A Matter of Size E-Book

Robert Jeschonek

• Herausgeber: Pie Press
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Who is killing the world's smallest super-heroes? Down-on-his-luck masked avenger Man-Child takes the case, but can he save the remaining Small Wonders from a killer with a twisted crush fetish? Man-Child takes on villainous Mammon and Stigmata without missing a beat, but his own dark secret might be enough to bring him down for good. Fighting through the shadows and gutters, Man-Child confronts the horrors of yesterday and today, learning a brutal lesson the hard way: even a size-changing super-hero can't afford to shrink from the darkness around him...or in the depths of his own heart. Don't miss this action-packed super-hero tale with a difference from Robert Jeschonek, whose work for DC Comics laid the foundation for this thrilling new adventure.

Leseprobe

A MATTER OF SIZE

A Superhero Tale

ROBERT JESCHONEK

CONTENTS

Also by Robert Jeschonek

A Matter of Size

About the Author

Special Preview: Forced Retirement

A MATTER OF SIZE

Copyright © 2023 by Robert Jeschonek

http://bobscribe.com/

Cover Art Copyright © 2023 by Ben Baldwin

www.benbaldwin.co.uk

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved by the author.

Published by Blastoff Books

An Imprint of Pie Press

411 Chancellor Street

Johnstown, Pennsylvania 15904

www.piepresspublishing.com

Subscribe to the Blastoff Books Newsletter: http://newsletter.blastoffbooks.net/

ALSO BY ROBERT JESCHONEK

Forced Betrayal

Forced Retirement

Forced Partnership

Heroes of Global Warming

Not-So-Fortunate Son

Seven Comic Book Scripts Volume One

Seven Comic Book Scripts Volume Two

Seven Comic Book Scripts Volume Three

Six Superhero Stories Volume One

The Wife Who Never Was

A MATTER OF SIZE

They show it in slow motion three times from three different angles. The woman's bare foot plunging down through the frame, nails painted cherry red. Super-hero Flyspeck, the bug wonder, stuck to a pest strip tacked to the wood floor. The foot dropping closer, ever closer, as Flyspeck struggles to break free.

Lousy porn music jangles in the background, someone noodling on an electric guitar. We can still hear Flyspeck's voice and the rasping of the pest strip as he fights to free himself.

"Nooo! Please noooo!" His drawn-out, distorted squeak is the sound a grown man's voice makes when he shrinks to five inches tall and is played back in slow motion. "Stoooop! For the loooove of God, please stooooop!"

But the foot ignores him. Stomps down on him with crushing force. And Flyspeck splatters in all directions from under that foot, blood and goo squirting everywhere. No more screaming.

Just an echoing, slow-motion splat.

"Turn it off." Dust Mite, chairman of the Small Wonders super-team, stumbles away from the screen, hands cupped over his eyes. "Please just turn it off."

Someone switches off the projector. Someone else turns on the lights.

And we're blinking at each other, eyes adjusting to the brightness. Seven of us sitting around the big oval meeting table in our secret lair, the Mousehole. Each one in a different super-hero costume glittering with colors—electric blue and yellow and orange and green and red. The whole place smelling of coffee and sweat and farts.

"Wow." Tiny Tim shakes his head slowly. Peels off his crimson domino mask and slaps it down on the meeting table. "That makes three of us."

Iota nods and wipes tears from under his purple cowl. "Pinpoint, Germ Warfare, and now Flyspeck. All gone."

"We're targets." Dust Mite's voice trembles. He tugs at the hood of his pale gray body suit. "Every costumed avenger with the power to shrink."

"The Small Wonders are marked men." Little Lord Fauntleroy adjusts the frilly collar rising from under his blue velvet jacket. "What shall we do?"

I blow out my breath and swing my black boots off the table. "You already know the answer to that." I roll to my feet and head for the door of the Mousehole.

"What answer?" says Fauntleroy. "Do tell us, Man-Child."

* * *

No more shrinkage. It's as simple as that.

I shake my head as I swagger off down the Las Vegas Strip, surrounded by flashing neon at two in the morning. My black hair and hooded cloak rippling in the hot, dry wind. Black silk mask wrapped around the lower half of my face, keeping out the swirling grit in the air. Looking no weirder, drawing no more attention, than any other freak on the prowl at this hour.

If someone's targeting costumed vigilantes with shrinking-related abilities, you just need to swear off the powers. Stay off the radar a while. No more crimefighting.

Either that, or use your damn powers to take action before you get stepped on. Before your death gets turned into a viral porn video for the legion of nut-sacks craving the ultimate crush-fetish experience: girl meets super-hero, girl stomps on super-hero.

Which brings me to myself, Isaac Gideon, the one and only Man-Child. What's my next step, given the crisis at hand?

* * *

Rattle some cages. That's where I start.

First stop, the Gold Doubloon, off the Vegas Strip...way off. One of those antique casinos that huddle in the shadows of the modern-day monstrosities, offering a taste of the Rat Pack era. Also plenty of actual rats.

Case in point, the big man at the ancient craps table across the smoky room. This is his personal sewer.

And he's a walking encyclopedia of criminal activity. He'll have the answers I'm looking for. Some of them, at least.

Meet Mammon. "Look what the cat puked up!" He laughs when he spots me. His huge hippo jowls flutter over the open collar of his tuxedo shirt. "What a disgusting mess!"

There are twelve guys around the craps table, all laughing at Mammon's joke. Twelve of his toughest soldiers.

"'Man-Child.'" Mammon cackles and jiggles in his lemon yellow tuxedo. "What the fuck kind of name is that for a super-zero?"

I walk up, cracking my knuckles. "Someone's making pornos with costumed avengers." I shoulder two goons out of the way and lean my hip against the table. "Against their will."

"Oh, dear!" Mammon's eyes widen like saucers of milk. "That's just terrible!"

I refuse to be annoyed. "Don't try to tell me you don't know who's doing this."

"If I did, I'd buy him a drink." Mammon chortles and runs his disproportionately skinny fingers over his slicked-back salt-and-pepper hair. "Anyone who does that to a super-zero is okay in my book."

"I need to find him."

"Why? You wanna volunteer?" Mammon roars with laughter and rolls the dice on the table. "Wanna be in pictures?"

My blood pressure rises. I look around, sizing up the goons and the room, getting ready for a fight. "Tell me what you know."