Danny and Tetsuo:  The Struggle for the Soul
By chipmasterson@yahoo.com


The rumbling, squealing and high smell of motor oil could only mean one thing:  
Tetsuo was out on the base doing chest flies with a couple of tanks.  He simply 
started them, wedged the accelerator pedal into the floor and set them in the 
lowest, most powerful gears.   Danny held on until he was ready.  Then this 
seemingly tiny but jaw-droppingly muscled child took over.  

The tanks ground outward to the ends of the battleship anchor-chain.  Then Tet 
flexed his pecs and dragged them backwards.  Tanks are unaccustomed to being 
stopped so the engines lugged and screamed.  The cleats on the tracks dug into 
the earth but the ground broke away because Tet's muscle fibers didn't give a 
damn.  They flexed and demanded and the heavy tonnage of scrambling, digging 
tank shuddered backward until his knuckles barely touched.  Then he held them 
there for a count of five, flexing pec muscle so hard it turned purple beneath 
his golden skin, squeezed inches forward between the unyielding steel of his 
biceps.  The tanks bucked against the ground, tons of steel actually bouncing 
inches off the earth where he held them impossibly in place.  Then he exhaled 
and let them out slowly:  not as fast as they wanted to go but smoothly until he 
got the full stretch.  The massive machines hungrily ate up the earth like 
beasts seeking some human building to knock down with their unleashed power, 
until a more powerfully built human boy yanked on their leashes and stopped them 
cold.   The frustrated engines shrieked and the wheels climbed up on top of each 
other but nothing they could do would gain another inch from Tet's muscle and 
tendons.  He saw me watching. 

He cupped his palm against the inside of the massive steel chain link and then 
released all his fingers and both thumbs so only the middle finger of each 
little hand curled around the link.  Then, as if giving me that finger, he 
grinned without humor as if to say "Watch this, bozo."

The right tank was vibrating so fast with all its trapped power the turret began 
to shake loose.  Already the great gun vibrated so hard it was a blur and 
clanged against the top of the tank, bent by its own fury.  The wheels climbed 
and sank the treads deeper into the rutting ground but that one finger fought 
against that power and controlled it.  The left tank was bouncing from the left 
to the right like a mad bronc but Tet's finger didn't care.  His pecs split into 
four massive slaps of rock, the upper pecs bulging above the Columbu-like 
crevice between the lower pecs.  Veins fueled the madness and those hardening 
muscles dragged the clattering military crafts back again, and held them for a 
five count.  

He did it again, and again, changing fingers each time.  Raw brute strength 
crushing mechanical prowess: all that engineered torque and forged steel 
helpless to defy the simplest expression of muscle flexing.  By the time he got 
to the pinky the tanks had begun to batter themselves to pieces.  He slowly 
allowed them to gain more ground but as they jerked and tugged their own armor 
plating was beginning to crease.  The smaller wheels were starting to bend and 
the turret of the right-hand tank had completely broken off track and was 
swinging back and forth wildly.  Things pinged and clanged and dented the armor 
from the inside as various guts twisted apart and shattered.  One last time he 
pulled them towards his rigid, unmovable body, a human boy breaking these two 
massive war machines.  He then held them not until five but until black smoke 
poured out of the engine casings.  The left tank caught on fire and the right 
one heaved two feet off the ground in its final death throes.  The count went 
on, over two minutes, then three as the treads shredded off their tracks, wheels 
bent in half and rivets blew out.   The front of the right tank suffered 
something huge trying to punch its way out through the metal and ripping plates 
loose from the body.  I think it was the drive train.  When the tanks were dead 
he gripped the links in his hands and squeezed.  The battle-hardened iron took 
the pressure until it could take no more: then it cracked into chunks.

He dropped the chain and flexed.  "That was a nice warm-up.  Don't you guys have 
any serious training equipment around here?"  I looked at the flaming, smoking 
wreckage, demolished not by all the wars they had fought but by sheer kid 
muscle, and shook my head.

California was still in trouble.  The aftershocks of Tetsuo punching it out 
continued to occupy all the guys' time.  They possessed the sensitivity of 
animals to these things and could prepare for the shocks and then all together 
counter-punch the earth to neutralize the shock waves, but not only was that a 
bother, who knew what it was doing to the bedrock?  For all they knew, they 
could be building a new and more dangerous fault than any currently existing.  
And the last thing we needed was another volcano, especially after all those 
rotten movies.  

They got hold of some equipment from the US Geological Survey so Danny could 
examine the substrata.  What he found was very disturbing indeed.

His fourteenth birthday was coming up.  Tetsuo was now officially ten, and they 
were spending a lot of time together, alone in the desert, while Cole and Salas 
worked on some top secret project.  I knew Danny was trying to influence him, 
give him the moral training no one else had dared.  Which was so ironic when you 
think about it. But I think Tetsuo was trying to bring out the bad boy in Danny, 
which was only restlessly asleep as it was.  It was a new role for Danny, and I 
had no idea if he was being successful.  Tetsuo was well behaved, but then I'd 
seen that before plenty of times too.  His eyes were mischievous, almost elfin.

"The problem," said Danny, "is at the San Andreas fault itself.  The two plates 
normally grind against each other but thanks to Tetsuo," he said sarcastically, 
"part of the continental plate shattered and an enormous spur is jutting farther 
backward into the Pacific plate with each aftershock.  The pressure is building 
up tremendously because it won't let the Pacific plate by.  It's only a matter 
of time before the Pacific plate draws enough power from deep inside the earth 
to shatter past the spur, and until then the spur just keeps getting bigger and 
bigger.  But the longer it takes to happen, the more devastating it finally be.  
The Pacific plate, which has San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco on it, 
could erupt north by as much as a quarter mile or more in a couple of minutes.  
It'll be the end of those cities, period.   We're talking double-digit Richter 
action.  And not just a ten or eleven.  Every nuclear power plant in the state 
will blow.  Guaranteed."

Tetsuo looked down at the ground but he feigned shame.  One eye expressed real 
awe and the other eye seemed to say "Did you expect anything less from me?"

I couldn't help myself.  "Thanks Tet, for breaking the continent.  Jesus."

"Now, now," said Cole.  "I'm sure he feels bad enough."  Yeah, right.  Tet shot 
me a look that made me very glad I had "protection." 

"We need to devise a plan," said Salas.  "What are the chances of breaking up 
the obstruction?" 

Danny shook his head.  "Not good enough.  There's too much stored kinetic energy 
there already.  Just releasing it will still be deadly."  

"You think we need to channel that kinetic energy someplace.  Into something 
that can absorb it."

"What would that be?"  I asked.  

Salas looked at me.  "Us," he said.  I gulped.

* * *

We rode out to the place where the San Andreas fault was stuck.  They hadn't 
wanted me to come along, but if they fail, there's no place I would be safe 
anyway.  Even without Danny's shocking intelligence you could tell the place was 
seriously fucked up.  There wasn't a bird or any wildlife in sight and cracks 
and disturbing, newly jutting rock formations covered the area.  Previously 
smooth desert was rippled and furrowed and broken.  The hummer bounced insanely 
over ruts and sinkholes you could barely see.  Suddenly we broke through the 
soil and plunged headfirst into a hole about five feet deep.  The doors were 
jammed and the only way out was going to be through the roof.  "Cool!" shouted 
Tetsuo and before anyone could stop him, he crouched down, ducked his head and 
shot upward.  The thick aluminum roof dented, broke open and curled back and 
away from his body as he flew into the air.  Of course, Salas had wanted to 
remove the roof in a way that it could be easily reattached.  Too late now.  

We all climbed out through the hole Tetsuo's harder-than-metal flesh had made 
and then Danny single-handedly pulled the humvee up out of the hole.  The 
radiator was shot but we were close to where we needed to be anyway.  Tetsuo 
wandered away and crouched down near the main line of the fault.  "Don't worry, 
little planet," he said.  "There aren't many things in the universe that can 
take what I can dish out."  My stomach crawled and I was the only one who heard 
this little conversation.  He continued.  "I'm proud and frankly a little 
surprised at how you did hold up, though these continuing convulsions testify to 
the muscle force this one arm shot into you.  'Course I was only using about a 
quarter of my strength.  These clowns don't know it.  They think I wailed on 
you.  But that was just a taste of what I'm capable of.  You don't wanna know 
what this muscle can do to you.  But if you don't do exactly what my muscles 
tell you to do, if you try to move some way that I have not given permission for 
on your own, you might find out the forces I can generate.  And I promise you 
won't believe it."

I hid: I had to hear this monologue/confession out.  "I told them I'd defeated 
masters in every martial art.  What I didn't explain is I did it in one ring, 
all at the same time.  I was only five years old at the time and I took them all 
on at once.  Not only did I defeat fifteen champions in under five minutes, I 
downed each one with their own best move.  It wasn't just a humiliation.  I 
laughed in their faces.  I wasn't even out of breath.

"If I wanted to run, they couldn't catch me.  If I wanted to just jump, I could 
jump farther, faster and higher than any of them.  I've broken the sound 
barrier, JUMPING.  I told them I swam here from Japan.  I swam here in eight 
hours, and that was with drowning the whale, eating a school of sharks and 
tearing to pieces a giant squid tentacle by tentacle at a depth of 2000 feet.  
The water tried to crush me but I can dive deeper than any submarine, and swim 
faster than any creature or boat ever built.  And I can rip you, dear earth, 
open with my hands.  And there's nothing these would-be musclemen can do about 
it."

He walked back to join the others and as he passed the rock where I was hiding 
he said over his shoulder "You can come out now asshole."  I stood up and he 
walked back to me and looked up into my eyes.  I thought he was little crazy.  
And he knew what I was thinking.

"I'm not crazy.  Anyone had my strength would itch to use it.   I've let loose 
when I was small, but not now I've grown.  And I haven't even hit puberty yet, 
that's a couple years away.  I know I'm some sort of genetic freak.  But you 
better stay on my good side."

He kept looking me in the eye and wouldn't let me look away.  Finally he smiled 
and left me.  

Should I tell the others?  I broke out in a cold sweat all over.  They couldn't 
protect me from him.  I don't think living on the moon could.

The plan was that the two men and two boys would get down into the fault and 
then, with sheer muscle power, both induce an earthquake and absorb it into 
their muscles.  They were going to try to break the obstruction and guide the 
Pacific plate past slowly, control it the way Tetsuo effortless controlled those 
tanks.  They were facing enormous forces and I doubt the three of them, my guys, 
could do it without Tetsuo's help.  Whether Tet needed their help was perhaps 
another question.

The fault isn't exactly like two cliffs that you can squeeze between.  They were 
going to have to excavate their way down into the rock.  And the government, 
which has been keeping a wary eye on all of this lately, though not knowing the 
source of the devastating earthquakes, wanted a record so a lighted camera and 
mike was attached to Cole's head; I could watch their progress on the monitor.  
They found the spot where Danny's readings told them the center of the 
obstruction was, and began digging in.  Waves of sand flew up until they could 
batter their fists into the harder rock.  The rock couldn't support the 
jackhammer fists fueled by the strongest triceps and lats the world had ever 
seen.   The surface stone broke away as they furrowed into the narrow crack 
where the two plates rubbed against each other.  Then fists pulverized the rock 
on either side to create a kind of cavern, but not so as to fracture the 
surround rock, letting the residue slide into the fault.  They had to get deep 
enough to be able to control the plates rather than break huge chunks of rock 
loose before they could give the earth a lesson in the difference between mere 
tectonic forces and man-muscle forces.

They wedged their bodies tightly into the fault, letting the rock crumble away 
around them as the flexed pecs and shoulders and quads into position.  I could 
just make out the place where rock that ran in a different direction from the 
surrounding strata thrust into the opposing plate.  Their feet crouched against 
it.  Their triceps pressed against the Continental plate and their fingers 
clawed out deep holes into the Pacific plate rock.  Salas began the countdown.

I could feel the tremors begin through my feet, as if the earth knew they were 
there and didn't like it.  Maybe Tetsuo had pissed it off with all his bragging 
and threats.  All I knew was that I was more terrified than I ever had been, and 
there wasn't a sound in the air.  And then there was, a deep murmuring rumble.

I looked at the screen.  Cole was at the end of the line up, Tetsuo next to him, 
then Danny, then Salas.  It must have been over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit 
down there.   I could hear gravel tinkle in among the rocks.  Eight massive arms 
and eight titanic legs were pressing two plates of the earth's surface apart.  
The obstruction stood firm, but for how long could it resist?  It was only solid 
rock against their muscle.  Oily sweat slid down like grease.  Then the deep 
thunder grew and BLAM! An explosion like a nuclear bomb hit and I prepared to 
get knocked on my ass.

Only I wasn't.  The noise roared like a freight train running right over me but 
the ground wasn't moving!  It trembled and shivered like a frightened animal but 
there was no real quake.  They were holding it back!  But my stomach twisted 
knowing the earth had only begun to test them.

On the camera it looked like they were slowly being squeezed flat: their muscles 
dug deeper into the rock but it slammed against their skulls and rocked their 
bones.  Blood streamed down they're faces and the solid rock almost seemed to 
flow around them.  Their arms bulged with muscles forcing other muscles out of 
the way.  Their bodies took the pressure and flexed it right back out.  Cole 
looked down.  I could see their legs working despite the insane pressure, trying 
to crack the huge shelf of protruding rock that the Pacific plate was slamming 
itself against:  and still I could feel only a swaying though my legs.  The 
thunder rolled on and then a series of explosions punched through BOOM BOOM BOOM 
BOOM and I did fall on my ass as the ground bucked beneath me.  

Yeah, it bucked.  It was trying to escape but two strong men and two stronger 
boys wouldn't let it.  The ground stopped rocking and trembled again until the 
thunder deepened to the roar from the throat of the gods.   I could see the 
cruel look on Tetsuo's face, the sneer loosing way to some form of punitive 
hatred.  I could see him thinking "I told you not to challenge me.  Well, then, 
prepare yourself for a TETQUAKE."  

Tetsuo's mouth opened into a bellow and falling dirt blew away from the sonic 
waves. I think I heard it above the thunder of the straining quake.  His arms 
jerked:  and up above, pebbles on the far side of the fault ONLY jumped.  
Glaring at his opponent and snarling, I thought I heard him yell "C'MON, IS THAT 
THE BEST YOU GOT?"  His arms jerked AGAIN and I saw the ground move OVER THERE 
while my side remained still.  He jerked it to the left, then to the right.  The 
ground above moved but the force didn't ripple outward.  Danny's mouth opened in 
awe.  He pulled his hands away, and so did Cole and Salas: they regrouped into 
pressing backwards, deciding to spend all their strength holding the Continental 
plate in place.

But Tetsuo wasn't done.  Even while the others held half the earth back, he 
curled his lip and SHOVED.  His triceps bloomed into dense inches-deep 
horseshoes and the edge of the plate moved away from him.  His pecs quivered 
into iron rigidity:  then he pulled.  The entire fucking plate suffered the 
wrath of those biceps and dragged back toward him, the rock groaning and 
cracking as its own forces battled Tet's arms.  BAM the earth tried to rock past 
him and BAM Tetsuo slammed back the other direction.  BAM the earth tried to 
shake free and BAM Tetsuo wrenched it back into place.  The roar became a scream 
as the two plates could no longer contain the pressure that Tetsuo and the 
others refused to let out.  Deep fissures opened in the rocks around them and 
the whole place threatened to break apart.   The two plates couldn't handle the 
punishment Tetsuo was dishing out.  

NO YOU DON'T was Tetsuo's response.  I SAID YOU WOULD PAY TO DEFY ME.  Now you 
will LEARN what power is.

He pulled one arm out of its handhold and thrust it in one blow into the 
Continental rock.  His back muscles ridged and then shook as he drove his fists 
deeper into the bedrock.  With one arm wrangling each plate he screamed and 
pulled the plates together.  Cole, Salas and Danny flattened themselves as just 
buffers now, absorbing the shocks as they rang out of the rocks, trying to hold 
the pieces together while Tetsuo forced the planet to behave.  His thick multi-
headed shoulders heaved and pressed down and the rumbling became unbearable.  
Then a series of hard flexes and his lats flared as he forced the rock to sink 
around him: and I realized he was directing the waves down into the depths of 
the planet!  Every time the plate shook he slung the quaking downward, 
overpowering and redirecting the shockwaves.  The earth bucked again and tried 
to crush him but with a savage roar he crippled that power with his own angry 
kid muscle.  Nothing the earth could throw at him was more than he could master.  
The others were just staying out of his way.  

The thunder finally started to die.  Shocks still trembled but Tetsuo tired of 
the game and flexed his entire body with a scream that silenced the earth.  
Muscles doubled in size and the all the shocks abruptly stopped.  Tetsuo 
remained in control while the cowed earth settled into place.  

Years of rage at being isolated, terrifying to others, feeling like a freak had 
come boiling out of him in a volcanic eruption the likes of which the planet 
Earth couldn't match. 

Tetsuo seemed to collapse and Danny carried him up out of the fault.  The two 
men blasted the way clear of the boulders and small outcroppings that had 
formed.  They emerged caked in bloody mud, exhausted and bewildered as much as 
I.  They knew this tape had to be destroyed.  We had no idea what were going to 
do with Tetsuo when he woke up.

Later observations revealed that the fault was indeed saturated with more 
subsidiary faults than before, but that these were deep, and ran downward.  So 
much pressure had been relieved that "the big one" looked like it would be 
another hundred years away at least.  And nobody else ever felt a thing.  The 
future of the faultline remained clear: the plates would continue to move past 
each other in opposite directions.  Yet whether the earth would dare to quake 
before Tetsuo was well away from it was someplace I didn't want to go.

But his greatest adventure still lay ahead of him. 

* * *

"What's the biggest thing you ever hocked into space?"  Tetsuo was bored and I 
don't think they knew I was around.

"I don't know," said Danny.  They were supposed to be painting the hangar.  
"Rocks, a baseball, I guess.  I was afraid of hitting stuff.  Planes and stuff.  
Why, what'd you do?"

Tetsuo hadn't painted a thing.  "'63 Buick."

"No way!"

Tetsuo smiled that elfin smile again.  "This rich banker was trying to date my 
mom bought once.  He'd dress up like James Dean and honk outside our apartment 
like he was some tough American teenager.  He was 35 with a soft belly.  The 
only thing teenager about him were his zits.  So I followed them out to dinner 
one night, hot wired it and drove it out of the garage.  I was only seven so it 
was hard to do the gas and steer but I managed it, and drove it into the 
country.  First I socked it around a little but already I was too strong, my 
fist punched right through the steel.  So then I pushed it up against a rock and 
pressed into it and listened to it pop and bend, it sounded like a big soda can, 
not at all as screechy as I'd hoped.  So I got bored with that before the doors 
even blew off.  Then I squeezed a tire between my hands until it burst, but it 
was so stinky I didn't do any of the others. That's when I got the idea to 
launch it.  I crawled underneath it and stood up with it on my shoulders, and 
pressed it up over my head once, twice, then POW!"  He extended his arms in 
imitation of hurling a Buick beyond the pull of Earth's gravity.

"Just like that."

"Naw, first time it fell back down.  It didn't bust apart though much, it fell 
onto the beach into some soft sand.  So pulled it out and tried it different.  I 
teetered it up on end," he said, posing like he was doing a shot put, only with 
a ton of Detroit steel, "and used this right arm to sail it straight up.  Betcha 
if any astronauts were flying around up there they woulda wondered how a Buick 
got into space!"

I was bored now and was about to leave when his tone changed.  It got kind of 
quiet, conspiratorial.

"Dan," he said.  "You and me.  There isn't anybody like us.  There may be guys 
like Cole and Salas, but you're like a generation beyond them."

"And you're one beyond me," said Danny.  Tetsuo was right.  I'd seen Danny, a 
thirteen year old kid, between two rocks, and Cole and Salas each had an arm, 
and they tried to arm wrestle him down but he beat them both at the same time.  
It wasn't even a contest.  They're huge biceps couldn't stop his own round, 
peaked rocks from forcing them backwards.  The second time he allowed them to 
use both hands against his one, and to brace themselves: in essence, to use 
their whole body in a bid to simply pull one arm down.  He toyed with them, let 
them think they had a chance, and even though he had to huff and puff a bit, 
their feet scrambled and car-sized quads hardened and bulged, with one arm each 
he overpowered them, groaning and screaming as their bodies were forced to go 
the opposite way.

But Tetsuo is all that and more.  After he woke up from the quake business and 
gobbled down five pounds of steak and about ten gallons of raw milk, they tied a 
rope to the wrist of his left hand, and all three of them grabbed hold of the 
rope.  They weren't trying to pull his arm backwards, though: they were trying 
to pull his arm forward.  All he had to do was keep it upright.  But he showed 
them something else. 

First their feet scrambled but his arm was like some iron post, unyielding.  
They braced their legs and got into a heaving rhythm but the thick rope simply 
spun and stretched.  They couldn't budge him.  Then he started to rotate it 
backwards.  Now normal people don't have a range of motion very far that way.  
But he dragged them forward a couple inches and then straightened his arm out to 
his side: and they still couldn't budge that bar of dark muscle.  He twirled his 
arm in a circle, slowly first and then faster and faster and faster until they 
couldn't keep up with him, it was like the rope took on it's own force and it 
was all they could do to try to control it.  Finally the rope began literally to 
burn in their fists, tendrils of smoke waving in their air.  His face held that 
concentration that revealed the mental component of his extraordinary strength, 
but whatever that secret was he wasn't revealing.  They gave up then and as a 
joke they let go: but he didn't fall.  His reflexes compensated so fast he 
turned the rope into a whip and cracked it back over their heads before they 
realized it and made THEM flinch and fall down.  It seemed there wasn't any way 
around him.  He was superior to all of them, put together.  And now he was using 
his superior magnetism against Danny.

"Think about it.  I know about the marine base.  I know nothing can stop you.  
Think about you and me, together.  What armies could come against us?  We could 
devastate them just by hitting the ground with our fists.  We could pick off 
aircraft miles before it got to us.  We could jump faster than their missiles 
and redirect them, or crush them in our arms.  They couldn't even use nukes 
against us:  we'd see them coming.  Suicide bombers with suitcase bombs?  I'd 
smell the fear.  We are too fast, too strong, too hard.  We can dodge and catch 
rapid-fire bullets, squeeze them into cannonballs and fire them back with our 
mighty arms.  They couldn't track us, they wouldn't know where we'd pop up next, 
we could cripple every government in the world.  We could make everyone bring us 
anything we wanted.  We'd have harems.  Girls would be drooling for us.  Guys 
too ... if that's your thing."  

"It's not, fucker."

"I'm just saying," said Tetsuo, slyly.  "We could bring the world to its knees.  
And why shouldn't we?"  Tetsuo pretended to be getting a blow-job from the 
planet, but since he was only ten he really didn't have a clear idea of what was 
involved and despite the gravity I almost laughed.

Danny was quiet.  Tetsuo let him be quiet.  The tension was maddening.  Tetsuo 
started cracking his knuckles and flexing his arms, the only arms on earth that 
had ever defeated Danny.  He made a muscle, and pointed at it.  Finally, Danny 
said kind of weakly, "It's not right."

"We make what's right.  What's right is this."  He squeeze his hand and a hard 
second head rose on biceps like a thunderhead above a mountain, hard, huge on 
his small frame, forcing veins out through the dark papery skin.  Tetsuo got 
close, let Danny feel the heat radiating out of his biceps.  He held the 
hardened muscle before Danny's face with an approving sneer, as if he'd already 
won.  Tet slowly stretched it out, then made it peak even higher than before, so 
hard you couldn't drive a nail into it with a gun.  We'd tried.  Danny seemed 
hypnotized and I knew the wild part of him, the part that enjoyed crippling 
infrastructure and watching grown men realize they were helpless against him, 
that boy was entranced.  The civilized character Cole and Salas had built in 
Danny was fractured a little deeper with every muscle flex of that glorious arm.  
Tet's face was suffused with the contempt of the stronger dominating the weaker, 
you could see him drink in Danny's crumbling will, and fixing his eyes on 
Danny's face, flared his deep, fibrous, vein-laced pecs and watched Danny's eyes 
widen at the sight of them.  So deep, so thick, they spread like tectonic plates 
inches off either side of his ribcage, small nipples almost black and years from 
hair.  He bounced the pecs mesmerically, seducing the older boy into the dream 
of unstoppable power that was an all too real a possibility.  And Danny, 
entranced by the dancing thickness, never saw the smiling, nodding coldness of 
Tetsuo's eyes.  His own held a small tear.

He whispered to Danny.  "Right is what we decide.  You and me.  Enough of these 
schoolteacher know-it-all cops and that sad boy who still thinks he's your 
babysitter.  It's time to show who's really in charge.  And anyone doesn't like 
it can answer to these."  He spread his lats and peaked both biceps and Danny 
gulped before the power that consistently beat him again and again, he who had 
known no equal before. Danny couldn't break his eyes away from that awesome, 
younger, limitlessly potent body.  "I've already bested them both once.  It 
won't be hard to do it again.  But we've got to break them this time.  If they 
fight us, it'll just waste a lot of time.  We need to own them, once and for 
all.  Make those big so-called men our muscle bitches.  Make them beg for this 
muscle.  Then they can do a lot of the dirty work.  C'mon, Danny, let's do it."  
And he brought his hard brown muscle close to Danny's lips.  "You know I'm 
right."

Danny whispered with a kind of gulp, "What if ... what if some other kid comes 
along, who's stronger than you?  You came along and were stronger than me.  What 
if he comes along and takes it all away from us and makes us his slaves?"  
Tetsuo frowned.  "You doubting me, bra?"  He knelt down on the ground.  "You 
maybe need a little refresher demo in what real kid muscle is?  Not that spongy 
stuff you have.  I bet if I just flick my fuckfinger against the ground I could 
make this whole hangar collapse.  Maybe you're a scaredy-cat about helping me 
take what is mine, but I can take it with or without you.  Make you my muscle 
bitch along with those cops.  You can't even slow me down.  I'll crap the whip 
over your head every time you try.  I was being generous in cutting you in.  Now 
I'm starting to think I was wrong about you.  Was I?"  He made as if to punch 
the ground and Danny flinch; me too.  

"Listen, punk," said Tetsuo, the boy who got too strong too fast.  He stood up 
and stuck out his chest.  "I'm gonna fuck the world.  Do I need to fuck you to 
get you out of the way?"

He was walking, now, and Danny braced himself.  He wasn't going to fall back.  
Tet looked up into his face and Danny narrowed his eyes.  Tet took a step into 
Danny.  Danny didn't budge; they were chest to chest.  He tried to take another 
step but Danny leaned forward.  Their calves split and Tetsuo glared.  He went 
up on one leg and pressed harder into Danny, flexing his stronger calf.  He went 
up on his toes and with one leg forced Danny to take a step back.  Danny tried 
to brace himself in that position but Tetsuo didn't even touch his other foot to 
the ground yet: he just kept leaning harder into him, his lower back muscles 
rippling in that Christmas-tree pattern.  Danny's braced knees trembled, then 
buckled, as much from the foreknowledge that they would as from the sheer 
pressure exerted by that piston leg.  Tet kept his arms behind him and just 
forced Danny back using only his pecs.  Danny grabbed him lightning-fast and 
threw him over his shoulder but Tet was even fasted, corrected in mid-air and 
flipped Danny around and under him to break his fall.  It knocked the wind out 
of Danny's lungs and Tetsuo's legs clamped beside his ribs to prevent him from 
drawing a breath.  Danny tried to buck but Tetsuo was rooted over him like a 
tree.

"Seems we've been here before, bra."

With a roar Cole ran at Tetsuo with a huge iron pipe crumpled in his grip.  The 
pipe hit him square in the shoulder and bent like an accordion as Cole kept 
ramming it into his iron body.  Too quick to be seen Tet then grabbed the bar 
and swung it around, Cole still gripping onto it and rutting the earth with his 
feet.  Danny took the distraction to squeeze out from under Tet and jump to his 
feet, only to find Tet slam the pipe into HIM.  The pipe bent around Danny's 
body with a horrible squeal but Cole went sailing into-and through-the plating 
on the far wall of the hangar.  Danny was spinning but Tet was too fast, grabbed 
the end of the bar and rapped it around Danny once, then twice, the metal 
folding and breaking open under the fast pressure.  Danny's nostrils flared and 
he shot his arms out, shattering the iron which ricocheted off Tetsuo's 
glistening pecs and abs.  He charged Tetsuo but Tet again was too fast, caught 
Danny's head between against his side with one arm and with the other began 
crushing it.  Danny screamed and flailed at the impregnable muscle, scratching 
the skin only while Tetsuo said "Sorry, can't hear you."  I could hear bone 
crack before he let Danny go, dizzy and aching.  Then Tetsuo rammed him in the 
abs with his head and slammed him into the far wall.  Grabbing two support I-
beams in his hands, he began pressing Danny into the three-inch-thick steel 
plate.  

The younger boy squeezed - and Danny saw stars.  They were chest to chest and 
Tet's striated legs combined with his pulling arms to generate more pressure 
than the two tectonic plates.  The muscles of his back rippled and struggled 
against each other, his delts rose up like crowns.  He looked up into Danny's 
face and whispered "Could have been my royal bitch, Danny-boy.  Now it looks 
like you'll just be the cream filling."

He contracted his body so hard and so fast Danny felt things crack inside him.  
His blood boiled from the pressure.  His arms were pinned and his fingers 
couldn't make a dent in any of Tetsuo's abs.  He tried pressing into Tet's abs 
but they simply shrugged off his power.  "How was that, muscle boy?  Like that?  
That was just a warm-up.   Thought you were tough shit.  I'll show you power."  
With that he pressed harder: and the entire hangar groaned and seemed to twist 
on its foundations.  I saw the entire steel wall bending outward behind Danny, 
the I-beams in Tet's hands malforming into lumps, fingers massaging cold steel 
like dough.  Tet jammed his body into Danny's and rivets fired out of the wall 
into the desert.  Danny's teeth were stained red and he wrapped his legs around 
Tet's in a vain attempt to in any way weaken the boy: but his onslaught kept 
coming, crushing Danny against three inches of creasing steel.

The wall bend outwards enough that the space actually increased between the two 
boys and Danny brought his hands against Tet's pecs and shoved.  Tet didn't move 
but the entire wall behind him collapsed, shredding loose from the adjoining 
plates that in turn ripped off the I-beams.  As Tetsuo saw what was happening he 
jerked his body tight and sent Danny sailing across the yard.  

Tetsuo grabbed a thick standpipe sticking out of the ground and yanked.   Dirt 
exploded into the air as the pipe pulled loose along its track, and with a 
savage jerk Tetsuo exploded a five-hundred-gallon water tank out of the ground.  
Dirt and rock shot in all directions and the mostly-full tank came sailing 
toward him:  And he caught it with only a few steps back.  The staggering 
tonnage sloshed in his hands and he yelled out, as Danny got to his feet and 
shook his head, "Time for a bath!"

He hurled the tank with such force it burst open when it hit Danny's body, 
hundreds of gallons of water and ripped steel  flowing past him and dragging him 
again to the muddy earth.  Tetsuo laughed even when Cole and Salas sped toward 
him, and kept laughing as he easily fended them off with a rain of kicks and 
blows that immediately put them on the defensive.  They got their only break 
when Danny called mockingly, slinging slime from his eyes, "That the best you 
got, dweezle?"  

Tetsuo paused in delighted amazement: and Salas scooped him up and hurled him 
into the sky.  In fury Tetsuo roared as Salas' immense arm propelled him higher 
and higher.  When it occurred to him to catch his breath, it was too thin:  the 
effort to compact air into his lungs made him pass out, and he fell to the earth 
like a dinosaur-killing meteorite.

Salas, Cole and Danny formed a chain:  Salas caught the boy and the impact 
blasted a crater four feet deep under Salas' feet.  He swung the boy back up to 
redirect the momentum, and he sailed to Cole, who caught and swung him to Danny, 
who caught him and ran for a bit, a wide loop that brought them back to the 
camp.  "Guess we'd better go to Stage 2," said Cole, shaking his head.  They 
hadn't been wanting to do this, but it seemed the only way.

* * *

When Tetsuo awoke, he was lying on the sort of table his Dr. Evil fantasies 
might have invented for someone else.  It was a high steel platform, on which 
Tetsuo lay with his limbs spread.  For shackles he had simple bands of magnetic 
energy fueled by one of the volcanic vents that he had recently opened up.  They 
completely bound his body at one-inch intervals with an (unfortunately almost) 
unlimited power supply.  They estimated the expenditures he'd made in the 
tectonic-plate taming, quadrupled that output and made the minimal circuitry 
able to withstand that.  The room was buried deep inside solid rock, with walls 
five feet thick of solid poured carbon steel.  It's why Cole and Salas had spent 
so much time away lately.  There was one hatchway in and out, through which 
deliveries would be made and which could be cut off, God help us, by diverting 
the vent to release lava in a path across it.

We knew at least half of his strength lay in his mental powers.  He was able to 
concentrate and focus in ways these guys hadn't begun to master.  His reflexes, 
his instincts, his senses.  We had tried to teach him the better way of abiding 
with civilization and living if not for some common good, then at least to not 
injure others.  But then, he never seemed like he cared to learn much from us.

He'd been awake longer than we knew: he could regulate his breathing and 
heartrate as well.  So he knew all the specifications while we were still 
setting him up.  He must have felt he could defeat anything we tried, to let us 
put him on the table.  I marveled again at the power inherent in a body so 
relaxed yet still so thick.  We were starting to leave when he told us it would 
all be rubble within minutes.

Since no devices could adequately match the speed of his impulses, it was 
designed to simply go to sub-maximal strength at any movement from him 
whatsoever, a quickened heartbeat, an eyelash flutter.  Salas was already going 
up the ladder when the equipment burred into high gear and Tetsuo said "You saw 
me subdue the earth during one her temper-tantrums.  You think burying me in 
here will have any effect on me?"

Salas said "This rock was carefully excavated.  There are no cracks in this rock 
for a mile in each direction.  Even you can't get out of here."

"Heard that before."  I gulped.  Tetsuo's eyes widened with an expression of 
"hey look, what's this?"  His muscles grew.  The bands of magnetic power pressed 
tight against him, designed to inhibit the full flexion of any muscle group.  
Yet his muscles did get bigger.  And bigger.  Cole, trying to repress a feeling 
of disquiet, looked in the scanner.  We were able to see the bands of power 
whipping around his limbs and torso: and we could see the muscle already 
distorting the magnetic pathway.  He couldn't move, but the forces were having 
to go around his bulging muscles.  That would weaken them.  "Crank it all the 
way and let's get out of here."

"Don't leave so soon," said Tetsuo, bathed in a sweat that danced on his body 
beneath the power.  Yet he barely seemed to be breathing hard.  "You can't leave 
before I break your toy.  It would be rude."  With that his eyes rolled back 
into his head and he seemed to chant something low.  We tried to interrupt him 
but his concentration  ... my god ... except for a flicking smile that let us 
know he knew we were trying ... and doomed to fail, as always, against him.  The 
machinery was at full force, driving him back with four times the power he had 
released in the San Andreas fault, an exertion that caused him to collapse for 
thirty-six hours.   But then ... Danny had gotten immensely stronger after such 
exertions, I remembered.  At first we hoped the undulations of his body were 
visual distortions, but then we realized:  he was microflexing every muscle 
fiber in quick sequence, firing each one faster and faster in an oblique chain 
from his left hand to his right foot: the opposite direction from the current.  

"He's creating a competing electro-magnetic current with his own body," said 
Danny.  It was true: he was actually levitating up from the table.  "Have we got 
any more juice in that thing?"  

Salas glared, sweat running into his eyes.  "We've got a fucking volcano fueling 
it!"  Panic edged into his voice and Tetsuo laughed.  "Finally you begin to get 
the hint.  I will be your god!"  Tetsuo's body lowered to the table.  "That was 
just to show you one option: that I can do whatever I choose to do.  But just to 
let you realize I don't need to result to fakir technique to sabotage your 
science project, I'll break it the way I break everything: with sheer kid 
muscle."

With that he closed his eyes and flexed harder, drawing his fists inward, 
stretching the electromagnetic fields beyond their paths, contorting them as he 
twisted his body beneath them.  The machinery screeched.  His biceps bloated 
into thick bowling-balls between his cone-shaped forearms and ripped delts.  The 
magnetic lines began to snap.  "Four times was all you could come up with?  I'll 
give you EIGHT TIMES!"  He performed a slow sit up, contracting brick abs that 
shattered the magnetic force and warped the table beneath him.  The steel 
platform squealed as it twisted against his strength and the electromagnetism.  
Something began to smoke and the vents kicked on.  He kept rising up like a 
limbo dancer in reverse and KICKED his feet free and the machine tried to 
reestablish itself but he'd totally contorted all the machinery.  He stamped on 
the table and crushed it beneath his foot, down, down, down, down ... an 
explosion knocked us all against the walls: all except him.

We coughed as the air cleared and Cole says "You've doomed us all.  The defenses 
kicked in and now four feet of lava are pouring past the only way out."

"You guys look stunned from the explosion.  Let me get us out of this mess."  
Listening, he could hear the lava pathway.  "Well, I guess we should start by 
going down."  He raised his fist and pounded it against the floor.  Five feet of 
carbon steel: and the surface dimpled.  He hit it again twice, fast, depressing 
solid steel.  But that was taking too long for him.  "Let's do a little Bruce 
Lee on it. Hi-YA!"  Leaping in the air, he came down on just his knuckles and 
the whole tank rang.  

A crack opened in the steel a few inches deep.  "Watch and learn, gramps."  He 
gripped the edges and began to pull it open.  The rivening steel rang and 
screamed under the torture of Tetsuo's arms but he just kept forcing the solid 
steel to flatten back against the rock.   He was condensing it! 

Tetsuo dropped into the crack, which was just wide enough for his torso.  He 
flexed his shoulders and the crack deepened and the steel floor rippled.  He 
move his arms in and began forcing the solid steel back into itself, humping and 
distorting the entire chamber as he caused solid metal to flow away from his 
muscle force.   Cole stood aghast:  "I've never seen such power!"  Tetsuo 
grinned to himself and kept battering the solid steel, shattering its very 
structure.  With his legs he began stamping into the rock.  Cole looked down at 
him.

"It's solid rock.  Your only air source is here.  What are you gonna do?"

Tetsuo smiled again, infuriatingly.  "What I always do.  Get out.  I can hold my 
breath and make miracles.  You babies just stay in here.  I'll get you out 
later."  With that, he made a fist, and kissed it.  Then kissed his biceps.  
"Stand back, ladies!"  He piled into the rock.  His fist sent deep fissures 
ripping through the rock.  His power reduced the gigantic rock to humiliated 
shards that flew liked stinging shards into the tank.  

As Tetsuo pulverized, cracked and dug his way though the rock, the tunnel behind 
him filled with boulders and rubble.  When he'd gone a good distance away, Danny 
said "I'm not waiting for whatever that brat has planned for us."  With that he 
hit the steel wall with all the pent-up fury and steel dented deeply.  He hit it 
again, forcing the hole deeper, and then thrust his arms into it and started to 
scream.  At first just the loose gravel picked up the tremors but finally Danny 
overcame the resistance and five feet of steel cracked open.  He began digging 
it out in huge chunks.   Enraged, he reached through and began peeling the steel 
away from the bedrock.  We didn't think he had it in him, but the rippling 
groaning steel begged to differ.  With both arms he grabbed one side and YANKED 
and the steel rose obedient to his muscle.  He YANKED again and carbon steel 
sobbed at his strength.  As he peeled it back, Cole and Salas ripped the other 
side loose and the two of them forced it out of place.  

All three began pummeling the bedrock, reducing granite to fine sand.  Harder 
and deeper they burrow obliquely upwards to miss the lava bed.  Cole and Salas 
told him to wait a minute, and all three together braced themselves and I 
crouched between them.  Then they pressed against the rock, backs and feet 
trying to straightened, trying and succeeding as hundreds of feet of granite 
couldn't contain the expansion and cracked like lightening throughout its 
length.  They shoved it with their log-sized arms into the weaker surrounding 
strata until the topsoil caved in around us and we saw daylight.  Laughing, I 
climbed up behind them and breathed fresh air. 

We stood above the ruins of the Great Fucking Idea, when suddenly we noticed how 
quiet it was.  "Where's Tetsuo?"

Danny listened and heard: Amtrak.  It was running a new Bullet-train from 
Sacramento to San Diego that reached a top speed of 170 miles per hour, straight 
through this part of the desert.  "Betcha he heard the train through the rock 
and is heading there."  I climbed on Cole's massive back and holding on to his 
traps we raced time itself.

Tetsuo had taken the long way out but had emerged not far from the train tracks.  
From the crater and rubble it looks like he leapt straight through last 
thickness of granite, exploding it.  Danny saw him a couple miles ahead just as 
he was gaining on the tail end of the speeding train.

It was a twelve car passenger liner that towered over him, but he was slowly 
catching up on it.  I don't think he was even trying hard, he wanted to make 
sure he was seen, that they could see this muscle boy running faster than the 
speeding train, kicking up his own towering trail of dirt.  I didn't know if 
they guys, with their extra weight, could run that fast, though they overtook a 
pick-up truck that was trying to catch the spectacle.  Danny was getting closest 
but he was starting to get winded when Tetsuo pulled away from him with a final 
sprint.  Then they hit a slight down grade that actually increased the train's 
speed to nearly 180 mph.  I could hear Tetsuo laughing as he outraced it and 
grabbed the underside of the back car and dug his feet into the gravel ,which 
rained up like buckshot amid the splintering stays: and then he tugged 
backwards.  You could see the effect on the whole length of the train as each 
car jerked backwards slightly: the people in the windows jarred and looked 
around nervously.  

The track behind the train began to splay outward, its anchoring shattered by 
Tetsuo's feet: and he tugged again, contracting his killer biceps harder this 
time, peaking them on his half-extended arms and kept them contracted.  Some of 
the wheels slid backwards a bit, sparks flew, but still the train sped forward. 
He tightened his grip, increased the drag, increased the strain on the huge 
engine.   The engine wondering why suddenly the train seemed to have doubled in 
length.  The speed began to drop; it was down to 160.  Aren't we going downhill?  
When did we pick up a dozen more cars?  They opened the throttle with open-jawed 
amazement as the extra power seemed merely to REDUCE the speed to 155.  
Something must be caught under the train, but what?  The engineers began to 
worry and check and comfort concerned passengers.  150 miles per hour, and they 
were going full bore on a downgrade?  Tetsuo arched his and increased the drag.

The enormous engine began to labor, as if climbing with heavy freight.  
SERIOUSLY heavy freight.  Someone noticed the rail twisting in ribbons behind 
the train as Tetsuo muscled the train down to 145 mph.  Danny couldn't get 
through the rain of gravel and shattered wood.  Cole and Salas tried to wrangle 
the flying rails flat.  Still Tetsuo pulled backward, contracting his arms 
further, flaring his lats against the pull of the engine.  Pressure gauges 
inched upwards and soon the gigantic motor would start to overheat.  

Just when they were ready to shut the train down someone reported it was some 
sort of creature, it looked like a boy, actually trying to outmuscle the train!  
Panic spread like wildfire and they poured on all the power they had to try to 
escape.  Tetsuo heard the panic and met that power with Tetsuo power.  His arms 
thickened, his back widened, and the engineers heard the engine howl in protest 
and helplessly watched the speedometer plunge to 130 mph.  All their efforts and 
they were going slower!

Then Tetsuo, knowing they knew he was in control of the Amtrak Bullet, changed 
the game.

First he tugged backward, again and again, shaking the cars against each other 
with such force even the engine felt it and whined.  The speed dropped to 115 
and they were running out of downgrade.  Wheels slipped and skipped on the rails 
and sparks flew into the sagebrush.  Then, hideously twisting his arms, he 
pulled one whole side of the immense rear car off the track and jerked it so 
hard the link snapped.  People screamed as tossed it backwards and leapt out of 
the way: and the car skidded off down the siding just in time for Danny to catch 
it in the middle.  It bent around him, popping open and people screamed.  Danny 
slowed it down, skidding backwards to absorb Tetsuo's enormous thrust and still 
keep it upright.  And that was just ground lost.

Then train was picking up speed again as Tetsuo raced after the next car.  
People stampeded to get out as he jumped up and hammered it with his fist.  It 
teetered up off the track and again lost control, this time tearing off the next 
car with it.  I tumbled off Cole's back and Danny caught me in his jarring arms 
as Cole and Salas manhandled those two cars to a grinding halt.  Lighter now, 
the train was frantic trying to outpace whatever monster was on its tail, but 
Tetsuo was by no means finished.  He ran faster than the train itself, way up 
front of it, and danced around it so they could all see their attacker was to 
all appearances a bizarrely muscular ten year old boy. 

Running back around to the middle of the train while people gaped in the windows 
and marveled in terror at his speed, his rippling thighs, the deadly beauty of 
his arms, he grandstanded and kicked the heavy steel guidebar that protected the 
wheels.  Reaching down while he ran, he yanked it off:  and then grabbed the one 
of the wheels.  The wheel stopped and deformed in his grip and the axle twisted 
right off it.  The train lurched downward but he raised his arms and ran along 
with it, showing the train it didn't need the wheel so long as it had him.  When 
he let go it sagged but didn't fall, and he saw he need to do some more work.  
We'd almost caught up with him again when he kicked another wheel inward, 
collapsing it, and the weight of the car sagged further against the link.  He 
then jumped up on the link and while they watched, pulled it apart in his bare 
hands.  Then he kicked those last five cars and they sailed backward, uphill, 
picking up speed in excess of what the engine could provide.  Cole and Salas ran 
back to catch the cars before they hit the ruined rails while Danny continued to 
run, his chest heaving with the effort Tetsuo barely registered.  In fact, 
Tetsuo seemed to be only getting stronger.  He jumped up on top of the new last 
passenger car, which wagged with his shattered wheels, and began punching holes 
through the top, peeling away the body, drinking in the screams of the 
passengers.  He ran across the tops, denting them: until he disappeared.  Danny 
came to collect me: they didn't want me where he could get revenge, and we took 
off again.  

The lightened train was running wild through the desert, burning up its fuel at 
speeds in excess of 200 mph.  The engineers were not going to listen to us to 
slow down.  Cole and Salas trying to escort it when suddenly they engine put on 
a desperate burst of speed and even Cole & Salas couldn't keep up.  Danny tried: 
but then we saw, up ahead, what we all feared: Tetsuo standing on the tracks, 
gnarled arms crossed before his gladiator's pecs, just waiting to go head to 
head with this angry iron horse.  And the train was still speeding up.

It's hard to say who hit whom.  The thunderclap of speeding megatons of metal 
impacting Tetsuo's ramrod body filled the desert.  The engineers had released 
the passenger cars and the impact drove them backwards on the track, tottering 
out of control until Cole and Salas could wrangle them to a stop.  But the 
engine was still moving forward.  Its front end was battered inward, the light 
cracked, and it had slowed enough that Danny could race ahead and see Tetsuo 
facing it, arms extended, feet stretched out against the rails, sliding 
backwards and slightly flattening the steel but not enough to derail the engine 
so he could continue to punish the metal beast with liquid muscle.  The 
engineers just kept poring on the fuel despite the pressure and temperature 
gauges going red, despite watching the speedometer drop.  180.  178.  176.  The 
engine rattled and steamed.  Tetsuo bowed his head between his shoulders and 
fought the engine that couldn't possible surpass him.  

The men struggled with the controls in terror for their lives but they couldn't 
get any speed, and now Tetsuo was shoving into the train, shoving his bristling 
muscles against the maddened machine until the wheels began to loose their grip 
on the rail and spin, shooting sparks.  Just like in the Superman cartoon.   
They'd catch and lurch forward and Tetsuo would press them back and they'd spin 
again.  Then to prove once and for all who was master, he tensed his body and 
stopped the train.  

The engineers flew forward at the sudden deceleration: 100.  80.  60.  30.  5.  
The engine screamed higher and higher, the spinning wheels began to eat the 
track that pressed flat, depressed into the ground by Tetsuo's feet.   In a 
distance of 50 feet he brought the speeding locomotive to a shuddering halt and 
held it in place, all the while it roared and screeched in humiliation.  Tetsuo 
began punching it.  He held it back with one arm and with the other he pounded 
the metal, which had no choice but to crunch beneath his power.  Steel 
shattering off as his one arm struggled with the engine, the other seeking its 
heart.  The motor began to sputter as Tetsuo's fists crippled its systems, 
shorting out the circuitry, spewing burning oil.  The engine began to chug in 
the boy's death-grip as now he used both fists, allowing it to roll towards him 
while he pounded it backwards, battering it farther back against every 
mechanical drive.  Finally the massive machine had it, it couldn't handle him 
anymore, and it rattled and smoked and died on the ruined tracks.  The engineers 
had time to leap out before Tetsuo then cantilevered it up from the front end, 
lifting it straight up into the air with those godlike arms like it was a 
sinking ship.  Turning an awestruck Danny, he said, "A baseball?  How lame is 
that?"  And my gut dropped as I knew what he was going to do.  

He flexed his biceps harder so we could see they still held untapped power in 
reserve as the tonnage groaned against its own frame at a 50 degree angle.  Then 
leaning back a little, he dropped his shoulder and hocked the flaming, smoking 
engine up into the sky.  A squadron of Air Force jets suddenly had to break 
formation and nearly fell out of the sky as the shattered hulk sailed directly 
in their path, powered by the gravity-mocking arms of Tetsuo.  It flew so fast 
the flames soon hadn't enough oxygen.  By the time it passed out of the 
atmosphere even Danny's eyes couldn't see it anymore.  

The men surrounded him and nobody knew what to say before such unbridled power.  
Salas, always the moralist, said "What happens when that falls back down to 
earth.  It won't stay in orbit forever."  

"Well, uh, Doctor Dork. Why do you think I toyed with it so long?  According to 
my calculations," he said, with a sly look, "which are always correct ..." and 
he paused a moment, to let this sink in, "... as you know," and he paused again, 
"it should land on the moon in about twelve hours.  Sea of Tranquility.  Even 
NASA can't get a rocket there that fast, with such accuracy as THIS."  He 
admired the rocket-fuel biceps, feeling its hardness with his fingers, running 
them over the peak and lightly tracing the veins.  "You dwells should watch on 
your telescope."   He turned away.

"Wait," said Cole, "where are you going."  Danny looked down; Danny knew.  
Tetsuo turned one last time and said,

"Any place I fucking want."  He paused.  "Coming, Dan?"

Danny looked up at him.  He looked back at Cole and Salas ... and me.  He looked 
at Tetsuo again.  Tetsuo smiled.

Great.  JUUUUUST great.

The End