively saved my life, and are a good person. And, dare I say it, a friend. I just didn't want to pretend. I can sense what I can sense. "

[Electra]

"Well then," Miss A said brightly, "as a friend, I'd appreciate very much if you'd keep any speculation under your hat. I just want to be a hero like everyone else, and do the best I can! It doesn't matter what we're made of, does it? It's what's here," she tapped her temple, then her heart, "and here that counts. I..." Her tone faltered just a little bit. "I don't want anyone to think differently about me, or think of me as less than human. You understand, don't you?" she asked, looking at him with still-lovely blue eyes that pleaded for understanding.

[Supercape]

"Of course, of course my dear" he nodded. Artificial Intelligence he guessed explains a lot. Turing positive for sure. Maybe built by that lady in the lab.

"Consider it all under my hat!" he pronounced, wiggling his finger, and forming an enormous spiffy fez on top of his head.

"I would guess you don't want any more EM bursts around though? I'll keep that under my hat too. No more pretty lights go boom boom. " he said with a wink.

Turning his attention to the idiot beam "what to do with this ruinous device then?"

[Electra]

"I appreciate that," Miss A told him, obviously happy to turn her attention back to the task at hand. "I can use some of these parts for projects I'm working on, and I'm certain I can part out the rest of it for various things. I'll take some readings and get some plans written down first, because you never know when an idea will come in handy, even a villainous idea like this one. But it's simply too dangerous and with too little benefit to simply leave laying around, as I'm sure you'll agree."

[Supercape]

Quentin scratched his chin. "I suppose so. I certainly don't relish the prospect of being hit by it again" he shuddered. "All though, in some ways it pains me to see it disassembled. The technology is fascinating. And potentially useful. "

He shrugged "and of course we may need it some day if attacked by super intelligent martians" he smiled with some jocularity.

"Perhaps one for your laboratory. Or, I hear talk of building a high tech facility for all scientist hero types. You can count me in on that. "

[Electra]

"I know we can," she said with a chuckle. "In the interest of reciprocal honesty, I should mention that there were only a very few civilian men at the brunch we attended, and only one of them had your height and accent. I have an eidetic memory, so it wasn't a great leap once it became clear you were there. And also, your evident discomfort with mentioning Supercape in your civilian identity was somewhat...diagnostic. I'm sure you'll be a great asset to the communal lab project." She began disassembling the device into its carrying cases, sorting pieces as she went.

[Supercape]

"Well, it appears we both have something to keep under our hats then" remarked Supercape. He pointed at her head "I'm afraid I can't rustle you up a fez, however. Although I am sure it would suit you magnificently. "

"I just hope I wasn't too obvious at that meeting. That odious little rat Liebniz better not have sniffed out anything. The misery if he did! The misery! oh, you could fire that beam right at me if that happened. Ignorance is bliss. "

"Looks all quite heavy" he commented on the cases. "How much? can you carry it all?"

[Electra]

"The weight is no problem," she assured him, "It's merely a matter of bulk, If you wouldn't mind picking up that case over there, I can get the rest." Miss A pointed him in the direction of the lightest case, the one mainly full of protective panels to shield the device from weather and tampering. Hefting all the other cases herself, she lifted off, carefully tempering her speed this time to keep well within his flight tolerances. "We'll just take all this back to my lab."

[Supercape]

"Hmm" murmured Supercape. He reached out with his mind, calibrating the weight of each case, and doing the same with Miss America. It was easier, although not necessary, with his eyes clothes.

"491 pounds" he commented, his eyes still closed.

Placing one hand on the cases, and one hand on Miss Americana, he reached out with his mind again. It was all a case of entanglement. He could see it clearly now. All wavestrings connected.

A quantum hole he thought, naming it even as he formed it with his mind. No mass, no energy, and dubious existence. Just a connection between two points in space time. And with it, he rode the waves of energy between the two points. He could feel, like a radar, the outline of Miss Americana's laboratory.

"Got it" he murmured. "Hold still. I can see this a lot more clearly now".

After a slight wobble and blur, and with a collapse of their own physical state, they folded in on themselves, together with the cases...

...reappearing instantly at Miss Americana's laboratory.

[Electra]

Miss A hung in the air for a moment, cases still in hand, then abruptly fell out of the sky and crashed into the ground like a rock. After a moment, she pushed herself to her feet, looking a little dazed. "What the hell was that?" she blurted, looking around at the laboratory. "You didn't mention that you had a teleportation ability... or that you were going to use it just then. That's not very polite," she complained with a frown.

[Supercape]

"Ah. Yes. Well. Umm" mumbled a flustered Supercape, tangled up in his cape on the floor.

"I'm sorry, its just everything seems that much clearer now. Easier. Vivid. I can't describe it really... I'm like a living antenna. Everything is just parting and shifting. "

He coughed and stood up. "Inspiration hit me. It struck me that if I... look..." he grabbed a pencil and paper and started scribbling down some complex mathematics "if the entanglement occurs here, and by causing nth degree fractal heisenbergian compensation without wavestring collapse... then we divide by C to the nth power, where n is the observer dimensional collapse..."

After a few more scrawls, he finished the equations. "Oh!" he commented. "Well, hypothetically, the quantum hole could reach, well, anywhere. Not just in this universe either. "

"Rather exciting!" he beamed.

He looked at the strewn cases on the floor. "Needs a bit of practice, of course. "

[Electra]

"A bit," MIss A agreed dryly, brushing herself off and picking up the scattered cases. "This will take quite a while to sort and catalog, but it's really a one person job," she suggested. "You should probably be having a rest after the strain put on your brain today between one thing and another. I'll give you a call and let you know if I find anything that might explain the genesis of your new powers in the intersection of the two beams."

[Supercape]

"Ah yes, my thinky does seem a bit frazzled!" too put it mildly. It was like changing from an old black and white TV set to a 3D High Def full colour picture...

"In that case" he proclaimed, "I should probably leave by regular measures. And I don't mean flying!"

With a shimmering sparkle of light, he changed into the tweed jacket and bow tie of Professor Quill, and went to the door.

"Toodle pip! for now!" he said, doffing an imaginary hat.