Something fun I wrote a year ago based on Dakotas idea of the Tesla Labs. But I SB was talking about "bad guys" in Fenspace.
***************************************
“Good morning... your name and your reason for visiting the Tesla Labs?”
The watchman at the entrance of the large building were looking at Lisa with a neutral face, patiently waiting for the catgirl.
“I am Lisa from Jenga, I asked Dr. Claw for a meeting today.” she said. “I am sure he sent you a notice, if not you might have to contact him.”
In fact Lisa had planned to do this visit for years, but important science projects and other ‘fun activities’ had always made her postpone it. But in the last weeks Jenga had been near the Earth moon system and Lisa had just a few hobby projects running, so there had been no way to delay her plan any further
“Lisa... Lisa... ahh, here it is. A meeting with Dr. Claw itself” the watchman said with a grin, “I will call a guard that will take you to the reception and then lead you to Dr. Claws meeting room.”
The Tesla Labs on the Moon were a matter of rumors and guesswork for most outsiders. Unofficially labeled as ‘Independent Research and Prototyping’ facility, its leader Dr. Claw was said to be the masterminds behind one of Kandor City’s supervillain teams.
But it was also said that the Tesla Labs were a source of creative and groundbreaking tech gadgets that had pulled a trick on Kandors Heros time and time again. After hearing about the strangely named Labs and their shady but interesting story from Dakota Lisa had decided she wanted to visit the facility.
After a few minutes a guard in a black uniform arrived.
“Please follow me” the man said and both of them entered the building and stepped into an elevator, which took them down into the basement of the building. The doors opened again and Lisa found herself in a small reception area.
“Ahh, you must be Ms. Lisa” the woman behind the desk said, “the entrance told me about your arrival. I just need a few informations about you and a signature for our NDA before you can continue.”
Lisa blinked a few times.
“A non-disclosure agreement? What celestial body are you living on?”
“No, no, you got it wrong” the woman at the desk said and shook her head. “Its a nice-disclosure agreement. We are deeply involved with the Superhero community here at Kandor, so you have to promise to be nice when you talk about what you have seen.
You see, we have to protect our reputation.”
Lisa took the stack of paper and tried to skim over them, finding a huge amount of crazy and ridiculous claims. She finally laughed and signed the paper.
“Very good, please follow the guard again, he will bring you to Dr. Claws visitor room.”
A few moments and an elevator ride later she was dropped into a meeting room by the guard. A man in a black lab coat was already waiting for her. He stood up to shake her hand.
“Hello Ms. Lisa, welcome at the Tesla Labs... I am Dr. Claw, I am happy you found your way into my realm today.”
"Thank you for having time for me Dr. Claw” Lisa replied, “I heard about your institute from a friend of mine who worked here in the past and was curious about it."
"Ahh yes, Mr. Dakota... I remember him, he was interesting to work with” Dr. Claw replied, “Please sit down here and lets talk, its not often that we get visitors from other labs and research institutes. I heard you are a fan of Nikola Tesla?"
Lisa sat down in the armchair on her end of the table. Before she could even answer Dr. Claws question, two metal claws snapped around her arms from the chairs arms and pinned her on the chair.
"Hey" she complained loudly, struggling unsuccessfully for a moment to get free. "What the hell are you think you are doing?"
"This?" Dr. Claw said with a smile, "this is just a typical Damsel in Distress armchair. Just relax and struggle a bit more, its a very comfortable and secure chair with all our standard features... you know... gag, leg restrictors, tickling fingers..."
Lisa’s eyes went wide.
"I will give you your Damsel" she hissed at Dr. Claw and bent her right hand upwards.
Dr. Claw raised an eyebrow as he saw a small holographic display appearing in front of Lisa’s right eye with some kind of crosshair on it.
Just a heartbeat later a lightning bolt left Lisas hand and hit the steel wall left to Dr. Claw, making him duck behind the table and stare at the scorch mark.
Lisa had hoped the Doctor would end his stupid joke, but he quickly went around the table and out of her ‘line of fire’ before she was ready for a second shot.
“Oh that is really terrible, I am sorry” he said. “I will have to punish the guards later, visitors are not meant to be armed in the complex. I hope you were not hurt by using your lightning while sitting on the chair!”
“No I am not hurt” Lisa shouted, “but you will open this damned shackles immediately!”
"I am really sorry..." he stated again, "but this chair is timer controlled to make it more difficult for the hero to rescue our victim. I hope it will not be too inconvenient to wait some time until I can release you."
"What?" Lisa spat out. “How long?”
"Only an hour or two, its a bit randomized. If you want we can talk about your lightning gun in the meantime, maybe we can licence the design for our own work... or maybe I can show you the other features of the chair so you can give me a review?"
Lisa closed her eyes and tried to force herself to calm down. ‘Breath in, breath out... nothing happened, just a prank that went wrong’ she thought.
Dr. Claw smiled as his ‘Damsel’ calmed down.
“I am curious, how did you produced this crazy lightning? I see no raygun and no suspicious equipment... and I am sure its not just the craziest biomod I have ever seen.”
Lisa chuckled and opened her eyes again.
“Oh no, its pure SCIENCE!, an unique device I made after years of experimentation” she said proudly. “I don’t want to give away all details, but I believe its the only phase array tesla coil in existence!”
“This sounds really interesting” Dr. Claw continued curiously, “the lightning bolt looked really great, but how do you project the scorch marks on the wall? A special holo-projector?”
Lisa looked at him for a moment, somehow Dr. Claw suddenly remembered the moments when he had asked a school teacher a stupid question at school.
“Ehh... as I said, I am really a fan of Nikola Tesla. You know, the genius who produced real lightning and was thinking about death beams and wireless energy transfer, not about wizard tricks.” she finally explained. “It was a lightning bolt... and I was angry so I went for a high powered shot. I guess your wall wasn’t up to the task to block it.”
Dr. Claw became a bit white faced for a moment as he looked back and forth between the wall and Lisa. He suddenly looked a little bit worried.
“Real lightning?”
Lisa gave him a big smile. “Real lightning!”
“But how do you power it? Let me see, what is this small thing mounted to your belt?”
Before Lisa could protest Dr. Claw had put his hand on her battery pack and unlocked it from the belt.
“This small thing? I have to admit I am impressed” he said, looking carefully at the battery pack and then putting it on the table in front of Lisa. “But as I said before, a Damsel should not have such equipment with her, a bad oversight by me and the guards.”
“I am not a Damsel” Lisa replied annoyed, but Dr. Claw raised his hand to interrupt her.
“Are you sure about this?”
Lisa blinked a few times, not sure what to say.
“Just think about it, there is practically no such thing as a willing Damsel in Distress.” Dr. Claw continued with a big grin. “Of course you could argue that by being the girlfriend of a superhero most of them automatically accepted their role in the game, but thats just one part. I can assure you most of them were quite surprised when it happened.”
Dr. Claw pated Lisa’s arm.
“So you should relax and make yourself comfortable, I always like to show a new guest the great hospitality of our organisation. I hope you noticed the section about kidnapping warranties in the security agreement you signed at the gates... did you?”
“You would not dare to” Lisa started, but a loud thunderclap and a flash made her flinch.
“I am Dr. CLAW! I am the leader of the Tesla Labs and THE BANE OF S.H.I.E.L.D.!” Dr. Claw stated loudly. “Of course I dare!”
For a moment, Lisa just stared at him with wide eyes.
“I really love the thunderbolt generator... works every times.” Dr. Claw chuckled, then he got more serious again. “You are not a member of the JLI, neither you are affiliated with a superhero or similar Fen so I will give you a choice.”
He waited for a moment, but Lisa decided not to give him a response.
“I have three proposals for you, so you should carefully think about them.
Maybe I will decide that keeping a top engineer of Catgirl Industries kidnapped is great and I will demand an insane amount of ransom to let you free again.
I could also choose to kidnap the brilliant Scientist Dr. Lisa and force her to build me my latest secret weapon in my underground lab.
As a third option, but only if you ask for it of course, we can leave the Labs together for a dinner and afterwards you just leave for home.”
Lisa just stared at Dr. Claw, then she started laughing.
“That is just great, how long have you playing this role?” she asked him after calming down again. “You had me worried for a moment!”
Dr. Claw gave her a big smile.
“I think thats the best praise I got in years, thank you. I am one of the founders of the Tesla labs, so I have been here since the early days of Kandor. I have to admit I never had more fun in my live than in the last decade.
You wouldn’t believe how much work it is to run the labs. All the preparations to build up an interesting supervillain, all the planning to get away with spectacular heists and crimes without hurting people seriously.
Last year we had a four week event about ‘the return of the Trickster’ with all kinds of very public stunts and special effect. Lunas Hotels saw more than 15% additional tourists in this time.”
He sat down on a chair besides Lisa.
“So what will it be my dear guest?”
***************************************
“Good morning... your name and your reason for visiting the Tesla Labs?”
The watchman at the entrance of the large building were looking at Lisa with a neutral face, patiently waiting for the catgirl.
“I am Lisa from Jenga, I asked Dr. Claw for a meeting today.” she said. “I am sure he sent you a notice, if not you might have to contact him.”
In fact Lisa had planned to do this visit for years, but important science projects and other ‘fun activities’ had always made her postpone it. But in the last weeks Jenga had been near the Earth moon system and Lisa had just a few hobby projects running, so there had been no way to delay her plan any further
“Lisa... Lisa... ahh, here it is. A meeting with Dr. Claw itself” the watchman said with a grin, “I will call a guard that will take you to the reception and then lead you to Dr. Claws meeting room.”
The Tesla Labs on the Moon were a matter of rumors and guesswork for most outsiders. Unofficially labeled as ‘Independent Research and Prototyping’ facility, its leader Dr. Claw was said to be the masterminds behind one of Kandor City’s supervillain teams.
But it was also said that the Tesla Labs were a source of creative and groundbreaking tech gadgets that had pulled a trick on Kandors Heros time and time again. After hearing about the strangely named Labs and their shady but interesting story from Dakota Lisa had decided she wanted to visit the facility.
After a few minutes a guard in a black uniform arrived.
“Please follow me” the man said and both of them entered the building and stepped into an elevator, which took them down into the basement of the building. The doors opened again and Lisa found herself in a small reception area.
“Ahh, you must be Ms. Lisa” the woman behind the desk said, “the entrance told me about your arrival. I just need a few informations about you and a signature for our NDA before you can continue.”
Lisa blinked a few times.
“A non-disclosure agreement? What celestial body are you living on?”
“No, no, you got it wrong” the woman at the desk said and shook her head. “Its a nice-disclosure agreement. We are deeply involved with the Superhero community here at Kandor, so you have to promise to be nice when you talk about what you have seen.
You see, we have to protect our reputation.”
Lisa took the stack of paper and tried to skim over them, finding a huge amount of crazy and ridiculous claims. She finally laughed and signed the paper.
“Very good, please follow the guard again, he will bring you to Dr. Claws visitor room.”
A few moments and an elevator ride later she was dropped into a meeting room by the guard. A man in a black lab coat was already waiting for her. He stood up to shake her hand.
“Hello Ms. Lisa, welcome at the Tesla Labs... I am Dr. Claw, I am happy you found your way into my realm today.”
"Thank you for having time for me Dr. Claw” Lisa replied, “I heard about your institute from a friend of mine who worked here in the past and was curious about it."
"Ahh yes, Mr. Dakota... I remember him, he was interesting to work with” Dr. Claw replied, “Please sit down here and lets talk, its not often that we get visitors from other labs and research institutes. I heard you are a fan of Nikola Tesla?"
Lisa sat down in the armchair on her end of the table. Before she could even answer Dr. Claws question, two metal claws snapped around her arms from the chairs arms and pinned her on the chair.
"Hey" she complained loudly, struggling unsuccessfully for a moment to get free. "What the hell are you think you are doing?"
"This?" Dr. Claw said with a smile, "this is just a typical Damsel in Distress armchair. Just relax and struggle a bit more, its a very comfortable and secure chair with all our standard features... you know... gag, leg restrictors, tickling fingers..."
Lisa’s eyes went wide.
"I will give you your Damsel" she hissed at Dr. Claw and bent her right hand upwards.
Dr. Claw raised an eyebrow as he saw a small holographic display appearing in front of Lisa’s right eye with some kind of crosshair on it.
Just a heartbeat later a lightning bolt left Lisas hand and hit the steel wall left to Dr. Claw, making him duck behind the table and stare at the scorch mark.
Lisa had hoped the Doctor would end his stupid joke, but he quickly went around the table and out of her ‘line of fire’ before she was ready for a second shot.
“Oh that is really terrible, I am sorry” he said. “I will have to punish the guards later, visitors are not meant to be armed in the complex. I hope you were not hurt by using your lightning while sitting on the chair!”
“No I am not hurt” Lisa shouted, “but you will open this damned shackles immediately!”
"I am really sorry..." he stated again, "but this chair is timer controlled to make it more difficult for the hero to rescue our victim. I hope it will not be too inconvenient to wait some time until I can release you."
"What?" Lisa spat out. “How long?”
"Only an hour or two, its a bit randomized. If you want we can talk about your lightning gun in the meantime, maybe we can licence the design for our own work... or maybe I can show you the other features of the chair so you can give me a review?"
Lisa closed her eyes and tried to force herself to calm down. ‘Breath in, breath out... nothing happened, just a prank that went wrong’ she thought.
Dr. Claw smiled as his ‘Damsel’ calmed down.
“I am curious, how did you produced this crazy lightning? I see no raygun and no suspicious equipment... and I am sure its not just the craziest biomod I have ever seen.”
Lisa chuckled and opened her eyes again.
“Oh no, its pure SCIENCE!, an unique device I made after years of experimentation” she said proudly. “I don’t want to give away all details, but I believe its the only phase array tesla coil in existence!”
“This sounds really interesting” Dr. Claw continued curiously, “the lightning bolt looked really great, but how do you project the scorch marks on the wall? A special holo-projector?”
Lisa looked at him for a moment, somehow Dr. Claw suddenly remembered the moments when he had asked a school teacher a stupid question at school.
“Ehh... as I said, I am really a fan of Nikola Tesla. You know, the genius who produced real lightning and was thinking about death beams and wireless energy transfer, not about wizard tricks.” she finally explained. “It was a lightning bolt... and I was angry so I went for a high powered shot. I guess your wall wasn’t up to the task to block it.”
Dr. Claw became a bit white faced for a moment as he looked back and forth between the wall and Lisa. He suddenly looked a little bit worried.
“Real lightning?”
Lisa gave him a big smile. “Real lightning!”
“But how do you power it? Let me see, what is this small thing mounted to your belt?”
Before Lisa could protest Dr. Claw had put his hand on her battery pack and unlocked it from the belt.
“This small thing? I have to admit I am impressed” he said, looking carefully at the battery pack and then putting it on the table in front of Lisa. “But as I said before, a Damsel should not have such equipment with her, a bad oversight by me and the guards.”
“I am not a Damsel” Lisa replied annoyed, but Dr. Claw raised his hand to interrupt her.
“Are you sure about this?”
Lisa blinked a few times, not sure what to say.
“Just think about it, there is practically no such thing as a willing Damsel in Distress.” Dr. Claw continued with a big grin. “Of course you could argue that by being the girlfriend of a superhero most of them automatically accepted their role in the game, but thats just one part. I can assure you most of them were quite surprised when it happened.”
Dr. Claw pated Lisa’s arm.
“So you should relax and make yourself comfortable, I always like to show a new guest the great hospitality of our organisation. I hope you noticed the section about kidnapping warranties in the security agreement you signed at the gates... did you?”
“You would not dare to” Lisa started, but a loud thunderclap and a flash made her flinch.
“I am Dr. CLAW! I am the leader of the Tesla Labs and THE BANE OF S.H.I.E.L.D.!” Dr. Claw stated loudly. “Of course I dare!”
For a moment, Lisa just stared at him with wide eyes.
“I really love the thunderbolt generator... works every times.” Dr. Claw chuckled, then he got more serious again. “You are not a member of the JLI, neither you are affiliated with a superhero or similar Fen so I will give you a choice.”
He waited for a moment, but Lisa decided not to give him a response.
“I have three proposals for you, so you should carefully think about them.
Maybe I will decide that keeping a top engineer of Catgirl Industries kidnapped is great and I will demand an insane amount of ransom to let you free again.
I could also choose to kidnap the brilliant Scientist Dr. Lisa and force her to build me my latest secret weapon in my underground lab.
As a third option, but only if you ask for it of course, we can leave the Labs together for a dinner and afterwards you just leave for home.”
Lisa just stared at Dr. Claw, then she started laughing.
“That is just great, how long have you playing this role?” she asked him after calming down again. “You had me worried for a moment!”
Dr. Claw gave her a big smile.
“I think thats the best praise I got in years, thank you. I am one of the founders of the Tesla labs, so I have been here since the early days of Kandor. I have to admit I never had more fun in my live than in the last decade.
You wouldn’t believe how much work it is to run the labs. All the preparations to build up an interesting supervillain, all the planning to get away with spectacular heists and crimes without hurting people seriously.
Last year we had a four week event about ‘the return of the Trickster’ with all kinds of very public stunts and special effect. Lunas Hotels saw more than 15% additional tourists in this time.”
He sat down on a chair besides Lisa.
“So what will it be my dear guest?”
