“Striking Sparks” — Page Sixty-Seven
Marissa shows how she can be all stealthy and stuff.
Naturally, after a deadly disaster like the one portrayed on the previous pages, there’s going to be an investigation, even though the radio transmissions would have made it pretty clear what lead to the crash. Fortunately, two things are distracting the investigators right now. They are 1: Marissa’s legs, and 2: Other parts of Marissa. Okay, three things: the two just mentioned, and 3: A teleporting vigilante who managed to help rescue a bunch of people and then vanished without a trace.
Little do they know that he’s sitting right over there. In the badass sports car. That the smokin’ hot redhead is getting into.
Okay, so he’s kind of busted up right now, but still. Freakin’ heroes have all the luck.
More below!
Bobservations
Passing Unnoticed
It will no doubt astonish you to learn (no, it won’t) that I have, on occasion, needed to go places where I wasn’t supposed to go and do things that I wasn’t supposed to do. It’s usually never as dramatic as having to dress as an insurgent for the purposes of Army training (although I’ve had to do that as well.) No, as anyone who has ever tried to make low-budget movies has learned, you often have to do a lot of what they call “guerilla filmmaking.” This is a cool way of saying “sneaking around with a camera.”
Sometimes you’re not even shooting any footage; you just want to go somewhere to see if it is worth doing a movie in that location. You can try the legit route, but that takes forever and unless the person responsible smells big bucks in their near future, they will simply refuse. And then if you sneak in anyway and are caught, you are in real trouble.
So generally it’s easier to sneak in first, and if the place looks promising, you can worry about doing the legit route if you really want to.
Places that spring to mind are skyscraper rooftops, railroad tunnels, and city storm drains. And of course the non-public areas of Los Angeles City Hall, where Max-The-Artist and I managed to get a bunch of reference photos for this episode under the guise of being “lost.”
I’ve been in the tunnels and storm drains as well. It helps a lot that my car contains my safety gear, including a hard hat, an orange safety vest, and a set of brown Nomex coveralls. Put those on, and I can walk into all sorts of off-limits areas without being challenged. It’s like having a cloak of invisibility.
But even better than being invisible is being an attractive woman. During the 9-11 disaster, our whole family was in Barcelona, Spain. The airport was filled with desperate Americans trying to get home. Some had been sleeping on the floor. My wife, who is an attractive blonde, smiled and chatted with a number of harassed-looking airport officials and somehow, within an hour or so, we — me, her, and the boys — found ourselves practically the sole occupants of a jet being flown back to the U.S. for servicing. I’m sure that many of the people sleeping on the floor of the airport would have been glad to be with us, but they were not being represented by attractive blondes with winsome smiles.
It’s a good thing our hero is not currently driving a truck, or Marissa might not have limited herself to the contents of the drawer. If she’d amped up the smile and turned on the charm, she probably could have asked the other investigators to carry the entire desk out for her.
And they would have done it, too.
— Bob out
Artist’s Notes: We always used to cringe when Mom would go up to people and chat and pester and ask naïve questions. It was kind of embarrassing to travel with her; she would be that annoying stranger talking your ear off during long flight. It still happens and it’s still embarrassing, but she really saved our butts getting us home that day after 9-11. Dad’s not exaggerating- the airport in Spain was FILLED with Americans basically living in the food courts and people everywhere were crying and fighting. It was scary, and I’m sure my Dad and I were resigned to our fate- we were last in a very long line of people waiting to get home.
But Mom, in her eternal naïveté, had no such designs- what’s the harm in just going up to the ticket counter, and asking, politely, if there were any available flights back to the US that we could hop on? I remember commenting that it was a stupid idea, after all, just look around, why would people be sleeping on their luggage if there were flights available? She ignored us as usual and disappeared for a spell. 15 minutes later, she came back and whispered “dont talk, just follow me.” An hour later we were boarding a very suspiciously empty airplane bound for Newark, if I recall. To this day I’m convinced that we were on some sort of secret VIP plane. There were no other families on board, just a handful of quiet, well dressed individuals, and plenty of room to stretch out. It was a nice flight, and after a little wait at a very empty airport stateside, we grabbed a connecting flight back to LA.
Since then, we don’t roll our eyes at Mom anymore 🙂 -Max
Female attractiveness: the only Superpower that actually exists in Real Life.
Next to having lots of money.
And if one has both, she is nigh-unstoppable.
Does anyone else suspect that the artist’s mother is a secret agent of some kind?
that was my thought reading the last bit of that story. or had some old diplomatic contacts from previous espionage work or something similar.
But mommy isn’t one of those, I’ve known her all these years!
Sure, that’s what she WANTS you to think.
There is a reason I wear my very distinctive leather jacket and hat. It makes me very noticeable and recognisable, which is good, because I suffer from Gray Man Syndrome, wherein people just don’t notice me. Wearing less distinct garb, I have in the past been marked absent from classes in high school when I had in fact arrived early, said hello to the teacher, sat front row center, and waved my arms and yelled at the teacher when they were taking attendance. And it wasn’t just a case of being lost in the crowd or the teacher not recognising me. My graduating class was only 37 people. The whole school had a student body numbering less then 300. Teachers and students get to know each other quite well.
In addition to learning how to stand out, I have also learned to add to the effect. A clipboard and I.D. badge along with a white button down shirt, brown slacks and pastel tie make you invisible in vertualy any office setting, and noone usualy looks twice at the janitor. The key is to play to people’s steriotypes. When traveling to places that rely on tourism, play the part of the tourist, and strap a fanny pack around your gut. Getting “Lost” is good, but doing so while looking for a washroom is better.
I was sort of expecting Balthazar to make a comment today, but he doesn’t appear to be present. If anyone sees him, let him know there’s a new page, mmm’kay?
Baltha-who?
Well, they noticed her all right. Kind of put their brains on autopilot, tho…
Is that “jealousy” I hear in your voice Max?
Couldn’t be, doesn’t your heart (and your ass) belong to Sophie?
Besides, you’re able to take a massive amount of punishment but somehow I think Marissa just “might’ finish you off
Theres potential in the Emil Marissa Max dynamic. While Marissa was hired, in part, to act as handler for the good Dr, their relationship seems more cerebral than physical.. such as it is. Haven’t seen the pair so much as kiss once, as any indication they are together as more than coworkers.
Signals from both Marissa and Max indicate they like what they see when they look at the other. And while thus far platonic, a fairly ‘closed’ group, time, and stress could change that.
As someone who is forced to use a crutch on a daily basis, I’m not sure cripple is a term I’d ever use to describe myself.. and I’m not really sure I know any other disabled person who would. Kind of like someone with Down’s Syndrome wouldn’t call themselves a retard. Cripple isn’t a particularly nice word with any nice connotations.
Now, if you want to portray Max as that level of ignorant, it’s all good. Just know you got a real life wince out of me.. and may (or may not!) get the same from others.
I felt like Max’s comments were more a sense of frustration, speaking at himself in a demeaning way.
And on the subject of being severely injured… WHY IS MAX DRIVING? I’ve had a shoulder injury, and turning a wheel is extremely difficult with one sparined shoulder. With two severely injured shoulders it would be both extremely painful and very dangerous for him to drive.
I looked at this and thought some damn unkind things about Marissa, to the effect of, ‘Ah, pretty girl syndrome strikes again, it’s someone else’s job to drive even if they are hurt and she isn’t…’
Oh, I’m sure Marissa offered to drive, but Max refused because he is a Guy.
I agree with Syncline, Max referring to himself as crippled is definitely frustration at being much less capable than he is used to. I have often used it in a goading challenging sort of way, too ” what, are you letting a half crippled man twice your age work you into the ground? Get up, it’s only 4 more hours!”
I actually spent some time debating this myself, especially given my brother-in-law. However in this case, Max is only on a crutch for six weeks or so, he’s muttering to himself, and he’s using self-deprecating humor. He’d never use the term to describe anyone else. Even my brother-in-law, who is an avid disability-rights advocate (and his book is great, by the way) will occasionally use the term to refer to himself in a wry manner, though (as with other such words) no one else would be allowed to, nor should they.
That’s about what I figured, honestly. I don’t think Max would ever use the term to demean others, but is just being sarcastically self-depreciating.
I have used “crippled” to describe myself after a go-kart accident in my late teens. I considered myself temporarily crippled. I was injured nowhere near as much as our hero.
You can make anything into a slur if you want. Wording and tone of voice can do it.
“Oh? You disagree with me? Well, I suppose you do have a right to do so. Why you bother though … hmph.”
See?
Bob, your wife is gifted with a silver tongue.
Also, is it true that Kim Possible was modeled after her?
As mentioned in other Bob-servations, she worked on the show and did much of Kim’s animation. Evidently she put more of herself into the character than what Bob himself declares to be a perfect butt.
Also, how is Max able to move his arms so soon? Or has it been soon? You’d think he’d be bedridden for a couple months.
He should be! Rangers and other type AAA military and para military personality types do stupid punishing things to themselves sometimes, though.
Remember the needle happy doctor. Max has the Goood drugs that don’t inhibit driving.
I’ve seen a man get a shoulder dislocated, have his buddy pop it back in, and use it to help push himself off the floor within 5 minutes. Granted, he was in *very* good shape, and in a hurry.
If nothing else, Max now has at least some evidence that he’s actually talking to dead people and not having delusional episodes while ‘dead’. Otherwise, how would he know about the helo pilot having something in his desk drawer for his now widow?
It’s certainly strong evidence of some sort of paranormal activity, but in a building full of scientists, probably only the boss really believes Max. Everyone else is probably going to be reaching for less woowoo explainations, even though they are working in a lab with an ectoplasmic rat walking around that they created themselves.
The next logical step is to test his deadvision after a controlled teleport inside the research facility.
A test that would require Sophie’s cooperation, she being the only spirit Max has communicated with thus far other than the pilot, who couldn’t hang around.
Details of Sophie’s life, to be relayed to her father? While indicative, that would qualify as circumstantial. Better to have ‘dead Max’ in one room, and Sophie communicating a staged event from another, such as Zener cards?
It’s amazing what a person can get away with just by looking the part. I’m a pretty plain-looking woman myself, and haven’t had any adventures like your mom. But I have had fellow tourists come up to me in unfamiliar places and ask me for directions. I can only guess that’s because I looked purposeful.
It’s even better when I go to Renaissance Festivals in costume, and am asked about events or directions by other attendees.
It happens in normal, everyday settings as well, as just about anyone who has worn a blue shirt and tan pants to Walmart (or the corresponding “uniform” at another store) can attest.
There is her I.D., her O.D. and her double D’s.