The Secret of the Pink Ray

Chapter 1: Turmoil in New York It was a hot, sunny morning in June 1939. A large crowd had gathered in Battery Park to await the arrival of the Sea Dragon, the latest superfast flying boat designed by top British engineers. A little over twelve hours earlier the huge plane had lifted off from the murky waters of the River Thames, just a few hundred yards from the fog-shrouded Tower of London. It had crossed the Atlantic non-stop and was now fast approaching New York. There was a buzz of excitement—Sea Dragon was the shape of things to come. The new design would revolutionize transatlantic air travel. The park was packed to overflowing, everyone gazing expectantly upward into the clear blue sky. Many of those present were city workers from the financial district, taking an early lunch break. People jostled each other for the best views across the river. Tiffany Hazard mingled with the crowd, keeping a sharp lookout for trouble. Pickpockets, bag snatchers, backside-gropers—you could expect all those things in a gathering this size. Not on Tiffany’s watch, though. A rich young heiress, she also happened to be one of New York’s top lesbian crime fighters. Tiffany made an imposing figure: a powerful, six-foot-plus sss, her immaculate skin tanned a deep bronze, her long, copper-bronze hair gleaming in the sunlight. She was dressed in a skin-tight, slightly translucent jumpsuit which clung to her phenomenal figure, accentuating the perfection of her full, round breasts and the athletic muscularity of her thighs and buttocks. The overall impression was dazzling; it was easy to see why the press called her the Bronze Goddess. As she strode through the crowd, she attracted admiring glances from both men and women…and lustful glances too. That was hardly surprising, since—Tiffany being a shameless exhibitionist—her jumpsuit was open at the front all the way to her navel, displaying a generous quantity of firm, tanned flesh. From certain angles you could even sneak a peek at the shiny-smooth areolas of her braless breasts. Tiffany belonged to the “If you’ve got it, flaunt it” school of fashion…and she certainly had it. “Extra! Extra! Mad scientist says Government stole his death ray!” The cry came from a newspaper vendor. Having observed the crowd gathered in the park, the youngster had clearly decided it made business sense to direct his sales effort in that direction. The ploy worked, at least as far as Tiffany was concerned. She had a professional interest in mad scientists and death rays. She purchased a copy of the paper and glanced at the headline: Tesla accuses Government of stealing Death Ray. “Tesla’s a textbook paranoid,” the newspaper vendor observed. “In his younger days he was a prolific inventor, but he lost the plot. This talk about a death ray—it’s sheer madness. He knows nothing about modern physics.” Tiffany gave the vendor a second look. They weren’t the sort of words she expected to hear—certainly not in the cut-glass British accent with which they were spoken. With a start she realized it wasn’t a boy, as she’d thought, but a young woman—with short-cropped hair, almost a crew cut, and no make-up. On second look, though, she was really very attractive, her slim waist and feminine thighs accentuated by the tight shorts she was wearing. Her equally tight T-shirt showed every contour of her conical, braless breasts. At five-seven she was tall for girl, but still a good six inches shorter than Tiffany. “Tesla knows nothing about modern physics?” Tiffany echoed. “And you do, I suppose?” The girl returned her gaze solemnly. “Correct. I’m a grad student at Central College. Kimmerleigh Fox is the name, but you can call me Kimmy—everyone does.” She tapped her bag of newspapers. “Don’t let this fool you—it’s just an easy way to make some extra money. I’m a physics whiz. I understand all of Dr. Einstein’s work, which is more than Tesla does.” Tiffany raised her eyebrows. “So you don’t believe he really built a death ray? I thought he demonstrated something like that to the military a couple of years ago.” Kimmy waved her hand dismissively. “He may have put some phony gadget together to fool those idiots. But Tesla doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s no match for Einstein—or for me.” There was a sudden buzz from the assembled crowd, as if the incoming plane had been spotted. They peered up into the sky expectantly, but there was nothing there. It was a false alarm. There was a snort of disgust from a gray-haired old man a few feet from Tiffany and Kimmy. He was leaning heavily on a cane and wheezing. “The whole thing’s a hoax,” he grunted. “Probably no such thing as the Sea Dragon. You can’t trust those British bastards anymore.” It wasn’t an uncommon sentiment. Americans weren’t naturally anti-British, but a bubbling undercurrent of such feeling had built up over the last few days. There had been a series of incidents which, in the eyes of many Americans, appeared to be audacious attacks by the British against U.S. targets. Two days earlier, a senior American diplomat had been knocked over and killed by a taxicab in London. The previous week, a U.S. Navy plane had crashed into the sea after flying over the British base on Bermuda. There was no clear evidence pinning the incidents on Britain, but that didn’t stop people like this old gentlemen from voicing their suspicions. Hearing the man’s outburst, Kimmy carefully edged away, beckoning Tiffany to follow. When she was sure the man wouldn’t hear her British accent, she spoke again. “You’re Tiffany Hazard, aren’t you?” Kimmy eyed the statuesque figure critically. “The one they call the Bronze Goddess? You’re one of those famous lesbian crime fighters, like Lady Blade.” Tiffany grimaced in distaste. “Lady Blade is a deranged vigilante. People like her give lesbian crime fighters a bad name. She kills her victims in cold blood—I make sure they’re rehabilitated into society. I would never intentionally hurt a fellow human being.” Kimmy nodded sagely. “Me too. I’ve always had a sneaking desire to be a lesbian crime fighter myself.” She frowned in thought for a moment. “The Sapphic Super-Scientist, or something like that.” Tiffany gave the girl an appraising look, lingering on her bare, slightly chubby thighs, the tight cotton shorts, with the hint of a camel-toe cleft at the crotch, and the pert, button-like n*****s pushing through the fabric of her T-shirt. The sight made Tiffany’s juices flow. “That could work,” she said. “I’ve always wanted a teenage sidekick.” “I’m not a teenager.” Kimmy put her hand on her hip defiantly. “I’m twenty-one—almost twenty-two.” “Oh, well, in that case…” There was another cry from the crowd—and this time it wasn’t a false alarm. A sparkling object had appeared in the bright blue sky over the upper bay and was rapidly approaching. It was the Sea Dragon, all the way from London. A streamlined shape of shining aluminum, its enormous wings carried no fewer than six powerful rotary engines. They made a pulsing drone as the plane came in to land on the Hudson. Suddenly there was a blinding flash of pink light, and the engine sound cut out. The plane’s course dipped abruptly. There were screams of horror from the crowd. “It’s going to crash!” The plummeting aircraft nose-dived straight into the Statue of Liberty. There was a huge collective groan from the onlookers as the statue’s head was knocked clean off. The groan was followed almost immediately by angry mutterings and oaths—all directed against a single target. “Those damned British bastards…” The old man was shaking his cane at the sky in fury. There was another scream from the assembled masses as they realized the horror wasn’t over yet. One of the six giant engines, now detached from the plane and in flames, was heading straight for the Battery. “It’s coming this way!” Kimmy gasped. The crowd around them rapidly dispersed in all directions. Only the old man remained, rooted to the spot in horror. Tiffany grabbed him with her powerful arms, lifted him bodily, then sprinted for safety. Kimmy paused just long enough to snatch up the man’s fallen cane, then followed. It wasn’t a moment too soon. A fraction of a second later, the flaming engine crashed onto the very spot where they’d been standing. Tiffany put the man down. The sudden burst of physical action had disarrayed the upper part of her jumpsuit—something that always seemed to happen in these situations—so that her magnificent breasts were now completely out in the open. Bewildered, the old man gawped at those firm, bronze-tanned mounds, then addressed them in a wavering voice. “Th-thank you so much. You saved my life.” “Think nothing of it, old boy,” Tiffany replied in her best impression of a British accent. “All part of the service, old bean,” Kimmy added, handing the cane back to its open-mouthed owner. Tiffany was already walking toward the water’s edge, frowning thoughtfully. Kimmy ran to catch up. “There’s something very odd about this,” Tiffany said. “I saw a bright pink flash, shooting up from ground level, immediately before the engines stopped.” Kimmy nodded. “I saw it too, but it wasn’t just any pink. That wavelength is characteristic of ionized nitrogen. It was the first phase of something bigger—opening a channel for…for something.” She continued muttering to herself for several minutes. Most of it went over Tiffany’s head, although she did make out the name “Tesla” several times—as well as a number of coarse profanities that sounded out-of-place in Kimmy’s cut-glass accent. They pushed their way through the chaotic crowd to the edge of the Hudson River. Tiffany scanned the shore to their right. “It came from further uptown—I’d estimate just over a mile away. You can’t see it from here.” She closed her eyes, trying to visualize the pink flash in her mind’s eye, and reconstructing the direction from which it must have come. She performed a quick mental triangulation. “My best guess is the end of Vestry Street—probably one of the old riverside warehouses there.” She turned back to Kimmy, whose earlier mutterings were just beginning to sink in. “What was that you were saying about Tesla?” “I might have been wrong about him,” Kimmy admitted grudgingly. “I suppose it might be possible to create an ionization channel through the air, using a projected beam of some kind, and then activate the vacuum lambda field. That’s part of Einstein’s theory—it’s what my thesis research is all about. It never occurred to me it could be used this way. I’d need to think some more about it.” “Then let’s head back to base—A.K.A. my luxury penthouse apartment on the Upper East Side.” Without further delay, Tiffany led the way to her powerful, two-seat sports car parked nearby.