Following their interrogation of a corrupt USC Egyptology Professor, the QQ’s tangle with Chronos and his henchmen- with surprising results. Yet after each move in this hi-tech chess match comes greater understanding of CC’s ultimate goal. Can the Time Bomb be stopped?

COMIC PAGE EIGHTEEN: Even as the Ionospheric Clipper touches down onto the University of Southern California main quadrangle (attracting quite an audience!), the telephone in the office of NASA Chief James Perigee rings. The Houston Flight Controller is on the line. Countdown for the Atlas III-B cargo rocket on the launching pad at Cape Canaveral has been halted at T-minus-ninety-minutes because a routine final payload check has turned up several red flags. "Chief, this is Wilson in Flight Ops. We’ve done a weight tally on the ISS supply modules loaded this morning into the Atlas cargo stage, and their numbers are all wrong. We’re off by a factor of 10! Do you think Martin-Marietta maybe forgot to load all the supplies and spare parts?" Under normal circumstances, Perigee would simply scrub the mission.

But these were hardly normal circumstances. The NASA big-whig stares down at his desktop where yet another blackmail letter and accompanying photograph sit newly-opened. Various unaffiliated (and thus untraceable) magazine and newspaper letters spell out the command: IGNORE ANYTHING UNUSUAL!

Along with this rather vague message comes a second impossible sexual encounter caught on 35MM film.

In this picture Perigee stands behind a tall Hibiscus bush in his own backyard, taking a break in the shade from cutting the lawn last Saturday (his mower is plainly visible in the background). OK, now that part he remembers. But the rest of the photo doesn’t make any sense. Kneeling between the Chief’s widespread legs (at least as widespread as possible with Bermuda shorts halfway down to his knees) is the obviously excited fifteen-year-old daughter of Jim’s best friend and next-door neighbor. Traci Jordan’s youthful ruby lips are adoringly wrapped about the shaft of his stiff cock as she fingers herself down the crack of her red micro-bikini bottom! Perigee distinctly recalls curly-blonde Traci sunbathing out at their neighbor’s pool last Saturday morning (in fact, her untied bikini top had triggered his imagination along lines of thought which- despite his embarrassment at being three times her age- caused significant stirring in his boxers).

But he never got within 100 feet of her. Or so he thought. Until Now. How the $@*&! did they do that?

"You heard me right, Wilson. Continue with the countdown. No, I don’t care if you ARE reading bizarre theta-wave radiation emissions in the cargo pods. Re-calibrate trajectories and lift-off that rocket. NOW"!

COMIC PAGE NINETEEN: Turning away from a darkening video screen inside the QQ’s secret NM base headquarters, Professor Nils Johannson briefs his loyal associate (who’s entering the AV room while carrying the captured TRAMP time-regulating device) about his just-now-completed communication with Joint Chiefs Chairman USAF General William Hawke. "Yaaah, I believe the General when he informs me that no military temporal experiments are underway at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Guards around the fence perimeter and along the access roads report nothing out of the ordinary during the past 24 hours. Und yet, time-stopping weaponry might well provide a cover of seeming invisibility to any base security network relying upon human supervision and response. I’ve requested that a CONDOR spy satellite be repositioned to monitor activity at Vandenberg for the next 72 hours. We might get lucky". Scott McGillicutty responds, "Preliminary external investigation into the functioning of this electronic gadget shows that it was drawing nearly a half-megawatt of electricity per hour to sustain its time-dilation bubble around those unlucky truck drivers. Which means that Colonel Chronos’ technology uses incredible quantities of power that should stick out like a sore thumb on some utility company’s billing records." Nils replies, "Bravo, Scotty! How soon can we investigate this lead?" He complains, "Unfortunately, Sir, there’s considerable difficulty in the pursuit of such information. First, we have the small matter of individual confidentiality rights as guaranteed by the US Constitution. Now, I’m sure our Pentagon friends are used to side-stepping such ‘trivialities’, so I’m not too worried about that point. The really intimidating obstacle is the software incompatibility. With electrical utilities deregulation, there are now more than 1800 corporate suppliers of electrical power in the United States. I’ve done some basic checking, and these firms use 277 separate billing protocols to keep track of their 46.8 million government, business and residential customers. But that’s not even the worst of it! To examine electric bills looking for some gigantic increase in wattage consumption, there’s more than a dozen 12-month-prior comparison algorithms available to utilities. And it also means we’ll go back beyond a 180-day window US regulators require firms keep records on-line- or else we must write thousands of code lines ourselves". "Yaah, und are you telling me we must search 100 million electricity bills by hand?" Scotty nods.
 
 

COMIC PAGE TWENTY: On the plush bridge of the Chief’s ninety-foot Chris-Craft cabin cruiser, the evil Colonel Chronos stands at rigid military attention in a skintight silver Melkosian flight suit before his two superiors. A similarly-attired Mommy (whose libido also enjoyed rejuvenation along with her physical appearance, thanks to temporal fuel donations from Sharon Rock, Vickie Goldstedt and our own Kathy England) carefully appraises a physically-fit Marine’s bulging muscles- as well as one other ample bulge- handsomely displayed within their alien encasement. Protective hooded cowls and their ski-goggle-type eyewear currently rest crumpled comfortably around their necks and shoulders, but ready for action at a moment’s notice. The Chief spins around from the vessel’s helm (thereby catching Mommy in the act of

scrutinizing from behind Ollie’s tight buns) and barks out an order, "REPORT!" The Colonel replies, "Yes SIR! Testing of the micro-TRAMP prototype was fully successful (Ollie can’t help but smirk a little at this announcement, recalling his pleasure in sampling the delicious ballerina’s frozen treasures), and ninety-six identical units were deployed onto the fuel acquired last night in Pasadena, as well as those stored in the Vandenberg warehouse. All were delivered on time to Florida for lift-off scheduled in less than an hour".

"Excellent!", responds the Chief, "The final steps to making a‘Big Bang’ are moving toward completion".

"Roger that, Sir", CC continues, "And Dwight reports loading and final construction for ‘Project Sodom and Gommorah’s temporal weaponry calibration are also fully on schedule. That’s less than 100 hours away".

The Chief now turns back round to expertly pilot his ship out through the Laguna Beach Marina jetty, so Mommy interrupts (after first copping a cheap feel across the Marine’s impressive pectorals), "My, My¼ all this good news is SO exciting! Perhaps the Colonel might ’fill me in’ on further details down in our master suite cabin". A look of trapped distress crosses his face before he responds, "I’m afraid that it’s not entirely all good news, Ma’am. My ultra-secret military security inside sources inform me that Dr. Nils Johannson’s Quintessential Quintet superheroine team has been assigned to investigate our time-stopping temporal fuel acquisition activities"! Both Mommy and Chief look aghast at this revelation, as they are fully aware of the QQ’s incredible abilities as detailed by the national newspapers in their defeat of evil Mademoiselle Mensa. "Don’t worry", CC reassures them, "Weasel- uh, I mean Dwight- has already taken steps to put them off track¼by about 150 years! Unfortunately, there is more bad news. The Pentagon notified us this morning that $100 million in research project funding is cut off- due to lack of reported results and near-detection by outside parties". In open panic, the Chief asks, "But HOW will we be able to pay those outrageous electric bills without government subsidy?" Ollie replies, "Everything’s under control, Sir. Dwight already has his Cray supercomputers hard at work on a new application of our Melkosian time-manipulation technology which should provide considerable additional revenue. We call it ‘Operation Gold Mine’". The insidious Chief ends his querying of Ollie with, "And where’s Helen? Wasn’t she supposed to meet us on board"?

COMIC PAGE TWENTY-ONE: In fact, Helen Troy was fully intending to rendevous with her cohorts in crime to accompany them on this latest fuel acquisition run; but she had been delayed some thirty or so minutes earlier by unexpected visitors. Packing a Melkosian flight suit into her crocodile-skin briefcase, the beautiful (and twenty years rejuvenated- thanks to Weasel’s TRAMP regression algorithm) Egyptology professor and department Chairman buzzed her secretary on the intercom to cancel a couple of loose-end appointments and handle details before heading out to the Laguna Beach Marina. Helen’s twenty-three-year-old new secretary Brenda Glaze was panning out beautifully. She’s bright, very hard-working, and took care of problems as they arose with her own insightful initiatives. Of course, it didn’t hurt one bit (from the perspective of our ‘goes both ways’ prof) that Brenda was a stacked (38D-25-36) dynamite redhead with sparkling green eyes who had a tendency to wear frilly- almost transparent- blouses and abbreviated skirts.

Apparently, Helen had caught her secretary on noon break, because her response over the intercom was a little garbled by a half-chewed lunchtime sandwich bite: "OK, Bloss¼haf a nice bloat wide!", she now mumbles over the open channel. Suddenly, the sound of the History Department door being kicked in is clearly discernable over the intercom. Its wooden frame slams into drywall, and the frosted plate glass window shatters into a thousand pieces. Brenda’s reaction is lightning fast! Punching the speaker-phone button (Helen hears a dial tone) she blurts out, "HELB! CLUMPLUS SECURTY, TSHIS ISH BRRrrrr¼" Then nothing but silence. In the ensuing seconds two sets of footsteps are heard crossing the outer office, and Professor Troy’s door slowly swings open. The hapless Ms. Glaze half-squats in the act of raising up out of her chair. Facing away from Helen, the back of Brenda’s now-toussled styled burgundy hairdo strangely sparkles and glitters with thousands of points and facets of light reflected from the overhead office lamps.

In her left hand she holds out accusingly a half-drunken bottle of Perrier, while in her right hovers (just six inches from her mouth) a chicken salad sandwich with one lipstick-framed semi-circular bite taken from it. The panicked secretary isn’t moving a muscle, and it takes a only few seconds for Helen to understand why.

Brenda is fully encased from lovely head-to-toe inside a one-inch-thick coating of sheet ice¼Frozen Stiff! Ingeno-Lady’s remarkable thermodynamic freezing ray gauntlet weapon has instantly incapacitated the sexy young woman amid her summoning for help. Any further actions or thoughts by the redhead, however, will have to wait some thirty minutes until a numbing cold releases its powerful grip over her mind and body.

A grotesque fascination washes over Professor Troy as she takes in the amazing sight of her secretary iced over in mid-lunge. The encasing freeze effect is virtually free from any visual distortion: Brenda’s shapely hourglass figure is plainly visible in rear view- right down to the aquamarine bra straps underneath her white satin blouse. A molecular deceleration generating the incredible temperature drop imprisoning this unlucky girl was also accompanied by a blast of arctic-cold air venting off her curvaceous frame. This chilly gust had blown her flower print mini-skirt back and upwards into a mid-air flutter pose, where its stiffened hemline now remains laced within scores of half-inch long icicles. Helen guffaws involuntarily at the revealing result of this rearrangement¼ the C-shaped dark crack in Brenda’s crouching buttocks now plainly visible through shiny suntan-colored pantyhose! Yet sight of two approaching superheroines wipes the smile from her face.

Professor Troy reaches for a 9mm Beretta lying next to the silver temporally-insulating flight suit inside her briefcase; yet bold Inga is more than ready for her. Rapidly assuming a legs-widespread aiming stance, the girl-next-door QQ brunette extends her left forearm, tosses her wavy raven locks back with a flick of her head, and trains a steel-blue eyeball through her gauntlet weapon’s crosshairs. "I wouldn’t go there, Ms. Troy, unless you wish to join your cute friend outside in her convincing imitation of a popsicle! We’re not here to arrest you, or to cause you any harm whatsoever. We simply want to have a nice little chat".

The cornered criminal hesitates in her move toward the gun and fully considers the frozen circumstances of her secretary- a fate now easily shared with her by a simple grasping hand motion. Brenda’s shocked face is displayed in slight left profile (directing interrupted pleas into the speaker phone). The prof views fear in the redhead’s glazed-over wide green eyes, noting chicken salad embarrassingly clinging to the top of her tongue inside a half-open mouth. Helen decides not to join her, instead raising both hands over her head.

COMIC PAGE TWENTY-TWO: "¼YOU’RE¼¼¼UNDER¼¼¼¼ARREST!!!" Stephanie Summers had been trying so hard to make these words (very last thoughts spinning through her confused mind as a cruel Dwight froze her in time at the Rose Bowl) come out of her pursed pink lips for almost twelve hours. But she simply couldn’t budge. Ever since that weird blue-white energy wave struck her crouching frame, the surrounding world seemed to whirl away..: racing off at a blindingly-fast pace and leaving her behind to exist in ultra-super-slow motion. Her thoughts still crawled forward (she wasn’t dead or unconscious she had realized) at an insanely-sluggish rate, while certain physical sensations- sight and touch most especially- remained active at new heightened levels. A pleasant feeling of warm contentment had now pervaded her pert athletic frame, and the mind underneath her backwards and askew LAPD officer’s cap (Weasel had amused himself by repositioning the hat while stripping her) was feeling pretty darn good. Of course, these were not the most comfortable of circumstances. Stephanie was packed into an ISS supply module with several dozen other frozen women¼ all similarly mostly unattired, and each with a blue-glowing electronic disc squarely planted onto their foreheads. From her own immobile facing-ahead field of view, she could see in peripheral vision the stiffened upraised left calf and curvy thigh of a well-toned African-American woman, whose crotchless white panties and tacky stretch miniskirt (was she a hooker?) dangled casually from her chocolate ankle. This shapely gam jutted over and across Steph’s right shoulder, brushing past her cheek and straight out toward the small viewing portal of the ISS access hatch in front of her. Directly beneath the leg was a toussled ebony hairdo of a UCLA cheerleader bent over with both arms out from her sides A hint of a gleeful naughty giggle could be discerned on the Asian coed’s paralyzed profile as she maintained her full mooning pose. The gal’s bent bare backside protruded directly into the police officer’s inward-curved naked stomach (an effective use of storage space by whoever packed them in here!), and the feel of many crinkled bushy pubic hairs on her tummy was strangely invigorating. She was beginning to get the idea of what it must feel like to be a packaged sardine¼ yet with some slight erotic consolations. Steph’s outstretched arms squashed her own exposed boobs together slightly, her upper left arm biceps making helpless contact with a nipple. The resulting sensation over the past twelve hours had blossomed into an electric tingling, as this pink-brown nub had begun its journey toward erection at amazingly-slow pace. She had reached the happy physical-mental equilibrium of the micro-TRAMP’s storage mode, now just barely-dimly aware of her prior existence as an animated sexy young woman. Pleasing feelings distracted her creeping mind and assisted in an acceptance of Stephanie’s new role as temporal fuel for the Time Bomb. At last she gives up her struggle to mouth the arrest order, and allows her simple thoughts to focus on enjoying an incredible view of the Cape of Good Hope wheeling past the window five hundred miles below. "How......pretty..........", then blankness.

COMIC PAGE TWENTY-THREE: Recently-rehired White House Chief of Staff Tom Stepalloverus stands strategically behind President Alan Bore as he fields questions at the podium in the East Wing press room. Between informational prompts discreetly whispered into the ear of the Chief Executive, the TV-savvy media advisor prods him with such basic encouragements as, "Smile, Al¼ Loosen up! Look like you’re enjoying yourself, rather than having your wisdom teeth pulled"! Taking solace from this morning’s ABC news polling results which show him twelve points ahead of former Senator Bradford, this third unelected US President musters a wooden smile and begins responding to follow-up inquiries from a lovely late-twenties Washington Post reporter. "Uhh¼Yes, Deborah, I’m really very pleased with the bipartisan support we have received both in the Congress for funding purposes -and from the American people- in our efforts to send former President Raygun into space. In his own historic words, "With this flight our past and future shall be united!" USA is passing a very high-tech torch between generations at the close of the millennium. And it’s absolutely a complete coincidence that the Shuttle lift-off date was moved up to ten days before the New Hampshire Democratic primary. I have no fear whatsoever about defeating Will Bradford¼ the Crimson will beat the Tigers, as usual, Ha, Ha, Ha." (nobody gets the joke, and the room is in awkward silence until the pretty brunette Post reporter changes the subject with her final allowed question). Wincing slightly at the unsettling topic, Al Bore now responds, "Uhh¼Yes, Deborah, I am most distressed by reports of unexplained disappearances of so many attractive young Southern Californian women. Sharon Rock and Kathy England are close personal family friends, and Tupper and I are both very worried about them¼as well as the scores of other kidnaping victims. Be assured I’ve brought all our government’s resources to bear on these crimes. The FBI has formed a special task force headed by the same capable young agent who arrested that insidious Mademoiselle Mensa". (Chief Stepalloverus rolls his eyes at this brainless mentioning of those humiliating circumstances which forced the resignation of Bore’s Democratic predecessor; while the entire White House press corps chuckles at the vivid memory of National Enquirer photos illustrating Bob Clampett boinking his stupefied secretary kneeling nude and paralyzed atop the historic Connolly desk inside the Oval Office). Realizing his political gaffe after being chided by his Chief of Staff, President Bore attempts damage control with, "We have also thrown Top-Secret military research project resources at the crimes. Dr. Nils Johannson and his newly-expanded Quintessential Quintet team are now investigating the situation even as we speak".

COMIC PAGE TWENTY-FOUR: Al Bore didn’t realize it at the time, but he was putting his foot into his mouth once again- or at least well off the mark in describing activities for three out of the five QQ’s at that moment. Maw and Deidre stand uncomfortably apart on either side of Ms. Sarah Hasselblad, 51-year-old senior executive producer of Sports Illustrated’s annual swimsuit editions. The trio are atop the sandy knoll overlooking a scenic beach on the less-developed northwest side of Catalina Island. The huge cigar-shaped silver outline of the Ionospheric Clipper frames the three figures some two hundred yards behind them. Maw listens politely to Ms. Hasselblad’s overview of the bustling activity on the beach below them, while Deedee gazes longingly at the barely-clad muscular frame of now-world-famous Italian photographer Mario Tomba.

An Olympic-skier-turned-cameraman has enjoyed acclaim in his ability to elicit torrid poses and sexy images from the fashion world’s most beautiful women(as well as reportedly bedding most of them¼often two or three at a time!). Scrutinizing Mario as he crouches engrossed in a close-up of striking Elle MacPherson, the newest QQ superheroine surveys his well-proportioned tiny Speedo suit and sleeveless grey tee-shirt while drifting spellbound into sexual admiration¼ a glazed happy expression falling across sharp elegant features.

Maw notices DD’s lack of attention to their assignment: her intense brown eyes narrow and cute pug nose crinkles into an obvious outwardly-disapproving frown at her muta-cloned colleagues’s careless behavior.

Pulling the bright red cape around her shoulders to protect a powerful weightlifter’s bikini-clad body against a strong offshore Pacific breeze (it’s giving hair and makeup personnel below absolute fits, but generating the strong 3-5 foot swells Sarah demands as background to their photoshoot), our page-boy style blonde super- heroine slowly surveys a fascinating scene along the cobalt-blue ocean’s roaring foamy edge.

Spring Carnival is now in full swing upon this offshore hideaway retreat for California’s well-to-do.

From a more protected cove some half-mile away over the sandy north shore dunes, sounds of jazz music waft liltingly down the breeze, mixed with typical noises of partying: the drone of thousands of people all talking at once punctuated by occasional shouts and the clinking of glass. Dozens of sailboat masts roll steadily back and forth at anchor atop the mild chop in the far sheltered bay. Often the trajectory of a frisbee or volleyball is spotted airborne over the adjacent separating knolls, while a multicolored box kite twirls some three hundred feet above the ground over the landscape. Would-be spectators to entries in this year’s carnival sand sculpting competition today are temporarily restricted by two orange sawhorses visible at the far end of this beach. A large red-lettered sign atop each declares, PHOTOGRAPHY SESSION IN PROGRESS. NO ADMITTANCE! Of course, such a posting piques the curiosity of scores of island visitors, now straining to peer beyond a few large Catalina shoreline rocks to best view an assortment of intricate sand sculptures populated by several of the world’s most famous females. Next to a twelve-foot-high sandy replica of an oak (what detail in leaves and branches!) Claudia Schiffer brings forth her stunning Eve imitation for the camera lens. Bent slightly forward at the waist with legs tightly presses together, a zebra-striped designer bikini top dangles open as mere decoration wrapped about her right forearm covering a modest bustline. The suit’s matching stretch bottom has been yanked down to mid thigh, exposing a whimsical fig leaf as her only modesty preservation. The leggy supermodel poses with a giant red apple a mere half-foot away from the sand-tree branches (one of them temporarily inhabited by a large nasty-looking rubber snake)- a large bite missing from the fruit held inches from her luscious lips, and a "caught in the act" look of naughty surprise on her angelic countenance.

Mario Tomba jauntily struts between captivating Claudia and Tyra Banks, perched atop one of five incredibly realistic wild horse torsos sculpted nearby. Decked out in a flattering neon yellow Catalina tank (what else, given the SI shoot location!), leather chaps, spurs, and a five-gallon cowboy hat, the stunning beauty lunges forward with rope in hand- an action pose which perfectly highlights her lithe figure in profile: pert breasts leaning ahead and shapely derriere jutting out behind. With a drop-dead-gorgeous smile across her dark face, Tyra delights in lassoing another of the galloping sand stallions out in front of her. Elle MacPherson prances seductively about the rough surf off to lovely Tyra’s right, while Carol Alt and (what appears to be) Kathy England work with two energetic production assistants to ready themselves for fairy-tale-ish shots using a nearby seven-foot-high sand castle’s turret as their central prop. Kneeling prettily atop the watch tower while sporting an abbreviated leopard skin bikini top (perfectly matched to her ample bustline spilling forth from within), Kathy guides ankle-length hair from a platinum-blonde wig she is wearing down and over the sand-bricks of the castle wall toward a waiting Ms. Alt. Reaching skyward to touch the erstwhile Rapunzel’s gold tresses with her fingertips, Carol’s tiger-stripe backless tank perfectly highlights her delicious tip-toed curves in rear view as she smiles brightly back over her shoulder at the camera tripod. As this newest sand fantasy scene is readied, Tomba extends his circuit to now include these additional two beauties. Encouragements of "Bravissimo!" and "Si, Si, Mia Belladonna!"from the increasingly-animated handsome photographer raises the level of sexual excitement on the beach to a feverish pitch (Deedee is veritably drooling as she spies a stout obviously-growing bulge inside Marios’s Speedo). Dislike and disrespect for the super-charged libido of her new crime-fighting partner growing, Maw shakes her head in disbelief and addresses Ms. Hasselblad with a question (while cautiously scrutinizing two dozen more fantastically-detailed artworks sprinkled over the three hundred yard beach to the rocks beyond) "Excuse me, M’am, but I don’t understand how the sand sculptures- as beautiful as they are- can stand up to this wind and ocean spray, not to the mention weight of those models. Why aren’t they crumbling?" Beaming with pride in anticipation of the end product of this lusty photo shoot (best and sexiest Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition ever!?), Sarah replies, "Quite simple my dear. Something Catalina Carnival judges began years ago to preserve the amazing sculptures for all to admire. Do you see that large green pressure cannister standing next to a lighting stand -umbrella- over by Tyra Banks (Maw nods)? That’s a quick-drying acrylic-resin polymer, sprayed daily onto sand art. It encases the sculptures in a nearly-invisible clear-coat shell which is almost as hard as steel armor. We could probably drive a truck over the treated sand and not see a grain out of place. Environmentally friendly, too. Stuff evaporates without residual trace back into the air after about twenty-four hours. After all, we are in California"! Deedee breaks free of Mario’s scantily-clad gyrating hypnotic spell to inquire, "How do you keep all the surfers, jet-skiers and other curious boaters from intruding into shots from offshore"? An experienced executive producer dismisses Dura-Damsel’s question with a simple hand wave, "As always, SI has engaged the services of the Coast Guard to keep everybody on the water at a reasonable distance. Look!" The trio glance at an orange-and-white cutter some five hundred yards offshore before they are all mesmerized by Mario tossing his tee shirt onto the sands. Gazing worshipfully at the brawny skier’s muscular superstructure, the Quint-Quints fail to notice a Zodiac boldly cruising up next to the Coast Guard vessel, nor the electric blue-white bubble which suddenly encases the cutter- rendering it absolutely motionless atop churning waves. The rubber craft now turns toward shore.

Deedee catches sight of Maw’s disapproving glare, sticking her tongue out in a leering grimace at a QQ’ally’.

COMIC PAGE TWENTY-FIVE: Suddenly Helen Troy is feeling very confused and dizzy. As the saffron sari-clad Empath Girl approaches her around the office desk, the Egyptology professor’s thoughts begin to slow and congeal- her ability to make clear logical judgments falling into a dark well. "Oh!!...What...what are you ...you doing to m...." she stammers as psychic contact grows ever stronger with diminishing distance.

Seconds later Emma has long-nailed fingertips in a firm grasp on the side of Helen’s stunned head, and the Mind Meld begins to take full effect. Closing piercing coal-black eyes, EG’s head lolls slowly atop delicate shoulders, and her waist-length straight jet-black hair cascades and shimmers in the room’s overhead lights.

For a few seconds both women moan softly in protest to the unnatural mental connect while obviously feeling a certain degree of discomfort as the cruel villainess struggles against the superheroine. But the Meld is too powerful. Helen’s eyes cross and roll back in her head, then the teenage QQ begins her controlling mantra: "I must be totally truthful in answering all questions......I must be totally truthful in answering all questions...."

After several moments the chant is transferred. Emma’s bhindied brow furrows and face grimaces in intense concentration, and Helen’s head fully swivels back on her shoulders as she stares blankly at the ceiling while repeatedly whispering those very same words telepathically implanted into her brain. At the close of a tough para-psychic linkage taking less than five minutes to complete, EG steps away from her subject in overriding (but temporary) mental control of Ms. Troy’s judgement and free will- a big smile emerging over her lovely Asian-Indian features. Turning to her super-intellect QQ boss she reports,"The professor should now be quite cooperative in helping us better understand the circumstances and activities of her little club. However, I’m not exactly sure how long the Mind Meld will remain in effect. I would guess we have just a few minutes".

Ingeno-Lady demands, "You will now tell us everything you know about Colonel Chronos and why he is kidnaping all those beautiful women. Exactly how is it possible that your gang has the ability to manipulate time"? The entranced female ceases her whispering and involuntarily draws herself into a ramrod-straight posture of military attention. The Gloria Vanderbilt-style hairdo straightens about her shoulders- only a few white streaks remain in the raven strands to hint at her actual forty-something age (rejuvenated thanks to the Melkosian technology and Weasel’s TRAMP age regression algorithm). Helen’s gaze stays unfocused: both eyes rolling lazily about the office without recognizing any of her surroundings. She is totally under EG’s spell and unable to resist any inquiry. After a tense minute of silence (she makes one last evil effort to fight off the empathic control and keep Chronos’ cruel secrets to herself- but fails!), finally her incredible tale begins. "They first approached me more than twelve months ago...tempted me with what they promised would be a virtual fountain of youth. I had been diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer, and was desperate for any way to improve my chances- the doctors had given me three months at most- so I listened when they told me that I could live to be one hundred if I assisted them. I didn’t know my salvation would be at the expense of our dearest and most promising graduate student assistant. God,, what a gifted and gorgeous woman Nancy was! They exhausted almost all of Nan’s temporal energy to rejuvenate me... and turned her into a senile babbling little old bitty! Left her wandering decrepit and dazed around South Park. Well, it all began when we were attending a conference in Washington D.C., where we’d just presented our research-in-progress about certain breakthroughs in deciphering ancient Peruvian hieroglyphics. Then this nerdy guy- Dwight something or another, with dark greasy hair, thick glasses and a whiny voice- offered us full empirical and computational support for our future work with the assistance of three Cray supercomputers! And we wouldn’t even have to return to South America to collect more data to continue our work. This guy had hundreds of megabytes of these hieroglyphics on disc for us to decipher- building on our own work in a nearly-identical alien language. We broke all the key elements in less than two months, and then they brought us more- technical schematics, weird medical and anatomical records, even something that seemed like a Captain’s log from a sea vessel- all in that Peruvian-like hieroglyphics. Dwight swore us to secrecy, but his bizarre data was more useful than two dozen Rosetta Stones put together for our own original research! You probably know the rest about me. My now-famous translations (using anonymous help from supercomputers) show alien visitors- ’Melkosians’ is the closest English equivalent- had been coming to earth for more than five thousand years! My published hypotheses- based on historical written records from the Incas, Mayans and Egyptians- state that aliens have interacted and even cross-breeded with humans since the dawn of our earliest civilizations. Their exploration teams have spent years at a stretch living among the cities of our ancestors, perhaps even contributing to the content of our many ancient mythologies! Old tales of Icarus, Egypt’s Ubu-titi-Ra- even the magical Incan goddess-queen Shamanae- may well be based wholly or in part upon high-tech exploits of Melkos’ visitors.".

Inga impatiently interrupts Helen’s confession as the pretty academic lapses into her pedantic lecture mode, "Yes, yes Professor- I’ve heard all this in your interviews on 60 Minutes and The Discovery Channel. Stick to the point. What in the world do hieroglyphic translations have to do with kidnaping more than four hundred frozen women"!? The eager-to-please mind-controlled female is quite apologetic,"Oh!, I’m so sorry to upset you Ingeno-Lady. Let me explain. The Melkosians are time-travelers- there’s really no other way to make the journey across the vast distances between extant solar systems within one biological lifespan. Thus their ships are capable of breaking through the space-time continuum. Unfortunately, Albert Einstein was correct about his time-dilation theories. As an object (like a spacecraft) approaches the speed of light, it tends to slow in its temporal progression...until it breaks through the light-speed barrier, whence there is serious hell to pay back. Kind of like a chronological slingshot. On the other side into time-warped sub-space, any non-insulated object ages hundreds of years in an instant! The first Melkosian time-traveling pioneers were simply lost- or retrieved on auto-pilot to return as dilapidated dusty skeletons! And so the chrono-cradle was devised: an internally-powered alien technology which shields brave explorers and their key instrumentation from the highly destructive forces of space-time-warp traveling. Two layers of protection are involved. The first is a skintight radiation-reflecting suit which permits biological and mental functioning at a normal pace. Think of it as like the eggshell layer of inner protection when you buy a dozen eggs at the grocery store. But the really interesting insulation, however(equivalent to cardboard or styrafoam), is their theta-wave radiation. Generated by funneling alien bioresonant life-force energy through some sort of black-box emitter device, it serves aboard Melkosian vessels as a time-discounting buffer offsetting all relativistic slingshot aging effects!

Time moves at a virtual crawl inside the chrono-cradle, canceling out the inevitable temporal acceleration so harmful to their systems and personnel whisking through time and space. Of course, here on earth, no such instant-aging dangers exist, but Colonel Chronos, Mommy and the Chief use it to decelerate women in time!

I have absolutely no idea how the technology works. All they needed me to do was translate various symbols on the black box casing so they could understand how to control a time manipulating effect and tie its energy into their own adjustment-storage circuitry. Dwight- they call him Weasel- is an electronic genius. He has constructed a gadget called a ‘TRAMP’ that shrinks the time dilation down into an encasing ball, whereupon they simply roll their immobilized victims off into cold storage. It’s truly an amazing spectacle to watch..." This time it is Empath Girl who interrupts Professor Troy with an English-accented telepathic enquiry: "But WHY do they need all these beautiful women!? What is their intent with them? Where are they taking them?" The attractive appearing late-twenties academic hesitates in a response to the new questions- showing first signs of resistance to the Mind Meld which suggest the controlling link will quite soon be broken. For an instant, Helen’s blue eyes focus into a determined squinting sneer before resuming their dull blank cross-eyed expression. She then continues, "It is all simply a question of energy-’temporal fuel’ as we call it. The chrono-cradle was designed to be self-sufficient: not relying upon any external power source, since any such machinery would be aging many centuries from the time-slingshot effects over the course of their voyages. So the clever travelers tapped into their own biological energies... what we sometimes call ‘life-force’... to spark their amazing black boxes to life. I recall from alien medical records that their females have a specific internal organ which focuses and stores bioresonant power coursing about their bodies- something akin to our livers. Indeed, all live creatures possess similar energy- even humans- although to a much less efficient degree. But those ancestors of ours who were lucky enough to mix their genetic coding through mating with these aliens have inherited and perpetuated their special gift of bioresonance. According to some of my most recent translation research, many of the aesthetic genetic characteristics that we modern humans recognize as attractive- particularly beauty in females- are simply traits transferred from the Melkosians. They truly are a striking race! Nearly seven-foot-tall bipedal humanoids with exaggerated musculature in males, and erotic curvatures in their females. A dead-giveaway correlation is attached earlobes... the aliens all have them, and Chronos’ dweeb lackey Weasel employed his supercomputers to medically prove that such human lobes are a direct genetic link to alien-coded DNA and bioresonance. Funny, isn’t it? Some of the most gorgeous people on earth owe their comeliness not to mom and dad, but rather to some green-skinned, blue-haired outer space explorer who slept with a great--great-great-grandparent thousands of years ago. Therefore, today’s tallish- slinky voluptuous women often carry a genetic predisposition toward strong life-force capacity, right along with their impressive sex appeal! And since there aren’t any Melkosians walking around our city streets (they believe terrans have advanced way too fast technologically, relative to our inter-racial and interpersonal sociological development, so we’re now considered too dangerous for them), Chronos uses human beauties as power supplies to accomplish his time-manipulating mischief. He needs just a few dozen more gals until he’s got enough fuel to detonate the Time Bomb," Ingeno-Lady and Empath Girl exchange a glance of confused horror at first mention of this bizarre device, and are about to enquire further as to its design and intent when Helen continues with, "...and after they collect those Sports Illustrated swimsuit supermodels this afternoon, they’ll next......". This revelation hits the QQ’s like a ton of bricks; yet it takes less than thirty seconds for a nearly-panicking EG to instill a Mind Meld command which induces an amnesia-sleep state in the history professor’s sub-conscious. Helen is hastily left behind snoring away at her desk; and immediately thereafter alluring athletic leg muscles ripple visibly beneath IL’s green-and-yellow spandex costume, and a saffron sari trails blowing behind as the superheroine duo sprint out the office door past a mooning (yet slowly thawing) Brenda. Ominously, neither Quint-Quint assigned as a bodyguard to SI’s photoshoot responds to Inga’s wrist communicator hails. Oh No!! The New Mexico lab-base is silent too! Realizing her tactical miscalculations, Inga wipes tears away from her dreamy steel-blue eyes as she races against the clock to try and save dearest endangered comrades from capture- or worse- at the hands of evil Colonel Chronos.

COMIC PAGE TWENTY-SIX: Nils Johannson and loyal technical assistant Scott McGillicutty have now been laboring for four straight hours beneath harsh laboratory lights in the QQ desert base ‘clean room’. It is here where the Professor and Ingeno-lady successfully constructed their electronic counter measure headsets which preemptively nullified Mademoiselle Mensa and Salamander Gangreen’s Brain-Train mind-controller several weeks ago. The focus today is on a partly-dissected TRAMP time regulator. Two techno-wizards are engrossed in reverse-engineering an incredible gizmo which obviously incorporates both human and alien technologies. Their goal, of course, is not only to simply understand the mechanisms and principles by which it heartlessly imprisons time-stopped victims; but rather (as with MM’s cruel gadgetry) develop some type of defensive system against it. Oscilloscopes, soldering irons, circuit boards and scores of electrical construction and design tools litter the workbench top and nearby floor. Considering the duo’s transparent plastic attire and goggles, the location might be mistaken for an assembly facility somewhere in Silicon Valley- except for two USAF MP’s standing at rigid attention just inside the locked doorway. Fearing (mistakenly) an attempt by villainous Colonel Chronos to retrieve his precious time-manipulating technology before it’s deciphered, both white-helmeted guards wait with pistols drawn: their orders are to shoot on sight anybody attempting to enter the lab. Alas, none of the four men inside the chamber realizes CC’s henchmen actually want them to disassemble this particular TRAMP...having left it behind near the Rose Bowl for this exact specific purpose.

A frowning Dr Johannson blurts his concerns aloud in his Swedish accent: "Yaah... what I do not yet understand is this power supply circuitry inside a regulating device. We know from the Getty Museum videos that it is their strange black box which triggers the time-dilation phenomenon-this smaller mechanism only serves to contain and perpetuate the effect beyond the initial energy wave blast". His assistant confirms, "You are absolutely right, Sir. This thing was only able to keep two hijacked truck drivers frozen because it was plugged into a nearby garage wall socket, from which it was pulling enough electricity to brown-out several city blocks. It is either redundant or nonsensical for the gadget to have an internal power source... especially one that is bioelectrical! Look at that tissue inside the small vial... it reminds me of a small piece of a kidney- or liver perhaps- yet our lab medical scanners can’t make heads or tails of it". A determined Nils makes his fateful decision. "There is zimply no other way to comprehend the workings of zis machine other than to proceed and energize it. Lives of hundreds of young women rest on our ability to unravel mysteries of Chronos’ time-manipulations. Scotty, hook the device’s external power cord to our base auxiliary generator".

The twenty-seven-year-old engineering genius would never make it to the wall socket. As Nils flips a small power switch to the ‘on’ position, the booby-trap internal power source (courtesy of Kel-Bar Sasha) begins the TRAMP’s journey to critical overload. A sound not dissimilar to recharging battery cells inside a camera photo-flash unit is immediately audible to the four men in the room- continuing to grow increasingly louder at higher-and-higher pitch. The academics freeze in place- not because time-dilation has occurred, but simply due to unadulterated panic. It’s the Air Force security guards who react fast. Each MP grabs one of their precious brain-trust charges and hurls him toward the outer laboratory doorway. It takes mere seconds for the Professor to input the numerical security code which unlocks access to the door mechanism- yet time lost is their undoing. Sparks flying out three feet from inside the TRAMP’s super-charged interior circuitry, a massive secretly-stored time distortion is unleashed into the base laboratory at the exact instant when Nils (followed closely by Scotty) is roughly shoved through the just-opened doorway. A blinding blue-white flash of light lasting for what seems like decades is followed by an absolute eerie silence. Eventually, a groggy but relatively unscathed Professor Johannson shakes off a feeling of extreme weariness, and sits back up from his prone position to discover an almost unbelievable scene. Through the open doorway, an exposed laboratory interior lies in plain sight- despite all light bulbs having long burned out. Paint and plaster have peeled off the walls, to be replaced by a mildew-encrusted coating of dirt and dust. Long-deserted cobwebs hang up in room corners, while ceiling rubble litters the floor. In a matter of seconds, the room seems to have aged more than a hundred years! Unfortunately, so too have the security guards. Both sprawl agog on a filthy tile floor: all that remains of them are ancient brownish skeletal remains clothed in Air-Force blue uniform tatters. Our once-early-thirties MP’s clutch rusty sidearms, sporting moldy white metal helmets atop their fleshless skulls. Grimaces etched into bare jawlines suggest they didn’t die a painless instant death. On a dust-covered bench sits TRAMP remnants- now a dilapidated pile of fused circuits and scrap metal! As waves of shocked horror wash over a stunned Nils’, the full scope and degree of opposing criminal technical talents becomes obvious. CC and his gang are FAR more dangerous than yet given credit for ... and two innocent men paid the price for this underestimation! Yet what of young McGillicutty!? Nils spies the motionless form lying halfway through the lab door frame. Clearly Scotty (unlike himself) wasn’t well shielded from the temporal blast. Opening his friend’s plastic ‘clean room’ headgear and removing goggles, the Professor at first is relieved to see him still breathing. Then he notices a balding grey hairline, sagging wrinkled face and ancient eyes...

COMIC PAGE TWENTY-SEVEN: "Si, si signorita... Magnifico!!" Mario coaxes Elle MacPherson into the pose which will grace this year’s cover of SI’s swimsuit edition. "Show me some real height and hang time on this one, belladona. Think of yourself as Michael Jordan- only much sexier"! A rather obvious bulge in his tiny speedo is evidence that he believes his own words. Arguably the world’s most-famous supermodel is becoming rather excited herself by an atmosphere of artistic eroticism Mr. Tomba has produced within the photoshoot. Elle wants to give him her absolute best performance...both now and a little later inside a nearby dressing room-trailer (his swarthy physique and half-masted responses to the model’s posing have just about driven her mad with desire at this point!). Standing knee-deep in the rough roaring Catalina surf just yards from the white sandy shoreline, the tall leggy 33-year-old takes three strong strides forward into a half-run, then leaps high into the air with arms outstretched above her head. Kicking her heels upward by bent knees, (almost touching the perfectly-rounded bottom under a reflective gold metallic bikini) she spreads ten fingers and emits a thrilling shout of photo-exhibitionist glee. Flashing her perfect countenance back at the rapidly- shuttering cameraman, seafoam and water droplets cascade and billow off her curvaceous frame. Elle’s lovely chestnut hairdo (virtually all styling lost to the athleticism of her pose, along with the beachfront windy spray) defies gravity for a moment- hanging wildly about her head. And hanging...and hanging...and hanging. Her final increasingly-slow train of thought was, "Jeez.....I...sure.... am.....staying......air...borne....a....long...." As Colonel Chronos’ theta-wave radiation rolls ashore from their Zodiac, it halts everything and everyone in the SI photography session instantaneously. Five beauties are suspended in their highly erotic poses, as the first public audience (gate-crashers, to be sure) to witness their efforts drags a rubber dinghy ashore to just above the tide line. Three silver-suited criminals- two males and one female- take time out from their assigned work to momentarily admire the breath-taking still-life panorama they’ve created: courtesy of a Phaaethon chrono-cradle. With an avaricious leer, Mommy barks out orders toward the Colonel and Weasel to commence their temporal fuel collections, while herself sauntering over to sexy Mario Tomba-standing fully upright with legs widespread apart in the sands. Removing and tossing aside the 35mm telephoto camera from his hands (it simply floats in mid-air just like Elle), she adroitly snips away his tank suit and runs a silver-gloved finger in tight circles around his impressive eight-inch erection. Mommy glances in the direction of her two partners in crime before planting her moist lips around Mario’s pink circumcised tip. Male villains take no notice, as they are currently engrossed in a triumphal tour of latest immobilized victims. The Colonel crows over each: "Ah, yes, let me see now...who do we have here? It’s Elle MacFrozen!! Ha...Ha...Ha...Ha". Wading out into the strangely-stilled surf (leaving behind a swath in the ocean that remains parted- as if CC is now practicing to become Moses himself), he very soon has the beaming Elle’s top removed, her shiny bikini brief yanked down to the crook in her bent knees. Momentarily overwhelmed by the sheer sexual power of these circumstances, Ollie stares straight into her suspended gaze and cups both of the tall supermodel’s modest breasts in his palms. Just as his crotch begins to stir, Mommy (satisfied with her own attentions to the former Olympian) shouts, "Quit screwing around, soldier! We’ve got a job to do here, so get to it!!" The Colonel energizes a Pulchri-Meter hanging on his utility belt, and is impressed by Elle’s .9436 composite comeliness score. Quickly attaching one of Weasel’s ingenious TRAMP regulators to her suit bottom waistband, the cruel Marine deposits a playful parting spank onto a tantalizing flexed bare ass before moving on. A darker-denser bluish three-foot radius TRAMP time capsule materializes around the airborne Ms. MacPherson. CC joins Dwight in the adjacent photoshoot scene, and the duo builds upon Ollie’s earlier joke by greeting this next knockout as Claudia ‘Stiffer’. Weasel removes the European model’s zebra-striped bikini top from about her delightful upper curves, and pockets her (now aromatic) fig-leaf as a souvenir. While the assistant gauges her CCS, Chronos amuses himself by opening wider Claudia’s mouth and stuffing Eve’s prop apple inside. The resulting visual impression is something akin to that of a roast pig... only far more delicious. One-by-one each supermodel is systematically stripped, measured for temporal fuel capacity, then readied for departure. After taking care of Tyra ‘Blanks’ and Carol ‘Halt’, the tyrannical trio are just about to commence lowering down a paralyzed Kathy England-look-alike (confusing, since the real Kathy now stands back at Mommy’s house), when Weasel catches rapid movement out a corner of his eye. In a blur, Carol disappears from view!

Immediately the criminals are put onto their guard, angrily realizing that Quint-Quints are upon the scene.

As the chrono-cradle struck them atop the high sandy knoll moments earlier, both Maw and Diedre were surprised to realize that the time-dilating energy wave did not affect them to the same degree as all the other beach occupants. Sarah stood between them now as an instant statue: her right hand lifted and pointing toward where a Zodiac had been some forty yards offshore in the surf, and a quizzical-but-annoyed expression cemented on her attractive face. Our QQ’s (for some inexplicable reason) remained animated- although both feeling rather light-headed dizzy, and their movements slowed substantially. Watching Chronos and his gang disembark from their rubber vessel, both superheroines readied for the inevitable confrontation to come. Maw unfastened the shiny choker chain with the team’s QQ insignia which held her long red cape in place atop an electric-blue weightlifter’s bikini costume(it remained aflutter, hovering in mid-air), while Deedee attempted to launch her boomerang weapon against the enemies- but to no avail! The wooden wedge simply halted its flight the instant Dura-Damsel released her grip amid a powerful launching arm swing. Obviously, indirect salvos would not be effective under the circumstances, and an all-out frontal assault is necessary. Charge!! Using her still-three-quarters-effective ‘flashing’ powers, DD whisked the immobilized Carol Alt to relative safety behind a large boulder some one hundred yards down the beach and beyond the edges of the Melkosian time-stop. Shaking her head groggily while slowly awakening from the freeze, the nude supermodel blurts out, "Where am I......what the #@!^&!%$ happened??", while the combat-inexperienced Quint-Quint now hesitates about her next move. Her brave and slightly bull-headed partner has no such uncertainty. Striding determinedly down a sandy slope toward the skintight-silver-suited villains, her attack is considerably slowed by dampening effects from the alien radiation field-giving Weasel ample time to react with counter-measures. Alerted to the incoming threat, Dwight frantically punches keys on the electronic control pad of a TRAMP which he holds in his hand. After a few seconds, the chrono-cradle effect dissolves from the entire quadrant around the descending superheroine. This is both good and bad. Maw’s pace immediately quickens (and a revitalized Sarah surveys the scene unfolding below while emitting a piercing scream of horror); however, the nerdy criminal seizes upon the new circumstances to unholster a revolver and fires three .38 caliber shots!

Luckily, the page-boy blonde heroine is quick to react. Molecularly-Adjustable Woman sees the gun rising to its shooting position, and stops to close her eyes in concentration. In an instant, Maw’s entire epidermis (and costume, too) morphs into solid iron! Three leaden projectiles skitter away from a mid-stride muscular ferric gray statue with a stereotypical clanging whine. Then the QQ returns to flesh, continuing her advance onto a now-nearly-frantic electronic genius. Grabbing him at the throat of his alien togs, the furious good-gal lands two powerful karate blows with her free hand to his neck and stomach. Dropping his gun and wincing with severe pain, Weasel doubles over and collapses like a rag doll. Maw tosses him aside and moves toward her next opponent. In the interim, a second blur whooshes by through the alien radiation field, and Tyra Banks suddenly vanishes from the scene. Deedee has mustered enough wherewithal to rescue added temporal fuel from her immobilized fate. The ensuing martial arts battle between Colonel Chronos and the eldest Quint- Quint is an epic back-and-forth duel. Alternately moving inside and out of the adjusted chrono-cradle field, the physical advantage (and course of the fight) swings wildy. While within the radiation, Maw’s slowed reactions allow Ollie to interject several crippling blows; but now the duo have rolled back outside the effect, and the QQ’s proto-matter-enhanced strength and agility are beginning to turn the tide. Until Mommy butts into the scrap. Maneuvering to pick up the groaning Weasel’s pistol behind Maw’s turned back, the evil moll raises the muzzle and aims carefully... thank heavens for Dura-Damsel’s flashing powers! As the villainess begins to squeeze the trigger, our caramel-skinned heroine arrives in a wink lugging along a green pressure cannister. Mommy reacts in surprise to this unexpected sight, hesitating for only a second from firing- yet it is enough to save the day. Deidre opens the valve to release a liquid clear-coat spray that thoroughly covers this backstabbing coward’s feminine arm and hand. Mommy reacts with disgust to the sticky goop, allowing the polymer resin needed time to dry into super-hardness! The revolver (and the evil brunette’s entire right arm) become solidified: completely stiff and useless. The silver-suited female roars in unchecked rage at Deedee’s rescue, while Maw succeeds in executing a spinning karate kick to the Colonel’s chin which sends him now reeling to the Catalina sands. Two superheroines exchange a glance of relieved triumph- alas, a bit too early! Nearly one thousand miles away, the incoming message alarm chimes loudly inside Chronos’ secret North Dakota underground laboratory headquarters. The Colonel’s trusted second-in-command for over a decade, Dawn Fall, places dozens of pages of hand-written notes and multiple glossy photographs of their base’s interior inside an envelope marked ‘National Enquirer’ before activating the com station viewer. The only other occupant of this 20'x30' central control room(formerly a combat information center) is a giant green-skinned female floating helplessly inside a bubbling tube of freezing argon-ammonia liquid in the lab’s far corner. Melkos’ intrepid starship Captain Kel-Bar Sasha stares intently toward the brightening screen as Dawn sits down into the USAF communication officer’s chair to respond to the hail. The alien’s voluptuous seven-foot nude curves glisten from the concealed overhead lighting crowning the stasis tube’s mechanisms: her perfectly-proportioned oversized limbs, buttocks and breasts languish amid the near-weightlessness of a chemical solution which has preserved her in a semi-comatose state for nearly fifteen years. Multiple recent changes to her appearance have occurred, however, thanks to medical surgeons. Before her procedure of two days ago, all of Kel-Bar’s blue body hair was removed by injection of depilatory into her watery prison. The now cue-ball-bald captive also sports stitches in her left side, where tissue samples have been removed to fuel the insidious instant-aging booby-trap which had just now engulfed Professor Johannson and his loyal staff.

A bruised-and-bleeding Dwight materializes upon the oversized video monitor. "Mayday! Mayday! Dawn... can you read me?? Come in, this is an emergency!!" he shouts into his wrist communicator device while holding a biomedical Pulchi-Meter sensor in his right hand. A perplexed Dawn replies, "Weasel, what the hell is happening?" The electrical engineering genius replies in desperation, "We’re under attack, Dawn! The Quintessential Quintet somehow knew we were coming, and they’re not paralyzed by our time-dilation effects. They’ve got some sort of radioactive amorphous material intertwined with their DNA at a molecular level... it’s screwing up the impact of chrono-cradle theta-waves onto their biocellular structure, and seems to be preventing a complete deceleration! Our only hope is for you to link me into the Cray supercomputers, so I can analyze new data about these *#@!^%$ heroines!". Dawn downloads secret security access codes for the laboratory computers, and Dwight switches his wristpack com mode to terminal emulation. He first reviews some of his older online research notes, opening a file entitled "TRAMP frequency calibrations: Side Effects". Rapidly skimming to a sub-paragraph captioned as "brainwave disfunction at .2356 to .2361 Angstroms" (he still painfully writhes upon the Catalina sands, while Maw and DeeDee work together to restrain a disoriented and partly clear-coated Mommy, hog-tying her with part of the newest QQ’s sturdy lariat. A semi-conscious CC lies moaning nearby- hands already restrained behind his back). Weasel’s beady eyes suddenly brighten behind his thick horn-rim lenses. The dweeby desperate crook proposes a multi-collinearity adjustment to his supercomputers... inputting three lines of FORTRAN with brilliant accuracy, despite approaching good-gals ready to arrest him. It takes only nanoseconds for the Crays to apply necessary proto-matter exponential- smoothing to his earlier research findings, and he orders final theta-wave frequency changes on the TRAMP alpha-numeric keypad. Springing to his feet- a demonic smile stuck on his face- Dwight shouts,"GOTCHA!!"

Our dynamic duo halt their advance toward this last remaining criminal target, hesitating just for an instant in response to Weasel’s repositioning. Suddenly the blue-white energy aura surrounding them shifts slightly somehow... glimmering noticeably brighter and its unearthly tingling noise changing pitch. A minor dull ache also hits our superheroines at the back base of their skulls. Blinking and shaking their heads to adapt to these new sensations, two brave beauties close the final yards between themselves and this nerd. Just as they are about to grab and tie his hands, Dwight commands, "Stop that! Now go and release my friends this instant!!" Deedee chuckles at this ridiculous request, saying, "Who do you think...". But then the QQ’s are both absolutely astonished to discover bodies disobeying their minds. In total betrayal to their thoughts, they find themselves whirling about, hastening to promptly fulfill an elated (he keeps shouting ‘It worked!’) villain’s directives. Sixty seconds later, dazed and confused Quint-Quints stand listlessly upon the sands, as a freed Mommy and the Colonel inquire exactly what & how their colleague has done."Oh, I remembered at the last second about some findings back when I was calibrating the proper universal TRAMP frequency for our dove-tailing into the black box emitters. If you set radiation oscillations just right, you don’t get the freezing effect, but a rather curious side-result. A subject’s connection between hippocampus and brain stem is thereby completely interrupted. They continue to act absolutely normally at first... until subjected to any forceful external stimuli. Interactions between those brain areas govern human judgement and inhibitions. I had to make some small adjustments to account for that weird radioactive stuff in their bodies- the same reason why they’re not statues like the rest of them- but I’ve got it figured out now. You’ll find our goody-two-shoes gals here extremely eager to comply with requests put to them. They’ll not be pleased, Colonel, until your tiniest whim or whimsy is satisfied by 110%! This isn’t simply mind-control, but an aching desire to serve you at a sub-conscious level. That’s the hilarious part. Subjects keep their power of speech, and verbally struggle!!"

Ollie would have thought Weasel to be joking, had he not witnessed his subordinate’s command to untie him go so smoothly only moments before. An evil leer surfaces across his face, and he decides to test the limits of their control over the not-very-happy-looking duo before him. "Let’s see, now... I think I hear some music playing now, ladies!. Don’t you hear it Blondie??" Signs of resistance and struggle appear on Maw’s wild-eyed face. She shakes her head and tries to look away from CC’s intent point-blank stare, but finds she cannot escape the suggestion. The tall muscular QQ weakly mutters, "yes, Sir". Laughing loudly in amused glee, he turns toward Dura-Damsel and roughly enquires, "What about you, Legs... can you hear that music swelling up? Sounds like Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, doesn’t it?" Deedee’s initial head shake of ‘no’ transforms into an assent after only 5-10 seconds. The Colonel continues, "Glad you agree with me, sugar, because you no longer are a super-athlete crime-fighter in a shiny miniskirt, but rather a ballerina in a tutu!"

The lanky superheroine bears no outward resemblance to such circumstances; however, she quickly succumbs to the scenario in her disrupted mind. "No...I’m....not.........going...t" is all the defense she can muster out of ruby tensed lips before a look of pleasing serenity passes onto her pretty face, and DD’s green eyes go blank. The heroine whirls away across the sands, leaping and pirouetting as gracefully as a gazelle! She is helpless to the illusion now, lost amid intricate steps and bounds before a packed audience upon an imaginary stage. All three criminals bend over double in laughter at this incongruous sight, reveling in their bizarre victorious capture of an extremely dangerous opponent. Now the Colonel moves to stand directly in front of Maw. "And you, Blondie, have traded in your do-gooder togs for a Go-Go Dancer’s skimpy costume!" All her physical strength and super powers can’t save Maw from a humiliating fate akin to her deluded cohort. Turning her cute face away momentarily and shielding herself (uselessly) with upraised hands, the QQ pleads, "Help me... someb.... OH NO!!", then her judgement and inhibitions tumble down into a deep dark well. Her rock-hard washerboard stomach and weight-trained torso join wiggling hips and swaying arms in an expertly-rendered performance of the ‘Monkey Swing’. All around her trapped senses, an illusionary night club bustles in full appreciation of her twisting lyrical gyrations! Maw switches seconds later to the ‘Drowning Man’ and is gone. Three silver-suited criminals jovially turn all attentions back toward the collection of the supermodels. Tyra Banks and Carol Alt were foolishly overconfident about the result of the beachfront altercation between good and evil. Now as a superheroine duo commence their unwitting dance routines, shock and fear again motivate them. It’s time to flee from behind shoreline boulders! The models sprint toward sawhorses restraining spectators at the far end of the Catalina beach. For almost ten seconds, two terrified fashion icons begin to entertain ideas of freedom and safety as they are cheered on by the crowd. People witnessing a flight of nude models are treated to a brief alluring moment of flying tits, asses, limbs and hair amazingly suspended on tip-toes at mid-stride full speed, before everyone is time-stopped in their tracks. Chronos has adjusted the black boxes’ hieroglyphic controls, expanding its original power setting to include the entire sheltered cove! Mommy congratulates CC on the second ensnaring of their precious temporal fuel, as Ollie heads down the beach with TRAMPs in hand for each of them. Meanwhile, the sadistic lady criminal focuses attentions onto the brain-disconnected captives, as an artistic Dura-Damsel clumsily bumps into her partner-in-crime-fighting amid an imaginary pas-de-deux. Weasel beats her to the punch, amusing himself via a command tweaking the Collonel’s original scenario: "Hey, Blondie.. your name’s now "Bubbles", and the night-club’s gone topless!!" Jarring between mind-controlled victims releases them partially from their spell for just a moment... enough to exchange desperate entreaties with one another: "What can we DO, Maw?", the younger QQ pleads before leaping back up and resuming her role as Swan Princess. "Gotta pray for somebody to resc..." she stammers in response, then relapses into a lively rendition of the "Mashed Potato". Dancing with legs spread wide, the super-strong female is powerless to stop her own hands from releasing her blue bikini back-strap. A robust California breeze quickly blows loosened fabric away to reveal Maw’s modest muscled chest. Pear-shaped boobs rotate and wobble side-to-side as she mindlessly begins up-and-down knee bends as part of the ‘Twist’.

Now Mommy gets into the action, completely rewriting the embarrassing script of her two captives. "Hold it you two... I’ve got another way to keep you both occupied. You now find each other totally irresistible!! Feel free to explore every curve, crack and crevice of each other’s bodies... you can barely stand an overwhelming lust!" At this precise moment, a bola-type rope and ball weapon rudely encircles itself around Mommy’s thin neck, and she collapses choking for breath onto the sands. Whirling about to see what has happened to his precious boss, Weasel comes face-to-face with a horrible sight. The animate female standing just behind him wears a green sequined minidress which is not fully zippered, revealing a leopard-skin bikini top beneath it. But the countenance rising above a spectacular 40D-24-37 frame encased in this painted-on costume seems in stark contrast to the rest of her. It is absolutely hideous... resembling the decapitated head of a Gorgon which spent the past week decomposing underwater! Weasel can’t avoid his involuntary physiological response to Looker’s practiced appearance-altering. He bends over and rapid-fire vomits convulsively onto silver boots.

Deliberately standing stock-still to ‘play possum’ during the time-stop until now, the(normally) most-striking Quint-Quint had waited patiently to climb down from the sand castle turret and make best use of the element of surprise. "Two down, and one to go", she mutters to herself; yet the heroic curvaceous lady is momentarily distracted by an unexpected sight off to her left. Maw and Deedee are locked within an impassioned embrace. Unbelievable (they don’t even like each other)! The paler muscular QQ is receiving generous attention about her brownish nipples and aureoles, as her unwitting caramel-skinned partner’s long slender fingers massage Maw’s tight buns beneath a still-in-place electric-blue bikini bottom. For her own part, the elder superheroine has yanked DD’s frilly white panties down to her booted ankles, stroking regions still hidden by a miniskirt. All Maw can muster in way of communication is, "Help...us...please..." in the direction of Looker in-between her obviously-pleasurable moans and groans. Taking in this erotic scene for just a few seconds, our sequined superheroine loses her advantage. Too late the QQ catches movement out a corner of her lovely hazel eyes. Drawing the dagger weapon from inside its sheath concealed under her waist-length dress wrap, she assumes a crouching fighter’s stance with a hint of surprise spread over her now-reverting face. Ollie re-emerges from behind the stallion sculptures rolling two TRAMPed models along ahead of him across the sands. Putting two and two together quickly, CC doesn’t give Looker time to react, shouting: " I ORDER YOU TO FREEZE!!"

As luck would have it, Looker is standing mere inches away from the exact spot where Deedee and Maw were enslaved several minutes earlier. Double-exponential-smoothed frequency theta-waves in this region of the heartless chrono-cradle now impose an identical cognate penalty onto the strawberry blonde. Pivoting her luscious upper torso to the right with both bent arms outstretched in a defensive posture, the good-gal feels a modest pang in the back of her neck, then discovers she cannot move another muscle. The QQ is held firmly in position, rooted into the seashore sands and unable to so much as blink! The Colonel guffaws as he walks calmly up to our now-frozen last hope at victory, nonchalantly removing Looker’s nasty-looking dagger blade from her left hand. "Thanks, Bright Eyes!", he taunts the still-surprised-looking instant statue, then turns to offer assistance to his criminal pals. The showstopping beauty soon recalls Weasel’s elaboration of moments ago, and slowly comes to a shocking realization that she too is now a prisoner of her own thought processes. Erotic moaning off to the left (now beyond her static field of view ) turns to gasps, slurps and sucking noises as the other two intertwined QQ’s tumble onto the sands with a THUD. Next a ripping noise is heard, while the super-strength captive tears away the entire upper half of DD’s costume to expose her ample cleavage. As ravenous licks and kisses are deposited onto chocolate nipples, the newly-topless victim leans back onto her elbows in the sand, spreading her still-miniskirted thighs as Maw begins to work her way downward... Next the bemused villains focus upon their latest catch. "Wow! She’s absolutely gorgeous", Weasel exclaims as he energizes his Pulchri-Meter. A long wolf-whistle emerges from his lips as he announces Looker’s .9697 composite comeliness score. "That’s the highest temporal fuel capacity ever! And she’s even got attached earlobes, bringing CCS totals to .9897. Amazing! Only a Melkosian can provide more bioresonant energy".

Our sequined superheroine doesn’t like the direction of this conversation, and employs every available ounce of strength (including her morphing super-powers) to break free from the iron grip of CC’s clever command.

Dammit! No good (she thinks to herself)- I might as well be made of marble for all I can do against this....

"Should I let her speak? Get her to answer questions?", asks Mommy. CC replies petulantly, "Nah... I know quite a lot about these fools already, thanks to our mole, Hercules. This pretty one’s called ‘Looker’, and she has the ability to change her outward physical appearance to anything from an irresistible siren to a revolting monster. Which, of course, explains the Kathy England double atop the castle tower. You might yet get to see your DNA donor-Mom again, honey, but NOT under the circumstances you probably hoped f or! Ready this one for transport like the others. With that much life-force energy, she’d be perfect as a ‘fuse’ to start the cascade-interlink triggering detonation of the Time Bomb"! Weasel begins the enviable task of stripping the stock-still superheroine. Removing her outer-wrap waistcoat and tugging down the deeply-cut front of her shiny minidress costume, he cuts away the leopard-skin bikini top. Dwight is veritably drooling at the sight of Looker’s huge ripe melons! Next he employs the QQ’s own paralyzed outstretched fingers to uphold her hemline in front, while the bikini bottom suffers a similar fate. A neatly-trimmed blonde bush frames pink immobilized pubic folds. The nerdy villain’s face matches our QQ’s open surprise when re-measured CCS for her reaches .9995! "We’ve got a problem here, boss", he informs his superiors. "The mind-control effect is limited in duration to about twenty minutes, and she’s immune to any time deceleration. Just HOW are we going to get her back to base?" A brilliant idea jumps into Ollie’s head, and he stares cruelly into her eyes.

COMIC PAGE TWENTY-EIGHT: "We’ve reached four thousand feet now, ladies... Catalina ETA is in about fourteen minutes", announces the pilot of a LAPD traffic-monitoring helicopter to passengers tightly wedged into the single seat next to him. Peering intently ahead through a clear plastic windscreen bubble is a morose spandex-clad leader of the Quintessential Quintet. As a crescent-shaped brown island grows ever-larger, Inga tries once again to establish voice communication with either Maw or Diedre- with no success. "A Coast Guard cutter has some sort of weird blueish-white haze surrounding it, and a similar cloud hangs over a nearby sheltered cove. Chronos’ time-stopping is already underway!" Sitting next to IL, Emma lowers a pair of high-powered police binoculars and turns to consider her beautiful friend. Amid an expression of desperate concern, Inga’s left cheek displays several wet tear tracks. "It’s NOT your fault, boss! We couldn’t know beforehand you were sending them straight into a trap. The intellectual firepower we’re dealing with totals up even higher than that monster Mademoiselle Mensa’s. They’re just too clever for us to anticipate each move". The words provide small consolation to Ingeno-Lady. Cupping her hands to shield blue eyes in the afternoon sun, Inga squints at a coastline 25 miles away. "Lieutenant, head straight for that beach! When we’re above the effect, I’m going to risk an emergency descent using my hydro-fusion jet pack, and..." Emma bursts into the middle of her fellow QQ’s order, warning,"No boss! You don’t know what that field will do to you.! You’re likely to end up stiff as a statue along with CC’s other victims-’temporal fuel’ as that prof called it". IL grimly continues, "If I’m captured, Em, do your best to track us. Use the homing beacons sewn into our costumes if you can". The girl-next-door brunette raises her hand to silence EG’s further verbal protests.

COMIC PAGE TWENTY-NINE: Colonel Chronos whispers his flash of brilliance into Mommy’s ear, and her face brightens gleefully. Giving a nod of assent at his solution to their problem of transporting a highly- bioresonant Looker home, the villainess giggles like a schoolgirl as Ollie begins a string of orders directed at our frozen Quint-Quint from point-blank range: "Alright, Bright Eyes, I want you to pose exactly as I tell you to... stand up straight with your legs moderately widespread...GOOD!... now clench both hands into fists and rest your knuckles onto the curves where your hips and waist meet... VERY NICE!... now I want you to give me your biggest, brightest photo-op smile...BEAUTIFUL! Now hold that pose for me". Chronos makes final adjustments to Looker’s costume, replacing spaghetti-thin dress shoulder straps, yet now stretch-tucking the deeply-cut green sequined neckline to fall underneath both delightfully-exposed luscious breasts. Hiking up a hemline to prop among a stark beauty’s fingertips, he succeeds in leaving nothing of a dark Hawaiian suntan (V-shaped bikini bottom outline and all) to the imagination from her navel down. The exotic-looking Barbie doll is next bent by a clearly-excited Colonel slightly forward at the waist, which pushes her breathtakingly-curved taut backside provocatively upward and outward, as well as dangling both titanic boobs into mid-air. Fewer than 60 seconds of vigorous rubbing and tweaking is needed to coax our QQ’s pink nubs to rigidity. Looker’s mind is absolutely reeling from pleasure! Fluffing her hair a bit, the maniacal Marine steps back to admire his handiwork: "OUTSTANDING... the classic ‘superheroine pose’!! She’s all yours, Ma’am." Ollie retreats as Mommy steps forward to caress the elated good-gal’s dimpled cheek for long seconds before she starts the planned transformation. "Maybe I’ll keep you at my house... You’d be a perfect Scarlett O’Hara"!

At this exact moment, our super-strength QQ desperately breaks free from the mental disconnect entrapping her atop Dura-Damsel in a sandy ‘69' situation Absolutely enraged by the deliberate posing and taunting of her beloved colleague, Maw leaps to her feet and waddles the few steps between herself and Mommy (a blue bikini bottom restricts her steps from about her thighs) and succeeds in flattening the villainess with a bone-crushing forearm blow to her shoulder blades. Maw screams, "LEAVE HER ALONE, YOU EVIL WITCH"!, while a downed criminal’s temper blows sky-high!. Wincing in pain, the former movie actress contemplates a QQ’s name-calling, and conjures up stale lines from her role in a 50's B-movie horror flick: "Oh, really!??.....

The effects from the original disruption between hippocampus and brain-stem were starting to subside, so our muscular superheroine teeters on the brink of escape..... momentarily. Standing over this ‘Evil Witch’ (as indeed she herself had said) with a look of shock and surprise growing from this newly-implanted mental trickery, Maw haltingly battles Mommy’s clever imperative. Grabbing her bleach-blonde head within strong hands, the brave unfortunate QQ’s very last words (for quite a long time to come) are,"WAIT...this isn’t real! It can’t be happen....OH MY GOD, NOOoooo.... Help! Somebody come and rescue....Resc......Re... Rebbitt!!....reebbbitt!......reeebbbitt!.......". Weasel had taken the liberty of using Maw’s seconds of indecision to form another exponentially-smoothed-frequency TRAMP bubble all around her. Once completed, she didn’t have a prayer of escape. Immediately squatting downward onto powerful haunches, our QQ involuntarily rests stout forearms limply across her knees , balancing nimbly onto balls of her feet. As a dull amphibian expression of stupidity settles across her cute facial features, she commences her very first HOP! Lost inside some warped movie-director’s forty-year-old fantasy, a chorus of droning guttural sounds bellow forth loudly from Maw’s throat. The three criminals cannot contain themselves: each falling onto their knees in such unchecked mirth that laughter finally brings tears to their eyes. Bounding away at 3-4 foot intervals with feet and crooked legs pressed firmly together, a once-formidable warrior’s brain accepts her humiliation with seeming enthusiasm. Wearing only her red ankle boots and bikini brief stretched across toned calves, Maw hops off into the tides. "Guess I’ll have to stop calling you ‘Blondie’, and switch to ‘Froggie’ instead ", CC taunts, as he refocuses attentions to a still-perfectly-posed beaming Looker (she didn’t even flinch all during Maw’s transformation). Nearby, a highly-aroused Dura-Damsel ably copes with her partner’s absence while completely lost inside a swirling haze of pleasure. Changing over to auto-erotica stimuli, the tall leggy superheroine takes right up where Maw left off- first fondly stroking a very damp triangle between her runner’s thighs, then helplessly plunging one...two...finally three long fingers deep inside! It take mere seconds for a jerky-writhing QQ to bring herself to the first of several sharp climaxes: "Oh my G....I’m start....Hiyeee ....UNGHhhh! ....YES!!". The nefarious silver-suited criminals have clearly triumphed. All three heroines are totally at their mercy. Yet the sadistic trio are FAR from finished with their do-gooding counterparts. They kick you when you’re down! Mommy peers into Looker’s gray-green eyes through her protective goggles from inches away with an expression of self-satisfaction. The much-anticipated moment had now arrived- with no more interruptions!

"I’ve got you now, my pretty", the villainess gloats. "You’re about to make a sudden dramatic career change! A bit of a demotion from your recent supermodel status, I’m afraid. Let’s just say you’ll be moving from the fashion runway to a fashion window display... though the brain may not notice much of a difference. I doubt there’s a lot more going on upstairs with these overpaid bimbettes than inside the head of a department store dummy?! Well, darling, you’re about to find out.....use your powers to become a mannequin! DO IT NOW!!

Realizing the peril before her, Looker summons up all remaining mental strength to fight an imminent fate. Just as the evil electronic genius Dwight had predicted minutes ago, the QQ first verbalizes several protests: "If you think I’m gonna morph into plastic, you’re out of.......your....Huh??.....what the.....NO!!.......why can’t I stop myself?.....Dammit Chronos!! YOU’LL NEVER GET AWAAaaaaaa.....". Her transformation begins.

Starting at lovely high-heeled feet, a subtle sheen emerges and begins to swirl upward along the QQ’s world-class legs. A slight non-human pinkish tinge accompanies the ever-expanding shininess which washes away all imperfections (few that there were to begin with) from a curvaceous frame. In two seconds, both expertly- posed gams have solidified, and Mommy’s bizarre order impacts on her crotch. Inside an indistinct cloud of roiling pink, white, tan and brown, an incredible appearance change ensues- then abruptly halts. The result upon a helpless captive is a glazed sexless smoothness where once were delicious nether folds and hairs! The change picks up speed, racing over Looker’s midriff, breasts, arms and shoulders while draining her life-like coloring away into a plasticized pink uniformity. Even the beauty’s hair takes on an unnatural fibrous texture, her strawberry blonde waves glistening in the late afternoon setting sun. Severe makeup applied by the SI photo assistants remains unaffected, thereby accenting a QQ’s brand-new decorative role. Cranberry-painted lip remain agape- irretrievably frozen in frantic mid-sentence. The eyes are the last to go As all light fades out of the heroine’s most striking feature, they glaze into a hazel faraway stare. Looker is now a mannequin!

Oliver South slips strong arms about a superheroine’s trim waist, hoisting her sideways parallel to the sands. The do-gooder-turned-dummy’s classic pose remains stiff and plastic-rigid as CC hauls her off to the Zodiac. Once there, Weasel fastens a prototype micro-TRAMP across Looker’s hardened forehead. Having adjusted its frequency to the proper brain-disconnect setting,, it serves to reinforce the QQ’s last command. Imprisoned by her own appearance-altering abilities, she mentally drones, I’m a mannequin...a pretty mannequin...I’m a..

Time grows short. Dwight produces a modest-sized fishing net from the bow of their rubber craft and attaches one end to a davit on its stern. He then rolls four time-stopped supermodels- each paralyzed within a blue TRAMP sphere- across the beach to a spot nearby, above rising tides. "What do we do about them?", he inquires, pointing at the masturbating and frog-like QQ’s. " The residual TRAMP effect will only last twelve minutes, and they’ll recover from their illusions shortly thereafter. It’s too dangerous to leave them behind.

I say we shoot them"! Mommy interjects, "Ridiculous! How could you even think about killing such a poor little defenseless animal (she points in the direction of the still-hopping-and-croaking Maw, who currently is bounding away from our criminals and displaying weight-training-carved flexing buns. Seafoam coats scores of glistening nether hairs visible from behind out the crack in her ass)?". Then regarding her own slathered right arm for a moment, the sadistic villainess has another idea. "Hey, Legs! Quit playing with yourself and jump up here for a minute (Deedee quickly responds to her new command, soon perching atop the same sand stallion that had hosted Tyra Banks earlier)". After a few moments of posing her trapped victim and going to retrieve all necessary props and equipment, Mommy commences evil finishing touches to her creation. "After all, M’lady, turnabout IS fair play. PERFECT! You’re now a lovely addition to this sand sculpture exhibit"!

Turning away from her newly-created masterpiece, she discovers the Colonel pointing in disbelief toward the other brain-disconnected Quint-Quint squatting nearby. "Whar the #!@!%*?? Oh, I guess she mistakenly thought I was talking to her. Didn’t know that toads spoke English- tsk, tsk...out of character, Froggie. But I suppose we’re killing two birds with one stone! Let’s get out of here". Less than a minute later, three silver-suited criminals and their mannequinized trophy glide back out through the stilled surf, towing a quartet of netted six-foot diameter blue TRAMP balls in their wake. A whir of helicopter blades is now barely audible. Ten minutes pass. Ingeno Lady coasts slowly to touchdown upon the Catalina beach. The hydrogen fusion reactor powering thrusters for her jet-backpack malfunctioned immediately on contact with the twenty-foot high chrono-cradle cloud; yet momentum saw her safely to the sands through blue-white weightlessness.

Relieved to discover continuing mobility inside CC’s time-dilation (despite some lethargy and dizziness), IL quickly waves an ‘all clear’ signal to Empath Girl waiting above. The youngest Quint-Quint leaps from the LAPD helicopter, which then flies off to investigate the frozen Coast Guard cutter. Emma’s velocity is a bit too high as she approaches the ground, but Inga strides quickly over to make a catch in athletic arms. Uh-oh.

The animated heroines are standing on the same exact spot where all three of their companions gave up their judgement, inhibitions and free will some minutes earlier! The QQ leader and her bronze-skinned ally both experience a modest discomfort at the base of their skulls, but are able to shrug it off. They now look about to survey an absolutely incredible scene. Inside a tingling theta-wave radiation field all movement has stopped! Everything from the sandpipers scurrying among the seafoam to a naked-and-erect Mario Tomba seem to be participants inside a PC video game with its ‘pause’ button depressed. The two young women exchange an embarrassed look of bemusement at sight of the Olympic downhiller’s predicament, before searching a long shoreline for any sign of their colleagues. It is immediately obvious that Colonel Chronos has succeeded in this temporal fuel acquisition run: every SI supermodel (including Looker!!) has vanished from the scene.

All that remains now are sliced-open remnants of high-fashion swimsuits strewn across the photoshoot sands. Looker’s waistcoat(which she uses not just as a modesty wrap over her very-revealing minidress costume, but also as means to carry her weapons and crime-fighting equipment) lays at Inga’s feet. Tears well up again in the QQ boss’ eyes at the realization she has lost another close friend to these gangsters. Sadly, it gets worse!

Balancing side-saddle atop one of several detailed galloping stallion sand sculptures is a shellacked Dura-Damsel. She is totally nude save for her elegant yellow thigh-high boots, which add perfect accent to Mommy’s equestrian montage. A wild bushy pubic triangle is displayed for all to see, veritably glowing now in the setting sun (partly due to its polymer-resin coating, but also from Deedee’s own moistures). Her ample bosom is mostly obscured by golden strands flowing from an incongruous ankle-length platinum-blonde wig, borrowed from the adjacent ‘Rapunzel’ fantasy photoshoot. DD helplessly holds among outstretched fingers loops from her own lariat-weapon, now transformed into make-shift reigns. A thrilled grin of exhibitionism stands plastered (literally!)across frozen facial features- only her green eyes retain mobility. Inside her now- solidified clear-coat prison, our hapless heroine mentally groans, My God! She’s made me into Lady Godiva! As a final parting touch, the villains had deposited an expensive-looking silver pocket-watch upon its chain around Diedre’s neck. Inscribed on the back of the timepiece dangling between DD’s caramel chest curves is the message Colonel Chronos Was Here!! Fear and desperation are plainly visible in the stiffened heroine’s darting green orbs, as she tries repeatedly to connect with IL and EG’s gaze and make them look to their left. At first, neither animated superheroine can recognize anything for concern in the direction that Diedre keeps coaxing their view. Only several sand sculptures stand silently near the tideline. Then IL exclaims, "MAW!"

Between the herd leader of galloping horse statues and a gigantic sand castle turret, a super-strength warrior QQ poses helplessly... frozen in mid-hop!! Maw’s strong legs are a textbook illustration of coiled potential energy: each and every defined muscle tensed and rigid as they poise to propel her on yet another humiliating leap in compliance with her amphibian entrapment. Her sculpted bent buttocks dangles high out behind her, acting as the lever-spring in this partly-completed transition from squat to bound. Both strong arms hover out slightly from her sides with crooked elbows- palms cupped and fingers widespread. The head and shoulders crane forward, already committed into another forward jump. Our attractive muscular good-gal might well be captured in a freeze-frame snapshot of a competitive diver launching herself into a difficult ‘full-gainer with one-and-a-half twists’, except for two slight incongruities. First is Maw’s facial expression: an animal-like stupor is obvious inside vacant eyes, while her pursed lips are stuck forming another loud Reebbbiittt!! Also, however, our hapless heroine stands as a victim of miscommunication. Overhearing Mommy’s appraisal of Deedee’s Lady Godiva pose, this other brain-disconnected captive misinterpreted the villainess’ comments as a new directive, so Molecularly-Adjustable Woman involuntarily complied. She’s a mid-action sand statue! As Inga and Emma stare in astonishment at Maw’s fuzzy tan-brown curves (blending almost perfectly into the surrounding Catalina Spring Carnival artwork!), the twelve-minute residual time-dilation effect now begins to dissipate. A shimmering blue translucence fades, and all Sports Illustrated personnel reanimate as if time had never been interrupted. Only the two Quint-Quints remain immobile- trapped within respective cruel prisons.

Then disaster strikes! As Chronos’ souvenir timepiece begins its ticking (backwards!), a sudden, absolutely gigantic shoreline wave swells right behind Maw. As roaring foam crests two feet above her tan head, Emma screams in horror! IL’s brilliant mind whirls in search of a lightning-fast salvation for her stiff sandy friend.

author’s note: Sexy heroines clear-coated, mannequinized and rendered into sand sculpture? Maw about to be blasted into bits by the Catalina surf!! Looker under the spell of Weasel’s thought-disrupting theta-wave radiation? How can the QQ’s recover from such a crushing defeat at the hands of Colonel Chronos? Read Part Four for answers...and more action! -R