Shadows and Light - part 1
by Glitch Girl

Prologue: Some months earlier...

Mentor frowned.

"I am sorry Man-Bot, but..."

"It didn't work, did it," said the morose hollow voice of the steel-encased hero.

"No."

Man-Bot stepped from the platform. "I thought so. I knew my fate was to..." he trailed off and sighed.

"We'll try again later," Mentor reassured him.

"Whatever," said Man-Bot halfheartedly. "Tomorrow... At least the canisters of Energy-X only landed in Patriot City. I wouldn't wish this fate on anyone."

Mentor said nothing.

End prologue

"Oops, pardon me!"

"Sorry about that."

"Excuse me, I'm a little late."

Jenni Martin barely dodged yet another student as she hurried down the sidewalk towards the Porta Roma University science building, loaded down with more things than she could fashionably juggle or see around, yet somehow she managed to keep moving at a good pace without dropping any of the many papers, books, and reports while not spilling the cup of coffee and donuts the professor told her to bring.

It wasn't that she was ACTUALLY late, not yet. She just wanted to be prompt. Prompt would look good on her evaluation when she finished her internship with Doctor Denton Monneka. The man was one of the most brilliant scientists on the eastern seaboard (even if he was a bit of a jerk sometimes), and a glowing report from him would do wonders for her future plans of one day becoming a full fledged scientist. There weren't a lot of women scientists,but she didn't care. She wanted to be like Marie Curie or Maria Mitchell or Nicola Tesla (if he were female). If only she could get Doctor Monneka to look at some of her papers on light theory, she was sure she could convince him that he should write her a glowing recommendation (no pun intended) and then...

So far, she hadn't had much luck. The past three months of her internship at the costal college city had been spent filing papers and getting coffee. And donuts. The icky ones with the red filling that was supposed to be strawberry but just tasted "red" instead. She couldn't understand how he could eat those things, but somehow, he did. Then there were all the times he told her to dust his office, or file his papers, or vacuum his rug, or wear a shorter skirt next time or...

The whole time, he'd barely let her in the energy research lab, which was slightly understandable. There was top secret research going on there, something about a recently discovered new type of energy... they probably didn't want a lowly intern around where they might hear something that could compromise national security.

Jenni tried to optimistic about all this, but it was getting harder every day.

She reached the door of Monneka's office and carefully maneuvered some of the papers around so she could reach the knob. From the other side she could hear voices.

"...sure about this?" a voice she didn't recognize said. It had a hint of an accent she couldn't quite place.

"Of course," said a second voice she easily recognized as belong to Doctor Monneka. "The rest of the staff never comes in here. No one does, except for that silly intern I got saddled with."

Jenni froze.

She heard Monneka laugh. "Did you know she actually thinks she's going to be a scientist someday? A woman scientist? Can you believe that? What's she going to do, crochet a cure for the common cold? Bake an atom bomb?"

Jenni felt cold as the men's laughter filtered though the wood. How could he say something like that?

"...One good thing, at least she's good at filing. My desk has never been so clean..."

Her hand tightened around the papers she was carrying, crunching them in her grip. She felt like she would burst into tears at any second.

"That is good Doctor," said the first voice. "Now do you have the item?"

"Of course. I'm sure Sukov will pay handsomely for this..."

Jenni snapped out of her bout of self pity. Sukov... she remember the name from the newspaper. Who was he again..? Oh yes, he was a communist who'd become some kind of ice monster. The Freedom Force had defeated him in Patriot City. If this man worked for Sukov, that meant...

That meant Doctor Monneka was selling out to the reds!

Without thinking, she dropped everything she was carrying, letting the coffee mug shatter and the papers scatter across the floor, and flung the door open.

"Doctor Monneka, how could you!"

Two shocked faces stared at her, the doctor and a man dressed in a dark overcoat an hat. Between them, on Monneka's desk, was a metal cylinder that had a faint purplish glow to it.

Doctor Monneka recovered first. "Jenni, how dare you come in here without knocking?" he demanded.

"You're selling secrets to the communists!" she shot back.

"Our business is finished, Monneka." the man in the dark coat said coldly.

"Wait! We had a deal!"

"The deal is over Monneka. This was supposed to be a safe location."

"She's just a girl!"

"I may be just a girl," said Jenni, "But I'm an American, and I'm not going to let you sell us out to the reds!" She stepped in front of the communist agent, blocking his way.

"Get out of the way!"

Jenni started yelling at the top of her lungs, "SOMEONE HELP!! COMMUNIST SPIES!! HELP!!"

The man in the dark coat tried to push past her but she grabbed onto the doorframe and continued to yell. Finally he grabbed her arm and yanked her roughly into the small office and slung her against the desk, shaking everything on it including the metal canister.

"Stupid americanski," he growled and drew a gun from the folds of his overcoat.

Jenni shrunk back against the desk. It looked like it was all over.

"Hurry up Leninski, shoot her! Let's get this over with. I want my money."

"Be quiet," ordered Leninski. "I...." His voice faded as he noticed the canister on the desk was still shaking, almost as if it had a life of its own.

"What are you waiting for!" howled Monneka. "SHOOT HER!"

Leninski was many things, but suicidal wasn't one of them. The canister on the desk looked like it was about to explode. If he stayed around, he'd get caught in the blast, and if this energy was even half as powerful as he'd been lead to believe...

Leninski took off down the hall in a dead run.

"Where are you going!" Monneka yelled. "YOU'RE NOT DONE! COME BACK-"

The canister exploded in a blast of purple light and energy. Leninski felt the ground shake as he struggled to keep his balance as he continued to run. He didn't dare look back.

Though if he had, he would have seen the ruined office was glowing.

To be continued...