Chapter 205

7.c.xiv.

Bear Market’s body swelled like an overstuffed tick.  Supply’s head, and most of her upper arms, jutted above the trench wall.  Her body, still in the shaft below, was squeezed unnaturally in the narrow corridor.

“Demand!  You’ve got to help her!  You have to increase.  You have to grow!” Business Woman shouted.  Her hands gripped and gouged at Bear Market’s lips.  She yanked, trying to unclench his teeth and jaws.

“Do it Demand!  Now or else–”

Bear Market exploded.

A burst of blood geysered from Supply’s neck.  The initial crimson shock wave hit The Crash, spilling it into the trench.  The Crash dropped Franklin Buck as it tried to grasp the trench wall, but its hands slipped, unable to grip for all the blood.

Pieces of Bear Market rained down onto the maze and into the labyrinth; fluttering flaps of skin and chunks of matted hair-fur.  His jaw, still lodged in Supply’s neck, the source of a scarlet fountain.  Supply writhed and twisted and slowly shrank into the depths of the trench.

Business Woman lay strewn across a wall, gasping for breath, clinging to the unexpected perch.

“Help Franklin Buck,” Corporate Man shouted as he dropped down from above, necktie-cape fluttering behind him, landing near Business Woman.  He was coated with a fine spray of red mist and a shrapneling of bear meat.

“I’ve got you,” Corporate Man said, clutching her wrist.  “Can you stand?”

Business Woman nodded and, with his help, she regained her feet.  Across the maze Senior Executive helped Franklin Buck find his footing.  Then both men lifted Commander Credit, supporting him on their shoulders.

“We’re making for the exit,” Senior Executive called out.  “Where are Supply and Demand?”

Corporate Man looked into the trench.  Supply lay there, deflated and still.  Face down in her own blood.  He shook his head.

“What about Demand?  He could still be alive,” said Business Woman.

“I doubt it.  You can’t have one without the other.  I could head down there and take a–”

A roar shook the arena and then everything started to quake.  The Crash rumbled through the trenches, swinging its huge arms, breaking walls, toppling whole sections of the maze into the dark spaces of the labyrinth.

“Run!” Corporate Man yelled.

They dashed across the maze, turning haphazardly at intersections, choosing a course that took them away from The Crash’s rampage, but in the general direction of the stage. 

The labyrinth was fast becoming a pile of rubble.

The pathway veered twice and put them on an intersecting path with the destroyer below.

“We have to turn back,” Corporate Man said.

“No.  I think this well lead us out,” said Business Woman.

“It’s gonna lead us out of this life.”

“Trust me.  This is the way.”

The maze banked again putting The Crash on their right instead of directly ahead.

“See.  We’ll be alright,” said Business Woman. 

The Crash swerved toward them.  Debris, papers, shattered wall, and mangled body parts rose about the giant like a dust devil.  It exploded through the maze wall that Corporate Man and Business Woman were running along leaving an expansive gap in their path.

“Hang on!” Corporate Man called out as they reached the edge. He grabbed Business Woman around the waist and jumped.  His necktie unfurled behind him and they dropped down onto the ledge on the far side of the Crash created chasm.  They raced down the walkway, huge television monitors fell from the ceiling and shattered all around them.  Amidst a shower of broken glass and ruined diodes they made it to the stage area.

Senior Executive, Franklin Buck, and a very groggy Commander Credit awaited them.

“The elevator’s this way,” said Senior Executive.

They ran to the exit door and out into a hallway.  Behind them The Crash continued its ruinous assault on the stock market floor.

Chapter 204

7.c.xiii.

The portfolio shield emanating from the smart phone crackled and hissed as The Crash pushed against it.  Senior Executive was losing ground.  The force of the financial disaster’s onslaught pushed him back toward the end of the pathway; the edge of the ledge.

Corporate Man signaled, gesturing toward the drop off, indicating that they should leap to the side where the path-maze forked at a T-shaped junction and that this action would result in the blinded Crash falling into the trench.

It didn’t work.

Somehow The Crash knew, as if the shape of the maze was a part of it and the thing turned when the two men made their leap, as though it could see them.

“We’ve got a problem,” said Corporate Man.

“I see that.  How can it anticipate the shape of the maze?” said Senior Executive.

“That’s not what I meant,” Corporate Man said, shifting Commander Credit’s body onto one shoulder.  “I think we chose the wrong path back there.  This lane dead ends in another hundred feet.”

The Crash surged forward, spurred on by Corporate Man’s words.  Sparks erupted from the smart phone shield.

“It’s reaching Depression levels,” shouted Corporate Man.  “You got any tricks left?”

“Not many.  We may have to sacrifice Credit,” said Senior Executive, straining to hold his position on the shield as blue sparks rocketed past his face.

“That’s not an option,” Corporate Man said.  His foot teetered on the drop off.  The Crash continued to push.  Senior Executive skidded backwards and into Corporate Man and they nearly toppled.

“Enough!” a voice rang out. 

The Crash hesitated, lifting its head in an effort to locate the voice.

A flash of gold and silver streaked over Corporate Man’s head and a silvery flash exploded at The Crash’s temple.  The giant stumbled back and a golden explosion burst under its chin sending it sprawling across the top of the ledge.

Franklin Buck stood atop the maze.  His fists glowing.  One gold and one silver.  He glanced back at Corporate Man and Senior Executive, cocked a smile, and then advanced on The Crash.

“I’m here, you monster.  I’m Franklin Buck, the One Hundred Dollar Man and I wield the power of the Gold and Silver Standards.”

The Crash twisted onto its feet and charged, howling, milky eyes wild.  Franklin crouched and rammed a silver punch up into The Crash’s groin.  Then he jumped and delivered a golden hammer blow, knocking The Crash backward.  A flurry of alternating punches, silver gold, silver gold, fired like pistons into the staggering behemoth.  Gold across its massive jaw, then silver to the sternum.  Gold snapping the bridge of its nose.

The Crash dropped to its knees and Franklin chopped, silver and gold, on the sides of its neck.  He reached back for one final golden blow and punched with all his might.  With all the Gold Standard could bear.

His fist slammed into The Crash’s open palm.

The Crash growled, its hand clamped around Franklin’s golden fist like a bear trap.  Franklin screamed as The Crash stood.  It hoisted him off the ground.  Golden light flared between the monster’s fingers.

Chapter 202

7.c.xi.

The Crash pulled itself upward, its head and back still dangling over the trench, legs tightening around the limp form of Commander Credit.  After it maneuvered itself onto the ledge and sat up, The Crash pulled the little man from between its legs and stood, leaning on its hand for balance; its hand leaning on Commander Credit for emphasis.

The hulking behemoth growled and picked up the limp man.  It cocked its head and studied the small thing.  It smelled him.  Then, quite gingerly, a swollen purple tongue, cobalt veins bulging on the underside, poked out form its cracked lips and touched the unconscious man’s cheek.  The Crash grinned.  Somewhere in its tiny, primitive, reptilian brain a connection was made.

1987.

It didn’t recognize or even think in terms of the numerical date, but felt a general awareness of events from that era.  The Crash gripped Commander Credit’s good arm between its huge finger and thumb.  It adjusted its other hand, positioning the thumb beneath the pit of the cybernetic arm with massive index finger on the shoulder and neck of the opposite side; the rest of its fingers gripping the ribs below.

The Crash started pulling.

Joints popped. 

Muscle fibers tore.

“Sorry to interrupt your Black Monday, but…” Senior Executive shoved his smart phone into the Crash’s face.  Light blared from the screen, blue-white and hot.  The Crash’s eyes shriveled, pupils going as white as hard boiled eggs.

The Crash let go of Commander Credit’s cybernetic arm and covered its eyes.  It swatted at the blinding, burning light with the limp body still gripped in its other hand.  Senior Executive jumped back, dodging with ease.  The Crash roared and swung Commander Credit around in flailing, desperate arcs.  It shuffled its feet, determining the orientation of the maze ledge, and hurled Commander Credit along the wall’s path directly at Senior Executive.

“My portfolio will protect me,” Senior Executive called out, swiping his finger across the phone’s touch screen.  A series of charts, graphs, account information, and other investment data opened up and out of the device, one on top of the other, crystalline and impossibly fast until a full body-sized, blue-light shield, blazed from the phone.

Senior Executive blocked the human projectile that was Commander Credit, the impact of the body thrumming like high tension cables against the blazing shield.  Caught in the electric hum the Commander slid to Senior Executive’s feet and slumped across the ledge.  Corporate Man jumped down from above, necktie fluttering behind him, and gathered up Commander Credit in his arms.

“It seems as though our stocks are rising, despite your efforts,” Corporate Man shouted at The Crash.  “With our careful investment strategy focusing on recession proof commodities we–”

But he was drown out by a flesh quivering bellow as The Crash, blind and enraged, charged toward them on the narrow ledge.

Chapter 200

7.c.ix.

Commander Credit skirted another corner on the surface of the maze and found himself looking down a long, straight pathway.  At the far end loomed The Crash, bellowing and beating its chest with the bloodied torso of an overused day trader.

Commander Credit let loose with a piercing war cry and then screamed, “I’m gonna cancel your ass you huge pile of shit!”

He cocked a lever on his cybernetic arm and charged.  The Crash roared and thundered across the ledge.  Seismic shudderings pulsed through structure of the maze.  Commander Credit fired a steady stream of platinum card’s at the monster’s face.  A few bounced off, but the majority stuck like porcupine quills in a curious dog’s muzzle.  The Crash swiped at the cards, ripping them from its face, the uprooted blade edges black with sticky tar-blood.

And then they were upon each other.

The Crash tried to charge through his opponent, but Commander Credit leaped up and off the edge of the maze, fired a small barbed shaft from his mechanical arm.  There was a thick cable that connected the barbed shaft to the interior housing of his arm.  The other end jabbed deep into The Crash’s shoulder. 

Commander Credit activated a toggle switch on his mechanical arm sending a pulse of electrical current through the cable.  The voltage was minimal and had not direct effect on The Crash, but it activated several pneumatic pistons within the barbed shaft and caused the housing of the shaft to expand fifteen to twenty-three percent in size.  Commander Credit gripped the cable of the variable-hook and used his momentum to swing out over the trench and back onto the maze ledge, landing behind the enraged creature.  He punched a PIN number into a keypad on his arm and a sharp, magnetic strip popped out, running like a blade from his elbow to his wrist.  He slashed at The Crash’s exposed ankles.  Spurts of thick, greasy tar burst from severed Achilles.  The man-creature howled, toppled forward, and slid across the pathway where it teetered on the edge of the trench and almost fell into the labyrinth.  Its mammoth hand slapped and locked onto the wall across the void, halting its descent.  Thick fingers dug in, splintering the hard material.

Commander Credit leapt forward, slashing.  His black magnetic strip slicing into The Crash’s exposed foot. 

The hulking creature clamped its legs together, its knees snapping shut on Commander Credit like a rat trap.  There was a popping sound and all the air went out of Commander Credit’s lungs.  His mechanical arm was pinned up against his neck, the magnetic strip blade and the gold and platinum ordinance inside, now all but useless.

“You…” Commander Credit wheezed. 

The Crash tightened its leg vice.

“I’m…” and again he couldn’t utter an additional word.  He needed a good quip here.  Something defiant and snarky.  Something to show that he had met death and was spitting in its eye.  But he couldn’t even gasp, or wheeze, let alone be clever.

The world turned grey.

Chapter 198

7.c.vii.

The Crash charged along the narrow pathways of the maze’s surface, beating and battering the day traders unfortunate enough to find themselves sharing space with the behemoth.  Some leapt into the trenches below and were gifted with broken leg bones or dislocated hips.  A few unlucky ones met a coarse-haired blender with jagged teeth.  Pieces of these unfortunates found their way back up on the ledge accompanied by a crimson mist.

Commander Credit ran along the top of the maze firing gold cards from the launcher in his cybernetic arm.  Negotiating the confusing pathway did nothing for his aim and the majority of these cards pocked against ledge walls, or snagged in the tight curls of the carpeted surface.  A few found purchase in their intended target, sinking into The Crash’s flesh like arrows into a stampeding buffalo. Blood, black and tar thick, seeped from wherever the credit card blades stuck.

The gaps between the ledges narrowed.  Commander Credit thought the move might bring him closer to his quarry so he leapt the trench and continued on a new path.

  The Crash picked up a polo-clad coffee fetcher, used him like a bat to whack a small group of day traders into the labyrinth, and then flung the now unconscious man across several sections of the maze at Commander Credit.  The body thudded against the ledge wall, face and arms slapping across the platform like a wet towel.

Senior Executive and Corporate Man continued to pick their way through the maze as fleeing packs of day traders rushed by haphazardly and almost knocked them into the trench.  Senior Executive punched the keys on his smart phone when he could risk a glance toward it.  Ahead they could see the distance between Commander Credit and The Crash narrowing.

Chapter 196

7.c.v.

A huge, hulking behemoth dropped from the arena ceiling and onto the stage.  A shockwave rippled from this man-shaped bomb’s epicenter, buckling the stage and toppling market traders and coffee fetchers.

The Union was upended.

There was a series of deep clunking sounds that followed and whole sections of the floor fell away at random but oddly precise intervals.  Desks, chairs, paperwork, and traders were tossed into gaping crevasses.

When the shuddering stopped, Corporate Man stood up, expecting to see the chaotic wreckage normally associated with an earthquake.  This was not the case.  There was a pattern, a maze of elevated walkways.  The remnants of floor sections that had not fallen away in the shock’s wake.  He peered over down into the newly formed chasm.  A similar pattern was evident in the depths but as a labyrinth of high walled trenches. 

On the far side of the maze, roaring like a conquering warlord amidst the splintered ruins of the arena stage, stood the hulking form of The Crash.

“I’ve waited years for this, you son of bitch!” Commander Credit shouted.  He bolted past Corporate Man across the smooth, carpeted surface of the elevated maze.  The Crash ceased its emphatic bellows, glanced down, and spotted Commander Credit.  The monster grinned and flared its eyes.  With a burst of speed incongruent to its bulk, The Crash leapt from the stage and charged across the surface of the maze seeking and avenue that would lead to its quarry.

Corporate Man turned to Business Woman, but she wasn’t there.  Neither were Supply and Demand.  Bull Market was also nowhere to be seen.

“They fell,” Senior Executive called out.  He was perched on the surface of the maze, a trench separating him from Corporate Man.  “Down there, somewhere.”

“We need to help them,” said Corporate Man.

“No, we need to stop The Crash.  They can take care of themselves.”

“We help our own first,” said Corporate Man.  “Business Woman!  Supply!  Demand!”

“We’re here!” Business Woman called out from somewhere in the depths of the labyrinth.  “A little bruised, but I think we can manage.  How do we get out of here?”

“I don’t know.  It looks like some sort of maze.”

“What about The Crash?  That thing isn’t down here with us, is it?”

“No,” said Senior Executive.  “It’s still on the surface, coming this way.  Commander Credit rushed off.  He’s trying to make his way toward it.”

“Well get out there and give him a hand.  We’ll try to find our own way out.”

“Alright.  We’ll come back for you when we can,” said Corporate Man, flipping his necktie cape over his shoulder and leaping upward.  The ascent of leap crested when he was over the center of the open trench.  Then the descent began.  He flailed and groped as he slammed into the sidewall of the maze, fingers gouging into the commercial grade burber at the top of the trench wall.  Senior Executive grabbed Corporate Man’s wrist and pulled him up onto the platform.

“I forgot that that happens when it’s around,” said Corporate Man.  The two men regarded each other for a moment and then sprinted across the top of the maze toward The Crash.