The large man eased his ridiculously broad shoulders through a narrow gap between the back of the crowd and the Memorial Wall. A podium had been erected in the band shell and was visible from anywhere in the park. The politicos had expected about five or six thousand spectators but Max estimated that half again that number had found their way to the event.
      All the residents of this tiny city owed a huge debt of gratitude to Supergirl, besides the fact that seeing a Velorian Protector could hardly be considered an everyday occurrence.
      Earthquakes were rare in the Mid-Atlantic States, though several faults do exist in Pennsylvania, Maryland and New York. The Martic Fault had been to blame, but the damage had been minor due to the mostly rural nature of the region. Not one public official had thought to check the myriad small dams beyond the cursory daily maintenance requirements. He couldn't really blame them; there had been so many other more pressing issues to handle in those first frantic days.
      The rumbling had gone unnoticed as being just a shadow of the 4.9 trembler of the weekend before, but that aftershock had been the one to add the final stress to the weakest link.
      The spring had been a wet one and the hydroelectric plant's reservoir contained the maximum volume. Flat-bottomed bass boats and aluminum canoes floated idyllically between the scattered tiny islands below the spillways. Spring trout season went on and fishermen, a strange breed of sporting fanatic, found ways to ply their pastime regardless of the inconveniences of a natural disaster. Happenings dirtside would come and go, but the river was always there.
      The aftershock popped the dam's steel reinforced concrete like a button on a too-tight shirt. Later, as the series of events were pieced together, the experts opined that the boats closest to the reservoir had been swamped immediately, giving the occupants no time to make peace with their maker. Further down-stream, the boaters would have had time to see the wall of water, trees, concrete, and debris from the riverbed bearing down, giving them plenty of opportunity to regret fishing addiction.
      Chunks of concrete, some as large as dump trucks, tumbled in the torrent as if they were only pebbles in a stream of storm run-off. The island trees, which had established a kind of truce with the yearly vagaries of the Susquehanna's flooding, were ripped from the rocky mid-stream islands to act as the spears in this giant hand of destruction.
      Like a fantastic domino pattern, one reservoir then another burst under the liquid hammer. The broadening wave ground everything within the broad valley to a morass of mud and jetsam. The hapless residents, belatedly warned by screaming sirens, rushed from their earthquake-damaged homes to watch in horror as the wall bore down upon them. Others, with homes placed higher in the rolling hills, fell to their knees, helpless to intervene as total devastation occurred below them. Praying came easily to anyone who had the luck to live more than 300 feet above flood stage that day.
      A helicopter lifted the governor and his family from the mansion in Harrisburg only moments before the vanguard waters reached the turn in the river where the Rockville Bridge had stood for uncounted years and would no more. Hospitals, churches, schools (thankfully empty) and hundreds of homes collapsed, leaving behind mounds of indistinguishable rubble. The spent waters eddied around the piles and pits as if searching for additional victims.
      As the valley widened, the water wall lost some momentum but the biggest prize lay within its grasp. The coolant towers of Three Mile Island, already renowned in nuclear power history, jutted from the flat island in the river. Some technicians had fled for higher ground, leaving a brave and dedicated few to attempt an orderly emergency shutdown.
      The elderly guard, stationed at an upper level window on the northern end of the complex, shouted updates into his cell-phone. His frightened jabbering ended in an awed, “Oh Holy Mother of God, look at that!” The team exchanged defeated sighs, thinking their efforts had been too little, too late. The shutdown procedures were barely half completed. The radioactive rods hadn't been sealed safely and the shock would release another Chernobyl on the populace of southern Pennsylvania and most of Maryland. The resultant run-off would contaminate the Chesapeake Bay Tidal Basin and the Atlantic Ocean's Gulf Stream for thousands of years.
      Although expecting death momentarily, the handful of men and women doggedly continued the sequence; each additional step completed would mitigate the damnation of failure.
      The speakerphone crackled again with Gus' excited voice.
      “Oh, golly! Yuse gotta see this! Come up! Come up!”
      One technician then another, then the group dashed up the staircase to the elevators. From the top of the control building the sight, which had first silenced Gus, then turned the taciturn widower into a wondering child, initially seemed inexplicable.
      The wall of water stood motionless only a few hundred yards upriver from the island's bulwarks, poised to expose the dangerous treasure buried within. Trees and railroad ties protruded like a chin's stubble. Concrete, boulders, automobiles, and train cars littered the upper surface. The awestruck plant-workers were diverted from identifying more gruesome flotsam by the arrival of a flash of blue and red uniform containing one of those self-proclaimed Protectors.
      “Damn,” one of the younger men said, in a hushed tone.
      “Yeah,” the others breathed as one.
      The Protector had frozen the torrent with her breath. The warm April sun had begun to undo her effort - a grinding sound could be heard from within the mass.
      “Come on, guys. We gotta get this bitching thing shut down. She can't hold it forever,” the supervisor said, yanking her eyes from the inspiring sight.
      “She's carting it away,” Gus pointed out. The young blond flyer had sliced a layer off the top and had disappeared over the hills.
      “Yeah, well. We started the shutdown, so let's get it done.” The supervisor said, eyeing the mountain of groaning ice with a worried expression. “Just in case.”
      When the team next emerged from the control room, the Protector had gone, but hero's welcome awaited them at the gates. Most of them cared nothing for the accolades of the politicians and worried only if their families had survived the day's horror.

      The cleanup would take years - but it could have taken centuries. The death toll reached heart-numbing numbers - but radiation victims would not augment the initial death count. The landmarks could never be replaced - but the infamously dangerous one had been left unscathed.
      Max wondered if the same Protector had come to accept the thanks of the people she had saved, or if this one was a stand-in. The Supergirls weren't in the habit of stopping to exchange introductions. It could have been any of the couple of Velorians inhabiting this system who had performed the rescue. His needs required one, it didn't matter whom. The crowd needed to give thanks, to praise her and celebrate the gift of their lives and, again, it hardly mattered which one had found the time to attend the ceremony.
      The Governor had droned on about the numerous acts of heroism, hers and others. The Mayor then presented keys to the city to the various representatives. The loudest applause echoed as the Supergirl accepted the token of thanks. The breeze blew her shining hair back from a perfectly symmetrical face. She stood with her fists on her hips, flexing slightly. The searing blue eyes scanned the throng. Max could almost feel the moment when her kreening snapped back to find him in the rear of the crowd. Not merely looking in his direction, searching him out from the layers upon layers of flesh around him. Did she wonder at the presence of an Arion in these uncertain times?
      Time to go. Max slipped back around the wall, through the columns marking the Path of Despair, and dashed into the bright new streets of Harrisburg. The first blow of her stronger-than-steel fist hit about the same time he'd turn to check whether she'd followed. He guessed his question was well answered.
      Max firmly restrained the instinct to fight back. A Velorian might beat the shit out of a Supremis minion on general principles, but eventually, this one would stop hitting long enough to ask him questions.
      The respite came sooner rather than later. Max played possum, letting her kick him one way then the other. Finally, strong fingers gripped the back of his neck and the earth fall away from his feet. The Tower of Remembrance arose before him as he squinted against the whipping wind. The Velorian dropped him, roughly, from a couple yards up. Max heard the soft crunch as her toes connected with the gravel strewn on the rooftop.
      Max didn't move a muscle until he heard an acquiescent sigh. Even then, he kept his hands open and his eyes down as he'd learned befitted an inferior being.
      “I'm not an Arion Prime,” the lilting voice stated firmly. Max raised his eyes and tried to meet the girl's blue gaze. He had to settle for looking at her chin. Early training is the hardest to break.
      “Start talking.”
      Max had prepared a script, but the costume the Velorian wore distracted him from his set of mental index cards. She looked at him - his lips moving, chin wagging, no intelligible sound coming out - with a tired patience. She wrapped her cape around her hard sleek curves, dropped gracefully into a cross-legged pose, and rested her chin on one hand.
      “Better?” she asked, tilting her head with an amused little smile. Max nodded. Now he could concentrate on her face, her words - instead of the more distracting portions of her anatomy.
      “You can speak, can't you?” she asked.
      “Yeah, I can talk.”
      “And you wanted to talk to me?” she guessed. “That's why you came to the park today?”
      He nodded.
      “So… Talk already.”
      He hadn't thought it would be so difficult. The script seemed so artificial, so inadequate to the actual encounter. He'd never been so close to a Protector before, though he'd known of them all his life - as the enemy, as the scourge of the Arion race, as an obstacle to the manifest destiny of a superior people. How to begin a conversation with someone who had the power to grant him his fondest wish? Or end his existence instantly? Either prospect excited him. He gave himself a shake to slough off the violent oh-so-tempting visions such emotions had stirred.
      “What's a lone Beta doing in a burg like this?” she asked, her smile a fraction less amused.
      “Hiding,” he managed to say, and then added quickly, “From Arions,” lest she get the wrong impression.
      “Okay,” she said. “Bait taken. Tell me why you're hiding from your own kind.” The Velorian leaned back, tilting her face to the warm sun. Max caught the wary gleam beneath lashes of the almost closed azure eyes.
      Max grunted. “My kind? They're Primes, I'm a Beta.”
      “There's a difference?” Her eyes flashed open, surprised.
      “Yeah. But don't ask me what - I only worked there!”
      She laughed, as he hoped she would.
      “I'm Max, by the way.” He extended his hand but she ignored the offer.
      “So why aren't you trying to kill me?” she asked, curiously.
      He cleared his throat. “That's what I used to do. Somewhere between the second and third time you didn't kill me, I lost the compulsion.”
      “I've fought with you before?”
      “You or one of the others. The first time, I got launched into space. My captain found me and had me resuscitated. Cost me another fifteen years as his go-fer.”
      “He charged for saving you?”
      Max grimaced. “Hell, yes. Nothing's free for a Beta.”
      The sun had passed zenith and her shadow fell between them. He paused to assemble more words to convince her of his sincerity.
      “Betas are like mushrooms. We're raised in the dark, nurtured in a thick layer of shit, then sent out at the whim of our captains to be sliced and diced on the blade of your knife.” Max couldn't look at her face, but her shadow nodded. “Don't misunderstand. The urge to fight is there, as much a part of me as it ever was. Somewhere along the line, though, I figured out my place in the Arion scheme of things, and I didn't like it. ”
      “Your place?” she said, leaning toward him. The sun shone directly in his eyes and he could read nothing in her tone.
      He picked at a spot of dried blood on the back of his hand where he'd wiped his nose earlier. Damn, broken again. Now it would look like a 'Z' instead of a '<' sign.
      “Have you ever seen Star Trek? The really old ones with Kirk?” Max waited and the shadow girl nodded. “Every time Kirk would beam down to a planet, he'd take along one of those red-shirted guys, Ensign Fubar. Never failed, when the shooting started - that's the fella who took the first shot. Usually died, too.”
      The Protector giggled. “I noticed. I would have locked Kirk's ass in the brig. He'd never have gone on another away mission. I always wondered why the idiots never wised up.”
      “One did,” Max whispered. The whistle of her suddenly inhaled breath told him she'd caught his meaning.
      “You? Do other Betas feel this way?”
      “Hell if I know. It's not a topic of conversation. Squealing on your teammates isn't considered dishonorable; just another rung in the status ladder.”
      “I see.”
      “Do you?” Max doubted whether anyone but an Arion could comprehend the cutthroat arrogance of the Beta rank and file.
      “Maybe not. But how'd you get away?”
      Max recounted the battle in which he'd been blown out of an exploding assault craft by one of the Supergirls.
      “No complaints,” Max said, earnestly. He'd deserved it. He had been the gunner shooting at her, after all. The wreckage of the aircraft had driven him into the hard packed dirt of the desert. The Terran salvage crew had been slightly surprised to find his body, but they'd been really astonished when the corpse had moaned.
      He remembered waking up in the emergency room, tethered to the gurney. The smell of antiseptic, the bright white noise of a medical facility, the static and jangle of phones, radios, and equipment is universal. The gentle hands, which wiped the blood, sweat and dirt away from his scrapes and abrasions, were not. When the clay born of the mix of his blood and this world's earth had been removed from his eyelids, he'd beheld his savior.
      “She smuggled me out.” Max molded a flap of skin back into place. Couple of stitches should fix that one.
      “Where is she now? How did you repay her kindness?” the Velorian accused. Betas were renowned for their brutality to captives.
      “Well, if it's past five, Anna is home. Cooking pot roast and mashed potatoes, if I'm lucky. Liver and onions if I'm not.”
      “Huh?”
      Max raised his chin. “I married her.”
      He could feel the judgmental Velorian eyes kreen him again.
      “Yeah, I know. It's trite to fall in love with your nurse but I did anyway.” He grinned a goofy smile. “Better yet, she loves me! Can you believe it?”
      Max pulled out his wallet and proudly displayed a wedding photo.
      “Humph,” she said, looking one last time at the picture, and then at the Beta before her. “If you don't mind me asking - how do…? Uh, how can…?” The girl fell silent, a faint blush on her cheeks.
      “Ah shit,” she finally blurted. “The sex thing… How do you manage it?”
      "Carefully." Max laughed. "I'm only a Beta."
      “But still…”
      “Do you have any idea how wonderful it is to not be inadequate?” Max asked. “With Anna, I am a Prime. I don't need to defeat a universe - I only want to conquer crabgrass and dandelions. I don't need an army to do my bidding, just a job I can do myself. I don't want to rule a world, only the TV remote. I don't want to kill you, only to…”
      “Go on,” she said. “Not kill me, only… What?”
      Max swallowed hard. “I want to be left alone. Tell the others. There is no danger from me. I'm off-duty… Forever.”
      “The Arions may find you again. Force you to fight.”
      Max looked at the dirt under his nails and wished for a hot shower and a cold beer. “Well, they can try.”
      She laughed. “Do you have a job? A nine-to-fiver?”
      He nodded. “I sell used cars.” Max expected her to giggle and she did.
      “Hey, I'm good at it. Really.”
      She looked at his big, hard hands with the short powerful fingers, at his broad shoulders and muscle-bound arms. “Buy a car or else?”
      “Nah, I stand back and let 'em look. Works often enough.”
      “Walk softly and carry a big stick,” she murmured.
      “Something like that.”
      Max waited. The Velorian considered.
      “Where'd you come up with the name Max?”
      “Off a VCR tape box. I liked the movie so I adopted the name.”
      The Velorian shuffled through every movie title on file in her impressive memory and came up blank. “The movie. What was it called?”
      “Maxell Silver,” he said with absolute seriousness.
      The girl's golden hair reflected the sun's fire. A corona shimmered around her head. Max could see a low answering glow in her eyes. She reached out toward his neck. He steeled himself for the final blow, closing his eyes to see Anna's face one last time. The soft caress startled him as force never had.
      “I think I believe you, Beta Max. As long as you run away, you are in no danger from any Protector.” Her voice sounded choked. “Turn to fight and all deals are off.”
      When Max opened his eyes to thank her, her form was already only a blur above the clouds. He wished he'd asked for a lift to the ground before she'd left.

      Opening the back door, the first thing to strike him was the aroma of liver and onions. The second was the thought of how terrific the combination would taste this once.
      Anna's bountiful frame hovered over the table, lighting candles and pouring his beer in a tall pilsner glass.
      “You're late,” she said turning. Anna took in his bruises and cuts. “You went to the park. Didn't you?” She pointed to the chair and fished her medi-kit from under the sink.
      Max nodded and submitted without a grumble to her ministrations.
      “It's the costume. Isn't it? You can't resist a girl in uniform,” she said later, tying the last stitch.
      “Yeah. I asked her where I could buy one for you,” he said. “Veloria's Secret.”
      He watched in ever-fresh amazement as the miraculous alchemy of a smile turned the plain lines and unfinished angles of her face into a thing of joyful beauty.
      “My God, you are beautiful,” he said.
      The woman settled her gangly form into Max's lap, feeling like a dainty little pocketful instead of a large economy-sized package. Anna rested her cheek against the rock hardness of her husband's chest and let the steady beat of his strong heart comfort her.
      Max wrapped always-careful arms around her and stroked her back.
      She said with a content sigh, “Do you have any idea how wonderful it is not to be inadequate?”
      He certainly did.

      The End