Nuklear Age by Brian Clevinger Page A

work.” He gave a wink to Seamus and Angus to indicate that he was a genius.
    They followed Nuklear Man until he altered his course nearly ninety degrees straight down to a fifty foot wide silvery metallic disk lodged in the ground with a big Nuklear style N painted on it. He made a little finger gun motion toward it. A hairline fracture appeared across the diameter and the disc split into two thick semi-circles that crept apart. The golden blur zipped between them just milliseconds after they were far enough apart to admit him without destroying anything.
    Seamus and Angus decided it would be in their best interests to follow Atomik Lad who gradually decelerated as he made nice comfy circles, each spiraling a little lower than the last. Unfortunately, neither Angus’s nor Seamus’s modes of thrust were built with the kind of sophisticated instrumentation or, indeed, anything that might make such a maneuver possible. Both propulsion systems were intended to make short, fast, and potentially deadly human projectiles and not for longterm flight. The gist of this is that both fell to the ground with all the grace of a skydiving humpback whale.
    The two heavy WHUMP s sounded like two giant melons, or more accurately, two large sacks full of normal melons striking the hard, none-too-comforting ground. Atomik Lad gently floated into the fully opened entrance. It took a great deal of self control not to give them both biting quips, but the memory of what Nuklear Man had endured from them earlier gave him the determination to let the moment pass.
    “Lousy clear air turbulence,” Angus grumbled just loud enough for Seamus to hear.“Where’d you learn to fly, boy-o? Ye got me all caught up in ye back draft,” Seamus said.
    “Come on fellas!” Nuklear Man’s voice had a distant metallic echo to it as he called to his comrades from within the depths of the Silo of Solitude.
    They grudgingly stomped to the gaping hole and hopped inside, their respective modes of propulsion cushioned their descent. Machinery hummed as the doors began to close above them.
    Inside was a realm of wonder. The hideout was a huge cylinder about 50ft wide and several hundred feet down into the Earth. A catwalk wound up and down its interior wall. Things that wouldn't have seemed to serve any purpose at all if they weren’t adorned with randomly blinking lights abounded. Doors labeled with titles like “Danger: Room” dotted the rounded walls. The entire complex had a feeling of being about a decade ahead of the rest of the world.
    Seamus and Angus landed side by side in front of Nuklear Man at the very bottom of the deep complex. His arms were stretched wide as if to encompass the entirety of the grounds. Artificial lights flickered to life and the huge doors above them finally boomed to a close.
    “Welcome to the Silo of Solitude,” the Hero said proudly.
    Atomik Lad stepped out of a door marked Danger: Kitchen holding a tray with cups on it, “Juice?”
    Angus shook his head “Nay” while Seamus motioned “Aye.”
    Nuklear Man smiled even wider, “Pretty cool, huh?”
    “Well, uh,” the Iron Scotsman tugged at his armor’s metallic beard. “It’s not exactly very solitary if ye both live here.” He sipped at his complimentary drink. It dribbled down his armor.
    “Well not solitary in that sense,” Nuklear Man said. “But living in the middle of the aftermath of the Dragon’s Strike means there’s the persistent threat of radiation poisoning that keeps the solicitors to a minimum.”
    “Yeah, twenty miles of irradiated ex-farmland will do that,” Atomik Lad said. “Though we do get the occasional diehard,” he added. “But the radiation doesn’t bother Nuke or me because he absorbs it and I deflect it thanks to my Field. And you guys have those fully protective suits of armor, so the trip here was safe. And once you’re inside, everything is shielded.”
    Angus ripped off his dribbling helmet. “Enough with the science