The Mighty Doc Stalwart #257

 My Brother, My Foe

Adapted from The Mighty Doc Stalwart #257 (August 1984)

By Dr. Mike Desing

For Amanda Meadows, this had been the worst day. First, her coffee had been messed up by the barista (he was going to hear about it). 

      Then, someone broke into her secure lab and swiped a sample of blood. Who had done it, and why, was still a mystery to her, although she had no doubt that the resources of the entirety of the Citadel of Tomorrow had been marshaled to find the thief. She knew better than to ask a lot of questions about where she worked and who she worked for, but she knew this: that thief was no doubt desperately trying to escape and was realizing that this was going to be impossible. 

      Finally, she had to sit in interviews for the last few hours with seven different personnel in business suits and ID cards. She had gone over it all. Again. And again. And again.

      Now, she was going home. She had a cup of coffee (perfect. At last). She had made it through the checkpoints and had been cleared to return to her suite. She was thinking of a shower and binge watching her VHS collection of the Brady Bunch to clear her head. Jan always made her feel better.

      She had just signed the final log releasing her from her duties, and she went to cross the lobby. Luckily, she dropped her ID badge and had to stop to pick it up - because suddenly a silver object shaped like a huge beetle was filling the entirety of the lobby, breaking glass and smashing chairs in its abrupt arrival from nowhere in particular. 

      That perfect cup of coffee was now all over her shirt.

***

Inside the Beetle, Zirah rose from the pilot’s chair, drawing her swords. Jynx ripped through layers of duct tape that had held him to the fuselage. The Mighty Doc Stalwart issued directives and prepared the bay door to open.

      Mikah was throwing up. It was chunky. So that was how it felt to blink.  

      Doc looked at him, “better?”

      Mikah nodded.

      “Good. Let’s move. Zirah and Jynx are on security. Protect our flanks. Mikah with me. Going in 3. 2. 1.”

      The bay doors opened, and Doc leapt down. Zirah and Jynx immediately followed. Mikah was still undoing his seat belt and wiping yellow fluid from his chin.

      Mikah heard a sound that resembled the keys of an organ being hit in quick succession, followed by lots of shouting.

      Mikah dropped to find he was in a sparse, clean white reception area. The Beetle was lodged awkwardly against three walls; it looked like there was no way it was ever getting out of here. Behind him appeared a set of elevator doors. In front, he saw a glass reception area with a security door. Doc had already broken through the door, and he was moving into the hall beyond. The elevator doors opened, and a swarm (yeah, it was that many) disc-shaped robots (maybe the size of dinner plates) emerged, firing lasers. These were met by Zirah and Jynx, who began tearing and cutting and ripping at them.

      Mikah followed Doc.

      The poor security guards between Doc and his destination put up a game effort. One managed to fire his taser before Doc threw him against a wall, and another released a hail of energy pulses from a pistol before Doc crushed the pistol in one hand and backhanded the guard into unconsciousness with the other. 

      To say that he was back in prime form would be an understatement. He was recovered. And he was mad.

      Several doors closed, but Doc was able to push these open or break through them with (it appeared to Mikah) relatively little effort.  

      They pushed through several more guards, and several more barriers, on their march. The most notable of these was a force field barrier that a hapless guard (he looked to be no older than twenty) activated. He watched with horror as Doc dug his hands into the barrier and physically ripped it in half. 

      I think I mentioned that Doc was mad.

      They reached their destination. They emerged into a curved hallway, with a round, glass wall on the opposite side of the entrance. It looked down at some sort of medical suite; below them, all manner of people in doctors’ garb were running around, unplugging cables and securing storage crates. They were trying to escape before Doc got there. They failed.

      Doc ran two steps and smashed through the glass, landing twenty feet below. The doctors scurried, fleeing the room through a series of doors that shut behind them. Mikah tried to figure out how to get down next to Doc. He could maybe hold onto the edge and drop, but he’d be likely to break a leg. If he could get Doc’s attention, maybe Doc could catch him…

      But Doc was distracted. Fixated is probably more apt. He was moving to the middle of the room, where a large figure was on a table, under a sheet. Mikah watched with horror as Doc lifted the sheet to see… I mean, it was kind of him.

      It was orange skinned and appeared to be sleeping, but that was Doc Stalwart. Or, as Mikah had surmised, Doc’s twin brother: the brother he had made the Freedom Formula for; the brother he had been charmed to forget.

      Doc reached out a tentative hand. “Jimmy?”

      Doc’s brother’s eyes opened. He looked up at Doc with something like recognition. And then he punched Doc so hard that Doc left a two-foot deep dent in the opposite wall.

      Mikah stopped looking for a way down. He decided he was actually quite comfortable where he was, thank you very much.

      “James,” Doc said, using his brother’s name - or at least, the name Mikah had told him as he peeled himself out of the Doc-Stalwart-shaped crater in the wall, “It’s me. Nathaniel. Nate. Let me help you.”

      Doc, bless his heart, tried three times to talk to his brother, but each time the orange Doc double (in the files Mikah read, they had given him the code name “Brutakus”) would throw Doc into the floor, or against the ceiling, or smash a table over him for variety’s sake.

      Doc picked shards of glass out of his uniform, “Fine. We’ll do this the hard way.”

      Mikah had pictured what it must have been like when two Tyrannosaurus Rexes decided they didn’t want to share. There’d be a lot of gnashing of teeth and stamping and charging and things getting broken. It was like that for several moments. If something was breakable, it was now smashed into tiny fragments and scattered throughout the room.

      The two of them had met their mutual match. For every blow one would land, the other would counter it with an equally impressive wallop.

      Mikah suddenly realized that he would have been very useful as guard duty. Since he was up here, the least he could do would be to keep an eye out for any security response team that showed up to at least warn Doc. That would have been a great idea, come to think of it.

      But he didn’t do that, so was therefore completely unaware when someone behind him said, “that’s enough” and touched a button on a remote control. Brutakus shook once and then fell to the floor, seemingly unconscious. Mikah realized he was surrounded by dozens of armed troops in heavy armor that glowed and whirred with blue and gold energy. The cavalry had arrived.

      Fortunately for all involved, Doc had vented some of his anger in the fight, and cooler heads prevailed. It also helped that this man, who revealed himself as the Director of Operations (which seemed to be a surprise to Doc) offered to answer every question Doc had and to be completely forthcoming. They talked for several minutes in the mess of a room, just the two of them using hushed tones, with nobody else in earshot. Mikah watched as they shook hands, and the Director called a team in to start to clean up.

***

Mikah, Zirah, and Jynx had been sent back to the Beetle. Mikah had managed to clean up the piles of vomit (wow, that had projectiled) while Zirah and Jynx nursed each other’s wounds. Doc entered several minutes later, with a team of orderlies behind him, carrying a stretcher. On it, Brutakus was strapped down and heavily sedated. Mikah felt a twinge of fear. If he went berserk like he had below…

      Doc strapped himself into the pilot’s seat as the orderlies left, Brutakus now attached to a bed that popped out of the wall. Doc started adjusting the controls, pulling a small, black object from his pocket. This device, maybe through magnetics, attached itself directly to the control panel.

      “Teleporter,” Doc said before Mikah could ask, “designed to eject things from the Citadel. You attach it to something and activate it, and the object or person is... forcibly ejected.”

      Mikah found the mouthpiece he had worn for the trip in and started to wipe it off. He was going to need that again.

      Doc continued to explain without request, “I somehow saved my brother’s life with the Freedom Formula. Kind of. He’s in a place between life and death. He just lingers there… with no knowledge of who he is or what he is.”

      Mikah nodded, “I’m sorry.”

      Doc’s expression didn’t change. “They have been poking and prodding him for years. They didn’t say it, but I think they were looking for a way to weaponize him. But he couldn’t be controlled. Mind control, electrical implants, magic… it all seemed to fail to keep him from doing anything but rampaging uncontrollably. I mean, they could drop him into the middle of enemy forces and he’d go to town, but he wouldn’t stop there. He’d just keep destroying things... “ here Doc paused, “In fact, he probably did. And they found that was not an effective tool in warfare. So, they turned him over to me.”

      “So that you can save him?”

      “A peace offering. The director wants me to stay on at the Citadel. He admits that they messed up. He wants to make amends. He told me I could take… James… Jimmy…”, the words were foreign in his mouth, “and take care of him as best I could. No strings attached. Take all the time I need.”

      Mikah nodded again. “So what’s the plan?”

      Doc squared his jaw. “We’re going to see an old friend.”