The Planner’s backer was watching the newscasts, aware that he was due to attack Jackson High School. She had seen the preliminary reports indicating he had done so, but his contract called for a live video feed to confirm his capture of Elevator Girl.
She watched with interest as the newscasts started cutting away to the new feed they were receiving, and saw that he was in the school, holding the giantess up by her hair.
“Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, I have Elevator Girl,” the Planner said. “She is my prisoner. If you value her life, and the lives of this school’s students, you will provide me with 10 million dollars in gold and jewels within the next hour. Otherwise I will destroy the school and all the young people in it, starting with you revered heroine.”
What is that idiot doing?
the backer thought. He was supposed to capture her, show he had her and get out.
Then the backer realized part of the issue. The Planner had caught Elevator Girl, all right, but she was too big for his robot to carry. He was having to finagle another way out.
The backer chuckled. This was probably one of the Planner’s contingency plans, she realized. But she really didn’t see how it would work. Then again, she didn’t need it to work. The robot was feeding her computer remote data -- all she would need to defeat elevator Girl herself, if the teen heroine survived this experience.
The backer smiled and took another sip of coffee. It would be worth watching the video feed to see how this worked out, but she won either way.
Gemma Ross was awakened from sleep by the persistence of a ringing phone. When the caller rang in three times in a row, she realized whoever it was didn’t plan to just leave a voicemail.
Gemma picked up the phone groggily. “H’lo, Rosses,” she slurred. She hated having her sleep interrupted after a night shift.
“Gemma, it’s Maggie,” the voice of one of Gemma’s co-workers at the nursing home said.
“Mags? What’s going on?” Gemma asked.
“Have you heard what’s happening at Jackson High?” Maggie asked.
“How would I?” Gemma asked. “I’ve been asleep.”
“You need to look at the TV news,” Maggie said. “Gemma, the school’s been attacked. They say students are trapped inside with some nut with a giant robot. And he’s captured Elevator Girl.”
Gemma dropped the phone and dashed to the TV in her bedroom. She turned it on, fumbling with the remote, and felt a cold chill run down her spine as she saw the picture on the screen.
There, on the screen, was Gemma’s daughter, Kellie, in her giant form as Elevator Girl, encoated in ice and sneezing, as she was held up by her hair by the nutbar’s giant robot. He was demanding a ransom no one could possibly put together in that amount of time, and threatening all the students in general, and Kellie in particular.
Kellie continued sneezing as her mother stared at her, with Gemma fearing that any moment might be the last time she would see her daughter alive.
Then it hit Gemma. Kellie hadn’t had a cold this morning, and she didn’t have any allergies. The ice sheath was cold, certainly, but it wouldn’t be able to trigger the sneezing.
Then Gemma saw the determination in Kellie’s eyes, and listened closely to the sneezing. It was the old school-kid’s trick of sneezing a word, but she was saying the first two letters subtly enough that it wasn’t obvious what she was doing. And what she was doing was sending her mother a message; a message contained in a single word: “Statue.”
Gemma ran downstairs, the phone forgotten. Kellie had been given a set of emergency instructions by her grandpa in his directions for how to use the elevator bracelet, and Kellie had entrusted the instructions for emergency help to her mother. Gemma and Kellie both thought those instructions seemed somewhere between odd and flat-out crazy, but now it appeared they may be the only hope for both Kellie and her classmates. And those instructions involved a statue.
Gemma grabbed the instructions, double-checked the directions and ran, still in her pajamas and slippers, to her car, grabbing her keys off the hook by the door as she did. She carried the instructions with her. She had to get to the city’s main park.
During the drive, Gemma was torn. She wanted to zoom through every traffic light and stop sign, break every speed limit, to save her daughter if she could, but she wouldn’t be able to do that if she were stopped by police for breaking the law. At the same time, she saw all the emergency vehicles heading toward the school, and she was driving in the opposite direction. To talk to a statue.
Gemma screeched into the parking lot at the park, her car whopper-jawed across three paces at an odd angle. She dove out of the car, not worrying about locking it, scrambling awkwardly in her slippers to the area the directions said was where the statue was.
In under two minutes, Gemma arrived at the statue. It looked like a classical Greek-era statue, but it was made of granite, not marble.
Gemma collapsed in front of the statue and began to recite the words she had hastily memorized. She gasped, “O, Rock … of Power, Defend us at … This dangerous hour.”
She knelt there, her chest heaving, cursing her foolishness in her mind. Then she saw a flash of yellow light out of the corner of her eye, and heard what sounded like stone grinding on stone. She looked up and saw the statue, smiling down at her and moving to reach out a hand.
“Well, I must say, you’re quite a bit more lovely than the last messenger the gods sent to wake me,” the statue said in a deep voice. His smile was perhaps the most amazingly handsome Gemma had ever seen.
The statue helped Gemma up. “Now, then, Miss, what is the danger?”
Realization hit Gemma, about who this was and how her late father-in-law had known how to wake him. “You’re … You’re Granite Man!” she said. “One of the Super 6!”
“Yes, Miss,” Granite Man said. “And I would only have awakened if the danger you mentioned was real. What is the danger?”
“Jackson High School is under attack by a madman with a giant robot and some kind of ice ray,” Gemma said. “My daughter is a student there. She and many others are in danger.”
Granite Man looked confused. “How did the gods choose you to awaken me?” he asked.
“They didn’t,” Gemma said. “At least, not directly. You see, my father-in-law was Elevator Man, your old ally, and my daughter is Elevator Girl, his heir in the superhero role.”
“Ah,” Granite Man said, smiling and nodding. “Then I’m glad I told my old allies how to wake me in a crisis. But I’m afraid I don’t know how to reach this Jackson High School. Can you help me get there, Ma’am?”
“Gemma,” Gemma said. “Yes, I’ll help.”
Suddenly, Granite Man scooped her up in his mighty arms. For hard stone, they felt surprisingly warm. “I’ll have to carry you, Gemma. Give me directions as we go,” he said. “Don’t worry; I’m faster than I look.”
As they made their way toward the school, Gemma asked, “So, who did the gods send to awaken you before me.”
Most recently, an enchanted pigeon,” Granite Man said.
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m afraid not,” said Granite Man. “But it’s apparently been decades since I was last awakened. That happens sometimes for me. Still, to see and hold a beautiful woman makes the wait more worthwhile.”
Gemma had to fight off the fluttering she felt in her chest as this handsome, muscular man of stone made such an obvious pass. “How did you wind up like … this?” she asked. “Are you an enchanted statue, or an enchanted man?”
“The latter,” Granite Man said. “I was one of the heroes who tried unsuccessfully to defeat Medusa, and was turned to stone by her gaze. But my bravery impressed Ares, the God of War, and Artemis, the Goddess of the Hunt. They granted me the chance to live despite my condition, but only for short periods of time. Whenever I was awakened, I would speak the language of the people, even down to the idioms and dialect, and I would be awake long enough to be a hero. Then, when the time for heroics was done, I would return to where my statue form was based and I would once again become cold, unloving stone.”
“How awful!” Gemma said.
“Well, it’s not a great life, if you can call it a life,” Granite Man said. “But it beats simply dying as a stone statue millennia ago, and I get to be a hero, which is what I wanted to do. It could be worse.”
Gemma smiled, and realized she was flipping her hair back off her face. “You’re amazing,” she said.
“Just making the best of my situation,” he said. “Speaking of which, how many decades has it been since I was awake last?”
“Turn here,” Gemma said, pointing. Granite Man did so.
Gemma swallowed hard. “It’s been about 45 years since the last time you were active,” she said.
Granite Man nodded. “And, I take it, from what you said earlier, that Elevator Man has died.”
“Just recently,” Gemma said. “He died of an illness.”
“That’s too bad,” Granite Man said. “He was a good man. He deserved a hero’s death.”
“His dying act was to start Elevator Girl’s career,” Gemma said. “She’s doing his legacy proud.”
“It sounds like she’s new, but she’s been defeating evil?” Granite Man said.
“Every time, until now,” Gemma said.
“Then it’s my honor three times over to help,” Granite Man said. “Once for my old comrade, twice for his heir, and thirdly for her lovely mother.”
Gemma couldn’t help but blush. “Thank you,” she said.
Granite Man smiled. “No thanks are needed, but they are appreciated,” he said.
Gemma heard sirens and saw police barriers. “We’re getting near the school,” she said. “You’d better let me off here. If people see me with you, they might connect my daughter with the Super 6.”
“Oh, she has a, um, secret identity?” Granite Man said.
“Yes,” Gemma said. “Thank you again.”
Granite Man placed her gently, standing, on the ground. “One request,” he said. “It would mean … so much to me to have you here, for me to carry you back to where we met, for me to have that much more time with you before I have to … go back to sleep again.”
“I’ll be here,” Gemma said. “Go save my girl and her classmates, and … take care of yourself, too, please.”
Granite Man smiled again. “I’ll do my best,” he said. Then he turned and started making his way toward the school.