THE AX MASTER, Part 4 By Chip Masterson ChipMasterson@yahoo.com Deconstruction They found us because of the bulldozer incident. We watched Steve in the moonlight. This was his fourth foray against the development company building a lodge and cabins for gentrified sportsmen to invade the wilderness he thought of as his own. As with the other times, one swift THWACK from his new carbon steel ax blade and a four-foot diameter column of wood crashed down upon the construction office trailer. It crunched like a paper box beneath the immense tree in a shower of sparks and loose papers. He left the ax behind and walked into the clearing. He liked to diasble the machinery by hand. Usually he would be quick and simple: pulling the pistons outward, tearing the threads off the tracks or bursting the big wheels by squeezing them with his arms or legs. Stuff like that. It was amazing, and a little scary, watching him wrench pistons apart so quickly, or force those thick rubber half-ton tires to compress and bulge until they blew apart under his pressure. The engines he simply ripped out and carried off, four or five at a time, and dropped down an old mine shaft a couple miles away. Once he peeled all the plating off a backhoe, smashed the cab in and used the plating to mummify the thing. That took a little more time, and the sound of all that metal scraping and twisting was like a fork on a blackboard. My teeth still feel funny. In the brightness of the full moon we saw they'd only brought in two pieces of heavy equipment: a very large John Deere wheel tractor and an even larger Caterpillar excavator. My uncle was in construction so I know a little bit about these babies. The wheel tractor, a bulldozer with big wheels instead of treads and more adaptable to mountainous terrain, looked to weigh a good fifteen tons, with a big blade across the front that was shallow, able to shove or scoop. The excavator was the twenty-eight ton beast my uncle used, a bucket that held one and a half tons of earth and dug with a force of eighteen tons. It's traction force was incredible. I loved watching him tear the ground apart with that monster. And now we were going to see Steve tear them apart. Tony squatted on his haunches, wanting to watch from ground level while I stood tall, heart racing and breath coming fast and light, salivating at the promised spectacle. Painful white lights suddenly filled the space with a blinding glare and knocked Tony on his ass. I grabbed him and dragged him behind some shrubs, out of sight. Steve wanted us kept out of sight. Feedback whined and a voice boomed out of nowhere: 'Throw down your weapons and the keys to your rig and put your hands in the air. This is private property.' Steve stood there in tight jeans, gathered at the waist by a coil of rope. His hands hung at his side from rolled-up sleeves that barely concealed the intricate stonework of his arms beneath red flannel. The squares of the thick tartan shirt were stretched into other geometric forms by the expanse of rolling flesh beneath it. My heart struck my breastbone in a staccato jumping rhythm. The bullhorned voice boomed again. 'We know you're the one who's been damaging our equipment. Where is your rig'? Again, silence from Steve. My eyes adjusted and I could see his jaw clenched, his eyes and ears gauging positions, numbers, his knees bent slightly and ready to spring. Hushed voices carried from near the smashed trailer. 'there's no rig, no crane, nothing. There's not even a truck. We don't know how he got here but he's got no equipment.? 'You expect me to think he did all that damage with his damn hands?' The questioning continued and Steve stood there, resolute. Finally the voice demanded that he leave at once or they'd push him off their land. That's when we heard the dozer start up with a harrumph of diesel smoke. Steve grinned and flexed his fingers, digging his feet into the ground. The big wheels rolled gently toward him with the shallow bucket poised to scoot him out of the way. When it reached him, Steve grabbed the top of the bucket with one hand and stood perfectly upright. A siren-like ratcheting of gears filled the clearing as the slow wheels stopped while their axles kept turning: the cry of the transaxle wondering what the hell was going on. Pressing into the topsoil, the four wheels, each as tall as Steve's shoulders, dug and stopped, then dug again. Steve's arm locked and his lat stretched the fabric tauter. The engine revved faster and louder, breaking the dry soil loose. Steve's hand squeezed against the metal and suddenly spinning tires sprayed dirt onto the unseen men behind the dozer who yelled and ran for cover. The driver muttered ?What the?? and started shifting. The ratcheting got louder as it ran up and down the scale, trying to find a way to move, and still Steve prevented its moving without even leaning into it. I could see the cuts of his shoulder and the sweep of his triceps through the flannel. The driver stopped the wheels and, trying to break his hold, attempted to raise the bucket: but it only jerked on sighing pistons as Steve's hand gripped the steel so hard it molded under his fingers like thick clay. Quick puff-like sounds came out of the machine as the incompressible oil of the hydraulics was caught between six driving pistons and a scoop held immobile by arms far stronger. My blood screamed in my head as I watched the steel hydraulic lines rattle and break free of their brackets. Like paralytic snakes they actually started to jitter and bend as the building pressure warped the hardened steel. Steve let go of the dented place on the top of the blade and it shot up with a robotic spasm and stopped. Steve then grabbed the bottom with both hands palms up, and stepped toward the machine. A delicate shredding of fabric spread out across his shoulders and buttons popped off his chest, pinging into the blade. His elbows sank backwards and the bucket heaved again in his grasp. For a moment he struggled for control of the scoop as its pistons pulled and pushed against him. Then the scoop stopped moving though the pistons whistled and moaned, and the fifteen ton machine slid backward on braked wheels, trenching the ground into mounds behind them. He took a step forward, and another, the tractor helpless in his hands. He grinned at the driver above the blade. The man sat with an open mouth and wide eyes until he snapped to, and started the motor again. This time he tried to back away but Steve's big thumbs pressed down into the steel as he started pulling sideways. The overtorqued squeal of the wheels vanished beneath the coughing diesel sputter of the excavator come to life. The heavy cab swung the thirty-foot arm around toward Steve as its treads engaged the ground. Steve had previously soured the treads of other machines by bending the edges up or curling them down around the track rail that ran over the rollers. This time he'd have to take them on full-speed. Still twisting the wheel loader around while its reverse thrust stressed the steel frame and threatened to crack bolts, Steve pulled it behind him to meet the approaching excavator. The big dozer's wheels churned soil and rocks into the air and the pistons emitted a screeching squeal as the engine chugged and roared. When he looked over at the men behind the circle of lights to smile, the excavator's bucket swung around fast and knocked him into the air with a pealing crash. Steve flew about ten feet and landed on his ass. The arm stopped and shook on impact. The guys in the darkness laughed until the excavator's arm swung around and the lights revealed the side of the bucket crushed inward where it hit his shoulder. The laughter died. Someone said ?Holy shit!? And then we heard scuffling boots retreat back to the fire road. The excavator raised the arm into the air and kept coming. Steve jumped up and shook his head to clear it. The big arm whistled down with what looked like the full force of its eighteen-ton digging thrust. Steve's hands darted up and caught the thing as it drove his legs inches into the ground and pressed him down into a squat, his ass mere inches from the ground. Yet the arm stopped a metallic squawk. Steve's thighs bulged with the impact and blew the rivets out of his jeans, stripping the seams open all the way down. The operator screamed "No! How can he? No! No!" Steve rose and the arm bucked awkwardly as its pressure was met and matched. Steve began manipulating the bucket, harder and faster than the operator could handle. I could see him clutching at the gears that seemed to shift on their own as Steve's arms pulled and shoved. The muscles of his forearms were covered with thick throbbing veins feeding them with his own hydraulic power. The two side pistons and the big one up to the elbow jittered in and out as the big bucket forced them, for a change. The bucket could lift over a tons of earth and arm arched to carry Steve into the air and sling him away. Steve arched his back and pulled down. The combined force of those diesel- powered hydraulic pumps was 4500 pounds per square inch and Steve's arms, neck and face turned nearly purple as he strained. The fabric across his back burst, revealing thick rippling muscle that bunched and flexed to exert his counter- force. The big machine squealed and Steve roared through clenched teeth as he mastered the jumping mechanical dinosaur. The oil-filled pipes bulged and sprang out from the sides of the arms, sending shrapnel through the air. With a titanic jerk he tugged the bucket down, then down again. The excavator's treads starting grinding back and forth in the dirt and Steve yanked it down again, his biceps bursting through the rolled-up sleeves and hardened steel struts buckling all over the rigid digging arm. Shots rang out as the bulldozer's driver fired at Steve. Bullets ricocheted off the rig and Steve twisted around, the bucket in his hands. I held my hands to my ears against the inhuman scream of metal shearing, bolts breaking and couplings ripping apart as Steve tore the whole fucking bucket off the arm, which sprang back up into the air. Steve held the bucket in front of him until the rifle emptied itself in a series of clicks; he flipped it back over his shoulders and shot back two flexed biceps swollen like upended watermelons. "Come on, bring it on!" he shouted, nodding and pumping his mighty arms. The two drivers gunned their motors and moved toward him at top speed, the dozer's big scoop-blade out front and the jagged arm of the excavator bleeding hot oil from torn-off piston ends. The wheeled bulldozer arrived first and Steve cocked his fist and hammered the blade with a booming gong. The dozer bounced backwards and the blade dented inward, almost seeming to fold around his powerful fist. Steve stripped off the ragged remains of shirt and snapped the waistband of his pants, and the rope surrounding it, and flung them away. Standing there only in boots, his erection hard and proud with the fight, he wagged his fingers in a ?come on? sneer. Gears ground and the loader raced forward: and the two machines met Steve's muscle. Steve grabbed the jabbing arm with one hand and the bottom of the rising dozer blade with the other. Each mechanism immediately felt his mastering power, flailed and heaved vainly against it. Thundering barks broke from his chest as he held the blade down and pulled the mauled excavator arm toward the ground. Stressed metal vibrated and squealed. His shoulders and back gathered and rippled and the heavy equipment squirmed against the ground. The giant steel treads of the digger forced it toward him until the steel arm he held in his hand buckled upward, its elbow joint squeezed past the breaking point. The dozer's diesel chugged and belched and the wheels dug into the ground as each operator drove his engine full bore to no avail. Steve's breath heaved in and out as they stood in statuesque relief: wheels, treads, legs all held in place as two steel behemoths piled their thrust against this muscle man. Steve lifted one quivering thigh and stood poised a moment: I held my breath as his foot wavered, forward, backward. The tractor lunged forward and his foot touched backward. His back thickened and his shoulders rotated forward and his foot didn't set, it raised and moved forward: and plunged down into the ground. I cheered as again the machines started to slide backward, this time as gears rotated forward. The big tires couldn't spin this time, there was no loose soil and Steve's mammoth arm kept pushing the tractor downward with a striated triceps that shadowed his elbow. Grudgingly they wound backwards until the axles screamed. The big excavator's arm contorted again under the super- industrial pressure and hydraulic pipes broke loose. Oil sprayed all over the yard and the big arm crumpled up against Steve's harder arm, and the twenty- eight ton monster rolled forward. Steve kept shoving the dozer back and let go of the crippled digging arm. Steve met the excavator with an open palm and stopped, simply preventing each machine from moving again. His whole body turned dark red as his own hydraulic pressure fueled unstoppable muscle. His chest rose and sank with his wheezing breath, his lats trembled, spreading out in a huge U from the base of his spine. The diesel engines roared and gears whined and hundreds of horsepower met one man's heroic strength. The digger's treads trembled and big toothed wheel groaned as its motor poured power into its paralyzed works. Slowly Steve seemed to lean forward, the wheels of the bulldozer rocking back in their tracks a fraction of a millimeter, the rollers of the treads trying to climb over each other. I let out an involuntary whimper as my cock raged at the spectacle, my eyes watering from the exhaust and dust. Tony had gone off to be alone in this moment, and I pulled my hardened rod out and let it worship its god. I started to shiver uncontrollably, holding my orgasm back as my cock convulsed. Steve's arms bent and straightened and the tires turned backwards again in a shrill, piercing whine. The treads started to bunch up and the tonnages at his mercy felt him overcome their proud mechanical power. His head almost disappearing between his shoulders, this juggernaut of flesh blood and bone conquered the challenging steel and shoved it backwards toward the treeline step by fucking step, bellowing louder that the engines? roar and the clanking of metal plates warping out of place, of hydraulic lines pulling loose by their own pressure and the popping of bolts and rivets. Sparks blew out of the dozer first and the man inside dove out and rolled on the ground as thick smoke came out of the overheated engine. Flames appeared and I panicked. With all the oil on the ground an ignition could explode the place. Steve left the dead dozer to burn and turned both hands to the excavator. I screamed as he relaxed and let the machine crawl up against him and bend him backwards. The treads carried it up into his arms. I saw him brace his thighs. Marveling anew at his power I fell on my knees. Those massive quads rippled as he caught the machine and lifted. Screaming in triumph as the driver jumped onto the ground, he pressed it over his head, twenty-eight fucking tons of industrial steel bobbing up and down in arms that looked big enough to do the job. With a duck and a heave he threw solid tons of steel up onto the dozer. It came down and flattened the burning wreck beneath it, knocking out the fire and cracking the excavator's undercarriage in half. The cab and arm draped forward off the wreck. Steve roared and flexed, his cock finally spewing ten-foot long streams of jism that almost bored into the humiliated steel. Burst after burst of strong white come spattered the wrecks as Steve circled to make sure the fire was out. The two drivers groveled on their backs to get away from him. He turned and left them in their disgrace. Tony and I grabbed the three hundred pound ax and trundled it between us back to camp. Steve was fast asleep, naked and uncovered on the floor of the cabin. The sight of him laying there, those massive pumped muscles in a sort of rigid repose, still pulsing with power, made us come spontaneously across his body and onto each other. Without ever touching ourselves. He almost seemed to smile in his sleep. TO BE CONTINUED The Hunt By: ChipMasterson@yahoo.com It had to be the construction crew's report that sealed our fate. Choppers woke us up the next morning; that and a whistling through the air. Tony and I instinctively ducked and covered, waiting for the missiles to hit but the copters flew away. Steve came in, a little sweaty for so early in the morning. "You boys up yet?" he asked. He always called us boys even though he was our junior by ten years; there was no question who the man was around here. He gouged at the barely cooked leg of some animal and fat ran down his arm. Tony rose on his knees and licked the fat out of the troughs of his muscles. Steve sort of smiled as he chewed but otherwise ignored him. "Elk on the spit. Should be ready for you boys soon. Oughta check on it." He chewed and swallowed the fresh muscle of the elk in fist-sized chunks yet his waist never expanded above 29 inches. It had to be 7:00 a.m. He would have been up for hours. "Who were the visitors?" I asked, wishing Tony would move over and give me some room. As usual Steve could see right through me. He tore off a piece that had charred over the fire and tossed it to me. It wasn't the same but I came from him so I fed on it greedily, savoring where his fingers had torn the meat. "Don't worry, you'll get a chance soon. Don't know who they were. Just hovering there when I got back from the stream." He filled up two big oil drums full of water and carried them back up the hill every morning. "I called but they didn't answer. Looked military. So I tore up some saplings and chucked 'em. Took 'em by surprise and nearly tangled one up in the blades so they banked and flew off. They'll be back. We need to consider our options." He was kind that way, making the illusion of democracy when in reality Tony and I happily deferred to his unerring expertise. It's strange how our lives depend so utterly on his; just a year ago we were each professionals, me a lawyer and Tony and accountant. Steve kidnaped us and after we grew accustomed to the rough life, and after our one feeble escape attempt, we ceased looking back. There had been no search party; we only recently found the overgrown Chevy Tahoe we'd driven into the woods in. We asked about it. Steve had carried it down into a canyon near the river, scaling the cliff with one hand while the other held it perpendicular in the air (he let us feel his arm as he described carrying its weight). On a ledge above the river he crammed it into a cleft in the rock, ramming it in until the metal wedged and squeezed together. It could never be removed for forensic tests and would appear to have fallen there with us inside. His hands quickly and easily dented, tore and shattered the remains to passably like an accident, wrenching the locked doors open. We would have been washed away in the river by the time anyone found us. It was a perfect cover story. Tony and I had all but forgotten our prior life. Steve assigned chores and sternly inspected all our work. We'd grown heavier and stronger than our wildest dreams, and our new muscular bodies drew us together in a bond tighter than friendship. All of which paled to our worship of Steve. He had matured in the last year, becoming more of a man yet still retaining the vigor of boyhood that stood apart from his phenomenal strength and endurance. At 19 he was a shade over six and a half feet tall but we couldn't guess how much he weighed. As he grew, the muscle fibers packed together more densely so that his enormous size still didn't prefigure his incomprehensible strength. His pectorals, delts, biceps and quads were massive but not so large as to be disproportionate from each other, or from his general frame. Of course they pumped to freakish proportions, turning him into a block of sheer dominating muscle, but relaxed and clothed he could pass for a professional, world-class bodybuilder. Just a little bigger than most. Remarkable too was his concave belly, the way the skin curled up under the knotted muscles at the base of his rib cage and descended in thick steps atop a flattened, veined plain extending all the way down to the sweep of his thighs and the thick tower of his cock. His legs swelled out, each thigh larger than his waist, but somehow their length softened the effect. Over it all was the radiant face, the hair like golden fleece and eyes so deep and blue that you felt in the deepest place in you his probing knowledge and commanding strength. We never knew why he chose us. It was his love, not our worthiness, that mattered. I found a tender security in that, the one thing I could trust. Steve wouldn't range very far anymore. Soon though he'd pretty much cleared the area out of anything large enough to bother eating and had to make a trek. He planned on capturing enough elk alive to keep as livestock. It doesn't take him long to cover a couple hundred miles and he wanted to take us on his back, but at those speeds its too difficult to hang on. We should have tried, as it turned out. They must have tracked him by satellite. When he was a certain distance away a large Apache helicopter landed near our cabin and men poured out, rifles ready, and started combing the area. Tony and I tried to hide but eventually brutes stronger than us dragged us up to the cabin, where an army colonel was waiting. "You men are hard to find." "What are you going to do with us?" I asked. "Just wait." I heard multiple rifles click up at us. It didn't take long. The army didn't want to risk a full-scale engagement with Steve. They evidently knew what he could accomplish, and wouldn't place any personnel or expensive hardware in jeopardy if it could be avoided. I wondered if Steve could have picked out the satellite above us and chosen a rock that would just fit in his hand.... I bet he could have blown it out of orbit with one shot. Like when Kong came to get Jessica Lange we heard timber crashing through the forest. He had his ax with him and in huge swipes he cleared a path directly for us that was probably visible from passing airplanes. We knew he heard the 'copter. That's what this colonel was banking on. Steve erupted from the forest at a blinding speed, flying from a titanic leap directly for the Apache. Ordered not to shoot the men simply aimed but he was too fast and their sights couldn't find the target. With a horrible crash Steve landed on the tail and drab-painted plates screeched and crumpled beneath his feet. The helicopter skittered around sideways and Steve emerged from the gaping hole as the pilot started the engine. Steve flipped himself back out through the hole and standing on the 'copter's back grabbed a blade, wrenching the steel downward and holding it in place. A buzzing whine followed by a series of loud reports and white smoke came out of the motor as Steve reached over and grabbed the arc of the blade, pulling against it to rip it out. Bolts and wires snapped and the next blade came around to meet Steve's hand: and stopped, trembling. This blade started popping as Steve pushed it upward. Magazines clicked as soldiers prepared to fire when the colonel shouted "Cut the engine!" With a sputter the damaged engine died and the blades slowly stopped vibrating. Steve stood on the 'copter and looked down over his the shelves of his pecs at the puny men below. "Take your guns off them," he commanded. The colonel paled a little at the sound of Steve's voice and didn't seem to look him in the eye. "If you'll agree to come with us, we won't harm them. If not, we are all prepared to die here to take you in." I gulped and Tony started shivering. I noticed the soldiers were all sweating as well but kept their aim. Steve held us all in his silence for minutes. Finally his deep voice boomed. "Am I under arrest?" There was a note of scorn and he threw his round shoulders back, arcing his chest before him. The shadowed cavity of his belly seemed all the deeper beneath those stronger-than- steel plates. The colonel looked toward him but avoided his eyes. "We feel we can come to an agreement on how to resolve the question of your culpability in the Portland matter if you'll come with us." Steve jumped down and everyone felt the tremor; equipment rattled on the men briefly as the shock traveled up their bodies. Steve walked over and towered above the colonel, moving in close until his chest pressed up against the officer's body. "Why can't we talk here? I've got chairs." "We, uh, I don't have the authority. There are a number of individuals you will need to, uh, consult with. You will not, I repeat not, be held under arrest." Steve's eyes said Bullshit but he stood in silence long enough for me to watch sweat stains spread out from under the colonel's arms. To his credit, he didn't flinch, faced with all that power pressed over him. But I'm sure he really, really needed a drink. "'Copter's broke and I hate flying. Tell me where your facility is and I'll meet you there. With the boys." That was our cue to climb up on Steve's back. Each of us put one arm around his neck (and we could hold as tight as we needed, there was no chance of our choking him) and one around his ridged deltoid and held on while he raced at moderate speed to what turned out to be an underground bunker left over from the cold war, converted into a very high-tech laboratory. I had a very bad feeling about this and Tony was completely withdrawn by the time we arrived. Our arms and legs were sore from clamping onto the flowing iron of Steve's body. We shook ourselves out and guards, who'd been radioed not too long before we arrived, let us through the chain-link fence and into the little shack that housed the elevator down. It felt strange, after all this time, to have machines moving us around. The big freight elevator seemed somehow less stable, more rickety after riding on Steve's broad back, so expansive Tony and I never touched each other as the muscle rippled beneath us. It seemed like we went down forever; I had to pop my ears before we got out. The warm-paneled room was dimly lit. Aside from the large conference table in the center, it could have been some rich guy's library. We passed through a vestibule I realized must have been a very thick concrete wall. There was a fat older man drinking scotch from a crystal glass that twinkled in the dim light; the smell was intoxicating. "Gentlemen!" he called out, rising to meet us. I turned around and the vestibule had vanished behind impeccable paneling. He didn't offer to shake hands, though he looked jovial enough. This was all so clearly a trap. But Steve obviously knew it had to be played out; actions have consequences. If Steve had wanted to stay anonymous forever, he never would have made his exit through the rubble after he uprooted that skyscraper. We could easily have slunk out through the sewers. For that matter, Steve could have carved a tunnel through the bedrock with his bare hands. Something inside him wanted this confrontation, this test. I started to feel, for the first time, a little unprotected. The fat man had a trimmed grey and white beard that wasn't flattering. "Would you like to see your accomoda-" "We won't be staying that long," Steve said, peremptorily. "Let's get on with it." The man's fixed smile glazed over. The ice in his glass clinked. "Right this way then." He turned toward the back of the room and seamless wooden panel opened into a garishly lit hallway. As he stepped into the hallway he turned back, and all we saw was a brief grin as a thick steel door zipped down like lightning. Hissing came out of the walls and Steve turned and tossed the big conference table against the wall; it cracked apart in four places with the deafening bang of thick hardwood shattering. Steve ran and threw himself against the far wall, pulverizing mahogany with his shoulder. His fingers tore the breaking panels away from the steel vault door that sealed off the elevator: and a hard man's fists began battering at tempered carbon steel. White gas quickly filled the room and the last thing I remember is seeing Tony fall and hearing Steve's fists dent and punish the steel. I awoke thinking Steve must have rescued us and we were back at the cabin. But the immensity standing before me was smaller than Steve, if only slightly. Seeing my eyelids flutter he grabbed my shirtfront with one mitt and heaved me off my feet; I dangled in his arm like a rag doll. I saw Tony treated the same rough way out of the corner of my eye. The fat man stood behind them. "Excellent. We can begin." The goons put us down and I looked up into his mashed-in boxer's face, wishing Steve were here to show him what tough was. I realized the fat man was talking. "... Dr. Travers and the DOD has given me complete authorization to conduct these experiments. We intend to find out what genetic abnormality this freak possesses that yields physical strength far in excess of what even his superbly developed musculature ought to be able to exert. The fact that he is nineteen years old simply adds to our urgency, lest this mystery be lost at adolescence's end. "We pulled you two out of the room as Steve was beginning to reel. It took a lot more gas than we expected to knock him out. The elevator shaft needs extensive repairs since, as his faculties started to fade, he simply smashed the vault door blindly before him. Before he fell he pounded the door into the elevator car and beat that down until the cable snapped. For all purposes he's sealed the shaft with a crumbled mass of carbon steel. Remarkable. We've begun repairs but right now the only way out is two stairways and a lot of security doors. Hope you boys brought your toothbrushes." "Looks like he's coming around now, sir." We were in some sort of observation deck overlooking a large room. Dominating the large space was a huge doughnut-shaped steel ring about two feet thick and ten feet in diameter, suspended from the sides on nodes connected to two thick posts from the floor. Steve was gaining his feet and shaking the numbness out of his head. I wondered how many cubic miles of compressed gas it had taken to bring him down. He was naked except for some small bikini underwear. The goons grabbed my arms and pulled them behind my back. One huge hand secured both wrists; his other hand scratched his balls absently. Steve came around fast. He stretched his back in a series of quick pops, then threw himself against the wall so hard pencils rolled off desks around us, and a little troll doll fell on its head. Travers said, "Our boy's awake." He flipped a switch on a large control panel and turned a dial slightly. A buzzing hum surrounded us and Steve flew so fast through the air I thought he must have jumped: right into the center of the ring and stopped, floating there. "Our newest invention," chuckled Travers. "It's a positron magnet, designed especially to contain creatures who are out of control. It manages to polarize all the free electrons in any carbon-based body..." I got the picture and it made me sick. "And the more he resists..." Travers beamed. "The more electrons he frees up through electro-chemical responses, and the more powerful the hold becomes. He becomes his own captor, in a sense." Tony finally spoke, as if waking up. "What if he can overcome it somehow?" Travers laughed. "Impossible. How could he? It's only at a fraction of its capabilities now and he's helpless-look at him! At full power it would pull his atoms apart. He's not going on any rampages, urban or otherwise, for a long, long time." The buzzing filled the room as we watched Steve rotate slowly within the magnet until his head moved upright and he struggled to pull his arms to his sides. If they succeeded in trapping him, what would they need us for? My guts twisted as I watched him strive simply to remain upright. Tony was withdrawing again, damn him! Travers demonstrated his power by turning a knob on the control panel ever so slightly. Steve's arms and legs shot out in a cruel stretch. Chuckling, Travers turned it one more degree and Steve's joints all locked. Another degree twist and a wince of pain flashed across Steve's features as a light crackling of cartilage and stressed bone punctuated the buzzing.. "That should keep him stable for awhile. After we've exhausted him with this low-level pain, we'll feed him and he can sleep. Once he awakes, we'll simply turn the magnet back on and he'll be held again. So that we can decide what to do with him." I closed my eyes and tried to picture Steve conquering this infernal machine, but the physics got in the way. It was simply impossible. I opened my eyes in fear to witness ... the incredible. Steve's knees and elbows were bent slightly, as if he were trying to form himself into a ball. Travers pointed to the dial, which was still at about one- eighth power. "Idiot," he said. "That must be extremely painful. I'll teach him a lesson in agony." His face set in cruel determination, he turned the dial to one-quarter power. Just like that. Steve bellowed as even his jaw was drawn open and his arms and legs seemed to stretch out toward the thick ring. He clenched his jaw and his neck bulged into a thick column of veins backed by high peaked traps that rose almost to his earlobes. Yet his lats seemed to be pulled away from his body by the magnet, and each head of his quads seemed likewise pulled taut. He strove to flex his muscles into hard rigidity; even then his skin seemed to pull away from his flesh. He curled his toes and made fists: and every vein rose to the surface as his skin rippled across them like onionskin. The thick boulder in each forearm turned and the light golden hairs on his body danced as if being vacuumed. His joints began to fold inward again, resisting the pull of the magnet against his flesh. "Humph," said Travers. "I hadn't expected even he could last this long. Well, I've got a lot more power than he does. I have an entire nuclear reactor at my disposal. Let me just type a code in here..." I heard keys click while I watched Steve, his entire body flexed to maximum proportions, grimace, eyes closed with concentration. The buzzing went up a note on the scale and I glanced at Travers. "Automatic now. The more he resists, the higher the magnet will go until his body is straight again. Even if his muscles can last awhile longer, the strain on his heart will be telling. And often these oafs have muscles stronger than their own bones and connective tissue. This could get messy if he doesn't cooperate." His eyes glinted in the fluorescence. Steve held his position: then contracted. The hum rose in scale and volume and Steve set his jaw firm. The machine increased its pressure and Steve contracted his arms even more: his full biceps were beginning to quiver and his quads ticked with impending cramps. The machine increased: and Steve met it. Then Steve upped the ante and with a shattering roar pulled his arms up tight, biceps crammed around his rock-hard forearms, and pulled his knees up against his rippling abs. The machine instantly whined and we saw the dial move automatically to just over half power. Travers gasped. "This is impossible. His limbs should have been ripped of his body by now. He's resisting over one ton of pressure per square inch!" "And beating it!" I screamed as I watched Steve grin. His skin tried to pull away but his muscles filled it to stretching; only the hollows of his cheeks seemed to waver. The dial continued to move around until it hovered just under three-quarters power. Steve's muscles now rippled involuntarily but the set determination on his face proved he had mastered the pain and controlled the spasms: and he moved his hands behind his head. His distended biceps nearly filled the space and his tri's pressed around his arms like writhing pythons. Even his cock had hardened to its ruler-length to resist the pull on his flesh, his balls sagging against the thin cotton. The lights dimmed in the room and a small panel sparked. Technicians came alive and started flipping switches. "The reactor's now at full power! We've got to shut down everything to keep this running, Sir!" "DO IT!" Travers spat. "I want him ripped open like a Christmas goose!" Lights went off everywhere and blue emergency lights illumined the spectacle. Steve's elbows closed over his face-and suddenly his limbs shot outward. The release of tension sent a shockwave that shattered the observation window. We covered our faces as nodules of lead safety glass pummeled us. Scratched and bleeding we blinked to see Steve drawing himself into a ball as the dial moved up into a red zone: and red lights lit up. The iron ring had tilted on its axis and Steve assumed a crab-like posture, fingers shaped as claws or talons, with a savage smile on his face. The hum was now the roar of an SST taking off, deep and high and terrifying. Steve now looked as though he were pulling: and the iron ring began to warp toward him. Travers screamed "NOOO!" as Steve exerted his muscular contractions and proceeded to cripple the magnet. "It's over ten tons per square inch and he's laughing!" cried an assistant as she fled the room. Steve's continuing resistance caused visible wrinkles to ripple across the feet-thick iron and a horrible, rending groan riveted the air. The control panel sparked fireworks and sirens went off as Steve continued pulling against the magnet's force and four big folds, corresponding to his limbs, bent the thick iron inward. The magnet jittered as it bent until Steve's hands met the iron and pulled it down toward him. Hooking his feet beneath the two other folds he bellowed as he folded the thick iron in half until the stress fractured the metal and sent another shock wave that cracked the four thick walls, roof and ceiling outward. Crumbling chunks of cement rained onto the floor along with the shattered shards of the magnet and Steve landed on his feet, instantly searching for Tony and me. He held open his arms and we jumped down into them. His hardened biceps bruised my ribs and Tony moaned as he hit. We clambered around him like a jungle gym and once again we held onto his surging back as he reached one of the lightning- bolts in the wall-and pushed against it. Instantly the weakened concrete sagged as he leaned his shoulders and back into the task and reinforcing steel rods squeaked in torture, bending under the strain his arms put on them. A webwork of cracks sprang out of the cental rift and the wall continued to collapse inward. Steve stood straight and began kicking, shattering the cement and crushing the steel network down beneath his foot. Groaning and cracking filled our ears, and beneath that we heard sirens, screams, and dozens of feet seeking stairways up, pathways out. Finally the huge wall couldn't take anymore of Steve's shoving and collapsed inward. Huge chunks of concrete over two-feet thick shredded off its torn rebar into a narrow corridor, completely blocking it. People screamed and ran back the other way. Steve simply moved to the next wall and almost rammed it with his shoulder when he remembered Tony was there. So he raised his fists above his head and his ridged deltoids and thickening traps nearly blew us off his back. He hammered on the wall and it pulverized beneath the blow: the concrete was only half a foot thick and not reinforced. We moved easily through the hole into a darkened room. Computer banks stood around us and a swivel chair still swiveling from its occupant's flight. Steve moved to a screen and reading over his muscle-packed shoulder I saw the reactor had gone critical and all systems had been shut down to stave off a meltdown. The entire facility was being sealed off. Escape would be difficult... but, clearly, not impossible. Not for Steve. We entered another corridor and the wind whipped our hair as Steve ran through the complex back toward where the elevator shaft was. Knowing the stairwells would be clogged and the elevator crushed, the shaft would be our easiest way out. We came out into a long transfer tunnel; at the end, a shiny steel blade descended, panicked legs diminishing on the other side. Instinctively Tony and I let go and Steve's concrete-rumbling thighs hurtled him toward the lowering wall. He dove as if for home base and slid his fingers beneath the wall as it was about to close: and stopped it an inch short of its goal. Rumbling vibrated through the walls as the machine sought to crush his fingers and close the gap, but Steve swung his body around and strained. Immediately a rising squeal sounded as the steel became stressed from two directions, each building in intensity. Beneath the metallic whine we heard gasps from the people trapped behind the wall, and then the mechanical protest took on a rhythmic quality. The beat increased as Steve's hands forced the huge door back up on it tracks an inch. The heavy steel vibrated and the thumping rhythm suddenly emitted a ratchety grinding... and Steve's forearms sprouted muscle as they rose more inches, carrying the door and the force of its closing with them. I crept up and put my hand on the peak of his biceps as it stopped that power, the heat coming off his body like a furnace. Short quick breaths accompanied each inch of rising as the door powered itself down but was driven shrieking upwards instead. The two-foot gap was now enough for people to squeeze through and half a dozen workmen rolled into the tunnel, gaping at Steve's herculean body as it controlled the shutting of this huge gate. Tony yelled at them to move it since other gates were starting to descend farther down the tunnel as the computers sensed a blockage its strength could not crush. With a grunt Steve drove the foot-thick steel up to chest level, the downward pressure starting to mold the steel around his fingers. Placing his palms beneath the door he crouched under it and braced his Atlas-rivaling thighs. The thumps grew louder and Steve roared as he pressed the rattling door over his head in one profound expression of dominance. His muscle proved too much for the Defense Department's security system to handle and the door shook violently and twisted out of the wall with a deafening peal. The foot-thick plate bent into a spiral above him and the walls cracked open as the vast mechanism of pistons and gears broke apart and tumbled within the structure. Oily liquid shot out in fountains; chunks of wall and ceiling smashed down all around us as Steve held the curling steel above his head. Once the structural collapse was finished Steve hurled the twisted tonnage into the pounding rubble and we climbed out of the safest place we could possibly have been: beneath those iron thighs. The bad news was this: the magnet had messed with Steve's sense of direction, in fact reversing north and south in his internal compass. Instead of the elevator shaft area, we stood face to face with the overloaded reactor core. It's what the workmen were fleeing. We could feel the heat even through the many containment walls. All the doors into the core were sealed tight. A siren screamed into the echoing chamber and Steve grabbed a chunk of concrete and took it out. "Don't know how much time we have," he said. "I might be able to outrun it, but the funny thing about nuclear fallout, it has a way of following you." "Aren't we buried deep enough to contain it? Naturally?" Tony asked, looking very frightened. The stress was starting to undo him. Steve shook his handsome head and placed a reassuring hand on Tony's shivering shoulder, though his words were far from calming. "Not with all the damage I've done. I've weakened walls and floors who knows how far up into the bunker. Any full containment measures may have been critically compromised by my muscle. I'm going to have to fix this. Wish I had that damn ax." With that he ran over to curled steel door he had just now demolished with sheer masculine power. He grabbed an end and tugged it out some from the pile of boulders and slabs of rebar-bristling concrete. Huge rocks shifted and one tumbled off and rolled across the floor. Yanking it clear caused a small avalanche but to help our savaged eardrums he didn't let it fall, but held the ten-foot long sheet of warped steel in his hands. Laying it down he inspected the construction: a series of three-inch thick plates bonded together. The top sheet had separated with the warping and his fingers reached in. His traps and shoulders expanded, each separate muscle striation peaking into alien relief. His hands pulled in opposite directions. The sheet rose slightly away from the others with a horrid metallic tearing sound, giving his hands greater leverage. His forearms looked like some linebacker's thighs as they created shearing forces the steel was never designed to withstand. Inches of solid tempered steel ripped farther apart from each other, as if he were tearing open some robotic crocodile's mouth. His arms pumped rhythmically and his back caught the interplay of light and shadow as it powerhoused those arms to shred the vault door. When the top plate was separated from the base about halfway up he stopped and climbed on top of it. Securing his knees, he reached over and pulled. His abdomen tightened and twisted around and the Christmas-tree shaped muscles above his ass rippled as in a high wind, and that steel sheet bent upwards against the fulcrum of his knees. The already tormented steel shrieked louder than the siren had as his muscles further distorted its once-solid shape. At the same time he pressed down with quads and we watched the steel depress around them; he actually condensed the steel downward as the three-inch thick plate creased upwards in his hands. When it was perpendicular he paused a moment, sweat and musk pouring off him in the heat, and we could smell the sweat of his balls and ass as his shoulders twitched involuntarily with the extended demands he placed on them. Quickly moving to the other side he pressed his hands against the plate and gave his quads and pecs a chance to work the steel like clay. The squeak-shriek of cold metal warping like it was hot bounced off the walls as his great body forced it back over onto itself. Then back to the other side he ran, and deadlifted that plate upright again. The crease he had made was now no more than and inch and a half thick and I got it: he was making an ax blade. I covered my ears and motioned to Tony just in time for Steve to grab the upended edge and take a deep, deep breath. Positioning his feet along the crease, he pressed down with quads and calves while torquing the steel upward against the fold. At first the confused steel shook until his power overwhelmed it. Then it actually wrinkled as the pressure drove the solid metal into ridges. The steel screamed as fractures split along the nascent tear and the forged metal began to separate from itself, its very molecules ripping apart from each other. He continued to force the metal and it gave, it HAD to, it couldn't possibly adhere to its form, its structure, against this man's domineering muscle. With grinding terror it ripped upward and once torn, continued to shred. Steve yelled and dug down and backward with his feet, ripping that five-foot section apart with his hands, his back, his legs. His entire body harder than the steel it conquered. In less than a minute the rude blade rose in his hands, its narrowed edge jagged. He deftly manipulated it around to squeeze hand-holds into the wider end with his fingers, and then he set to work with it. Raising it above his head he brought it full down with all his power against the floor. Chunks of shattered concrete flew from the crackled surface as the split opened all the way through the bunker floor. Another thundering slice, with more quickly following, rent the floor open with two feet of rubble-filled crevice stretching from the containment vessel to the wall. The blade forced down into the gap, severing the web of reinforcing steel bars. Steve reached down and grabbed the bars, flinging the hundreds-of-pound chunks back behind him. His lats flared as they powered up flying broken boulders that scratched angrily at his flesh. Moving swiftly he cleared the trench as started swinging yet again. This time the rock beneath the floor sparked and chipped as the giant ax, driven by his hands, beat into it. Standing on the edge of the trench he hammered down until the bedrock submitted to his will and groveled brokenly at his feet. He jumped into the hole: we felt the impact shiver up through the floor. Pounding again and again he further weakened the rock until its cohesiveness surrendered to his strength and the deep fissures spread. Wedging the giant blade into a promising one, he started to work the sections of rock apart. The deep-throated gravelly scrape of immense breaking stone against tempered steel formed an eerie counterpoint to the weird drumming that started to come out of the overheating core. Steve began to wheeze with the effort of forcing open solid rock reaching who knew how far down into the earth; stretch marks began to cover his striated triceps and thick-lobed lats like tiger stripes. His biceps looked ready to burst the skin and his neck was swallowed in spreading traps. With a grudging grumble, as on the mountainside not so long ago, the earth shivered and his arms forced its jaws to open. Deep thunderous cracks came out from the trench and suddenly the floor split yet again, underneath the containment vessel of the core. I looked down into the hole. A deep chasm reached into blackness but it wasn't nearly wide enough for the core. Steve walked around to the sealed door of the containment wall and threw his shoulder against it. Pile-driving legs pummeled his body into the steel and it caved inwards on squealing hinges. One kick sent the doubled-over steel sailing. Bits of the steel locking mechanism sprung out and skittered across the floor as he entered. Within that wall was another containment vessel, the one enclosing the core itself. Steve quickly walked around and sealed all the pipes into and out of the core unit, squeezing the steel shut in his hands and between his thighs as if they were made of soft lead. That caused pressure to back up into some of the water and steam systems. Climbing on top of that vessel he shook the rod loading mechanism into its fittings shattered. Then he pressed up against the roof of the outer hull. A horrible groaning filled the air since he wasn't wasting any time, and the roof immediately began to bulge. Gigantic bolts broke and Steve felt and judged the vibrations the struggling steel made against his hands. With a mighty roar he hurled the hull upwards and the outer containment shell ripped up out of the floor and flew into the air. Steam and boiling water spewed momentarily but then died away as the core began to rumble louder. But still this hull was too big. Steve began pounding on the walls from above, not to shatter them but to beat them inwards. To mold the metal more tightly around the core. The heavy lead- lined steel obeyed its terrible master and pressed down. His hands became a blur as they beat and shoved and molded the cube of forged iron into a dimpled cocoon, smaller, and smaller, and smaller. The metal was so hot now it started to steam and Tony yelped involuntarily, know the explosion must be imminent. Steve got down and shoved. The heavy mass of the reactor broke free of its moorings and brought huge cement-coated bolts up out of the ground as it scraped down toward the hole in the earth. It fell in but the crack still wasn't wide enough. With fury on his face Steve yelled at us to get back into the hallway and leaped into the trench again. Tony screamed but I dragged him back; still we had to peer around the corner, whatever death might come. An inhuman bellow pierced the air and with a sudden, muscular heave of legs and arms the earth shook and the lumpy core tumbled out of sight. The sudden jolt of the floor expanding so many feet at once cracked the walls on all sides and the central part of the ceiling caved. A catwalk tore loose and screamed to the ground and computers on the level above clattered as they fell down through the hole. I couldn't bear it, I had to sneak back to the trench, and what I saw made me hard as rod despite the danger. Steve had driven his fingers into either side of the rock chasm and his arms strained to pull it back closed! His entire body was red with the burning of the core and blood pounding in his veins. His pecs bulged half way to his elbows, deformed by his granite biceps, the upper shelf stretching inches before him. Spit flew from his mouth, his entire head quivered and his eyes rolled into his head. I was never so terrified in my life. But the walls were shaking, spewing gravel ... and closing! Feeling the weakness in the rock Steve doubled his strength and contracted his body and I saw the rocks come closer together, then closer still. Time was running out and he'd never be able to fully close it with the bunker floor blocking his ability to hug the rock from above. So he did the next best thing. Climbing out, his surging body trembling from the constant strain, he raced to the piles and chunks of broken concrete and hurled them back into the trench. Faster than my eyes could follow he wielded the ax head in one hand to shatter the rock, and flung massive boulders with the other with unerring aim. The trench packed with rubble and he raced to the wall with the biggest crack in it, shouting for Tony and I to get into the hallway. The last thing I saw before the lights went out where his hands digging into the wall and pulling. Sparking darkness was filled with the tumble of walls and ceiling falling into the chasm. Tony and I stood still until two burning pipes of living steel grabbed us and tucked us underneath them, crushing us against lats thicker than our chests. As the rumble of the collapse continued he outran it, kicking his way through security doors that crumpled like cup-cake holders around his feet. Trampling steel and concrete he found his way to the elevator shaft at the other end of the complex. They had had little time to clear out the damage he'd caused earlier. Tony and I once again clung for dear life around his sweaty shoulders as his legs and arms crushed the broken steel downward to create space to crawl through. He spidered his way up the shaft. A muffled explosion behind us shook everything like a freight train but Steve held firm, legs and arms pressed against the sides of the shaft, and then upwards again we went. Just before we reached the top one of the walls gave way and fell down into the hole of pulverized destruction behind us. Steve reached out and found the snapped end of the elevator cable and with one pull hurled us up into the shed. One kick from his thigh send the tin wall flying through the air and we saw the shallow depression in the earth where the small rocks were still rattling. Certainly there would be fallout from this, and the radiation might already be deadly so Steve didn't wait but let his rocketing thighs leap like some gigantic bug, sending us so far into the air I got queasy and had to close my eyes. We landed a quarter mile away and he took off running; outrunning the radiation, we hoped. The elk was still on the spit from that morning, though night had fallen; even the ants had left it alone. Steve collapsed on the floor of the cabin, his body convulsing. Tony and I dragged the carcass to him and pulled strips of meat into his mouth; he chewed and swallowed as if it took all his effort. With gratitude and amazement Tony and I rubbed our come into his skin as the only balm to heal his burns, come that wouldn't stop spewing as we watched him twitch in his sleep, finally overcome by exhaustion. We came and tended and massaged him and waited for the new, angry dawn. THE END chipmasterson@yahoo.com