Chapter 3

I was driving on Wednesday morning because I was going to hit the library in town. They had access to the University of Texas online archives of old newspapers and I wanted to try and find an article for a paper I was doing in history. Why the school hadn’t gotten access yet was beyond me, but it is what it is and I had to go into town.

Unfortunately, my plans were put on hold! The McAllen farm was between our place and town, so we would pass by there every day on the way in to school and never think a thing about it. Unlike my older brothers and my dad, I didn’t have a chip on my shoulder about farmers vs ranchers!

Today though, farmer McAllen had been pulling a load of what looked (and eventually smelled) like manure out to a field across the main road and had turned too sharp, tipping his tractor and the trailer it was pulling, over on its side! The trailer was blocking one and a half lanes, mine and half the oncoming one, and I barely saw it in time to stop. The entrance to the farm is just over the other side of a gentle hill and it was a miracle my old Dodge pickup stopped in time, what with the old-style drum brakes on my restored baby.

The fuel truck a mile or so behind me never slowed at all and when he hit me, he was probably doing the limit of 55 or maybe a bit more. I think the only thing that saved me was the realization he was back there and the split-second decision to hulk out, to transform. It was not even a reasoned decision, just a knee-jerk response, but that fuel truck hit the rear of my truck and the world exploded.

My sudden size change was too much for the aged seatbelts to hold back and they split. The impact of the fifteen tons of truck and gasoline propelled my truck through the wooden trailer full of dung and, shredded the sheet metal against the body of that old tractor. I was launched through the windshield, taking part of the dash with me, and I landed about fifteen feet away in the roadside ditch, rolling and bouncing and winding up another thirty feet further.

I was awake and alert and back on my feet, running towards the accident almost before I stopped rolling though, and I was horrified to see the tanker on its side, fuel gushing from several places. In my imagination, it was only seconds until a huge fireball took the whole mess and I was wondering why the hell I was running towards the rig! Yet there I was, and I could see the big truck was a mess, but more or less intact. The engine was skewed, the frame bent, but I could see the driver, unconscious behind the wheel.

Old man McAllen was laying on the side of the road, knocked sideways by the pickup truck and he looked mostly intact. One arm was a little crooked, but he was moving. I leapt over the piled of wrecked truck, trailer and tractor and landed next to the big rig. With a heave, I was able to pull the door completely off the truck and the seatbelt took hardly a thought, ripping the mooring bolt out of the B-pillar.

I got the driver out and carried him, very carefully, about fifty feet away, then went back for the farmer. At this point, several cars were rolling up from the direction of town, so I did the cowardly thing and grabbed my school bag out of my truck and bolted!

I am not sure who saw me or, if they saw me, who recognized me! I got over the hill and down in a ditch with a little copse of scrub oak. There, I transformed back and put on my gym clothes, leaving my bag, books, and the shredded remains of the polo shirt I had been wearing as a necklace. I was able to sneak back, most of the way anyway, and then just pretended to be a little dazed and wandered around a bit until someone recognized me.

“Kate, is that you! Oh my god, that’s your truck! What happened?” That opened a floodgate and a dozen people were gathered around me, urging me to sit down. One lady, I think I recognized her from the post office in town, was using a handkerchief and a bottle of water to wash the smudges off my face and neck.

A police officer showed up, his blue tie identifying his as a state trooper, and he made people back off a bit while he interviewed me.

I told him about the overturned wagon and how I barely stopped in time, and about how the truck had come over the hill behind me and hit me at full speed. I told him I was thrown free, and I was okay, just a little sore and confused. Thankfully, someone had called daddy at the Ranch and he was there to take me away, saying he needed to get me checked out medically.

Man, he gave me such a look as I ‘leaned on him’ as we got to his truck. He knew better than to question my act publicly, but as soon as we were rolling, he wanted the truth.

“Wanna tell me about it, pumpkin?”

I gave him the story I told the trooper, but told him the whole truth. “It was a reaction, I transformed when I saw the danger and I walked away from it. I may not be invulnerable like that, daddy, but I am the next best thing to it! I think my knees completely gutted my dashboard in the truck. I know I flew fifty feet after going through the windshield, and all I have to show for it are some dirty smudges.”

“Katherine, if they see the inside of your truck, they may be out to the ranch this evening. I know you are wanting to hide this, sweetheart, but we might not be able to.”

“I know, daddy, but I want to try. I have the IDs they gave me. I am a Paladin class, even if I am not an active-duty Paladin, so that should help. I mean, I didn’t do anything wrong back there.”

“No, but what if they tie your super-hero alter ego to what was left of Jimmy Mason?”

I didn’t have an answer for that.

We did the emergency room thing and got me looked at. They told us what we already knew, and warned us I might be sore tomorrow so a day or two of bedrest wouldn’t be unusual, with some warm baths and aspirin.

When we got home though, daddy stopped me from going to my room to change. “Kate, get the card that lady gave to you, and let’s call her together.”

I stayed home from school the next day and Ms. Catherine Lane drove the hour out to our town and came right out to the ranch. She seemed happy to see me and happy to meet dad as well, charming the pants off of him! Well, not really, but I would bet she could if she tried! He seemed quite taken by her and, while I wasn’t the best at deciphering these things, I think she liked him too. Damn it.

I had to sign a whole bunch of papers, first that I would become a contract employee for the Bureau of Mutant Control (hereafter Control ... I thought that was funny, how they did that.) I was to be paid a retainer of $10,000 a month for a minimum of three hours a week of patrolling in the area where I lived. That would be country-wide out here in the sticks, but I was okay with that. I would also be on call for natural disasters, civic emergencies or threats to national security.

She made sure I had the paperwork for college and for my healthcare, and then she dropped a bomb on us. She offered me a one-time payment of $50,000 if I would go to their new headquarters in New York for a weekend to be tested at their state-of-the-art facility. They wanted to see what made me tick, if they could, and really test my abilities.

I thought I was being funny when I told her I had found a couple of new twists. I told her about my speed and strength, as far as I could test it, in my normal form. Then I told her about the accident and I think she was going to wet her panties a bit!

“Kate, I have to tell you the truth. I have only been out of school for about six months and was hired right when I graduated. Out of the eleven thousand or so people we have met with since we opened the office, we found three Paladins, and you are, by far, the most impressive! I am so excited about this, and about you!”

“So ... that worth a raise, Mizz Lane?” dad asked slyly, winking at me.

“Daddy!”

“If I could, I would, believe me on that!” Ms. Lane said with a laugh, “And for heaven’s sake, both of you, it is Cathy, please!”

Burnette County is located on the Edward Plateau and only has about 40,000 people all told, and that includes several suburbs of Austin, the capital of Texas. It rides the eastern most shoreline of Lake Buchanan, down the Colorado River to Lyndon Johnson Lake and then both sides of the Colorado down past Spicewood.

The biggest populations centers are Burnette, the county seat at a whopping 6,000 souls, not counting the ranches and farms that surround it, and Marble Falls, also about 6,000. All in all, it didn’t seem like patrolling it would be all that big a problem except for the area, some 50 square miles of territory. And me without a vehicle anymore!

Thank heaven daddy was all over that. The fuel company’s insurance would be paying for my truck, I could be pretty sure of that, but my truck wasn’t all that valuable on paper. It was a 1979 Lil’ Red Express Truck made by Dodge, and less that ten thousand were made between 1978 and 1979. I had worked on that truck with dad and the boys, all of them helping me, but me laying my hands on each and every part.

We had restored that truck to 100% factory original; I loved that truck and I was going to miss it something fierce. Still, it was a thing, and I could get over it, but it was going to be hard to replace and you can bet the insurance company would throw a fit if we tried to get what it was worth to a collector.

In the meantime, I needed a vehicle. I was thinking about seeing if daddy would let me have a motorcycle. Something like a dual sport would be best, though I would love a Suzuki GSX-R or maybe the Honda CBR 1000RR. The problem with those bikes is that I could squeeze my six-foot, one inch frame onto one and ride okay, but there was no way in hell I could get my eight-foot transformed frame on one! With a bike like a BMW R1200GS, I could actually sit on it and maybe ride if needed, even hulked out!

Then again, if I was transformed, I wouldn’t be riding a motorcycle anyway so ... Maybe I should wait for my first paycheck and shop around.

Turned out, I was already getting paid and that was a good thing. Ms. Lane handed me a debit card that drew directly on an account with my first month pay in it. The money would be credited every month on the first day of the month, as would the extra I would earn when we found time to get me to New York for testing. This was so exciting!

After Ms. Lane left, I spent another hour talking with dad about this new thing in our lives.

“Frankly, I am terrified that you will get hurt, but I can also see that nothing was going to stop you anyway. You ran towards a crashed fuel tanker, for God’s sake!” Daddy looked frustrated by the very idea of me putting myself in danger.

“Dad, if the twins had wanted to enlist, you would have been worried but proud, right?”

“Sweetheart, I am the same with you. Worried, but proud too! Proud that my daughter gets to do something so significant, but worried you will get hurt or, heaven forbid, killed. We, as a family, have lost so much already.”

That was the crux of the matter, right there. Dad was feeling the losses we had endured and was afraid of more. Mom, Robert, William, and now I was going to be out there, running around in a costume and fighting people like that laser guy? While I couldn’t say I understood, not really, I could empathize.

“Daddy, I am damn near invulnerable, and if I can use that to help people that aren’t, who are powerless against people who have suddenly developed these awesome and terrifying powers, well, I have to do it. I know you will worry, but I will promise you this. I will not throw my life away, okay? I will be as careful as I can.”

“I know, pumpkin, I know.”

Returning to school the next day was ... weird. Lots of folks had heard about the crash by now, and the general consensus was how lucky I was to be thrown free instead of crushed or immolated! Very few commented on the lack of obvious bruising, and I deflected as much as I could by pointing out that the ditches were dirt out there, not concrete or asphalt like here in town. City folks seemed to think that made sense, but I know a few of the farm and ranch kids gave me the eye. They knew how hard the sunbaked Texas hardpan could be!

I was able to find a used KTM450 in the paper. It had some rash, some bashed plastic, but only about twenty hours on the motor. It was street legal and fast enough for what I needed. Best of all, it was cheap and close by, so after checking it out and having it looked at by Rod down at Burnette Cycles, I paid the man and I was back on wheels again. I was still watching out for something else for my alter ego, not to mention something on four wheels, but this was a good stop-gap and would work off-road!

About half-way through August, I got a call from Elaine at Ch-Ch-Changes down in Austin. She had some new material and some new products she thought I might be interested in. On Saturday, I traded Mike my bike for his truck for the day. Since he had been bugging me about letting him borrow the bike anyway, it was no hardship for him, and I wouldn’t have a sore ass from riding down to Austin.

Hmm ... that was something to think about. Would I even get sore? I could do an Iron Butt ride!

Elaine Madison’s company had gotten itself listed as a government contract manufacturer and not only did that allow her to charge some materials to government agencies, it allowed her to order from government sources! In her research, one of her textile specialists had found a cloth called Permedex.

The military had been searching for an elastic, breathable material that would not melt at all, and only burn at very high temps. If it could be tough and abrasion resistant too, that would have been a bonus, but what they were able to develop was only partially acceptable.

The resulting material was made from carbon nanotubes and it was very elastic and extremely abrasion, cut, and tear resistant. Unfortunately, it would melt if sufficient heat were applied. In fact, they used lasers to cut it and fix pieces together. The heat would be more than, say, a housefire would generate, but it wouldn’t work as planned for combat vehicles and aircraft, where the accelerants present could triple or even quadruple the amount of heat that could be generated in a tank or aircraft fire.

Elaine was stoked though, and so was the company that developed the fabric, when a small sport-clothing manufacturer started putting out sportswear that was an instant hit with their customers. There were rumors that the NFL was allowing them to market to football teams, and that made the company an instant hot stock. It also made sure the manufacturer had plenty on hand for Ch-Ch-Changes in all five of its stores, and the twenty others planned for the year!

It was exactly what I needed. I would still be pushing the material to its limits if it was a simple tube top, but Elaine showed me how good she was by designing ultra-thin, pleated panels that fit under the arms, where they wouldn’t be easily visible or ruin the line of whatever I was wearing.

When I transformed, not only did I get the elastic quality of the material, there was an added yard of material all pleated up and hidden under my arms. The small magnetic catches that held everything neatly in place, also easily disconnected under direct pressure and let the material expand. It was awesome!

Elaine was quick to assure me that it came in any color I wanted, as long as that was gray. I must have looked very disappointed because she laughed and showed me some samples she was getting from the company. They were making them in just about any color you wanted, as long as they tended to the darker end of the spectrum. They had not yet figure out how to make a white base color and bleaching it made no difference.

Elaine had set up three pairs of shirts and shorts for me, based on my measurements from the last visit, and said she was giving them to me if I’d agree to act as a beta tester for her. Of course, I agreed, and we sat down to discuss making a mask of the same material.

“That is already being done for another customer. I have a client whose ears sit much higher on their head than they used to, and they wanted a mask that would cover the head, but let the ears through so they could be used properly. I have this prototype waiting and, as you can see, the holes for the ears are reinforced with the same material and attached via the laser setup we already have.

The eyes are covered, for this mask, by a pair of goggles, but I have an idea for polycarbonate inserts into specially designed pockets. This would give the mask a unit feel, instead of piecemeal, and look more professional as well, I think.” Elaine was very proud of her creation and I had to agree.

She worked with me and I was able to leave with a pair of masks. One was basically a balaclava with an oval opening for the eyes, and I would wear goggles. The other was with individual eye openings and an opening at the rear for a ponytail, an idea I was playing with for my costume. Same deal applied, I needed to let her know how they felt in use!

She had my measurements now and assure me I could order more with a phone call. She would even bill Control for the costs. When I seemed unsure, we called Control together, using the number they gave me, and confirmed that Control would pay for costumes up to a set amount each month. I would have to account for any damaged or lost, and which event the damage or loss was related to as well!

Okay, so. I had a mask and a costume, of sorts and, though I looked more like a villain’s minion than I did a hero, I could actually patrol in character. If I had a character! I needed a name, a persona.

Dad was no help, he thought Super Girl was neat, but even if it hadn’t been taken and copyrighted, I couldn’t fly or do any of the other stuff. I was seriously just a She Hulk wanna-be, only pinker.

Mikey said I should be the Yellow Rose of Texas, but I think that was because of the beat-up yellow plastics on my bike. I made a mental note to paint them with some of the supplies dad had in the machine shed. I wondered how John Deer Green would look? Anyway, Rose was too ... girly.

Lone Star? Texas was the Lone Star State and the lone star was often associated with the Texas Rangers as law officers. That weird dude on the Night of Madness, the one who disappeared, already claimed Texas Ranger which would have been so bad-ass!

The problem I was facing was the dearth of women in the tall tales and legends, and even those that existed were alligator wrestling, hard-drinking, gun toting women of the times. Sure, if I was using some power that let me throw projectiles accurately, or shoot lightning, maybe they would work, but it would look odd for me to claim to be Annie Oakley or Sally Ann Thunder.

I even thought about the Greek gods and, when I mentioned that to Cathy Lane, she mentioned that there was a speedster in Saint Louis going by the name Mercury, and a guy in Chicago, a blacksmith by trade, using Hephestus, so I wouldn’t be alone. From the goddesses, I really liked Athena, but thought I was the wrong one for so powerful a name. Themis was awesome, mother of the fates and goddess of justice, but she was married to Zeus and I could see me trying to beat the hell out of some hero who used that name and tried to get frisky.

There was a little-known goddess name Iris, messenger and companion of Hera. She is the goddess of rainbows. That was ... kind of neat, but as much as I was pro-gay and lesbian, I was not prancing around in a rainbow costume or even rainbow-colored accessories. Besides, this was Texas and that would go over like a fart in church.

There were some interesting Native American holy or powerful women, but I was as much Indian as I was Greek, meaning none. My ancestors were German, Austrian, Hungarian and Norwegian, all in about equal amounts. I was about as white as you could get without being an albino, and that was not even a good thing in this day and age. I wasn’t sure about this whole privilege thing, it sure didn’t get me out of shoveling horseshit in the barn.

Well, no one had registered Lone Star yet, so that is what I went with. It had a certain cachet here, and I hoped to capitalize on that. When I told Mikey, he called me a prima donna and forgot he couldn’t outrun me like in the old days. He must really love that stock pond! Dad just smiled and didn’t say a word ... he was a smart man, my daddy!

Now that I had leapt into the world of crime fighting with both feet, absolutely nothing happened in my patrol areas. I mean, nothing. Not a convenience store robbery, no tornados (not that I wished one of those on anyone), nothing! I patrolled a couple of hours a night, after I finished my homework, and I got to know the county much better than I had as just plain old Kate.

About the only thing my patrolling did, though, was to fulfill my hours. I had to call in when I started and they could track my movements over the phone, so when I called in afterwards, they would log my time, route and so on. Pretty cool! I could use those to plan out my patrol routes so I hit every major road, every town and settlement in the county at least once a week.

My trip to New York was awesome! I flew out for the Labor Day weekend, with plans to fly back Monday evening so I could be rested for school on Tuesday. Dad was as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs and Mikey was jealous. We had only left Texas twice, once to drive to Carlsbad, New Mexico and see the caverns, the other to fly to Orlando and go to Disney! New York City was ... New York City. It was the epicenter of American fashion, finance, cuisine and, if you listen to the news, crime.

It was also home to one of the largest collections of Paladins identified so far, and the headquarters of the Bureau of Mutant Control. I was, of course, carrying both of my Control IDs and wearing a costume, with another in my suitcase. Elaine had messengered a new test costume over to me before I left and I felt like a little kid wearing it to travel in, but I was too excited not to. It was coal black instead of charcoal gray, and it had huge, light-gray star, centered under my right arm. The arms and legs circled around a bit below my breasts and across my thighs, while the top point actually continued up sort-of through my shoulder, with the tip right at my ear on the mask.

The mask had the new pockets, and the lens she provided were coated with a reflective coating that would actually protect me from light-based attacks, as long as they were not coherent (and the lenses were clean). The real reason for the coating was to protect my identity, but Elaine had used lenses issued to Naval aviators for safety and utility. She was even trying to find a way to give me night vision, but the tech wasn’t there yet without adding a lot of bulk I didn’t want.

The IDs Cathy Lane had issued me were a lifesaver, even without me having to do anything heroic. See, when you fly, you had to have two forms of ID and I used my driver’s license and my Control ID, I mean, Kate’s, not Lone Star’s! At the TSA checkpoint, the Transportation Safety Administration folks at the gates, one tried to pull me aside for a random screening. They had seen something in the scan that caused them to ‘randomly select‘ me. I stepped to the side as requested, but a supervisor with Sergeant stripes stepped forward and whispered in the TSA agent’s ear. I couldn’t pick up what was said, but the woman’s hands made a sort of rectangular shape, the size of a business card, so I guessed it was about my ID!

I did take a second to ask a couple of questions of the woman who had stepped up.

“Excuse me, ma’am, but can I ask a couple of questions?”

“Of course, how can I help?”

“This is the first time flying since I went to work for the Bureau and no one told me about any special procedures for security. Was there something I should have done, or something I did I shouldn’t have?”

She looked surprised, but shook her head. “It’s pretty new to us. We got a directive sent down, oh, three or four weeks ago, I think. It said that any Bureau of Mutant Control agents were exempt from screening if the ID was valid in the system. The reasons they listed were privacy and security,” she explained, then shrugged. “Not sure what they meant, but there wasn’t much more than that. We were to report any fake cards, ones that showed up as invalid, and hold the individual if it could be done in a safe manner consistent with our standard operating procedures.”

“Ah, they didn’t tell me to skip the scan. What showed up, anyway?”

“There were two lines of dots under each arm, going across your torso, and two on each leg, one row at hip and the other mid-thigh. They looked really weird and we are trained to investigate weird,” she grinned at me, holding up her hands. “I mean the dots, not you!”

I laughed and waved it off, I knew what she meant. “So, next time I should do what? I want the folks in the Austin office to have the right info to hand out to new agents.”

“Just bypass the line and talk to any TSA agent at the scanner, show the ID and ask for a supervisor. We’ll escort you past the scanner and you are on your way!”

“Thank you so much! This could have been very embarrassing, and you were a lot of help!”

I got first class. I mean, I got upgraded to first class! My tickets were for the back of the plane, but when I checked in, the woman behind the counter looked surprised at whatever showed on her screen, then she shot a sort of speculative look at me. When she handed me the boarding pass, it had a big red stripe on it. I thought that was really weird, but I honestly didn’t know enough to know if it was good or bad or just normal. My one round-trip flying experience had been when I was ten.

The passengers walked down the tube thingie to board the flight and, at the end, I was directed to the very first row, on the aisle. “Ma’am, you can take a seat here, you have been upgraded to first class accommodations, courtesy of the airline, and thank you for flying with us today!”

I was confused, but sat where I was directed. The seat was surprisingly comfortable and it was wider than I thought too, after reading so many complaints about how the airlines were trying to shove more people on board by making seats smaller. This seat was a third again wider than I was, something I thought was cool. I mean, I still had a very tight, firm butt, but it was overall bigger than it had been before, so I sometimes worried about it. Silly, eh? I hadn’t gained a single ounce since I registered.

The flight was long and boring, but the flight attendants were very nice, and very solicitous too. I even asked, but they just said the red stripe on my boarding pass and a notation in the boarding computer said to treat me as a VIP. The flight attendant who said this was the one who was bringing me drinks, offering a pillow and blanket, being extra friendly and if I had half the guts I should, I would have tried for a phone number. I am such a coward.

I mean, I flirted a bit, and loved to see her bend over to stock more drinks in her cart up in the front galley, but that was all I did. Hell, if I was one of my brothers, I would have already suggested she initiate me into the mile-high club. No, not me though, I just sat there and built impossible fantasies in my head and did nothing. ARGH.

I was happy to see someone holding up a sign that said, ‘K. LANDERS‘ in big, capital letters. He was wearing a cap like a chauffeur in the movies too, which was odd. I didn’t think government agencies went in for limousines! The guy standing next to him was obviously with him, and he was holding what was probably a picture in his hand, because he elbowed the big guy and pointed to me.

“Ms. Landers?”

“That’s me, and you?”

“Ah, sorry, Dan Westin! Here, my ID.” He was about my height, but slimmer, built like a runner. His hair was dark, and he had a five o’clock shadow, even though he was clean shaven, which I thought was a pretty neat trick. I mean, he probably hated it and had to shave three times a day, but it looked rugged.

Dan Westin was Daniel A. Westin, Bureau of Mutant Control and was, evidently, my ride.

“Nice to meet you, Dan. You have a picture of me, I see, do you need my ID or anything?”

“Nope! Do you have any luggage to claim?”

“Just my carryon. Where do we go from here?”

“Since Mr. Suave over here won’t bother, let me introduce myself,” the man in the chauffer cap said, whipping off his cap and giving a little bow. He handed me a business card, “Agent Devane, Marcus Devane, at your service. Unless I miss my guess, you are neither swept off your feet, nor likely to gush, over my partner’s masculine presence, so let me have that case and we’ll go.”

“What am I missing?” I asked, tensing a bit. I was alone in New York City, after all, and weird things happen here.

Agent Westin laughed and threw his hands up in the air. “We have this bet going. We do this a lot, see, meeting people at the airport; you are number seven this week. See, we are new and this is a job they give the newbies. Anyway, Marcus and I have a friendly bet about who can charm the most people, male or female,” he began, while the three of us started walking.