Wonder Woman in Moscow #8

Wonder Woman was created by Dr William Moulton Marston in 1941 and is the © copyright trademark of DC Comics. My Wonder Woman stories are only fan fiction and based, primarily, on the 1970s CBS TV show (albeit, updated to the present time of writing). However, any resources from adaptations and the comics may be utilised. All characters are entirely fictional. With the exception of Diana / Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor, these stories and characters are my own creations, unless otherwise stated. In my stories, Wonder Woman is the only known superhero.

08 To become a Master or to be gone

Several minutes prior to the laboratory inferno, Zara entered the Project Lounge where she was immediately met by the nozzle of Nosov’s automatic. She, in turn, aimed the Flexigraph gun at him.

“Hiding away from your sins, Sergei?”

“I-I couldn’t watch,” he admitted in a deflated disposition. “Zara, how are you still alive?”

“What’s this, Sergei? Some remnants of conscience? If you get out of this place alive, will you be heading to the confessional box, eh?”

“It’s not that. Its… I care for you, Zara.”

The girl giggled, joyously. “But how much, Sergei? More than a ruble? Less than an Eskimo? Clearly not enough to save my life.”

“It was a mistake. I thought Osinov would let me deal with you. I never wanted you to come to harm.”

Zara smiled, broadly. “Let’s test the theory,” she said, pulling the trigger.

The Flexigraph gun shot a smidge of its slimy derivative over Nosov’s automatic. He dropped the gun to the floor. Strands of the gloop were still attached to his fingers. He looked at Zara in surprise; the automatic sprang back into his palm. The gun was temporarily rendered useless, but he didn’t need it.

“Wash it off in hot water before it solidifies,” Zara suggested. “I believe you. If you had wanted to kill me, you would have fired when I did.”

“The remainder of the Flexigraph is being loaded on to a truck,” Nosov said. “We should take it for Russia.”

“For Russia or for you?”

“Always Russia, Zara.”

In a dubious demeanour, she agreed. They then made their way to the warehouse. A truck containing the Flexigraph had just finished loading in the cargo bay.

“We’ll take this truck,” Nosov told the foreman.

“On whose authority?”

“On the authority of Sergei Nosov.”

“I’ll need a handprint,” the foreman answered, looking for a machine.

“Get on with it!”

There was a huge boom from the main laboratory, shaking the whole of the basement. The alarm sounded. Guards were shouting “FIRE!” Workers began fleeing the building.

“I’ll take a rain check,” Nosov said.

Wonder Woman ripped the tape binds off the storeroom worker who she had left tied up. “If I were you, I wouldn’t wait to get dressed,” she said. The man fled, leaving Diana to spy on Zara and Nosov shutting the truck.

“Now, you wouldn’t be taking the Flexigraph, would you?” Wonder Woman said, emerging out of the aisle. “You’ll find it’s American government property.”

“Finders keepers, losers weepers!” Zara playfully teased.

“Stay back or be shot,” warned Nosov on the step of the driver’s cabin door.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Diana replied.

Nosov fired off a couple of rounds in Wonder Woman’s direction. She stylishly deflected them off her bracelets.

“Go!” shouted Zara, hanging off the back-door handle. She slung two lines of goo with the Flexigraph gun.

Wonder Woman effortlessly bracelet blocked them. However, the residue clung to her bracelets – and as the vehicle pulled away – the elasticity formed and snatched the bracelets off Diana’s wrists.

They leapt into Zara’s hands. “Ha-ha! Souvenir!” she taunted.

The truck screeched around the bend. At first startled, Diana began a pursuit up the sloped exit road. Zara was quick to exploit Wonder Woman’s new vulnerability: she took her mini silver pistol from her boot and fired it like a popgun. Without her bracelets, Diana dodged the bullets. Zara found the sight of Wonder Woman statically ducking her shots especially hilarious.

The truck came roaring out of the factory gates, along the river bank. Diana was some way back. She knew her best chance stood in the open air. Taking to the night sky, she saw the truck in the distance. On closer inspection, she spotted the nearside door was a little ajar.

Still holding the pistol, Zara kept an eye out for Wonder Woman on the road to the rear. She heard a rattling at the left door. It may have simply been the truck passing over an uneven surface, but Zara felt she needed to check. Gently opening the left door with her gun hand, it was the right door which flew open. In an instant, Wonder Woman was seizing the pistol out of her hand.

They faced opposite one another under the strip light. Zara recomposed herself, proudly displaying her new bands on her wrists.

“Give me back my bracelets,” demanded Diana, sternly.

“Why don’t you try using the pistol?” suggested Zara, still in a defiantly playful mood, “I fancy my chances.”

“I prefer to take them myself.” Wonder Woman said, crushing the little gun into an unworkable sculpture.

Wonder Woman caught Zara’s first strike in the palm of her hand. She squeezed the Russian’s fist until she streaked in pain, forcing her shorter opponent to the floor. Diana collected the bracelets; there was nothing Zara could do to stop her at that very moment.

Diana sighed, “You have a funny way of showing gratitude to someone who saved your life.”

“I put my country first,” replied Zara, playing for time, while reaching for the Flexigraph gun, hidden from Wonder Woman’s view behind the barrels.

“I mean to mend some bridges,” Zara sarcastically smirked, pulling the trigger with Patriarshy Bridge just behind them.

In the neon-lit darkness, at such close range, there was no time for Wonder Woman to react. When she saw the threat, it was too late. A pull around her waist sprung her hurtling backwards out of the open doors. She hit the side of the bridge like a rubber band. Shaken by the impact, Diana stayed glued to its steel frame by Flexigraph gunk fixed to her girdle.

It took Diana a few exasperating precious seconds to untangle herself of the binder. However, her demeaning exit from the truck was only a transitory inconvenience, she was soon gliding towards its open doors once more. A thread of gook zipped past her under the neon light on her return to the container. Zara clicked the trigger, but it was empty of derivative.

“This time, I think we’ll settle the score behind closed doors,” Wonder Woman cautiously said, shutting the hold.

Diana hadn’t noticed Zara was shielding something else in her hand, which she tossed between them. It began furiously sparking a flurry of pink smoke, suddenly, rising to the fore. It was the same choking fumes she experienced in the multi-storey carpark.

With every breath of the wretched vapours starving her lungs of oxygen, Diana earnestly went to stamp out the flame, when a steel bar whipped across her back. She fell forwards on the stack of Flexigraph barrels, gasping for air. Another strike of the bar swept her legs away.

Wonder Woman felt the weight of a body on top of her. She pushed back with all she could muster. She heard a thump against the back-container wall and the clatter of the bar to the floor. Making an enormous visceral effort, Diana felt her way to the door and reopened it. Thick pink smoke gushed off the back of the wagon into the night air. She threw the smoke bomb in the river – and this gave her another idea …

Eventually, the truck parked up in a courtyard at a secret location in Moscow. Nosov and some soldiers opened the container, disappointed to only see Zara slumped peacefully on the back wall, asleep, still wearing her nose and mouth mask for protection against the pink fumes. The barrels of Flexigraph were gone.

She sat in a wooden panelled waiting room for a nearly half an hour stewing over what to say, before deciding what will be, will be. Finally, General Konstantin Volkov came out of the door, his eyebrow raised at the sight of the elegant lady in a white summer dress.

“Agent Zara,” he said, “it’s so good to see you looking so well.”

“General Volkov, you’re the new head of the Solar Cell?”

The general frowned. “Unfortunately, I haven’t been bestowed with such an honour. My meeting was one of introduction.”

A red light buzzed over the door, cutting any further conversation short. Zara entered an airy office with tall windows looking out over central Moscow. The swivel chair at the desk faced backwards. The occupant swung around.

“Would you like vodka?” said Nosov.

“Sergei, you’re the head?” Zara queried in bewilderment. “How is this possible?”

“Like you, Zara, I’ve been in deep cover,” he explained. He got up and unscrewed a bottle of vodka from the cabinet. “Now it is done. The operation was successful. I’ve been rewarded with the role of leader.”

“But we lost the Flexigraph?”

“A minor hiccup,” he told her, handing her a glass. “Professor Baker is in my pocket and knows the formula. The Fourth Reich operations have been majorly disrupted and I can masquerade as the ambitious partner from my armchair.

But tell me, Zara, one detail I should like to know from you, how did you get us into the American airbase?”

“I can’t give away all my secrets,” Zara responded with a wry smile, “you might get jealous, Sergei.”

“How well you know me,” he said, coyly.

They clinked glasses.

—

Somewhere in the US Midwest, a skull encrusted telephone rang to the annoyance of the receiver.

“This better be good, Adamski, for waking me at this dreadful hour.”

“Your brother is dead, Mr Osinov. He was killed in the destruction of the Moscow laboratory.”

“Oh, is that all. The man was a decadent buffoon, anyway. If somebody hadn’t brought about his demise, I would have had to do it myself at some point.”

If Adamski was shocked by Abram Osinov’s lack of sympathy for his brother, he didn’t show it.  “There’s more – Professor Baker wants the prospective partner, Sergei Nosov to take over as the leader. Shall I eliminate the candidate?”

“No, no, quite the reverse. I prefer to be the organ grinder rather than the monkey. Make Nosov’s case for the leader with the other partners. Oh, and Adamski, this should be kept between you and I, okay?”

—

Strolling along Bolshoy Moskvoretskiy Bridge, overlooking Moskva River, Diana Prince was taking a call on her cell phone.

“Now Marat Osinov is dead and their base in Moscow destroyed, the Fourth Reich is as good as finished,” said Steve Trevor.

“I hope so, Steve.”

“Just one more thing I need to know, Diana.”

“Shoot.”

“What did Wonder Woman do with the Flexigraph?  The generals are going crazy.”

“I can’t really say right now, Steve, but be assured it’s all water under the bridge.”

“I don’t think that’s going to cut it with the generals…”

A yellow taxi tooted its horn and pulled up alongside Diana. She shook her head when seeing who was driving.

“Excuse me, Steve, my cab’s here.”

“Alright, you take care, and I’ll see you when you get back.”

Diana peered in through the open nearside window.

“Your taxi to the airport, ma’am,” said Zara.

Diana opened the back door and got in. “Well, I hope you’re not expecting to get a tip!”

“No, Diana Prince, this ride is free,” insisted Zara, gladly.

They both smiled.

THANKS FOR READING!

STORY BY DECEIVER